Shadow's Dangers (4 page)

Unbalanced, I collapsed on the bed, eyes full of bright spots. A moan escaped my lips. After waiting a few minutes, I got up again, this time slowly and then left the room for the bathroom before changing my clothes.

When I finished, I left my room, hungry as ever. I had the feeling of not having eaten anything substantial for centuries. I had only experienced such a ferocious appetite occasionally when I had not eaten the night before. I seemed to have eaten well, though. Last night was still a little fuzzy in my mind when I thought about it. I knew I had eaten, I had read a few pages of the book that was lying on my bedside table, I had taken a shower... but I couldn’t see the images in my head. It was confusing. Did my headache come from yesterday? Was it because of that I was so confused? Maybe. I didn’t know.

Having reached the end of the hallway, I went downstairs. My memory had obviously taken a holiday today because I remembered the unstable staircase much too late. I felt myself falling. I prepared for the shock and pain, but nothing followed. My sister was down near the landing, which made it possible for her to catch me at the last minute before I went sprawling down the stairs. She put me on my feet and walked away from me quickly, as if physical contact with me was unbearable. Judging by her face, it was indeed the case. She was already regretting having saved me from a trip to the hospital. Three days without me or even more, would have been a joy for her.

“She claims to be a big girl and she’s not even able to stand on her legs,” she said, exasperated.

For a second, I considered thanking her, but was now sure that I would abstain. It was really just to make me flinch, as always. She loved this stupid little game between us and she delighted in seeing me respond to her attacks. I knew very well and yet I still walked into the game, eventually unable to take it anymore. This time, however, I refused to give her the satisfaction. I wanted to have a peaceful day.

“There’s a bowl of cereal waiting for you on the table,” she told me with that icy tone of hers. “Be careful not to drown in the milk.”

I smiled insincerely. Unfortunately, even though I didn’t want to be affected by her attitude, it was useless. I couldn’t even stand the sight of her.

“Thanks Anna, and don't worry, I will try to restrain myself from diving head first into the bowl, although it will be hard.”

I was aware that being called Anna exasperated her to the highest point. That was what my grandmother called her when she was angry with her, that's why I used this nickname often. When I did, I almost had the impression of feeling the presence of Tess in this house again. I chased this last thought away immediately to avoid melancholy. 

Annabelle wore a delighted expression, a clear sign that she was satisfied with setting off my temper. Her life must be pitiful if she was forced to find happiness simply by competing with a girl like me. She turned, opened the door, and then, at the last moment, she whirled around to leave me with a parting message.

“Oh, and in the future, don't ever lock the door to your room again,” she advised me, more an order than anything else. “You were screaming all night. I called out to you many times, but you didn't answer me. I could have dealt with your crisis if your door had been unlocked, but instead I had to ignore your screams and try to sleep.

I clearly imagined her remedy to my crisis: a good slap she would have dished out with pleasure.

“I'm sorry,” I apologized, not in the least bit sincere, and we both knew it. “I’ll leave my door open from now on.” Besides, I didn’t even know why I had closed it yesterday, never doing it usually.

“Very well,” she told me, smirking, and I knew the new attack against me was imminent. “Anyway, it's not as if you need privacy, my sweet little sister. You have no boyfriend or even a potential suitor. I doubt that you’ve ever heard the word sex. But it’s not your fault. With a grandmother as prudish as was ours, how could it be otherwise?”

I held with great difficulty the insults that I was about to spit in her face. I veraciously hated my sister. She could tell me all the horrors in the world, but she had no right to use Tess like that. If she didn’t leave soon, I had no idea what I was capable of doing to her.

“I don’t want to delay you.”

She smiled at me, a false and ironic smile that was typical of her. She won the battle and she knew it. She always won.

“You’re right. It’s not as if I don’t have better things to do than talk to a little girl, like you. See you tonight.”

“That’s it,” I muttered, unpleasant, slamming the door when she had passed it.

I hated her to such an extent that even if she had a car and could drop me off at school, since it was on her way, I preferred, a thousand times over, having to walk the 30-45 minutes, rather than to be in the same car with her.

