by E. Van Lowe
Chapter Eight
Okay, okay okay, I thought, trying to calm myself. Relax, Joshie, boy. This is just another mind trick.
The creature pulled me to my feet.
“Good job, Petros,” a male voice called out. “The Countess will be pleased.”
The creature, Petros, held a tight grip on me under my right arm. His accomplice moved in and gripped me under the left.
“Thank you for the assistance, Rive,” said Petros as the pair began dragging me into the light.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Rive replied.
As they drew me out of the shadows and into the light, I was able to get a good look at them. I realized then, either I was going crazy, or creatures really did exist.
They were both half man and half beast, like the satyrs of Greek mythology. I knew nothing of Greek mythology, but two semester’s ago in Sophomore English, we’d been forced (half our grade) to read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I had a sense of what I was witnessing.
While Petros reminded me of a taller version of Puck from the play, curly beard and all, the other one, Rive, was a clean shaven giant, probably half man and half bull. No claws, though. I’d been wrong about that. I also realized it was the thick beard that made him seem so hideous in the shadows. While these two were clearly creatures of some sort, they were not what was in Alan’s pool.
So what, if anything, is in the pool?
“Countess, Petros has captured a spy,” Rive called out as he released his grip on me.
A woman stepped through the mist that swirled around the hot tub. Now that I was closer, I could see it wasn’t a hot tub at all, but a lagoon-style pool. A few butterflies fluttered nearby.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, he’s just a boy. Don’t be so rough on him,” the Countess said as she looked me up and down.
“He’s a spy! I caught him hiding in the bushes. He was spying on the Nereid, trying to take pictures,” Petros replied, and snatched my phone from my hand. “See!” he said, hoisting the phone in the air as if it were a prize.
“I… I was just trying to make a phone call. I got lost and turned around and…”
The woman’s eyes twinkled as she delighted in my lie.
She was a tall blond in full makeup including bright red lipstick. Her hair was covered by a red bandana that was tied off at the front into a nice bow. She wore dark colored Capri pants, and a Navy blue blouse featuring small white polka dots. The blouse was tied off at the waist.
The look, the outfit was something out of Hollywood’s nineteen fifties—Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner. The ensemble (and that’s what you had to call it) was ultra-retro, yet the Countess made it appear modern and chic. She was at least forty. She wore her age rather nicely as well. The Countess was movie star gorgeous.
“That’s your line and you’re sticking to it, I imagine,” she said with a curious smile. “Although, I must tell you, I do find it a tad bit hard to believe.” While her words were non-threatening, there was a fire in her eyes that warned me she was not to be messed with.
“Okay, you got me. I’m actually here to visit a friend,” I said, fumbling for my next lie.
“And your friend was lurking in the shadows?” Petros queried. His powerful fingers dug into the flesh of my bicep. He shook me—hard.
Ow!” I cried out as he increased the pressure on my arm.
“Now, now, Petros. Let him finish,” the Countess said. “There will be plenty of time for that… if it’s required.” Again, she spoke with no threat, yet I knew one had been implied.
“It won’t be,” I blurted. “I’m here for a visit,” I said, my voice drifting into the upper register I use when I’m trying to make a point.
“He’s a spy for the Lycorians,” Petros said, and shook me again, although not as hard this time.
From the Countess’ bemused expression, it was clear my second lie had worked about as well as my first. I began looking around, trying to map out an escape route. I figured if I could sweet talk them long enough for Petros to relax his grip, I could break away and make it back into the tall trees that rimmed the property.
“Well, then, who might you be visiting?” the Countess asked, her voice ringing with playful skepticism.
Petros still had a good grip on me, and Rive was standing nearby. Getting away from them and to the trees was a longshot and getting longer.
“Me,” a tremulous voice said.
Lara Applegate stepped through the mist and out of the pool. She was wearing a lime green bikini that set off her Emerald eyes, making them seem bigger and brighter than ever. I was wrong about her being a quiet beauty. I realized then, she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on. The hand that plagued my heart squeezed once again. The song swelled in my head.
