Two-Faced

Chapter 8

         The alarm beeped beside her, gradually getting louder as she turned to try to turn it off. She groaned, and finally got up. Glaring daggers at the device, she looked at the time. 8:00. Iris would be there in an hour and a half, if last week was any indication. Well, I'd better get ready...

         She got up from her bed carefully; her mom helped her up the stairs last night so she could have an alarm for the morning. Her feet still hurt, but not nearly as much. She walked with a limp though; her left foot still had a large gash that stung when she put pressure on it. She grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts and hastily changed. After brushing her hair, she made her way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing, to get breakfast. Trying to reach for the cereal in the top of the pantry, she nearly tripped over her own feet. Shaking her head, she steadied herself against the shelves and grabbed the box in the other hand.

         Still half asleep, she ate her breakfast and brushed her teeth. Just as she finished getting ready, she heard Mrs. White's car pull up the gravel driveway. She limped over to the door, opening it just Iris stepped up on the steps leading up to the covered porch.

         "Hey, look who's awake!" Iris laughed, nodding to Asriel as she motioned for her to come in. "Finally got a good night's sleep, huh?"

         "Well, better than last week," she shrugged, stepping aside to let Mrs. White in. "It's alright. Just getting used to everything. That's all."

         "It'll get better, I'm sure. Moving's hard," Mrs. White replied sympathetically. "I had to move a lot when I was little. It wasn't fun. But don't worry. This house is yours, as far as we're concerned, and it'll stay that way."

         Closing the door, she walked over to join them in the living room. "I can't thank you enough for this," she motioned around the room, towards everything they provided.

         "You're welcome, Asriel. It's our pleasure. I'm just glad that this house is getting some use out of it. It'd be a shame to just leave it abandoned, especially when someone could use it, don't you think?"

         "Yeah, I guess so," she smiled, sitting on the arm of the couch.

         She winced as she put her foot down to steady herself. Both Iris and her mom noticed her lower legs, still wrapped up in mesh gauze and bandages. A look of worry and horror flashed across their faces.

         "Az, what happened?!" Iris demanded, not taking her eyes off of the makeshift wrapping.

         Looking down at her leg, she rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "It's... a long story... The cuts are still healing, but to kind of hurts."

         "You need to be more careful! Oh, it must feel awful," Mrs. White looked the bandages over, making sure they were secure. "Well, you two be careful, alright? We don't want to put you in any more pain than you're already in."

         "Okay Mom, we'll be careful," Iris promised, and Asriel nodded.

         Smiling, she waved to the girls and left for work. As the door closed, Iris looked at her expectantly, but gave up when she was only met with a shrug. Without another word, she reached for the backpack she had dangling over her shoulder. A faded box was contained inside, along with a couple of candles. Placing them out on the wooden living room floor, away from the couch, she called Asriel over.

         "I did some reading on these things," Iris explained, motioning towards the box. "There's an old wooden board, and a planchette in there. On all the sites I've seen, it said you needed to burn candles, so I brought some of those too. That's all we need, but there were other warnings..." she trailed off, locking eyes with Asriel. "You have to promise that we will stop if anything starts going wrong. Okay?"