“I’m awake, I’m just…” She paused when there was a dull and stinging throb radiating from a spot on her neck. “That really happened?” she whispered, and quickly drew the covers more tightly around herself, all of a sudden feeling cold, as a deep shiver ran through her body. More loudly she said, “I’ll be out in a little bit.”
There was no way to explain how she had been assaulted by a psychotic, and possibly rabid, teenage boy. Even more difficult would be finding a way to explain how much she had wanted him to do it, and why she hadn't called the police. In retrospect, all Cheyenne could think about was how good it felt. The dull throb of pain in her neck slowly faded into a strange and inviting kind of warmth before producing a tingling sensation affecting both her neck and her stomach. After a few seconds, it returned to the pain.
Apparently her mother still wanted to talk more, because instead of taking the hint to leave, she stayed to ask more questions.
“How was the party? Did you have fun? I didn’t hear you come in last night. Were you out late?”
“Very late.” Immediately she felt guilty for lying. It had barely been nine in the evening when she snuck into the house. While that may have been late for a normal night, it seemed far too early to return from a night out at the club, when the other girls most likely didn't leave until after eleven. Her mom didn’t know, of course. She had been asleep on the couch in the living room with a movie playing on the television when Cheyenne came in.
Cheyenne vaguely remembered going to the bathroom and washing off all the blood before bandaging her wound. She also remembered trying to decide if maybe she should have listened to the cab driver when he suggested she go to the hospital instead of home.
“I had fun. Lots and lots of fun.” She grabbed a white turtleneck and hoped it was cold enough outside so that she could wear it without suspicion. She normally didn’t like turtlenecks, but how else was she supposed to cover up the bite marks? Next, she ran a brush through her hair and then opened the door, hoping she was presentable.
“Sorry, did you need me for something?” she asked.
Her mother stared at her—more specifically, at her turtleneck. “No, I only wanted to hear how your night went. I’m glad you had fun.” She put a hand to her mouth to hold back a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing, I’m glad you got out and had a good time, like I said. You can tell me about all the details of who you met later.” She winked and headed for her own bedroom. “And don’t be embarrassed, Chey. Your first hickey is a huge deal, but everyone goes through it. There's nothing to be ashamed of.”
Cheyenne blushed furiously and closed her door again, not bothering to respond. She stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the door and pulled aside the neckline of her shirt.
Great, she thinks I'm some kind of a tramp. She bit her lip to hold back her wounded tears, and her fingers went to the bandages.
“Yeah, not a huge deal at all,” she mumbled sarcastically. She let out a deep and frustrated sigh. It would be only a matter of time before someone found out. There was no way she could hide the wound until it finished healing over, especially not from her mother. “I just need a little more time.”
“Time, everything needs time. Except for maybe the trees. I’ve always been envious of the trees. A tree could live forever and never die of old age, if not for disasters and sickness. Us flowers wither and fade and must be replanted and resown into the ground. It’s not fair, is it? Why must the rest of creation grow old and recycle its life when the trees do not have to?”
She could hear this new voice, but it wasn’t something she heard in her ears. The voice spoke straight to her brain, as if she were imagining or creating it. If she was, then she had officially gone crazy, because she wasn’t consciously aware of it being her doing. She shook her head and went back to lie down on her bed, at a complete loss over what to do.
“It’s rude not to respond to someone who’s talking to you. You used to converse with us all the time. Did we do something wrong? You can tell us all your secrets. We won’t tell a soul.”
“I’m sorry?” How was one supposed to respond to a voice? Especially when she had no idea where it came from. “I don’t think you’ve done something to upset me, but if you don’t mind my asking, can you please tell me who you are?”
“We are the tulips on your sill, darling.”
“The tulips?” Cheyenne warily glanced down at the red flowers sitting by the window. “Maybe I should go to a hospital, because I think I lost more blood than I originally thought.”
“So the rumors are true. Persephone’s daughter has forgotten her friends. This is quite sad. We had heard such wonderful and nice things about you. How you sang to the lilacs in your youth and told stories to your snapdragons in the garden. We were hoping to hear your stories, especially the one of your encounter from last night. It sounds so exciting. We're positive it's been embellished from the original version that the daisies who witnessed it told. Your version must be so much more interesting.”
“What?” For tulips, they seemed well-informed. Word got around fast in the flower world, apparently. They gossiped faster than PTA mothers.
“Another day when we have more time to talk alone we will tell you truths instead of stories, Daughter of the Jewel. Please, do tell us yours when you have the chance. We could listen to you talk for days.”
Cheyenne shook her head. “I’m not going to bother asking questions to one of my own hallucinations.” The plants kept talking to her, however, insisting she speak with them and with so much persistence she couldn't drown them out. She’d always felt a special connection with her plants, but never had they ever started talking back.
Once the tulips started, the other flowers in her room began to speak as well. They all expressed the same, deep sadness over her confusion as to why they were able to speak. Each wanted to make small talk and to share the gossip, as well as comfort her. She didn’t care. She just wanted it to stop.
