by D L Blade
After five minutes, they called our name, so we grabbed our pizzas and joined Shannon at our usual booth.
“Nothing like pizza for breakfast,” Shannon joked.
“At least I slept in, so I didn’t have to go too long on an empty stomach. My coffee has been holding me over,” I explained.
“Where were you last night? I texted you like five times and then we left without you,” Cami whined. “You missed a wild party … again.”
I don’t think I can keep hiding this new anti-social me any longer.
Cami didn’t even give me a chance to answer before she continued.
“You really should have been there. Erica hooked up with Jason Parks on one of Landen’s parents’ boats. It was hilarious when Landen walked in on them.”
“Why is that hilarious?” I asked while flashing a crooked smile and shaking my head.
She crunched her nose at my dry response and then perked her chest up in the air. “Doesn’t matter, but, where were you?”
“Binge-watched Friends so I could avoid catty gossip and pointless mingling with people we will probably never see again,” I scoffed dryly.
She narrowed her eyes at me and lowered her brow. “You need more coffee.”
Cami’s concern about my comment faded quickly. “Who are you texting?” Cami asked Shannon, giving her a slight nudge with her elbow to pull her attention toward her.
“Riley. He just parked,” Shannon answered as she removed her earphones.
Riley entered, leaped over the booth, and sat next to Cami. I turned to Riley, who immediately grabbed the menu. “Hey, did you miss the party, too?” I asked.
“I went, but it sucked.” He flashed a smile, revealing his perfect white teeth and we laughed in unison.
Cami pouted as Riley ran his hands through his thick blond hair, staring back at the menu.
“I don’t know why I’m looking at this menu. I get the same thing every time.” We chuckled again, and he headed toward the line to order his food.
A few minutes passed and I turned my attention toward Shannon, who was focusing on her phone again, seemingly having difficulty punching the keyboard letters with her acrylic nails.
Shannon popped her head up. “Shoot. It’s August 4th. We’re going to see Riley’s mom today, right?”
Today was the day we had planned to head up to Salem to visit Riley’s mom’s resting place. She had died eight years ago today, right around the time Riley asked me to be his girlfriend.
Riley was taking a seat, carrying his hot out-of-the-oven calzone. “Yeah, we can leave in an hour. I thought we could eat, fill up the gas, and then head out.” He took a bite of his calzone and then washed it down with a sip of Mountain Dew.
“I need to text my mom first. I had completely forgotten. Sorry, Riley,” Shannon apologized.
Riley only shrugged, still chewing his food.
Shannon’s mom most likely wouldn’t have an issue with her going to Salem, but I feared Lily would. Hoping she didn’t protest, I sent her a text, too.
I looked around the table at my friends. I was lucky to have these three in my life. We understood each other, as each of us had broken families. After Riley’s mom died, his father, who blamed himself, completely shut down to point of distancing himself from his son. Shannon was raised by her mom only, after her father walked out on them when she was only eight. Cami never knew her father, as he had been a one-night stand when Cami’s mom was in college. Her mom was a drunk who chose to bring home strangers every weekend instead of finding someone to have a normal relationship with. My father had walked out when I was only one, so like Cami, I had no memory of my father. My mom claimed she wasn’t in contact with him, but I had heard her several times a year since I was a child, talking on the phone with someone, arguing over me. The phone calls stopped about a year ago.
I looked down at my phone and Lily still hadn’t responded to my text. I knew going to Salem made her nervous, but it wasn’t like my mom was going to know I was there.
We arrived at St. Peter’s Cemetery around one thirty. This graveyard was one of the largest and oldest in Salem; we passed a tomb that dated all the way back to 1673. It was still well maintained with gorgeous landscape and lush greenery. Karen was born right outside of Salem and told Mr. Davis that this was where she wanted to be buried, even though it wasn’t near where they lived. Riley and his father came here every year, but once Riley got his driver’s license, Riley’s father stopped coming. That’s when we started coming with him.
