Sweet Water

by Lena North

  “I don’t know how to dance,” I whispered.

  My voice was quiet and sad, and I held her eyes for a while but then I straightened again, and walked away.

  I kept my eyes focused on the doors, then on the steps leading down from the porch, and then on the dunes that started right next to the restaurant. Someone called my name, and I didn’t run, but I kept walking.

  “Overbearing.” “Witch eyes.” “Cold as a fish.” “Unpleasant.” “I wish I had a stupid child…”

  Words kept echoing in my head, and I couldn’t make them go away. They just kept coming, faster and faster, and each one hurt as if they were small daggers, piercing through my brain.

  “Genius.” “Arrogant.” “You think you’re better than everyone else, don’t you?”

  Then I fell to my knees and threw up. The sour wine and Mrs. Fratinelli’s shrimps came pouring out of me as I retched and coughed.

  Suddenly someone was there, holding my hair back and murmuring something I couldn’t hear.

  “Go away,” I whimpered.

  I didn’t want anyone to see me like that.

  “Jinx,” Snow whispered and put an arm around my shoulders.

  Before either of us could say anything, my stomach cramped, and I curled up in a ball, holding my midriff and whimpering.

  “I’ll get help,” she said and started to move.

  “No,” I moaned. “I have medicine, it’ll help.”

  She made a small sound, so I turned slowly and looked at her. She was crouched next to me, and her blue eyes were full of compassion. Another piercing pain seared through my stomach and suddenly I couldn’t hold my feelings back.

  “It just hurts too much to be me,” I whispered.

  Her eyes became so sad I almost couldn’t hold her gaze, and then she whispered, “I know what that feels like, Jinx.”

  She turned her eyes toward the water and seemed to focus on the waves slowly lapping the beach. I remained curled up and tried to breathe through the pain.

  “I’m giving you a gift, don’t throw it away,” she murmured.

  I blinked, wondering if I’d heard her right. Then running steps approached and Dante emerged from the shadows.

  “Jesus,” he whispered when he saw me.

  I didn’t want him to see me like that, so I tried to get up but the pain was too much, and I ended up on my side in the rough high grass. Then I threw up again, and when I did, I got a faint metallic taste in my mouth.

  “Jesus,” Dante said again, slightly louder this time. “I’ll call emergency,” he added.

  “No,” I said, and got up on my knees, wiping puke from my cheek.

  When I saw the faint smears of blood on my hand, I realized why he wanted to make the call, though. I watched it dispassionately, and my mind immediately started to race with various reasons for why I had thrown up blood. I’d coughed a lot and could have burst a few small blood vessels in my lungs, or I could have bitten myself in the tongue. The most likely would be that I had an ulcer that had started to bleed, though.

  “I have medicine in my room,” I told them hoarsely. “If you could just let Mrs. Fratinelli know I’ve left, that I had too much wine, I’ll go back and –”

  “Jesus,” Dante said for the third time. “You'd let her think you were drunk rather than telling her you're ill?”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I pleaded. “I’ll be fine. I just need to take some medicine.”

  Dante was about to say something, but Snow put a hand firmly on his arm. They looked into each other’s eyes, and there was a long silence. I got the strange feeling that some sort of communication passed between them and then Dante sighed.

  “I’ll carry her, you get her stuff,” he said.

  Without waiting for Snow to reply he picked me off the ground and started carrying me back toward the village. I made a protesting sound when we got closer to the restaurant, and he squeezed me slightly.

  “Don’t worry, Jiminella. I’ll take the back roads. No one will know,” he said.

  I relaxed and tried to think about what to do, what he was doing, where Snow was…

  “Shhh,” he murmured. “Just relax. We’ll take care of you.”

  No one had taken care of me in more years than I cared to count, and I wondered what it would feel like. Then darkness closed in, and the last thing I heard before passing out was a low, hoarse, “Shit.”

