Destiny: The Winx Saga {Parallel storyline}

Chapter 4: Control or be Controlled

{Aura}

I walked through the front door of our cottage to find my mother and father waiting.

"Where have you been?" my father asked. His arms were crossed, one leg over the other as he sunk into an armchair. My mother hovered by the living room entrance. Our house was so cramped it took me all of two steps to enter her embrace. I moved past her another step and kissed my father on his balding forehead.

"Dad, school only let out twenty minutes ago. It takes me fifteen to walk home." Fifteen minutes by the regular roads. It takes only five via the shortcut through the forest. But they didn't need to know that.

My dad sighed and closed his eyes, dropping his head back onto the plush chair. I stroked his thinning hair and pushed his glasses back into place. "I forgot. You're right," he said, his voice weak.

"What happened during those other five minutes?" My mother demanded, narrowing her eyes.

"I was talking to Millie, mum. I'm not some criminal mastermind." I was used to her worry coming across as accusations. "Why are you both home? Did you not go to work today?"

"We came home early to wait for you. We were concerned about your first day back." My father said, reaching out to hold my hand. "What did the principal have to say?"

I really, really wished Mr. Yan hadn't called yesterday. He could have just found me in class today and saved us all the extra trouble.

My parents looked at me expectantly. I didn't want to tell them. Though if I didn't they would call Mr. Yan to find the answer themselves.

"They don't want me at the school anymore. They want me to attend Alfea." I played with a fraying patch on my father's armchair. "They said it would be better if I went there."

"No," my father said quietly, a hand raising to cover his brow. "No. No!" He breathed unevenly, as if he were being strangled. "They can't tell you to leave. You have every right to attend that school like every other student. One incident, one incident. And they deem you unsafe?!"

I stood there silently and watched him work through his distress. Fingers moved from brow to the top of his head, standing up what few hairs were left up there.

"This is a convenient way for them to get rid of you. Not that they even know in the slightest what they are losing. You are the most gifted, talented, controlled fairy that has ever attended that lousy school." Lousy – that was harsh by my dad's standards.

His hands moved from top of head to grasp mine. They shook so I squeezed them. I worried about his condition, if the stress would aggravate it. "They can't get kick you out, Aura. They have no legitimate reason. You aren't a danger to anyone. Don't let them bully you into leaving. Alfea was their one and only play."

His body was so fragile hunched over in the chair. If I told him more could his heart take it? Could his lungs manage the increased breaths?

"The headmistress called me. Headmistress Dowling. She said that it's clear I have an immense power. She said she can help me control it, to hone it. She said if I don't accept now it's only a matter of time before something else like this happens again. And when it does, Alfea will be open to me." As if one way or another they'll get me.

My mother, standing in the shadows of the entryway had been silent up until now.

"They want to use you!" she hissed. "Anyone can ask your teachers to know you don't have a control problem. Don't let her confuse you, Aura. You don't need help, and they know it. They want to use you. Abuse your power." She laughed darkly. "They hone the powers of their students for their own motives, so that they have a key, an inside man, to control the governing bodies of the otherworld. They brainwash you to feel a sense of duty and honour towards their warped ideas. They won't help you with control Aura. They will control you."

I sat on the floor next to my father's chair while my mother seethed, not leaving the shadowed doorway. I had heard all this before. My mother had nothing good to say about that school. She had attended Alfea herself when she was a student. Back then it was under the former headmistress, Rosalind. She left though, two years in. She never told me why, exactly.

My dad broke the silence, "I think we might have to talk with your principal."

"No, Dad. Please don't. Like you said, they can't do anything. They can't make me go."

"No, they can't." He leaned over to embrace me in his arms, and I felt the soothing repetition of his hands on my hair. I leaned into his frail hug, not wanting to leave his circle of warmth. He held me closer – my chest was crushed against his, my ribs ached in protest. I moved away to break the hug, but he held on with a strength that contradicted his thin, feeble arms.

"Dad, what-?"

"Aura, Aura. It's not safe," he whispered urgently in my ear. "It's not safe for you out there. You can't go to that school, you mustn't go, Aura."

He broke the hug, holding me back by his arms to look me in the eye. I filled my lungs with air, feeling the slow expanse, and opened my mouth to speak when I stopped at the look of hysteria in his eyes. It was unnerving, seeing a parent look that way – like he feared he could not save me.

"If they found out about you..." he muttered anxiously, "There's no telling what would happen if anyone knew. You haven't told anyone, Aura, have you? You can't tell anyone. Promise me." I knew exactly what he was talking about, and it wasn't related to the incident in the meadow.

"Dad I promise. I haven't told anyone." It was drilled into me since childhood. If I told anyone then I wouldn't be safe anymore. If Alfea found out... well I didn't want to think about it.

"You're special, Aura." My dad whispered. "Special is dangerous."

The hairs on my arm prickled as my father's fear seeped into me, moving slow, but thick and sticky like molasses, covering everything in its path. I knew Alfea was a bad idea, and his reaction confirmed it. No one could make me go. I would stay at home where I would be safe. Where no one would find out.

My mother petted my hair and left to go cook dinner, taking her wrath with her. I stayed with my dad in our tiny living room, moving to the armchair beside him.

Both of us read books on elemental magic and later we'd have our lesson. Every night for as long as I could remember I had a magic lesson with my dad. The school had made me doubt if I was really in control, but back in the comfort of my home I was able to think clearly again. I had mastered control as a child under the tutelage of my father. It was second nature now.

Except for last week. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It replayed over and over again in my head every time I closed my eyes. An image of a dark meadow barely visible by the faint glow of a cloudy quarter-moon. The rushing of the dark river beneath the ledge behind me.

The sight of the dead.

I shuddered and fought back tears. I had cried enough already. Screamed enough already. Lost too much sleep and slept too much already.

I resolved to myself that what happened that night would be the one and only time I ever lost control. I would not let it happen again.

I couldn't.