Silence and Audra- chapter 2

Kay, I don't want to write but one story. I'm bored doing that. So I will keep going with this story, I want to.
-Zella
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I stuck my tongue out of my mouth and watched out of the open window of the taxi cab- at the small town in the island. I had no idea what the town was called, and I didn't much give a damn. The town was small, with one hotel, a few shops, and a lot of people in flip flops and shorts. Breifly, I wondered if this was what that horrible author Stephine Meyer was trying to describe, the feeling not belonging and hatred at the town that I was looking at, that town that Bella was being forced to live in.

Still looking out the window, I asked, "You think anyone here will sparkle?" My tone was dry, unfriendly, Becky ignored me while two green eyes watched me from the review mirror. God the cab driver was a perv!

Still looking out the open window, I pulled back my hair so it could stop whipping me and pulled it in a pony tail as I watched the town. The cab driver stopped at a stop light. When he was about to go again, a green dirt bike shot out and cut off three different cars before stopping in front of the cab.

I watched with interest. I had moved stunts like that before, driving like a crazy- high person and stopping in front of a car and waiting till they honked. Of course, my motorcycle was way better than a Honda dirt bike, it had been a Suzuki Nija. And I had done it with a lot more grave.
But then again, no one would be able to have grace with a giggling girl behind them, laughing and doing amazing hair flips with perfect, blond hair- they don't have to wear helmets here. I turned from the girl and looked at the guy, all I could see was a breif flash of a smile and strait black hair, emo style.

The taxi guy honked, and the guy was off, making a white car stop in the middle of the four way intersect to not hit them, then go again so they didn't get him themselves.

Satisfied that there was some action in the town, I put my tongue back in my mouth and leaned against the seat. Becky's head movements cough my eye as the cab lurched forward again. "I can't believe someone would do that!"

I felt the grin on my face. "I remember YOU doing it once, Becky. In fact, I showed you how."

Her face grew red and she tried to protest, but the pervy cab driver spoke up for the first time since picking us up at the airport outside the island. "That was Jace Zaltania." He said.

"Our cousin?" Becky leaned forward, interested.

"We have a cousin?" I asked, cutting off the cab driver that looked a little too happy that Becky was closer to him.

She turned to me. "Yeah. Remember when Aunt Julie and Unckle Bill got in that accident and there son had to go live with Grandma Rose here on West Island?"

"Nope." I said.

She thought back, then shook her head. "That was the week that you didn't go home at all." I said nothing, but smiled at the memory of me and my friends leaving town and living in an abandoned McDonald for a few days while we went to haunted houses and crazy ass raves.

Becky said no more, and neither did the cab driver as we drove past the town, over a bridge, and into a grove of trees. I wasn't much of a nature buff, so I couldn't describe them as pretty or "otherworldly" like most people would, like Becky had said next to me. They were a layer of trees above another layer of trees above another. It was in the middle of the year, fall so the leaves had colors and the ground was decorated, but that was all I could describe.

Soon that stopped, and the cab driver drove past a large wrought iron gate that said ZE in it, and into a circular drive that moved around an unworking fountain with a boy angel. I gaped at the house in front of me, shocked more that awed.

It was the house from my dreams! The same, too large colonial look. The same sadness to it. It looked abandoned though, more like a scar in some long forgotten place than a lively, sad home.

The driver stopped and we all got out, and Becky talked and talked about the house, how wonderful it was. I could say nothing though, I didn't really want to.

I payed the driver and watched as he drove away, wishing I was going with him. But as time went on, Becky's pleading voice for me to move got to me. Soon I was heading up the house with a dread feeling in my heart. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here.

I dug my heals into the ground, shocked at my thoughts. Why in the hell shouldn't I be here? Not being welcomed never stopped me! Not liking the people never stopped me when I had an i pod- which I did-! Determined, I moved up the steps of the house and knocked firmly on it, since Becky's hand were full.

After a little while, a woman answered the door. She looked untidy and small, kind looking with the wrinkles that were etched into her face and her bright smile. "Can I help you, young ladies?" She asked.

This wasn't Rose, April's mother. As I thought that, Becky asked. "Heavens no!" The woman said, shocking we would ask. "Are you Silence Loud and Rebecka?" She asked.

Becky was so disappointed that she didn't speak. So it was my turn. "I'm Silence. This is Becky. Were Rose's grandchildren." I couldn't call her grandma any more than I could verbally call April, mom. My mom and dad and grandparents were still in England, laughing and having tea and crumpets without me, having stupid accents and happy times while I had no accent, and partied.

