Page 37 of The Witch's Heart
Across from where I stand, another bedroom door hangs crookedly on its hinges. It’s charred black, and even now the smell of smoke lingers in the air.
I suck in a breath and dart across the hall into what is apparently my room.
Inside, everything is trashed.
The door is burnt badly, but more than that, it’s as if a tornado blew through. The bedcovers have been ripped clean off and tossed around on the floor. The clothes that had once been neatly stacked are strewn everywhere, including hanging off an overturned lamp on the floor beside a nightstand stripped of its drawers. A quick inspection of the attached bathroom shows the drawers in pieces on the cold tile beside the sink.
Who did this?
“You’re really powerful.”
I whirl, half-expecting a ghostly visitor, but it’s a girl.
The young one from art class.
She’s dressed in flannel pajamas that are baggy on her too-thin frame. Her pale skin is white enough to make me wonder if maybe she is a ghost after all.
“What did you say?”
“Your power,” she says, gesturing to the destruction around us. “We’ve never had a witch as powerful as you. They don’t know what to do with that. How to contain you.”
“You mean... I did this?”
She shrugs. “You were mad. I get it.”
She doesn’t sound upset at the fact that I almost burned the place down.
“Are you a witch too?” I ask.
She looks startled by my question, and I wonder if it’s offensive to ask.
But then she shakes her head and speaks quietly. “No. I’m a vampire.”
My breath hitches. “You drink blood then?” I ask and shove away images of her trying to feed on me.
Is that why she’s here now? In the middle of the night? To eat me for dinner?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says, and I realize my fear must be easy to read.
“How did you get out of your room?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Lately, they leave some of the doors unlocked on this hall.”
“You mean on purpose? Why?”
“I think they like to see what we do. Except for you, of course. They don’t want you getting out.”
I stare at her, horrified at that.
In a whisper, I can’t help but ask, “Can they—can they see us?”
Her expression darkens. “I don’t know what they can see.”
She looks angry. Furious, really, and for a moment I see the flash of predator inside her. But then it’s gone and there’s only a little girl, too thin and cold and innocent for a place like this.
“I’m Celeste,” I tell her.
“I’m Holly. I saw your painting. It was really good.”
