Eek, had such a busy week and forgot to update!

R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR-

The school closed for two weeks to investigate Mrs Court’s murder, extending the Easter Break by more than a few days. I can’t remember how many times I was called back to the police station to tell them what had happened during those two weeks.

Every time they asked what had happened that night I told them the same thing; when I’d been showing Mr Samson up to the head teacher’s office I’d heard a noise come from Mrs Court’s room and went to investigate. I’d found her in her room almost dead and told the other teachers. Later on, when the ambulance had come to retrieve the disappeared body I’d gone in search for it and found it in the woods.

I didn’t dare talk about the group of vampire hunters that had helped me or the note from a self-loathing vampire that had led me to her room, or even the things I’d been through to find her dead body on the border of the woods under a pile of rotting leaves.

Mr Samson was another problem – he couldn’t believe that something like this had happened right under his nose, while he’d been at the school discussing the safety of the students. He was convinced that I’d played some part in both Sam’s injuries and Mrs Court’s death.

After everybody had been cleared out the school and I was ordered to stay for the investigation, my mum called to say that she was picking me up but that planned failed by the veto of the police. It took a further week for them to allow me to leave and by then I was going slowly mad. I couldn’t stand being cooped up in the school with every person watching me with accusing eyes. They were sure that I knew what was amiss in their investigation, but they couldn’t find a valid reason to hold me back.

On the day that my mum picked me up I sat at a window that overlooked the driveway of the school like a little child and waited to see her familiar battered car wind down the road. All I could see the detectives and the policemen that now roamed the grounds 24/7 in an attempt to make some sense of the murder. They’d finished asking me their questions and insisting that I tell them the events of that night in detail.

Fleetingly, I wondered if she’d forgotten about me, that she was never going to pick me up. It didn’t take much time to eliminate that thought from my mind – we’d been talking on the phone every day, both anticipating the day that I got to return home.

I spent my time waiting for my mum rubbing burn cream onto the puckered marks on my arms that I’d got from Jev’s fire. I’d stolen the cream from the school nurse’s office, denying that I had any injuries from that night. How would I explain the red marks that puckered along my arms without bringing up the fire elemental?

Through the window I saw my mum’s battered red car trundle towards the school and grinned. I screwed the top back on the tube, shrugged my hoodie back on and picked up my bags with an excited grin on my face. Finally, I was going to leave.

I signed out on the pad at the empty receptionists and bounded up to the car, pulling open the passenger door and jumping in. We smiled at each other in a relieved sort of way and she started the car up.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Anne,” my mum said to me as we drove away from the school. She briefly glanced away from the wheel to smile weakly at me. It was clear where I’d got my long, blonde hair and thin frame from, but her eyes were a deep brown in contrast to my light blue, and they crinkled around the edges whenever she smiled.

My mood deflated at the subject. “I’m fine,” I murmured, gazing back at the rapidly shrinking building. I could just see the woods in the distance, a foreboding mass of dark leaves that held no end of secrets and dangers.

She glanced over at me again. “I can’t believe they kept you there for so long.  You were supposed to be let out a week ago for the holidays. When they phoned me up and told me I couldn’t believe it! You shouldn’t have been kept at that place.”

I rested my head against the cold window, feeling the vibrations of the car run through it as we drove along. “Sorry,” I said dryly. “The murder investigation did kind of hold me up a bit.”

“Oh no, I didn’t mean that, Anne,” she said quickly. “I just mean that they should know that you’ve told them everything that you know – there’s no use in them keeping you for that long, just in case you suddenly remember something crucial to the case.”

Little did she know that half of what I’d told the police was a lie and I knew the crucial piece of their puzzle – that the supernatural wold existed.

I leant back in my seat and rubbed my head, feeling an oncoming headache. “You know they actually considered that I was or knew the killer.” True, I knew who’d killed her, but I wasn’t about to tell the police about the crazy vampires at our school.

“How can they think that?” she said furiously, clenching the wheel, her short, manicured nails digging into the leather. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You alert them about the situation, you find that teacher, and this is how they repay you?”

