Journeys in Myyttinen

Chapter One

And so my story begins. It was a cool October night, about a week before Halloween. I had been walking home from school and had arrived in front of my house when I heard the screams. The screams coming from inside. I panicked and ran in trying to find the source.

"Mom!" I screamed.

The reply was another round of screams. I felt panic surge through me. I scrambled up the stairs desperate to find her. And I did. She was lying in the hallway at the top of the stairs. There was a hooded figure walking towards her. She turned to me and screamed, "Go Cassie! Get Helen and go!"

I turned and ran. Even now, I knew that I had to get my little sister, Helen, and go like she said. And when I glanced back? She was gone. Just...gone. So was the hooded figure. And I kept running. Out onto the street and back to the school. I ran inside and, although I shamefully admit this, I fainted. This wasn't my best moment.

When I came to, the police were there. They were asking me if I knew where my mom was. I told them. They figured most of my story had been because "I was in shock" but I knew better. I also knew I needed my sister.

"Where's Helen?" I gasped.

"Right here!" Helen said charging towards me and falling into my arms. I let out a sigh of relief.

The police took us back to the station where we were for a few hours before they brought us back home to gather our stuff.
They explained that we would be going to stay with our uncle and would be leaving on a plane in a few hours. This hours passed in a blur and before I knew it we were on this plane. On our way to an uncle we had never even met.

I'm writing this information down for you, so I'll pause and explain who I am, while I still have time. My name is Cassandra after the woman in Greek mythology who was blessed with the ability to see into the future, but cursed so that no one would believe her. I'm fifteen years old with long, wavy, reddish-brown hair and green eyes. My younger sister, Helen (after Helen of Troy, what can I say my mother had a thing for Greek mythology) is ten and looks like my mother with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes.

My father died when I was five in a fire at his work, before Helen was born. I remember bits and pieces of him, like that he was a journalist and loved to read and cook. He was also kind-hearted. It sounds cheesy but it was true, he wouldn't hurt a fly. My mother never remarried after his death and raised my sister and me on her own. We move around a lot depending on where my mother's job takes her. She's one of the top nurses in the country so she goes to all these conferences and such. It gets hard moving from school to school and trying to fit in.

That's the thing about me. I never really did fit in. I tried to hide how smart, but everyone always found out in the end. They called me names, shoved me around. It wasn't my fault I was in the smartest one percent in the world. I didn't even understand how. It's not like I worked outside of school or anything, things just came to me. I just knew. Someone could ask me any question and the answer would just pop into my brain. I never told anyone about this, not even my mom. Now, I wish I had.

My head was buzzing from the day's events. It had all happenedso fast. One moment my mom was here and now she was...gone. It was the first time that day that it had truly sunken in. I felt the tears begin to escape my eyes. I glanced over at Helen, who was fast asleep. She had cried earlier, at the police station. I remember her - so small and defeated in the plastic chair. Understanding. Understanding what had happened before me. I put my face in my hands. We were going to live with an uncle in Kansas who we had never met. Suddenly, I remembered a phone conversation I had overheard my mother having shortly after my father's death:

My mother had been standing next to the sink, staring out into the yard, listening to what the person on the other line was saying.

"I don't want her getting caught up in this, Henry! She is too young!"

She paused again: listening.

"No, listen: I don't them to end up like he did. They are safer this way. They won't know and they will be happy. Nothing will ever come! Trouble will only come if we go looking for it! I'll raise her and her sister as the normal children we should have been. And, I'm sorry, but you won't be able to visit. It-it'll just be too risky. I know you will understand in the end. And if trouble does find us? They will go to live with you and hopefully they will be old enough to understand. And then you will train them. Good-bye."

She hung up the phone and a five year-old me waddled towards her, "Who was that, Mommy?"

"Nobody, darling," She says as she picks me up in her arms, "It's all okay for now, Cassie."

I snapped out of it from Helen shaking me.

"We're landing, Cassie!" She said.

I was glad the flight was over. Helen and I followed the other passengers off the plane. Except, when we got off the other passengers weren't there. Neither was the airport. Or the plane. I wasn't sure what was going on.

One thing was for certain, Helen and I weren't in Kansas anymore.