The Haret (The Haret Series)

THE HARET

BY

Denise Daisy

The night it comes and brings the source,

The water it stirs and swirls.

A cauldron brimming with the force,

That draws in other worlds.

I was sound asleep, but in my dreams was wide awake.
Oh, listen! It's the sound of my lover calling!

My love has come for me, and I am his to take

And into the source I will be falling.

Chapter One

             
“You will have to speak up ma’am I can barely hear you.”

             
Felicitas slipped into her closet and closed the door behind her. The last thing she wanted was for someone to overhear her phone
conversation, especially her father who was in the next room.

             
“Is it possible to get a false positive on a pregnancy test?” There, she had asked it; hopefully the woman on the other end heard this time and would not ask her to repeat it again.

             
“Well, anything is possible but it’s not likely.” The woman’s voice cracked when she spoke. “Positive results are usually pretty accurate. Now I’ve heard of a false negative but never heard of a false positive.”

             
Felicitas twisted her auburn locks around her finger, dissatisfied with the woman’s answer and tried again.

             
“Well… I take over the counter prenatal vitamins to make my hair grow, would that alter the results?”

             
She regretted asking the question as soon as it slipped from her lips. The woman was sure to think she was insane but she was desperate.

             
“No, those are just vitamins hon; they have no bearing on the test result. You can come into the clinic for a blood test just to make sure.”

             
“Do I need an appointment?”

             
“No you can walk in. We are open until six.”

             
Felicitas hung up the phone and sighed while staring at the chic wardrobe hanging in her closet. The small room resembled a fashionable boutique with rows of clothing in various colors and print all with matching handbags, shoes and jewelry of which most still had the price tags attached. Her mother was devoted to shopping; arriving home every evening carrying boxes tied with silk ribbons and colorful paper bags from the most elite boutiques in town. Felicitas doubted she would live long enough to wear everything her mother purchased for her.   

             
She ran her fingers across the soft suede of a cute little skirt she had yet to wear and wondered how long it would fit if indeed she was pregnant. She stood from the plush divan and wrapped the test stick revealing a bright pink positive symbol, in a paper towel and then shoved it into her purse. She must be discreet and dispose of it at the clinic, not at home. She couldn’t take a chance of someone finding it in the trash. An item such as a used pregnancy test had no place in the home of Melvin Rebold; the towns’ most respected minister.

             
Within minutes she pulled into a parking spot in front of Gourmet Mudd, the local coffee shop where she would be meeting Ian an hour from now. She dare not park at the clinic someone could easily spot her convertible. True she wasn’t the only person in town with a white mustang but she was definitely the only person in town with the customized licensed plates PURITY.

             
She would have more than enough time to walk two blocks to the clinic, have her blood drawn and hike back. Besides, Ian was always late.             

              Pushing open the heavy glass door she entered the world of sterile needles, cold examining tables and stethoscopes. Her stomach churned and she wanted to vomit and hoped it was because of a nerves and not the dreaded morning sickness.

             
“Felicitas Rebold.” A woman called her name. She tossed the worn magazine back upon the stack of faded periodicals, relieved the waiting room was empty. Not many people frequented this particular clinic since the newer medical offices had opened across town.

             
An elderly nurse with varicose veins poking through her white stockings escorted her into a low lit examining room then flipped on the switch and mumbled something about the florescent lights needing to be replaced and then left.

             
Felicitas took a seat on the examining table crumbling the stiff paper and shivered. The frigid temperature in the room combined with a premonition of impending doom caused her to tremble uncontrollably. She despised getting her blood drawn and had a deep hatred of needles; but she knew her fear today was not the dreaded stabbing into her veins, but the fact that she had taken four different brands of pregnancy test and all four had come back positive.

             
Being the founder and president of her high schools
Pure Until Marriage
club and finding out you are pregnant still wasn’t what frightened her. It was the fact that she had never had sex, nor had she ever come close, yet all her tests were positive and she was experiencing all the early symptoms of pregnancy. That could only mean the event she entered in her journal in the early morning hours of August 27
th
had actually taken place and that is what terrified her. The memories of that night continued to haunt her. Not a single day passed without her thinking of it yet she harbored these thoughts inside of her because really, who could she tell?

