So here's the my novel where I've decided to skip school.
Chapter
7, Brownstones to Death
I’m
in luck and have gotten out of an education till after summer, despite they
still being three weeks left of school. Exam results will decide my classes
anyway. Though, that just meant by the time summer came I would already be a
bored phrase in a town where I knew no one.
Well,
I half knew people. But someone who moved the summer before high school is not
really a friend. I had been at the same Primary school three times once. I had
probably been to every Primary that was in the high school catchment area. I
had bumped into people, but I didn’t even remember names, so it would be more
awkward than anything if they remember me.
My
mother had been changed the locks and was now organising the workmen necessary
to fix her hotel dreams. She was hiring a project manager to get it done as
fast as possible to a liveable state and to get away from the freaky
neighbours. The woman who had “greeted” us, likes to stand at her window
looking at us. I haven’t seen her son again.
I
was alone in the house, so I was having a staring contest. I had no books, WIFI
or TV. I was already at the bored phrase. I was going to find the library which
could provide me with all three as I owned a DVD player. I took my crappy phone
with me; haunted smart phones were not something you found, and I could not
convince mum to get me a new one. It was slow, but worked I guess.
The
library was in the centre of town and was an hour walk away. Well, I had
nothing to do anyway. We live in a housing scheme that boarded onto fields at
one side and the town on the other. The houses were all the same till they were
a completely different decade and did not blend at all together, which was
better than councils choosing to build houses with attic roofs. Attic roofs
were stupid and should not be a thing in new buildings.
I
wasn’t wearing the best shoes or clothes for this. Skinny jeans with no bend and
tennis shoes that had no padding. I could lie in bed for a week starting
tomorrow anyway. An IPod that I had
to keep deleting stuff to get the latest hits on to it. It ended up taking me
an album and half to get to the library. The town was still the town.
Not
much had changed since I was last there. The fences were more run down but that
was it. The library was an old brownstone like so many other libraries. I
currently had access to eight online library services. Most libraries don’t bother
to make sure you’re still a member.
In
this case, I wasn’t sure if my library card was still good as it didn’t have an
online system when I was a member and I hadn’t thought to check before losing
access to reliable internet. My phone was junk. I walked up it woven down steps
into the grand hall and now had automatically opening door. In front of me was
a closed off stairs that held a sign that sign staff only. The non-fiction to
the left and the fiction to the right. I held for the fiction. I didn’t feel
like using my brain.
The
teen section was now titled YA to be cool like those Americans and was on the
other side of the massive room. I scanned the shelves for something new. The
books were different. Weeding had taken place. Some were still the exact same
copies. I pick up the ex-popular supernatural romance to see it hadn’t been
checked out from before I moved. I put it back on the shelve to never be read
again.
I
picked up few other books that promised the undead. There was even one with
necromancer as the villain. I took it out because as reading terrible
depictions of Death Contractors. was my guilty pleasure. I watched the shows
and read the cheesy books. My mother did not approve of this. Especially the
paranormal romances. Falling in love with a dead person was something my mother
did not approve of.
Some
were actually written pretty well as works of fiction and some of got stuff eerily
accurate. Perhaps another death contractor writing from her own experience or
they just got luckily. The ones I picked up, I did not expect to be good. I
wander to the adult side of the library which I found harder to navigate.
Despite, the handy genre sorting of Fiction, Crime, Romance and Western.
Western was section I had never read from despite multiple libraries having
this as a section. Maybe if they had ghost cowboys.
I
grabbed randoms with interesting titles. I kind of wish they sorted by title
instead of author. Perhaps by buzzwords like “Amazing” and “Best Book of the
Year”. I go the desk.
“I
would like these out,” I say handing the 8-year-old library card to her. She
scans it and hands it back without much ado. Well, that was anti-climactic. No,
this card is too old, or you have 6 years of library fines that now total a ridiculous
price to ask of someone not entitled to minimal wage.
