Chapter 2: Arrival
12 Hours had passed. I felt like I was going to go insane in this truck. When we had stopped at a gas station earlier, I pulled off my skinny jeans and put on my favorite dark grey sweat pants. I wanted to make sure I was going to be comfy if I had to sleep in here. We had at least 8 hours left. Everyone was becoming irritable. Especially my mom. I couldn’t really blame her though. I would be pretty ill if I had already driven 12 hours straight and had 8 more too.
I let out an overly dramatic sigh, “What time will we get to wherever it is we are going?” My mother didn’t answer. I began to think she hadn’t even heard me. Then she spoke, “6 o’clock in the morning. We are going straight to our new house. It’s already furnished. It’s only 15 minutes away from your school too.” I frowned. School. Awesome.
“What day are you gonna go register me and Dylan?” I asked.
“I will be registering you tomorrow so that you guys can start on Monday.”
Even better. Tomorrow, which was Saturday, my mom was going to go register Dylan and I. Yea, that is not the answer I was hoping for. I turned around as best as I could in my seat to look at Dylan who was sitting behind me. He looked up from his phone and pulled out one of his ear buds that he had plugged into his ipod. “We start school on Monday,” I said coldly. He let out a grunt, “Monday? Why Monday? It’s Friday and we aren’t even getting to Montana until tomorrow morning.” Mother sighed, “Guys. Please don’t argue with me right now. You’re starting school on Monday. No if, ands, or buts. Got it?” Dylan lightly rolled his eyes and put his ear bud back in. I turned back around in my seat and looked at the long road ahead of us.
I pulled my legs up into the leather seat and grabbed my ipod out of my purse that I had sitting in the floor. I put in my ear buds then played the first song in my skillet album. I turned up the volume then pulled my phone out of my sweat pants pocket. I felt a lump in my throat as I saw the texts from my 2 best friends, Heather and Nick. I couldn’t believe I was leaving them… Heather had been my best friend since 6th grade. I met her on our first day of middle school and we had been best friends since. I met Nick in 4th grade. He has been my best guy friend I have ever had. We were never really more than friends. Yea, we dated once. We gave it a try in 7th grade but it proved that we were better just as friends.
I replied to their messages telling them how much I missed them and how much Montana was going to suck. I told them I was going to go ahead and turn in for the night and would text them tomorrow. I plugged my phones car charger up and plugged up my phone. I had Dylan hand me my pillow and cover from the back seat and got myself situated. When I felt comfortable, I closed my eyes and focused on peaceful thoughts. I soon fell into a deep sleep. Then I saw her again.
This time, we weren’t in the forest. We were… At court? The girl was wearing guardian attire. She wasn’t guarding anyone though. She was sitting in one of the gardens outside of the court. Her long dark brown hair was pinned up in a neat bun. I kept reminding myself that this was just another dream, but something about it was so real. So real. So vivid. I began pondering ways to wake myself up. I had to get my mom to talk to me about this. This wasn’t right. Every dream for the past 2 years had this girl in it. Why? I didn’t understand. I looked up through my bangs that were hanging down through my eyes at the girl. She was beautiful, who is she?
I flinched when she turned her head in my direction and looked directly at me. She didn’t seem hostile, but the eye to eye contact bothered me. I examined her. God, she looked so familiar. That’s when I saw the red pin that was on her jacket. Royal guards wore those pins. I now knew who this girl was. “Rose Hathaway,” I whispered to myself. That’s when I woke up.
I opened my eyes and looked at the clock on the dashboard. The green numbers read. “5:57 am”. I looked at my mom who had her eyes focused on the road. She glanced at me and gave me a light smile. “Good morning,” she said in that motherly voice of hers. I sat up and yawned, “Good morning.” After stretching out, I glanced behind me to make sure Dylan was still asleep, and he was. “Mom, I really need to talk to you.” I noticed her go stiff. She knew what I was going to bring up.
“Whitney—“
“No, mom. I’m serious, we really need to talk about this. Why is she in my dreams? Rose Hathaway. What does she have to do with me?”
She didn’t speak at first. Then she finally answered but in harsh tone, “Whitney Alexandra Emmaline, we are NOT having this conversation, do you understand me?”
I let out a laugh, “What conversation mom! You never tell me anything! I’ve been dreaming about her for 2 years! Can’t you spare me a little information?”
“No. I can’t and I won’t.”
“Let me out of the car.” I said demandingly.
She turned her head to look at me. I saw her grip tighten on the steering wheel, “Let you out of the car? Are you crazy?”
Hah. “I feel like I am going crazy, that’s for sure.”
I was forced to put up with my mother for another half hour. But I managed. When we arrived to our new house, I immediately jumped out of the truck and went walking down the driveway. My mother didn’t even ask where I was going. She already knew I was just going for a walk. That’s what I did when I got mad. I would grab my phone and ipod and leave. Walk for a couple hours then return home and lock myself in my room.
