Book of the Hidden (15 page)

     
“Karen Jones.”

     
The man nodded, and pointed down the hallway they were facing. “Make the first right.”

     
The three of them walked uncommonly slow. When it came to seeing their family, they were in no hurry, not even Jean.

     
Somber whispers reached them from around the corner to the room, and when they saw inside it made Vivian’s stomach lunge forward. It wasn’t a shocking sight, she knew her family would be here, but now there was no turning back, they had seen them.

     
Whispers died down when they walked through the opened double doors. The room was painted in off-white, the black coffin trimmed in gold laid at the bottom of the wooden pulpit. Fold out chairs lined up in front of it.

     
“Vivie! Jean!” A small girl with fair hair in a flowered dress and shiny black shoes and stockings came running towards them. Vivian and Jean knelt down to hug her.

     
“They said you wouldn’t have the guts to come, that you didn’t care enough, but you did!” Joan smiled through thick tears running down her cheeks.

     
“Said that did they?” Vivian looked up at the staring faces surrounding her. “Proved them wrong didn’t we?”

     
Joan nodded vigorously looking over at the new face. “Who’s he?”

     
“This is Jake, he’s a friend of ours,” Jean said.

     
“Is he like you two?”

     
"What do you mean?"

     
"Cousin Ike told me the truth, that you're both witches."

     
Cousin Ike was a tall, lanky, dumb-witted teenager. He didn't understand the concept of a secret especially within family. It was amazing that Joan didn't find out long before now.

     
Vivian gave a wide smile. It was a comfort, probably the only comfort she will have all day because Joan was not afraid of who they were, and not afraid to say it. "No, he's not like us."

     
Joan nodded, understanding. “It’s nice to meet you,” she smiled sweetly to Jake.

     
“Joan, sweetie, you shouldn’t be talking with them,” a lady laid a hand on Joan’s shoulder. Her voice was fake, and forceful were her eyes over a long hooked nose that looked disapprovingly over at Jean and Vivian.

     
“Courtney, how
nice,
you are looking after Joan,” Jean smirked sarcastically.

     
“Yes, but she is
family
after all. Family sticks together. Isn’t that right?”

     
Vivian felt every vein in her body turn boiling hot, and her heart pounded in her chest. She lurched forward, but Jean gently pressed a hand on her shoulder forcing her backwards.

     
“Your right cousin Courtney. That is exactly what family does. Obviously your family doesn’t look too well after each other.”

     
A silence filled with hatred pushed against them hoping to drown them, but Vivian hardly took notice. She looked at her sister with curiosity and a hint of anger. How could she say that? Even their kind died, but it didn’t make it their fault as it was here. It wasn’t anyone’s fault in this room that Aunt Karen died.

     
Jean must have realized what she said, because her cheeks reddened.

     
Vivian patted Joan on her head, and walked to stand over casket, but when she was there, she wished she hadn’t moved because the sight took her breath away. Inside the casket laid her Aunt Karen, but it wasn’t her. Her face, and hands were too white, her hair was not pulled into a bun, but laid dead over her shoulders. This wasn’t her Aunt Karen at all.

     
She felt a presence beside her, and saw Jean looking down at their aunt with tear-filled eyes. Jean pulled Vivian closer to her, and she clung to her arm.

     
The rest was a blur. Through the service the sisters sat together with Jake between them, in the back of the church by themselves. Joan had made an attempt to sit with them, but Courtney yanked on her arm directing her towards the family.

The service was long and drawn out, but nobody seemed to notice, and Vivian got the odd feeling that no one was paying attention. It was only when everyone stood up that she had moved.

     
The line went slowly by the casket, people kissing, touching, and whispering in the ear of the corpse. Who were they kidding? It wasn’t Aunt Karen, it would never be Aunt Karen until she sat up and nagged Vivian like she always had.

     
When it was their turn, Vivian could barely look inside the casket, but she did, gently touching the casket. And she walked away. She could feel Jean's and Jake's eyes on her retreating back, but she did not look back at them.

     
The warmth of the sun hit her face making the chills Vivian felt inside melt away. To her right, she could see everyone gathering inside the gates of the cemetery, around the six-foot hole in the ground. With legs that felt like concrete, she joined the others, but from a distance. While they were gathered close around, shoulder to shoulder, she stood alone at the side of the grave until Jean and Jake came to stand beside her.

     
The preacher started with another prayer, and how such a wonderful person Karen was. None of it was noticed by Vivian, she kept her eyes at the grave where Aunt Karen's coffin was perched upon some boards. Tonight they were to lower her there, and cover her up with pounds of dirt. It seemed so disrespectful to her at that moment, to put her in the ground, to act as if she never existed. The only proof she was there was a headstone. And then came the tears she promised herself that she wouldn't shed on this day, but they came anyway. She felt Jean put her arm around her, resting her head on hers. At the top of Vivian's head she could feel the warm wetness of Jean's tears.

