“It’s just not fair mum. Why should we have to walk her to school? She knows where she’s going now and everything? Nathan’s her lapdog in school, showing her around, making sure she’s ok and being nice to her, so why do I need to too?”
Nathan glared at his sister and answered with contempt,
“I didn’t ask to be her babysitter. Dad volunteered me so I have no choice in the matter.”
I was shaken at that. His tone and his words cut deep inside me, but I was more frightened by what Mrs Stevenson had to say in response,
“It’s just for a short while. She will know her own way soon and by next Halloween she won’t be here anymore, because she’ll be dead, so stop it both of you. Nathan I am surprised at you. You know it’s your responsibility to watch out for her and ensure she doesn’t come to any harm. ” Nathan’s eyes darted around as his mother was speaking and after a few seconds he caught sight of me standing there. He looked at me, staring deep into my eyes and an emotion that looked like longing crossed his features as his eyes held mine. I shifted my position and saw him shake his head before he raised an eyebrow at me. I continued down the stairs towards them, but in the time it took me to reach the bottom of the stairs all three Stevenson’s were looking at me with disgust. They looked at me as though I was something they had trod on and trudged into the house.
“Nathan and Jasmine, you take the barn and living room. Start in the living room, make sure you clean out the fireplace and use dust sheets to cover the furniture. I don’t want my furniture covered in soot, understand?”
Nathan opened his mouth to say something but closed it again when his mother looked at him. I was behind her and couldn’t see her face. Nathan’s face tightened as he spoke.
“Come on then Jasmine.”
He walked into the living room, stopped and then immediately walked back out again. I was left standing there wondering what to do. I glanced around the impressive living room, taking in the corner couch that sat in the middle of the room, the expensive looking rug on the floor and the dark wood furnishings. The windows were curtained in a pale gold and there was dark wood surrounding the patio doors and windows. I looked around again and didn’t see a TV at all.
The best feature was a magnificent marble fireplace. It was dark green with different shades of green through it and a black bit at the bottom with mahogany on top. It looked incredible and there were also patches on it with shapes I had never seen. It completely captured my attention. I made my way over to the fireplace and began moving ornaments from the front of the fire onto the coffee table.
At the bottom left hand side was the odd looking red coloured urn that I had noticed when I arrive. It seemed to change colour from a fiery red to almost black then to pink and back to red. My hands itched to reach out and touch it and it had captured my complete attention. I put my hand out to place my fingertips on it but pulled my hand back. This happened three times before my hand, as though pulled by a magnetic force, reached over to touch it. A yell from the doorway almost made me stop, but I couldn’t because my whole being was focused on this magical urn. It would fix my problems, a voice whispered in my head. All my worries would fade away, the voice came again, but as soon as my hand touched it, it burned and I couldn’t remove my hand. It was stuck on the urn. My energy left me and I stumbled onto my knees. I tried shaking my hand, but the thing was stuck fast. ‘It’s ok,’ a voice whispered, ‘be calm.’ More energy left me and my fingers were being scorched. Tears built behind my eyes and my body vibrated as I knelt on the floor trying to get the urn off of me. I felt the floor vibrate and I started to hallucinate that there were snakes on the floor. I gazed across the room through my blurring vision and saw Nathan.
He moved across the floor until he was directly in front of me. I called out a warning about the snakes but he shook his head and kept coming. He took the vase gently from me and it came away with an odd popping noise. He placed it onto the table and I stared at my hand, it was bright red and pulsing. Nathan turned back and looked at my hand, which was by that point blistering before my eyes. He muttered something in a strange language which I didn’t understand, but the pain eased and the burning faded.
“Thank you,” was all I could say. My voice broke on the end and he turned away and walked out of the room again.
I spent a few minutes composing myself and by the time Nathan came back I was able to get on with cleaning.
He moved into the room with his eyes as hard as glass and when he looked at me he shook his head turning from me to say,
“Cover the furniture with these sheets while I clear the fireplace.”
I made my way around the room covering the furniture but I obviously didn’t do it correctly since a moment later he was there by my side. He shoved me out of the way to fix the sheet I had just placed down. My eyes found his as I landed and he growled at me,
“Get up then. Come on we haven’t got all day.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from him. It took me a moment to process his change in attitude and demeanour, but as I moved to get up he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the fireplace, throwing me down and slapping me across the face.
“When I tell you to do something, I want it done straight away,” he snarled at me. I shrunk away from him since the look in his eyes was terrifying. Gone was the fire and a new uncertainty that I was becoming used to took its place. I was stunned but there was no way I was going to take being treated like that, especially from him. I got up and barged past him. My body was trembling with hurt and fury. Both emotions were running riot in my head and I opened my mouth to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, when a sound at the door told me we had an audience. Lisa and Jenny were standing at the door watching us. They both stood there open mouthed and when I stared over at them I saw a smile play across Jenny’s lips, as though she enjoyed watching me suffer.
Nathan didn’t look at me again as he barked,
“Use the Hoover to gather up all the dust at the bottom of the fire.”
