Suddenly the warning of that old woman came back into her mind. They shouldn’t be here. It was not safe tonight. Liala looked up to the moon that stood full over them and seemed so much bigger than at home. She couldn’t help it. Ever since she had felt this strange off feeling, she couldn’t ease her tense muscles, she couldn’t taste the steak anymore, because all she did was listen into the night, thinking: We shouldn’t be here.
However, no matter how much Liala listened to her surroundings, everything she was hearing were things that could be easily explained. The rustling of leaves on the ground where mice sped from one hole to another, the call of a tiny owl, the cracking noise of the camp fire. And if there was more to hear, the chatter of her family and their friends drowned it, which made her feel even more uneasy. She couldn’t help it; so, she got up, putting her paper plate on her seat and started to put some distance between her, the fire and her people.
Somewhere in the distance a branch fell to the ground, breaking off twigs on its way down until it stopped with a big loud bumping noise. For a moment, the entire forest seemed to hold its breath until it had analyzed the situation and regarded it as no threat. It was then when Liala could also hear crickets in the distance.
Shaking her head, she dismissed her fears, and placed one hand against the hood of her father’s car. Why can’t I just relax and enjoy this place? Turning around she realized that it was because she didn’t remember it like it was now. There seemed to be something off, something different about it. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it’s my mom that’s missing.
Liala stepped to car’s door and opened it, this time shaking her head about her dad’s actions. He hadn’t locked the vehicle and the keys were still in the ignition. For a moment, she thought about just getting inside and listen to some music, but then she couldn’t hear the forest. Even though she was aware that she probably worried way too much, she didn’t want to blatantly ignore her guts. With a deep sigh, she turned around and walked back to the camp fire, taking her paper plate, and sitting down again.
“Who’s in for marshmallows?” Benjy cheered, just finishing the circle of sticks that held the impaled sweets which were already melting.
Liala didn’t answer as she looked around the people who were sitting at the campfire. Her brother was walking a circle, checking on his marshmallows while the others chatted or ate. Her uncle was talking to her dad, they both were sipping beers. It made her realize that this would be the first time she could drink a beer herself, but she wasn’t tempted by that idea. After all, alcohol mixed with her anxiety meds weren’t a good combination. Then again Liala didn’t mind avoiding the booze. The last time she secretly tasted it ended up with her having a major hangover after just two beers.
She continued to take in the circle of the people sitting around the campfire. Next to them sat Kiana who was watching her, lifting her eyebrows as their gazes met. Obviously, she had noticed her cousin’s restlessness. Liala answered with shaking her head briefly, telling her not to worry. Next to Kiana sat her brother’s bestie Liam who was just about to offer his marshmallow to Kiana. Next to Liam was Kiana’s brother, Jason who sat on a tree stump and had his girlfriend Brenna on his lap, feeding her the sweet stuff. And then there was Rick, who sat between two vacated seats – Brenna’s and Benjy’s – and he looked a little forlorn, still chewing on his steak. So Liala got up and sat down on her little brother’s seat.
“Hey,” she said, instantly getting Rick’s attention and a wide smile.
“Hey,” he gave back after swallowing the bite he had in his mouth.
“Thanks,” Liala added and looked down at her plate that was now empty.
“For what?” Rick frowned confused.
“For not instantly hitting on me as Jason surely suggested.”
Rick didn’t answer to what Liala said, at least not in words. He simply looked at her for a moment and then took the big chunk that was left of his steak and shoved it in his mouth.
Liala had no idea what to make of it. Maybe he was trying to buy himself some time, maybe he tried to figuratively swallow down his embarrassment or any other emotion that this situation caused in him.
For a moment Liala thought about returning to her seat next to her dad, but that would have been just as awkward as sitting next to Rick and silently staring into the fire; exactly what she was doing right now.
Why couldn’t it have been just the three of us?
She had wanted to go with her family alone, with her dad and her brother and not with an entire entourage of people who had no clue what this place really meant to her; how important it really was.
Liala’s eyes wandered to her dad who talked with his brother, and she wondered if he really knew how much she was yearning to reconnect with the mother her little brother Benjy had never known. He hadn’t even noticed that she had left her seat.
“I feel bad for coming along, actually,” Rick suddenly said making her flinch, but she turned around to look at him. “As far as I understood Kiana said this was supposed to be your birthday present, sinceyou went here with your mom. I tried to talk the guys out of it, but well, here I am.”
“Thank you,” Liala gave him a tiny smile.
She could have started to explain it all to him; how much it had meant to her that her father chose to give her this present and how let down she had felt when he told her that they weren’t going camping alone. But it wouldn’t change anything now that we are all here.
“The last time we camped here was when mom was seven months pregnant with Benjy,” she said instead, not wanting the awkward silence between them to return. “I remember the whole place differently. But it was years ago.”
“I know that feeling,” Rick answered. “Last year we renovated our first house, which my dad is renting out now and everything looked different than I remembered it. I was a little kid when we moved to our new house. Time sucks sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Liala nodded.
