Chapter 35

Bayla

Back and forth, back and forth.

I turned to the mirror, hitting my head as if it was my fault, as if I had actually dreamed it all.

Maybe it had just been a misunderstanding, a stupid coincidence. How many times had I not had delusions?

The guys, Nash and Julian, maybe they were just strong… But Vivienna...

Back and forth.

And the eyes, that might as well have been the sun. But this huge creature with its threatening look, which had suddenly appeared where Emely had been standing before...

Back and forth.

I couldn't keep telling myself that a wolf had simply appeared there. Maybe the professor was just crazy. What if that had been his dog, who also happened to be named Emely? It was possible that he had brought him to campus with him.

God, Bayla...that was no dog . That beast had been as big as a damn pony, and I hadn't been dreaming.

I didn't want to believe it, but what if all those myths about supernatural creatures were true? What if the wild wolves in the woods of Blairville weren't wild wolves, but...?

No.

I shook my head hard as goosebumps spread all over my body.

Thump.

Panicked, I froze in my movement.

What had that been?

Fear rose up inside me. The very same fear that had helped me run from campus to Mum's dodgy summer house, where I had been pacing my room, terrified, until just now. I had been trying hard to find an explanation for the recent events. Unsuccessfully .

Now, I was fully back in the present. That noise had definitely come from downstairs, and all I knew right now was that I was home alone .

I had locked the door behind me, which didn't make it any better, and the fact that I had taken karate back then only gave me the barest hint of hope.

Creak.

Oh, no.

"No, no, no, no, no..." I whispered desperately, but then pressed my hand over my mouth, realizing how stupid that had just been.

If there was a list of potential serial killer victims somewhere, I was certainly on top of it.

Creak.

Shit.

Some wild wolf was running around the first floor, possibly trying to eat me, and here I was, typically me, standing in my new room, panicking, looking for a place to hide.

Actually, I should have realized myself that there was none because the closet was too small for me, and under the bed, only those were hiding who always died first in horror movies, not to mention the idiots who went into the basement just to ask if someone was there. Of course. In the basement!

I did the next best thing, and at the same time, probably the dumbest thing: I tiptoed through the bulky door of the room and peered across the hallway.

Somehow, I had to get into the bathroom, where the window could be opened in such a way that one should be able to disappear silently over the side roof. However, once again, I hadn't done the math with the creature on the first floor.

Creak.

My heart sank even lower.

It was the damn stairs .

I was at the mercy of this monster if I didn't hide somewhere now. My eyes darted down the hallway in panic, and I discovered that the door to the room of death was open a crack.

I was about to reach for the door handle. But instead of a giant wolf, my mother appeared on the stairs.

"Oh my God, Mum!"

I rushed to her and threw my arms around her shoulders.

She looked at me in confusion.

"Bayla, what are you doing here, darling?"

"You won't believe what just happened!" I gasped, half upset, half relieved. Then I realized I was probably almost smothering my mum and pulled away from her.

"What's going on? Aren't you supposed to be at Vanderwood?"

Just the name of the place triggered panic in me once again.

Where the hell had Mum sent me there?

"And anyway, why is your shirt so torn and your pants...Bayla, what happened?"

Her surprise gave way to a certain worry that I knew all too well.

"No, I didn't have an attack, but there was this girl, and suddenly she was a wolf, and then there was this other girl with..."

"What did you just say?"

If there was supposed to be a peak of tension for my mother, she had reached it now.

Horrified, she looked at me and grabbed me by the shoulders. She seemed to be struggling with herself, but I didn't know why. Right now, I knew absolutely nothing , only that my headache was starting again, and I just wanted to get out of this town.

"It's dangerous here, Mum..." I urged, but her expression remained unchanged.

"Bay, what are you talking about? Are you okay?"

Her words felt like a slap in the face. Had she even listened to me?

I knew I didn't know what was right and what was wrong right now, but this couldn't have been a dream. It had felt so real.

Mum didn't wait for a reaction but pulled me down the stairs to the kitchen, where she sat me down at the table, went to the sink, and a few seconds later, put a glass of water and a pill in front of me.

Stunned, I stared at the pill and finally at my mother.

She didn't seem to mind my horror, instead she asked, "When did you take your last pill, young lady?"

She sounded ...angry? After all, the only person who should have been angry was me .

"When Bayla? When?" She paced impatiently.

"Mum, I..."

"Tell me what you dreamed," she interrupted me, sitting down next to me.

Her eyes pierced me as if I were a piece of Swiss cheese.

"It wasn't a dream, it all felt so real," I tried again, hoping she would believe me. "The Copeland girl turned into a freaking wolf!"

Angrily, I pushed the pill and glass away from me.

"Bay, you forgot to take your pills. You're hallucinating."

"No, mum. Believe me, please!" I jumped up. "We have to get out of here!"

The panic inside me mixed with the feeling of oppressive tightness.

Why wouldn't she believe me? I knew what I had seen there, and it scared the shit out of me. At any moment, a giant beast could show up here and make us its afternoon snack. But all my Mum did was give me one of those stupid pills that magically didn't seem to run out.