He moved further away and I took in a shaky breath. My body shook harder and I couldn’t believe that he had done that. I wanted to punch him, but I decided to do what he had asked.
I hovered up the area and used a cloth and soap to clean the windows. By the time he returned over half an hour later I had cleaned all the windows.
He looked at me softly before he turned away towards the fire murmuring,
“Good job Jasmine.” His voice was warm and sweet which left me extremely confused. Before he left the room he was mean but now he was back to the sweet boy I had first met and danced in the rain with. The next words from his mouth surprised me and I could tell it was difficult for him to get them out.
“Sorry about earlier. We need to go and clean the barn soon; it has to be done before dinner.”
We cleaned quickly while I cleaned the patio doors, he cleaned the fireplace. I was scared to go near it and scared to go near him. We moved around putting everything back in its place but neither of us touched the red vase, until finally everything else was back in its place.
“Jasmine, can you take these into the kitchen please, pointing to the bucket and cloth. I went but turned back at the door and noticed him moving the vase. I stopped at the door and noticed his face change back into that arrogant pig from earlier. As I moved into the kitchen I wondered about what it meant that the moment he touched that thing his attitude and demeanour changed. I decided to wait and see what happened with Nathan when we went to clean the barn.
As I walked into the kitchen Nick, Nathan’s older brother was there and he walked into me, barging into my left shoulder as he walked by. He made me spill some of the dirty water from cleaning all over the floor.
“Clean it up.” Mrs Stevenson shouted at me and I jumped because I hadn’t seen or heard her enter the kitchen.
As I made my way to the cupboard to take out a mop to clean the floor Jenny came in with her hands full. She had a bucket on one a
rm and a bundle of blankets in the other. She slipped on the floor, landing on her back and sloshed dirty water all over herself and the floor.
It looked hilarious but I sensed the time wasn’t right to laugh about it so I hurried over to help her up but she just glared at me and mutter a string of profanities under her breath. She hit my hand away and pushed herself up, slipping a little more and I almost laughed as she did. She stormed towards the door of the kitchen proceeding to barge into me and screamed, “Watch it!” right in my face as she passed.
Mrs Stevenson walked through the door and looked angrily from me to Jenny. “Jasmine I thought I told you to clean the water up.” She shook her head and took Jenny’s arm to lead her out of the kitchen, but as the kitchen door swung shut I saw her glance back at me with the most contemptuous expression I had ever seen. I froze as I realised that this was far from over.
God, hadn’t today just been fantastic? I had been ignored and hit at school, lost, ignored some more then hit from the one family member I actually liked. My head swam as I mopped up the mess, but I managed to clean the floor eventually. After a cold glass of water I headed out to the barn.
Walking through the back door I felt quite apprehensive about going to the barn. I had a nervous writhing in my stomach about approaching the barn ever since Nathan had pulled me away when I wanted to explore. Nathan’s moods were all over the place I didn’t want to be hurt again today so my instincts were pulling me in the opposite direction. My body was aching already.
Pushing open the doors to the barn I stopped cold, my mouth popping open in shock. The barn was huge, stalls covered the walls and there was dried grass, leaves and dirt on the floor, but the most eye popping feature was the huge tree that rose from the middle of the barn. It looked as though the barn had been built around this tree. Outside I had thought the tree was behind the barn but seeing it here, majestic and tall made me want to walk over and touch it. I moved unconsciously towards it passing Nathan and a boy from school, but they paid no attention to me at all. I kept moving towards the tree when a hand shoved me from behind. I flew forwards, into a pile of leaves and skinned my hands on the rough floor.
As I stood up, I turned around to see who had shoved me and noticed Jenny walking back towards the door, staring at me malevolently. I shook leaves out of my hair and turned towards Nathan, who said without looking away from his friend,
“Start sweeping up the leaves.”
I looked around for a brush and noticed one leaning against the trunk of the tree. The trunk of the tree captured my attention. It was huge and brown and green in places. It also looked as though there were ropes tied around it and as I moved closer, my hand reaching out to touch the tree three voices stopped me,
“Not that one!” They all screamed at once which made me jump into the air and land on my already painful ankle. My ankle throbbed and I turned back towards them feeling stunned. What the hell was wrong with these people? It’s just a fucking tree.
I watched Jenny walk over to Nathan’s friend and they walked away together. Nathan shook his head with his back to me as he watched them leave. He turned towards me, glared but didn’t move as I stood there stock still. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the wind and the rain battering the slanting roof of the barn, making the roof sound like it was about to cave in.
“Will u get started?” Nathan yelled at me, “We’ll be here the best part of the night as it is.”
There were two brooms at Nathan’s feet so I moved towards him and noticed as I did the barn doors had been closed over. As I reached him he seemed apprehensive to make eye contact with me. I took the broom out of his hand and he said in an officious tone,
“Start over there and stay out of the stalls which are closed over.”
I walked to where he pointed. Frustration moved through me because of Nathan’s clipped tone and the incidents from the day. I became more and more worked up as I swept up these stupid leaves, stupid autumn, and stupid family. Suddenly Nathan barrelled into me. He sent me flying into a stall as a beam from the roof fell with a clatter that made me jump as it landed exactly where I was standing a moment ago.