Lost for words she stared in the fire again but giggling from the other side of the fire caught her attention. The guys were looking, chuckling, and obviously talking about them and she let out a deep sigh.
“Ignore them,” Rick said and offering a marshmallow stick; she hadn’t noticed that he had gotten up to pull two from the fire.
“Thanks.” She smiled again, taking the offering.
Both focused on gently separating the marshmallow from the twigs and eating them and this caught Benjy’s attention, who then came running in order to collect the sticks and prepare another round.
Rick and Liala kept talking about random stuff for the rest of the evening until she took her brother to bed. After that, Liala had to join the rest of the ‘young people’ and pretend to be interested in their banter and jokes, acting as if she were one of them, when in fact, she felt like a fish out of water. She didn’t want to sit with them until after midnight, drink and chat. All Liala wanted to do was to enjoy the sounds of the night, the twinkling stars in the sky and the full moon in all its glory. The moon however was hiding behind the crowns of the high trees around them, and the night was all but silent because of Liala’s unwanted guests.
I should have said ‘no.’ I should have insisted.
Midnight came and went, they popped open a bottle of sparkling wine and after that, everyone drank any other types of booze: Liala had no interest in consuming it and that wasn’t only because of her anxiety meds that didn’t mix well with alcohol. And when she wanted to head for her tent Kiana and Brenna were the ones that held her back, kept her between them and pestered her with annoying questions about what kind of men she liked and why Rick would be the perfect match for her.
“I like them tall as trees, dark haired and green eyed,” Liala admitted to finally be left alone; it was everything that Rick wasn’t.
The guy wasn’t tiny, but medium sized, his hair was blonde and his eyes brown. And that made Brenna and Kiana shut up, at least for a few seconds.
“H
e’s an exceptional marksman,” Brenna told her.
“I hate weapons,” Liala responded, hoping this woman, she so disliked, would finally shut up.
“He’s thinking about becoming a vegetarian,” Brenna said triumphantly.
“I love meat,” Liala rolled her eyes.
“You’re no fun!” Brenna shouted and got up, pulling Kiana with her.
Much to her relief Rick returned to her side, after just finishing a drinking game.. Like that Brenna would hopefully let her be. That her cousin’s friend was suddenly so interested in getting her hooked up with Rick, was suspicious to Liala. It didn’t make any sense, or maybe she was just trying to please her best friend, who pitied her.
“Did the guys pester you too with questions about me?” Liala blurted out, because she had no idea what to ask him or what to talk about.
“What do you mean?” Rick asked confused.
“Nothing,” Liala shrugged.
“Aren’t you drinking anything?” He offered her an unopened can he had taken along with his open one.
“No, thanks, I have a headache,” Liala lied and was actually surprised that he believed her, since she usually was a really bad liar.
Giving her best effort to suppress a sigh, because she really didn’t want to offer any more small-talk she simply leaned back and looked at the sky.
“Do you know any constellations?” Rick asked her, maybe hoping that he could show off his knowledge.
“Yes, my mom told me when I was little,” Liala said and lifted her arm to point at one that she felt it was common knowledge to be familiar with. “That’s Ursa Major and the other one is Ursa Minor, the big and little bear.”
“Uh-uh,” he commented and she realized that she had probably just named the only two constellations he knew.
Well, that’s not my fault.
“That below Ursa Minor is Cassiopeia,” she pointed and explained. “Mother of Andromeda, that’s there.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that one,” Rick admitted and he became a bit more likable to her.
“Yeah, I like looking at the stars,” Liala gave in and tried to be a little more amenable to him.
“Don’t they make you feel small?” he asked.
“No, they make me feel at home,” she shook her head.
“Why’s that?” He seemed to be sincerely interested, but she already had given him the explanation for that.
Oh boy.
“Because they make me think of my mom,” Liala told him patiently, and added before he was able to inquire: “She died when she gave birth to my little brother.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said quietly, but Liala barely heard him, as she tried to push the sadness away and blink the tears from her eyes.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Your mother must have been really beautiful,” Rick continued and for a moment Liala considered not holding back what was going through her mind right then, but she still did.
Really? This trick?
Can’t you be a bit more imaginative?
But she could see that he was trying to be nice and have a normal conversation with her.
“Thanks,” she gave back, politely, but not going down memory lane any further.
The few memories she had of her mother without help of pictures and notes they had written for each other were hers and hers alone. She didn’t want to share them with anyone and her father and brother both respected that.
Even Benjy understood what a sensitive topic her mom was to her, and that although he had never met her, never heard her voice, never felt her touch: Maybe that was the reason why it was so easy for him to live without her, because he had never known her.
Liala knew that she was more a mother to him than the woman who had given her life bringing him into this world, and she didn’t mind. Yet, for her, it sometimes was hard. There were times when she thought the ugly thoughts, picturing how life would have been without Benjy but with her mother. And going down that road she couldn’t help but imagine how it would be to sit here alone with her mom and her dad, staring at the stars. With mom, they had been here alone, without any extended family or friends.
