Dark Reality 7-Book Boxed Set

by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

  Chapter 5

  Streaks of sherbet orange colored the early morning sky. For the first time in her life, Arianna had awakened without the blaring of an alarm clock. Her eyes had simply popped open of their own accord to see a violet predawn canvas giving way to ribbons of salmon pink. The view from her bedroom was nothing short of breathtaking and would take little time getting used to. Her last bedroom had boasted scenery through a rectangular sliver of a window that had included an oversized satellite dish and the top of the trailer beside it. Between those two eyesores, she had only been able to glimpse a slice of the outdoors. To say her new view was better than the old was a gross understatement.

  She rolled over onto her back and stared up at her freshly painted ceiling. Everything was different at her new cabin, including the glaring fact that she was alone. New bedding, new clothes and a nice new place to live were, well, nice. But she would trade all of it to have her mother back.

  Thoughts of her mother allowed familiar pangs of grief to encroach. That, and the events of the night before rushed to the forefront of her mind and jockeyed for the distinguished title of which would make her cry first. Being stark naked and about to have sex with a guy, only to have him reject her flat-out had wounded her ego badly. She had strong feelings for Desmond, had wanted to indulge in something pleasurable for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. But even that had been taken from her. She was not the kind of girl who was prone to pity parties. If she’d spent her life bemoaning all that had happened to her, it would have consumed her completely and been a twenty four-hour-a-day job. She’d always taken life as it came, and dealt with it accordingly. But nothing that had happened since the dawn of her powers had been easily dealt with. Death, destruction, humiliation and loss after loss made regaining her footing on her path next to impossible. Arianna felt her cheeks burn with shame, frustration, and plain old sadness. She did not want to begin her first day at the last high school she’d ever attend with swollen, red eyes, so she drove each painful thought to the back of her mind, forcefully evicted every one of them until her mind was left with a strange numbness. She’d return to them later. She’d have plenty of time after school, and in the future, to mourn.

  A glance at the clock on her nightstand revealed it was just after six o’clock in the morning. Her first class did not start until seven thirty, but she assumed she needed to get there early for her obligatory meeting with the principal and guidance counselor, and for a tour. Arianna groaned aloud at the memory of her last tour at Herald Falls High School. Going through the whole welcome-to-our-shitty-school rigmarole again seemed like cruel and unusual punishment, especially since she’d been through it so many times. Surely, a statute of limitation on such acts of torture existed somewhere. The only redeemable part of it all was that today would be the last time she would ever have to endure it. Her mother was gone and moving was up to her. Arianna had never liked moving from place to place like a gypsy. She’d always envied people who had true roots to where they were, people who had lived in a town, or state for that matter, for their whole life. The length of time she and her mom would spend in a particular area had always been dependent upon her mother’s fickle taste in men. Such was no longer the case. Now she was in charge, and the taste of power was bittersweet.

  A single tear slipped from her cheek. She quickly brushed it away with the back of her hand and sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. The plush carpet was warm and soft beneath her feet as she padded toward the small bathroom in her bedroom. She’d never had more than one bathroom in any place she’d lived. And she’d had to share it with at least one other person. Now, she had two bathrooms and lived alone. Two seemed decadent. A small smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth at the notion of having two bathrooms. She would have killed for two when she and her mother had lived at Carl’s place before they’d moved to Herald Falls. Carl’s bathroom habits and his utter lack of cleanliness had left much to be desired. But Carl was a part of a past that seemed distant. And today was the first day of her new life, one that included the title of Sola, a role she was still uncertain of how to perform. She would figure that out, and many other things in her life, another time, though. Presently, school awaited her arrival and she needed to ready herself for it.

  After brushing her teeth, taking a quick shower and dressing, Arianna ate breakfast and headed to school. She drove her mother’s old Camry and decided to park it in the farthest spot in the lot from the actual school building in hopes of avoiding attention. To her surprise, there were many other cars just like hers. In varying states of dilapidation that ranged from rust to tied-on bumpers, the vast majority were older models. The area surrounding the school had looked like the average working-class neighborhood, but experience had taught her that that meant little. The parking lot always told the whole story. The one she was currently in upheld the story the neighborhood had told.

