Just In Time

Chapter Eight

Sorry for the long wait and its really undedited but I'll brush over the typos later.

Aubrey dreamt of the last day her parents were alive.

Her mother had her hair tied in a neat chignon, just like she always did but there was something about her that day that was off.

She had the type of face that could belong on a cover of any magazine. She was curvy and short, Aubrey was already taller than her and she was thirteen but that didn't matter really because matter how short her mother was, she had that kind of pull that held everyone's attention and what's more that she could handle the spotlight naturally completely unlike her daughter who preferred to blend into shadows under public scrutiny.

Her mother had those smile wrinkles the kind that told you that she laughed and smiled almost all the time.

And yet at that moment there wasn't a trace of warmth in her face.

"Aubrey go fetch your sweater won't you?" She told her not quite looking at her eyes,"It's very cold outside."

Aubrey stared at her mother confused, it was the middle of the summer and to be perfectly honest she was dying in her jeans alone.

"A- A sweater?" Thirteen year old Aubrey asked tucking her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear,"It's so hot though mum, you can't-"

"Now Aubrey." Her mother's voice left no room for negotiation. It was stern and cold the kind it rarely got only when she was either very angry or extremely worried.

Aubrey wanted to argue more but she knew better than to bait her mother when she was in a dangerous mood.

Aubrey grumbled to herself as she dragged herself up to her room.

She was anyway making a concession by skipping on a Skype call with Eva her best and only friend by going to this event or whatever that her parents were forcing her to go to.

Aubrey slammed her door loudly and decided to launch some sort of silent protest and stay in her room. Her mother of all people knew how important her one and only friend was who had stuck with her through out all the crazy was to her. Aubrey needed to talk to her, she needed to be an ordinary teenager but it had been made quite clear to her this was thing was also one of those non negotiable things.

Aubrey searched for her phone and let out a string of curses when she realised she had left it on the kitchen counter.

She went down the stairs to retrieve it when she heard her mother speak from the living room.

"David, you have to admit that all the signs are right there." Her mothers voice trembled,"She's not our daughter, she's- shes-"

Her mother doesn't finish talking before another female voice interrupts,"Don't be silly Lia, she's a Valdis and she's been your daughter for the last thirteen years. She's not a monster, just troubled."

Aubrey realises with a start that her aunt is also there.

Of course her aunt would be there, Aubrey thought, it's her house after all.

But Aubrey still felt uneasy. Usually when the state of her mental health was discussed she thought it would private, yet her aunt here knew all about it.

A monster.
Does her mom think she's a monster?

Of course not, Aubrey convinced herself, why would she?

Aubrey had successful been lying to them for the past few years ignoring her dreams and all the shadows she saw even when there was no one to cast them.