Girl Possessed (Book 1 of The Girl Trilogy) (3 page)

I motioned him over to the cave. We
entered through a camouflaged access hidden by brush and young
palms. But, once inside, I saw that our cave had been ransacked, my
mother’s makeshift bed was blood soaked, and she was
gone.

I looked at the boy, terror in my
eyes. A fierce expression spread across his face. At once, he
grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the ground.

3

A man was coming at me from behind
with an axe. The boy grabbed the weapon from his hand with perfect
precision and side swiped his legs out from beneath him causing him
to fall onto his back where the boy jumped on top of him holding
the blade to his neck.

“
Where is the woman?” the
boy demanded.

I scrambled to my feet.

“
The serpent people want
her. We just needed the money. Nothing personal.”

“
Where is she?”

“
She’s just outside tied up
at the lagoon. We didn’t take her to them yet.”

“
How many of you are
there?”

“
It’s just me and my wife.
My wife’s watching her.”

The boy shook his head in disgust. “Is
she conscious?”

“
Yeah—she’s alive. We
really just wanted the girl. She’s worth more.”

“
Stand up and take us to
her.”

The man stood up, rubbing his shiny
balding head. He was shorter than the boy. His body sagged from his
sleeveless shirt.

“
Keep your hands up or I’ll
kill you.”

“
Hey, hey, hey—we’ll give
her back.”

We followed him through the trees to
the lagoon. My wet dress clung to my body, but the hot air was
drying it fast. As we walked, I twisted a strand of my long wet
hair in my fingers as I often did when I was nervous. The boy
stepped carefully over the stones and twigs upon the ground
apparently trying to protect his bare feet.

When we got to the lagoon, the man
hollered out, “Vataka—they caught me. Come out with your hands up.
We’re giving the woman back.”

“
I ain’t giving her back
for free,” the woman hollered through the trees blocking the lagoon
from our line of vision. If they want her, they have to pay
me.”

Suddenly, the balding man lunged at
the boy trying to grab the axe from his hand, but the boy swung the
axe across his neck in one clean slice. His head fell to the
ground. Then the boy charged through the trees and grabbed the
woman by the neck twisting her head in one slick motion. She fell
lifeless to the ground.

Though I had seen a lot of death and
brutal fighting in the city before we took to the island, I had
never witnessed such agility and precise combat skills first hand
as this boy possessed. I felt like I was with a dome cinema
hero.

We rushed to my mother. She was tied
up as the man said, but she was conscious. Her long sandy blonde
hair draped over her body, but it fell to the side of her injury.
The knife wound in her thigh looked infected, but it wasn’t
bleeding.

“
Praise God, I’m Ok,” she
nearly whispered. Her voice was weak and scratchy. “Cordellia, when
I woke up and you were gone, I was so worried about
you.”

“
Oh, Mom!” I held her in my
arms and didn’t want to let go. Even with everything she’d been
through, she still smelled of delicious herbs and spices. “You look
better than when I left.”

As I released her, the boy untied her
carefully.

“
I’m fine,” she wiped her
blood shot hazel eyes. They just took my herbs and other supplies.
I need to kill the infection.” Her forehead was
sweating.

“
This is…” I looked at the
boy realizing I didn’t even know his name.

“
Hi, I’m Shaul Hainsworth,”
he said politely shaking my mother’s hand as he released the last
knot. The rope fell from her body.

“
Patravia Dressemme.” She
smiled weakly at Shaul. “How did you learn to fight like that?” Her
face was flush from fever.

“
I’ve studied combat since
I was a tyke.” He looked down at his hands examining them on both
sides.

I looked at him perplexed. “Why’d you
do that?” I felt like he wasn’t telling us something. It just
seemed so odd to study such advanced sorts of fighting as a
toddler. Where would he find someone to teach him how to kill like
an assassin?

“
It’s a long story,” he
smiled to himself. “I’ll have to tell you about that when we have
more time.” He looked up at me through his dark eye
lashes.

I couldn’t gage his thoughts. Was he
flirting with me?

“
It’s good to have someone
like you around,” My mother whispered and laughed softly. “Thank
you for saving my life,” she sighed.

“
It’s a pleasure.” He
looked at me with that disturbing crooked grin that made my pulse
speed up. Then he reached into his pocket. “Take this.” He handed
her an antibiotic pill while still looking at me
unwaveringly.

“
Antiboitics?” she
questioned.

Shaul nodded, now turning his gaze to
her. “There’s no time to gather herbs. That injury is too
infected.” He paused for a second as he looked at the injury and
then back at her. “The pain’s intense, but you’re going to be Ok.”
He sounded sincerely empathetic. “I wish we could heal this wound
naturally for you, but the infection is too strong at this
point.”

I was surprised how unfazed he was by
my mother’s inclinations toward natural healing methods over the
dogmas of science as she put it. Most boys our age thought her
ideas were kooky and incomprehensible. But, the way he spoke so
casually about it, it seemed like he was familiar with the
practice.

“
You’re right,” she agreed.
“At this point I have to take the antibiotics. God has brought the
cure.” She swallowed the pill. “How did you get them?”

“
I went to the city, Mom. I
traded them for seafood.”

Her eyes widened. “You shouldn’t have
done that. It’s too dangerous.”

“
I know. Shaul saved me
from a close call.” I clenched my fists when I said that. I still
wondered if he had been the one watching me from inside the bushes
earlier. Had he followed me all the way to Sunset Boulevard? If
so—how?

My mother shook her head in
disapproval.

And if Shaul hadn’t followed me
earlier, I wondered what he was doing on Sunset Boulevard at night.
It seemed like a strange place to be.