  She remained in her car and lit a cigarette, the need to calm her nerves sudden. She did not know why she was nervous. She’d had enough first days of school to last her a lifetime. None of them had been nerve-racking. Why this one would be any different from those was beyond her. Nevertheless, she smoked and felt only slightly better before she climbed out and began walking to the front doors of the school.

  Her first stop was at the principal’s office. Located on the right side immediately after the threshold of the main entrance, the principal’s office had been the most conveniently located to date. She strolled in and was greeted by man hunched over a copy machine.

  “Stupid freaking thing!” he said to the machine. “I’ve cleared your damn paper jam!”

  Arianna cleared her throat to alert him to her presence.

  He looked up and she was taken aback briefly. With light brown stylishly mussed hair and big brown eyes, the man appeared to be in his early thirties and hardly resembled the schoolmarm secretary type that had gravitated to every other administrative office in every other school she’d been to.

  “Can I help you?” he asked and smiled.

  “Uh, yeah, I have an appointment with Principal Keller,” she said.

  “Ah, yes,” the man said and walked behind an empty desk in the far corner of the office. He flipped through the pages of a date book and said, “You must be Arianna Rose.”

  “Yep, that’s me,” Arianna replied.

  “You’re early though,” he said and glanced at the clock mounted on the wall to her left.

  “Oh, yeah, I just assumed I would have to meet with the principal then the guidance counselor then take the tour of the school and all that. If he’s not here, I can come back.”

  “No, no, he’s here,” the man said.

  “Okay, great,” she said then mumbled, “I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Ooh, that doesn’t sound like happiness to be here,” the man said and quirked a brow at her. “Not a big fan of principals I take it?”

  “No, not really, if we’re being honest,” she admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think I should say,” she said warily.

  “Ah, go for it. What’s wrong with a little honesty?”

  “Huh, you want the list?”

  “Nah, just an answer.”

  “Okay then, here goes. In my experience, which is a lot, by the way, all principals are the same.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How so?”

  “Let’s see, where do I begin? Bad breath, bad suits, bad listeners, and don’t let me forget that they’re all pompous, power-tripping windbags.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That pretty much covers it,” Arianna said and shrugged.

  The man laughed.

  “What? You know I’m right. You just don’t want to agree with me because he might hear you.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Principal Kel
ler.”

  The man shook his head and said, “Come on, Arianna, I’ll take you back to his office.”

  She followed him down a short hallway and into a large office. “Have a seat,” he told her then sat behind a large cherry wood desk. He leaned back in the leather chair and put his feet on the corner of the desk.

  Arianna began to panic and wondered whether she’d started off yet another first day of school on the wrong foot, perhaps the worst one to date. Everything clicked and her heart dropped to her feet.

  “You’re Principal Keller?” she asked.

  “Bingo!” he replied and laughed.

  She felt her jaw unhinge and knew she must look like an idiot. She did not know what to do or say. Surely words existed in the English language to apologize with, convincing words. Unfortunately, all of them were escaping her.

  “Oh my God! I’m so sorry, you know, about the stuff I said earlier. I just, well, it’s just that,” she fumbled.

  “No need to apologize. Most of my colleagues do wear bad suits, have bad breath, and, what was the rest? Oh yes, they’re bad listeners, as well as pompous, power-tripping windbags. Did I forget anything?”

  “Nope, I think you got everything,” she replied and shrank into her seat.

  Despite being the most powerful witch on the planet, or so she’d been told, and possessing the ability to incinerate any man she pleased including the one before her, she still felt a nervous drop of sweat trickle between her shoulder blades in her principal’s office.

  “Very well then, let me properly introduce myself. I am Josh Keller, principal of this fine school,” he said and smiled. He sat up and removed his feet from the corner of his desk. He picked up a manila file and scanned it quickly. “You are Arianna Rose.”

  “Yep, Arianna Rose with a big old foot in her mouth at the moment. That’s me,” she said and felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

  “Please don’t sweat what happened. How could you have known? I mean, I’m not even wearing a suit, least of all the telltale ugly suit of a principal.”

