Chapter 38- Whispers In The Wind

“How dare you?” Crystal’s hand holding her sandwich paused mid-air. Moving the food away from her mouth and placing it back on the plate she lifted her gaze to meet her mother’s blazing eyes.
Crystal was aware that she held a look of indifference which only seemed to infuriate her mother more. She knew that Jeanette would be angry. Yet she didn’t care. She had lost the last bit of respect she held for her mother when she had found her father dead. He could no longer cope. Crystal knew the feeling well. Jeanette was overbearing whose sole priority was the coven. Her family came last. She didn’t have a caring bone in her body. The bracelet which Margon had given her began to vibrate and she rubbed the offending area. She still wondered what the purpose of the bracelet was. Why she had given it to her and the reason it dug into her veins.
Jeanette slammed her hands on the counter and Crystal never flinched. If it was a reaction her mother wanted, Crystal wasn’t going to give it to her.
“You made a fool of me!” Crystal shrugged and picked her sandwich back up. She wasn’t going to yell or become involved in a screaming match. Her heart wasn’t in it.
“Look at me!” Jeanette yelled, her face turning scarlet. Crystal was the only member of the coven that Jeanette could not control. Her demands and rules went over her head. Some would say she was rebellious, however Crystal always put it down to being stubborn. She had her own mind and feelings, and those two things didn’t agree with Jeanette. She wanted more out of life. The coven just wasn’t for her. She wanted to see the world and have real love. She didn’t want to be just a mother who brought more witches into the world.
Crystal folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. She held a bored look upon her face.
“You are a disgrace. You embarrassed not only yourself, but your sister!”
“Greg is the one who has brought shame on Ruby, not me,”
“How dare you!”
“I dare, I dare, I dare…” Crystal chanted. She was aware that she was acting like a bratty teenager. But that is what she was, a teenager. She wasn’t ready for all the responsibility that was being thrown her way. She didn’t know how to deal with all the confusion in her mind. The things she had been told. Everything was just too overwhelming and all she wanted to do was run and hide.
Jeanette stormed forward. Her face just inches away from Crystal’s.
“One more stunt like today and you will find yourself cast out. Banished and alone in the world,”
“Fine by me,” Crystal smiled and slid out of her seat leaving her mother seething. Her mother needed her. Jeanette just didn’t know that she knew. Crystal grinned as she realized she held all the cards. No matter what threats Jeanette throw her way, she knew she wouldn’t carry them out, she needed her to marry Levi and open the door. Her mother’s words were empty.
She had a few hours to kill before she had to meet Ruby. She sat on the swing in her backyard and starred out into the forest that lay just behind her back gate.
She would never step back in there. It had once been a place she had felt free and at home. Now it was a place that housed a nightmare. An all otherworld buried deep within the trees. Overrun by monsters and creatures only read about in mythology.
She was the one who held the power to enter Athens. It was the power her mother had been searching for. She wouldn’t allow her mother to lead the covens to slaughter. Crystal would find a way to destroy that vortex.
Athens wasn’t a home. It was a place that held creatures that should never have been. She would never let her mother make that place her home.
Her father knew that Crystal didn’t doubt that. He didn’t want to return, and she didn’t blame him. Why would Jeanette want to live in such a place? Perhaps it was because she felt at home amongst those monsters.
Sighing she glanced one last time into the black void of darkness and then made her way to the old oak tree. Her father Henry had loved that tree and was one of his favourite spots. It felt right to bury him in the place he loved.
“This tree was planted by the very first of our ancestors who set up home here. It is as much a part of the coven as you and me,” Crystal smiled as she remembered his words. He would always be a part of the coven and a part of her heart. Even Jeanette could never erase that. He may not have been perfect, but he was a man that wasn’t afraid to show her love. He was her friend and saviour.
“Ahhh” Crystal screamed as she was pulled into a dark alley. Arms locked around her midriff; her feet left the solid ground beneath them.
A hand clasped across her mouth silencing the curse she was about to dish out. Her heartbeat dramatically and her brain went into fight mode causing her legs to kick frantically. For a split second she had thought her mother had hired someone to take her out. After all Crystal was the only one within the community that dared to challenge her. Maybe she had finally done it. Pushed her one step too far, sent her over the edge. Now she wanted her dead. Out of the way.
“Sshh, it’s me,” Levi’s unmistakeable deep voice whispered into her ear. Relief made her body relax then anger simmered to the surface, every one of her muscles tensed up.
What was the idiot doing? He had scared her half to death.
Pushing him away she crossed her arms and glared at him. He gave her a grin. One that made her knees weak and her stomach flutter. It was a smile full of cockiness, one she had used many times herself before. A mask she had worn to irritate others.
He was handsome in the whole rough and ready kind of way. Black hair that was windblown and a boyish grin, which took away the edge of his mean boy clothing. Leather biker jacket and ripped jeans. He wasn’t as bad as she had first thought, still a jerk but not the monster he had been painted to be.
She watched his toned muscles ripple under his white shirt and bit her bottom lip.
When he zipped up his biker jacket Crystal tore her eyes away and felt the heat of a blush rise in her cheeks. He had caught her checking him out.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, with a hint of anger to her voice which had softened after seeing his face.
“I need your help,” Crystal held her finger to her lips as she heard her mother yelling like a banshee in a nearby street. Her words were unrecognizable, but the screech of the tone was one she had heard often.
“Listen, can it wait?”
“Yeah, for now,” he answered his eyebrows rising as Jeanette’s voice echoed around them.
“Where is he!” she yelled in a high pitch tone.
“Find him now!” she sounded like a deranged mad woman as she barked orders and threats.