Ravenswood (Ravenswood Series Book 1)

by Christine Zolendz

  One side of his lips tugged upward, and he pointed to a car farther down the lot, just out of the pool of light from the streetlamps. “Do you want to sit in my car and get warm? It’ll be quieter inside. We could talk, just us.”

  My heart slammed itself silly, and I followed him without pause. I wanted to run, skip, no…dance and leap all the way to his car.

  Inside, he turned the ignition on and pressed the heat on low, then he leaned across the leather console and kissed me. His lips were warm and tasted like peppermint, and I really wanted him to like me. He grinned at me as we talked and kissed more. It was my first kiss, and my entire body seemed to melt from it.

  A slow song played from the car speakers, and his movements matched its languid rhythm. I’d have to ask what band it was. I needed to get the album and own this song forever.

  His hands were warm and his touch soft, and I let him do everything he wanted without question—no one had ever looked at me the way he did then, and I didn’t want him to stop. For the first time in my life, I felt pretty, wanted, loved. It took only a few moments—it didn’t even last the whole song, and I didn’t feel much—no pain, no pleasure either. But the way his face moved over me, eyes closed tight, mouth in a blissful smile, made me feel, for a second, worth something. I wanted to cry from the sheer happiness I felt. Someone thought I was special! Someone loved me!

  When he finished, he zipped up his pants and looked down at his watch, realizing how late it was. He was supposed to be home already; his parents were strict, and he had a curfew. I understood and pretended someone was expecting me home as well. Smiling, he walked me back through the parking lot to the exit. His group of friends seemed quieter, murmuring things under their breath, all whispery and low rumbly laughter.

  Maybe I could be friends with his friends; isn’t that how it worked with boyfriends and girlfriends? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure whom I could ask. Tomorrow, I’ll hit the self-help section at the bookstore for some answers.

  At the curb, he kissed me on the corner of my lips and jogged back to his car and friends. I watched in the shadows as they all packed into the cars and drove away, horns honking and headlights scattered high against the trees.

  I hugged myself as I walked to the bus stop. The wind was cold, whipping my hair around my face. I stood there for an hour, waiting until the bus came, caving more and more into myself as I realized the boy I was just with, the one I thought I could run away with and have a beautiful future with, never even told me his name.

  And he didn’t care enough to ask for mine.

  Why didn’t he ask me my name?

  I was so stupid. So stupid, thinking anyone in this world could care about me. What did I do wrong that nobody ever thinks about me?

  Later that night, I stood in front of my grandmother, angry and bitter. “I had sex,” I told her.

  My lips trembled. I wanted a reaction, I wanted her to rage and scream and punish me, show me some sort of emotion and care, but all she did was close her eyes. Her expression never changed. Her eyebrows didn’t lift. The corners of her mouth didn’t turn down. Nothing.

  “According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces.”

  That’s what she said to me.

  What was she talking about? Why didn’t she care? Why didn’t she come to listen to me play? Why did she hate me so much? I backed into the couch and plopped down, tears welling in my eyes. I wanted to scream, but she just kept talking in her steady tone about nonsense.

  “Zeus, fearing their power, split these strange humans into two separate parts, condemning them to a life searching for their other half.” She lifted a hand to her chest and touched the small charm on the necklace she always wore. “Some believe you can feel the teetered pull of them on your very soul.”

  “What are you saying?” I screamed though my tears, punching my hands over the arms of the couch. “Why are you saying that? Why don’t you care about me?”

  Her eyes snapped up to mine, and fire burned inside them. “Because one day you’ll find the other half of you, Rainey. And having sex with boys in cars will turn into nothing but foolish regrets.”

  How did she know we were in his car?

  “And when you find the man who, is your soul mate, run like hell.”

  Fed up with her nonsense, I ran. I opened the front door to the dark house, and suddenly my dream changed and I was ten again. My grandmother was at her Sunday service, kneeling in a pew. She was praying, mumbling feverishly.

  “Save our souls. Save our souls. Forgive us for our sins.”

