Mother of Darkwaters: Book one of the Vessel series (66 page)

   Martha smiles from across the room. She turns as the padded door opens up. Frank and Dr. Shelby walk into the room.

   “I’ve signed her release forms,” Frank quietly announces.

   “A clean bill of health,” Dr. Shelby says while smiling at the eager teenager. 

   “No more suicidal thoughts?”

   “I’m done with all of that. Life’s too short as it is.”

   “I believe you,” Dr. Shelby speaks encouragement.

   “You should. You’ve drilled me for two weeks like a whore on opening day.”

   “Julia! Don’t speak to people like that. It’s disgusting and vulgar.”

   “It’s quite alright. We have come to an understanding with such things. Expression is good. Holding back leads to bad things.”

   “Yeah grams, it’s therapeutic. See?”

   Martha lifts her red brows slightly, “So is a mouthful of lye soap.”

   “You wouldn’t.”

   “She would,” Frank answers for his wife, “And I’ll hold you down while she does it. How’s that for therapy?”

   “Uh - that’s not fair. You guys are interfering with my recovery.”

   “Frank, honey,” Martha speaks with a loving tone, “Could you please tear up those release papers for me?”

   “Wait!” Julianna panics, “You win. No more filthy mouth. Promise.”

   “I’ll hold you to it,” Martha warns.

   “Done,” Julianna agrees, “Just get me out of here.”

   “I believe we’re ready, doctor,” Martha says with a hinting tone of victory.

   Dr. Shelby nods and holds his left arm outward towards the open door. He looks at Julianna.

   “If you need anything, you always know how to reach me.”

   “I do,” Julianna confirms while darting past the physician. She heads out into the hallway and lifts her arms upward.

   “Freedom!”, Julianna overly dramatizes the moment.

   Frank and Martha both shake the doctor’s hand and follow their granddaughter out into the hallway. She has made her way to the elevator and is staring at them impatiently. Julianna looks over and sees Gale and Alexandria waving bye. She waves back with a smile.

   “Remember,” Julianna speaks loudly, “You’re both
myyyyyy
bitches now.”

   Gale and Alexandria laugh.

   “Here you go, dear.”

   Julianna looks at her grams as she approaches. The woman reaches into her purse and pulls out a bottle of hand sanitizer.  

   “Hand out, sweetie,” Martha readies the bottle.

   Julianna looks towards her old room. Dr. Shelby stands near the open door.

   “Isn’t this illegal or something – child abuse?”

   Dr. Shelby grins. He shakes his head, “Not if there’s no alcohol in it.”

     Martha looks at the bottle and then points to the wording at the bottom. Julianna reads the words:
100% Alcohol Free
.

   “This sucks,” Julianna says while holding out her left hand.

   Martha squirts a small amount of clear sanitizer onto Julianna’s hand, “This is for bitches.”

   She squirts a second time, “And this is for sucks.”

   Julianna attempts a plea with her eyes to her grandmother.

   “Eat up, dear,” Martha kindly answers.

   Julianna hesitates before bringing her hand up to her mouth. She pokes her tongue out and barely touches the thick gel. Her head retreats, her tongue slips back into her mouth, and her lips pucker.

   “I can’t.”

   “Frank?”

   “Wait, I can,” Julianna stops her grams from making the call. She closes her eyes and quickly licks her hand. The perfume taste causes her to gag. Her eyes begin watering as she forces herself to swallow. When she opens them, her grams is closing her purse – the wretched bottle already tucked away. Julianna chokes.

   “That was awful.”

   “So was your mouth,” Martha counters with a sweet old lady voice, “But you feel much cleaner now, right?”

   Julianna doesn’t respond. She gives her grams a stare to say that she knows about her faked innocence.

   Martha smiles with a wink of her right eye. She looks over at the guard and nods. The man nods back and pushes a button. The elevator opens. Julianna turns and enters the escape hatch. She would have eaten the whole bottle if it would have guaranteed her freedom. But as her grandmother has kindly pointed out to her, she definitely doesn’t want to make any permanent habit of eating soap.

   “My car!”, Julianna excitedly says while approaching the hospital’s parking lot.

