Iris' boots clicked back and forth around the entrance hall, waiting for Kestrel to talk to her. Her best friend had been sitting at the telephone table for five minutes and hadn't spoken a word. Instead she held the phone close to her ear with her mouth pursed slightly. Whoever was on the other end of the line was taking their sweet time talking to her.
Eventually, Kestrel began to whisper softly into the receiver. As much as Iris tried to listen in, the music was too loud to hear what Kestrel was saying. It didn't help that a strange bell-like sound was coming from upstairs.
Craning her neck upwards, Iris tried to peer through the blinds of Victor's office, but, even if they were open, the angle meant she would only be able to see the ceiling. It wasn't unusual to hear something being hammered to smithereens or thrown across his desk. However, the tinkling was gentler than Iris was used to hearing.
The door distracted her from her hunt. Ronan slipped inside and quickly shut the door behind him. His cheeks were flushed more than Lydia's strawberry blonde hair and that was saying something. When he caught sight of Iris, he jumped back.
"Whatcha doing out there?" Iris asked curiously.
She heard Kestrel falter in her conversation. Ronan looked back to the girl who was twiddling the wire around her little finger.
"I needed some fresh air," Ronan answered with his eyes still looking at Kestrel.
"Is that it?" Iris said disappointed.
"I'm afraid that it… is," Ronan drifted off when he turned to Iris.
His eyes slowly drifted down to her necklace. Iris grabbed it protectively.
"My eyes are up here," she snapped.
"Iris, calm down."
Iris backed away as she heard Flynn's calm voice. He stood in the doorway to the living room, his head almost grazing the top of the frame.
"Don't sneak up on me!" Iris cried. "Can't you just leave me alone?"
"He was just admiring your necklace," Flynn said smoothly, not raising his voice like Iris was. "It was the same for Wylan, but you jumped on him."
"He was looking at…"
Iris crossed her arms across her chest while still grasping the crystal's orb in her hand. Her sour glare stabbed at Flynn, but instead of slinking away like she expected him to, he walked up to her.
"Try to look deeper than what you mind is tricking you into thinking," he said.
His hands were about to rest on her shoulders when Ronan cleared his throat. Iris breathed a sigh of relief at Ronan's interruption. For once, he had been able to analyse a situation, get past his social awkwardness and understand she was uncomfortable and likely to lash out at Flynn if he touched her again. First he had sat with an arm around her shoulder without her consent and now he was talking as if they were friends.
A soft cling announced Kestrel had put the phone back on the receiver. Iris watched from the corner of her eye as her friend slowly stood up. Her eyes were fixed on a point just to the right of Flynn. Iris knew that she was trying to look as if she was concentrating on what was happening, but she was in a world of her own.
Kestrel's distance was the last straw for Iris. She didn't care what Flynn had to say. He always lied anyway. He hadn't changed at all since the accident unlike herself. Iris had at least had the decency to control her temper.
She blinked widely at this thought. Her temper had definitely not been on point today. She could do better than this. But not with Flynn. Never with Flynn.
"I'm going to bed," Iris sulked.
"But it's only half past eight," Ronan objected.
"Do I look like I care?" Iris' temper began to flare.
She walked backwards from Flynn, keeping her eyes on him all of the time. Once she felt her boots hit the staircase, she turned to run up it. Kestrel came out of her trance enough to watch Iris reach the landing.
"Let her go," Flynn said to Kestrel. "She needs time to think about… certain things."
Iris opened the door to the girls' corridor and leaned against the wall. She breathed heavily from her mouth, not caring about the sick feeling covering the back of her throat.
The strange tinkling noise grew in Iris' ears. She looked down the corridor, but there was nothing there. There was something peculiar about it. Unearthly detached sobs were coming from around the corner. Never before had Iris heard someone cry so delicately.
Slowly, Iris pushed herself away from the wall where her grey shirt had started to stick to it from the trails of sweat slipping down her back. She tried to be as silent as possible, managing to muffle her boot heels to padding. Iris peered around the corner and was shocked by what she found.
A slim girl sat with her back to the door of the attic. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, hiding her face in the simple fabric of her ghostly white dress. The dress created a childish atmosphere about the girl, but the crying shattered Iris' heart at the sight of an innocent girl being isolated by whatever had happened to her.
She would've seemed at least slightly normal, but there were three parts of her that Iris was unnerved by. First, her feet were bare. No shoes or socks covered them and the toes were perfectly shaped. Not a single blemish caressed her skin.
Secondly, her hair was in beautiful waves. They weren't uncontrollable curls or only one piece being unbelievable straight. All sections of her hair had the same depth and buoyancy.
Finally, Iris could see the attic door. She stared right through the girl to the wooden door behind her. It was impossible! It was a miracle! She couldn't be real, but she could hear her as clearly as anything else in the world.
She was a goddess of moonlight.
"Hello?" Iris called tentatively.
The girl continued to weep into the folds of her gossamer dress. She didn't react to Iris' voice.
"Are you alright?"
Without an answer, Iris stepped closer to the girl. Her boots were beating in time to every fourth thud of her heart. It racing out of control at the unbelievable apparition in front of her. What was she? A lost child? An angel? A ghost?
Was she even alive?
