Shadow Girl
Book One: Who I Am
[Chapter Three: Warning]
The math quiz took me about three-quarters of the time given to us, so I spent the free time pondering the events that had taken place. I had been contacted by a disembodied voice twice. Once in my own room, within my own circle, and once in front of my whole school. And I still had no clue who or what it was.
I doodled on the corner of my paper, trying to think. I drew little pentacles, stars within circles, then scribbled them out so the teacher wouldn't freak. I could just forget it ever happened, I thought. The idea appealed to me: ignore whatever freaky voices I heard, pretend that someone wasn't trying to talk to me.
Suddenly, the doodled ink on my paper seemed to disappear. It shimmered for a moment, then was absorbed by the paper. I frowned. Okay, first I hear voices no one else can hear, and now my paper is drinking my ink. When did I get sent into the Harry Potter dimension?
Words appeared on the corner of my paper in the ink I had used. I stared at it, my heart thumping:
I will not be ignored.
Suddenly some math textbooks on a book case shot out from their shelves, raining down on Courtney Hartford. She screamed, then jumped up and pointed her perfectly manicured finger at me. "Witch!" she yelled. All the kids turned to look at me. I was clutching my quiz.
"Moira, come with me," Mr. Hochstetler said, going out into the hall. Once I got out there, he said, "Why did you do that?"
"I didn't do it!" I told him.
He sighed. "Moira…we have a very good psychologist here. After what I saw at the assembly, I think these outbursts are a cry for attention…"
Oh my God. He actually thought that I'd write a creepy message to myself in front of the whole school just for attention? "Mr. Hochstetler, I didn't do it, but if it would make you feel better, I'll go back in there, apologize to Courtney, and we can all forget that that happened." I stopped, thinking about that last message. I will not be ignored…
"Fine," Mr. Hochstetler said. "But I do recommend seeing the school psychologist…"
"Yeah. Right," I said, turning and headed back into the classroom. But he had a point—with all the stuff my parents and I dealt with, it was a wonder we didn't all end up in therapy.
* * *
Later that day, everything that happened at school faded away. My mother's best friend was coming into town from Los Angeles, California, and when Bree Warren comes to town, it's a non-stop party. Aunt Bree, as I call her, works as a freelance model. She's gorgeous, with dark brown eyes and dark, minky hair. She was once married to a Hollywood director but got divorced three years ago. She's in ads and magazines everywhere, but what few people know about her is that she practices Wicca, and she's got a talent for Tarot reading. It's a tradition whenever she visits: We all eat a big dinner cooked by Mom, chat for hours about what's been happening in our lives, and get our Tarot readings done. It's something I look forward to.
"Moira, Bree's here!" my mom called up the stairs. I hurried down the hallway towards the stairs. Dagda interrupted me by giving me his cat-sized attitude again. I stopped and picked my cat up.
"I didn't do anything wrong," I told him. "This haunting thing is not my fault. So you can stop acting like I'm a curse, okay?" Dagda responded by giving me an annoyed growl. I sighed and put him down, hurrying downstairs.
Aunt Bree was hugging and kissing my parents downstairs. "Hunter, you don't look a day older than twenty, I swear!" she was saying when I got downstairs. Aunt Bree turned to me, a broad smile on her perfect face. "And there's my favorite little fire fairy!" she cooed, capturing me in a tight hug.
"Hey, what about me?" Mom asked with mock disappointment. A small smile illuminated her face.
"I'm smaller than you are, therefore cuter and the favorite," I told her, grinning. We all laughed.
"You are growing up to be your mother, I swear," Aunt Bree said. "Identical in every way."
I smiled. "Hey, I redid my room since the last time you were here," I told her. "Come up and see it." Aunt Bree followed me up the stairs and into my room.
"Well, this is it," I told her when we'd reached my room.
"Ooh, I like," Aunt Bree said, looking around. My walls were a light blue color, and the ceiling was a darker blue with press-on glow-in-the-dark stars. My comforter is blue with a celestial print on it, and there was a star-shaped rug on my floor. In the corner was a trunk that I used to store things I need to perform rituals, and it also served as my altar. And of course, candles were scattered throughout the room. "Very witchy," Aunt Bree commented, smirking.
"But of course," I replied, lighting a red pillar candle on my nightstand with my mind.
Aunt Bree shivered a little, an excited smile on her face. "After twenty years of knowing your mother, I still get chills when you do that." Bree isn't a blood witch, just a regular person who practices Wicca. She knew my mother before she found out about her Wiccan heritage, back when she was just your everyday kid. The discovery of her true blood lines caused some turbulence in their friendship, but things calmed down and Mom and Aunt Bree are still very close friends.
"So how long are you staying?" I asked Aunt Bree.
"I'm going back to LA on Sunday," she answered.
I grinned. "Sitting in at Kithic?"
"Absolutely," she told me, flopping down on my bed. Aunt Bree studied my face for a minute, then said, "Is something wrong? You look like you've got a lot on your mind."
I shifted uncomfortably. I had been debating on whether or not to tell Aunt Bree about what had been happening to me. I still couldn't manage to tell my parents, but Aunt Bree seemed to be a good idea. She and I are really close, closer than me and my blood-related aunt Mary K., who loves me and is a great person but thinks Wicca is creepy.
I sat down next to Aunt Bree on my bed. "Can I talk to you about something? I've wanted to talk about it with my parents, but…I can't."
