CotG - Chapter 1

I was staring at the ceiling of my room, contemplating the current plan David and I had.  Running away from West’s house had always been a possibility – especially since Ian’s behavior started becoming erratic around me and the remainders of the West branch of his family.  I don’t usually get scared, but that man…  Ian Vanstrom frightens me, and I don’t quite understand why.   He has never been aggressive towards me, but I get the sense that he dislikes me and David.  David’s constant insisting that he’s a religious gun-nut with a personal vendetta against Aberrant creatures doesn’t help ease my discomfort around him either.
So sure, maybe David was crazy.  Maybe I was crazy.  Ian definitely was, although the reasons for and the manifestations of his madness was not clear.  With that thought, I rolled off my bed and snuck down the corridor in our small house to David’s room.  As I was about to knock, David opened the door, bleary-eyed.  When he saw me, his golden eyes focused a bit more, and he scratched his tousled blonde hair while stepping aside to let me in.
“Can’t sleep?”  He yawned, and I nodded.
“I’ve been thinking of leaving,” I replied in a whisper, sitting on his bed.  “Ian gives me the creeps.”
“He gives everyone the creeps,” came the tired reply as David rifled through his key collection, withdrawing a tarnished silver skeleton key.  I watched as he slid the key onto a small chain and put it on.  “We’ll leave tomorrow night.”
I was startled.  We’d talked like this for years and years, having almost the exact same conversation, but now David was willing to carry out our plan?  My mind was racing, I’d had a bag packed for at least a month now, after I posed the same question to David and he refused.  Of the thousands of questions swirling in my mind, one surfaced stronger than the others.  Why would we leave tomorrow, and not now?  I gave voice to my question, and David shifted uncomfortably.
“My—my dad’s coming tomorrow.”  He stammered out, and I frowned.  I’d only met David’s father once, in passing, and he was strange, stranger than David and West, at least.  Not only that, but West always wanted to talk to him about something she was desperately trying to keep a secret from both me and Ian.  Abruptly, I stood up and walked out of David’s room.  “Alexis!”
Quickly I made my way back to my room, closing the door behind me and sliding down it in the half-darkness of my room.  I pressed my fingers to my temples, massaging my head to alleviate the headache I felt coming on.  My mother’s necklace caught the light from my smoke detector and shone greenly in the darkness.  Staring at it made my headache dissipate and I stood to go back to bed.  My mirror caught my reflection as I climbed into bed, my semi-straight black hair tousled and coiled into eight strands and my hazel eyes seeming orange in this half-light.  From outside I could hear the sound of waves, and I zoned into that as I drifted back into an uneasy sleep.

The morning came gently, birds chirping outside my window.  As I am the polar opposite of a morning person, I responded by flinging my pillow at the wall in a half-assed attempt to scare away the daylight.  I realized I needed my pillow if I was to go back to sleep, so I groaned and sat up.  West was standing in the doorway, smirking.  She’s a medium-tall woman in her early 40’s, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at her, partially because of the lack of greys in her straight, auburn hair.  Behind round glasses, pale blue eyes glisten as West throws my pillow back onto my bed.
“Thanks,” I muttered.  “Any reason you’ve graced me with an early-morning visit?”
“David’s father would like to meet you.”  West replied, “So get up and get showered.”
Dimly, I followed West’s orders, only waking up when the first cold blast of water hit my skin.  I watched as the color drained away from my skin until it was an almost perfect white.  Not white as in Caucasian either, white as in fresh snow, hex code #FFFFFF, pure white.  As the water warmed, the color returned to my skin, shifting through a few slightly different shades until it was back to normal.
“Weird,” I muttered.  A few minutes later I finished my shower, shut off the water and got dressed.  A couple of seconds of internal debate passed, and I grabbed and put on my mother’s necklace.  I hurried out of my room and began my way down the stairs, passing Ian on the way down.  He grunted a greeting as we passed, and I got the distinct sense that Ian didn’t just dislike David’s father, but hated him with a passion.  David and West were already downstairs when I arrived, and the doorbell rang shortly after.  I followed West and David as they went to open it.  The man behind the door looked younger than I expected, with pale blond hair pulled into a ponytail, golden eyes, and a certain air of eccentricity I had become accustomed to from David.  Something I didn’t quite expect was the distracted nature with which he spoke to West, double and triple-checking the date, address, and occasionally muttering something that sounded like an entirely different conversation.  West almost lead him to the breakfast table, and David’s father seemed to re-focus when she pushed him into his seat.
“Sorry about that,” he laughed, then noticed me.  “You must be Alexis Black, right?  I’ve heard a lot about you!”
“From who?” I asked in response, sitting down across from him.
“Well… David, West, your mother and your father.”  He said, listing them off, nonchalantly.
“You know my father?”  I asked, amazed.  “Who is he?  What’s he like?”
“All in good time, child.”  David’s father said, leveling his golden gaze at me.  As I looked into his eyes, I suddenly had the feeling that he was old, impossibly so.  He smiled, and the feeling vanished.  “I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I?  You can just call me Y.”
I caught David’s eye and he shrugged.  Breakfast went sort of normally after that, although Y didn’t eat.  He mostly talked to David about what was going on, although he would occasionally zone out, sometimes even talking to someone else who wasn’t there.  When that happened, West, who was sitting next to him, would nudge Y, and that usually brought him back.
“David, is Y crazy?” I asked as we were cleaning up, Y and West had gone out into the hall to discuss something.  “He kept talking to himself.”
“No, he was talking to someone who isn’t here.”  David corrected me.  “He does that sometimes.  I get that this was your first time meeting him, but that’s pretty par for the course for Dad.  He actually did much better this time.”
I rolled my eyes and finished what I was doing before sneaking off to the side to eavesdrop on West and Y.  What they couldn’t talk about in front of David and I, I still felt like I should know.  Besides, it must be important.
“… Should let me speak with him.”  West was saying.  “I’ve done everything right!  Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t want to,” Y said back, a certain frustration in his voice, like he was talking to a child.  “Think about how much risk I go through to come visit as often as I do.  Me.  Now think about a high-profile guy like him, and They’d notice!”
“I’m worried about Alexis!”  West half-shouted back.  “I don’t know when –or if – it’ll happen again, or how to stop it if it does.  Even Them won’t…”
“She has her mother’s necklace.”  Y growled – that’s the best way I can describe the way he spoke – at West, interrupting.  “That’s all we can do without bringing attention to her.  “As for the other you asked for, he’s taking a well-deserved break from your mortal world.  Ix, I know this has been your life’s work, but it can bring you harm.  Especially if They notice.”
I peeked around the corner, and was startled for a moment.  West looked scared, and that hardly happens.  Perhaps it had to do with what Y called her, Ix, or his warnings about drawing attention, and Them (whatever that meant).  Y rubbed his face and sighed, his back turned to me.
“Humans,” Y said, with a small degree of amusement in his voice.  “So determined to do what you think is right.  Not to mention your ignorance.  You seem to forget that I am one of Them, and even I fear some of Their power.”
After that, Y was gone.  I blinked, and he just wasn’t there anymore.  West shook her head, and then went into her downstairs office room.  I remained sitting by the wall, milling over what I had overheard.  Just judging by what Y had said, he and West were in cahoots and against some big major thing.  A slightly sarcastic laugh escaped me as I realized one more thing: David’s nutty theories about inhuman creatures held at least some water.  Y obviously wasn’t human, judging by his reactions.  Another, larger question emerged suddenly.  Since David was Y’s son… what was David?