The questions began to spiral out of control until she was within an arm's reach of the girl. Iris crouched down, bouncing back up twice before settling. She leaned closer so that she was almost touching the top of her hair.
"Are you real?"
The girl stopped crying. She suddenly whipped her head up to look straight into Iris' eyes. Her own eyes were misty and there was no distinct colour except the brown oak of the attic door.
"You can see me?" she asked.
"Of course I can," Iris replied.
They were silent for a couple of seconds before the girl let out a shrill shriek. Iris fell backwards and clapped her hands over her ears. When she looked back up, the girl had disappeared. She spun around to check behind her, but there wasn't a magical trail leading Iris to wherever the girl had gone.
The teenager stood up and dusted herself off. No matter how much Trudy tried to hover the floor it would always become dirty in some way or another. Maybe it was the ghostly girl's fault.
Iris traced her hand along the very solid wood of the door. Nothing unusual stuck out to her. It was a very normal door. Her hand was resting on the golden rusting handle when it turned on its own. She jumped back in alarm, but it continued to turn.
The narrow staircase revealed behind it wasn't what Iris expected. She had never been graced with an opportunity to explore any of the forbidden areas of the house, but now a mysterious power had unlocked the obstacles. There wasn't the shadow of a second thought as Iris walked up the stairs.
Another door was wide open to a circular room filled with piles of junk. White sheets lay over large structures amongst chests and antique equipment. One chest in particular was the base that a stack of books rested on. Sitting next to it was the girl.
Her chin was propped on her right knee as her left leg swayed back and forth to the rhythm of a song Iris couldn't hear. The translucent eyes stared into the distance.
Iris closed the door behind her, trapping herself with the girl. It clicked shut. The girl's head snapped towards her. It looked older than Iris expected, but it was still pretty. Her complexion was immaculate, her nose was petite and her lips were semi-full. The size of the eyes told Iris that the girl wasn't a child at all. She was her age.
"Hello," the girl's whisper carried across the room. "You are the flower."
It wasn't a question. The girl knew who Iris was, or at least acted like she did.
"My name is Iris," the student said. "What's your name?"
"My name is… my name?" the girl went back to staring again. "What is my name? No one has asked me that for years."
"Years?" Iris repeated shocked.
"Five years I think. That isn't that much though. It's been an interesting five years. So much drama in this house. So much infectious drama…"
The girl drifted away again as if she was in a dream. Iris certainly believe that she was. She was talking to a transparent girl whose mystical appearance was throwing her perception of her to the other end of the spectrum every time she did something. First she was a child, then she was a teenager and now she was an amnesiac woman.
"What are you?" Iris asked.
"What do you mean?" she spoke to the opposite wall.
"I can see straight through you. There's a large book three times the size of the others that you're leaning against."
The girl looked behind her to examine the book.
"You're right," she mused. "Well, I guess it makes sense you can see through me. I'm not part of my body anymore after all."
Iris bit her lip before venturing to the darker territory of this girl. She seemed calm enough to be talking to her and aware of what she was so Iris thought that she wouldn't be disgusted by what she would ask.
"Are you a ghost?"
The girl jumped off of the chest and walked close to Iris' face. A cold aura surrounded her that she hadn't felt downstairs.
"I, miss, am not a ghost! Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes," Iris squeaked against the sudden outburst. The misty borders of the girl's body gave her a spooky effect.
"Good," the girl grinned.
She bounced back to her chest to sit back in her original position. A wave twirled around her little finger.
"I don't like the g word," the girl whispered. "I don't haunt people, you know. The predator thinks I still haunt him, but I don't. I got bored with that ages ago. Now I just watch whatever the eight people in this house do."
She suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth.
"I'm actually speaking to one of them," her voice was muffled against it. "I'm speaking to the flower!"
She jumped off the chest again, but this time with joy spread across her face. The girl danced over to Iris, letting her dress swirl out into rings of cloth. However, when she reached for Iris' hands, she flinched backwards.
"Oh no," she whispered disappointedly. "I can't touch you."
"Why not?" Iris asked.
She tried to grab the girl's hands, but her own slipped straight through them. A cold sensation burned her skin, causing her to squeal in pain.
"Can't touch, can't touch, can't touch," the girl chanted to herself.
She backed slowly away from Iris towards the door. Her arms hugged herself in comfort. The ritual the girl was doing sent the burning to Iris' heart as well. The girl drifted through the door and disappeared.
A sparkle glinted from Iris' chest. She looked down to see the purple crystal inside the orb twinkling. Quickly she scooped it into her open palm. The gleam died away as she tried to keep her eyes trained on whatever the strange piece of jewellery was doing.
"What are you?" she asked, unaware of whether she was asking about the girl or the necklace.
And the mystery continues! I know that some of you are wondering who on earth this girl is, but the only thing I'm going to say is that she is very important. Nothing more, nothing less. Except that she is my OC that I'm going to insert into the story. She is part of the main characters once Iris begins to solve her history and existence.
A special thank you to all of the reviews from last week's chapter. Ronan definitely has got himself into some trouble and I'm pleased that people can see the parallels between them. Also don't worry about Wylan and Iris. The gap between them isn't too big that it can't be repaired yet.