Spearwood Book One

by A. S. Oren

  Book One

  Books by A.S. Oren

  The Gate Series One Gildemer:

  Volume One

  Volume Two

  The Gate Series Two Miltic:

  Volume One

  The Sixth Extinction:

  Story One

  Book One

  A.S. Oren

  A.S. Oren Books L.L.C

  Copyright © A.S. Oren 2016

  A.S. Oren Books L.L.C.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locals are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, real locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 A.S. Oren

  Cover copyright © 2016 A.S. Oren

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design A.S. Oren

  Note From Author

  Hello,

  Some of you picking up this book may recgonise the title and the general plot. This book is a complete rewrite of the series Spearwood Academy, which was originally published in November of 2013.

  This story has the same characters as the Spearwood Academy but has been completely rewritten plot-wise. None of the original series has stuck around. Spearwood, as it is now, is meant for mature audiences only from Book Two on.

  Starting in Book Two, there will be erotic scenes. If this bothers you, I don’t recommend investing your money in this book. An odd thing for an author to say, I know, but this new series will focus on steamy scenes every once in a while. Check out my series Gildemer if you want a clean read.

  If you’re a reader from the original series, I hope you enjoy the story. The same goes for if you’re brand new to my work.

  I want to thank my Betas and editors: Melissa, Charlotte, Lucy, Katie, and Leigh for making the polished version of this possible. I couldn’t have done any of it without you gals.

  My email: a.s.orenauthor@gmail.com (I love hearing from readers)

  The Vox (a facbook group where I hang out with readers of Spearwood):

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/710125105781968/

  Dedication:

  I dedicate Book One to my mom, Jenni.

  Note From Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ­­CHAPTER ONE

  The skin along my arm prickles as the hair stands on end. I rub at my eyes to force them open. The thing’s solid blue orbs peer into mine, illuminating the dark with a freakish glow. Its hands reach out for me. My scream reverberates off the walls, waking Amr. He lunges across the bed, creating a barrier between me and the thing. I grip his shoulders. I don’t want him to get hurt.

  “It’ll be okay, Avalon.” He touches one of my hands.

  The door slams against the wall, mom and dad rush to our aid. “Get away from my babies!” A light flows from mom’s hands just as the thing turns to face her. It screams and shields its eyes before rushing towards a black mass that covers the far wall and disappears into the darkness. The black mass fades away a second later.

  She sighs, as does dad, and they rush to our side. Tears flood Amr’s and my eyes. Mom pulls me into her arms and holds me close. Dad holds Amr. “Was that a Watcher?” Her voice vibrates in my ear.

  Dad runs a hand through his hair. “Yes. Why would a Watcher from Spearwood be here?”

  “You know why! He wants Avalon.” I cry harder at the sound of my name. “Shh, Avvi. It’s okay. Mommy won’t let anything ever hurt you.”

  “I didn’t think he’d send a Watcher for her. I figured Rosemen would try to retrieve her himself after what happened to Jade.”

  Mom scoffs, “Jade only passed last week, and Oliver is in too much of a drunken stupor to try anything tangible himself. I thought his threats came from a place of anger. We were such good friends!”

  “You and Jade were friends. I haven’t trusted Rosemen for years.”

  “We need to move, this location is compromised.” She rocks me. A blanket of sleep wraps around me, but I try to fight it. What if that monster comes back?

  Dad lies down a now sleeping Amr and stands. “I agree. We have no other choice. We can’t risk either of them getting hurt. Did you see Amr? He was using his body to protect her. They’re not even five, Ingrid. The Vox’s pull shouldn’t have awoken in him yet.”

  “He’s her twin, Elex.” She lies me down in the bed. Amr wraps an arm around me as they cover us with the blanket.

  “Loves, wake up, we have to go.” Mom’s gentle voice soothes me awake. Amr groans next to me and buries his head into his teddy bear. She takes the warmth of our blanket off of us and puts shoes on my feet.

  I rub my eyes. “Where are we going, Mommy?”

  “Somewhere safe, baby girl, somewhere safe. C’mon.” Mom lifts me out of the bed and has me stand. She then reaches down and lifts Amr, still sleeping, into her arms. I peer out the window. Orange and yellow cover the sky. She leads me outside to the car. Dad closes the trunk as Mom places us into our car seats.

  They get in and Dad pulls out of the driveway.

  People yell from the other side of the wall. I don’t like this hotel; the air smells funny. I bury my head into Amr’s back and grip at his shirt. Dad snores from the bed across from ours.

  The cold falls down onto me, and I shiver, opening my eyes.

  “Mommy!”

  I turn my head to peer over my shoulder. Two of the monsters with the solid blue eyes hover over me. One takes my feet and the other my arms, forcing me to let go of Amr. He scrambles off the bed hiding like Dad has ordered him to do. A black mass appears behind them, covering the wall, as they lift me.

