Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

ARIANA

 

          I woke up with a start, panting slightly as icy sweat trickled down the back of my neck. I reached for the glass of water on my nightstand, realizing my hands were completely frigid and shaking slightly. I stared out of the small window next to my bed, looking at the full moon as I tried to calm down, my breathing gradually retaining its normal pace. I gratefully took a sip of the cool water, relieving the rough dryness of my parched throat.

 

           The exact same dream had been waking me every morning for the past 2 months at abnormal times. I glanced at my alarm clock. 4:30am. I sighed. I might as well get up, as my alarm would ring in half an hour anyways. I silently made my way across my tiny room and out the door, making sure it didn’t creak. I walked past Tiana’s room and then Cory’s, before reaching the bathroom at the end of the hall.

 

            I used to share a bedroom with Tiana, but she made such a fuss that eventually the parents cleared out the tiny storage room beside hers and gave that to me instead. It was tiny, only 8 by 8 feet big, and with a window so small, barely any light came in. As soon as I had moved in with my simple wire bed, an old shabby wooden dresser, and a crooked chair, I had painted the room a pretty lilac purple, in an attempt to make it a slightly happier place.

 

          I took a quick shower, washing my hair and body before quickly brushing my teeth. I hurried back to my room and pulled on some underwear before slipping into a pair of dark brown sweat pants and a loose light pink tank top. I stuffed a pair of slightly tattered pale jeans and a blue and purple flannel blouse into my black backpack. I slipped into a cream colored zip-up hoodie and then pulled on my blue and white puma runners that I had been saving up to, for almost two entire years. I swung my backpack over my shoulder and carefully descended the stairs. I grabbed a bottle of water and an apple and granola bar from the kitchen, before slipping out the front door.

 

         It was about a quarter past 5 now and the March sun was just beginning to rise. I lived in the South Side of Chicago on South Evans Street. It was a relatively nice area �" dull but pretty safe �" compared to other neighborhoods in the South Side. I mean, it wasn't Park Ridge or Evanston, but it was good enough, and I'd sort of gotten used to living there. And as long as you don't venture out at night and avoid the bad neighborhoods, you'd be fine. And there was no chance I'd do either, on account of the Phillips keeping me on a tighter leash than a mad dog.

 

          I started my daily routine of jogging to school, which was quite a ways since it was about a 20-minute car drive.

 

          I always woke up at 5 in the morning so that I would be up and out before 6 o’clock, when the rest of my family would wake up. There was no reason for any unpleasant encounters so early in the morning with the Phillips, who were my adoptive family. The Phillips family included Tiana Phillips, the 16-year-old daughter, Cory Phillips, the 14-year-old son, and of course the parents responsible for these two mistakes, Theresa and Robert Phillips. Parents should learn how to use condoms better �" maybe then there wouldn’t be so many accidents that people now a days called children. Clinical, I know, but honestly, who could blame me? Sometimes I wondered if I had been a mistake for my parents and if that was why they had given me up. But somehow I knew, deep inside me, that this was not the truth. It felt like my parents had never really had a choice. Like they had to give me up 14 years ago. I had been two when it had happened…

 

          I continued jogging, listening to Disenchanted by My Chemical Romance on my old repaired iPod, which Theresa and Robert did not know anything about. The wind that rushed along my face was like a sudden rush of memories… only I didn’t know if they were really memories or just something I’d envisioned because I wish I knew the reason why my parents had left me here, deserted me…

 

          My mind trailed to the repeating dream I’d been having lately. In my dream I was in the arms of a young woman and we were lined up as we entered a small white church. A man with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes stood beside her, his arm around her waist as they both looked around suspiciously. The lady holding me had light auburn colored hair and piercing blue eyes. The same eyes I had, the same light blue color We entered the church and the women held me even tighter. Inside a funeral was being held �" the priest was talking about a woman named Amanda Jules. There was no body in the casket at the front, and I heard a man whisper to his wife that the body had remained unfound. The photos around the hall were of Amanda though. All of them had her name inscribed in the bottom. She had pitch-black hair, azure blue eyes, and sharp beautiful features…

 

***

 

          “James, I think we should leave, it isn’t safe here anymore…” the woman I supposed to be my mother whispered feverishly. Her large green eyes looked around frightened.

