Castle Heights: Crown of Thorns
Castle Heights Book 1
Sasha McDaniels
Copyright © 2018 by Sasha McDaniels
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Blurb
Castle Heights is not your average town.
Reagan Harris has spent nearly her entire life running from an unknown entity. To stay safe, she lives in isolation in a dusty trailer in the middle of nowhere with only her mother for company.
But when her mother gets a new job working in a new town called Castle Heights, Reagan and her mother move into a garage apartment on the Thompson estate.
The Thompsons appear to be a good family. They have a gregarious teenage son who is close to Reagan’s own age, and Mrs. Thompson seems friendly enough.
Too bad Castle Heights is probably the last place on earth where Reagan will be safe. The residents of Castle Heights have many secrets.
And they’re not the only ones who have things to hide. Reagan has powers she’s not allowed to use. Unfortunately, danger lurks just around the corner.
Contents
Meanwhile…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Castle Heights Book 2
Somewhere in Upstate New York…
1
When our car pulled up to the Thompson Mansion, I wasn’t sure what I felt. Excitement? Fear?
After all, I had been cooped up in a trailer in the middle of nowhere for the last year. I wasn’t sure what would be different in this new place. If I didn’t gain some freedom, this place would be just like the last one.
I turned to my mother and examined her face for answers.
She seemed unfazed, which was her way.
“We’re going to live here? In that?” I asked. I for one was surprised by the enormity and grandness of the house. The house loomed large where it sat near a cliff surrounded by acres of hilly, rocky land. Trees lined the property. The entirety of the property was blanketed with snow.
“Not inside the main house,” my mother said. “We’re staying in the garage apartment.”
“Will I go to school?”
My mother whirled on me. “Of course not. And don’t you go getting any ideas. You’ll stay hidden away just like always.”
I crossed my arms and slumped down in my seat. “Let me go to school, Mother. If anybody shows up, I'll just use my powers to—“
“That will be quite enough,” my mother snapped. I thought my mother might hit me then. The occasional slap in the face wasn’t beyond her. “Get out of the car and help me carry our things to the apartment. I start work early in the morning. I’ve been driving all night, and I need to get some rest.”
I wanted to say that she didn’t have to do all the driving by herself. If I had known how to drive like other eighteen-year-olds, I could have driven some of the way.
I got out of the car and grabbed some bags out of the back seat. My mother grabbed some bags too, and we trudged up the snowy lane.
We stopped in front of the large garage which was topped by the apartment.
Something told me that I would like the garage apartment even though I hadn’t been inside it yet.
I followed my mother up the steps to the apartment and waited for my mother as she unlocked the door. She flicked on a light as soon as she got inside.
“Wow,” I said, following her in. My initial suspicion that I would like the apartment had been confirmed. The apartment was small but much cozier than the trailer we had come from. There was a couch, a bed, a good-sized table, a tiny kitchen, and a fireplace.
The only thing left to see was the bathroom. I found it almost immediately.
There was only enough room inside the bathroom for a small shower stall, a toilet, and a tiny sink, which was everything one needed in a bathroom, so that was fine with me.
An oval shaped mirror hung above the sink. I knew that soon the mirror would come down by my mother’s hand, so I took the opportunity to gaze into it.
I brushed a loose wisp of my hair out of my face. The rest of my hair was braided, twirled, and pinned to the back of my head. When I let my hair down, it almost reached my heels, so I saw it as a necessity to keep my hair up at all times.
I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair. My mother said that it was in my hair that my strength and power resided. One snip would weaken me. It would take growing the lost hair back for my strength and power to return.
I wasn’t too concerned with my power. What good was it to have power if I wasn't allowed to use it?
Sometimes I thought about cutting all of my hair off so that my power would be gone. With my power gone, I could stop hiding from the world.
I stared at my reflection. Staring back at me was a girl with green eyes and sharp cheeks. Of all my features, only my mouth had the potential to be like my mother’s.
A knock on the bathroom door startled me out of my examination. I flushed the toilet for effect. “I’ll be right out,” I said. I quickly washed my hands, looked at myself one last time in the mirror, and went to the door.
I opened the door just wide enough to slide my way out of the bathroom. To my relief, my mother was already away from the door. She was busy checking the apartment for what I didn’t know. “I’ll unpack in the morning,” I said to her back. “Where should I sleep?”
“This sofa lets out into a bed. I’ll sleep here since I have to be up first thing in the morning. You take the regular bed. Just make sure you get up and about the apartment. Don’t stay in that bed all day. Staying in the bed all day would be bad for your morale.”
What I wanted to say was that it would be good for my morale if I could leave the apartment and explore our new town. It’d be good if I could go to school, go to the movies, and make some friends.
