Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets) (11 page)

“
Are you okay?” I quickly asked my brother as I knelt down beside him, slipping my hand underneath his head to cushion it.

“
Ow…my head…my ears are ringing,” Jaden groaned as he slowly sat upright.

The veins were starti
ng to recede into his skin and slowly lighten back to their original colour, whilst his chalk-white skin was slowly starting to gain its rosy tint back.

“
Are you okay? What happened?”

“
I dunno.’ I just heard glass shattering and then –” Jaden groaned “– then I just felt my ears ringing and felt so much pain. It was like a migraine at its peak. It was extremely –” Jaden groaned louder, waiting for the pain he went through to slowly cease.

“
How are you now?” I asked worriedly.

“
I’m fine…now…I guess. Hey, didn’t mum cut Jade’s hair shorter?”

“
Yeah, why?” Jaden’s eyebrows furrowed into misunderstanding.

“
Then why is it longer again?” He was
drowsy, but he was right. Jade’s hair had fallen back to its knee length. I got up speedily and raced to her and mum.

“
Mum, are you okay? How did you
do
that?” I was throwing questions at her, baffled by what I saw her do. Things were slowly spiralling out of control and the worst part was that I couldn’t even take a time out to sit and absorb the events because they were occurring too fast. Other than that, my emotions and mind were as sorted as a freshly-bought jigsaw puzzle.

“
I’m fine, darling. How’s your brother?” mum coughed, turning her neck and deliberately clicking it to help the pain she endured to subside. She had avoided the question altogether on what sorcery she had just performed. Quite frankly I was ready to wake up at any moment.

“
Yeah, he’s fine…um….Jade we need to talk – urgent,”

“
What is it?”

Her stare
stabbed holes into my eyes. How they all of a sudden turned from an ordinary shade of hazel to a gleaming and sparkly violet shade of purple, I did not know. They were quite numinous, really – like gems embedded in her head reflecting some greater power within her.

“
Well…um…”

“
Stop hesitating! Just inhale, exhale and speak!” she commanded. I took in a deep breath and let it out.

“
Okay, okay – your hair has grown even longer.”

Jade’s face was wiped of any emotion and a scowl took over. She
looked at the back of her feet to see her hair longer then it was before. It was now below her knees. She looked back at me.

“
Mum, is there anything you want to explain to us?” I asked. This was the only thing left to do: confront mum and ask her what was honestly going on. I wouldn’t have suspected her, but seeing how she removed the glass shards and her not reacting to our sudden physical changes gives me strong suspicions that she might be involved in whatever was occurring. Jaden limped towards us and mum nodded softly, smacking her lips as she contemplated our question.

“
You’re right,” she began calmly. She made sure her eyes rested on the ground, unable to look at us directly whilst she tucked her long coils of hair behind her ears. “Would any of you believe me if I told you that…that we weren’t from England?”

“
So, you’re saying all this madness is only happening because we’re not from England? Unbelievable!” I overreacted.

“
I…just – answer the question, Aden.” I crossed my arms and sighed helplessly.

“
Okay, let’s say sure for saying’s sake.”

Mum looked somehow worried. Her voice was cracking as
if she was choking on water.

“
Now, what would you say if I told you that we weren’t from Europe?”

“
Mum, where are we going with this?” asked Jade.

“
Now, this is going to sound a
tad
cliché but what would you do if I told you we weren’t from…Earth?” I chuckled sarcastically.

“
Mum, I’m confused. First of all I don’t even know what
to believe,” I muttered underneath my hands as I rubbed my eyes. Jaden and Jade were simply silent with their arms folded, engaged in a serious ponder.

“
I’d say I believed you, no matter how…” Jaden paused, trying to find the appropriate word “
fictional
it would seem.”

“
What?” I asked, making sure I heard correctly.

“
Think about it: one, all that crazy talk about us being in year ten and all of a sudden being in 2014 –”

“
– Jaden –” Jade attempted to speak.

“
Two
: this completely weird dream I had and three – well, look at us! Now, wouldn’t that make you curious? Because I’ll tell you what, A.J., sonorous bells the size of Big Ben are going off in my head practically
screaming
that something isn’t right,” Jaden answered calmly, still rubbing his neck from the strenuous pain he had endured earlier on.

“
You know what, he’s got a point,” Jade concurred.

“
Wait, what dream?” I asked curiously.

“
What?”

“
You said you had a weird dream, what dream?”

“
Oh,
that
. No, it’s nothing. It was just about this guy and this girl and they were in this cool, posh room…and had powers and stuff,” Jaden said, mumbling the latter part of his sentence to himself. I was looking at the floor as I tried to run Jaden’s sentence through my mind because it sounded all too familiar.

“
Was some sort of attack involved? Like fists being dented into a steel door?” 

“
Yeah
, how did –” Jaden started curiously.

“
And was the girl called Tammy and the boy Robbie?” added Jade.

“
Yes, but how do you guys know all this?”

“
Because I had the same dream,” Jade and I replied simultaneously undertone.

“
Well, at least someone’s done her homework,” mum muttered under her breath. We turned our heads and looked at her murderously.

“
Mum, what’s going on?” Jade asked savagely.

