“Pick up, Karen,” I urged.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at home. What’s up? Are you ok? You sound flustered.” Karen sounded oblivious and I began to suspect if it was some sort of bad prank.
“What are you doing at home? What about Lydia?”
“Lydia? Lydia’s at home, isn’t she? I don’t know. She left like an hour ago.”
“But you just called me,” I told her. “You said she was at the hospital.”
Karen slipped into a moment of confused silence. “No I didn’t.” I could almost feel her frown through the phone. “I haven’t touched my phone until you called.” Karen paused for a moment. “Rick’s home. Do you want us to pick you up?”
Before I could answer, an emergency crew rushed in a girl on a bed. My heart sank as I recognised her face through the blood and shredded clothes.
“Oh god,” I breathed.
“What’s wrong? What is it? Amy?”
“Lydia’s at the hospital. She looks mauled by something.”
I hung up on Karen and followed the paramedics.
“What happened?”
One of the men turned his face and looked at her.
“She’s my friend,” I explained.
“Jess, this girl says she knows her.”
One of the nurses broke away from the group. She was slim with a mousey face and pixie cut hair. “Oh good,” she said to me. “What’s her name? And do you know her parents contact number?”
“Yes. Yes I do.”
“Alright. I’ll be right with you after this. Can you wait outside by the door?”
They reached a room and Jess stopped to speak to me.
“Yes. What happened?”
“She was attacked. A man brought her in. What’s your friend’s name?”
“Lydia Briewood.”
“Do you know if she has any known allergies to anything?”
“No. Is she going to be alright?”
“Jessica!” a man’s voice called for her attention. I understood.
“Go. Go help her. I’ll stay right here.”
Jess disappeared into the room just as my phone rang again. It was Karen. She was calling me back. I answered it.
“Amy? What’s going on? You were cut off.”
“Yeah. I hung up on you. It’s Lydia. It’s definitely Lydia. She’s half covered in blood and there were marks on her neck.”
“Oh god. I’ll be right there.”
I sat down on the seat in front of the emergency room, unable to move as my limbs froze with fear. I wanted someone to hold me, to wrap their arms around my shoulders and tell me that everything was going to be alright, that Lydia would be alright.
The strangeness of the event made me think of the mysterious boy in the forest. My stomach turned as a part of me sensed that he had something to do with it, though I couldn’t explain how or why or what made me think in such a way. On the surface, it seemed impossible, but the phone call by the fake Karen had led her here to the hospital, just as the paramedics rolled in Lydia.
I looked down at my phone, its black glossy screen stared back at me. Nothing made sense. Perhaps I was simply going insane.
Karen arrived about fifteen minutes after I hung up on her. Rick was with her and he only had to take one look at my bewildered face to know that something bad happened. I threw my arms around my remaining best friend and held back the tears that wanted to burst forth and drench my face. The images of the wounds were still fresh in my mind. They looked as a large animal had swiped its paw across her neck and shredded her skin raw.
“What happened?” Rick asked.
“I don’t know. I was just down by the lake looking for my phone when Karen rang and told me that Lydia was in the hospital. I came as quickly as I could and then Lydia was rolled in. There was so much blood on her, Karen.”
Karen sat me back down on the seats. We had already established that she didn’t call me.
“Have you called her parents?” Rick asked.
I shook I my head. I was too distracted and did not have the mind to think about her parents.
“You two stay here. I’ll deal with it,” said Rick. He went down the hallway with his car keys jingling in his pocket. When he was out of sight, Karen placed her palm on my forehead.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You feel hot, like feverish hot. Maybe you should get checked out.”
“No. I’m fine. Really. It’s Lydia we should be worried about.”
Karen and I stayed for what seemed like forever. Rick returned with two cans of soda and gave one each to us.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You look like you need it. You look pale. Do you want anything else?”
I shook my head as I cranked open the can. The soda fizzed and bubbled as forced it down my throat.
Jess eventually came out of the room again.
“She’ll be alright,” she reported, “and you are…”
“I’m Rick and this is my sister, Karen. We’re friends of Lydia’s. Her parents aren’t home. I’ve already tried calling them and I don’t know their cell phone number.”
“Oh. Maybe the receptionist might be able to look it up for me in the medical database,” said Jess.
“Do you know what happened to her?” I asked.
“She was attacked. I don’t know by what, but from the looks of the wound, it’s pretty bad and by something big, like a bear.”
“But there are no bears in Angels Fall,” said Karen. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Jess, “but those gashes, well, they’re definitely not inflicted by another person. It’s too raw and animal light.”
“The man that dropped her off,” I started, “did he say anything?”
Jess shook her head. “He disappeared. I sent one of the other nurses to find him but he’s seemed to have left the hospital.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, short dark blonde hair, early to mid twenties.”
I blinked at the description. It sounded too much like the man I kept seeing in my dreams and the one in the forest.
“Amy,” said Karen as she looked on at me with worry.
