The Ambrose Clique - now published on Amazon

14 - A Witch's Vision

- updated - 

For the rest of the afternoon, I snuggled into the comforting warmth of Pumpkin. My mind was whirling with all of the new information. It was terrifying to know that Mick had been right, that there was more I didn't know. This town was somewhere I'd grown up in. My mother had a scarier life, one she was too worried to tell me about.

But she should have told me, a small voice in my mind argued. I had every right to know before now. I wanted to delve deeper into this, into all of the secrets my mother was hiding. But there was also the part of me that was too scared to see what I'd uncover. This place wasn't as safe as my mother promised; in fact, I'd been faced with more hostility and threats here than at home.

It was nine at night when Daisy finally bustled in with coffee in hand, interrupting my pointless wallowing.

"Alright, May?" she asked cheerfully. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages! How did it go with Skye?"

I didn't know what to say. What was I supposed to tell Daisy? How much did she know already? Instead of answering her questions, I focused on causing a reaction. A malicious part of me was so sick of Daisy being constantly kind to me when I knew she was hiding secrets.

"So, how's Aurel recently?" Ashamedly, I felt a twinge of success to see her blanch at my question. Her back stiffened and her shoulders pulled tight together as she turned around slowly from her desk, which she had settled into rapidly rearranging, and shot me a quizzical look.

"Fine, I can only assume. Why, have you spoken to her?" She tried to keep her voice light, but something close to annoyance slipped through her demeanour. I told myself that I was only asking because I needed to confront Aurel about Mick's story.

"No, I haven't. But I'm starting to learn things, Daisy. I'm uncovering secrets. And the fun thing about this is that I'm starting to see through each lie I've been told. Even the ones you told me." The words felt like acid in my mouth and burning my throat. I went too far, always too far. "Look, Daisy I'm so-"

"No! It's totally fine, I get that you're tense and tired. The nightmares can't be easy for you, and now you're finding out things about yourself. Just forget about it, I'm going to bed now anyway." She smiled brightly at me, with no trace of angriness in her eyes. But yet, an ever persistent guilt played in my mind until I cursed with frustration. I smiled back at Daisy, who was watching me with the caution that one would watch a wild animal.

"You're right, I'm gonna go to bed too."

We both got ready for bed, it was half ten when we were done. The whole time we were getting ready, Daisy glanced out of our window and into the forest at least every ten seconds. The anxious glances showed me exactly where she was going tonight. She curled up and faced the wall as we lay in an uneasy silence. I didn't sleep and neither did she.

It was a few hours before Daisy decided I was asleep. I kept my eyes closed whilst I listened to her slowly creep out of bed and get dressed. I'd appreciate her efforts to not wake me up, if I didn't know it was because she was hiding something.

I waited until she slipped out of the door and slowly counted to ten. I'd decided from her pained glances out of the window that fifteen seconds was enough time for her to clear the corridor.

Certain she was gone, I climbed out of my bed, to the annoyance of a disgruntled Pumpkin. I slipped my feet into the boots I'd positioned at the end of my bed and shoved my coat over the jogging bottoms and over sized jumper that I wore to bed. This was wasting time, I knew, and I worried about this on my way to the door that exited the dorm. Instead of Felix, I ran into Clover. She was waiting for me by the door, although that was where I'd arranged to meet Felix. After Skye told us they were meeting Aurel tonight, Felix and I planned to meet and follow Daisy; we hoped it'd glean more information about the clique.