House of Phoenyx: House of Phoenyx book 1 Read online

  Chapter 1

  Percaline

  Percaline Golden sat down on her bed and pulled a brown knee-high boot over her skin-tight jeans while she listened to the sounds of pots and pans being banged around in the kitchen. Savannah had never been a morning person and today was no different. What was different today was that this was the first official day of Percaline’s junior year of college. In her wildest dreams she never thought that she would be attending Yale University. Not after the bad luck that plagued her late teen years. But today she was a junior in college, and not just any college either. She was a junior at Yale.

  Today was also the day that Lucas was due to arrive from some secret mission in a foreign country. He had called a couple of days before to let her know that he was officially moving to Connecticut and that he had made a big life decision and had wanted to tell her and her sister Savannah in person.

  Lucas was a Navy SEAL and therefore trained to pack light, but no matter where he went he carried their house key around his neck. He once told Percaline that it was a good luck charm and a talisman that reminded him to live so that he could come back to his family. Lucas wasn’t blood-related but he was the closest thing to a father Savannah had left in her life and he was Percaline’s best friend and rock.

  Lucas had been there for Percaline and Savannah when their mom died from breast cancer, and he had been there again when their Uncle Jon killed himself six months after. Lucas always knew what to do or say when Percaline was feeling down. Sometimes just being there and holding her was all he needed to do. Percaline dreaded it when Lucas left because she knew she would be sleeping alone and when she slept alone the dreams came. Not that they were necessarily bad dreams, they just brought a lot of stuff into her everyday awake life she’d rather have kept buried.

  This time though, Lucas wasn’t leaving. He was home to stay. Normally, after yet another sleepless night where the little boy ghost filled her dreams, she would have been cranky, but today was different. It was the first day of school, which meant new classes, new professors, and new potential friends, and it was the day their family reunited for good. Even Savannah’s foul mood couldn’t dissuade her.

  Savannah had been in school for a week now and had added some new friends to her pile of old friends. Among this group of girls and their token gay guy was a new boy that Savannah really liked and wanted to drive to school. Savannah had bought a new Volkswagen Beetle with the money Percaline had been given for college from an anonymous source. Percaline wanted to keep the 2001 Nissan Xterra that had been their mother’s and she wanted Savannah to have something new for the first time in her life. The Xterra was bright yellow and suited Percaline much more than a new car. It had automatic windows and doors, cup holders you could remove for larger cups, and a first aid pack in the back. She was always hurting herself one way or another so she needed Band-Aids on reserve.

  She had adopted Savannah four years ago when their mother passed. Since then, she tried to be both a good sister and a good parent. She was the oldest so it was in her DNA to try to provide a solid role model for Savannah. She didn’t always agree with what Savannah did, which was becoming more apparent as Savannah got older and made more of her own decisions. But Savannah was overall a good kid, so she let the little things slide and warned her about the outcome of the more serious things. For example, Savannah could miss as much school as she wanted as long as she got straight As. Anything lower than an A and Percaline would no longer sign sick leave slips, tardy slips, or permission slips. That would mean no class trips, no hanging out with her friends before or after school, and if she needed to, Percaline would hire a tutor who would personally walk Savannah to and from class. The thought of this mortified Savannah so she almost never missed school. Other punishments were much simpler. If Savannah got arrested Percaline would simply not bail her out. So far Savannah was at the top of her high school class and she had managed to stay out of arrestable mischief.

  But Savannah was mad at Percaline today, thus the pots and pans banging around in the kitchen. The funny thing was that Percaline didn’t mind. She actually liked the noise. It reminded her of her mom. Selena would sometimes get home at four in the morning after working a twelve hour night as a bartender. She would start banging around pots and pans in the kitchen and that’s how Percaline knew it was pancake time. Their mom was great about stuff like that. She always made the little things in life count for more than they should.

  Occasionally when Selena had a night off, she would pick up the girls from school early and they would go to the video store to rent movies. They would order Chinese food and eat popcorn while they had a movie marathon. The deal was that every one of them got to pick a movie and the others had to watch it without complaining. This was difficult for Percaline since she hated her mother’s taste in movies, but it often worked out in her favor because their mother hated the horror movies that Percaline loved. She could still remember the excitement of movie marathon night and the smell of four a.m. pancakes.

  Four a.m. was also her favorite time of the day because everything was still. Nothing bad ever happened at four a.m. It was safe. Percaline smiled as she put on her other boot. The boots matched her tan, low cut sweater perfectly, “If this was any other day I would be okay with you picking Thomas up, but I want to leave the Xterra for Lucas which means I need a ride to school. I’m okay with you picking up Thomas on the way there but either way I will be in the car.”

