Chapter 2: Between the devil and the deep blue sea
"Hello?" I called out, doing my best to keep my voice from shaking. The grass was wet under my feet, and I found myself wondering why I was barefoot in the middle of a forest. The trees towered over me on all sides, casting shadows on the ground. I hugged my body and tried to make my teeth stop clattering against each other.
"Is there anyone there?" I asked the tree right before me, where I had thought I saw a figure. But no one replied, and I managed to make my feet move toward the tree at the end of the path.
"If you don't show yourself before I count to ten, I will scream at the top of my lungs until someone hears me." I shouted with a threatening voice. At least it sounded threatening in my head.
"1… 2… 3…" I barely got to four before I heard footsteps approaching me. Before me stood a black haired, gorgeous guy. His blue eyes shone with fear.
"Stefan?" He shouted, looking everywhere but straight at me. I waved my hand before his eyes, but they were blank.
"Hello?" I asked the man, but he still didn't see me. I tried touching him, but my hand went straight through his chest. Which made me realize that he was wearing a suit from the 19th century. At least it looked very old.
"Damon!" A familiar voice called out behind me, and I turned around. Stefan Salvatore was wearing a white shirt and garters, and he looked just as panicked as Damon. Without notice, Stefan stepped right through my body, leaving an icy feeling behind me.
"We have to get her out, brother." Damon's voice shook with stress, and the two brothers started walking toward the edge of the forest. I was having a hard time believing what I was seeing. 1. Stefan Salvatore was running around in a forest clad like he was going to a masquerade. 2. He had a brother, who by the way was smoking. 3. They couldn't see or hear me, and I couldn't touch them. I felt like I was watching a movie, but in 4D, and I was freezing.
I followed the two guys until we arrived into a clearing. That was when I realized why they were both looking so alarmed. Men were walking around with torches in their hands, screaming commands and dragging people around. They were all wearing hats and I saw several carriages with horses, and I realized that this was more than a masquerade party. I was in the 19th century.
"Get them in!" A man yelled, and I watched in horror as he put some sort of mouth harness on a woman, clasping it behind her neck. What was this twisted show?
"We have to get to the church. They're waiting!" Stefan exclaimed beside me, watching the scene before him with a horror equal to mine. I did notice, however, that his eyes weren't surprised. He had known this would happen.
"Circle around that way. I'll distract them. Go!" He then whispered to Damon, who hurried to where Stefan had pointed. I wanted to object to the beautiful man, warn him of the danger, but remembered that he wouldn't hear me anyway.
"Wai–" I exclaimed when Stefan started moving away, and mentally facepalmed. You're a ghost to them. I was left standing alone, so I figured I would try to find out what on earth was going on. Since no one could see me anyway, I wouldn't put myself in any sort of danger. I followed Stefan to one of the carriages, and peeked through the metal bars. Several people lay in there, and I didn't even want to know if they were dead or not. Damon then appeared out of nowhere, smashing a plank into the guard's head, and I moved aside out of instinct. Of course Damon would just move straight through me, but I wasn't really used to being, you know, a ghost.
"Katherine!" He exclaimed as he unlocked the cage in the carriage, and Stefan helped him pull out a body.
"Elena!" I exclaimed in shock as I saw who they were carrying. She was wearing an antique dress, and had a harness clasped around her mouth. But why were they calling her Katherine?
"We don't have much time." Stefan muttered, and I watched the two brothers with fascination. It was obvious that they both cared about this woman with Elena's face, and I wondered how horrible that must be. Fighting with your own brother about the person you love.
"Damon hurry!" Stefan hurried his brother, as Damon fiddled with the ropes tied around Katherine's wrists. I wanted to help, but at the same time I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I had been confused enough even before Elena's long lost twin sister had appeared.
A shot rang through the air, and I screamed out in fear. Damon fell to the ground, and I clasped my hand to my mouth. Stefan rushed to his side while I tried to breathe slowly. Stefan's brother just got shot. Right before my eyes. Voices yelled in the distance, and Stefan took up the unconscious guard's rifle. He aimed at the men coming at him, but he was too hesitant. A second shot was fired, and the second Salvatore brother fell to the ground. My heart jumped through my chest (figuratively, of course), and I felt my knees buckling under me. Watching the men pick up Katherine again and throwing into her cage, I managed to make my breathing function again. This couldn't be real. My name was Juliette Walters. I backed up against a tree, and saw a church in the distance. I am seventeen. I approached the white church with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I live in Mystic Falls. I recognized the church as the church of Mystic Falls. The year is 2009. The men unloaded the bodies from the antique carriages and carried them into the church, their torches held high. This is a dream. I saw them light their torches on piles of timber surrounding the church. This is not real. I felt the smell of burning wood like poison to my mind. Wake up now.