But that was all what it was: imagination. She had no idea what she would choose if she really had to make a choice between her mother and her little brother. But she would never have to make that choice.
2 – Moonlight
Liala had a hard time falling asleep. She kept staring at the converging ceiling of the tent while her brother and father were slumbering deeply. A part of her envied them being able to fall asleep the moment they closed their eyes, the other part knew that it wasn’t simply in her power. They were lucky that the strange brightness of the moonlight, that drowned their camping spot, didn’t keep them awake, and didn’t make them restless.
Liala was wide awake and although she did her best to only stare up at the ceiling, she couldn’t stop her hearing from harkening out into the wilderness. She couldn’t really put a finger on it and if someone asked her she probably wouldn’t be able to give an explanation, but her gut told her that there was something off, something just didn’t feel right. Liala couldn’t help but hear the old woman’s warning over and over in her head, in that croaked sounding voice of hers.
Maybe – so she tried to convince herself – it was the absence of her mother that made everything appear to be out of place and simply wrong. It had to be, because what else could it be? All other theories she came up with in her tired mind were simply irrational and unrealistic. And yet, yet it felt more like fate than like a plan.
Liala held herself completely still, although she felt a strong urge to get out of this suddenly confining space that her family’s tent was becoming. She needed fresh air, needed to walk around in order to clear her mind.
Restlessness finally won as Liala carefully crawled out of her sleeping bag and towards the zipper, which sounded awfully loud in the small room that was her tent, as she slowly opened it. Once outside she realized how much the temperature had dropped, and not only because every time she breathed out little clouds built in front of her mouth, but also because of the goosebumps covering her body. However, more importantly, the air was clear and fresh; and she decided to not close the zipper all the way so that a little bit of fresh air would enter the tent she just had left: Just to make sure that her father and brother wouldn’t wake with a headache the next morning. Liala was freezing a little in her PJ’s and she scolded herself for not thinking of bringing along her parka or putting on a pair of shoes. Still, feeling the dead leaves and soft moss beneath her bare feet was a rather surprisingly soothing feeling. So, she took a few cautious steps towards the remnants of the camp fire that still radiated a lot of heat and where timbers were still glowing. Taking deep breaths, sucking in the cold night air, Liala slowly walked towards the glinting campfire remains, walking as close as possible to feel the warmth against her skin. She didn’t feel as confined as she did before, but that strange feeling that something was off simply would not go away. So, she turned around, putting the reddish glow of the dying campfire to her back and she looked into the darkness of the forest around them.
It wasn’t as dark as she expected because of the light of the full moon that tinted everything in a silverish, eerie, and almost otherworldly glow.
Is it just me, or does the moon look bigger?
Since there was nothing drawing her attention and alerting her instincts when she looked past the tent of her family, Liala decided to walk around the remains of their campfire and look in every direction, just to be sure. She was aware of how silly it was to glare into the night, unarmed and incapable to fight something off that was a real threat, as in being larger or in carrying a weapon, but she still had her voice, she could scream and wake up everyone in camp.
Every fiber in her was tense, almost electrified. Some faint voice, far back in her mind was whispering, telling her that the old woman was right, that they shouldn’t have set up camp here, that she
should wake up everyone and get them to pack their bags and just go home. And yet, Liala’s common sense told her that she was just making up things. But she couldn’t believe that voice when her whole body was screaming danger. They would think her insane, they would laugh at her, not believe her; and her father would have the same worried and guilty expression on his face that he sported lately. He believed that her night terrors, her dreams, and her feelings were his entire fault; because he was feeling overwhelmed with being a father and hadn’t stopped his daughter from taking over the role of the woman of the house. The last thing Liala could bare to see was exactly that expression, and this impulse was stronger than any warning instinct in her body.
She finished walking the circle, and there was nothing she had seen or heard that was threatening. It was all in her head. As it always was.
For a moment, she was tempted to go to the car and unlock the glove compartment where she had locked away her anxiety meds. Ever since she turned twelve and puberty hit, she suffered from these strange attacks where her heart suddenly would run wild because she had heard, seen, or even worse, smelled something. Within seconds her senses seemed to go into overdrive making her surroundings unbearable to her.
Liala had hoped that being outside, and being in the wilderness, would help her somehow center herself. She wasn’t sure if it was a figment of her imagination, or if it was something her mother had done when they were camping in these woods. Remembering how she would take her along collecting firewood and tell her to feel the coarse bark of the trees, to smell the moist ground, the difference between moss and decomposing leaves.
Before Liala knew what she was doing she found herself pressing her palms against the tree next to her dad’s car, moving down her hands, caressing the bark and inhaling deeply.
“I miss you, Mum,” she whispered almost inaudibly, feeling as if a stone weighing tons was lying on her chest, and tears were burning in her eyes.
HOWL and HUNT the HEIR: HOWL 1-3 (Dark World) Page 2