     
Everyone slowly started to make their way down to the parking lot. Vivian looked around for Jake and found him facing away, looking out across the headstones. He seemed to be clutching something, or maybe he was just making a fist. Vivian's headache was too much to think about it.

     
"Jake, lets go," Jean pulled on his shoulder, and they too walked down to the parking lot.

     
When they got there, for some reason Vivian could never explain, she thought that maybe one of her family would speak to her, acknowledge her in some way, but none of them would even look at her, with the exception of Joan who still fought a few of them to run over to Vivian and Jean. Somewhere deep inside she thought that this funeral would bring them closer together. She had never been so wrong. If she thought that she was nothing to them before, now she was less than that. Less than nothing.

     
No one talked on the way to the motel, or when they walked in the door. No one talked while they packed. All that could be heard was the whirring of the air condition, and the steps and voices of people passing outside the door. Even Jake made no noise, he could probably sense their sadness and anger, even if he did not fully understand it, which was just as well as none of them felt like talking about the event.

     
Occasionally Vivian would exchange looks with Jean. They both were disappointed at the funeral. But how can you expect a funeral to go? To go well? No.... It was a disaster, not only with their family’s attitude, but how they came together in the first place.

     
Vivian hated herself for getting her hopes up. For thinking for a second that maybe things changed in the last six years. Nothing has changed at all, and it all sucked. She would be okay though, she knew it. So would Jean. They had gone this long without them, and they would continue to do so.

     
"Ughhh," Jean let out a low painful moan. She clutched her foot in her hands, falling back on the bed.

     
"What happened?" Vivian pushed her hands aside, and saw a red streak where she had stubbed her foot on the corner of the bed. She moved her hand over her sister’s foot, and heard her sigh in relief.

     
"Thanks," she let her foot fall to the floor.

     
"Jake are you ready to go," Vivian asked as she knelt to look at the spot where Jean hit her foot. No one answered her. She looked up, and saw Jake's back at the desk, his head down, as though he was reading something. "Jake?" He still didn't answer.

     
"Yo, Jake, Viv's talking to you." Jean leaned over to look at his face, but still Jake did not budge.

     
Vivian stood and walked to the desk. She bent down to look at his face, and she gasped. His face was pale, sweat running down it from the lining of his hair. He shook slightly, his eyes closed, and he doubled over, falling sideways off the chair. Vivian caught him, and slowly helped him to the floor.

     
Jean jumped from her place on the bed running over, kneeling beside him. Jake had now curled up in a small ball, as though someone was punching him in the stomach over and over again, but instead of clutching his stomach, he was clutching his heart.

     
"What do we do, what do we do?" Jean barely took a breath.

     
Looking over at him, Vivian placed a hand on his shoulder, afraid of turning him over, or moving him at all. She closed her eyes, and let all the magic she could muster to the palm of her hand, and out to the body of Jake.

     
Low muttering, groaning of some sort sounded, and Vivian took the chance, and rolled him over onto his back.

     
Jake grabbed at his shirt over his heart, twisting it into a ball in his fist. His face was screwed up in agony, and he let out a pitiful scream through his clenched teeth.

     
"It did nothing!" Jean stood up, her hands over her mouth.

     
"Jean, carry him to the jeep, I'm driving."

     
She lowered her hands from her mouth. "Where are we going?"

     
"Back to the Underground." Vivian didn't give her enough time to say anything else, as she was already climbing out through the window. The image came sharply and rudely, of her climbing out another window seemingly ages ago, Seth behind her, waiting to see where she led him.

     
She waited beneath the window for her sister, and clumsily helped her carry Jake through it. She held his head in her arms as Jean gripped his legs, and carefully stepped down. They laid him in the backseat, Jean holding him closely.

     
Vivian didn't give the jeep enough time to warm up before she peeled out of the parking spot, barely missing an old van that looked like at one time it had been white, but so covered with dirt that it turned a mucky brown. It must have been only three or four seconds before she was out of the parking lot and out on the road.

     
"He's burning up Viv. He must have a fever," Jean yelled over the whistling wind in their ears.

     
"You're a witch Jean, do what you have to do!"

     
In the review mirror she saw Jean lay her hand on the boys forehead, only to draw back her hand as though she had been burned. "It's not working! Nothing's working!"

     
Vivian saw Jake twitch in the backseat, his hand still to his heaving chest. She couldn't hear him above the wind, and the roaring of the engine, but she could tell he was still crying, maybe even screaming. His blonde hair was soaked in sweat, and tears rolled down from the corners of his eyes. His dry, chapped lips would part, and his chest seemed to jump with gasps, and screams.