Before, I had a chance to ask, my
mother looked over at him. “Thank you for taking care of my
daughter.” She hugged her chest and sort of rocked back and forth
slightly. I think she was more traumatized than she let
on.

He was gazing at the dead bodies. “How
did your bed get soaked in blood?” he asked, not looking up from
the man’s decapitated head that had rolled through the trees and
lodged itself between some rocks near us.

“
That balding man had a
partner when he first came to get me. They got into a disagreement
about what to do with me and he stabbed the other man several times
upon my bed. He and his wife dragged the dead man out of the cave
before they stole all of my supplies.” My mother shook her head at
the memories.

“
Some other man paid the
man and his wife for my things.” She stuck her hand in the lagoon
weakly, swirling the black water with her fingers. “This place is
not safe for us anymore, Cordellia. They were talking of other
people who know of our cave now.”

“
What are we going to
do?”

Shaul reached into the dead woman’s
pockets and took the gold pieces she must have received from the
dishonest transaction. He handed my mother the coins.

Looking first at me and then at her,
he said, “I’m headed to a community down south past San Diego in
the deep woods of Seneca Mountains that hasn’t been discovered by
the serpent people.” He brushed his shiny black hair out of his
eyes. “There are supposedly lots of water sources and though the
conditions are harsh and dictatorial, the people are assumedly
safe.”

“
I used to swim in the lake
there as a child.” My mother looked away and shook her head. “We
can’t go there.”

“
Mom,” I turned to her in
disagreement. “Where else are we going to go?” I didn’t want to go
with Shaul, but we had no better alternatives. Under the
circumstances, even if he was a stalker, he seemed like the best
bet in this hostile environment.

“
I don’t know,” she said
wearily. “We’ll travel down south with you, Shaul, and hope for
something else along the way. How were you planning to
travel?”

“
A hydro-cruiser leaves
port from the Malibu docks every other morning at 4:00AM. I have a
connection. We can gain entrance and hide out in the storage area.
I was planning to make my move tonight.”

I looked at him in
surprise.

“
If we get going,” he
continued, “…we can make the departure early this morning. It
glides all the way to San Diego.”

I looked to my mother,
hopeful.

“
Once in San Diego, we can
stow away on a cargo turbo train heading further south. They’re not
monitored very closely these days, but they still transport
supplies for the serpent people. There’s a stop in Pine Valley.
From there, I have enough gold to pay for land transportation for
all of us to the edge of the mountains.”

“
Wow. You have this all
figured out,” my mother said faintly. Her sad eyes brightened,
looking impressed with Shaul. “Do you have parents?”

“
I’m on my own now.” He
looked up at the stars twinkling through the trees.

She ran her hand down her neck,
empathy in her eyes. “I need to anoint my leg with oleaver balm and
wrap my wound in a papus leaf. You two find me a walking
stick.”

“
We don’t have time for
that, Mom.” I looked at Shaul. “We need to get to the Malibu docks
by four.”

Shaul lifted his eyebrows. “Your mom
can’t swim with that wound. We’ll have to build a raft and take it
to the docks.”

“
We have one hidden in the
bushes near the shore of the island,” my mother said.

Over the next half hour we found my
mother her papus leaves and oleaver balm. Shaul managed to make her
a decent walking stick though he insisted on carrying
her.

It was strange having dead bodies on
the ground while we prepared to leave, but I had no desire or time
to bury them. My mother wanted to, but she was in no condition to
dig graves. Instead, she made us cover them with leaves. She said
some prayers in Hebrew for them.

We got the raft out of the bushes near
the shore and we all got on it. But, just as we were about to push
off, Shaul said, “I have something I have to do first.” He stepped
off the raft into the shallow water. “I’ll meet you at the
dock.”

Before we had a chance to object or
question him, he gave our raft a big shove and we were out to sea.
It made no sense and I was angry with myself for feeling this way,
but I was afraid I would never see him again. And that frightened
me more than the possibility that he had been the one watching me
from inside the bushes.

I bit my lip so hard that it started
to bleed as we drifted away from this unfathomable hero with black
hair and penetrating silver eyes.

4

The makeshift raft was difficult to
maneuver, but I managed Ok. I wished we could just swim to the
Malibu dock. My body yearned to jump into the ocean and glide
through the black gentle waves, but my mother needed me.

I laughed when she insisted on rowing.
With such a stab wound in her leg, she needed to reserve her energy
for our travels down south. I was surprised how much stronger she
already looked.

It was peaceful at night under the
splendorous constellations that lit the dark sky. There were no
other boats out, but we could see the dock in the distance bright
with flood lights, the massive winged hydro-cruiser tied to
it.

I paddled through a school of jelly
fish.

“
How beautiful,” my mother
said, leaning over the side of the raft.

There were hundreds of them. They
shimmered in the darkness in phosphorescent dance.

“
Don’t push me in,” I joked
with her.

“
Oh, boy, would that hurt!”
She gazed out at the horizon. “You really shouldn’t have a
boyfriend yet, Cordellia. You haven’t even reached
puberty…”

“
Mom!” I looked at her,
flabbergasted. “Shaul’s not my boyfriend. I just met him.” I didn’t
want to tell her he might be a stalker. She had enough to worry
about as it was.

“
I know. I’m just concerned
about you getting serious with anyone because things will likely
change significantly for you when you turn sixteen. Changes might
happen.”

“
What kinds of changes?”
She was always vague on this subject, a subject we shouldn’t even
be discussing because from what I knew about puberty, it was way
too embarrassing to talk about. And as far as I could tell, I was
already in it, but I wouldn’t tell her that.