SWNOVELS Chapter CHAPTER 4
I wake up gasping for breath. Another strange ass dream has invaded my mind. I don’t necessarily want to call it a nightmare exactly but then again, any dream I have where I wake up without Alina in my arms is pretty much a nightmare anyway.
She and I were sitting in some type of waiting room. I use those words loosely because waiting room doesn’t quite describe where we are. I think a better description would be that of a station, like a train station. We are sitting on a wired style bench and chatting about life, odd right?
Suddenly Ali looks beyond scared but I don’t know why. I looked around trying to figure out what would be causing her to shake in fear as she was. I, myself, don’t feel or see anything that could be the cause for her reaction but reach out to her just the same and pull her close to me. As I take her in my arms though, an overwhelming wave of heat slams into us, throwing us apart from each other, causing me to jerk and wake up with my black hair sticking up wildly, trying to suck in air and wondering what the hell the dream was trying to tell me.
Getting out of bed, I decided it was high time I took a shower. It’s been a few days and after that run, I’m sure I smell a little more than ripe. I pad across the fake hardwood flooring and make my way to the bathroom, stripping off the not so pleasant-smelling t-shirt as I go.
Standing over the typical white tub that most hotels have, I turn the knob above the faucet which causes the water to come rushing out, splashing into the bathtub, taking a step back I wait for the water to heat up.
Pushing my hand through the water, I tested the temperature and decided it felt hot enough to get in. Tugging the tab that sits atop the faucet and I heard the transition from faucet to shower as the water switched over and began to flow from the shower head.
Once done and I am feeling a bit cleaner, I shut the water off and step out of the tub. Just as I go to wrap a white cotton towel around my waist, I can hear someone knocking upon the exterior of my door. Baffled, I look around in confusion because there isn’t one person, I know who knows I’m here, I pad back across the hard wood floor and take a peek through the peep hole.
As it is dark out, looking through the peep hole doesn’t end up working out so well. So, with the gold plated over latch across the top of my door, I cracked the door open enough to see who was knocking. Odd. I shut the door, so I can remove the latch and then open the door wide. No one is there. I look down at each end of the hallway and then back in front of me just to make sure no one is across the courtyard in the other open hallway.
Stepping back inside my room I went to shut the door once more, I coincidentally just happened to look at the ground in front of my door and spotted a letter, well, a blank envelope, that hadn’t been there when I returned from my run earlier. Bending over, I pick it up and then quickly retreat back into my room as the door shuts once more behind me. Grabbing a seat on the closest piece of furniture, a desk chair, I sit down and stare at the envelope for a moment as I try to decide if I should open it or not. After roughly thirty seconds, curiosity gets the better of me and I tear the envelope open and find a letter inside.
Dear Silver Heart person,
I apologize for not addressing you properly, but you never gave me your name. Anyway, I would like to invite you to our circle gathering tonight. I feel as though our meeting today was not by chance but rather fated to happen. Should you choose to come, (which I hope you do) bring this letter with you. It will guide you to our location.
Until we meet again,
Fare thee well.
Sincerely, Raegan Knight.
PS, we will gather at 10 p.m.
How in the hell did this chick even find me? Looking at my watch, I see it is 9 o’clock already which gives me about a half hour to figure out whether or not I should go to this ‘gathering’, for all I know I could be walking into some twisted circle to be used as a sacrifice.
*
I’m sure you assumed that I would attend, and you are right. At 9:35 I found myself shutting the door behind me, leaving the hotel and making my way down the metal steps. The Raegan girl said to bring the note with me, so once I am standing on the sidewalk, I pull it out from my back pocket and stare at it. “Oh shit! Wasn’t expecting that!” I mutter in surprise because the damn thing lit up like a freaking flashlight.
I grinned stupidly at it and then as I continued to stare at it, a red line appeared pointing in one specific direction. I begin to walk as I glance back and forth between the sidewalk and the letter. Seeing it correct me as I take a wrong turn. Righting my course, I continue. After about fifteen minutes of walking, the red line began to swivel like a pendulum would.
Looking up from the letter I saw what appeared to be an abandoned house sitting in front of me. Grey scraped and weather-beaten shutters hung precariously as they tried desperately to cling to their last couple of screws. White chipped and peeling paint throughout the entire exterior of the place and the railing of the porch looked like one strong gust of wind could knock the whole thing over. You know the type of house, the kind that makes you think automatically of Halloween and creepiness. A house you would swear to your friends was haunted!
Heeding it no mind, because I can see that it has been spelled to look that way. I walked up the couple of stairs that led to an enclosed porch and walked inside it. Knocking my hand against the frame of the wood screened door that separates the porch from the actual house itself so as not to frighten anyone as I walked in, I pulled the second door open which led into the home.