  Their house was small so even if she was upstairs and Savannah was downstairs she could hear everything Savannah did. The pots and pans stopped for a second and Savannah sighed with disgust. “Ok then. Can I have Thomas over after school? You used to have Lucas over after school all the time and Mom let you!” she yelled from the kitchen.

  “Yes, but I had known Lucas since second grade and most of the time we were supervised. Besides, Lucas gets home today. Don’t you want to spend time with him?” Percaline asked.

  “Of course I do. I just don’t want Elena to put her boobs in Thomas’s face before I get a chance to show him my witty personality,” Savannah responded.

  It made more sense now. Savannah was a tiny petite thing. Like everything else on her body, her bra size was also small. The females on Mom’s side of the family seemed to stop growing at sixteen years old and Savannah was about to turn seventeen, so five feet seemed to be her limit. Percaline was a reasonable height, blessed with a D cup, and had a natural ability to put on muscle instead of fat, but for Savannah there would always be another girl with bigger boobs. One day she would wake up and realize that while she wished she could be one of those girls with the big boobs those girls wished they could be her; small and feminine with the ability to go braless.

  This was one of those moments she wished came with a manual. She wanted Savannah to grow up knowing that you always put family first, but she also wanted Savannah to come to that conclusion by herself. Percaline would give anything to spend even one more minute with her mom, and that’s how she viewed life…spend as many minutes as you can with the people you love. Savannah on the other hand would probably trade in the second spent with Selena for an hour spent with Adam Levine. Not that she didn’t value family or miss and love her mom, but she was just different with her priorities. Maybe the difference was that Savannah lived for the future, looking forward to new experiences and new people and Percaline lived in the past, clinging for dear life to the one ounce of normalcy in hers. “Invite him over tomorrow after school and if Elena has already put her boobs in his face then it’s his loss, not yours.” The banging of the pots and pans stopped.

  Percaline and Savannah didn’t really look like sisters and for the longest time she told people that Savannah was her daughter because it was easier to explain, but now that Savannah was growing up and getting closer to that eighteen-year mark, the seven year difference in age and Percaline’s control over her seemed minute. She was almost an adult.

  Savannah had blond hair, blue
eyes, and the cutest nose. All five foot of her was little-bitty chicken legs. She could wear anything she wanted and pull it off. Percaline had red hair, eyes that changed from green to blue to gray, and a nose that she thought was too big for her face. She paid attention to what she wore so that her legs didn’t look short in comparison to her torso.

  Percaline stood up and looked in the mirror. In the wee hours of the morning while everyone else slept she had lain in bed trying to figure out what she was going to wear today. She needed something that was good for both school and seeing Lucas for the first time in a long time. She wanted something that would be both practical and jaw-dropping. Lucas knew everything there was to know about her, and she about him, but that also meant that she knew he wanted to be more than just friends with her and had for some time. She was guessing that was what his big news was about.

  She was purposefully trying not to think about it because she honestly didn’t know what her reaction was going to be. She loved Lucas but didn’t know if she was ready to be in love with him. She knew that her heart would stop and her life would physically end if he wasn’t in it, but she also knew that if they ever did cross that bridge there would be no going back. It would be all or nothing.

  As much as she tried not to think about it, her mind kept circling back to it like it was a riddle she had to solve. Why was he doing this now? What if he took one look at her and decided that he had been wrong for years? It was too much to think about so she concentrated on looking good for him and making sure that the second question would never be answered.

  The truth was that she liked watching him watch her. She looked different through his eyes and liked that version of herself. Plus, Lucas was real easy on the eyes, so even girls who had never met him before would get possessive, jealous, and downright resentful of her when she was with him. To be with a guy that doesn’t see any other girl besides you can make a girl feel good.

  Lucas was an exceptionally handsome man. He had a shaved head and at first look, his eyes appeared to be a dark blue but if you concentrated on them, they were actually purple. Percaline didn’t think anyone else in the world noticed Lucas’s purple eyes, which was a shame because they were magnificent. She always figured they were like one of those mind manipulation tricks, the ones where there are two men are in a room of squares and one looks like a little person and the other looks like a giant but when they come together in the middle they are actually the same size. Having intensely purple eyes is not the norm and people just see what they want to see, which in his case was blue.

  Lucas was lean, muscled, and tall with an imposing stature and he was the perfect big spoon to Percaline’s little spoon. She could say that with confidence because she had spent several nights sleeping in his arms when he would hold her after a traumatic dream.