I blinked again. “Yeah?” I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“Hey, don’t worry,” said Jess, “your friend is going to be alright. In fact, you can go in and see her if you want, but she won’t be able to talk because she’s asleep. We rolled her out through the back door and she should be in room 315B, and oh, before you go, one of you will have to stay behind and fill in the forms.”
“I’ll go,” said Rick. “You girls go and check on Lydia.”
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Yeah. If there’s anything I can’t fill out, I’ll give one you girls a call.”
Rick went with Jess towards the reception area while Karen and I went to Lydia. We found our friend covered in white bandages, her face bruised and her neck scarred. Karen hands covered her mouth as she gasped. She hadn’t expected it to be this bad. We held onto each other as we went to Lydia’s beside, and as Jess had said, our friend was asleep, except she looked like a wounded princess, her dark long hair draped over her shoulders, her face oddly frozen into an expression of serenity by the drugs injected into her system.
“What would do such a thing?” Karen whispered.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “But I’ll find out, no matter what, I’ll get to the bottom of this.” I went over to Lydia’s bed and took up her fragile hand in mine. “I promise.”
~
Lydia’s parents were nowhere to be found and there was no one to pay for her medical bills. My dad decided to split the costs with Karen’s dad as they try to figure out what happened to the Briewoods. They disappeared without a trace, nothing moved from their house and everything seemed the same and in its place, except for the two adults that call themselves parents. No one saw them leave town e
ither.
Lydia had no recollection of the attack and the sheriff couldn’t get anything out of her.
It was a week after Lydia’s attack when I decided to go back to the forest. The mysterious boy certainly didn’t go to Angels Fall High, I was sure of it, and if anyone knew anything about the attack, it would be him. It was a gut feeling I had that could not be explained. I would have told Karen, but she already thought I was half-insane with all my strange recurrent nightmares that seemed to have gone away ever since my encounter with the mysterious boy in the forest. I didn’t know what he was, except that he wasn’t normal.
The lake was completely empty and I went by myself to the forest. The smell of the pine trees touched my nose as I walked beneath their cone-laden canopy. I walked without any sense of direction or aim. Eyes watched me from the branches and not even the crickets dared made a sound.
“I know you’re here,” I called out. “Show yourself.”
As stupid as I was feeling at the time, a good chunk of my heart told me that I was not as silly as I wanted to believe I am. I could feel something in the air, although I did not know what it was. I half expected the mysterious boy to make an appearance but he never showed up. I walked about in the forest, keeping to the tracks at times, and wondering away from it every now and then until I discovered another, until the sun was almost gone.
I should have felt scared but I wasn’t.
“I know you’re there!”
I kept walking, until I found myself truly lost. Luckily, I had come prepared and borrowed one of Luke’s compasses from his room. He got them for Boy Scout, not that he did much scouting nowadays. My phone rang. I looked at the name. It was Karen.
“Hey,” I said, “what’s up?”
“Where are you? Your parents just called to find out if you were at my place. I’ve been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes. Do you know how much trouble you’re in?”
Karen has always been the motherly one of the group and she sounded very much like one, too.
“I guess there isn’t much reception out here.”
“Where’s here?”
“I’m at the lake, in the forest.”
“What on earth are you doing there?”
I hesitated but knew that I couldn’t keep it from Karen any more. “I’ll explain when I get back. I know it’s going to sound crazy and maybe it is, but there’s just something I need to check out.”
“It’s not about that weird dream of yours, is it?”
“No. Well, yes, sort of, look, I saw him, Karen, the man in my dream and there’s someone else involved and I think he can help me.”
“He? What is this? Since when have you been keeping secrets from me?” Karen continued to speak but her voice trailed off as the signal strength died. I looked at my phone and saw that it was almost six o’clock.
The sun was almost gone and as night approached, I decided to head back. I took out Luke’s compass from my pocket and frowned. The magnetic needle spun around haphazardly, as if it was confused. I gave the device a tap but it didn’t help in the matter.
I half screamed with surprise when I lifted my face. The mysterious boy finally gave in and made an appearance. I sighed with relief.
“Go home,” he ordered.
“Look, you can be broody later, I’m here to see you.”
The mysterious boy, with his dark hair slicked back, bright pale skin and handsome face starred at me, somewhat perplexed that I had chosen to seek him out. His face changed to a pained expression, filled with regret and at the same time bewilderment. I couldn’t quite understand how a boy like him could muster up so many morbid emotions at once.
“My friend, Lydia, she was attacked.”
“So?”
“You’re going to help me.”
The mysterious boy lifted his eyebrows with slight amusement. “You don’t even know me.”
“No I don’t, but I know that you know what happened to Lydia.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I just know.”
“Go home, Amelia.”
I stood my ground, now that I finally found him, I wasn’t about to leave. As stupid as my actions seemed, I felt uncannily safe in his presence.
“Just snap her neck and get it over and done with.”
A man, tall, dark blonde hair, handsome face and with the playful blue eyes of the devil, jumped down from above and landed on his feet. He was the man in my dreams, the exact one I kept seeing. My heart pounded against my chest. It was him, it was really him, the one that haunted my dreams like a bad premonition.
