"Hey, guys, come check out your rooms," Dad called from upstairs, his voice sounding a million miles away, but still clear as it resounded through the barren space.
"Oh, yes, your bedrooms, and your very own bathrooms!" Mom was positively giddy. She grabbed each of the twin's hands, her eyes wide, as she dragged them back to the entryway and up the stairs.
The tour of the home took longer than any of them expected. An uneasy current of doubt settled just beyond their awareness, one that questioned whether they would ever get used to living in such a grand house. Mom and Dad's room surely identified more as a master chamber than the familiar moniker of primary suite. Holden's room, with its walls of stately, dark-wood built-ins, yearned to be filled with personal keepsakes from times gone by and leather-bound Shakespearean tomes, but would have to be satisfied with ever-expanding collections of Funko Pop! figures, Lego Star Wars creations, and gaming merch.
Hazel's room presented her with daunting aesthetic challenges. While easily twice the size of her former space, it was overwhelmed by the décor. It looked like it belonged to a toddler, one who took her first steps in the year 1547. The walls were papered in a gaudy, cream-colored, velveteen abomination, except for one wall, which held an unusual mural. A talented artist had created a view of a serene meadow, ringed by a forest. With a modicum of imagination, one could easily conjure Little Red Riding Hood peeking out from behind one of the eerily realistic trees. All of it would have to go. She was almost sixteen, and this preschool nursery rhyme vibe was definitely not her.
They walked through the rooms, Mom and Dad gushing all the while about the size of the bathrooms, the master bedroom fireplace, the abundance of storage space, and so on. The tour ended in a huge room at the far end of the second floor. Had the room been inside a true Tudor mansion, it would hold antiques draped by drop cloths, chests filled with relics, and sepia photos of the lineage who once roamed the halls. This being an outlandish revival built in 1984, instead it was a vast, empty bonus room. This particular bonus room was destined to become the theater room, replete with a stand-up popcorn popper and lifted platforms for plush, mechanically reclining seats. Dad had been looking forward to having a home theater for a very long time; a place to set up his projector, huge, retractable screen and myriad of speakers. At the far end of the space, a spiral staircase provided a quick escape directly to the laundry room for anyone who couldn't be bothered walking to the main staircase.
Even the unflappable teens mustered some excitement as they discussed which movie posters would look best, Holden insisting a Star Wars theme was a must while Hazel argued cult classic horror movies would be best. The planning was interrupted by the doorbell, which sounded surprisingly like an average, regular doorbell, not like the foreboding church bells Hazel had imagined. She almost sighed in relief at their mediocrity.
"At last, my computer stuff!" Holden exclaimed.
"Not so fast! Give the movers space. We don't want to make them uncomfortable. And put your mask on," Mom shouted after him as he rushed down the stairs.
The twins stood outside, under a mantle of countless trees, as the moving team unloaded their lives box-by-box, piece-by-piece, from the giant truck. All of them were eager to have their creature comforts back after living for several weeks in their RV with only the barest of necessities.
As the virus began its unabated spread across Colorado, Mom and Dad decided to cut bait and head to Oklahoma as soon as the e-signatures had been accepted on the seller's documents. The plan had been to find temporary housing while finishing out the school year in Colorado after the home sold much quicker than expected. Oklahoma was still seemingly untouched by the virus, but things changed so quickly. The upheaval, one of many resulting from the pandemic, left them essentially homeless. Short-term rentals were hard to come by, and they were weeks away from closing on the Shrek house. They were forced to live in their motor home on a red dirt plot outside of Stillwater, at the height of tornado season. Thankfully, all the potentially cataclysmic events that could have taken place did not. There were constant complaints about the cramped space, the roar of the highway, and rain. Day upon day of rain that shrunk the inadequate space by feet, if not yards. Their moods were as gray as the skies as reality set in that life would not return to normal for a very long time, if ever.