“Mum…”

“Yes?”

“Relax – it’s all okay. They’re not seriously going to send me to prison. I’m sixteen years old, for god’s sake. I go to secondary school and the worst I’ve done is talk back to a teacher occasionally.”

“What about your old school?” she asked sardonically, glancing over at me with a look that said she didn’t believe one word that I’d said. “Or didn’t blowing up the Science room count?”

“Okay, that was once – and in my defence I didn’t mean to.”

“You snuck in there at lunch with your friends and purposely mixed all those chemicals!”

“They shouldn’t have expelled me. It showed an excellent proficiency in Chemistry – I’d say that the rest of my class couldn’t have done that as easily as I did.”

“Chemistry…the subject which you’re failing now.”

I shrugged. “Maybe if that school had praised me for my streak of brilliance we wouldn’t be having these problems nowadays.”

She laughed. “I’ve missed you around, Anne. You’re ridiculous.”

“I’ve missed you too, mum. You always know how to flatter me.”

“Evan’s missed you too. He hasn’t had someone to play with properly at home for ages. Somehow I don’t understand how his battle games work.”

“Oh, that’s easy; you let him win all the time and bash him a bit with one of his swords till he really swipes you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing that anytime in the near future. I’ll leave the games completely to you, since Kate and Marcus have no idea at all.”

I sat up straighter. “Are they home?”

The car stopped as we reached a red light. My mum turned to me as we waited for it to go green. “Marcus was staying for the week with Penelope – you know his girlfriend? – but he left yesterday. He did rather hope to see you but all of this trouble got in the way…” At this she grimaced.

“Maybe I’ll see him soon. What about Kate?”

“She’s staying till the holiday’s end, so you’ll be seeing more than enough of her.”

I smiled. “That’s fine with me. We haven’t seen each other for too long.”

My mum took a second to accelerate the car forwards as the green light flashed on, following a road that branched onto the motorway.

“She’s quite busy right now – she’s managed to get a spot in this small, select art class up in London and she’s spent most of the week painting.”

“I thought she was doing her English degree?” She’d given up her dreams of being an artist long ago when she’d got a B in her A-level Art. Apparently that wasn’t good enough for Kate.

“Yeah, she’s still doing the degree but she thought she’d give this a try as well. It’s hard to get in to their group, so she’s quite pleased with herself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Quite?” Kate was never quite pleased with herself, she was always a hundred percent sure that her every action was the best thing possible – even if it was far from it.

My mum laughed. “Okay. So maybe she’s completely delighted about getting in. She’s been frantically painting and drawing every spare second, telling me that each piece is better than the last – though of course she says each one is a masterpiece in its own.”

“That sounds really fun.”

“You’re not going to be amused after seeing her – it’s scary how determined she is.”

“Okay. I won’t laugh,” I said, smiling as I said it. “I guess it’s going to be a busy week.”

“Oh yes, you’ll be wishing yourself back at school by the end of it.”

I thought back to the murder investigation and the supernatural creatures that awaited me for when I got back to the school. Before the other students had left they’d stared at me accusingly in the corridors, like I’d done it. Even some of the teachers looked at me as if I was a murderer. “Somehow I don’t think I will,” I said softly, closing my eyes and leaning back in the seat.

I was determined that this week would be completely and utterly normal – home was all that I had left that was ordinary now. Now my best friends had learnt the secrets of the other world and couldn’t talk to me without bringing it up or hinting at it; everyone suspected me to be either mad or a murderer; and I was being pursued by the actual murderer in an attempt to turn me into a vampire. All in all, my life desperately needed that hint of normality that home would bring.

The car drove up a small country lane then turned into a stone paved close that displayed around ten houses, all looking identical at first glance – though each one different from the next with the small touches that the families had introduced. It drew to a stop at the house that I knew was ours.

