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Authors: V.B. Marlowe

A Girl Called Dust

BOOK: A Girl Called Dust
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A Girl Called Dust

 

(Book One of the Dust
Trilogy)

 

V.B. Marlowe

 

 

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This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used factiously.

 

Copyright
© 2016 by V.B. Marlowe. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be
copied or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Printed in the United States of America.

 

 

Cover
design by: Rebecca Frank Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Girl Called Dust

(Book One of the Dust Trilogy)

 

V.B. Marlowe

 

 

 

 

 

Part One

 

 

Fletcher Whitelock

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

One Year Ago—Last Summer

 

I knew Fletcher Whitelock was a mystery to
be solved the day he got whacked by a city bus.

 
 Manor Street was never busy in the late morning, so I made myself
comfortable on the bench in front of the old book store. The only places around
were other out-of-business stores with boarded-up doors and windows. The
solitude made the perfect atmosphere for journal writing. The moment couldn’t
have been better. The scent of pine wafted from the woods, and a rare summer
breeze blew through my ebony hair. Almost tempted to pull my long tresses back
into a ponytail, I decided to let them flutter against my neck and shoulders.
I’d just opened the new bag of trail mix I had picked up from the gas station
and placed it beside me on the bench. The empty street was the prime place for
me to get some of my many thoughts down on paper. With a therapy session coming
up that following week, I wanted to give Dr. Scarlett something interesting to
read.

I’d jotted down three words when Fletcher,
pale and messy haired as usual, sprinted out of the woods at the same time the
number 91 bus came rumbling down the deserted road. The sign over the bus’s
dashboard read OFF DUTY.

I watched, waiting for Fletcher to stop,
but he kept running, and the bus hurtled forward.

As soon as Fletcher stepped into the road,
he and the bus collided. He flew like a wet towel that had been tossed to the
side and landed a good ten feet away. The bus came to a screeching stop as I
leapt to my feet, dropping my journal and sending trail mix all over the
sidewalk.

My heart throbbed swiftly as if trying to
keep up with my rapid breathing. Fletcher lay crumpled in the street, and the
bus sat still. The world fell deathly quiet.

Whoosh.

The doors on the other side of the bus
slid open, and the tubby driver hobbled out in his untucked uniform shirt
marred with armpit stains. Standing in front of the bus, he grabbed his gray
curls, gaping at Fletcher. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh
shit
!”

My body wouldn’t allow me to move or reach
for my cell phone like I should have been doing. What I had just witnessed was
nothing like the bus scene from the movie
Final Destination.
That had
been pretend for entertainment. Fletcher was a real person and this was real
life.

I stood there paralyzed, hoping I had
imagined the whole thing, but then Fletcher jumped up, twisted his head from
side to side, dusted himself off, and limped off into the woods.

The bus driver and I locked eyes for what
seemed like forever. Blinking. Staring. Breathing. That was all I could do.
Finally, the driver cursed again, climbed back into the bus, and drove off,
leaving the smell of exhaust to linger in the air.

It wasn’t until the bus was out of sight
that I could move again. I dug my phone out of the pocket of my dress. As I
dialed 9-1-1, I ran into the woods where Fletcher had gone. He must have been
experiencing some kind of delayed reaction. I’d seen that happen when my father
had hit a dog in the road years before. It wasn’t Dad’s fault. The dog had come
out of nowhere, not giving Dad enough time to stop. He hit it, but the dog got
right back on its feet and ran off. Dad pulled over, and we went to find it so
I would stop crying. We’d discovered it dead in the alley behind the local
dance studio. I just knew Fletcher had run off into the woods and died. I mean,
who could survive getting hit by a bus like that?

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
the dispatcher asked.

“I-I, this is Arden Moss. I’m calling
because I just saw a boy, Fletcher Whitelock, get hit by a bus.”

“Is he breathing?”