I
shove the books in my backpack and leave. I’m not that interested in the
internet and it would probably best to be out of town before the schools got
out. I did not want to wait for the lollypop lady.
I
wandered away from the library in the opposite direction. What is a two hour
walk really? I fancied a look at my
favourite building in this old town. The Dance hall was a street back from the
library. Both had been built during this big expansion of the town. I had gone
through a phase of researching the building, to not learning much at all. No
recorded deaths to the building.
A
ghost didn’t need to die in a building to haunt it. Sometimes an emotional link
is enough to drag someone back there. I’ve never had that with a building. More
of the windows had been boarded up on the ground level since the last time I
stood next to it. The For Sale sign is still there, now discoloured. I wonder
if still up for Sale. I glance in the
direction of the antiques and junk shops that my mother like to peruse. No
signs of her ridiculous car.
I
had only gain a slight obsession with this building due to my mother habit of
taking hours to actually buy what she came for in any shop she goes in. I had
noticed a ghost once and follow them up into the building. I had never seen it
again. My mother doesn’t like this building, due to my mild obsession.
The
door is slightly open once again. I guess it’s never locked. I pushed it open
it more. It’s dark, with sunbeams lighting the wood panelling. Going into a derelict
building at any age is stupid. I slowly edge into the building. The wooden
floor looks study, though probably isn’t with unheated winters and water seeping
in through broken windows.
I
hear a creek. It was from above me. It could be ghosts, homeless or the ferial
cats. Ferial cats can be deadly. You can lose limbs and I watch too much daytime
TV.
“What
are you doing?” I jump and turn around to see Junior Creep in the High School uniform.
“Why
ain’t you in school?” I ask right back.
“Free
Period,” she enters the building. Scanning around. Probably wondering if the
roof will fall on her.
“So not stalking me?”
“Only
on the weekends,” she settles her eyes on me. “I wouldn’t hang around here.
People go missing.”
There
was literally not a single record of that happening. Even when it was still a functioning
Dance Hall.
“That’s
never been in the papers.”
“A
lot of things have never been in the papers.” True that. Mortals by accident or
chance, magic on purpose. Even dark magic must be hidden because it could bring
us all down. I probably would have been
safe now, but we brunt with everyone else.
“Well,
I guess I should be going now.” I say and shove past her back into the street.
I start in the direction of my house. I still might be able to avoid the kids.
I
hear Aytia walking behind me. I turn around to go away, when I catch a figure
in the upper window. I stare at the ghost I saw when I was eight years old and
never age in all these years.
“What
are you looking at?” I look at Aytia for a second and jump back to the window. Gone.
Typical ghost. I want to know the story, but probably best not to. That place
is a death trap, probably.
“Nothing,”
I start walking again. I don’t want to get into it with Aytia. She continues to
walk with me.
“I
thought you weren’t stalking me.”
“I’m
not, my house is this way.”
We
walk in silence before bumping into her first lollypop man. Damn it. I quicken
my pace after crossing the road.
“What’s
your hurry?”
“I’m
being followed.”
I
slow down once we’re on the outskirts of the main of town, houses instead of business.
Aytia is still there.
“Where
is your house anyway?”
“We’re
almost there. Where’s yours?”
Going
off last time, I still have an hour to go. My feet were starting to hurt.
Aytia’s
house was obvious on the approach. It was obviously a witch’s house if you knew
the signs. The front Gardens was full of plants that could be used in potions
and some doubled as protection. There was also a Barbie doll, with a badly protection symbol craved into naked stomach,
lying on one of the bushes. The garden was well cared for, but the paint was chipped.
Also, their minivan was in the drive.
“Wanna
come in?” Aytia doesn’t wait for and is already though the door. Witches are interesting
creatures and my feet really hurt so I follow her up the stairs. Maybe I can
steal some herbs.
Chapter
8, Witches and Witches
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