by W. J. May
When I reached the top of the stairs, I heard the knocking sound again, coming from my room. My heart thundered, and I held the knife in a white-knuckled grasp. I walked to my room, reached around to flick on the switch, and then took a look around. When I realized tree branches were banging against the window, I could finally breathe again, and the staccato rhythm of my heart settled down.
When my cell phone rang, I jumped. I reached into my pocket, grabbed it, and quickly answered, “Yeah?”
“Taylor? What’s wrong?” Jesse asked.
“I’m freaking out again.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Right. Are you busy?” I asked.
“I’m going night-fishing with my brother and sister on the boat. Wanna come?”
“I’d love to!”
“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”
* * *
I couldn’t wait to meet Sam and Kierra, and I hoped they would accept me as easily as their brother had.
We pulled in and parked.
As we walked to the dock, a thin girl with long, black hair and light blue eyes greeted me with a smile. “I’m Kierra,” she said, “Jesse’s big sister.” She was gorgeous in a red wrap dress that just reached the top of her knees, and the color accentuated her pale complexion.
“Taylor,” I said, shaking her hand. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
“Likewise. I’ve heard many good things about you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Sam, she’s here!” she yelled, then smiled back at me.
“Coming!” a voice called from the boat.
The guy who emerged was attractive, also with black hair. He looked at Jesse with his pale blue eyes and said, “I thought you wanted to look good for your date.”
“I look fine,” Jesse said.
“Hmm. Looks to me like you stopped at the zoo and stole the gorilla’s face,” Sam teased.
“Ha-ha,” Jesse said, then shot me a look. “See what I have to put up with?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at their brotherly banter.
“Thank God I inherited the intelligent genes,” Kierra said.
Sam spun to face her. “Right. Since you joined the family tree, I’ve been dying to cut it down.”
“Whatever,” she said.
“You’re just trying to embarrass me, Sam,” Jesse said.
“And is it working?” he retorted.
“Yes, so cut the crap. You promised to be on your best behavior.”
Sam playfully slugged Jesse right in the tattoo. “Just kidding, li’l bro’.”
“This is Taylor,” Jesse said.
“She is just as hot as you described her,” Sam said.
Jesse playfully slugged him back, and Sam nudged him in the ribs.
“Nice to meet you, Taylor,” Sam said. “In case you haven’t guessed, I’m Sam, the coolest of our little trifecta.”
I smiled, then looked from Sam to Kierra. “It’s nice to meet you both.”
Sam winked. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
“You all have the same pretty blue eyes.”
“It’s a curse,” Sam said.
I laughed. “A nice one then. I’ve never seen blue eyes that light.”
“It’s not a nice curse at all, but I do enjoy getting the ladies’ attention with my weird peepers,” Sam said. “Can you fish?”
I smiled as a cool breeze blew through my long hair. “I’m gonna bring in the big one.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s going to be hard with me on your boat,” Sam said. “I’m a regular Captain Ahab.”
“Yeah…and with cereal for brains like Captain Crunch,” Jesse teased.
“Just ignore Sam, Taylor,” Kierra said. “He didn’t get enough oxygen during birth.”
“Never a dull moment with my family,” Jesse whispered in my ear. “If he starts repeating everything she says like some cockamamie parrot, we’re outta here.”
I smiled. “We’ll jump ship if we have to.”
We walked down the long dock, and Jesse helped me aboard. Kierra started the boat, and we sped off to the perfect fishing spot. Jesse handed me a fishing pole, then started sorting through the colorful lures in the tackle box. I listened carefully as Sam gave me some fishing tips, even though I didn’t really need them.
The boat stopped and wavered slightly in the water. “We’re here,” Kierra said.
Jesse hooked my lure up for me, and I wasted no time in raising the rod tip. In one swooping motion, I threw out my line.
Jesse stood next to me. “I love to fish at night. It’s nice to get away and just hang out.”
I lifted my head and looked up at the black velvet sky, speckled with twinkling stars. “Yeah, it’s so beautiful out here on Big Bear Lake.”
We all chatted for a while. I could tell they were a close-knit family like my own, and I loved being around them. In spite of Fred’s speculation that they were witches, I felt completely comfortable in their presence.
Suddenly, my pole jerked, and I gave it a quick tug. “I got a bite!” I said. The fishing line screamed out of the aluminum casting reel as a giant fish stole the hook, line, and almost me. Luckily, I caught my balance. I hauled back on my fishing pole, bending it in such a sharp arc that it nearly snapped. I stole a glance at Jesse, shooting him a triumphant smile. “I told you I’d bring in a big one.”
“And you delivered!” he said. “I never doubted you for a minute.”
Sam jumped off the chrome rail. “Are you sure you didn’t snag a submarine?”
“Feels like it.” As I reeled in the line, the crank handle spun and clicked like crazy. The tug-of-war went on for a while, and my muscles began to ache from the strain. “I swear this thing’s fighting harder than Mike Tyson!”
Powerful deck lights mounted high above me illuminated the surface of the water. Big Bear Lake pitched and churned like a pan of boiling water. The fish broke the surface in a clatter of spray, thrashed its head, and danced on its tail.
