Mundahlia (The Mundahlian Era, #1)

by RJ Gonzales

  After seconds of fighting with quiet stares and motions, she shrugged and leant over to say, “Hey there, I’m Sarah.”

  Max stared at her hand for a while, then switched to her eyes. “I’m Max, and hey,” he said shyly.

  “And I’m the girl that was just here a few days ago,” I waved.

  “Oh—yeah, I remember you,” he spoke softly. “Um—hey.”

  Beside me, Jett cleared his throat. He had propped himself on his side and was now resting his head on his upright hand. “So Rini,” he said. “How about we give them some time to talk.”

  Sarah’s hand grazed mine and squeezed it—hard. She gave me a don’t-you-dare-leave-me-alone look when I stared for her reasoning for incapacitating my hand that was throbbing in her talon-like grip.

  “Oh, um I think they’re fine,” I smiled awkwardly, trying not to sound rude for declining his offer to abandon my friend with his brother.

  “But, I want to show you something.” I couldn’t deny noticing the broken hope spread across his face. He got to his feet and extended his hand to me. “Come on, I promise it’s cool.”

  The hand around mine tightened even more. Geez, Sarah! I wanted to scream. I began, “Um, I’m sure it is, but-”

  Before I could finish, Jett moved past me and over to Sarah. Kneeling beside her, he asked, “Do you think I can borrow her for a little while?”

  Sarah, hiding her obvious discomfort with a smile, released my hand. “As long as you promise to give her back,” she joked.

  Jett chortled, eyes wrinkling at the corners. It was a full-bodied laugh. The kind that shook his whole body and made his lengthy hair bounce as he did it. “Indeed.” He grabbed my newly freed hand that was still trying to inhale after being nearly suffocated, and brought me to my feet.

  I flashed a glance over to Sarah and mouthed, I’m sorry. For a second, she looked as if she were about to cry—a child saying goodbye to their parents after being dropped off for their first day of kindergarten.

  She swallowed and mouthed, “It’s okay.”

  Jett

  9

  “Well, what did you want to show me?”

  We were in the dark, windowless bedroom I shared with Ray and Max. Twice the size of a normal room to fit the three of us comfortably in our own sections only big enough for a queen sized bed each, and a few other things. I patted the walls in search of the light switch and flicked it on. My area was by the door. A small but comfortable space. I got the closet. Max got the wall directly across the door. His side of the wall had posters of comics and a troop of action figures guarding the real comic books on shelves. Ray, however, got the very back of the room. Easily definable by pieces of trash speckled across the floor, and multiple posters of women in bikinis plastered on the wall behind his bed. Mine, on the other hand, had neither of those things. My area was plain. Just a black sheeted bed with matching pillows on a metal frame, and a small bedside table with a collection of my old CDs—a few cracks riddled on some of their cases.

  “You wanted to show me your room?”

  I didn’t have much to show her, so obviously that wasn’t my intentions. “No, I just wanted to give them some time alone. You were making Max nervous.” I opened the closet and dug through piles of clothes and more CDs.

  “Me?” she sounded offended.

  “I’m kidding,” I teased, “about the making him nervous part.”

  I pulled my storage box from underneath a tower of CDs. They threatened to tumble, but I gently shoved them back into place. I usually had them stored in a plastic crate, but Mark needed it to stuff some of his ancient records into—thus leaving my many music albums on the floor.

  I turned and found her sitting on the bed, studying the small arrangement of the albums I had on my bedside table. The selected few out of the rest—my favorites—that I had set in a different area where I could reach them when I wanted to listen to them. “You like them?” I asked.

  “Oh. I’ve never heard of some of these bands or singers before.” She picked one I particularly favored up. “But, they do look interesting.” She traced the edges of the case with her fingers as though she were trying to place the band in her mind, then returned it to the empty slot in the small library. I usually didn’t like people touching my things, but she was different.