   “Frank drove it over this morning. We both thought you might want to go enjoy your freedom. Unless, you would rather watch two old people kiss all night?”

   “Ew - no thanks grams. I’m good on that.”

   “Ha-ha,” Frank laughs, “Over here kiddo.”

   Julianna follows her grandparents over to her gram’s silver Mercedes. Frank opens up the trunk and retrieves Julianna’s purse.

   “Here you go,” Frank hands Julianna the purse, “Your phone and house keys are inside.”

   The tall man leans down and kisses his granddaughter on the forehead.

   “Put some spending cash inside of it, too,” Frank whispers, “You might want to resituate it all. I’m not big on digging around inside of purses.”

   “Thanks.”

   “Don’t think that loud conversation of yours keeps your secret old man,” Martha teases while walking to the passenger side of her vehicle.

   “Call us if you need anything.”

   Julianna smiles at her grandfather and nods. She turns and walks over to her green Lamborghini. After seating herself inside, Julianna closes her eyes and takes a deep inhale of wonderful leather. She absolutely missed this car. A few short moments later, she opens her eyes, finds her phone, and plugs in the charger. It doesn’t take her long to back up and get her car off of the worst parking lot in the world.

   Martha waves as Julianna pulls out of the parking lot.

   “All of the tapes taken care of?”

   “Every last one of them,” Frank confirms while slipping the keys into the ignition. He feels Martha’s soft lips touch his right cheek.

   “Thank you for being you.”

   “You’d better stop that woman. We won’t make it off this lot.”

   Martha laughs, “You keep giving me those eyes like I’m twenty and I won’t let you leave this lot.”

   Frank smiles as he places the car into reverse.

   Julianna speeds down the highway. She’s been toying with a black Porsche for about a mile now. She waves her fingers as she makes her final pass. The Lamborghini makes easy work against its competitor. The older man inside smiles and shakes his head. There’s nothing he can do about today’s loss. A woman has just made mince-meat out of his favorite toy.

   Julianna drives a few more miles before turning off of the freeway towards town. Playtime is over. It is time for her to handle her business. She drives for another forty-five minutes before pulling onto a residential street. The houses here are catered towards the working class – blue collar society. The people living here struggle to maintain all of their constant piling bills. They seem to work harder than their white-collar counterparts; yet, they reap the lowest rewards out of the two. It’s no one’s fault really. It is just life. And although Julianna is wealthy now, it wasn’t that long ago she found herself among them. It is a humbling thought she will do her best to never forget.

   Julianna pulls her car into a familiar driveway. She takes a deep breath and exhales. Grabbing her purse after turning the ignition off, Julianna steps out of her vehicle and shuts the door. She looks again at her childhood home and lets out a quite sigh. The white paint is peeling off of the house just as it always has been. She walks the short distance down the cracked concrete sidewalk leading up to the porch. The small wooden porch is equipped with its own version of matching peeling paint. The only difference is, is that it houses a green two-man swing shedding its paint as well. It adds a little bit of color to the decaying variety.

   Climbing the two small stairs leading up to the porch, Julianna reaches the top. She approaches the front of the house, pulls open a squeaky screen door, and begins to knock. A few seconds later, the door opens.

   A man looks into his daughter’s green eyes. He sadly looks down at the floor as he pulls the door open for her entry. He turns and walks on the clear plastic carefully laid across his living room floor.

   Julianna follows her father into the living room. She watches the drunken man clumsily seat himself into a plastic chair situated in the room’s center. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a .09 mm Beretta with a silencer attached to its end. Julianna walks up to her father and places the muzzle against his bowed head.

   “Look at me,” Julianna orders calmly. She watches her father take a deep breath before raising his head. His brown eyes lock gazes with hers.

   “Tell the demons I said hello,” Julianna states coldly. She pulls the trigger. Her dad’s head jerks back – his physical existence now gone. She spits on his lifeless bloody face before handing the gun off to a man standing next to her. Two other men begin rolling up the plastic.

   “I don’t want to know where you put him,” Julianna says while turning and walking towards the front door, “Just make sure there’s nothing left.”

