by Tammy Turner
“If you say so,” said Alexandra, rubbing her neck. “I don’t think about it much.”
“Turn around now. Let me see how it looks,” said Granny June. She noticed the dark circles under Alexandra’s eyes. “Did you sleep all right last night, Alex?”
“I guess,” Alexandra sighed. “I have been having the same dream over again lately, though. It’s kind of annoying,” she laughed nervously.
“What could be so upsetting, my dear?” Granny June asked, holding her granddaughter’s hand in her lap.
“Do you remember the story you told me when I was a little girl?” Alexandra asked. “The one about Princess Iselin?”
Granny June nodded.
“Every night—for weeks—I dream about a girl with flowers braided into her long hair. She is wearing a white dress. The dream always starts with her running through the woods as fast as she can, like she’s running for her life. As she runs, the flowers fall from her hair, and her dress rips into tatters. Finally she falls to the ground. Before she can pick herself up, a creature swoops down and picks her up in its claws.” By this point, Alexandra was slightly trembling.
“My goodness, Alex, lay your head down,” Granny June said, pulling her granddaughter’s head to her shoulder. “I wish I had never told you that story,” she said, stroking Alexandra’s hair.
Meanwhile upstairs, Taylor was having a streak of bad luck. Once she’d gotten to her room, she had yanked her cell phone from the wall charger and hunted for Antonio’s phone number. Finding the long-distance number, she crooned, “There you are, handsome,” and hit the call button. “Please pick up, please,” she said into the phone. But after the tenth ring, she grunted “Humph” and hit the phone’s end-call button. “Your loss,” she told the phone and tossed it onto her bed.
Opening a suitcase, she chose a pair of itty-bitty, tight white shorts and a bright-pink tank top. “Now where are my new sandals?” she wondered aloud, scouring the room for her shoes. Kneeling under the bed, she felt a tiny, wet nose sniffing her feet. She turned to see a fuzzy, white poodle drooling on a strappy, white-leather sandal. On seeing Taylor, the poodle clutched her prize tighter in her mouth.
“Give me that,” Taylor demanded, swiping her hand at the shoe. But the dog only growled and backed away toward the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” Taylor shrieked at the tiny thief. “That shoe cost more than you.”
The poodle ducked through the slightly opened bedroom door and scooted into the hallway, with Taylor close on her heels. Once out the door, Taylor looked both ways down the quiet upstairs hallway. But neither the sandal nor the canine culprit was in sight. She tiptoed over the wooden floor, making her way toward the stairs. A door suddenly creaked very softly at the end of the hallway.
“I’ve got you now,” she cried, whipping around down the hall toward the sound. She crept toward the cracked door; she was certain that behind that door the dog would be hiding with her leather sandal.
“Hello,” she whispered, knocking gently on the door. Pushing it open slowly, she saw that the door led to the foot of a narrow staircase leading to the attic. She heard Dixie above the staircase, growling in victory as she gnawed on the shoe’s high heel. “I’m going to get you,” Taylor called out and stomped up the stairs, fuming with anger. As Taylor’s eyes peeked above the top step, she saw Dixie mauling the shoe. The straps were strewn across the attic floor. “You crazy dog,” she hissed, lunging at Dixie. The white poodle whined and backed into the dark shadows of a corner. “Get out here,” Taylor demanded.
The attic was cramped and a bit dim. One lone, small, round window looked out over the ocean. Next to the window sat an old twin mattress with a tattered blanket spread across it. In the middle sat a lifeless doll, staring at the ceiling, her hands tied behind her back with twine. “Oh my gosh,” said Taylor, stepping toward the mattress.
Behind her, Dixie escaped from the shadows and raced down the steps. As Taylor backed away, a sharp pain pinched her bare right foot. She winced in pain. “What was that?” she asked aloud, bending to look at the floor.
Squinting to see in the poor light of the attic, she picked up what she’d stepped on. She looked carefully at what she held in her fingers. “Yikes! It’s a tooth!” she screamed, dropping it to the floor, where it bounced away into the shadows. Below her, she could hear the attic door creak. “Hello?” she asked. She waited in silence, but heard no reply. Grabbing the sandal pieces from the floor, she flew down the narrow steps and back into the second-floor hallway where Dixie was waiting for her, the dog’s tail wagging happily.
