Capítulo 2: Chapter Two
-----Mary Lou-----
Leave it to Great Aunt Agatha to go have a tumor, purely out of spite, to ruin my year. She always hated me. Might have had something to do with the family dinner when I was 6. I had pulled the most epic prank of my life with all my cousins and Agatha was the unlucky victim. She's done everything in her power to make me miserable ever since. She looked like a hippo. Not trying to be mean, just stating facts. She had a lot of "extra skin" and "bulging bones" as she called it. I called it "fat because you eat like a gorilla" but mom said that's not nice after she stopped laughing. So she went and got a tumor, right in the empty hole where her heart should be, and now my family - myself, brothers, mom and dad - have to go make sure she doesn't try to bend down and explode from the pressure. I was sitting in the car as we drove from my home to Wellcrest, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I was on my computer, as usual, googling the place.
"Hey!" I exclaimed, breaking my protesting silence. "Wikipedia says that Wellcrest used to have a powerful witch living there and is currently very haunted!" My brother, Dean, rolled his eyes and elbowed my other brother, Jack.
"She's geeking out again." my cheeks flushed and I tried to hit him but he leaned out of reach. I was in the furthest back of the van, surrounded by the stuff so I couldn't quite reach him.
"I'm not a geek!" I cried indignantly. "I am a Cryptologist! I explore the unknown!" Dad turned around and put his finger to his lips. Mom was driving. I stopped talking and my face slowly stopped burning.
"Mary Lou!" he spoke sternly but quietly. "We do not yell in the car. We should be in another town in a few minutes." he grinned " you can kill your brothers then." Dean and Jack sputtered.
" wait no! That's not fair! She's faster and stronger!" Jack panicked while Dean starters to quietly hyperventilate. Dad just grins maliciously.
"Better start running as soon as we stop then." and he turners on the music. The boys stare at me, horrified. I smiled sweetly.
"Revenge is sweet, isn't it Dead, oh I mean Dean." I looked back at my computer and ignored the whimpering that came from the middle seats. They teased me relentlessly but I took a bunch of martial arts classes two years ago, so even though they were in football, I could overtake them. In fact, I could take most people. My sensei said I was a natural and if I kept training, I could soon earn my black belt. That was a year ago. I now held the black belt and I kept training nearly every day. But I was now working for the red belt. It's the next, and final, belt. I was very close to earning both because of my skill, and dedication. My brothers knew I could beat the crap out of them but still teases me because they believed that mom and dad would protect them. Except that I made a deal with dad before we left. Twenty boxes of moon pies for his support for the entire trip. He's such a sucker for moon pies. Mom jokes that he only married her because she promised a cake of moon pies.
I stopped thinking about the past and looked down at my computer. Apparently, Hagatha lived in the most haunted building in town, Blackwell Manor. I didn't even need to read that to know, but I did read the article. If you live in a haunted town and a house goes up for next to nothing because there was "supposedly a murder there".... don't buy it. That's just common sense, of which Aunty Hagatha has none so I suppose it all makes sense. She's so vain, she just wants the house to show her power and status, even though everyone in that small town knew the house sold dirt cheap. I opened up my notes and typed furiously. I only looked up a few minutes later when the car slowed to a crawl and stopped. I peered into the front seat and saw that Jack and Dean had taken off as soon as we stopped. We were in front of a Target. I squealed and grabbed my backpack. Target was my favorite store! I shoved my money into my back pocket and shot out of the car. Dad yelled after me as I ran inside,
"Were leaving in a half an hour, with or without you!" I shook my head and walked in. He would never have the guts to do that, especially with mom watching. Mom didn't talk much, but when she did, it meant something. She had some sort of accident when she was younger and it damaged her vocal cords. She could talk, it just hurt her. So my entire family learned sign language to help her out. I headed straight for the books. My home away from home was anywhere with books. My phone buzzed, I had gotten a text. I read it while walking.
Dad:
ONLY 3 BOOKS!!!!
