Frostbitten Past

I X

Too late, too late! The words rang in her mind as she awoke with a start. Her body was clammy, her heart was racing, and darkness spread throughout her room like a blanket. Thick like the quilt on her bed, too, feeling almost suffocating to her.

Andorra slid from her bed, the room stuffy and hot. No signs of Noah, Kyle, or the beast, but her body was still shaking in fear.

Her window was shut; there was no inky liquid coating her carpet. Andorra took a deep breath and closed her eyes, telling herself that it was a nightmare, and nothing else. When she grasped her door and pushed the open, the hallway light was almost blinding, and she stood there blinking for a moment, disoriented.

She could have sworn that there was blood on the hallway floor. She blinked again, but the blood drops didn't disappear, as though her dream had actually been true. Her fingers brushed her head and found the wound from earlier, when she was in the bathroom, but nothing else.

Andorra pushed herself to the stairs and crept down them quietly. There was the soft hum of chatter in the kitchen, something about the feel of quiet laughter making her feel safe again. Her parents were alive, not dead, and certainly not underneath a creature from her nightmares.

She didn't want to interrupt them, or even draw attention to herself, so she lingered in the hallway, her ears picking up the soft notes of her mother's voice, talking to her aunt, or perhaps her father, Andorra didn't know yet. It was nighttime, for real, and her mother talking meant that the time wasn't too late.

She heard her aunt snort. "Your daughter isn't who you think she is. I know you love her, but I'm serious. She's dangerous."

Ice flooded Andorra's veins as she listened to her aunt slander her. The words were vicious, unfeeling, and cruel. Andorra always knew her aunt was hateful, but this was different. There wasn't just hate in her aunt's voice. No, there was a sense of desperation and fear.

Was her aunt afraid of her? Or, was she afraid for her parents?

There was anger in her mother's voice, too. "You always bring this up! My daughter has never once come for us like that. She's a sweetheart, and her kindness is radiant. She's always been that way; our little sunshine. Is this why you've actually come back to visit? To tell me again how my daughter is evil?"

Andorra pressed herself against the wall, her ears twitching at the voices. She knew listening was poor of her, but she needed to know what her aunt wanted to do. What the point of her visit actually was.

"I'm here because I fear for your life! I've always seen the devil in that girl, even when she was a baby. She doesn't even look like you! Things don't add up with her. She has freakishly good hearing, and she can smell when things are... are rancid and poisonous! She is fooling you!"

Her mother laughed, but it was biting. "No, she isn't. And, ever since you tried to come here, she hasn't been feeling well. The moment you called, she began showing symptoms of illness, and she never gets sick. Never."

There was a pause, and then she felt someone in the hallway with her. She looked away from the hallway that led to the kitchen, and met the eyes of her aunt's boyfriend. Her heart stuttered for a moment, fear coiling up her spine at the sight of him standing there, so casually.

She'd been caught listening, and even worse, she hadn't heard him approach.

She opened her mouth to say something, perhaps to lie, but her aunt spoke again, drawing her attention away. "Why do you think she never grows ill? That isn't normal of children. None of this, of her, is normal!"

"Ah, you're listening. Not very polite, now is it?"

Andorra turned back to her aunt's boyfriend, her cheeks turning crimson. But, something he said made her eyes widen, because from where they were standing, it had to be impossible for normal ears to even hear the conversation in the kitchen. Even Andorra had to admit that she had freakishly good hearing, and she knew it. She knew listening in by the staircase should have been impossible, yet this man could also hear them.