Chapter 17
Bayla
All Through the Night
Sleeping At Least
I was about to turn on my heel when the door opened.
For a moment, I was unable to say anything.
Mady was wearing a hoodie that was far too big for her, her greasy hair resembled a bird’s nest and her emerald green eyes were very red, as was her petite nose.
“Mady...” I started, but when I couldn’t find the right words, I stepped toward her and wrapped her in my arms. “I’m so sorry. I found out far too late.”
Mady said nothing, let herself be hugged, and I glanced into the hallway where shoes, clothes and empty cereal boxes covered the floor.
Mady was home alone. Of course, she was. She had no one else left.
My nose caught a sweet smell, the same as my mother’s. And I got hungry.
Nervous and confused at the same time, I released myself from the hug and looked my normally cheerful neighbor in the eye. She looked down at the floor. Her gaze seemed empty, even absent.
“My condolences.”
I put a hand on her arm and watched as her chest heaved. She was fighting back tears.
“I don’t understand,” she sobbed, her last word almost dying out. “I don’t understand...”
And then she fell into my arms again, as if I could help lift the weight that was on her shoulders.
I tried not to breathe, holding my breath until I needed it again. Something was wrong with me, because the urge to open my mouth and dig my teeth into Mady’s neck was getting stronger.
This time I pulled away from her, startled.
What if Senseque craved humans? I had never asked Julian.
An uneasy feeling ran through my stomach.
“You should get out of there, do something with us,” I begged Mady, trying to distract us both. Hanging around her family home all the time couldn’t possibly be good for her.
“They hate me,” she whispered, lowering her eyes. “Everyone.”
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true, but she was quicker.
“Grace, Julie, Vivienna and her friends, Julian, the Copelands... Everyone.”
I would have liked to tell Mady that there were reasons that had nothing to do with her. I immediately thought of Larissa again, whom I hadn’t told anything to protect her from all this. But how much of the truth would Mady be able to take in her current state?
Mady’s voice became even quieter, and she stared out into the street.
“There’s no one who doesn’t hate me.”
I stepped forward and put my hand on her shoulder again. “Larissa and I...”
Mady laughed softly, and it sounded sad. “I must have tried to reach her ten times. Ten times.” She searched my gaze. “Don’t you think that pretty much says it all?”
I stared intently at her hallway again. She was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her anything. Not a word. And it weighed on me.
“Larissa’s had a lot on her mind the last few days.”
Mady crossed her arms and ran her hands over her arms as if she was freezing. “Do you think that’s a reason to ghost me?”
I hated having to lie. And even more, I hated not being able to say anything. So, I decided to change the subject, hoping Mady would jump on it.
“You should come back to campus when you feel ready. I’ll be there.”
I didn’t want to promise anything, because since living in Blairville, I’d already been unconscious three times. And that had been for several days. Another thing I couldn’t explain to Mady, because I myself didn’t even know what was wrong with me.
“I’ll never feel ready,” Mady whispered. “My brother is dead. And with him, something died inside me that I need to keep going.”
“Mady,” I sighed. Her words set all my alarm bells ringing.
“It’s okay, Bay. Thanks for coming by. You’re the first.” She forced herself to smile and stepped back into the dark hallway of her house. “Even Mia didn’t check in.”
Oh, no... How could anyone be as undeserving of bad luck as she was? Mia was at the Copelands. If Mady found out, after all the drama regarding Nash...
I wanted to say something else, but she disappeared inside and a few seconds later the door closed.
I let my arms hang down with a sigh and turned toward the street. My eyes fell on the streetlight under which I had almost died. Ravens had gathered underneath it. A shiver ran down my spine.
Why had Mum come here with me?
Cellar
Jay Varton
It was strangely quiet as I entered the first floor of the house.
“Mum?” I called out and listened carefully for an answer. In vain. Mum had to be at work.
Normally, I wouldn’t be here either, but I had found out through a coincidence called Emely that Julian wanted to go home again to pick up the last of his things to take with him to campus, and I hadn’t missed out on the chance of a ride.
I had forgotten quite a lot this morning, but I didn’t want Mum to bring me anything extra either.
I’d been trying to get everything I could out of Julian, and all I knew so far about the affair between his family and the Quatura was that Mia had moved out this morning. And that Julian was planning to move back to campus completely. He hadn’t exactly been talkative, had seemed absent.
I walked through the living room to the kitchen and spotted a package on the kitchen island, which I inspected curiously and when I deciphered my name on the address label, my curiosity increased considerably.
Who sent me a parcel?
It was just sitting here and... there was a crest with two wolf heads…
Vanderwood University?
I quickly tore the cardboard apart and was startled by my strength, which reminded me of the meeting with the professor. I had tried to suppress it at Mady’s, but now it all came flooding back.
After seeing my reflection, it was easy for me to believe him, but that didn’t change the shock of the fact, or the fear of turning and possibly dying in the process.
