"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter Five: Grounded
(The Weirdo On Maple Street)
***
Alistair knew the moment he snuck back in that he was in trouble.
The boy closed his window, and turned to his bedroom door. There was a chink of light underneath it, and he could see shadows moving. Plural.
Steeling himself for the tirade to come and ignoring the woman with the slit throat and blood pouring down her eighteenth-century dress staring at him from the corner, he opened the door and walked out to meet his sister and aunt's wrath.
As he did, images of the girl in the woods, the girl Alistair knew in his bones had powers, flashed before his eyes; after she had stumbled onto them, Mike, Lucas and Dustin had taken the girl to Mike's home, and while he wanted to join them, Alistair knew due to the weather that Rowan and Aunt Aco would be home, and if he wasn't home...
Though, judging by the way the lights flickered and the overall tension inside the home, they must have discovered he wasn't home.
When he entered the living space, saw the dark looks on Rowan and Aunt Aco's faces, Alistair knew without a shadow of a doubt he was in deep shit.
So he hunched his shoulders, and braced himself for the lecture and punishment to come.
***
Rowan was angry.
No, angry seemed too mild a word. She was furious, incensed, livid, positively enraged. Alistair, her little brother, the only close family she had left aside from their aunt, had snuck out, into the woods, at night, alone. Right after he promised he would stay here.
She wanted to scream, yell, cry, throw something or electrify something. But more than anything, she wanted to pull Alistair into her tightest, most bone-breaking hug ever, and never let go after being so fucking terrified she was never gonna see her little brother again.
Her aunt seemed to be going through a similar emotional roulette, but she settled on anger as she said in a tight voice, "Sit down."
Alistair complied, squirming, looking a little bit guilty. Good. He should be. He was shivering, his curls dripping water, his whole body dripping water. Jesus, had he been caught in the storm? Why hadn't he turned back immediately after it broke?
However, her questions weren't voiced as her aunt hissed, "Alistair Nathanial Graveswood, where the hell were you?"
Alistair and Rowan winced; when the full name came, you knew you were in trouble. Alistair looked down, gripping his seat as he mumbled, "I was at Mirkwood."
