Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown (8 page)

Aiden pulled her to him,
kissing her roughly, his hands gripping her shirt tightly,
threatening to never let go. She motioned towards the bed and he
obliged by picking her up and carrying her there, his lips never
leaving hers.

Aiden knew he would never
leave the swamp.

Three days later Jared
came through the door of the Boondock’s bar looking for his
childhood friend. The bartender eyed him suspiciously. Jared
stepped towards the stage just as Esilee was stepping from her
room. She closed the door quickly behind her.

“Where is he?” Jared
demanded.

“Who?” She asked
innocently.

“You know damn well who,
where’s Aiden? I’m not leaving here without him.” He planted his
feet defiantly. Esilee felt a strong connection with him that Jared
would never understand. They loved the same man, they both longed
to protect him and do what was right by him. He made them both
better people by knowing them and neither wanted to ever lose
him.

“Look you lousy swamp
witch, tell me where he is or I’m calling the police.”

Esilee looked at him
sadly. Jared didn’t know how right he was. Before he could speak
again her arm shot out and her fingers locked around his neck in a
vice like grip. He was shocked at how strong she was.

She dragged his kicking
body into the parking lot and around the back of the shack. When
they reached the water she began to sing, Jared’s body became limp.
She tossed him like a rag doll towards the water, where she watched
him sink.

As she turned to go back
inside Aiden turned the corner.

“What are you doing out
here?” He asked.

“Where’s Jared I saw his
truck out front.”

Esilee bit her lip, she
never wanted to hurt Aiden; he was her one saving grace, her one
good thing. So she did the only thing she knew, she sang, and her
voice washed away his memories until all he knew was
her.

And while it meant that he
would belong to her forever, it also meant she would have to live
never knowing if that’s the life he would have chosen on his
own.

That night she drowned her
sorrow in the souls of eleven men while Aiden slept soundly in
their bed.

Esilee kept him, loved
him, and sang to him well into his 90’s. When she could finally see
death in his eyes she led him to the water and sang to him his
favorite song. He followed her fire red hair down into the depths
of the swamp. Her voice was the only sound he ever heard, and it
was the last sound as well.

You Belong With
Me

By: Kate Marie
Robbins

© 2013 By Kate Marie
Robbins

To Jimmy, for always
helping me with my writer’s block and giving me the best ideas for
my stories. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Today is my first day at
my new school. My parents moved us halfway across the country for
dad’s new job. Not a big deal, right? It wouldn’t have been, but
it’s my senior year of high school. My senior year and I have to
start at a new school. As hard as it is going to be, I decide I’m
going to make the best of it.

I pull into the parking
lot. It is already getting full. Lovely. I’m going to be invisible
here, I think to myself as I glance around the lot. I knew it was a
big school, but I hadn’t realized just how big until seeing it now.
I get out of the car and walk slowly across the lot towards the
school. No one says anything to me, but I can feel everyone’s eyes
on me. Talk about awkward.

I had no idea what it
would feel like to be the new kid. I have always gone to the same
school, with the same kids, since pre-school. This is all new to
me. I pull one of the glass doors open and walk inside to find the
office. The receptionist sends me to see the principal, Mr.
Breymann, right away.

He looks up from his desk
when I enter. “Ah, you must be Emaline Quan.”

I nod, too nervous to say
anything else in response.

“Good, good, I’ve asked
one of your fellow classmates to show you around. Just one moment,
and I’ll pull her out of homeroom.” He picks up the phone and dials
a number. “Please send Victoria Barrowman to my office.” There is a
slight pause. Then he says, “Thank you.”

A few minutes later, a
tall, dark haired girl waltzes into the room. She looks at me and
smiles. “You must be Emaline. I’m Victoria.” She extends her hand
to me.

I shake it gingerly, and
say, “Thank you for offering to show me around.”

“It’s no problem at all. I
know how overwhelming it can be. I was the new girl back in 10th
grade. C’mon, I’ll show you to homeroom.” Then she turns to Mr.
Breymann. “It’s alright for us to go?”

“Oh, yes, of course. I
hope your first day goes well, Emaline. If you need anything, my
door is always open.” He gives me a warm smile.

Victoria and I walk
towards homeroom in silence. It is just so awkward for me. I don’t
know what to say to her. It isn’t that I’m shy; I just really don’t
know what to say.

“This is where we have
homeroom,” Victoria says, pointing to a door. She pushes it open
and we walk in.

An older lady looks up at
us when we make our appearance. Her name is Mrs. Tsugane, at least
that’s what my class schedule states. “Class, this is Emaline Quan.
She moved here from… Where is it you moved from?”

“Washington,” I
reply.

“Would you like to tell
the class a little about yourself?” she asks.

“Um, there’s really not
much to say,” I admit, “but sure, I guess I can say something.”
Everyone’s eyes are on me. I take a deep breath, and start. “Well,
I’m Emaline, like Mrs. Tsugane said. My parents and I just moved
here from Washington. I like to write poetry, play tennis, oh, and
I’m really big into indie rock music.” I must sound like a complete
nerd to them. There are a few snickers from the back of the room,
but Victoria is grinning at me.

In the hall, walking to
our next class, Victoria turns to me and says, “You and I, we’re
going to get along just fine!”

That strikes me as odd,
but it is a good thing. It looks like I have already made a friend.
Victoria and I have lunch together, along with a few of her other
friends. I’m tongue-tied at first around all the new people, but
they are super nice to me. In time, I start to open up. Victoria
ends up inviting me over to her house after school to hang out, so
after school, I drive us to her house. Once we are there, I realize
that we only live a few blocks away from each other.

“I just live a few blocks
down the road,” I say to her, pointing in the direction of my
house.

