I turn the page to the next chapter, while writing notes for my History class. On Friday, I have a test and I can't fail. As I began writing more notes, my mind drifts off to last night.
All day my thoughts have been leaving me. From the morning until now I can't seem to focus on anything. During my Biology class, I accidently wrote Alexander's name on my paper instead of mine.
I honestly didn't think it would have such a big effect on me, but it does. I keep thinking, did I do the right thing or was I just too angry to see past the situation? Well, it doesn't matter now what's done is done and he may never come back to me and that's something I will have to live with. A decision that I am now regretting.
It's just the look on this face.. did something to me. It was mixer of hurt and pain, I hate hurting people so I try to avoid the situation as much as possible, but this one I couldn't.
Pushing the memories of last night out of my head, I finish writing my History notes. I put my textbook and notebook in my backpack.
"What's up Quinney baby." I look to see Lyra striding over to me with a tall cup of coffee.
"It' 3 in the afternoon why are you drinking coffee? Also, your not allowed to drink in here." I point to the sign on the wall behind me.
"Ewe who follows the rules. It's never too early or too late to drink coffee Quinn." She sits her bag down next to my chair while plopping on the couch.
"Whatever, what are you doing in the library? You always say it's 'as depressing as a funeral home'." I emphasis the words by putting up air quotes.
"Came to see my most prettiest and smartest friend in the whole wide world, and I need a favor." She softly says. I knew it, she never comes to the library unless I'm in here and she needs something from me.
I hate doing favors for Lyra. Most people ask favors like, "Can you babysit my child", or "Can you pick me up a loaf of bread?" Lyra is not like 'most people'.
"I don't want to." I turn around in my chair.
"Quinn, please I need your help." She swivels my chair back to her. I let out a groan of fustration.
I know that I may or may not soon regret this. "The last time I did a favor for you, I ended up scrubbing your floors while watching your brother at 2 in the morning." I cross my arms waiting for her to say something. Still to this day I have no idea how I got there.
"Don't be so dramatic, that was a one-time thing. I need you to write me a letter of recommendation." I give her a shocked look, was not expecting that.
"For what? You already have a job."
"Yeah, a boring job that pays no money. When I first started out at the clinic, I was a young, ambitious 15-year-old. Now all I do is clean animals and cages, it's getting old. Yesterday, the Doc said that he was looking for a new assistant to help him out in surgery and the pay is amazing. I already got a recommendation from Ms. Timmons, now I need one from you." I see her eyes sparkle up when she mentioned the assistant job. For a while now she's been talking about the job, saying she couldn't wait until someone quit so she could swoop in, now it's her chance.
"Why do I have to write it? I'm a friend, don't you need an adult to write it?" She frantically shakes her head.
"No. Anybody can write the recommendation, plus you know me better than my own parents." Her parents have no idea how wild and crazy she really is, it's a writ of passage to hide who you really are from your parents. If they knew how we acted when they weren't around they'd freak.
"What do I need to write?" I huff.
"Just what you know about me, like my best qualities. I'm hard-working, dedicated, and outgoing." She says honeyed. I give her the eye, letting her know none of that is actually true.
"Oh, shut up I am hardworking. When I need to be." She mumbles the last part. "Just have it done by next week Monday."
"Fine, you owe me." I use my stern voice.
"Totally. I got to go, my mom needs me to help her with something at home, bye." She grabs my head and kisses me on the forehead while skipping out the library. That coffee must be making her hyper because she never skips unless she's drinking it.
I make sure my car is locked and walk into Ida's shop. Entering inside, I don't see her anywhere. This shop isn't that big, but for the life of me I'm never able to find her.
"Hey Ida I'm here." I scream throughout the shop. She's either in the basement or in her office.
"Quinneth? Is that you?" I hear a muffled voice come from around the counter. Looking over, I see a crunched-up Ida looking through the drawers.
"Yeah, it's me. What are you doing?" I questioned her.
"A couple months ago I bought some pens and put them down here, but I can't find them anywhere." I walk over to the back of the store and grab the pens from the shelf. She gets up from behind the counter to see what I was doing. I hand her the pens.
"You are a godsend Quinn." She grabs the pens from my hand and sits it on the desk behind her. "I didn't even say hi to you. Hi!" She says enthusiastically while grabbing me in a bear hug.
"Alright Ida you're cutting off my circulation." I choke.
"Sorry honey just missed you so much. So, what's been happening?" She let's go of me while rubbing my arms. For a dainty women she has the strength of superman.
"Just school and homework. I had homecoming last Saturday it was a blast." Besides the whole Alexander situation, the night was amazing.