Me, a cursed werewolf? Something like Julian and Emely?
I hadn’t said a word about it, of course, but I was confused. Yesterday afternoon, before the rite of passage, my eyes had lit up like that. Now, at least, I could be sure that it wasn’t a reflection of the sun or my imagination that I had seen flashing in the mirror.
But how was that possible? There was only one answer, and I didn’t even want to think it through.
I doggedly pulled the plastic bag with the soft contents out of the box, and wasn’t surprised when I pulled out a white blouse, a black skirt and a navy-blue sweater, as well as a knitted sweater vest, with the Vanderwood crest, plus other items of clothing in navy blue, dark green and black. I started rummaging around, looking for pants, but found none. The crest was also on the chest of the other sweater vests and knitted sweaters, with the dagger with tendrils woven around the handle and two wolf heads sticking out at the tip. 1866 was written underneath, as was the name of the university.
With an unenthusiastic expression, I threw the clothes onto the worktop.
Only over my dead body would I wear a skirt on this campus.
A note floated toward me and I quickly grabbed it before it could fall off.
The university offers other clothing items, which are available at the local store at Vanderwood.
Of course, I had to go to a store first to get an item of clothing that I didn’t even want to wear voluntarily.
That co-director... Who the hell was she, and how did it occur to her to introduce school uniforms at a Canadian university? As a fucking obligation?!
I snorted in disapproval.
A cool breeze crept over the back of my neck and I wheeled around.
There was nothing there. No window was open, and I had even pulled the door shut behind me.
I was just about to turn back to my uniform when I heard a muffled noise.
Thump.
Rhinoceros
Tony Morales
My head jerked toward the stairs, where the noise had come from. My stomach tightened.
Oh, God. Was there someone here who hadn’t expected to find the owner of the house? And now I was here. Alone...
I was about to shout out Hello, but I remembered what always happened to people like that in the movies.
But who could it be? Was Mum expecting someone? Or maybe she hadn’t heard that I was there? Had her car been outside?
It could be anything. And I idiot decided to find out.
I wasn’t comfortable at all as I climbed the carpet-covered stairs and my whole body seemed to rebel against it.
Alarm bells rang inside me as my headache returned. Oh, please…
Ever since Alarik had given me the nice-smelling tea, I had been in a strange mood. I got attacks of headaches as soon as something upsetting happened, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. But right now, it felt like the pills I’d stopped taking before the attack and vowed never to take again.
I crept on, and it occurred to me too late that I could have taken something with me so that I wouldn’t be at the mercy of whatever was running through Mum’s old house. But it was too late to...
“Bay, I heard something.”
I jerked my head around and spotted Julian standing at the bottom of the stairs, his hair a mess as if he’d run here.
I gestured with my finger for him to be quiet, but he didn’t seem to want to listen to me and stormed past me, up the stairs.
I caught his scent in my nose. He smelled good, like cologne, a little woody. He hadn’t smelled like that before.
When I realized in which direction my thoughts were drifting, I shook my head and took the last steps of the stairs to hurry after Julian. He disappeared into the room where...
Crap.
“Julian, don’t.”
I hurried to catch up to him and stopped. A cool breeze blew through my hair.
As I watched Julian rush to the open floor-to-ceiling window and glance out, I noticed he was tense.
“What is it? Have you seen anyone?”
He continued to turn toward me and his look didn’t bode well.
“Someone unfamiliar was here, and it looks like he was quick enough to disappear unseen. And the smell is already gone, too.”
I looked around and the thought that someone could have been rummaging around in my mother’s secret room scared me.
How had the person got in here in the first place? Hadn’t Mum locked the door? Anyway, the front door had been... Shit.
“The person must have come in through the front door... It was open when I arrived,” I remarked, looking around the room for any changes.
The photo was back in its old place, only without the glass. Mum must have cleaned up the mess I made back then.
And there it was again, the guilt. I should never have entered that room. On the other hand, I would never have found the letter from my literature professor to my mother...
“Then either your mother has given the house key to other people who have been snooping around here, or the person knows how to break locks.”
“I think the second one.”
The 3 rd Door
Jay Varton
Julian looked at me as if he wasn’t so sure, and I gave him a questioning look. “What?”
“Well, after the letter thing, I’m not so sure you really know your mother.”
I furrowed my eyebrows in frustration.
Did he have to remind me of reality like that?
“It’s sad that even you think that. I thought I was the only one who shouldn’t trust my mum. I mean, I trust her, but she... you know…”
“…has a lot of secrets,” he finished my sentence, nodding.
There was still concern in his gaze.
“Are you worried?”
“Pardon?” He raised his now arched eyebrow as if he hadn’t understood me.
“You seem worried.”
“Someone just broke into your house. Shouldn’t that be reason enough to worry?”
I gritted my teeth.
Yes, yes... He was right. But he shouldn’t be worried. Not about my family.