Taylor patted the dog’s head gently. “Where’s Granny?” she whispered to Dixie.
Dixie scampered down the hallway past the guest bedrooms to the grand staircase leading to the first floor, with Taylor close behind. The poodle dared not stop until she found the kitchen, the smell of fresh bacon in her food bowl outweighing any repercussion Taylor could wreak upon her.
“This isn’t over, missy,” Taylor promised the pooch, holding her sandal in the air above the dog’s head.
Dixie growled a short reply as Taylor left her to lick up the bacon scraps. Throwing open the screen door to the porch, Taylor found Alexandra and Granny June sitting together on the porch swing.
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies,” Taylor said, “but you wouldn’t happen to have a werewolf renting a room in your attic would you, Granny June?” Taylor stomped toward the swing in her bare feet, her hands mindlessly waving the shredded sandal back and forth in the air.
“Taylor? What is wrong with you?” Alexandra scolded.
“I found that mongrel eating my shoe in the attic,” said Taylor. “And because I didn’t have any shoes on up there, I stepped on a tooth. A fang, actually.”
“Show it to me,” demanded Alexandra.
“I can’t,” Taylor answered. “It’s still in the attic.”
“Girls, calm down,” hushed Granny June. Alexandra and Taylor both looked at her in silence.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but this trip is turning into a freak show,” Taylor said fuming, her hands planted on her hips as her foot patted the porch impatiently. “I mean— have you seen my car? And now this,” she said, holding her mangled sandal in one hand and pointing her bleeding toe up in the air.
“I’m sorry you hurt your foot, Taylor,” said Granny June sympathetically. “I rarely go in that room; it’s only used for storage. I don’t know why the door would have been unlocked.”
“It is okay, Granny June,” huffed Taylor as she sat down on the swing beside Alexandra and used a napkin from the breakfast table to dab at her toe.
“Do you need stitches, Taylor?” asked Alexandra, scowling at her pouting friend.
“No,” insisted Taylor. Then she whispered into Alexandra’s ear, “But we’re going back up there later so you can see it, too.”
“It’s going to be a beautiful day, girls,” said Granny June with a bit of forced cheerfulness. “You can go down to the beach or over to the marina. I’ve already phoned to tell them that the boat should be made ready for a sail—if you should so choose.” She smiled.
Sensing the irritation in her grandmother’s voice, Alexandra jumped up from the porch swing and headed toward the kitchen door. “Breakfast was delicious,” she said.
“Looks like we’re going to get dressed now,” said Taylor rising slowly, careful to place her injured toe lightly on the porch.
“I think we’re going to go out for a while,” Alexandra called to her grandmother as she helped Taylor hobble through the door.
4
Drowning
With the blazing sun rising toward the middle of the cloudless sky, Taylor drove her precision-tuned sports car over the bumpy gravel driveway away from Peyton Manor, toward Black Hall Trail. Nestled into the passenger seat, Alexandra looked through the windshield at the deep scratches on the hood of Taylor’s convertible.
Those certainly do look like claw marks, she thought, puzzled.
No matter how many times she replayed the night before in her head, she could not say for sure what she had seen in the middle of the road. “Let’s keep the top up for now,” she recommended to Taylor.
Searching for the right button on the dashboard that would close the convertible top, Taylor grumbled, “I’m glistening, Alex. You didn’t tell me how hot it was going to be here.”
Alexandra turned the air conditioner on full force and sat back in the seat. “I’m sorry, Taylor. I’m sorry about the car, the weather, your new shoes, everything.”
“Chill,” said Taylor as the car roof closed over them. Then suddenly Taylor asked, “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” replied Alexandra, looking through the windshield and seeing nothing. But then she heard it, too: a howling screech, echoing through the dense canopy around them.
“It must have been the gate closing behind us just now,” Alexandra said, turning around to look through the back window.
