AGELESS: (The Eerie Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “So, are you coming tonight?” April said to draw me back to the present.

  “Where?” I asked in my state of confusion.

  “To Kiera’s birthday party, you can be my date.” Again, she wiggled her eyebrows and smiled at me, biting her lip slightly. I called that move the please, please, please manoeuvre.

  “The second we show up at the gate, security will kick us out.” As soon as I used the word we, I knew I was trapped. Damn it!

  “Not necessarily,” April said. Her hand dove into her pack and she pulled out an invitation again and opened it up. On the thick, rectangular black invite—not some cheaply printed flyer with typos—written in beautiful, large white calligraphy it read: Fantasy Ball.

  “Everyone will be dressed up so we can easily get in without being recognised. It’s perfect! Don’t you love the thought of dressing up and pretending you’re someone else for a night?” April asked.

  It was such a loaded question. I dreamed every day of being someone else, and just normal. I didn’t need to be rebellious like April or perfect like Kiera, just normal. It had been the source of my lament for many years. My best friend knew how to push the right buttons to get her way without even knowing it.

  I conceded. “I’m only coming with you to make sure that you won’t do anything stupid or criminal. Mostly criminal.”

  April accepted my concession by rolling her eyes again, but she quickly rebounded to happy, clapping her hands together madly. “It is going to be crazy Eve! So now can I borrow one of your costumes?”

  I sighed and nodded in consent. She discreetly slipped one invitation into my backpack. Then she hugged me briefly and called out, “Better hurry or you’ll be late for class,” and she disappeared into the crowd.

  2

  For years, I’d heard everyone talking about Kiera’s parties—in the corridors, between classes, during classes, in gym, and certainly during lunches. I’d eavesdropped on every word they’d said, longing to be one of them. Last year Kiera threw a Great Gatsby-themed party that I was absolutely envious of. The Roaring Twenties were one of my most favourite periods to read about. This year it was fantasy, and I was ecstatic! Thoughts of it invaded my mind brutally, making fifty minutes seem like two hours. The big difference was, where others bragged about their invitations, I had to keep mine quiet.

  Lost in my thoughts, I walked into my English class on autopilot and instead of finding a deserted classroom, I found Connor Bright there and sitting right next to my table. I froze, hesitant to make another step. Do I sit down next to him or find somewhere else? I didn’t know what to do and my spine was tingling, thrown off by the sudden stimulation.

  He was so beautiful with those piercing blue eyes, jet-black hair that was just wavy enough, and those subtle scars—those magnificent tiny scars on the skin of his face that made him less ordinary, and to me quite extraordinary. He was ageless to me, like someone out of a romance novel, and I’d found a way to memorise each and every one of his scars, from the one on his forehead that he used his longer bangs to cover, to the small ones that were on his face, barely visible against his skin. From a distance, a person might think those faint scars were from acne, but I knew they weren’t. They were from an actual experience, which made them utterly mysterious to me.

  Then he looked at me and smiled, and I literally felt my heart melting as my lips went into a smile that couldn’t be avoided.

  Out of nowhere, a girl shoved past me and I turned to see who was ruining my moment. I saw that his eyes followed her all the way as she went and sat on my seat. Now my heart froze, stiff with pent-up sorrow. I felt so stupid for thinking that look and smile had been meant for me. The lump in my throat was agonising.

  “Move it,” someone else said, whizzing past me. And then a whole group of students followed.

  By the time I finally moved forward, everybody was taking their seats and I ended up at Connor’s usual table in the last row, left corner, by the last arched window. Once settled down, I looked up and caught Connor glancing at me. My entire body froze in mid-action and my brain ached like I had taken a slurp of an ice too quickly. Breathe, I demanded, as I felt like I was gasping for oxygen. Why did he have to be so beautiful? It was an unfair advantage. And he was staring at me, which was most unusual. First the invitations, now this? Only after he turned away did I relax—although I didn’t like being in the back of the room and having to watch my Mr. Everything stare at the girl next to him. That should have been me. My thoughts were always braver than my actions.

