Moon Pirate (Priscilla Clarke: Book 1)

by Fallon Sousa

  MOON PIRATE

  by: Fallon Sousa

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2013 Fallon Sousa

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  Dedication

  *To my mother, Ann, and my father, Richard. They have believed in me and supported me all of my life and I owe it all to them.*

  Prologue

  A sweet, summer wind ripped gently through the deep, indigo sky that night, as the glowing stars twinkled up in the cosmos and down below to Earth, where they were clearly visible from the quaint, little bedroom window of eight-year-old Priscilla Clarke. It was a warm August evening in Boston, Massachusetts, well past her bed-time of eight 'o clock, but, being fanatically wired by the amazement of childhood, she could not sleep even a small wink.

  Priscilla lay fully awake, sitting cross-legged at the end of her frilly twin bed, her starkly curious blue eyes staring out into the beautiful and mysterious dark that lie beyond the depths of what she could readily see. Her twin sister, Belinda, who had always been much more complacent than she, slept soundly in the adjacent bed. To Priscilla, who was often plagued by envy, her sister’s identical features were much more favorable than her own. Of course, they had the same oceanic eyes; the same pale skin; the same ebony ringlets which hung symmetrically from either side of their cherubic faces until reaching their narrow backs. Yet, there was something about Belinda that Priscilla herself did not possess, and that was the lovely part of her--the personality--that left her feeling jealous.

  Still filled with the unwavering energy of her youth, she toiled lackadaisically with the pink, checkered curtain, its fine, sheer fibers creating an electric friction between the natural grooves of her tiny fingertips and the rough fabric itself. She watched intently as the stars flickered and sparkled like tiny candle-wicks far out, in the night sky. It was about as mesmerizing as she could imagine anything might be.

  Below her third-story window, a larger and brighter mass of light appeared, gradually rising up from the expanse of the soft, emerald-green grass that lay far, down below. Priscilla did not think much of it. After all, she was merely a child, us quivered by the evils of the world in which she had lived so little, yet thought she knew so well. At last, she was beginning to feel a rather welcoming sense of fatigue burning up from inside her simple mind, and out to her eyes, as they blinked involuntarily with defeat. So, like every child does at some point, she gave in and she slowly climbed under her fluffy purple comforter, eyelids sagging and drooping until they finally gave out and she was fast asleep.

  The next morning, when Priscilla woke up, her sister was gone.

  Chapter One: A. New Beginning

  Ten years later…

  The day that Priscilla had been waiting for was finally here. High school seemed far in her past, although it had been only three weeks since her graduation. Although that day had lifted a weight off of her burdened shoulders, this day would be even more special. After only a short wait, Priscilla had received the phone call announcing that she had gotten the job she applied for. It wasn’t exactly a stay-there-forever kind of job; after all, it was only a part-time position as a librarian’s assistant at a downtown bookstore called Hear the Word. But, it would have to be good enough for Priscilla. After all, she didn’t have nearly enough money saved up to be able to afford a college education. She hoped that her new job would change that. Maybe, she thought. Just maybe.

  Realizing that she had woken up several minutes late by the advanced time on her wall clock, Priscilla quickly dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a green blouse. She had not gotten new clothes in a couple of years and she had to wiggle and shimmy a little to get into her pants. She sincerely hoped that she wasn’t already starting to put on the freshman fifteen. Then she realized that, for a split second, she had thought that she was going to college in the fall. But, in all reality, she wasn’t. Priscilla sighed and then slipped on a pair of high-top sneakers over her tacky argyle socks. She hated those ugly things.

  Priscilla then turned to look in the full-length mirror by her bedside. Her curly black hair fell in soft ringlets past her pale and rounded face. Her icy blue eyes were the same as they had always been, she noticed as she applied her mascara. She took a compact of bronzer out of her dresser drawer and traced it over her high cheekbones. Lastly, she swiped a tube of pale pink gloss over her full lips.

  “Priscilla,” she heard her mother call from down below as she descended the stairs, before she even reached the dining room. “Where are you? You’re going to be super late. Dad and I can’t just support you forever.” Her mother was tough like that; anxious for her adult daughter to get out of the house and go off on her own.

  “I should hope not, Ma.” She was going to be even later for her first day at work if she didn’t hurry up and stop entertaining her mother’s signature stating of the obvious.

  Priscilla hurried out the door and past the lawn to her beat-up Subaru. “Aren’t you going to eat something for breakfast?” her mother asked from the door, as if Priscilla were a child leaving for kindergarten. “Is that how you’re going to be taking care of yourself someday, when you finally decide to move out?”

  “I guess I’ll pick up a coffee and a muffin on the way,” she called.

  “Yeah, okay,” her mom said, although her voice was already droning away as Priscilla’s car pulled out of the yard. “That is not healthy!” she exclaimed, but her daughter was already halfway down the street and could not hear her.

  Priscilla sped recklessly down the next few streets, until she reached the drive-thru of a local bagel shop.