The amusement on the Countess’s face vanished as her eyes moved to Lara. “Don’t toy with me. You know this boy?”
Lara nodded. “His name is Joshua Butters. He drove me home last night in the rain.”
“Hi, Lara,” I said, and smiled a smile filled with relief. She did not smile back, and I wondered if she was going to throw me to the wolves. I faced the Countess. “Told you,” I said, holding my ground.
After a moment of heart-in-mouth silence, the Countess said: “Let him go,” with a wave of her hand.
“But, Eudora—”
“Let-him-go, Petros,” she commanded. “He is a friend of my daughter’s, a guest in our home. Apparently, she neglected to mention a new friend.” There was an edge to her voice, the first glimpse of emotion since I’d been there.
Petros released me, giving me a polite, yet meaningful, shove.
“Can I have my phone back?” I held out my hand.
Petros’s eyes moved to the Countess, Eudora. She nodded, and he slammed my phone into the palm of my hand. I got the feeling Petros wasn’t finished with me. Not by a longshot.
I faced Lara again. “Hi,” I repeated.
Lara took me by the hand and began pulling me into the darkness toward the front of the house and the wrought iron gates from where I came.
“Is there no end to the ways you can embarrass me?” she screeched as she pulled me along.
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I… I don’t know. At first I thought I came to get a picture of the creature.”
“Creature?” she shrieked.
“Yes! Th… the satyr dudes. I thought I saw one of them lurking by the gate last night. That’s the reason I left so suddenly.”
“Ah, yes, the scene of another embarrassment at the hands of Joshua Butters. Thank you so much for reminding me.”
“But that’s not why I came,” I said my voice rising to make my point. “I told myself I was coming to get a photo of the creature, but the truth is, I came back to see you.”
She stopped, and peered at me through the darkness. Her green eyes narrowed, and then softened. “Joshua, I told you, you cannot like me! You have to forget about me. You have to forget about everything you saw here tonight. If you say anything to anyone about what you saw, you will be in danger.” A butterfly floated up around her face. She fanned it away.
“I’m not afraid of Petros,” I lied.
“Petros?” She peered around in the darkness, as if looking for spies. Then, she stepped closer. “Joshua, do not be fooled by my mother’s beauty. She is the real creature, and mark my words, if you leak any of what you saw to anyone, she will have you killed,” she said with breathless urgency.
The tenor of her voice, along with the look in her eyes sent a shiver rippling through me.
“Maybe your mom is a creature, but those things that grabbed me are real creatures.”
“Ah. So now the insults move on to Petros and Rive.”
“They’re not human!” I said in my own defense. I paused a beat. “Are you?”
She glared at me for several seconds, then sighed heavily, and all the anger
faded from her face. It was as if a wave in the ocean had crashed to shore, washing away writings in the sand.
“Come,” she said softly. “If you’re going to die, you should know why.”
She began pulling me back toward the rear of the house, but as we neared the lighted part of the grounds, we made a sharp turn into the trees and began moving along a narrow path back into darkness.
After a few minutes, a dull light came into view through the trees. She pulled me into a clearing. There, at the center of the clearing was a gazebo, the top of which was ringed with rows of tiny, white Christmas tree lights.
The gazebo was in a meadow. Flowers bloomed, dozens of butterflies floated in the air, as if in a garden photograph, or a dream. The scene and setting were quite beautiful, although the presence of so many butterflies frolicking in the moonlight added an eeriness to the beauty.
“This is nice,” I said.
“‘I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.’”
I stared at her, not knowing what to make of what she’d just said.
“The flowers. They’re daffodils.”
“Oh. Right. That’s romantic poetry, isn’t it?”
She didn’t respond. She led me to the gazebo where we climbed the wooden steps, and sat on a padded bench in the moonlight. She gazed into my eyes, and the hand around my heart squeezed again.
