Blue Violet
Blue Violet
Book # 1 of the Svatura
Series
by Abigail Owen
Copyright © 2012 by Abigail Owen
Alrights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the
publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN 978-0-9882272-0-0
Abigail Owen Self-Publishing
[email protected]
To
everyone who has ever supported my writing - from the time I was eight years
old to now. You are the reason I have the confidence to follow my dream.
And
to my husband, Robbie. You are my
te’sorthene
.
Excerpt from Hyacinth - Book #2 of
the Svatura Series
All flowers have a meaning. In the Victorian era, people used
flowers as symbols to express their feelings.
blue
violet: watchfulness, faithfulness, I’ll always be true
The first day
was always the worst. Ellie Aubrey stood in the administrative office, as she
had many times before, and shifted from foot to foot. She waited with growing
boredom for one of the counselors to give her the usual “new student” spiel.
Ellie would tolerate it. Just one last time she would tolerate it for what she
had to do. Even though she risked her life just being there.
So far, her
experience at this school was pretty much the same as all the other times
before… Same generic brick buildings, very institutional looking and obviously
not updated in fifty-some-odd years. Same teenagers hanging out in random
patches around the school waiting for the starting bell to ring. Same secretary
wearing a heavily decorated sweater, this one winter -themed in keeping with
the season. It was mid-January and Ellie was the new girl. Again.
Ellie glanced
out the window. A least the locale seemed a little different than her previous
residences. Estes Park nestled into a valley in Colorado, just outside the
entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. In the distance you could see the
beaver-shaped notches of Long’s Peak. At this time of year, Estes Park appeared
to be a typical sleepy little mountain town, blanketed in white snow. Although
Ellie had the impression that, come summer, it would fill with tourists out to
enjoy the many entertainments the beautiful surroundings could offer.
“Ellinore?” a
voice asked from the doorway behind her.
“Ellie,” she
corrected the counselor automatically, as she turned and offered a polite
smile. Her full name could be considered very old-fashioned having not been
popular in decades, if not centuries. Ellie held in a sigh as the counselor,
Miss Langston, introduced herself. She epitomized the usual counselor-type who
wanted to connect with the students and thought she was up on the latest
fashions and fads, but probably mentally used words like
hip
.
As she
followed Miss Langston through the hallways to the counselor’s office, Ellie
made sure to make eye contact with each person she passed, always with a
pleasant expression. She’d discovered the best way to handle the first week or
so in a new school was to look confident and generically nice, not cocky. It
also helped to try to blend in as much as possible. A fine line to walk, especially
for someone like her.
The students
in this school appeared to be no different than those in all her other schools.
The girls sported long, straight hair. And most of the boys had shaggy hair,
although Ellie happily noticed the clean cut look had started to infiltrate
this particular high school. She hadn’t really enjoyed those styles the first
time around.
“So I
understand that you’ve just moved here from Texas,” Miss Langston said,
consulting her files after they had seated themselves in her tiny office. She
looked up over her black-rimmed glasses at Ellie.
Ellie nodded.
She knew exactly what that folder contained. School records were still
notoriously easy to alter.
“Estes Park
High School is quite a bit smaller than your previous school,” Miss Langston
continued.
Ellie kept
herself from shifting in her seat and proceeded to nod at appropriate intervals
as Miss Langston droned on and on. A full half hour later, armed with school
rules, a map, and her schedule, Ellie finally made her way to her first class.
She resisted
the urge to cringe as she felt the gazes of the other students follow her. In
smaller schools like this, the students recognized when a new face appeared
among them. They already knew everyone else there and had known them since kindergarten
in many cases.
She wondered
briefly what exactly they saw when they looked at her. She guessed they’d see a
petite, almost pixie-like girl with gleaming, long, black hair that hung in
waves down her back, and blue eyes so deep in color they appeared to be almost
violet. Not beautiful exactly, more girl-next-door with a slightly exotic
coloring. She actually had tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose that
almost made her cute.
Ellie had
deliberately dressed down a bit, sticking to her tried and true rule of
blending in. She wore the uniform skinny jeans, flats, and a fairly plain blue
top that was flattering, but nothing special. Today she’d pulled her long hair
into a straight ponytail hanging down to the middle of her back. She couldn’t
do much to downplay her striking eyes but hadn’t bothered to highlight them
either. Experience had taught her if she wanted to make any girlfriends on the
first day, the best way was to avoid being seen as
competition
.
Ellie didn’t
necessarily have a problem with being the center of attention. She just didn’t
love the “new girl” attention -- a combination of curious and strangely
hostile.
With another
inward sigh, Ellie reminded herself that she had an extremely good reason for
doing this. She took a deep breath and entered her first period classroom,
senior-level English—one of her favorite subjects. She walked up to the teacher’s
desk and handed over a slip of paper to be signed.