The movers struggled with what appeared to be their first pandemic-ruled job, as Hazel watched and reflected on how quickly life had changed. She found it hard to believe that every single aspect of daily norms had been thrown into a tailspin, and believed she had been dealt a worse hand than many. Aside from the abrupt, unwanted move and the struggles brought about from lockdowns, she and Holden were still reeling from the changes to their academic lives. The two had been deprived of their last day of school when in-person learning was abruptly canceled in an effort to slow the spread. Mom insisted they stay home March 13th, to avoid the virus. Mom was right when she predicted that they wouldn't be returning to the halls of Heritage High School for the remainder of the year, despite the belief that the extended spring break would be enough to "flatten the curve." Hazel had pleaded with Mom and Dad to be allowed to go that day. Holden was fine with the excused absence and provided no backup for his sister's argument.
"Come on, Holden, we need to present a united front!" she had urged him.
"Uh, chill out, sis. We're talking parental mandated hooky, not war.” Holden was even unfazed by the cancellation of the school play, missing the opportunity to perform on the high school stage for the first time.
Hazel hated that she had missed her last chance to hug Miren, ogle Brock in swim class, and just soak up normal life before it all came to a jarring halt. At least now they could finish out the school year in their own rooms, not in their relegated zones inside the claustrophobic walls of the motor home.
Mom did her best to direct the movers to the proper rooms without crowding them, but it did little good. In the end, most of the furniture was placed in the correct room, but the boxes would require a bit more unjumbling. Bailey, the family cat, ventured out from an unknown hiding place, as soon as the moving truck had eased its way back over the bridge and driven out of sight. The cat was cowering on the stair landing, attempting to relax enough to feast her eyes upon the multitude of tiny birds flitting about on the limbs just beyond the window. Hazel scooped up the cat and retreated to her room for some unpacking, Coraline's paws brushing her heels as she went.
Two
By the time Hazel got her furniture arranged to her liking, and her bed put together, it was dinnertime—pizza, the official meal of moving. Mom was over the moon that her favorite college-days restaurant, The Original Hideaway, delivered all the way out to their new neighborhood of Camelot Crossing.
Hazel was starving. "Bet it takes the driver a fortnight to make it all the way out here," she told Holden.
"Fortnight? This place is already changing you, Lady Hazel." Holden responded, laughing at himself with a heartiness that vastly overreached the hilarity factor of the joke.
She was pleased to be wrong about the delivery window. The pizza arrived, piping hot, just minutes after Dad gave her a twenty and a five, asking her to put the cash on the table that sat outside the front door. "When did you become such a baller, Dad? This seems like a lot for a tip."
"Yes, but they deserve it. The stakes are higher these days for frontliners, and we are a ways out here."
The pie was some of the best any of them had ever had. And Mom was finally able to share one of her favorite items the pizza joint offered. "You haven't lived until you've had Hideaway fried mushrooms," she would say whenever she saw them on a menu. She was right. They were amazing.
Mom and Dad continued to chatter excitedly about their new home as they ate from paper plates at the kitchen island. Hazel hoped their exuberance might rub off on her as she did her best not to go down the abyss of what-ifs. Try as she might, she couldn't avoid the pointless barterer in her head who agreed that she would gla
dly trade this crazy mansion for their old house in Colorado. She missed her old life. This trajectory the virus had sent her on had broken the course she had vaguely developed and fully expected to fulfill: sophomore year, driver's license, Miren, Brock, spring dance, yearbook signing. She knew that as things stood, even if she was still in Colorado, everyone's old lives were a thing of the past for now. The suddenness with which the world changed was disorienting. The speed at which social beings became detainees in their own homes was appalling.
After dinner, the twins took the dogs outside for the last call of nature before bedtime. "Keep an eye on my little guy," Mom oozed in a syrupy voice. "Who knows what could be out there. Snakes, hawks, coyote!” Dramatic pause. “Stay engaged. Probably even bobcats!" And to the point, "I don't want him snatched up by a predator."
