Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  “Tantrus, we’re seven now, and my car got impounded on Earth. Damn mortals,” Liam complained as he slowly advanced towards Tantrus.

  Robbie became increasingly confused. “Wait, you can drive?”

  “Learnt in a week. Wasn’t that difficult.”

  “Speaking of which; I got you a birthday present. You weren’t here in the beginning of this month because of the –” Tantrus paused for a slight moment and shot Liam a look of mystery. At that moment Liam gulped briefly and suspiciously avoided eye contact with Tantrus.

  “Anyway, I’ve been meaning to say happy belated birthday.” Tantrus marched to the garage door and slid it open with one forceful shove upwards. Liam’s electric-writhed eyes shot open in bewilderment.

  “Gimme the keys!” Liam exclaimed, “gimme, gimme, gimme!” He practically pranced up and down childishly as he awaited the keys to his flawless and pristine new car.

  Tantrus taunted him by dangling the keys in front of him. Liam swiped them out of his hands as he raced to the garage. A large silver car stood grandly as his eyes dazzled with sparks of static electricity.

  “It’s supposed to be a seven-seater car,” Tantrus added. Liam quickly unlocked the vehicle and slid right in whilst shrieking mindlessly.

  “It’s got an automotive navigation system!” he cavorted, overwhelmed by all aspects of his new toy.

  “And so do five hundred million other cars in the world,” Robbie said, bored of his brother’s hyperactivity.

  “Get in!” he commanded, impatient to crash us all into a tree with his new beast. Let’s face it – Liam isn’t exactly the most stable guy in the world.

  “But Liam’s sixteen, he can’t drive yet – it’s not legal,” Jojo said to her father. He shrugged carelessly and teleported himself a bright blue liquid in a whisky glass.

  “He’s responsible enough, so I got him a Vernaescian ID that translates to the mortals as eighteen. We don’t really live on Earth in any case,” Tantrus replied, taking a sip of the strange beverage.

  “Oh my goodness, so if I’m responsible enough, I can start driving at sixteen –?”

  “Absolutely not; you’ll kill your mother and I with the money you’ll ask for clothes and fuel and your probable constant DUI’s will destroy us. You, my dear, are waiting until the appropriate age; and in my terms, that doesn’t necessarily mean the legal age,” Tantrus quickly responded nonchalantly, leaving Jojo to gape away at her father and wonder as to whether he was being sarcastic or so bluntly truthful that it translated to her as sarcasm. Liam drove his car out of the garage. As he did so, two others were seen behind it – Anne and Tantrus’. He brought the car to a halt in front of us,

  “Hop in. Thanks, Tantrus!” he said.

  “Always welcome.”

  “Shotgun!” went Robbie.

  “Hey!” I exclaimed. I attempted to wrestle Robbie for the position but he was too swift. Before I knew it he had me in an arm lock and I groaned in pain.

  “Do I get shotgun?” he asked decently.

  “No!” I retorted. Robbie squeezed my arm, applying severe pressure on it and I exclaimed in pain.

  “Do I get shotgun?” he repeated evilly.

  “OKAY, okay!” I surrendered. Robbie let my arm go and he slid in the front seat. I don’t blame him – he’s lived in an alien planet where he learns to fight like a machine. Three silver seats were in the back and another two behind it where the boot was supposed to be. Jaden and I hopped in the back and sat on the cushiony seats, inhaling the suffocating new-car smell.

  “So, how’re we going to get back to Earth?” Jade asked.

  “Dad will deal with it. I’ve always wanted to do that though,” Jojo answered. I had no clue what she was talking about. Tantrus walked over to the edge of the mountain and stuck his hand out. Suddenly, spirals and green nebulas of what seemed to look like stars and a hollow abyss began encircling itself into existence around his hand. In one swift and almost blinding flash of green, it became a life-sized triangle, with a luminous white centre and glowing green outline. Liam roared his engine loudly.

  “Show off,” his brother jested.

  “I am so getting myself a sports car,” Jaden muttered. On that note, the tires screeched all over the grass and left tyre marks imprinted on the beautiful soil as Liam headed straight for the triangular portal up ahead.

