Chapter Sixteen
****
"Lydia?" My heels clicked against the wood floor as I went in search for my sister. After looking around the party for what seemed to be forever, my last option was to check the boathouse. All of the lights seemed to be off except one small one illuminating half of the main room, making things twenty times creepier than they should be. Of course I've never been a fan of coming out here alone anyways, it always had a horror film vibe to it. "Lyds?"
Strawberry blonde hair popped from behind a wall before Lydia's face came into view, "I'm over here."
A let out a sigh of relief as I rushed down the rest of the stairs, "What are you doing down here? Actually, you know what scratch that question...I would love to know but right now all I'm focused on is getting out of here." I whispered, afraid that somehow someone would be able to hear this conversation. "Like we have to go right now!"
"Autumn, mom and dad–"
"Dad knows how I'm feeling, I honestly doubt he'll care if I decide to 'go home' due to not feeling well. He doesn't want to even be here himself...Lydia...I need to help my friends, I need to be there while this is happening to Scott."
"Our friends." She corrected me, "They're our friends. Anyways, let's figure stuff out. Okay uh, here's the plan...I'll go find mom and distract her while you go into the guest bedroom and act like you're not feeling well. In the process of distracting her I'll ask if she's seen you anywhere, which will lead to us finding you upstairs. After that–"
A creak in the wood immediately stopped her words and I could feel every inch of my body tense up.
We weren't alone.
It felt as if I had a rock sitting in my throat resulting in me gulping in attempt to get ride of it, which failed miserably. The first thought that entered my mind was that it was someone here to take care of our names on the deadpool, might as well take care of us both at once since we're here together and alone. My eyes jolted to a couple of paddles that were rested on a desk, right away Lydia noticed and took one slowly in her hand as I did the same. We locked eyes as we felt whoever was down here approaching close behind us, "one...two...three" she mouthed before swinging around ready to plow into the unknown person.
My mother let out a yelp as did I while Lydia barely missed hitting her right in the face. "Mom!" My heart flew over my chest while I attempted to catch my breath. "Not cool! What are you doing?!"
"What are you doing?!" She asked, trying to catch her breath as well.
Lydia dropped the paddle, letting out an extremely heavy sigh. "Nothing. And how did you know we were down here, aren't you pretty busy with the party?"
"Everyone seemed to be pretty entertained so I took the moment to come down here and make sure nothing had to be done for the open house tomorrow."
I let my arms fold over my chest as my eyes narrowed in her direction, "Mom...the open house isn't until next week."
"Okay-" She sighed, "I followed you guys down here. I saw Autumn come down and I knew she wouldn't be coming down here alone, so....I waited a couple of minutes and here I am. Care to explain why you guys dodged the party and decided to have one of your own in the boathouse?"
Lydia shared an uncomfortable glance with me before turning back towards our mom, "I was trying to figure something out and Autumn was just coming down here to find me. It's something important...and honestly, mom, you don't need to be involved in every single detail of our lives."
"No..." She was a little taken aback by Lydia's statement, but it was extremely true. "But, I'd like to help if I can."
Another sigh was released from Lydia as she turned around towards the desk, a photograph in her hand as she faced us once again. "Do you know her?"
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the photograph, something I had never seen before. "What's this?" I asked, but the moment I got a slight glance my heart felt like it dropped into my stomach.
"Meredith Walker?"
My head snapped towards Lydia as she gave me an apologetic look, she definitely had some explaining to do later. "Mom, how do you know Meredith?"
"That's not important right now...But the mention of her name does remind me of something." She pursed her lips and walked towards a cabinet, I wasn't sure what she was getting until she turned around. "These are your grandmother's ashes."
With wide eyes and a gaped open mouth I moved a little closer to Lydia, "Oh my God, they've been down here this whole time?!"
"Grandma died in Eichen House..." Lydia stated, completely ignoring my comment before her own.
"Which is why Meredith's name reminded me of your grandmother. Your father had a difficult relationship with his mother. But after the things she said, and the way she acted–"
My eyes were still in their wide state, "They thought she was crazy..."
Mom nodded, "Well, she said she heard things."
Everything was clicking. Banshee blood really ran through our family. "Maybe she did hear things." I stated defensively. "You wouldn't know unless you were her. People are so quick to judge someone, instantly assume that the person is crazy when they're really not! Maybe what they're saying is real, maybe they do hear things...even feel things! Maybe they already feel crazy themselves! They don't need people constantly reminding them–"
"Why did she want her ashes in here?" Lydia changed the subject, which was probably a good thing considering how I was defending my grandmother.
"Well, actually, she didn't. She left instructions for her ashes to be spread across the lake."
The cold breeze sent chills up my spine, "W-Well, why haven't you done it?"