  I wasn’t out for long, though, and when Dante carried me into a small house, I was fully awake again. He walked swiftly through a narrow hallway and up the stairs. Then he put me on a soft, wide bed and I rolled to my side immediately, curling up and holding my belly.

  “Snow will be here soon,” he told me and shifted me gently around so that I was under the covers.

  Then I heard running footsteps, and Snow came up the stairs, holding my purse.

  With shaking hands, I dug out the small plastic containers containing my medicine and downed the contents of three of them, one after the other. Then I sighed.

  “Thank you,” I whispered but kept my eyes closed. “If I throw up one more time, then you can call the emergency room. If I don’t, then I’ll be fine.”

  Snow came with a wet washcloth and wiped my face, and then she helped me out of my clothes and into a huge t-shirt. All the while, I focused on breathing slowly but it was hard because the muscles in my belly and all the way up to my shoulders were clenched so tightly it hurt, and I couldn’t seem to get them to relax. My mind was spinning, and the angry words my hostess had tossed at me echoed together with theories about the crystal, how Wilder had cried, my parents and how everyone seemed to rely on me for so many things.

  “Who can we call?” Snow whispered.

  “No one,” I replied quietly.

  “There must be someone,” she insisted. “Your parents? Wilder?”

  The thought of involving either of them in my problems made my belly hurt even more, and I whimpered. If they came, I’d have to hold it together. They couldn’t see me like this, I thought.

  “No,” I said, trying to sound casual, although I was panicking. If they wanted to make the calls, I couldn’t stop them.

  Snow made a small sound, but Dante spoke instead.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t call your parents or Wilder. Now sleep for a while.”

  “Okay,” I murmured, knowing well that I wouldn’t, but they’d leave me alone if they thought I did.

  Maybe I could rest just a short while, and then get up to leave?

  I closed my eyes and tried to think about nothing at all. To my surprise it suddenly felt like something warm was brushing at the edges of my mind, gently nudging me to relax. A soft hum went through my brain, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt before so with some effort, I opened my eyes.

  Dante was crouched next to the bed, and his gaze was focused on me.

  “Just sleep, Jiminella,” he said and moved a few strands of hair away from my cheek with the tips of his fingers.

  “Okay,” I murmured, and then I did.

  Chapter Six

  Help

  Soft voices penetrated my foggy mind. I kept my eyes closed and remained on my side as I slowly woke up, trying to decipher what they were talking about.

  “I really tried, man,” Dante muttered.

  “Yeah,” another voice said, and I recognized immediately who it was.

  I’d made them promise not to contact Wilder or my parents, but I should have known that Dante would call Mac.

  “The whole stupid village has been working against me, and then Danny got himself bit by a bloody snake of all things,” Dante growled.

  “Yeah. That was a shitty thing for him to do,” Mac agreed in a voice full of ill-concealed humor.

  “You think it’s something to laugh about but suddenly she’s a damned doctor on top of everything, and every idiot within ten miles is running around asking for stitches and Band-Aids.”

  Mac started laughing but lowered his voice immediately.

&nbs
p; “That’s our Jinx,” he murmured. “She’s not like anyone else.”

  “Affirmative on that,” Dante sighed and went on, “I tried to hold everyone back, to let her have some peace and quiet, but I swear to you – she herself was my worst opponent. Do you know what she did today?”

  Since his question apparently was rhetorical, he kept speaking without waiting for an answer.

  “She arranged for Bozo Draper to come to the village, to look at the dress store.”

  Dante sounded angry, and I was about to get involved in the discussion when Mac spoke again.

  “Yeah, but Dante, that was probably just one phone call for her. Boz would have jumped on the idea immediately. Something else is going on because she’s been looking like shit for a long time. I don’t think she sleeps much and she’s too skinny. She used to have more curves.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. She used to look a lot softer somehow,” Mac said and added as an afterthought, “Had a fantastic ass.”

  “Huh,” Dante said and added, “Wilder knows you think so?”