Angrily, I grabbed the pill and tossed it into the living room, when suddenly the glass next to me burst and the water spread across the table like a flood, dragging all the broken pieces in the stream with it.

I jumped to the side, as did my mother, who was now looking at me in horror, as if it had been my fault.

I was shocked and didn't understand anything anymore. My heart was pounding and there they were again, the veins . I wanted to pull down my sleeves, but I had completely forgotten that I was only wearing a T-shirt because I had stripped off my brown knitted sweater while running through the forest.

Mum stared at my arms in pure horror. More shocked than usual when I got my attacks.

Then, all at once, there was a knock on the front door.

" Bayla . Go up to your room now, please."

I barely recognized my mother. The shock on her face was unfamiliar to me.

Tears of pain gathered in my eyes. The chaos this new life was causing was just too much for me. A faintness threatened to overtake me.

There was another knock and there it was again, the fear.

"Diana! I know you're there. Please open the door, or I will," a harsh female voice called out.

I looked at Mum.

"Who is that?"

"Go upstairs now, please, Bayla!" she snapped and started pacing again. I had definitely inherited that from her.

"Go upstairs!" she snapped at me, and I winced, because my mother had never yelled at me before.

Suddenly, an elegantly dark-dressed woman with straightened brown hair came striding into our kitchen.

I knew her.

Amara Blair. Mum's childhood friend.

What was the mayor doing here now?

Determined, she looked at my mother, whose jaw dropped.

"She's not going anywhere, Diana, until we have had an urgent word."

By the time Amara had entered the house, more fuses had blown in me. I had lost consciousness and crashed to the floor.

Completely shaken up and with a head full of questions, I now sat at the kitchen table. In front of me, an undamaged glass of water. This time without a pill, because I had already had to swallow this crap thing when I had woken up on the couch and Mum had just shoved it into my mouth while the mayor had been distracted.

Right now, Mum was pacing up and down in the kitchen.

Her friend sat in front of me and looked at me with a gentle smile.

If she was trying to comfort me, she definitely wasn't succeeding. I knew something was up, and I wanted to know now . But my head hurt, and I felt like a cat that had been run over while parking. I wonder if that's how the squirrel had felt then, when I'd run over it with Mum's car.

"How are you, Bayla?" the mayoress now asked, as if we were just sitting together in the café, trying to talk about Mum's student life.

She continued to smile gently, radiating a certain authority with her entire appearance, one that could not be feared, but also not questioned.

"You can trust me, I don't bite."

Was she just making fun of me? Had Mum told her everything?

"Just give her some time, please, just a few days. She just passed out a minute ago."

I looked over at my mother, who was leaning against the sink, looking at Amara with an exasperated look. And there she was again. The caring mother who always worried way too much about me.

"We can't wait any longer. You've kept her in the dark long enough," Amara replied to her without turning around.

Kept in the dark? Did she mean me?

"Everything was fine." Mum came to the table and sat down diagonally next to Amara, looking into her blue eyes as if they had known each other forever.

" Diana , imagine if Gloria had found out before I did."

"Who told you?"

Mum pressed her lips together.

Amara just ignored her and looked back up at me encouragingly.

What on earth was this all about? And was I supposed to tell Amara that there was a wolf out there somewhere chasing all of us, that as mayor, she had to do something about it?

"Bayla. Your mother told me what you saw." She looked briefly at her hands – adorned with silver rings – which she had clasped on the table.

I only now realized what she had just said.

"What?"

"You were watching a Senseque transform," she continued, looking me in the eye again. There was an incredible matter-of-factness in her voice.

"I can't quite keep up..."

I also felt drained, exhausted, and as if I had slept too long.

I admired this woman's patience as she began to try to explain something to me.

"The university you are attending is located in an area where people live who are cursed and who can turn into wolf-like creatures."

What? Was she serious? If that was supposed to be a joke, it was absolutely not funny.

I fell silent and stared at her, stunned.

She was a grown woman, the age of my mother. That she believed me was one thing, but that she now mutated into Sister Grimm was another.

"You also have a certain gift, Bayla."

I tried not to laugh. This whole situation was getting more and more absurd.

While I was trying to convince myself that I had only dreamed all this crap, she was telling me werewolf tales. All that was missing was coffee and cookies.

"Don't get me wrong, but I'm not able to follow your words right now," I sighed.

"That's normal. You just found out things you should have been let in on a long time ago."

I looked at Mum, who was still looking at me worriedly.

"Bayla..." I glanced at Amara again. "You are one of us, a Quatura."

Before I could have asked, Amara moved her hand and pointed with it to a flower pot that was on the kitchen counter.

My eyes widened as, where so recently there had been nothing but black earth, a green tendril suddenly shot up and meandered its way to the top before buds could be seen popping open and presenting an elegant purple flower.

I wanted to jump up, but I was stunned. I tried to blink, but no matter how many times I opened them, that damn plant had really just appeared out of nowhere in three seconds.

"Our powers are a gift, and we are tasked with protecting humanity from other creatures like the one you saw."

I looked at Amara, then at Mum.

"Mum, do you see this, too?"

Mum stared at the plant, but she didn't seem startled or surprised at all. She looked blank.

