Landlocked (A water witch novel) (25 page)

“Are you sure you’re at Clarissa’s house?” she asked in a clipped tone.

“Yes…Why? Where else would I be?” The phone filled with the sound of her letting out a breath.

“Okay, well hurry home, and remember to call next time. I have to get off the phone and call Dylan. He’s out searching for you.”

“All right. I’ll be there in five minutes.” I hit the end call button and looked at the phone curiously. Where did she think I was? I sighed. At least they hadn’t called the cops.

“I can’t believe that you forgot to call Sylvia!” Clarissa said.

“I can’t believe you didn’t remind me, or call her yourself. I was a little busy,” I shot back, gesturing to the gown she was wearing.

“All right, I guess I’ll take the fall this time around… but I wonder if they will think your three hour absence is someone else’s doing.” She grinned and stole a glance at Jaron.

“What are you talking about…”

When she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, it dawned on me. Sylvia and Dylan thought I was… out with Jaron. I turned to him. He was trying to hide a devilish grin.

“You need to get me home before Dylan comes after you with a shotgun.” I walked to the door and paused. “You look amazing, Clarissa. I’ll see you tonight, if I’m alive.”

***

Jaron dropped me off at my house so that he could go home and change. I was going to a ball with the most gorgeous guy on the planet. I couldn’t wait to get into my dress. It couldn’t be as beautiful as I remembered. When I opened the door, my excitement was cut short. Sylvia and Dylan were standing in the entryway, dressed to kill. Literally. Dylan in his crisp tuxedo and Sylvia in her long black gown. Both looked like they were going to kill me.

“Where is he off to so fast?” Dylan asked, peering out the window as the red car disappeared down the driveway.

“He has to go get changed. He’ll be back.” I had more to say, but my mouth had gone dry under their heated stare. I walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water with them following behind me closely.

“So where have you been?” Sylvia asked.

“I told you on the phone,” I said.

“I know, but I can’t tell if you’re lying or not on the phone.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have anything to lie about. Clarissa’s mom was horrid and forced her to wear her old debutant dress from nineteen eighty-four. She asked me to help alter it so she wasn’t embarrassed, and she didn’t want you to know that her mom threw out the dress you got for her. That’s all.” I shrugged.

“Oh no, she didn’t really do that, did she?” Sylvia choked.

“Don’t worry. I turned that ugly mess into a great dress. What’s worse is, she fired Hailey.”

Sylvia frowned. “No, Hailey has been there since Clarissa was four…” She huffed. “What a terrible day.”

“I know, just pretend like you don’t know about any of it. Clarissa will be sad if she knows I told you, but since you are an apparent lie detector, and I didn’t want you thinking I was lying about my whereabouts for other reasons… I told you. Now I need to get dressed.” I turned to go upstairs.

“Hold up,” Dylan said quickly. “Where was Jaron during all of this?”

I smiled. “He was there with me. I think he must have sewn over a hundred rosettes for Clarissa’s dress.”

“Man.” He whistled.

“What?”

“He’s got it bad, poor guy,” he mumbled.

“Now, hurry upstairs and change, we're leaving in a few minutes,” Sylvia prodded.

“Jaron is coming back to pick me up…” Seeing Sylvia’s eyebrows pull together, I changed course. “If that’s all right with you. We will probably be a little late because of the whole dress fiasco.”

Sylvia looked like she wasn’t happy about the idea, but Dylan put an arm around her shoulders and tugged her toward the front door. “All right, don’t be too long behind us. We’ll go up and apologize for your tardiness.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you there, and don’t worry about… the other thing that you two are worried about. You know I just met Jaron. I’m not going to rush into anything… physical.” My stomach clenched and I searched for a time in my life that I had been more uncomfortable and came up empty handed. “Just know that if he gets too fresh, I’ll slap him,” I joked.

Sylvia paused by the door and cursed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m just wishing that I could turn my sixth sense off every now and again. Sometimes I find out truths that I don’t want to know,” she said before leaving through the open door.

I stood planted on the first step, clueless for only a second before understanding that my aunt thought I had lied. I hadn’t. She was crazy. I ran upstairs to change, telling myself along the way that Jaron was such a gentleman I’d never have the opportunity to see who was right.

13

I tapped my shoe against the tile of the entryway, sending loud clacks through the quiet, empty house. I had gotten dressed, put my hair in an updo that had curls cascading down, and even put on a little of Sylvia’s mascara and lip-gloss for the occasion. But Jaron still wasn’t there. I looked at the clock again and decided I had better start walking over to Clarissa’s place. Calling Sylvia up and telling her that Jaron was a no show was less appealing than the long walk. I was getting used to his strange absences and was sure he had some kind of reason for not coming. Slipping out of my stilettos quickly, I put on more sensible shoes for the walk. I killed another minute attaching a gold clutch to my bracelet and had to force myself out of the door before I waited all night for him.

The evening air was perfectly warm with only mild humidity. It would have been a pleasant walk if I hadn't been caring my heels in one hand and holding up the hem of my glamorous gown in the other. Although that didn’t upset me as much as the reason I was having to walk to the ball. I felt like such a fool.

