Chapter 1
I felt a chilly breeze run straight through me, as we waited for the moving van. We were used to it though – me and mum. Ever since dad left, we’ve been living alone, moving house every few months. I don’t know why. It just happens. I think it’s because mum likes a change, although I can’t be certain. Maybe it’s because she worries about me getting bullied at school, due to my weirdness ( and by weirdness I don’t just mean my actions; I mean the fact that I’m very different).
I don’t know why I have these odd features but I do. My eyes are a golden colour; I’m certainly not tolerant to heat; I’m strangely very clever; have a weirdly good sense of sight, hearing and smell and have a symbol of a 9 sided star inside a circle, which was on my neck since birth. People often notice these things and tease me about, yet I never let it get to me. I always thought I was just odd, as whenever I asked my mother about it she would always shrug and ignore me.
The moving van turned up soon after, and we piled the boxes up into it.
“Cheer up Brianne, this is probably going to be our last time moving,” Mum smiled at me. I winced at my name. You’d think that after 15 years I’d finally be used to it, but I’m not. I hate my name.
“Yeah right,” I muttered under my breath.
Soon later we were at in mum’s mini, ready to head off to some small village, where our new home was situated. I dreaded going to school. I wasn’t the best a socializing and was very self-conscious, for reasons which are probably obvious. We were travelling at a reasonable speed along the motorway, though every second seemed more like an hour to me. I hugged my floral teddy bear tightly, like a baby, yet it made me feel comfortable.
I was anxiously nibbling on a pack of crisps, when we pulled up outside our new house. I was shocked. It was a 3 storey home, with ivy crawling all the way up the walls. It had clearly been redecorated recently. From what I could see of the walls, they were whitewashed, and each windowsill was painted chestnut brown, with a swirly pattern around it. Next to our new house was a muddy field with 3 horses in it, a chestnut coloured highland pony standing out the most to me. The most shocking thing about the house was that it had a barbed wire fence and huge gates going around the edge. I had no clue why on earth we needed this, but it was by far the best house we had lived in.
I was still gawping in horror when mum got a phone call and handed me the keys to the gate, nudging me to get inside. I took this a sign that she didn’t want me listening in on her conversations, making me a hundred times more curious. I decided to hide behind the gates and hope my great sense of hearing would come in handy.
“Hello... Yes we’re here... I think she likes it...” I heard her say to whoever was on the other end of the phone. Clearly they were talking about me. “Yes... Oh its very safe... hold on...” At this point Mum had clearly spotted me and was beginning to whisper.
I sighed as I opened the door to my future. Apparently it was fully furnished as the lady who lived here before had died and knew my mum, therefore left the house to us in her will. The house was very old fashioned, yet I liked it. As soon as you walked in there was a huge mirror screwed onto the wall, with two empty photo frames by each side. I thought of what could fill the frames. Nothing sprang to mind, proving how exciting my life was. I turned to my right and into the kitchen. It was a very modern kitchen, with high shelves, a marble counter and two barstools perched next to an empty bowl. There was a little window peeping through to the dining room, which was equally as modern as the kitchen. It had a glass table, with a beautiful floral tablecloth and some glass chairs. Posh. Around the edges of the room were wooden cabinets, with vases on top. This house was odd. On the left was the living room. This was another old fashioned room with a delicate looking sofa and armchair. At TV was perched up on top of another cabinet and some bookshelves were placed around the edges of the room. I walked up the stairs carefully, hating the thought that some dead old lady had lived here before us. Upstairs were 3 rooms, a bathroom (which just looked like a normal bathroom, with black and white tiles on the wall), a smaller room (which I assumed was mine) and then a bigger room. I peered into the bigger room, which my mother would use and found a double bed with a pattered duvet; a walk-in wardrobe; a pretty full length mirror, shoved in one corner; another bookshelf and a huge paining of a little girl cuddling a chunky Labrador. My room was next door. It was much better than I expected, though that wasn’t much. My bed was pushed up against the window, which held a lovely view of the fields behind the house; a wooden wardrobe, shelf and desk, all equally as beautiful and a painting of the 3 horses I had seen in the field earlier. The most striking think about my room was the wooden plank on the wall, with tiny animal models on top and my name printed on top (I have no clue how this woman knew my name) along with the 9 sided star permanently tattooed on my neck. I was beginning to get scared. It couldn’t of been coincidental that this woman had put the same sign on my wall, though it was sweet of her to write my name and leave the models for me. I made a mental note to pray for her next time we went to a church. I went up the 2nd flight of stairs, surprised to find an empty space with 3 odd looking swords in one corner. I shivered at the thought of a weapon being used in my house and decided to head downstairs to find my mother investigating the house.
