Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) Read Free Page A

movie to savor the
scent.
    After Uh-Huh learned a new word, I went into
the bathroom for my shower. The hairs on my arms relaxed as I
stepped through the door; it was the only place I didn’t feel
watched.
    The shower sprang to life just before I
touched the knob. “I’m sorry,” I said to God. “I didn’t mean to do
that.” I waited as the hot water beat down on me to see if that
slip would make this night my last.
    I checked the hairs on my arm. Still down.
Still alive for now.
    A far second to oranges, the song I sang in
the shower every night had a way of soothing me. More than
anything, it made me tired enough to fall asleep. With Whitney
gone, I didn’t have to whisper it.
    The stars are out,
    It’s time for bed.
    Now close your eyes,
    And rest your head.
    May angels shield you with their wings,
    As you dream your little angel dreams.
    I didn’t recall composing that song, but
apparently, I used to think I was good and perfect like the angels.
I knew better now.
    I stepped out of the shower and tugged a
brush through my unruly brown tangles. I stared into the mirror
over the sink as I started the song again. My skin screamed winter.
I should be a warmer tan; I looked less creepy in the summer. Maybe
that was why the girls had been digging into me so hard. I looked
rather witchy. The unease that made them mock me was probably their
souls warning them, urging them to notice I was different and
dangerous.
    At my worst, it feels like the fire that
could easily shoot from my palm is raging inside of me. My heart
picks up, more than when I’m scared. It pounds, I can’t hear. My
blood dances, taunting me, begging me to hurt whoever’s hurt me.
And I know that I can. I feel that I can.
    But I don’t. I breathe and pray and let the
magic cool. I didn’t want to be this way – consumed by rage and
thoughts of death. I’d much rather be normal and not feel so
distant from everyone around me. It would be nice to join the art
club and not have to worry about what I’d do to the catty girls
there. Before the powers, I’d thought that was where my life was
headed – being the quiet girl with the natural artistic abilities.
The nuns had thought drawing and painting would bring me out of my
shell, make me finally want to talk to someone, connect with
someone, change how I’d been since I was an infant.
    I was, in their words, impossible to sooth
until one day I stopped crying and making any noise all together.
Like I’d tired myself out, and I never recovered. I guessed I
couldn’t because of what I was – the only soulless creature
alive.
    Art couldn’t help that, so now, I didn’t
draw for the fun of it. It was how I filled the hours before sleep
when the hairs were excited on my arm. I drew for whoever was
watching. I flipped through the pages of my notebook, past the gray
depictions of my more ethical obsessions – oranges, the view of the
forest from my window, and the birds that live there.
    I filled an entire page with them, some
flying, some pecking at the blue lines and the spirals of the
notebook, waiting for the hairs to fall. Sleep overtook me before
they did.
     
     

Chapter Two
    The birds met me in my dream. I stretched
out on the grass in the courtyard in my pajamas, and they flocked
around me. One, the smallest one, hopped onto my leg then up to my
stomach. It chirped, a happy greeting, and took off into the air.
The others followed. So did I.
    The girls looked like ants from where we
were. Insignificant nothings.
    I didn’t have to flail my arms. I glided
through the air with them, the smell of coming rain filling my
nose. We flew over St. Matthew and sped down to the forest that
separated the schools from town.
    I extended my feet when I was close to the
ground. The flock peeped and hopped on the forest floor with me –
over roots and under branches, avoiding sharp edges that would
spill my dirty blood. They led me to a cabin overgrown with vines
and flowers. The birds flew to the roof,