This time, I wasn’t alone as I walked. Dylan slid out of the truck, spared our mom a glance, and then walked after me. Once we were out of the driveway, he went into a light sprint until he caught up to me. “Alex…” He pleaded. “What?” I snapped. He didn’t answer for a few seconds, “Please calm down.” I turned to look at him, “Calm down? If I was any more calm I’d be dead.” He frowned. He didn’t speak for at least ten minutes.
“Why do you think you’re always dreaming about Rose?” He asked. “I wish I knew…” Was all I could manage to reply. After the first month of the dream, I told Dylan. He knew about it before my mom ever did. Dylan and I are close. I told him a lot. We even talked about the way I’m different from the others in our family. Like my hair color and eye color. After we walked around town for at least 2 hours, we returned home. Mother was in her bedroom unpacking her clothes. Dylan and I grabbed out boxes out of the back of the truck and did the same.
Walking towards the house, I inspected it as much as I could before reaching the porch steps. The house had two stories. The paneling was white and the windows were tall with black shutters. The porch was cement with cement stairs. It had small white columns along with white railing as well. The house looked quite homey. No matter how nice it looked, I knew it would take a while to get used to.
When I walked through the front door, I took a long look around the living room. The walls were beige and had a certain texture that looked as if it was carpet. The flooring was white tile. The room was breathtaking. About 10 feet in the front door, to the left, there was a brown staircase that curved to the right and went straight up to the second floor. To the right of the stairs on the second floor, there was a walkway that had brown railing matching the stairs that would allow us to look over the edge down into the living room. To the far right of the front door, there was a door beside the couch. Through the door I could see a bed that had my mom’s things sitting on it.
On the right wall of the living room, there was a long Chinese styled screen along the wall. It was tan with a flowered pattern across it. In front of it, there was a couch with dark brown wood. The cushions were tan and the pillows were tan and white. There was a coffee table in front of the couch that had the same exact color of wood. To the left, right across from the coffee table and couch, against the stairs, was a white tv stand. It had a squared hole in the middle that held a silver flat screen tv. It looked to be about 50 inches. I looked up to see a black chandelier hanging from the ceiling right in the middle of the room. “Wow,” I whispered in awe to myself.
Yea, we lived in a two story house back in California but it was definitely not as nice as this. I set my boxes down to the right of the front door and set off to adventure through the rest of the house. Dylan had already disappeared upstairs. “Hey, I get the bigger room Dylan!” I hollered, already knowing he would try to take the bigger one. He ran out of the room all the way to the right of the walkway and to the railing, “No way.” I put my hands on my hips, “Um. Yes. I’m older.” He squinted his eyes, “You can’t use that on everything you know.” I smiled sweetly, “I can on this. Mom, would you PLEASE tell Dylan that I should have the bigger room since I’m older?” Our mother came walking out the dining room that was connected to the living room to the right of the couch. “Guys, please don’t start this right now,” she said sounding tired.
“But I’m—“ I started but she cut me off, “Dylan, please just let her have that room.” She would do anything to shut me up, and I knew that’s the only reason she was telling Dylan to give me that room. Dylan grunted and stomped off to the room that was now mine. A few seconds later, he walked out with his boxes and walked into the room that was to the right in the middle of the walkway. My mother looked at me and I shrugged lightly knowing that she was yelling at me in her head. She turned around and walked back towards the dining room. She took a right which I supposed lead to the kitchen. “Oh yea, guys, don’t unpack everything yet. You’re staying on school campus,” she hollered back to us. Dylan ran out his room and to the railing looking down at me, his mouth gaping. He began to speak but I held up my hand and shook my head. “Just drop it. If we keep it up she is going to really bite our heads off.”
Dylan went back to his room and I went on with touring the house. I walked forward and looked to my left. Through a tall arch the was diagonal to the living room, there was a dining room that looked to be for formal events only. The wood of the chairs and table matched the dark brown wood of the coffee table and couch. The cushions of the chairs were beige as well as everything else. On the left and right walls of the room were china cabinets. I continued walking forward into the smaller dining room that was connected to the kitchen. This dining area looked much less formal. I took a right into the kitchen. The counters were granite. The stove, microwave, and fridge were all black. I walked up to the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and leaned forward on it. My mother was on the other side of it flipping through a phone book.
“What are you looking for?” I asked leaning forward looking at the pages of the book. “Your schools phone number. I want to call to make sure I can register you guys on a Saturday.” I nodded lightly. “Sounds good. I’m gonna go check out my room and stuff. Can I go to registration with you?” She nodded and spoke to me without looking up, “You might want to change out of those sweat pants though.” I looked down and smiled, “Duh. I’m gonna go ahead and get dressed and fixed up. Lemme know if we can’t register or whatever.” She nodded again and continued flipping through the thin pages of the phone book.