  Connor had been at our school for two years and today was the first time he’d ever paid attention to me. I couldn’t help but be instantly filled with hope. There are some people who are larger than life, even when they don’t know it, and to me, Connor Bright was one of those people. He wasn’t typical, and that was exciting. His mannerisms were so casual and calm, giving him a bit of a bad-boy aura.

  My eyes travelled to him once again and he was facing the front of the class. Still, I could sense that he knew I was looking at him and sure enough, a second later he looked over his shoulder and glanced at me. Our eyes locked and we stared at each other. One second, two second, three seconds… Then he looked away.

  Maybe he wanted to speak with me. Maybe that was why he’d sat next to where I normally did. The thought gave me a chill of pleasure. My dark-haired, blue-eyed secret love could ask me anything he wanted and maybe, just maybe, I’d have the courage to answer. If I didn’t get distracted, that is.

  Really, I had too much time to think about Connor, but part of that was because I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t an insomniac or anything like that; I just couldn’t sleep.

  My parents told me that it started at the age of two. I never slept at night, or for a minute, or even for a second of my life. I never felt the need. It was like my body refused to shut down. It became the very first secret I had to keep before I understood why. Then that was followed by never feeling tired. And when I was hurt I would heal faster than normal people. Those things were part of what made me different and my parents, who were normal, never understood it. I didn’t either, although it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just a part of who I was. I just learned to hide those differences.

  But over the years, on top of my singularity, I also started developing strange abilities that I couldn’t always control, which meant they often picked terrible times to manifest themselves….

  The latest one happened three years ago when April slept over at my house and she had the great idea to draw fake tattoos on our skin. I was okay with it. I didn’t see any harm in that.

  I drew the snake she wanted on her arm first, and then she drew a butterfly on mine, a beautiful one that was filled with colours and had one black spot on each wing. It was fun, although some instinct in me was warning me that I should not do it.

  April finally fell asleep and I faked sleeping until something stronger and new happened, and certainly unwelcome. With sweat trickling down my forehead, I felt a strange pain moving through my wrist. I thought I was going to puke and I struggled to hold in my scream. Jumping out of bed and moving as quickly as my feeble legs could take me, I ran into the bathroom.

  Flipping the light on, I stared at my wrist and saw that the butterfly was no longer there. Neither was the pain. I looked in the mirror, wondering if I was crazy, and behind me I saw the butterfly that April had drawn—now quite alive, in three dimensions. It was fluttering around the bathroom like it didn’t have a care in the world. My eyes were fixated on it as I watched it flit around my small bathroom with white painted walls and a white tiled floor, with a few accents of blue scattered about. It stood out so brightly against those colours and fascinated me with its natural radiance. That’s when I realised something huge. I could create life. I wanted to be excited, but I knew that no one could know. To me, this discovery was beautiful and fascinating, but others wouldn’t agree. However, this moment was mine and I could enjoy it for what it was.

  I recalled A
pril using glow-in-the-dark markers to draw the tattoo, which made me wonder. I turned the bathroom light off and sure enough, the butterfly glowed in the dark! I was entranced by its beauty and drawn to its uniqueness. It was a one of a kind, just like I was.

  Extending my finger, I watched the butterfly land on it gently, its wings fluttering rapidly and creating the smallest of breezes, not noticeable to anyone else but me. But then I realised—if the butterfly had come to life, what about the snake? My tranquillity was replaced by panic in the blink of an eye. I darted out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom.

  “April!” I screeched, shaking her and trying to get to her wrist.

  She started to scream. Not knowing what was happening she flailed her arms at me, smacking at my face and clawing at my arms. She’d thought I’d gone mad, and with good reason.

  My parents charged into the room next and pulled me away from April. I had just enough time to see April’s arm and notice that her fake tattoo was still nothing more than a drawing. Then I looked at her and saw the terror on her face. Feeling so horrible, I turned around and saw an even worse look in my parents’ eyes. They were looking at me, their eyes shouting, “What have you done now?”

