Chapter 1
I think I killed a man today. That’s all that I could think about, during work at my journalism job, and helping Moto with his new house.
Moto Apollo, my friend since diapers, had moved lately. A new house right on the side of the beach, three neighborhoods away from me. We had always loved the beach. The water.
“Hey Nat…Earth to Natalie!”
I looked up, dazed. I had gone into a trance again. I was at Moto’s house now, putting up decorations in the kitchen. I had been holding the glue gun, the hot nozzle pointed upward, so that the scalding glue oozed down the side of it onto my skin.
“Ow! Dammit,” I hissed. I quickly shoved the side of my hand into my mouth and gently sucked on it.
“What’s wrong with you,” Moto asked. He had come into the kitchen and was looking at the work I had done. “Seriously, Nat, did something happen?”
I shook my head, no, then slowly began to nod yes.
“Well what is it?” he squealed.
“I think I killed a man,” I began. Moto let out a small snort followed by a laugh.
“I’m serious,” I snapped. “Today when I was interviewing this one guy about his wife, who was recently murdered, he kept complaining about her. How she wasn’t good enough for him anyway. I made him go down the guilt road. He seemed really depressed…” I trailed off.
“Nat, don’t do this,” Moto said. “Remember we’re going to get new lives soon.”
I nodded. Moto was right. New lives were just around the corner. Moto, who had been fired from his job all of two weeks ago, was looking for a new one. As was I. Don’t get me wrong, I love to write…I just hate my employer. The bastard.
“So you want to hear something really freaky?” I asked. I leaned in towards Moto, my voice’s volume lowering as well.
“Did you have another one of those dreams?” Moto asked. “The one with the-”
I cut him off with a wave of my hand. “Even better.”
“Really?” Moto seemed to be a little surprised.
“Yes,” I said. “I saw the spirit this time.”
Most people in my workplace would have shut me off and laughed at me, Moto was completely eating this up. But I swear it’s true. My mother had been a psychic medium, so she talked to grounded spirits all the time. She had told me once, that it was only a matter of time before I got to run the business physic abilities.
“So could you see through him and stuff?” Moto asked.
With a smirk I nodded vigorously.
“He was as clear as day,” I said. “I think he said his name was Freddy Cox.”
Moto nodded, an approving look on his face.
“Nat, I think you should take your mom’s offer and work with her,” Moto said. “I think you might have a real talent.”
I smiled, amused. I knew all too well Moto had been talking with my mother again. The way he said that I had “real talent” was something my mother would say. And the fact that Moto didn’t even know what he was calling talent.
“I’ll admit,” I told Moto. “I have put in some thought about becoming a psychic medium… It’s just I think-”
There was a sudden trill of knocking that interrupted me. Moto held up a finger and walked out of the room to answer the door.
The truth was, ever since I was three I could see the spirits everywhere. I just wasn’t interested with the family business. My mom had badgered me at every chance she got into persuading me into becoming a full-time medium. I had worked as an apprentice of my mother’s for thirteen years of my life, starting at age six. At age nineteen I started college. My apprenticeship ended there and I became a journalist for Barter’s Press. Four years later I moved out of the small college ground (after getting my degree of course) and into a small beach house.
“Hey Nat, guess who’s here,” I heard Moto say from the other room.
“I’d rather not,” I said.
The sound of footsteps got closer and Moto appeared in the doorway. Behind him stood a tall lean guy, slightly resembling a younger Brad Pitt crossed with Robert Downey Jr. with dark chocolate colored hair and a tan darker than both.
“Kael,” I shrieked excitedly. I flew out of my seat and flew into his open arms.
Kael had disappeared off the face of the Earth in the last couple months it seemed. Of course, anyone who was working for my mother never saw the light of day. She had you running off in some foreign country to collect ancient relics for her shop.
When I pulled back from Kael, Moto was eyeing me. It was the same look that he gave me when I spaced out: what’s wrong with you?
“So how was working with my mother?” I said. I was walking back to the kitchen table to continue my gluing project.
“Yeah Buddy,” Moto was saying, his arm slung around Kael’s shoulder. “How was Russia?”
Kael smiled, almost a smirk. Moto pulled his arm off his shoulder and watched as Kael came up to me. He then knelt down and took my hand. Both Moto and I raised an eyebrow.
“You know I love your mother, right Nat?” he said. I hated when people started a sentence with that. It usually means they’re going to call my mother out and complain. “Well, if she ever tells me to go back to Amman I think I’ll kill myself.”
I nodded shakily. “Why?” I asked.
Kael pulled back and stood up.
“Well,” he said. “I was almost killed anyway, I couldn’t read any signs, and I think I might have taken the wrong road to the Dead Sea and got the wrong soaps.”