“Here, guys.” Riley handed each of us a red rose to place on the ground in front of the tomb. We walked slowly and quietly toward her stone. It was beautiful. It read “Beloved Wife, Mother, Friend & Nurse” right below her name.
“I miss you, Karen.” I placed my rose on the ground.
After a few minutes of silence, Cami spoke up. “Why don’t you say something about her, Riley?”
Riley looked around at us. We locked eyes and Riley knelt next to the tomb with a red rose still in his hand.
“It took me several years after she died to not blame my dad or myself for not seeing how much she had been hurting. It had to have been a lot for her to take her own life and leave us the way she did. My dad still blames himself, probably blames me, too.”
“Riley, he doesn’t blame you,” I said as I knelt next to him. “Your father loves you. He just hasn’t healed.”
He closed his eyes and knitted his brows together. I hesitantly placed my hand on his back. Touching others wasn’t as hard for me, it was being touched that I struggled with, though I preferred to fully separate myself from human contact, if at all possible. I wasn’t going to let my being uncomfortable stop me from comforting him today, so I dealt with it.
“I miss you, Mom,” he said, as if she were somewhere near, listening to us.
His fingers lightly touched the carving on the stone, lingering by her name.
I backed away and we waited for him to release his hand from the tomb. He turned toward us, opening his mouth to speak again, but halted when we heard a loud screech coming from an old mausoleum behind us.
I turned my head quickly to look while Cami and Shannon jumped back slightly.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
Shannon took a step in the direction of the sound. “It sounded like two cinderblocks grinding across each other.” She signaled in the direction heading toward the back of the cemetery.
“Um, yeah, we need to go. I hate this,” Cami whined. Cami was never thrilled when it came to anything remotely scary. She wouldn’t even watch the animated The Nightmare Before Christmas, because the Boogie Man scared her too much.
“It’s coming from that mausoleum.” Riley pointed in its direction.
“It kind of sounded like a coffin sliding open,” Shannon teased.
Cami stuck her tongue out at her.
We heard the screech again, but this time it was much louder, causing Cami to jump again.
After my attack, and my recent paranoia that someone had been watching me, you’d think something like this would have me running for the car, but it didn’t. Despite my issues, I felt strangely compelled to investigate the sound.
“I’m going to go check it out,” I said, turning to Shannon. “Are you coming with?”
“You’re crazy, Mercy,” Cami cried.
“Of course I’ll come.” Shannon beamed as she looked at Riley.
“Naw, I’ll stay here with Cami.” His smirk made Cami smile and her shoulders relaxed.
As Shannon and I walked toward the mausoleum, we heard Cami shout to us, “It’s probably a ghost!”
When we arrived at the front of the tall mausoleum, I pulled on the handle, but it wouldn’t open. Shannon placed her ear against the door as another screech echoed inside. I joined her to listen and the moment my ear touched the wall, a loud thump shot me off my feet and I stumbled over a raised tomb behind me. She caught me before I hit the ground. Instantly, I tensed, brushing h
er hands away nonchalantly and trying not to make it obvious how much I hated being grabbed like that, regardless of whether she was just helping.
“Whoa. Are you okay?” she asked, panic rising in her voice.
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. Something sharp had scratched the back of my leg during the fall. I looked down and blood was oozing out of the scratch on my calf. Without tending to it and pointing it out to her, I moved back over to the wall of the mausoleum and placed my ear against the grainy concrete.
“What happened? What is it?” Cami shouted again from a distance.
Shannon signaled a thumbs up and she joined me at the wall again. We stood there for another five minutes, but the noise had stopped. I glanced above the door and there wasn’t a name of the person on it like most of the mausoleums. I turned to Shannon, who still had her ear up to the door.
“Maybe no one is buried inside,” I suggested as I put my hand on the handle again, trying one more time.
“It’s locked. Mercy, let’s go.”