“I don’t know.” I tiptoed through the high
grass, looking for Fletcher but not wanting to find him. What would it be like
to see a dead body? “He got right back up and ran away. I don’t see him.”

I told the dispatcher where I was calling
from, and she told me to stay put and that help was on the way. Back at the
bench, I collected my journal and pen. I didn’t bother with the wasted trail
mix. Birds and other foraging creatures would take care of it.

Word traveled fast in a small town like
Everson Woods. Once the police and ambulance arrived, it only took moments for
a small group of rubberneckers to gather. The paramedics and several officers
had gone into the woods to search. Hopefully they would have better luck
finding Fletcher than I’d had.

“Do you know the person who got hit?” an
officer asked from where we stood at the edge of the woods.

“Yeah, the new kid. Fletcher Whitelock.”
Fletcher and his family had only moved to town a few months before. I gave them
the bus number and a description of the driver.

I told the police several times what I had
seen, but they acted as if they didn’t believe me. I guessed without a bus or a
body, it was a hard story to sell, so I couldn’t blame them. At least they had
noticed skid marks on the road.

Officer Putney drove me to the police
station, where he took my statement. He gave me lemon sandwich cookies that I
hated and canned ice tea that was much too sweet, but I ate and drank to be
polite. I munched on the snacks while the officer stared me down with
inquisitive brown eyes. Trying to focus on his questions instead of the unruly
halo of auburn hair that circled his bald spot was quite a task.

A younger officer stuck his head in. “A
word, sir?”

Officer Putney nodded and gave me a small
smile. “Be right back.”

I looked around the office, making a
mental list.

 A pen could pierce my throat.

The ceiling could collapse.

Shards of glass from the television
exploding could slice my jugular.

 I could be impaled by the flagpole
sitting in the corner.

I didn’t know how or why, but anytime I
entered a room I ran through every possible way I could die in that very place.
I couldn’t stop the thoughts no matter how hard I tried. That was the main
reason I had to see Dr. Scarlett every other week.

Officer Putney came back and settled into
his desk chair. He looked me up and down for a moment before speaking. “You say
it was Fletcher Whitelock you saw get hit by a bus?”

“Yeah. Did they find him? Is he alive?” I
didn’t know Fletcher at all, but I didn’t want him to be dead.

Putney cleared his throat and leaned
forward. “Ms. Moss, we sent officers to Fletcher’s house. He’s fine. There’s
not a scratch on him. More importantly, he says he wasn’t hit by a bus.”

The officer’s words stunned me into
silence. How could that be? Was I crazy? Maybe, but I saw what I saw. Hadn’t I?

“Ms. Moss, is this your idea of a joke?
Using our time and resources—” 

“No! I’m not playing around. I saw that
kid get hit by a bus. I saw him get right back up a minute later and run off. I
swear. Ask the bus driver.”

Putney frowned and folded his hands in
front of him. “We talked to Gus Chavez. He was the one driving the bus, and he
says nothing happened today out of the ordinary, including him hitting someone.
I don’t know what you got out of this, but it can’t happen again. We could
press criminal charges, but since you seem to be a good kid and haven’t been in
trouble before, we’re going to let you go with a warning.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was in trouble?
Fletcher had run into the street without looking. Gus had hit him and then
drove off, not even checking to see if he was okay, but I was in trouble?

I opened my mouth to argue, but Putney
held his hands up. “Your mother’s on the way to pick you up.”

That was probably worse than any other
undeserved punishment he could have given me. My mother had been disappointed
with me since birth, and having to pick me up from the police station wasn’t
going to help. It would be another topic to discuss with Scarlett and another
reason for my family to treat me like a science experiment gone wrong.

I waited in the lobby while my mom spoke
with Officer Putney in his office, and I spent the whole time wondering what
they were saying about me. Probably that I was crazy and looking for attention,
but neither was true. The last thing I wanted was attention. I was perfectly
fine with blending into the scenery. I wasn’t crazy either. Just a little
weird.

