CHAPTER 1

SOMEONE’S THERE

People dislike chores. Usually anyways, but me? I detest chores. I hate them with a passion. I despise them for one reason and one reason only. One round of laundry and my entire world fell apart. I guess I should elaborate, I was ten when this happened, my older sister, May was fourteen and a half and the day everything changed was because of laundry, though I wonder if it still would have happened with or without this. It started with a simple sentence and that sentence was this;

“Girls, come do your chores.” Mom called us down.

“Noooooooo!” We’d both groaned. Chores were the absolute worst but unfortunately, there was no way out. When we went downstairs to do the laundry, May squeaked at a small hole next to the washing machine. We never would have noticed if it wasn’t for the humanoid sound that came from the tiny opening in the wall.

“Did you hear that?” 

I asked May. She looked at me, a terrified expression on her face, and gave me a tiny nod. I peered in the little hole, and there was a girl with a blonde pixie cut and light blue eyes. There was an entire place behind there. She looked human but there was no way she could have squeezed into there without some sort of sorcery. She stared up at me with a look of horror on her face.

“Who the heck are you?!!” 

I whisper-screamed, fear coursing through me.

“June West! Don’t talk to it!” May squealed, clinging to my left arm even though the girl seemed around the same age as us. Though my sister was older than me, I was braver than her. It took me about seven minutes to convince the girl in the basement to talk. I was still processing the fact that there was someone living in my basement. Finally, she started talking.

“Inze Marie Gabby. I didn’t want to. I swear I didn’t mean to. Please tell Mistress that I didn’t have a choice. PLEASE!” 

She started sobbing and gave in to our pressing questions. 

“I’ve only lived down here for 11 human years. Your parents caught me and begged me to give you magic to fight Mistress, but I refused. After time, too much time down here, they made me, that’s how your Dad died. I killed him.” 

Her eyes filled with tears. 

“He had too much power. Your mom begged me to bring him back. I told her I tried, but I was getting too weak. If only that were true. I hate your Mother. Ever since that one day at the family reunion… If your Mom knows you found me, she will try to kill me, or she will die. I will kill her if she hurts either of you. You are all I have left” 

I stared at May, shocked and registering. That tiny little woman killed our father? A question popped up from the back of my mind. “Do we have powers?” 

“Yes, but I don’t know what they are. Now that you guys know that they exist, they will start appearing, try to stay away from your mom until you can control them, or she’ll go.” 

The girl-Inze I guess replied.

“Can we do our laundry now?” I asked before Inze could issue more threats against our family. She giggled and for a moment, I felt close to her.

“Yes. But before you do, your Mom… she isn’t who you think she is.” 

Then she disappeared behind the hole to her little house thing. After we started our laundry, Mom came down to check on us. 

“Hey, what took you guys so long?” she asked. 

“Um… We were …June was telling me about her girlfriend, Evaya.” May covered. I blushed fiercely as Mom eyed me and said 

“Who’s Evaya? You haven’t mentioned her.” 

“Oh, um. Sorry. It’s still really new.” I stuttered, embarrassed and furious that May had to use my relationship status as a cover story.

“Okaaaaay.” She finally left but not before giving us the ‘I know you’re not telling me something’ look. 

“Who? I don’t have a girlfriend.” I whispered, my cheeks still blazing with a fire I had never known.

“I don’t know who she is either, but the name sounds familiar. I just saw something in my head. Do you think it has something to do with the powers Inze mentioned?” May asked with an unreadable expression.

“You actually believed her? What do you think Inze meant by Mom ‘isn’t who we think she is?’ ” 

“Yeah, I believe her, how else would she get in such a tiny space. And I have no idea what she meant about Mom.” May answered. While we were talking, questioning the existence and purpose of everything we’d been told by our parents, suddenly there was a loud crash, and Mom’s jolly humming fell silent. 

Me and May looked at each other and rushed up the stairs as fast as we could. We looked around the living room to find everything normal, but that didn’t change the fact that we were both terrified of what might have happened. I started up towards the kitchen and stopped cold to find mom lying dead on the ground by the sink where unfinished dishes lay. Soapy shattered porcelain plate pieces were embedded in her chest and scattered around the kitchen tile. 

The shock took over. I couldn’t move. My Mom was gone. She was… just gone. My only parent. My only family member who was mentally okay. May had been alright about her weight for a while now, but after this… She was going to blame herself. Again.

When our Dad had first died, May and I had been heartbroken, but then, a few weeks after Dad’s death, May had been trying to help Mom out by washing the dishes but accidentally dropped one. Mom had come in to see what all the ruckus was about and yelled at May. May, who was only 10, believed that Mom blamed her for Dad’s ultimate demise, blamed herself too. That led to her depression, which led to her obsession over her weight, which in her eyes, was never good enough. She thought that everybody was against her and didn’t want her. She often told me that I had helped her so, so much and that she loved me a lot. I’m pretty sure her mental health is the reason that we’re such good friends even with such a big age difference.

Even with the surprise, the pure disbelief and my mind spinning in circles, what had happened finally settled in place, and I started to cry, May did too. When I was finally able to regain control of myself, I called the police because I didn’t know what else to do. May was still sobbing. 

“Everyone’s going to hate me.” She whispered. 

“No one is going to blame you. You couldn’t have stopped it.” 

I said, trying to comfort her. We were both under age, so we couldn’t live alone. When the police came, there was an ambulance with them, and some EMS people took me and May to the hospital. Without any medical injuries, they let us go early. Or, more accurately, they handed us over to foster care until we found someone who wanted me and May. 

We were there for about 7 months until one day, May got taken away by a couple, Lilly and Greg. They didn’t want me and mentioned something about ‘too quiet’. The next month turned into two, then three and five into eight, and finally, I got to live with a pretty woman named Maya and her husband Peter. Life didn’t go well from there. My foster father died, and I wasn’t allowed to see anyone at all or go to school because Maya was in a ‘period of mourning’. I mostly just wanted Mom and May back. That’s all I really needed.