Aunt Bree got this Aww kind of look on her face. "Is this about a boy?" she asked me with a goofy smile.
I rolled my eyes and laughed. "No, not exactly." I took a breath, then said "Lately, I…"
But I didn't get past that. A wave of nausea swept through me. The voice was back.
Not…Bree…
A shelf that had been attached to my wall suddenly came crashing down. Aunt Bree and I screamed, me jumping into her arms. My heart was beating a million miles an hour.
A moment later my mother opened my bedroom door. "What happened?" she asked, looking first at Aunt Bree and I, then at the fallen shelf.
"I guess the shelf just…fell..." Aunt Bree said weakly. I was shaking.
Mom sighed, looking at the debris on the floor. "Looks like Hunter has a trip to Home Depot tomorrow." She looked back at us and smiled. "Dinner will be ready soon."
"Okay," Aunt Bree said, getting up from my bed. "What are we having?"
Mom grinned. "Chicken Morgan, of course."
"Yum!" Aunt Bree and my mom walked out of my room. A few minutes later, Aunt Bree stuck her head back into my room. "Oh, Moira, what did you want to tell me?"
"Oh, it can wait. Until later. Or never. Whatever works for you." My eyes never left the place where my shelf once was. These attacks were getting more and more violent each time they happened. And something told me that they would only get worse.
* * *
Dinner was great, and my parents and Aunt Bree chatted the whole time. But I was silent, eating my chicken and thinking about the voice that kept haunting me. Of course, it was more than a voice. It was some kind of…thing, that could make things move. I never heard of any invisible telekinetic beings, but I guess there's stuff that I don't know yet. I'd have to check all the books I had, maybe take a trip to Practical Magick, the Wicca store in Red Kill. It wasn't too far from here.
"So, who's ready for Tarot time?" Aunt Bree asked, grinning. After we cleaned up the dining room table, we all gathered around the coffee table in the living room. Aunt Bree took her deck of Tarot cards out of her macramé hadbag and said, "Who's first?"
"I'll go," I said, sitting down opposite Aunt Bree.
She shuffled the deck and asked, "What kind of spread do you want?"
"Three card."
"'Kay." Aunt Bree shuffled the deck a little more, saying, "Now don't tell me your question. I like to have a non-biased view of the cards." I nodded, and thought of my question. I want to know what is haunting me.
Aunt Bree held a card facedown over the table. "The first card represents your past," she said, then she turned it over. On it, there was a drawing of a crescent moon. "The Moon. This usually represents secrets hidden from you."
"Secrets?" I repeated. Aunt Bree nodded, and I thought about that. Who would be keeping secrets from me? I didn't have any friends.
Aunt Bree held out another card, facedown. "The second card represents your present." She turned it over, and the card was upside-down, facing me. "Temperance, reversed," Aunt Bree said. "You feel like a situation is out-of-control; you feel powerless." She looked up at me, into my eyes. "Is this making sense to you so far?" I nodded.
She held out one last card. "The third card represents your future." She turned it over, revealing a drawing of the globe. "The World," Aunt Bree explained. "Represents a completion of some sorts; coming full-circle. It could mean something very important to you and the people who surround you."
I bit my lip, thinking. Secrets…powerlessness…completion. I couldn't see how this helped me. I didn't even know who would keep secrets from me. "Thanks, Aunt Bree," I said. "I just remembered I have some homework to do; call me when you're gonna leave, okay?"
Aunt Bree nodded, and Mom asked, "Are you okay, Moira?"
I looked at her and Dad. I'd almost forgotten they were there. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll see you later." I hurried up into my room and lay down in my bed. Secrets, I thought. This ghost has something to do with secrets. I closed my eyes, and ended up falling asleep until my mom came to tell me that Aunt Bree was going to go to her hotel.
In the car, Aunt Bree volunteered to take the backseat, and I sat up front with my mom. We drove in silence for a long time. Then, my mother said, "Moira, is something bothering you?"
I looked sideways at her. "Why do you ask?"
My mother looked sideways back at me. "You've seemed tense, ever since that shelf fell in your room. And your Tarot reading seemed really…"
"Serious," Aunt Bree finished. "The cards that showed up were all Major Arcana cards, and that usually means the question is very important to the querent, or it might be a life-altering matter."
I thought about what had happened the last time I tried to talk about my little problem. I looked down at my hands. "Well…"
Suddenly the car swerved to the right. We all screamed, and I clutched the car door in fear. We rolled to a stop in a ditch off the road.
"Oh my God," my mother whispered. She turned to look at Aunt Bree and then looked at me. "Is everyone okay?"
"I'm fine," Aunt Bree said shakily. "What happened, Morgan?"
"I...I don't know," Mom said, looking up at the road. "All of a sudden, I just…lost control of the car." There was a stormy look in her eyes, like she was having déjà vu. She turned to me. "Moira, are you okay?"
I gulped, and managed a small squeaking sound. I had felt that strange presence again. And it had almost killed all three of us. And yet, it was weird: For something who wouldn't be ignored, it had a hard time with me telling anyone about it. "I'm fine," I said finally, straightening up in the seat. "I'm fine."
[Author's Note]
Eesh, short-ish chapter. Well, I just wanted to take this time to thank everyone who left me reviews. You rock! ^_^ And I would also like to give credit to Astarte's TarotWeb () because I used that site as a resource for Bree's tarot reading. Keep reading, and enjoy!! [(::Katie::)]
