Eighteen- Nox

A Chapter by Sophie

sorry its so short

Chapter 18

Nox

They dance around
on wicked toes
telling everyone
of someone's woes

Excerpt from “The Witch” by Sophie Lynch

I'm packing up my bag, apparently my “parents” are “home” now. When I find the sketchbook.

“Bry?” I call from the guest room.

“Yeah?” She says, walking in.

“I forgot about this, when I was coming to find you, I found this.” I hold it out, open to the self portrait page.

“Hey, she was on the news! Her parents died in a car crash.”

“Yeah, and she's one of us.”

“How can you tell?” Bry asks, flipping through the pages of the book.

“I don't really know... I just have a feeling.”

“Well, I've learned to trust feelings like that. I'll keep an eye out for her.” She says. I nod and go back to packing.

“Where are you gonna go?”

“I don't know, even a town this small has to have a motel.” I shrug.

“With what money, exactly?” She says.

“Right...” I say quietly, I hadn't thought of that.

“Well... I could...” She says and hands me a twenty dollar bill.

“I don't know what it will get you, but if it doesn't get you anything, there's an abandoned house on the end of the street, maybe you can live there for a little while, don't get caught though.” She says.

I shy away from the money, I can't take that from her. She shoves it in my hand and walks out. I walk down the hall and then down the stairs and out the front door into the blindingly bright sunlight. It was awkward after the party, because of what Bry saw Amelia and I doing...

Every one of us has to have a tragedy happen personally to us, its like punishment for being too powerful, not ordinary. Mine hasn't happened yet, and I live in fear, but considering I don't know who my family are... Maybe it's Ray, maybe she's my tragedy, a little voice in the back of my mind surfaces, maybe she won't love you back, maybe that's your tragedy. I don't love her! It's impossible, all emotions except for the useful ones (anger, vengeance...) have been whipped out of me. I'm just lucky Amelia was too... wrapped up in things... to notice the scars on my back. I stop at the house and hide my bag in an overgrown rose bush, flowering with hundreds of white blossoms. Then, the twenty dollars in my jeans pocket, I walk to the local grocery store. I pick out stuff I can keep unrefrigerated and won't go bad quickly, mostly fruit.

I reach the house holding my plastic bag, then I get my duffel bag out of the bush and walk into the creaky front door of the house. There's spiderwebs and cobwebs everywhere, a few holes in the walls, the brown (or it is now) carpet is ripped and rotting, covered in various kinds of droppings. The roof has holes in it, shafts of sunlight stream in between the boards. A chair and what was once a table sit in the middle of the main room, what I would make the living room. The table has two legs on one side and it leans down all the way, one corner is broken off. I test the chair, it's dusty, but sturdy. I sit down. I take out an orange, peel it, and throw the scraps near a hole that I suspect holds a mouse. I eat the sections slowly, savoring it.

Then I stand up I look at the leaves spread over the floor I press my wrists together and suck them into nothingness, not even storing them, just destroying them. Then I do the same for anything else on the floor and then the spiderwebs and cobwebs. Now the house actually looks clean, but empty. Suddenly, Satelles, Malum's favorite minion (named for this fact), appears in front of me.

“Master asks.” The reason for Malum's favoritism is because Satelles is too stupid to question things, he can't speak sentences consisting of more than five syllables.

“What does Malum ask, Satelles?” I say. Satelles may be over 1000 years old, but I talk to him like he's four.

“Master wants to know.” Satelles strains himself.

“Yes?”

“If you are done.” He finishes.

“Tell him, “no.” Can you do that, Satelles?” I say. Satelles nods, happy to have another mission.

“Satelles will.” Satelles nods solemnly, and disappears. By now it's only like three o'clock, and I don't know what to do with my day anymore. Then I remember, Wren. Immediately I stand up and melt into smoke, only to remember anyone can see me. I change back. That was a waste of clothes. Well, I'll be working in the night, I might as well sleep now. I roll out my sleeping bag that I brought from Malum's and settle down, setting my watch for one.

My dreams consist of nothing exceptional, nothing prophetical, just the usual dancing purple toothbrushes and the like. I'm ripped from a dream where we all stand in a circle, and someone is licking peanut butter off my face and is getting to my lips when the alarm goes off. I see a flash of blonde hair and then my eyes open. I click the button and open my eyes. My pupils open unnaturally wide, the consume all of my iris so I can see easily in the dark. I get out of the sleeping bag, strip so I don't lose another pair of clothes, and turn into smoke. I control the particles to go into the sky, like I'm flying. In the daytime I look black in this state, but at night, I appear clear, even if I were to pass in front of a full moon, there would be no disturbance in the image. I try to picture the map that Malum once showed me, revealing Briar-Rose's position in town and Wren's. I get the image and then look down. I can see the house and I swoop toward it. There's a balcony and then an open screen door. I flow through. You can't imagine how strange that feeling is, this power is still relatively new to me, so being able to go through the holes in a screen is frickin' amazing. I float in a room with a bed and a pull-out. I look at the bed, Wren snores. I get a whiff of some impure thoughts coming from him, dreams, as he rolls over. Then I examine whoever is in the pull out, and to my surprise, its Marina.

I go downstairs on the kitchen counter is a bottle of pills. I swish over them and they disappear, I stored them in my invisible storage area thing. I waft back out of the house swiftly, creating a teeth-chattering breeze in their room, behind me, Wren is wrenched from his dream because of the sudden cold air. I hear the window slam shut as I fly back to the run down house.

In a matter of a day, Wren will have to have an encounter with some sort of animal, it will talk to him, and the following stages will occur: