Soured Honey

Chapter Three

I barely hear Asher trying to talk to me over my own screaming. I stare at my reflection in his mirror in complete shock and horror. Horns. I have horns protruding from the top of my head. Thick, curled, black horns that can't  be less than a foot and a half long. And my teeth— oh my gosh, my teeth. My teeth have grown into long, sharp triangles. I look terrifying. Like some kind of creature from Hell. Like a demon.
      My heart's pounding so fast and loud it feels as if it's going to explode. My chest hurts and my head's spinning. It's hard to breath. And to see. Everything's blurry. I need to move closer to the mirror, to make sure I'm not seeing things. I try to take a step but the walls warp, leaning towards me then spinning away. I think I see Asher reach out for me, but before I can be sure, I feel my body press onto the floor, my head hitting against the carpet. I think I hear a voice call out and hands grip my body before the light slips away and all there is is darkness.

Thud.
     My eyes flutter open to the sound of a girl muttering. As I sit up, a splitting pain rushes through my head. "Ow," I groan. I hear a scuffle from the foot of the bed I'm in, so curiously I crawl to the edge to see what's there, and I'm greeted by a girl sprawled out on the hardwood floor, looking up at me.
     The girl has messy, charcoal colored, chin length hair with emerald green tips. She has a circular face and intelligent, brown, almond shaped eyes. Despite her disheveled look and flushed face, she's quite pretty. And for some reason she seemed familiar. Her beautiful olive-colored skin reminds me of my acne ridden face and I suddenly become self-aware of my own appearance.
     I can already tell without the use of a mirror that my golden hair is a complete disaster, strands sticking out in every direction. My outfit looks even worse. I'm wearing a baggy cotton colored shirt and matching sweatpants. I go to adjust my shirt and I notice bandages wrapped around my hands— I have no idea what for. The clothes are comfortable— I just wish I didn't look like some sort of prison inmate.
     "Honey," the girl croaks in a tight voice. She scrambles to her feet, picking up a syringe from the floor that I hadn't noticed before. She brushes off her jeans and straightens her jacket which is decorated with colorful patterns and many zippers. When she finished fixing her clothes, she looked back at me.
    "Who are you?" I ask her.
     "Adelaide," she replies. "I'm Adelaide Logans."
      Logans. That's why she's familiar. She's Mrs. Logans daughter, and in my grade. I don't have any classes with her, so I don't see her very much, but I've seen some of her work in art shows. She displays beautiful and vibrant drawings that I didn't think a ninth-grader capable of. I notice that she tends to keep to herself in the halls— I never really see her with anyone. But now she's here talking to me.
      "Why am I here? Why are you here?" I throw the questions at her. "Where is here, anyway?"
      "I'm guessing you don't remember." Adelaide glances at the door behind her and then at the syringe in her hand. "Well, Asher did say that you hit your head pretty hard."
     "Asher?" I feel my heart leap into my throat at the mention of his name. "Where is he—"
     Now I remember. Now I remember standing with Asher in his room. I remember his story of The Above, The In Between, and The Below. Him telling me about my father being in Aevyn. The horns, the gashes in my palms, my teeth. Me collapsing. I remember it all.
     I finally realize the purpose for the bandages around my hands— surely to cover the gashes where my once talon-like nails had penetrated. I stare at my hands, letting the feeling of bitterness over-take me, remembering how I felt betrayed by Asher.
     Asher. My best friend— my only friend. He kept all of that from me since fourth grade. He had never kept something from me. We shared everything with each other. We knew each other's deepest and darkest secrets. At least, I thought that was mutual. That little—
     "Ow!" I look up and see Adelaide had injected something into my arm. My eyes flicker to the needle. God I hate needles. I rub my shoulder at the injection site. "Why did you do that?" I shriek. "What did you just inject into me?"
      "You were getting worked up," she says, replacing the protective cap over the needle. "The apothecaries and my mom in the infirmary came up with this formula to act as a sedative against some of the demon blood in your system. The newly activated demon blood made you stay unconscious for longer than you should have. That's also why your horns and teeth appeared when Asher explained Ayven to you."
    "What do you mean 'demon blood'?" I demand. "Asher said that my family was Aevyn. And how long, exactly, was I unconscious?"
      She furrows her arched brows, as if pondering my questions. "I think my mom would want to answer your first question. And as for how long you've been unconscious, it's been fourteen days."
      "Thir—" I start, but a familiar voice interrupts me.
      "Addie, sweetie, what's taking so long?"
       Adelaide and I turn to the door just in time to see Mrs. Logans enter. Her gaze falls upon me and her eyes lit up. "Honey!" she says cheerily. "You're awake! How wonderful. Your father and I have been worried about you. He's down stairs in the common room. I'll tell him and Asher you're awake."
       She turns to Adelaide. I  "Adelaide, why don't you show Honey around and get her a fresh set of clothes? We'll all meet in the infirmary in and hour so we can do a proper check on Honey's health and condition."
       Adelaide nods and Mrs. Logans winks at me before exiting the room, the clicking of her heels on the floor being the last trace of her ever being there.
      I turn back to Adelaide. "You and your mom are mages from Aevyn then, too," I state rather than ask.
     "Yep," she nods. She steps over to a closer door to the left of the room and opens it, revealing a vast closet filled with dozens upon dozens of clothes. "I'll help you pick out an outfit. And then I'll show you to the shower room. No offense, but you've been in that one for far too long, and you reek."
     "Do I?" I respond sarcastically, carefully slipping out of the bed. "I would've thought that after two weeks I would've smelled better than a bouquet of roses."
      Her lips curl into a small smile, revealing perfect, pearly teeth. "Very funny."
      I make my way over to the closet, studying Adelaide. She's looks to be only a few inches taller than me— curse my short family genes. I don't know her well, but in the seven minutes I've been with her in which she's appeared on the floor, injected my with some unknown chemical, and pointed out my unpleasant scent, I kind of like her. She's pretty and she seems to have a sense of humor. Plus, if Mrs. Logans is her mother, she can't be that bad.
     "I'm pretty sure your dad and Asher brought some of your clothes from your house," she says as she enters the shopping mall of a closet, me following. "They wanted to try to make your room some-what familiar for you."
       "My room?"
       She winces. "Sorry. I keep forgetting that you barely have any idea about Aevyn." She runs her hand down a fur coat. "Every couple of Aevyn families are assigned a home here to live in together. You and your father live in the home with the Hendrickson's. I live with another family next to the infirmary."
       "Two families in each home?" I ask. "How big are these houses?"
       "You'd be surprised," she answers and pulls a pair of blue jeans out of the forest of clothes, holding them up to my waist. "How do you like these?"
       "They're great. But, seriously. How big is this place?"
       "Aevyn's huge. It's the land between The Above and The Below. So it's kind of another earth, but only under the actual earth." She draped the jeans over her shoulder. "But there's multiple districts. The district we live in— District 3.2— is only about the size of a pretty large city. How do you like this shirt?"
     "It's great," I repeat, not really paying attention to the clothes. "But what's District 3.2?"
     "It's simply the district or area for the state," Adelaide explains as she tosses the shirt over the jeans. "Each state— or territory, depending which country or continent you live in— has a number, and the order in which said state or territory became a part of a country decides the decimal. Since we live in Pennsylvania— the second state to join the union in America— our District's decimal is two. And because North America is the third largest continent, our District's whole number is three."
     "Oh," I say. "I guess that makes sense."
      She squats down and grabs a pair of converse running shoes from a shoe rack under neath the clothes on the hangers. "Here." She hands me her findings all clumped into a pile.
      "Thanks," I say, hugging the clothes to my chest.
      "No problem," she replies. "Let me show you to your showers."
       Adelaide escorts me to the large bathroom reserved for the Orenda family— apparently there are multiple bathrooms— and leaves me in peace. Every thing in this place seems to be enormous and fancy. It's like the White House here. But bigger. A lot bigger.
       I quickly wash myself up and change into the outfit Adelaide picked for me— which fits surprisingly well. I dry my hair and brush the tangles out of my golden locks before pulling them up into a careless bun on the top of my head.
      After I do my hair, I look at my hands and frown at the dirty, soaking wet bandages. I slowly unwrap the cloth from both my hands, revealing four brand new, small scars on each hand where crescent-shaped gashes used to be. I grimace. Were the claws on my hands really that sharp? I flex my fingers, just to see how it'd look with the news scars. They look so strange and foreign on my palms. I assume it will take a long time to get used to them.
     Exhaling, I dispose of the old bandages in the waste can by the marble counter. When I finish fixing my appearance, I step out of the bathroom and into the hallway, where Adelaide is waiting for me.
       "Ready to meet everybody?" she asks.
        I nod in response and we go on our way to see my newly found father, my lying best friend, and my magical apothecary biology teacher.