Chapter 1

Katherine Garcia and her family arrive on the island. She doesn't like the idea of leaving her home, but her parents are beyond for this move. They struggle to meet in the middle.

Signing up for some kind volunteer program and getting the chance to live in a more affordable house seems nice. Sketchy, but nice. It wasn’t the best of decisions my parents have ever made. Moving us to the isolated island in the middle of nowhere was their excuse for a fresh start, a chance to spend less and save more. We were always having money problems, but this was, in my opinion, taking it to the extremes. What were they thinking when they packed us up and bought a house here? There wasn’t a single way that I could survive out here without Rebecca and Samantha.

The worst part of moving was losing those two, my best friends. My mother played around and teased me about the island not having any cell phone service, or internet for that matter. Who lives anywhere where they don’t have those two very dire things?

This was a total disaster. I begged father to march up the row in the middle of the plane, walk past the flight attendants, right up to the cockpit. “Knock on the door,” I told him, “and tell him you made a terrible mistake. That you need him to turn the plane around.”

“There are tons of things wrong with that,” my father replied. His frown was the biggest I’ve seen him have in a long time. There was disappointment and the sadness in the look he was giving me. “For one, we aren’t going back. You’re going to have to accept that. Two, there are tons of people on here that would be very angry if the pilot actually turned the plane around.”

“I don’t care about the other people, we don’t belong on this plane.”

It was no use. Father disagreed with me for the rest of the way. This morning, he assured me it’d be fine, that by the time we got to the airport, I’d have changed my mind and been happy for this giant move. Starting over in school, making new friends. That was what he hoped would attract me to this adventure, but it did the exact opposite. A part of me hated both him and my mother for even agreeing to this. I barely fit in to the schools at home, back in the small town we lived in. Now, I’d have to try all over again just to make one friend. It took a year of having classes with Rebecca and Samantha for them to notice me, to start talking to me.

“The school on the island is going to be totally different, and I bet everyone will be interested in talking to you,” my mother tried to reason with me, during one of my fits in the uncomfortable seats of the airplane. Her and my father were giving me angry glares, becoming embarrassed at my teenage temper tantrum.

Mom had a point. The pamphlet she gave me when they first told me about the move had all kinds of details about the school. They hoped that this type of private school was what I wanted. Again, I told them they were wrong. Hex Academy, read the cover of the pamphlet. It was a giant school for “gifted” students. To enter, they were going to mail a large textbook to the new house, and a week from the day we arrived, I’d have to take a test. Pass, and I’d be accepted. Failing the test resulted in no education, making me drop out on the account there were any other schools on the island.

The whole failing part made me feel worse. Nothing either of my parents would say could fix the void they just ripped open inside of me. With the news of the moving, and the pamphlet of the make-it-or-fail-forever school.

And the highest I ever maintained in high school was a C+, just below the B category. Not only were they ripping my life away from me, but putting me on a path to fail. Dropping out, as fun as it sometimes sounded with not having to go to school and all, wasn’t what I wanted.

After nine more hours on the plane, we landed. The island’s airport was huge, unnecessarily huge. All of the people slowly got up, grabbed whatever belongings they brought with them, and went inside. Dad handled this part, while Mom and I sat off to the side. I couldn’t help but to look around and notice more adults than kids, and the ones I did see looked as unhappy as I did. That made me feel a little better.

“Katherine,” my mother called after me. She was walking away slowly, towards Dad. “We’re ready to go.”

“I think I’ll stay here. Catch the next plane home, you know, the place we live.”

By now, my father was growing over the top angry with me, and let me have it. “We sold that place, there isn’t a place to go back too. This is our new home, so let’s go. Move it, Kate.”

It felt like my blood was boiling. My giant nightmare was getting bigger by the minute, and in no time at all, I’d have to accept it when we pulled up to the new house. It sat up on a small hill, had a nice yard. The house itself was like our old one. It was painted a dark blue, and red shutters, and despite my hatred for it, I had to admit it was a nice looking house.

