Newcomer (Elmwick Academy Book 1) Read online

  Elmwick is a town like no other.

  Chaper 2. Mason

  Monsters are real. And I live next door to them.

  The white jeep’s headlights split the twilight on our street. The car stops in front of the only house that has been vacant as far back as I can remember—cold and unwelcoming.

  When Bryar and I were little, I dared her to knock on the door, then told her the ghosts inside haunted all people who disturbed them. She screamed and tattled onto Mom, which got me grounded for a week. Then we forgot the prank, forgot the house.

  In-between shooting hoops, I throw quick glances at the newcomers—a father and his daughter, by the looks of it. Bryar scores three times in a row while I’m distracted studying them. The girl is petite, despite the thick coat she has on and the scarf she’s knotted around her neck—milky yellow and about as big as a blanket.

  She and her father unload the car quietly, like they’re hoping to avoid attention. I try not to psych myself out, thinking they’re bad news, but my mood sours further when Jean pops over. With that, any hope that the newcomers could be human fizzles out.

  I can’t look at the monster without white-hot anger spreading through my chest. Jean hands over a gift basket to the new girl and they chat for a bit. It’s only when their conversation is over that I return my attention back to the game.

  Bryar throws the ball hard at my chest. I barely catch it. “And that’s match point for me. Why so distracted, lurker?”

  “Oh, so you did see them? I guess that means they’re not ghosts,” I tease her.

  My sister sneers. “You’re hilarious. I guess the O’Briens finally got round to renting out the house.” Even though her complexion is tanner than mine, her cheeks have flushed red from the exercise. Bryar unzips her hoodie to cool off before she half-turns back to our house. “You coming?”

  I bounce the ball and catch it again. “Go ahead. I’ll be a minute.”

  Bryar snorts and rolls her eyes before she leaves. Sometimes I envy her. I envy the carelessness that comes with ignorance. It’s been almost a year since I last felt it myself.

  After I hear the front door slam shut, I leave the ball on the ground and sneak into the toolshed we use as a wine cellar. One hand grazing the tiles in the gloomy light, I count nine tiles, then pull out a loose one from the wall. The booklet that falls out after the tile is but a few stained pages, manually bound with cord. It didn’t have a name on it or a title, but it’s structured like a journal.

  When I first found it, I figured it had belonged to one of our ancestors. He refers to our family, to the time they emigrated to the new world, sent here to search for beasts. One specific passage makes it clear that these were not the ramblings of a deranged and paranoid man.

  The beasts burn. They burn when the purple flowers touch their skin. They burn when they ingest the essence of the plant. Vervain. We infuse all our wine with it now. We pluck out the ones who choke on their drink. And then we see them truly burn—on top of the wooden stake.

  The memory floods my mind. The porch of our grand Victorian house lit up in Christmas lights and full of rowdy teenagers. It was last year’s the-parents-are-away-the-kids-will-play party. The Hawks brought their own liquor—their cousin scored it for them. All the rest gorged on Father’s wine reserves.

  Vanessa, who lives down the street, danced on a table. The Valtyk twins howled into the starless night and challenged each other to down their drinks. Even goodie-two-shoes Charity had a drink. And by the door, Jean’s slender figure leaned on the frame as she chatted with the girls who have been plastered at her side for months. How naive of me to think it some queen-bee nonsense.

  But it was my sister who made the real mistake that night. She huddled over to them, breath frosty white in the darkness. “Why are you standing all the way there? Jean, come on inside.”

  I’ve relived that moment a thousand times. The casual invite makes me think the monster is coming for my family when the floorboards creak in the depth of night. It’s the reason I sleep with a wooden stake under my bed.

  Jean slid inside, a soft smile on her face, and accepted the wine Bryar handed her. “Fun party.”

  She leaned back against the table and took a delicate sip. I knew something was wrong at once. For someone as poised as her, she lost her gracefulness in a second, face blanching even more than her usual ghostly complexion. She didn’t splutter the wine or spit it out spraying, but she turned around, fleeing out of the room and down the porch steps into the darkness.

