Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) Page 3

  “Hello, Christine,” the woman whispered. I trembled as she stepped closer. Christine? No one had ever called me that. “I’m Sophia. I’m a witch. I’ve been watching you. Don’t do this. Come with me.”

  “Watching?” I mouthed. I couldn’t manage the sound.

  She nodded.

  I was right about the feeling, about the eyes. Hers were a sparkling blue, like water glimmering under the sun. Something in them made me reach her my muddy hand.

  She pulled me closer to her plump frame. She whispered something too soft for my ears to decipher, and my body lifted from the ground. My hair and pajamas blew violently in the seconds that we soared through the air or through the light, I couldn’t tell. Even when I opened my eyes, I could only see the white of her hair.

  We landed with a thump in a fancy kitchen. She dropped my hand, and the fear that should have struck me at my dorm pommeled me. A witch? How? How was that even possible?

  Another wave of fear rocked me as I realized I’d almost become a murderer. Sienna and Whitney were sixteen-year-old girls, and I almost ensured that they wouldn’t turn seventeen for startling me. I’d fallen on my own. I’d freaked out about my blood by myself.

  I was the worst kind of evil.

  Shame and fear pushed on my stomach, dredging up the rest of my dinner. She snapped her fingers, and a trashcan appeared in front of me. I hurled and cried as she rubbed my back.

  Soon, the vomit stopped, and I was only gagging on spit and guilt. She swept my curls up and placed a wet cloth on my neck. Her touch didn’t carry anything with it. I couldn’t hear her thoughts and I didn’t feel a thing, unlike the times I’d accidentally touched a human.

  She stared at me as she wiped my mouth, carefully and gently. “You wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” she said, almost like she’d just discovered that. “You would’ve stopped yourself without me.”

  She sighed and brushed my hair out of my face. She smiled like she liked and was surprised by what she saw there. She stepped away and pulled a cell phone from her pocket.

  “Hi,” she said to the person she’d called on the other end. “New Orleans. I … I took her. I had to. I thought-” She paused and brought her free hand to her hip. “I know. I know. I can handle it. She’s …” She looked over her shoulder to me. “This situation is … fragile. I’ll call you.”

  She turned around to me and smiled again.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “My …” She paused, taking my hands in hers. “My husband. I needed to tell him what I did. We’ve both been watching you for a while. I thought I needed to stop you from…” She flipped my hands over and stared into my palms. She must have seen the fire come from them in the bathroom.

  “Why would you care if I stopped?” I asked.

  “Because you’re not hateful. I don’t want you doing hateful things just because you’re upset. I think you need to rest a while. Do you want to stay here until you calm down?”

  She pulled two of the four tall chairs out from under the large island in the center of the kitchen. I perched on the edge of the seat. It was cream, like the billions of cabinets in here, and I didn’t want to get it dirty. She sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulder.

  “I’m too young to leave school,” I said. I’d been plotting my escape for years. I knew the day, down to the hour, that I’d have custody of myself. When I could make my own decisions and head to Florida.

  “You’ve already left school. You’re in New Orleans, Louisiana right now, and you can stay as long as you want. As long as it takes you to feel differently about those girls.”

  “What would time change? I’ll still be a witch.” The impossibility of her sitting here dawned on me again. “I thought I was the only one left. I thought magic was …”

  “Extinct?” She laughed deep from her chest, rattling phlegm. “Of course not. My children and I would make five. Their children would make eleven. My husband, twelve. His sister, thirteen. I could go on, dear, and that’s just my family.”

  I felt dizzy and nauseous again. “Are they here?” I asked, looking over my shoulder.

  “No, my children are all older than fifty, and Gregory, my husband, is away. We both spend most of our time helping magical kind.”

  “Like me?”

  She pulled her arm away and sighed. She stiffened in her seat.

  “Not really.” Her cell phone rang, making me jump. “Excuse me.” She opened it and walked slowly to the sink, sighing and listening.

