Bluedawn (A Watermagic Novel, #2) (4 page)

Dad went to the closet and brought his tool
box over. After he found the right size screw driver, he managed to
loosen the hinges and open it up, releasing me from its needling
clutches.

I bit my cheek, trying not to cry.

“The cuts aren’t too deep,” Mom panted. “I
think she’ll be okay with some stitches.”

Dad sighed. “We better get you to the
emergency room, Hailey.”

Nervously, Mom wrapped a blanket around me
and they helped me to the car. Mom sat in the back with me as Dad
drove. Now that I was with my parents, I felt soothed. The wounds
were painful, but manageable. I could deal with that. Mostly, I
just felt this terrible guilt for treating the boy who saved me
twice so outrageously.

I explained everything to my parents about
what happened to me tonight in the forest. How a wild animal
brushed against me. How the guy carried me to safety even when I
was kicking and hitting him. Then I told them about the rainy
evening in town years ago when he saved me from being hit by a
car.

Dad looked sympathetic, but Mom still didn’t
like him and forbid me to ever go near him. She didn’t even want me
to thank him. If anything, she owed him an apology as much as I did
and certainly she should show him some gratitude, but she disagreed
entirely. I couldn’t believe how irrational she was. She wouldn’t
even discuss it.

I was pouting by the time we got to the
hospital. I didn’t understand Mom sometimes. But we didn’t have to
wait long in the emergency room. And the chaotic setting redirected
my thoughts. The doctor stitched up all the gashes. He said I
should stay off my feet and elevate my legs as much as possible for
a few days.

My parents rented a wheel chair for me.
“Don’t worry, Hailes,” Dad said. “We’re still going to have a great
vacation.”

“We will simply wheel you around,” Mom
whispered.

I felt bad. All I wanted was to give them a
good anniversary and now I was ruining it.

***

As I flipped the last burger on the barbeque,
I looked over at Mom and Dad chatting at the picnic table in our
campsite. Two love birds. Today was their anniversary. It was hard
to believe after twenty years of marriage, they were still in love.
Even the sky was their friend on this special day. It caressed
their arms in pink light as the sun set brilliantly on the Pacific
Ocean below our campsite.

For the past few days Mom and Dad wheeled me
around from shop to shop in the touristy areas of Carlsbad. We
didn’t spend so much money because we were on a budget, but Mom had
her hair styled and bought a new dress. Dad purchased some cigars
and aged wine. We even had ice cream on the boardwalk a few times
and tried out some of the local diners.

The doctor was correct—my ankle was basically
healed by the third day which was a relief to everyone because that
meant we could engage in Mom’s and my favorite activity—swimming.
Today, we spent much of the day in the ocean and lounging on the
beach. I didn’t fumble that up too badly. Whenever we were in the
water, everything went smoothly, but once on land, I created a few
mishaps.

The first thing that went wrong was when we
were laying out on a picnic blanket on the sand while Mom played
her antique guitar. Stupid me—I got up to get a soda from the ice
chest and fell on the instrument, breaking it right in half. Mom
went crazy for a minute yelling at the heavens. Telling me how the
well-crafted thing was over three hundred years old and had been
passed down to her through her dear family.

Okay, so that was a pretty big bummer.

The second thing that went wrong was when Dad
told me to order takeout to be delivered to us on the beach. He
said to spend no more than sixty dollars. But when I was placing
the order on my cell phone, I happened to notice the dark haired
boy surfing with his friends out in the ocean.

They were there and when I looked back they
were gone. That was the third time I had seen him since he rescued
me in the forest. The other two times that I had noticed him were
both in front of the mini-market where he seemed to hang around a
lot. But Dad just drove past and I couldn’t say anything to
him.

I got distracted from my phone conversation
as I looked around for the boy in the ocean and I must have
misunderstood the Chinese guy with the thick accent who was taking
my takeout order. It sounded like he said ten platters of sushi
were fifty dollars. That seemed like a super deal, so I jumped on
it. But when the food arrived, he insisted it was fifty dollars
per
platter. That meant Dad had to pay 500 bucks for all the
food!

Oops! I couldn’t believe my stupid
mistake.