  “Yeah, some of them are older than the music you probably like.” I hope she didn’t take it offensively.

  Instead, she smiled and said, “Yeah, you’re probably right. What’s that?” she eyed the scuffed up brown storage box in my hands.

  I’ve had it for years. Keeping small treasures I found inside ever since I was younger. I set it on the bed and flipped open the top, shifting the contents inside. I picked up a small rock, imprinted with the fossilized image of a small prehistoric looking fish. “Remember that conversation over the phone we had a few days back?”

  “Yeah,” she said, remembering a particular conversation of the many we’d had over the past few days before bed where I told her I was a collector. The next night we rambled on for hours about nonsense. That was the same night she’d told me about her parents. From the description she’d given of them, they seemed distant. Raised most of her life by her cousin and grandmother. It was like her parents weren’t there to begin with. I’d strayed away and changed the topic when she brought up my parents. It was too hard for me to go back to that dark night. Too painful to even try to remember.

  “Well, I wasn’t joking when I said I like to collect things,” I told her, then passed the fossil over. “Check this out.”

  She took the cement colored rock and fingered the gaps in between the raised ribs. “Cool,” she said. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Last summer. I was digging in the bottom of the lake and found it under the dirt. I think it’s a baby alligator gar.” She seemed interested, or at least if she wasn’t, pulled it off. I picked up an old yo-yo I’d found in the backwoods of our old home in another state, and stuck my finger in the loop of the string.

  “Aren’t you a little too old to be playing with toys?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow, setting the fossil back in the box.

  “Probably.” The yo-yo whirled as it bounced up and down. The rest of the contents in the storage box were small trinkets such as: other small fossils and rocks, a wedding ring, a few coins from the civil war era, and a few other things I thought looked interesting. No matter what, I couldn’t get rid of any of them. I didn’t like things leaving me—or being out of my possession for long. It was rare that I let anyone even see them, but something about her told me that she wasn’t just anybody. She was just—something else.

  Separation Anxiety is what Mark tries to tell me I have. And that that is why I get emotionally attached to things really fast and then can’t let them go once I do. He thinks it developed after I suffered a traumatic experience when my mom left me behind when I was younger, but I think it’s just a big pile of crap. He isn’t a doctor. And I sure as hell am not going to pay hundreds of dollars just to get told I have something I know I don’t.

  “So you really have yourself a little collection of random things, huh?” she said.

  “Told you. I’m a collector.”

  “Yeah, but I thought more of like a comic book, coin, or trading card collector. You know, those kinds of collectors.”

  “Me? Nah! Those are materialistic collectors. Too mainstream for me. I only collect significant things.”

  She curled her eyebrows, “What do you mean?”

  I scoured the box in search of the rock that I cherished the most. My very first collectable. I’d found it that night she left—my mother. Sticking out from the mud as though wanting to be found. A stone the size of a baby’s fist and in the shape of an almost formed heart. Streaked with the bright colors of neon blue and purple. “Look at this rock,” I instructed, holding my hand out to hers so I could place it on her palm. “This was the very first thing I ever collected.”

  “Okay?”

  “
Well, it means a lot to me. Sure there may be more of these types of rocks, but this-”I pointed to the stone in her palm “-is the only one that will ever be shaped exactly like this. The stripes may be a different shade of blue or purple, and the shape may be less round and more square. But this rock—is perfect to me. And I knew, the very moment I saw it, that I had to make it mine and keep it with me—” My eyes gazed into hers, and hers did the same. “—always.” For a moment, there was that brief subtlety as our sight stayed locked on each other. Silent, as we wondered what to do next. Then, an infectious smile spread widely across her face. I couldn’t help but do the same—like yawning after seeing someone else yawn. But her smile was short lived, and disappeared with the flash of her tongue, swiping across the surface of her bottom lip and leaving a sheen behind.

  “So,” I asked. “Want something to drink?”

