BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
"Shut up, you stupid piece of plastic!" The obviously irritated voice could barely be heard from the under the mounds of thick red comforters. Some more grumbling was heard before a tanned hand made its way out of the covers and started groping around the desk next to the bed for the loud alarm clock. Crashes were heard throughout the room as the hand successfully swept off everything but the beeping machine that the owner of the hand was convinced was sent from hell to torture her. The hand finally managed to close around a roughly rectangular-ish shaped thing and the owner decided that throwing it against the wall would be the best course of action. But first, she needed to see so that she wouldn't hit her precious books and other random things in her room.
A head topped with messed up black hair popped out of the covers, and the rest of the girl's upper body followed until it was resting against the headboard. The girl stretched with the alarm clock still in her hand and then, taking one last look at it, reeled her arm back and threw the torture device at the wall which also contained her door.
"OH, what now! I rock, you SUCK!" The girl continued her little chant for a moment longer before she noticed that she was teetering precariously on the bed, the left side of her hanging off the bed. And it was a pretty high bed.
"AHH!" the girl screamed as she fell off the bed and landed on the floor with a dull thud.
"Third time this week, huh, Kiddo?" a male voice asked from the doorway. "I would've thought you know better by know."
The girl looked up to see a boy with straight black hair and blue eyes, looking almost like her if she was a boy and older. The only difference was, the girl's eyes were more gray than blue, though they did have a hint of azure and the boy's shone like sapphires. The girl's lit up, but her mouth turned down in a frown as soon as she registered the boy's words.
"Shut up!" the girl yelled from her position on the floor, her once warm and comforting blankets now twisted around her legs.
A woman with dark brown hair and cobalt blue eyes suddenly appeared in the doorway with a stern expression on her face but with a teasing expression in her eyes. She raised an eyebrow at the boy as if to ask, "Again?" and the boy nodded. The girl missed the exchange as she tried to untangle the blankets that were hindering her from getting up.
The woman cleared her throat and the girl's head shot up, hitting the side of the bed. She stretched her neck until her eyes could peek over the top and see the woman.
"Mom!" the girl managed, before gravity forced her back down to the ground.
"I heard yelling."
The girl, having successfully disentangled the blankets from her legs, jumped up and pointed an accusing finger at the boy. "Jake started it!" she yelled in a whining voice.
"Nuh-uh! Miss I-can't-stop-falling-off-high-places over there was the one who threw her alarm clock for the third time this week," the boy retaliated immediately.
"Well, I don't care who started it. I'm ending it. Jake, stop teasing your sister. And Elainya, stop yelling at your brother." The woman started to walk away, but stopped and went back to the doorway where her two children were still glaring, albeit playfully, at each other. "By the way, breakfast is ready and if you two aren't down in five minutes, Dad and I will eat without you. Elainya, sweetie, do try not to fall off you're bed anymore, okay?"
The girl, Elainya, nodded and gave a mock salute to her mother. Her mother only shook her head and walked away, muttering something under her breath that sounded remarkably like, "Remind me why I had kids again?"
Elainya turned back to her brother, Jake, who was older than her by two years, being sixteen, and was currently leaning against her doorframe, half smiling, half smiling. For the past two years, he had been going to some school in Japan and he had just come home last week. He spoke Japanese fluently, so he had been trying to teach her to read Japanese. Elainya was a huge fan of anime and manga and reading manga in their original form gave her a sense of fulfillment. Anyway, back to the school issue, she didn't understand why he didn't simply go to the local high school. She would be going there next year, and she had to admit, it would have been a lot better with Jake around.
Jake and Elainya had always been close, a lot closer than brothers and sisters that were two years apart usually were. Jake was very protective of his "baby sister" and Elainya was glad that she had someone to defend and help her throughout the years. His "even-so-much-at-look-at-her-and-I'll-kill-you" thing did get annoying at times, as it intimidated many people. Still, he was generally a good brother, if a bit over-the-top.
"Hey, Laine, you miss me?" Jake asked, straightening up and holding his arms out as if expecting her to jump into his arms and to hug him tightly.
Which, of course, was exactly what she did.
"I missed you so much, Jake," Elainya said, looking up at her older brother. Jake was a star athlete and a top student, so she looked up to him a lot. It seemed as if the smart genes ran in her family as both her mother and father were valedictorians when they went to school. Elainya tried to live up to the high expectations that came with her name and succeeded well enough. She was no star athlete, she didn't even try out for the teams, but she did play sports with her friends outside of school. She got good enough grades to make a recurring appearance in the Honor Roll and was a total bookworm and right now, she was fine with that.
