Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown Read online

  He was laughing even though he was doubled over from the impact of my elbow. “If you saw your face you’d think it was hilarious!”

  There were two pizza boxes and a six pack of soda balancing on one of the deck rails. “Jerk.”

  He pulled me toward him and tried to kiss me but I turned my face away. “Aw come on Shaina, you know you love me.”

  I started laughing despite myself, “I love that you brought pizza, that’s about it.”

  He moved forward for a quick kiss and then we hurried inside when I started shivering. “So where are the kids?”

  He hopped up onto the counter while I pulled plates out of the cabinets and started filling them with pizza. “Malcolm and Priscilla were watching TV and Tessa was in her room.” Without even asking me first, he opened the kitchen door and screamed for them to come and eat. “Why did you do that?” I hissed. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  He smiled, “kids love me. They won’t say anything.”

  I rolled my eyes. Yeah right, I thought.

  A few seconds later, three kids slammed through the kitchen door. “Who is that?” Priscilla asked. “He’s cute,” Tessa whispered. “You aren’t supposed to have boys over,” Malcolm told me.

  “Told you,” I said to Ben.

  He held out a plate of pizza to Malcolm, “come on bro, I brought you some pizza.”

  Malcolm took the pizza from him, but gave him a dirty look, “you aren’t supposed to be here though.”

  A few minutes later and the kitchen was destroyed. Priscilla thought it would be funny to throw her pizza at her brother who then threw his back at her. The end result was one crying child, one laughing child, and walls covered with red pasta sauce and strings of mozzarella cheese. I looked at the clock. It was almost nine. I can do this… I can do this… I can do this… I can do anything for four hours.

  After screaming at the kids to get out of the kitchen, I sunk into a chair and rested my head on my hands while my eyes surveyed the damage. I had only been there for two hours and I had cleaned more here than I usually had to all month at my own house.

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding, those kids are awful.”

  I sighed, “I know. I feel so bad for their parents. My mom gave me some information about a company that works with bad children, but I almost feel guilty telling their parents about it. I don’t want to offend them.”

  “That’s weird. What’s the name of the company?”

  I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the text again, “Changed.”

  There was a computer sitting on the counter and he walked over to it. “Let’s Google it.”

  He typed, Changed located in Denver Colorado into the search bar and we waited while it loaded the results. There were about twenty different possibilities, but after reading the summary description of each one on the search page, we decided to try one about halfway down the second page.

  “Wow, this is awesome!” He exclaimed when the pictures came up, “they all look like wax copies of themselves.”

  There were a series of before and after photos on the main page. In each one of the before photos, there was a messy and emotional child, and all of the after ones showed a well behaved, well dressed, smiling version of themselves. It was actually almost creepy.

  “Look there’s a place to put your information so that someone will contact you. Why don’t we fill this out for the Anderson’s? That way they won’t know that it was you who referred them to the company.”

  An uncomfortable tingling sensation had begun to buzz in my head, but I pushed the feeling aside and took control of the keyboard. Almost as if my hands were more excited than the rest of me, they began flying over the keys and filling in the information. When I was done, I almost felt guilty, but then I looked around the kitchen and that guilt just dissolved right out of me. Then the doorbell rang.

  Ben and I both looked at each other and then the computer screen. He started laughing first. “That’s weird.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be right back.”

  Despite the fact that there was no possible way that it could be the Changed people at the door, I couldn’t stop my heartbeat from accelerating as I walked to the door. There was something tickling the back of my brain, some unrecalled memory just begging to be remembered, but every time I tried to grasp on to it, it slipped away again.

  Tessa and Malcolm were fighting by the door when I got there; both of them screaming and taking swings at each other. Tessa was older and stronger, but Malcolm was smaller and faster so the fight wasn’t really going anywhere, but the screaming was becoming loud enough to wake the neighbors.

  “What the heck is going on out here?”

  Immediately they both turned toward me and began yelling.

  “Malcolm isn’t supposed to be answering the door,” Tessa screamed.

  “Tessa is a big fat meanie head!” Malcolm screamed back.

  I pointed to the stairs. “Both of you go to your rooms right now!”

  After they both stomped up the stairs, I turned back to the door and opened it. Standing on the stoop with a smile on her face was the shortest and strangest woman I had ever seen. Her hair was brown but there was a strange texture to it that sort of reminded me of tree bark. Her eyes were moss green and she smelled sort of like fertilizer. I had to stop breathing through my nose to ensure I didn’t gag.

  She held out her hand for me to shake and I had to bend down to reach it. “Hello dear. My name is Acadia Brown. I am here on behalf of the Changed group. Is now a good time to talk?”

