Mayhem in Jinx Cove

by Savannah Mae

  “I feel terrible. This is all my fault.” I began to sob.

  “No, it’s not. We can fix this. I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to try and resolve this.” Ben wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Cheer up. Haven’t I always come through for you?”

  He was right. He’d always done everything within his power to make things right. I appreciated that, but all the while, I didn’t think he’d be able to do anything to make this situation right.

  Ben held me long enough to console me, but not so long that it became awkward. We had our boundaries and when we reached that point, he released me.

  “Are you good? Let me go home and do some research and we’ll regroup in the morning. Okay?” Ben offered.

  I smiled.

  “Okay, but my mother is never going to let you leave. The pot pies are in the oven, remember?” I reminded him about the dinner we’d helped my mother prepare.

  He stood up. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not leaving until after I eat. I may be a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them. A guy must eat, you know. I’ve been living on soup and sandwiches for too long.”

  “And, terrible coffee,” I reminded him about the conversation we’d had earlier at Abracajava Cafe.

  “Yeah, and bad coffee. I’m sure my stomach will never let me forget that either. For now, let’s just relax and enjoy the afternoon. I’m sure your parents have enough to worry about; they don’t need us to add to it,” he said.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My hair and makeup were a mess. I hadn’t looked this bad since I’d had my appendix out two years earlier. I looked hideous after that.

  “I think I’ll take a shower first. Why don’t you go downstairs and check on my mom and dad? Oh, and thanks for everything. You’re still the second best.” I offered him a smile.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know and you’re the best.” He winked at me. “Now, hurry up with that shower. You look like-”

  “Excuse you!” I pushed him in a playful manner. “I look better than those ridiculous shorts you’re wearing.”

  He touched his hand to my cheek. “I’ll be downstairs. I can’t promise you that I’ll save you any food, but I’ll think about you when I eat your portion.” With that he turned and walked out of my bedroom.

  I noticed movement outside on the road. The Jinx sisters were standing in front of the house again.

  “What are they up to?” I whispered as I moved the curtains to get a better look at them.

  One of the twin sisters locked eyes with me. I felt that same strange sensation I’d felt earlier at the coffee shop. I couldn’t move. In my mind’s eye, I could see her as if she was standing right in front of my face. I could see the way the light hit her gray eyes. I could see her at a different time, like a vision of her standing in a circle with her sisters, except there was a woman I didn’t recognize with them.

  “Artemel. Artemel. Artemel,” I heard a woman’s voice say, but I couldn’t tell whose voice it was.

  My feet were locked in position. The sisters stood with their eyes on me, but I didn’t see their mouths moving.

  My mind began to race as my heart rate increased.

  “Artemel,” I heard a woman whisper in my ear, but I couldn’t turn my head to see.

  It’s not real. It’s not real, I told myself. Calm down. Calm down, Melanie.

  Suddenly, the sisters began walking away and the cold sweat, I’d broken out in came to a screeching halt. Whatever hold that witch woman had on me, disappeared.

  I pulled the curtains shut, making sure to lock the window first. My heart still raced in my chest.

  “What was that? Who is in here?” I said, spinning around to see where that voice I heard had come from.

  No one was there.

  I sat down on the edge of my bed, my limbs shaking.

  “You’re okay. It was all in your mind,” I told myself.

  “Who are you talking to, Melanie?” My mother stood in the doorway behind me.

  I startled, jumping off the bed. “Where did you come from?” I asked a little too loudly.

  “Downstairs. What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” My mother walked up to me and immediately put her hand to my head.

  Worrying her more didn’t sit well with me, so I opted for something a little more palatable. “I think I’m hallucinating. Do you know a good psychiatrist?”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing wrong with your brain. You’re probably starving. See I knew you hadn’t been eating well as soon as I saw you. You’re so thin. We’ll fatten you up once we get to Chicago. I can’t wait to see your place.” My mother sounded genuinely excited about the prospect of moving to Chicago.

  “Mom, can you tell me how all this happened? Where did this Zephyr man come from? Why would you and Daddy go into business with him?” I asked.

  She sighed a long sigh. “Honey, you don’t need to worry about any of that now. What’s done is done. What matters is your happiness. You are working in a field that you love and living the dream. That was always the goal. If you’re happy, your father and I are happy.”

  “Please, tell me you didn’t do this for me. I couldn’t live with myself if you did,” I begged her.

  She squeezed me to her. “It doesn’t matter now. We did what any parent would do. Just think of how fun it will be for all of us to live in the same house again. Even if we sleep on the sofa, it will be worth it to be together again like a family. We’ve missed you.”

  “I call all the time, Mom,” I reminded her.

  “That’s not the same thing. I’ll feel so much better knowing you are safe. Living in the city is a big change from life in Jinx Cove,” she said.

  I kissed her cheek. She truly was the best mother in the world. It didn’t matter that I didn’t come close to resembling her or my father; they were still very much a part of me. My dark, wavy hair was in stark contrast to my mother’s chestnut brown hair and my father’s strawberry blond hair. No one ever questioned it. I assumed everyone in town knew I was adopted, but never once did anyone say anything about it to me.

