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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Chapter 17 Part 2

     
    Maury was off in an instant, light on his feet with a burst of speed. He knew exactly where the witch had headed, he assumed as soon as all hell broke loose in the kitchen. He didn’t break stride as he took the stairs by two’s until he got to the top landing, about to turn left to the attic. He came to a halt once he saw the old woman slumped against the wall in the hallway to the right. Not trusting her, he stepped carefully towards her and he watched her chest rise and fall rapidly. He scented the air finding the scent of fear and terror but anyone in that state could react in unpredictable ways. He knew that at any moment she could strike out with her magic even though she was forbidden from attacking any of them simply from being startled.
    The witch’s hair hung in thick damp strands like a chunky veil in front of her face but seemed to pay him no mind when he gradually lowered himself to his knees before her. On a good day he figured that she would have loved to see a guardian in that position preferably with a bowed head and almost like she read his thoughts she let out a half-hearted giggle. Maury continued to stare at her and had the urge to brush her hair from her face but did nothing until she lifted her head and looked him in the eye. In the quiet, without the constant snarl she usually wore he could almost see what she had been in her youth. The colour of her eyes was the only thing that stayed vivid on her face but he could see the beauty she used to have still reflected there until her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
    He cleared his throat to speak but never got the words out…she did. “There is something bad in this house.” She said quietly. “It’s an evil thing, stained and it wants through to this world. I could feel its intentions.” Lifting a shaking hand she pointed a gnarled finger toward the door at the end of the hall. “Whose room is that?” Maury looked away then and his nostrils flared as he took in the scent of vanilla that has been hers since her birth and he knew that was Kyra’s room but only asked. “Why? What is it and what does it want?”
    Gertie cackled fully before she spat out. “Why, a way in of course! Be prepared Guardian.”
    Now she tried to stand and put out a hand on the wall to help push herself up so she didn’t have to touch Maury; he who didn’t offer her a hand to help her anyway. As she scrambled herself up the wall and back on to her feet, he stayed squatting on the floor with his eyes trained on Kyra's door. When he shifted his gaze back to Gertie he asked again gruffly. “What is it witch?” She spoke even softer now while her eyes darted back to Kyra’s bedroom door. “It will drain her dry Guardian and use her bones as a tether itself to this world.” As he stood, the witch’s eyes didn’t waver from the room ahead. Before he could stop himself he reached out and touched her elbow in an effort to lead her away and back downstairs but the moment he touched her, she jumped and hissed like an animal, cornered against the wall and wrapped her arms around her withered body in an effort to protect herself from some invisible harm that she thought was coming to her.
    Maury stepped back with his hands in the air and while the shock could not be hidden from his face, the witch cowered, shaking and soon after a crooked smile formed as he looked at her and said. “Wow for a witch you sure do spook easy.” Gertie straightened herself and kicked her chin up defiantly. “I am a Caretaker; there is no use for my magic other than protecting my mistress.” The last word was spoken softly. He slowly lowered his arms. “So you can’t protect yourself?” he asked out of genuine curiosity.
    The look she gave him was distant, remembering the agreement made long ago that caused her pain. For a few seconds she seemed lost in that place when Maury was just about to clear his throat to bring her back. Quieter than he had heard her since they met she said simply. “If at that point I am protecting her by using myself, as the shield...” her words fell away and he stuffed his hands in his pockets looking her straight in the eye, knowing what her answer would be but he hedged anyway. “So…that means?”

“No,” she replied, not being able to hide the hurt she loosed a breath. “No I cannot protect myself.”  

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Chapter 17 Part 1


17-1

    When Skye’s eyes finally opened she was on the couch in the front room. Although she felt warm she felt something move down the side of her face, the trail of it gave her the slight itch and urge to wipe it away until she noticed something cool and damp on her forehead. Before she moved, she assessed her surroundings without turning her head, only using her ears. She felt a sense of unease as she briefly remembered her strange dream yet at the same time she wondered about the story she was told about herself and her repeated lives.
     Panic kicked in wildly inside her chest as soon as she thought that she might have lost her life again as she had been told she would. Skye’s body heated, she became flush and her breathing laboured trying to calm herself and think rationally.
    The brain in her head was trying to make sense of it all. She looked around the room and her logic kicked in telling her that she wouldn’t have remembered the story or the room she was in if that was what had happened. Relief crashed into her with a force that amazed her. As she tried to take long slow breaths, she lifted her hand to her forehead and saw it trembling, immediately she put it back down beside her and tried to lock down her emotions.  Concentrating on the fact that her head hurt, she winced at the pain as she tried to sit upright until she noticed that her cheek was tender and throbbing too. She quickly decided that giving up on moving was the best thing and she would just stay where she was. Deciding that it would be a good idea just to close her eyes again and sort through her thoughts calmly.