The car idled in front of the gate at the end of the driveway. “Yeah, you’re right,” Taylor said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Now point me toward the marina,” she said. The car gained speed quickly as she navigated from the packed gravel driveway up onto the black asphalt.
“Maybe it was just a low branch that scratched your car last night,” said Alexandra as they raced down the winding road.
“Probably,” agreed Taylor, nodding her head as she scanned the dense forest of moss-covered oak trees on either side of the road. “Don’t worry about it,” she lied.
“Make a left when you get to the stop sign,” Alexandra directed her.
“What stop sign? There’s nothing out here except trees,” Taylor sighed.
“It’s still a couple of miles up the road. Just make a left when you get to it, and follow that road to the water. You can’t miss the docks,” Alexandra explained. “Granny June said to ask for Captain Bradley when we get there. He’s supposed to take us out for a sail in the harbor.”
Alexandra stared at the passing woods through the passenger window, hoping to spot a low-hanging limb near the bend in the road where she scratched the car’s hood. But not a single stray limb hung down over the road. The woods flew by her eyes as they sped further from Peyton Manor. But deep in the trees, she saw something fleeting, something racing with them.
A deer? Alexandra asked herself as her fingers felt for the door lock. “Definitely a deer,” she said aloud, straining her eyes harder to see into the passing trees.
“What did you say?” asked Taylor, searching for the stop sign.
“Nothing,” mumbled Alexandra, her fingers fumbling absentmindedly with her necklace.
“Is this the turn?” asked Taylor as the convertible eased toward a four-way intersection. Alexandra did not answer, intently keeping her eyes on the woods.
“Hello?” asked Taylor turning to look at her friend. “Do I turn here, or what?”
“Yeah, I think so,” said Alexandra. Just then, a motorcycle approached the intersection from the right and screeched to a halt. The rider revved the engine impatiently, waiting for the convertible to move. Alexandra studied a dent in the bike’s black front fender.
“What is that?” asked Taylor, pointing to Alexandra’s necklace as the motorcycle sped past them through the intersection. “Jerk,” mumbled Taylor, turning the car to the left in the same direction as the motorcycle.
“My dad sent it to me,” explained Alexandra, clutching the necklace tightly in her hand.
“Your dad? Are you kidding?” Taylor asked in disbelief.
“No, it’s true. My grandmother said it came in the mail this week. The box had postmarks from, like, ten different countries. It had been lost all this time, but it finally found its way to me.”
“That’s really incredible,” Taylor said as the boat docks came into view. “You should call a TV station about it. They love doing those kinds of amazing true stories.”
“Yeah, except that my dad is still missing,” Alexandra said glumly.
“Never mind,” Taylor said. She pulled her Mercedes into a parking spot in front of the marina. Their spot was next to a black, dented motorcycle.
“So where do we find Captain Bradley?” Taylor asked as she followed Alexandra across the parking lot and up onto a wooden boardwalk. Her high-heeled sandals wedged into a gap between the planks. “Seriously!” Taylor complained.
“Why don’t you take those off and go barefoot?” Alexandra asked, looking down at her friend’s feet.
“No way. Do you know how hard it was to get these things on?” Taylor insisted, yanking her foot free of the boardwalk’s grasp.
At the entrance to the marina, a young woman wiped off tables and straightened chairs at an open-air restaurant. “Let’s check in there,” suggested Alexandra. “Maybe someone at Cannon Shots knows where to find him,” she said, reading the sign on the roof.
The pair strolled up to the long bar. Taylor plopped down on a tall stool and threw a pack of cigarettes from her purse onto the wooden bar in front of her. The pack landed next to a motorcycle helmet.
“A glass of Pinot Grigio,” she requested, winking at the man behind the bar.
He set a glass in front of her. She took a sip. “What is this?” she asked, spitting it out. “Water?”
The bartender chuckled.
“Excuse her,” Alexandra told him. “You wouldn’t happen to know where we could find someone named Captain Bradley, would you?” she asked.
“That would be me,” he told her, extending a handshake. “You can call me Brad. I’m not really a captain, though.”