“Can you all please shut up!” She screamed at them, covering her ears in a vain effort to block out the noise. As suddenly as the voices had started, her bedroom became unnervingly quiet. She opened her door, ready to flee, when she saw her mother standing in front of her with her hand raised and ready to knock.
“What’s wrong, honey? Who are you talking to?”
“Nobody.” Cheyenne shook her head quickly. “I’m not talking to anyone. I’m not talking at all.” She could feel the tears forming in her eyes. Frustration, or more specifically anger and fear, were overwhelming her. “I just need to lie down. I don’t feel good. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Her mother pulled her into a tight hug. “What’s going on? Please talk to me, honey. Let me help you.”
“You’ll think I’m strange,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing you can say that will make me think you’re strange. You will always be special to me, and I will always love you no matter what you do.”
She didn't want to doubt anymore, and she didn't want to feel so alone. If there was one person in the world who was going to understand her, it had to be her mother. Even if her mother didn't believe her, at least Cheyenne wouldn't have her insanity building up inside her anymore.
“I keep hearing things,” Cheyenne managed finally, her voice shaking as she spoke. She thought of how she could word all this information so her mother wouldn’t want to throw her into an asylum.
“I should have told you about the attack last night as soon as I came home. I should have called you right after it happened. I shouldn’t have lied to you like I did. I think I lost a lot of blood, because it sounds crazy, maybe I am crazy, but I’m hearing…” She swallowed hard. “I’m hearing voices. They’re claiming to be the plants in my bedroom.” She shook her head, burying her face into her mother’s shoulder before finally breaking down into deep and uncontrollable sobs.
“Breathe, honey, please. Don’t make yourself sick.” Long and so
othing strokes ran over Cheyenne’s hair. Neither of them said a word for a while as she cried. The calmness her mother displayed was surprising. While Cheyenne wasn’t sure how her mother was going to react, she hadn’t expected calm and collected, especially after hearing that her daughter had been attacked. The answers came to Cheyenne soon, however.
“I know. I knew this morning. You don’t need to worry. I won’t let anything bad happen to you ever. I promise,” her mother said.
“Mom? What’s going on?”
Her voice shook as she spoke. “I want to tell you.” She continued to stroke her daughter’s hair gently. “But there are people who can explain it better than I ever could. They'll be here shortly for dinner.”
“So you’re not going to tell me?” Cheyenne couldn’t decide which emotion was the most appropriate. She felt angry her mother knew what was going on but wasn’t going to tell her. Cheyenne was certain that if her mother actually wanted to, she’d be more than capable of taking the time to do so. Her mother had taught her before about so many deep and complex issues of life. How could this one have been any different from those?
She was being lied to, and the betrayal stung. Did her mother just want to take the easy way out? There wasn't any other explanation she could think of. This didn’t seem like her mother at all, and it scared her. Sixteen years of consistency shattered. She'd rather be in her bedroom talking to the plants. They weren’t human, but they, at least, seemed trustworthy. Why would a plant lie?
A deep frown formed on her face so it was perfectly clear how betrayed she felt. “Fine, I’ll be outside. You can call me back in when these visitors arrive, and I can get the answers to my questions, since you obviously won’t give them to me.”
“All right.”
Cheyenne stormed outside, making a lot of noise as she did so. She found a place to sit near her plants. The garden was diverse and colorful, with varieties of flowers in all shapes and sizes: snapdragons, marigolds, and tiger lilies, to name a few. It was a simple garden with a single terrace, but it was packed full of flowers.
Her garden flourished every year, but she couldn't help but be curious if there was a specific reason why the plants had suddenly become vocal.
She stared at the red snapdragons in front of her and reached a hand out to touch the petals. When she was younger, they were always her favorite flower because when they were pinched at the base of their petals, they would spread apart as if the flower had a mouth and could speak. She vaguely remembered talking to them in her youth, and she had to wonder how much of that was fantasy and how much was reality. Was she the only one who said anything? Or had they spoken back? They comforted her when she was with them, and she wished they would start talking again, so long as they didn't all do it at the same time.
“Please, just say anything,” she pleaded softly, her voice barely audible.
“You seem so distressed,” she heard something reply, but she wasn’t sure which plant was talking to her this time. She caressed the petals on the snapdragons with a smile. It didn’t matter. What did was that someone was there, even if she was making them up in her imagination. After the events of the night before, she needed someone.
“We will never leave you, Daughter of the Jewel. You have always been one of our most precious friends.” She didn’t know what that meant. While she was certainly curious to hear all about it, she wouldn’t bombard the flowers with those kinds of questions, not yet at least. Instead, she sat and enjoyed the silence of the world around her and the occasional chirping of the birds in the trees of her backyard. As she sat there, she could have sworn she felt the leaves of the flower reach out to touch her hand.
Chapter Three
Mrs. Aradia Orinda reminded her of some kind of a princess. She sat in front of Cheyenne with her legs crossed elegantly at the ankles, her long brown skirt flowing over her knees in a mature sort of fashion. She had an air of regality surrounding her, an inner light radiating from her body. As well as being beautiful, she oozed confidence and life, and Cheyenne was jealous of her. Especially over the way Mrs. Orinda’s soft brown hair sat in a perfect bun on the back of her head and the crystal dangling earrings she wore brought light to the dullest of hazel eyes. Cheyenne wanted to look as perfect as her.
