Saturday, December 18, 2010

Please read, I hope you enjoy this :)

(Please take into consideration that this is a first draft. I know that it is a little rough. I really hope you enjoy reading this small section of what I am working on and, please, leave feedback in the comments. All feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thank you so much for your time and if you like this please share it with your friends.)




The shrill ring of the telephone brought my attention away from the plate full of vegetables that lay in front of me. I hadn’t really eaten much of it, mainly I’d pushed it around with my fork and looked at the array of colors; green, orange, purple and red. The red always attracted me, tempting, but when I popped the little cherry tomatoes in my mouth and bit down I was always disappointed. The taste wasn’t what I’d expected. Not what the color had promised.

My mother gave an exasperated sigh on the third ring and pushed her chair from the table so she could stand. She walked through the doorway that went to the living room and I heard the small click of the phone leaving the receiver. Then her sweet voice said, “Hello?”

Even with me being in the dining room, I could hear the angry voice of the man on the other end of the line. I could hear him speaking but his words made no sense to my four year old mind. When my mother spoke again I could hear the distress in her voice. I turned sideways in my chair and leaned my weight forward so I slid off of it, letting my feet drop the three inches to the floor.

I padded to the living room. The voice of the angry man grew louder the closer I got. My mother looked up, wild-eyed, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Mommy? What’s wrong?”

The man stopped his angry rant and then spoke more calmly at the sound of my voice. “Is that her? Let me talk to her.”

“Matthew, she’s four years old! I have to go!” She slammed the phone down in its cradle. She turned back to me and patted her lap. I climbed up in it and she hugged me too tight to her chest.

The phone rang again. With no hesitation she picked it up. “What do you want?”

“I told you, she needs to be with me. She needs to be taught.” His voice was still angry but calmer.

“No, you can’t have her!”

“I will have to take her then.” He growled and then the line was dead.

My mother dropped the phone and ran to the small bedroom we shared, me in her arms. She set me on the bed then grabbed a large suitcase from under it. She shoved clothes into the suitcase, not looking at any of them. She stopped and left the room suddenly, I stayed where I was. I heard her punching numbers on the phone, I heard it ring through and then a different man’s voice. I was too frightened to listen to what was being said, I didn’t want to know what was happening.

A minute later she walked back into the room and kneeled in front of me. She looked at my face, smiling through her tears and said, “Sweetie, could you go in the bathroom and get our toothbrushes, toothpaste, and the hairbrush?”

“Mommy, what’s going on? Are we leaving?”

“Yes, we’re leaving honey. Don’t worry, I promise everything will be alright.” She smiled again, trying to calm my fear I think, but her voice was shaky.

I dropped off the bed. My feet hit the wooden floor silently and I walked to the bathroom. I grabbed a zippered bag from the cabinet under the sink and began putting items in it. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, hairbrush and I even grabbed the shampoo and conditioner from the bath/shower. When I walked back to the room my mother had the first suitcase closed and was starting to close a second, smaller one. I knew that all the clothes we had fit into those two suitcases.

“Okay, a stop by the kitchen, then out to the car and we’re out of here. We’ll stop and get some fast food somewhere.” Her voice was so calm and collected that I jumped, I’m not sure why but I did.

She picked up the luggage off the bed and headed out of the bedroom door. I started after her then stopped.

“Mommy, wait.”

She turned and I ran back to the bed. I grabbed my large black teddy bear off it and a rainbow striped quilt. The quilt was barely big enough to wrap around me and the bear was so big it was nearly half my size. I put the quilt around the bear and clutched it to my chest. Then I walked back to my mother’s side. She turned back to the door and started walking again with me trailing behind her.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a thick envelope when we reached the kitchen. I knew the envelope was full of money; she was always putting money in it and saying that she never knew when it would come handy. Apparently, tonight she found her good use for it. She glanced around the room, quickly; making sure nothing was forgotten that couldn’t be replaced.

A pounding on the front door snapped both our necks around to look at the wall, like we could see through it to the door. I heard the frame of the door groan and crack under the force of the visitor’s fists. I was still staring at the wall when my mother’s arms wrapped around my body. She carried me towards the pantry, set me down and opened the folding doors. She moved a large sack of potatoes to reveal an open space below the bottom shelf and without a word pointed.