“Really?” Taylor asked, rolling her eyes in feigned shock.
“I’m Alexandra Peyton,” Alexandra said, shaking his hand.
“Your grandmother called me about you. Are you young ladies ready to take the sailboat out now?”
“No, we’re here to watch you clean tables,” said Taylor sarcastically.
“Too bad,” Brad told her. “It’s a beautiful day for a sail.”
“Why do you call yourself Captain Bradley?” asked Taylor, lighting a cigarette and puffing the smoke toward him.
“I don’t,” he explained. “Mrs. Peyton likes to call me that. She doesn’t come down here very often. But when she does, she pays me well to sail the Miss Alex around the harbor for her,” he said, looking at Alexandra.
“I’m Taylor, by the way,” the pretty blonde informed him as she tamped out her cigarette in an ashtray sitting on the bar.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” he said, grabbing his motorcycle helmet and stowing it away under the bar.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” said Taylor. She slid from the bar stool onto her shaky, high-heeled feet. The two friends followed Brad’s careful steps over the wet boat docks, toward the Miss Alex.
High tide swelled in the harbor as the Miss Alex cruised lazily away from the marina. Once on board, Taylor appointed herself first mate. All the while, Alexandra’s belly ached from laughing at her best friend’s attempts to stand on a swaying boat in five-inch heels.
“So what do you want to be when you grow up, Brad?” asked Taylor. She stretched her aching legs out in the sun as Brad dropped the anchor in the middle of the harbor.
“I have some ideas,” he told Taylor, scrounging the deck for a fishing rod. He spied Alexandra rummaging through a cooler. “Let me see one of those sandwiches,” he called to her.
Taylor persisted with her interrogation. “Do you go to school?”
“I’m in law school at Vanderbilt,” he told her as he slipped a piece of sandwich meat on his fishing hook.
“Gross,” Taylor whined. “So you just do this for fun?”
“Actually, yes; but the money helps, too,” he said, casting the line into the ocean.
“I might apply to Vanderbilt this fall,” Taylor told him. “But I’m not sure if my extracurricular activities are well-rounded enough.”
“I’m guessing you’re a cheerleader,”
Brad said, watching Taylor daintily chew on a cold ham-and-cheese sandwich.
“Not anymore,” Alexandra offered, listening to their conversation.
“I volunteer at an old folks home,” Taylor exclaimed.
“Does it count if it is court ordered?” Alexandra smiled as Brad smirked in her direction.
“Be quiet,” hissed Taylor as she reached inside the cooler for a soda.
Leaning over the side of the sailboat, Alexandra dropped her bread crust into the choppy water until a fin rose up from the waves by her hand. “Look,” she shrieked, quickly stumbling backward from the rail. “Shark!”
“Cool!” exclaimed Brad, jumping up to look. But then he said to assure her, “It’s only a dolphin.”
As her heart slowly returned to its normal pace, Alexandra leaned back over the rail. The high sun reflected harshly from the water back into her face, and she squinted in the glare. As the back of the dolphin rose toward her in the murky water, she leaned over the side of the boat once more for a closer look.
“I think I can touch it,” she said, extending her arm over the side of the boat.
As Alexandra stared into the water, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection on the rippling waves. Looking at the mirror image of herself, she suddenly saw a man standing behind her. She felt frozen in place along the railing. A cloud scurried across the sun, blocking the once-clear reflection. Grabbing the railing, she tried to steady herself as the boat swayed back and forth.
Taylor, seeing her friend’s unsteadiness, reminded Alexandra, “This isn’t Sea World.” A sharp gust of wind rocked the boat and knocked Alexandra headfirst into the water. With a loud splash, Alexandra descended into the dark waves. “Alex!” Taylor screamed at Brad as Alexandra fell into the sea. “She can’t swim, Brad! Help her!”
Sinking fast, she struggled to find the surface. Her eyes stung in the salty water. Despite not being able to see in the water, she became aware of a figure looming toward her. She was certain that it was a shark, swimming quietly only a few feet away. Panic gripped her. Her arms and legs flailed helplessly under the waves.