  “Can I take your order?” a young women older than her, but younger than her mother, asked in a weary tone. She had probably worked the night shift.

  “One blueberry muffin and an iced coffee.”

  “How would you like that?”

  “Black. Six spoons of sugar.”

  “Is that all?” the worker asked, looking as if she were taken aback by Priscilla’s bold order. “You got some exams to study for or something?”

  A thick knot in Priscilla’s throat tightened. I wish, she thought. “Nope. I’m going to be heading off to work. I’m actually kind of nervous about it.”

  “Well, caffeine ain’t gonna help you. Just saying. But, anyway, you’d better stop chit-chatting. You’re holding up all of my lines.”

  Priscilla’s car continued at its fastest pace. She flew past convenience stores, pharmacies, apartment buildings, and abandoned gas stations. Finally, she reached a long stretch of road lined with mom and pop shops. Glancing around, she spotted a small bank, a few jewelry stores, an insurance agency, and then Hear the Word Bookstore.

  From the outside, the place was pretty dismal. It was made of dark grey stone bricks that didn’t seem to line up right, and the once-red door now boasted peeling paint the color of rust. The glass in the window was scratched up, and obscenities were etched into it, probably with old car keys. A sign that read “open” and another one that read “books here” flashed with neon lights that had lost some of their luminescence.

  Priscilla got out of her car and grudgingly crossed onto the craggy sidewalk and past the hideous entrance, a bell
chiming as the door shut behind her. She looked around. There were books everywhere; on the floor, in piles, on desks, on shelves. Gee, she thought. Why not hang them from the ceiling. Then, she noticed something odd as her eyes grazed over the spines of the books. Many of their titles were written in other languages.

  After searching for a few minutes, she finally found a book that was actually in English. However, the name on the spine was worn out. All she could see was the word “moon” followed by the letter “L” and the rest was faded with age. Priscilla lifted the ancient-looking volume from where it sat on the floor, running her dainty hands over the rough material of its dark blue cover.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” a woman’s voice called from out of nowhere. Priscilla turned to see an aging woman, who was at least a handful of years older than her own grandmother, had walked in from a door at the back, behind a tall stack of Latin encyclopedias. Her hair was a metallic shade of grey and she was dressed entirely in black.

  “Excuse me,” she said again when Priscilla didn’t choose to respond. “Are you Priscilla Clarke, my new assistant?” she asked, looking at her with eerie slanted eyes as if she could read her mind. “Don’t touch that!” she yelled abruptly, almost screaming.

  “Why not?” Priscilla stuttered, dropping the book so that it thumped hard onto the faux hardwood floors. She was so startled that her hands were shaking.

  Instead of answering her, the woman simply put a finger to her lips then removed it, using the same finger to beckon Priscilla into a back room. “Come,” she said.

  Priscilla was hesitant, but she followed the woman anyway. As she stood in the open doorway, she could not believe her eyes. Before her was an expanse of books much larger than she had ever imagined could possibly exist. There had to have been thousands of them, all lined up neatly on sturdy wooded shelves, which contrasted greatly with the disaster in the main room of the bookstore.

  “What is this?” she asked the woman?

  “Why, these are the archives.”

  “Archives of what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Well, why not?” Priscilla inquired. “And, why can’t I touch that book that I was holding?” She was honest-to-God curious.

  “To be quite frank,” the woman began, “you can’t touch any of the books in this store.”

  “Then how come people can buy them here? Isn’t this open to the public?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t fuss about it. You still have much to learn before you are worthy.” Okay, that wasn’t a freaky thing to say at all, she thought. Priscilla could already tell that this new job would make her summer very interesting. It would definitely give her something to talk about in the fall when--and then the realization hit her again. This is my life now. Just great.

  “We have a great deal of work to do today,” the woman said.

  “You never told me,” Priscilla began. “What is your name?” She could feel this newfound sense of curiosity bubbling up inside of her once again.

  “My name is Demetria,” she said. “Demetria Agnes Trent, to be exact.”

  “It’s a wonderful name,” said Priscilla, adding, “It’s very, well, unique.”

  “Then it suits me because I am indeed one of a kind. We all are. Especially you, Priscilla.” She gave the weird-eye stare again.

  “I’m pretty sure that I’m just a regular girl.”

  “Nonsense, you are quite the opposite. There is no such thing as being regular; as being ‘average.’ There was only a one in seven billion chance that you would be born you, but, yet, here you are. You’re very special. You may not think so now, but you will see.”

  Priscilla didn’t think she would ever be considered special by any means, but she went along with what Demetria said to her because, deep down, she knew just how badly she wanted it to be true. Maybe it wasn’t, but, maybe it was.

  “So, you were a twin?” Demetria asked as Priscilla paced around the vacant bookstore, not having any idea what her important job was.

  “Yes,” she replied. “My sister’s name was Belinda. She was kidnapped during the night ten years ago. Nobody knows what happened to her. Perhaps she ran away.”

