Mesmerized: Spellbound (Book One)
Read Mesmerized: Spellbound (Book One) Online
Authors: Trinity Night
Mesmerized:
Spellb
ound
(
Book One)
By
Trinity Night
Velvet Sky Publishing
***
Copyright © 2013 by Trinity Night
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief q
uotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Spellbound Series
Everyone told me not to backpack through Eastern Europe.
Maybe they were right. Maybe I shouldn't have gone. But maybe, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
It was my first summer out of college, and I had limited funds for the great expedition
— the European vacation that was supposed to teach me all about life. I would have traveled through Paris, London, and Athens, but my daily budget was a meager $35. I had to make it last.
My first splurge was three days in Venice. I landed early
in the morning on the fifteenth of June, totally jet lagged and exhausted from a 20 hour flight from Seattle. I staggered out of the plane, blurry-eyed and bedraggled, and glad that I was so tired I didn’t care how I looked. I wore the same gray sweat suit the entire journey and my body was so stiff and stinky that all I wanted was a long soak in a warm tub. Of course, if I were staying in an actual hotel, a bath would have been a no-brainer, but I could only budget for youth hostels, the entire way.
I
’d saved for this trip for months, begged, borrowed, and stole to get the ticket and the spending money to travel all summer. My parents, who are not poor by any stretch of the imagination, didn’t want me to stay all summer. They wanted me home for their big 4th of July blow-out on Mercer Island.
I
needed enough time to really learn about Europe and about myself. I wanted to know who Julia Donovan really was and what I was made of. They didn’t get it. I needed to see things; I needed to have experiences, feel the wind in my hair, the salt on my lips, feel exhilaration in my heart. If I went home for the 4th, I would only get two weeks of adventure— that wasn’t nearly enough.
Of course, if I only spent two weeks, my daily budget would have been much higher, and I would have stayed in relative luxury anywhere I wanted. But luxury wasn
’t the point, not the point at all. I had been completely sheltered my whole life. I even went to the University of Washington and lived with my parents until senior year. And I studied business, just like they wanted.
In my heart, I wanted to be an artist. My room was plastere
d with tens and hundreds of drawings and paintings. I’d even won a few small awards for my work. But, who can make a living as an artist, right? So I studied business, and they paid all my bills; I didn’t even have to work. It wasn’t until I finally insisted on getting a job, and moving in with some house-mates, that I finally left the nest.
They had plenty of ways of tightening the reins when they acted like they were being supportive. This
trip, for example: they loaned me just enough money to make it through until the 4th. I had an open-ended return ticket out of Venice and a tight-ass budget. I suppose they expected me to chicken out and get back on the plane when I ran out of money. But I wasn’t going to let that happen.
I bud
geted every second of my trip and found out exactly where I needed to travel to make it work until September. When I explained my plans, they just about went ape shit. They told me I was going to get kidnapped or raped or something equally heinous. I didn’t listen. It was time for this sheltered little bird to fly. If you never take a chance to live, what is the point in living?
I
trudged down the concourse, looking for Starbucks, not caring that I was in Italy and should try to find something authentic. Starbucks shone like a beacon of hope for lost travelers. I got a triple mocha latte with whipped creamy goodness. It was heaven in my mouth. That was another five bucks gone. Dang.
I went the luggage carousel and waited for m overstuffed backpa
ck to tumble down the chute. I’d tried to pack lightly: clothes, toiletries, various electronics, shoes. When I'd stuffed it as full as possible, my bed was still covered in half a dozen things I wanted to take with me. I had to make some sacrifices. I ended up with just the essentials, and as my bag circled toward me, standing in the foreign airport, I suddenly hoped I knew what the essentials actually were.
I lugged my backpack over my shoulder and walked out of the airport toward the bus termin
al. The day was warm and the sudden sunlight stung my eyes. At the terminal, I waited for a bus to take me to downtown Venice. When it finally arrived, I was in a jet lag-caffeine coma I hoped never to relive. I pulled my way onto the bus and collapsed in a big comfy seat next to a hot looking Italian guy with slicked-back, black hair and aviator sunglasses. He looked up from his Smart Phone and smiled. I suddenly remembered how gross and stinky I was, and wished I’d chosen to sit next to the elderly grandmother a few rows back. He tried to talk to me, but spoke only Italian. I smiled; my translator gadget was in my backpack, and I was too tired to dig it out to listen to digitized flirting.