  Life had dealt her a crappy hand and although she had to woman up to take care of business, that didn’t mean she didn’t have scars. She often thought of herself as beautifully broken and didn’t know if she would ever be whole again. Yet another reason to keep Lucas at arm’s-length.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked good. A thin scarf and a light jacket were all that was needed to complete the outfit.

  Savannah came into the bedroom, looked her reflection, and smiled. “You look great!”

  “Aww thanks!” Percaline said.

  “Yes, well, that’s enough about you. I’m going to invite Thomas over after school tomorrow.” Sometimes it was easier to let Savannah think that she had come up with the idea on her own. Sometimes it felt like no matter what Percaline said Savannah was ready to argue about it, even if they were on the same side. Again Percaline felt like she needed a manual.

  She knew that Savannah wouldn’t be a virgin forever and she didn’t expect her to be. She was sixteen years old and wise beyond her years. Sixteen may be considered young to some people, but Savannah wasn’t just some stupid teenager. She was a teenager that had had to mature at a faster rate than most. Percaline had been very clear about the rules early on. If Savannah thought she was old enough to have sex, then she was old enough to drive to the clinic to get birth control, old enough to use a condom in addition to said birth control, and old enough to pay for these expenses out of her own pocket.

  Although both of them could make it through the next couple of years without a job, Savannah was expected to work during the summer for the extra things she wanted. Percaline wanted her to understand the value of a dollar and she wanted Savannah to grow up with an understanding of how difficult working in the service industry was. She would know what it was to work for the things she wanted.

  Savannah would also understand that having a baby was a lifetime commitment and that it was not at the top of the list of scariest sexual topics. It was just the most noticeable. Percaline made a mental note to remember to ask Lucas to show Savannah some self-defense moves. If she was going to be alone with boys she needed to learn some better moves and Percaline knew that Savannah was more the biter, nail-clawer, hair-pulling type. She nodded at Savannah and asked, “Are you ready?”

  Percaline was a speeder by nature which is why she owned the Xterra and not a Dodge Charger. She could go fast in the Xterra but not as fast as she could go if she was racing down the street in a more aerodynamic, V8, stick shift, turbo. Savannah was a much slower driver. Not old-lady slow but slow enough that Percaline was almost late getting to class. She had wanted to stop by the counselor’s office on her way to class to see if she could make a change to her schedule.

  She was allowed to pick her classes online but this year a class was added: Faith, Morality, and Law. She wasn’t absolutely opposed to taking the course, it was just that she was about the least religious person you could find. Once upon a time she had believed in a higher power but after all of the death and unfairness she had been through in life, she figured that if there was a God he had just stopped caring. Therefore, she didn’t care for or about him.

  It was too late to make the change now and there would be no time between her other classes. The class did kind of fit perfectly into her schedule time-wise and she needed another elective, so the more she thought about it she decided that she would keep the class unless it was unbearable. She headed to the law building for her first class, Legal Ethics.

  Growing up, Percaline had always been athletic. If you would have asked her ten years ago where she was going to college and how she was paying for it she would said she was going to Yale on an athletic scholarship. Although she was naturally very good at swimming and fencing and just every other sport known to man, she had always wanted to be on the Yale Bulldogs Crew team. She wanted to race in the Regatta against Harvard, but she was at Yale on an academic scholarship, which meant that she needed to focus on academia and not sports. In her first two years at Yale she’d tried out and made the Crew team, but this year with only a half a semester left of electives before her real law classes began, she decided to forego Crew. This meant that there would be many nights spent doing laps at the pool instead of rowing.

  She had an uncommon amount of anxiety which when coupled with stress would result in a panic attack. Constantly moving and not drinking any caffeine helped keep the panic at bay. Doing laps in the pool, pacing mercilessly, and driving down the road as fast as she could helped her to work through things in her head. Some people cleaned the house, other people made lists, but Percaline moved in a consistent forward motion. When she purposefully wore herself out she slept better too. It was win-win.

  She absolutely loved water. Any sport having to do with water was guaranteed to be therapeutic. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something about water that made all of life’s dirty laundry seem clean. Water was her happy place.

  Faith, Morality, and Law was her last class of the day on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays and took place in one of the smaller auditorium rooms. Percaline walked into the room, down one step and sat down in a seat on the aisle. She didn’t m
ind sitting in the first couple of rows or answering questions posed by the professor, but in the back she wouldn’t be in the spotlight. Percaline hated being the center of attention. If she wanted to she could turn it on and have everybody in that room focused on her, but she didn’t like to do that. It was too much effort and emotionally exhausting.