"Your mother sees it, and besides, she knows what I just did there because she also has a gift."

Completely confused, I tried to catch Mum's gaze, but she just looked at the plant.

Whatever this was, I wanted to wake up .

I squinted my eyes and bit my tongue. Then I blinked.

"You're not dreaming."

Amanda still sounded calm, like it was normal to grow flowers. Out of nowhere. Just like that.

I looked at her, focused and slightly scared.

Couldn't I please just wake up in our apartment in Sacramento and find Mum in the kitchen with pancakes and her relaxed smile? I'd even settle for the bed here if this was all just a bad dream. But it felt so real.

"Have unexplainable things ever happened to you?"

I blinked at Amara, confused.

Hadn't that been enough inexplicable things today?

"Something like floating objects or wounds healing quickly?"

I immediately thought of my injuries, which had always healed unnaturally slowly. Mum had almost stopped letting me go to the playground when I was eight because I had come home with wounds all the time. It had always been like that, except that I had become more careful. Objects had fallen out of my hand many times, but they had also hit the ground.

I shook my head, still speechless.

Amara turned around to Mum. "Had she really not experienced any incidents yet?"

That word reminded me of my panic attacks and the pain that followed, on my arms. But it had nothing to do with this . I didn't want to have anything to do with this. And I was not a wolf, nor did I have any supernatural connection to plants.

Again, I looked at the vase.

"No, there's nothing there. She didn't inherit any gifts," Mum said tonelessly.

What did she mean by that? No gifts inherited ?

"It's extremely rare, and you can't assume that..." Amara looked thoughtful. "Who destroyed the glass earlier?"

The glass that had just... shattered .

"That was me," Mum said quickly, and I looked up in surprise.

She hadn't even touched the glass.

Again, I tried to catch her gaze, to somehow reach out to her, but I couldn't. Mum refused to look at me.

"You should wear your necklace, Diana," Amara just sighed.

"I don't understand what's going on here at all. Could someone please explain it to me?"

Mum continued to be silent.

"Quatura control the elements, so do I, my daughter Grace, who you've already met, as well as the rest of my family and other families in town."

Grace? Her daughter? They looked nothing alike...but Blair did. It made sense.

"Many other Quatura from Canada have settled here in Blairville to become part of our ancient Circle and use their skills to contribute to a safer society."

Quatura? That sounded like a pest controller for plants.

It was getting more and more chaotic in my head.

"I don't quite understand... What do you mean by elements...and what do I have to do with all of that?"

"You control an element because you were born a daughter of a Quatura." She said now, sounding more certain than before.

My confusion grew like the plant back there.

I was supposed to control an element ? I was supposed to be the daughter of a...

I looked up at Mum. This time, she looked at me.

"What does it all mean?" I asked in a shock of realization. "Mum, what does she mean?"

She looked at me pityingly, her mouth closed, tears in her eyes. And in that moment, all I knew was that she was scared and that I needed to end that fear.

I had enough and rose up. Everything was spinning.

"Listen. Whatever that pocket spell was there..."

"What you saw is real, Bayla."

All right, if she insisted. I was too disturbed to be able to assess what was real and what wasn't, so I left it at that.

"Anyway, my mum and I have nothing to do with it!"

"Your mum wouldn't have come back if that was the case."

"Mum came back because she's ill, and her doctor lives here."

I startled myself at my words and that I had just shared Mum's secret with someone who was a complete stranger to me. Someone who was a potential danger.

I wanted to apologize to her with a look, but Mum just looked at the floor.

"Thankfully, that's not the case," it came from Amara.

"Yes, it is, Mum..." I looked at her. "Tell your friend that's the only reason we're here. Tell her to leave, and that this is all a huge mistake."

I searched in vain for her gaze.

"Bayla, I know this is all a bit much at first, it's the way a lot of young Quatura feel who didn't grow up with a supporting Circle."

I could no longer focus on Amara. My gaze continued to be on Mum.

"Mum..." I looked at her pleadingly. "Tell me that's why you're here."

Silence.

"Please tell me she's wrong."

Why the fuck didn't she answer!

With tear-filled eyes, I looked at her. That pain, that twinge in my heart, grew stronger, and suddenly, I felt alone. Abandoned and betrayed. On top of that, there was the feeling of being paralyzed inside.

"I'm sorry, Bayla..."

I just looked at Mum. With an empty look. As empty as I felt right now. And at the same time, I was so close to fainting.

Mum started to move.

I felt her arms around me.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

But I couldn't. I didn't want to, anymore.

I pushed her away.

"Bay..."

I shook my head.

"Understand, how could I have told you such a thing?"

She moved closer again, her gaze more desperate than ever. But I backed away.

"No, Mum, you should have told me!"

"It wasn't possible, Bay. Just understand..." Some tears escaped her eyes as well, but I felt no pity. I was angry, disappointed.

" Please sit down, and we'll talk about it..."

"No!" I yelled at her, and she backed away, frightened.

I ran past her, up the stairs, because I couldn't take it anymore.

"Bay!"

"Give her time, Diana..." was all I could hear anymore as I finally slammed the door to my room behind me, vowing never to open it again.