PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “Devon, please . . . ”

  “No, Alexandria. Leave it be.”

  Tears slip free and start to soak the front of his shirt.

  “I’m sorry, Cara,” he whispers. “So sorry.”

  So am I.

  We sit there for the longest time. He rocks me back and forth as I cry. My tears are for him, for me, for us. After what seems like hours, he stands up and pulls me to my feet. He smiles softly, his eyes warm.

  “I came to check on you after last night. I wanted to make sure you were well.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yes, I know, bellisima, you are always fine, but are you alright?”

  How does he know me so well?

  I give him the same answer I gave Jason. “I will be.”

  He nods. “I should go.”

  Please don’t go, I beg silently. Don’t leave me.

  He cups my cheek, hearing my thoughts. “I will never leave you, Cara. I am always here.”

  And he always will be. I know that even as I watch him walk away. He’s mine. The problem is making him see that. But I will, somehow, someway.

  Devon Cameron will be mine.

  About the Author

  So who am I? Well, I'm the crazy girl with an imagination that never shuts up. I LOVE scary movies. My friend Chazz laughs at me when I scare myself watching them and tells me to stop watching them, but who doesn't love to get scared? I grew up in a small town nestled in the southern mountains of West Virginia where I spent days roaming around in the woods, climbing trees, and causing general mayhem. Nights I would stay up reading Nancy Drew by flashlight under the covers until my parents yelled at me to go to sleep.

  Growing up in a small town, I learned a lot of values and morals, I also learned parents have spies everywhere and there's always someone to tell your mama you were seen kissing a particular boy on a particular day just a little too long. So when you get grounded, what is there left to do? Read! My Aunt Jo gave me my first real romance novel. It was a romance titled "Lord Margrave's Deception." I remember it fondly. But I also learned I had a deep and abiding love of mysteries and anything paranormal. As I grew up, I started to write just that and would entertain my friends with stories featuring them as main characters.

  Now, I live in Huntersville, NC where I entertain my niece and nephew and watch the cats get teased by the birds and laugh myself silly when they swoop down and then dive back up just out of reach. The cats start yelling something fierce...lol.

  I love books, I love writing books, and I love entertaining people with my silly stories.

  http://apryl-baker.blogspot.com/

  Other Books by Apryl:

  The Promise, book one of The Coven series

  The Ghost Files 1

  The Ghost Files 2

  The Ghost Files 3

  WHAT TRULY KNOWS

  by

  Louise Caiola

  One

  Mama said that eighteen years ago I was plucked from her belly with the Magical Knowing right there waiting for me. She said it was like somehow I knew there’d been a cord wound tight as an ole’ clock spring ‘round my neck, keeping me from my rightful first breath of life. And yet, I wasn’t bothering with fussing over it, ‘cause as soon as those doctors wrestled me free, the story goes, I looked Mama square in the eye and winked. Much as it sounded like a whole mess of hogwash, Mama swore on the Holy Book that it was true. I reckon she oughta know for real. Though some said Mama did her fair share of fibbing, when it came to the Magical Knowing, Mama didn’t lie.

  It was on account of this that I had a horrible feeling someone was due to be dying on Skinners Bridge that night. With the Magical Knowing a person could sense beginnings and endings real clear, the way some folks could tell if it was planning to rain by the way their joints started up with aching. I was hoping it wouldn’t be so. Really hoping.

  But then there was that moon hung over our heads, all crimson-colored, and with a

  mean look on its face. If that wasn’t a deadly moon I don’t know what was.

  Locals in Madison County, Alabama say that Skinners had seen its equal split of love and

  tragedies. Seeing as how it was situated at the butt end of nothing more than some silly little lake, a chunk of trees, and practically no light, kids for years saw fit to visit and do the things nature led ‘em to. Mama said most girls ‘round these parts had babies brewing in their britches from the time they could toddle across the kitchen floor. Lots of those young’uns was shot from their daddy’s lustful limbs right down under those wide oak, only yards from the mouth of that bridge.