When I caught sight of its black-striped body, my eyes widened. “Look at that!”
Sam whistled and cheered. “Bravo!”
Kierra clapped. “It’s a largemouth bass,” Kierra said.
“She’s a real beauty,” Jesse said. “I knew coming out here at night would pay off.” He then helped me haul the exhausted, two-foot fish up over the rail of the sailboat.
With a thud, the metallic-scaled bass hit the deck. The fish had a big mouth, and its upper jaw extended past its eyes. The bass was dark green, with greenish-yellow sides and a dark stripe running down the side of its body. Its fins shimmered in the silver moonlight. Applause erupted as everyone hopped and twisted to avoid the thrashing monster.
Kierra sprang from her chair and cheered me on. “The only thing bigger than that fish is the smile on your face—oh, and Sam’s ego.”
I laughed. Night-fishing under a sky full of shining stars would be on my list of favorite things from that day forward. Catching a giant fish was just an added bonus.
The fish wriggled its fins and smacked its body against the deck, and I jumped back as its forked tail slapped across my legs. I wiped the water off my face with my tank-top. “How much do you think it weighs?”
Droplets glimmered in Sam’s black hair. “At least twenty pounds.” His finger touched the slimy fish.
I brushed off my cutoff shorts and straightened my tank-top. I then pulled out my camera and handed it to Kierra. “Can you get a picture of me and Jesse with the fish?”
Kierra laughed. “No way! This is your moment in the limelight. Don’t let Jesse steal your thunder.”
I smiled. Even though I wanted a picture of Jesse and me together, I couldn’t argue with her logic. “All right. Just me then.” I held the fish and felt my lips stretch into a wide grin. I couldn’t wait to send it to everybody across the entire planet by morning. My biggest regret was that Jesse wouldn’t be in it, which would have been a nice touch for the ex.
“Okay. On the count of three
. One…two…three!” With that, Kierra snapped the photo.
The bright flash blinded me, and white spots danced in my vision. I sighed and straightened up, then glanced at the LCD screen. “It’s perfect! Thanks.”
“So…do we keep it for dinner or let it go?” Sam asked.
“We should throw it back. I just wanted a picture with it.”
Sam threw the bass back into the water with a loud splash, and I was happy to see it swim off. Jesse, Sam, and Kierra caught lots of fish, but we didn’t keep any of them, and none of them were as big as my first catch of the night.
“Let’s try a different spot, sis,” Sam said.
Kierra started up the boat, and we sped across the lake.
Jesse put an arm around me as the wind blew my hair around over and over again. I looked at him, and he smiled the most delicious movie star smile I’d ever seen. The moonlight made his winter-blue eyes sparkle even more than usual, rivaling the stars above us.
The boat stopped, and Kierra smiled. “This is a great spot. I’ve had lots of luck here.”
This time, Jesse and I didn’t fish. We just gazed into each other’s eyes and talked while Kierra and Sam tried to outdo my catch, to no avail.
When I looked off into the woods, a flash of white caught my attention. I peered closer and saw another flash of white. Something moved in the bushes, and I smiled at the outline of an animal. It took a few more steps out of the greenery and started to sip the water. As my eyes focused, I realized it was a buck, white as snow and stunningly majestic.
“What are you looking at?” Jesse asked.
“Don’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“That deer over there, a white buck sipping water.”
He squinted. “No.”
“Huh? I’m looking right at it.”
“Taylor, I have excellent eyesight, better than most, and I don’t see anything.”
“Look! It lifted its head.”
“Kierra!” Jesse called. “C’mere!”
She rushed to my side. “What’s up?”
“Taylor says there’s a white buck on the shore.”
She looked. “I don’t see it.”
“Me neither,” Sam said, approaching from my right.
Kierra shot Sam and Jesse a look, as if they thought I was some kind of nutcase, and I suddenly wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I had no idea why I was being plagued by hallucinations, but in that moment, I also had to wonder if I’d really heard a wolf in our house the night my parents had gone out and I’d ended up at McDonald’s in my bathrobe. Maybe all this fresh mountain air is making me chronically lightheaded, I thought.
“You know what that means,” Kierra whispered to her brothers. “She’s been chosen as a petal which means she comes from the bloodline of a…”
“Just keep your mouth shut,” Sam said.
“But she has every right to know.”
“Do you want your head on the carving block?” Sam retorted.
“Jesse, she needs to know,” Kierra said. “She’s been marked.”
“This weird voice told me I was a marked petal when I was chasing Max in the woods at this creepy place we found.”
“It’s starting,” Kierra said. “And you know what this means!”
“What’s going on?” I asked, crossing my arms and looking at them, not at all happy that they were talking about me like I wasn’t there.
Jesse glanced toward the shore. “There’s a legend that those who have been marked as a petal will have a guardian to keep them safe.”
“A petal? And why would I need a guardian?” I asked.
“Because you’ve been chosen.”
“Besides protection, the guardians hand out blessings too,” Sam said. “You caught a twenty-pound bass back there on your first cast. We don’t usually catch any bigger than ten-pounders.”
“What’s a petal?” I asked.
