Chasing Circe

Chapter Five

The blowout part two

The rest of the night was eerily quiet, with his parents having gone outside to finish their screaming match. During this, he went up to Avery’s room and knocked on her door in an attempt to talk to her. She was upset, she heard sniffling behind her door but she refused to let him in telling him to go to bed. After this, he didn’t bother trying to talk to Posy who was pissed at them both for upsetting their parents so badly. And honestly, he didn’t blame her for being angry at them. Seeing their mom hyperventilate from crying so hard made him feel like the worst son in the world and he was red with shame when her teary eyes glanced at him.

He had only wanted to have his sister’s back as he knew their mother would only continue to lie. But seeing how it all had turned out made his glum mood return. That night he had another nightmare, with Cassandra standing next to him atop a grassy cliff. He recognized the cliff but it was in a faint old memory type of way, like a forgotten remnant of his childhood he never was able to hold onto. Aiden reached out for her, desperate to hold her once again but when she faced him she was angry. Her eyes were cold as she displayed sometimes frostbite with her lips had become a startling dark blue. 

‘Now you care? Me dying is what took for you to be a decent human being?’ Cassandra’s voice was her voice but something wasn’t right. It hurt him deeply to hear how disgusted she sounded. ‘You’re pathetic.’

‘I didn’t want you to die, Cassie. I was horrible to you but it was a mistake and I’m sorry. I’m more sorry than you can ever know and I don’t know how I can show it.’ A lump had formed in his throat as he stuttered, he felt intimated by how she was leering over him with a sour look on her face. As if just seeing him made her want to turn green and puke. There wasn’t any love for him, not an ounce of care in her eyes. 

The teenager laughed with no joy at his response and he didn’t blame her. To both of their ears, it sounded like he was just rambling on with excuses to try and please her. Aiden winced, flinching as she came close enough to his face that he could feel her breathe on his skin. Her clothes were soaking wet and her fingers were curled in a way that didn’t appear possible without her being in immense pain. In his mind, all he could hear was that this was his fault and he was the reason she had become this twisted version of herself.

‘You can prove you’re sorry when you meet me again.’ She looked downward and leaned against him, Aiden could finally see that beneath the uncontrollable rage she displayed towards him was tiredness. As soon as her head lay on his shoulder he instinctively put a hand on her head to try and soothe her. ‘When we see each other again, things will be different but I expect you to give me a genuine apology. No matter what we become.’

His hand stalled as he stared at her in confusion. ‘What we become? Cassie, is this really you like the real you?’

But he was given no response as the dream flickered out of existence and he was met with his dog chewing at his sneakers by his bedroom door. He trembled with anxiety repeating Cassandra’s words in his head. It was something that made him nauseous to think about and he found himself wishing the dream had never happened. All he could do to ground himself was to take a deep breath and whip the sweat off of his forehead. Dizzily, he got out of bed and went over to his dog who wagged their tail at the sight of him before dropping his sneaker covered in slobber on the carpet. 

He felt bad for having ignored the cute little thing the day before as he scratched behind their ears. The dog had only wanted to comfort him and he had been an asshole. Aiden sighed and walked out of his room with the sound of feet slapping on the ground following behind him with the house till quite like the night before. He wanted to go downstairs to check on his mother but as he walked down the stairs, he saw that neither she nor his father’s car was parked in the driveway. Their keys and her purse weren’t by the front door either. He hoped they drove somewhere separate to cool down and gather their thoughts before coming back.

‘I should make sure Avery’s okay at least,’ The teenager looked back down the hallway he had come from to see that her bedroom door was cracked open. ‘That’s a good sign.’

The closer he got to the door, the more was able to hear what was going down in the room. It sounded like Avery was moving things around with him recognizing the jingle of her jewelry box hitting the floor. Peering in through the crack, he saw she was in a nightgown with slippers on that her friend had gotten her for Christmas with the color being something he remembered instantly. They were soft in a tone of baby blue, a color she had always loved since they were toddlers. Hesitantly, he knocked on the door, not wanting to burst into the bedroom and risk upsetting her for being nosey. 

She turned her head at the third knock with a face mask on and hair clips holding her hair in two buns. There was a scowl starting to appear before she realized it was him and not their parents, a frown forming instead. As she opened the door he was able to see more of the room which confused him as he realized she had a suitcase packed. “Why are you up so early? You hate waking up on weekends.”

Aiden found himself unable to focus on her question his gaze set on the half-packed suitcase. “Are you trying to run away because of last night? Avery, you know that won’t work when magic’s involved.” It hurt to see that his thoughts were confirmed by the brief flicker of embarrassment that came onto her face. He wondered if he should have shut up the night before to stop the fight from breaking out and causing this. 

“But it can work when you have a deadbeat dad involved,” Almost immediately he found his grip on the door tightening and he looked down at her in disbelief. Their father worked too much recently but he was far from a deadbeat, he was sure she was just saying this out of anger. “Don’t give me that look we both were at the dinner table last night and every night before.” 

The teenager moved, allowing him to come fully into the chaotic mess that was her bedroom. Her closest had been raided for outfits with clothes littering the floor and forming a pile on her bed. On the floor laid not only her jewelry box but a pair of scrunchies and the bonnet she most likely wore to sleep. He wanted to argue with her but a pit had formed in his stomach the further he walked in. She was set to leave and run to a friend’s house probably to escape the ongoing drama that surrounded their lives. He wondered if she had debated running away when his bullying ramped up and the rest of their family became targets. 