  “Huh, true,” Arianna commented. “If I may ask, why aren’t you wearing a suit?”

  “Truthfully, I hate them. Really, truly hate them.”

  He didn’t like a suit? Impossible! She thought all principals adored their awful suits, that they were their uniforms of sorts. She wondered whether she’d entered an alternate, Twilight Zone-y dimension. Never before had an adult in a position of authority been so honest with her. Principal Keller was unlike any other she’d ever met. Another principal would have made her squirm mercilessly before offering up a severe punishment for her comments earlier. Keller didn’t even seem offended, much less like he would seek future retribution. If she weren’t in some alternate dimension, then perhaps this new school had potential, after all.

  “So I see here you’re transferring from Herald Falls after less than two months there. What was your experience like there? Were there problems you’d like to discuss?”

  Arianna wasn’t sure how to handle his question. She’d prepared to tell a lie, but somehow lying to Keller felt wrong.

  “My mom died,” she heard herself say. “And the thought of living where I’d lived with her seemed, I don’t know, unbearable.”

  “Wow,” he said and frowned sincerely. “That’s awful. When did this happen?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Shit,” he breathed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I mean, shoot,” he caught himself.

  First, he let her snarky principal comments roll off his back, then he, made the suit comment, and now he cursed. She liked him more and more by the minute.

  “No worries. I say shit practically every other word,” she said and wasn’t lying.

  “Two weeks ago? You lost your mom just two weeks ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are you and your dad coping?”

  “No dad; it’s just me?”

  “You’re all alone? No family to look after you?”

  “Nope. I’m eighteen, so I’m on my own. Not that my mom had anyone lined up for me. She was an only child and my dad, well, who knows who he is.”

  “That’s terrible,” he said.

  Arianna hadn’t discussed any of her feelings since losing her mother, Luke and Lily. Hearing another human being offer a simple sentence like Principal Keller just had, his sympathy, actually mattered to her. He came across like a cool uncle or father. Of course, she did not have a barometer by which to gauge such family members, but she’d heard of them, had seen their types depicted on television. To her, kind or understanding male family members were like the Yeti: elusive, fabled beings she’d never encountered.

  “It has been.”

  “What are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking? Why not finish out your senior year in an online program?”

  He sounded like Desmond, but for different reasons, naturally. Keller didn’t know she was a witch, a deadly one at that, who was essentially followed by death.

  “My mom always wanted me to graduate from high school. She wanted to see me in my cap and gown, walking in the procession, soaking up all the pomp and circumstance, you know?”

  He nodded solemnly. “I do.”

  “So I guess I just want to honor her by doing it, the old-fashioned way she would have enjoyed,” she said and heard her voice crack with emotion.

  She stared at her lap and feverishly blinked back the tears that threatened, determined to make it through her first day without crying. But when she looked up and saw that Keller’s eyes had welled up, too, several slipped down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said and wiped them. “Shit, I didn’t mean to get all talk-show-guest-emotional on you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Are you actually apologizing for being upset that your mother died?”

  She thought about what he was saying. He was right. She was apologizing for no reason. “I guess I am.”

  “Well don’t. My wife, passed two years ago. Cancer. Two years, and I’m not over it, not by a long shot. And here you are two weeks out of the gate and trying to honor your mom’s memory by finishing school. I don’t know what to say. Either you are a masochist or a superhuman.”

  He seemed so close to guessing what she was. Both of his guesses were wrong, of course, but close, damn close. She was a witch and therefore a supernatural being, not a superhuman.

  “I’m neither,” she said. “I’m just a girl trying to push forward with her life, I guess.”

  Keller pursed his lips and stared at her for several moments.

  “So when do I meet with the guidance counselor and take the school tour?” she asked nervously.

  “Oh, really, you were expecting those?” he asked and stroked his chin. “Well, I guess I could arrange for it, if you’d like. But I’ve always found those things so, unnecessary, and a bit stupid if you want to know the truth.”

  “You think guidance counselors are stupid?”