“Six petals form the flower for the ceremony. It’s an ancient tradition, practiced every 500 or 1,000 years. I’m not sure on all the details, but I can dig more into it.”
“Pssh. That sounds like something off of The X Files or one of those SyFy shows. It’s just a myth, like the bogeyman, Bigfoot, and aliens being kept alive with strawberry ice cream,” I said. “But what’s this so-called ceremony about?”
Jesse handed my fishing pole back to me and rolled his eyes at his brother and sister. “Don’t let my siblings scare you. Let’s leave myths in the books and concentrate on fishing.”
“I didn’t mean to freak you out,” Kierra said. “I just got carried away, that’s all.”
“You had me worried there for a minute. It was only a buck. Maybe my imagination just got carried away again.”
We continued talking and fishing, but the mood had morphed into something depressing and somber, almost as dark as the night itself. Something was wrong, and I wondered what they were hiding. It was either that or they just felt sorry for me, the lunatic who had seen an invisible buck.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me: What if a curse really was placed on me when I opened the tin box? Am I really marked now? My breath hitched in my throat. What have I done? Have I really unleashed some horrible curse? But the woman said she’d protect me, and even Jesse said the myth speaks of protection. I frowned. But protection from what? I had no idea. The one thing I did know was that my mind couldn’t take much more of the freaky happenings. I wanted so badly to confide in Jesse, but I didn’t want him to think I was crazy. I was sure he had his doubts about me after the McDonald’s bathrobe escapade, and now I was seeing Bambi the friendly ghost. I feared that if I told him about the strange whisperings in the wind, it would be just enough to send him over the edge, and I didn’t want him to kick me to the curb.
I got home around seven a.m., and Jesse searched the house and said it was clear. After telling him goodbye, I turned on the security system, then cranked up the air conditioning. I pulled the drapes and made the room as dark as I could, then jumped into bed. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I spent the rest of the weekend looking for that white buck, my potential protector, but I didn’t see anything. I even tried to Google myths, but I saw nothing about mortal sacrifices, petals, and white bucks. I didn’t know what to make of it.
Fortunately, I wasn’t encumbered with no more voices or visions, and everything went smoothly while I waited for my parents to return on Sunday afternoon.
Chapter 16
Fred was working on our back yard, and it was really looking nice. All the towering weeds were gone, and the place looked a whole sharper.
“The place is looking great,” I said.
Fred sipped his water. “Thanks. I’ve been working hard.”
“Take a break. You deserve it.”
“I’ve got a present for you,” he said, then held out a small box.
I swallowed hard. He was cute—not gorgeous like Jesse but definitely cute. Still, I didn’t like him in that way, and I wasn’t sure how to handle the fact that he clearly had a crush on me. I had never been good at trampling other people’s feelings, which was why I’d stayed with that sleaze ball, Sean, as long as I had. Now, I was afraid if I accepted Fred’s gift, it might lead him to believe there was more than friendship between us. But if I refused it, it would hurt his feelings. “I-I can’t accept this, Fred,” I said softly, trying to lessen the blow.
“Because you’re obsessed with Jesse, right?”
“I’m crazy about him, and it wouldn’t be right to lead you on.”
“This isn’t a romantic present.”
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“My apologies then. I just assumed—”
“It’s just a present from one friend to another, no strings attached.”
“In that case…” I smiled and opened the box. The sun glittered on a silver cross necklace. “Wow, Fred. It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“Would you like me to help you put i
t on?”
I lifted up my hair. “I’d love that.”
He clasped the necklace around my neck.
“Thanks again. It’s so pretty,” I said, looking down to admire the dainty pendant around my neck.
His mouth became a long, thin line. “Yeah, but I didn’t get it for looks.”
I arched a brow. “You didn’t?”
“It’s for your protection.”
“Protection?”
“Jesse’s not a witch—or maybe he is—but I now know what’s his family is hiding.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“I’m glad to hear you’ve dumped the witch theory.”
“Yeah. I was completely off base,” he said, not sounding glad about that at all.
“It was way out there. Just because we found an altar, that’s no reason to jump to crazy theories.”
“Well, I’m not jumping to my new one. This time, I have solid evidence.”
“You’re killing me. What is it?”
“I’m not killing you, but they might.”
“What?”
His gaze narrowed. “They’re vampires.”
I couldn’t stifle my laugh, because this theory was worse than the last one.
“You shouldn’t laugh. You’re dating a bloodsucker,” he said.
“Excuse me? Are you telling me I’m Jesse’s future ghoulfriend.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is very serious.”
“It’s not possible. Vampires turn to ash in sunlight. That’s a simple fact. They always have and always will.”
“Yeah. I haven’t figured out how they bypass that.”
“Simple. They’re not vampires.”
“I know they are.”
“Jesse is outside every day, and the last time I checked, Coppertone doesn’t make 5,000 SPF.”
Fred’s gaze narrowed. “You’re in danger, Taylor. I wish you’d take me seriously.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” I retorted.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
I choked my laughter back. “Is that why you got me this necklace? Because I need a crucifix for protection from vampires?”
“Yes. Where did you meet him anyway?”
