Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 5 (10 page)

"What's your point?" Tristan
asked callously.

Melina took a deep breath to
calm herself before she spoke, "my point she has been through a lot
lately. She's very vulnerable at this moment."

"Vulnerable?" Tristan
snorted, "she's the last witch! She can do all kinds of
things..."

"I meant emotionally
vulnerable you idiot," Melina snapped, "just because she can
control things like fire does not mean she can control her own
emotions."

Tristan sighed heavily at
this point and glanced away.

A thick pause passed before
someone spoke. It was Rhonda who broke the silence by asking, "what
should we do?"

At first, Melina was
enthusiastic about finally being taking seriously. Her enthusiastic
expression however melted at Rhonda's question.

Tristan noticed Melina's
hesitation and said, "look the fact of it is we know Aradia is
acting weird but there is really nothing we can do about it. We
don't know where she is or who she is with. Furthermore, she's
being avoiding us for the last two months so why the hell would she
listen to us?!"

"Just what are you saying
exactly?" Melina demanded while crossing her arms.

"What I am saying is this,"
Tristan as he finally stood up and faced down Melina. "Aradia maybe
going nuts but there is jack shit we can do about it." He then
reached for his coat to sling over his shoulder. Titania followed
at his heels.

He did stop, however, to
look over his shoulder and add, "besides this is Salem how much
trouble can she get into here?"

Aradia racked her brain,
trying to think of an excuse for skipping school. At least an
excuse that could convince her parents not to punish
her.

"You know what I find
hilarious?" Saul asked.

Aradia shook her head.
"What?"

"The fact that you have so
many unfounded fears."

Aradia looked up at him in
confusion. "What do you mean?"

Saul groaned loudly.
"Unfounded fears are fears that have absolutely no basis in fact
whatsoever."

"I know what unfounded fears
mean," Aradia snaps, "what I mean is...well what do you mean I have
unfounded fears?"

Saul sighed. "What part of
having incredible powers over all the elements don't you seem to
understand?"

"huh?"

"Oh for Christ's sake
Aradia," Saul cried, "you can do anything whenever you want to do
it. You can have anything as well. You shouldn't have to answer to
a couple of humans."

Aradia's eyes narrowed.
"Those 'humans' happen to be my parents."

"Yeah I know," Saul said,
"but that doesn't meant you have to answer to them."

"What?"

"Think about it," Saul
explained, "you are the most powerful hidden on the planet. All the
vampires, werewolves, faes, and other hidden races fear you. Why
the hell should you be afraid of your father punishing you? What
can he really do to you? Hit you? Beat you? You're ten times
stronger than him. You could break him in five different ways
without any problem."

"He could ground me..."
Aradia started but Saul interrupted, "so? How is he going to
enforce that? You could just control the metal elements in the
house to make all the locks unable to lock. How is he going to
force you to stay home? How can he force you to even go to school?
The truth is he can't. He's neither physically nor emotionally
strong to make you."

Aradia had been listening to
Saul explanation with fascination. She hung her head low, staring
at the ground with her mouth and eyes wide open.

She tried to find an
argument to Saul's reasoning. "But what if my father kicks me
out?"

Aradia had heard and seen
that happen to other kids. Whether it was a good household or not,
if the kid didn't agree with their parents they were thrown out
like trash. Sometimes it taught them a lesson, but in every
occasion it left a terrible aftermath.

Saul, however, didn't seem
to think so because he just shrugged and said, "so what if he
does?"

"Hello?" Aradia snapped,
"where would I go?"

Saul tried to make it seem
as casual as possible when he suggested, "you could come live with
me."

Aradia rolled her eyes in
sarcasm.

"how would I support myself
hmm? Get a job?" Aradia inquired further, "it's almost impossible
to get one without a high school diploma."

"Who says you need a job?"
said Saul.

"Oh the same people who says
I need food and a bed," Aradia snapped.

"What I mean is with your
powers you don't need a job. You can just take whatever you
want."

Aradia's eyes grew even
wider. "You mean stealing?"

"Yeah," Saul stated
bluntly.

Before Aradia could voice
her furious protests, Saul rushed on with his explanation. "Think
about it Aradia. Your powers can make security cameras explode, you
can melt bullets before they even touch you, and so much more. You
would never have to worry about money. You would never have to
worry about anything. The best part is with your powers, you would
probably never get caught, and even if you did there is no way in
hell they could ever prosecute you. They would have no proof at
least no proof that anyone would ever believe."

Aradia tried to argue with
Saul, but her attempts only ended in small gasps. Suddenly, her
phone went off. Aradia then dove into her pocket and pulled it out.
It was a text message that read 'young lady come home now!' in
caps. Aradia didn't need to see the number to know who it was from.
The yelling she had gotten from her father the last time was still
echoing in her ears. She was in no hurry to rush back home and get
another.

Saul noticed her barely
concealed anguish and put two fingers to her chin and lifted it up.
"Look, if you do change your mind," he paused to fish a piece of
paper out of his pocket. "Here is my number."

There was a thick almost
romantic pause that passed between Saul and Aradia. Until finally,
Saul clapped and rubbed his hands together. "C'mon let's get you
home," he said, enthusiastically.

Aradia, however, was less
than eager or enthusiastic.

She knew it was futile, but
Aradia did try to sneak into the house without her parents knowing.
She first attempted to sneak in through the window. As quietly as
she could, Aradia jumped high into the air and landed on the roof
of the deck. She squatted and slowly made her way up. The entire
time she gripped onto the shingles, to steady herself.

