A Touch of Water
C.K. Johnson
Weeping Willow Press LLC
A Touch of Water
Copyright © 2020 by C.K. Johnson
Cover © Ampersand Book Cover Designs
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-951223-08-3
Published by Weeping Willow Press LLC
Cover Design by Ampersand Book Cover Designs
Dedication
Machelle who has read all my books and asks for more. To Heidi and Terri, part of my 16.
Lastly, to my mom—you’re amazing!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Afterword
Thank You
Witches Anonymous
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by award winning author C.K. Johnson
Chapter One
“Are you sure, Caitlyn?” I asked one last time.
She tugged at her already-smooth black skirt. Her red-rimmed eyes met mine for the first time since the funeral. “Yes.”
My heart broke. The familiar cold white tiles on my friend’s bathroom floor did nothing to reassure me this was a good idea.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing,” I said, pulling my hair into a ponytail. She knew this. I’d been saying it for the last hour, but maybe this time it would sink in.
“I said yes, Lilly. If you won’t do it, just say so.” Caitlyn went back to spinning the wheels on the toy car in her hands. She’d given it to her little brother on his last birthday, a few months before he’d gotten the diagnosis. “Please don’t ask me again. This is already hard enough.”
“Okay, okay.” Now it was my turn to shake my head. I leaned over the old claw foot tub and turned on the hot water. Steam billowed up and filled the room in a white haze. I balled up my hands to stop the shaking. This was family legend, something my kooky old gran used to tell me at her nursing home.
I turned toward the water and tried to wipe my mind free of my own fears. You can do this! Like the positive affirmation would actually make it happen. I bit my lips and dunked one of my hands in the tub. Water sloshed over the side and inched toward my jeans.
“Ready?” I asked.
She held out her hand in response. I grabbed her wrist and closed my eyes. I didn’t feel her sadness or her deepest darkest secrets as my grandmother had hinted I would. The relief of not feeling anything out of the ordinary, other than a little stupid, washed over me and I almost laughed. I let go of her and started to pull my sopping arm out of the water.
“Wait, I feel something.” Her words rushed out as if I’d punched her in the gut while she spoke.
She grabbed my wrist. All I could feel, besides my tense nerves, were my fingers burning from the too-hot water, and I tried to escape once more. “Listen, we can try again tomorrow.” Tomorrow we’d be back in school and maybe she’d forget about it.
Her grip became painful as the smell of strong disinfectant filled my nose. The urge to let go shot higher.
“Lilly?” Caitlyn leaned closer.
My mouth filled with the taste of powdered mashed potatoes. “You ate at the hospital?”
“Yeah, Mom said I had to or she’d send me home. I knew it was going to happen soon and I wanted to be around, you know, to say goodbye.”
I pushed her words away. Smell, taste, what was next: sight or touch. I shivered as my fingers rubbed against what felt like cool skin. So this is what was rattling around in my friend’s head, making her think she had no recourse but to rip out her sorrow. My chest tightened as the sight of her little brother Brian in a hospital bed, a speck on a vast sea of white sheets.
The heavy sadness weighed me down, making it hard to think straight. It spread like tangled weeds into my own emotions. A sob climbed up my throat and I took a shaky breath.
Send it into the water. Gran’s words flitted around in my head, breaking through the sensation of drowning in grief. The water hissed as I pushed the emotion out. A thin sheen floated across the surface of the water like an oil slick before disappearing.
Caitlyn let go of my hand and a smile slowly slid across her face. Something about her expression made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Thank you.” Caitlyn’s gaze met mine and goose bumps ran up my arms. I swallowed and looked away. My thoughts were stuck on what I’d felt in place of the sorrow—emptiness.
Chapter Two
One Year Later
“Is it true?” asked Caitlyn as she sidled up beside me, tapping her long fingernails against the locker adjoining mine.
“What?” I bit my lip to keep myself from smiling like the dolt I felt like.
“Taylor said she overheard a certain someone asking you something as you left Mr. Gerrard’s class.”
“Keep it down.” I felt my cheeks flush and ducked my head, letting my dirty blond hair slide down and cover my face.
“You mean Jacob, captain of the football team, just asked you out? And you want me to keep it down?” The volume of her voice rose with each word. If she got any louder she might as well announce it over the school intercom.
I shoved my locker shut. “Stop it.”
A couple of cheerleaders glanced over and my gut dropped. The last thing I wanted to do was get on the hit list of his ex-girlfriend Melissa. I strode away as fast as I could while attempting to maintain some composure.
“Come on. You can’t say you aren’t freaking out.” She had no trouble keeping up with me; her legs were twice as long as mine.
