The Light of the Blue Pearl
Read The Light of the Blue Pearl Online
Authors: K.C. HAWKE
Tags: #fiction, #romance, #love stories, #love triangle, #stephenie meyer, #romance mystery, #jodi picoult, #nicholas sparks, #books about love, #kc hawke, #light of the blue pearl
K.C. HAWKE
Copyright 2013 K.C. HAWKE
Smashwords Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
All rights reserved,
including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in
any form whatsoever without written permission from the author. For
more information, visit
http://www.kchawke.com
Cover photo (Sunlight in
Underwater Cave)
Copyright Richard Carey -
Fotolia.com
Table
of Contents
1
E
thne stared up at
the ceiling while lying lifeless on the couch. Not terribly
comfortable but not caring much either she thought to herself:
“What now?” The day was only half over and yet nothing of
importance had happened; nothing ever really did. Life had become
mundane and empty. It wasn’t a bad life by definition but not a
very exciting one either. She felt the softness of the pillow with
her head and tried ever so hard to think of what she should be
doing.
The house was a mess; she should clean it
but couldn’t bring herself to even care to get up. It was quiet;
all she could hear was the wind blowing through a wind chime
outside. “I should be enjoying this peace,” she said to herself.
But instead she felt sad and empty, close to tears.
“I’m better than this, get up you stupid
woman, do something with your day…what’s wrong with you?” she said
to herself.
No one answered. No one ever did. She was
alone, as usual. And although this was by choice, it was this alone
feeling that kept her body firmly planted on the soft couch. Just
then someone knocked loudly on her door making her nearly jump out
of her skin. No one ever visited or came to her door so this was an
unexpected shock and it took her a moment to gather herself up and
head to the door to see who it could be, her heart pounding a bit
from the unexpected disturbance.
Living alone always makes a young woman
slightly nervous; she lived in a nice area though, so she had never
feared for her safety. All the same she took a peek to see who it
was and was slightly shocked to see no one there.
A prank, she figured, nothing more than a
prank,
why on earth had I thought it could actually be anything
interesting?
Nothing interesting ever happened to her, she was
as average as they come, invisible to pretty much everyone alive,
or so it seemed to her anyway.
She slowly made her way back to the couch
but stopped short when she heard something being pushed under the
door. She turned around to see an envelope now laying on her floor,
average size, light blue, with no writing on it.
Intrigued, she picked up the envelope and
turned it over in her fingers, inspecting it. It wasn’t addressed
to anyone so she assumed it was probably just a stupid solicitation
like the ones left on her doorstep from time to time. This was a
bit more brazen of them to violate the inside of her walls by
pushing it under the door, but it was probably just junk all the
same. For no other reason, other than lack of anything else to do,
she decided to open it before throwing it away.
Inside the envelope was the most beautiful
paper with elegant writing on it that was so stunning to look at
she actually forgot to read it at first; staring dumbly almost
frozen in her foyer.
After a time she focused her eyes on the
writing and started to decipher what it said.
“To the girl with the sad eyes…you have
exactly 1 hour to make your way to 2298 Market Street. Don’t be
late.”
She looked at her watch. It was four o’clock
and she had to be at work by six. The destination was clear on the
other side of town; the odds of making both destinations on time
were slim. If she didn’t go to work she was likely to lose her job.
But what else could she do? Nothing excitingly strange had ever
happened to her before and she was intrigued. “‘To the girl with
the sad eyes?’ Who on earth has been paying attention to my eyes?
Or me for that matter?” she said aloud to no one in particular.
Before she gave it even another thought she
was on her phone calling her boss.
“Hello?”
Imitating her best sick voice she coughed
and said, “Hi…Scott?”
“Ethne? Is that you? You sound
terrible.”
“Yeah, I feel it…I don’t think I can make it
in tonight.”
“Oh….that’s a shame. We were already short a
person tonight. But if you’re sick you’re sick. Get some rest.
We’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, shocking her a bit with what
sounded like genuine concern.
“Okay…thanks,” she replied, before hanging
up the phone.
Now with that decided, she rushed to put on
some clothes so she could do as the letter said and not be late for
her five o’clock meeting. Scrambling to her room she grabbed her
blue jeans and pulled them on, almost falling over from her
clumsiness and excitement of where she was about to go. She threw
on her favorite green shirt, quickly ran a brush through her long
brown hair, checked the mirror, and stuck out her tongue at
herself….“not much I can do here,” she said, before grabbing her
purse and keys and heading out the door to her blue Corolla.
As she drove to 2298 Market Street she was
trying to think of what the address could be; she didn’t have any
recollection of it, though she rarely drove to that side of town
anyway so why would she? It typically took about 25 minutes to get
there, which was way too long for the anticipation she felt,
especially since she only had 10 more minutes before she would be
late.