The bus dropped me off right near the
youth hostel, and I walked the longest half a block of my life to enter the front lobby. The girl at the counter spoke perfect English, and I was really happy. Digging out my translator do-dad would have been nearly impossible for how tired I felt. She took my money for three days and directed me to a shared women-only room. I pulled out some clothes and a towel from my backpack, and locked it up in a footlockers under the bunk bed.
Down the hall was a big bathroom with a s
hower. I locked the door and peeled out of my sweaty, gross sweat suit and stepped into the streaming warm water. My long dark-blonde hair streamed wet down my back, over my slender-toned frame. I always kept fit. Exercise was a way to close down my brain while I compromised my dreams. I hoped to eat lots of meat and pasta and come home a size fatter. However, on my budget, that was highly doubtful.
After the much needed shower, I collapsed
on my bed and slept until the next morning. That was one day gone in Venice. I woke up, showered again, and changed into khaki capris, a black T-shirt and gray converse with pink laces. My inner heart was a rebel, but my outer shell was a staunch conformist. It came across in my nondescript-hipster fashion sense.
I dug through my backpack and pulled out my day pack and filled it with my travel sized
art supplies, my translator do-dad, camera, water, a power bar, wallet, cell phone, iPod, and sunscreen. I’m a Seattle girl; we rarely see the kind of sun that beams down on the Mediterranean. Even Northern Italy is freaking hot.
At the hostel
’s breakfast buffet, I scooped up some eggs, toast, bacon, and a cup of coffee. I’d need a lot more of that. Fortunately, the food was good, and filling. I wouldn’t have to find food again for most of the day.
Venice is one of those places where
you always dream about traveling, but when you actually get there, you realize that the whole place is an open sewer. It pretty much stunk.
I walked down the narrow streets around the canals looking for a gondola ride. It was on my list of to-do experiences before I left the
mass tourist destinations for the back allies of Europe. The gondola driver I found was handsome in that swarthy, dark Italian way. He smiled at me as I approached but regarded me strangely when I spoke English and hopped in the gondola by myself. Apparently, it wasn’t just my parents who disapproved of me traveling alone.
The ride was
beautiful— traveling past scenes that reminded me of a Shakespearian play. I took out my camera and clicked pictures to paint later, and then leaned back against the pillowed chair. This was something I wanted to remember forever, so I paid attention. A flock of pigeons flew up from behind The Palazzo Dario, and I imagined what it must have been like for Monet to paint it. I asked the gondola driver to drop me off on the opposite side of the canal, so I could paint it too. I hopped out and paid him. It wasn’t cheap.
I found a curb and took out my watercolors. The sky was hazy
yellow, and the water was a greenish gray that morning. Not exactly epic. But it was my chance to catch something real and true: my first real artistic experience in Europe. I sketched the outline of the buildings and canal in soft strokes with a watercolor pencil. I slowly built-up the colors revealing a lovely scene that I could keep forever. The light changed, and I looked at my cell phone. It was already late afternoon. Time flies!
I walked around the corner looking for a place to get some cheap food, not that it was likely in a tourist driven city like Venice. But I found a small
cafe that served slices of pizza. The scent of fresh melted mozzarella and basil made my mouth water. I was a little burned-out and buzzed from my focus on panting, the foreign surroundings, and the continuing jet lag. I sat in the cafe and ate the most delicious slice of pizza I’d ever had in my life.
The next several days in Venice passed much like the first. I a
te cheap food and visited museums and galleries. It was all really awe inspiring. I got to know some other travelers at the hostel, and we shared things like cab rides and looked out for each other's stuff. On my last day there, I traveled to one of the beaches and spent most of the day soaking up the sun, swimming, and painting the crystal blue Mediterranean waves. I even started getting tan.
