Dinner was awkward and I was glad that that was over. My mother and brothers couldn’t stop pestering Amy and me with questions. They wanted to know everything meticulously. I felt I was drowning in their voices and emotions. It was impossible for them to shut up. I wanted to stay in my comfortable, safe, unchanging bubble so I didn’t have to deal with all this stress. Although, I have to admit that I am kind of excited and anxious to see what will happen next.
Now, Amy and I are in my secret haven (my room). She’s looking around, scrutinizing every detail and I’m fixing the bed. I could see - well actually feel and get the tenor of her thoughts, I knew she wasn’t comfortable with the silence.
“So, are you excited for tomorrow.
She was relieved I said something, “Yes, I can’t believe I have to leave Sacred Heart. I’ve been attending that school since kindergarten.”
“Wow, that must suck. Um, I mean it’s a totally new school and completely different. You must hate that. Now I feel sorry,” I smiled at her empathetically.
“No! You don’t have to. I couldn’t be more ecstatic. Finally something new,” she said exasperatedly.
“Huh, really?”
“Of course! I mean don’t you hate routines. Doing and seeing the same thing over and over?”
I laughed meekly, “Not really. I guess I’m programmed that way. I don’t favor change. I just don’t like it. To me routines are safe and comfortable. I must seem like the most boring person to you in the world.”
“No. I think that this new revelation just makes you seem to me more interesting and far more intricate that I thought.”
“Well that’s me. Absolute complication.”
“Are you okay? I see that you keep looking at your phone like your expecting something.”
“Oh! No, I’m fine. It’s just that I’ve called my best friend like a million times and she hasn’t answered or called back. But that’s usual Aaliyah behavior. I don’t even know why she has a phone. It can get pretty annoying.”
I couldn’t wait to see Aaliyah. I had to tell her everything. Where was my best friend when I needed her most? She probably “displaced” her cell phone again. I had a weird sense of vertigo. This just had to be a dream, but when I woke up the next morning, I realized it wasn’t.
I woke up and found Amy sleeping next to me. I guess this means that yesterday actually happened - most definitely wasn’t expecting that. Amy isn’t the most easiest person to wake up. It was like she was an obstinate rock, but eventually I got her out of the bed. We both hurried through breakfast, anxious to get to school. My brother tried to stick around and keep pursuing Amy, but I wasn’t going to have any of that. Insidiously, I told him Dad figured out that it was him who scratched the Audi R8. He left completely apprehensive, which was my goal in the first place.
After he left, I caught sight of Aaliyah. She was getting out of her mom’s Caliber with her sister Demitria Lynn. Demi transforms into a panther. She has long, brown and curly hair. Her cheeks are always pink and she also is very shy. In the car was Matthew Erick, Lili’s little brother, who changed into a bear cub. Kathy, their mom, turned into a hawk. When Lili saw me she smiled and came towards me. She looked at me surprised and weirdly when she saw Amy next to me. Ignoring Amy she said, “Where were you yesterday?”
“Excuse me? There’s this electronic device called a cell phone; you should use it some time. It has amazingly progressed communication within mankind. Why don’t you pick it up once in a while?!”, I added sarcastically.
She looked at me ruefully, “Sorry.”
“You have no idea of everything I have to tell you. You won’t believe it! Yesterday, while I was in detention…”
Amy cleared her throat an looked at me expectantly, “Oh! I’m sorry! By the way, Lili, this is Amy. Amy, this is Lili, my best friend since forever.”
“Hi! Nice to meet you. I’m Esther’s first debt.”
“What?!”
After the introductions and the biggest gape that I have ever seen on someone’s face (Aaliyah’s), I told her everything with every detail. She was overwhelmed and happy for me. Excitedly, she kept asking questions of how I felt and what it was like to have powers. I tried to answer the best I could by telling her that my powers weren’t entirely developed.
“I can’t believe it! This is awesome! Now you can go on hunts with your family and my family gets to help and…”
“Whoa! Slow down. Haven’t you heard anything that I have said in the last 15 minutes? I’m not ready yet. Why don’t we call this a practice?” I looked at Amy repentantly and added, “No offense.”
She laughed, “None taken.”
Lili gazed at me with a reprimanding look. “What?”, I told her and she just shook her head.
Amy made a lot of friends during the school day. She was very friendly, especially with the boys. My brother wasn’t too happy with that fact. She socialized with practically everyone: the geeks, the snobs, the jocks, the emos, the goths, and the uncategorized (us). Something that I definitely noticed, but tried not to make a big deal out of, was that one of Amy’s adoring fans was Connor Adams (my crush since third grade).
We were in the lunchroom at that moment and Amy was coming our way…with Connor. I couldn’t help to feel mad and jealous, but I had to recognize the fact that he probably didn’t even know my name.
