Conjuring Dragons by Chante Francis (surface ebook reader TXT) 📕

Chapter Three

"Sorry about earlier." Our new mother says while attempting to make eye contact with us through the rear view mirror.

She opens her mouth to say something else, but gets cut off, "I didn't mean to expose you! I’m sorry! Really!” A short beat of silence, “So what kind of witches are you? What kind of powers do you have? What’s your favorite spell? Which one of you is my sister? Who’s marrying my brother?" The words just seem to jumble out of her mouth as the little girl excitedly bounces in her booster seat.

If this is her without sugar... Veronica comments wryly.

What the Haagen-Dazs is she talking about?

"We're both your new sisters."

"Nuh uh! Cause then one of you can’t marry my brother! I don’t mind having two sisters, but I’ll have two sisters after the weddings.” She seems to be in thought for a moment before yelling out, “Will you teach me stuff? Will you buy me clothes? Will you tell me how to make babies?" Her last question has her straining against her seat belt with her eyes popped open wide and a large expectant smile on her face.

Veronica and I stupidly start choking on our own spit.

"Hush sweetheart. You need to learn to control yourself when--" Her mother once again attempts to get an entire sentence out of her mouth.

"You also need to learn not to speak about any aspect of magic in front of the mundane." The man cuts his wife off, before turning to Veronica and I. "I'm sorry about my daughter, she’s not used to being around garden-variety people. We live in a rather large supernatural community."

Veronica and I remained silent as we observed them; we looked at them as though they were crazy. I mean do you randomly start saying things like this to strangers if you're sane? I think not.

 Ready for this?

For what? I ask.

Yes or No?

As ready as I’ll ever be I suppose.

If I win you have to streak through the Macy’s day parade.

If I win you have to streak through Disney world for 4 hours without being caught.

I see her hesitate for a moment, Deal. I was planning to--

His lips are moving, but I’m not hearing anything. Are you casting a spell?

No, but I believe he is. We'll have to hide our conversation in the void.

I immediately started filling my head with thoughts of ways to escape these people. I thought of how psychotic they must be, and wondered how my sister and I would survive. I let my thoughts wander, thinking as though we were normal girls in the car with mental patients.

"We’re not crazy." Our new father says with a frown.

I give him a strange look, as Veronica nods at him weakly. Our new mother says, "So what kind of witches are you?"

"W-w-witches?" We stutter, sinking further into our seats. Making it look as though we're scared and confused, not preparing our defenses and planning our escape. "There’s no such thing as witches, it’s all bedtime stories to feed a child’s imagination and scare them into submission."

"You guys can speak at the same time?! Teach me! Teach me!" the little girl squeals passionately.

"Priscilla!" Her mother says in that be quiet voice that most moms we’ve encountered seem to have.

The man, our new father calmly begins, "Um, why don’t we start over?” When no one objects he says, “Forgive me and my manners, but I don’t think we’ve even introduced ourselves to you girls yet.” Deep breath and a gush as it’s released, “My name is Gregory Flint, and this is my wife Rebecca Moss-Flint." He gestures to his wife before entwining their fingers once again.

"I'm Priscilla Marie Flint! But my big brother calls me Cilly" The little girl, Priscilla, says proudly before her parents can introduce her.

"My name is Veronica-Monet Kirraley Darling," Veronica says before gesturing to me and saying, "And this is my sister, Jypsie-Jenae Evangeli Darling."

"It’s nice to meet you three." I say, I don’t have to try very hard to make my voice weary.

(Is he still probing your mind?) Veronica asks me in what we call the void, our combined mentality.

(Not acti--)

"Is that all you girls have?" Mrs. Flint breaks into our conversation.

"Yes ma'am." We answer.

“Really?” She asks surprised.

“It’s all the orphanage could afford to give us with the limited amount of funding it gets from the government.”

“It’s my understanding though, that the government should be giving orphanages enough money to not only pay their bills, but to feed and clothe their wards as well.” Her husband enters the conversation.

“Hate to break it to you sir, but they only get enough to pay the bills and sometimes have just enough food to feed everyone. A lot of our clothing comes from hand-me-downs and clothing drives.”

“Don’t get us wrong, not every orphanage faces the same financial struggle as the one we were just at, many also receive money from various charities around the country.” My sister chimes in helpfully.

“I’m sure I saw horses behind the orphanage.” Gregory says slanting us a quick look, before turning back to the road.

“Miss Mij pays to keep them fed and housed out of her own pocket,” My sister answers him.

“Her pocket and the orphanages.” I look towards the couple in the front seat as Mrs. Flint gasps, “there are quite a few horses, so she takes some of the money out of what the government gives them to keep the horses comfortable.”

