Ten Thousand Words (2 page)

We were back home in Boston. A wet April, the weather was chilled with a spring drizzle, gray from the clouds overhead. It was a day like any other Sunday. Early that morning, Mom and Grandma went out to fetch doughnuts and Dad’s favorite coffee for breakfast.

When we weren’t traveling, it was one of our family traditions. We lived with Grandma in the house Mom had grown up in. Mom had been raised on Doughnut Sundays, too. She would make sure to pick up a chocolate-glazed one with sprinkles for me—my absolute favorite. It’s strange that, even now, I recall the longing I felt for a doughnut on the day that changed my life for all time.

Mom and Grandma had been gone for an hour, and it never took so long. Because I was becoming impatient, Dad decided to ring Mom on her cell.

No answer.

Another ten minutes went by, and Dad called again.

No answer.

Leaving Mom a voice mail, my father told her that he was worried and that he and I were going to drive the route to the shop to make sure her car hadn’t broken down. He asked her to call him if they arrived home before us.

“I love you, Elaine,” he said softly before hanging up.

The memory of him telling her that he loved her is another thing I remember so clearly. The way it was said was almost pleading, so soft and desperate. It screamed at me that something was very, very wrong. For the first time in my life, I felt fear when I heard it.

The ghosts, ghouls, vampires, or walking dead that forever marched through my imagination didn’t scare me. No, it was the “I love you” laced with dread that struck terror into my heart.

Dad hung up. “Come on,” he told me as he grabbed his car keys.

He didn’t even bother to lock up the house—another thing that I remember filling me with fear. Too afraid of what I was witnessing in an adult, I said nothing.

I could see that my father felt that something wasn’t right in the world, and it infected me.

In the car, Dad turned the volume off on the radio and handed me the cell phone. I understood that it was a lifeline. I just wasn’t sure of whose lifeline it was.

En route to the shop, traffic was piled up, and we were at a standstill. The hope crossed my mind that Mom and Grandma were only stuck in this mess.

Twenty minutes later, we’d hardly moved. Cars were pulling out of the jam and turning around. The shop was only a fifteen-minute drive from our house. Dad pulled over on the side of the road.

When he looked at me, I knew he wanted me to stay in the car. He also knew I wouldn’t—not to be disobedient, but because, for the first time in my life, I was truly terrified.

Hand in hand, we made our way down the side of the road. My father’s hand was hot and damp. We weren’t the only ones who had thought to exit the car. Several other people had decided to catch a glimpse of what had caused the holdup, most of them dressed in their Sunday best. By the sound of the bells ringing in the distance, I gathered they were missing church.

When we approached the edge of normalcy, chaos was stretched before us. Police had the intersection blocked, and a few officers were directing traffic.

Within the intersection, a semi with a trailer was flipped onto its side, and beneath it was…

My mother’s black Honda Accord.

“Stay here, Xanthe,” my father told me. Then, he released my hand and ran up to the blockade. Intercepted by two police officers, my father screamed, “That’s my wife! Elaine! Elaine!”

The anguish in that cry froze me to the spot on the side of the road. As Dad struggled with the officers, the semi’s trailer got lifted off the Accord—or what was left of it.

My father let out a wail that chilled me to my soul. Dropping to his knees, his hands fisted in his hair, he unleashed his despair while the officers held him.

It still hadn’t hit me.

The trailer crashed down onto its wheels, the contents of the hold rattling loudly, rousing me from my reverie. In that instant, the air turned viscous, slowing me, weighing me down, as I made my way toward my father.

What seemed to be an eternity later, I stood behind him and placed my hand on top of his head. “Dad?”

He stopped crying and took a few deep breaths.

I made the mistake of looking up. The Accord, from front bumper to backseat, had been flattened. The angle in which I faced it allowed me to see the crushed windshield, stained dark from within.

“Mom…” I whispered.

Dad shot to his feet, blocking my view. It was too late though. My imagination had already started filling in the blanks.

Were Mom and Grandma watching us as we watched this?

Pulling me into his arms, Dad smashed my face into his chest against his frantically beating heart. As I listened to it, it hit me hard.

My mother, Elaine Malcolm, and grandmother, Hanna Ford, were dead.

In the following days, we learned that the driver of the semi had been drunk. Careening through the intersection, he’d braked too late, and the trailer had jackknifed and flipped.

It had been instantaneous. They hadn’t suffered.

It was a small condolence for the otherwise destroyed.

Eleven years ago, my father and I buried his wife, my mother, and a matriarch of magnitude. Elaine and Hanna were laid to rest next to my grandfather, Hezekiah Ford, in a small cemetery outside of Boston on the Ford family plot.

Fragile, our family’s existence became a brittle thing, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. For months afterward, my father and I lived in a bizarre sense of limbo.

Out of this tragedy though, I discovered something about myself. With writing, I found the strength and courage to be the person I am today. On paper, I could release the images in my mind, see them come to life, and share them, if I so desired.

After losing two great women in my life, my writing became darker and I was no longer confident as Xanthe Malcolm. My teachers began to question my sanity when I shared my stories. Xanthe was labeled a freak, disturbed, and possibly dangerous.

After I finished my first year of middle school, my father packed us up and moved us to England, the land of his birth. Without my mother to help guide him in raising me, he needed the comfort of his parents to ensure he was doing the right thing. As brilliant as he was, he understood nothing about the finer points of raising a prepubescent female.

Leaving the States gave me a chance to start over and hide the nature of my thoughts, my tales, from others. I could pretend I was normal in front of new people. No one knew the horrors I created in my mind.

