Tamporlea (Tamporlea Trilogy, Book 1)

by Tiffany Lovering

  Tamporlea

  Tamporlea Trilogy #1

  by Tiffany Lovering

  Copyright 2011 by Tiffany Lovering

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  This book is dedicated to my beautiful daughter, Alli.

  Thank you for inspiring me to finish this book.

  You will forever be my everything.

  Mommy loves you!

  Contents

  1. Best Friends

  2. The Man with Big Peppers

  3. A History Lesson

  4. Red, Black & Blue

  5. An Offer

  6. G-News

  7. Just a Crush

  8. Decision Time

  9. Platinum, Jade & Emerald

  10. An Apology

  11. Queen of Deception

  12. No Doubts

  13. The 14th Queen of Tamporlea

  14. The 15th Treaty

  15. Queen’s Chambers

  16. Not Good Vibrations

  17. Betrayed

  18. Goodbyes

  19. The Last Meeting

  Chapter 1

  Best Friends

  My mom and I have the type of mother-daughter relationship that most people my age just couldn’t understand. We were best friends, but not in the creepy kind of way where the mother lets the kid get away with everything and you can find them partying together on Saturday nights. I strived to make my mother happy, which wasn’t very difficult considering she was happy as long as I was happy. We shared everything that was going on our lives because we really wanted each other’s advice and support. I couldn’t imagine doing anything without my mom’s encouragement.

  I was only twelve when my father passed away. He was driving home from working a twelve-hour shift at the hospital when a drunk driver ran a red light and side swiped him and he was killed instantly. It felt like our entire small town went into mourning when the beloved Dr. Jacob Taylor passed. My mom took a leave of absence from her job as a nurse at the same hospital daddy worked. For weeks, people would just stop by with a meal for us and to talk about how Dr. Taylor was such a wonderful man.

  I’m pretty sure that my father’s death played a big part in how close my mom and I are. There was never a day that passed where I didn’t feel like my mom’s number one priority. Even though she works rotating shifts at the hospital, and some weeks we don’t see each other at all, she’d write me little notes to tell me about her day or just to say I love you. I have a box full of these notes that I’ve secretly kept, and I’m pretty sure she has her own box with my letters.

  My beautiful mom, Emily Taylor, was amazing inside and out. I got my dark brown hair and green eyes from her, but while I kept my hair long, hers was cut into a pixie style. She said it was easier to keep her hair short for work. Most importantly, she had a heart of gold. She’s well loved by her co-workers and spends a lot of time volunteering when she’s not working.

  When she asked me what I would like for my graduation present there was only one thing that came to mind. I wanted two weeks at our favorite camping spot deep in the Adirondacks. Our site was furthest away from any of the other campers. We liked to feel like we were completely alone, but still have the convenience of a shower. Mom thought about buying a camper a few years back, the kind with a television, running water and a queen sized bed, but I really liked sleeping in a tent with the top open so we could stare at the stars. Something about cable TV in the middle of the forest didn’t feel like actual camping to me. It is day four and we really have had the time of our lives. For being the end of June, it was unusually cool in the morning and after the sun set but reached the high eighties around noon. It was perfect to have a campfire at night after spending the day at the beach.

  We had just gotten back from playing with our dog, Casper in the lake, who was now sleeping next to my chair. Mom was building the best campfire in no time at all, as she usually does. I love watching her work and the little smile she gets when the fire takes off. She sat down next to me and we were both mesmerized by the little flame growing in size.

  “Jasmine,” she said quietly. “I have something for you.”

  “You do?”

  She pulled out a small black box from her purse and handed it to me. “This has been passed down to all the women in our family. I was told that it dates back as early as the 1700’s but I don’t really know how true that is.”

  Inside the box was a beautiful jade charm, almost like a medallion. There were intricate leaves and vines intertwining in a delicate circle and was strung on a simple red ribbon.

  “They’re grape vines and leaves which are symbolic of fertility, joy, healing and youthfulness. Spiritually, jade stones help to encourage you to be who you are. I don’t necessarily believe in objects as symbols but it’s a beautiful representation I think.”

  “It’s really beautiful,” I said. “Do you think we should get a chain for it or something? I mean something this old should be on something more than a ribbon, right?”

  “This medallion has always been on a red string. I guess it is believed that the red string wards off the evil eye and offers up protection to the wearer.”

  “That’s right. I remember reading about this when we were learning about Hinduism. That was like in tenth grade though so I don’t remember everything. I didn’t know any of our family was Hindu.”

  “Well, we’re not. I don’t really know the reason why we’ve adopted this particular belief.”

  “I love it mom. Thank you so much,” I said as I got up to give her a hug. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Let’s put it on,” she suggested.

