by Dakota Lake
He walked into the other room, I followed behind him anyway, he opened the the cupboard door under the stairs and started moving stuff around.
“What a mess. How does Seth know where anything is?”
“Do you a need light in there?” I asked.
“No why would I need a light?” he answered back like I had just asked him the most ridiculous question ever, like what colour was an orange.
“Yes because everyone has night vision.” I said quietly to myself not thinking it was possible for him to have heard me.
“Well I was a good boy and ate all my carrots.” he replied sarcastically.
I was mistaken, he must have canine hearing as well.
“Did you find anything yet?”
“What do think genius. I’m still in the cupboard aren’t I?”
I had to restrain myself from snapping back at him.
“Where's the box? Seriously how is anyone meant to find anything in here.”
My eyes drifted back to the window. I quietly watched the rain as it dripped down the window pane, thinking it was probably best not to disturb him again. Another flash of lightning lit up the porch and I caught a glimpse of a figure walking past the window. Without realising it I had backed myself up into the nearest wall.
“Micah. Did you bring someone with you?”
The shuffling inside the cupboard stopped. “No. Why?” he asked in a bored tone. “I think there’s someone on the porch.” It came out as whisper but he had heard me and was by my side in an instance.
He took the candle from me blowing it out, he walked into the kitchen and the light from that room went out as well. It was suddenly too dark and I couldn't see a thing. I heard Micah's boots on the floor. He was back at my side pushing me in the direction of the cupboard.
“What are you doing?” I asked as soon as I realised he was holding the door open for me. “I'm not getting in the cupboard,”
“This isn’t up for debate Ruby. Get in the cupboard.”
“Are you crazy, can you actually hear yourself right now?”
“You just said you saw someone on the porch, hardly anyone knows about this place. You really think it's girl scouts selling cookies at this time?”
My eyes went back to the window, he had a point. I was having flashbacks to the figure across the river.
“I take your silence as a 'yes Micah I agree with you entirely', well okay then.” he said shoving me inside.
“Don't move,” he said, kicking stuff out of the way to close the door.
“Yes cause I’m likely to find Narnia back here,”
“Funny,” he said, closing the door, making sure the latch was down.
I waited.....and waited patiently, the minutes ticked by and I half expected Micah to open the door and shout boo at any second. It was pitch black in the cupboard but I somehow managed to find the box Micah had been looking for full of candles there was even a torch that worked. It had been far too long. Where was he? What was taking so long?
Enough was enough I wasn’t the sort of sit and wait person, I had to know what was going on. I switched the torch on and searched for anything thin enough that would fit through and lift the latch. I was lucky enough to find a pocket knife with extra attachments, it looked old with the initials J.M scratched into it, it would do. I lifted the latch pushing at the same time against the door and I fell onto the living room floor with a loud thud.
Outside the storm had moved on, all I could hear was rain and scratching.
I put the pocket knife in one hand and the torch in the other and crawled quietly on my hands and knees to the kitchen. The scratching was Gunner trying to get out the dog flap. I had purposely started locking it after dark, I didn't want other animals coming in through it. I slowly stood up feeling like an idiot for crawling around on the floor.
I walked over to the front window and carefully peeked out trying not to expose myself too much. I got a clear view of Micah, he was standing in the rain by his car waving what looked like a baseball bat around in the air. I wasn't sure whether I should go to him or not. What was he doing? I put the pocket knife in my back pocket and unlocked the front door closing it quickly to make sure Gunner didn’t escape, I walked onto the porch and shone the torch over at him.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
His head snapped in my direction and immediately lowered the bat trying to conceal it behind his back.
“I thought I told you to stay in the cupboard?” he called, jogging over to the porch. “You were gone ages. Did you see anyone?”
“No.” he said tapping the bat against his leg.
“What were you doing with that?” I pointed at the bat.
“What this, I was.....just.....you know..... encase I needed it....”
“No I meant what were you doing waving it......” I never got to finish that sentence, the raven with the white splodge landed on the railing next to me squawking at Micah.
“There you are,” Micah said swinging the bat at the bird, narrowly missing me.
I jumped back and the bird hopped to the side avoiding Micah's bat.
“Are you crazy.....”
Before I knew what had happened I was on the floor, the pain shooting across the bridge of my nose and eyes was horrendous. Micah had swung the bat behind him to take another swing at the bird and accidentally hit me instead. My hands immediately shot to my nose which was bleeding everywhere.
“Owww!”
“Ruby. I’m so sorry. Does it hurt?” he asked squatting next to me.
The bird still hopped along the railing squawking at us.
“Off course it hurts I think you broke my nose,”
“Lets get you inside,” he said trying to pull me to my feet.
“Don't touch me. I can do it myself.”
I got to my feet and he opened the front door for me, I made my way in the dark to the kitchen and sat on one of the chairs. He followed me through. I heard him shuffling around in the drawers as the lights flickered back on.
