Bound By Nature [ A NaNoWriMo Novel]

Chapter Four

Picture is Kale (Tony Oller.

~~~

December 2, 1963

Dearest Coral,

Things are getting much more intense. There are signs of him everywhere. I only just had Jacqueline a month ago and even she's jumpy. She wakes up in the night screaming. Deiter tells me he hasn't spoken to Mother in a long time, but that he is seeing signs of Ember everywhere as well.

Just the other day, I had another one of the dreams. The ones that we all had before the first time- I'm running down a dark hall, and I burst out of the end, just to see a huge lily with a rose on one side and a sunflower on the other, and I have you and Deiter next to me, then the flames light up everything and I jolt awake. You remember those- you always saw a sunflower in the middle, Deiter always saw a rose. It didn't matter what was in the middle, they all ended the same.

How can we take him down a second time? Mother took away most of our powers so we could live "normal lives" but I don't think she realized we can't have a "normal life" after what she chose us for. Coral, it's getting worse- I have headaches all the time. Jon woke up a few days ago to a raging fever, and once he touched the lily Mother gave us he cooled down, but it's not fading much. We need to meet up as soon as possible, before this gets worse.

Please write back soon.

Love,

Lily Allen

A yawn stretched my jaws. It was a quarter to two in the morning and I was still up, reading the letters. I'd gathered a lot of information but none of it made any sense, purely for the reason it didn't seem... Real. There were too many coincidences.

It was only letters from two people: Lily Allen and Deiter Werstein. They referred to their children- Lily's daughter Jacqueline and Deiter's son Lewis. There was something else they referred to a lot: Mother and Ember. Mother, up until this last letter, had just been a figure they mentioned from time to time, someone they'd been close to and went to for advice. But Lily's words, Mother took away our powers, implied there was more to Mother than just a motherly figure. It was obvious it wasn't their actual mother. But the real question is, who is Ember? Why is Ember so frightening?

I'd read letter after letter and I think I've started to piece it together. The problem is, I don't want to, really- Allen. Callista Allen, my first friend here. It just can't be. That guy in the Guns N Roses t-shirt had the last name Werstein. What are the odds I'd meet them today and they'd be this significant to my grandmother? Sure, there could be another Coral Snow- but a Coral Snow from 1963 in small-town Virginia who mentions her one-year-old daughter, Linda, who just so happens to have the same name as my mother, Linda Hope Snow, who refused to change her last name. It's too big of a coincidence. There's something bigger happening here.

And tomorrow, I'm going to find out more about the present-day Allen and Werstein.

At six, I jolted out of bed an hour past when my alarm would normally be set for. I yanked off my pajamas, leaving them on the floor, and dug through my dresser, grabbing the first things I could- jeans and a black Killers long-sleeve shirt. I grabbed a jacket and pulled it on and yanked on some socks before running the brush through my hair- good enough!
I ducked out of my room and brushed my teeth quickly, and then returned to my room, sliding into my shoes before running to the dresser. I applied a quick layer of mascara and gray eye-shadow, and then grabbed my bag. As I was exiting, I nearly tripped on something and looked down to see the box. I gasped- where do I hide it?! If Mom finds it, she'll immediately question it, and I can't have that!