  “Mom, I don’t know. Don’t you think we should wait until we get home? I would hate for it to get lost out here, we’d never find it again.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll tie it extra tight,” she said as she took the necklace out of the box and placed it around my neck securing it with the tightest knot she could do. “Promise me you won’t take it off.”

  “I promise,” I said as I touched the stone. “Hey, if this was passed down to all the women in our family, how come I’ve never seen you wear it?”

  “I only wore it for a week after I turned eighteen. Then, well, let’s just say it wasn’t ever really meant for me. I only recently got the medallion back.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Uh,” she hesitated, “locked away in a safe place.” I could tell that she was hiding something from me, but I decided not to press her on it, she eventually tells me everything in her own time.

  Actually, I think my mom has been hiding something from me for a while now. She would sometimes come home late from work or take off and not tell me where she was going. Not that she owed me any explanation of what she was doing, but it just wasn’t like her. I thought she might be dating someone and didn’t want to tell me about it. She hasn’t dated anyone since my dad passed away. She’s always said that dad was her one true love and she had no desire to find anyone new.

  When I began looking at colleges, I had considered going to college closer to home, maybe even start off at a community college, so that mom wouldn’t be alone. I thought of how she would cope with me not being around and secretly wished she would find someone to be with. When I mentioned community college to her, she appeared as though she was havin
g a stroke. I graduated in the top five percent of my class; there was no way she would let me stay in our tiny little town.

  Going to college was something that I’ve always looked forward to. I chose psychology as a major and was hoping to help others get through the loss of a loved one.

  “You’re meant to do something way more important than anything this town has to offer,” she would say to me. Even when I received my acceptance letter to Syracuse University, I hid it and was planning to tell her I didn‘t get in when she asked. Maybe I was more afraid of leaving her than she was of being alone. She eventually found the acceptance letter that I stuffed in my sock drawer and she bought me a cake with SU’s emblem frosted on it. As much as I was looking forward to going to college, I was dreading leaving my mother.

  “What are you thinking about?” mom asked breaking the silence between us.

  “College.”

  “Not this again,” she said referring to the many heated discussions we’d gotten into over this subject.

  “No, I’m going.”

  “Jasmine, you are going to do great. Even if you don’t end up going to SU for some reason, you are going to do something big with your life. I just know it.”

  “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I go? I thought it was all decided.”

  “I thought so too, Jazzy. You just don’t ever know what opportunities are going to come your way.”

  “I’d say that Syracuse is the biggest opportunity in the world for me right now.”

  “I used to think so too,” she said solemnly.

  “Mom, what are you saying?”

  “Well, there’s something I need to tell you. I have…”

  “Go ahead,” I encouraged her.

  “I…Jasmine. You’re…”

  “Mom, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  “That’s the thing, I can’t! Apparently it’s not for me to tell. It’s so frustrating! I’ve tried to explain things to you a million times but I can’t.”

  I was starting to get angry at her for not telling me what was going through her mind. “Mom!” I pleaded.

  “I’m sorry Jazzy. You’ll find out all about it soon. I’m sorry I even brought it up.”

  “Well, you didn’t bring anything up,” I said irritated but I dropped the subject not wanting to spoil our good time.

  “I suppose we could get dinner started,” she said uncomfortably.

  “Veggie burgers?” I said happily, wanting to ease the tension.

  “I love how they taste over an open flame. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, with corn on the cob? Do we have any left?”

  “We have enough for tonight, but we’ll have to go into town tomorrow to pick up a few more fresh veggies.”

  Dinner was of course very delicious. My mom was an excellent cook and the fact that we were doing everything over a tiny burner didn’t change that at all. Although we had gone vegetarian a few years back, I had to admit that when we were camping was the only time I really missed meat. Dad used to grill steaks and mountain pies, which were just little pepperoni pizzas on pita bread, all over the campfire. Maybe I didn’t miss meat, I just missed my dad.

  When we were done cleaning up our plates it was starting to get dark and we decided to roast marshmallows which were actually nightly occurrence with us. I could live off of just marshmallows while camping I think. It’s always the best part of the trip, mostly because we would get into the craziest conversations. It wasn’t even planned, it was like the sugar twisted our brains around and we turned into the whack jobs of the campground, good thing we were far enough away not to be heard.

  “Do you remember our first trip here?” mom asked as she put her first marshmallow into the fire.

  “How could I forget? It was possibly the worst camping experience in history.”

  She started laughing and said, “How was I supposed to know that at fourteen years old I still had to warn you that roasted marshmallows are hot?”

  “Oh my god! I had that marshmallow out of that flame for a good minute before putting in my mouth”

  “Yes, but you stuffed your mouth with the entire marshmallow before even checking if it was still hot,” she said laughing harder now.