  This had to be a joke. There was no way that this could possibly be happening. I looked past her, half expecting my mom or Ben to be standing off to the side laughing at the stunned expression that I was sure was on my face… only they weren’t.

  “I’m sorry; who did you say sent you again?” Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had referred this company to the Andersons.

  “Why you did, dear. We always respond quickly when it’s for one of our own.”

  That tingling sensation started working its way back up my back. “I think you have the wrong person.”

  Just then, Priscilla came running up from behind me and kicked me so hard in the back of the leg that it buckled and I fell against the door.

  “You can’t tell us what to do! You’re just the babysitter!”

  The lady, Acadia Brown, smiled even bigger. “Oh no dear, I am exactly where I need to be. If I can just come in for a moment, we can get this all sorted out.”

  “No, really, thank you but there must be some mistake.”

  I closed the door and then backed away from it shaking. This was beyond strange. Something wasn’t right and I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach from the stress of what I had set into motion. Who were these people and what had I done by giving them the Anderson’s information? How could my mom have possibly used a service like this on me? It had to be a different company.

  We always respond quickly when it’s for one of our own…

  No. No way. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed my mom’s number. “Hello?”

  “Mom, do you remember anything else about the company you told me about? I just want to make sure I give Mrs. Anderson the right information,” I lied.

  “Shaina? Is it really that big of a deal?”

  “Yes!!!” I practically shouted at her.

  “Wow, calm down. It can’t be that bad.” I heard her sigh “I don’t remember a lot, just that the lady I worked with had a strange name.”

  A strange name. I tried not to panic. There were lots of strange names in the world. “Anything else?”

  “I remember that she was tall and I think she had blond hair.”

  I let out the breath I had been holding and started walking back toward the kitchen where I had left Ben. “Thanks mom. I just wanted to make sure that I had the right place.”

  “Okay honey, just calm down. It’s almost over.”

  “Okay, I guess that I�
�ll talk to you later.”

  “Oh wait, Shaina? I think her name was Acadia. Acadia Brown. Call me if you need anything else.”

  The phone went dead at the exact time that the lights went out.

  “Ben? Tessa? Malcolm? Priscilla?” I called. No one answered.

  There was a flashlight application on my phone and I tried to access it with my hands shaking. I ended up fumbling a few times and almost dropped my phone in the process. Then I remembered that it was dead. I headed toward the kitchen in the dark. If there was something going on, something strange and creepy, I wanted Ben beside me.

  “Ben?”

  I’m not going to lie. The sane part of me knew that it was strange that he hadn’t already come looking for me. The sane part of me began to shiver and cower in fear of what I would find when I walked into the kitchen. The insane part of me wanted to run into the kitchen, out the back door, and then down the street without looking back. Maybe I had those two parts of me confused.

  The only light spilling into the kitchen was from the moon outside. I was so focused on not freaking out that it took me forever to realize that the reason there was so much moonlight was because the back door was open.

  “Ben?” I hissed again. Nothing.

  Then there was a bump from upstairs. I jumped and inhaled sharply in fear. Then there was a scream from upstairs.

  I looked at my watch, with my phone dead and the electricity out, it was my only source of time. From the moonlight I could just make out that it was just past ten. I can do this. I can do this. I can do anything for three hours. There’s nothing in the house. Everything is fine. I can do this.

  The screaming stopped abruptly the moment I put my foot on the first stair. The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of my own heart beating in my head. Thump. Thump. Thump. The door to Priscilla’s bedroom was slightly ajar and I crept toward it.

  “Priscilla?” I whispered. No answer.

  I opened the door further and slipped inside the room. The blinds on her window were drawn so there was absolutely to light filtering through. It took me a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior. Once they did I was able to make out shapes in the darkness. Her bed, her dresser, the television stand; all were darker masses in the unlit room.

  “Priscilla? Are you in here?”

  Two beady little eyes rushed forward to me in the dark and I fell backwards onto the bed. The door to the room slammed shut and I had to hold back the scream that was threatening to tear from my throat. It was then that I felt the hand on my arm.

  “Shhh… it will hear you.”

  Relief flooded through me. “Tessa? Is that you?”

  “Yes,” she hissed, “Cissy is in here too.”

  “Thank God,” I whispered. “What about Malcolm?”

  Priscilla started whimpering. “It got him,” Tessa said softly.

  Fear seized me and acid began to sizzle in my stomach. “What do you mean ‘it got him’?”

  “That thing,” Priscilla whispered, “the monster. It ate Malcolm.”