"Awe I wished I could've seen you go." She pouts. For the last two weeks, Ida shut down the shop to go visit her family in Vancouver. Ida has three sons William, George and Henry their actually all triplets and the only kids she had. William is a mechanic, George a doctor and Henry is a published author, very established careers. Between the three brothers, they all have 10 kids in total.
Since Ida is running the shop, she doesn't have enough time to go visit her sons and grandkids. I was the one to convince her that she should take some time off and go visit them. Reluctantly, she gave in and went, obviously she had a good time.
"Enough about me, how was the trip? Didn't Crystal turn 6 yesterday?" I asked leaning on the counter.
"Yeah, she did, excellent memory. We all went down to the beach and they took me out to eat at the local restaurant in town. It was truly a fun time I can't wait to go back." I can see the excitement in her eyes.
"Glad you had fun." I give her a side smile.
"You too. Hey, I'll be in my office doing some bookwork, call me if you need anything." She pats me on the back and walks to her office.
Since there's no one in the store right now, I pull out my book from school and began reading it. I particularly don't like to read books much, I prefer the movies. Our teacher has us reading "The Giver", by Lois Lowry. It's pretty interesting so far.
"Is that you bones?" I look up to see Claire walk in the store. Her light pink hair is tucked behind her ears while her nose piercing glistens in the sun. You could say Claire was a little bit on the radical side.
"When are you going to stop calling me that?" I say putting my bookmark in my book. The reason she calls me bones is because the first time I started working her it was during the morning. There were some new packages that came in and I had to carry them to the back and I struggled with it. Claire made a joke that I was more bones than muscles, gaining me the nickname bones.
"When you stop being weak..bones." She flashes her pearly white teeth while leaning on the desk in front of me.
"What are you doing here? Can't get away from work?" I say joking with her.
"Nah, I left my phone charger here and I couldn't come and get it because Ida was out of town. Hand it to me please?" I go through the bucket and hand them to her.
"So irresponsible of you. I expect more from a college student." Sarcasm laces my voice. Claire goes to the University of San Francisco. She wants to be a computer engineer.
"Says the high school student." She sneers at me. "Haven't seen you in a minute, we have to hang out."
Since my schedule is wide open from having no social life, I have all the time in the world. "Definitely. Hit me up?"
"You got it." She gives me a thumbs up.
Before I'm able to say anything, I hear someone come in. "Welcome to Ida's shop." Looking up to see who it is, a look of shock overcomes me. It's the girl that Myers was talking to across the street that one time. She has some nerve coming in here.
"I'll let you do your job; I'll call you sometime this week or like 4 weeks from now, I have no perception of time." She ruffles my curly hair while walking in strides towards the door while waving to the girl. Before walking out, she turns to me, "Oh and bring Lyra with you, that girls a hoot." She chuckles and leaves me with the girl.
I'm going to put all feelings aside and do what I'm here to do, my job. I wrap my Jean jacket across my body as my bare legs move in her direction. Bless me for wearing a skirt today, I've feeling a bit hot.
"Hello, Quinneth Worthingshire." She says giving me a sly look.
"How do you know my name?" I asked curiously. She points her finger to my work badge, oh.
"Right." I look down at my badge. "What can I help you with today?" She steps back from the counter and walks towards the paintings.
"I just moved into town and I'm looking to decorate the place up. So, I thought I come in and look at some... vintage paintings." She turns her head to the side starting intently at the paintings as her big curly hair moves around.
"Is there something you like?" Ida has a very impressive amount of painting in the shop from all over the world. Most of the things that people buy in the shop are the paintings.
"What about that one up there, to the left." I look up to see her pointing to the painting of Cain and Abel.
"Really? It has a dark history behind it. You sure you want that hanging in your new place?" I asked curious. This painting has been sitting here for about a year, no one has wanted to buy it. It's of Cain holding a thick piece of wood over Abel. Cain ended up killing Abel out of jealously and rage.
"I like dark. It's more... interesting and compelling." An expression glows over her face, I can't wrap my head around it, but it's kind of scary.
"You're the only one. Let me get the photo for you." I grab the step ladder and walk on up to grab it. She said that she's new to town, where did she come from? Also, how does she know Myers? The way I will get answers is by asking questions, gently. I don't want to scare her off, but something tells me she doesn't get scared easily.
"So, you said that you are new to town?" I asked.
"Excellent memory. Just moved here last week." Last week? When I saw her across the street with Myer's it was almost four weeks ago, was she just here visiting before?
"Why would you move to St. Helena out of all places? No hate to this town, but it's a little boring." I love the town of St. Helena it's just if you're looking for fun or all that no one comes here for it.