  “Are you sure? It’s your decision. I’ll tell you later. Calm down. She’s only been here for five minutes, give me a chance.” She sighed and paused, listening to the person who was obviously asking about me. “I know that. I will,” she said and snapped the phone shut.

  She smiled, her face more strained than it was before. I didn’t notice what was wrong with that picture until then. She was smiling and had laughed … hard. Things our kind couldn’t do.

  “What do you know about your parents?” she asked.

  “They died in a fire.”

  She nodded. “Did you know they were wealthy?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Um … I never really thought about it.”

  She snapped her fingers, and I jumped again. A manila folder appeared in her hand, and she slid back into the seat next to me.

  “This is Raymond and Catherine’s will.” I could count the times on one hand that I’d thought of their names, that I’d thought of them as actual people at all. “My husband and I were searching for it. Several of us were, actually. They had no family or close friends, so when they died, we thought we’d find their money. Otherwise it would just go to waste. But … when we found the will,” she said, opening the folder. “We found out about you.”

  She pointed to my name, Christine Cecilia Grant. That was how she knew to call me that. That and she wasn’t human. She slid her wrinkled finger to the middle of the page, to the amount of my inheritance. I gasped and nearly fell out of the chair. “Fifty … fifty-two million?” I asked. She nodded. “Dollars?”

  “Yes,” she said, chuckling. “Your inheritance caused a major treasure hunt when you were a baby. Then it became a myth since we were all unsuccessful for years. Gregory and I never gave up, but we couldn’t take it once we learned it was for you.”

  I shook my head, feeling severely disoriented. “You … knew them?”

  “No. Not personally. They were quiet and strangely private people. No one even knew they had a child. We believe they hid you in New Haven. They probably knew they were going to die and wanted you to be safe. We decided not to bother you and have kept an eye out for you over the last two years.”

  I sighed, sinking deeper in my chair. “They hid me? That’s insane,” I said.

  “Not considering what year you were born in. Everyone was preparing to die. My entire family and I hid out in a little house for years until we reached a treaty.”

  “Treaty?” She nodded. “I didn’t think anyone else made it but me. That’s what we learned in history.”

  “History,” she repeated, chuckling. “The extinction story serves everyone, I guess. Gives us all peace.”

  Not all of us. Not me. “Why would they hide me with humans?” I asked. She hunched her shoulders, just as clueless.

  The phone rang again. I shuffled through the will as she stepped away to answer it. They even had the bank account information. The money was under my real name at a bank in New Haven.

  “Can you trust me, please?” she said, as soon as she flipped her phone open. “Thank you. Yes. Yes.” She sighed. “I will try. I know how important this is,” she said, softer and less annoyed with her husband, I guessed. She put the phone on the counter but didn’t turn around.

  “Oh,” I said, when it hit me. Of course this witch wasn’t trying to help me for no reason. This was the perfect time to cash in. She conveniently showed up at my lowest moment, when I wasn’t thinking, when I had no options, to appear as my savior. I rested my h
ead on the cold marble of the island. “How much do you want?” I asked. She still didn’t turn. She didn’t need to pretend anymore.

  “Ten thousand,” she whispered. My breath snagged in my throat. Blackmail. She’d probably turn me in if I didn’t give her what she wanted. “It’s truly a request,” she said. “I am not demanding anything from you. I thought I would ask … since you’re here. Saving people is costly work, and rarely do we come across someone like you who can help us … help others. I know it looks calculated, but I swear I stopped you for your own good. If you choose not to help us, you can still stay here for as long as you want.”

  “You’re not going to turn me in?” She shook her head, her extremely long hair swaying where it dangled low on her back. “And I can stay here until I … don’t want to … kill them?” She nodded and mumbled an um-hum. It wasn’t exactly the cabin built for one in the secluded forest, but I’d take it. If I had fifty-two million, I could spare ten thousand, and I supposed she could have taken it all and I’d never know. “Okay,” I whispered.

  She turned around with a smile. “Thank you, my dear. From the bottom of my heart, I am truly grateful.”

  “How?” I asked. She narrowed her eyes.

  “How … what?”

