Placing the rock back in its spot, I shook my head and blinked back tears.
“Hadley! We’re ready to go,” Sascha called out from the front of the house.
I went inside and locked the back door behind me. “Coming!” I walked through the living room, picking up the picture frame along the way and hugging it to my chest.
Something to remind me of home, just in case I never make it back.
I threw my bags over my shoulder and then made my way outside to meet up with the rest of the coven. As I locked up, I turned to look around my neighborhood for what might be the last time. Everything about it felt comfortable to me. After seventeen years of playing hide-and-seek and games of tag, and eventually sneaking around and finding secret spots to kiss boys, I knew everything about this place. I could navigate these streets with my eyes closed.
I sighed and started to walk toward my car. Everyone was waiting for me and I climbed in and started the engine. As I pulled out of the driveway, I looked in my rearview mirror once more. And as I did so, I saw something I wasn’t expecting. Squinting to make out what it was, I saw the guy my dad and I had seen the last time we’d gone jogging. Even though I was more than twenty feet away by now, I could have sworn he was looking straight at me. I felt a momentary sadness that I wouldn’t get to learn more about him and then felt guilty over the selfishness of the thought. The boy cocked his head to the side as he watched us drive away and I let the image of him fade as I turned the corner and focused on the road in front of me.
Right now, the most important thing was getting everyone to the cabin safely. I could worry about boys with piercing eyes later.
Chapter Ten
It shouldn’t have taken us more than an hour and a half to drive up to the cabin, but between the three cars and thirteen people, we had to stop practically every twenty minutes for either food, gas, or bathroom breaks. I had no idea what small bladders everyone had until I was forced into a road trip with them.
It’s called holding it, people!
The one positive thing about the drive was that it allowed us all to leave the horror behind us to an extent. We began to think more about what we were heading to, instead of what we’d lost. Our parents weren’t far from our thoughts, but the trip was a good distraction for everyone.
By the time we arrived at our destination I was so happy that we wouldn’t be making any more stops that I nearly jumped out of the car before I’d even pulled the emergency brake, and kissed the dirty ground we’d been driving on. Of course, I didn’t actually do that—I mean, what sort of message would that send to the rest of the coven?
No one respects dirt kissers.
Instead, I rolled down the windows and took in the fresh air that came along with being at this altitude. And then I saw our refuge. The cabin was smaller than I remembered it. But that was to be expected, I suppose, since the last time I’d been there I was still a kid. And everything looks huge when you’re only four feet tall. Still, even though it wasn’t exactly the mansion I’d been picturing on our way up here, it wasn’t small by anyone’s standards. Good thing, too, because we were about to have a full house.
I pulled the car up to the garage but didn’t have the remote to open the door, so I parked right there, turning off the engine and enjoying the relative silence. I didn’t bother waiting for everyone else before getting out of the car, and threw my arms over my head to stretch after such a long and painful drive.
There were only so many road trip games a person could take before freaking out, and apparently I was horribly slow when it came to identifying VW bugs. That, coupled with the fact that I wasn’t exactly in a game-playing kind of mood, and I was pretty sure I would never be playing slug bug again.
But even that couldn’t spoil my mood now that I was here. The air was crisp, but not cold, and I felt like I could just breathe easier. Lord knows we were all going to need a little bit of fresh air over the next couple of days. I couldn’t help but smile, thinking about my parents, as I looked around at the place where I’d spent most of my childhood summers.
Over to my right, just behind the garage, was the shed that one summer, I’d insisted was my own mini-cabin. I’d somehow managed to convince my parents to let me clean out the storage space (and by clean out, I mean that I took all my dad’s tools and piled them up in the garage next to the cars) and made the area into my own personal getaway. Armed with an old cot, my comforter and pillows, my entire stash of stuffed animals, a few picture frames, a stack of magazines, a handful of books, and my battery-operated CD player, I decorated my new place in true tweenage fashion.
I bragged for hours about how I was going to spend the rest of my summer in the practically windowless shed and how amazing it was to finally have a house all to myself. It didn’t even cross my mind that a place as small as that was nothing to be proud of. Yet after I officially moved in, I posted a sign that asked visitors to please “knock before entering” (which, let’s face it, just meant my parents) and then spent the next couple of hours listening to CDs, reading magazines, and lounging on my new bed.
As the lights outside began to dim and the shed got steadily darker, I got my first inkling that Operation Freedom might not be as perfect a plan as I’d thought. For one, at the rate the sun was setting, I’d be heading to bed a few hours earlier than my regular bedtime, simply because I didn’t have electricity in the shed and hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight with me. And there was also the fact that I’d left my secret stash of Pop-Tarts and Funyuns up in my old room. Finally, when my bladder started to fill up, I knew that my fantasy of having my own place at the age of nine was over. No way was I peeing in the woods just to get a little privacy.
And so I’d thrown all my stuff into the middle of my comforter and dragged it back to the house. They never said it, but I think my parents had always known I’d end up back home, and that’s why they hadn’t fought me when I’d “moved out.” It used to annoy the hell out of me that they’d always seemed to be one step ahead of me.
Now I would have welcomed a fight with them if it meant having them around again.
My smile faded and I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my cashmere pants. I’d seen a model wearing them in Cosmo a few weeks back and thought they managed to look dressy while still being incredibly comfortable. Besides, they made my ass look great. Not that I was trying to impress anyone here. But I was a firm believer that dressing nice when you felt like crap did wonders for your self-esteem. As Blair Waldorf would say, “Just because you feel like shit, doesn’t mean you have to look like shit.”
“Hadley, your cabin is freaking incredible,” Sascha said, passing me and walking toward the summer home to get a closer look.
“Yeah,” added Fallon. “The place is a chick magnet.”
“You do realize that you’d have to get the girls to actually agree to go anywhere with you first, Fallon?” I asked.
He stopped scoping out the grounds long enough to look back and glare at me.
Whoops. So much for our cease-fire.
“It really is amazing,” Jinx said, talking just loudly enough for me to hear, which didn’t take much effort since she’d managed to sneak up behind me while I’d been daydreaming about my short-lived stint in the shed.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” I agreed. Too bad everything in this place reminded me of my parents and the fact that I wouldn’t be making any more memories with them. My face fell as I fought the direction my mind was heading.
Shaking my head as if to clear it, I looked at the others and then forced a smile. “Let’s grab the stuff and get inside,” I said, making myself think about what we were here to do and not the circumstances behind the fact.