“Shut it, Ethan,” the mysterious boy hissed. He turned to me, grabbed my shoulders, gripped them firmly in his hands and stared into my eyes. “You are to go home. You will not remember any of this.”
“That won’t work, brother. I’ve been spiking her drinks.”
The mysterious boy turned and glared at Ethan. I pulled myself free from his grip and as my eyes widened with surprise by the news.
“You’ve been what? Who are you?”
“Are you talking to him, or to me? Broody boy over here is my brother, and well, I’m the ridiculously handsome Ethan. Now, if you would excuse us, I need to tear him away from his babysitting. Oh, come now, don’t look at me like that, brother, either knock her out or let her walk back to the lake. Her dad is on his way, she’ll be safe, nothing to worry about.” Ethan smirked at me as his eyes danced under the pale dying daylight.
“What’s going on?” I said. “You’re the one that took Lydia to the hospital, didn’t you?”
Ethan smirked. “How did you find that out?”
“One of the nurses told me.”
“Typical.”
“You know what happened to her parents, don’t you?”
“Don’t, Ethan, you’ve already involved her enough.”
“Me? Involve her? What about you?”
A howl sounded in the dark. It was low, definite and long sort of howl that rang dangerously through the forest like a warning siren. Ethan changed his demeanor as he walked briskly towards me. The mysterious boy stepped in front of his path, his body a shield against whatever his brother planned to do.
“Knock her out or I will do it, brother.”
“No.”
I didn’t have time to comprehend what happened next. Darkness came over me as something hard pressed against the space between by neck and collarbone. I felt my body fell to the ground, a limp ragdoll caught by a pair of strong arms, the mysterious boy’s arms. He cradled me and carried me out of the forest. That was all that I was allowed to remember before I slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter 4
I woke up in a hospital bed, in the same room Lydia had been in before Rick came and took her to their place. The sheriff had granted permission for her discharge and arranged for Lydia to stay with Karen until her parents was found. My temples throbbed as blood rushed to my brain and I strained my memory. There wasn’t much of it left after Ethan attacked and knocked me out.
Jess came into my room with a clipboard in her hand.
“Oh good, you’re awake. You had your parents worried.”
“My parents?” I blinked as I remembered. Ethan had said my parents were coming for me at the lake.
“Yes. They found you in the parking lot, next to your bike. Looks like you just fainted. We did some blood tests and it turns out you were anaemic, which means that you will be taking iron supplements for the next month or two. Apart from that, you’re good to go.”
Jess scribbled something onto her board and signed the bottom of the paper.
“Anaemic? Does that include hallucinations too?” I asked.
Jess turned her head and narrowed her eyes slightly. “Have you seen something?”
I paused and did not answer immediately. I decided to go with my instincts. “No. Everything’s normal.”
Jess was not wholly convinced. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
> “Very well, I’ll fetch your parents.”
My mom was on the verge of tears when she came into the room, my dad behind her. She hugged me so tightly that I felt her heartbeat against mine.
“I’m alright now. I just…fainted, that’s all.” It was a lie I didn’t have to tell, but it helped her calm down.
I sat in the back seat of the car with the window half down to take in the last of the summer’s night air. The seasons were fast to change and I must have fallen asleep as I dreamt that I was in the forest once again, except this time, the blonde man, Ethan, waited for me. He wanted to talk, to tell me what I needed to know, but I was prevented from speaking to him.
My dad nudged me awake when we finally got home and the dream slipped away as quickly as it appeared.
I found my bed exactly as I had left it this morning. I threw myself onto the soft mattress and pulled the covers over my tired body but did not will myself to sleep. I wanted to think about the events that occurred before I went into dreamland again, where perhaps, I will get to talk to Ethan. My heart palpitated at the thought of him and his brother – the mysterious boy who refused to tell me his name. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me, while his older brother on the other hand, readily told me his.
The brothers seemed to share nothing, except for their godlike physique and clean up, high cheekbones. They didn’t even have the same color eyes or hair color, and yet, they were still brothers. I wouldn’t have thought they were related if I saw them together on the streets, not that I’ll ever see them on the streets.
My phone vibrated. It sat on my bedside table. I rolled over, picked it up and found that it was just Karen checking up on me. Lydia was with her and they both knew that I was at the hospital. Just as I sent the reply text, I sat up and realised something.
I didn’t have my phone at the hospital and mom and dad didn’t come home while I was there. I was certain that I had it while I was in the forest and Luke wouldn’t dare set foot in my room, besides he didn’t have a reason to even open my door. I could hear my brother next door, on his games, shooting zombies like there’s nothing else to do.
It must have been one of them – either Ethan or his silent brother. My eyes glanced towards the window and found it slightly ajar. I got out of bed and went to it. My room was on the second storey and the phone returner either would have jumped very high or can fly. I placed the latch down on the window and locked it. One of them was in my room and I wondered how many times they were here while I slept. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I didn’t want anyone watching me while I was asleep. But I then remembered how my room kept having the lingering smell of lavender. The realisation made me dizzy.
Witchling (Chronicles of Witchood) Page 3