  “It was so gooey and sticky I couldn’t even spit it out! It just kept burning my mouth!” I said finally laughing at the way I must have looked that night.

  “I saved you though.”

  “Yeah, by pulling my head back by my hair and pouring a bottle of water in my mouth.”

  “And you couldn’t swallow the water fast enough so it went all over you!” Mom was laughing hysterically now, and I couldn’t help but join her. It wasn’t funny at the time, for either of us, but looking back on it, it was kind of hilarious.

  Once we calmed ourselves a bit and ate a couple marshmallows, I had to remind her of something else. “If you remember correctly, that marshmallow wasn’t the only thing that made that camping experience awful.”

  “I still swear to this day that there were wolves!”

  “And for three nights you would wake me up insisting that they were sniffing our tent.”

  “They were!”

  “There were no wolves, Casper didn’t even bark! He snored through your hysterics!”

  “I was so scared though. I had to get us a new site but one wasn’t available until the third night.”

  “Yeah and where did they put us?” I said starting to laugh harder.

  “At the site closest to the entrance,” she said shamefully.

  “Right across from the dumping station! Where it reeked so badly we had to make sure we weren’t there during the day or we would smell like sewage all night!”

  “Oh my god, and our neighbors do you remember them?”

  “The old guys that were drunk by the time we got in and sang us to sleep every night?” I said laughing.

  “They sang everyone to sleep they were so loud!”

  “Why did we even stay?” I asked trying to get myself under control now.

  “I have no idea! I think we were hoping it would get better.”

  “Oh, but it didn’t.”

  “Nope. As we were packing up to leave, it decided to downpour and it took days for all of our stuff to dry out enough to be stored away.”

  The rest of our night went on like this until the fire went down and we ran out of marshmallows. When we finally went to bed in our tent, the night was clear enough to see the stars through the trees. When I was little and couldn’t sleep, my mom would tell me to count the stars and reminiscing made me want to do that tonight, I fell asleep somewhere around number twenty.

  Chapter 2

  The Man with Big Peppers

  The next morning we woke early and mom made coffee while I went to the bathhouse to wash up. The whole camp was quiet and I had the showers to myself. I didn’t want to take too long so I washed my hair and body and didn’t linger under the water any longer than necessary. Once I dried off and dressed I brushed my hair in front of the mirror so I could look at my new charm. It laid in the perfect spot not quite a choker but still too short to pull it off over my head. I had never had a piece of jewelry this beautiful. I wondered if it really was as old as the 1700’s. It didn’t seem possible. I knew jade was a difficult stone to carve and this was so intricate, I couldn’t imagine how it could be done with tools from that time period.

  I put my hair in a quick braid and went to join my mom in front of the fire. She handed me a cup of coffee already fixed the way I liked it. It was still cool this morning and the warmth from the coffee felt good.

  “So there’s a farmer's market that starts at eight this morning or we could just go to the little grocery store in town,” she said to me.

  “No, let’s wait for the farmer's market.”

  “I think we should make something special for dinner tonight.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s roast some veggies over the fire and put them over rice. Maybe the farmer's market will ha
ve some type of sauce we could buy.”

  “That sounds good.”

  We left for the market at seven because we weren’t totally sure where we were going. We were the first to arrive and we got to watch all the vendors as they were setting up their goods. Right when the clock turned eight, we left Casper in the car and headed toward the vendors to look around. We picked up a few more ears of corn and some white peaches before moving on to the next vendor who was selling homemade jams and sauces. We chose a Teriyaki sauce that the lady said would taste great over roasted veggies.

  As we walked from table to table, I noticed that the last vendor was still filling his table. He had the largest green peppers I had ever seen and some really juicy looking raspberries.

  “Looking for anything in particular?” the man asked.

  “No, but these look really good,” I said referring to the raspberries. “I didn’t think they were in season yet.”

  “Oh well we have a greenhouse where we’re able to control the humidity. We have fresh fruits and veggies of every kind all year round.”

  “Wow, you’re lucky. I would love raspberries like this in the winter. The ones in the supermarket are tiny compared to this.”

  The man smiled at me in a way that made me feel a bit uncomfortable, and I noticed that the two other men helping him were actually staring at me.

  “We’ll take some,” my mom said. “Also, these green peppers and some of your cherry tomatoes.”

  As the man bagged our selections, I noticed my mom giving the men a meaningful look. Obviously she had caught them staring at me. She paid for our items and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome ma’am. See you soon,” he said and winked at her.

  When we were far enough away not to be heard, I said, “That was weird.”

  “What?” she asked innocently.

  “Mom! Those guys were staring at me and the man who took your money winked at you!”

  “Oh stop Jasmine. They were just being friendly.”