  “Wilder knows she's the love of my life.”

  “So you didn't tell your girlfriend you check her friend’s ass out?” Dante pushed, but there was laughter in his voice, so I guessed he was taunting Mac.

  “Do I look stupid to you?” Mac retorted calmly, but added, “It’s not like I was checking it out, but what could I do? It was right there, wasn’t it?”

  They both chuckled, and I was about to tell them I could hear them, but I didn’t know what to say. I found it a bit baffling that Mac had been looking at my behind. I’d never noticed. While I was trying to figure out how to let them know I was awake, there was a long silence, and then I heard one of them sigh.

  “There must have been something else that made her burn out so completely tonight?” Mac asked hesitantly.

  “Yeah, part of that was probably because of shit I said,” Dante muttered, and added, “I tried to protect her, I really did, but she’s impossible. Completely impossible.”

  Mac snorted, but that didn’t stop Dante from continuing.

  “You called me and said she needed a break, needed to be left alone and that she should relax and rest, so that’s what I tried to give her. I only told Danny, and he promised to make sure she was left alone at the building site. I also placed her with the crankiest old biddy I could think of. Someone who wouldn’t bother her, and who wouldn’t try to involve her in any kind of social circles. And what happens?”

  That was clearly another rhetorical question, but I had started to find the discussion interesting, so I kept my breathing slow and steady, and my face relaxed.

  “Suddenly the stupid girl is making friends with all the builders, and then she’s performing emergency surgeries and drinking damned coffee all over the place. Someone finds out she’s an engineer and without delay, every moron in the village is asking her to help with their engine problems.” He made a short pause, and then he went on, sounding thoroughly disgusted, “Jinx Sweetwater was asked to fix up Tony Marconi’s shitty old car. Could you believe it?”

  “Well –”

  “Danny exploded in a shit-fit the likes I’ve never seen when he heard, and I guess good old Tony got an earful from his brother on the way back from the hospital this afternoon.”

  “But –”

  “And today? She offered to put time into helping me if I decide to run the village now that Dad is gone. I told her she didn’t have to do that on top of everything else she was taking on, but she left in a huff. Then she overheard me telling Snow that I’d call you so you could come and get her and take her somewhere else because she sure as hell wasn’t relaxing around here.”

  What? I thought about what he’d said earlier that day, and how he recounted it to Mac. Then I decided that the guy was more of an idiot than anyone else in Marshes because I was in no way stupid and the way he told what he’d done did not match what had happened.

  “You’ve been in her head?” Mac suddenly murmured.

  What?

  “Not really,” Dante replied, but added ruefully, “Maybe a little.”

  I opened my eyes then but they were standing by the windows with their backs toward me, and I watched them without moving. My mind was racing with the possibilities, and I remembered how it had felt like someone was brushing warmth at the edge of my consciousness earlier that night. Then Dante spoke again.

  “Her mind is beautiful, Mac, like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s like an intricate, colorful maze, vivid and vibrant, and it pulsates with energy in a way I’ve never come across before.” He made a pause, and I stared at his back, my eyes burning with tears. Then he sighed and continued quietly, “It’s also so bruised that I don’t want to get in there, for fear of hurting her or hurting myself. The pain she feels radiates out from her, and it’s like…”

  He trailed off, and Mac waited silently.

  “It’s like she doesn’t shut down. She runs all her thoughts around in that big brain, at high speed, and around the clock, never turning it off, and it never gets to rest. So, her mind is bruised and abused, and I think that by now, even simple, harmless words hurt her. She has stomach problems and takes medicine for that, but I believe that’s the symptom, not the root cause. I think it’s her amazing brain that’s the problem.”

  I swallowed and felt like screaming straight out. Dante had just put words on what was wrong with me. I hadn’t thought about it like that, but I knew immediately that he was right.

  “Can you help me?” I whispered quietly.

  They both turned slowly, and Mac took a few steps to crouch down next to the bed.