“Mrs. Fletcher sent you all the way to Amman Jordan to get soaps?” Moto said smiling. “I’d hate to see where she sends you to find her paper towels.”
Kael and Moto laughed while I sat slumped in the chair, scowling irritably.
“Moto,” I said. “Put a sock in it. My mother’s a nut and always will be, so let’s just leave it at that.”
Moto put his hands up defensively.
“Easy killer, it was just a joke,” Kael said. “Oh, and your mom’s invited us all to dinner, so we’d better get a move on it.”
Moto licked his lips and dramatically leapt from the kitchen. Kael and I followed him out.
As Kael moved ahead to his car, Moto pulled me back to the front door. He was grinning, ear to ear.
“What?” I said. Moto just kept smiling for a moment then,
“I know what you were thinking when he knelt down in front of you,” he said. “You thought he was going to pop the question.”
“Moto,” I snapped. “We’re friends-”
“Doesn’t matter if you’re friends,” Moto snapped back. “You liiiiike him, you want to hoooooold him, you want to-”
“Are you guys coming or what?”
I turned away from Moto and saw Kael sitting in his jeep already pulled out of the driveway. I walked towards him, Moto behind me. As I crawled into the back, Kael turned around smiling. I noticed Moto had climbed in next to me.
“What’s a matter you guys?” he asked. “I’m not going to bite.”
“Nat wants to ride in front,” Moto said.
“No it’s alright,” I said. “I’m fine in the back.”
Kael gave me a skeptically look as he drove forward down the street.
~
The trees played limbo under Florida’s hot summer sun. Purple clouds, like acrylic brushstrokes, were scattered above the sky.
God how I loved Florida. I was one out of the lucky thousands to grow up in one of the U.S.’s hot spots.
“Hey Kael,” Moto said from the back seat. “Are we there yet?”
Moto and I snickered as Kael grimaced at us in the rearview mirror. Moto had been asking the same question for the past hour and a half.
“Hey Mo,” Kael said. “Give it a rest. Why don’t you listen to some music or somethi-“
“Led Zeppelin!” Moto screamed. He abruptly jumped forward switched the radio on, cranking the volume loud. The band’s loud screeching echoed across the town since everyone was stopped at a red light. They all turned their heads to look at us as Jimmy Page screamed the high notes.
“Walkin’ in the park just the other day, baby…” Moto sang.
Then Kael and Moto, “Whoa, oh, oh!”
A few cars honked their horns at us, but Moto just leaned forward again and slammed his fist on our own car’s horn.
As soon as the light turned green we all began to sing our favorite song:
“I didn’t noooo-tice but it had got very dark and I was really…Really out of my mii-ya-a-ind!”
For the longest time I had somewhat felt lonely, but with my two closest friends singing along to Misty Mountain with me, I felt like I was actually having a great time.
~
My mother lived all the way on the other side of Florida in St. Augustine. It would have naturally taken us four hours to get there from Siesta, but since Kael was such a good driver, getting us in and out of traffic quickly we managed to spare forty-five minutes and get at my mother’s at eight twenty.
My mother lived in the oldest part of St. Augustine where the tourists usually come. She lived in St. George’s Inn and worked there as a past time after working seven hours at her own shop.
The sun was balancing itself leisurely above the pier, taking its grand old time to sink beneath the waves of the Atlantic coast.
“So Nat what do you think your Ma’s going to serve us?” Moto asked, slamming the car door behind him. I jumped out after him and we waited for Kael to get his bag.
“Dunno Mo,” I said. “Why don’t you ask her when we get there?”
Moto just scowled at me and continued walking ahead.
“You need any help with those?” I asked Kael.
He had several suitcases packed under his arms.
“That would be nice,” he muttered. He watched me as I boldly took three bags from under his right arm and clutched them under my own.
“What?” I asked. I had noticed he was still watching me.
“Nothing,” he said. “So how was your day?”
We started walking to St. George Inn as I explained my theory of the man I might have killed.
“Well that’s quite-”
“Stupid- I know,” I interrupted.
“It’s not entirely your fault,” Kael said. “The guy sounded like a jackass anyway.”
I nodded. “Completely. If I knew any better, that guy probably got rid of her himself.”
Kael shrugged. We had excited the parking garage we had parked in and were now heading towards the cobble stoned archway. The salmon colored St. George Inn stood on the small town’s limits, bordering its outskirts.
“How’s Ma been?” I asked.
Kael looked at me in surprise. He was probably thinking what daughter was I to not have seen my mother. Well he was definitely right if that’s what he was thinking. It’s like I said before, the woman badgers me at every chance she gets into coaxing me back to the family business.
“Well she looks great,” He said. “And she talks about you all the time.”
