Awakening: The Last Coven Series

by KT Webb

  Sutton made eye contact with her mother, and for once, she saw something that resembled concern or understanding. It was refreshing.

  “No, dad. I feel fine. I’m just in a funk.”

  “Well young lady, you can’t afford to be ‘in a funk.’ You need to stay sharp or you’ll never get into Sarah Lawrence.”

  “My god, is that all you ever think about? If you love Sarah Lawrence so much why don’t you go?” Sutton surprised herself with her outburst.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m just under a lot of stress right now. Most of it is because I’m trying desperately to be the perfect kid you want but I also just need to be able to be myself. Have you ever wondered why my friends don’t come over here? Well, don’t worry, it’s because I don’t have any!”

  “What has gotten into you?”

  “I really don’t know. All I know is that I’m tired of trying to hold it all together. I’m tired of trying to be perfect. I hate the piano. I hate ballet. I loathe Latin. I’d rather die than sit through another French lesson.”

  “You’re being a bit melodramatic.”

  Sutton knew she had passed ‘Melodramaticville,’ and moved straight to ‘Crazy Town.’ Her mother was staring wide-eyed between the two of them. Sutton hated that she couldn’t speak, but she was so glad she couldn’t say anything to add fuel to the fire that was already burning inside her.

  “I’m just tired of it all. I just want to be a teenager.”

  “Gary, don’t you think”—her mother spoke, out loud—“don’t you think it’s time we start listening to Sutton?”

  She felt her heart swell and tears prickled her eyes. The first words her mother had been able to say aloud in weeks were in defense of her daughter.

  “Oh, mom,” she hugged her tightly.

  “No, Lori, I don’t think it’s time we start listening to our child. She doesn’t know what’s best, we do.”

  “You don’t even know me.” Sutton felt the rage growing in her like a flame bursting to life. “You think you know everything, but you really don’t. You’re hardly even here long enough to get to know me.”

  Her father stepped forward to keep her from leaving the room but when he touched her, he jumped back in surprise. Sutton looked down at her arms to find them surrounded by blue light. It snapped and crackled like lightning striking around her body. She shook her head in terror as she tried to shake it off. In the process of doing so, electricity shot from her fingertips and struck the chandelier hanging above the breakfast table. Her mother screamed and took cover behind her father.

  Sutton took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop whatever was happening to her if she didn’t get a grip on her panic. As she took more deep breaths, the light began to fade until the jolts of electricity were gone altogether and the blue glow slowly faded away.

  “What the hell just happened?” her father demanded.

  She had no answer to that question, and wouldn’t even know where to start if she wanted one. She shook her head and closed her eyes. What was going on with her? Without further interference, Sutton turned to leave the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks, turned around and snatched the bags of Boston Market before heading upstairs to her bedroom.

  “No seriously, what the hell just happened?” her father asked as she reached the top of the stairs.

  She closed and locked the bedroom door behind her.

  She sat on her bed staring at her hands. She tried desperately to recreate what happened in the kitchen but it was useless. Sutton had no clue what was happening to her or why things had suddenly gone crazy in her life, but she needed to find out. She pulled up her laptop and started searching the web for explanations.

  After hours of searching, it became evident that there were only two possible answers. She was either in a coma and had dreamt everything that had happened from her birthday to that day, or she had some sort of magical powers.

  The thought that she had magical powers sent shivers down her spine. A mysterious brunette visited her in her dreams; Lucy. When she slept, they were fighting off a dark shadow that never seemed to dissipate. But they were using magic. Sutton wanted to believe she was in a coma, but oddly enough, it didn’t seem as likely to her as the other option.

  She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. What she wanted was a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, and pretzels. She wasn’t about to go down to the kitchen and chance running into her father for round two, so she decided she would have to forego the ice cream. Without warning, a cold sensation blossomed in her hand. When she opened her eyes she was holding a deep bowl of ice cream, just the way she liked it.

  Sutton whipped her head around, half expecting to find her mother standing in the doorway with a knowing smile on her face. But she was just as alone in her room as she had been moments before. Sutton set her ice cream down and focused on the mess of clothes she’d left on her floor. Maybe she could use her newfound magical powers to clean her room.

  As soon as the thought appeared in her mind, things began flying around the room, landing in their rightful places. Sutton watched it all happen in astonishment. Once everything was in its place, she opened her laptop once more and started searching out more information about people with unexplained powers.

  She didn’t know what to think, but she wasn’t one to refute the facts. She had caused a lightning strike in her house, she had conjured herself a bowl of ice cream and she had used her mind to clean her room.

  Sutton was a superhero.