“Hey, guys! God, I love it here! I’m making so many friends. This is great!”, Amy said.
“Yeah, I’m really happy that your socializing with everyone”, I said. My look was probably wistful. Amy, always the observant, noticed - I could tell.
She looked at Connor and asked him, “Umm, Connor, can you get me something to drink, please?” She batted her eyelashes and gently touched his shoulder. Obviously, he melted and did what she commanded.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, why would you say that?”
“Just tell her, Z”, Aaliyah said frustrated.
“Tell me what?”
Lili looked at me expectantly and when she noticed I wasn’t going to answer she said sourly to Amy, “Esther has a crush on Connor and your “kind of” all over him.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me anything!” Clearly she was disappointed.
“There was nothing to tell.”, I shrugged my shoulders. “I think it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t even know I’m alive.”
She smiled impishly, ”Well, that’s about to change.”
I could sense that she had a plan, but unfortunately I didn’t know what it was.
The school day continued, but something was definitely off. Connor wouldn’t leave me alone! He kept trying to talk to me and get my phone number. He was silly and flirtatious. If I didn’t know it was too good to be true, I would have been in cloud nine. So, after sixth period I caught up with Amy and demanded her to tell me what she had done.
“What do you mean?”, she answered with her eyes popping out innocently.
“Please, don’t put up that act with me. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You have Connor under a spell. I’m not inept. He didn’t even know my name an hour ago and now he won’t let me out of his sight.”
“Hey, Esther!”, Connor shouted from across the hallway. He came running towards me like a homeless puppy.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Where did you go? You’re not trying to hide from me, are you?”, he said in a babyish voice as he pinched my cheek.
I grimaced at Amy and then turned to him, “Of course not! I was just looking for Amy. She has something to tell you actually.” At that moment, I took the opportunity to leave Amy with Connor so she could fix this mess.
Finally, after English, we were able to go home and end this terribly discomforting day.
“We have so much homework. I have no idea how we’re supposed to finish all this in so few hours. I hate it when teachers bombard us with tasks at the end of semester!”, Aaliyah said while cursing all our teachers.
“I know what you mean. I just want it to be Christmas already. You know how our families always get together for the usual.”
“Skiing, baking, singing, making snowmen, sledding, etc. Yep, the usual.”
“Hey you guys! There you are. I forgot your last class was English. I can’t believe the little work they give at this place. It’s great!”, Amy said smiling at us.
Aaliyah and I looked at her as if we couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth.
“What? Oh just forget it. Come on!”, Amy said while pulling us along the hallway and into the parking lot towards my car. “And by the way, I fixed the Connor thing. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Oh shoot”, Lili said rummaging through her Green Day bag. “I misplaced my cell phone. Can you come with me to go look for it? I think I left it in Mrs. Rodriguez’s classroom. Please.”
“Sure. Um, Amy, can you wait here till we come back? We’ll be quick.”
“Okay, I won’t move a muscle.”, she promised.
“Good, let’s go”, I said taking Lili by the arm.
While sauntering through the comfortable yet at the same time lucid hallways of Dieruff, I chastised Aaliyah - for who knows how many times now for forgetting her phone.
“God, I can’t believe you. Honestly, Lili, we’re going to have to do something with your phone issues. Especially now. I really need someone to confide in and if you keep up with your ways - there will be hell to pay. I promise you that.
“ I know, I know. Look, I’m sorry. Truly, I am. I guess it’s genetic. I mean, you know that my mom never picks up the phone.”
“ That is a pathetic excuse.” , I said meanly.
We got back to the classroom. Thankfully, our favorite teacher hadn’t left yet. She smiled at us and told us to remember about our quiz and wished us luck.
While we were heading back, I felt suddenly terrified and ill. I took a sharp intake of breath and almost fell back. Aaliyah, worried, steadied and asked me what was wrong. Before I could answer, another powerful, consuming and overwhelming feeling came over me. Amy. I had to help her. Someone was hurting her and I needed to protect her. Finally when I caught my breath I told Lili, “It’s Amy! Someone’s attacking her! We have to hurry! She’s in pain!”
“How do you know?”
Frantically, I took her by the arm and pulled her along. “I can feel it. Please! I need your help!”
“Okay! Okay! Just wait until we’re outside.”
I nodded my consent. I was to anxious to say anything. Once we got to the doors, my vampire side got the best of me and I almost practically took the door with me.
Since we weren’t inside the school anymore and there were no witnesses, Aaliyah transformed. Her white coat was thick and flawless. Her fierce eyes looked over at me and then I knew that everything was going to be fine. She was something constant in my life; something that I knew would never fail or change. We headed in opposite directions. I decided to practice more with my natural abilities and seek Amy’s scent out. It wasn’t that difficult. Thankfully there was no blood flowing.
