Three Months: Chapter 1

1

I threw the last log into the fire and wiped my forehead. I examined my fingers. I had no splinters in them, luckily. I wiped my hands on my pants and made my way to the house. Momma was cooking again, I could tell. There was chicken roasting in the oven. Mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn on the cob were being fixed on the stovetop. The stove and oven were both made of black marble, fine even for this side of Satu Mare. We lived far away from Transylvania, thanks to momma. Yet she wasn’t my real momma. She was my foster mother, and I was not the only child she had to take care of. There were 13 of us in the mansion, the only mansion in fact, near the Carpathian Mountains. We were all taken here because of our special abilities. Eleven of the children, Ami, Sam, Jacob, Josh, Justin, Lexi, Rosanna, Levi, Becky, Taylor, and Mary, had the ability to read peoples minds. Amazing, isn’t it? The other girl, Kali, was the other odd ball of the group. She could foretell the future in her dreams. Her, Josh, Sam, Mary, and Taylor were my only friends in the whole house. Nobody knew who I was, or what my special ability was. I go by Bella, and nobody questions me other wise. “Momma Wilson, may I go to the pool? All my chores are done.” I asked her, and she turned away from her cooking long enough to give me one of those sweet smiles of hers. “Ok, you may Bella. But you have to be dry and dressed before three. We have visitors coming. And, Josh is already out there, so go have fun.” I smiled at her and ran upstairs to put on my swimsuit.2

I swung the door open into the dim light and had to shield my eyes. I had gotten accustomed to wearing the towel around me before I got into the water, and of course sunglasses were a necessity in this type of weather. The coolest it had ever got here in the summer was a whopping 105. We don’t have many neighbors, and the only person that would be close enough to be investigating was a quarter of a mile away. The pool itself is amazing to the people that come to “get” a child. It’s 45 feet long, but it only goes to 10 feet. Most of the kids don’t go down to the deep end anymore. It’s the way we lost one of our most beloved house members, Kevin Poindexter. We never got along very well, but we didn’t really hate each other. I guess you can’t be friends with everyone, right? There was rumors going around the house that he had a secret crush on me. But it didn’t make sense. I am almost 5 foot tall, with “half and half” eyes and black hair. The reason they call it half and half is because the upper part of my eye is blue, the lower half is tannish-brown. Not the best combination of colors, but soon they will be fully blue. But that day won’t come for quite some time, about three months to be exact. Momma Wilson was telling the truth. Josh was already there. He kept dipping in and out of the water like a dolphin. I giggled, and silently slipped into the ice-cold water behind him. 3

My teeth chattered as I got up to my shoulders in the cold water. I watched Josh swim stealthily through the water. His pale skin glistened with a hint of brown. The smell of human scent was amongst the waves that surrounded him, but I shook my head and forgot all about it. His dark brown hair was matted and wet. His eyes were gold, a unique color that could only be found in the southern part of Satu Mare. His shell necklace hung around his neck stiffly. He quickly resurfaced. Waves rippled past me, making cold chills rise up and down my spine. The wind was slightly blowing, the scent becoming stronger and making me hungrier. I shook it off with a hard shake of my head. He turned around and looked at me. He just stared for a while, until I became uncomfortable with the silence. The sun was roasting a hole through my neck, or so it made it feel. “So,” he said, nervously running his fingers through his hair, “how long have you been in here?” I shrugged and tried to act as calm as I looked. “Not very long,” I stated, and grabbed the blue pool float off the cement walk and slapping it in, “Long enough to be freezing, though.” He smiled, his monotone voice making everything come to life again. I smiled, jumped up on the float, and splashed water at him. He was so fun to be around.4

We splashed around for a while and I kept tackling him. He lifted me up and blew on my stomach. I laughed, and reached out and tickled him. He laughed and put me down. We started splashing each other again when Jacob walked out of the house. Jacob was far from human. He was a mixture of human and werewolf, two combinations that destroyed the likes of my kind. But anyway…. He was the serious one of the whole group. He was the “fun spoiler.” He walked over to the edge of the pool and glared down at us. We stopped splashing and looked up at him. I already knew he was there, for I could sense someone like him, or anyone at that fact, from a mile away. He had his arms crossed over his chest and he had a serious look in his brown eyes. “You all need to get in the house. It’s almost 2:30.” He said, and strode back to the house with his nose up in the air. Typical Jacob Harrison-Marshall. He’s always downing people with negative statements and criticism. “What a party pooper.” Josh said, and climbed out of the pool. He was wearing black swimming trunks with blue skulls that reached to his knees. “Yeah. Hey,” I said, taking advantage of the fact that he was the strongest boy probably in this side of Romania, “you want to help a girl out here?” he grabbed my arms and pulled me out. “Hey, there’s a van out front.” He said, and I stared in the direction that he was mentioning. There was a long, white limo and a black van parked in front of the house. There was fancy blue writing on the side of the van, but I couldn’t tell what it was. It was in a different language. 5