Soul Searcher

3-Change Of Plans

I woke and it felt like my tongue was swollen and dry. I cracked open my sore eyes and look around. I was not in my dorm anymore, I didn't recognize where. I was. I sat up and my head felt like it had an extra 10-pound weight tied to it. I flopped back down into the pillows and fragrance wafted up from the pillows. Lavender for sure, another scent that seemed familiar but I could not place. I rolled my head to the side and saw a glass of water sitting there. I reached out and was horrified to find that my hand was shaking. I very carefully pulled myself to the edge of the large bed I was in and tried once more to reach the glass of water. It had to of been put there within the last 3 minutes because it was still cold, the condensation on the outside of the glass had not begun to drip yet. Which meant I was not alone in this house. I looked around again this place didn't even seem familiar to me. The door swung open and my attention was diverted momentarily from the glass of water. Uncle Ben walked into the room and I felt my anxiety relax.

"Uncle Ben..." He smiled calmly at me, but there was something different about him. Something I could put my finger on, but he wasn't outgoing excited. We hadn't seen each other in over a year. I was so focused on my studies that I never went home for the holidays and he never came up to visit because of work. He stood at the end of the bed with his hand on the wireframe of the footboard.

"Hey Champ, feeling better?" I nodded and sat up pulling myself back to rest sitting up on the mound of pillows behind me.

"Yes. What happened? Why didn't you take me to a hospital?" He smiled knowingly at me and I waited for a response.

"Because they would have been able to help you. In all seriousness, they probably would have made it worse or killed you, to be honest. Humans are not the sharpest tools in the shed." My brain went on high alert.

"Excuse me," I chuckled nervously. I wanted to think that fever damaged my eardrum.

"Did you just say, humans? Like we aren't included in the mix?" He nodded.

"I wasn't sure about you until you called me last week..." Last week!! I was asleep for a week?

    "A week? That's how long I was out?"

"That's how long we had to keep you under, we had a hell of a hard time getting your body under control, even Amanda struggled to control your power."

  "Power? Please I don't understand. Uncle Ben—" He sighed and grabbed a chair from the corner of the room.

"Okay, let's start from the beginning...the very beginning. Just bear with me okay?" He drug the chair over next to the bed. Close enough that I wouldn't be able to get up and run out of the room without him grabbing me. But far enough away that I didn't feel crowded or threatened.

"When your mother dropped you off with me, it wasn't because I was her brother. Which I am in a way, but not by blood. I was a part of her coven, she was the most powerful witch I had ever met until she decided to elope with some man she had met. She never told me who it was, and the information was never recorded on your birth certificate, her life rapidly went downhill after she left. The Board had stripped her of her powers. Afraid that with them she would be able to expose us to the humans." I held up a hand and I felt my heart rate double. Coven? Witch? I mean, all things considered, my mother was a little eccentric, but I wouldn't have gone as far as saying she had magical abilities.

"Stripped her? Why did she drop me off then?" He looked a little guilty and rubbed his hands on his pants.

"Because we forced her too." Simply put, but it was still a shock. My mother didn't give me up she was forced. Some part of that made me feel better about the lack of relationship I had with her.