Out of my imagination came a savior. I had a dream where a bearded, black-haired man—looking like Satan but with a heart of gold—found me hidden in a haunted place. He was beautiful. His eyes were the color of warm whiskey. He was dressed in well-worn fatigue pants, a red-and-black-plaid flannel shirt, and huge black combat boots. Armed to the teeth with knives and guns, he told me to take the shield of my lost loved ones. His name was Donovan, and he found a way to protect me. Donovan instructed me to find a name—an entity I could call my own, but one that was wholly not me.

The two women I loved most could still guard me from beyond the grave. Together, they gave me a name born of love and strength and one I could wear with a sense of pride.

Out of this tragedy, which altered the course of my life, I discovered that I could write, shielded behind the name of Elaine H. Ford.

Xanthe

Seven Years Later…

To the average passerby, I must have appeared to be a complete mess. I would be the first to admit, I wasn’t the most organized—never had been, never would be. While I was used to it by now, after living with myself for twenty-nine years, others would tend to be mind-boggled that I knew my arse from my elbow.

I dug through my knapsack. Somewhere in the canvas depths was my wallet, held together by a rubber band in a bundle with my American and British passports. I was desperate to reach it, so I could pay for my triple-shot mocha latte at the coffee bar.

My flight from Amsterdam to New York had only thirty minutes until boarding, and as it was the ungodly hour of six in the morning, I needed some serious fuel.

Got it!

Pulling out my old and battered leather wallet with a change purse attachment, I fished out the needed funds to pay for my obscene level of caffeine. Coffee paid for, I wrapped the passports and wallet back up with the rubber band and dropped the bundle back down into my knapsack to get lost with the other odd bits I schlepped around with me. Now, all I had to do was wait for my triple-shot of mocha latte.

“Zanthy?” the barista called out some minutes later.

I knew that was how she had spelled my name because I’d watched her write it on my to-go cup.

“Here!” I replied as I made my way to the counter.

Immediately taking a hot sip, I relished the thick burn coating my tongue.
Oh, that’s lovely.

Remembering that I would need my ID and boarding pass at the ready, I once more dug through my bag. The announcement for first-class passengers to head toward the gate sounded. I was excited about flying first class. It would be my first time.

Dreamstone Publishing had paid the airfare for this trip to New York. They had also set me up in an upscale hotel and given me a small bonus of five hundred bucks to spend on food and the like while I would be stateside for the next week. All that had been required of me was my signature on a contract, signing away my rights to my series Paranormal Hunters with a promise to continue the series with at least another three novels.

It was a dream come true for any author.

Six years ago, I had self-published my first novel,
Haunted Bonds
with no real hope of it going anywhere. It was just some weird story in my head about two people who hunted down supernatural creatures and ghosts. A chance meeting at a haunted house had thrown them together, and they had fallen for each other after fighting the sexual tension between them and all that jazz. I loved it—of course I did—but I hadn’t thought it would be much of a success.

But something
amazing
had happened. A cult following had grown, and it had given me the courage to publish the second novel,
Phoenix Rising
, and the third,
The Torn Veil
. Word had spread about Paranormal Hunters until Dreamstone Publishing had gotten their hands on it.

Hailed as a unique take on the paranormal romance genre, it was considered interesting and fresh. For a genre that was thick with love stories about vampires and shifters, seeing it from the eyes of those intent on destroying such creatures was…well, new. People loved the heroine, Lindsey Sparks, and readers were rabid for the hero, Donovan Colt.

I had to admit, I was pretty rabid for him, too. I thought it was cool that I wasn’t the only one who would drop my panties for a man like that—a fearless man who was big, strong, and dark with a fat beard and a rifle full of rock salt.

Locating my bundle once again, I headed out of the coffee bar area with every intent of sucking down my expensive gourmet treat on the way to my gate. Something large and in a rush barreled into my left side from behind me, knocking me to my knees. In reflex, I squeezed my coffee cup, causing the lid to pop off, before it sailed through the air and crashed to the floor, spilling its mocha contents all over.

“Bloody hell, man!” I wailed, mourning my lost java.

“Damn it!” exploded from above me.

Looking up, the scowl froze on my face before my jaw dropped.

It’s him!

Oliver Fairfax!

The man towered above me, his dark-bearded face looking harassed and angry. And it was a magnificent beard, too—big, bushy, and inky black. My fingers itched to bury themselves in it. It was why I had thought he was perfect for Donovan.

“Ollie?” I gasped before I could help myself.

“Shit, not another one,” he grumbled, reaching down to hoist me to my feet by my left upper arm. The man had a strong grip. “I don’t have time for this. Next time, watch where you’re going.”

Then, he hurried off in the direction of the gates, leaving me to stare in shock after him.

What a douche bag!

“Are you all right?”

Stunned, I turned toward the kind voice of the barista who had come out from behind the counter to check on me. She pressed a warm travel cup with a lid into my hand.

“I’m fine,” I replied even though I was severely disappointed, to say the least.

“It’s only regular coffee, but I hope it will hold you over.”

“Thank you.” I smiled, happy to have some faith in humanity restored.

“Have a good flight.”

Sucking down the plain black brew on the way to the gate, I tossed the empty cup in a garbage can before joining the short first-class queue. It was no surprise to see Oliver Fairfax being ushered through up ahead. I hung back, not wanting to draw his attention—not that I had anything to worry about. Apparently, I wasn’t even worth a modicum of courtesy from someone so prestigious as the darling photographer of Amsterdam.

My disappointment was well-founded. I hadn’t realized Oliver—Ollie, as he was known in our neck of the woods; sort of like Cher or Madonna—would be arriving in New York
with
me. I was supposed to meet him on Friday when Dreamstone would be unleashing us on the masses to promote Paranormal Hunters.