  “Jean?” my sister called out after her.

  My head was about to split under the weight of the realization. “I’ll go after her,” I said to Bryar and rushed out.

  I heard Jean’s rasping breaths before I saw her silhouette in the shadows. Feeling weak and unprepared, I wished for a weapon in my hands.

  “Are you all right there?” My throat constricted as I tried to feign concern.

  Jean took a step out of the shadows, wiping the corner of her mouth with the end of her sleeve.

  “Perfectly fine.” She tried to smile, but her eyes, wide with betrayal or surprise, gave her away. “I guess the wine was stronger than I expected.” She rushed past me, heading back to the party. “Well, shall we?”

  I mumbled something back, but she didn’t wait up. Like a criminal, she seemed desperate to flee the crime scene. And a crime scene it was. I turned on the feeble light in front of the shed, illuminating the corner she’d hidden into.

  Tiny droplets of blood dotted the snow. She had burned. Jean had burned.

  And just like that myth was reality. The crazy jumbles written by a man long gone became the absolute truth which grounds my existence now.

  I pocket the journal. I’ve never allowed myself to bring it with me before, but all it does here is rot. Father probably doesn’t even know it exists.

  My neck slicked in cold sweat, I hurry through the yard back to the house. When I enter, Bryar rushes down the stairs, already showered and changed, and giggles into the phone she holds to her ear. “No way! Mom, you’re a rock star!”

  “Hey, let me talk to her,” I beckon to my sister, but she only makes a face and sticks out her tongue at me. “Come on.”

  Bryar pulls the phone down against her chest to block the sound. “Call her on your own time.” In an instant, the phone is at her ear again. “That’s so awesome.” My sister walks off into the living room without another glance at me.

  With a huff, I rush upstairs. I stash the booklet at the bottom of my drawer, under all the albums with travel pictures from when we visit Mom at the ranch. A quick shower later, I head back downstairs, my hair still wet.

  Father gives me a critical once-over from his seat at the head of the table. “Dinner is at eight, Mason.”

  I suppress the guttural objection building in my throat and sit down. “Sorry.”

  My expressionless delivery seems to appease him because he turns to Bryar with a regal nod. “You were saying?”

  My sister stops in her tracks, hands grasping the salad bowl. “Mom says hi.”

  She piles green salad onto the plate, then passes it to Father and snaps the meat dish from me. Once our plates are full, Bryar digs in. Her metabolism can beat even mine. It doesn’t seem to slow her down from chattering though.

  “Guess what she did today?” Bryar doesn’t wait for us to try. “She shot a viper. Can you believe it?”

  Father measures her with a look. “I’m sure it was only necessary.”

  His tone makes me fight a cringe, but I can’t pinpoint why. Something feels off about him today. His demeanor is sourer than that of the sulky recluse we know and don’t exactly rejoice in having around.

  “She said she laid a trap and caught the snake,” Bryar says, then swallows her bite. “She shot it right in the head.”

  Dad’s back is so straight, it might as well be a taut string. “Send her my regards next time.”

  “Will do.”

  Bryar and I exchang
e a quick glance, same as every time we step on the thin line between our parents. I wish they’d get divorced already. Then we wouldn’t have to tiptoe around their separation, half-pretending it isn’t there.

  I focus on my meat for the few heartbeats we take to stew in the topic, each in our own way. Then I clear my throat. “It seems the O’Briens finally rented out the house.”

  Father reaches for his wine and takes a deep gulp before setting the glass back down. “They didn’t. Linden and his daughter moved back in themselves. He called to let me know a few days ago.”

  Bryar’s jaw drops. When I realize my mouth hangs open as well, I hurry to ask, “Why now?”

  Father raises his eyebrows high and gives me a small shrug. His hand rests on the stem of the wineglass. “Why not? New York is prohibitively expensive. They can live here rent-free.”

  That raises more questions than it answers. If it’s all about money, then why did they leave Elmwick in the first place? But I hold my tongue. Father’s brandy-colored eyes, so similar to mine, look tense.