"Hey, I missed you too, Kiddo," Jake told her as he rubbed the top of her head affectionately, messing her hair up even more. "The kids over there aren't nearly as much fun as the ones here. They have absolutely no inside jokes and, the most horrible thing of all, they don't blurt out random things!" They both gave a gasp of mock shock before bursting into laughter.
Their sibling bonding moment was interrupted by a yell from their mother.
"TWO MINUTES!"
"Oh crap. Jake, get out. I have to get dressed and so do you. I don't want to miss breakfast," Elainya said, shooing her brother out the door.
"Alright, I'm going already. I thought you said you missed me?" he asked, pretending to be hurt.
"I was kidding."
"Hey! I'm ignoring that. I have a feeling that something big is gonna happen today."
Elainya gasped. "You know something that I don't."
"What you don't know would fill several libraries," Jake laughed.
"Shut up. No, seriously, what is it? Did Daddy get me a new cell phone?"
Jake looked at her incredulously. "I thought you just got a new phone last month?"
His younger sister just looked at him blankly. "Yeah, and?"
Jake just shook his head, walking away and muttering under his breath, much like their mother, saying, "Why didn't I get to have a new phone every month. I was their first child! Shouldn't I be special? Stupid, spoiled little sisters."
"But you love me anyway!" Elainya's voice rang out behind him.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Jake waved a hand half-heartedly, still grumbling about his little sister getting more than he ever did at her age even though "he was the star of the hockey, basketball, and football teams."
Elainya hurriedly put on a pair of jeans and some random shirt she pulled out her closet. Her dad came back from a business trip today and she was anxious to see him. Her parents were the founders and owners of a successful candy and chocolate company, the name being Evergreen after the family's last name. They were quite rich and lived in one of those huge penthouses that took up the entire top two floors of a building in New York City. However, there was a downside to this. The Evergreen family was a tightly knit family and the long trips that her parents took turns going on and the fact that Jake was in Japan for nine months of the year, only coming home for holidays, sometimes took a toll on Elainya. Still, she just let it slide. She knew that her parents' only wanted the best for their children and if that meant going away for long periods of time, then so be it.
The black haired girl quickly glanced at the mirror on her dresser and cringed at her appearance. Her hair was still a crazy mess on top of her head and, in her haste, put her shirt on backwards. She took off the red shirt and put it on the way it was supposed to be. She went to her bathroom and hurriedly brushed her teeth after hearing the call for one minute. Though her hair seemed as if it would take forever to get all the tangles out, it only took a few strokes from her brush to return her hair to its usual sleek and straight style, hanging down to her shoulders.
She ran down the stairs to the first floor of their penthouse and nearly crashed into Jake, looking as if he had gotten ready just as quickly as her. They both sat down at the table just as their parents did, indicating they were right on time. Their mom and dad were discussing business affairs as they were eating, so Jake and Elainya knew to keep their conversation quiet. As soon as her parents looked as if they were done, Elainya jumped out of her seat and ran around the table to her dad.
"Daddy!" she squealed, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. "I missed you! Jake was making fun of me again."
Jake opted for a calmer greeting, although the joy he felt at seeing his father again was obvious. "Hi, Dad. How'd the trip go?"
"Oh, stop with the formalities. C'mere, son." And with that their father pulled Jake into a hug with his other arm. They all looked expectantly at Mrs. Evergreen. She rolled her eyes and went to join the family hug. After a few moments, they all let go and sat back down at their respective places. Elainya zoned out of the conversation after a while, watching the clouds from one of the big windows in the kitchen/dining room area.
She loved living in New York. They lived in the top floors of a very high building and she could see the clouds better up here. Oh, look, there was an elephant and now, it was a camel. There was even a little speck in the middle of the head, looking like an eye. Wait, the speck was getting bigger. But that made no sense, unless the speck could fly. Wait… it was coming steadily closer and it did seem to have wings. It was a few more moments before she could make out what kind of bird it was. But it couldn't be. It was 9:30 in the morning and this was New York. But it had to be. What else could it be? Was that… was that an…
…Owl?
"Mom, Dad, why is there an owl coming to our window?"
The chatter around her immediately ceased as she asked the question. As she slowly turned around, she did just in time to see her parents and Jake exchange meaning full glances, though what they could possibly mean, she had no idea. Somehow, she had a feeling that they knew something about the owl. Suddenly, her family sprang to life and her dad was taking her to sit on the couch, her mother went to the kitchen to get some water, presumably for her, and Jake went to the small window over the kitchen sink opening it and letting the owl in.