  Sutton

  Chapter Three

  Shadows in the Night

  A month had passed and it was all she could do to stay away from her parents. Her mother had definitely lightened up, but her father was constantly giving her the third degree.

  Dee still hadn’t returned to school, and there was something bothering Sutton about her absence. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt an overwhelming urge to check on her. She tried to fight it and pushed the thought away multiple times, but her mind kept returning to her enemy.

  It didn’t make any sense, but she was determined to pay a visit to the girl who had always made it a point to treat her with disdain. When she got done with school, she took her mom’s car and drove to the neighborhood where Dee lived.

  She arrived at the sprawling house of her arch-nemesis shortly after school ended. March was just around the corner, and Dee hadn’t been back to school since they returned from winter break. It was time for Sutton to see if she could do something to help her.

  After ringing the doorbell, she waited patiently for someone to answer. A young woman answered the door and introduced herself as Marta. She was tutoring Dee to keep her from falling behind in school.

  “I’m so glad one of Dee’s friends has come to visit. We haven’t had any visitors. You must come in to see her.”

  “Oh, no one has come to visit?”

  Marta shook her head solemnly, “No. Miss Dee has gotten very depressed as of late.”

  She nodded her head in understanding and followed Marta through the mansion until they arrived in a dark room at the back of the house. The tutor didn’t turn on the light, she just held out a hand to indicate that Sutton should enter the room.

  Once inside, she looked around to allow her eyes to adjust before she tried to walk in any farther.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but she assumed it was Dee.

  “I came to see how you were doing.”

  “Why? You don’t care about me. Why would you come here? Are you here to mock me?”

  “No! I would never—look, you and I aren’t friends, that’s true. But, I am not a vicious person. I wanted to check on you.”

  Dee was silent for a long time. “Take three steps forward. The couch will be on your left.”

  “Why is it so dark in here?”

  “I can’t bear for anyone to see me lik
e this. We’ve tried everything. I’ve had three plastic surgeries but nothing fixes this. The doctors think I have some sort of dormant genetic disease.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, now you know. If you want to run and tell everyone at school, go ahead.”

  “I already told you that’s not why I’m here. Why do you have to be so hateful? Marta told me none of your Deebots have come to visit.”

  “Deebots?” She made a sound that might have been a laugh, but instead resembled a wheeze.

  “Sorry, that’s what I call your gaggle of friends.”

  “That’s kind of funny, actually.”

  “Thanks.”

  The darkness and silence were suffocating to Sutton. She wanted to turn the light on to see if Dee had changed any further than what she’d witnessed at the mall. She wanted to shake the girl and tell her to stop wallowing in her own self-pity, and get control of her life again.

  “I’m sorry, Sutton.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so mean to you. I’m sorry I treated you like an outcast. Looking back, I think if we had teamed up rather than fought we would have been unstoppable.”

  “Like PB&J.”

  “Better than that. After that day at the mall, I lost everything. I realize now just how fickle people are. I was shallow and competitive. I didn’t give you a chance because I was afraid people would like you more than me.”

  As Dee continued to explain herself, her voice became stronger and clearer. It was no longer painful for Sutton to listen to the girl. She wondered idly if turning on the light would reveal a complete change in her appearance as well. She was still new to this whole magical powers thing; she didn’t know what the rules were.

  “If you were back to normal, what would you do first?”

  “I’ve gone over that a million times. I think I would stop trying so hard. I think I would just be me and stop caring what other people thought.”

  “How are you different from what you showed the world?”

  “I hate school. I don’t want to go to Yale. I don’t want to do anything that I pretend to strive for. I know that’s where my life is headed, but I also know it won’t make me happy. I want to be an artist. I love to paint.”

  “So do I. I have tons of sketchbooks with drawings and paintings in them. I don’t want to go to Sarah Lawrence.”

  “Huh, would you look at that? We really aren’t so different after all.”

  “So, now that you are looking at yourself through different eyes, do you really care what others think of your looks?”

  Dee hesitated. She wasn’t just ugly; she had gone to full-blown revolting in a matter of seconds. But Sutton wanted to understand where her mind was. Something inside her had to know if this girl was worth saving.

  “No. I don’t think I care. I wouldn’t care if I had someone who understood me for who I am.” Her voice sounded hopeful.

  Sutton smiled in the darkness and said, “Well, when you’re ready to come back to school I’ll be there for you.”

  Later, when she was getting ready for bed, she wondered if her conversation with Dee had helped. She didn’t know how her powers worked, but she hoped she’d made a difference for her old enemy. She reached over and turned off the light on her nightstand before snuggling up under her blanket.