  “No. Not really. The tours, now they are stupid. Guidance counselors just make bigger deals of things than needs to be made and get students worked up for no reason. If teachers did their jobs, guidance counselors wouldn’t be needed.”

  Again, Arianna felt her mouth drop. His status in her eyes went from the outhouse before she’d met him, to the penthouse when he’d let her off the hook then made his suit comment, and now, after his guidance counselor remark, he skyrocketed to the stratosphere.

  “I absolutely agree with you,” she said unable to mask her shock and adulation. “Wow, I’ve never heard a teacher or principal be so honest. Wow.”

  “So no tour?” he smiled.

  “No tour.”

  “Good.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “I’ll print out your course schedule and you can head on off to class,” he said and smiled.

  “Great.”

  Keller’s fingers danced acros
s the keyboard of his computer and seconds later a sheet of paper slid from his printer. He grabbed it and handed it to her. “Here you go.”

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “That’s it. Oh and here is your locker number and its combination,” he said after scribbling several numbers on his blotter then tearing the piece off.

  Arianna took the paper from him and said, “Wow, thanks for making this so, I don’t know, painless,” she gushed. “And sorry again for before, for my whole principal rant.”

  “No need to worry about it. Though your words will echo through my head next week.”

  “Why? What’s next week?”

  “A weekend mixer with every pompous, bad breathed, ugly suit wearing principal in the district,” he laughed.

  Arianna smiled then whispered, “You left out the part about being bad listeners and being windbags.”

  “Oh, I guess I hadn’t been listening when you said that,” he said and winked.

  Arianna laughed.

  Her new principal laughed aloud too, a rich, sincere laugh. Arianna turned and walked out of his office and felt a bit better about her choice to finish school traditionally. She walked down the long locker-lined hallway and was reminded of Herald Falls. The scent of the building – an odd mix of stale air and cafeteria food – was the same, the walls were painted the same shade of institutional mint green, and even the floor tiles were the same drab gray and green. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought she was in Herald Falls High School, not Hallowed Hills High School. Principal Keller had been a refreshing change from Principal Wood, but Arianna guessed he’d be the only true difference.

  Arianna scanned the numbers on the lockers and found hers easily. Fortunately, it was located just outside of Keller’s office on the first floor. She would be able to slip out to the front parking lot right after school and not be slowed by tons of traffic. As she turned the dial and tested the combination, the hallway began to fill. Students filed in through the front door in a steady stream. One student among them, a girl, jumped out at her immediately. Tiny and waifish with a sleek, blue-black bob haircut and matching blue-black lipstick, the girl had a gargantuan presence despite her pixie-like size. For reasons she could not explain, Arianna felt drawn to her. Perhaps the girl was a witch, the reason she had been pulled to Hallowed Hills in the first place. She hadn’t felt a pull so strong since the town she now lived in had practically jumped off the map and collared her. The feeling she had, the strength of it, had to be significant. The girl had to be significant.

  She watched as the girl passed. Clad from head to toe in black clothing, the girl, sensing Arianna’s eyes on her, narrowed her heavily lined eyes and pursed her lips. She offered a look of annoyance then said, “If you’re looking for a date, sweetheart, look elsewhere. I’m not into chicks.”

  Ordinarily, Arianna would have lost her temper at someone mouthing off at her as the girl had. However, she found herself admiring the girl’s courage instead of resenting it. Only a person who could back her smart mouth with brawn – or supernatural powers in her case – would be that aggressive. In the case of the girl, her tiny stature left only one other option: she was a witch. Arianna was growing increasingly convinced of it.

  “Ha,” Arianna laughed and acted against her trademark tendency for knee-jerk reactions. “Don’t flatter yourself. If I were into chicks, which I’m not, you definitely wouldn’t be my type.”

  The girl paused and stared hard at Arianna. Arianna did not look away. She’d expected to feel the buzz of the girl’s energy, strong and similar to the intensity of the pull she’d felt seconds ago. But so far, she felt nothing. Was she losing her mind thinking an ordinary girl had powers? She wondered. She’d also half expected a slow smile spread across the girl lips at her quick comeback, for that matter, and was surprised when it did not.

