AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Your nemesis has arrived,”Gaski warned. I jerked off my bed, landing unceremoniously on my behind. I pushed myself up, side-eyeing the bird that innocuously perched itself on my window. Stupid pigeon. Let a goblin roam around in its head and wake me up prematurely.
Despite the ease of my days, I had a hard time sleeping at night. Nightmares from the night of the Whispering Woods haunted me.
I wanted to take my eyes out of my head, wash them clear of any memories, then re-install a new model.
The wolves frozen in place. Lukas constrained by vines. University police interrogating us behind steel bars. Sickly sweet sirens who coerced us into telling the truth. The poker-faced psychiatrist who determined that nothing we said held logic. Especially Gaksi.
The Whispering Woods were strong enough to make grown men see demons and for girls to be possessed by them. Or stricken by unusually handsome ones. Reaper’s face seared into my mind like a burning kiss. I’d never seen anyone else look or sound like that. I wondered if I ever would again…
A crisp knock vibrated on my door, followed by my father’s deep baritone of a sigh. “We know you’re in here, Luna. I pay a lot of money on your cell phone bill to see where you are.”
“Are you engaging in illegal, immoral, or improper activities?” Mom’s shrill voice echoed through my room.
“No, Mother,” I said, pulling the sheets back up on my bed. My father opened the door, eyebrows raised at the mess that was my room.
It wasn’t much, but I still struggled to keep it together. My books were balanced precariously on the edge of my desk, the bed was unmade (although, granted, I just got out of it), laundry needed to be done, and my phone was uncharged somewhere under the covers.
I always got my homework in on time, had my makeup done, and looked presentable on the outside, but my inner room was a disaster.
“For the amount of money we pay for this place, you’d think you’d take better care of it.” He opened the door wider for my mother, who’d already made eye contact with Gaski. The pigeon Gaksi possessed blinked once in acknowledgment.
“Pet,” she noted, scanning the rest of the room. She marched to my books first, throwing them back into their right position on my bookshelf with vigor.
“Coo!” Gaski responded. Whatever that meant. Mom and Gaksi’s relationship had always been a little… tense. Once upon a time, he used to be close to her, but supposedly, he jumped ship to his new victim the day I was born.
“How is school going, child?” Mom finished putting back the last book and moved toward my bed instead. On the way, she smoothed down her straight, dark hair as if being in my room alone caused it to frizz. “All A’s? Putting the rest of this school to shame?”
“No, just failing out, doing drugs, meeting boys, and spending time with my emotional support animal,” I answered with a smile.
Beside her, Dad was sneaking crackers out of his pocket and into a beak. I wondered if Gaksi could taste food or was just keeping his current pigeon body happy. He caught me staring and winked, eyes twinkling.
“Focus!” Mom scolded. I swiveled my head back to her, throwing up a hand in a fake yawn to hide my smile. “Have you signed up for recruitment already?”
My face fell. House recruitment was coming up this weekend, and I dreaded it like I dreaded my injectable medication dose every two weeks. Unsettled, dark energy pulsed under my skin, shifting and writhing at the thought. If I didn’t suppress the family curse, I’d be dealing with my shadows my whole life.
Just like what the handsome demon said. “You’re cursed,” he’d repeated, like a benediction, like a prayer. I’d shown him my darkness, too. Gaksi had asked that of me. And then he had dissolved into nothing, and I was getting hauled away by police, wondering how much of that was real versus imagined…
“You know, I was never into that whole ‘which House do you belong to’ kind of nonsense,” Dad remarked. He was now holding the bird in his hand, petting it absent-mindedly. He dropped back onto my bed, taking up the entire space. “Back in my day, we just studied. We were too broke to do anything else.”
“That’s because you knew how to work,” Mom said, pacing to my laundry next. As she folded, she continued. “Houses can give even the most derelict opportunities. You know I wouldn’t be where I was today without it.”
Folded over my laundry like that, you can see the evidence in place. Her ears slanted up into delicate points, fashioned by the ladies of Fae House itself. It was commitment on a new level, to cut off the tips of your ears for fashion. The ones who didn’t do it were restricted from the benefits of being Fae.
It wasn’t that being Houseless was … bad. It wasn’t like being outside the university, where you had no idea that magic existed. But losing out after recruitment meant failure. The unhoused may have worked harder than they ever had before, but the ones who got initiated were simply better. At least, that’s what my mom said.
“Eugene, can you go get her present out of the car?”
“Of course, honey.” Dad pecked me on the cheek on the way out. Mom’s lips turned down. “She’s too old for that.”
“Please,” Dad laughed on his way out.
That was why I’d always be closer to my dad than my mom. He wasn’t so… competitive.
Mother yanked my wrist up to her eye level. “I can see it in your veins,” she threatened. “You used too many of the shadows recently, and they’ve re-gathered.”
“I’ve only been practicing distilling them in the morning,” I said. If I didn’t use them at all, I’d go insane. I had to dispel their energy, lest they dispel themselves. In bursts. Publicly.
Spewing black fear onto everyone, labeling me as a freak. A dark magic wielder. An Other.
