The Shamrock Killer

Chapter Ten: Reveal

Days slipped into weeks and weeks slipped into months. The weather turned colder, and the leaves began to change from their early green to bright colors. There was a note of anticipation in the air, a spark of something to come.

I was losing sleep constantly and because of this, my grades were nonexistent, and I had little appetite for food. My appearance was dismal, with my face constantly a pallid shade of white and my hair very lank and brittle. In short, I looked like a zombie, or even worse, I more resembled my dreaded doppelganger more than ever: Morrigan. 

I was currently curled up in my bed in my dark room, devoid of light, the only place where I felt safe anymore. A few months ago, I would have countered my own logic and said that the light was where I belonged, but strangely enough, the dark didn't seem to bother me as much anymore. 

Sincer I rarely left my house anymore, I no longer felt the prickly feeling on my skin foreshadowing the appearance of a death or murder. I avoided the funeral home at all costs and relied on melatonin to sink me into a dreamless sleep. The murders continued to haunt my everyday life on a subatomic level. 

I buried my face into my pillow and breathed deeply in the lavender scent, hoping it would calm me. It was a restless Sunday afternoon, and the wind was whipping the branches above my sky light around furiously. 

I had also avoided contact with Rory and Declan to the best of my abilities, but I knew that I couldn't stay away from them forever. Ever since our last conversation crashed and burned and I realized that they thought I was crazy, and in truth I was paranoid, I just hadn't wanted to see them or talk to them. I hadn't returned Rory's texts and since he hadn't made any attempts to build back the bridge he had burned in our last conversation, I hadn't bothered either. I was just trying to keep myself from dying. 

I pushed myself off of my bed posts and stumbled my way to my bathroom, feeling quite dizzy. I reached out to catch myself from falling on my sink and got a quick glimpse of myself in my mirror. I looked like a mess - a disaster, even - and not a hot one at that. I splashed some water on my face and considered what I could to do to resume the normal course my life was on before...before I started finding murdered people. 

A knock on my door quickly shook me out of my thoughts. I flipped my head around and stared. The knock had sent my heart into a quick pace. 

"Maureen?" One of the triplets. My heartbeat slowed down slightly. 

"Yeah, what's up?" I tried to shake away the sharp edge in my voice but that had come naturally to me lately. 

"Mum needs you for something. You need to come downstairs." I heard the heavy stomping on the landing that cued that one of them, I hadn't been able to distinguish which, one of the triplets that gone back downstairs. Probably to the basement, where their "man cave" was aka gaming room. 

I breathed out and in and quickly combed back my hair into a ponytail that looked sort of presentable. In doing so I had unknowingly also combed out quite a bit of hair and I winced when it floated around my fingers. Was this healthy? 

I went out of my room and down the stairs, guessing that Mum was in the kitchen. Sun was starting to stream through the clouds and illuminated the stained-glass window in the foyer as I passed, sending rosy streaks my direction. I shivered deeply, disturbed at how the first resemblance to them that had crossed my mind was that of blood. 

I turned the corner, my shoulders hunched in and caving over my sunken face. I winced as the brightness from the overhead light hit my face and I unknowingly shifted so that my hair fell, covering my face. I caught my mother's disapproving face out of the corner of my eye, and I quietly slid into one of the kitchen chairs while I waited to see what she would say. Whatever it was, I'm sure I wouldn't like it.