  “Maybe he wants his daughter to attend school here.” Bryar piles more meat onto her plate. “Do you know if she’ll be going to Elmwick Academy like the rest of the legacies?”

  In sync, Father and I snap our necks to look at her.

  “I suppose so,” Father says.

  “Ugh,” Bryar gasps. “Imagine being plucked from a modern city, where you can go shopping and see museums and fashion shows, only to get locked in the stuffy Elmwick Academy to learn about distant relatives so long gone that no one even remembers them anymore.”

  Father and I don’t reply, but his finger taps the stem of his wineglass, making the ruby liquid inside ripple.

  “I asked Jean about it and she said all they do there is browse through dusty, old history books and trace family genealogy trees.” Bryar stuffs a forkful of potatoes in her mouth and swallows it quickly. “They waste the entire afternoon there, so they always have to do their homework in the evenings. It’s a nightmare.” Then, she casts an overplayed expression of gratitude at Father. “Thanks for not making us go there.”

  Father coughs on a tentative sip of wine. “You’re not legacies.”

  Bryar scratches her nose, her head tipped back. “By the age of our house alone, our ancestors moved to town around the same time theirs did. I don’t understand why they get to call themselves ‘legacies’, like they’re so special. If we wanted to, we’d probably be able to find proof we’re just like them.”

  My eyes dart to Father’s face, which has tensed beyond recognition. His entire body is stiff. Unlike usually, he doesn’t seem in the mood to indulge Bryar in her lively chatter. My fingers tighten around the fork and knife in my hands. Doubt creeps inside me as I think back to the booklet now stashed in my bedside table. Perhaps I wasn’t the first one to find it.

  “Trust me,” Father says in a gloomy voice. “You don’t fit their definition of a legacy.”

  Bryar snorts, having missed how serious he is. “All the better. Let them stew in that kooky old building every afternoon. I prefer to be free as a bird.”

  Just like that, the tension on Father’s face dissolves. He regards Bryar in the usual loving, if slightly distant manner. “You’re one to talk. Maybe you should drop those early trainings each morning, so you could be free as a bird?”

  Bryar swallows her latest bite like it hurt her throat. “No way.” She smirks. “Andreev’s drills might be mental, but you can’t argue with his results.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” I jump in. “A year ago, you couldn’t even do a pull up, let alone climb the rope. And look at you now!”

  She scrunches her nose at me, eyes narrow—an expression I associate with her jabbing an elbow in my ribs. I sneer back to tease her, because she’s too far to reach me from across the table.

  After dinner, I don’t hang around. Andreev’s early workouts are motivation enough to go to bed early, but as I lay under the covers with only the crescent moon casting faint light in the room, sleep eludes me. I reach to turn on the night lamp. Fingers drumming against the covers, I can’t resist, so I browse through my drawer for the journal.

  The pages of the booklet are so worn out, I think they’ll fall apart and crumble over my duvet. Still, I browse page after page, searching for anything I might have missed before. I skim over the powers of vervain, over advice that says we’re never to let the cold ones in, never invite them into our homes, never look them straight in the eyes for too long, and always carry a wooden stake.

  I reach the end of the few short pages and huff. Since I found out about Jean, I’ve re-read the journal countless times. I didn’t really expect to come across anything new, but I can’t escape the feeling that the contents of this journal aren’t the complete story.

  I scratch my neck, then let out a deep breath and stash the booklet back at the bottom of the drawer. For a year, I’ve watched closely for signs of more monsters. Now the house that has been vacant for as long as I’ve lived in this town glows in dim lighting, and Jean rushes out to welcome the newcomers. It has to be a sign—a sign of something sinister moving back to town.

  And whatever these new neighbors came here looking for, they have another thing coming.

  Chapter 3. Cami

  I had planned on being late on my first day at Elmwick High. It was past the middle of the semester, so instead of taking a lengthy tour of the school, gathering all human and supernatural eyes on me, I thought I’d slip in the last seat right after the bell.

