Landlocked (A water witch novel) (9 page)

“Are you all right?” he asked quickly. “Mari?” He looked across the street, his large eyes narrowed to slits.

“It’s silly. You’d think that me and Clarissa had watched a scary movie,” I said, trying to dismiss his worry.

“Well why don’t you tell me why you called me out here, and I’ll tell you if it’s silly or not.” He smiled at me, but there was too much tension behind the act and it didn’t reassure me.

“Um, I just thought I was being followed…” I felt like such an idiot. Dylan’s mouth fell open and his face lost its color.

“By who?”

“I’m not sure, it probably wasn’t anything. I just thought I saw someone in the shadows over there, it might have been a trick of the light.” I was trying to calm him down, but he was locked into high alert.

“Okay, you stay here. I’ll go check it out,” he said and crossed the street quickly. He moved into the shadow where I had seen the man. For a moment I was chilled with terror, worried that Dylan would be hurt. I shrugged it off, telling myself that there had never been anyone there in the first place. A few seconds later, Dylan emerged from the shadow and walked across the street, took my arm, and led me home.

“What did this person look like?” he asked as we walked down our long driveway.

“No need to put out an APB. I think I just was seeing things,” I assured.

Dylan searched the grounds as we mounted the steps to our wrap-around porch. “Still… I want you to stay in tomorrow. Can you do that for me, Maribel?”

“Of course. I always stay in on Sunday fun-day. I still have to get you back for that game of Yahtzee last week.” I elbowed him in the ribs.

“We’ll see. Now go to the kitchen with Sylvia. I’ll be back shortly.”

After Sylvia calmed down, she put me to bed and tucked me in, like she had back when I was a small child. I fell asleep quickly, and for the first time I didn’t dream about the ocean. Instead of my welcomed lapping waves, I dreamed of Jaron. He was walking by the mystery man I'd seen in the shadows. Side by side they traveled.
To where I wasn’t sure. All I could see was them together.

5

I woke up still groggy, having just gone through a very restless night. My dreams weren’t exactly nightmares, they didn’t give me that cold terrifying pierce that my
first had, but they weren’t happy dreams either. Mostly they were just a bunch of scenes that I couldn’t make sense of. A lot of them had Jaron, and I guessed I was having them because of the previous night’s rejection. Clarissa was right; everyone had to deal with a crush snubbing them, why should I be any different? Sometimes boys turned out to be jerks, so why would I think Jaron immune to turning into one? I knew I wasn’t being rational, but even now, I couldn’t think that he was a bad person; he was the only boy I had ever connected with. He had to be someone special, maybe there was an explanation for him leaving the way he had. I just couldn’t believe he didn’t care about me. He'd felt what I had—at least I thought he had.

“Ugh!” I threw myself back into bed, frustrated at my lack of boy experience. I stretched out and pulled the pale blue covers over my head and let myself think about the good parts of the night before; seeing Jaron’s face covered in dust outside of the theater after he finished hanging the amazing physical embodiment of the ocean that he had made with his thick, sure hands, touching briefly in the hallway and the electric attraction that threatened to boil my blood, and smelling his intoxicating scent that made me light-headed and whispered of familiarity. I shivered under my warm blankets. Then the unpleasant parts of the evening came into my mind, the stupid boys embarrassing me in the theater, Jaron’s obvious rejection, and the creepy man who had followed me home. All in all, I think I’d have to call it an awful night, no matter what my memories of Jaron said. In fact, I think it was the worst night of my life, and the bad feelings outweighed the good. No matter how optimistic a person I was, even I couldn’t fully delude myself into thinking there was a future with Jaron. I just needed to get back to my normal life.

I jumped out of bed and glanced at the clock. It was five thirty and way earlier than I usually got up on a Sunday morning, but sleep, the fickle mistress, didn’t want anything to do with me right now. I walked into my bathroom and went to grab my scissors, but remembered that it was Sunday. I didn’t have to cut my hair on Sundays; we could be our freaky hairy selves when we weren’t in mixed company. When I was young it always made me smile that by the time Dylan was putting me into bed, his hair was hanging past his cheeks. I would call him Aunt Dylan and he would squeal and tell me he wasn’t a girl in a very feminine voice.

Sunday was always my favorite day, and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like last night take that away from me. I had an awesome family and the most amazing best friend in the world, who needed a stupid boyfriend? I brushed my teeth and threw on some Victoria Secret sweats; they were amazingly comfortable and the only ones this season that didn’t have ’PINK’ written across the rear. Why it was in vogue to use one’s tush as advertising space I couldn’t understand. I didn’t want to think that my butt and a billboard had anything in common. I pulled a comb through my long wavy hair and relished leaving it down, a thing I rarely did.

I opened my door quietly and tip toed down the stairs. I had never been up this early on a Sunday and wasn’t sure if Dylan and Sylvia slept in or not. I heard their voices just as I was about to round the corner of the stairway, but their hushed whispers made me pause. Why would they be whispering? They couldn’t be that worried about waking me up, could they?

Dylan was speaking. “I’m not sure that he was bad, he could have just been curious.”

Sylvia cut him off. “But you smelled traces of the concoction where he had crouched in the shadows. Why would he have that?”

“They aren’t all bad. For all we know, he was making a delivery for people like us,” he said. “I’m just saying I don’t think we need to get any ideas until Mari has a dream or I sense something’s amiss.”