  “Not today!” My dad yells, as he shoots fire into the black thing, and Mom’s hands glow white. The monsters hiss and run away. The black mass disappears. She pulls me and Amr into her arms.

  “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

  It’s been two months since the last attack; maybe the monsters can’t find us at this cabin.

  Amr and I hide under a sheet with a flashlight. Colouring books and crayons lay out in front of us. We should be asleep, but neither one of us likes to sleep anymore. I miss when we had all our toys and didn’t have to worry about the monsters trying to get me.

  The door to our room bangs open, and mom rips back the covers. She picks up both of us, forcing me to drop my crayon.

  “Come on, loves. We have to go now.”

  “Why, Mommy? We promise to go to bed now,” Amr cries, whilst reaching over her shoulder for his colouring book; he misses it as she carries us out the door to the living room.

  “When I get my hands on you, I will kill you! Do you hear me? You bastard! I will kill you!”

  “Unlike you, Elex, I’m not so easy to find,” calls a voice I don’t recognise.

  Mom opens the front door and takes us to the car. Amr cries, and I watch as dad follows us and gets into the driver seat. We’re moving, again.

  More monsters have come to get me in the year since the first attempt, some of them scarier than the things Dad calls, the Watchers. I realise now they want me for something. I’m not the little kid my parents think I am. We’ve moved five times, but they keep finding us. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been born, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.


  Mom paces. “What do you want me to say, Elex? We can’t keep running. Rosemen will chase us to the ends of the Earth.”

  Dad runs a hand through his hair. “So you want to stop? Hand her to him with a bow on her head? Have you fucking lost it?”

  Amr holds my hand as we sit at the top of the stairs, where they can’t see us, but we can see them. They think we’ve been asleep for hours, but we both woke up the second they started fighting.

  Mom stands, paces in front of the couch, and sits again. “I’m not saying that, stop coming to your own conclusions and listen. It may be the only way to keep her safe. We have to put her somewhere, some place where even we won’t be able to find her. If we don’t know, he won’t know. We’ll have Ed take her. He’s a Vox member. He’ll be able to shield her in ways we can’t. He could train her too.”

  Dad shakes his head. “You want to break up our family? What about Amr, do we send him to Edgar as well? We can’t separate them.”

  My grip on Amr’s hand tightens. I don’t want to be taken away from him

  Mom bites her lip. “We don’t have a choice. It’s the only way to keep them safe. When she turns fifteen, she’ll be old enough to enter Spearwood with the rest of them. If Ed trains her, she’ll be able to protect herself from whatever Rosemen wants to try on her. And the Ancients, they expressed interest in turning her into a breeder when she comes of age. She has to stop them from controlling her life, and we both know that’ll only happen if she proves herself to them. So that they’ll take her seriously.”

  She glances in our direction. “Neither of us wants this, but it’s the best choice. I trust Ed, you do too. He saved us as children, even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”

  Dad sits down next to her. “The man raised me. Of course I trust him. He’s the only one I know that has magic strong enough to keep her off the radar.”

  Mom takes his hand. “Then we’re doing this, right? It’s the best option for everyone. So neither of them has to be raised running from a monster they eventually must face.” Dad looks up at us. “Avvi, Amr, come here. We want to talk to you.”

  We stand, still holding hands, and go down the stairs. My heart beats faster. They want to send me away?

  Mom pulls me onto her lap and Dad does the same with Amr. They sit close, so we can still hold hands. “Did you two hear everything we said?” she asks.

  I nod. “You want to send me away and Amr can’t come with me.”

  “No, baby girl. We don’t want to send you away, but if we do, the monsters won’t come after you anymore. You’ll be safe.”

  “What about you? Why can’t you come be safe with me?”

  Mom bites her lip.

  Dad takes my other hand. “Because, sweetheart. It’s safer without us there.”

  “I want to go with her!” Amr says, his grip still tight on mine.

  Tears fall down mom’s cheeks. “You can’t go with her. It’s safer for her to be by herself.”

  Tears well up in my eyes. They keep saying it’s safer for me, but I know the truth. It’s safer for them if I’m not around. They won’t have to run anymore if there’s no reason for the monsters to chase them.

  “Okay, I’ll go.”

  “What?” They both ask.

  Amr’s lip quivers.

  “I’ll go live with this Ed guy if it will make the monsters stop chasing you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Next Day

  A man stands in our living room. I stare up at him from my place on the couch—holding hands with Amr—and he stares back. His thin white hair is combed back and tied in a ponytail. A scruffy beard covers his face. “Are you related to Santa?” I ask.

  A smile creeps across his face. “I could be. Never thought to ask him who his uncle was.”

  Amr’s hand tightens on mine and his eyes go wide. “Do you know him?”

  The old man shrugs. “We’ve spoken a few times.”

  “What’s he like?” Amr presses on.

  “All right, Amr. Enough with the twenty questions, Edgar just got here.” Mom says as she comes into the living room with some ice tea. She hands the man named Edgar a glass.

