Bellamy Rising

by A. E. Snow

  “What is it that you see?”

  Miss Octavia had the sort of face and presence that made you want to tell her things. Her kind eyes encouraged me. She leaned forward as though she was really listening. I took a deep breath and described the dirt road that was so familiar to me now, and the old house.

  “Why do you think it has to do with the girl?”

  “I can’t see anything but the house but I just have this feeling like I know. And the funny thing is, I barely knew Jenna, but . . . I was the last person to see her.” The gravity of it hit me again. I was the very last person, other than the person who took her, to have seen her alive.

  “Have you ever had this happen before?” Miss Octavia was not freaked out by this. She remained perfectly calm and collected.

  “Yes,” I said. “Not for a while.”

  “Not since your dad died?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said in surprise. Yet when I thought about it, I wasn’t surprised that she knew.

  We were both quiet. A smiled played on Miss Octavia’s lips. “I know that you are here because you want me to tell you that you aren’t crazy, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You aren’t. You are special and you have a gift, but your gift needs to be cultivated, nurtured before you can expect to get more from it.”

  I wrinkled my brows. “How?”

  “Start with meditating.”

  “But—” I started to balk.

  She held up her hand. “Spend time in nature. Try to get in touch with your most inner self. And come back and see me a week from today.”

  I waited for her to give me more information about how I could get in touch with my most inner self. Miss Octavia just smiled. I guess that’s part of the journey. I reached into my pocket to hand her the $30 fee.

  She held her hand up. “No. You don’t pay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” Leading the way to the door, she said, “You’re a student not a bored housewife. Students don’t pay here.”

  On the doorstep, I glance back at her over my shoulder. “Thanks.”

  I drove back to Louisa on autopilot while relief and terror battled it out inside of me. All the weird things that happened to me as a kid, all the things I saw or just seemed to know, they were all true.

  Chapter 16

  Attempting to process my meeting with Miss Octavia left me exhausted. I fell into bed as soon as I got home. My phone buzzed in my ear, jerking me out of a dreamless sleep.

  “Let me in. I’m outside.”

  “BELLAMY, GET UP!”

  “I’m banging on the door.”

  I climbed out of bed stiff with sleep and followed the sound of someone hammering on the front door. I answered the door both groggy with sleep in my eyes and on high alert.

  “Turn on the TV right now,” Iris demanded and pushed past me.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Oh my GOD, Bellamy, I’ve been calling you all morning. They found Jenna’s body.”

  A waterfall of shock hit me with brute force. “Shit.” I sank down onto the couch and tried to hold myself upright while Iris searched for the local news.

  “. . . where a body was found early this morning. The identity will not be confirmed until DNA testing has been performed but the search for Jenna Woodson has officially been called off.” The news anchor wore a serious expression, the one reporters use when talking about a murder or tornado. She stood next to a wooded area by a highway I recognized as being on the resort side of the lake. Yellow police tape crisscrossed behind her and grim-faced police officers walked in and out of the frame. “No suspects have been named and no arrests have been made at this time. Back to you, Ted.”

  Despite Ted’s over-botoxed face, he was able to pull his eyebrows together in concern. “Thank you, Tara.”

  The anchors moved on to the next tragedy while Iris and I stared straight ahead. Neither of us spoke. My entire body went numb as the reality that Jenna was dead seeped into every part of me.

  Andrew stomped down the stairs startling me out my shock for a moment. “Hey, losers.” He went straight into the kitchen where he opened and slammed cabinets.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. Silence settled over the room and I closed my eyes. Mason. Whenever I closed my eyes, I either saw Mason or an old dirt road. Seeing his face reminded me that I should call him. I decided to wait until Iris left to do that too.

  “Damn. What a day,” she said. “What time is it?”

  “Four-thirty,” I said, checking my phone.

  “I gotta go. Mom let me bring her car with the caveat that I came right back and I’d rather be earlier than later if I ever want to go anywhere again.” Iris put her arm around me and touched her big curls to my orange hair. “This is all kinds of sucky.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “I really gotta go.” Iris left, and I watched her jog to her car, hair bouncing behind her.

  I trudged upstairs and sat down on the bed. My whole body sunk down as if I were made of lead. Staring at my phone, I tried to decide if I should call Mason.

  Groaning, I said to myself, “Don’t be such a dick. Just do it.” I found his number with shaky hands and found his contact on my phone.

  He answered right away. “Hi,” he said, his voice ragged.

  “Hi . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks.” After a long silence, he cleared his throat. “Do you want to do something? I need to get out of here and I just don’t want to talk about any of this.”

  “Sure. What do you wanna do?”

  “Can you pick me up?”

  “Of course. I’ll let you know when I’m on the way.”

  I didn’t ask Andrew if he needed the car. I just slipped the keys off their hook by the front door and left. A few minutes later, I waited outside of Mason’s house.

