Pretty as a Car Crash

Rosetta

“Yeah, no. That doesn’t work for me.” I shake my head and close my eyes; refusing to listen to another word my mother has to say.

“Jessica.” Her tone is sharp. I open my eyes and grimace at her. My mother has her arms crossed over her chest and she’s tapping her high-heel shoe on the floor, an impatient look about her features.

“I’m not going to call you every half hour. That’s ridiculous. Besides, what if I fall asleep?”

“Ha. Jessica, you’ve slept enough to kill someone!” My mom grabs her coat and purse off of the counter, walking out of the kitchen and to the foyer.

“You have no idea.” I mumble, following her.

“What was that?” She glances over her shoulder at me, her elevens showing.

“I said, if you pull your eyebrows together like that you’ll wrinkle. Mom, please. I’m old enough to take care of myself. I know that you’re just concerned, but please. Here, I’ll compromise. I’ll call every hour and a half. Does that work?” I plead, giving Mom the puppy dog eyes and pout.

“ Oh, sweat heart.” Mom pats me on the shoulder before continuing. “No. Every hour and we have a deal.” She opens the front door and stands in it’s frame, waiting for my response.

“Fine. Whatever. Have a good day.” I huff, marching down the hall.

“Love you!” She calls; I can hear the amusement in her voice. I silently wave over my shoulder in return. The front door closes as I walk up the stares, a scowl plastered on my face.

Every hour…blah. I feel like a little kid.

I open the wooden door to my room, struggling some since I have yet to clean up my mess from yesterday. I slide one leg in, my torso, and then the other leg, stumbling back and almost tripping over my camera.

“You should clean this up. I almost broke some things when I climbed in through the window.” I jump at the unexpected noise, hopping over a stack of sketch books. I turn, clutching my chest, with wide eyes. Ashton is lying on my bed, shoes off and placed on the floor, flipping through a Seventeen Magazine formally found on my desk.

“What are you doing here? You can’t just climb into people’s houses through windows. How did you even get up to the window?” I walk over to my bed and bat his feet off, making room for me to sit. He smiles crookedly and folds his feet under his legs so that he’s sitting Indian style.

“I have my ways.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, causing me to giggle shortly.

“You know what you were saying yesterday about the clue from Nan? I was looking through my stuff and there is no clue… that why there’s a mess.” I lean back against the many pillows lining the wall next to my bed, resting my head on the wall.

“What was the last thing you got from her? The very last thing?” Ashton inquires, setting the mag. down and devoting his attention to me.

I get up and fetch the wooden pencil box sitting behind a stack of loose papers. “This. I checked it out, though, and there aren’t any secret compartments or removable bottoms.” I hand it to him before sitting back down. Ash looks it over, opens it, closes it and flips it over.

“A rose…” He stares at it for a minute before turning to me with a wide smile. “We just found that clue.”

“Oookay?” I furrow my brows at him.

“What?” He looks and sounds confused at my reaction.

“I don’t see how a rose helps us.” I confess, shrugging and staring at said rose.

Ashton leans back into his previous position, comfortably resting his feet in my lap. “There is this man in the St. Clair coven. When he was human, he made little trinkets out of wood. He and his wife had a baby girl whom they named Rosetta; Rose for short. She was his pride and joy and, sadly, he died a couple years later. He still makes wooden trinkets, but now his “signature” is a rose; you can find it on all of his works.”

“Oh.” I silent for a minute, letting Ashton’s short story sink in. “We need to find him.”

“I’d hoped you would say that.” Ashton stands, looking out my open window at the street below.

“Why?” I walk to stand next to him, interested in what he’s staring at, but there’s nothing there.

“How do you feel about Ireland?” He raises an eyebrow, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

“Because my mom would allow me to go to Ireland. Are you aware that I have to call her every hour while she’s at work today? It’s ludicrous.” I shake my head, pulling my bangs out of my eyes.

Ash shrugs, turning to me. “I guess it all just depends on how badly you want to avenge Nanyamka’s death.”

I sigh, placing my heads on the back of my head and closing my eyes. “Yeah, it does.”