  “How do you feel that? Grateful? Humor? You are a witch, right?”

  She walked to me slowly and tucked a curl behind my ear. “Let’s get you to bed, dear. It’s getting late. You should rest.”

  She led me through her home. Every inch of it was as fancy as the kitchen. It was softly, but expensively, decorated with cream and gold throughout. She barely spoke during the tour, allowing me to take in each room on my own. The flat screen TV in the living room shocked me. Was she performing for someone too?

  She couldn’t be. She’d openly practiced witchcraft, evoking the devil with a smile. Not a hint of fear in her eyes.

  “The second floor has more bedrooms,” she said as we climbed the stairs. She didn’t take me to see them. We kept moving up the last flight. Sophia was old and on the heavier side, but had no trouble getting up to the third floor.

  I lingered in front of a painting of a peaceful looking woman, dressed only in a sheet. She rested on a wood floor, covered in yellow flowers and brownish-green vines. They looked eerily similar to the ones covering the cabin in my dream.

  Sophia tugged on my hand. “That room is locked,” she said, pointing to a door I hadn’t noticed next to the painting. “Yours would be this way.”

  We walked to the other end of the hall, skipping the explanation of why the room was locked. The double doors opened in front of us, whooshing as they slid across the wood floor. It looked more like a living room than a bedroom. It was twice the size of my dorm room, so it would more than suffice.

  I stepped in slowly and stopped when the tips of my clogs reached a rug. It was made of cream feathers; it looked too expensive to walk on. I spun around and saw a huge TV mounted on the wall in front of the mint green sofa. If I had to imagine where witches lived, since they were still alive now, I’d picture their homes smothered in deep purple and black. Nothing like this room.

  “This is the sitting room. The bedroom is through there,” she said, pointing to an arched doorway.

  “This looks expensive.” I wanted to ask if this was why she didn’t have any money now, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to be rude.

  I kicked off my clogs so I wouldn’t get mud on the feathery rug. She led me through the arch to the bedroom. It was … grand, far too nice for me. But in a house like this, I’d bet all the rooms were similar.

  The bed was a queen-sized canopy draped in gold fabric thick enough to be curtains. It was as elegantly decorated as the windows in the St. Catalina formal ballroom.

  The comforter was cream with pink flowers. The same pink flowers I’d seen in my dream. There were about a zillion pillows stacked from the headboard to the middle of the bed. Two cherry wood tables sat on both sides of it with cream candles of varied lengths in the middle of them.

  I squinted my eyes as I stepped into the ritzy bathroom, adjusting to the bright lights the gold and crystal chandelier scattered around the room. It hung over a huge circular tub in the middle of the floor, raised on four gold feet. The shower was separate inside a nearly transparent casing. Soap and shampoo appeared in there while I stared.

  “Leave those muddy pajamas on the floor, dear,” Sophia said. “I’ll get them after your bath.”

  “Um … I don’t have clothes to put on.”

  “I’ve whipped up some. They’re in here.” I followed her through another door in the bedroom – the closet. The very full closet. Denim, arranged from light to dark, covered the entire left wall. There were two or more pairs of each wash. The center wall, the longest, was stocked with jackets, dresses, skirts, and fancy shirts. The right had shelves with sneakers on the bottom two, flats on the middle three, and high heels and long boots at the very top.

  I ran my fingers along the upholstered chair in the center. I guessed I would need to rest while deciding what to wear with this many choices.

  “If you can do this, why would you ever need money?” I asked.

  “Magic doesn’t do everything, and some things are illegal to create. Not clothes, fortunately.” She patted my stomach and chuckled. “You’re a tiny little thing, you know? I’m afraid these won’t fit you.” I looked down at my boney arms dangling inside the sleeves of my coat. I’d lost weight since I’d sworn off the cafeteria, but I hadn’t noticed how much until then. “Do you like them? I’m seventy-eight, and you, my dear, are sixteen. I hope these clothes are in fashion.”

  Seventy-eight? She seemed younger than that, about twenty years younger.