  “Shit, tough crowd,” Arianna mumbled. “I’m Arianna.”

  The girl did not answer, just stared at her blankly.

  “Do you have a name?” Arianna asked huffily.

  “I’m Beth,” the girl replied begrudgingly.

  “Now we’re making progress,” Arianna said sarcastically.

  “New,” Beth surprised her by stating more than asking with a roll of her eyes.

  “Yep, it’s my first day,” Arianna replied dryly.

  “Huh, good luck,” Beth snarled and started to walk away. She paused only to look to the front doors.

  A small commotion had begun near the main entrance. A group of eight students, five boys and three girls, had just walked in. Arianna had no idea who they were, but judging from the aggravated look on Beth’s face, she assumed they were not friends of hers. Curiosity nagged her brain so she homed in on conversations around her while Beth glanced back over her shoulder at them. From what she could hear, the group was the popular crew in the school. Chatter ranged from subtle admiration to unhealthy adoration.

  “Who are they?” Arianna asked Beth and nodded toward them.

  “Assholes,” she replied under her breath and walked away as the group approached.

  They circled around Arianna just as Beth left. She shifted her attention from the conversations she’d been eavesdropping on in the hallway to the people before her. She tried to tune into the faint hum of energy that existed when she was in the presence of fellow witches. She’d thought she’d sensed it seconds earlier, the vaguest trace of a current rippled through her when she’d first seen Beth. But now, she felt nothing. The faint hum had vanished. The group appeared to be run-of-the-mill human beings.

  “Hey, who’re you,” a girl asked Arianna.

  “Arianna. And you are?” Arianna answered icily.

  “Oh sorry,” the girl said. “I’m Jess. This is your first day?”

  “Yep, how’d you guess?”

  “Uh, you have that shell-shocked holy-shit-this-is-my-first-day look on your face.”

  “Huh, is it that obvious?”

  “Totally.”

  “Wow, that’s embarrassing.”

  A male voice cleared his throat and Jess fluttered to the side. “Oh, yeah, guys, this is Arianna. It’s her first day,” Jess announced to the group. “This is Scott,” she said and gestured to who appeared to be the heart of the group, the person around whom everyone else had positioned themselves.

  “Hey,” Scott said and tipped his chin in greeting. After seeing Desmond the day before, she thought every other guy would look about as attractive as a gnarled gnome in her eyes. But Scott was not unattractive in the least. Her knees weren’t knocking or anything like that, but he was good looking enough. And if she were judging him based solely upon the conversations swirling when he’d walked in, then he was a god.

  “How’s it going,” Arianna said.

  “Good, getting better by the minute. If you need any help finding your classes, or with anything, just let me know. I’d be more than happy to lend a hand,” he said and smiled a devilish smile.

  Arianna felt certain Scott’s smile alone had gotten him plenty of female action in school. He flashed it at her with confidence that bordered on cockiness, and rightly so. He did have an amazing smile. What he did not know was that he was wasting his time. She wasn’t interested in flirting with him; especially after enduring the ego-crushing rejection episode with Desmond.

  “Thanks for the offer,” she said flatly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Scott’s brown eyes danced with delight. Arianna wondered why, wondered if perhaps he enjoyed a challenge and viewed her as one. If that were the case, he’d be in for the challenge of a lifetime. A prophesied super witch doomed to a life of loneliness and celibacy couldn’t be more challenging.

  “This is George,” Jess said and interrupted the intensity of Scott’s stare. She pointed to a tall, lanky boy beside Scott. Baby-faced despite his gaunt build, George smiled a humorless smile that ended at his lips. His boyish features
were betrayed by an air of gravity that surrounded him, existing like separate entity she swore she could touch if she tried. He was the poster child for the surly teenage boy.

  Jess continued with her introductions and rattled names as she pointed a Paul, a Chris, a Josh, a Kit and a Meg.

  “Nice to meet you,” Arianna said to the group.

  “Maybe we can meet up at lunch,” Scott suggested. His tone was neither flirtatious nor predatory and Arianna felt confident he had received the silent psychic message she’d sent.

  “Yeah, why don’t you hang with us at lunch?” Meg asked.