  He takes it. “Thank you, Ingrid.”

  I continue to stare at him as he takes a sip. This is the man I’ll live with until I go to Spearwood?

  Dad grunts as he carries three suitcases down the stairs and places them next to the door. I’m surprised I have that much after all the moving around. He sighs and faces us with a smile. “That’s everything.”

  My heart beats harder in my chest. The time has come; they’re almost ready to send me away with this guy. How do they know he’s not secretly a monster too?

  I try to push down the will to cry. I don’t want to worry them. Mom stands and touches my shoulder. “It’s okay, Avalon. I know you’re scared. This is a lot of change, really fast. I understand.”

  I can’t hold the tears back any longer. They fall down my cheeks and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. My chest heaves as I try to catch a full breath. Mom pulls me to her chest and holds me, forcing me to let go of Amr’s hand. Her voice cracks. “It’s okay, baby girl. I’m scared, too. I don’t want to let you go, but your safety is more important. We’ll see each other again. Always know that Dad and I love you very much!”

  “I love you too, Avvi,” Amr cries. I pull from her arms and wrap my arms around him. I’ll have the hardest time leaving him. Hot tears continue to run down my cheeks as I bury my face in his shoulder and grip at his shirt.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” I whisper in his ear. I don’t want him to think that I’m doing this because I want to leave him behind. If I could, I would take him with me, but he’s safer if he isn’t around me.

  “I don’t blame you,” he whispers back.

  I pull away from him and stand to give Dad a hug. “I love you, Avvi. We’ll see you again before you know it.” He gathers Mom and Amr in on the hug as well.

  My heart hurts. I pull away from them. This is all too much. I wipe away the tears, but more come. “I’ll miss you.”

  Mom cups my cheek while wiping away the tears coursing down her own.

  Edgar clears his throat “Has she ever been transported through a Void?”

  Dad shakes his head. “No, she hasn’t. With being part of Norm world, we’ve tried to limit her exposure to magic and the elements, so she didn’t accidently do it in front of Norm children.”

  Edgar nods. “Okay.” He looks at me. “I’m going to make a mass of darkness appear in the room. It will take us to my home. Don’t worry, as long as you’re holding my hand, it can’t hurt you.”

  Edgar sets his iced tea on the coffee table coaster and then presses his hand against the red bricks of our fireplace. A large dark hole spreads across it. Just like the thing the monsters were going to put me into back at the motel. I press myself against my Dad’s legs. I don’t want to go through one of those things. They go to bad places.

  Dad crouches down so his head is closer to mine and gives me a hug. “It’s okay, Avvi. I know it seems scary, but it really isn’t if you’re with someone who knows how to use them. Edgar is like a dad to me. I trust him with my life, and that means I trust him with yours.” He kisses me on the top of my head.

  I swallow hard and nod. Edgar gets my suitcases and goes through the void with them before returning a second later. He looks at me. “Ready to go, Avalon?”

  I nod and go to Amr to give him another hug. “Wait,” he says as I pull away. “I want to give you something.”

  He dashes for the stairs and disappears, his steps thud above us. He’s back before I can blink. A small plastic ball rests in his hands.

  “Dad and I got this from one of the coin machines yesterday. So you remember me.” He pops it open and takes out a small baggie with the ring. It’s a simple gold band with a blue stone in it. He slips it onto my pointer finger.

  I take off the ring on my other pointer finger; we got them at the sam
e time. Mine has a red stone. I put it on his finger. “So you remember me, too.”

  I face Edgar and take his outstretched hand. I glance over my shoulder at my family, trying my best to sear their images in my brain. “Goodbye.”

  I hold onto Edgar’s hand tighter as we step into the darkness. A second later, sunlight shines into my eyes. I place my arm over them, trying to let them adjust. A small kitchen window greets me; a little plant sits on its sill. Yellows and oranges cover the sky. I look over my shoulder again. Only a wall shows where the Void should be. There’s no turning back. “I know it isn’t much, but I’ve called it home for forty years. I grew up here. It’s the safest place in the entire world.”

  I let go of his hand and walk around the room. My hand glides over the round wood table and its matching chairs. Near the oven, stairs lead up to somewhere else. Across the room stands an open door, showing a living room.

  I take a seat in one of the wooden chairs. The tears rush in again. I don’t want to be here. Why did those monsters have to chase us? Why do they want me?

  Edgar sighs. “I know this isn’t easy for you. It’s strange for me as well. I’ve never trained a girl before.”

  I stare up at him. “Why?”

  “I see your parents haven’t told you. We’ll save that conversation for another day. Do you like chocolate cake?”

  I nod. What didn’t my parents tell me? The tears fall more, and I sniff. Why can’t I get them to stop?

  He goes to a fridge and pulls out a cake covered by a glass lid. Bringing it over to the table, he grabs two forks from a drawer next to the sink and takes a seat to my left. He stabs both forks into the cake “Have at it.”