Dad was not too happy about that. Even Mom
couldn’t polish off all the fish and seaweed. We had to stuff the
motorhome refrigerator and give the rest to people on the
beach.

And the third, and probably the worst, mishap
occurred when I tried to light the barbeque using Mom’s aerosol
hairspray and by accident created a huge flame that caught her long
golden hair on fire. I nearly died from shock. Miraculously, after
dropping to the ground and rolling, she didn’t get hurt, but after
her golden locks were much shorter and blacker on the ends.

To my surprise, I think Mom was more worried
about me and my anxiety attack than her beautiful curls that I
destroyed. She insisted that her hair grows extremely fast and that
it would be back to normal in no time. Really, I couldn’t
understand her positive attitude on that one. Her hair was her
trademark and I burned it off and nearly killed her in the
process.

Dad wasn’t so forgiving. He yelled at me for
about a half hour on fire safety and said as punishment, he was
going to make me volunteer for the fire department after school and
on weekends for the next year. He even called his friend, James,
who was a firefighter and set it all up over the phone.

But other than those problems, most
everything else went well.

Mom got up now as I sat down with the last
burger. “I’m uncomfortable leaving you here alone, Hailey.” She
looked slightly nervous. I didn’t think I could ever get used to
her over protective nature that manifested from time to time. Dad
and I had been working on her—trying to get her to lighten up.

“Of course I’ll be fine.” I tried to move my
brown stringy hair away from my food as I bit down on the sesame
seed bun.

My dad wiped his mouth and stood up too.
“She’s almost eighteen, already starting her senior year.”

Mom laughed uncomfortably. “I know I’m being
silly. It’s just those teenage boys that were reported missing from
around here that we saw on the television flash at that diner. They
were last sighted on a nearby beach.” She brushed some feathers
that had fallen onto the table to the ground.

“You’re just going to a play,” I said in
feigned annoyance with my mouth full. “It’s not like you’re leaving
me here all night. And if you worry about every little news report,
you’ll go crazy.”

“You should have bought three tickets,” Mom
criticized me.

I smirked at her ridiculousness. “I don’t
want to see a stupid musical at the Starlight Opera.”

“She’s not into that sort of thing.” Dad
tucked his dress shirt deeper into the waist of his slacks. “You
can’t make teenagers do anything,” he chuckled.

“I just have this anxious feeling in my gut,
like I’m losing my baby girl.”

“That’s called growing up,” he said
teasingly. “Next year you’ll have empty nest syndrome when Hailey
goes off to college.”

I got the car keys out of my purse and tossed
them to Dad.

“I don’t feel right leaving you here without
a car.” She crossed her arms over her chest. I was surprised how
nervous she looked, even more uneasy than normal.

“It’s no big deal, Mom.” My voice lifted as I
spoke. “I’ll just drive the motorhome if there’s an emergency.”

She laughed at that. “You better not, young
lady. Even I can’t drive that huge thing.”

“It’s easy,” Dad chuckled again. “Just drive
over all the tents and try not to kill anyone unless you don’t like
them.”

“Very funny,” I said sarcastically.

The wind blew Mom’s scarf off her tinged hair
and as she grabbed it up off the ground, I thought I heard
whispering in the trees.

“What did you say?” she asked me as she stood
up.

I shook my head slightly. “Nothing.”

She looked at Dad and then back at me. “Don’t
leave the motorhome, Hailey, whatever you do. I forbid you to take
one step out of it.”

I frowned.

“I’m serious,” she insisted.

“Come on,” Dad said as he led her to the car.
“Don’t get paranoid on us. I have a surprise for you on the front
seat.”

Her eyes lit up uncontrollably—she loved
gifts. “Oooh, what is it?” She couldn’t help but rush to open the
car door and pick up the box. “And I’m not paranoid,” she insisted
looking over at us.

“Go ahead—open it,” he mumbled as he shook
his head with a grin on his face.

She opened the silver jewelry box and lifted
up a diamond bracelet. “This is beautiful, Jim.”

“So pretty, Dad,” I said as I walked over to
take a better look.

Dad fastened it around her wrist.