  Some days I would wait for hours, a few benches back, until she was done. That’s where I read the entire Babysitter’s Club series.

  Then I was five. A boy with breathtaking eyes sat before me. He was beautiful. So beautiful, it hurt when I looked at him. “You’ll be the Queen, and I’ll be the King,” he said, placing a crown of flowers on my head. The thorns pricked into my skin.

  Then someone started screaming.

  And the dreams shifted to nightmares.

  Someone pounded against the wall.

  In the next room, scraping nails tore down the surface of the drywall—popping and tearing the nails right off the fingertips. I heard the snag and snap of each of them and gagged.

  Garbled, choking breaths called out my name. “Why did you let me die?” My dead grandmother’s voice gurgled.

  I didn’t like this dream.

  I placed my palms over the cool wall, pressing hard. “Why were you never there for me?”

  Blood covered my fingertips. I pushed off the wall and held them up, closer to my face, and watched as dark red lines dripped down my arms, splatting against the floor.

  Mist curled in each corner of the room, growing into human-like forms, and what felt like a crown of thorns pricked painfully at my temples.

  My eyes snapped open; the nightmares still lingered, fading slowly into the gray, gloomy light of the room. My skin felt clammy with revulsion, and I frantically wiped my hands over the sheets, trying to get whatever filth from my dreams off.

  I sat straight up, panting heavily. “What the hell?” I whispered to myself. “What was in that mulled wine?”

  My eyes tore around the room, searching. At the foot of the bed was a long wooden chest where my clothing lay, neatly folded. I swallowed hard, wondering who might have undressed me the night before.

  “Are you fully awake?” a soft voice asked from one of the corners in the room.

  Startled, I whirled my head around to face whoever it was and pulled the blankets up to cover my chest, but I could see no one.

  “H-hello?” I stammered, eyes darting around the room.

  I still couldn’t see anyone.

  “You have to get up,” the voice said, closer, murmuring in my ear and vibrating down my spine.

  My heart thudded to a complete stop. I leaned forward, searching, clenching the sheets in my fists.

  Who was there with me?

  A cool, tickling sensation crept up the back of my neck.

  Get up, the voice whispered in my ear.

  My head spun around the room, desperately trying to see who was speaking to me. But still, the room looked empty. I swore no one was there with me, yet my ear tingled as if someone had just pressed their lips against it.

  “What the fu—”

  Get up now! The voice was hot on my skin, echoing inside my head.

  I scrambled off the bed and stumbled around until my back hit the wall.

  Get a grip, Rainey, there’s no one else here!

  No one under the bed, up near the ceiling, behind anything—no one else was there—I was alone.

  A flicker of motion flashed near one of the windows, and my eyes shot up toward the movement instantly. In the reflection of the glass, against the velvet black sky, my grandmother stood beside me, crouched closely to my ear.

  “If I were you, I’d run,” she whispered.

&n
bsp; Chapter 11

  I tore open the door and ran. One shoulder of my nightgown fell to my elbows; the rest stuck to my skin, sweaty and damp.

  In the hall, the air was arctic, speckled with the puffs of my breath. Everything around me felt muted of color, melting around me: the slate gray of the walls, the liquid black ceiling. Everything the hue of despair. Below me, all along the floor, a milky mist coiled around my feet and crawled along the walls in thinly spiraled curls.

  I was quick to lose my breath, sharp pains biting at my sides. But I kept running.

  Long hallways lit only by candles turned into mazes, upstairs and downstairs. I opened doors that led to stonewalls or empty rooms. Was I still dreaming? My head felt clear, yet I couldn’t see the barrier, the veil between reality and fiction, awake and asleep, dreams and reality.

  I got lost in the shadows. Disoriented and afraid, unable to catch my breath, I opened one last door and stumbled over the threshold. My body lurched forward, then dropped hard to the floor. I swear I saw stars.

  In dreams, you’re supposed to wake when you hit the ground. Please let this still be a dream.

  I didn’t wake.