  “Hey there, Jinx,” he murmured and caressed my cheek with the back of his hand. “How are you doing?”

  “Not great, Mac,” I replied.

  I was tired of covering up and knew I couldn’t fix what was wrong with me on my own.

  “Okay,” he said, watching me in a way I knew he was assessing what to do.

  “Dante is right,” I said.

  Then I took a deep breath and let the words pour out of me.

  “I can’t turn it off. There are too many things going on in my head all the time, and I can’t shut it up. It has been like this for a long time, and I used to be able to manage but now I can’t. It’s been getting worse for months, and I wanted to go away for a while, but how do you say no to a friend? So I said six months, but then I came here, and how do you say no when someone needs help? And then I couldn’t eat anything. And that guy, he asked me to dance…”

  Dante sat down on the side of the bed and leaned down a little.

  “What guy?” he prompted when I trailed off.

  “I don’t know, but he asked me to dance, and Mrs. Fratinelli was so angry with me. She was right, though. I shouldn’t have said no.” I made a weird sobbing sound and then I added, “But I don’t know how to dance, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  I was working myself into a frenzy again, and this time I literally felt it happening, unable to stop it.

  “Shh,” Dante suddenly murmured, and I felt that sweet warmth at the edges of my mind again.

  It was soothing, and I focused on breathing slowly until my mind had slowed down.

  “I’m so tired,” I whispered and turned to look at Mac. “Can you make me sleep?”

  “Maybe,” he said, and turned to Dante. “If I can get her to relax, can you help her?”

  “Maybe,” Dante echoed.

  They looked at each other for a while, and I wondered if they were somehow speaking silently to each other because it seemed like some kind of message passed between them. I remembered how Dante was with Snow, and I wondered if she could do it too.

  “You need to stop thinking,” Mac suddenly said, and his voice had taken on a strange tone.

  It was soft and felt like sweet honey, flowing through me. I blinked and started to wonder how that could be possible and if examining his vocal chords would show any anomalies, and –

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nbsp; “Jiminella, do what he tells you,” Dante said.

  “You need to stop thinking,” Mac repeated.

  His voice suddenly had more power, and I wondered how he could –

  “Stop. Thinking.” Mac said.

  Then I did. The world went blissfully blank, and it felt like a white mist settled in my head. There were no thoughts, no words. Nothing.

  I felt how I exhaled and then the warmth in my mind spread, from the edges and all through me. It felt like the honey from Mac’s voice filled my soul and smoothed it out until everything was soft and warm and safe.

  “Sleep now,” Mac’s voice murmured, and then he repeated himself, “Sleep. Now.”

  I slipped into dreamland easily and just before everything went black I heard a loud thump and Dante’s hoarse voice.

  “Well, shit.”

  ***

  I wasn’t quite awake, but I wasn’t sleeping either. All I knew was that I was cold.

  “Sleep, Jiminella,” a deep voice murmured next to me.

  “Cold,” I murmured.

  I curled closer into a ball and felt how I was waking up more and more.

  “Okay,” Dante said, and then I heard him move.

  Another blanket was thrown over me, but it didn’t seem to stop me from shivering. I was on my side, turned toward the wall although I’d started to move when the bed suddenly shifted.

  “Stay still,” Dante murmured as he got into the bed, curving his big frame around my back and putting an arm around my waist, tucking the sheets closer to us.

  I tensed, but as his warmth started to penetrate the cold, I exhaled. He had a tee on, and short pajama bottoms. The hair on his legs tickled a little on the back of my thighs, and I could feel his muscles flex as he pulled me closer. It felt good, way too good, but as the warmth spread and seemed to seep into my mind, I wondered what Snow would think.

  “Why would Snow think anything at all?” Dante murmured.

  I stopped breathing and was suddenly wide awake. I knew I’d not said anything out loud, so that meant he could read my mind. Actually read specific thoughts.