“Here use these...whoa that's a lot of blood, you're gushing everywhere.” He handed me some paper towels to mop up the blood.
“What the hell were you doing?” I said snatching them from him trying to stop the bleeding from my nose.
He didn’t answer.
“Micah what were you doing? Were you trying to kill that bird?”
He still said nothing as he handed me a cold cloth from the sink.
“I can't believe my brother thought I would be safe left alone with you. You're crazy,” “Now you're just being mean, wasn’t I just outside in the rain may I add checking the perimeter to ensure your safety cause you thought you saw someone.”
“Yes someone. As in a person on two legs not the feathered variety, you nearly killed that bird and in the process you have broken my nose.”
The last bit came out high pitched and whiny, I was trying not to break down in tears it hurt so much.
“It's not broken,” he said grabbing my face roughly and inspecting it.
“How can you tell? You're not a doctor,”
“No but I've seen a lot of broken bones. Just wait a bit until the swelling goes down, it doesn’t look broken.”
He went over to the freezer and retrieved a bag of frozen peas then he moved back and pushed them onto my face.
“Ouch...careful,”
“Look I said I was sorry. Okay.”
He picked up the cloth and cleaned round my face.
“I start senior year next week. What’s everyone going to think. Like it isn’t hard enough making friends at a new school now I look like this. I will be the center of gossip and staring. So yeah thanks Micah. You still haven't answered me. What has that bird ever done to you to provoke that kind of reaction?”
He turned away and went to the sink rinsing the blood out the cloth.
“The place where that bird comes from isn’t, well lets just say it's owners aren't the sort of people you want to get mixed up with. It
will only attract trouble and that's the last thing we need at the moment,” he said looking at me. “That bird will lead them straight here,”
“And that’s bad because?”
“I just told you trouble. That bird will attract trouble. Don't ask me any more questions about this and if you see any more of those birds you need to tell me. And lets keep this whole thing between you and me for now, Seth doesn’t need to know about this.”
“I think he might notice,” I said removing the bag of peas from my face.
“I didn't mean you're face. Don't tell him about the bird.”
The front door opened and I heard heavy boots on the floor, I looked over at Micah, he had gone back to the sink and was cleaning away the blood. Seth strolled into the kitchen dripping rain water on the floor.
“What the......what the hell happened?” he said moving the bag of peas for a closer look. “Micah assaulted me with a bat,”
Well it's not like I could say I tripped and landed on my face, I knew I was clumsy but I doubt I could cause this much damage to myself.
“What!” Seth turned to look at Micah.
“I did no such thing....there was this....err...”
“Rat. A massive rat. Micah took a swing at it and accidentally hit me instead, but on the plus side he reckons it's not broken.”
I had covered for him which meant he owed me. I would get some answers from him. Hopefully. But I was leaving tomorrow that didn’t give me much time.
“A rat, why are you all wet?”
“The bat was in my car,” Micah said. Seth nodded looking at my face he didn't look entirely convinced though.
“Micah's right it doesn’t look broken. It just looks worse right now cause of the swelling and blood.”
I got up and walked to the door, pausing.
“I'm going to jump in the shower and clean myself up,” I said, still dripping blood down my jumper. “Mom's going to freak when she see this tomorrow. Who’s driving me back?”
“We'll deal with it tomorrow,” Seth said picking up my blood soaked cloths.
I left the kitchen doing my best to ignore Micah's eyes that were glued on me. I took a shower and by the time I got out Seth was fast asleep on the couch snoring in front of the burning fire and Micah was gone. I took some pain killers and settled down on the other couch.
Chapter Eight
The next morning I was shaken awake by Micah.
“What are you doing?” I asked, half asleep trying to push his hands off me.
“Shhh!” he said holding his finger to his lips and moving so I could see Seth still asleep on the other couch.
He nodded his head towards the kitchen. I dragged myself up and into the kitchen. Micah slid the sliding door shut as quietly as possible. I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he was up to. The kitchen table was laid out for breakfast with pancakes, bacon, eggs and much more. “Is this my apology?”
“Why is it working?” he said grinning.
“I dunno that depends on what my face looks like when I find a mirror,”
“Note to self, remove all mirrors from house,”
I hoped he was joking. “That bad huh?”
“Sit eat. I need to talk to you.” he pointed at the table.
I sat down and started loading a plate. He sat himself on top of the kitchen counter, picked up a green energy drink and started unscrewing the cap.
“Aren’t you going to join me?”
He shook his head. “I'll just stick to this,”
He downed the rest of the bottle. “So, when Seth wakes up he's going to ask you to stay. I need you to say yes.”
Not even close to what I expected him to say.
“I'm sorry. What?”