  “It’s not a monster idiot, it’s a troll,” Tessa informed her.

  “You aren’t making any sense.” I climbed down off of the bed and kneeled beside the two of them cowering in the corner. “There are no such things as trolls or monsters.”

  “It told us that it was going to take us away and give our parents the type of children they really want,” Tessa said. “It said that they were going to eat us.”

  Okay, so this was definitely spiraling way out of control. It was time to get out of this house so that I could call for help. “Listen, we have to get downstairs so that we can go next door and call the police. I know that you’re scared, but we can do this together.”

  Priscilla started crying again, but Tessa hugged her, “it will be okay Cissy. We have to get help for Malcolm.”

  “I want mommy and daddy,” she cried.

  I sighed. “I know. We are going to get your mom and dad, but we have to get out of this house first.” I stood up and waited for them to stand with me. It was amazing how well my eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. It was almost like it wasn’t dark at all.

  Together, the three of us tiptoed out of the room and down the hall. Downstairs another door slammed and Priscilla shrieked. “It’s okay, Shaina’s not going to let anything get us.”

  I smiled even though our situation was grim. It was sweet to see how caring they were of each other when in a dangerous situation. It almost made them more bearable. It almost made me regret thinking they were horrible children in the first place… almost.

  We were just about to the stairs when Priscilla screamed, “Malcolm! You’re okay!”

  I spun around and saw to my immense relief that Malcolm was leaning against the door of what I could only assume was his bedroom. He smiled when he saw his sisters, “Of course I am.”

  For some reason, his reassurance wasn’t reassuring at all. There was something off about him; something off about the way he looked and the way the words had come out of his mouth. However, when the sound of glass breaking came from downstairs, I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  “Come on, we have to get out of this house,” I told them all.

  Priscilla took the hand of her older brother and pulled him along with us. Even though he seemed to go willingly enough, there was still something off about him. I just didn’t have a clue as to what it was.

  Downstairs seemed even brighter to me. The lights were still off, but I found no difficulty at all in finding my way around. The sound of glass breaking came again and I could pinpoint that it was coming from the kitchen. I turned around to tell the children to go out the front door, but only Tessa was behind me.

  “Where are Malcolm and Priscilla?” I asked her.

  Her face filled with fear when I asked her and she began looking behind herself frantically. “I don’t know. Are they gone? I can’t see anything.”

  “What do you mean you can’t see anything? It’s clear as day down here.” Only it wasn’t. The lights were still out. It was just clear to me. That uneasy tingling feeling began in the pit of my stomach again. “Look, let’s just get to the neighbor’s house. We will call the police and they will come back here for the others.”

  “No,” she insisted, “we can’t leave my brother and sister. You’re crazy.”

  I let out a deep breath. “Tessa, we don’t know what we are up against. It isn’t safe in here,” I whispered.

  “Shaina! Thank God, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  I turned at Ben’s voice. He was standing in the doorway of the kitchen and I frowned. “Did you just come from in there?”

  He nodded, “there’s glasses broke and chairs overturned. What’s going on? I tried to call the cops but my phone is dead.”

  “You didn’t see anyone?” I asked suspiciously.

  Tessa pulled on my shirt. “He’s one of them, Shaina,” she cried, “let’s just go. We’ll go next door like you wanted to.”

  I backed away from Ben and his eyes widened in what I guessed was fear. “You can’t just leave me here alone.”

  “He’s one of them Shaina, he has to be!” Tessa cried.

  Too late I saw my reflection in the glass of the front window. Too late I noticed that in the light of the moon my chestnut hair took on the appearance of tree roots and branches. Too late I saw the hungry expression in my eyes that were glowing slightly in the dark.

  Too late I saw the figure moving behind Ben and devouring him… but it wasn’t too late for Tessa.

  She screamed and threw herself in my arms shaking and whimpering. “We have to get out of here, Shaina.”

  It was too late for me though. I remembered everything that my mind had been trying to block from me. We let those memories stay lost so that it was easier for us to remain unknown amongst the humans… but I was not one of them. I was one of the others. I was a troll… and I was hungry.

  It was just before one o
’clock when the Anderson’s drove into their driveway. I was waiting for them.

  “Welcome home,” I told them when they walked into the house from the garage. “How was your night?”

  “Oh it was fantastic. Thank you so much for watching the kids Shaina, I hope that they weren’t too much trouble for you.”

  I smiled at Mrs. Anderson. “Oh no, they were fine. In fact, we had a long talk and I think that you’ll be surprised when things begin to change around here.”