“You have enough other problems,” I muttered, but he didn’t change his expression.
“Damn it, Bayla, are you serious?” I realized I was blushing and looked down. “Your problems are a welcome distraction.”
I looked up and caught his familiar grin.
Relief spread through my body. Then I realized what he had said.
“Excuse me?”
Julian sighed. “The last thing I need right now is someone to remind me of all the other drama going on around me.”
I swallowed unnoticeably, and he turned to the window to close it.
I would have loved to see the look on his face. I wondered if he was hurt at the thought of his family and the Copelands still trying to force him into this pack. I wonder what he was thinking about. And what could be bothering him the most?
It occurred to me that he probably had it a lot harder than me and wasn’t complaining as often as I was. Sure, I was in a shitty situation with my mum and the whole Quatura Senseque problem, but I was... free, right? I could just leave. He couldn’t.
As Julian closed the window, a strong breeze swept through the room and a rustling drew my attention to the floor. There was a book lying there. Or rather, the pages of a book held together by a thread, as if it had been torn out of a book...
I walked across the room, bent down, grabbed the paper and realized that it really had been torn out of a book. Scraps of paper hung from the strings that held the remaining pages together.
“What’s this?” I looked at Julian, who had come closer and was eyeing the paper suspiciously.
“I... don’t know,” I confessed honestly, looking down at the neat handwriting.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
I winced and before Julian could respond to my mum’s words, I put a hand over his mouth and hurriedly pulled him out of the room. He seemed puzzled, but I didn’t let myself be put off, closed the door and took my hand away from his much too warm, soft lips. Very soft lips, which he now pressed together as if I had hit him.
“Bayla?”
Into the woods
DOLKINS
“Yes, Mum?” I called quickly and hurried down the stairs to where my mum stood in a dark blue blouse, bent over the mess on the kitchen counter.
“Is that...”
“Yep, it’s school uniforms. Thanks to the nice lady with the red hair, I have the honor of experiencing this crap for once in my life.”
“Rebecca?” I wasn’t surprised that Mum knew her personally. I walked over to the counter and put the clothes back into the box. “What’s she doing at Vanderwood?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” I said quickly, blushing when I realized I was still holding the pages of the book. I hastily threw them into the box between my clothes. Luckily, Mum didn’t notice because she was busy reading the letter.
“Hey, it’s addressed to me.”
Mum looked at me with a laugh. “To you? What’s that supposed to mean? Is your mother not even allowed to know what’s going on at your university anymore?”
“I think your daughter wants to spare you some drama,” I heard a laugh from behind me.
Oh, no. How was I going to explain to her that Julian had just come from upstairs?
The blush on my face intensified.
“Julian…”
My mother seemed surprised and then looked at me questioningly. Oh, great. She was thinking wrong. So wrong.
“Julian brought me home so I could get some things.”
“I can see that,” she said with a laugh, and the embarrassment must have been written all over my face.
“My stuff is still upstairs...” I added quickly.
Julian, who didn’t seem to notice any of this, came over to us and leaned casually against the fridge, which had a magnet with a barn and another one with my university’s logo on it.
“I’m surprised you got them sent home, and the rest of us all found them in our campus room.”
“What?” I looked at him, startled.
Mum cleared her throat. “Rebecca brought it over herself.”
My jaw dropped.
Interesting to know.
“Could you please not call her that?”
“I’ve known this woman for ten years.”
I paused.
Mum had just started to continue packing up the ridiculously expensive-looking uniform. Now she looked at me as if she hadn’t just told me yet another new piece of information about her past.
“Ten years?”
She’d been in Blairville when I’d been eight?
Mum seemed to realize what she’d told me because she avoided my gaze and reached for her black leather briefcase that she always took to work.
“Anyway, I’m surprised she’s in charge of the rules at Vanderwood now. That’s... news to me.”
“And Director Copeland doesn’t seem too happy about it,” Julian laughed, not realizing that he had brought the wrong name into the game.
I remembered the conversation we had had today at noon. And the fact that I still had to come up with a plan to get out of this house on Monday without Mum or Julian – who had always driven me to university – suspecting anything. I felt like a criminal who had planned something extremely illegal. But what was the big deal? Training with Alarik Copeland. Not strange at all... at five in the morning.
Mum looked at Julian in surprise. Was that a sign that she was the woman in the letter? That would mean there might have been something between her and Alarik. It would explain her mood when it came to him and the fact that I should stay away from him. Certainly not just because he was a Senseque.
“Yeah, anyway... I still have to finish something for one of my literature seminars. Didn’t you say you had to study too?”
What a cheap excuse on my part, but at least it got Julian to push himself off the fridge.
I decided that Mum shouldn’t find out that someone had broken in and gave Julian a warning look. He seemed to understand me wordlessly. Lucky for him. Otherwise, I would probably have had to kick him like Mia had taught me.