Jake took the letter and patted the owl's head and, barely pausing to take a drink of water from the bowl he was holding, the owl took off again. A note was attached to the envelope and it was addressed to him. He detached and read,
Mr. Evergreen,
Since you are already a student at Aurum Academy,
I did not feel the need to send a representative to explain things to your
Sister as I did with you.
I know you are capable of making her understand.
Sincerely,
Professor Bryan Fickelde
Headmaster of Aurum Academy of Magical Education
'Great,' Jake thought. 'The old man's gonna leave me to explain things to Lainya. This is gonna be hard.' He made up his mind about what he was going to say and then turned back to his family, plastering what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face.
"Say what?" Elainya asked, her face blank and voice a monotone.
Jake sighed and looked to his parents for help. This was going harder than he thought.
Their father decided that Elainya might take this better coming from him. She was, after all, a Daddy's girl. "Lainya, sweetie, this might be a little hard to comprehend, but you're a witch. Not the Wicked Witch of the West kind of witch, but the good, wand-waving, broomstick riding, magic-learning witch."
Jake took up explanation once more. "That's right, Laine, and I'm one too. Not a witch, a wizard, since a guy. But it's all the same, really. I've been going to this place, Aurum, in Salem, not Japan, for the past two years." He tried to go on, but Elainya raised a hand to stop him.
"Let me get this straight." Elainya took a deep breath and met Jake's eyes. "I'm a witch and therefore can do magic, you're one too, but you're called a wizard, I have to go to some special school where they teach us how to do magic with a stick and fly on brooms in Salem as in Massachusetts as in the state next to ours, and you haven't really been going to Japan."
The last point made Jake squirm a little. He and Elainya rarely, if ever, kept secrets from each other and he knew she must a feel a little hurt that he had kept such a big thing from her, on top of the confusion and disbelief that was now clearly visible on her face.
Meanwhile, Elainya's head was buzzing with all half-formed ideas chasing each other. This made no sense, and yet, in a weird, so-twisted-it-just-might-be-true kind of way, it did. There had been some not-so-logical moments in her life. Like the fact that no matter how messed up hair became, it always returned to being sleek and shiny and not a strand out of place after just a few brush strokes. Or that she always found the perfect clothes in the right sizes whenever she went shopping. Or that when she wanted to wear something in particular, it was in her closet, apparently over-looking the fact that Elainya thought it was still in the laundry. Or… the list went on and on. She had thought it was because of her name and the immediate recognition of the name Evergreen, but now that she thought about it, she never flaunted her name like others did.
She rubbed her temples. All of this was giving her a headache. Her family exchanged worried glances when she lowered her head. Elainya wasn't taking this as easy as Jake had. Then again, he did have a full grown adult who knew what he was doing and saying when things had been explained to him. Finally, the youngest of the family stood up.
"I need to think about this," Elainya told them and without another word, she walked up the stairs to go to her room. Jake made to go after her, but Mr. Evergreen stopped him. His daughter would need some alone time.
Elainya couldn't believe this. Not the magic thing. She'd halfway accepted that and was well on the way to believing it. It was, after all, almost two hours after things had been explained. No, it was the fact that Jake kept this whole thing from her. They were so close, but he still didn't trust her to keep his secret. So this whole time, he had only been one state over?
She flopped down on her bead, clutching her teddy bear to herself, her back to the door and facing the almost wall-to-wall window in her room. She was not ashamed to admit that she still slept with a teddy bear. She was obsessed with stuffed animals. They covered her room and she had named them all. About a fourth of them came from Jake and a lot of them also came from her other best friend, Juliet Swaan.
They'd been friends since they could remember and they were almost inseparable. At least, until her parents decided to move. And not just to another neighborhood. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They had to move to another state. Thank God for e-mail, because Elainya wouldn't have been able to survive. She moved right after Jake started going to Japan- no to Aurum in Salem, Massachusetts- so Elainya was left without her best friends. She had plenty of other friends, sure, but none of them understood her like Jake and Juliet did. Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of her bedroom door. She didn't even need to turn around. She figured it was Jake. Her thoughts were confirmed when he sat down on the bed next to her.
He joined her in watching the sky outside. Jake waited almost five minutes before speaking. "Hey."
"Hi."
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."
"How are you feeling about the whole magic thing?"
"Fine."