Freaky!
On my last day in Venice, I checked out of the hostel and got on a train headed north to Munich. From there I would travel through Austria and Hung
ary with a final destination of Budapest. After Budapest, I planned to take busses and stay in hostels around the Black Sea for the rest of the summer.
I know it all sounds
crazy— a young American woman, traveling alone on a train to Budapest. But after a lifetime of always doing what I was told, I was ready to take risks.
The train was fully
equipped with food and sleeping cars. I didn’t have a private suit; I'd booked one of those bunk-beds in a common sleeping room. Most of the time I spent in the sitting car, reading and listening to indie bands on my iPod, or looking out the window at the ancient landscapes passing before me.
When we reached
Munich, the train stationed for several hours. It was raining hard in a dark, dismal night. I would have liked to get out and look around the city, but the weather wasn’t exactly welcoming.
Germany was gone by the time the
noon sun crested the sky. The train chugged through the Austrian Alps, down in a green valley, under the shadow of towering snow-capped peaks that disappeared into billowing clouds. When we stopped at the passing stations, I took pictures of the breathtaking views.
Mount Rainier was impressive, but nothing like this. We skirted Vienna and descended
into Hungarian farm land. The train pulled into Budapest in the early evening. I disembarked and found a cab to the hostel where I’d planned to spend a few days. When I got there, I checked in with a little help with my translator, and passed out in my bed.
When I woke, I showered and dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. The hostel was in
a post-war building, probably from around 1960, but it was in need of repair, and smelled like mold and piss. When I got to the buffet, I wished there was such a thing as an electronic food translator. Nothing looked familiar except bread, so I put random things on my plant. Some of it tasted good; some of it was, well, questionable.
I took my plate and sat down at a big round t
able with a group of travelers who seemed to be about my age. They all looked blurry-eyed and happy. I smiled as I sat down, and said “hi,” expecting none of them to understand me. To my surprise, everyone at the table greeted me with “hi’s” and “good-mornings”.
“
Where are you all from?” I asked, regarding the group of young men and women.
“
We’re from England, on vacation from school,” said a pudgy faced red-headed boy.
“
Are you American?” asked a girl with a hip, bleach-blonde hairstyle.
“
Yes. I just graduated.” I smiled, feeling relieved to talk with English-speaking peers.
“
Are you here alone?” asked a girl with long black hair and black glasses.
“
Yes?”
“
Oh, damn, look at the balls on her,” said a tall, lanky boy with locks of brown hair hanging around his eyes.
I brushed it off and introduced myself. The redheaded boy
’s name was Collin; the blonde girl was Sarah; the girl with black hair and glasses introduced herself as Kat, and the tall boy was Misha. They asked me if I wanted to join them for a day of sightseeing and swimming. They planned to go to this huge swimming pool compound called The Szechenyi Baths and spend the later-half of the day sunning and swimming. Then in the evening, they would stay for drinking and dancing.
“
I planned to go to the Museum of Fine Art, but I guess I can do that tomorrow,” I said. I wanted to spend time with other nonthreatening people. After almost a week in Europe, I was starting to feel lonely. We spent the early part of the day lounging around the hostel, checking our emails and surfing the Internet. I uploaded some of my travel photos onto Facebook, and my mom called me almost immediately. It must have been the middle of the night back there! Did she have my Facebook updates setting off an alarm or something?
“
Hi mom,” I said in a bored tone.
“
So you’re in Hungary already?” My mother sounded frantic.
“
Yeah, I told you I was going to stop in Budapest before hitting the Black Sea. This shouldn’t be a surprise.”
“
Honey, don’t you think you should go back to Italy now? Spend the rest of your trip there. Have some fun, eat some good food, then take the plane back before the 4th.”
“
No,” I said, “I told you my plans. Stop trying change them.”
She sighed and told me I was going to run out of money soon
; and when I did, she and dad would bail me out of whatever situation I’d gotten myself into. This is, if I came home. I told her it wouldn’t be necessary and hung up. I was so sick of them telling me what to do all the time. After I hung up, I was feeling daring and destructive. The British kids and I packed up our stuff for a day at the pool and got a cab.
