Captivated

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

After that vision, I was even more confused about my history than before. If I hadn’t been stolen and then returned to my parents, why wasn’t I living in the castle that I’d seen? It had obviously been my home.

Where had Kyren gone, and how did he get here, in the same place that I did?

Kyren had left my house, even more confused than I was, because for his entire life he had thought that I was stolen from him on that night, not the other way around. As I wondered about the vision and tried to figure out what it could possibly mean, my phone began to sing Lynn’s ringtone. I listened to the song absently before answering. “Hey Lynn.” She replied brightly. “You forgot that it’s Friday, didn’t you?” I wracked my brain for what was so important about Friday, not remembering until I heard Becca’s voice in the background.

“I told you that she’d forget.” I ran to my calendar and stared darkly at the day I’d circled. Today was the day that Lynn and Becca were arriving for their Canadian experience.

Lynn called me back from where I was trying to cause the calendar to not exist anymore. “Ash, its fine that you forgot, just know that we’re about an hour away.” I quickly glanced around my room. Clothes were strewn around the floor and my books were everywhere.

“Yeah, I’ll be ready.” I snapped the phone shut and scrambled to clean my room at warp speed.

Finally, an hour later Lynn and Becca were walking through my front door holding suitcases that looked as if they carried the entirety of their lives. Lynn had never been one to over pack, but I guessed that was just one of the things that had changed about her, along with the fact that she was exactly like Becca now: wearing entirely too much pink and giggling at everything.

I could have told her that I’d killed a puppy, but she and Becca would just share a look as though they had an inside joke about it, and burst into laughter.

I showed them my room, and their giant suitcases thudded to the floor at the sight of my now clean, immense suite. “You live in here?” Lynn breathed. I nodded. “Yup. I love it.” Becca smiled at me, and not in a friendly way. “It’s too bad that you moved all the way to Canada. Poor Lynn will have to be satisfied with my room every weekend, instead of this gorgeous place.”

I pretended to not hear the malicious tone that she was using. “Every weekend hey? You guys must be close.” Lynn put her arm around Becca and gave her a side hug. “Yeah well, when your best friend moves to another country, you’ve got to find someone to keep you company.” It wasn’t my fault that my parents had decided to uproot me! Becca grinned. “And that someone was me. No offense but I’m glad you moved away. If you hadn’t, Lynn and I wouldn’t be friends.” And you wouldn’t be here, I thought. I smiled. This was going to be an interesting night.

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Lynn and Becca were up half the night talking to each other about things back in Morris, and I was very proud of myself when I awoke to realize that I hadn’t strangled Becca in her sleep. Every chance she got, she was rubbing it in my face that I had moved away and barely got to see Lynn, but she could see her whenever she wanted. I was going to have a hard time not abandoning her in the woods outside my house.

As I showed them around the rest of the house and yard, both Lynn and Becca would stare wide eyed at the enormity of the place. Thankfully, in those moments of wide eyed staring, Becca shut up. I tried to show them the most impressive things I could, in order to distract Becca from talking.

Eventually though, I ran out of things to show them. “I want to meet all your new friends!” Lynn chirped at the end of the tour. “Me too! Especially Kyren.” Becca grinned slyly. I tried to ignore Becca’s suggestive tone. “I’m sure they’d love to meet you guys too.”