Landlocked (A water witch novel) (2 page)

My green-blue eyes were too large for my face and made me look like a walking anime character. I'd never particularly disliked the way I looked, but I knew I wasn’t near as beautiful as everyone told me. My olive complexion was a little too green, and even if I liked makeup, I would never have been able to find a foundation that matched my skin tone. I supposed my face could be pretty if everything wasn’t so exaggerated, too prominent of cheekbones, too button a nose, too full a lips; even my face shape looked a little too much like a heart. Maybe someone could pull off some of these attributes together, but all of them at once, I wasn’t sure. I thought all of my admirers were confusing attractiveness with peculiarity.

My Aunt Sylvia, now she was the definition of beauty. She always told me that her looks were nothing compared to my mother’s, but I had a hard time imagining anyone as gorgeous as her. I tried not to dwell on my mother and father too much. Sometimes I thought I could remember their faces…
but I knew that was impossible. Besides, the images my mind came up with were ridiculous. They couldn’t have possibly looked the way I tried to remember them. Probably just my subconscious trying to put fairy tale beauty on an ugly memory. If I had even one picture of the two of them, my brain wouldn’t conjure up glistening images of otherworldly beauties, but all of the memorabilia had been lost in the sunken house boat along with them.

I huffed and wrapped my hair in a large bun on top of my head. I walked into my bedroom to get ready for the day. As one of the most notable fashionistas at school, I had quite the wardrobe, most everything I owned was covered in rhinestone or sequins. Clothes were one of the few normal teenage girl things that I loved, and with my aunt being an amazing seamstress and designer in her own right, most everything hanging in my closet was one of a kind. I grabbed a pair of minty blue shorts and a white eyelet top with ruffled details. It was spring and I wanted to dress like it. I slipped into my white stiletto sandals with Swarovski Crystal trimming and looked at myself in the mirror hanging on the back of my bathroom door. I preferred being bare foot. I had always hated wearing shoes. But if I had to I might as well wear a pair of fabulous heels.

I glanced at the clock next to my bed and ran down to the kitchen, cursing under my breath. Dylan was at the stove.

“Cutting it a little close, don’t you think?” he teased.

I sat at the breakfast bar and smiled before digging into a plate of poached eggs drizzled with olive oil.

“Think that smile will always get you out of a pinch?”

I chewed the food in my mouth and swallowed. “It might.” I flashed another grin.

“It might,” he agreed before leaning against the counter. I’d never seen my uncle in a hurry; he had this easiness about him that was contagious. I relaxed for a moment before hearing Sylvia’s approaching footsteps. I stiffened and Dylan laughed.

“You act like a firing squad is rounding the corner,” he whispered.

I shoveled in the last bite of food from my plate before she got to the kitchen.

“It would have been a firing squad if Maribel made herself late again,” Sylvia said without pause, grabbing the car keys off of the counter.

I hurried after her, my heels clicking loudly against the tiled floor.

“Don’t snap an ankle in those shoes, darling, being on time isn’t worth that.” Sylvia seemed to be on edge, but I was glad that she didn’t seem to be angry at me.

I climbed into our silver Prius and clicked my seatbelt into place. Neither one of my drivers would even start the car until I was buckled in safely; sometimes I was sure they still thought of me as a four year old. Sylvia perched herself into the driver’s seat, started the car, and pulled out of our long driveway. She was always a cautious driver, but today she was more intent on the road than usual and I couldn’t figure out why she was so distant. We always chattered constantly, never censoring our thoughts or feelings whenever we were together. Well I had to censor some of the time, or I would talk about dreams that would hurt us both.

“Is everything all right, Aunt Sylvia?” I asked.

She bit her bottom lip and stole a quick glance my way. She looked like she was on the fence about something, though I couldn’t imagine what. “I’m just worried about your bad dream,” she said in an unsure voice.

How could a nightmare make her worry so much? Were my aunt and uncle that ridiculously overprotective? “I’m fine really. You’re just freaked out because I’ve never had a bad dream before.”

She hitched in a breath. “You’ve had a bad dream before, Maribel, just one other.”

I looked at her incredulously. “I haven’t had one that I can remember. That was why I was so freaked this morning.” We were rounding the last corner of Main Street and my high school would be coming into view shortly.

“Then I guess you were too young to keep the memory, but your last bad dream alerted us to…” She pinched the bridge of her nose with the hand that wasn’t on the wheel. “Your dreams are important.” She pulled up to the curb. Hers was the only car there, as most high school students weren’t still dropped off by their parents. Dylan taught me how to drive, but I hated it. Putting the car in park, she looked over at me. “Tell me what the dream was about, Mari,” she prompted.

I opened my mouth to recant the dream, but closed it, unsure if I should.

“I know it’s probably about the ocean,” she said, flinching on the last word. “Go ahead.”

“Well at first it was a good dream. I was floating on the salty water looking at the sky…” Sylvia’s eyes flashed with something like longing before she closed them tightly. “I swam with a dolphin, I know it sounds silly—but when I surfaced, the dolphin was gone and it was just me and the ocean. Then I heard the shrieks...”

Sylvia’s eyes flew open. “Shrieks?”

“Yes it was this eerie sound that seemed to, I don’t know, move through me or something. That’s all, just a noise. I guess I'm pretty easily frightened.” I laughed at myself, out loud it sounded as frightening as a paper ghost on Halloween. Sylvia didn’t laugh.

She looked out the window into the park across the street. “You’ll tell me if you have another one, another nightmare?”

“Um—sure. I just don’t get why you’re freaking so bad.”

Her face composed itself all hints of foreboding gone, as if I’d imagined them there in the first place. “I’m not.”

