The House of Clandestine
~Prologue~
She wouldn’t have ever expected my life to turn into this
mess. Every day she wakes up miserable with a feeling of dread in her gut
because she knows of the terror of those days. She is lost. She is found. She
can’t get those words out of her head. The empty loneliness of The House is
always pierced in the middle of the night by her screams because the nightmares
of her past get to her, even though she knows she shouldn’t let them. Whenever there
is silence, she always breaks it with her crying, even though she knows she
must be strong. The House is the only place where she can escape from her fears
of the outside world that lies just beyond. It hides her tears. It hides her
terror. It hides her grief. It hides her sorrow. Yet through the things it
hides, it never hides her. She will always be seen, even though no one can see
her. Through her eyes she is vulnerable to the world.
You probably wonder why she is feeling this pain. The horror
of it all never leaves her soul. It is trapped forever, never to see daylight,
never to awaken, no matter how hard the animal inside tries to escape. It is
monstrous, but she manages to keep it tamed.
And she, like the horrid animal, is trapped too. Not just
mentally, but physically as well. She can never leave The House. She can’t show
her face to the world. She can’t let the Revealers find her. And that is
because she is the last Secret. She is their hope, yet they don’t even know she
exists. They think they demolished all of the Secrets. But apparently they are
wrong.
~Chapter
I~
Running. I was running away from someone,
I don’t know who. I just had the instincts that he was after me and I needed to
get away. Fast. I couldn’t run in high heels, so I quickly took them off and
ran while holding one in each hand. They were stained in mud splatters. My
black dress was ripping and was shredded at the ends like a fringe. My freshly
painted black nail polish was chipping. My dark hair was loose and tangled from
catching on tree branches while running through the woods. I looked like a
ragged mess, but I ignored it since it wasn’t exactly my top priority at the
time. Now I was in a cold dark alley that I had turned off on my way through
the streets. It was now dark out and the only way you could see where the
street lamps along the sidewalks. I figured I had lost whoever was following me.
I finally slumped down to the ground in exhaustion, and hugged my knees against
my chest. As I caught my breath, I replayed the earlier advents in my head.
I had woken up that morning to the sound of my beeping
alarm clock. Annoyed, I muttered curses under my breath and threw it at my wall
with such force that it broke. At least I finally shut the thing up. I was in a
grumpy mood that day (obviously). I had to attend my mom’s and my soon-to-be
step-dad’s wedding. I’ve been to five weddings, all of them my mom’s and some
idiot guy that I refused to even acknowledge. I hated my mother. No, hate was a
strong word, though it was the word that crosses my mind when I thought of her.
I strongly disliked her. She was never there for me when I most needed her. She
didn’t care for me. The only time she didn’t ignore me was when she abused me.
I had scars to prove it. I tried running away once, but I didn’t think to turn
my phone off and she tracked me down with the built in GPS. You can only
imagine what her wrath was like when she found me.
After a while of lying in bed grumbling nonsense to
myself, I got up and got ready for the wedding. Not that I wanted to go. If it
were my choice, which it isn’t, I wouldn’t be caught dead in a hundred mile
radius of here.
I went into the bathroom and reached for my anti-depressants
on the vanity next to my pink toothbrush. Yeah, my toothbrush is the only happy
thing in my life. Don’t judge. At least I’m not cutting anymore.
The morning passed by somewhat quickly, I was able to
avoid my mother throughout that period of time, and soon enough I was at a
church that I never bothered to go to.
Let’s fast forward through the boring stuff, though I’m
pretty sure I covered a lot of it. It was right before the ceremony when I accidently
ran into my grandfather on the way to my seat. He really aged since the last
time I saw him, which was at my grandmother’s funeral. I thought he looked
really old then, but now he had more wrinkles, and his usual twinkling bright
blue eyes were a dull gray. He was still a kind man of course, but the usual
brightness in him was gone.
“Alexa,
how are you?” Grandpa smiled.
“I’m
doing fine I guess,” I hesitated, not wanting to suddenly burden him with my
problems in life. “The relationship between my mom and I has been…not well.”
