POWERS OF NATURE Book 1 - Into the Storm

Chapter 4

Sue looked out the kitchen windows when she heard Stephanie pull up and smiled. Her and Stephanie had a strong bond, it had always been just the two of them. She had noticed that her daughter hadn't been herself the last couple days since Sunday, but also knew that Stephanie would come to her when she was ready.

"Hey Mom!" Stephanie called out as she walked into the house before making her way up to her room. She was avoiding her mom, Matt's words still ringing in her ears. It had been 4 days since she had seen him, since he had told her that ridiculous story. But, as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't get it out of her mind. Her nightmares weren't helping. Every night was the same thing. She killed Matt. It was always a different scene, different place. But the end was always the same. The bad weather wasn't helping her mood either. Since Sunday, they'd had miserable weather with the news casters on TV saying summer was coming to an end a month early. That just made Stephanie question her sanity and Matt's story even more.

"Supper in an hour!" Her mom called up the stairs but Stephanie didn't answer, too lost in her thoughts. The whole week had been this way. Her friends weren't talking to her, saying she had changed. Her on and off boyfriend, Riley, hadn't even looked her way after she had blown him off on Monday at school. Not that she cared. Suddenly, everything that had seemed so important wasn't anymore.

Stephanie lay on her bed and trailed her fingers over the glass window, following the beads of rain as they ran down her window. She had spent most of her nights on the Internet, trying to find anything that would make sense of Matt's story but she couldn't find anything other than the news stories he had shown her. It didn't prove he was right, but it didn't exactly prove he was wrong either. There hadn't been any information on a car accident 17 years ago that fitted with his story about her, but again it didn't prove anything. Stephanie sighed in frustration. She had so many questions, but no one to ask. Asking her mom whether she was adopted or not seemed wrong. And besides, Sue was the only mother she knew, the only mother she had. It didn't matter either way.

Her phone beeped for the first time that week and she rolled over to grab it. As she did, it slipped out of her hand and fell onto the bed next to her, water beads on the back of it. Stunned, she looked at her hand and realised it was wet. Stephanie looked at the window she had been touching, and sure enough there was water on the inside. Any other time she would have put it down to the window having a crack in the glass.

Stephanie's heart beat wildly, as she stared at her hand. Was everything Matt said possible? The sensible part of her screamed no, that he was a mad man who needed help. The other part that remembered his blue gaze, his face, and the sincere way he seemed to care about her was telling her to rethink it all, to give him a little faith.

"Stephanie! Food!"

Stephanie jolted at the sound of her mom's voice, breaking her trance and she hastily wiped her hand on the bed. Picking up her phone, she saw a message from Mary.

'We need to talk. You've been distant and off this whole week. I left you to it, thinking you'd get over it. Tomorrow, before school. Pick me up.'

Stephanie knew she should reply, but she couldn't bring herself to want to talk to her friend. What could she say? 'Oh, I found out this guy I like has actually been sent to watch me because I've got the powers of nature.' Stephanie scoffed at herself. That sounded insane in her own mind.

"Stephanie!" Her mom's exasperated voice broke through her thoughts, again.

"Coming!" She yelled back and hastily typed a reply, just to say 'okay', and ran downstairs.

"Sorry, I was studying." Stephanie apologised lamely. Again, what could she really say? She needed to talk to someone, but who? Matt's name flitted through her mind and she cringed as she sat at the table, her mom's lasagne making her stomach rumble. She had told him to stay away and true to his word, he had.