  As for the tragic part, well that was a tale for unfolding like a linen hanky in a dainty lady’s lap. This was how the Magical Knowing grew into more than Mama or I had ever imagined it could—into a calamity that intended to be much, much more.

  On the night in question, Ridley Fisher and I was set to meet Jayden Collins at Skinners to square matters. Jayden had been all bowed up over the very notion that Ridley, who’d arrived in my universe all the way from South Africa if you can imagine that, was fixing to steal my heart and all that went along with it. Not that Jayden and I was a thing. At best we was the very closest a boy and girl could be without ever having locked lips. Our houses was so near you could lie down in between them and have your head in his garden, your toes in mine. Suppose that was one of the reasons Jayden felt like he had some ownership of me, since we’d been next-door neighbors for six years and counting.

  Didn’t matter none that when it came to my affection, it wasn’t a lick of Jayden’s concern. Didn’t matter none that Jayden could have practically had me a hundred times over if he really tried. Which he never had up till then, and thusly my heart was officially up for the taking.

  The sky floating over Skinners that night had set itself tight and black ‘round the moon, and soon enough started throwing spiky, cold raindrops at us. We had to duck ‘em so Ridley could get his cigarette lit.

  He clutched a lighter in his left hand and tipped it back, scoring the small metal wheel with the tip of his thumb, igniting enough of a flame so that I could see his eyes, sweet and pale grey. Mama said Ridley reminded her of a young Johnny Depp. But my Ridley was no silver-screen Hollywood boy. He was the real in-the flesh-McCoy. The smoke from his cigarette floated like a ghost ‘round my head, and I stepped away slowly, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “I love you, Truly,” he said, so low I had to wonder if that was really what I’d heard.

  Now, I’m guessing I ought to explain that Ridley wasn’t making his statement bolder by emphasizing his honesty. Truly is who I am. Truly Ann Kaye. It was unintentional, which is how some baby girls came to be named in this part of the country. They’d given Mama a heaping helping of morphine to manage her pain right after I was born. Made her loopy as a cat in a room full of canaries. All she kept repeating was how I was really truly here.

  She’s here. Truly she’s here. My baby. She’s truly my baby.

  Some dopey nurse asked, “So that’s your baby girl there? Truly?”

  “Yup,” my drugged-out Mama had replied, then she’d clean passed out. It wasn’t till the next day Mama come to and saw that name plastered to my hospital crib. Truly Kaye. She thought to argue some, seeing as how she’d planned on calling me Ann in honor of her Nana on her daddy’s side. But, as she tells it, there was already so many Anns running ‘round this world, she thought it might be nicer to leave things as they was, slipping Ann in the middle of the pact to be right respectful and all.

  Anyhow while Ridley was busy with professing his eternal devotion, all I could think about was that Jayden would be along any minute and how he was fixing to change all of that eternal stuff.

  The footsteps sounded before I could pass another thought. Jayden Collins was treading with heavy boots along the gravel path leading up to the pavement. As the crunching beneath his soles got louder and louder, the Magical Knowing started banging on the inside of my chest.

  “T
hat’s Jayden,” I remarked, as if Ridley didn’t know.

  Ridley took one more drag and then flicked his cigarette into the stream below. It was referred to as the Pacachi River, a narrow, five mile stretch of waterway leading from nowhere to nowhere, as useless as a tepid bath, as annoying as a puddle that refused to evaporate in the light of day. A couple hundred years ago, the early settlers that came to Madison County maneuvered their canoes and rafts along this so-called river - only to discover that it was little more of an exercise in frustration than an excursion to a better place - flanked on either end by a patch of sand, flat rocks, and some dried-up old white birch.

  Jayden hadn’t yet come into view, and I waited still and steady as stone. A pinch formed in my throat, threatening to steal my breath. They was meeting here because of me. Because country boys didn’t take to sharing the things they cared most about.

  My feet was begging to take off and meet him halfway, yet I stayed where I was, planted firmly at Ridley’s side, closer now that he was done with his cigarette.