Come to think of
it
, Aradia thought to herself,
I actually have been using my powers excessively
today.

She was referring to the
fact that when Saul was showing her the books some of them happened
to be on her summoning power. Out of all the things she could do,
Aradia could honestly say her "summoning" ability was her favorite.
According to the book, the ability to "summon" things was the root
of all the hidden witches' power. Best of all, the book detailed
about further things she could do with the "summoning." Things such
as summoning a ball of light into her hand that would show her
visions of whatever she wanted. It was as if she could create a
crystal ball out of thin air. After practicing five or six times
with Saul, Aradia was now able to do all this with a just a flick
of her wrist. This was how Aradia was able to discover the perfect
time and the perfect way to sneak into her house.

What she hadn't been able to
see was the fact that her window had been nailed shut from the
inside. She supposed that she could use her power to make all the
nails levitate from the window frame. However, there seemed to be
more than a dozen nails on the frame. Using her power over metal
was easy in small doses like getting a lock to unlock itself. Using
it all to lift a dozen nails at once, there was no telling what it
would do to her energy. There was a possibility that it would drain
her and cause her to fall right off the roof!

Aradia figured she could use
her brute strength to open the window, but that would inevitably
make noise. If she broke the glass that would make noise too and
get her father even more angry at her. Never mind that Aradia could
fix the broken glass with a couple of snaps from her fingers. Her
father would force her to clean up the glass manually to teach her
a lesson. Maybe even make her pay for it.

She sighed heavily, and then
back flipped onto the ground. She stared up at the house, trying to
deduce another way in. Finally, her eyes fell upon the back door.
She chuckled to herself, doubting that she could ever be that
lucky. Nevertheless, she reached for the door knob and turned it.
Aradia was amazed to discover that it was unlocked and she could
open it. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, as quietly
as she could Aradia slipped in. She tiptoed as fast as she could to
the staircase but she had barely reached for the banister when the
lights came on.

A familiar male voice
followed that said, "you didn't really believe it would be that
easy did you?"

Aradia cringed with the
sinking knowledge that she had been set up. Slowly, she turned to
face her father. Her mother was sitting on the couch, looking as if
she wanted nothing more than to race upstairs. Oddly though,
whenever Ross yelled at Aradia he always insisted that Liza be
there to watch. It had been that way since Aradia was a child, and
she doubted that the pattern would stop now.

For a few tense filled
moments, no one moved. Until Ross pointed to the couch, indicating
where Aradia was suppose to sit. She dragged her feet to the spot
and sat down slowly. She hung her head so low that it looked as if
her forehead was touching the floor.

Ross took a deep breath.
"It's bad enough that you repeated your junior year in high school
but to find out that now in your senior year you are ditching
school. I mean dear God Aradia, do you want to get rejected by
every college in America? Do you want to throw away your future? Do
you have any idea what you are doing to yourself? Do you even
care?! I am getting sick and tired of you messing up. Your mother
and I are trying but we can't do this all on our own. You have to
help us Aradia. You need to be motivated. You need to understand
that everything we are doing is for you. Just because you are going
through a bad break-up with your stupid boyfriend is no reason for
you to throw away your future. You cannot act like this Aradia!
Your mother and I try so damn hard to give you everything but you
keep...."

While her father ranted on
and on, Aradia tried to keep her mind focused on his words but
somehow Saul's word managed to drift into her subconscious. Words
such as that she was so physically strong that she didn't have to
take verbal abuse from her father. She was powerful enough to make
her own path. She didn't really need school because her abilities
were enough to keep her going. She tried mentally arguing against
such things but her father yelling at her was making it
hard.

"Goddamnit Aradia! I am
talking to you!"

Aradia raised her head
obediently, and stared at her father's flaming red face. He took a
deep breath before saying, "I swear to God Aradia, maybe if you
actually listened to your mother and I you wouldn't be such a
failure!"

Something snapped in Aradia
like never before. "A failure?"

"You repeated your junior
year, your grades are slipping, you have no job, and you don't have
a driver's license. Hell! You don't even have a learner's permit!
If you had listened to me in the first place, you wouldn't have
gotten caught up in the hidden world and actually have a chance at
a normal life."

"Normal," Aradia cried,
"normal? Normal?! Just what the hell is normal to you
anyway?"

"Normal means having a
normal life Aradia."

"In case you didn't realize
this Dad, I am not normal!"

Ross's eyes flew open. He
had never heard Aradia yell like that. She was now on her feet and
staring straight at him.

"I am not normal Dad,"
Aradia repeated, "I have never been normal. I have psychic flashes,
I can use all the elements of the natural world and bend them to my
own will, and I can tackle someone out of a third story window! I
am not normal Dad! I am sorry but I am not! I will never be normal.
I cannot be normal. I will never try to be something I am not. You
may enjoy lying to yourself but I don't. I cannot lie about who I
really am. I am not a liar! I am not normal! I am not
human!"

Aradia breathed heavily
after finishing while her parents looked on her in astonishment. To
avoid their gazes, Aradia turned her head. "And I am through
pretending to be," she muttered.

"What is that suppose to
mean?" Ross inquired.

"It means," Aradia sighed,
"that I am dropping out of school! I am not going to college. I am
not going to live amongst the humans. I am not going to keep
pretending!"