I’d been led to this lovely setting by a beautiful girl I hardly knew. So much was happening so quickly, it was hard to believe. Yet one thing was for sure, I was rapidly falling in love with her. The music strumming in my mind strummed my soul.
I was intoxicated with the feeling it evoked. I wanted to lean forward and kiss her, but I controlled myself. There was something more pressing to deal with first.
“You mentioned me dying?”
“Maybe I was being a little dramatic,” she replied.
I shook my head. “Wordsworth was being dramatic. You were being honest. I could tell from the look in your eyes.”
She continued staring at me for another few moments. She was making a decision.
“You were the only one who noticed that I entered your friend’s pool unseen.”
“There is a creature of some sort living in Alan’s pool, isn’t there?”
“‘Tell all the truth, but tell it slant, success in Circuit lies.’” She nodded solemnly.
“Wow!”
“If you’re going to die, you should know.”
I did not see that one coming.
“Will you stop saying that? It’s creeping me out.”
“Sorry. My family and I are water nymphs. I know that sounds hard to believe.”
“It might have been hard to believe if I hadn’t already seen two satyrs running around on your estate.”
“Right,” she said, and nodded again.
“Is that why you were walking home in the rain as if you didn’t have a care in the world?”
“My people like the rain. I love the rain.”
“If you like the rain so much, why did you get in? Why didn’t you just tell me to mind my own business?”
“I don’t know. I guess… I wanted to,” she said, and the tiniest smile graced her lips.
We sat in silence for several minutes while an ancient symphony played in my head. Guys don’t like silence when girls are around. Silence makes us feel like we’re doing something wrong. This silence, however, was as comfortable as that old pair of sneaks you just can’t bring yourself to throw away. It was familiar and relaxing.
After several minutes, she spoke again: “We are creatures of the water.”
“Fairies of some sort?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Like the tooth fairy?”
She laughed. “Will the insults ever stop?” she asked, but she was laughing, so I knew it was all right.
“I’m not going to put a dollar under your pillow, if that’s what you’re thinking. We guard the water way.”
“There is no water way in Beverly Hills—unless you mean the swimming pools. Los Angeles is a desert.”
“Yes and, no. Los Angeles is a desert, but there is also an underwater hot spring that runs under the city of Beverly Hills. It dates back to long before your city was founded. It is the birthplace of my people, the Nereid.”
I had a sudden realization. “The pool I saw back there isn’t a swimming pool, is it? It’s the hot spring.”
Lara nodded again. “It is one of the five entry points to the hot spring. Its existence is a closely guarded secret, which is why my family guards this property so jealously.” She fanned at a butterfly fluttering near her face.
I thought of all the years the Applegate Fortress had remained empty (or at least, we thought it was empty), all the years the people of our community believed it was haunted. I was about to speak again when I heard a soft rustling in the shrubbery nearby. I peered in the direction of the sound, but saw nothing.
“That’s just Petros. He’s very protective of me,” Lara said in a low tone.
I was sitting quite close to her on the bench. I slid over a few inches, creating a little space between us. One encounter with Petros for the night was quite enough.
“What about the thing in Alan’s pool?” I asked, hungry to know more.
“The thing in his pool is a Lycorian. The Lycorians are what are known as sea trolls.”
“Get out! This is too much. The guys are never going to believe it.”
Instant alarm spread across her face. “Did you hear me earlier? You cannot tell anyone about us. My mother will know, and if she knows, you and your family will die.”
I reached over and grabbed her hand, and when I did, something deep and unspoken passed between us, something electric. Our eyes met for a brief moment. She pulled her hand away.
“Relax. I’m not going to tell them about you. I’m going to tell them about the sea troll hiding out in Alan’s pool. It already hurt Conner. They need to know.”
“Joshua—”
“Did I tell you I love when you say my name like that that?”
“Joshua,” she continued, blowing right past my compliment. “The Lycorian is not there to harm you or your friends. He attacked your friend because he was trying to lure Alexia or me into the pool. The Lycorians live for one purpose, to wipe my entire race from the face of the earth.