Silent Night

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I’m in a forest. It’s glorious in its splendour, and vibrant with life. A branch cracks behind me, and I turn, curious as to what may be there. In the mist of the forest, a figure of a woman stands, with long, golden hair, reaching far below her waist. She is wearing a long, white dress that flows freely out to the leaf strewn earth floor.

“Hello?” I call out into the cold air, and my breath turns misty, like the smoke from a fag. The woman looks slightly to the side, and I see part of her face. A small, petite nose, finely arched eyebrows, and a playful smile.

Mum.

“Mum? Mum is that you?”

My mum’s familiar laugh echo’s throughout the forest, and the woman with my mother’s face moves forward. Not walking…kind of floating above the ground. She looks like a goddess, but then, my mother always did. No wonder her murderer chose her. She was beautiful beyond compare.

“…Phoenix…?” my mum’s voice floats in the air. But not from the lips of the body of my mother.

“Mum, I’m here!” I shout at my mum. She doesn’t move closer, just floats further away. Can’t she hear me? I decide to shout again, “Mum!”

She halts this time, and spins to face me. Her face is contorted cruelly, and I realise instantly that this is not my mother. This is a banshee, an evil being that feeds on people’s sorrows. It stares at me with its soulless black eyes, and opens its mouth, revealing razor-like incisors for each tooth, and a pincer for a tongue.

It screams. My eardrums burst, and I shoot bolt right up in my bed, sweat dripping from every inch of my body.

Urgh, that Bundaberg and vodka really wasn’t the smartest thing to drink last night. It always gives me nightmares. I rub my eyes, and stretch my back, hearing my spine click when I do. I drop back into my bed, and pull my black silk covered quilt over my face.

I just close my eyes when someone – probably Ari – knocks on my door. “What?” I groan through my sheets, and I pull them higher over my face.

The door creaks open, and footsteps lightly thud across my bedroom floor. The person who’s almost definitely Arizona sits on my bed, next to my hip. “Phoenix.” Yep, told you it was Ari.

“Yes Arizona?” I ask, irritated. My headache was bad, and I did not need Arizona’s voice making even worse.

“You went out again last night.”

“Way to point out the obvious. Bravo, you might even win an award.” I know I’m being snarky, but come on, that is just too obvious a thing to point out, it’s stupid.

My lovely brother pulled back my quilt, and pulled me into a sitting position. He stared into my eyes, his own green one’s shining violently, “Phoenix Elizabeth Twynem, I am not in the mood for your attitude.” Oh God. When he uses your middle and last name, you know it’s going to be bad. “You have been sneaking out of this house every night-“

“Not every night actually. Only once or twice a week.” I butt in, knowing it will annoy him.

“Shut up.”

“No.” Arizona slaps me across my cheek, and I see a flashing, blinding white light. Damn, that stings. He always has had a knack for hitting when he can’t have his own way. I can’t stand being hit, and I grab his hand, sending a rush of magic through his arm, ending up with my brother grasping his head, and trying his hardest not to scream. “Do. Not. Hit me.”

I stop the flow of power, and get out of my bed. Just before I went sleep last night, I got changed into my cotton shorts and a plain white tee, so it wasn’t surprising that they were crumpled so much that they were near the point of being a paper ball. I stare at my brother, venom in my eyes. “I go out at night, because that’s where my friends are, that’s where the fun is, and that’s where you never let me go!”

Arizona releases his hold on his head, and glares at me as I give my oh-so-wonderful speech. This is so not what to do when you have a hangover…”Ever since mum died, you’ve been a complete dick! It’s not my fault, and you goddamn know it! Just because I got the power, and you got the brawn, doesn’t give you the right to use it on me. I’m your sister, not your daughter. Get over yourself already. You’re twenty-two, not forty-seven! Geesh, get yourself a girlfriend and stop being a prick!”

With that, I turn on my heel, and stomp to the bathroom down the hall. My breathing is fast as I slam to door, and rest my back against it. He better be out of my room when I get out.

I mean it.

I have a long, warm shower, and wash my hair. I dry it and wrap a towel around my body, before going back in my room. Thank god, Ari’s gone. He’s been acting like this for so long; it’s getting beyond a joke. I mean, I understand him being worried about me and stuff, but he isn’t mum. He needs to stop acting as if he’s our dad. He walked out on us when I was eight months old. I got over it pretty easy.

My dear father couldn’t handle the fact that his six-year-old son  could pick things up twice as heavy as himself, or the fact that his baby daughter looked weird and could make things move without touching them.

Mum cried for weeks when he left. I hate him for that. I also hate the fact that he’s one of the only people who have ever been able to leave Apervane. I mean, people can come in whenever they want, but if it’s to live, then they’re pretty much screwed on the basis of ever leaving. Unless they’ve got some super deadly disease and need to go to some specialist hospital. But even that barely ever happens, considering the other witch in town, plus her young son, have medicinal powers, and can heal practically anything.

What day is it today? Monday I think…ah crud! I have school today! Urgh, kill me now. I have enough crap to deal with without having to deal with Kurian today. He’s my maths teacher, and I hate math. I also hate him. God knows why the school even let him teach, seeing as he’s a vamp, plus he’s totally paedophilic. He went out with a thirteen year old nearly twenty years ago, and killed her. Drank her dry, the bastard. But this was before my time, and he’s apparently ‘changed’. Plus, vamps overrule humans in a major scale.

Witches are a different story. The vampires tied to wipe us all out 500 years ago, when they took over Apervane – it used to be a witch town – but we were strong. My family anyway. There were seven main families, and about thirteen other families, you know, that weren’t witches or anything. Those thirteen families were fine, but when the vamps came, five whole witch families were slaughtered.

The Kendral’s and Twynem’s, and that was only through the kids who had hidden themselves throughout the secret tunnel’s.

God, here I am, going on about the past – yet again – when I should be worrying about what I’m going to wear today!