I jumped awake with a scream. I was in my blue bedroom, and the sun was shining through my window. I looked around me and was aware of the pool of sweat on my bed, and the way my hair stuck to my neck in an uncomfortable way. My alarm was beeping, and I threw a pillow at it so it would shut up.
"You're alive, Julie." I whispered to myself, taking a deep breath. It had been a dream. It had all been a dream. I must have dwelled so much about Stefan and Elena the previous day that I had twisted their little 'romance' in a dream.
I tried to relax in the shower, but it was difficult. Alright, it might have been a dream. But were dreams supposed to be so real? Could you smell things in your dreams? I could still feel the burnt odor in my nose, and not even my vanilla scented shower gel numbed it.
I knew what I had to do. I had to find out if Stefan had a brother, and who the hell Katherine was. If Damon and Katherine didn't exist, I would know it was a dream. Sounded like an easy plan.
Tasks for that day:
Ask Stefan if he had a brother.
Ask Elena if she had a twin sister.
Seemed relatively easy.
It wasn't easy. I was already through half of the day when I had failed completely with both of my tasks. The thing was that Elena was always with Bonnie or Stefan, and I didn't want to alert either of them with my weird question. I still didn't trust Stefan, and I didn't want him to suspect me of dreaming about him or anything.
Problem number two. I had to casually ask said possible vampire if he had a brother, and if his name happened to be Damon. Ha-ha. At lunch, I decided to just get it over with.
"By the way, Stefan, do you have a brother?" I asked Stefan, and the table went quiet. It was the first time I deliberately spoke to him. Caroline exchanged a look with Bonnie, and Elena frowned at me and Stefan.
"Yes… I do." He admitted reluctantly, but said nothing more. My heart sank for the hundredth time in the last 24 hours.
"What's his name?" I added, not releasing Stefan's gaze. He seemed very uncomfortable, but I knew he couldn't avoid such a straight question without raising suspicion.
"Uhm, let's talk about something else." The brown haired guy answered with a chuckle, but he was looking at me intently. He knew I was up to something. Shit, I still didn't know if he could read minds or not. Or maybe he's not a vampire, but just a normal guy. Nope. I still got the same chill every time I looked at him.
"So… Anyone psyched for the party tonight?" Bonnie asked to break the awkward silence, and I was thankful for her existence. Stefan was still staring at me with a puzzled frown, and I didn't like it.
"I'm not sure if I'm going…" I mumbled, looking away from my "friends". I thought I would do some digging on my weird dream that night instead. I'm sure Sheriff Forbes would have some info on the Salvatore Family. And the Gilbert one, for that matter. However, Caroline scrunched her eyebrows at me and glared, so I added "...but it does sound fun, so I'll go."
"Great." Bonnie answered with a smile, and it actually sounded genuine.
It was now 2 pm, and all I had succeeded with that day was finding out that Stefan indeed had a brother. Other than that, nada. And then, I had also had this bad feeling all day. The same feeling I'd had the day before, seconds before that freshman had spilled soda all over me.
"Elena? Surely you can enlighten us about one of the town's most significantly historical events?" Mr Tanner asked Elena, and I turned my attention to the brunette. What was the teacher going on about now again? Oh yes, the battle of Willow Creek. That peaked my interest. I may have been daydreaming seconds earlier, but history did interest me. Only Mr Tanner must have been the worst teacher I'd ever had. He was mean, boring and a pain-in-the-ass.
"I'm sorry, I don't know." Elena replied, and Mr Tanner's expression fell.
"I was willing to be lenient last year for obvious reasons, Elena. But the personal excuses ended for summer break." Jeez. Talk about overreacting. I was pretty sure any student would get a mindblock when being asked that question.
"There were 346 casualties, unless you're counting the local civilians." Stefan answered out of the blue, and the familiar creepy feeling circled around my heart.
"That's correct, mr…?" Mr Tanner replied, and I couldn't help smiling at his dumbfounded expression. He hadn't been expecting a student to know the right answer, and especially not the new guy.
"Salvatore."
"Salvatore?" Mr Tanner repeated with surprise. "Any relation to the original settlers here in Mystic Falls?" My attention peaked again. Maybe this was where I would find the answers to my dream.
"Distant." Stefan replied, and I frowned inwardly. Distant relation to the original Salvatores of Mystic Falls… That didn't give me any answers. Almost everyone here was related to founders of this small town in some way, even if it was distant.
"Well, good. Except of course, there were no civilian casualties in this battle." The teacher said, satisfaction in his voice.
"Actually, there were 27, sir." Stefan interrupted Mr Tanner, and I raised my brows at him. No one had ever spoken to Mr Tanner that way. "Confederate soldiers, they fired on the church," I felt nauseousness raise in my stomach. The church. "believing it to be housing weapons. They were wrong. It was a night of great loss." In that very second, I knew it. My dream hadn't been a dream, but a memory. A memory of the battle of Willow Creek, year 1864, when 27 civilians had been burned in a church. But how could you have a memory of something you had never seen? I hadn't even known about the battle of Willow Creek before this day.