“Yes, but he just broke up with Melissa, so I might be a rebound,” I said, trying to sound like it was no big deal. My flaming red cheeks told otherwise.
“Hey, stop for a second.” She pulled me close to the drinking fountain. A freshman started for it, then stopped, wilting under her glare.
“Be nice,” I said.
She grinned at his departing figure. I looked away and shook off the sense of unease that tried to settle in every time she got that look.
It’s nothing, I told myself. Maybe Caitlyn was like this a year ago and I’d ignored it. The accusation lingered in my thoughts. She’d become a touch crueler after I’d taken away her sorrow.
Caitlyn pushed back her dark brown hair and leaned down for a drink. “I heard that Melissa cheated on him. I even heard she’s already moved on to that new guy, Tyler Madrid.”
“Tyler Marrin?”
“Yeah, him. Melissa dropped Jacob flat, and now she’s already planning on going to prom with Tyler—and he hasn’t even asked.”
“Well, she’s the queen after all,” I said, before glancing
around the hallway, hoping no one heard my snide remark. I might be taking her leftovers, but there was no need for me to be nasty about it.
“Careful. I almost laughed so hard, the water nearly squirted out my nose. Then I’d never get a date to the prom.” Caitlyn shoved my shoulder.
“Whatever,” I said, heading for class.
“Hey, Lilly,” Caitlyn said as she walked away.
“Yeah?”
“Your class is the other way.”
I dropped my head and turned around. This was going to be a long day.
I ducked into class and slid behind the lab table as the bell rang. Out came my notebook, my shield against boredom.
Fear, I scribbled the word on its own page, outlining my first sketches over and over until it indented two pages down.
Caitlyn mocked me for my notebook, but I couldn’t help but notice she had started one herself. I’d never seen inside hers though. I couldn’t make myself finger through her thoughts as she did through mine. Besides, mine were all the same, each emotion drawn every day until the notebook was full and I started again.
“Hey, can I sit here?” the deep voice cut through my thoughts.
“What?” I asked, trying not to let how startled I felt tinge my cheeks for a second time today.
“Is this seat free?” Tyler asked as he pulled out the chair next to me. He grinned his I-used-to-live-in-California-and-did-a-few-modeling-gigs smile.
I meant to say, “Sure.” All I could manage was a nod. Yep, cheeks were going red again. I was starting a new record to see how red I could get before someone asked if I was coming down with something.
“We haven’t met. My name is Tyler.” He set his backpack on the lab table and pulled out his chemistry book.
“Yeah.” I sighed before reaching for mine.
“You afraid of something?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Your notebook.” His grin spread evenwider.
“Oh, that. Just bored,” I mumbled, slamming it shut. Spell broken. Was there an alternate version where Prince Charming realized Cinderella was really a dork? If so, I think I had just stumbled into it.
“It looked cool.”
The teacher cleared her throat, breaking the most awkward conversation I’d had to date with a guy. Even Jacob asking me out hadn’t been this uncomfortable, and I’d sort of had a crush on him for a couple of years.
At the end of class, Tyler stood. “Nice shoe.”
“Thanks?” I asked, glancing down at my dusty blue tennis shoes.
“Have a good day, Cinderella.”
How had he known I was thinking about Cinderella? I shut my chemistry book and went to close my notes for the class. Yes, dork would be the appropriate word. At the bottom of the page, I’d drawn a glass slipper.
I rounded the corner and smack, ran down Emily, a shy girl I’d met in my history class last year. She swayed back, her willow frame no match for my low center of gravity, the only good thing about being short.
“I’m so sorry. I was thinking about something else.” I reached out to steady her. She stepped back, flinching from my touch.
“No problem.” The moisture in her red eyes told a different story. Behind her, the door to the guidance counselor’s office remained open.
“You okay?” I asked, leaning closer. She looked skinnier than she had last year, too thin.
Ms. Barns stepped out of her office and folded her arms. “Lilly, don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”
“Yes, Ms. Barns.” I glanced back at Emily. “But seriously, let me know, okay?” I said before I hurried to my next class. I peeked behind me as I rounded the corner. Emily was going back into Ms. Barns’ office again. She looked worse than Caitlyn after she lost her brother. What had happened to Emily?
I turned away and spotted Jacob. My heart picked up a beat and I felt that sappy grin creep up again.
His eyes lit up as he spied me. “Hey, you ready for tomorrow morning?” He high-fived a few of his friends as he passed.
I nodded, unwilling to shout back. Not that I was ashamed to date Jacob, but, well, I still wasn’t completely sure I wouldn’t pinch myself in the next few minutes and realize I’d drifted off in history.
