Sleeping

Chapter Seventeen

“We did.” He spoke grimly. “Not immediately though. She still had a boyfriend when we met. But that night after the party, my father was away to talk to some immigrant dignitary and Iz went to sleep over at some friend’s house, and your mom got into fight with her boyfriend. He hit her. Broke one of her ribs. Ruptured an artery and a few organs. Internal bleeding. She had bruises all over her for weeks.”

He didn’t speak for a moment and I sat there in anger and shock. Mom… How could someone do that to her? She was so good-natured and kind. I thought of when she did me and May’s hair and make-up for our middle school graduation, her hands light and careful. She was like a bird, gentle and quiet. “Why?” I yelled. “Why would someone do that?”

He somehow managed to stay calm. “She told me they had started to fight over college. She was saying that they should break up when he went off to college at the end of the year—this all happened the first week of school of your mom’s junior year, her boyfriend’s senior. But he got angry. He took her into the woods and he started to beat her. He left her out in the woods, miles from home.

“Now, they had just dropped me off at our house, so my house was the closest. And she found our house. So I let her in, and we called an ambulance. But they took too long. They took hours, for whatever reason. I didn’t want to have to, but she was going to die, you know? I had to do something. So I used my powers.”

“What do you mean? We can heal people?” I wondered.

“No. We literally do have cold in our veins. I froze her body until the paramedics could get there.”

My eyes widened. “You what?”

“I froze her body. It stopped the bleeding.” Nathaniel leaned forward in his chair and grabbed my hands. “You have to understand. When you first got to our camp, they were rightly terrified of you. To them, you were an Isarian who had no knowledge of what she was. Any number of accidents could’ve happened. We’re powerful, and with great power—”

“—comes great responsibility. I know.” I finished for him.

“Yes,” He leaned back and grabbed a little white knick-knack. He tossed it to me saying, “I want you to freeze that.”

“Whoa, me? Freeze this? You’ve got to be kidding.” I scoffed.

“I’m serious, Snow. I have to know if you take after the Isari part of you, or the human.”

“Not until after you finish explaining.” I declared.

Nathaniel sighed. “Snow, I’ve been alive for over four centuries. I’m a very patient man. I can wait all day.”

I mulled that around in my mind for a moment before saying, “Fine. But we really need to finish talking.”

He nodded. “I know. Now focus. Close your eyes. Feel the way it feels in your palm. Is it smooth? Rough? Get it in your mind.”

I did as I was told and shut my eyes. I rubbed the surface, touching all the curves and jagged edges of the little statue until I had a firm visual of it in my head. “Okay, I got it.”

“Good. Now imagine it growing colder and colder—freezing.” I did. I thought about it covered in ice crystals. I felt something shift in the air around me, but I didn’t open my eyes. I can do this. I have to do this. I chanted in my head. The object began to feel icier and my grip on it started to slip. I started my mantra again. I can—

“Snow!”

My eyes flashed open just in time to see a long stick of ice protrude from the nearest wall and poke me in the cheek, drawing blood. I gasped and flinched back. The small statue fell out of my hands and crashed to the floor, shattering. The unexpected noise made me wince, and the icicles grew out a bit more.

I looked around my room. Pieces of ice stuck out from the walls, ceiling, and floor. Furniture was covered in a thin sheet of ice. My face was reflected in the frozen water hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

“I…did this?” I managed to squeal out between shaking breaths.

Nathaniel was looking around the room in amazement, though not as much as I was. He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’m surprised your powers have stayed dormant so long. I’m not sure why—I’ll have to look into that. I have a theory, but it’s not concrete enough to be worth mentioning. Has there ever been any times when you felt…oddly comfortable in the intense cold?” Nathaniel asked and messed with his earlobe, a nervous tick I’ve noticed a few times before.

I tried to recall a time when the cold made me feel…home. “When me and my friend—May—were in Minnesota. There had been a mix-up with our tickets when we went to Hawaii, where Mom was on set. We had dressed expecting to be in the middle of the Pacific.” I said. “Even tough-girl May was uncomfortable, though she would never admit it. Me, on the other hand, I was totally calm. And I used to always want to put the AC on, even in the middle of winter. And,” I paused.

“What?”

“Me and Mom once went up the mountains to a ski resort.” I swallowed. Only my mom and I knew what had happened. “One night, I woke up at about two in the morning and went outside, where there was a blizzard. I was out there for hours in my pajamas until Mom found me. I wasn’t cold at all.”

“And?” Nathaniel prodded, sensing I wasn’t fully done.

I continued. “And after that, she—my mom, I mean—was nervous all the time. Fidgety, secretive…and you would know just as well as I do, that’s totally un-Mom-ish. One week later, I was taken.” We were both silent. I shouldn’t finish the rest.

After another few beats of silence, Nathaniel said, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

I was quiet for a few moments, refusing to respond. Finally, I decided to say, “I know.”

~*~

Look at Snow, being all secretive and such. What is she thinking? Gah, I know precisely what she's talking about and the suspense is killing me! Wow, are we up to Chapter Seventeen already? It seems like only yesterday I joined Wattpad. 1050 words. Awesome! :)

Just to let you guys know, I probably won't post during November. NaNoWriMo! My NaNo book is about royal rich witches. Can't wait to write it and eventually post it on Wattpad. (After about five rounds of editing, of course. NaNoWriMo is to get a lot of writing done. Not to get a lot of good writing done!) If I do post, it'll probably be a short one.

Vote. Comment what you think will happen next. Tell your friends. :) Luv ya!

I'll be here all week, and don't forget to tip your waiters! :D