Disclaimer: All Twilight characters and related events and ideas belong to Stephanie Meyer.
All original characters and related events and ideas belong to me.
The Perfect Daughter
Chapter 9: Scary Is Big Sister
Kaden
Saturday, May 30, 2016
3:01 AM
The young boy lay awake on the bottom bed of the bunk he and his younger twin brother shared. Blaze was asleep, his snoring softly reaching Kaden's ears in a comforting way. There was a noise coming from the hallway and the quiet melody of Blaze's snores soothed him. But, Kaden was still a bit afraid.
He had an adventurous streak, though, which is what led him off his bed and onto the rough carpet of his shared bedroom. Moonlight streamed into the room in slivers through the blinds on the window giving Kaden just enough light not to trip on all the toys that lay scattered across the floor.
Silently digging through the bucket of random toys and miscellaneous other objects found in the corner of the room, Kaden extracted one of those tiny pocket flashlights. Armed with the tiny light and his blanket for protection, the five year old boy tiptoed over to the door, stubbing his toe on the way. He slowly creaked open the door.
It was dark for a moment before his eyes adjusted. At first, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Glancing around a second time, though, Kaden spotted a small dark figure standing near the window at the end of the hallway. He heard a quiet murmuring coming from the dark blob.
The fear slowly inched its way back into Kaden's body. But then, the curtain moved and a stream of light caught on the strange things face.
Capri.
It was only Capri. She must have gotten up for water or something. Smiling at his foolishness, Kaden padded across the hall to his sister. He opened his mouth to talk. But when he arrived in front of her and took a good look at her face, his breath caught in his throat and he was unable to speak.
There was something horribly wrong. There always was something weird about his older sister. Something terribly odd. Maybe evil. And at the moment, Kaden came face to face with what it was.
Her face was blank, a harsh contrast to her normal smiles and laughs. Capri's lips were moving fast and nonsense words spewed from her mouth. Hands clenched into fists and shaking at her sides with knuckles white as snow. Pale blonde hair spilled over her shoulders and down her sides in absolute disarray.
But the thing that was probably the most utterly terrifying were her eyes. Most times, people saw them and thought how pretty they were. Some days they appeared to be the bluest ocean and some days looked as pale as ice. That night, though, they were liquid. An unreal neon blue that seemed not solid at all. Most horrifying was the fact that she had no pupils. The little black dot that appeared in people's eyes was gone. Nonexistent. Just orbs of liquid blue pouring in the tiny circle.
Stumbling backwards, Kaden was absolutely scared of his older sister. What was she? What was wrong with her? Was she possessed by a spirit? Kaden had heard of a story like that from Billy Black at a bonfire once. He wondered if he should wake up his parents.
As that thought grazed his mind, a cold tiny hind gripped his shoulder. The mutters continued and Kaden was trapped with the shell of Capri's body. Feeling helpless and caged, the boy squeezed his eyes shut and counted slowly to ten.
When he reached six, the hand slackened. He didn't dare open his eyes.
"Kaden? Kaden what's wrong?" Capri's voice probed him. He wouldn't look. He wouldn't look. He wouldn't look.
"Are you alright? What happened?" No answer came from the boy's mouth. He could hear from Capri's voice she was becoming irritated.
"Can you please open your eyes and tell me what's the matter with you?" No, he wouldn't open his eyes. She was scary.
"Fine."
And then there was silence. For a while, anyways. Rain began to gently pat the window panes and the sides of the house. It comforted Kaden like Blaze's snoring. They both happened every night and they both were constant. Always there.
Kaden opened his eyes.
He saw his sister sitting in a lounge chair placed by the window. The curtain was drawn back and she was gazing out at the rain as though it held all the answers in life. Kaden observed her, and found that her hands were limp her face had emotion and the pupils were back in her eyes which were now a deep blue color. With a sigh of relief, Kaden pulled his knees to his chest and waited. Neither spoke.
They watched the sun rise together. It was the first time Kaden had done so and he thought it was probably the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The sky was dark then light then a soft pink, constantly changing colors. Capri looked at it with as much vigor as he, but with a look that told him she had seen this before. Kaden briefly wondered how many times she had been in this situation.
After the sun was up and it was bright, Capri spoke.
"What was wrong with you? Kaden, you looked like you saw a ghost or something."
Huh? Didn't she remember? Kaden was so confused that for a moment he was sure his eyes crossed while he thought of possible explanations. After a few minutes, he decided he was probably dreaming. This was his sister for goodness sakes! It was only Capri. Nothing odd about that.
"Nothing," he replied though still unsure of what actually happened.
"Okay, if you say so." And then they continued sitting and watching the sky through the window. Kaden enjoyed his big sister's company. It made him feel special when she singled him out.
Their parents woke later and found the two of them staring dreamily out the window. Jared and Kim gave each other a 'what-the-hell' kind of look before Kim went to go make breakfast and Jared went to get Venus from her crib.
Later Kim called upstairs for the kids to come down to eat, and Kaden and Capri picked themselves up and started to run downstairs. But before Kaden could reach the second step, which was his favorite because it creaked the loudest, a hand on his shoulder tugged him back, much like earlier that morning.
Capri gave Kaden a look that made him a bit afraid of Capri. It also made him aware that while her eyes were beautiful, they were also tired and lonely and full of much to wisdom for a girl who was only eight years old. The expression she passed to him was forever burned into his memory and no matter how old he got, he never forgot the thing she said to him.
"Please don't tell," Capri whispered.
And he never did.
