Behind the Mask - Book One [Editing/Re-writing]

(11) [II] Welcome Home

Chapter Eleven [Part Two]

With a sigh I follow the group into my house and stop dead in my tracks as I enter the front door. Nothing stands out as different to me but yet it feels so different. All of moms paintings are still lining the walls of the hall, the wall colour is still the same but it’s not here I feel the change. Maybe the kitchen?

I slip off the runners and walk down the hall into the kitchen and my breath leaves my lungs. Not because this is where the change is. But because of the familiar sight of moms painting stuff covering the island isn’t there. I can’t find a recent drawing anywhere on it; which is weird because normally she has at least a scribble of something on that parchment paper she loves and come to think of it, there is no paint on the counter. Just empty bottles that she has regretted to fill.

My eyes widen and I back away from the kitchen and head straight to my room. Has mom stopped painting? Surely me being gone for four days didn’t have influence on that, right? Wait! Kent said they used amnesia on her . . . did she forget why she painted? No, she started painting when she was my age. So what is it?

As I walk to my room I make sure to keep my eyes glued to the floor. Scared that if I look up I’ll find all of moms paintings tore off the walls. I know it’s ridiculous to think that but I can’t shake this feeling of something has changed inside this house, and it’s not a good change. More like a bad change; like it’s not the same loving house that I used to be in before all this craziness happened. And by craziness I mean me being turned into a vampire.

How is it possible that I don’t remember that night? Okay, there are a lot of ways that it’s possible but how? I don’t even remember leaving the house to go to some crazy party. Which if you ask me seems like the most plausible excuse to come back as some blood sucking fiend. But I'm not evil; I don’t want to hurt anyone.

Don’t you?

No.

You do.

No, I really don’t. Okay, there were those couple times that I had hurt Nick, and Kent. And Clyde. And poisoned Stayton. But that one doesn’t count; I didn’t mean to do that. How was I supposed to know the poison was still on my fingers? Then there was that other time where I threw him across the room. But as for Nick and Clyde and Kent that wasn’t me. That was. . .

I stop dead in my tracks and remember how when I had gotten mad I could make both Stayton and Clyde fly across the room; just by pushing on their chests. Every time someone seems to make me mad out of no where some weird hatred pulses through me and all I want to do is—

No! No! No! I am not some evil being that will kill anything that makes me mad; I have impulse control. Once, in seventh grade one girl in my class had really ugly green hair that was short and spiked up but I used impulse control not to say anything about it. Just a murmured: "Nice hair Jenny."

But, back to the point; I will not hurt anyone. Not now, not ever. As soon as that enters my brain all the questions from the other day in the woods come swirling in. Stayton told me I could ask those questions later; doesn’t this count as later? After all; it has been a day.

I decide to get changed first; these clothes are starting to become gross and grungy. But even as I try to focus on the wood flecks in the floor the questions still bounce around in my head like little boomerangs; each of them wanting out and I try as hard as I can to block them out. If I start to think about them now I’ll just end up marching to Kent and demanding answers and even I know that I can’t do that right now.

Mom needs to feel totally nonchalant about this and me just barging in to wherever they are and starting yelling about demons, and poison and people kidnapping me, well, I don’t think it would go over very well. And then there’s that pressing fact of me being a vampire. How am I supposed to keep it from them? What are they gonna say in two years when I should be twenty but still look eighteen? God, I never thought about that. How does one explain that to people they love? Please, tell me.

"Ow!" I screech as I run into something hard and get ready to start yelling at Stayton to get out of my way and let me go to my room just to open my eyes to see I ran into my closed door. With a hefty sigh I reach to grab my door handle and right when I touch it a spark of something dark jolts into me and I yelp while jumping backwards; cradling my poor hand to my chest.

As I just stand there having a stare off with my door that feeling of something being wrong curses through my veins like lava and my stare turns annoyed. What did mom to do my room? Did she sell my bed? Oh my god, she probably sold my laptop. I grab the handle again, this time feeling no shock of pain travel through my body and take that as a good sign but as I turn it and try to open the door it feels sticky; or heavy. Like something is holding is closed on the other side. Ignoring that thought I place both hands on my door handle and heave, willing the dang thing to open.

Soon, the door starts to groan in disagreement and that sends a warning to my head. It’s like a neon yellow sign blinking: "Danger, danger! Don’t open the door!"

But of course, my anger getting the best of me I push the warning down and with one last powerful pull the door flies open and I almost fall over. Once I get my balance under control I look to see what’s in my room and scream.