  Mason dashed out of ranch style house and ran to the car. He got in and let his head fall back against the seat. “Just go somewhere. I don’t care where.”

  I nodded, biting my lip. I drove without a destination in mind. When I saw signs for the lake, I headed that way and drove around until I spotted a secluded picnic area by the water.

  “Maybe I do want to talk. But only a little,” he said once we were seated on top one of the picnic tables. The February day was a contradiction, both warm in the sun but with a biting wind. He stared out over the rippling water. Without the trees to soften it, the sun bounced off the water with the harshness that only comes in the winter.

  “Whatever you want to do.” I waited for him to speak.

  “I don’t think I feel worse than I did. I can’t say I feel better knowing what happened to her, but . . . I can’t even describe how I feel. I’m just tired of living through this tragedy. If it had been a car wreck or whatever, it would have been fast. This is so much worse.”

  “I think that’s completely understandable under the circumstances. How many people go through this particular situation? It’s not a common experience. I can say that I empathize but I have nothing to compare this too. Except the loss part. That part, I get.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “You always say the right thing.”

  “No one ever told me that before.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Thanks.” I shivered as a cold wind ripped through me.

  We sat staring at the water and talking occasionally until I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “You’re freezing.”

  I smiled. “Maybe a little.”

  “Let’s go. There’s something I want to do.” He hopped off the picnic table.

  I followed him back to the car. “What’s that?”

  “Get drunk,” he said. “In an effort to tak
e a break from processing my feelings about this ordeal, I would like to drown them for a while. Can you get beer or something?”

  I started the car and cranked the heat up, rubbing my hands together. “Yeah. There’s probably some at my house. Otherwise, my sister will get it.”

  “Are you sure? She isn’t opposed to underage drinking?”

  I raised eyebrow at him. “I regularly party with my sister.”

  “What are we waiting for then?”

  Chapter 17

  I grabbed the 12-pack that sat chilling in the fridge. Maybe no one would notice it was gone.

  “Come on,” I said to Mason and he followed me up the stairs. He seemed surprised when I kept going up the attic stairs. “I sleep on the top floor. Everyone sleeps down here. My evil genius is such that it needs its own floor.”

  We settled in and opened the beer. The thing about drinking, is that you have to be doing something or it isn’t that much fun. I grabbed a pack of cards out of my desk drawer. “Spit?”

  “What is Spit?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” He sat across from me in the floor and I taught him how to play Spit, a game I’d played with my siblings when we were children. Playing cards gave us something to concentrate on besides tragedy.

  “Your mom doesn’t mind if you drink?” Mason asked after a particularly spirited round.

  “Not really. She’s gone all the time so it’s kind of whatever.” I don’t say that she’s gone all the time so we can afford to eat.

  “It must be nice to have some freedom.” He ran his hand through his hair until it stuck out in all directions. “Mom and Rick don’t let me do anything. I’m obviously not going to make the same stupid mistakes as Jenna.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I keep saying I’m done talking about it and I just keep talking about it. God.”

  “Okay, no more talking about it. I mean, I’ll listen if you want to talk but we can probably find something else to do.”

  “Movie?” Mason asked.

  “Yeah.” I grabbed my laptop and set it up on the battered and rickety coffee table in front of the futon.

  “I have to say, I’m feeling a little bit better,” he said while I found a movie.

  “Yeah, me too. It’s good to have a distraction from all the scary, serious stuff going on. How did you convince your mom to let you leave anyway?” I asked.

  “She is making me text her every hour.” He held up his phone. “So I am. I’m just not telling her what I’m doing exactly.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  I moved up to the futon and he sat next to me. While we watched the movie, he polished off one beer after another. “Thanks for letting me come over.” He didn’t make eye contact, but kept his eyes focused on my foot.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  Mason, in addition to being the brother of a dead girl that I was inexplicably tied to, was totally different from the boys I usually hung out with. For one thing, he worked hard and did well in school. He was president of the freakin’ Honor Society. It seemed that getting drunk was kind of a big deal for him. Not something he did every day. He didn’t smoke pot at all and he hung with a different crowd entirely—the smart kids, the ones who were going somewhere. He’d already told me that he was applying at Penn State and NYU. I had no idea what I was doing other than getting out of Louisa, hopefully.

  “Thanks.”

  “Did I tell you that I got questioned by the police?” he asked after a moment.

  “So did I,” I said.

  “No, like questioned. ‘Where were you the night of December 31?’” he drawled, mimicking a small-town cop in the mountains and sounding an awful lot like Officer Lewis.

  “How could they do that?” Shock raced through me.

  “I guess they’re covering all the bases. They said they always look close to home first. I actually went to a party that night at the Lake House.”

  “Really? I didn’t see you there.” I wracked my brain but I still couldn’t remember much other than stupid Will Onishi and the incident in the car.