"Mom, he weighs five pounds and is barely covered by fur. He's like if male-pattern baldness hooked up with a large rat. Everything's a predator to Phin," Holden taunted. His reaction, though just for laughs, always left Mom feeling a bit more anxious about the world her beloved Phineas faced. She was never amused, certain the tiny dog looked scrumptious to anything and everything. An easy target.
Outside, the night buzzed with the electric pulse of dozens of cicadas. Their numbers would multiply by the week, overpowering all other sounds of nature. Oklahomans had no choice but to succumb to the constant hiss as spring rushed into summer. But for now, it provided soothing background noise in the absence of cars, dog walkers, sirens, and street sweepers that were a constant in Colorado and was better than the roar of the highway that shook the RV. The sky was lit by an endless veneer of fairy-light stars that seemed close enough to graze with your fingertips.
Phineas survived the nighttime outing, unharmed. Mom was right; this was the most adversarial environment Phin had ever faced. The little dog himself had been oblivious to his own peril.
Back inside, Dad made a show of checking the locks on all the doors and windows. His day had been spent installing security cameras. He was obsessed with making sure cameras caught everything once porch pirates became attuned to Mom's online shopping addiction.
They were all tired. Each one felt the fatigue differently. Dad's head ached from reading small print and hunching over protruding wires, with a voltmeter and fishing tools in hand. His burden of responsibility formed knotted tension in his neck and shoulders.
Mom's back ached, mostly due to anxiety over the workload she now faced. The house needed her undivided attention; cleaning it would take weeks, but she still had one more month of distance teaching twenty-two Pre-K kids back in Colorado. For her, living out of boxes for one minute longer than necessary was a crime. She was anxious for the challenging school year to end, so she could focus all her energy on making the house clean and comfortable. Fortunately, her own children were coasting along nicely on their own as they pioneered their way through the acute and drastic pivot. They didn't require her constant attention like many children did as they transitioned from walking hallways seven hours a day to muddling through schoolwork on a Chromebook for as many hours as they could stand. She knew from the moment the word pandemic became part of the daily vernacular that they wouldn't be returning to the classroom, but could have never imagined how taxing it would be to teach from afar. So while she didn't worry about helping her own kids with school, the demands of her job and setting up a new house, especially one of this size, weighed heavily on her unrested mind.
Holden was tired and sore, the sturdy teen being the newly appointed muscle of the group. (Dad abdicated the title due to bad knees and age.) But he needed some time to escape to his online world before he could sleep. In that world, nothing much had changed. Same people, same games, same banter, comfort, familiarity. No matter what they faced in the world, there was always a wormhole, and he would always be accepted by the group. There was no concern with fitting in; all their pieces fit together just fine, and had since kindergarten. Despite his fatigue, Holden eagerly set about building his wired world so he could rejoin his friends.
Hazel's heart ached more than her body. When the movers brought the last of their belongings into the house, finality washed over her like a crushing wave. She was over 600 miles away from her comfort zone. Did anyone in her family even comprehend how difficult it was for a fifteen-year-old girl to find a comfort zone in the first place?
There would be no first kiss from Brock Lansing. That crushed dream was one of many. But she and Miren texted and FaceTimed relentlessly, so while there were no more weekends spent secondhand scavenger shopping at the Arc Thrift Store, no long lunches spent people watching from the window seat at Pho Real, and no free blocks spent studying on the lawn at Heritage High School, they were still connected.
The family ascended the stairs together to prepare for their first night in the Shrek house. Due to their exhaustion, bedtime came much earlier than most recent nights since morning commutes were no longer a thing. As they reached the second-floor landing, Dad said, "Well, here we go, family. Finally sleeping in rooms of our own!"
"I don't know how I will sleep without the peaceful melody of your snoring, Haze," Holden jabbed.
"Yeah, I'll certainly miss being woken up every morning at three when you make your nightly bathroom trip, loser," Hazel retorted.
"Get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be another busy day," Mom said, rooting for them all. "I put fresh towels in your bathrooms. Feel free to come get me or drop in if you need anything."