I rolled my eyes when she hugged and kissed
him. “Okay, love birds. Don’t be late.”

They got in the car and pulled out of the
campsite. Mom stared at me from through the window and held her
hand up against the glass. That image stayed in my mind for a long
time thereafter.

The campsite was quiet without them there.
And as I looked out past the craggy rock hill, toward the horizon,
I couldn’t really see clearly. The sky was greying now. It sort of
blended into ocean. And it became difficult to discern between the
two natural forces.

I picked up the paper plates that had blown
to the ground and put them in the metal trashcans. It didn’t feel
right being alone. In the distance, I could hear girls talking, but
I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The sounds came through the
trees, probably from a nearby campsite.

After a minute, I went inside the motorhome
and took a shower in the cramped stall. The water felt good on my
naked body, but the little space was steaming up. I stretched up on
my tippy toes and cranked the overhead window open. That was
better.

The jasmine scented shampoo lathered up
nicely in my hair. But as I was rinsing, trying to keep the soap
out of my eyes, I thought I heard what sounded like a scratching
sound above. I turned off the shower for a moment and listened. It
sounded like some kind of animal was walking on the roof. Its claws
dragged for a moment and then stopped.

My eyes burned. I tried to wipe the lather
out of them, but it was useless. Then I froze and just waited to
see if the movement returned, but it didn’t.

I turned back on the shower and rinsed.

It was quiet now so I figured I had just
heard a squirrel moving around and had imagined more. I could have
sworn the footsteps sounded much heavier than a little rodent. But
what else could have been up there?

There was no point sitting around in the
motorhome scaring myself to death with each noise. I decided I
should get out and walk around. Now that my parents were gone, I
wanted to find that dark haired boy and thank him for saving me. I
knew my mother and father would kill me if they found out, but they
didn’t have to know.

CHAPTER FOUR

If music be the food of
love, play on.
–William
Shakespeare

With that decision, I slipped on my bathing
suit in exchange for panties because all of my undergarments needed
laundering. And then I pulled some shorts over and buckled my
sandals. I rarely wore makeup, so I just combed through my hair and
left it to air dry.

When I got outside, it was already dark. The
clouds were thick in the sky blocking out the stars. The night was
eerily quiet aside from the insect sounds, mostly crickets
chirping, and the light breeze rustling the leaves of the many
trees.

I had no idea where to find the dark haired
boy or his friends. If they had a campsite, I didn’t know where it
was. The times that I had seen him had been in front of the market,
in the forest, and in the ocean. When I saw him in the water
surfing, it looked like he was with a different set of friends than
the ones I had seen him with previously. Maybe he wasn’t a camper.
Alternatively, he could live nearby and simply frequent the
grounds.

Perhaps, if I just explored the area and the
beach below, I might run into him. First, I wanted to get some gum
at the mini-market though. He was often hanging around there. Maybe
I’d get lucky and run into him.

I walked along the dirt path with my
flashlight in hand. The campground was mostly empty, but I saw a
man rocking on a hammock that he tied to some trees beside his
tent. This was the first time that I had seen him at his site.
Since we had been here, his stuff had been there, but he was always
out. His big dog ran over to me and jumped on my stomach.

Most people would have been scared of its
enormity, but I liked animals. It looked like a wolf. I ran my hand
across its sleek coat.

“Spike,” the man called out in his gravelly
voice, but the dog stayed with me. “Sorry about that, honey. Part
wolf and out of control. He rolled out of his hammock and pulled
the dog away by the collar.

“No problem,” I yelled out to him as he
headed back to his campsite. “I like dogs.”

“Wolves,” he hollered back roughly. “Thought
I had him tied up.” He clipped a rope that was knotted to the tree
to his collar. “Surprised he didn’t tear you to pieces,” he
chuckled.

“I guess wolves love me as much as dogs,” I
mumbled as I moved onward.

The park ranger station was dark. It looked
like Ranger Mike was out, but the mini-market was open. Even though
I wanted to thank the dark haired boy for rescuing me, I was kind
of relieved when I didn’t see him hanging out front in his usual
spot. I couldn’t help but remember how he had beat up his
friend.