  “He’s going to get us killed. Put your seatbelts on,” Tammy said to the girls. The portal stood impressively a metre or so from the edge of the mountain. In his vehicle, Tantrus laughed to himself at Liam’s craze over his new birthday present. He and Anne were both in their individual cars, waiting for Liam to traverse to Earth.

  The life-sized portal came closer. It felt like we were going to be swallowed into the depths of a spectrum of light. The next thing I knew – things closed in on themselves. I assumed we were stuck in a trance of time, forever motionless, with everything suspended. But forever wasn’t as long as it felt. We were all bumped forward with a gasp as the scenery changed, time relapsed on itself, colour burst back into the world and the car landed with a thud.

  CHAPTER 7.

  A Batch of Evil

  Through the smoke and void’s darkness, all forms of evil lurked, waiting to be torn free. But nothing could be seen; it was forevermore nothingness.

  “You can get through,” his terrible voice whispered. A chuckle sounded.

  “Of course, I’m a shadow,” another voice whispered through the black.

  “Cling to him. It’s better if we start with him. Confuse him and then call them. Let them do their job,” the first voice said.

  “Kill?”

  “They won’t be able to – only I will. But if possible, tell them to harm him as much as they can.”

  “The boy will only see me after he’s near to taste death.”

  “And so he has, in his first house, by the doings of a Grinner. Bring with you gloom and kill the bright day. You know how,” the horrible voice gently spoke.

  “One more thing: when you are free, you know you will be bound to the cover cloud; unable to breach it?” the second voice said.

  “I know. I have my ways. Go.”

  And through the darkness, the shadow walked out proudly, bearing with him death, confusion, chaos and destruction.

  We landed in an alleyway. The mere sight of its dustbins overflowing with garbage seemed revolting. Buildings were violated with the stains of graffiti and trash, but above all, the thing that bothered me the most was the pungent odour clogging the area. It was so bizarre to see that it was daytime on Earth. It was only an hour or so ago that we were attacked, but being in Vernaesce must have been a whole other string pattern of time.

  “Roll the windows up and turn on the heater, would you?” I gagged. The rest of us pinched our faces in disgust, somehow as if we had just tasted something bitter. I felt a chilly disposition rush over my arm, even though my thick blazer’s sleeves were rolled down.

  I looked to my shoulder and saw my hair curling into locks of brown like it was before, but still remained shoulder-length and wavy. I quickly stood up and looked at Liam’s rear view mirror, noticing that my eyes were back to their earthling hazel colour too. I looked towards Jaden and saw his hair slowly streaking itself to its sandy blond from his roots downwards.

  Suddenly, like frost growing over glass, I witnessed the mark of what looked like skin that had tried to heal a first degree burn creep over my Celt marks. As soon as one of us had the marks disguising themselves, all the other patterns on everybody else mimicked forthwith. At least my burns were covered by my sleeve though. However, my hands were slightly exposed.

  “Is it possible to leave the Celt marks bare?” I asked curiously from the back of the car.

  “Yes, but school doesn’t allow tattoos,” Jojo answered.

  Jade bit down on her lip piercing. Her eyes quickly flickered to purple and dimmed down to hazel.

  Liam began driving out of the alleyway, where the sun’s rays were
able to send cracks through the clouds to illuminate the dull plain that was Richmond upon Thames. The alleyway was just a dim corner. As we turned, we could observe the sloping hill we found ourselves upon.

  “Hey, isn’t this –”

  “The road to our house,” I said in amazement, cutting off Robbie. All our neighbours had gathered around the ruins of our old home. The gasping and murmuring was phenomenal. I was no longer in the catastrophic rubble to be pointed at, but I may have as well been. As if I were just emerging from the debris of the house, I could feel the shame I would have felt if I was found there, even from the confines of this car which nobody paid attention to as we slowly drove past. Then again, something else was particularly strange. On both sides of the pavements, where the trees facing each other are usually lined up in pairs, they were oddly bent towards their opposite. Branches were touching and forming perfect arches, underneath which we drove through, giving us the feeling that nature was bowing before us.