  Lucy was ahead of her again. She tried to call out a warning to the girl with the flowing brown hair as a man came up behind her. The man grabbed Lucy and covered her mouth as she struggled against him. Sutton raised both of her hands and sent the man flying backwards. Two other men appeared around them; they looked murderous. Lucy grabbed Sutton's hand and the girls disappeared.

  Her eyes flew open. Something wasn’t right. She peered around her room and her heart skipped a beat when she made out a figure standing in the corner of her room. She fumbled with the lamp on her nightstand, trying desperately to turn it on and dispel the shadows that made her think someone was in the room with her.

  The figure moved. There was no way she was imagining it. She knocked the lamp over in her desperation to switch it on. She focused on turning the lights on, and made it happen. The lights switched on, and the figure collapsed upon itself in a swirl of black smoke.

  She waited for her breathing to regulate but knew it was useless unless she got her mind on something else. She pulled out her notebook and wrote down the dream she’d had. She also sketched the shape of the dark figure. She didn’t know what to think about her visitor, but it was more than terrifying to think that someone had been in her room. Someone with magic, just like her.

  Sutton

  Chapter Four

  Face to Face

  Sutton was a pleasantly surprised to return to school the second week of March and discover Dee had returned to her former glory. She wasn’t sure if the other girl would acknowledge her or go right back to her bullying queen-bee persona, so she steered clear for as long as possible.

  “Sutton!” The voice rang out behind her as she exited the lunch hall.

  She took a deep breath, and prepared to turn around to face Queen Dee and her Deebots. Instead, she found herself facing a smiling girl that looked just like the Dee she once knew, only happy.

  “Hi, Dee.”

  “Can you believe this? It must have happened when you left because the next thing I knew I had a blue glowing thing flying around my face and bam, it hit me.”

  Blue glow? That sounded a bit like what happened in her kitchen with her parents. The hair on her arms stood on end as goosebumps traveled across her body.

  “I’m really happy for you. It’s good to see you back at school,” she said, honestly feeling good for her.

  Dee threw a glance over her shoulder before she leaned in to whisper, “Everyone is trying to go back to normal, but I don’t want to go back to the way things were before. I don’t want to be that girl again.”

  Sutton nodded her understanding. She would never have dreamt that Dee would be the first friend she made at Kensington Prep, but she was actually okay with it. The girls made their way to Language Arts where they discovered they would be working with a partner to create a project that evoked the “feeling” behind a literary work. Oddly enough, Sutton was relieved when Dee made eye contact with her and they became partners.

  The two spent every afternoon at one of their houses. They had until the end of the term to complete their project, but they had decided to give the class a major surprise. Working with a large stretched canvas, they painted on opposite ends, slowly working their way to the middle. They had chosen to represent The Portrait of Dorian Grey. Dee painted the world within the portrait; dark and lonely, like the hideous nature of the man reflected within it. Sutton was working on the world Dorian had created for himself outside of the portrait; it was vibrant and lively, but she accentuated the shadows, bringing them to life in grotesque shapes.

  As they sat in Dee’s garage sharing a pizza and admiring their work, Sutton felt a sharp pain sizzle through her body like an electric shock. She doubled over in pain, vaguely aware of Dee asking what was wrong. The pain came again, causing her friend to jump back and shout in alarm.

  “Sutton, you’re glowing. What’s happening?”

  What was she supposed to say? Oh, I think I’m a superhero of some kind because I wield magical powers and have weird dreams about fighting shadows with a strange girl I’ve never met. There was no way anyone would buy that.

  She tried to speak, but nothing would come out. Then she heard it; the same plunk that she had heard many times before. The sound that meant an arrow had been loosed from its bow. She could practically feel the arrow whistling through the air as it approached them. On instinct, she grabbed Dee by the front of her shirt and yanked her down to the ground.

  The twang echoed in the cavernous garage; the arrow made impact with the chair Sutton had been perched on just moments before. She closed her eyes and willed the garage door to close, but in her panic she caused it to relea
se from the electronic motor and slam against the cement. The sound of another arrow struck the door and the tip popped through the aluminum.

  “What just happened?” Dee whispered.

  “I don’t really know.”

  “But you sort of know don’t you? That blue light. That was the same blue light that surrounded my face before it healed. What was that?”

  “Magic.”

  Dee let out a hoot of laughter, “Yeah, okay. Wait, you’re serious, aren’t you?”

  Heavy footsteps clomped outside the garage before the door began to lift from the ground. Sutton pulled Dee up and dragged her into the house. She bolted the door behind them. It was a Friday night and the girls had the mansion to themselves; Dee’s parents were out of town and none of the staff was working.