I could’ve recognized it from a mile away, with its bright white walls covered with bright green plants that grew up the walls and wound tightly around every inch. Small yellow flowers blossomed off the vines in beautiful displays, decorating the green with their contrasting colours.

Looking down from the twisting ivy I could just see the front lawn through the wooden fence that my dad had put up to ward off unwanted intruders. Our childhood toys, which now were entrusted to Evan, were strewn across the bright green grass – brightly coloured bikes, skipping ropes, and bouncy hoppers. A lopsided bench stood on the grass, one leg cracked and bending under pressure from all the times that we’d ran into it and jumped up and down on it. All but the front door at the front wall was lined by flowers that seemed to exude life and happiness; they tangled and twisted around each other to create strange and beautiful pieces of art.

Home. That word filled me with a hope and unsuspected warmth. Home was where I had grown up – it was the safest place for me to be, filled with the memories of childhood and the feeling of security, even in the most irrational of moments. The sturdy structure housed much more than furniture and people; it contained countless memories and small touches that made it my home – the scratched, dull wooden floors and the marks on the walls where we’d recorded our heights when we were younger and shooting up at alarming and exciting rates.

I stepped out of the car, looking at the large white house and smiling.  

Everything about my home was perfect to me.

“Come help me with your bags, Anne,” my mum called to me, slamming her car door shut and walking round to the back of the car.

“Yeah, sure,” I said distractedly, still beaming. I’d never realised how much I had wanted to go home. After everything that had happened at school the sight of my home was one of the best feelings ever, like all the pressures and worries that had plagued me since I’d met Chris were suddenly lifted off my shoulders.

I walked to the boot of the car to join my mum. The car’s red paint was scratched and had lost its lustre long ago, but the years old car was the only one that my mum could bear to drive.

The boot sprung open and we unloaded the bags out. I’d only packed two small bags of clothes, since I was only staying for a week, and what I’d packed had been randomly thrown into the bags from the draws in my rush to leave the school.

My mum held up one of the bags that I’d brought, which was full to the brim of scrunched up clothes, and raised an eyebrow. “What did you pack?” she asked. “This bag looks a mess.”

I shrugged and took the bag from her. “Stuff. I only heard that I was allowed to go this morning so I kind of took a handful of things from my draw; don’t expect me to pack everything immaculately.”

 “I never would expect that, knowing you.”

We slung a bag each over our shoulders and my mum slammed the boot shut before we began walking towards the house. When we reached the gate she fumbled around in her pockets for a key so she could get in, muttering to herself about the injustice of the key being so small and losable.

Already tired of waiting, I vaulted over the short fence. When my mum looked at me disapprovingly I shrugged. “What? It’s easier,” I said. “I don’t know why you insisted on a lock for this gate when anybody who’s a decent height could get over here in one bound.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine then,” she breathed out exasperatedly, before stepping over the fence herself.

I’d already bounded to the door and took the spare key out from under a particularly gaudy looking gnome, inserting it into the keyhole and turning the handle. Yes, the key was under the gnome. Cliché things were a speciality in my family home.

“I’m home!” I called as I swung open the door to reveal the narrow hallway. Doorways were placed at intervals down the long stretch, leading into the other rooms, and it branched off into a large room which held a staircase at the end. Precarious shelves crammed with books and haphazard ornaments covered one side of the wall, some of their contents spilling out onto the floor and making it impossible to navigate the surface without stepping on something. The other side of the hallway had a large wooden box, overflowing with years’ worth of shoes, and its wall was covered in askew pictures of our family and friends.

Within a few seconds of me stepping into the threshold of the house I heard the pattering of tiny footsteps. “Anne!” an eager voice called from another room and a boy slid through the door at the end of the hallway, grinning from ear to ear and waving his hands about.

I dropped my bag and crossed the few meters between us to sweep him up in a hug. “Evan!” I smiled into his shoulder as I clutched onto him.

He pulled back, the grin still on his chubby face. He’d got my dad’s dark brown, slightly wavy hair which framed his pale face, but he shared my pale blue eyes. “Mum said you’d be coming back today,” he babbled. “But I didn’t know if I should believe her and…”

“Well I’m back,” I told him solemnly, still smiling.