The odd thing was that her scent kept getting stronger while I got closer to the woods the school was next to. I kept going deeper and deeper inside the encroaching forest. It was cold and solitary. You couldn’t hear a sound, except maybe your own breathing. Even though it was very dark, I could see everything. That’s when I saw Amy’s red hair.
I started running and caught up to her. She was lying on the ground, as still as a statue, but she was breathing her. She had her eyes closed and was very pale. Fortunately, it seemed she was not injured.
Abruptly, I hear a growl. Turning around, I saw an animal. It was Lili.
“Hey, is she okay?”
“I think so. It doesn’t look like she was hurt.” I touched Amy’s forehead and all of a sudden she opens her eyes and gasps. She checks out her surroundings and then looks at me confusedly.
Esther, what are we doing here? Ugh, my clothes are all dirty! Why am I lying on the ground?
Now it was my time to be bewildered. “What do you mean? I came here because I sensed you were hurt. I guess it was a false alarm then.”
“Really?”
“What happened to you? Why are you in the forest?”
“I don’t know. I remember Aaliyah and you going back into the school to go look for her phone. After that everything is kind of fuzzy.”
“You mean to tell me that you don’t remember how you got here.” I twisted around to see if Lili was catching any of this, but she appeared to be just as puzzled as me.
I turned back to Amy and I could see she was trying to obtain any recent memory, but she couldn’t There was something too eerie about this. How could she not remember how she got here.
At that moment, I got that weird feeling from the time that I rescued Amy that someone was watching us. On a tree, not too far from us, there were three oddly big tarantulas. Each one was probably as big as two male hands put together. What made them even more unusual were their eyes. Two of them had blue violet eyes. The other one had a plum color with an unsettling red tint.
As if they could tell I was looking at them, they scattered to the other side of the tree - making me unable to see them. In about three seconds, right from the place the spiders hurried to, came out three people. Well, people wasn’t the right term. They were vampires. I could tell because of their insane beauty and amazing grace.
There were two girls and one male. One of the girls had a body that made other girls want to crawl and hide. She was tall, about 5’10, and had long model like legs. She had strawberry blonde, long flowing hair in waves and a perfect nose. She also had that creepy eye color the spider had. I guess that these three vampires were the three spiders I had seen on the tree. The other girl was shorter and had goldilocks hair, but black. She looked latina, even now with the typical vampire paleness, and had a goth style to her, but out of all the three, she seemed the friendliest. Last, but definitely not least, was the guy. He was gorgeous. He had midnight black hair, perfect features, toned body and a brooding face. He appeared to be aloof and didn’t look me in the eye. He had designer clothes on just like the other two.
Lili and Amy seemed to have noticed our company. Everyone was quiet. Finally, the stunningly beautiful female spoke. “Hello. We’re sorry to have frightened you all. We’re new in the area and we were just hunting. When we heard you coming along we hid and transformed ourselves into spiders.”, she looked at me and flashed her blinding smile. “You must be Esther Zehira Saba.”
It took me some time to respond. “Um, yeah. Yes, I’m Esther. How do you know that?”
Her laugh was musical. “How wouldn’t we know that. Your family is very notorious in our world and that must be one of your allies, Aaliyah Michelle Morales.”
Lili looked flattered. “Yes, she is.”
Suddenly, the other girl said in a very perky voice, “Hi! I’m Alicia Amanda Ann Holland, but I prefer to be called Mandy.” The blonde girl almost appeared to grimace, but recollected herself very quickly and smiled - though this time it seemed a little forced.
“Yes. This is Mandy. I am Victoria Rachelle Lohan and this is Edmund Lysander Night.”
He resembled as if he had been deep in thought, but when he heard his name he looked up and half smiled just with his perfect lips and said hello. I felt immediately attracted to him. It was as if their was a compelling force between us, but if he felt it, I wouldn’t know. He was so remote.
“Hi, um, nice to meet you.”, I finally said after inconspicuously trying to rip my eyes off of him. “I guess you guys already know who Aaliyah is so… this is my fir, um, other friend. Her name is Amy.”
Amy didn’t respond so I looked at her to see what was wrong. For some reason I couldn’t fathom she seemed bothered and troubled.
Since they could tell Amy wasn’t going to say anything, Victoria kept talking. “So, we were thinking, since we have no knowledge of your town, Enoxis’ Amulet, would you like to show us around.
“Me?”
“Of course you! It’s egregious that we have help from someone who we can trust.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that’s okay.” Why these gorgeous and intelligent creatures would want my help was something I couldn’t comprehend.
“Thank you. We were also thinking that it would be a wise idea to enroll in Dieruff and having someone to hang out with at once is always a good start. So, we’ll be in touch.”