  “Mom, I have to tell you something.” I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to pretend that everything was okay when it wasn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them. They didn’t deserve to be duped by anyone, especially me, their only child.

  “Honey, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not that bad. Why the long face?” My mother squeezed my chin.

  I paused, gauging what to tell her first.

  “Go ahead, honey. You can tell me,” she urged me.

  I took a deep breath and started with the most recent news. “I got here this morning, real early this morning.”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t want to call you… well, I didn’t call anyone because I was too embarrassed,” I started. “I… well, um-”

  “You can tell me. What is it? What do you have to be embarrassed about, Mel?” she asked.

  I couldn’t look at her and tell her what I had to say. I cast my eyes down at my feet.

  “This morning, Ben and I were walking to Abracajava and I started thinking about things.” I didn’t know how to explain it to her.

  “Thinking what kind of things?” she asked.

  “This is going to sound nuts, but hear me out. It was like I could hear what Ben was thinking,” I said.

  My mother didn’t flinch. “Of course, you can. You have been friends your whole lives. That happens when two people are close. You can finish each other's thoughts. That’s normal.” She laughed it off as if my problem was solved.

  I shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. There were these vultures flying low above us. One of them kept getting closer and closer to Ben’s head. It was weird, like it wanted to land on his head or something. Well, I thought he was talking to me, so I answered him, but here’s the thing - he didn’t say a word. He thought something, and I heard him.”

  Her eyebrows quirked up. “That’s odd. I think he was t
easing you.”

  “No, Mom. That’s not the only time. He was thinking that he hoped the vulture would slam into a building and knock itself out,” I explained.

  “And? What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It happened. He thought it and I heard him and then I thought about it. I could envision the vulture doing that and it happened.” I shuddered to think about it.

  She scrunched up her button nose. “You think you made a vulture hit a wall? Really?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. How could you have caused that to happen?” My mother scoffed at the idea that I had somehow caused the vulture’s death.

  Deep down, I knew how crazy it must have sounded. I didn’t want to believe it myself, but I couldn’t help but wonder. This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to me. Not that I ran around plotting birds’ deaths, but ever since I could remember, strange coincidences were a part of my life.

  My very first memory was of me playing outside with my dog Pepper. We had to put him down right before I left for college because he’d gotten so ill and had been in so much pain.

  I’d run outside with him after dinner one night. There was nothing unusual about that until he began to growl. The only people he ever growled out were our mean old neighbor from about a mile down the road and occasionally the mail truck. Other than that, Pepper loved everyone. I remember thinking that maybe he had seen a snake, so I tried to cajole him away from the threat, except I couldn’t see a threat. There were no snakes or deer. I grabbed his collar and tried to pull him away from whatever the threat was, but he wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, a feeling of dread that came over me. My limbs wouldn’t move. It was like something held me in place. I couldn’t speak. My senses were on high alert. He and I were frozen in that moment, then it was gone, releasing us with a gush of wind that came from nowhere. When I turned around, a man I’d never seen before was standing on my front porch. I didn’t hear a car pull up. Dust hadn’t kicked up from the dirt road in front of our house. It was as if the man with the dark eyes and the hat appeared out of nowhere.

  Some days later, I had a dream that the man had been standing in the field on the same spot that Pepper sat growling. In my dream, I could feel the man put his hands on my shoulders and hold me in place as if he had something to show me, but whatever that something was never appeared in my dream.

  I could see the worry on my mother’s face as I recalled that eerie memory. “You’re right. I’m probably hallucinating because I’m starving. Are the pot pies ready?” I smiled at her to reassure her.

  “They will be soon. I can fix a sandwich to tide you over till then if you’d like. Come downstairs with us,” my mother said.

  “I’m going to jump in the shower first. I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I told her.

  She smiled, but I could see the strain in her eyes. She was indeed worried and that broke my heart. I wished she’d tell me how things could have gotten this bad for them. I had to tell her the truth.

  I blurted out, “I lost my job.”

  She blinked wildly. “You don’t have a job? What happened?”

  “Sosy, the owner, decided to retire. Her husband fell ill and she decided to shut the doors and spend time with him. We walked in one day, a week before the new fall line show last year, and she told us she no longer needed us,” I explained.

  “Last year? How have you survived all this time?” she asked as she sat down on my bed.

  I sat next to her. “I’ve been living off the money from my savings and money I made from odd jobs. I contracted with a temp agency to do clerical work for a while.”

  Always the optimist, she placed her hand on mine, saying, “I’m sure there’s plenty of work for you in Chicago. There are other designers. You could always work for them.”

  I swallowed hard before confessing to how difficult it had been for me. “The economy changed. A lot of design houses weren’t hiring. I tried, but I didn’t have enough experience, or they weren’t bringing in new people or they simply didn’t want me. Believe me, I tried. Most of the big design houses are in New York or Los Angeles. There aren’t a lot of options in Chicago and I really didn’t have the money to move to either coast.”