“That’s so upsetting,” Rebecca says as she makes eye contact with me in the rear view mirror.

I see her frown deepen as I reply, “We have what we need.”

"Oh Gregory!" She says looking at her husband distraught.

Without warning he swivels the car around a break in the lane divider and makes a U-turn in the middle of a busy street. People start swerving, luckily no one crashes, but they're all angry. Some people step out of their cars and start shouting and cursing at our retreating car. A few times we see a middle finger, but thankfully Priscilla doesn’t notice.

After 20 minutes of speeding and sharp turns, we finally stop outside a mall. A very large mall that looks to contain every shop known to man.

Veronica and I stare at it while Mrs. and Mr. Flint get out of the car. They come around and Mr. Flint opens the door so that his wife can take Priscilla out of her car seat.

"Sweetie, this is a mall for the mundane." Gregory says to his daughter, "I don’t want you talking about the supernatural alright? I don’t care if you see one; you will not point him out. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes daddy."

"Good." Gregory replies before smiling and ruffling her hair. “Let’s go girls.”

I sigh and climb out of the car. (I’m starting to wish we had a dad like Gregory.)

(You just met him.) Veronica replies as we follow them inside.

"Can we go back to the car for a minute? We forgot our money." Veronica says, reminding me of the box of things our mother left for us. I hope there’s a bank card and money in the account. The sealed box had shown signs of previously being roughly opened. (I wonder why they never took our cash, or used our bank accounts.)

(I think they were bewitched, from what I saw of Mij’s memories, they weren’t able to completely remove anything from the box. I believe we're the only ones capable of taking stuff out completely. Apparently our mother, or whoever cast the spell on it all was no weak little witch.)

"It’s alright." Gregory says, "We'll pay for everything. There’s no spending limit so get whatever you want."

Chapter Four

About 7 or so hours after our little shopping trip, we pull up to an old Victorian style home. The distance from our orphanage and their house so substantial that we no longer believe our adoption was by coincidence.

"Welcome to your new home girls." Gregory says with a smile, swiftly ushering us inside.

We spin around slowly taking in our new surroundings; scoping out where we'll be living for the next year or so. Discreetly checking out all of our possible escape routes, just in case shit hits the fan.

"It's beautiful."

"Thank you." Rebecca says.

"Do you guys like Barbies? I have a whole lot! Wanna see? I’ll get them! We can play Barbie and Ken at the beach! I'll bring all my dollies!" Priscilla gushes.

"Cilly dear, why don’t you just bring your favorites? Actually, we'll come to you, but just give us a few moments to explain everything to the girls." Gregory says and she runs upstairs after a brief moment of thought.

"MARCO!" He shouts after she gets to the top of the stairs, successfully startling both my sister and I. His wife, Rebecca, glares at him for his behavior and he returns it with another smile, this one showing his dimples.

"POLO." Came the reply in a deep voice. Veronica and I look at each other, simultaneously raising one eyebrow.

"It’s amazing how synchronous your actions are, you know twins have always fascinated me." Rebecca says before smiling, "I’ve always wanted one." We smile a little at her, both thinking that it’s definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.

Rebecca moves, starting to lead us all into another room. As she passes him, her husband gives her a not so gentle tap on the butt that she attempts to ignore. He follows behind her and we take that as our cue to switch rooms. In the new room, we see another couple sitting on one of the couches in what we assume is a living room.

"Hello." The male greets with a smile, as the woman waves to us cheerily. We let Gregory and Rebecca lead us to seats and end up sitting across from the two couples.

"Hello" we reply to the new couple, "I’m Veronica-Monet Darling, and this is my sister Jypsie-Jenae Darling." V says gesturing between us.

"We know" The new male says smiling even wider as his wife’s eyes light up. He leans forward extending a hand to me, "Hello Jypsie, I'm your new father Mathew Blaize."

I shake his hand, "I'm sorry, but what do you mean? I thought Mr. Flint was our new father."

He frowns and turns to Gregory, "You haven’t told them yet have you?"

Gregory shakes his head with a frown, “I thought we’d all tell them together.” Mr. Blaize nods his head, turns back to us and shakes Veronica’s hand. Gregory takes a settling breath and reaches for his wife’s hand before turning to us, "Girls. We didn’t just adopt you because we wanted daughters. We adopted you because a trusted witch with many of the more advanced foretelling abilities told us you were our sons' soul mates." He turns to me, "But it wouldn’t look ethical for my wife and I to adopt both of you and have Jypsie be with her stepbrother, in a way it’d be incest, so Matt here adopted you." The way he said it, you would think