The Haeven Collection

Table of Contents

  Title Page

  “The Haeven Child”

  “Kitten”

  “150”

  “Diner”

  “Author’s Thanks”

  About The Author

  The Haeven Collection

  By Aszarria Scavella

  Copyright 2014 Aszarria Scavella

  Copyright Info

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  The Haeven Child

  Ever since last Valentine’s Day, life had been quiet. Nicole had managed scare three Mortals to death (figuratively of course) and had even managed to ruffle a few Dove’s feathers in the process. Life was good.

  The Order of the White Dove, her mother’s pet group of White Witches and Warlocks were on her case about being the bearer of the child of prophecy but she had no interest in that. Everything was in motion and all she had to do was kill or maim every suitor that knocked on her door and she was set.

  The doorbell rang and Nicole’s brown eyes turned black. She smiled but not like anything was particularly funny. She opened the door, eyed blacked. She stopped. Nicole had never particularly liked her cousin Lara. Then again, Nicole had never particularly liked anyone anyway so it was perfectly acceptable for her to dislike family.

  “What are you doing here? Go away.” Nicole’s eyes returned to a sullen brown. She turned and tried to close the door but Lara’s foot got in the way.

  “Come now cousin mine, is that anyway to treat family?” Lara pushed her beautiful face through the crack in the door.

  Lara had always been the pretty one, the smart one, and the one that got all the attention. She was in every way shape and form different from Nicole and Nicole resented her heavily for it.

  Nicole presented Lara with a look that was none too gentle about her feelings. Lara simply smiled back that beautiful smile that made Nicole dislike her even more.

  “Go home. You’re not welcome here.”

  Lara pushed Nicole out of the way and entered the manor. The same Manor they had grown up in as children. Nicole remembered because it was where her mother would always tell her how much better Lara was than her, how much prettier Lara was. Lara, Lara, Lara.

  “Please Nicky.” Nicole stopped her brooding.

  “What did you call me?” Nicole turned to Lara and finally got a good look at her. She was plump and her ankles swollen. “Great Circe you got fat.”

  Lara turned to look at Nicole and faced her fully. “I’m pregnant you silly goat.”

  “Who’s the father?” Nicole was curious now.

  “Not a clue.” Lara responded. She looked around at the Manor and noticed that Nicole hadn’t changed a thing. “It’s just the same as when we were kids.”

  Nicole’s countenance darkened. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  Lara smiled briefly. “Don’t you remember Nicky?”

  Nicole twitched at the butchering of her name. “Don’t call me that.”

  “You used to love that name when we were kids.”

  “We’re not kids anymore, Lara, and stop changing the subject. What are you doing here?” Nicole watched as Lara turned towards the sitting room, which hadn’t been used in decades, and opened the double sliding doors. Sunlight streamed into the hallway and Nicole averted her eyes.

  When the witch turned back, her eyes were black. The shutters shut and the curtains were drawn as though done so by invisible hands. The human definition returned to Nicole’s eyes and she glared at Lara who had her hand over her heart in shock.

  “I should have been expecting that. You are a witch after all.” Lara smiled ruefully.

  “I don’t enjoy the sun. Why are you here? You don’t keep to the old ways. Hell, you don’t even use anymore and why do you have a suitcase?” Nicole spied the suitcase at Lara’s feet.

  Inside the sitting room, there was a lot of space and old furniture. The Harbinger line manifested itself over 600 years ago and had been there for about 200 of those years in that very house.

  Lara smiled sadly. Nicole had fond memories of the manor but she also had upsetting ones. Her Father and Nicole’s Mother were siblings and both married from the Harbinger line. They were welcomed into the family warmly and both produced female heirs. When they were really young, Lara and Nicole got along great mainly because they were only a few hours apart. Lara was born during an eclipse and Nicole was born a while after.

  They were bright children and Nicole was fun loving and carefree but when puberty hit and Lara started getting her powers and Nicole didn’t and Lara started becoming a woman and Nicole didn’t and Lara started getting special treatment from the family and Nicole didn’t, they just drifted apart.

  “Mom and Pa kicked me out. They said I was a disgrace to the family. They actually asked me why I couldn’t be more like you.” Lara gave Nicole a watery smile. “I can see why it bothered you to be constantly compared to me. It kinda stung a little.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

  “You’ve changed Nicky.” Lara looked at Nicole like she was seeing her for the first time. “Accepting the Black changed you more that I care for but you’re still my sister in all but blood.”

  “Look Lara, I don’t have time for you or your family issues. I have things to do, the door is that way.” Nicole gestured towards the open doors of the sitting room. Both she and Lara were seated on a floral love seat.

  “Nicky, I’m not asking you to take me in forever. I’ve been sort of flitting from place to place and I’m going to pop any day now. I just need a place to lay my head and have my kid.” Lara gazed at Nicole imploringly and the witch felt her heart stirring.

