The Covenant
Nemesis Rising
Chapter 1
Ivy League
He awoke in a cold sweat, just like he had every night since Putnam Barn. Every night at exactly this time. Caleb picked up his clock from beside his bed, the numbers cast a dim blue glow over his glistening torso. 3:00 am. He ran a hand through his raven hair and sat the clock down with a clank. Why had he been awakened so hastily tonight. On most nights he had just drifted into consciousness then taken with a feeling of foreboding.
Tonight was different. Tonight he was ripped from his sleep by a pain in his chest. One he had never felt before. The teen settled back down into his bed. His mother said it was probably just nerves from Sarah's disappearance mixed with the anxiety of never truly being easy with the idea that they never found Chase's body in the barn.
Tomorrow he would have to talk to Pogue again. It was getting harder and harder to be able to stay asleep not knowing where Sarah was, without being ripped away from what little rest he was getting once his mind had been too tired to think anymore. He was beginning to drift back again. Just as easily as he was taken out of his sleep, it was like something was putting him right back where he was. Just before Caleb's eyes closed he read the clock. 3:03 am, and soon was greeted by the gentle black peace of his mind.
"Again?" The voice boomed through the empty room. It was the first day at a new school, and the last thing Kris wanted was for her roommate to do was yell all over Stevenson Hall was that Kris Malloy was waking up at three in the morning because she was dreaming of boys.
"Careful!" The red head tossed a pillow across the room, nailing her loud mouth friend in the face. "I don't think they heard you in Taiwan." She straightened out her hooded long sleeved white tee over her denim mini. Her feet were light moving across the room in her navy and white adidas shoes.
"I can speak from the diaphragm if you'd like?" Jessica Li retorted. Turning on a dime in her grey and white pumas, flipping her kaki pleated skirt. After tossing the pillow right back, she removes her denim jacket to reveal a beater tank underneath and begins to open one of the seemingly hundreds of boxes littering the room.
"Seriously. That's all I need is for rumors to get around that I have girly wet dreams." Kris caught the pillow and dropped it on the bare bed in front of her. "I don't want to be the freaky psychic girl again."
"Hey, this isn't High School anymore. We're at Yale. YALE!" Jessica dropped a pile of linens on her bed and plopped down on them. "We can be whoever we want and not care about what the stupid plastics' think."
"You never cared what those stupid witches thought anyway." Kris began to spread a deep burgundy sheet across her bed.
"Hey, don't insult us by calling them witches. They got nothing on us!" The asian pulled a giant stuffed duck out of her box and began to examine him. Nothing damaged from the move.
"Ohmigod!" Kris rushed over to their open dorm door and shut it inconspicuously. "Do you want everyone to know!" Kris was constantly worried that the two of them would be 'outed'. And seeing as how New England didn't exactly have the best history with accepting witches, she didn't want to take chances.
"Relax, it's college!" Jessica rose from her bed once more and continued to unpack. "Besides, it's not like I am calling you a lesbian or something." She gripped her duck close to her heart. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"I know, it's just..." Kris began to pile pillow after pillow onto her bed. "I just don't want to see the modern day workings of a lynch mob."
"Don't worry, kiddo." Jessica wandered over to the other teen and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I won't tell anybody our dirty little secret. At least not until we find our third. Then, I can't make promises."
Kris broke away from Jess and pulled a silken comforter out from the box. It was a deep wine color with a gold sun stitched in the center, and embellished with stars of silver and bronze. placed the box on the floor and spread out the comforter over the bed. It was clear Jessica's words did not spark happiness.
"What? What did I say?" Jessica jumped on Kris's bed, stopping the red head from further ignoring her.
"You said that we would stop once we went to college." Kris moved from her bed and over to Jessica's and started spreading out her plum colored sheets.
"I can't help it! I need to find her." Jessica hopped off of the bed and followed Kris over to her own.
"Why? What is so important about finding our sist-"
"THAT! That is why. Sister. She is out sister." Jessica grabbed her comforter away from Kris. It was nearly identical to the wine colored one except it was embellished with a silver moon and the same golden and copper stars.
"If she was our sister, don't you think she would have found us?" Kris took the blanket back and spread it over Jessica's bed.
"Would you stop making my bed!" Jessica messed the blanket up and plopped down on the beautiful silken material. "What if she doesn't know about the heritage of the Salem Witch Coven? What if she doesn't know about the powers she has. She could be scared. She could be hurting."