I dropped to my hands and knees then crawled into the small cubby. She slid the potatoes back in front of me. There was an opening, about two inches, which I was able to see through between the top of the bag and bottom of the shelf. She was about to shut the doors of the pantry when the crash from the front door proved whoever was pounding on it could beat it from its deadbolt and hinges.

My mom turned around almost instantly, leaving the folding doors partially open. She stepped away from the pantry and closer toward the table. She spared a glance back in my direction for a second then faced the doorway to the living room.

“Josefine, you will give her to me, now!” A man’s voice roared. It was the man that was on the phone, just minutes before.

“I’m in the kitchen, Matthew. No need to holler, it will only draw the attention of the neighbors. They’re a nosy bunch around here and they enjoy a show of blue and red when they can get it.” My mother said in an amazingly calm voice.

She sat down in the chair she was in earlier as the man came through the doorway. He was rather short for a man, maybe five-foot. His chin-length hair was a dark-chocolate brown with an odd offset of light auburn highlighting it and his eyes were the brightest emerald green, streaked with gold that was almost yellow.

“Where is she? Just tell her to come here and I will be on my way, with her, of course.”

“One, she has a name and it is Corallyn. Two, Coral is not only your child but mine, also. I carried her to term. I birthed her. I raised her! You left before she was even born, you have no right to just come here and take her away.” The calm was leaking to anger in her voice.

“I left for her protection and now I must take her for my own!” He bellowed.

“What the hell’s that suppose to mean?” She was up and out of her chair, letting it fall backwards to the floor.

She stalked up to him and thrust her chest out towards his face. If he’d been taller she probably would have settled for strong eye contact but the ten inches she had on him didn’t make that possible. Conflicting emotions flashed over his upturned face; love, grief, longing, sadness and lastly raw anger.

Unexpectedly he whispered, strained but still a whisper. “Please, Josie, don’t do this. Don’t, she has to come with me. I must teach her, teach her how to survive, how to stay hidden from those who might seek to destroy her. I promise, I only wish for her safety. It just so happens that her safety with me means my safety, also. Let me take her. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. Live your life; be free of things you know nothing about.”

“No! She’s fine living a normal human life. The only way you’ll get her is over my cold, breathless corpse. Quite possible her own, too. She doesn’t know you and will not go without a fight. I promise you that.”

I seen a quick flash of silver and a reflection of light, then as he pushed his hands forcefully against my mother’s torso with no weapon in sight, he said, “If that is what you want.”

My mother’s body fell backwards, hitting the table on its descent to the floor, and her head fell into the hands of his outstretched arms. Blood sprayed all around the kitchen and now began to pool out around the severed neck.

A whimper escaped Matthew’s lips. He looked down at the face staring up at him from my mother’s decapitated head. He settled for a tone full of hatred when he spoke.

“Damn you, Josefine. It didn’t have to be this way. I loved you but, damn it, not more than myself.” A tear slid down his cheek and he dropped her head. It hit the floor with a sickly wet thud, landing in the blood that had drained from it.

Suddenly, I was staring into my mother’s dead eyes. The empty glaze of those eyes made me catch my breath. That small intake of breath was a big mistake. Matthew was headed toward the pantry before I could blink. He was kneeling when something came through his right shoulder. It had the look of bone or possibly tusk and, though it was blood-soaked, I could tell it was white or close to it.

Another man’s voice rang through the kitchen, almost making me scream but I swallowed it.

“Matthew, you are one dead Inborn, you son of a bitch!”

“That’s only if you can catch me, Seeker.” Matthew said.

He jumped to his feet and ran to the window farthest away from the newcomer. He smashed through it without missing a beat. He was gone.

The new man hesitated a second, looked down at my mom and said, “Well, shit Josie, I was too late. I tried, I’m sorry.”

He ran to the window Matthew had jumped through and was gone, just as the man before him.

I stayed behind my sack of potatoes, wide-eyed and silent, until the first cop came into the kitchen. His gun was held out in front of him and an expression of shock horror was on his face. Something about the sight of the badge pinned to the man’s chest or the expression on his face brought tears streaming down my face and sobs wrenching from my throat.