  I yelped out a high-pitched cry and grabbed onto my knees to ease the pain that stabbed through them. “Son of a bitch.”

  Behind me, the door slammed closed. I scrambled my feet away and dragged myself so my back was up against the wall.

  It took me a few seconds to realize my eyes were squeezed shut. I sat, ass to icy floor, marathon breathing, wondering when my final deathblow would hit. Something messed up was chasing me through the…house? No. It wasn’t a house. It was some sort of humongous dark castle-like place.

  Too much mulled wine and way too many paranormal romance novels.

  I was still waiting for something to hit me. Stab me. Something. I pulled my knees in tighter to my chest.

  Nothing happened.

  I slowly squinted one eye open.

  A lone flickering candelabra cast a dim grayish glow that bled down over the room, casting dark silhouettes where dark silhouettes shouldn’t be.

  My eyes darted over every inch of space, desperate to make out each shadow and shape, the same way one would look under deep, murky water.

  It was the strangest room I'd ever fallen into.

  Slowly, I climbed to my feet. I had no idea where I was. There was no way I was still in that ramshackle old building in the middle of the swamp.

  An icy chill worked its way deep into my bones.

  I was in some sort of gothic nightmare.

  The ceilings, floors, and walls were made of thick, dark stone and packed earth. Furniture, carved in exquisite detail, stood before me—antique treasures I'd never seen before. A crackling fire, shooting up unnatural white and gray flames, popped and hissed in an enormous fireplace.

  I covered my hands over my eyes.

  Just going to count to five, then I’ll open my eyes and be back to the real world. 1…2…3…4…5.

  Fuck my life. Where the hell was I?

  I ran my hand over the mantel. The dark stone was rough and frozen to the touch, scattered with intricate designs. The walls above and to the sides were etched with similar decorations.

  It was breathtaking.

  Yet, when I stepped closer and traced my fingertips over the surface, what I'd thought I saw changed into what was. Instead of the innocent smiling faces of angels, kohl-eyed skulls and wraith-like forms revealed themselves in the walls and furniture. An impressionistic mural painted on the wall I first thought to show passionate lovers embracing turned out to be beasts ravaging and tearing at pouty-lipped women. Disparaging imagery that twisted the bile in my stomach. Ravens with long, elegant feathers, their wings wrapped around skeletal figures, beady black eyes staring back at me.

  Was I awake or still asleep? Drunk? Or were my eyes playing tricks on me?

  Breath hissed out behind me, and I whirled around, heart throbbing fast.

  “H-hello?” I called out.

  There was no response.

  I stood very still, trying to breathe in long, quiet breaths to calm my burning lungs. A strange quietness blanketed the room.

  A shadow sliced through the light that seeped in from under the door. I immediately froze, my heart pounding wildly at the base of my throat.

  “Hello?” I said, louder. “Is there anyone there?”

  Again, no one answered. The sound of footsteps dragging in the hallway just outside the room had me slapping my hand across my mouth to stop myself from screaming. I pressed myself into the darkest shadows of the room and listened. A heavy twist of dread lumped in the back of my throat.

  Just outside the door, the footsteps stopped.

  “Did you have nightmares, dear niece?”

  I cried out a squeal of fright, hand over heart, clutching my nightshirt like a small child.

  From the back of the room, where I hadn’t noticed before, hung gossamer curtains that billowed toward me as if arms desperately reaching out for help. They were dark in color, which was probably the reason I hadn't seen them at first. But now, just behind the gauzy fabric of the material, moved a darker shadow with a face as pale as the moon.

  “Did you, dear niece?” The endearment, though sweet, came out sinister and dark.

  Not knowing what to do, I shifted my eyes quickly back to the door I'd come through. There still stood a thick darkness obscuring the light from under the door. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t decide which way to step. Toward the woman stepping out from her hiding place who told me she was my long lost aunt I never knew I had or out through the way I’d come in, unknowing who was listening quietly on the other side of the door.