  She nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  I opened the fridge in the kitchen, and scoured for the drink section. Mark had the kitchen organized. Everything had its place, and when things weren’t in their order, we usually heard about it at dinner in a sarcastic way—I’m thinking OCD? He is the chef in the family, cooking meals everyday for the past something years.

  He was standing behind the counter, cutting vegetables for tonight’s dinner on a wooden cutting board. I knew he was probably watching me from the corner of his eye, making sure I didn’t move things around.

  Chop, chop, there was a brief pause as I reached for a pitcher of watermelon water. Chop.

  Del, however, sat at the table—baby Kaylee at her side in the playpen, as she typed away on the keyboard. Work. Most of the income to keep the fridge and cabinets stocked comes from Martin—he substitutes here and there when needed, but groans about it each morning. Del helps with the income by doing some online web designs—it’s funny really, because from her looks, you wouldn’t get the impression that she was actually smart rather than just violent and foul-mouthed.

  “This is really good,” Rini said, wiping away a few drops of the red drink I had poured her from her lips. “What is it?”

  Mark looked up from his cutting board long enough to catch her attention to flash a smile, “Watermelon water.”

  She tasted it again and grinned as she set the cup back down, flashing me those eyes that looked as green and golden as ever. “Very tasty.”

  “Thank you.” Mark said, then continued chopping. “Freshly made too.”

  A low growl rumbled in my stomach. “Is dinner almost ready?” I asked him.

  “In about three hours.” He scooped the cut veggies up with the flat side of the knife and threw them in a pot. “Tonight, we are having beef stew. It has to simmer for a few hours.” Damn! I thought. Swimming made me ravenous.

  “Can’t you just turn up the burner to make it cook faster?”

  He pointed the knife at me, “You can’t rush succulence. Don’t tell me how to cook. I don’t go pointing out things for you to collect, do I?”

  “Okay. Calm down there.” I raised my hands as though I were being held up.

  Rini shifted in her stool, looking around. The now empty glass stood on the counter, leaving a wet ring around the base. It didn’t take long for Mark to reach over to take the glass and wipe the ring away with a dishtowel. “I’d better go check on Sarah and Max, it’s getting late and we should probably get home,” she said, hopping off the seat and heading to the door. Giving me no time to protest the idea and have her stay a little while longer. Damn.

  Just as she closed the door behind her, Martin’s door swung open and he paced himself toward me—Ray at his side. A small black envelope with a vivid blood-red interior was tucked in his shaking hands. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said, his voice husky and low. “Very bad news.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. He appeared as though Death were beckoning to him just a few feet away—something was deeply bothering him. Mark and Del surrounded me, equally interested.

  “Guess who has come for us this time.” He emptied the contents of the envelope on the table. A small red letter with black ink writing, and a matching scarlet handkerchief—the letter “B” monogrammed on it, spilled onto the surface. I knew what it meant. Something hadn’t felt right at the lake. Now I knew why. I unfolded the note, holding the satin handkerchief in my hand, and read it aloud for the others to hear.

  The crown is mine.

  This game of Hide and Seek is getting old.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  -B

  Rini

  10

  I waited a few minutes by the dock, staring at the water that grew increasingly darker as the sun set. I had scooped up a rock on my way up, and flung it into the lake. Watching as it sunk a few inches before disappearing into the cloudy dark-green mossy water. Sarah and Max had left to my cabin—I, on the other hand, had stayed behind—waiting for Jett. I guess Sarah’s attitude toward Max did a complete turn around. A few hours ago, she’d called him a loner because he was too focused into his computer, and now, she was walking with him to my cabin.

  The weather was slowly changing. Large shady clouds, that blended in to the barely lit sky, made their way over the trees across the lake. An unannounced storm was rolling in. I listened to the wind, moving the many leaves of the trees into singing a faint and soothing song. Almost the exact sound of the crashing waves of an ocean. Even so, something wasn’t right. I could feel it. From one section of the forest, the sound seemed to be muffled—like when someone steps in front of a speaker and the sound goes around them. I felt an eerie chill and shuddered. I was being watched, but by what—by whom? I could have sworn I saw some leaves in a bush across the lake rise. A vivid orange shadow hiding within it. I tilted my head to get a better look.