    Everything was quiet for the first few minutes. Skye lifted her now steady hand to her face and let out a low moan when she touched her sore cheek, it was then that she heard footsteps. Skye could barely see the doorway without straining her eyes even in the dim light. Slowly she turned her head towards the door but the pillow made her rethink that movement even as the soft cushion caused her face to howl at her. Blinking, the first person she saw step through the archway was Chase.
    “Great,” she mumbled clearly annoyed. “You’re still here?” When he merely shrugged, she chuckled softly and rubbed her cheekbone tenderly again as pain throbbed it reminding her to stop doing that. On some subconscious level she poked at her face because she was trying to put the pieces together. “I must have passed out and hit something.” She thought to herself.
    “What the hell happened to my face?” she said more to herself knowing that Chase wouldn’t say much if he said anything at all, but he surprised her when his answer rumbled out of him “You passed out.” He said simply. “Wow,” she thought to herself. “Has his voice always sounded like that?” His voice was smooth and musical in its soft cadence.
    “Oh…” she replied softly and let the conversation or lack of, drift off as she heard more footsteps coming towards the front room. Dominic rounded the corner with a strained smile on his sour face; he made his way over to her like a man on a mission stopped in front of her and put his hand on Chases shoulder while Maury and Cy came in close behind him. Cyrus saw that his mother was awake he stumbled over to her, knelt down and took the now cold cloth off of her forehead. She watched is face and noticed the sadness and worry in his eyes. Her heart broke especially when he wouldn’t look her in the eye; it was at that moment she knew without a doubt that something bad had happened.

    “Cyrus?” she hedged gently lifting his chin to look at her with her hand. “What happened?” His eyes shot to hers for no more than a second before he turned and pleaded silently with Chase. Chase rose to his full height but said nothing, only turning away from her and deferred all explanation to Maury with a jerk of his head. Skye figured that since he liked to talk the most it would best be coming from him anyway. Maury didn’t hesitate as he told Skye about the invasion of her mind from Georgia and how Chase had to shut her up once Georgia had found out that there were children in the game now. Hearing her life referred to as a game made Skye want to scream, instead she listened intently remembering her odd dream.
    It didn’t take Maury long to recap for her and after wrestling with the chaos going on inside of her, all Skye could do was shake her head in what she wished was disbelief but then returned the favour of telling them about the “dream” she thought that she was having when she had been able to talk Georgia face to face.
    Once she finished her story the three men in front of her looked at one another clearly not knowing where to go from here. The less they spoke the more nervous she became. “How do I stop her from taking over my life?” The question was asked like it was no more than slight inconvenience that they could get around. Dominic ran his fingers roughly through his short hair. “I’m not sure,” he said with a growl, clearly exasperated with how things were going. “We’ll have to look through all of the journals and books that we have in possession, we might have to send out word to some of the others and see what we can do.” Skye bristled at the word others.
    “There are more of you?” she questioned in more disbelief. Dom looked to Chase who again shrugged. “Really, for the ones that are supposed to have all of the answers, you sure don’t talk a whole hell of a lot.” Before Chase shrugged again Skye held her hand up palm out to stop him. “Don’t bother big man, if you shrug one more time I might have to come over there and repay the favour you gave my face.” The blush that bloomed across Chase’s face was a complementing shade that set off his strawberry blond hair.
   In an attempt to save Chase the embarrassment that he never usually suffered Dominic answered Sky’s question. “Yes there are,” he paused, stilling himself, he noticed something was wrong. Skye could see it on his face. His eyebrows lowered, nostrils flared and a growl escaped his lips while looked out the door to the foyer, just now noticing that Gertie was gone and had been for some time.

“Where’s the witch?”

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