He waited for me to reach him before saying anything else. “Like hiking?” he asked as he fell in step beside me.
I don’t think I’d ever been hiking before or wanted to, for that matter. I was surrounded by mountains and would much rather read about someone hiking a mountain than do it myself. “Sure, sounds fun,” I said, hoping my smile looked natural.
“Cool. Pick you up at three? You wouldn’t believe what the sunrise looks like from the top of Timp.” He patted me on the shoulder and broke off to talk to a passing buddy.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t,” I said to the empty space at my side. My crush was steadily getting squashed beneath reality.
Chapter Three
What was that horrific sound waking me up at this awful hour of the morning? “It’s Saturday,” I moaned, hoping it would make the beeping stop. Whatever was beeping ignored me. I covered my head with the pillow and started to drift back to sleep.
Then the plinking on my bedroom window began. Probably just windy outside, I thought, rolling over.
The tree outside my window often scratched against it when a big storm rolled through town. It had never been quite this persistent before. It was starting to become more annoying than the beeping alarm.
Thumping on the window did manage to bring me fully awake.
“Who’s there?” I asked, searching for my phone to illuminate the room. Why hadn’t I changed the light bulb on my bedside lamp when it went out a few days ago? My phone wasn’t on my nightstand. It was across the room on my dresser, so I wouldn’t turn it off when it rang at two forty-five in the morning giving me enough time to get ready for my date.
Snap, I must have slept through my first alarm.
“Lilly, you ready? We’ve been waiting, but you never came out. I tried calling, but you didn’t answer,” Jacob whispered from his perch on the tree.
“Give me a minute.” I waved him away. A few seconds later, I heard a thump as his feet hit the ground.
Where did I put those hiking shoes that the salesman swore were amazing? For the price I paid, they should be able to hike the mountain for me. I laughed a little as I shut my bedroom door. Maybe I’d just throw the shoes out the window, and they could go see the awesome sunrise.
The word we sank in as I got in the passenger seat.
“Hey Cinderella, isn’t it past midnight?” Tyler asked from the backseat.
I glanced over at Jacob, who was flipping through radio stations faster than my younger brother Charlie flipped through TV channels when he had the remote control.
“I didn’t quite realize there would be other people,” I said, avoiding responding to the Cinderella comment this early in the morning. I shouldn’t be talking this early—I couldn’t be held accountable for what came out of my mouth.
“It’s so much more fun as a group,” Jacob said, flashing me a grin.
I managed to push up one side of my mouth in return. Somewhere out there, someone was laughing at this cosmic joke.
“I’ve wanted to do this for months, and Jacob was kind enough to offer. He’s done the trail several times,” Melissa said, giving me concrete proof that nothing good could ever happen this early in the morning. “Have you?”
“No.” I tried to make my voice sound cheerful as I glanced back with something closer to a smile. There was no justice in the world. Melissa looked as perky as ever, down to her perfectly applied eyeshadow. I don’t think I’d even brushed my hair before shoving it into a ponytail.
“You’ll love it!” she said before resting her head on Tyler’s shoulder. I met Tyler’s eyes, and I swear he winked. How was I supposed to take that? I faced forward and folded my arms. Maybe I could pretend to be sick. I wouldn’t be completely lying—I was feeling a
little sick right now. I shivered and wrapped my arms tightly around myself, wishing Jacob would turn up the heat.
.o0o.
“I need to rest,” I huffed while I sat, more like fell, against the nearest large rock. That was the upside of this hike—there were plenty of rocks to catch me, which was good because Jacob was too far ahead to do so. From my seat, the valley below almost looked majestic with the green tree leaves showing the first hint of fall. It would also look just as magnificent on my TV.
“Again?” Melissa folded her arms and glared at me.
I debated some snarky comment, but it sounded like too much effort. I wasn’t getting enough oxygen as it was.
“Why don’t you guys go ahead? I’ll stay back with the princess here and we’ll head down the mountain once she’s done holding up this rock,” said Tyler as sat down on one across from me.
Jacob looked back and I nodded because speaking took too much of the little energy I had left. He smiled and waved Melissa over. They were gone before I could ask Melissa to leave her spare water bottle, another item hikers are supposed to remember.
“New shoes?”
“Yep,”
“Blisters all over?”
“I think I have blisters growing on my blisters. Pretty soon they’ll have great-grandchildren blisters, and they’ll have to move up to my ankles.”
“Moleskin,” he said as he flipped his backpack around and unzipped one of the smaller compartments.
“I’m not planning to look until I’m home and can cry in peace.”
A Touch of Water (Touch of Magic Book 1) Page 1