After walking out the kitchen, I grabbed my clothes box and my bathroom bad then went to my room. I fell in love with it immediately. The wall that the door was on, was hot pink. The wall across from it was hot pink. Then the walls on the left and right of the room were black. The carpet was white and on the wall in front of the door was a large white window with black curtains. The window looked out into a large backyard with a tree line way far back. In the distance, above the trees, I could just barely see the mountains. On the right wall were a bed and a door that looked to lead into a bathroom. The bed had a white frame and around the head were white cabinets that were all connected into a half square shape that went from the floor, up, and around the bed. The bed had a zebra print comforter with a pink cover laid across the foot of the bed. The pillows were pink and black. Over on the left wall were double doors that I guessed was a closet, a white computer desk, and a black desk chair. Oh yea, this was definitely my room. Dylan would have gave it up to me anyways. The only reason he put up a right for it earlier was because it was bigger and he always loses to the “I’m older,” excuse.
I walked over the desk and set down my clothing box and bathroom bag. I opened up the box that had my clothes in it and began pulling them out. “What to wear, what to wear,” I mumbled. I decided on a pair of white skinny jeans, a red tank top, and my favorite black jacket. I loved that jacket. It was one of those jackets that screamed bad ass. It was styled like a leather jacket but it was a different fabric. When I threw those things on, I made sure to put on my favorite belt and black potato shoes. Oh yea, I looked good.
Next for hair and makeup. I decided to curl my hair. It took a while because curling hair that was layered is a pain. The curls were loose and went a little past my shoulders. I made sure to leave my bangs straight though. When my hair was fixed to perfection, I started putting on makeup. I put on a dark line of black eye liner and did my eye shadow the same as yesterdays. Silver with a little bit of dark blue to bring out my eyes. Lastly, I slapped on some black mascara. I looked in my bathroom mirror and smiled.
When I was finished getting ready, I grabbed my cell phone and slid it into my back pocket and walked downstairs. My mom was sitting on the couch on the phone. “Yes ma’am. Yes ma’am. Thank you so much.” Apparently I had caught the end of the conversation. She looked at me and smiled, “Well don’t you look… Fantastic.” I laughed, “I have to make a good impression, mom.” She laughed lightly before standing up. “They said that you and Dylan can go ahead and move into your doors today after registration. Then, you guys will already be there and ready to start on Monday,” she said turned and walking towards the kitchen. Inside, I was dying. But for my mother’s sake, I wouldn’t complain. “Go get Dylan while I grab my phone and purse,” she said.
I sighed and turned around, going back upstairs. I knocked on Dylan’s door and a few seconds later, he opened it. I leaned on the door frame and watched as he sat on the edge of his bed and stared down at his phone screen. He looked up at me expectantly so I spoke, “Grab your things. We are going to registration and moving into our dorms today.” He didn’t look any happier than I did. I left as he started picking up his boxes to take. I went in my room and threw all my clothes back in the box they were in and grabbed my bathroom bag out of the bathroom. I carried them downstairs and put them in the back of the truck then went back inside to grab my other boxes I would need that I had left sitting beside the front door. Dylan threw his things in the back then we climbed in the car with our mother who was already waiting for us.
As we pulled out of the driveway, I couldn’t help but to think about my dream again. Why would I be dreaming about Rose? Rose Hathaway, guardian of Queen Vasilisa Dragomir. It just didn’t make since. As I was thinking about that, I realized that Rose and Vasilisa had gone to St Vladimirs… I could remember it like it was yesterday. Hearing my mother and father go on about how Princess Vasilisa ran away with her friend Rose Hathaway. Then they were found and brought back. It was only 2 years ago that they had graduated. Wow, my brain was trying it’s hardest to process everything. Rose graduated 2 years ago, 2 years ago I started dreaming about her. This only seemed to be getting weirder and weirder.
My thoughts were cut off when my mother spoke, “Here we are. St Vladimirs.” I looked up to see a large black iron gate that was at least 15 feet high. On either side of the gate sat large brick walls that I looked to go all the way around the school’s campus perimeter. Past the gate, I could see the school. It looked just like it did in the picture I had seen. It was huge. It looked like it belonged somewhere in England. The architecture was churchlike and gothic. It had high peaks and gardens all around it. In front of the main entrance to the school, there was a large fountain the lied in the middle of a circular drive way. Everyone in the car, even my mother, was staring at the school in awe. We had never seen anything so incredible. Not only just its size made it so amazing. Everything did. The gothic look to it, the gardens, the forests all around it outside of the brick walls, the large gate. It all came together. “Yay,” I said sitting back into my seat, “School.”