I couldn’t shake the thought that someone was inside.
“Okay. Okay,” I agreed.
We walked back to Cami and Riley, and Cami had her arm linked around Riley’s arm for comfort. “I want to go. Cemeteries freak me out,” Cami complained when we approached.
She looked at Riley, waiting for a response.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he said.
I took one last glance toward the mausoleum.
BANG!
The loud crash came back, but louder and fiercer. We all jumped backward again and Cami was already running to the car.
“Okay,” I said quickly. “Time to go.”
We stopped at a few checkpoints on the way home to take photos together and swung by a bookstore in Providence. It was almost six by the time we left the bookstore.
Riley dropped the girls off at their homes, then dropped me off last. I wasn’t looking forward to facing Lily, who still hadn’t responded since I had texted her this morning.
When I walked in the door, she was sitting at the table with a glass of wine and half-eaten lasagna she had made for one.
I minced toward the table cautiously, waiting to be yelled at.
“Hey,” I said while taking a seat at the table.
“How’s Riley?” she asked, but I knew that wasn’t the question she wanted to ask me.
“I didn’t go see my mom, if that’s what you’re wondering. We only went for Riley.”
She let out a sigh. “That’s good.” She smiled, but then nervously tapped her fingers on the table. “So, I was thinking we can go out to dinner this Saturday night, just the two of us. There are some things I’d like to talk to you about afterward. It can also be like your early birthday dinner. Anywhere you want to go.”
“Okay, I’d like that,” I said, but I noticed Lily still looked nervous. I was pretty sure this dinner was to discuss what she and my mom had talked about over the phone.
After our chat, she went upstairs with her wine glass. I didn’t bother getting ready for bed. I laid my head on my pillow and closed my eyes after a long, exhausting day. Moments after my mind drifted into my dream, I felt his hands gently caressing my neck. His soft lips reached my collar bone and tickled my skin, creating a mountain of goosebumps up my back.
“I’ve missed you,” he breathed, stroking my cheek with the back of his fingers. I moaned at his touch and placed my hand over his, stretching out his fingers and leaning into his palm.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
He grinned and kissed me gently. “Now, tell me about your day.”
After my last dream, he made shorter appearances when I closed my eyes at night.
Why did he disappear the moment I touched him?
On Wednesday, he had been in my dream for just a brief moment, and then he had disappeared right in front of me, leaving me alone in a dark and empty room. By the following Friday night, he was nowhere to be found. I panicked; this wasn’t my usual dream. It was as if he were trying to reach me, but something was pulling him away.
My dream tonight was different. I was surrounded by beautiful, vibrant green trees with thick brown trunks. Right in front of me, the leaves transformed from green, to red and a few shades of amber. They suddenly disappeared and I was left with dead, leafless branches. There was one tree that stood out among the others. Dark red leaves fell slowly from its branches onto the ground. I was hypnotized by its beauty.
A gray, smoky mist crept through the trees and then wrapped around my body. I walked forward as each of the leaves dripped what looked like thick red liquid.
Is this blood?
The liquid turned from red to black, swirling clockwise, and becoming thicker and thicker like molten lava, making it harder for me to walk as it closed in around my body.
I looked ahead and there stood a mausoleum, like the one at the cemetery. I was finally able to lift my legs from the thick lava and move forward, and as I approached the entryway, my legs gave way and I stumbled through the door.
I stood up and brushed the remaining thick liquid off my pants. I walked toward a coffin that sat at the center of the room and approached cautiously. The lid was opened slightly, and I peered inside, expecting to see the dead figure of a rotting corpse.
What I saw instead was a secret passageway that led down into a dark tunnel. Wrought iron stairs were hooked to the top of the coffin, but I couldn’t see how far down they went. I lifted myself up to look deeper inside, but before I could peer all the way in, I felt a force grabbing me by the neck and pushing my body forward and into the coffin. I was nearing the bottom of the tunnel when my eyes shot open to the light coming in from my bedroom window.