   After Julianna makes her way back to her grandmother’s house, she descends the stairs with her grams close behind. Martha seems excited that she is home, but is completely clueless as to what has just occurred.  That is, unless her grandfather told on her. But she doesn’t believe this to be the case. Frank doesn’t operate like that.

   “Devia didn’t say anything, dear,” Martha’s words float somewhere within the fog of Julianna’s mind, “Your grams is no fool. I
know
how long it takes to receive one of her special orders.”

   Julianna reaches the bottom of the stairs and walks the small distance over to her bed. She turns and sits on the edge while looking up at her grams. “You?”

   Martha flips her left wrist downward, “Oh dear no. Your grandfather likes to…”

   “Okay-okay-okay,” Julianna loudly speaks while covering both of her ears, “I get it.”

   Martha chuckles within her amusement. She walks over, leans down, and gently kisses her granddaughter on the forehead.

   “Welcome home, sweetie. It’s good to see you here again.”

   “Thanks. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed for once. That mattress was terrible.”

   Martha smiles comfortingly.

   “I like your new clothes.”

   “I did some shopping.”

   “Your other clothes in the car? I’ll go and get them so I can wash them up for you.”

   “No - I uh…trashed them. I sorta had an accident and…”

   “Oh...well you don’t need to worry about that. It happens to the best of us. Anyone who says they haven’t gone through it is just a poor sap who is still yet to experience it. We all go through it at least once.”

   “And let me tell you another secret,” Martha continues, “It gets worse the older you get.”

   “Gee,” Julianna sounds less than excited, “That’s something to really look forward to grams. What about the golden years?”

   “I have a pretty good idea how they came up with that name.” 

   “That’s really gross.”

    “Yes it is, dear.”

    Martha pauses with a smile of adoration before making her way back up the stairs. Julianna waits until she hears the double-doors to the library’s entrance lock into their expected niches. She gets her bed clothes ready, takes a shower, and prepares for a much needed night of sleep.

   The young woman pulls her bed covers down and sits on the bed. Reaching into her purse sitting on the nightstand, Julianna pulls out a half-empty bottle of Nyquil PM. She opens it and takes another swig before placing the cap back on and sitting it next to her purse.

   She slips her pale legs underneath her covers and pulls them up to her neck. Closing her eyelids, it doesn’t take long for the fog-induced teenager to fall asleep.

   Julianna opens her eyes and looks around.

   “Dammit!”

   “Still having trouble?”

   Julianna looks over at Lilith and glares, “I can’t control it. I need some sleep.”

   “You will figure this out.”

   “I don’t know how. I have no idea what I should do.”

   “Sorry, I’m not much help with this. You are the only one to ever have this problem. It is new to me, also.”

   Julianna looks at the massive wall while Lilith reaches behind her favored rock.

   “Here” Lilith says while tossing the earth-line clothes at Julianna’s feet, “You need to keep training.”

   Julianna looks down at her feet and over to Lilith. She frowns.

   “But I don’t wanna. I just want to sleeeep.”

   Lilith laughs, “These are the moments that separate the school girls from the women.”

   Julianna slumps her shoulders and looks upward, “Ugh.”

   She looks back to Lilith, “Fine. Have it your way. But if something happens to me I’m blaming you.”     

  Lilith smiles with a single nod.

   Julianna strips her bed clothes off like normal. The concept of mentally removing them sounds too exhausting. As she slips her hoodie over her head, she notices Lilith enjoying the scenery.

   “Stop that,” Julianna chastises.

   Again, Lilith smiles with a single nod.

   “Anyway,” Julianna attempts to redirect the mood, “I have something I want to look at first.”

   Lilith watches as Julianna heads over to the wall and approaches the area with her mother’s story on it. Julianna begins reading quietly.

   “Aihn xoréé sloié ait Xotiéoi, féch xoré yhnslosté ait xoré uhnréaihn, Xotiéoi rééh oiétilssto véuté xoré daszibix ait yhni ecréaiti ayhnaréti.”

   Julianna silently translates the words within her mind:

     
On this day of Theresa,

        By the hands of the union, Theresa is ascended unto the judgment of her life choices.