A few weeks after coming across the watch, Michaela awoke to a loud slam. Her bedroom door crashed into the wall and Aunt Hazel flipped on the lights.
“What is all this racket? Who is here?”
“N … no one,” Michaela croaked, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness. Her pajamas and forehead were damp, and she was pretty sure she had awoken from a nightmare. Now she was having one in real life, too.
Aunt Hazel swiftly searched the room, ripping open the closet doors, flipping back the curtains, checking the lock on the window, pulling out drawers, and peering under the bed.
“I know very well that someone else was here. I’m sure the whole neighborhood could hear!”
Which was doubtful as they lived at least a mile from the nearest neighbor and the property was surrounded by giant trees and fencing, installed by the crazy, paranoid recluse who was her aunt!
“And what lang — you are supposed to be learning German!”
Aunt Hazel’s voice took on a dangerous, unstable tone, daggers shot from her narrowed eyes.
“Who is this Conrad?” she spat, her hands pinned to her bony hips waiting for an answer. “Some boy from school I presume.”
Aunt Hazel’s voice trembled and Michaela saw that she needed that to be the truth as she clutched the cross that hung around her neck. Her aunt was not religious, but she clung to it, desperately, as she resurveyed the room.
“Conrad?” Confusion lit Michaela’s bright, green eyes.
“Oh, do not try that innocent act with me. When I find … ” but Aunt Hazel did not elaborate on how she planned to deal with this imagined intruder.
Hazel re-searched the room, this time pulling clothes from the closet, tearing things out from under the bed, and emptying drawers onto the carpeting.
A dull thud hit the carpet and the gold pocket-watch popped open.
Aunt Hazel jerked to a halt, her eyes ablaze as she stared at it. The small portrait seemed to fill the whole room. Hazel’s translucent face drained to a pale lilac and the veins in her neck strained against her skin. Her voice shook with a dangerous, wild edge.
“Where did you get this?” Her teeth cut across in shearing scrapes. In a violent fit, she raced across the room and whip-slapped Michaela, hard.
“Where?” she shrieked, but didn’t wait for a reply. She had finally looked her charge directly in the face. She grabbed the bat wings from the nightstand and jammed them onto Michaela’s ears.
“These do not come off!” Her voice amped up several thousand decibels and now resembled the mating screeches of eels. She stood in the doorway, her chest heaving, the watch dangling from her clutches. After she regained some of her rigid composure, her icy voice cut the air.
“Ever.”
Michaela’s cheek tingled where a reddening handprint surfaced. She sat on the bed in a slight daze. Aunt Hazel had inadvertently given her some valuable information, and it sank into her with a light feeling of perfect rightness. Familiarity rang in the very essence of that name.
Conrad.
She whispered it until it became a part of her and then fell into a happy slumber, spectacles askew.
Peace, however, does not last forever, and Aunt Hazel’s wrath was swift and relentless. Were it not for the refuge of renewed inner warmth on the arctic island of Hazel-gone-nuts, the next few weeks of Michaela’s life would have been unendurable.
Seal of Destiny (Seven Seals Series Book 1) Page 26