"She could be totally oblivious and having the time of her life..." Kris plopped down on the bed next to Jessica. "Kinda like we could have been."
" Don't be so emo about it!" Jessica falls onto her back and lays her hands above her head. "We have gifts! Not to mention we know how to use them. Can you imagine how scary it would have been if we hadn't had grams?"
Kris mulled it over in her head. They were lucky to have Jessica's grandmother to explain their special abilities and teach them how to use them. Jessica's powers of weaving images into real objects could have been disastrous if she had not been able to contain them, and not to mention the ramifications of Kris's dreams that had begun to come true. It wasn't until she had seen the death of the neighbor girl in a fire that she realized the nightmares plaguing her mind were premonitions of the future. Grams was there to help Kris deal with the power and develop it into a powerful thought reading power as well.
If they had not had Grams, they could very well be insane or worse. The thoughts of a girl somewhere near them with a power that she may not understand, or even control was beginning to ware on her. And Jessica knew it.
"Fine." The red head fell down beside the asian and the two lay together in silence for what seemed like hours until a large crash above them sent them jumping up in their beds.
Jessica instantly jumped to her feet and stared at the vaulted ceiling. "What was that?"
"I dunno." Kris slowly rose next to her,moving a thick curl from her eyes.
"Maybe we should go see..."
"WHAT!" That's the boy's floor!"
"All the better reason!" Jessica gripped Kris by the wrist and began to drag her towards the door.
"We're at Yale Jess, I doubt you are going to find an uber hottie, much less a hookup." Kris griped, trudging along behind.
"You never know! We went to a private school with tons of little hotties who were pining to get into an ivy league. We couldn't have been the only school with deep intellectual boys looking for a higher education. Not to mention I heard a rumor that the Swim team was on this floor." Jessica had reached the oak door, much to Kris' avail. "Besides, what if someone was hurt? They could have dropped a heavy box and gotten hit on the head and falling further into a concussion induced coma."
"You really need to stop watching ER." Kris said dryly as Jess opened the door and began to drag her up the stairway.
"DUDE! Watch the trophies!" Pogue Perry dropped a box on his bed and moved across the room to his room mate. "I know you're spaced out right now, but my awards will not be a casualty to this little war in your head." He gripped the box from the floor like it weighed about three pounds and placed it on a crisp white bookshelf over his single bed.
"Sorry." Caleb answered. He sat down on his readily made bed and rested his elbows on his knees. "I was just thinking about Sa-"
"If you say Sarah, I swear to God I will chuck this thing at you." Pogue grips a thick golden trophy in his hand and fakes a throw before placing it on the mantle. "Seriously, she's been gone for how long? Face it, she freaked out about us and left."
"Sarah wouldn't do that." Caleb's intense eyes met Pogue's. "You know that."
"Yeah, and we also knew that Reid was going to come to Yale with us, and that Tyler was going to stay in Ispwich." Pogue finished placing his immaculate set of awards over his bed and tossed the box onto a large pile of identical ones next to the door.
"It's not his fault his parents didn't want him there anymore. Not with everything that had happened with Chase. And I think we both knew that Reid wasn't going to come to Yale... it's not his style."
"And Northwestern is?" Pogue opened his suitcase and began unpacking his clothes into his dresser. "Face it, the brotherhood is over. Sarah is gone, and we both need to move on."
"But..." Caleb stood up and began to take his clothes out as well. "There's something else."
"What?" Pogue paused and looked at Caleb. They had never kept secrets from one another before, so it was only a matter of time until Caleb would tell him why he had been keeping all this faith up with Sarah.
"She's been calling to me. I know it." Caleb dropped some underwear back into his suitcase and turned to face Pogue. "Every night I wake up at Three o clock."
"Every night?"
"Without fail." Caleb began to pack his clothes into the dresser again. "I think that she keeps trying to contact me for some reason. Maybe she needs help. Chase's body was never found, what if he got to her?"
"Or maybe you just want her to be looking for you so bad you're making yourself believe she is." Pogue's voice softened. "Look, I know you loved her, but Sarah wasn't a witch, she was a girl. A girl who got scared and ran."
"Well if it's not her, then who could it be?" A thick silence spread between the two. Just as it settled the door vibrated with eager knocking.
Pogue moved across the room, followed by Caleb. He opened the door to find two beautiful girls standing in their doorway. The asian flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder, exposing brown locks underneath. Her mouth curved in a pleased smile. The other, a red head with thick curly locks and striking blue eyes looked as if someone had slapped her on the face.
"It's you..."