Fifteen minutes later, Mom stormed out of
Putney’s office red faced, with her blond hair whipping behind her. She didn’t
even look at me as she rushed past. The only thing worse than Mom’s
disappointed look was when she wouldn’t look at me at all. I had to run to keep
up with her, afraid she might leave me at the station.

By the time I made it to the car, Mom was
already climbing in. I opened the passenger door and slid in beside her. “Mom .
. .”

She raised a freshly manicured hand. Mom
had a standing Saturday-morning appointment at the nail salon. From looks of
her other hand, which only had two polished nails, I knew her appointment had
been interrupted. Nothing was more important to Mom than looking perfect, so
she was probably going to murder me when we got home. “Arden, don’t even,” she
said through gritted teeth. “Do you have any idea what it does to a mother’s
heart to get a call from the police about her daughter? I thought you were hurt
or dead.” She was probably hoping for it then.

I was about to plead my case when Gus, the
bus driver, ambled out of the police station’s glass doors.

“Mom, please wait one second.” Before she
could protest, I hopped out of the car and followed Gus. My mom would actually
pull off and leave me, but that was a risk I was willing to take.

 Gus fumbled with his keys, trying to
unlock the door of his pickup truck, when I reached him.

“Hey, Gus?”

He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Please go
away.” Why wouldn’t anyone let me get out a sentence?

Obviously he didn’t want to hear anything
I had to say, but I kept talking anyway. “Why did you tell them nothing
happened? We both saw what happened.”

Gus looked around us and then back at me.
“Listen, I got a family to take care of and two more years until retirement. I
can’t lose my job. Just drop it, please. I don’t know how, but that kid’s
perfectly fine, so no harm done. Just let it go.”

I watched him climb into his pickup. His
answer was good enough for me. Getting Gus in trouble wasn’t my goal. I just
needed to know that I wasn’t crazy and that what I’d seen had really happened.

But how? How does a person get hit by a
bus and remain uninjured?
There wasn’t a scratch on him
. Mom blasted her
horn, and I couldn’t think about that anymore. I had to come up with a
reasonable explanation for that whole strange morning before my parents signed
me over to a mental institution.

 

Three days later, I bumped into Fletcher
shopping at Gerdy’s Goods, the store five blocks from my house that sold a
little of everything. The trip to Gerdy’s was my first time out of the house
since the bus incident. My parents had grounded me for being a liar and a
nuisance to our local law enforcement, who had better things to do than to
follow up on accidents that had never really happened. School would be starting
in a month, and I wanted to pick up some suntan lotion so I could enjoy every
remaining moment soaking up the summer rays.

A man held the door open for me. I stepped
inside prepared for the grim barrage of thoughts that would inevitably flood my
mind.

A car could careen through the plate-glass
windows and slam into me.

The freezer that holds the popsicles could
explode.

The tall shelf that holds those stone
statues people put in their gardens could tip over, burying me underneath the
heavy figurines.

The canoe Gerdy has hanging from the
ceiling for some reason could fall and smash me.

So many ways to die in Gerdy’s.

 I was reading the labels of two
bottles of suntan lotion, trying to decide which I should get, when I saw him.
Fletcher walked around with a small basket packed with odds and ends. He
stopped in the freezer section, staring at the ice cream sandwiches for a long
time.

Fletcher was strange. When he’d first
moved to Everson Woods, he was all anyone could talk about, mostly because of
his looks. He was pale, with copper hair that hung over his right eye and pink
pouty lips that women paid money for. But once people realized that he talked
funny—flat and monotone—and did things that made no sense, like staring at ice
cream sandwiches, no one wanted anything to do with him.

Once Fletcher lost interest in the frozen
desserts, he walked toward the register. I stepped in front of him, blocking
his path.

“Hey, what happened the other day?”

He frowned, his bushy eyebrows scrunching
together. “What?”

“What happened the other day?”

BOOK: A Girl Called Dust
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