  I wanted to call out. Jay! But I kept my mouth sewed up tight as a new button. I wanted to turn back time, rewind six years till Jayden and I was twelve years old again, and we believed we was happy. I couldn’t. We thought we knew it all. We didn’t. I pulled a sentence up from someplace deep in my gut. My voice came out all church-mouse timid.

  “Don’t fight him, Ridley. Okay? Let’s talk it all out.”

  Ridley squared his shoulders. “He’s not coming here to talk, Truly.”

  I laid a meek hand on Ridley’s arm. “Be the bigger man.”

  Truth was I knew Jayden could easily take Ridley. He could do some serious damage. Jayden Collins wasn’t homegrown Alabama stock. He’d showed up here, like a new weed popping through the thick southern soil, from up north—Massachusetts or thereabouts—after his folks got divorced. Even still, Jayden used his strength, his power, to get what he wanted, the way most real country boys did. Fists of justice, Mama always said.

  I watched as the top of Jayden’s head made its way into my sights, the fair hair lopped off in no particular style, waves crimping randomly ‘round his face. Soon I saw the rest of him; six-foot-two-inch frame, broad-backed, natural muscles encased in his clothes. Jayden. My scoundrel.

  Way back when, I’d fallen for him, not hard and fast, but slow, the way honey drips off a spoon. “Jay,” I whispered. Once upon a time I would have rushed him, tossed my arms ‘round his neck, dangle from him like a heart locket on a gold chain.

  He nodded to me. “Tru.” Jayden always had a smile reserved specially for me. Yet on this night it was someplace else.

  Without looking I could sense Ridley stretching his spine far as it could reach. He was about five-foot-ten if he tried real hard, all legs and very little middle, wispy and light, though strong enough when it was called for. They was polar opposites—Ridley with his poetry and art, his long brown hair grown straggly and wild over his ears and down his neck stopping just shy of his shoulders, and his muddled accent carried here all the way from Johannesburg. And Jayden, with his All-American, defensive linemen, rough and tumble, never-heard-a-poem-he-didn’t-despise good looks. They was Davey and Goliath. I was hoping not to witness a biblical slaughter.

  That sky was growing testier by the second. A nasty wind chimed in and kicked up such a fuss I could hardly figure which was meaning to bring more harm. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my eggplant-colored head and drew the strings tight under my chin. See, I’d once had hair so blonde folks said I was a towhead. But Ridley told me about the girls back in his country and how they used this deep purple rinse on their hair and it how it looked real sophisticated. So we got us a hold of some and tried it and Mama said it made me look pretty dang smart so I left it at that. Figure ain’t nothing wrong with a girl looking like she’s got a halfway decent brain clunking ‘round in her head.

  Jayden hated it though. He hated most everything to do with Ridley Fisher ever since he got this foolish idea that Ridley was feeding me drugs. It wasn’t so. I told Jayden over and over it wasn’t true. But he wasn’t buying it.

  The wind hollered and howled and Jayden lifted his voice so as he could be heard.

  “I warned you to keep away from her, dude. Truly don’t need a guy like you in her life.

  I’m not gonna sit back and watch you destroy her.”

  Ridley tipped and swayed in the force of the air. He shoved his hands into his front pockets. “Face it, man, she’s in love with me. You can’t change that.”

  “Bullshit.” Jayden moved in closer to Ridley, and I felt an icy set of invisible fingers scaling my spine.

  Ridley took a slight step back. “If it’s a lie then tell me why she’s agreed to come back to South Africa with me?”

  Jayden snapped his neck in my direction. “Is this right, Tru?”

  “I—I been meaning to talk to you ‘bout that, Jay, I just..”

  Jayden didn’t wait on me to finish. Instead he grabbed a hold of Ridley by the scruff of his neck. “You won’t take her! I’ll kill you first!”

  That hog-wild boy lifted Ridley clear off the ground and then let go, dropping him on the glassy roadway. I blinked my eyes for what amounted to ten measly seconds and all at once Jayden was on top of him, his hands wrapped ‘round Ridley’s throat.

  I shouted Jayden’s name, loud as my will would have it.

  I tried to pretend they was only two silly ole’ hound dogs scrapping over a bone, but the Magical Knowing was telling me otherwise. I watched as they was tussling real hard, rolling ‘round on that wet bridge, getting so near to the edge I could have peed my pants outta fright.