‘I made her life so difficult,’ Aiden found himself drifting mentally into his thoughts about the looks his sisters got my neighbors when with him and the friends they lost. ‘No wonder she wants to run away.’

She picked up these things and put them away into the suitcase before zipping them closed. A sigh left her lips as her shoulders sagged and she came over to his frozen figure. “I overheard them arguing when they thought we fell asleep. He wanted to know everything that was going on and what exactly she said to Posy. Mom was too afraid to explain much so he threatened to leave her if we never come back. After hearing that I’d rather leave instead of waiting for the inevitable.” 

“Avery, you know mom is doing what she thinks is right-” He started to say only to be interrupted by her rummaging around her closest loudly with a glare on her face as she spoke. 

“And she’s making a bad choice. She always has one and this time she just chose the worst possible option. Mom waited months to tell us about any of this happening and then she told Posy of all people.” Avery came back over only to snatch back the suitcase as he had started to try and hold it away from her. It nearly burst open in the process, the top of it bulging from the sides the zipper resided. 

The older teenager found himself feeling weird, maybe a bit insulted for their younger sister’s sake from Avery’s tone. He knew she didn’t mean to sound cold when mentioning how only Posy knew but it came off as if she resented her for finding out. She even sneered when saying her name at the end. Aiden was thankful she wasn’t awake as she would read his thoughts and burst into the room to raise hell. If a fight broke out between the two someone would end up missing a tooth or worse.

Instead, he put a hand on her shoulder and tried to make himself look bigger, more dominant. This was hard as they were both below five foot two but he needed her to listen. She turned her head to argue but his face must’ve conveyed his thoughts as she shut he mouth, flushing in shame. 

“Mom fucked up, we both see that. But she told Posy because we would run and tell dad, she wouldn’t.” He wasn’t exactly their dad’s favorite child but they got along well and hung out when they could. And Avery was the literal definition of a daddy’s girl, spoiled the most by him out of the three when it came to gifts. 

“But she needed to tell him, this is a life-altering decision she made without any input besides her own. And look at us now, dad ran off, mom’s crying at the land of the fey probably and Posy’s mad at us.” She retorted smacking his hand away before she began walking out the room, past the now slumbering family dog.

Aiden shook his head, following after her as she tried to speed walk down the stairs only for him to be right behind her. She hadn’t even gotten changed into warmer clothes or put on a proper pair of shoes. If she stepped outside in that she’d be freezing,, the thought of the cold brought on panic. It reminded him too much of seeing Cassandra, shivering and full of emotion.“Avery, stop just slow down and wait! I know I can’t stop you from leaving, you’ll kick my ass but at least get something on or eat.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll eat some breakfast and throw on a coat before I go. I wasn’t going to leave just yet anyway, I need to make sure I say goodbye to”

The conversation was unable to finish as a loud noise suddenly came from the kitchen. The ruckus was so loud he heard it echo around them. It startled them as they became wide-eyed before Avery armed herself with a nearby broom when another sound came. To Aiden, it sounded like pans falling, but nobody else was home beside the three of them and Posyn was in her bedroom. This made him begin to panic even more but seeing the determined albeit irritated look on his sister’s face made him get himself together. 

As the two walked closer and closer to the kitchen they heard footsteps of something running around the floor. This was followed by more things falling, glass shattering near their feet as Avery entered before him. He looked down and grimaced. Somehow, the majority of their cups had been thrown out of their places and smashed into millions of pieces on the carpet. It would be hard to clean up but for now, he was focused on figuring out what was the cause of all of this chaos.

“Okay, I don’t have time for some magical burglar, come out!” His sister yelled as the two were met with an empty, destroyed kitchen and ajar door that led to the backyard. Somehow the furniture had been rearranged making traversing the room difficult. Tiny mood prints littered the floor in a familiar shoe shape they had only seen in picture books. 

The siblings looked at one another in shock, a brownie had gotten into their house. They never came into a household that was owned by someone from the land of the fey. It was literally a written law that they only found out about when their mother threatened to beat one silly with a fly swatter for sneaking in. They would come onto your land, demanding a homecooked meal and rest. And if you didn’t listen to their demands for a treat they’d make your life a living hell with their mischievous games.

And by games, he meant physical harm and destruction. They didn’t just steal your sugar and hide your socks, brownies could cause psychological damage if they tried hard enough. 

“I hope you know we have repellant for your kind,” He called out as Avery hit the broom against closed cabinets and swung open the pantries that were left alone. Quickly, he grabbed one of his mother’s herbal spray bottles and hoped it worked as a replacement for their boggart repellent. “You wouldn’t want to go back to the land of the fey with boils and burns, would you?”

The two continued looking around with their threats unanswered. More noises came from what appeared to be the walls, which made him groan. If it had crawled into the walls it was going to tear them apart. Avery must have been thinking the same thing as she took the broom and smacked it against the floorboard, hard enough that it cracked on the side. And with it, a familiar but worrisome creature bolted across the floor only to stop and turn with large, rotted teeth grinning up at them. It looked like a brownie to a human maybe but to them, its true identity was clear as day.

Aiden paled, they’d need more than spray. “That’s a fucking boggart.”