  “Do you ever think of trying to find her?” asked Demetria. The old woman placed her wrinkled hands in the center of her lap and tilted her head off to the side, prepared to listen intently and absorb every word that Priscilla said.

  “I wish I could, but what are the chances of that. It’s been so many years. She could be dead. Or she could have forgotten us and have a different name by now. Sometimes I wish it had been me instead. After all, Belinda was always the smarter one. She would have gotten a scholarship. She wouldn’t have needed money to go to school.”

  “Priscilla, child,” she began. “There is a fifty-fifty chance of everything. You just have to believe in yourself; believe in your dreams; your destiny. Don’t listen to what other people say. Everyone has the chance to do something wonderful; something great. All you have to to is try, and, if you die trying, at least you will not have died in vain.”

  Priscilla hated that the old lady called her a child, but she knew that she was just being the way geriatric people always seemed to be. Wise. In addition, she knew that Demetria was right. I mean, she has to be. Right? How else could anyone have something to hope for?

  “Uh, when are we going to do work?”

  “You have done all that is required of you today,” she said. “Go home and do not tell anyone about this place. That is a warning.” Slightly shaken up by that last statement, Priscilla hurried out to her car and slowly drove home, thinking the whole time about what Demetria said. She kept her eyes on the road ahead and did not enjoy the sights as she usually took the time to do. She wanted to play it safe for some reason.

  Looking down at her watch, Priscilla saw that she had only been gone about an hour. What would her mother think? Would she accuse her of partying? Did she care? The drab white door to the Clarkes'’ home creaked quietly behind Priscilla as she entered the combination living and dining room. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Mrs. Clarke was sitting at her cherry-furnished desk, filling out some paperwork and getting the checks for all of their bills ready to mail. A stack of about a half-dozen rectangular envelopes was already perched on the corner of the desk, adorned with forever stamps and floral address labels. She looked up.

  “Back so soon?” she asked Priscilla, her fine eyebrows rising with curiosity as she licked the stamp seal on the envelope for their last payment.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  “How come?” Mrs. Clarke looked a bit concerned and perhaps too motherly for Priscilla’s age.

  “I finished early,” she said, leaning on the deka and anxiously drumming her fingers against its lacquered surface.

  “Did you get paid?” her mother asked.

  “No, not yet.”

  Mrs. Clarke simply shrugged her shoulders. “Hey, Priscilla,” she called. “Can you get some water started so we can make spaghetti for dinner before your father gets home?” Her voice was rather stern. “You know that if you don’t move out soon, you’re going to have a lot more responsibilities around here, right?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll try to find my own place as soon as I can afford it. Besides, I’m not in any hurry to leave you guys. I’m too spoiled and comfortable here.”

  “Uh oh,” Mrs. Clarke laughed. “We might need to do something to fix that then.”

  “Please don’t,” Priscilla chuckled. “Not yet, anyway.”

  She walked off into the kitchen and got a silver pot out of the worn oak cabinets. She closed her eyes and listened to the soft sound of water rushing into the pot from the sink faucet. Priscilla didn’t realize until she felt a hot gush over her hands that the pot was overflowing. She hastily closed the handle of the faucet and drained out some of the water into the sink. She could see the hot, steaming bubbles forming around the drain hole.

/>   Wiping her hands off onto a towel, she then placed the pot on the stove and heated it up. By the time she had fished the box of pasta out of the cupboard, it had reached a rolling boil. She then painstakingly proceeded to stir the spaghetti as it cooked.

  As if he had a biological clock for detecting food, her father, Robert Clarke, can bursting through the door minutes after the meal had reached an al dente texture. Priscilla took off her oven mitts and gave her parents the honor of making their own plates. She plopped few tangles of pasta onto her own, grabbing a set of mismatched silverware from its drawer, then sitting down at her place near the window.

  “So, how was work?” Mr. Clarke asked. He took a forkful of pasta and jammed it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing it in a matter of seconds.

  “It was fine, I guess,” said Priscilla, gulping down a swig of diet cola from her green plastic tumbler.

  “Did you make any money yet?” he inquired, pausing to look over at his daughter. He wiped his hands on a cheaply made polka-dot napkin.

  “Well,” she began. “Not exactly.”

  “Did you do what your boss wanted you to do?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t say?” he asked, sounding a bit angry. “You’re not out partying and lying about your job, are you?”

  “She was only gone for an hour,” said her mother, Lila. “She probably wouldn’t have had the time.”

  “Gone for only an hour on the first day?” Robert questioned. “Did you get fired, Priscilla?” A deep frown formed on his work-tanned face.

  “No. I’m, uh, working for the government,” she said. “It’s top secret. Classified.”

  “Is it safe?” Lila asked, sounding worried.

  “It is if she shuts her mouth about it,” Robert responded. “Good job, Priscilla. You’ve got a decent shot at a real future after all. Maybe everyone was wrong when they said you needed college. Who knows? Maybe your boss will get you a scholarship and you can go after all. Make sure you do a good job.” His anger had shifted to satisfaction.