Anima's Ghost: The Summer Before (Song Line Echoes, book 2)

Chapter 14: An Unexpected Addition

I don't want to open my eyes. If I do, I have to face the world, face the reality of how effectively my paradise has been destroyed by Jared. Again. He destroyed what was left of my family and now he's coming to tear apart what little I have left. Tell the boys how damaged I am, make them realize they don't want me around after all.

I don't want open my eyes. I don't want to face what's going to happen. I don't want to be around people and have to act like everything's going to be alright. But Leylina whines at the door because she needs to go outside, and I can't ignore that.

So I drag myself out of bed and I brush my hair, but braiding it is more work than I can handle right now. So I leave it loose and open the door for Leylina so she can trot ahead of me downstairs and to the back door. I hear either Spyro or Grandma Powell opening the door for her before I get that far, and I stop halfway down the stairs. Leylina's taken care of. I could just go back to my room. Maybe even back to bed.

Except it's not my room. I'm a guest in Grandma Powell's house. Soon I won't be able to sleep there at all. Sooner than I planned. And as a guest, it would be rude not to go downstairs.

So I continue down the stairs and go to the dining room, where Grandma Powell's usually getting ready to put out breakfast by now. Except Grandma Powell's not in the kitchen, and for the first time I realize that I don't smell any kind of food like I normally do. Through one of the front windows, I can see that Spyro's truck is the only vehicle in the driveway. Through the back door, I can see Spyro sitting in a chair on the back patio. And even though the house somehow feels so big and empty and quiet, it's kind of a relief to not have to face anything quite yet. Not really.

I go back to the hallway where the stairs are, but I don't go back upstairs. I go to the nook under the stairs, where an old couch is tucked away under a wall of family photographs. Pictures of Spyro all through growing up. Of his parents and Grandma Powell and her husband. Pictures of Spyro, Gatsby and Borden as little kids, of their families all together. Then Daisy and Rune join in when they're middle school age. There are pictures of all the boys at Waverly Academy, but only one with all of them in it at once, including the extra boy that I haven't met. That I'll probably never meet.

Generations of lives hung up here, in no apparent order. The Calliwells were part of the Five Families, known for being the biggest and closest. Maybe technically we're still the biggest, with hundreds of members stretched out all over the country. But doesn't matter because we don't all come together for holidays, weddings and funerals anymore. So maybe we're not really one of the five families anymore. Or maybe we are, but now we're just known for being the most broken. The one filled with the most scandal.

Ironic, really. That probably should have been the Bordens.

"Good morning," Spyro says. I didn't hear him come back inside. "Did you start packing yet?"

I shake my head, but I can't make myself look at him. It won't take me long to pack anyway. I didn't bring very much with me to begin with.

"Okay, you do that and I'll pack the food. We'll head out to the warehouse in half an hour. Is Leylina coming?"

I look at him now, not quite understanding what he's talking about. It takes me a minute to realize that it's the camping trip. That he still means for me to go with them on the camping trip. "Is...is that okay?"

"If she comes? Yeah," Spyro says, as if it's obvious. "Are you okay?"

I nod, because there's no other answer I can really give him. He frowns, as if he knows I'm hiding something. I think he's about to ask, but his cell phone rings and that distracts him. "There are cinnamon rolls in the oven," he goes back to the living room to get his phone and answer it.