I
decided to go ahead and tell him my troubles because they had been bothering me
and I needed to let it all out. He listened carefully and didn’t interrupt or
talk until I was finished.
Thankfully,
instead doing the whole ‘comforting me even though you know that it still won’t
be okay’ act like most people would, He said, “I have something for you.”
Grandpa
reached into his coat pocket and brought out a necklace. Not just any necklace
though. I could tell this one was special somehow. It had leather string with a
silver key hanging from it. He handed it to me.
“Alexa,”
He started. “Please. You must wear this at all times. It will protect you. The
key will unlock what is hidden. Find The House of Clandestine. Don’t forget
what your grandmother told you. I will be back for you, I promise.”
With
that, he left. I didn’t have time to ask the many questions in my head. I was
utterly confused. I awkwardly sank down into my seat, wondering what he was
talking about.
Just
then, I saw an unfamiliar man standing in the corner of the church. He was
dressed in a black suit and tie, and had a pair of sunglasses on, even though
we were inside. He was staring right in my direction. He gave me an unsettling
feeling in my nerves, and I felt the necessary urge to leave. I got up from my
seat and tried not to draw any attention to myself, but it didn’t work. The man
got up and started walking in towards me. That’s when I took off running. I
didn’t look back out of fear but I knew he was following. I ran through the
woods so I wasn’t completely in plain sight. I thought it helped but I wasn’t
sure so I didn’t slow down until I reached the edge of the woods that led
straight to some city. I was lost, but it was better than being found.
So here I was. Not that I knew where here was. The alley I was in was starting to freak me out. I took
the necklace out of my jacket pocket and put it on. I didn’t feel any
different. It was supposed to have some sort of magical powers that kept me
safe. Not that I believed in any of that stuff. I only put it on just in case.
I
twiddled the key between my fingers, lost in thought. This was all too much to
take in. What was The House of Clandestine? Who was that man? And why, out of
all people, did my grandfather have anything to do with this? There were so
many questions that I couldn’t answer. And I had no idea what I was supposed to
do. As I thought more about the key, I came to a realization. Out of all the
things my grandfather told me before he left the wedding was “Remember what your grandmother told you.”
So my grandmother had something to do with this too. But what was it that she
told me? I mean, she told me lots of things, not just one thing in particular.
I racked my brain for something that fell into the category of a creepy man
chasing you, your grandfather saying things that didn’t make any sense, and
necklaces with magic powers. Not many things did.
So
I just sat there, against the cold stone wall of the alley. I missed my pink
toothbrush. I could use some happiness right now. With nothing else to do, I
took off my necklace and held the silver key in my palm and examined it. It was
rusted and dull. It didn’t look like anything special. That’s when I thought of
something. On the night before she died, she told me “If something isn’t special, then make it special. You need to listen
to your heart, and you’ll find what’s hidden.” I thought about my
grandmother’s words. They didn’t seem like a coincidence. She said that I needed to listen to my heart to get to
whatever’s hidden. As if I didn’t have a choice. As if it was mandatory. As if
I couldn’t do anything other than that. I absentmindedly put my hand to my heart.
How was I supposed to listen to it? Count the heartbeats? That sounded kind of
pathetic. I noticed that I had the key in the hand on my heart. I looked at it.
I had felt a strange tingling sensation where it had just been, just a little
vibration. It stopped as soon as it came. I held it to my heart again. I am
going to make this key special. It tingled again but this time it was stronger,
like it was more certain about it. Then the key started to glow. The aurora of
light got bigger and bigger, until it was a hand sized orb that looked like
blue flames. The ball of light floated towards me. I watched it, mesmerized, curious.
It was odd, but I wanted to know what happened. I got a little skeptical as it slowly
inched closer and closer. I hesitated, but my curiosity won over, and it passed
right through my chest—where my heart was. It felt warm inside. It comforted
me. It felt…right. All of a sudden the answers hit me like a freight train. I
knew where I needed to go; where I could be safe; where I could find the
answers to my questions; where there were others like me—yes, the Secrets, that
was it. But what hit me most was where I could find what the hidden. The House
of Clandestine.