  “What’s going on here? What did you do?” my mother asked, grabbing my arms gently and turning my body to face her, her eyes pleading.

  “I don’t know,” I said, fumbling my words.

  “Relax, everyone,” my dad said, adopting the voice of reason. “She must have had a nightmare.” Then he turned to April. “Are you okay?”

  “I… I did have a nightmare,” I said. “April, I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded at me, still not able to talk. I turned to my dad, who had taught me over the years to lie about certain things for my own protection, but I’d never had to lie to him before. Somehow, I was sure that he’d prefer the lie. Maybe he sensed it, too, because he didn’t ask anything else that night, or even offer to take April home.

  My parents left the room and there was no hope of April falling back asleep. For me, a sleepless night wasn’t unusual, but for her, it was. We didn’t really talk, either, and there was no amount of explaining that I could do about what had happened. My best hope was that time would heal the vivid details of a hugely awkward event.

  Feeling like a stranger in my own bedroom, I whispered, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  I went into the bathroom and looked for the butterfly. It wasn’t there. Someone else might say it was a dream, but I knew it wasn’t. There was no butterfly tattoo on my wrist anymore. It was gone, likely fluttered out of the partially opened window. I wondered where it had had escaped to and I missed the wondrous little creature terribly.

  Time went on. I tried to forget, but I couldn’t. I knew I had to be careful and never allow anything like that to happen again. If something was drawn on me and could come to life, I had to make sure that nothing was drawn on me at all. Another strange precaution that trapped me in a box just a bit more.

  A few weeks after that incident, I discovered that my butterfly had been captured. It was so unique that it became the most expensive specimen ever collected. It was purchased—miraculously still alive—for over ten thousand pounds. Such irony… How much would people pay for a specimen like me—dead or alive? Would they put me into a jar or cut me up in a lab? How far would they go to test my limits, my uniqueness, before killing me? I realised at that moment that being obscure and quiet in my life was considerably better than living in a jar or a lab.

  I dragged myself back to reality when the class ended and I looked up to Connor to find him walking out of the room only eyes to the girl next to him.

  3

  Cleaven Hill is the only place I ever recall living. It’s calm and beautiful, as serene as a landscape portrait and I cannot imagine wanting to live anywhere else. Not Maze Hill, although it’s fine for schools and visits, and certainly not a truly large place like London, either.

  A soft smile was etched on my face when I took the two steps down from the bus and landed on the paved road. Once on the sidewalk, I began to look around, always enjoying what I saw. The village was almost frozen in time. The main street was a tribute to a world that seemed long ago with its preserved small shops that were restored to look as if we were actually living in an entirely different era. Even the streetlamps were from the early 20s and my most favourite thing was the historic stone church on the hill. Other than a few modernisations it had remained quite close to what a photograph of it from long ago might show.

  Cleaven Hill wasn’t for everyone, though, and it ended up being a village most young people fled from the first chance they got. April would be one of those people. She’d say that the most common cause of death in Cleaven Hill was boredom.

  As I made my way down my street I could see our small cottage home up ahead. It was quite lovely despite its modest size. It was built for a family of three and when I saw it, I always felt a sense of calm come over me, but at that moment, any sense of calm was gone. I was fixated on the party that evening.

  Looking up, I took in the welcome sight of my little front yard with a pavement to the main red door that I helped paint a long time ago. It wasn’t perfect by any means, showing that it was the work of a child with its irregular lines. My fingerprints were even pressed into it by mistake, but my parents hadn’t changed it, thinking it was perfect as it was.

  Putting my key into the slot and turning the latch, I marched through the door, feeling the emptiness. No one else was home. Dad was on a cab shift and Mum was at the library.

  I went into my bedroom on the first floor, glancing into my parents’ room as I passed it by. It was always so tidy. My room, not so much. I quickly dropped my bag and jacket onto my bed and it retaliated with a squeak from the one wild spring that was in it. No one could have comfortably slept on that bed. Good thing I didn’t have to.