“Is Anne back?” someone called from the room closest to us.

“Sit still, dad!” an unmistakable voice snapped, I could almost imagine the look of anger that my sister Kate was sending my dad at that moment.  “She can come in here if she really wants to see you.”

My mum came up behind me and dropped the bag she’d been carrying. “Go ahead, Anne. You know Kate won’t let your dad move if she sounds that determined.”

Me and Kate were alike in that way – both completely and utterly stubborn.

Evan grabbed my hand and started dragging me across the hall. “Come on, Anne!” he said, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Come see what Katie’s been doing!”

“Evan, I told you not to call me that,” Kate growled from inside the living room.

My little brother shrugged. “She’s called Katie now,” he informed me. It looked like there was going to be another stubborn child in our family. He smiled cheekily, probably remembering all the other times that he’d annoyed our older sister with his incorrect use of her name.

We entered the living room to a peculiar sight.

The room that we’d always prided as the most tidy was littered with stray canvases and paints. Some of the paints had leaked out and painted bright colours on to the light wooden floor and stained the carpets. Countless pieces of art had been discarded across the floor, each different and fascinating. An easel was propped up right in the middle of the room, which was where my sister was – standing in front of it, examining her work while my dad sat on the sofa looking around nervously and staying stock still.

“You’re not sitting right!” Kate complained, slamming down her paintbrush on the table beside her and causing paint to splatter about the surface. She gathered her hair up into a messy bun, smearing her hair with paint as she did so. The paint coloured it bright yellow and blue against the dark down brown strands that were her normal colour. In everything except the colour of her hair she was an exact copy of me, only two years older.

My dad shifted nervously in his seat, trying not to upset Kate any more. As his head turned he caught a glimpse of me and let out a sigh of relief. “Anne,” he said, smiling. “I’ve been going crazy in this room with only your sister for company.” He turned to face me completely, his chocolate brown eyes pleading with me to halt Kate’s painting.

“Stay still!” Kate barked at him, and he immediately snapped back into position.

I rolled my eyes and sat down cross legged on the sofa next to my dad. “Nice to see you, too, Kate,” I said sarcastically, watching as she energetically swept her paintbrush across the canvas in front of her.

Evan saw that as permission to leap onto the sofa between me and my Dad, crawling onto my lap to sit in front of me.

“Oh, hi Anne,” Kate said briefly, not taking her eyes off her work. After a few seconds she glanced towards me, her glance turning into a glare on a closer look. “What the hell are you doing sitting on there? Are you too stupid to see that I’m painting Dad?”

I shrugged. “You can improvise on this bit. We’re comfy here.”

“No, Anne. I can’t improvise; I don’t care if you’re comfy. And dad, why’s your hair like that? Can’t you try to control it for once in your life?”

My mum walked over to us and tried to smooth down his unruly brown hair, which sprung back up every time she ran her hand over it. Giving up, she laughed and ruffled it so it became even messier.

“Stop doing that, mum!” Kate complained.

“Someone’s irritable today,” I muttered.

Evan glanced up at me, frowning. “What does… what does irritable mean?” he asked quizzically.

“Easily annoyed,” I informed him just as Kate shrieked, “I am not being irritable! You’re just all idiots! Can’t you see I’m trying to work here?”

A tortoiseshell cat peered around the door, mewing inquisitively as she looked around the room with her curious, wide green eyes. Her ears perked up as she saw me sat on the couch and she padded over to me.

I grinned at the cat. “Hello Sasha,” I whispered too her as she jumped up onto the couch arm, smoothing down her warm fur. She settled down on the arm, her eyes closing to slits, and started to purr loudly.

“Yes we do see that,” my mum said patiently. “But you’re not being the most easy-going person with us. You haven’t seen your sister for ages and you won’t even take a second to say hello.”

 “You three won’t even move!” she said grumpily, gesturing to me, Evan and my mum.