  “You look like a little bug, caught in a net.” She laughed softly to herself and walked closer. Funny, her limp was barely noticeable this time.

  I cleared my throat, gulping down what felt like shards of ice and glass. She might be just as freaked out as I am. I did run in here like a lunatic a minute ago. She also told me I should be dead, so who knows what the truth was?

  “I’m sorry…I, um, didn’t mean to barge in like that. I did...I did have a few nightmares, actually.” I straightened my nightgown and folded my arms across my stomach, suddenly shivering. “Nightmares I might be still currently having,” I murmured low.

  “Must have been simply terrifying for you, sugar.” Her words balanced precariously on the edge of sarcasm, but I didn’t know if it was just my doubts or cynical mind that thought that.

  “Yes. It was.” I wanted to leave.

  I sniffed back a breath and held my head up, leveling my eyes to hers. She was clean-faced now. No sign of makeup or theatrics. And for a minute I lost my breath and stepped back, clumsily. She was the spitting image of my grandmother.

  Had they been twins?

  “Very terrifying indeed, huh? To have run out of your room dressed in that state.”

  She chuckled softly and lit a small lamp on a table, another thing that seemed to materialize suddenly out of the blackness that surrounded the corners of the room. The light flickered like a flame, and I realized it was just that, a flame. A small lantern on a table, beautiful and antique, decorated with twisted tree limbs and odd-shaped creatures.

  “You mustn’t walk the halls here with so much of that young flesh showing, my sweet niece. You never know whom you’ll find in a place like this. It could be quite dangerous here.”

  I nodded, dumbfounded. I'd never felt more naked in all my life, and I was wearing a nightgown.

  The clock on the wall struck twelve. It gonged long and loud, resonating up my spine and settling in the base of my skull. I squinted up at the offensive timepiece, slapping my hands over my ears. The second hand of the clock spun around and around too quickly to be keeping the correct measure of time.

  The corners of Rose’s lips tugged up in a smile. Lamps around the room lit up, and all the corners and crevices that were just filled with monsters and terror brightened, empty of whatever evil images my mi
nd cooked up. I touched my hand to my throat, and a warm rush of relief washed over my shoulders. All the sinister tapestries and statues I’d seen were just my imagination, most likely remnants of my nightmare.

  “It’s time for break…fast, dear.”

  I shot my attention to the solid black sky through the window, then up toward the clock, winding its minute hand wildly around. “Breakfast? What time is it?” I rushed to the window, pressing my hands against the glass, trying to look through the thick mass of nothing that lay on the other side.

  Breakfast…but it was still dark outside.

  And the clock gonged twelve times. That meant it was either midnight or noon, and it was way too dark out to be lunchtime.

  Rose was out the door and in the hallway before I could ask another question. I looked down at my nightgown. It was still damp with sweat.

  “Can I change first?”

  She didn’t bother to respond.

  Maybe she just didn’t hear me. I sighed and trudged out of the room after her. “Ms. Delacroix, may I—”

  My words died instantly as I peeked my head out of the room. She was so far ahead down the long, dark corridor, I knew she wouldn’t hear me.

  How did she get so far, so fast?

  “Wait!” I called out as she slipped through a pair of double doors. They clicked loudly behind her and echoed thunderously through the air.

  “This is crazy,” I mumbled to myself as I jogged in the direction of the room she entered.

  Rose Delacroix sat at the head of a long table, a fairy tale queen holding court. Other people sat on the right and left of her, each one more strangely dressed than the last. A man in a full tuxedo with coat and tails wore a tipped top hat with a bright red rose in the middle. Next to him sat a woman in a long, sheer nightgown. Her breasts, tiny and pebbled, poked against the fabric and jiggled when she moved. She held a finely laced napkin over her face. The woman across from her had her face and neck painted alabaster white, her lips decorated to look like she had a mouth full of fangs.

  Bain sat at the other end of the table from Rose, wearing a long white shirt with an elaborately ruffled collar and cuffs. “Rainey, so good of you to join us. Come sit.”