This woman, who couldn’t have been much older than her mid-twenties, spoke in a natural, conversational tone, and deftly broke the awkward tension filling the room on more than one occasion. She always knew what to say and when to say it, which made her the perfect candidate to send. However, Cheyenne was too busy staring in awe instead of paying attention to her words.
“You might as well stop, Aradia. She is not listening,” her companion, a man who answered to the name of Akuji Thantos, said dryly. He was the exact opposite of Mrs. Orinda. He had eyes so dark they appeared to be black, and dark tousled hair that fell over those eyes protectively. He must not like people looking into them, because whenever Cheyenne tried to make eye contact with him, he turned his head casually in another direction, but with obvious discomfort. His skin was pale and nearly dead-looking. That, along with his thin frame, reminded Cheyenne of a ghost, or maybe even a corpse.
Despite all of this, he was still quite handsome. He had a strong jawline but soft cheeks and beautiful clear skin that reminded Cheyenne of porcelain when she didn't think about how creepy his lack of pigmentation was. He seemed to be close in age to his partner, but he sat in a way that expressed many years of wisdom and experience. For some strange reason, the look worked for him. It would have been strange to see him presented in any other package. It fit; he acted as cold as he appeared.
“This is going to take longer than I thought,” he said.
“Sorry,” Cheyenne whispered. “I didn’t mean to…I…” She glanced at her mother. “I’m listening now.”
Mrs. Orinda shot her companion a sharp look and then started over again with her speech. “We’re teachers from the Vala School and Seminary. We contacted your mother not too long ago about the possibility of you attending the school this semester. You would remain for the rest of your high school career. It has a beautiful campus. It’s a private school…well, a boarding school…and the grounds are centered around a beautiful mansion that’s nearly two hundred years old.”
“Stop going through the brochure and answer the questions she is really wanting the answers to,” Mr. Thantos snapped. “There is no point in beating around the bush at this point. She was attacked recently and her powers are starting to break out once more. She is confused and does not care about the layout of the land. Perhaps you should tell her something useful, like her nymph heritage, or that she does not have a choice but to come with us. Her birth parents are making us take her whether she likes it or not.” He shot Cheyenne a dark and intimidating look, suggesting she comply with them or that something bad might happen. Mrs. Orinda caught the look and gave him a firm smack across the arm. It certainly wasn’t professional of her to do, but Cheyenne appreciated the gesture.
“You’re horrible, saying everything so bluntly as if it didn’t make a difference. Have you ever heard of letting someone down easily? It’s not easy to swallow. Being told you’re different from the rest of the human population, and then on top of that, you’re adopted.”
“I believe you spilled the beans much better than I.” He smirked and folded his arms in front of his chest. He did not seem fazed by Mrs. Orinda's outburst. He stared at Cheyenne, as if amused by her reaction, which at the time was a good impersonation of a deer caught in the headlights.
Cheyenne looked between the two adults, not sure what to react to first: their childish behavior, or that she wasn’t human, or that her mother wasn’t actually her mother. None of what was going on seemed real to her. She had to take a moment to pinch her arm to make sure she was still awake. After wincing a little, she stared at her mother, or was she her foster mother? What should she call her now?
“What’s going on?” Cheyenne asked.
Mr. Thanto
s leaned forward, placing his gloved hands on his knees. It was the first time Cheyenne noticed this about him. He wore black leather gloves. “Let us backtrack to the beginning again. Certainly you have noticed you are a bit different from other girls your age? I have heard what the trees and the flowers say as well, Cheyenne. They have told me of your stories as well as expressed their excitement over the fact that you converse with them on occasion—consciously converse with them, I should add. Perhaps you feel as though all of it was imagined, but let me assure you, you are not losing your mind. You are perfectly sane. Are you ready for me to continue, or would you like to ask a question yet?”
“You’ve got my attention,” Cheyenne whispered, placing a hand to the spot on her neck where she had been bitten by Denver the night before. If he knew about the plants, he had to know about the bite, as well.
“Finally,” he grumbled, before continuing with his speech. “As I said earlier, I am not going to beat around the bush, because I think it is pointless.” He gave Mrs. Orinda a stern look before returning his attention to Cheyenne. “You have these abilities because you are a creature of myth, much like Mrs. Orinda and myself. Though I think going further into your heritage and potential ability would be something best left for when you are on campus. I am not as familiar with the Greek mythological characters, and I would hate to give you false information. Am I still making sense, or do I need to break it down further?”
Cheyenne blinked a few times, trying to focus on what he was telling her. “You’re telling me I’m not human, right? That the reason the plants can talk to me is because I’m…” She paused, remembering how he had said the word nymph. “A nymph? I don’t know what that means.”
“You are much smarter than I originally thought.” He smirked, and though his intentions seemed well enough, it appeared as more of a malicious expression than a good one. It was difficult to tell if he was mocking her or was truly impressed. Either way, it was still insulting.
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