Beautiful Souls (20 page)

    
              “You’re all here to talk to me about the fight I had with Zoey at dinner?” I questioned, understandably baffled.

    
              “Kind of,” my mom answered, putting her arm around me while trying to lead me to an open seat at our kitchen table.

    
              I looked over to Leo, flashing him a questioning and pleading glance, hoping he could save me from this intervention of sorts. He simply smiled sympathetically in return.

    
              “We’re all her to discuss the topic of your fight tonight,” my mom clarified.

    
              “How’d you even know about the fight, let alone what we fought about?” I questioned, thoroughly confused.

    
              “We’ll get to that part a little later. Right now, I think we should start with you,” my mom sat in the chair next to me and held her hand out for mine.

    
              “Bec, just listen and keep an open mind,” my dad chimed in, as he laid a comforting hand along my shoulder.

    
              “Okay?” I let out a nervous laugh. “Am I dying?” I joked, but as I looked around the room into all the eyes locked on me, I saw the way everyone huddled my direction. I didn’t discount my latter question from being a definite possibility.

    
              “No, Becca, of course not. It’s nothing like that,” my mom reassured me.

    
              “Just listen to what they have to say. Everything’s going to be fine,” Leo added.

    
              The constant eye contact and reassuring did nothing except make me feel even more anxious. They were playing with my already erratic emotions.

    
              “All right, let’s get on with it. You’re all beginning to scare me,” I ordered, in the most polite tone I could muster under such circumstances.

    
              “Okay, okay,” my mom conceded. “I’m going to begin with this lovely necklace Leo gave you.” She touched the beads lying loosely around my collarbone, gently pulling the chain till the antique brass key lifted and appeared above my shirt collar. She held the solid key in her hands. “It’s a very special necklace, Becca,” my mom began to explain, as she caressed the key with her fingers. I looked up at her to see a comforting, dreamy look in her eyes, reflecting whatever she was about to tell me.

    
              “Yeah, I know. Leo told me that it’s been passed through his family for two hundred years.”

    
              I tried to hide the swirling thoughts in my head along with any expression that may be escaping out onto my face, avoiding giving away Leo’s family secret. I didn’t know how well, or if at all, my parents would deal with news that my boyfriend, and their neighbors, had come from a long line of Witches and Warlocks.

    
              “It’s more than just that. This necklace…,” she turned briefly to gain assurance from my dad and the rest of the room. The others nervously smiled at me in support. My mom turned back toward me and continued, “The necklace is magical, Becca,” she spit out.  “With each new generation, it gets passed on to the one that it’s meant to protect…the chosen one.  A Natural…and that’s you.”

    
              I sucked in a gasp.

                                    
 
Chapter 8.

The Experiment

ex-per-i-ment

/ik’sperement/

Noun

A scientific procedure undertaken to make a

Discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate

A known fact.

Verb

Perform a scientific procedure, esp. in a

Laboratory, to determine something.

    
              I felt trapped. I sat surrounded by my loved ones who just broke life-changing news to me. My mind flooded with impossible truths. I felt completely and utterly trapped.

    
              I was a living nightmare that just turned my world upside down; the kind of nightmare where you’re running for your life, around every bend and curve, attempting an escape. My heart raced, ready to pound its way free from my chest, yet an escape would be impossible; however, I held out hope. Hope is human instinct after all, but this was not a dream. There was no such nightmare to escape its intense and devastating grasp. This was real ---
my
reality.

    
              I sat in my kitchen, surrounded by people I loved and trusted. Time seemed to stand still. I no longer heard the comforting ticking rhythm of the black clock with its tan face hanging over the kitchen window. Leo’s yellow lab, Lullabelle, had been silenced by the numbness in my ears, and the echoing sounds of the woods that I had always longed for in the past were being pushed so far away, I feared they may never again return to flood my head with their river of serenity.

    
              All of the intrinsic sounds, now considered to be part of my past life, I thought I’d never want to hear again. Ever. They wouldn’t hold the same feeling, meaning, or tranquility as before; everything felt like a lie. My brain turned each silenced sound into supernatural echoes from an unknown and dark world, one in which I now felt alone and betrayed.

    
              My head felt thick and foggy, as if there was a cloud draping around it. Time stopped, sounds silenced, and I was sure my heart had sunk so deeply into my gut that there was no possibility of it ever returning to the high point in my chest where it had happily rested for seventeen years.

    
              I must have zoned out. For how long, I didn’t know. I did eventually notice that my mom had stopped talking. For a moment the entire room stood still.

    
              My mom turned slowly, shot a glance around the room, and for a second I thought I saw each and every person, standing in my kitchen, nod. I must have gone crazy. Not a chance in hell this is all really happening.

    
              My mom turned back toward me. “Becca, are you catching most of this, honey? Is anything sinking in?”

    
              It took me a minute to respond. My senses and reaction time felt numb and slow, and they had obviously been affected and dulled by this gush of new information. Tonight’s bizarre and insane turn of events had left me motionless and completely speechless. My body remained immobile, and it felt detached from my cloudy brain. My eyes did manage to catch glimpses of my attentive audience’s watchful stares; stares which turned more worrisome with every moment that they awaited my response.