Really, I could thank her for my bad mood. My second day of class started just as badly as the first. Exasperated by my damn sister, I went into the kitchen to eat a little before hitting the road. Having swallowed my breakfast, which was, of course, not cereal (Anna knew very well I didn’t like it), I grabbed my awaiting school bag and then closed the door behind me.

With my mind full of insults I sent mentally to Annabelle, I was surprised when I heard an engine sound behind me. I moved to the side of the road to give the vehicle room. However, the red and white car, a Ford Mustang Shelby, if my eyesight wasn't deceiving me, didn’t speed by as I had assumed it would. Instead, it braked a few meters after passing me. I wondered why the driver had stopped and most importantly, who the driver was. Although you didn't usually see anybody driving such vehicles in our area, it obviously wasn’t a resident of Mensen, because nobody outside the region was aware of this part of town.

Taken aback, I ended up moving to the car. When I was close enough to see who it was, a sense of unease spread through me. Something in me screamed to flee at full speed, to quickly get away from the newcomers. Why did I react so violently at the sight of them? I had no idea and it was a problem for me not to understand why this happened in their presence. I just knew, laying eyes on the driver, Mr. Emerald-Eyes, that my whole person would panic. Even though he was just as good-looking as his brother with his black hair, green eyes and his mysterious air, it was as if he was related to a bad memory ingrained in me, something I had unconsciously repressed. But how could I have a memory shared with the boy when I had just seen him once before? All of this made no sense. Relegating my trouble in a confined corner of my mind, I tried to behave like any normal person. I already knew that the task would be complicated.

“Hello,” exclaimed the new girl from the front passenger seat, after her brother had rolled down his window to allow her to talk to me.

To say that she exulted with joy in her seat would have been an understatement. Her attitude unnerved me somewhat. I was not used to this kind of behavior.

“Hi... uh... Leighton, isn’t it?” I asked, sure – well, almost sure – that was her name.

“I’m glad that you remember it,” she replied, smiling. “So you also live in this area?”

A smile appeared on my lips, because her name was indeed Leighton. And then, I stopped smiling when I realized what she had said. They also lived here? I had not even seen a moving truck here, last summer. I had never crossed their car, which couldn’t possibly go unnoticed, on this road. Admittedly, I hadn’t had the mind to care about the outside world in recent times, but I would not have missed it. I was positive about that.

“Yes,” I replied. “I live in the house you just passed.”

“Really? This is great, we are practically neighbors then. By the way, I love your house.”

“Thank you,” I said, a little embarrassed to be the center of attention. “Your car is...amazing,” I added, saying the first thing that came into my head to stop being the topic of the conversation.

Talk about a subtle diversion,
I thought. Leighton gave me a smile before moving an arm around the shoulders of the driver, the brother who put all my senses on high alert for an unknown reason. Moreover, the boy had his eyes on the windshield. He barely seemed to notice my presence. I was both relieved while imperceptibly feeling upset that he ignored me. Given my mixed feelings, I wanted to shake myself to make sense of them. I was either relieved or hurt, but I couldn’t be both at the same time.

“This is Garreth’s car. He recently purchased it. It rocks, doesn’t it?”

So his name was Garreth.
I could just nod to her question. This car was a real gem.

“It’s a Ford Mustang Shelby, right?” I inquired, even though I already knew the answer.

The owner of this fantastic vehicle finally gave me a look and smiled.
Actually, it was probably better if he continued to act as if I didn’t exist,
I said to myself, fleetingly crossing his green eyes. Thank God, nothing happened and I saw no strange picture, this time, which tended to confirm that I had imagined our “exchange” of yesterday. Leighton seemed surprised that I knew such a thing even if her smile remained bright, like her brother’s one.

“Exactly. A GT 500. The 2008 model, specifically.” He paused for a moment. “How did you know? By sheer chance, would we be dealing with an expert?”