"Because, she wanted your sister and yourself to do it. She wanted us to wait to have you guys do it when you both were seventeen and older....don't ask me why. But, since there's only a few weeks until that...I guess now is as good of a time as any..."
Without much warning the ashes were shoved into my hands, causing an extremely uncomfortable feeling to rush over me. Then it happened, something that hasn't happen in quite sometime. Everything went black before an image began to fade slowly into my mind, an image of what I'm assuming to me of my grandmother in Eichen. I could barely make out what was happening in the image exactly, but I could hear things as clear as Lydia's voice sounded right next to me. She was screaming about the voices, she was telling people everyone was gonna die, that some doctor was coming after them. The same words kept repeating themselves out of her mouth, almost as if she was a broken record.
"Autumn? Autumn, are you okay?"
My mothers voice brought me out of everything and I once again found myself staring down at the ashes, "Huh? Sorry, I zoned."
She looked at me with suspicious eyes before glancing down at the ashes herself, "Well, what are you waiting for? If you're uncomfortable we could always–"
"I can do this." I turned towards Lydia for a moment before turning back to my mom, "We can do this." The lid was firmly grasped into my hand, and in one swift motion it was released. With my hands still on the urn, I brought it towards Lydia so she could grab onto it as well.
I watched her closely as her face scrunched up, "Mom, these aren't grandma's ashes."
"Huh?"
"What do you mean?" She asked, "Of course they are."
"No." The urn was released from my grip and fully placed into Lydia's before she stuck her hand down inside, grasping ahold of whatever substance was residing there instead of my grandmother's ashes. The ashes dropped from her grip before she spoke again, "It's mountain ash."
Mother was utterly confused, "And what does that mean?"
As quickly as I could I grabbed a handful of the ashes and attempted to throw them into the water. Much to our surprise they didn't make it past the wood. "Oh my God. The whole building..."
Lydia's eyes wandered around, "The entire boathouse...the whole building...It's all made out of Mountain Ash."
"I'm confused as to what significance this has, and what's mountain ash?"
"Mom, that–"
"Oh! Wait, before I forget... there was something by the urn...a piece of paper." She ran over to the cabinet and rushed back with the paper in hand. "This was the last thing she wrote down before she passed away. Don't even know why we kept it because it's pretty much nonsense."
Lydia gulped from beside me after she read the small piece of paper, "Are you absolutely sure Grandma's dead?"
"Yes." My mom answered like it was completely obvious, "Abigail is for sure dead, why would you even ask that? I mean, she has to be."
After the name slipped out of her mouth I basically choked on air, I'm not sure how it didn't click beforehand. I'm a lot closer to my mom's mom considering my dad never really wanted to be around his, and now it all makes sense. I was so young, she was so old, I only really remember her in that state. The Abigail I was seeing in my head, the one that's been communicating with me...the one that's just like me, she was young...seemed to be my age. My father never really was one for showing old family photos, majority of them being somewhere across the country with my uncle anyways.
Abigail mentioned my grandmother before when we talked, she talked about being called crazy and it seemed like she knew me when I had no idea who she was...
Abigail, the only other Banshee like myself, was my grandmother.
"Autumn, are you okay?!" My mother asked, patting my back to try to help me get air into my lungs.
I nodded, hand over my chest. "I-I'm fine."
Lydia's eyes were too focused on the paper to even realize what was going on around her, "This isn't nonsense, mom. It's code."
Too much was filling my head at once, too much at the wrong time. I could feel myself getting overwhelmed, but I couldn't let it happen...not right now at least. Things were happening with Scott, and I needed to be there. Somehow all this new information had to be shoved aside, I could deal with all of this later just like everything else I had on my plate. "Lydia, we have to go!!!"
My mom turned quickly towards me, "What? Where do you think you're going? We've been here long enough we need to get back to–"
"I'm not going back to the party, I'm not in the mood and I need to leave. I have to leave."
"What's wrong with you all of the sudden, Autumn? What could possibly be so important that you have to rush out like this? I'm extremely confused with what just happened down here."
"You ask questions like you already know the answer." There was something about the tone in my mothers voice this entire time that was off, I had just been trying to ignore it. "What do you know, mom? Huh?" All the sudden she had nothing else to say, "You know what, I don't have time for this right now...I gotta go."
And with that I was gone, not another word spoken and completely alone.
****
Idk what to even say like I was gonna make this a lot longer but I HAD TO UPDATE.
I was without wifi and cable for like two days and hated it because I finally had time to write and couldn't because I couldn't watch the episode.
anywaysssss
hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think!
(and dw....there's gonna be some Stiles time next chapter......but that's all I'm gonna say lolololololoasdljhasjdkhfaksjdhakjsdhflaj)
xx