    
              I tried to form coherent words as quickly as possible now to ease the minds of everyone in the room. “Uh, um yeah…I’ve heard every word, Mom. I’m just processing.”

    
              “Do you think that you could endure a little more? There are a few more things, one in particular, that I think we should clue you in on before we call it a night,” my mom spoke with more pep in her voice than I thought appropriate for this situation. She was rubbing my forearm the same way she used to when I was upset as a little girl.

    
              “As if I’ll be able to sleep.” I motioned for my mom to continue.

    
              “Okay, good.” my mom bounced up with a new glint in her eyes. A smirk drew up the corners of her beautiful bow-shaped lips as she added, “’Cause this next part is going to be a lot of fun.”

    
              I couldn’t understand. I was dumbfounded. I had just sat and listened to how my entire world had been changed and turned upside down. It was all falling apart, and everything I’d known for the past seventeen years were half-truths and lies. My own mother had just spent the past fifteen minutes explaining to me the gist of what my life will entail from this night forward --- my life as a
Witch
. I just couldn’t understand how anything related to being ‘
a chosen one’
or ‘
a Natural’
could be interpreted as good, or “
fun”
as my mom had just stated.

    
              Premonitions, spells, supernatural powers, and even shape-shifting were all described as things that would become my reality and a very vivid and substantial part of my new world. My mom spent very little time, so far, actually cluing me in as to how any of these things were possible, and right now, I didn’t ask. I wasn’t ready --- yet.

    
              Perhaps having already known a tidbit about this new world --- Leo’s family secret and apparently mine as well --- had given me an edge in order to comprehend the fact that everyone in this room were Wizards. I hesitated to even think of my reaction had I not already had a small insight into this supernatural world.

    
              As the minutes ticked past, everyone seemed to be functioning at a whirlwind speed around me, while I sat motionless on the kitchen chair. I felt as if I was beginning to awaken from a dream, and the initial blow and shock devastated me less and less.

    
              Perhaps acceptance took over, yet there was no doubt that the devastation of my inherited abilities continued to lay under the current emotions now swirling in my head. What I had viewed just minutes ago as a life-long curse, now flabbergasted me. I was intrigued by the fact that people, including me, could possess supernatural talents and abilities. This really existed. Everyone else's excitement had given me the slightest bit of hope that this wouldn’t totally devastate my way of life.

    
              I viewed my new abilities, powers, and responsibilities as burdens. The weight balancing and vigorously pressing down on my shoulders caused an internal struggle within me. On one hand, there was a slight part of myself that secretly loved this news, that I was special. This revelation meant that Leo and I were now the same, and my heart pounded harder and more quickly just thinking about the forever-bond we now shared. However, on the other hand, I kept hearing Leo’s words from last night echoing in my head --- ‘
there are hundreds and maybe thousands of others out there, and not they’re not all like me’
.

    
              I completely doubted myself. How would I ever know how to handle all I had inherited. Clearly, the word that I am
‘a Natural’
had spread throughout the supernatural world. I had assumed this to be accurate since it would explain Zoey’s bizarre behavior and also the fact that there’s a shape-shifting coyote out there somewhere with me in its sights. To my dismay, there were actually people --- Witches and Warlocks to be exact --- who wanted me dead. One had already tried to kill me in the woods. I didn’t even know why besides the obvious, simply that I was a Natural. I was now more confused and terrified than I had ever been in my entire life.

    
              “Come on, Becca,” Leo spoke, pulling me from my thought-filled trance. “You’re gonna enjoy this.”

    
              What was with everyone assuming that anything related to being a Witch was going to be fun for me?

    
              “Just forget all of your questions and worries for tonight and follow us outside,” my mom almost bounced out of the kitchen through the back door as she spoke. She was eagerly followed by my dad who patted my shoulder reassuringly as he passed. He was followed immediately by Leo’s parents, then Mr. and Mrs. Stanley.

    
              Only Leo lagged behind, obviously waiting for me. When he was close enough to touch me, he took me by the waist and raised me from the kitchen chair. My heart raced as the touch from his fingertips grazed the small of my back, instantly growing warm and tingly. I felt a flutter in my stomach as I caught a glimpse of him flashing me his ‘oh, so familiar’ crooked grin. My heart skipped a beat.

    
              Everyone else had already crossed over half the field behind my house, and they congregated near the edge of the woods before Leo and I had ever pushed our way through my back door. Apparently, we’d all be continuing this in the woods, and a flash of remembrance crossed my mind. Instant hesitation froze my muscles, and I stood motionless, stopped right in my tracks.

    
              My dad retreated from the group toward me when he noticed my apprehension. “There’s nothing to be worried about, Bec. We already scanned this whole area. You’re safe tonight.”

    
              I started walking again, slowly, still very cautious considering my dad’s choice of words “
you’re safe tonight
”, but there was no point trying to fight against Leo’s pull.

    
              “Besides,” Leo added. “I can sense when danger is near and so can you, with the help of that necklace of yours. Actually, you can probably sense it better than the rest of us now, you’ll just have to learn to recognize the signs.” Leo looked me over with a wink, and my composure melted into his capable arms. Oh my God, how embarrassing could I possibly be? Knees collapsing, heart racing, flushed cheeks ---
way to play it cool, Bec
.