The Virtuous

Chapter Five: Creative writing essay

 Awaking in my bed the next morning, I felt my head throbbing. I felt as though I'd just run an entire track meet. The fresh current of memories from my dream was playing on my nerves. I remembered Duncan, and a stranger, and a lot of bright lights.

That dream had been even more real than the night before. It was becoming more than I could handle. I wasn't even sure how I'd ended up with such a horrific nightmare. All I'd done last night was stay in my room and I must've fallen asleep after I got off the phone with my mother. That was the only explanation, right?

There was no way that what had happened in my dream had been...real. No, it was just impossible. The one from last night was too identical to my other one with only minor changes to the plot of it.

My arms shivered as I realized how cold it was.

I looked over and noticed my window open again. Maybe I had been doing it in my sleep or something? I vaguely remembered Tara warning me about such things as night-terrors and sleep walking due to problems with nightmares. Perhaps that was my explanation.

I quietly went over and closed it but not before my toe brushed over something soft. I looked down and under my foot was a black feather.

I tilted my head and picked it up.

The feather was long and felt like silk almost; it was black as night but with a navy hue. I examined it closer and noticed it had light flecks of white on it but they were almost too small to see.

I had no idea what kind of bird could leave such feathers or even had ones as marvelous as this but by the way the object in my hand looked, it had to be a gorgeous bird.

I set the feather on my bookcase and went on my way to get dressed.

Saturdays were my only days to myself to do what I wanted and catch up on my schoolwork. However, my essay for English still wasn't peaking my interest. I instead, decided on going and paying a visit to my dad and step-mom that lived only about ten miles from main campus.

My dad worked as an English teacher at a local high school during the week so Saturdays were also his only free days too. My stepmom, Janine, was a writer and could make up her hours at random. She loved her job. She was constantly working on a manuscript for another book and leaving me in suspense with too many unfinished. She also however was the polar opposite of my mother. If my mother was night, Janine was day. While my father had fallen in love with my mother for her slight features, blue green eyes, long jet black hair and perfect, orthodontist worthy, smile he'd fallen in love with Janine for her bright blonde curls, wide set puppy brown eyes, and her boisterous head-in-the-clouds personality.

Janine wasn't all hot air and dreams though. She could also have stimulating conversations on the progress of English literature for hours. Anything that pertained to her work made her happy. I truly believed she didn't want a child when she married my father because what she would've wanted her children to become were too similar to how her characters turned out.

Janine and I connected on an intellectual and spiritual level which was probably why I'd skipped over all the teenage angst bullshit when her and my father got married in my freshman year of high school.

Janine loved me dearly and was protective of me but she was fun and always told me she was glad she had a 'Step' in front of the title of parent.

"Why's that?" I would ask and she would laugh.

"Because that means I don't have to be a stick in the mud like your mother and father."

She held true to her word too. When I was in high school and I needed her to cover for me because I'd come home late from a party or I'd been caught underage drinking with some friends by the lake, she would pick me up, take me home, promise she would ground me in the morning and there was no need to tell my father, then the next morning would come down the stairs and go to her computer before she even socialized with society.