Our tainted hearts

Part one

The soft pitter patter of the rain had me dashing through the streets of Mantec in a breakneck speed. Curse me for not bringing an umbrella on the very same day a massive storm decided to hit the spooky town.

For the life of me I couldn't figure out why mom decided to hole up in a town like this. Yes, it was almost non existent in the map, but still she ought to have at least thought of some basic mundane facilities we would be lacking here. Such as freaking moderately fast  WiFi and some edible food serving restaurants! Not that I hated here.  It's just anyone can get bored easily in a town like this with the handful of things available to spend once spare time .

Besides, everybody knew each other practically their whole life in a tiny town as Mantec. Or most of it at least. It wasn't as if people were not going to talk. We needed secrecy, not the whole damn town breathing down our necks eager to catch a bit of gossip about our previous life.

But then again, mom never did something without a reason. Her every decision, move and action were calculated. Leaving no remorse or mistakes in her trail. And hence my only guess is that she had her own reasons for her choice.

I sighed loudly as I finally reached the corner of the street and the large looming mansion came into view making my thudding heart simmer down to a dull thump. You would think having a whole army of mystical beings trying to snatch a piece of my pathetic ass would persuade my mother to buy me a car. But of course.

I climbed the rickety steps of our front porch and inserted my key in the keyhole. The door open with its usual grown that hadn't been fixed since ever.
"Mom! I'm home!" I called out kicking the door shut with a loud thud. The wind blew away the curtains that were hung messily above the floor to ceiling windows obstructing my line of vision as I trotted to the back of the house where mom would usually work on her computer.

She was a mathematics teacher. The difference being she taught online, from home. To be honest, mom actually had a couple of interesting jobs the past years. This being my favourite so far. Starting her temporary career as a love guru for detached souls on the internet, teaching them little spells and concoctions to bring back the love of their lives. Of course mom hadn't actually used actual spells written down on all those ancestral books, some directly descended from goddess Hecate herself. But then again, these foolish love suckers believed in every lie fed upon them. To being an online shrink.  Oh and that one time she became an online prank caller and this other time she became a dating mediator in some stupid dating website. But this particular job where she taught little kids on how to solve two plus two, by far the least crazed and somewhat mundane job of hers. Even though it came with the pacakge deal of dealing with angry six year olds who sounded like a freaking tornado hit the town when they couldn't get the correct answer.  At least this time she didn't want to become a tarot reader for wannabe banshees.

"Izzy! I'm upstairs" she called back as I did a one eighty and climbed the spiral staircase that was on the verge of collapsing. Another one of those things mom was supposed to get fixed after we bought the ancient mansion.

"Mom?"I called out again, once I ascended the stairs. It was a freaking puzzle, figuring out in which room she was, due to the fact that our upper floor consisted of more than a few dozen rooms. Seventy five to be exact. And don't even get me started about the number of rooms on the first floor.

Walking slowly down the hallway towards the end of it where mom had declared one room as her office, I kept a keen eye on the mighty cobwebs that were in abundance around the house. As much as the though of cleaning the house crossed my mind, I was too much of a lazy pants in following through. It also had something to do with the fact that I had one hundred and twenty nine rooms to be cleaned if I ever wish to do so.