The roads were oddly deserted for such an early hour, even my lame town had some traffic past seven thirty at night. I guessed that everyone must be at Clarissa’s ball; her mother had invited the entire town, after all. Just as I was about to turn a street corner, instinct told me to stop. I halted, the air felt warmer without the breeze on my face. I listened to the night and all was perfectly quiet. Shrugging off my butterflies, I went to move around the corner, but stilled as I heard hushed voices.

“What are you playing at, Jaron?” a throaty voice boomed.

Jaron? My skin prickled and I held back a scream. The voice terrified me, and the voice saying that name froze me to the spot.

“We give you a simple task in return for a great kindness on our part—” a second male voice, this one much higher, added.

“You don’t know what kindness is,” Jaron spat.

“Why must you be so difficult, boy? You know what will happen if you don’t do as we say… Do you think if you postpone it longer you’ll figure out how to get your tongue untied? Maybe you think that we won’t really pull the plug. But I assure you, we will.”

“So stop playing and do what we say,” the squeaky voice added.

“I won’t, I can’t. Listen, anything else. You name it, it’s done.”

I heard the thud of a first against skin and a groan.

“We don’t bargain,” the deep voice bellowed.

After another thud, I swallowed my fear and stepped around the corner.

There were two large men standing in front of Jaron, the larger of the two had him pinned against the wall of a building. They wore normal street clothes, t-shirts and jeans. The only thing remarkable about them was the tattoo that each of them had winding up their left arm. All three men were staring at me in horror. Jaron opened and closed his eyes, apparently wishing he could blink me out of the scene.

“What’s going on here?” I demanded in the strongest voice I could muster. I doubted I was that intimidating in a full-length evening gown and ballet flats.

“Maribel, run!” Jaron screamed before the man holding him threw an elbow in his face, dropping Jaron to his knees. He walked behind Jaron and pulled him up into a choke hold.

“No, I think she should stick around. Didn’t see us coming, she’s just right here ready for the picking,” the man with the deep voice said with a toothy grin.

“Don’t touch her!” Jaron warned.

“Or what?” the man asked squeezing his neck tighter.

“Or I’ll kill you,” he choked out.

They both laughed. “I guess we’ll see,” said the smaller man. Then, he took a step toward me, just one step, and suddenly the man holding Jaron was on fire. He leapt back, swatting at his flaming arms and crying.

“Help me, Derek!”

Derek narrowed his eyes and charged for me, his big brawny muscles bulged as he ran. Jaron was on his heels, and the man swung back, knocking him in the temple and he crumpled to the sidewalk. Derek’s eyes were crazed. I just wanted him gone. With a terrible screeching noise, the fire hydrant next to me tore from the ground. It flew through the air followed by thousands of gallons of water. I looked back at Derek, who had paused in his approach, and the water shooting into the sky took a ninety-degree turn, hitting him square in the chest. His feet went out from under him, and the water pushed him down the block. The second guy jumped into the water, putting out the flames licking up his arms, and he went running down the block after his friend. I looked back at the stream of water impossibly chasing the men down the block. It made no sense, broke all laws of physics.

“You’re doing that? Controlling the water?” Jaron whispered next to me. A trail of blood fell from his hairline.

“What? No. That’s impossible,” I said, putting a hand to his injury. “Are you okay?”

“Nothing’s impossible,” he murmured, bending over and picking up a bolt from the ground. It was from the fire hydrant. Some of the red paint was chipping away. He silently watched as the water went back to shooting straight up. “We need to get out of here, now,” he said, glancing down the block. The men had disappeared.

He dragged me across the street and threw me in his car; the top was down. Turning the key the engine purred to life, he popped it in gear and looked over at me. “You’re stunning, by the way,” he said before stomping on the gas pedal.

“So…” I prodded. “What was that about?”

He muffled a curse and glanced at me quickly before returning his eyes to the road.

“I can’t tell you.”

Suddenly it made sense. Coming back from lunch with bloodshot eyes and getting shaken down by a couple of thugs. “You’re on drugs, and somehow I’m hallucinating too,” I said, my heart hurting as I did.

His head bobbed back, like that was the last thing in the world he was expecting me to say. “No, not even close.”

“Don’t lie to me. I’m so sick of you lying to me! What did I just see?” I screamed.

He pulled the car to the side of the road. We were a few miles out of town. I hadn’t realized how fast we were going, but he'd obviously gone way over the speed limit to get there so quickly.

“Maribel,” he said turning to me. “This has nothing to do with drugs. I’ve never done them, never even thought about it.”

“Then what is this about?” I asked, searching his eyes in vain for the answer.

“I can’t tell you everything. I want to. Believe me, I want to. But…” He huffed. “This is hard, okay. You and me, we are some kind of special people—This sounds ridiculous,” he mumbled, hanging his head. “What you did back there with the water, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t do anything with the water, Jaron, it just happened.”

“Yeah that’s what I thought the first time something happened to me. But forget that, drop the whole telling yourself that it isn’t possible. I saw the way you looked at him. You may not have meant to, but you did. What were you thinking right before it happened?” He leaned across the car and grabbing my hand.