The woman nodded, "Follow me." We walked in to the doorway, past he huge grand parlor with the rug room- a living room- to the right that led to the stair case and past that, past he hallway that led to the kitchen and into another hallway that held all the necessities, play rooms, music rooms, libraries, small offices.

"Wow. This place is amazing!" Becky said, twirling around and around as if when she did that, she could see more of the room, take it in better. "Don't you think, Si?" Becky asked, using my nick name. She looked at me, to see my strait face, my tense body.

I shouldn't be here. I really shouldn't. The feeling that I belonged, but shouldn't be here was like a bone sensing feeling. Like what the cold could get like when your only out in underwear- and yes, I do know what that's like. I shouldn't be here. "Si?"

I turned, "Hu?" I asked, then remembered her question. "Oh yeah, the place is great." We didn't speak till I stopped dead in my tracks, looking at a picture on the wall, the only picture that decorated anything. It was of a family, of a man and a woman standing next to each other and behind to girls. One girl was sitting down, looking to serious for her seventeen year old face, her brown hair was stripped back, her eyes black and fathomless. Next to her, standing was a beaming, secretive and mischievous looking girl with pail skin, curling black hair, and doll like looks. The girl from my dream.

The old woman noticed me looking. "Oh! Yes, that's Miss Rose and her parents and sisters." She said.

"Whose who? The two girls I mean." Becky said, looking at it with me, then starring at my face. I had no idea what it looked like, but I could feel it going in melt down, blocking off every emotion I had. All of my fear.

"The one in the chair is your grandmother-"

"Wow, she looks so serious." Becky interrupted. The old woman nodded gravely at Becky's words. "Is she still like that?" Becky asked, turning to the old lady.

"Being serious is not something you grow out of." I said.

Becky turned to me, then the picture. She then gasped and put her hands to her mouth, "Ohmigod! Si! You look like the other girl! Exactly like her!"

"It's common among family." The old woman said.

"I'm adopted." I said while Becky was distracted, looking back and forth between me and her.

"She even has that look that you do!" Becky said. I asked her what that look was, and she said, "like you both have a really really juicy secret and you don't tell because it annoys everyone else." I guess that meant that I looked devious and mischievous like-

"What's her name?" I asked. "Rose's younger sister?"

"Audra."

I froze, then nodded. Tense, I walked followed the old lady and Becky like a Jar Head that just got electrocuted and was in enemy territory. Or a really really weird penguin.

Eventually we stopped at a door, and inside was a fine looking office. Shelves with clustered books of all kinds, with homey, purple rugs and large chairs and a dark desk stuffed in the corner.

In the stuffy chair, was a woman. She looked just like that picture, sitting down, stiff, tall, too proud, and way to serious. Except now she was old, and she looked much to cold. Her nose was shark, hawked. Her eyes were flat and brown, her hair pulled back into a tidy bun and growing white. She looked up from her book as I walked in, not knocking.

Her eyes widened as she looked me over. Her expression must have been what I had looked like, fearful, shocked, angry. Her smooth, slightly wrinkled face turned pinched and cold as she kept staring at me, as Becky walked in and I stood there, in the office that was familiar and stared back at her, unyielding.

"You must be Silence Loud." Her voice was like her face, pinched and forced, cold.

Instead of acting like that, I pretended to be cheerful. I smiled brightly at her, then in a girly voice I hardly ever used now a days, I said, "Rose." Becky his her laugh with a cough.

Rose turned her glare to Becky, who froze under those heavy black brown eyes. "Rebeca, I expect you to be respectful and stop laughing while your sister and I speak." She turned back to me and studied me, again, I forced the cheerfulness. "Where are you parents from?" She asked.

I giggled. "My mom and dad are from here-"

"Your birth parents." She barked out.

My facade dropped for a second, showing the tightness in my face. I could feel it, transforming my own face so that it was tight and agitated. As my facade dropped, a look of satisfaction passed over Rose's old face. Her displeasure pleased her. I let my blocked my face with another smile. "Don't know, China maybe." I lied.

She turned from me and to Becky. "You look like your mother." It was almost like those words hurt her throat. "Do your younger brothers?" She asked.

Becky seemed frozen under Rose's glare, but she managed to croak out a "yes."

"I hope you don't act as stupid and untrustworthy-" Rose began.

"Stop acting like a bitch," I blurted, making Becky's cheeks warm and Rose to turn sharply over to me.