My face scrunches in a grimace at the creaking, squeaking sound the door makes as I open it making it sound as though I’m an intruder which I guess technically, I am. I shout out in a loud whisper; “hello?” Since no one was at the door to greet me and hadn’t yet responded to my hello. Releasing a nervous breath, I began walking slowly down a dark hallway. I could hear voices but wasn’t sure in which direction they were coming from.
Suddenly I see a head peek around the corner of a wall. I jump slightly, startled to suddenly see a face and offer one of those weird waves where I don’t really raise my hand much higher than my waist and then quickly put it back down at my side because at first, I can’t see who the face belongs to.
“Hello, Silver Heart.” I can just make out Raegan’s face as I make my way towards her. I find myself walking into a very large open kitchen. Picture a 1930’s farmhouse kitchen, like that Sally Field’s movie, ‘Places in the Heart’ and then you will know what I mean. Looking around the room, I see eleven people all around my age, well including Raegan there are 12. I am shocked to see the circle so evenly numbered. There are 6 guys and 6 girls. In the Silver-Heart Coven, the women have always outnumbered the men.
My gaze lands back on Raegan and I see her smiling at me and her Coven. “Hey everyone, this is the guy I was telling you all about. Can you all feel what I felt?” I look at her questioningly but turn my head back to the group as I begin to hear them whisper and see them nod to each other in agreement.
A willowy looking girl with super long, super curly light brown hair stood up, “what is your name?” She stared at me curiously with amber colored eyes.
“Oh, uh, my name is Dominic Salvino. They all responded in one unified voice, a hello and a lopsided grin snuck across my lips as they did this. Next, they began going around the room introducing themselves to me. I heard an Adam, Bazile, Jacques, Francois, Marcel, and a Vince. But don’t ask me who is who, because I’ll admit right now, I’ve no clue. As for the girls, it went, Noel, Jupiter, Claudia, Rose, Summer and of course, Raegan. Same for the girls, no clue if I had to put a name to a face, minus Raegan but that’s only because I met her earlier in a one-on-one setting.
Talk about a melting pot of cultures, an array of skin tones from pale ivory to the darkest ebony, a human rainbow, I thought to myself as a grin slipped across my face again. They welcomed me into the room, moved seats around their kitchen table so that I was able to join them and then I asked them the question that had been swirling around in my head since I had received the letter earlier; “why did you all want me to come here?”
All their heads turned towards Raegan, nominating her as their unofficial spokesperson for the conversation at hand. She offers me a timid smile. “After I met you, I spoke with my circle mates, and we had decided to help you fix your broken soul.” She keeps her eyes locked with mine to monitor my reaction.
I scoff at them, “my soul can’t be fixed unless you know how to bring my soul mate back from the dead!” Yeah, I may have responded a little too harshly, but I am permanently broken inside. They all just stared at me, shock settling into their eyes. So, with a heavy sigh, I explained; “you all know about the prophecy of the hunter who would turn into a witch, right?” I see confused looks in their eyes as they wondered why I was asking such a dumb thing, because there isn’t a witch on this earth who hasn’t been told about the prophecy while growing up.
“Well, my soul mate, Alina Hopkins was that witch.” I heard ooo’s and ahh’s from the group as I continued on. “And though she and I with our combined magic were able to bring light to dark, enlightenment to an entire culture with just a burst of our powers, something apparently wasn’t done right, and she died in my arms.” Tears fell from my eyes even though I was desperately trying to hold them in, and I used the back of my hands to brush them off my cheeks.
As I wiped them away, leaving me with red-rimmed eyes, Raegan comes over to me and takes my hand in hers. “Would you at least allow us to ease some of your pain?” I want to tell them not to bother, I’ve lost faith in everything I once believed in and therefore did not think they would be able to take any of this pain away. But what the hell, they can try if they want to. It won’t much matter to me if it doesn’t work, so I nod my head yes, giving them permission to do as they wish with me.
The long haired, willowy girl and another with mocha colored skin and black hair took my hands in theirs and led me to the center of the kitchen floor. They positioned me in what I realized would be the center of a circle and then all of them gathered around me.
The elements are called to action for protection within the circle, candles magically light themselves that had been placed intermittently around the room and then they all begin to chant. And let me tell you right now, I couldn’t make out one word of what they were saying. I think they were speaking a mixture of Creole and French. At one point I was told to breathe in deep and then exhale until there wasn’t an ounce of air left in my lungs. As I did this, I felt something push against me and then through me. It felt like something had suddenly been removed from me, like an invisible weight and then I was breathing again. My eyes grew wide in astonishment. Had they really just managed to mend a sliver of my soul, lessened the pain within my heart?