  She also liked to sit in the back of class on the aisle because she was super claustrophobic and she liked knowing that if she had to she could escape easily. Movie theaters, dinner tables, and planes were all the same. She would only sit on the aisle and if you asked her before walking in where all of the exits were she would tell you. Lucas always thought that she should have been an FBI agent or something in law enforcement with that kind of observant Spidey-sense.

  The professor stood in the middle of the room at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the students to take their place. He had short dark hair, a dark complexion, and a large stature. It was the first day of class and you could tell that he was being patient while people decided where they wanted to sit for the semester. Probably on Wednesday he would be less lenient. The classroom looked like it could hold about two hundred students but only one-third of the seats were full. The room was done in brown tones; the seats were brown, the walls were brown, and there was a brown rolling chalk board behind the professor. Behind the chalk board was a white screen which had a nearly invisible projection on it. Percaline could see it because the classroom was sunken like most of the classrooms at Yale, so the chairs the students sat in were higher than where the professor stood.

  Percaline heard the characteristic breathing of a dog and turned to her right as a beautiful, dark-skinned, blind woman took a seat in the chair across the aisle from her with her service dog.

  “Landon, sit,” the woman said as she removed a recording device from her pocket.

  Percaline was a dog person. For her fourth birthday her mom had rescued a golden retriever for her. Percaline had named the dog Sarah because at the time she was in preschool with a girl named Sarah who she thought was the prettiest girl she had ever seen. If Sarah was the prettiest girl she had ever seen than by the same account “Sarah” was the most beautiful name she had ever heard. Sarah, the dog, had died the day Percaline got her driver’s license, which she always thought of as a sign of her independence.

  This dog was not a golden retriever. He was unlike any dog she had ever seen. With his metal bar leash he was a perfect arms-length away from the woman. She supposed this made him a medium sized dog. He had a brown and black coat with patches of white on his legs, stomach, and paws. But what took Percaline off-guard was the depth of knowledge in his eyes, one brown and one blue. The dog had been staring at her since he sat down.

  “Landon, what are you doing?” the woman asked as she patted his head, feeling it turned in the opposite direction. “I’m sorry, is he staring at you? He does that sometimes. I’ve heard it’s quite…” she paused. “Unsettling.”

  “Yeah, he is, but it’s not unsettling. It’s different but in a good way.” Percaline paused. “I’m Percaline by the way.”

  “Like the cotton? What a great name!” The woman laughed. She had a kind, true laugh.

  “My name’s actually pronounced Per-sah-leen.” Percaline smiled. “But not many people know that, about my name or the cotton,” she added. She liked this woman already.

  “I’m not most people. The name’s Josephine. Not like the Dawson’s Creek character but after the famous actress, dancer, singer.”

  “Well, I gotta tell you Josephine, it’s not often that I meet a person who can reference Dawson’s Creek within the first five minutes of introduction.”

  “It was either that or an impression of Ron Burgundy doing ‘lanolin’ in Anchorman,” Josephine replied.

  Percaline actually laughed out loud at that. “That’s funny because my sister teases me with that all the time,” she said.

  “Well let’s be honest, your sister probably does a better impression than I do,” Josephine said.

  “You’re probably correct about that. You should hear her impression of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs,” Percaline retorted.

  “No. Does she do the dance and everything?” Josephine was turned toward her but her line of vision was slightly off.

  “She does. You’ll have to see it some time.” Percaline’s voice trailed off during the last couple of words when she realized the reference to sight she’d made.

  Josephine picked up on it. “It’s okay. I too forget sometimes that I’m blind.” Josephine’s voice sounded sad as she petted Landon. “But I probably wouldn’t have met this great guy otherwise.” She smiled.

  Josephine seemed like one of those people who knew exactly who she was and what her limitations were. Life never surprised her. Instead she went with it and made it fun. Percaline admired that.

  The professor began to speak and instantly the students quieted. “My name is Professor Leven, but you can call me Don.” Don wrote his name on the board. “This is ‘Faith, Morality, and Ethics,’ so if you are in the wrong class now would be the time to leave.” He looked around the class to see if any students were making to get up. No one was.

  “This is my first time teaching this class, although I’ve been a professor for some time now. To give you some background on me, I was an environmental attorney for one of the biggest non-profits in the states. My primary job was keeping the Alaskan waterways free of any pollutants. I did a good job and worked my way up to senior partner of the firm. After doing that for a couple of decades, I decided to move back to the mainland.

  “For a couple of years now I’ve been a professor at Yale teaching various forms of religious studies. You may ask why religious studies? I’d like to tell you I have an answer for that, but I don’t.