 

          “Just another minute or so Ryleigh, so they know we attended…” My father said, his dark eyes earnest. He looked at her with concern, concern he was clearly trying to hide. He kissed her softly on the forehead, his hand lingering on her cheek. “I love you Ryleigh.” He murmured softly, his eyes boring into hers. She still looked scared but it seemed as though his words took at least one worry away from her.

 

          “I love you too James…” She told him serenely. “But we have to get Aria to somewhere more protected… somewhere with our people.” Ryleigh looked down at the beautiful little girl in her arms. The baby me had white blonde ringlets; and bright green eyes that stared up at Ryleigh.

 

          “Ryleigh,” James said in a strained voice, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “That’s the problem. Our people are not safe anymore. We aren’t protected well enough �" a stronger, larger force is against our small secret world. We are not safe around our own people, no matter what powers we may have.”

 

           “I �" ” Ryleigh stopped, sighing. “I know.” She whispered. “That’s what scares me… whatever is strong enough to fight us has a huge abundance of people or… or is some unknown creature of power.” James stared at her, and then slowly nodded his head.

 

          “Your right… your right and we should stick together.” James said firmly. He gently tugged her hand and led her out of the church. She looked around bewildered.

 

          “What’s with the sudden change of mood?” She questioned, confused. She pulled her child Ariana closer to her as the cool air hit them.

 

          “You were right. We may not be protected, even amongst our people but we are still safe with them �" stronger. We need to stay together as a group.” James hugged his wife close to him in the cold wind as they walked across the graveyard behind the church. Behind the graveyard, still on the property, was a forest of thick greenery. James and Ryleigh entered the forest, Ariana still her mother’s arms. They came to a clearing and there in the meadow in the middle of the forest were about 30 people, huddled around the real Amanda Jules. She lay in a beautiful elegant casket as people around her chanted and prayed, and cast spells of protection for the afterlife. I noticed a lady kneeling next to the casket, holding a swaying pendant and chanting words, tears spilling down her cheeks. James and Ryleigh Schuyler looked at each other, and in that moment of mutual silence, an agreement was made. Amanda was the last of them to prove the point. Their society, their culture and its people, were no longer the secret they had tried to keep it. Somewhere people were training or developing new powers that could kills witches.

 

           And so, in my dream, time fast forwarded, and it was the next day. I saw James and Ryleigh dropped little Ariana Schuyler off at an orphanage. But not before Ryleigh slipped a gold bracelet engraved with a beautiful delicate gold rose onto her daughters left wrist. She cast a spell on the jewelry so that it would grow with the child. The bracelet held tiny amethysts that were woven into the intricate braiding of the gold. The amethysts were a light bluish purple like the sky had been the morning that Ariana had been born. And with that, both Ryleigh and James kissed their daughter good bye, knowing she would be safer amongst the humans, where she couldn’t grow up as a witch because she wouldn’t know she was one. There they left her �" Ariana like the airy breeze that had been present the morning she was born and with the piercing emerald eyes that made her look so much older and smarter than she really was.

 

 

***

 

           I realized I had been so caught up in my dream that I already stood before the large gray concrete block that was my school. That dream had felt so real… it had to be real. I walked into the girls’ locker room in the still empty school and changed into my slightly tattered pale skinny jeans. I looked at my own reflection. A tall, slender girl of 5’8 with pale skin and sharp features. Wavy white blonde hair cascaded down my back, the natural golden streaks almost translucent in the sun. My large bright green eyes stared back at me. I sighed and pulled my mascara out of my backpack, putting on minimal make up �" mascara and lip-gloss. I didn't have much make-up; I had stolen both the lip-gloss and mascara from Tiana's huge collection. I pulled off my sweater and changed into the peasant blouse I had packed, before I tugged my backpack on my back, and left the changing room.

 

          The hall was now buzzing with people and chatter, but mostly everyone ignored me as I made my way to my locker. My mind wondered back to my dream as I dazedly opened my locker looking through my schedule to see what books I’d need first.

 

           That dream. . . It had to mean something… What if it was the truth? What if I wasn’t normal…? But… did witches really exist, or was that just my messed up imagination playing around? Because if they did, shouldn’t I be able to feel that I was a witch? Be able to do something with my powers? Or maybe I wasn’t a witch and they had given be up because I was a strange mutant child that had no powers and wouldn’t be able to survive amongst witches…

            “Ariana!! Ariaaaaana? Aria!!!” I looked up in surprise as my mind came back to reality. Suddenly as I remembered where I was, in this dank school hall with all these shallow people, I wanted to be a witch even more, but at the same time, in this setting it seemed like even more of an impossibility.