But I started to flinch.
A prickling, burning sensation was being needled into my hands and I non-hesitantly raised them to my eyes. To my horror, three holes were being burnt inside my palms. It was almost as if a cigarette were singeing itself into my hands. Finally the burning sensation had ceased, leaving an ongoing sting in its place. What further astounded me was that the marks were hollow. All I saw from them were three pitch black holes, as if they were burnt into something else and not into my hands.

I
couldn’t take it anymore. I needed my questions answered. I was scared. And I was extremely eager to receive all the explanations I demanded. “Mum,” I called out cautiously, unable to tear my eyes from the terrifying holes in my palm.

“
What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly.

I turned my hands to show her the six
holes; three on each hand, burnt into my flesh, but she did not seem surprised at all. 

“
Did they burn their way in?” she asked.

“
Yes, but –”

“
Right, all of you, pack your bags. We’re not staying anymore,” she all of a sudden voiced out, about to turn to march off to her bedroom.

“
What? Why?” Jaden inquired intriguingly. It’s strange how each and every one of us has that little scared child concealed within our minds that comes out once in a while when we need to feel safe and protected. I saw that little child in Jaden when he asked.

“
Mum, where are we going?” I demanded after Jaden, and this time, more stern and disrespectfully. My eyes were fiercely fixed on mum as she spoke. I was tired of being treated like a rag doll whose sole job was to sit down on its rear and watch the world go by. Niceness wasn’t going to get me anywhere at this point.

“
Please don’t argue. I’m too frustrated to argue. Just – do it…please. There’s no time.”

Mum said that with a
look of unpleasantness on her face. There was no excitement or friendliness in the way she said it. Then, she strode off into her room. 

“
Mum, I’m utterly confused as to why we’re leaving London,” my sister asked, trotting after our mother.

“
Well, we’re not leaving London per-se. Okay, yes we are, but you can come back anytime you want,” replied mum, stuffing clothes into her suitcase.

“
You don’t mean that, do you?”

“
Yes, I do! Now go and pack I’m not going to tell you again.” Jade walked back to the hallway, tousled and left with uncomfortable knots in her stomach.

“
Aden, can you believe this?” Jade said, chewing on her lip stud out of frustration.

“
Actually, after all this, I can.”

Jade
and I heard the loud zipping of something. We turned our heads to see Jaden zipping up his black suitcase.

“
You’re actually doing it?” asked Jade.

“
Why not? Anyway, I’m pretty sure some good sense will come out of this afterwards,” he replied to Jade calmly. “Besides, you’re the one who said you believed all this and trust me, I am ready to leave and go anywhere in order to leave all this madness behind, I am
too
scared. You weren’t mentally attacked just now, I was.”

I stood silent in the
doorway and sighed. Maybe Jaden did have a point. Maybe this would make sense after. All of a sudden I heard crackling, as if someone were stepping on…
broken glass
.

“
Psst
…Jaden,” I called.

“
What?”

“
Come with.”

“
Come with, where?”

“
Just come. I think something’s up.”

Jaden took one last look at Jade and sighed befor
e departing his room. I walked out of Jade’s doorway and went to have a look in the bathroom – it was a total mess. There was scattered glass all over the floor and shattered mirror pieces in the sink. The bathtub was overflowing with cold water and the window had a huge crack scraped across it.  Jaden quickly went to the bathtub, turned off its tap and retreated to stand by my side.

“
What’s that?” I pointed.

“
What’s what?”

“
That,” I said pointing to the window.

An envelope
was hanging from a piece of rough twine attached to the top frame of the shattered glass window. I slowly walked to it, being careful not to step on any sharp shards of glass. I stopped and looked behind to see if Jaden was still there. I looked at the letter again as I drew closer to it. Gently, I stretched my hand out as slowly as I could and quickly grabbed it. A red seal with a black
C
was printed onto it, keeping the letter closed. Jaden and I looked at each other in curiosity.

“
Should we call mum?” he asked me.

“
Probably. But if we do she might take it and dispose of it.”

“
How do you know that?”

I looked at Jaden
the same way Jade did to me when she wanted to make something obvious.

“
Okay, fine, whatever. Open it,” he suggested, giving in to the obvious truth. We both wanted to know what was in that envelope. It was an itch begging to be scratched.

“
Okay. Here we go,” I said to myself with Jaden standing firmly next to me. I took in a deep breath.

“
I can’t do it. You do it. It’s too awkward,” I said out of slight cowardice.

“
Oh, so you want
me
to take the fall if anything happens? I already almost
died
.”

“
Fine, we’ll both do it –” I stated.

“
– on the count of three; one…two…three,” Jaden and I tore the top of the envelope open. The letter had a few words in the same handwritten font as earlier; monstrous.

“
Your path will be that of misapprehension,

Just know when we kill you it
’s for good intention...
”

Jaden and
I looked at each other gravely.

“
Kill…us?
” Jaden gulped.

“
Precisely,” a deep voice hissed behind us on our left. Jaden and I both jumped, startled and dropping the letter automatically. We backed off towards the bathtub. A man….a man stood there simply. It wasn’t so much that he was intimidating – it was that he was bloodcurdling. Furthermore, what couldn’t seem to get past me, was how he had gotten in without anybody noticing. Could
he
have possibly broken the window?