  “One of the reasons I got involved with law was because I always found human behavior interesting. I guess maybe I should have become a therapist or something similar, but like many of you law was my family business. The aspects of law that were my driving force are why people do what they do. This can be applied to religion as well, but my thinking at the time was that religion was about as far away on the spectrum from law that you could get. Now I see that they actually exist side-by-side, which is what this class is about. You are here to learn about faith, which for the purpose of this class is mostly religious; morality, the imaginary code that helps deter unfavorable behavior; and ethics, which is what society deems appropriate and inappropriate and upholds by law.”

  Don turned the lights down. Now Percaline could see the projected image. It was a blonde man with white wings holding a child with brown wings and a tail. The caption said “Messenger.”

  “Although this piece of art resembles a Renaissance piece, it was actually painted only a couple of years ago by an artist named Del Melchionda. I use it here to describe the three topics of this class and their use together. The man shown here has white wings. What would you call him?”

  Don looked around the room and a student up front answered, “Angel.”

  “I think that’s a good guess. We’ll call him Angel. Now who knows of a religion that believes in angels?” Don asked.

  Another student shouted “Christianity.”

  “Good. We’re going to simplify this a bit. There are only two categories in Christianity which this angel can fit into. Good or evil. Now I want a show of hands. Who thinks this angel is evil?” No one raised their hand. “Now who thinks this angel is good?” Everyone in the class except for Percaline and Josephine raised their hand.

  “Then I’m sure that you all can make the connection from angel, to religion, to faith.” Heads around the classroom nodded. Don went back to the picture.

  “Also shown here is a child with brown wings and a tail. Now to many of you a tail would represent a darker religion. Maybe this child is a demon or a devil? Maybe some of you subscribe to a religion that doesn’t believe in Satan. But let me ask you the same question. Who thinks th
is child is evil?” Three-fourths of the class raised their hands. “And who thinks this child is good?” The other fourth of the class, minus Percaline and Josephine again raised their hands. Don moved his hand again to point out another tail in the painting. “If the tail represents Satan and the white wings represent an angel, then why does this guy with white wings have a tail? Is he an angel or a demon?”

  Josephine spoke up, “It doesn’t matter if he’s an angel or a demon.”

  Don stopped to study Josephine. “Please elaborate…” He looked at the binder in front of him. “Ms. King.”

  “Both creatures overlap in many religions. And religion itself is not good or evil. How people interpret their beliefs, which is often institutionalized as religion, is what matters. Also how the law interprets majority belief is what matters.”

  Another student made a huffing sound, rolled her eyes, and commented to Josephine, “So what you’re saying is that as long as I believe in the crime I’m committing it’s alright?” A couple of people next to her crooned with amusement. This girl must have been top dog at her old high school.

  Josephine stood her ground. “I can’t answer that question because I don’t know what your personal set of morals is. Do you believe in murder, kidnapping, or forgery?”

  The girl shot back, “Of course not.”

  “Then you wouldn’t kill an enemy in self-defense, or cut a child out of their dying mother if it meant saving their life, or help a victim of domestic violence relocate?” Josephine said.

  The girl made another huffing noise but before she could reply Don spoke. “Morality is a certain set of principles and beliefs people delegate to themselves and to others. When you stereotype people or in this case, an angel and a demon, many of you have already imposed your idea of moral and immoral onto them.”

  Percaline thought about that for a second. She had never thought of it that way, but thinking about it she realized she did that all the time. Just this morning talking with Savannah she had done it. Elena had boobs and used them freely according to Savannah, which in Percaline’s mind made her a slut with loose morals when it came to sex. It didn’t matter, though, because it was Percaline’s morals she was putting on Elena, not Elena’s actual morals.

  “Your belief would be that the angel is Christian and good, which would imply that he believes in the Ten Commandments. The demon on the other hand is evil, aligns himself with Satan, and believes that killing is fun.” Don smiled at his little joke. “So what are you going to do? Let the demon walk free after he kills someone and hang the angel for the same offense? No. Society needs its own set of boundaries that everyone must abide by. These boundaries are known as ethics. The law helps us separate what is ethical from what is unethical.”

  Huffy in the front spoke again. “I think that was the point I was making.”

  Don responded, “No, the point you were making was that what you deemed moral and ethical is what everyone should deem moral and ethical and that the law is black and white, which it isn’t. It’s gray.”

  “Well, then you misunderstood me,” Huffy spat.

  “No, I understand the point you were trying to make in words, but what I saw was you contradicting the same point with your actions. Your morals are not better than someone else’s. They are just different,” Don said.

  And with that statement Percaline knew that this was going to be her favorite class at Yale. She also knew that Huffy would be dropping this class to try to maintain her top dog image.