But I kept my mouth shut, deciding to forgo my mother’s ire.
In the morning, sunlight poured into the apartment. I hadn’t much noticed the windows the night before, but there were six of them. If I had to stay hunkered inside the apartment, at least I could look out the windows.
Hearing the mockingbirds chirp early for spring made me smile. I sat up in bed and stretched. My long hair cascaded down my shoulders.
The plan was to eat some breakfast, brush my teeth, braid my hair, and then read up on our new town. The town, Castle Heights, was small, and it seemed secluded from the rest of the world, but I bet there were lots of things I could learn about it. If I couldn’t explore Castle Heights in real life, I’d explore it online.
I didn’t have the chance to do any digging on the town before I left our tiny trailer in Texas because my mother rushed me out of our trailer in the middle of the night. She said we had to go. That if we didn’t leave our trailer in Texas, they’d find us. I had no idea who “they” were. I tried to ask my mother about the mysterious entity we were running from, but she refused to tell me anything about them.
I was just about to get out of bed when I heard a knock at the front door. I froze.
Mother and I hadn’t really discussed what I ought to do if someone came knocking on the door. At the old places,
my mother told me never to answer the door. But the new place was different because we were living on someone else’s property. How rude would it be if I ignored the owner’s knock or something like that?
I climbed out of bed and crept towards the door cautiously. There wasn’t a peephole, so I couldn’t see who was on the other side of the door. Frantically, I smoothed over my t-shirt and sleep shorts. I cracked the door open just a little.
A guy’s face peered through the crack I had made in the door. “Hey, I was wondering if you’d be up,” he said. “Can I come in?”
“Um, no,” I said quickly. “I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“No?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling the door open just a little bit wider, “who are you?”
“Ben.”
“Hi, Ben,” I said, not wanting to be rude. My heartbeat quickened. This was the first time I had ever spoken to a guy my own age. Of course, it was an assumption that he was my own age because I actually had no idea whether he was my own age or not.
“I live in the house in front. My mother told me you were here. I thought that the two of us should meet. I have the day off of school, so…”
“Right, well, I’m not decent,” I said, hurriedly.
“That’s okay. I mean, I’ll wait here while you get decent.”
“I think maybe this is a bad time, Ben,” I said. Ben frowned. I wondered if I should just let him in. The last thing I wanted to do was anger the owners of the house who also happened to be my mother’s new employers. “Actually, Ben, give me a minute,” I said finally. Ben nodded in agreement. I shut the door.
I dug through my bags, ruffled through all of my stuff, and found a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to put on. I dressed quickly and shoved my feet into socks. All dressed, I opened the front door, and Ben stepped into the apartment.
Immediately I appraised him. He was about six foot two, blond, broad-shouldered, with a handsome face. His blue eyes pierced me immediately, and his pouty mouth formed a sort of wicked smile. “So, I’m Ben and you are?” he asked, extending his hand.
“I’m Reagan,” I said, taking his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Reagan,” he told me.
We stood there looking at each other like we had horns growing out of our heads. Or maybe I was the one staring at him that way.
“Mind if I sit down?” Ben asked me.
“Um, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I told him.
“What’s going on? Why are you so nervous? Oh wait, I get it,” he said, wagging his finger. “You’re homeschooled, right?”
I frowned. “Actually, I am. How did you know?”
“It’s obvious.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot on the floor.
Ben shrugged. “It means that you’re not used to being around people, so like, it makes you all awkward.”
“Whatever,” I said. I rolled my eyes, but I uncrossed my arms. I extended my hand to indicate that I was offering Ben a seat on the couch. “Actually, Ben, there are kids who are homeschooled who are very well socialized. School isn’t the only place where people exist.”
Ben raised his hands. And may I say, they were beautiful hands. “Fine, fine, so you’re touchy about homeschool. I get it.”
“I just don’t like people making assumptions about me.”
“Okay, sheesh. Calm down.”
“I see this visit isn’t going anywhere, so maybe you should go,” I said.
“If this visit isn’t going anywhere, tell me, where would you like it to go?” Ben asked. His face was sort of blank, meaning I had a hard time figuring out what he was getting at. I watched enough tv to know that people used innuendo.
If he was implying something else, that would make him a jerk.
“Maybe you should just leave,” I said.
“I’m sorry. Look, listen, sometimes I say the wrong things. I didn’t mean to come here and upset you. Actually, I thought that maybe since the two of us would be living so close to each other that we could become friends.”
“Oh,” I said.
“So? What do you say?”
“I’d like a friend,” I said. I sat down on the couch next to Ben. The two of us sat in silence for a while.
“So, too bad you’re not going to Castle Heights High.”