“She did have a dream. And then what happened at the swim meet. If her speed doesn’t get talked about, even after the changed time, I’d be surprised. And now this…” Sylvia’s voice was quivering. “We need to get her out of here now. Maybe a week down at the lake house, then we can come back and test the water. Search the town and see if this voodoo man is still lurking about or if his presence was just a coincidence.”

Voodoo man? What in the world were they talking about? None of what they were saying made any sense, but whatever it was made them feel that they needed to get me out of town for my own safety… which was ridiculous, even for them. I didn’t have any mob bosses that I was going to testify against, so who would be a danger to me? I started to feel guilty for overhearing a conversation that was definitely not meant for my ears, so I tip toed back upstairs and recreated my descent a little more loudly, try not to be too theatrical. When I came into view, Dylan and Sylvia were their normal cheery selves, seeing them go from the strange conversation to the people I was used to freaked me out… who could just flip a switch like that?

“Hi, Mari, how was your night?” Sylvia asked a bit too quickly.

I wondered if she meant how was your night as in did you and Clarissa have fun
or did you have any freaky dreams? “Good.” I lied without feeling bad about it; after all, they seemed to lie to me with ease. “I mean the movie was dreadful, but Clarissa makes everything fun.” I thought of Clarissa, how I'd left her all alone the previous night, and the weird guy who'd followed me. I wanted to call her but knew that she wouldn’t be awake and if I called to wake her up, I might just get an earful.

“You sure?” Sylvia asked, Dylan seemed happy with my answer
but Sylvie called my bluff.

Dylan’s head snapped up. “Is everything all right? Is there something you’re not telling us?”

I rolled my eyes. Why did they have to be ridiculously overbearing, worrisome, and intuitive? I knew they loved me, but Lenny loved his mice too and look what happened to them.

“No, I’m not good.” I sighed.

Sylvia appeared to be about to have a heart attack and Dylan frowned deeply like this was the worst bit of news he’d ever heard.

“It’s nothing serious. Calm down. It’s just a boy I kinda liked doesn’t like me. That’s all.”

“A boy not like you, that’s impossible!” Sylvia said, letting out her breath and relaxing her shoulders. “I’m sorry, baby.” She pulled me into her arms.

“How about we go up to the lake today, maybe even spend the whole week up there. Have a little get away,” Dylan said. “What do you say, kid?”

I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the lake came up, and I wasn’t going to cave to their suggestion when they were keeping strange secrets from me. I flinched at the thought of school. I really did want to get away. But I wanted to see Jaron on Monday and have him talk to me face to face. I wanted him to see that no matter how talented, witty, or gloriously handsome, he couldn’t just treat me like that and pretend nothing had happened. I didn’t care if he liked me. Well I did, but if you don’t like a girl, you tell her like a man, you don’t ditch her in a dark room awaiting candy.

“I can’t go up to the lake all week. I have a really important test on Wednesday—and I don’t know that my teachers would be happy with me skipping an entire week with spring break right around the corner. It sounds awesome though. Maybe next weekend?”

“Sure,” Sylvia said, giving me a sideways glance.

I ha
dn’t really lied, I did have a test on Wednesday, but I was sure I could get it rescheduled. The way Sylvia eyed me I felt like she knew I was stretching the truth a hair, but she didn’t say anything. “You know what— I think I’m going to retreat into literature today. Reality is giving me a headache.” I stood to go.

“Do you want me to make you some tea?” Dylan asked.

“Sure, that would be great. I’ll be in the library. It’s too early to go outside. If the neighbors spot me reading on the veranda at six in the morning, they might think we’re odd.” I smiled.

“We wouldn’t want that!” Dylan laughed.

“Go on. I think perhaps
Pride and Prejudice
is just what the doctor ordered.” Sylvia kissed my head and I started up to the library.

I guessed in the old days the smallish dome at the top of our house had been an observatory, but now all you could observe in the round room were tall stacks of books. The glass ceiling had been painted over with haunting scenes from our favorite books. I stepped up from the spiral staircase and took a deep breath. The room smelled of leather, polished wood, and paper. Doris’s easel was set up behind the stair railing, like always. Life made sense in the presence of such unchanging company. The rest of the world was going through a metamorphosis that I didn’t think I could contain. A week ago, no one lurked in shadows, I didn’t win races in record times, and I didn’t go all doe eyed at the sight of a hot guy… and Sylvia and Dylan had seemed much more rooted in reality last week. Now they were talking about Voodoo and dreams and whispering about carting me away. I shook my head to clear it.

“Yes, Mr. Darcy, I think you’re just what I need.” I walked to one of the many bookshelves and plucked off
Pride and Prejudice
without having to search for it. I knew where all of my favorite books nestled. I threw myself into the silky upholster lounge chair and the book.

***

Monday came too fast and all of the spunk I had in my body fled with the weekend. I somehow made it to school on time, though I dragged my feet as much as possible. I opened my locker to pull out my English books and threw my bag inside. I still wanted to face Jaron and get answers, but I knew what those answers were and didn’t really want to hear them. If I asked, “Why did you bail on me?” he’d say something like, “Because you’re lame and your friend is crazy.” Then if I came back with, “Well, you could have just come back and told me you were leaving to go hang out with your friend,” he’d say, “You weren’t worth the trip.”