Shh... It's A Secret!

Prolouge I: My First Mistake

My name is Remilynn Eden. Dakota, Andrew, and I are triplets and the youngest siblings in our family. Kodi, Andi and Remi is what we like to be called because none of us really appreciate out parents' naming sense. We have a brother 2 years older than us and a sister 3 years older than us. Their names are Jakobe and Cosimia. Yeah... they prefer to be called Jak and Mia.  My parents are definitely interesting people.  To describe my parents in a word, it would have to be... crazy. Not insane crazy, more like eccentric crazy. They love exotic things to the point of being obsessed. They are also extremely rich so they have enough money to buy weird things that catch their eye or go on month long trips once a year to strange, obscure places for the heck of it. We live in California, and our house, well more like mansion, is full of crazy things they found. For example, the giant buddha statue in the garden or the piece of stone from some ancient ruin in the living room being used as a coffee table. My siblings and I are more normal. My brother Jak loves fighting. That may sound weird at first, but hear me out. Ever since I can remember, he has been taking karate and tae kwon do lessons. Now that he is 16 he is a black belt in both disciplines and started taking kung fu lessons. Despite his love for fighting, he is respectful and polite. My brother Andi on the other hand, is a piece of work. He is what you would call a delinquent. He enjoys brawling and often gets into trouble with Mom and Dad. He is pretty much surly and sarcastic to everyone except Kodi and I. He and Jak often get into arguments about witch way of fighting is better, disciplined or undisciplined. I think that if you get out the fight alive and unharmed, it doesn't matter how you do it. Anyway, my brothers are constantly arguing and because of that the house is usually noisy. And when I say arguing, in this case that means Andi snapping at Jak and Jak calmly responding or completely ignoring Andi. It is pretty funny to watch most of the time, but my sister Kodi disapproves of their little spats and demands that they stop. "Both of them" she insists. Kodi is the sports fanatic of the house. She can do any sport imaginable fairly well because she is really athletic, but she really loves basket ball the most. She is on the girl's varsity basket ball team at school despite being only a freshman. She is one the team's most valuable players. She is also the mom of the house when our parents are away. She is really strict, just like our actual mom mind you, but is really fun to be around anyway. My other sister is not fun to be around at all. Mia is into fashion. She follows the trends like a hawk and goes out and buys new cloths at the local mall every week it seems. It is probably less often than that, but it seems that often to me. At least once a month, she goes to our dad and asks him to take her to the more expensive stores. She knows that dad is less strict than mom so she asks him first. He usually says yes, especially if she promises to stop at an antique shop. He is so easy to bribe. My dad is easy going and loves cracking jokes at the dinner table even though they are so bad we ask him to stop every time. He is easy to get along with and if us kids have any problems we usually ask him for help. My mom is the opposite. She is very strict about the rules of our house and is always getting on Andi's case for his bad behavior. Even though she is strict, she isn't really that mean. She only gets mean in bad cases or if she is in a foul mood. I have only received this treatment a few times since I am the quiet one of the house and I rarely cause trouble. Just like everyone else in my family, there is something I am good at, better than anyone else.  My thing is school. I have always gotten good grades without trying because of my strong eidetic memory. An eidetic memory is like a photographic memory except it includes all the senses instead of just sight. I only knew this because I looked it up, I didn't tell my parents about it until my last year of elementary school because I was afraid they would send me far away for "better" schooling if they knew. It turns out I was right. They were very happy their daughter was so smart and talented so they sent me to a special boarding school in order to, "Nurture your amazing talent" as they explained to me. Ain's School for the Gifted as it was called, was a pompous international boarding school in Scotland and parents said I should feel honored that I was accepted.

It was the last week of elementary school and we were having final projects and tests, when I finally let the cat out of the bag at the dinner table. "So Remi," my mom stated, reaching for the pitcher of lemonade, "eidetic memory, huh." I nodded silently, cautiously watching my mom's mood. We were having a normal family dinner, when I suddenly blurted out that I had an eidetic memory. I had told Kodi and Andi a long time ago, despite our different interests and personalities we were really close. I shifted nervously in my chair and took a bite of sweet potatoes. I glanced across the room to where an ornately framed mirror was hanging on the wall. I stared, my reflection staring back at me. I was fairly pretty, with short black hair in a stylish hair cut and intelligent green eyes. I was pretty short for my age and I was also quite thin. I looked away from the mirror to the rest of the table, my dad had stopped talking with Jak and both were staring at me. My dad was pretty handsome with short black hair and blue eyes though he was more stocky than thin, and Jak inherited that trait along with his blue eyes. Jak however, had mom's blond hair just like Mia did. Mia stopped staring at the fashion magazine she brought to the table long enough to give me a raised eye brows look before training her green eyes on the page once again. I glanced in the other direction to where my mom, Kodi, and Andi sat. My mom looked at me expectantly, surprisingly not angry, but... happy?...excited? For once I couldn't tell because I was bewildered with the lack of anger in her response. I cleared my throat awkwardly and looked back down at my plate, shuffling my food around. "Remi..." I looked up quickly as Kodi spoke out , her blue eyes flashing in warning. Both Kodi and Andi had black hair like dad and I, but Andi had mom's green eyes like me. All the siblings besides Jak had mom's slight build as well. I sighed and put fork down. I shifted my gaze over to my mom and said in a clear tone, "Yes that's right, I have an eidetic memory." My hands gripped the silk table cloth, shaking slightly, as I waited for mom to answer. I barely resisted gaping when my mom grinned. Relief washed over me, I was glad she wasn't mad at me for keeping a secret from her for so long. "That's so cool Remi!" She said excitedly,"Is that why your so good at school?" I grinned, if my mom was happy, I was happy. Even if was strict sometimes, I still loved her a lot. "Yeah!" I said, all anxiety gone. "It really helps in my school work. All I have to do is see something once and I remember it." We all chattered excitedly about eidetic memory and the rest of dinner was a happy affair. It wasn't until school was out for the summer that my mom suggested that I go to Ain's School for the Gifted. I blatantly refused at first to go so far from Kodi and Andi, I mean this is Scotland we are talking about! But over the summer my parents and surprisingly Mia, worked hard to convince me to go. When fall finally came, I was on a plane on my way to Scotland. Giving in to my parents and traveling to Scotland was my first mistake that set the series of unfortunate events into motion.  If I had just said no, I wouldn't have landed my current occupation.