The bell rang out annoyingly. My eyes widened. Dang it. I was going to be late. “Don’t worry, this time it’s my fault.” She winked. “Now get going… and be careful.” I jumped out of the car and shut the door.

At least I wasn’t the only one late. There was a boy hurrying to the doors, as well. He was tall and broad across the shoulders, much bulkier than the other teenage boys at school. And walked with a grace I was only used to seeing from Sylvia, but his swagger radiated confidence. It was obvious that this guy thought he was something else. Sun bounced off of his sleek dark hair making it shine like patent leather. None of those many things about him made my eyes linger. It was the fact that I knew every single person in school, and even though I had yet to see his face, I was sure that I had never seen him before. I had almost caught up to him (was he slowing his gate or was I imagining it) when Sylvia shouted out of the car window.

“Make sure you walk to the pool with your friends. Don’t go anywhere by yourself, okay?”

I waved my hand, letting her know that I understood.

“I’ll be there at five sharp!” she continued.

It was a good thing I had gotten used to my aunt and uncle’s embarrassingly overprotective shenanigans long ago, or I’d have wished that the warmth of my cheeks would set me on fire. It didn’t matter if he had slowed his gate or not, I slowed mine to a crawl so he couldn’t see who belonged to the crazy screaming lady. My change of pace didn’t save me. He glanced over his shoulder and even from forty yards away I could make out the huge smirk on his face. I skirted the front entrance and the rude stranger in favor of a side door. Between him sneering at me and the overly confident way in which he carried himself, I had no desire of running into him again anytime soon, whoever he was.  

***

I popped my head into my first period English class and caught Clarissa’s eye. Of course she was watching for me. I never actually missed a day of school, I was never sick.

Mr. Walker noticed his distracted student.

“Miss Anderson, would you please pay attention.” He turned his head and rolled his eyes when he saw me. I was the only student he would take constant tardiness from, but I was a great pupil and for some reason it was easy for me to get away with things.

“Please grace us with your presence, Maribel.” He did his best to use his serious voice, but as I made my way to the seat next to Clarissa. He shook his head and smiled before diving back into his lecture.

Clarissa leaned over. “So what’s the story this time?” she prodded sarcastically.

“Sylvia and I came across a bus full of nuns with a blown tire. Of course we stopped to help.”

Clarissa leaned back in her chair. “Scoring points in heaven and having an excuse for tardiness…? Nice.”

We settled into the lecture on Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Although I had read it a dozen times, Mr. Walker made the lecture interesting. He was a great teacher, he even got Clarissa interested in the written word occasionally—which was no easy task. Mr. Walker transitioned into discussing Curley’s wife.

“Tramp,” one of the boys in class said through a poorly disguised cough. I looked over. It seemed that Brad had made the outburst, as all of his fellow jock friends were laughing under their breath.

Mr. Walker paused and eyed Brad. “Is that what most impacted you about the character, Brad?” he asked staring over his glasses.

Brad shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said and then turned to his friends and whispered, “And I don’t care.” He met my eyes and winked at me. Some of the girls in class moved in their seats to try and get in his line of sight to show the big smiles they were wearing. Brad was supposedly the best-looking guy in school, blond hair blue eyes, and a tiny IQ. Not really my type. Of course I had yet to discover what my type was, not that he hadn’t tried to reel me in with his charm. I was one of the few girls that he had yet to conquer and he was more and more flirtatious and insistent as our senior year wound down.

Mr. Walker turned to me and must have seen his annoyance mirrored on my face. “Maribel, what struck you about the character?”

I had read the novel so many times I didn’t even need to stop and think. “Her name is never mentioned. She’s just Curley’s wife, just a possession, an object written to complicate Lenny’s life.” I thought of the chapter where Lenny ends her existence by accident. “She is written in a way that makes you sad for Lenny, the guy who killed her, when she dies. You feel as much emotion at her demise as you would had he broken a lamp, and that I think is what Steinbeck intended.” Mr. Walker smiled, presumably remembering why he let me be late every day.

“Yes I think…” He trailed off.  

Clarissa nudged me. “Look, someone’s later than you.” She pointed to a figure leaning against the doorframe.

It was him. The boy from earlier that morning. Everyone in class was looking at him, but he was looking at me with curious brown eyes. His perfectly full lips were pulled up on one side in a half smile. His face couldn’t be described by any word but beautiful, although there was nothing feminine about him. His prominent cheekbones, square jaw, and dimpled chin all rang of masculinity. I joined the rest of the girls in the room in a collective sigh and was instantly angry with myself. I did not just sigh at him of all people, did I? The stranger tore his eyes away from mine somewhat unwillingly.

“The office sent me with this,” he said in a melodic voice as he walked over to the middle-aged man to hand him a yellow slip.

Mr. Walker glanced at the paper and raised his eyebrows. “Kids, this is Jaron. It’s his first day, so take it easy on him.” He gestured to the only open seat left; it was at the back of the room. I wished for a second that there was an open desk next to me, and it looked like I wasn’t the only one. The female eyes stayed on Jaron as he walked to his seat. Mr. Walker cleared his throat, and everyone moved their attention to the front of class.

“As I was saying, yes, Maribel, your assumption is what Steinbeck himself says he meant for the character…”

The lecture failed to capture my interest again. My attention was being spent convincing myself that it wasn’t his eyes I felt watching me. Why would he be looking at me again? It wasn’t wishful thinking on my part, I’d never wanted anything to do with a guy and this one seemed like a cocky jerk. A gorgeous cocky jerk, but I wasn’t shallow enough for that to matter. At least I had never been before. Everything in me screamed to steal a quick glance, but I fought the urge. I didn’t want to like the rest of the gawking teenage girls in the room. Even Clarissa was staring at him with wide-eyed interest.