  Lara didn’t wait for Nicole’s answer. She got up off the couch and looked around the room. It was dark because Nicole had closed the shutters and blinds earlier. She walked around the room and wiped her fingers along the dust-covered furniture. Rubbing them together she sighed.

  Dressed in a long brown leather trench coat, long brown boots and a floral dress, Lara shrugged off the brown coat, pulled up the sleeves of the dress and started moving furniture around.

  Nicole watched her impassively. Her eyes turned black. With a careless wave of her hand, she sent a particularly large piece of furniture skirting across the room. Lara looked back at her and Nicole looked away.

  “I’m not saying that you can stay forever but,” Nicole gestured towards Lara’s swollen tummy. “It’d be heartless of me to kick you out. Besides, I don’t like to clean as you can tell, and you’d make a good maid.”

  Both Lara and Nicole shared a laugh at the thought of either girl cleaning anything manually. However, they both set about cleaning the dust from the sitting room by hand.

  *

  Lara sat in her bedroom absentmindedly rubbing her stomach. She was nine months pregnant and her doctor, before her parents kicked her out, had her on strict bed rest. The problem was that she didn’t feel pregnant. She wasn’t connected to her baby at all and it scared her.

  She thought of her cousin Nicole and sighed. Lara remembered when they had accepted the Black and the white respectfully. It had a been both a joyous and not so joyous day for everyone involved but they had promised each other that they would be there no matter what.

  Lara knew that she had broken that promise and abandoned her cousin but everything in her life had seeme
d so much more important then.

  It had been ten years since she ran away and essentially forsook the Deep Magic. She hadn’t regretted it but the dismissal of her family had stung a lot more than she had expected.

  She was so deep in thought she missed Nicole standing at the door watching her in silence.

  *

  Lara had been staying with Nicole for a few days and if she was to be completely honest, Nicole could say that she didn’t mind at all. That didn’t stop her from complaining every chance she got about any and everything that came to her mind. Lara left the blinds open, Lara twisted the rug, and Lara did something or broke some unspoken rule that she knew nothing about.

  In reality, Nicole was just born difficult. Her birth had been a hard on one on the family but especially on Nicole’s Mother, Lady Leanne. From the time she could understand, Nicole was told by her mother, always in secret of course that she was a burden and her only purpose in life was the bear the Haeven Child.

  Nicole rejected the idea as soon as she developed the mental capacity to think for herself. The Haeven Child was an old story that was probably older than the Harbinger line. It was a prophecy about a child that would bring balance and symmetry to the deep magic. The story went that a child, born of a woman of the line of bringers, born on the eighth day as the moon sets would come and settle all that was not right with mother magic and her heart would sing with joy. And she would gift her people in ways they could never imagine.

  Nicole was born after an eclipse and everyone assumed it was she the prophecy spoke of. Nicole was once again lost in her thoughts. The doorbell rang and she ignored it in favour of sitting in the living room in front of a wide screen television that was muted, staring off into nothingness.

  The bell chimed again and still, Nicole didn’t hear it. Lara had gone out for the day to purchase groceries. The bell chimed for a third time but Nicole was still in her own little world.

  The young witch was startled from her thoughts by her mother’s voice reverberating through the house.

  “Nicole, I do not have all day. I know you’re home and it’s no use hiding from me so open the door or I will let myself in.” How Nicole hated that grating high pitched proper tone. She loathed it with a passion but she had learned long ago that arguing only further exacerbated the problem. She never could win with her mother.

  Not bothering to reply, Nicole got up grumbling under her breath all the way to the door. The people on the other side, she was less than pleased to see.

  “Honestly child, I taught you better than that. The nerve of you, leaving guest’s to ring the doorbell more than once.” The speaker was Nicole’s mother. She was a tall slender and stately woman with dark skin and aristocratic features. She carried herself like someone important and was always looking down her nose at someone or something.

  “Seeing as how you’re not supposed to be here, I’m well within my right to not answer the door or allow you in and I haven’t been a child for many moons. What do you want? I have better things to do with my time than entertain you.” Nicole had an unfortunate habit of saying what ever was on her mind with very little care to who or what her words were directed at.

  “I will deal with you later, child.” The symbolic insult was not lost on Nicole. “We have come on behalf of the Order of the White Dove to formally present the mother–to-be with the Blessing of the White.”

  “Hmm?” Nicole raised an eyebrow. “And what if said mother has no wish to be blessed by the white?”

  “Nicole! Stop this foolishness at once!” Nicole turned her face to her grandmother on her mother’s side as she sat down on a colourful yet slightly stained couch. She eyed the woman whose grey hair and green eyes spoke of her age and wisdom.

  “Whatever.” Nicole replied. “And anyway, Lara isn’t here. The door is that way.”