“How will I contact you?”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get to you. Once we have a more convenient way to communicate, you will be able to convey with us easily. Well, for now, we must really get going.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for your message. Bye.”
“Farewell.”
“Bye, I can’t wait to see you guys again!”, said Mandy showing of her bleach white teeth.
Aaliyah and I waved good-bye to them. I tried one more time to sneak a look at Edmund and when I did it seemed he was looking at me too, but I think I just imagined it. In less than a second they were gone and the mystic forest was lonely again.
I helped Amy get up and she looked broody. I decided it was best to ask what was bothering her when we were alone. Once we got back to the parking lot, I was surprised to see how late it was. It was seven at night and the sky was already filled with brilliant stars.
Aaliyah called her mom to tell her everything was fine and that I was going to take her to her house. Lili lived about half an hour away from me and happened to be nearer to civilization than I was. She lives in a two story apartment with a cute garden full of tulips, daisies, sunflowers and lilies in the front. In the right second floor window we could see Matt jumping up and down on Lili’s bed. She growled and somehow Matt noticed and looked outside. When he saw his older sister scowling up at him, he laughed and hid.
“That little kid, I’ll kill him.” Even though she said those menacing words, she didn’t really mean them. She would maul and disembowel the person who ever hurt her little brother. “Bye and thanks for the ride. We’ll talk later.”, she said while hugging me.
“Okay. Bye.”
The ride back home was strangely quiet, since Amy is a 24/7 chatterer. I didn’t tell Mom anything that happened after school just yet so she wouldn’t prod me with more frantic questions. When we got to my room, Amy fell on my bed and went straight to sleep. I guess conversation was not wanted for the rest of the night.
I called Aaliyah and miraculously she picked up the phone. We talked about all the weird things that happened in the woods: Amy’s disappearance, Amy’s confusion about how she got into the woods, my supposedly false alarm and the vampires.
“So do you think these vampires are trustworthy? You know how manipulative they are.”
“Hey! My father is one.”
“I know! But that’s different and you know it.”
“Yeah, okay. I honestly don’t know. I mean, they didn’t try to attack us or anything and they know my family.”
“That’s true.”
“I guess we’ll only know with time. Victoria said they were going to contact us again to hang out.”
“That was weird. Why would they want to hang out with us? Aren’t they supposed to be loners or something.”
“I don’t know. But they did seem sincere. Anyway, I’m really tired. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Bye, precocious vamp.”
“Bye, ferocious kitty-cat.”
Sleep was not heeding my call. I was so worn out, but my mind was restless. I couldn’t stop thinking about today’s encounters, especially Edmund Lysander. There was an electric pull between us I just couldn’t ignore. It was as if we were opposite poles. Although, I didn’t see any reaction in him. It was like a was invisible. He paid me no attention at all and even though I didn’t want to admit at the time - I wanted him to notice me. That was an idiotic request. A guy like that was never going to want plain, boring me.
Apparently, I fell asleep while wishing fickle whims because right now I was dreaming every guardian’s nightmare…
All of this was my fault. How could I have let this happen! I shouldn't have been so careless. Amy was dead; I couldn't do anything about it.
Why did I have to be a damn shield? It was me they wanted - not her. It was my job to protect her and I failed. I couldn't be more pathetic. That's what I got for being so foolishly arrogant.
I never asked for this. I have always wondered, why me? I wasn't prepared for this. I was only sixteen for God's sake!
I mean don't get me wrong, I loved having powers. Although, all this responsibility was kind of disconcerting. Having to protect innocents wasn't something I was accustomed to do on a daily basis.
When I finally finished my internal battle, I took in my surroundings. Where was I? I only remembered leaving the house and 'walking' aimlessly. It was immensely cold and dark out. It had to be at least two in the morning.
Wait a minute, was I going toward a dead end? The air was moist and there was shattered glass everywhere. I was caged in by old brick buildings and there were spider webs in the corners. I also happen to notice it was really quiet... Too quiet.
That's when I felt an icy cold breath at the back of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. Too frightened to look, I turned around with my eyes closed.
"Esther Zehira," said an incredibly suave voice.
I opened my eyes and there in front of me was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.
I woke up suddenly. Amy looked relieved and sighed, “Finally, you woke up. You were scaring me. Are you okay?”
I was sweating from head to toe, but I was freezing. I nodded and headed toward my door to go to the bathroom. I happened to see that it was 2:47 in the morning by passing the clock in the hallway. I took a shower and went through the images of my very real dream.
It didn’t seem like a dream at all. My surroundings and feelings were so realistic. Especially the man with the seductive voice that seems to have locked his presence in my subconscious in the past few hours. It was Edmund.