  All of us stared in awe and wonder, but also pondering on what could have caused such a phenomenal thing to happen. The Demon Grinners perhaps? Jade raised her hand to her head slowly. A pounding headache built up on her, gradually becoming more and more of a migraine.

  “Jade? Are you okay?” Tammy asked, worried. We began to grow timid as we looked at Jade’s shocking state. She was uttering bizarre things all at once, too fast for us to hear underneath her breath. Her eyes twitched consecutively, showing her eye-whites as she coursed her fingers through her hair illogically.

  “Jade?” Jojo called her, leaning over close to her. I sighed deeply.

  “JADE!” I yelled.

  At once, she snapped out of her shocking zombie state.

  “Voices. I heard voices. So many voices…from them.” She stopped and breathed heavily as she stared into plain air with a look of panic on her emotionless face. Her heart was still galloping but after breathing deeply, gently found its path to slowing down.

  “What did you hear?” Liam asked, his now disguised hazel eyes fixed on the road and his jaws clenched and defined.

  “Something about… the Blues being dead. Or at least they think something’s happened,” Jade answered, speaking out the words nonchalantly and appearing half traumatised with a disturbed look in her eyes as she struggled to settle down.

  “You know how these guys are: they’re too nosy. It’ll cause too much of a shock and hassle for them to find out that you are not dead,” replied Robbie. I looked towards him unclearly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think of it this way: you’d probably be taken into a care home, have comments about where Angelina was and if she had left you alone in the house, if she’s trustworthy to look after her children, face inquiries from school, go to one of the school therapists, probably be referred to as weird by everyone else and treated differently, yada, yada, yada; same old story.”

  “Hm, makes sense,” Jaden expressed plainly.

  “Right,” Liam changed gears, “we should get going.” He accelerated and we drove off, leaving behind the ruins of our old home and life. Because that’s what they were now – ruined.

  At some point into the journey, I looked back for looking back’s sake when I noticed Tantrus behind us.

  “We’re here,” Liam said dully, keeping his tremendous blue eyes fixed on the road, his face indifferent, as his arm vigorously moved to change gears and bring the car to an abrupt halt.

  “Nervous?” Jojo asked Robbie.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep,” he answered plainly. “I have nothing to be nervous about.”

  We stepped out of the car and headed for the main school building out of the large three iron gates. Suddenly, memories of yesterday (which felt like a month ago) came flooding into my mind so vividly that I may have as well been blindfolded with the vision. I remembered the whole scenario of an annual advancement. I pulled Jaden away from the bunch and spoke to him in harsh breaths.

  “We need to talk to Nicholas,” I whispered.

  “Aden, it’s like seven thirty – he’s probably not even here yet.” I sighed and pulled out my phone, rapidly scrolling down my contacts list.

  “What are you doing?” Jaden asked defensively. “No, Aden – stop!” Jaden snatched my phone from my hands.

  “Dude! Okay what; what is so important that you have to interrupt me like this?” I asked, frustrated. He sighed briefly and looked behind me to the school as the others walked into the school compound.

  “Why are you looking back so suspiciously?” I questioned curiously. He exhaled again.

  “Aden, you can’t be that naïve; we’re friends with a girl who can control time and who goes to school with us.” I stood silent for a few seconds before unwisely responding “huh?”

  “My goodness, Aden. We need to talk to mum, I think we were swapped at birth – you’re so stupid!” He stormed off to the group, mumbling things to himself due to his anger towards me. I trailed after him, still clueless on how I had annoyed him to that level. After a stressful march, Jaden finally reached the group again.

  “Jojo”, he began with a sharp inhalation, “did you by any chance advance time accidentally yesterday?” Jojo bit her lip and winced.

  “About that…” she began, at which point Jaden slowly turned around to me with his hands flung up in the air, justifying his precision.

  “You need to be tested,” he said, pointing to me with his index finger centimetres away from my face.

  “But no worries, I rectified it all,” Jojo said calmly.

  “No, it’s not you that’s the problem, Jojo. It’s this imbecile being – well an imbecile,” Jaden quickly intruded. The whole time, I stood facing Jaden with plain, unmoving eyes like a baby; not having the slightest clue why he was showering insults upon me.