  There was silence. All the heads aside from Nicole’s turned to look at Lady Leanne for guidance. The woman was shaking slightly. Her brows were furrowed and her eyes closed. She was angry. The thought made Nicole smile a little.

  “We will go now but we will be back, child.” Lady Leanne spoke after a long bout of silence.

  “Of that I have no doubt but the question is, what will greet you upon your return?” Nicole asked.

  “You were always a difficult girl. I yearn for the day when you learn to care for something other than yourself.” Her mother said.

  “Shouldn’t those be my words to you?” Nicole followed the group out of the house and shut the door without waiting for a response.

  Nicole sighed, looking out of the window and watching as the group left. She glanced forlornly at the sky. The sun was out. She hated the sun.

  *

  “Nicky!”

  Nicole was jolted from her peaceful slumber by a near hysterical cry.

  “Lara, it’s three in the morning!” she called back.

  “Nicole, this is serious. I need you.” Lara called.

  Nicole sat up and put on her shoes. Even though she didn’t want to be of any assistance, Lara only called her Nicole if there was a serious problem.

  She bumped into the wall and let out a less than womanly curse. With a careless wave of her hand, the house was flooded with light. Nicole smiled. Sometimes she was awed by her own prowess.

  “Nicky! It’s coming out!” the frazzled quality to Lara’s voice made Nicole stop dead.

  “The baby’s coming?” she called back hesitantly.

  “I don’t know!” Nicole glared at the set of stairs she had to climb and silently cursed both her ancestors and Lara, her ancestors for building the house and Lara for maybe or maybe not having a baby on the third floor.

  “How do you not know? Either it’s coming or it’s not.”

  “There’s stuff coming out!”

  “Eww!”

  “Nicky!”

  “Alright, Alright. I’m coming.” Nicole took the stairs two at a time.

  The manor had three stories plus an attic and a basement. There were six bedrooms and five and a half baths. There was a sunroom, a living room, a sitting room, a kitchen, half a bathroom and a dining room all located on the first floor. The second floor held three bedrooms and three bathrooms and the third had everything else. The Attic was home to an observatory and the basement held a storage facility.

  The manor noticeably lacked a nursery and nothing was child proof. Nicole did not want Lara or her spawn staying for any long periods of time. Their time for family bonding had come and gone.

  Nicole threw open the door to the guest room and recoiled in terror and disgust. Lara stood in the centre of the room. She was in a nightgown that fell just past her knees. Her hair was down and caked with a black sticky substance. It was all over the bed and globs of it led to the adjoining bathroom. The worse part was that the black goo was trailing down Lara’s bare legs and ending in an ever-growing pool of pitch-blackness at her feet.

  Lara looked terrified. Her face had gone pale and freckles that Nicole didn’t know Lara had stood out on her skin. Her pupils her dilated and she looked like she would faint at any moment. Nicole knew that the only thing keeping Lara upright was her fear of landing in the stuff.

  “Nicky.” Lara’s plaintive whimper brought Nicole out of her musing. Her eyes turned black. Coincidentally, they were the same shade as the gel like liquid that was seeping in copious amount out of her pregnant cousin.

  She waved her hand and the goo disappeared. It was still flowing down Lara’s legs but the amounts that came slowed down considerably. Nicole knew she couldn’t take Lara to a conventional hospital. They’d ask too many questions and it was really hard to explain why black gloop was flowing in a steady stream out of her cousin’s birth canal.

  “Lay down.” Nicole said, gesturing to the now clean bed.

  “I’ll mess the sheets.” Lara responded. She doubled over in pain, holding her stomach.

  The flow of the dark liquid picked up speed. Instead of a steady stream, it was a torr
ential downpour. Lara’s thin frame shook with pain. Her breathing was heavy. She swayed a bit from side to side.

  Nicole ran forward and caught her before she could fall. Some of the goo splashed onto her feet and bare legs. Nicole fought the urge to drop Lara and take a hot shower. As gently as she could, Nicole put Lara into the bed.

  The pain subsided.

  “You stay here. I’m going to make a few calls.” Lara didn’t seem to hear her and Nicole watched in morbid fascination as the black gunk seeped into the sheets and blankets. With another wave of her hand, Nicole vanished the goo once again and left.

  *

  “Hello, Lady Hollow.” Nicole kept calm but on the inside she was panicking. Before her stood the dwarf queen.

  Dwarfs were like miniature human beings. They came in a range of colours but none stood over three feet tall. They had a liking for shiny things and precious gems and metals that bordered on obsession. They were shrewd and callous creatures but the had large soft spots for children of any species.

  Generally, they had pointed ears, pointed teeth and large hooked noses. Large feet allowed them to travel almost anywhere and a thick leathery hided made them impervious to most weapons. The queen of the Dwarfs was more delicate looking. Her skin was a golden hue and her eyes blue like a sapphire. Gold hair flowed down her shoulders and back and a delicate cold crown intertwined with precious stones was perched on top of her head.