  “Do I need to pay you for this?” I asked, since I couldn’t give her an appropriate reaction – jumping for joy and showing gratitude. I wasn’t in the mood to pretend like she was.

  “The ten thousand should cover it,” she said, laughing. She snapped again, and I heard water beating into the tub moments later. “There are under-items and pajamas in the dresser in the bedroom now.” She winked and vanished, leaving me alone and more than a little stunned.

  My knee stung in the bathtub, but I stayed in long enough for my skin to prune, building up the nerve to pray.

  “I know you probably don’t want to talk to me,” I said, to God. “… after what I did, almost did, and running away with a witch. I just wanted to apologize. I’ll do better next time. I won’t lose it when I go back.”

  I sat back in the tub, letting the jets massage my feet. I wasn’t planning on getting out of the warm water anytime soon until Sophia popped back into the bathroom. I jumped in the mini pool, splashing water everywhere, and threw my hands over my less than impressive boobs. She rolled her eyes.

  “I have three daughters and four granddaughters, and none of them take as long as you do in the bathtub,” she said. She handed me a fluffy white towel from the cabinet. “Your dinner is getting cold.”

  I stepped out of the tub, shielding myself with the towel. “I already ate.”

  “Your diet consists of cold cuts and orange slices. You did not eat. And most of that is in the garbage now. I’ve wanted to make you eat something else for a while, but I try not to be intrusive,” she said, handing me the new underwear I’d set aside, intrusively.

  I stood there, wrapped in the huge towel, dripping on the tile, until she got the hint that I wouldn’t get dressed in front of her.

  I inhaled the steamed carrots and baked chicken in the sitting room, hungrier than I thought I was. After, I followed her order to get in bed.

  Sophia rolled up the leg of my sweat pants when I sat.

  “Flesh be healed, flesh be sealed,” she whispered over the scrape. My knee tingled, and before my eyes, the skin closed like nothing was ever wrong with it.

  “Magic can heal?” I asked.

  She pulled back the thick comforter and motioned me to get under it. “Of course. What do you think magic is for
? Killing?” She laughed like that was the most ludicrous thing in the world. I stared at her, waiting for something to be funny to me. She took a deep breath to settle herself. “Oh,” she said. “Is that really what you think?”

  I nodded. “I just thought … since magic is evil, that it’s for evil things. I mean … we’re soulless for a reason. Satan … um … made us to-”

  She held up her hand and sat on the edge of the bed like my words had taken something out of her, made her tired.

  “Soulless? Satan? Like … the Satan? You can’t be serious.” She patted my leg, the one she’d healed. “Your parents made you, Christine. If you’d like me to explain how, I can also get into that.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Is that what you meant about feeling?” I nodded. “What don’t you feel?”

  “Happy. Anything good,” I whispered. “Because I don’t have a soul.”

  “That’s what they taught you there?”

  Tears filled my eyes. “Yes.”

  “You have a soul, sweetheart. One as beautiful as you are. A sweet and generous soul. You have been taught wrong, love.”

  “Then why did I almost kill someone today?” The cry distorted the question. “Why am I always so angry and sad and never happy.”

  Sophia scooted closer and wiped my cheeks with her thumbs. I needed to stop crying. I hated how it felt, the liquid weakness on my face. “There is a far less mystical explanation. You’re always down, sad. You’re always in bed and eat very little. When I would watch, I never once saw you talking to someone or doing much of anything. I’m not a therapist, but I would say you are depressed, love.”

  I stared, at her at first, then at the flowers on the comforter, considering that. I’d never thought something could be wrong with me … that way. I’d thought it was the magic.

  “Do you think that’s possible?” she whispered.

  I hunched my shoulders. “All I know about myself is that I’m a witch.”

  “Who you are has nothing to do with magic. It’s about your desires, the things you love, the things you stand for.” I desired for people to die today and many times before it. I loved nothing. I stood for … nothing. So Sophia was wrong. I rolled over, turning my back on her and her theory. She whispered, “Goodnight," and turned the lights off in the room.