  “One day, Jaden. Mark my words, one day,” I muttered, eyes flashing to red.

  “I just realised how silent it is. How early are we?” Jade asked, breaking up Jaden’s quite hurtful lashing out at me.

  “Oh, we always come early because of dad’s work. It should be around seven thirty to seven forty-five at the moment,” Jojo informed us.

  “School doesn’t start in another hour or so,” I mumbled undertone and insecurely, fearing another attack from a certain cranky twin of mine. We were interrupted by Tantrus’ sudden jog towards us.

  “Sorry, had to run to the office quickly. So, Liam go with Jade, Tammy and Robbie you guys go with the twins and Jojo.” Tantrus was also the school’s deputy head teacher. Jojo, Jaden and I led Tammy and Robbie away from Liam and Jade and into our classroom.

  The bell rang ear-splittingly. We were sat near the window, at ease with ourselves. As the bell’s noise ceased, the sound of dragging footsteps in the corridor began to sound like horrid marches. We saw the shadows lengthen up the carpet and slowly loom towards us. Before we knew it, the crowd of students had broken into the class and immediately separated themselves into various groups. For a brief moment, they all ceased in motion and chatter, merely staring at us. Suddenly, a wolf-whistle screeched from the back of the room. Tammy exhaled and simply raised an eyebrow whilst keeping her eyes on us. Her eyes flashed a bright pink. The boy who whistled was immediately tossed forward by an invisible force and his head went smashing into the corner of a table whilst everybody broke out in murmurs and gasps.

  “Whoops,” Tammy softly said to herself. It turns out the innocent, pink-dressed girl wasn’t so harmless after all. There was an awkward silence as we stared around the tables, waiting for the crowd to stare at Tammy and Robbie as much as they wanted before finally getting on with their pathetic lives. Then, with a spontaneous entrance, Nicholas became the spur-of-the-moment.

  “Hey, new guys?” his Scottish accent sounded as he impulsively filled the empty seat on our table and inviting himself.

  “I’m Nicholas, but I guess you could always call me Nick,” he added, flinging his hand out towards Tammy and R
obbie before they got the chance to respond.

  As the crowd began dispersing into the room, the uncomfortable muttering amongst them became a loud unpleasant parade of noise. The bell sounded again and disturbed the whole lot of us. The classroom was large and would look more spacious if it wasn’t for the tables filling it. We were sat next to a window with the best view in the classroom.

  The frames seemed to have been rubbed rough and its shade of brown disturbingly looked mouldy. But the view that we had through the window was enough for me; a clear vision of a large tree atop a small hill at the back of the school grounds, surrounded by a shade of jade green grass. Its branches spread out like the tips of rustling fire and vines, whilst its bark and leaves were healthy shades of brown and green respectively.

  I looked at the blue sky, poisoned to become a disheartening shade of greyish blue mixed with smoke. The tree lightly rustled undetectably. But I had a bad feeling about the weather.

  Unexpectedly, as if things couldn’t become more uncomfortable, Miss Strottman strutted in, the heels of her shoes knocking on the floor as she did so. She swaggered in so sharply, her presence dominated everybody – rendering us silent. She dropped a thin, flat book on her desk (which seemed to be the register) and looked up from her silver rectangular glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes first caught sight of Tammy and then they drifted to Robbie.

  “You must be the Roxeths,” she spoke dully, unamused, unmoved and exhausted by everything around her. She gave a deep sigh of profound boredom. At first, Tammy and Robbie were mistaken by her appearance, expecting her to be a playful teacher. But as soon as she opened her beak of a mouth to speak, they realised that this was a whole other story because clearly, red seemed to be blue.

  Okay, here’s what needs to be sorted out: physically, Miss Strottman is not the hag I make her out to be – actually she was rather elegant and seemingly charming. But her attitude will just drive you to suicide! Pardon the exaggerated language but she was snobbish – no doubt about that. She behaved as if she had lived alone her whole life and fed off your sadness. She never smiles. She never puts down her glasses and she definitely doesn’t sympathise. Given her ways, I think detention would be reroofing the building and fixing the plumbing in the toilet on the second floor but for us, having to look into her sadistic eyes would be punishment enough.