  “Where’d they go?” Jett’s voice broke in. It made me jump, nearly making me stumble off the rocking dock. “Whoa! Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” he apologized, pulling me into him.

  After I brushed the last bit of fright I had left in my body away, I replied, “They left to my cabin a few minutes ago. I stayed behind to invite you to come watch movies and eat cold pizza with us.” I sighed, “And to help me find my way home—again.”

  “Sure. It sounds—cool? But, do you mind if I take a quick shower first?” He used his thumb to point over his shoulder to the cabin.

  “No, go right ahead,” I said. “I’ll just wait out here for you.”

  There was a rustle in the now normal looking bush across the lake. Maybe I’d hallucinated the whole thing. He sniffed the air and stared at it too. “No.” He said blankly, looking at the bush then back to me. “You’d better come inside, we just heard that there’s a nasty storm coming in.” He grabbed my hand and took it into his, waiting for me to follow. What the hell is the matter with this weather? Hot one hour then bat-shit crazy the next? I squinted my eyes at the sky again. The darkness grew closer, and in the distance there was a small rumble of thunder—a warning of its approach. “Okay.”

  While he was in the shower, I sat at the table and shifted my eyes to the members of the family. Mark was still standing over the pot with a triumphant smile. Del was still typing rapidly on her laptop—the bluish light changing her skin color to a pale, unsaturated nature. I spotted Martin in the living room tapping his foot and biting his nails when we entered. He looked worried as he read a large leather bound novel to which I couldn’t quite grasp the roughed up name of. As though he’d just been given a grave diagnosis.

  Ray was beside him, watching a TV show on “extreme motorcycles” and scratching himself yet again. They were all quiet. Awkwardly quiet. Until finally—breaking the silence, the tiny little ten-month-old girl in a small playpen at the corner of the room, let out a cry.

  Del shifted her attention from her daughter to me, raising an eyebrow in interest. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Can you feed her? I’m having a chat fight with one of my co-workers.”

  I’d only taken care of a baby once before. The
fact that I’ve only taken care of a child once and never again should have made me say no, but instead, “Sure,” managed to escape as I got up to fetch her from the playpen. She took a while to adjust in my arms, and when she finally did, stared at me—unsure whether or not to cry at my unfamiliar face. She probably smelled the mossiness of the lake on my air-dried stale clothes, because she gave me a confused look. Her tiny little eyebrows furrowing as she stared directly at me. Her small eyes to mine. I turned back to Del. “Where’s her bottle?” I asked.

  “Here you go.” Mark stood behind me, a freshly made bottle in hand. “One step ahead of you.”

  “Oh, thank you.” I held it in front of her mouth. This is what you do right? I asked myself. Her now wide eyes stared at the nipple, feeling it with her hand to make sure of what it was. Everything must be a big deal at her age. Like discovering something new every minute or second of the day.

  “You have to rub it against her lips so she’ll take to it.” Mark was back behind the counter opening the pot lid to smell a gush of smoke. There was that triumphant smile again. As though he knew everyone was going to love his dish already.

  I pulled the bottle away from her tiny hand and rubbed the nipple softly against her cooing lips. It took a few seconds, but she finally cracked her mouth open and began nursing. I watched as the line from the cloudy, white liquid slowly sank to the bottom ring with each small gulp I heard.

  “Hey,” Del laughed. “I think I just found a babysitter.”

  “Ahem!” I heard Martin clear his throat from behind the couch. “Need I remind you of who single-handedly raised three of the young men in this house? One of which, who is the father of that child.”

  “Sorry,” Del blushed away. “You’re right. I found another babysitter. But no one will ever replace Kaylee’s grandpa.”