I pouted and turned to find the books. I spent 10 minutes there and my final choices were, a new journal, GoodGhouls; a biography, and a cryptozoological encyclopedia. The GoodGhouls is a youtube sensation that I helped with. The photogenic people ran the movie, but I was the one who sent them locations, classifications, and all the nitty-gritty. I was their manager (kind of) and I got paid nicely for it. $500 bucks a month and all I had to do was send them my research that I do for fun! I was going to get the book as an inside joke, by buying the book, I was paying myself. I held the books to my chest and started for the door when someone caught my eye. This boy, he had overalls and a poof of grey hair held back by a bandana. But what really piqued my interest was the way the world...bent….around him. That's the only way I can describe it. I'm one of the few people who can see the Difference. The difference is like the Mist from Percy Jackson. It helped the paranormal hide their other, inhuman side. This boy, the world just bent around him like he was an unstoppable force. I whipped my camera out of my bag and followed him. He bought a bunch of school supplies and started to leave. Outside a large crow was flying around people's heads. I watched it notice him and land on his shoulder. My jaw fell. A witch?! I hadn't met a witch before! I've met spirits, goblins, pixies, and a few others but I was always with Auntie. Auntie Y was as old as my Granny and she seemed to know most of my family, even though she wasn't related at all. She could see the difference too and taught me all about it when she stopped. She was away most of the time but a couple of times a year, she would stop for a week or so and teach me. A few years ago she stopped coming over. I waited by the door for a week and a tiny bird, a little blackbird, arrived with a letter. I remember giggling because the only auntie would send that and opened it. The letter said that it was from a friend of aunties and she had died. I cried for days. She was my best friend, the only other person who understood what I was going through. After a week of crying, I stopped, realizing that she would be so disappointed in me if she was here. I went to the attic, gathered her things she left here and started my research on the monsters of the night.
I followed the witch boy, having flashbacks to the night Auntie died. The letter said her final advice for me was, Stay away from witches dearie. They're not very nice. Yet here I was, following what I thought was a witch. I'm so sorry Auntie, I thought. I'll be safe, I promise. I followed him to a graveyard across the street. It was actually quite a cheery little graveyard. Quite lovely, Auntie would say. I smiled and ducked behind the huge trees in the graveyard. It was like a graveyard that the wild took back! I managed to get quite a lot of footage of the boy. He walked right up to a storage shed and opened it up. I almost lagged when she pulled out a broom. My humor died when she hopped on and took off. I scrambled to get a good shot of him disappearing into the clouds. I looked down at the footage with shaky hands. It was proof.
I started walking for the car and broke into a run. You can't doctor footage on this type of camera so my family will have to believe me! Dad and Jack were loading the stuff back into the car when I arrived, breathless. Dad frowned at me.
"We agreed on the store, not the graveyard." I nodded trying to catch my breath. Sprinting all that way was not a good idea. I held out the camcorder to him.
"Watch... this" I panted. He took it and watched a second of it before looking at me angrily.
"I told you not to record people without their permission!"
"But dad she…"
"I don't care if he had wings and a tail! Did you ask her permission?"
"No, but the…."
"No buts," he fiddled with the camcorder and deleted it. My proof of the others. "You're lucky I don't take this away from you." he handed it back and got into the driver's seat. I numbly got into the back and stared down at the camcorder in my hands. I didn't move even when we started driving. I stared at it for at least 10 minutes before realizing that everything was stored onto a drive, even if it was deleted. I lagged hysterically and we swerved.
"What the devil was that?!" Dad said but I didn't answer. I was too caught up in my ideas. I wrote, typed, and organized for the rest of the 4-hour car ride.
"Come on bookworm, we're here." Dad's voice broke me out of my work. I looked up and realized that we had stopped in front of a large, ornate house. Everyone was pulling their bags out of the car and I was sitting there, like an idiot. I grabbed my stuff and went to see Hagatha.
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