“Oh, that was you guys
that bought the house?” she stares at me in disbelief. “Did the
realtor tell you what happened to the family that owned it before
you?” She looks down at the ground and kicks a rock that is lying
in the driveway.

“
No, not that I heard.
Why, what happened?” I’m not sure that I want to know the answer to
that question.

“Well, there was this boy
in our grade, his name was Koah. He committed suicide, at the
school, actually. Mr. Breymann found him lying on the bathroom
floor in a pool of blood. After his death, his parents couldn’t
bear to live in the house anymore, so they moved away. I guess the
memories were just too hard for them to deal with.”

I stare at her wide-eyed,
horrified. What if I have the same bedroom as he did? Could I even
deal with that? I wish that Victoria hadn’t told me what
happened.

“I don’t want to freak you
out further, but the locker you have at school, it used to be
his.”

Oh, great, another
connection to this dead boy. Why can’t things just be
normal?

Victoria sees how
uncomfortable I am about these revelations. “I’m sorry. I guess I
should have kept my big mouth shut. Don’t worry about it. It’s got
nothing to do with you. It’s not like he’s haunting the house or
the school. C’mon, let’s go inside and get something to eat, then
you can look through my music collection!”

I do my best to put the
thoughts out of my head. It isn’t so easy though. Those words end
up echoing in my mind all night long. I have a hard time sleeping,
when I finally do manage to fall asleep, my dreams are haunted by a
beautiful boy; a boy I have never seen before.

As I pick Victoria up for
school the next day, I ask her, “What did Koah look
like?”

She eyes me suspiciously.
“Why do you ask?”

I explain the dream to her
with as much detail as I can remember. Her mouth hangs open once I
am done.

“We need to go to the
library as soon as we get to school,” she declares. “I need to show
you something.”

After we get to school, we
head immediately to the library. Once inside, Victoria heads for a
shelf that houses all of the school yearbooks. She pulls one off
the shelf and starts flipping through it. Once she has found the
page she’s looking for, she holds it up to me, her finger pointing
to one of the photos. “Is this the boy you saw?”

I nod, my mouth hanging
open. “Who is that?” I whisper.

“That’s Koah,” she
replies, barely comprehending the fact that he had invaded my
dreams.

I am horrified. “How could
that even happen? I’ve never seen him before in my life. I didn’t
know who he was until you told me about him!”

“I… I don’t know what to
tell you. It’s pretty freaky. Try not to think about it,” she
whispers.

Yeah, easy for her to say.
Her dreams aren’t being invaded by a dead boy. I sigh. “I’ll do my
best.”

It does me no good though;
all of my dreams are plagued by Koah. None of them are nightmares,
but they aren’t exactly happy either. Mostly, it feels like he is
trying to protect me. From what, I don’t know. I decide it is best
not to say anything more about them to Victoria. If I don’t know
how to react to them, she sure as heck won’t. She never brings them
up again either.

“We need to go shopping
for the Halloween dance,” Victoria is insisting at lunch, “before
all the good costumes are gone.”

I roll my eyes. Maybe it
will be good for me though? I can distract myself a bit. “Alright,
alright, we’ll go on Friday after school.” Anything to get her to
shut up.

“Yay! It’s going to be so
much fun! You’ll see. We’ll find amazing costumes. And you’re going
to love the dance. It’s one of the best things about going to this
school. You’ll see.” She grins at me.

While we are in the
costume shop that Friday afternoon looking through racks and racks
of costumes, a boy I sort of recognize approaches us. I don’t
notice at first, but Victoria does. She elbows me in the stomach.
That gets my attention. “What was that for?” I demand to know. All
she does is point at the boy walking towards us.

“Hi Victoria. Emaline. You
guys shopping for your costumes for the dance?” the boy
asks.

I just stare at
him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says
to me. “Where are my manners? You have no idea who I am.” He
extends his hand out to me. “I’m Quentin Mossmann, but everyone
calls me Quinn. We have trigonometry together.” He smiles at
me.

I look at him and realize
he is right. “Oh yeah, I remember you now.” I say, trying to smile.
He is kinda cute.

Still looking directly at
me, he asks, “So, do you have a date for the dance yet?” He can
barely meet my gaze.

“Umm, no, I don’t.
Victoria and I were just going to go together. If someone asked me
though, I could obviously change my plans,” I quickly add, hoping
Victoria won’t be too mad at me for it.

“Well, in that case, would
you like to go with me?” He finally looks at me, his eyes
beaming.

I turn my gaze from him to
Victoria. She smiles at me. “Do it,” she mouths to me.

I look back at him again.
“I would love to.”

“Great! Looking forward to
it!” He hands me a slip of paper. “Here’s my cell phone number,
text me sometime and we can figure out the details.” He waves at us
both as he walks away.

I end up going as Little
Red Riding Hood for Halloween. Victoria insists I look cute. I
don’t think so. “Oh, but I know Quinn will think so. I had no idea
he even had a crush on you! I usually know these things. How is it
that you ended up with a date and I didn’t?” she says with a
laugh.

I shrug. “Maybe it’s your
attitude?” I say, and stick my tongue out at her.

She just laughs and
continues to get ready for the dance.

We meet Quinn and his
friends at school, just outside the gymnasium doors. “You look
beautiful,” he says to me when he sees me.

“Thank you,” is all I can
manage in response.

He smiles at me. “You’re
welcome. Let’s head inside. It’s getting kind of chilly out here.”
He holds open the door for Victoria and me.

Inside, the gym is set up
much like a scene out of a horror movie. I can’t believe how much
time and effort was put into it. Victoria was right, I do love
it.