  My mind was already on the way up to my sanctuary on the second floor. That was where I was most comfortable and at home, because I could be myself. April and the rest of the world only got to see my typical teen bedroom on the first floor—it was an ideal decoy.

  Years ago, my dad had transformed the attic into a place where I could do as I wished with my never-ending days and strangely developing powers, while the rest of England slept. My own lack of sleep was a permanent source of anxiety for my parents that reached new heights each and every year when they took me to the doctor for my annual check-up. I didn’t even know why I had to go, I was never sick, but Dad said I had to. Then he’d give me a special drink and off we’d go.

  At the doctor’s office, I was instructed to lie if he asked me any questions about anything unusual. I did, but the doctor didn’t care much about me. He’d examine me, take a blood sample, and then send me on my way with a lollipop—which was definitely the highlight of my visit. Then there’d be a tense couple of days ahead for my parents, not that they told me that, but I sensed their fear always. It wasn’t easy to hide. Their eyes would turn fearful, kind of like when you see a wild animal in the headlights at night time. Then the next day, after the doctor called with a good bill of health, things would be better for another year.

  For as long as I’d breathed the air in this world, I’d had to find ways to fill my never-ending days. It was the one thing that had gotten easier with the years, especially with my attic. Since completing it, Dad had never set foot into there. He promised it was for my privacy only and I loved him madly for it. I didn’t really understand the lines between normalcy and my powers, but in my sanctuary they become one. I breathed in and relaxed without having to worry about hurting someone or being called a freak.

  Twelve steps up and I looked around. To the right, there were bookshelves that covered the entire wall, housing every classic book, as well as some of the more popular modern novels. With an extra eight hours a night to kill, I could read a lot of books, and fast. I had too many really, probably enough to open up a library. I started to wonder if the floor was just g
oing to give out in the attic, sending me tumbling down to the main level on top of a heap of books. It mattered not. There was just no way I was going to part with them, as they were a part of who I was and the gateway to many adventures to save me from loneliness in the late-night hours. There was also a bathroom against the back wall and a mini fridge and kitchen area for when I got hungry. When you were awake, it was often hard to avoid being hungry, which had slowly turned me into something other than the rail-thin child I’d been. I wasn’t heavy, but I wasn’t scrawny, either.

  But my biggest joy and passion came from my sewing machine and through that, I created the worlds that I read about—well, the clothes in them, to be precise, and I had them in abundance. They were not typical teen clothes that you’d see at school or everyday life. Those kinds of clothes were kept in my bedroom. My sanctuary was amazing, a fantastic closet of costumes that I’d created and several dummies for me to work on as I tailored them. I always left a few pieces out just to appreciate them and the hard work it took. It’s my mum who helped find this particular way to occupy my time and “be constructive,” as she put it. She taught me how to sew. I fell fast in love with it and my skills developed, surpassing hers in a relatively short amount of time.

  I sat down on the Turkish floor cushions that were my mini living room in the centre of it all, and started to look through my collection of costumes. “What should I choose?” I murmured.

  There was a scratch on the door below and I smiled, jumping right up. As soon as I opened the door, my Border collie, Comet, jumped on my leg and barked three times, his usual way of declaring that he was happy to see me. I caressed his white and brown fur lovingly. I just adored my dog!

  I’d found Comet a few years ago wandering the streets. Or should I say, he found me, because all of a sudden there he was, staring at me affectionately, with sunken eyes and ribs sticking out. He was old and close to death so Dad didn’t want me to keep him, but I insisted. Today, Comet looked like he could be his own son. I wasn’t sure how I did it, but I managed to bring him back to health and at the same time, he grew younger and more energetic. It was amazing and I sensed how Comet was grateful for it. As for my parents, don’t ask, don’t tell was more applicable about his miraculous recovery. It was just too much for them to take at times, and I couldn’t blame them.