We pulled up. A scientist stepped out of a car that had been idling in the driveway. There was no doubting he was a scientist by the long white coat they always wore, and he had one on with a few pens stuffed in the chest pocket, a name tag that said Jefferson.

“You’re all checked in, Garcias. My name is Dr. Jefferson, and if you need anything just call.” The man handed my father a business card, that my dad struggled to grab with all of the suitcases in his hand. “Have a good day, and fun settling in.” Dr. Jefferson jumped back into the passenger side of the car and it drove off, looping around the yard and passing us one last time, my parents waving.

“Nope, absolutely not.”

“What now, Katherine?”

“We can’t stay here,” I said. My mind raced for something to say, a lie, anything. “You know what they say about blue houses…”

“No, what do they say?” My father asked, raising a brow. He was trying to call my bluff.

There it was, I was caught. A few long minutes passed with them looking at me, waiting for their answer. But my mind drew a blank. “Uh,” I stumbled, “blue houses are more likely to be haunted by violent ghosts.” In my head, I cursed at myself.

In sync, my parents began laughing and started for the house. Putting a few bags down, my father put the key in the door and turned, unlocking it and swinging it open all the way. I raced up the front porch to see the damage, the disgusting furniture and old walls rotting away. Again, a part of me was disappointed. The inside of the house was as nice as the outside looked. The furniture was fancy brown leather, a couch and a chair as a set. The coffee table had a beautiful dark polish on it. The walls were painted white and I couldn’t find the slightest thing wrong with them. My parent’s faces lit up.

“This is amazing,” my mother said.

“This is perfect,” my father said.

They moved in further and took it all in. It was a dream home to them, but still a summer home to me. I left the door open, ready to make a statement and turn us around. But my parents gawked over the details of everything, from the living room, to the kitchen, to the staircase leading up to our rooms.

“Well, the summer home looks. . . decent. I admit.”

My mother stopped walking from room to room, ending in the living room again. When she heard me, she turned to me with her eyes narrowed. My father poked his head in, saying something to my mother about the basement. “Katherine, you have to stop now.” She didn’t hear Dad at all. “This isn’t our summer home, this is our new home. We live here. Like your father said, there is no house to go back too in New York.”

Blood boiling again, I lashed out. “This may be your home, but it isn’t my home. When you’re done playing around, I’ll be ready and in the car.” For my dramatic exit, I quickly turned on my heels and ran out of the door I had left open. Down the hill was some woods, and I’d go through them until my father came searching for me.

As I hit the edge of the woods, I looked back. My mother hadn’t chased after me, and my father wasn’t in tow. It was something I wanted, a reaction I looked for in them. When I told myself over and over that neither was coming out after me, I went into the woods. And who knew long I actually walked. Even I lost track. It felt like forever, but was probably only ten minutes. All the trees looked the same, aside from a few pine trees and oak trees. I barely could identify them, the only reason I could was some girl scout training I had in the woods many years ago.

In front of me was a clearing, a gap in the woods that opened like an arch with branched mixing together over head. I stopped underneath them, and thankfully so. The land went down, not like a cliff was a very steep hill. At the bottom was a round looping around a very large building, the biggest I’ve ever seen. This thing wasn’t as tall as something like the Empire State building, and it looked the size of a tiny city. On top of the tallest tower was a sign.

Hex Academy. The large hexagon symbol taking up a big portion of the front couldn’t be missed. The entire place was oddly beautiful, and I had remembered the papers saying I had a week before taking the tests. With the way it looked, strangely close to Gothic--if I remembered my art studies--had pulled me in. I wanted to go there and attend school, I wanted to meet new friends and watch the guys play sports if they had any.

The doubts flooded me. Would I be good enough to pass those difficult tests? The book was at the house, and if I wanted to pass, there wasn’t a way of studying in the woods.

Reviews

[ke]

hey whats up, going to school at the moment so not really getting the time to write or review anything, just posted my first ever chapter on my profile. I liked this, normally when I'm writing I find it hard to write about another character other than myself, especially one of the opposite sex, this is why I find this cool.