  “I saw you.”

  I felt my cheeks warm and I lowered my gaze, fiddling with the hair tie on my wrist.

  “Where’s your bathroom?” he asked.

  “Down one floor, first door on your right.”

  While he was gone, I tried to regroup. Listen, Bellamy, I told myself. It would be weird and probably inappropriate for you to kiss that beautiful boy. I understand that it’s going to be close to impossible because of his hair and his eyes and everything else. Will is kind of a douchebag but at least he isn’t the sister of the dead girl you were the last person to see. But why would the police question him? Did he do it? No . . . he couldn’t have.

  After taking a few deep breaths, I decided that he was as likely a killer as I was. I rearranged myself on the futon and worked at picking a hole in my already-holey jeans. When he got back he sat down next to me, closer than he’d been before.

  He broke the silence. “Are you and Will together or something?”

  “Why do you want to know?” I teased but the blood rushed to my face.

  “Oh, just curious,” he said. His leg touched my leg.

  “I’m not with him . . . or anyone.” I stared out of the corner of my eye at his mouth which curled up into a smile.

  “Okay,” he said.

  I laughed. “Okay?”

  Returning my attention to the screen, I took another drink of beer. He scooted closer and it wasn’t long before I felt his hand on my leg. His thumb brushed against my knee through the rip that left my whole knee exposed. My breath caught in my throat and I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze.

  “Bellamy?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I stay here tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  He typed out a message on his phone. “I guess I should tell my mom I’m not coming home tonight.” He hit send and tossed his phone onto the futon.

  Then he kissed me, his fingers curving around the back of my neck. Scooting closer to him, I ran my fingers through his hair, something I’d been dying to do. My neck tingled under his hand and when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I broke away and stood up.

  “Come on.” Grabbing his hand, I pulled him up and toward the bed. I shoved my books off the bed and lay down. Hesitant, he stared at me, biting his lip. Our eyes met and I saw the anxiety written on his face despite the alcohol.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered.

  Nodding, he lay down next to me and touched his toes to my toes and his forehead to my forehead. He stared into my eyes for a moment before scrunching his eyes shut. He sighed and shook his head slightly. This time, I started the kiss. For a while, I forgot all about Jenna, murder, missing people, visions, and Will.

  After what must have been one hundred hours, I pushed him away. My lips felt swollen and I was lightheaded. “I’m not trying to . . . but . . . you can sleep in my bed . . . with me. Like actual sleeping.”

  “Yeah.”

  We wriggled under the covers and I peeled off my jeans and tossed them onto the floor. “I hate sleeping in pants.”

  “Good God,” he responded and kissed me again.

  Chapter 18

  I woke up before the sun rose, completely surprised to find Mason in my bed, and suffering from a headache. We didn’t have sex but sleeping together, just sleeping, seemed more intimate somehow.

  Despite the pain of a hangover, I could barely keep myself tethered to the earth. For once, I hadn’t woken up from a terrifying dream/vision. I smiled and rearranged so I could see him.

  Watching Mason sleep was maybe borderline creepy, but he was just so good at sleeping. As beautiful asleep as h
e was awake, he didn’t drool or snore. I kept my head on the pillow inches from his face. I wanted to kidnap him and keep him locked in my tower room forever like some reversed version of Rapunzel. One day earlier, I wouldn’t have admitted to even liking Mason and now I was ready to hold him captive.

  When he stirred, I pretended to be waking up too. For a moment, he nuzzled his face into my neck. But as the room brightened and reality set in, an awkward silence settled over everything.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  “Hi.” He scooted over a bit and then sat up. At some point, his shirt had disappeared. Tiny rainbows from the crystals hanging in my window dotted his skin. He sat on the edge of the bed and yawned.

  “Does your head hurt?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  Holding the blanket around me, I got up and shimmied into my pants. Not sure what to do, I sat down on the other end of the bed.

  “I guess I should get home,” he said. “Today is gonna be a long one. Most of the family is coming today.”

  “Shit.” I had somehow forgotten. All the warmth rushed out of the room and we were left with the cold reality of death.

  I pulled on a pair of boots and when I stood up, Mason grabbed my hips and kissed me. He rested his mouth on my cheek. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

  “Anytime,” I whispered and pressed my forehead to his for a moment.

  We didn’t speak on the way home. I could almost feel his dread. When we got to his house, he turned to me, his eyes black with sorrow. “See ya.”

  “See ya,” I said as he slammed the car door behind him.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. On a whim, I drove into town and parked on Main Street. The Beans was open and customers trickled inside. I wrapped my coat around me as I crossed the street and went inside.

  Ana Sofia handed a customer their change and then waved at me. “Belly!”

  “Hi.” I walked up to the counter with my hands in my pockets. I ordered coffee and donuts for my family and me.