When I got there, I was awestruck. The place must have been a hundred acres of pools and baths. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people were packed into the sprawling landscape of pools surrounded by stu
nning Neo-Baroque architecture. Sarah and Kat pulled me forward to a pool closer to the back, near the cafeteria in the shade. The boys followed and we all shimmied out of our clothes, stripping down to the bathing suits underneath.
I was wearing a white st
ring bikini with a gold border. Sarah and Kat both wore athletic style one pieces and looked at me like I was crazy. I had a better body than both of them. Not that they were out of shape or anything, but I’d spent a lot of my excess mental energy getting toned. What else can you do when you are compromising yourself left and right?
So
what if I was wearing a bikini? I was already traveling through Europe alone; it's not like the added effect of a swimsuit was going to tip the balance in the direction of danger. In fact, danger was what I was after that day. If some guy came to hit on me, I was going to take him to the bathroom and fuck him in the stall. The call from my mom clenched it; I was out for blood— lust to be more precise.
Unfortunately, non
e of the guys who came to flirt with me spoke a word of English. How was I going to propose a bathroom tryst through the language barrier? But the more I thought about it, the more I figured I was just a chicken. I’d never been the one-night-stand type, and try as I might, I probably wasn’t going to start today.
The day turned into night
, and I figured I got a pretty wicked tan that day. I was still looking for a hook up, but at about 10pm, I felt pretty exhausted and asked Sarah and Kat if they wanted to go back to the hostel. Kat and Collin and I, left Misha and Sarah at the pool disco and got a cab.
In the
morning, I asked my new friends if they wanted to tour the city’s museums with me, and they agreed to tag along. As a closet artist, museum walking is a big activity for me. I used to sneak down to SAM (Seattle Art Museum) on my days off from school, when my parents thought I was shopping. I’d walk the halls wishing I had the guts to put things straight with them. But I never did. I hoped this trip would change that.
My new friends weren
’t as keen on museums as I was, and got bored about half way through the first floor and wanted to go eat lunch. I suggested we go to the museum cafe because I wasn’t finished yet. So, we bought overpriced sandwiches and coffee and sat around a table, hung-over and hazy.
“
So Julia, we’re renting a van tomorrow and driving east to Odessa, Ukraine,” said Misha, “My uncle has a flat near the beach, and he said we can stay there for the rest of the summer. Do you want to come?”
“
Yeah, I mean, if there’s room in the van. I was planning to take a bus down through Romania to the coast, but I’d love to tag along.”
“
You can spend the rest of the summer with us,” said Sarah, “We don’t want you getting kidnapped or sold into slavery or anything.”
“
I’m fine, but I’d still like to come with you.”
After we finished our food, everyone but Kat decided to leave. Kat and I walked the rest of the museum, while I took snapshots of the artwork. It was one of those moments when I felt full and at peace, like something was happen
ing to me, and I didn’t have to worry that I was wasting my life. We explored the ancient artifacts, and perused the modern artworks. After I’d seen everything, we went back the hostel and started to pack.
In the morning, Misha pulled up to the hostel wit
h a large van, and we all packed inside. It was a sixteen-hour drive, and everyone but me would be driving in shifts, since I didn’t have an International driver’s license. Most of the time I sketched images I saw out the window or from the photographs in my camera.
After
a while, I started feeling car sick. The highways of Eastern Europe aren’t as well maintained as the ones in the US. It was a bumpy and dusty ride. The scenery outside was strange and new and filled my heart with a longing to know, and to be known. Most of the way was flat farmland dotted with small structures that looked like they belonged in the middle ages.
We reached Odessa in the middle of a dark, hot night, and bunked in the Misha
’s uncle’s flat in the city. In the morning, there was a ruckus of loud Russian and Misha informed us we would have to find other accommodations. It took us all afternoon sitting in the van in the hot sun, but Misha finally found us a weekly rental by the sea. If we all chipped in, we could afford to live there most of the summer if we ate on the cheap.