“I barely even fixed myself up, how is it
possibly this late already?” she mumbled to herself as she began to
see the brake lights in front of her.
“You have GOT to be kidding me? There’s
never any traffic this direction usually, and now brake lights?
Come on!! Can’t anything ever work out?” she said to herself,
clearly frustrated but with no option but to try and stay calm. Now
she was going to be late, miss work and still have absolutely no
idea what the note was all about, and DIE from
curiosity…probably.
In addition to that she had no idea what
would happen if she was late; the note didn’t exactly specify.
The brake lights soon cleared and she was on
her way again with a huge sigh of relief. “Maybe I can still make
it,” she breathed.
As she closed in on 2298 Market Street she
saw that there was a coffee shop on the corner of it. “How cliché,”
she said to herself.
“Oh well, time to go see what this is all
about.” She parked her car, unlatched her seat belt and realized
her hands were shaking a bit. “Probably won’t be needing coffee…,”
she said as she got out of her car and crossed the street to the
coffee shop.
Outside, there were nice tables and chairs
with umbrellas and many patrons enjoying a cup of coffee and some
food. She scanned the area and saw a man sitting by himself reading
a book, his legs crossed in a very casual manner. He looked up, saw
her and waved her over. She tentatively walked over to the man and
shyly said, “Hello?”
“Are you Ethne,” the man asked.
“Umm…yes..,” she answered, still having
absolutely no idea what was going on.
“I was told to give you this…,” he said,
reaching out and handing her another envelope, same color,
different size.
He looked back down at his book and
continued to read as if she wasn’t even standing there anymore. She
quietly said, “thank you,” and walked back to her car.
After getting back into her car, she felt
like she was in a daze, not even feeling quite like herself. “What
is going on here?” she thought to herself as she looked down at the
envelope in her hands.
Slowly opening it, she found an airline
ticket – from San Francisco to Belize City.
“Belize! What the hell?”
Next to the round-trip ticket was another
note…it simply said: “You’ll be gone 3 days, make
arrangements.”
Okay, a trip across town is one thing, but
an airplane ticket? This was getting a bit ridiculous. She couldn’t
possibly! What would she tell her boss? How could she even pull
this off, and was it safe? She had absolutely no idea what any of
this was all about and now she was supposed to travel to a foreign
country, right now!?
No…she couldn’t. Could she? All of these
thoughts were frantically going through her mind as she was trying
to decide. She looked at the airplane ticket and saw that the
flight was in two hours, not much time to go home and pack; would
she need much anyway? Of course she would. She put the key into the
ignition and started driving home, figuring she would make up her
mind on the way.
As she pulled into her driveway she still
hadn’t made up her mind, weighing the pros and cons all the way
home, she couldn’t really come to a conclusive decision of whether
or not she should go. She felt like throwing all of it out the
window and just going, no more weighing options. It was then she
realized her decision had been made: she was going.
With her mind made up and feeling a bit
exhilarated at the idea, she climbed out of her car and started
walking up the stairs to her door. As she got closer to her door
she realized there was something there waiting for her. It was a
suitcase. A small black suitcase with a note attached.
“Everything you’ll need.”
She stood stunned for a moment, not really
knowing why; a suitcase waiting at her door wasn’t any more unusual
than all the other stuff that had already happened that day.
Unlocking her door she picked up the suitcase and carried it
inside.
Placing the suitcase on her bed she unzipped
it, extremely curious about what could possibly be in it. Well
organized and expertly packed, she almost didn’t want to disturb
its contents but her curiosity wasn’t going to let her leave it be
– who was she kidding?
Besides the typical items, toothbrush,
toothpaste, shampoo etc, there were also some gorgeous clothes,
obviously brand new, some with the tags still on; the purpose of
that a bit confusing since she couldn’t exactly take anything back
or change sizes, having no idea where the stuff came from
anyway.
There were just a few items of clothing,
which made sense since she wasn’t going to be gone very long. It
was probably wise that whoever did this packed for her, she would
have over-packed for herself anyway.
There was a beautiful dress with white
lilies on it that she could tell right away was going to look
stunning, and even a pair of shoes to go with it. The idea that
someone knew her size…and shoe size was a bit unnerving actually;
her curiosity suddenly started to take a turn towards fear at the
awkwardness of it all.
Who could possibly know these things about
her? No one ever noticed her, talked to her or spent time with her.
She really didn’t have any friends to speak of, not really; no one
who really knew her like that anyway. In a way she found that sad,
but she had her reasons. However, it made what was happening now
that much more intriguing.
She decided to put her fears aside and just
see where this was going. Never taking time to travel and usually
spending all of her time at work, the idea of flying somewhere new
was extremely liberating…and terrifying.