I blushed a deep red. Thank God we had just walked past that street lamp.
“Does she now?” I said.
“Yeah, for example,” Kael said looking at me. “I know your middle name is Elizabeth-”
“Hey!”
Kael smirked.
“And I also know what you like to see in men.”
My mouth hung open in astonishment. I was going to kill that woman.
I guess Kael noticed how I was wringing the straps of one of his suitcases (I was envisioning something like my mother’s neck) and put his hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay Nat,” he said smugly. “You’ve told me worst things.”
I gave him a small punch in the ribs with my free hand.
We were walking down the middle of the town with the smell of the bakery and its homemade waffle cakes and cinnamon. We then took a left and walked up the old wooden stairs that lead up a couple floors to the top one. I knocked on the door and it opened up on its own.
“Hello?” I called.
“Come in, honey,” the sweet melodic voice of my mother called from the back. I stepped into the small bedroom which consisted of two queen sized beds, a TV, a tiny bathroom and two desks bordering the windows that overlooked the town.
“Hey Ma,” I said, dumping the bags by the front door.
Kael did the same and walked in behind me, looking around.
“I’m under the bed Sweets,” I heard my mother say. “Can one of you come over and help me outa’ here.”
Kael walked forward and lurched forward as he rounded the corner of the bed, falling to the ground with a soft thud on the carpet.
“Sorry Gillian,” he said picking himself up. He then semi dragged, semi lifted my mother out from under the bed, helping her up until she was standing on her own two feet.
“Thanks Hone,” My mother said, patting Kael’s cheek.
If you were to see my mother you would probably faint at the sight of her choice of wardrobe. In a way she looks like a gypsy. The billowing Indian style blouses, the twirling skirts, the clanking bangles and multi-color necklaces drooping off her thin neck. Her top layer of hair is her natural honey/straw color – much like mine- but the layer underneath that is a bright blue. In addition she likes to strings feathers and beads into some of the braids she has on the blue layer. Let’s face it. My mother looks like she just came out of the movie Woodstock.
“Are those my soaps?” Ma said, walking over to the pile of luggage.
“Nice to see you too Ma,” I said, my arms open.
My mother looked sheepishly over at me and shuffled over to give me a hug.
“How’s my girl?” she said, giving me a quick kiss on the forehead.
Kael numbly walked over to one of the beds and collapsed.
“She says she’s killed a man today,” Kael said, smirking at me.
“What!”
I quickly explained to my mother before she had a heart attack. By the end of my story she was laughing hard enough to have anyway. That’s how my mother was. She always looked at the world through rose colored glasses and always laughed the situation off.
“Hey Gillian,” Kael said. He was still on the bed, I was sitting next to him, and my mother sat on the bed facing us. “Where’s Moto? Did he come up here yet?”
Ma shrugged and got up.
“I think he was over at the bakery,” she said. “I swear that boy has at least two stomachs.”
I smiled and got up as well, heading towards the front door. Kael, who was following right behind me, stopped. I turned around to face him.
“Nat,” he said taking out his wallet. “I’ll go get our rooms while you find Mo.”
“Sure,” I said.
Kael took out a small amount of cash. I added to it, quickly pulling out my own wallet from my back pocket. He then left the room with a small wave and closed the door.
I instantly went to the bathroom to fix my hair. For the past twenty minutes a strand of my hair had been tickling my nose. I tasseled it for a moment. Nope. I then ran my fingers through it. My hair reached to the small of my back.
“It doesn’t matter what you do,” My mother said, coming in.
“What?” I said, still trying to get the stranded hair back in place. Ma walked over then and tucked my bangs that covered half my face behind my ear.
“Doesn’t matter what you do,” she said again. “Because you’ll always be beautiful.”
I turned to look at her skeptically, but she just smiled at me, lovingly.
“I gotta’ go find-”
“Do you like him?” my mother interrupted.
I ignored her and walked out of the bathroom then out of the front door. I knew who she was talking about, and I knew where she was getting at.
“We’ll be back for dinner,” I shouted up the stairwell. The door closed and I bounded down stairs.
As I walked down the remainder of the stairs it got cold. I don’t mean a little chilly, but an eerie cast of cold set over me.
“Oh great,” I muttered. I really didn’t feel like talking right now. This is just what I need.
“Natalie,”
I turned to the source of the hollow, raspy voice. A man stood, looking ashen with hues of blue flowing off him.
“Hey Freddie,” I said nonchalantly.
Freddie was a ghost, a grounded spirit that wondered St. Augustine. He was the one I dreamt of, because all of two reasons. One: he was my mother’s fiancé, and two: he never fully grasped the idea that he was dead and still thought he was honeymooning with my mother.
