"Dad," I started. "this is going to sound...odd. I've been keeping this secret from you to try to keep you safe, but now I think you should know."
He sat there with a confused expression on his face.
"It's not really bad is it?" He asked. "Because I'm not ready for you to start doing bad stuff."
"No." I said, wondering what he thought I did.
"I'm listening." He said.
"It's just that, I have these powers..." And I told him everything. Well, except for the demon part.
After I was done he just sat there.
"Alice..." He slowly started to stand. "Do I need to call the mental hospital?"
"What?! No Dad!"
"Sorry." And he sat back down.
He's not going to believe me. I thought.
An idea came to my head.
"Sorry," I said. "did I forget to mention that what I was talking about was all a dream?"
"Yeah you left that part out." He said.
"I just want to know what it means. Oh, and we are really related to the Shadows."
"Oh. What news." He said. "We should have them over more often."
"Isabel is the only one that knows." I said. "We're trying to decide when to tell the rest of them."
He blinked, then nodded.
My Dad is the most complicated person to talk to.
~
"Alice, this is Malorie." Luke said at lunch.
The eighth grade girl was with him. Yeah, Malorie.
I scowled at her in my mind. On the outside, a fake smile was plastered on my face.
"It's so nice to meet you!" I said, acting nicely.
She smiled.
Now, side note. I just gotta say that this girl is only about 2/3 of his height.
She had bleach-blonde hair, and sparkling blue eyes.
Her and Luke walked away, and soon after Skyler and Zoe came to sit down.
The rest of our group wasn't around.
"Ugh, Malorie." Skyler said.
"You don't like her?" I asked.
"Uh, no." Zoe said. "She's like, how do I put this, mean."
"Really?" I asked. "She seemed nice to me."
"And she is." Skyler said. "The only reason we don't like her is because you're our friend."
"And she's dating your crush." Zoe added.
"Don't sweat it." I said. "There are plenty of fish in the sea."
"Do you actually believe that?" Skyler asked.
"Of course." I said. "Now, I'm done eating so I'm gonna go outside." And I walked away.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't believe me.
Because not one word of what I'd just said was true.
~
Science.
The usual feeling about it, only ten times worse.
Malorie would be working on the project with us.
Now, I do actually think she's nice.
And if I ever get over Luke, we could probably be friends.
But right now, I was pretty jealous, and angry.
But at the same time, seeing them together, all happy, it made all those emotions sort of, diminish.
I think that could be a good sign.
So I continued to get over all of my hatred, and worked on our project.
~
We'd finished the project.
The assignment was to create something that moved on another source other than electricity.
That was very difficult.
But, it was done so, I didn't care.
The thing is, the only one out of the three of us that was actually good at science was Malorie.
That was a problem because she was distracted.
Luke is the second best, and he was also distracted.
They were talking to each other.
So I mainly did the project on my own, and I wondered if that's how Malorie got such good grades, because people did the work for her.
"Great work, Malorie!" Mrs. Ellers exclaimed.
Question answered.
"Yep!" Malorie said. "Alice and Luke didn't know what to do...so I mostly did the project, but I'm happy to."
Luke was carrying the project over.
Malorie smiled.
I wanted to shout at her.
It took every inch of my sanity not to.
~
Later, I was making dinner for my dad.
You know that feeling you get when you're being watched?
That's what I was feeling.
I turned around to see my mother standing behind me.
"Mom?" I asked.
"Yep, it's me." Her light, musical voice answered.
"How?" I asked.
"Alice, darling, I know you don't believe in ghosts, but you really have no choice right now." She answered.
I nodded.
"I came to warn you." She continued.
I nodded again.
"Now, I know you've met Rufus- the demon. And I came to tell you that it's okay to tell the Shadows. With their help, you can defeat him once and for all."
"But if I do he'll hurt Jerome." I said.
"Ha! Is that what he told you?" She laughed. "He won't hurt a hair on that boy's head, well, until he's done messing around with him."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Alice, my beautiful daughter, you can and will defeat him, you're more powerful than you know."
Then she disappeared.
I finished dinner and made a plate of food for my dad.
Then I walked to the TV and turned it on.
A story was on the news.
"So you said that these little "people" were flying around?" The reporter asked.
"Yeah dude, they were like, totally running from something in the woods." A teenage boy answered.
"Could you describe them for us?"
"Dude, I don't know what I saw, but those things looked like fairies."
The camera focused on the reporter.
"You heard it, there are now fairies living in the woods. This is Amy Gee reporting."
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
We need to talk, now.
-Demetri
I turned the TV off.