Thaumaturgy

B e f o r e

     There are two things that I, Declan Faulkner, am absolutely sure of. One, waking up at the ass crack of dawn is pretty much the equivalent of being butchered. And two, I'd much rather get butchered than be awake right now. With a groan, I rolled over and slammed my hand down on my phone, silencing the alarm.

4:31am.

     It shouldn't be legal to be up before the sun. There's only two people I know that actually enjoy waking this early—this old, grumpy cat lady Bertha, who likes to scream at me and wag her stumpy finger when I walk by her creepy house with my dog Sambo, and my twin brother Ben. The latter being the reason I am currently trying to smother myself with my pillow. Last week when my brother mentioned he wanted to go hiking, it seemed like an okay idea. Nature is cool and all, I'm not much for exercising but I'd deal. Until he said we had to drive four hours to get there. Meaning we had to wake up at an ungodly hour to get there at a "decent time". Our ideas of a decent time are two very different things.

     Nonetheless, I dragged my tired body from my warm and cozy bed and into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. There is no way in hell I could survive hiking without an insane amount of caffeine. There's no way Id be able to survive a four hour car ride with stupid Benjamin either. His music taste is horrendous.

     By the time I finished the coffee, showered and got dressed, Ben was pounding on the door saying my name repeatedly. "Declan, Declan, Dec, Deckers, Dick. It's almost 5:30. ANSWER THE DAMN DO-" I cut him off when I swung open the door, glaring at him. "I do have neighbors, you know." I rolled my eyes, opening the door wider so he could come in.

     "Oh, you mean your creepy witch friend?" he said with a smirk. I shoved his shoulder, making him stumble backwards. "Oh, shut up. He has a name and it's Jude. And he isn't a witch. I don't even know where you got that idea from." I kept the scowl on my face as I trudged towards my room to grab the backpack I filled with water and snacks. I could hear him laughing as I walked away, increasing my annoyance.

     "Keep it up and you'll be going hiking alone." I started to say, walking back into the living room. "And you know what happens to people when they hike alone. They get murdered. Murdered by those creepy incest people from Wrong Turn. Or malled by bears—I know how much you love bears!" His smile faltered at that. Ever since we were kids, he's been afraid of bears. He says it's because he watched a documentary about bears in the wild and he knows just how vicious they can be, but I know it's because I told him his hamster, Gil, was eaten by a bear. Which now that I think of it, probably triggered the nightmares he used to have about being attacked by a bear. I shrugged, glancing back towards Ben.

The huge grin on his face showed that he had long forgotten about bears. "I have a surprise and you're totally going to freak when I tell you." We made our way out my front door and into the musty hallway. The building I lived wasn't particularly gross, but it wasn't the fanciest home either. The floorboard creaked, my ceiling above the toilet leaked, and sometimes there was an odd smell, like burning hair. But the windows are huge and they let in so much light, it's beautiful. Ben says it's haunted. He swears he saw a little boy sitting on the couch one night. What he doesn't know is that I had been babysitting one of my neighbors kids and Ben had a little too much to drink that night. But I let him believe what he saw was a ghost and not a 5 year old boy named Max who lives down the hall.  He now refuses to stay over anymore.

"Tell me." I demanded. He knows how much I hate surprises, but of course he shook his head at me and kept walking. I groaned and stomped after him.
"Why are you like this?"

     Once we were in the car and pulling onto the highway, Ben glanced at me expectantly. "Well, aren't you going to ask me what the surprise is?" I looked over at him, giving him a disgusting look. "Bro, the fuck? I did and you ignored me." He gave me a pointed look, "You didn't ask, you told." I examined him. His dark hair that matched mine was hiding under an old, red baseball cap which was twisted backwards, and he was dressed in athletic shorts and a blue Dunder Mifflin shirt I bought him this year for his nineteenth birthday. Unsurprisingly, he bought he the same shirt for mine. It's a weird twin thing.

"Just tell me, you ass." He laughed again and glanced at me again.

"Cliff diving."

•••••

It's rough and lame and shitty but i hope some people enjoy it! i'm so excited to get this books started!!!!