"The founders archives are stored in the Civil Hall if you'd like to brush up on your facts… Mr Tanner." Stefan added, and every single student looked at him, baffled. Except me, because I was writing down Civil Hall in my phone.
"Miss Walters, if you'd please put down your phone, we could continue this lesson." Mr Tanner turned his attention to me, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"I was just writing this moment down so I will never forget it." I grinned at the teacher. Bad move. Mr Tanner's mouth formed a tight line and he shot daggers at me while I heard multiple chuckles from all over class.
"Principal's office, Miss Walters." Damn it. I didn't have time for that. Well well, I still thought it was worth it. I didn't like Mr Tanner, and I wanted him to know that.
"Alright." I sighed and stood up. "Don't forget, Civil Hall, Mr Tanner." I added just before walking out, and then I hurried out of the classroom so my teacher wouldn't have time to retort.
Thankfully, the meeting with the Principal didn't take very long. That may have been because my mother was the principal, of course.
"I'm sorry, Mom. But you know how Mr Tanner is. Did you know what he told Elena just before? That her personal excuses didn't matter anymore. Just because she couldn't answer his question." I argued when she threatened to give me house-arrest. My mother's blonde eyebrows shot to her forehead.
"He did?" Her green eyes were full of surprise and worry. She had known the Gilberts very well, and their death had hit her hard.
"Yes. And just before that, he called Bonnie dumb." I replied, and I knew I had already won the discussion. "He bullies his students, Mom. Can you really blame me for speaking up?"
"Yes, I can." She sighed. "It wasn't necessary for you to defend them. You could have just told me and I could've had a talk with your teacher." Her voice was in the I'm-your-principal-not-your-mother mode. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. That would just worsen my situation. My mom did not take well to cockiness.
"But, I won't punish you. But that's only because you have good grades and you are a good student otherwise, alright?" My mom finished, and I gave her an innocent smile.
"Thanks." I shrugged before standing up.
"Julie!" My mom exclaimed when I was about to leave the room. "Don't stay out too late tonight." She added with a worried look. Huh. Usually she didn't care where I was on my free-time, or how late I stayed out. But something in her eyes told me there was more to it than a party. Then it hit me; the animal attacks. She was worried I'd get attacked.
I dwelled on that as I walked to the Civil Hall. I had about three hours before the party started, so I figured I had some time to find the answer to my questions. My mother had seemed so worried, yet she never worried about me usually. I mean, it was only an animal attack, as far as she was concerned. I knew that there was something more to the attack, but she didn't.
I sat down in front of one of the computers and typed Battle of Willow Creek. I got five hits, and clicked on the first article. It described the battle and the conflict, nothing more. 346 casualties. There was nothing about any civilians. I clicked on the next article, that was a summary of the consequences of the battle. At the end of the article, I found what I was looking for. 27 civilians were killed when confederate soldiers fired at Fell's Church, believing it to be housing weapons. Only ashes were found after the church burned down. There were no names of the civilian casualties, and I didn't find any in the other articles as well. No Katherine. I scratched my head but got a better idea.
Gilbert family tree. I searched, but a warning came up. You need a password to access this page. Damn it. Private information. I weighed my options. I could confront Elena and Stefan, or I could use the Sheriff's account to log in.
The second option felt both quicker and easier, so I wrote Mrs Forbes password in the box. Okay, here's the story. One time I entered her office in Caroline's house, and she was logged in on her computer, but in another room. I couldn't help my curiosity and wrote down her password. You never know when that could come in handy.
Access allowed. I grinned victoriously and typed the three words again. There was a record of all of Elena's relatives, but there was no Katherine. No twin sister, then. Salvatore Family Tree, I then typed. Blank. Strange. Really strange. There was no record of any Salvatore's in the town. Yet Stefan had said he had distant relatives from Mystic Falls. And, I knew he lived with his uncle.
"You want to get ready at my place?" My phone buzzed and I read the message on the lock screen. I sighed and logged out of Sheriff Forbes' account, making sure that I left no traces of intrusion. I then picked up my bag and left the Civil Hall.
I saw Stefan enter the clearing where the party was held. Caroline had just bailed on me to "get us drinks" (aka talk with some other friends). I decided to take matters in my own hands once and for all.
"I know you're up to something." I went straight up to Stefan and he stopped abruptly. His dark brows furrowed as he tried to act innocent. "I know you're not normal."
"Neither are you." He replied, but he still wasn't rude. He looked taken aback from my accusations, but I saw recognition in his eyes.