  Damn Skinners never did have a decent rail.

  I couldn’t take it. Not another minute. Blood was oozing out of Ridley’s nose, and Jayden was going plum crazy. I gathered up all the might I had inside of me and dove right toward the eye of that storm, aiming for the center of those two beasts.

  See that’s the thing about having a streak of anger running under your skin. It makes you forget about slick surfaces and how a driving rain makes ‘em like a sheet of thin ice. And it distracts your direction something awful.

  Down I went, slipping and sliding like a greased pig. Felt my skull smash into something, couldn’t tell what, then over the side I tumbled, fast and forever, plunging headfirst, my legs splayed out behind me. That eerie black water lapped up ‘round me and quick coaxed me to sleep.

  So that’s how it came to be that the Pacachi tried to take my life on that wet, cruel night in late April under one deadly mean moon. The Magical Knowing had been right all along.

  Two

  A girl with no lips wanted to know why it was that I was on Skinners Bridge to begin with. Actually she had a mouth, but it didn’t really move, yet I’d heard her right clear all the same. She had a shock of bright red hair, tied up in a hundred little braids all over her head, like cornrows or something. Her skin was snowy white and damp. She asked me twice.

  “What were you doing on the bridge?”

  I answered almost without thinking, without recognizing that anyone was listening, least of all a strange woman with strange hair. As if I was simply recalling a fond memory. “Ridley likes to go there since it’s quiet at night. He likes to sit so our feet dangle over the edge, and we let ‘em swing back and forth while we toss pebbles into the water and talk about our dreams.”

  “I was always scared of that bridge,” she said. “Somehow I knew I’d end up dying there.”

  I looked behind her. She was wrapped in nothing but pale blue sky. I couldn’t tell what she was wearing. “Are you dead?” I asked. “Am I? Who are you?”

  She smiled, or so it seemed, even though her lips wasn’t there.

  “I’m Bee,” she said. Or was it Bea? Or B? She took a step back. “You’ll be okay. They’re waiting for you. Go home.”

  “Go home?” I squinted and looked down. My feet was as invisible as the bottom portion of her face. “Where am I?”
<
br />   “Will you do me a favor when you get back? Will you tell my mother that it was an accident? Tell her I didn’t mean to go.”

  My mind began to shift gears, almost like I was asleep and preparing to wake. As though I was in the front seat of a roller coaster and the motor had just starting running. I knew I was going to speed away, dip, spin, turn upside down.

  Bee or Bea waved me off. “Hurry now. They’re expecting you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I never did enjoy them coaster rides. Nevertheless, off I went. I felt my body heave and tumble. Heard my name again and again.

  “Truly, Truly. TRULY!”

  My lids fluttered and opened reluctantly. Everything was out of focus. Hazy white lights bathed my vision. Words, all waxy and distant, floated through my ears.

  “She’s coming to! Quick, fetch the nurse!”

  I recognized the sound. My mother. Her voice was raspy and unsteady. Wherever I’d been, I could already tell I had put the blessed fear of Jesus in her while I was gone.

  She called to me once more, and I narrowed my gaze to meet her face. She had lines etched into either side of her cheeks. Tracks of her tears.

  “Truly, darlin’? Can you hear me?”

  I nodded. It felt as if every muscle was brand spanking new and wobbly as a freshly hatched foal.

  “Thank you Jesus and Franklin Roosevelt. I thought it was the scoundrels. Thank the sweet Lord,” she said and then she lowered her head until it rested on my chest and she sobbed, so loud and with such force I felt it clear through to my spine.

  Another female voice filled the air ‘round me. This one was crisp and controlled. “We’ve paged Dr. Everton. She’s in the building. Mrs. Kaye, would you mind stepping back?”

  My mother lifted herself up leaving a trail of snot behind. The other female voice bent into view—the nurse, I assumed. She had short black hair and bushy black brows.

  “Truly, do you remember what happened to you?”

  I nodded again, though I really wasn’t all that certain.