  They might make me introduce myself and scold me for being late, but it didn’t matter. The entire class would find out about me at once, and the students wouldn’t have time to grill me about moving back to Elmwick, not before the end of the class, anyway.

  I thought it was perfect, but I didn’t factor in the cold one.

  “Jean’s here to walk you to school, Cami,” Dad’s voice calls out from the door.

  My lips are stuck to an especially crunchy sweet potato toast with peanut butter and jelly. I swallow a big, dry bite. “I’m running a little behind.”

  “Then eat on the go.”

  I don’t like the grin that remains plastered on Dad’s face as he watches me stuff the rest of the sweet potato toast in my mouth, then wash my hands in the kitchen sink. I race to put on shoes and throw on a coat.

  “Hi,” I say to Jean once I’m out the door.

  She’s waited without asking if she could come in again. Despite Dad’s cheerful babbling as he wishes us a great day at school, I remain certain he wouldn’t have let her in.

  “You should take a scarf,” Jean says. She probably doesn’t mind the nibble of the frigid air on her skin, but there’s grace in assuming that I do.

  Dad tosses my yellow merino wool scarf at me through the open front door. I catch it and twist it around my neck to cover my mouth and nose. “Right. I’m ready then.”

  Jean doesn’t seem to believe the bold statement. She remains silent though. When we’re out of the yard and onto the snow-covered street, I feel the need to say something. Anything.

  “Are you friends with any of the others?”

  The sharp sideways glance she throws at me makes me feel I’ve overstepped an invisible boundary. The kind only families from the former circle would know was there.

  Jean answers after a pause. “I don’t mind the charmers.”

  I try to study her face. That sparse language doesn’t leave me much to go on.

  Jean seems classy beyond her years. She almost glides on the snow that has been pressed into an icy mold because of everyone walking in the same path and no one bothering to shovel the street.

  Somehow, what she said doesn’t strike me as mean. We walk by the wolf and lion houses when I notice she’s been holding her breath a little.

  “Smells of wet dogs,” she whispers to me. “Can you tell?”

  I shake my head before I even focus and take a whiff. It’s all crystal-clean, winter-fresh air to me. “Smell i
sn’t my strongest sense.”

  Walking with Jean isn’t as bad as I expected. By the time we reach school, I have to admit to myself that it’s nice to have someone by my side as I cross that entrance.

  Wrought-iron gates circle around the two buildings. On the left is Elmwick High—with its usual two-levels, cream paint and windows that could use replacement.

  A large court separates the high school from a smaller, even older building. Humans sprint from one end of the court to the other. Among them, I spot the hunter next door by his combination of broad shoulders and lanky frame. In the daylight, his hair looks lighter—a shade of chestnut brown that pops against his fair complexion.

  I avert my eyes and focus on the ancient building on the right-hand side. The faded sign reads “Elmwick Academy: Home to the town’s legacies”. White columns frame the entrance—a set of heavy mahogany doors, ornamented in such detail that I wish for time to study them, as Jean and I walk in.

  A few vipers, by the sound of it, enter Elmwick Academy behind us. They giggle as they pass us by, then plop down on the couch left of the entrance. With a small wooden table and pouffes spread out around it, it seems like a living room.

  I whirl around and spot a mirror image of that area on the right as well. It’s already full of rowdy boys having breakfast—big homemade sandwiches that leave crumbs everywhere.

  “This is the common area,” Jean says. “Just to chill without having to hide who we truly are from the humans.”

  I remove my gaze from the group of boys, wolves, by their build, and face Jean. “I thought the haze was meant to hide us.”

  Jean scowls a little. “Don’t rely on it too much. It only lulls people so they don’t dwell on what they’re seeing, but it doesn’t change what they see.”

  I twirl around, taking in the high ceiling and breathing in the rich, spicy smell that wafts in the air. It seems to wake me up, like a mocha latte from my favorite coffee shop in New York. The sheer memory invites in nostalgia I can’t afford.