I PRESSED MY forehead against the car's cool window, feeling the thrum of the engine and through my skull and the beat of the radio. Jade's watch was digging in where her arm squished to my leg, but there wasn't much room with Walt on her other side. The logical solution would have been to place him in the front, alas, Xander would never let another soul drive his precious baby, and nobody was game to suggest Ella sat in the back.
Streetlamps swooped by, shedding light onto puddled pavements lining century-old buildings, which had long since been turned into supermarkets, retail stores, service stations and one, lonely post office. Those that hadn't been restored were shadowy and crumbling in places, the perfect home for ghosts. I mean, if you were the kind of person who believed in ghosts.
Every Australian kid learned about the arrival of the First Fleet in the late eighteenth century. Shipments of convicts to found colonies, but also free men and their families. That, we knew, was fact.
The Darkwell legend started with a bunch of witches—no joke. They boarded the ships among the free families, believing a new world would render them free from persecution because, you know, stake burning, drowning, that sort of thing wasn't too appealing.
Once on land, these magic folk roamed far from the colonies, to where nobody would follow. They formed their own settlement and named it Darkwell.
I wasn't sure how much of that I was supposed to believe. For the most part, I was fairly certain it was just an elaborate excuse to justify the elitist culture of the Descending Families.
Whitlock, Ophel, Emris, Pierce and Murdock. People with those surnames were like royalty around town. Descended from the original governing families of the settlement, they made up the council, and together owned almost all of Darkwell, bought with the hefty riches inherited from their ancestors.
Our ancestors.
The girl with the pokey watch was the Jade Ophel. Sleek ponytail, cat eyeliner and nails so on-point they could scratch your soul. She and her younger sisters, Jacqueline, Georgia and Gemma—who we collectively called The Ophels—were probably the richest and most sought after girls in Darkwell.
On the topic of being the object of desire, Walt Emris, eldest son of the family and heir to the fortune, had almost every girl tripping over their own jaws whenever he strolled by. Not that it did much, since, according to Ella, his only interest was me.
Now, where to begin with Ella Whitlock? My best friend? My brother's girlfriend? Her Majesty the Queen? Alpha of our pack?
On second thoughts, that pretty much covered it.
I ran my eyes over my friends—my family. Ella, Jade and Walt had countless brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, the motherload. They had walls of photos, all smiling and happy. They had annual family barbeques and huge Christmas parties. During those times, pressed up against a shop window, gazing at all the things I would never have.
My parents, The Pierce's, used to be like that. In my lifetime, Xander and I had five perfect Christmas parties, fiver perfect barbeques, although we didn't have the photographs anymore.
I didn't mind being a Pierce. I didn't. But it did get lonely sometimes.
"Why are we slowing down?" Jade tensed beside me as Xander suddenly let off the accelerator, craning her neck to peek out the window, to the narrow street across the road which was now sealed with police tape.
"It's still closed," my brother murmured.
Oak Street had been blocked off for weeks now, ever since some high school kids had sourced some of their happy pills from Lower Well. It was a hotspot for that kind of thing. In eighteenth century Darkwell, the town had been divided into rich and poor, and the respective sections were named Upper and Lower Well. Today, Lower Well remained a low socio-economic maze of abandoned buildings in the council had converted into housing. It was dark, dank and not the place you wanted to be at night. Most brave idiots in Upper wouldn't dare.
"Of course it's closed," Ella said with a sharp edge in her voice. "It's because somebody's dad wasn't monitoring the situation. If my mother was still—"
"Don't take that tone with me," Jade snapped, kicking the back of Ella's seat, "just because Daddy's the mayor now instead of your mum. Jealousy is not a good look for you—it clashes with your outfit. Daddy says Lower Well is best left alone, as long as none of their crap comes into Upper."
"Whatever," Ella muttered resentfully. "Mr Ophel can run Darkwell into the ground if he wants."
"Can we please move it?" Jade tugged on the collar of Xander's shirt. "I catch weird vibes from this place."
Walt snorted as my brother revved the engine and the car jolted back to life. "Vibes? Still think you're psychic, Jade?"
"Hey, I got the vibes from Holly Crane last year, and she ended up wearing that God-awful tangerine dress to the ball. Make of that what you will."
Conversation returned to normal, and Oak Street shrunk in the review mirror. An odd feeling in my stomach, however, remained. It was probably whatever 'vibe' Jade had claimed to be picking up. Or I was carsick.
Somewhere inside, I knew neither of those things were true.
YOU ARE READING
Girl of Fire and Shadow
Teen Fiction"Once upon a time, I was hit in the face with a soccer ball." Parker Pierce wishes she was in someone else's story. A story where her life is normal, and she can forget the ghosts that haunt her past, and the secrets that plague her future. Instea...