“Yeah,” I said, twisting up my mouth. “My mom wants me to keep homeschooling.”
“Sounds like you don’t want to homeschool. Why don’t you just tell her that you want to go to school with me?”
“Because, well, it’s complicated.”
“Everything is complicated.”
“It is,” I said, cracking a smile.
“We’re out of school tomorrow anyway. Snow day. So maybe I’ll stop back by tomorrow? Maybe we can go to the mall or something? I doubt the mall is closed. That place would stay open during the apocalypse.”
“I can’t go out,” I said, hurriedly.
“Grounded?”
I nodded. Grounded was the understatement of the year.
Ben sighed. “Of course! I find a new friend and she’s grounded. Fine, we’ll watch a movie or something at home instead of going out.”
“While my mom is at work,” I said quickly.
“Right. My place or yours?”
“Mine.”
“We have a theatre room in the house. Are you sure you don’t want to watch a movie there?”
“I can’t leave this apartment,” I said.
“Right. Okay, well, wow. Your mom sure is strict, huh?”
“Pretty strict,” I said with a nervous smile.
“I get it. Okay, then. I’ll come over tomorrow. Same time? And we’ll watch a movie.” Ben searched my face.
“Fine,” I agreed.
“So, I’m going to head out now,” Ben said, standing up. “I’m supposed to meet some friends for lunch. It’s just too bad you can’t come along.”
I dropped my eyes. Ben smacked himself in the forehead. “That was a stupid thing for me to say. I would hate it if somebody brought up something fun happening when I was grounded. So sorry, Reagan.”
“No problem,” I said.
We said our goodbyes, and I let Ben out of the apartment. I almost wanted to call out to him, to ask him to come back. I had never had a friend before. The prospect of having a friend was almost too much to bear.
My mother came home later that evening. She winced as she removed her brown coat. She hung it up in the small closet near the front door.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Of course not. I’ve been on my hands and knees practically all day scrubbing that monstrosity of a house from top to bottom.”
“I can help you if you want,” I said. “I know how to clean.”
“No, you can’t help me. You are to stay here inside of this apartment. And try not to let anyone see you. I’ve already told the Thompsons that I have a daughter, but if someone knocks on the door, tell them that you’re ill or something. Anything to keep them away.”
“I’ll try my best, Mother.”
“Try your best? You’ll do better than that, you hear me? I just told Mr. and Mrs. Thompson that you have a debilitating chronic disease. That should keep them away but if it doesn’t you know what to do. I’ve also asked the Thompson’s to inform their son that you are not to be bothered.”
A lump formed in my throat. By son, she meant the boy I had met earlier that afternoon. The boy named Ben. The same boy that I had made plans with. The same boy who would return the next day.
I felt sick. I wanted Ben to come back the next day more than anything in the world.
I had spent that entire afternoon thinking about what movies we might watch. I had narrowed it down to three.
The repercussions for disobeying my mother were great. There was no way I was going to be able to slide through the situation by pretending that my mother hadn’t forbidden me to see the property owner’s
son.
I laid in bed that night running through my head what it might be like to allow Ben into the apartment, to watch movies with him, tossing back popcorn, our eyes glued to the tv What really excited me was the thought that he had a movie theatre inside of his house.
Ben was so lucky. He got to go out. He got to move freely. He got to watch movies on a big screen. Going to the movies was one of my dreams.
The next morning, I tried to mentally prepare myself for what I would say to Ben when he came. The plan was to say that I was sick like my mother had instructed me to say. If Ben pressed, I was going to say that I couldn’t keep anything down. I figured that ought to be enough to dissuade him.
My palms were sweaty all morning as I anticipated his visit. When the knock on the door finally came, I rushed to the door prepared with my script.
Ben pushed the door in gently as soon as I cracked it open. His arms were full of stuff.
I stepped back. “No, no, you can’t come in,” I tried to say.
Ben set his bundle of items down on the coffee table. “Why not? Look, I come bearing gifts. I hope you like chocolate. I brought lots of chocolate.”
I love chocolate. I swallowed the ball in my throat. “I’m so sorry Ben, but I can’t watch a movie. I’m sick,” I said.
“Sick? You don’t look sick to me.”
“I am, really. Didn’t your parents tell you about it?”
“No, they’re both gone this morning. Neither said a word to me before they left.”
“Well, I’m sick. I can’t be around anyone because of it.”
“Are you contagious?”
I bit my lip. “Yes,” I lied.
Ben backed away.
“I mean no,” I corrected. I changed my answer because I didn’t know what sort of disease my mother said I had. Maybe saying it was contagious might be a bad idea. Me being contagious might cause her to lose her job.
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