The Hidden Sun

Chapter XIII

After five minutes of complete silence I noticed my eyes drooping. Apparently I was really tired. The smooth touch of cold metal on my leg caused my eyes to fly open with a new alertness. So much for sleeping. I turned towards the person responsible with an anger in my eyes.

"You're welcome," he stated with a pointed look at whatever he placed on my leg.

I huffed and looked down. It was my phone. How did he get this?

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. "I found that in the bathroom."

Suddenly I noticed his harsh grip on the steering wheel. Like he was fighting off the urge to hit something. I could guess what else he found in the bathroom.

"I must have left it before I ran out," I explained meekly.

He took a deep breath, but didn't relax his grip.

"I handled the situation," I assured him. "Everything's fine. I'm fine."

He wouldn't look at me.

"I know it's not fair of me to ask, but what happened?" It had been a few minutes since I had spoken.

I could feel the need to tell him want to burst out of me, but I knew that I couldn't. He knew nothing about my life. A life I knew too little about in the first place. The words were on the tip of my tongue. There was no way I was going to utter them.

"Nothing," I lied. Even I could hear how pathetic my voice was. "I told you. I felt overwhelmed, so I decided to go for a run."

"In the middle of a Halloween dance?" he asked sarcastically.

I slid my eyes to the window and noticed he was pulling into my driveway. A second later I saw the curtains move and the unmistakable sight of Jessie opening the front door.

I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and unlocked the door so I could rush inside. Before I could, Chris lightly grabbed my arm.

"I'm glad you're not hurt, Ally," he voiced.

I looked straight into his eyes and was overwhelmed with how much tenderness there was. Suddenly I felt guilty. He was genuinely worried and I had lied to his face.

I took a shaky breath and turned away from him.

"I'm sorry," I whispered before climbing out of the car and running into the warmth of the house.

I didn't turn around to watch him drive back into the street. Instead I went straight into the living room and took residence on the big sofa.

I already knew Jessie would follow me, so when the cushion next to me sank, I knew it was her.

She didn't ask what happened- she knew I would tell her when I was ready. Instead she sat there with me while I finally let all of my fears out in the form of tears.

"It was a ten," I whispered sometime later.

That was code for really bad. When I was little, Jessie and I came up with a scale so that she could determine the seriousness of the situation. A one meant It was hormones and I wanted to be left alone, but a ten meant something life threatening happened. I had never used a ten before.

"What happened?" she asked frantically. "Are you hurt? Oh god. Alice, tell me you're alright." She was suddenly searching my body for injuries.

I quickly turned towards her and shook my head.

"I'm not hurt, Jessie." I paused a moment and watched as she calmed down a little bit. "There was a man at the dance.. and he knew who I was."

Jessie got up from the couch and started pacing. "I knew this would happen," she mumbled to herself.

I decided to just keep talking. "He tried to get me to drink some punch and when I didn't, he grabbed my arm. I ran to the bathroom and when he found me, he pulled out a pocket knife." The words were tumbling out now.

"He just kept talking about my sister and my family and how it was a game to kill us off. Like we were some sort of cattle. And when he finally got closer, I... I moved.. The water moved." I stopped and took a deep breath. "I mean you told me about the magic, I just didn't want to believe it. I never realized it would be me controlling nature. I thought it was just trees. Is it nature then? How does it work?"

Jessie finally stopped her pacing and took a step next to me again.

"Oh, honey. I'm so sorry," she said in that motherly voice of hers. "It must be your grandfather. He knows where we are, but we can't leave."

"Why not?"

"Well, when I left with you, no one knew where we were going. Not even your parents. The only thing they knew was where we were going to meet. We decided on meeting in this small town of New York around your 18th birthday. The plan was we would move here and wait for someone to pick us up. I know that things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to, but I have to have faith someone will come."

I knew I was supposed to have doubts at this point. I mean Jessie was placing our future in the hands of my dead parents. The truth of the matter was she believed in them and I believed in her. It didn't matter-if she thought someone was coming then so did I.

"Ok." I decided to store this information for later. "Tell me about the magic."

She smiled as much as she could under the circumstances. "Alright. Well there are two types of magic. Fiziki and Mentis. Fiziki is the physical aspect. The ability to manipulate fire, water, air, and earth. That's what you experienced.

"Mentis is considered mental magic. It includes reading minds, controlling emotions, changing memories, and moving objects. An Idan can only be one or the other. It's impossible to be both. As a child, one usually undergoes a test to see which side they are. It's also genetic. If you have two Mentis parents, you will also be Mentis. If you have one of each, there's a 50% chance you'll be either one. Not one side is stronger than the other. They have been equals for thousands of years."

I was silent as I let everything sink in.

"What were my parents," I finally asked.

"Your father was Fiziki and your mother was Mentis," she replied. "You obviously take after your father."

I couldn't help but smile at that. It was nice to hear. A phrase that had never been applied to me before. I take after my father. That simple fact was heart warming.

***

"So this is your solution?" I asked.

"Yup," Jessie replied. "I don't know what else to do."

We were in the middle of the woods. In front of us stood two mini campers and a port-a-potty.

"How are we supposed to shower?" I asked.

"About that... there's the community showers at the local campground. We can drive over there whenever we want."

"Why didn't we just stay in the campgrounds?" I asked for the hundredth time.

"It's too risky and you know that," she replied.

So Jessie's solution to the whole stalker problem was moving us to the middle of the woods. It was the last place anyone would think to find us apparently. We were about three miles from the school.

"At least we have a generator for electricity." She could try, but we both knew I was going to hate this either way.

"Come on," she whined. "It's only temporary. Haven't you ever wanted to go camping?"

Nope. Not now and not ever.