Nathan had just saved my life.
We lay there for a minute. My body shook with shock but also with longing. Nathan looked right down at me, hovering over me and softly lowered his lips to my hair. His breath was fast and furious and as he leaned down. My breath sped up in response.
I tried to move. I wasn’t very comfortable lying on whatever I was lying on. My hair was in my eyes and just as I was about to move my hand up to my hair to move it, Nathan’s hand swept across my face, sending a flash of heat from the top of my head all the way down to my feet.
He leaned up and looked at me intently as he seemed to be deciding something when suddenly the door of the barn shuddered. He groaned, rolled his eyes and jumped to his feet, pulling me up with him and at that moment his father walked into the barn and glared at his hand around mine. Nathan dropped my hand like I had burned him and his father said with an ice in his voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,
“Nathan go and help your mother.”
Nathan immediately turned and left, leaving me standing there shivering in fear and shock. I looked at Mr Stevenson and wondered when he was going to say something but for a few minutes all he did was glare at me.
As he started to walk towards me, my legs started shaking and I had the strongest feeling of foreboding, but I couldn’t convince my feet to move. To my left was the stall door and to my right was the tree. The only ways I could move were forward towards Mr Stevenson and backwards. I opted to move backwards and managed to stumble a few steps before tripping over something. I looked down as I fell and noticed that I had landed on a rake. Pain lanced through me as I noticed a spike going through my hand. I looked round at Mr Stevenson, who was still stalking towards me. His eyes were coal black and I was suddenly terrified. My hand screamed in agony and I tried to move it causing more pain to race through me. He kept coming towards me with his eyes turning blacker and his gaze burning through me.
He moved closer towards me like a tiger stalking his prey as my body vibrated from the threat implicit on his face and from the pain radiating in waves up my arms. He spoke and the pain in my hand increased as he did.
“I will not tolerate any kind of silliness with you and Nathan, do you understand me? None at all, you will go to school with him and come home but that is it.”
He leaned down and gripped my already tender face, “I mean it. Am I making myself clear?”
My head swam from fear and the adrenaline and I could feel a sticky wetness running down my fingers. I gasped as the pain increased again and didn’t answer because I couldn’t see straight. My body consumed with trying to move my hand off of the spike. I wasn’t even looking at him as he drew his hand up and slapped me across the face with my third slap of the day.
My head recoiled and I blacked out, coming to moments later with my hand still stuck on the rake and no-one around me. I sat up and looked at my hand. It was still impaled and all I could think about was getting this rake out of my hand, but I was scared. I gritted my teeth and swallowed back the bile that was threatening to rise in my throat. Reaching down I pulled my palm out of the rake, causing pain to spike all the way up my arm. I screamed an agonising yelp of pain and darkness swam over my vision as unconsciousness beckoned me towards it.
Pain woke me up sometime later and my clothes were caked in blood. My head pounded, my heart was racing and my face stung as though I had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I sat up slowly and looked around the barn. I was still in a stall so I crawled over to the exit using my good hand and cradling my bad one into my chest. I couldn’t tell how long I had lay there but I was famished and thirsty.
I tried to push myself up only to lean on my sore hand and slump back against the stall. I knew I needed to move so instead I pushed up with my right hand and noticed some stuff had been placed at the stabl
e door. I moved over towards it. There was a bottle of water, some painkillers, a bandage and a note,
I read and re-read the note before it finally sunk in, I was being made to wrap up my hand and continue with my chores, seriously? Could this really be happening?
I looked again at the small pile of things beside me and realised that not only was it happening, but my hand was bound to be aching by the time I had finished. I refused to give in, pride (or insanity) made me want to prove to them that I was not weak. I picked up the water bottle with vehemence and bit off the little bit of plastic, before spitting it onto the ground beside me. I opened the water bottle and gritted my teeth before pouring some over my hand. The water stung like crazy and there were tears in my eyes as I tore open the sterile dressing with my teeth and placed it over my hand.
I sat there for a moment, and was thinking about how I was going to put the bandage on when the barn door creaked open. My eyes drifted towards the door as Nathan slipped through. He walked over to me without saying anything and knelt beside me. I looked up at his face and noticed his lip was cut in a different place from the weekend.
He didn’t look at me at all, but picked up the bandage and opened it. He took my hand and placed it on his knee, causing my heart to race and carefully wrapped the bandage around my hand before tying it up. Once he was done, he lifted my palm and gently kissed each fingertip. My whole body zinged with awareness. While he was kissing my fingers his eyes held mine and I could see pain, confusion and longing in the depths of his eyes. I opened my mouth to thank him and he shook his head viciously, stood up and walked out with a limp.
I wondered for a moment what had happened to him, but I couldn’t think about it too much. His small act of kindness almost caused my willpower to vanish and I tears again pooled in my eyes. I did not want to cry yet, I knew I would before the night was over but I wanted to get through the barn job before I allowed myself to break down.
Luminosity (Escaping Demons Saga Book 1) Page 5