Chapter One
1066 Words
New York was magical.
The city that never slept buzzed like a hive of bees at any given time, day or night. You could go anywhere and be anything.
So what was wrong with her?
Fayae Thompson stood on the side of what was supposed to be a fabulous city street, watching the street vendors hawk their wares, the side walk grates billow steam theatrically and the people in flats and stilettos alike rush about all seemingly flowing as smoothly as a nest of ants.
Somehow it was all just as distasteful. One didn't go skipping off, eager to join in with a nest of ants. Of course this had all fallen on deaf ears a year ago when she'd left home, eager for the glitz and glamor and aninimity of New York.
She'd gotten it all. The swanky rent controlled apartment near Central Park, the divine pizza she'd extatically sunk her teeth into that first day and of course no one cared who she was. No one whispered about her on sidewalks. No one gave the long stares that mingled disapproval and curiosity. It had been utterly amazing.
Until slowly but surely, day after day those vacant stares had begun to take hold. She saw them in her sleep. Stood in the middle of times Square screaming, suffocating, the sidewalk grates zapping the air out of the city rather than in and no one even glanced sideways. Vacant and zombie like they marched along, their eyes fixed on some far off destination, a cellphone or buried in a newspaper. The shadows she imagined lurking beside them seemed to gleefully smile at her, greedy fingers gripping tightly to their host.
Most times she felt utterly insane.
Fayae had stuck it out of course. It was just her imagination running wild. Just the adaption from country life to city life.
The sidewalkers (as she'd dubbed them in her mind) that shot up without any care, drunk themselves into oblivion and stumbled about couldn't really infect her. The glossed over, colour less eyes weren't real. And really they were only there for a few minutes until she blinked the illusion away. Still it persisted, the horrible sinking feeling that the city was sick.
She'd tried to lose herself in the green of Central Park. Wandering among the trees, listening to the birds. Watch the sun on the lake. But it was wrong. All so wrong.
Her apartment being broken into was the last straw. It was a right of passage in New York. You kept a healthy eye out for snatchers until it was second nature.
But the apartment had felt wrong afterwards. Invaded. Suffocating.
Like the rest of New York.
Slowly Fayae felt herself disappearing. It was all so ridiculous, so crazy. She'd stopped phoning home. Her mother was beginning to suspect something was wrong.
Nyx and Lilith urged her to come home. She'd never been able to lie to her sisters. Though they were years apart in age they'd always been closer than triplets
When the night sweats and the insomnia from the imagined shadows nearly had her crashing her beloved car whom she'd adamantly refused to give up, Fayae had finally acknowledged the inevitable.
It was time to go home.
"Don't you like shopping?"
The look of utter disgust on her best friends face said more than she ever would. New York had clearly been wasted on Fayae. "Of course I do!"
Laughing at the dubious look on Trinitys face, Fayae loaded the last box into the car. "And Chinese food! And clubs!"
"Well maybe you should've moved with me then!" Fayae shot back with a grin,expecting the scowl.
"You know if I could've left grandad-"
"Yeah, yeah I know. Trinity and Fayae giving New York hell."
It had always been the dream. Trinity had wanted Broadway. Fayae had wanted to disappear. The day of the move Trinitys grandfather had had a heart attack. With only Trinity to care for him she'd urged and insisted Fayae go to New York as planned. The guilt ate at her too. She was supposed to have stuck it out, waited for Trinity. Maybe it would've been different if theyd moved together. She'd never know.
"I'm sorry Trin." head low and eyes pooling she jingled her car keys and ran her thumb repeatedly over the lucky key chain her mother had given her. A habit Trinity knew when she was in serious distress. "Hey! None of that!" she marched her way around the front of the car and took Fayae firmly by the shoulders. "You know I believe firmly that things happen for a reason Fayae. You were meant to come here and I was meant to stay. If you feel like something is wrong here for you, it is." She wiped the trickling tear that had escaped one eye and squeezed Fayae's hand firmly."It's that simple."
Trinity had always been her rock.
Pushing her to accept her own truth more often than she'd like.
"Yeah, you're right. I just need to get out of here and I'll feel more myself"
With her signature Trinity grin she grabbed the keys and danced towards the drivers side. "Well then let's hit the road!"
The further away she got from the city the more air started to seep back into her lungs but the ache in her chest persisted.
Fayae rubbed absently at her chest as Trinity chattered on about home.
"So what happens when you come back home, are you moving back in with your mom?"
The very thought had her sighing and shutting her eyes. Alse Thompson was a complicated woman for many reasons. She loved her mother dearly but living together wasn't ideal for either of them.
" I think I'm going to try renovating my grandmother's place actually."
The car visibly swerved and Trinity's shock reverberated around the small space.
"Fayae..."
"Look we're not little kids anymore Trin. Gram Aggie left it to me and I can't just ignore it cause it makes my mother freak out or the rest of the town turn into nut jobs!"
The house at Forest Peak was a highly debated topic. One would be sorely hard pressed to find more superstitious people than those of her home town in Salem
" There's a reason your mom won't set foot there Fayae. How do you explain what happened when we were kids?"
- Writer