Dad nudged Mom into their bedroom, saying, "They aren't babies anymore. They don't need to be tucked in with one more story and a glass of water." Over his shoulder, he whispered, "Sweet dreams," as he turned off the hall light and closed the door behind him.
Three
It wasn't even 9:30 when Hazel climbed into bed. It felt much later. She checked her Snap, and texted Miren to see if she could FaceTime. Her eyelids grew heavier as she relaxed, waiting for a reply. It had only been a few minutes, but the comfort of finally climbing into her own bed soothed her, and she knew it was time to call it. She sent another text.
L: Can't keep eyes open. Must sleep. Tmr we FaceTime. Can't wait to show u the castle. U won't believe this place.
As the pillow cushioned her head, and she wiggled her body into a comfortable position, a faint beeping sound disrupted the quiet. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of footfalls running down the long hallway. Coraline's response to the ruckus was immediate and fierce. The dog bolted from her sleep, fur lifting along her spine. A deep growl grew in the dog's throat.
Hazel's ears tracked the sound as the runner reached the end of the hall and rushed headlong down the staircase. Then it stopped. Silence returned and tension fell away from the dog as she dropped her guarded stance and rolled to her back with a whimper.
"Coraline, stay," Hazel whispered, throwing the blankets back and getting out of bed. She didn't know what she'd find outside as she pulled her hoodie tightly around herself in a subconscious effort to smooth the goosebumps that popped up on her arms and legs. Hopefully Mom and Dad were already on the job, admonishing their errant son, condemning his childish behavior.
The vast blackness of the unfamiliar hallway gave her pause. Every door was closed, hiding whatever might be lurking beyond its threshold. As she considered ignoring the whole thing, granting her brother a reprieve by going back to bed, the friendly, staccato voice of Alexa echoed through the house.
"Motion detected at the garage door."
She flinched, and the disruption to the heavy silence caused curiosity to dissolve into fear. They couldn't actually be experiencing a break-in on their first night, could they? Unable to move and unsure of what to do, she froze, awaiting the arrival of Mom and Dad, certain they would respond to the warning from the Ring. She remained alone in the cavernous hallway. None of it made sense. Who had run down the hall? Who was outside the garage door, and could they be inside by now? And why was no one else coming to investigate?
An eerie blue
glow emanated from the space under Holden's door. While it looked ominous in a very mad-scientist-at-work kind of way, she knew it was from the multiple monitors he used for Discord and gaming. She crept closer to his door, her wide-eyed gaze bouncing from surface to surface, knowing anything she saw might require her immediate reaction. Standing outside his room, she could now hear his laughter and chatter. She knocked on his door.
"Enter if you must," he responded instinctively more than cognitively.
She was met with a disarray of partially unpacked boxes, but his elaborate gaming system was completely set up on the built-in desktop. He hadn't even put his bedding on his bed. Priorities.
Holden didn't break from his game when she entered, his fingers feverishly tapping as his hands toggled back and forth on the keyboard and mouse in a blur. He slid one headphone off his ear and asked, "What?"—not hiding his annoyance with the interruption. Obviously, he wouldn't have noticed the earlier commotion with his ears fully engulfed in the oversized headset.
"Never mind," she said, leaving the room.
No way she was going to fall asleep until she got some answers. She inched farther down the hall, past Holden's room to her parents’ door. How could they be oblivious to these events? They were supposed to be responsible adults. Going downstairs to investigate a potential intruder lurking about was a task no teenage girl should face alone under the best of circumstances. Doing so in this huge, creepy, unfamiliar house was out of the question. From beyond the bedroom door, a twenty-four-hour news network's talking head rattled off the day's grim stories. She knocked.
Mom came to the door, "Hey, Haze, what's up?"
Phineas tunneled his way out from under the covers where he had been sleeping at the foot of the bed and gave a halfhearted bark, warning Mom of a potential intruder at her door approximately sixty seconds too late. A keen sense of hearing and protective instincts had never quite been developed in the canine. He had also been oblivious to the person running outside the door mere minutes ago.
Red Water, Shadows of Camelot Crossing Page 2