"Business brought me here, there's something I need and I can only get it here." She says below me. Does she mean Myers? She looks to be our age what kind of business could she have here? "What's your story?"
"My story?" I guess it's fair to ask. Can't question one person and not have them question you.
"Yeah. What are you a cheerleader or something? May have a mysterious boyfriend no one knows about?" It sounded like she wanted to say more, but just stopped right there.
"I look like a cheerleader to you?" I let out a laugh, it's nice of her to think that. I have weak legs and no upper body strength; I couldn't be a cheerleader even if I wanted. "No, I don't have a boyfriend, used to, but it didn't work out." I step down from the ladder with the painting in hand.
"Bummer." She pouts. If she knew she was half the reason we broke up, maybe it wouldn't be much of a bummer.
"I'm over it. Let me ring you up." We walk over to the counter so she could pay for her item. "Ok it's 62.90." She reaches into her back pocket and hands me a hundred-dollar bill. She just carries hundreds on her, that's bold. I put the 100 in the cash register and give her the change.
When she grabs me the money from me, both our hands touch. My eyes roll to the back of my head and suddenly I see a flash. The first vision is of some oak trees, then I see hands, don't know if their mines or not, but they had blood on them. A flash of light comes over and I'm in some tomb standing over four girls. Then all of a sudden, the vision is over. My eyes move around frantically, trying to regain normalcy.
I look to see the girl staring at me with a weird look. "Are you alright?"
"Fine. Just... A little dehydrated that's all." She keeps the weird look on her face, then suddenly it goes away. "Here's your painting, hope you enjoy it here in St. Helena." I grab the painting and hand it to her.
As she turns away from me and proceeds to walk towards the door, I stop her. "Hey, I never got your name." She turns around and gives me a smile.
"How could I forget. The names Sapphire, Sasha Sapphire." She heads out the door with the painting to her car.
Sasha Sapphire? Where is she from, the DC universe? Cool name though.
I open up my book and continue reading. While reading, I'm unable to focus on the story, what was that? Someone's blood was on some hands. Was it my blood or my hands? Then standing over four girls, who I'm assuming were dead. I didn't notice any of them, but something about those girls seemed familiar, but scary.
There was something about that Sasha girl that didn't seem safe. Whatever it was, I was going to find out.
Sasha's P.O.V.-
Parking my car, I grab the painting and walk inside the castle. Living in a castle has its perks, you don't have to see people if you don't want to.
"Your Majesty." The foot man says.
"Princess." The servants says, while taking my jacket from me.
I see my mother comes from around the corner, she's carrying her bible, must have just came from church. She looks at what I'm carrying, pure curiousness wafts her face.
"Why do you have a painting of Cain and Abel?" She asked.
I snap my fingers to Carla, my servant, to grab and take the painting away. "I went to go visit the Zastitnik, couldn't walk in the store and not buy anything." I say bluntly.
"Why did you go visit her? I thought that was Myer's job." Her eyebrows furrow.
We began walking down the long hall. "It was. Since he's been slacking off, I had to go pick up the slack."
"What did you find out?" She asked eagerly.
"I can't tell you that until I tell the King. Where is he by the way?" The King is always in different parts of the castle, he never stays in one place.
"His chambers." We turn the corner, walking to the last door at the end of the hallway. I give the door a hard knock.
"Catch you later." She tells me goodbye while heading down the hall.
"Who is it?" He says, his voice echoes throughout the hall.
"Sasha." He tells me to come on in. Walking in his office, I see him sitting in his big oak chair signing some papers. His window is wide open letting in a cool breeze. "What did you find out?" He asked not looking up from his work.
"He hasn't marked her yet." I tell him. Relief soars over his face. "...but something interesting happened when I was there today." Intrigued, he leans over his desk waiting to hear what I have to say.
"What exactly?"
"When she was handing me my money back, our hands touched and she had a vision." With so much power and gumption, he stands up from his desk and comes in front of me. His scruffy beard blocks my line of vision as his lips purse up in intrigue.
"Did you see the vision." He asks looking all over my face, as if the answer was planted on it.
"I saw a vision of four girls lying down in a tomb. She may have seen more, but she made up some excuse that she was dehydrated." A smile forms on his lips.
"This is fantastic. This vision means that she will definingly bring back The First Power. Then we will be able to claim back what is ours, the Kingdom of Nygaard."
We stand in the middle of his office with devilish grins on our face. For years, we've been waiting to reclaim what is rightfully ours, now with this girl, we can. No one will stop this, if they do, they'll die.
"What did I do to get such a dutiful daughter." He pulls me close and kisses my forehead.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