“Hi, I’m
Ellie.”
The lovely,
blonde woman nodded. “I am Mrs. Cavender and this is AP English. Were you in
the advanced class in your previous school?”
“Yes.” The
counselor had already asked her that.
“What books
had you made it through when you’d left?”
“We’d finished
Canterbury Tales
and
Hamlet
.”
Mrs. Cavender
nodded again as she got up from her desk. Pulling a book off the shelves behind
her, she said, “We’re in the middle of
To Kill a Mockingbird
, so you’ll
have some catching up to do.”
Ellie nodded.
She’d already read it more than once. In fact, she’d read it when it had been first
published in 1960. But of course she couldn’t tell the teacher that.
Mrs. Cavender
pointed. “You can sit behind Jill over there.”
“Thanks,”
Ellie muttered and made her way to her seat, resisting the urge to see if one
of her targets happened to be in this class. She plopped down at the small
desk, dropped her backpack on the floor, and gave a shy smile to the girl
seated in front of her. She received a sweet, curiosity-filled one in return.
English went
about how Ellie expected. They had a vocabulary quiz. She aced it. They
discussed a few chapters of the book. She pretended to listen as if she hadn’t
already read it. They wrote a timed essay comparing and contrasting two
different marriage proposals from pieces of literature that Ellie already knew
well. Good times.
So far so
good
, Ellie thought. No one put themselves out to be particularly nice, but
at the same time no one had been remotely nasty, either. If she could get
through lunch--the worst part of the first day--she could make it through anything.
And then start all over tomorrow.
“Lather.
Rinse. Repeat,” she muttered under her breath.
The bell rang
signaling the end of class and the start of the early lunch period. Ellie held
back, trying to time her entry into the lunchroom to be after the bulk of the
students were settled, but not so late that her appearance in the room was too
obvious, a trick she’d learned at previous schools - give most of the students
a chance to sit down so that Ellie didn’t make the mistake of sitting at an
already claimed table.
Ellie sat
alone at a table in the far back corner of the cafeteria. She desperately
wanted to lift her head and look around for the three students she had come
here to find. But she couldn’t do that without risking attracting their
attention. Pretty quickly the curiosity surrounding her arrival in the school
would fade. And then she could finally focus on the true reason she’d moved
here. A moment that had been such a long time in coming, Ellie could barely
contain herself.
“Hi.” The soft
voice caused Ellie to jump a bit in her seat.
Glancing up,
she almost jumped again—this time in shock. She immediately recognized the girl
standing next to her as Adelaide Jenner, one of the three students she’d just
been thinking about…The reason why she’d decided to risk her life to come here.
“Um, hi.”
Ellie took in the girl’s appearance. Adelaide had pretty green eyes and honey
blonde hair worn in a short, chin-length cap. Despite the fact that she’d
approached Ellie, she seemed shy and soft spoken. She dressed casually like the
other students, but on the girl’s superb figure, she looked more like a high
fashion model than a high school kid.
“You’re new
here, right?” the girl asked softly. At Ellie’s nod she continued, “I’m
Adelaide Jenner.”
“Ellie
Aubrey,” she responded
Adelaide gave
Ellie a strangely intent look.
Uh-oh
,
Ellie thought, her heart pounding a little harder.
She knows.
At that exact
moment, another voice echoed in her mind. “
Do you need me to say I told you
so?”
“Griffin?”
she thought back.
“Now who
else would be in your head, Sis’?”
the voice teased.
“But I
thought you weren’t going to get involved?”
“
I’m not
,”
came the emphatic response. “
I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Ookkaayyy.”
“Oh, and
Elle?”
“Yeah?”
“She
doesn’t know anything. Not yet at least. And don’t even think about using my
mind reading on them.”
Holding on to
her brother’s last comment, Ellie hid her thoughts and raised her eyebrows. “Do
I have something in my teeth?” she asked, covering her mouth and feigning
embarrassment. She knew she didn’t have anything in her teeth.
She breathed a
sigh of relief when Adelaide seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. “No,
you’re fine…. Um, would you like somebody to sit with? The first day at a new
school can be pretty brutal.”
Ellie had no
idea what to think, but decided that if Adelaide wanted to be friendly that was
better than the alternatives.
“That would be
nice, thanks.” She scooted her lunch things closer to make more room.
“Great! Umm…”
Adelaide hesitated, her hand resting on the back of a chair, “Do you mind if my
sister and my boyfriend join us?”
Ellie blinked.
There were three people she was here for, and on her first day she was already
going to have lunch with them. Tricky situation. She’d only planned on
observing from afar.
“No problem!”
she responded brightly, hoping her thoughts remained well-hidden. She didn’t
know yet what they were capable of.