"I don't know what I am, but I know what you are." I replied, confidence swelling in my chest. His hesitations told me that I was right.
"And I want you to stay away from Elena. I may not be great friends with her, but I know what will–" I stopped myself. I didn't want him to know too much. "You're not good for her."
"What are you?" Stefan's puzzled green eyes watched me with fascination. I opened my mouth to answer, but realized that I had no answer. Up until yesterday I had been a normal, though slightly adventurous, teenage girl. Now I was this lunatic who got bloody visions of her friends dying, before it had happened.
"Someone you should listen to." I gave Stefan one last meaning look before walking away, leaving him baffled. I don't know how I got the courage to do that. All I knew was that I had a feeling that my visions were true, and if I was right, I wanted him to leave Elena alone. As I said, she wasn't really my friend, but that doesn't mean I wanted her to die. She was a nice girl, and she deserved a happy life.
"Oh hell no, not Caroline too." I muttered to myself, and approached Caroline as soon as Stefan had walked away from her.
"He's so sexy." She said, filling up a mug with beer. I rolled my eyes, but nodded. The guy creeped me out, but he was sexy. That brooding vampire thing was always sexy, even I had to admit that.
"Caroline, he's no good."
"Since when have I ever dated someone good?" Caroline answered with a knowing look, and I sighed.
"Not like that… He's something else. He gives me the creeps, okay?" I replied, desperately trying to make her understand.
"Is this one of your weird psychic visions again? You're crazy, Juliette." Care brushed it off with a wave of her hand, and I felt my heart contract. Those words hit me right to my soul. I was going crazy. I was going completely mad. Yet every fiber of my being told me that I was right.
"Anyway, I'm going to go and give this to Stefan." Caroline changed the topic, and gave me a roll of her eyes. She started walking away from me, but stopped in her tracks.
"Did you see where he went?" She asked me with a frown. Yes, I had seen him leave with Elena. But I wasn't going to tell her that. Care had always had these Elena complexes, and knowing that Stefan had run off with Elena would do her no good.
"No." I told her in reply, and she left me to go looking for him.
The party was a total bore. Did I mention I hate small-talk? Well, let's just say that there's a reason why I hated parties like this one.
After about half an hour, I left the party. The noise of the music and the chatting was too much, and I had had a long day of dwelling on my lunatic mind. Yet, I didn't want to go home either. So I went to the forest to get some peace and quiet.
"So you're some sort of psychic now, Juliette?" I asked myself, emptying the cup of beer. I followed the path, my thoughts whirling around in my head. For now, the only actual proof I had that my dream had been true was the 27 civilian casualties at Fell's Church. I still didn't know about Stefan, Damon or Katherine.
"Jeremy?" I heard Vicki Donovan's voice echo through the forest a bit away from me. Now that I thought of my surroundings, I realized I had wandered off into the forest quite a bit. And a strange fog started seeping around my feet. I took a few steps forward and saw Vicki standing a bit away from me, calling out for Jeremy, Elena's brother. I didn't want her to see me, to think that I had followed her, so I hid behind a tree. Something was bugging me. I recognized this scene. It could just be a strange deja-vu, but it felt more real.
A man was standing behind Vicki. He wore a black leather-jacket, and his hair was pitch black. I thought I recognized him from somewhere. I was about to call out for Vicki, but I realized that it would certainly put the two of us even more in danger. My feet creaked against the moss as I took a few steps forward to get a clearer view. I could barely contain a gasp when I saw who the man was. It was Damon Salvatore, Stefan's brother from my dream. He had veins under his eyes, and his sneer revealed long, sharp fangs. And within a second, he plunged them into Vicki Donovan's neck. I bit my tongue not to scream out in fear when I realized why the scene was so familiar.
It was the exact same scene I had seen when I had touched Vicki the night before.
I sunk down to the ground as soon as I had run away from the forest. Thankfully, Damon hadn't seen me. I was a couple of blocks away from my house, and I was hyperventilating.
"I'm crazy. I'm crazy. I'm crazy." I kept repeating to myself in between shallow breaths. Everything had been true.
"This can't be real." I whispered, pulling at my hair. I could barely contain the tears forming in my eyes.
"Wake up." I tugged at my hair before pinching myself on the arm. "WAKE UP!" But the images kept flashing by in my head. The image of Stefan and Damon getting shot, then the vision of Vicki getting attacked.
Suddenly a new image passed by in my head. I saw a vision of a grave, and people I knew surrounding it. Caroline was there, wearing her most beautiful black dress, crying. I saw my mother sobbing against my father's chest, and I saw my little brother staring at the grave incomprehensibly. I saw Elena standing there, holding Stefan's hand. And then I saw the name on the tombstone. Juliette Walters. 02/18/1992-09/16/2009. That was in a week.
Staying in Mystic Falls would lead to my death.