Realizing he was not going to get anything but monosyllabic answers from his sister until he cleared up the situation about Aurum and Japan, Jake sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Aurum, but the Headmaster advised me to keep it secret."
"Okay."
Jake continued, needing his sister and one of his best friends to forgive. "He said I shouldn't tell you, just in case you didn't get in. I agreed with him. I didn't want you to be too disappointed if you didn't. I knew if I told you, you'd have spent the past two years reading my books and making me buy magical books for you. I didn't want you to get your hopes up."
Elainya grudgingly admitted to herself that it was a good point. Still, she was his sister, dammit! "Yeah, and what would you have done if I didn't get in? Keep half your life a secret from me!"
She was off the bed now, and was instead pacing the floor in front of him, occasionally shooting venomous glares at her only brother. She was upset, and when she was upset, anger was the only way to vent her feelings. Elainya, despite the gentle nature her name suggested, was not the type to cry for hours unless something really big happened. She could count how many times she had cried since she was three on one hand. Two of those times were when Juliet moved away and when Jake went to Japan- Aurum, she reminded herself. The other two times were when her dad went on the first business trip and the other was when both of her parents went on a business trip for the first time. All of the time she had cried involved someone leaving because she hated it when people left. For her, there was no feeling in the world worse than the feeling of being left alone.
"Were you just going to keep this a secret of the rest of my life? When were you planning on telling me? On my deathbed! Or possibly yours? Or maybe, you're immortal now because you're magic and all?" From there, she started speaking faster and her words started blur, their meaning incomprehensible.
Jake let her continue for a moment longer before getting up abruptly. His baby sister was so into her rant that she didn't even notice. He stood in front of her and halted her pacing before pulling her into a hug. Elainya stopped her rant and hugged him back. Usually, she didn't do hugs, but there were exceptions.
"I'm sorry, okay?" Jake mumbled. "I just wanted you to live like a normal kid in case things didn't work out. You're my baby sister, Laine. I didn't want you to get hurt."
Elainya let the hug last a few more seconds before letting go. "Yeah, whatever, you big idiot." Jake stared at her expectantly. "I'm guessing you want me to say I forgive you." Seeing his nod, she continued, "Okay, I forgive you on one condition."
Jake waited apprehensively. His sister was known for giving cruel punishments.
"You… take me and my friends shopping."
He groaned. He was doomed. Then he got a brilliant idea.
"Hey," he said. "If I tell you something else that's really big and it will make you happy, trust me, you let me off the hook. If not, we'll trade laptops."
Elainya thought for a little bit. It was a win-win situation. Jake's laptop was brand new and she was sure this was something she wanted to know, so it would be worth letting her brother bypass the torture of shopping with her and her "giggly, little friends" as he called them. "Okay."
Jake took a deep breath. "You know Juliet? Swaan?"
"No, of course, I don't know my best friend."
He ignored his sister's sarcasm. "Well, anyway, she's going to Aurum this year too."
Elainya let that statement sink in. "But… that would mean…" Suddenly, her eyes widened almost comically and she lunged for her phone. Then she changed her mind and threw it behind her, barely missing Jake, going for her cell phone instead. She had Juliet's number on speed dial and right now, Elainya was sure she wouldn't even remember the first digit.
After a few rings, Juliet answered her phone and said, "So I'm guessing you got the letter from Aurum and your brother told you about me."
The rant that was on the tip of Elainya's tongue disappeared as she registered her best friend's words. "You knew?" The words were the only ones she could manage right then.
"Yeah. Your brother suspected something, so I finally decided to tell him what I was and that I knew where he was going. I asked him to keep it a secret."
"WHY!"
"Because of the same reason he did."
"I don't think I can handle anymore surprises," Elainya said, feeling worn out and exhausted.
"Don't worry," Juliet reassured her. "There won't be anymore. At least not today."
"I'm gonna go now."
"Alright. Bye, Bookworm."
"Later, Juliet."
Elainya turned back to her brother. For a few minutes, there was silence and then, "That was… surprising.'
Jake grinned, considering his mission to weasel his out of shopping with Elainya and her friends a success. Then his grin faded as a devious smile began on his sister's face. 'Uh-oh.'
"You do realize you'll have to go shopping with me anyway," Elainya said. She continued as her brother gaped at her. "How else am I going to get my school supplies?"
Jake groaned. His plan to stop Elainya from dragging him into a shopping trip with her friends did succeed, only to propel him into shopping with her alone on a magical shopping spree. The raven-haired boy could only imagine her squealing as she saw all the magical things, and especially when she got her own wand. He was right before. He was doomed.