Muted by the embarrassment, because I had again put the spotlight on myself, much to my dismay, I merely shook my head to say no. I knew this because one day, Hayden and I had seen a movie where the car had appeared and I had just loved it. With one or two differences; the color I would have chosen, metallic blue with white stripes, while Garreth had opted for red with white stripes. Apparently, my neighbor had the same interests as me when it came to cars. Although, in my case, I would’ve just picked this model because “it rocked,” as Leighton had said. A clearing of a throat made me stop swooning over this wonder of the automotive industry.

“Not that your small talk exasperates me...well actually, in fact, it does...but we’ll be late if you continue and that would annoy me deeply,” said the other brother. I still didn't know his name, but he threw me a glance suggesting that he would take vengeance on me if they didn't arrive to school on time.

Leighton sighed ostensibly to his remarks. She was charming and welcoming, but her brothers were scary. The one called Garreth may have smiled, but he was none the less intimidating. How the heck could she be related to those two? Apart from beauty, they had nothing in common, even though Travis and Leighton were twins and Garreth was merely a year older. Well, Annabelle and I had nothing in common either, so it could be possible.

“Do you want to come with us?” Garreth asked me.

At the sound of his voice, I was puzzled because I knew I had heard it before. However, that was impossible and thus absurd, since before the previous morning, I didn’t even know this boy and had never heard his voice before that time.
Just a sense of déjà vu,
I reasoned with myself, refusing to believe in a new quirk of my mind. It happened. It meant absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

“Um...I...I don’t know. I don’t want to bother you,” I finally said, still confused.

“If he asked you, it means it didn’t bother him,” pointed out the other brother.

Even if he wasn’t wrong, Grumpy began to horrify me frankly. His tone indicated that the thought that I would get in the backseat with him disgusted him to the highest point. As if speaking of an insect that he would have crushed with his new pair of shoes that cost him a fortune.
Nice choice of picture, Deliah,
I thought, a bit sarcastic. He could be reassured that the idea of a journey with him didn’t please me anymore than it did him.

“You’re a jerk, Travis!” exclaimed Leighton, clearly annoyed. “Excuse him,” she told me. “He’s very rude sometimes and can be really difficult to get along with when he decides to be like that.”

Travis, aka Grumpy, didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by what his sister said about him.

“It’s nothing,” I assured, gently.

And that sentence had been directed to the kind sister, not her brother. After all, she didn’t have to feel guilty and ask forgiveness for him. He was big enough to excuse himself.

Then I saw the worried look Leighton exchanged with Garreth, his clenched hands, eyes resting on the steering wheel and the delighted expression that Travis unexpectedly wore. I didn’t know what was taking place inside that car; however, seeing the tension coming from Garreth, it didn’t bode well.

“Travis!” cried the sister with a disapproving tone.

I didn’t understand. Not at all. I watched, in turn, looking for what Travis could be doing to his brother when he hadn’t even touched him. Aside from the fact that his eyes were right on the rear-view mirror where Garreth also looked, he didn’t do anything.

“What? I did nothing,” the accused replied in a deceptively innocent tone. “Did I do something?”

The question was addressed to me. Me, the one who started this whole mess. Uncomfortable, I hurriedly declared:

“I’ll walk, but thank you for the offer.”

I didn’t wait for a reaction and went on my way. I hadn’t made it two steps further when the car was by my side again and Garreth exclaimed in an authoritative tone:

“Get in the car.”

“Excuse me?”

Suddenly, Grumpy seemed very nice compared to his brother. What allowed him to give me orders, huh? We didn’t even know each other!

“Get in the car, Deliah. Leighton, go to the backseat with her. Travis, out. Now!”

I winced when I heard my name. How did Garreth know my name? Oh yes, he already had heard of me and my strange family. Or his sister had told him. Surprisingly, Garreth didn’t need to raise his voice to be threatening. I did so without a word while Travis got out of the car on the opposite side of mine. He walked away, but not without first throwing me a brooding look.

“I didn’t want to create problems,” I apologized when Leighton moved to my side. Even if I hadn’t forced Travis to get on the nerves of his brother, I was embarrassed to have indirectly caused this dissent.