CHAPTER 2
Dinner in the new George household was eaten in uncomfortable silence, like usual. Mia obediently ate the last portion of her peas as Jack pushed his own around his plate. He eyed his parents suspiciously as they both took sips out of their glasses.
Jack didn't trust his parents. It was a simple fact of life. They'd picked up and left Chicago out of nowhere, no logical explanation to be found, and that was only the latest addition to the long ever-growing list of suspicious things his parents had done.
He knew his sister had suspicions, she had to. Mia was nothing less of clever, he was sure she'd picked up on the odd behaviour herself. However, she'd always been their good girl, their prodigy child, and God forbid she'd never do anything to defy them.
"So, have you made any friends?" Matthew George asked bluntly as he put his glass down.
"Not yet," Mia admitted, quickly adding, "But it's only been one day, dad."
"I'm sure they'll make plenty soon," Amy George added, "Mia, are you going to be joining any of the extracurriculars we discussed?"
"I'll ask my teachers about it tomorrow morning first thing," Mia promised diligently, looking over to her brother, "Jack, didn't you mention you wanted to join lacrosse?"
Matthew George perked up at the statement, "Lacrosse? Why lacrosse and not, say, football?"
"Football is a joke here," Jack answered, shrugging, "The Beacon High lacrosse team is pretty amazing, but it was just an idea."
"Oh, you'd be wonderful!" Amy George suddenly gushed, "When are tryouts?"
"I'll ask the coach tomorrow," Jack replied, effectively ending the conversation as he abruptly stood up, "If you don't mind, I'm going to get an early night's sleep. First days of school are tiring."
Without waiting for a response, Jack left the room and climbed his way up the stairs of their new household, into his room.
His room was just opposite Mia's at the end of the corridor, two perfectly painted white doors facing each other. They were the same size and practically identical in layout, save for the position of their windows. He was sure that hadn't been a coincidence.
He'd already begun decorating his bedroom walls with whatever he could find: posters, train tickets, concert tickets… Anything. Granted, he hadn't found much, nor had he really unpacked. Most of his clothes had been thrown haphazardly into the wooden wardrobe, the rest still messily packed into the cardboard boxes that covered the room. His bed was unmade and his floor a mess, and he really, really couldn't care less.
He sat on his bed contemplating, thinking about his life back in Chicago. It hadn't been glamorous, but it was home. Home to him was leaning out of his bedroom window onto the fire escape to smoke a clandestine cigarette just because he could. Home to him was running through the bustling streets trying to grab the next 'L' train. Home to him was waking up to the sound of loud traffic and shouting from the couple in the apartment next-door.
Home to him was Chicago. It was the pollution and the busy city life that he craved, that kept him distracted from his parents and from their secretive craziness. But now, he was stuck in the sleepy town of Beacon Hills until he graduated, in which he'd be going straight back to Chicago.
He just wanted some adventure. Something to make him feel alive.
He could distantly hear the careful shuffling of feet as his sister made her way up the staircase and towards his room. As if on cue, Mia knocked three times before entering his bedroom.
"You know, I haven't unpacked either," she admitted, taking a seat next to him on his bed as she surveyed the messy room, "I don't want to go through all of my old stuff."
"The sad part is that it became old stuff when we arrived here," Jack mused, "But life carries on, I guess. Or, well, what we have left of ours."
"Hey," Mia began seriously, effectively getting Jack to turn to her, "It's going to get easier. I promise."
"Not better, just easier," Jack added, turning to stare back out of the window to the night sky.
He sure hoped she was right.
Economics. Mia had dreaded this class. It wasn't that she wasn't good at it, in fact she had been pretty good at it in Chicago, but it was also the only class Jack didn't share with her. She'd also heard some rather unpleasant things about the teacher, Coach Finstock, meaning she was walking right into the eye of the storm. On her own.
She made her way into the classroom, nervously toying with her ring. Her eyes landed on two boys, who she instantly recognised from her history class. The one who always stared was sat in front of one of the only empty spaces in the room, and so with a resigned sigh, she made her way to the middle of the classroom, quietly seating herself on the spare desk.
One of the two boys had taken to doodling on his notebook as the class began, Coach Finstock beginning the class with his loud, obnoxious voice. However, the boy didn't stop. In fact, it was as if he was in a trance, scribbling all over the page. He only stopped when Coach Finstock blew his whistle loudly towards him, effectively 'waking' the boy up.
"Stilinski!" the Coach shouted, "I asked you a question!"
The boy (who would name a kid Stilinski?!) looked at him sheepishly, "Uh Sorry, Coach. What was it?"
The Coach became more irritated by the minute, "It was 'Stilinski, are you paying attention back there?'"
"Oh," Stilinski sighed cheekily, "Well, I am now."
The Coach groaned, "Stilinski, stop reminding me why I drink... Every night. Does anybody else want to try the question on the board?"
Mia looked away from the coach, no one daring to raise their hand. The Coach made his way across the room, eyeing for someone to answer the question.
"I'm okay. I just fell asleep for a second," Mia heard Stilinski whisper to his friend, the stare-y one.
Mia furrowed her eyebrows as the boy replied, "Dude. You weren't asleep."
He was right. Stilinski hadn't been asleep, as far as she'd seen. However, before she could think about it for too long, the Coach's eyes landed on her.
"Miss George, our newest addition," he began mockingly, "Please, restore my faith in the education system and answer the question on the board."
Mia ignored the way everyone's eyes turned on her, deciding to stare at the board intently. 'What is the difference between GDP and GNP?'. She knew the answer, it was a simple enough question, highlighted by the big bold 'ANYONE?' written underneath by the coach.
"GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product, which refers to and measures the domestic levels of production," she began steadily, turning to stare at Coach Finstock, "GNP measures the levels of production of any person or corporation of a country."
No one spoke as the Coach stared at Mia intently, pondering over her answer. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he nodded, pointing his pen at her with a grin.
"I like you."
The ever-so-charming Kira had somehow managed to get Mia to sit with her not for one, but two consecutive lunchtimes together. Jack had run off to find a place to smoke at the two girls sat on a table outside in the courtyard, idly eating their lunch. Next to them, Stilinski and Stare-y McGee were sat eating their lunch with their friends, loudly conversing.
"Is it weird having your dad as your teacher?" Mia asked, attempting to make conversation as she bit into her apple.
"Only when he embarrasses me in front of the whole class," Kira confessed with a blush, remembering the class from the day before, "What do your parents do?"
"Both doctors, although my mum is only part-time," Mia explained, "She's also attempting to become a beauty therapist."
Kira was about to reply when something caught her attention. Well, both of their attentions. Stare-y McGee and his friends had begun discussing a rather interesting topic, one Mia knew little about.
"Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Stare-y McGee began (she really needed to find out his name).
"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stilinski added, Mia raising her eyebrow at the statement.
"And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" one of the girls added rather morbidly.
"They're all locked up because they're insane," the third boy at the table concluded, to which Mia had to agree with.
"Ha," Stilinski replied sarcastically, "Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"
"For half my childhood, I was locked in a freezer," the boy began, both Kira and Mia's eyes going wide, "So, being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."
"Follow me," Kira stated with excitement dancing through her eyes, grabbing Mia's wrist.
"Where are we-" Mia began, but was instantly cut short as Kira skid to a stop in front of the table.
"Hi," Kira began rather nervously as Mia continued to eat her apple, "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I actually might know what you're talking about."
Mia looked rather impressed as Kira continued, "There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo.' It literally means 'in-between state.' The state between life and death."
"And what do they call you?" the strawberry blonde girl at the table asked, as if testing the girl in front of her.
"Kira," Stare-y McGee answered, now staring at the girl once again, his eyes eventually falling on the blonde next to her, "And Mia. They're in our history class."
Mia waved awkwardly once again, "Hi."
"So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" the girl interrupted, watching Kira intently.
"Either, I guess," Kira continued, taking a seat next to Stilinski, "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."
"Sounds lovely," Mia mused, taking another bite of her apple, silently appreciating the 'Cougars Den' shirt Stilinski was sporting.
"Wrathful deities? And what are those?" Freezer-guy asked, leaning forwards.
"Like demons," Kira replied helpfully.
Stilinski groaned, seeming more stressed by the minute, "Demons. Why not?"
"Hold on, if there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?" the brown-haired girl of the group asked.
"Death. You die," Mia answered helpfully, Kira looking at her in admiration, "Wait, was I right?"
"Yeah," Kira nodded, turning to the others, "You die at the end of Bardo."
The group immediately became tense, sitting in silence, a rather odd response in Mia's opinion. She pulled Kira up next to her, coughing awkwardly.
"We should go," Mia began, pulling Kira away with her, "Bye!"
"Wait-" Kira began protesting uselessly, the two girls now far from the group, "What was that about?"
"They give me a weird vibe," Mia admitted, looking at the table over Kira's shoulder, "Like a really weird vibe. Who even talks about stuff like that at lunch?"
Kira turned to look at them, missing how Mia's eyes were trained on Stilinski's back, "I don't know, I like them."
That night, Mia found herself sat at her window with a mug of hot chocolate. She didn't know what great benefits living next to the woods had for the family, but she sure enjoyed the view. Sure, it was a little creepy at night (okay, a lot creepy) but it was a pleasant change to the trafficked streets of Chicago.
Another pleasant change was the sky. Whilst in Chicago you could never see the stars, in Beacon Hills there were plenty and more. They decorated the night sky like crystals on silk, perfectly dotted and twinkling above the city. She'd always loved stars, and now she could see them every night.
Three knocks echoed through the wood of her bedroom door, Jack entering the room soon after. He still hadn't changed from his everyday apparel, whilst Mia had been in her pyjamas for hours.
"You should be asleep," he mused, sitting himself with her next to the window.
"I can't," she admitted, "It's like somethings keeping me awake."
"You too then?" Jack asked, pausing as he looked out into the woods, "Pretty creepy huh?"
"Very creepy," Mia agreed, taking a sip of her hot chocolate, "Especially at night."
The two siblings sat in silence as they watched the woods, the gentle wind whooshing through the branches. However, something soon caught Mia's eyes, something familiar.
"Those are the guys from our history," Jack pointed out, him too watching the two boys climb out of a blue jeep and pull torches out, "That's definetly not suspicious whatsoever. You know, just hopping into the woods in the middle of the night."
"Looks like they don't want to be seen either," Mia mused, watching as they looked around hesitantly before making their way through the woods, "They were talking about something called 'Bardo' at lunch. It has to do with death. Do you think this make us witnesses to murder if they don't show up to class tomorrow?"
"Possibly, but I'm sure it's just some weird lacrosse initiation or something," Jack nodded before standing up, "I'm going to try and sleep, you should too. Night M."
"Night J," Mia called to him, her eyes still glued on the woods. She didn't know why those two boys kept popping up everywhere, but she wanted to find out what they knew, what was so interesting to have to sneak into the woods at night for. Because she didn't quite buy the lacrosse initiation story.
She wanted to know more about Beacon Hills.