What the hell was that?
I looked at the clock and noticed I had slept through my alarm. I stood up from my bed, but my legs felt fatigued, as if I had really journeyed somewhere in my dream. Sweat covered my forehead and I wiped it off with my top sheet. My body was shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush and I had to take a few deep breaths in to steady my breathing.
It was just a dream, Mercy. Don’t need to panic.
I took a quick shower and pulled my hair back into a wet ponytail. Lily opened the shop late on Saturday mornings and extended the café hours into lunch, so she was still in the kitchen brewing coffee.
Entering the kitchen, I inhaled the scent of Lily’s homemade blueberry waffles.
“Hey, Mercy. Before you head out to do whatever it is you have planned for today, I have something for you.”
I had made plans with Cami and Shannon to head to Goddard Park for a breakfast picnic and then hop on over to Main to check out a dress shop for Shannon. Her cousin was getting married in Vermont in a few weeks and she was her Maid of Honor.
I grabbed one of her blueberry waffles and sat down at the table, eating it without a plate or fork. “What is it?” I asked, my mouth stuffed with the bite of the waffle.
“I know your birthday isn’t for another two weeks, but I wanted to give you your gift early.”
She held her hand out and dangled a black stone necklace from her fingers.
I took the necklace from her and stared at the stone. It was enchanting.
“It’s beautiful. Where did you get it?” I stared, mesmerized.
“It’s a family heirloom that gets passed down to each firstborn female in our bloodline. This was your mother’s and she had planned to give it to you right before your eighteenth birthday. Please accept it as a gift, from me. I made it into a necklace for you.”
“It’s so pretty.” I looked more closely at the stone and turned it around. Carved into the back of the stone was a pentagram. “A pentagram?” I asked.
“It’s a jet stone and that is our family crest.”
“A pentagram?” I asked again.
She smirked. “We are descendants of Salem witches, after all.” She pointed to the symbol on the necklace. “It was more than just a symbol of witchcraft, Mercy. It meant something to our fam
ily back then. They believed it protected them.”
She touched each point of the pentagram gingerly. “Each point of the pentagram represents a different universal element: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.” Her fingers then lingered on the top point of the star. “And Spirit.” She leaned back into her chair. “History books spoke of the witches of Salem being able to harness powers drawn from those elements. Without the elements, there’d be no power within them.”
I snickered. “A little deep for this early in the morning, Lily.” I looked back down at the necklace. “You really believe in this.” It was a statement, not a question.
“We all should believe in something, Mercy.” She wasn’t smiling.
Is she serious?
I placed the necklace on the table and stood up. “I gotta go. Thanks for the necklace,” I said dryly.
She immediately picked it up, grabbed my hand, and placed the necklace in my palm. “Wear it, Mercy. It’s from me, not her.”
I sighed, looked at the necklace again, and fastened it around my neck. “Thank you, Lily,” I said warmly. I knew she was doing what she felt was best for me, even though taking something my mom intended to give felt weird.
She perked up. “Are we still on for dinner tonight?”
“Yeah, I was thinking maybe we can eat somewhere we haven’t been to in a while, like La Masseria? I know you love their wine,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes at me, finally smiling. “Sounds good, just be home at six and we can leave by then.” She handed me my keys which were hanging on the hook near the door. “Have fun today.”
I stepped out onto the porch and breathed in the scent of Lily’s lavender plants. The wind picked up, threatening a storm, which we were expecting in the next few hours. The beautiful leaves reached for each other as pieces of them broke off the branches and fell onto the street.
Once in the car, I turned on the radio, settled for the local rock station and sang along to Forfeit by Chevelle.
I focused straight ahead on the road, narrowing my eyes on the white lines in the center of the two lanes. Maybe I should have had a cup of Lily’s coffee she was brewing this morning. My mind was zoning out while counting each line as I drove past them, as if I were on autopilot.