            “Are you listening to me Aria?” My friend Christina demanded. I look at her, in her pretty blue summer dress that framed her petite form perfectly, and her golden blonde curls falling loosely around her heart-shaped face. She was looking at me impatiently.

 

             “I’m sorry, what?” I asked as I realized I had absolutely no idea what she could have been talking about. She gave a dramatic sigh and looked over at Noelle, my other school friend. Noelle was average height with shoulder-length dark brown hair and deep midnight blue colored eyes. I noticed she was staring at me too.

Lucy, the strawberry blond red head, hazel-eyed friend that completed our quartet was also standing there. They all looked slightly exasperated.

 

             “You're really out of it today, Aria.” Noelle observed, a smirk playing on her lips. So I may have a slight reputation as the dreamer, always out in the clouds and never with my feet on the earth… whatever, it’s what made up our group of friends.

 

             “Anyways, I was saying that we are going to go out for your 16th tomorrow. Just so you know,” Chrissie told me, clapping her hands excitedly. Chrissie lived for parties.

 

            “Yeah, we’ll go out to a movie or something and then we can sleepover at my place, and maybe go to the beach at night,” Lucy smiled. Lucy was a very calm, quiet person but still brimming with confidence, not shyness like one might expect. And she understood everyone, so she rarely got frustrated or annoyed. I liked that about her.

 

            “So you in?” Noelle asked, slinging her arm around my shoulder. I slipped out from under her arm and looked at her skeptically, and then took out my notebook and pens, closing my locker door.

 

             “Ohh...” I stalled, “I doubt it,” I said finally, trying to go with nonchalance, but my friends knew that I wish it weren’t the way things always seemed to be. “You guys know Theresa and Robert would never allow it.” I sighed and started walking to our first class.

 

            “Well just tell them your going �" don’t ask,” Chrissie said with a shrug. “They don't own you, Aria.” Easy for her to say. Her parents loved her to bits and spoiled her too. I stared at her skeptically and then rolled my eyes.

 

              “You know that would never work!” I said. “The intent of Robert, Theresa and the rest of the Phillips is to make me miserable. Not be nice �" in any way.”

 

              “How about I come over with you after school and we try asking together?” Lucy suggested gently, trying to calm me a bit. Huh, no way. It would only make things worse, having Lucy know what kind of sadistic psychopaths my parents were.

 

             “Okay, I gotta go, guys,” Noelle said, “English Lit. first for me.”

 

             “'Kay, see you later,” we chorused. Noelle was already giving me a funny look, because I would normally never breakdown like this. I had third period Chemistry with Noelle, and I knew she would bombard me with questions later.

 

             The rest of us walked into the class room and took our usual seats at the back of the class.

 

             “So how about it?” Lucy asked, when we were seated. “I come ask with you?” I was about to answer but then the bell rang, indicating first period has started, and Mr. Hamilton, our AP U.S History teacher, was already giving out orders. Class had begun.

Author's Note

A/N: Hii everybody!! I just want to say thank you for checking out my story and I hope you enjoy it. The first chapter is a bit slow but I have to introduce the characters and let you know more about the story.

Please COMMENT! I'd really appreciate any feedback or constructive critisicm I can get - and if you like, please comment and vote! Thank you. And now, ENJOY. <3333 You All.

Reviews

[Alyssa]

Hello hunn! I was just reading through this and unfortunately don't have the time to finish it all but I've gotten about half way through and hope to finish sometime soon. I would just like to make a few comments:
1. I'm not sure why there are random quotation marks in some of your paragraphs, but it may be a good idea to review the writing to remove those and any other imperfections you may find along the way.
2. When you mention her listening to the Ipod, don't give a song, just merely describe it for a more dramatic effect. Instead of saying she listened to My Chemical Romance you can say "She turned up the volume of the music on her Ipod, hidden away from her not so hearty parents, allowing her steps to come into pace with the thumping bass line she now heard." Just an idea.
3. I love your writing so far, but I would just add some more description here and there to lengthen it out!

You've done really well for yourself here and I hope to come back and read the rest and drop in another comment if you wouldn't mind. Also, if you don't mind, would you be willing to read the first chapter of my own book?

[Alex Figueroa]

i like it =] still keep them coming!