  “What do you have first period?” Jess asked and gripped the paper Arianna held for a closer look.

  Her hand brushed Arianna’s hand, and Arianna felt a fleeting flux of energy drift across her skin. She wondered whether it was mind over matter, or whatever the cliché witch expression was for her powers willing into existence something that did not really exist. Either way, she’d thought she’d felt something. She looked up from her hand and was met with guileless blue eyes, innocent eyes, not the eyes of a witch. The expression she wore and the clarity of her freshly scrubbed, freckled face did not belong to that of a supernatural being, but a grown-up Raggedy Ann doll.

  “I see you have Mr. Dickinson first period,” she said. “I do, too. I’ll take you there,” she suggested.

  “We’ll see you later,” Scott said and winked. He turned from Arianna and Jess and began walking away with George practically pinned to his hip.

  “Yeah, I hope we see you later!” Meg said cheerfully and scurried after Scott and George.

  The rest of the group followed suit, traveling like a bizarre multi-legged creature. Scott clearly led the way, led all of them. She’d seen the same thing in school after school she’d been to for as far back as she could remember. Even as early as elementary school, cliques had formed and inevitably had a clearly defined leader. They generally irritated her, but considering that this was her final high school experience, she was willing to let this one go and maybe even allow herself to be included in theirs.

  Arianna looked up and found herself alone with Jess.

  “This school is not so bad, once you get used to it,” Jess said as they walked down the hallway. “The teachers are okay and most of the kids are nice.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Arianna said. “So far everyone seems all right.”

  Arianna stared straight ahead as they walked. She looked down the long hallway and saw countless heads, but felt Jess’s eyes on her. She did not know what she was expected to say. Was she supposed to start rambling about her past, tell her life story maybe? She wondered. She wasn’t a ready talker when it came to initiating a conversation. She fared better when she was reacting to a person or situation, not taking the reins and yammering about herself.

  “So,” she tried to breach the awkward silence. “Mr. Dickinson, huh. That’s a great name. I bet the kids have a field day with it.”

  She’d hoped Jess would start telling her all the rude variations of his name other kids had come up with over the years, but she did not. Instead, she drew her brows together in confusion.

  “You know, because his name has the word,” she started but did not see the point in continuing. “Oh forget it,” she said and waved her hand absently. She did not want to ruin what was happening. She did not want to offend Jess with her crude sense of humor, not yet, at least. Even awkward silence was preferable to hostility.

  “Here we are. Mr. Dickinson’s room,” Jess stopped in front of an open door.

  “Room eighty-eight, it is,” Arianna replied and smiled warmly.

  Arianna thanked her and glanced into the room. Jess walked in ahead of her and sat before a desk near the front of the room. As Arianna passed her seat and headed to an empty desk in back, Jess tugged her arm and said, “Trust me, Mr. Dickinson does not live up to his name, but I’m happy to fill you in on some of the more colorful names he’s been called recently.” Jess arched a brow. A wicked gleam twinkled in her blue eyes and they no longer looked as open as they had before. She smiled broadly. “I’m not as innocent as I seem,” she smirked before releasing Arianna’s arm.

  Arianna smiled back, but paused for a moment, unsure of what to make of what Jess had said. She had not thought Jess was prudish earlier. She just had not wanted to open the floodgates of her crass sense of humor yet. They’d just met. There would be plenty of time for everyone to be offended by her in the near future. She’d simply wanted to try pacing herself this time around. As it turned out, she had nothing to worry about. Jess was like her. She contemplated saying as much, but decided against it and made her way to the empty desk in the last row. She sat down just in time for Mr. Dickinson to sweep into the room with a Styrofoam coffee cup from a franchise coffee house in hand.

  “Does anyone else just hate getting up so darn early?” he asked. “I didn’t even have time for my morning cigarette, so I may have to dismiss class early. By the way, anyone who mentions my cigarette comment will fail my class. Cigarettes are bad, blah, blah, blah, lecture, lecture, lecture,” he said and Arianna reverted back to her initial impression after she’d met Keller. She must be in an alternate universe. So far, her new school was too good to be true.