  She nodded. “And, that’s why you came home?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know things were bad here. I thought I could come home for a while and save some money, then move to New York.” I sniffled.

  She wrapped her arms around me. “It’s okay. We’re glad you are home.”

  I started to cry. “But now we don’t have anywhere to live.”

  Her voice shaking, she said, “We’ll have to break the news to your father.”

  Chapter Four

  “Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I’d noticed Ben look at me strangely on and off throughout the afternoon. We’d spent the day searching through old newspaper articles online, looking for any information we could find on Zephyr Willis.

  He smiled coyly at me, pretending to be embarrassed. “Oh, you’re just so beautiful. I think I’m smitten.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Why are we friends again?” I teased.

  “Because you love me, and you need me, and because no one else in town wanted to be your friend because you’re weird.” He laughed like he’d said the funniest thing in the world.

  “I don’t like you.” I pouted my lips.

  “Yes, you do, but anyway - moving on - how come you never told me about all the other dreams?” he asked, referring to the conversation we’d had over dinner with my parents the night before.

  I shrugged. I knew as soon as I mentioned my dreams that I’d open a can of worms, but I didn’t want there to be any more secrets. It was time to tell my parents and Ben about my increasingly strange dreams and visions.

  “Do you think you could be pathetic?” He snickered. “I mean, telepathic? Maybe, you’re one of those mediums… well, small, in your case. Is there a name for small people who can sense things?”

  “I’m not telepathic. At least, I don’t think so. I’m not sure what that even means. Can someone suddenly become telepathic? Does that happen?” My mind raced a mile a minute. I had no idea what was happening, but I suspected whatever it was would dissipate soon and then I’d be able to return to my somewhat normal life.

  “We should look that up, or better yet, we could ask the Jinx sisters about that. Maybe, they have some insider information.” Ben knew he was feeding my paranoia. I could tell by the glint in his eyes that this was a big game for him.

  “Don’t ask those creepy women anything. They are so strange. I spent half the morning watching them ride by my house. They kept going back and forth, back and forth. Don’t they have a business to run?” I couldn’t imagine why they had a sudden interest in hanging out near my house.

  “They were driving by? They have a car? I thought they got rid of that old clunker,” Ben spoke as if I knew what he was talking about. He forgot that I’d left a year ago and didn’t know the daily goings on of everyone in town anymore.

  “I don’t know about their car. They weren’t in it. They were riding bikes up and down the road. It was weird.” A cold chill washed over me as I remembered what the sisters had done earlier in the day. “I don’t understand why they’re so interested in us. We don’t fraternize with them.”

  Ben laughed, holding his belly. “Fraternize? That’s a big word. I’m impressed, city girl.”

  I ignored his remark. “What I’m saying is that they never hung out here before and now, they’re suddenly interested in us and what’s with those birds? I swear, they are following me!”

  “The vultures? Why didn’t you read their minds to find out?” Ben teased.

  It was time to change the subject. This conversation was going nowhere and fast. All I’d managed to accomplish was to give Ben more ammunition to use against me. That wasn’t my intention. I legitimately had a problem. I
was concerned, and I needed someone to hear me out, but I had to choose that someone wisely. Ben, for all his good qualities, didn’t fit the bill. I had to find someone who would. The question was, who in this town could I trust to keep my secret?

  “Okay, stop pouting. I’m listening. Tell me more about these visions. Unless you’ve taken up drinking as a hobby, I don’t see how they could be hallucinations or delusions. What’s the difference? I forgot. Are hallucinations the things you see or are those delusions?” He cackled after asking.

  “You’re impossible. I think we need to start seeing other people.” I turned back to face my computer to do more research.

  “I’m not the one seeing things that aren’t there. I didn’t kill that vulture,” Ben reminded me.

  “I didn’t either!” I protested. “I don’t know how that happened. I’m sure it had to be a coincidence because people can’t really make someone, or something slam into a brick wall. It’s not like I held a gun to its head or anything.”

  Ben put his hand to his chin as he considered my options. “Well, you could be onto something. Let’s say, your parents - your birth parents - were circus freaks. Maybe, they were psychics or fortune tellers or charlatans - who knows. Maybe, somewhere in the back of your mind - you know, right behind the cobwebs and that stick of gum you swiped from Mrs. McGillicutty’s desk - there exists a part of you that can read minds or manipulate minds. I mean, you are a female after all. Isn’t that like in your rule book?” Ben couldn’t help but get a chuckle out of his latest theory. He really thought he was a comedian.

  I let him finish because I’m sure he had plenty more to say on the matter. Let’s just forget about the fact that I had a legitimate concern. Why not make it all about him and his quest to make me sound more foolish than I already thought I did.

  Then, I remembered someone we joked about all the time when we were kids. “Hey, remember that woman up in Hog’s Nest?” Who named these towns? “The one they said could read your fortune?”

  Ben stopped chuckling, narrowing his eyes at me. “You mean the scam artist? You’re not serious, are you?”