“You heard me fine Ruby, you didn't damage your ears last night just your nose.” “Why would he do that? He knows mom's expecting me back like yesterday. Do you know how mad she would be? How mad she already is. I'm set to start a new school on Monday,” “I know as well as you that if he asked you to stay, you would say no because you think going back home is the right thing to do even if it means being miserable. But what if I said going home wasn't safe.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look I know you're not going to stay even if you wanted to without a good enough reason. Seth isn’t going to tell you that the real reason why he doesn’t want you going home is because you'll be in danger. He's just hoping you'll want to stay anyway but I knew you'd need a good enough reason.”
“But you haven’t given me one, all you've said is going home isn’t safe, I don’t even know what that means? You're going to have to give me more to go on,”
“I can't talk about it, you'll just have to trust me.”
“Trust you. Are you kidding? You've been nothing but horrible to me, now you're asking me to stay cause I’m what, in danger if I go home. To be honest I think I'd be safer if I went home.” “I didn’t ask you to stay. Seth is going to ask you, I don't care what you do but Seth will and you're going to say yes. Besides we all know you hate living with your mother and prefer it here.” “What if I say no and go home anyway?”
He shrugged. “Well it's your choice. But if it means keeping you out of harms way for Seth, I may have to lock you back in that cupboard if you make the wrong choice.”
By the way he was looking at me I actually believed he meant it.
“There’s things you're not telling me, things you know,”
He looked away and out the window.
“How come you haven't said anything to me about what I can do. I know you know,” I said, casually filling my mouth with bacon half smiling half scowling at him.
“And what is it you think I know?”
“That I can read minds, correction I can read everyone's except yours. And who was that you were talking to on your cell outside the diner? You were told to bring me back I want to know who by?” “I knew you'd overheard that conversation, seriously is there anything you don’t know? You've obviously been paying attention,”
He sat down on the other side of the table.
“Actually there’s a lot of things I don’t know, like how come I can hear what everyone else is thinking but I can't hear you. Why not?”
“You need to stop this. You're going to get us all in trouble. The only reason I’m telling you any of this is cause Seth's my friend and if anything happened to you he would be devastated. Do you know how upset he was you never wrote back?”
“That wasn't my fault, mom hid the letters from me,”
“I know, but he cares a lot about you for some bizarre reason.”
We both heard Seth yawning louder than necessary. Micah stood and went over to the sink folding his arms and trying his best not to look at me. I on the other couldn’t stop myself from staring back at him. I was still digesting what he had just told me, not safe. What did he mean? At least now I knew he was keeping secrets and if there was any reason for me to stay it would be to find out what they were both hiding from me. Seth opened the sliding doors.
“What's going on here?” he asked yawning again.
“Just attending to the wounded,” Micah said, putting on his usual laid back tone which sounded more like he was bored. Seth looked over at me and cringed.
Looks nasty, I heard his thoughts. My hand automatically went to my face feeling my nose, which was really sore I could feel the swelling had gone down but I probably looked like I had been coloured in with a purple crayon, I was dreading the bathroom visit I would have to make in a minute.
Seth joined me and started piling his plate up. Micah strolled into the other room, sat down and switched the TV on, I doubted he was actually watching it.
“So when do we leave? I haven't even packed yet.”
“About that, I’ve been thinking maybe, I mean only if you want to. You could maybe stay, longer,” “Stay, longer. What do you mean?”
“Well you've already made friends which are in the same year as you at school and all your
stuff is here already. You could try it for a while see how you get on, I mean if you didn’t want to go home right away. Plus I’ve missed having you around, buts it up to you it's not like I can force you to stay,” he joked taking a mouthful of orange juice to wash it down.
I glanced sideways at Micah he was tapping the remote on his leg he caught me looking at him and gave me a sly smile he was waiting to hear my reply.
“What about mom? She's never going to agree to this and she's arranged for me to start at a new school on Monday.”
“I can deal with mom and I’m sure they've got room at Heaven's Point High. You have seen the town right it's not exactly overpopulated. So what do think about staying?”
Staying, was I really going to do this. Mom would probably never speak to me again. I would be staying here, in this cabin surrounded by dense forest night after night with goodness knows what or who lurking outside.
Staying meant seeing more of Micah, his crazy mood swings, his secrets and I wasn’t forgetting his love of birds and that strange raven that kept reappearing.
The mystery boy in the woods that I couldn’t stop thinking about and I was pretty sure Seth and Micah both knew him. I had lots of questions and unfortunately for me I knew Micah had all the answers.
Going home wasn't safe was he really telling me the truth? Did I really trust the person behind those strange blue eyes. I stood up and took my plate to the sink, Seth spun around in his chair waiting for me to say something.
She's going to say no, I heard his thoughts.
“You know I have made some really great friends this week and I can't think of a better reason to stay, well apart from the fact I get to spend more time with my big brother,”
Seth was out of his chair in a flash holding me in a bear hug.
“Great I’ll ring mom tell her the good news.”
“Okay well I’m going to get dressed and see what the damage looks like,” I said walking out of the kitchen.
Seth switched the radio on and went back to his food. Micah grabbed me by the wrist as I walked past the couch.