             
“You the young lady who called earlier?” The nurse asked re-entering the room and tying the rubber band above Felicitas elbow. She nodded and stared at the name Betty printed on the ID hanging around the elderly nurse’s goose neck. She couldn’t watch and if she did she would vomit. Her nausea was elevating by the second. A quick stabbing, pain, dizziness, her body began to sway.

             
“You feeling ok?”

             
Betty’s voice seemed very far away. The flickering yellow lights grew dim. Felicitas felt cold hands push her back on the table.
              “I got a fainter,” was the last thing Felicitas heard before she blacked out.

CHAPTER TWO

 
                 Ian scanned the dimly lit dining room of the Gourmet Mudd. There was only one face he was looking for. He usually had no trouble finding her in a crowd because to him she stood out like a flower in a field full of weeds. It was her long auburn waves falling all the way to her waist, surrounding her petite frame that he noticed first. Then, of course, her joyful laughter usually gave her away. If there was a crowd gathered around, he generally found her in the middle, always the source of everyone’s attention.            

 
                 She wasn’t inside. He thought that was strange because her car was parked out front and they had made plans to meet here. He checked the time on his cell and noticed he was a little early.  He figured Felicitas might be in the restroom counseling with some poor soul.   She did so many times when one of the girls in her purity club had given in to her lustful passions and slept with her boyfriend, only to be jilted by him a week later. Then and only then was there any remorse for the action and the girl would spend hours crying over her lost virginity and Felicitas would spend hours trying to comfort and encourage her.

                  Ian went ahead and ordered Felicitas her favorite hot apple cider and grabbed their corner table. He hadn’t been sitting very long before Catlin helped herself to the chair across from him, obviously taking advantage of the fact Felicitas hadn‘t arrived.

                  Ian sighed and realized he would have to put up with Catlin’s flirting and desperate attempts to steal him for herself. He didn’t think she was very pretty and her voice annoyed him, but she was a big fan of his band and promoted them shamelessly. He endured her for that reason alone. He often wondered how she would react if he told her she couldn’t compare at all to Felicitas, and that her thin, fried, overly bleached hair and fake tan repulsed him; not to mention the fact that he knew she would give herself to him in a moment if he asked her.
He often wondered why it was that some girls gave it way so freely.

                  Felicitas was different. Her soul was as pure as her body, and it was her body that he craved.  To him it was the perfect specimen of feminine beauty; but, unfortunately, off limits. It was the standard she set for herself and being her boyfriend he was bound by it. He spent the better part of a year begging her to give in a little, but she held true to her desire to remain pure, reminding him how great it would be on their wedding night if they waited.  She was a great kisser and fortunately engaged in that quite freely with him, but as soon as his hands began to stray, she would cut the passion instantly, leaving him hurting.  He often wondered how she could be so strong and stop her desires so easily.

                  Catlin leaned too far across the table, interrupting his fantasies of Felicitas, trying to show him what little cleavage she had. It was a new record for her, less than thirty seconds at the table and she had already disgust him.

                 “Hey Ian.” she said leaning over. “I’m coming to your show tonight. I got a fake ID.”

 
                 “That’s great.” He said flashing a phony smile.

 
                 “I offered to get Taz one so she could come too but she said no. Hope you’re not too disappointed.”

             
Ian sipped his cider and looked over the dimly lit room for Felicitas again.

 
                 “No. I’m not disappointed. I don’t like her coming to the clubs when I play. The guys and especially, the men at the over twenty-one clubs try and pick up on her while I’m on stage playing and I can’t do anything about it. It’s torture so I told her to stay here and go to the game.”

 
                 Catlin fluffed her hair with her hands and tilted her head.

 
                 “So you gonna protect me tonight if I need it?”

             
 He figured a few desperate guys who had a couple of drinks in them might try and pick up on Catlin.  She acted like the typical bar girl looking for a one night stand. High school girls annoyed him. He wanted her to leave and he wanted his lovely Felicitas to be the one leaning toward him, revealing too much of her ivory breast, flirting while her cornflower blue eyes danced with laughter.   

CHAPTER THREE

              “If she doesn’t come back to us soon get the smelling salts. I’ve never seen one stay out so long.”

             
The voice was masculine, “Can you hear me?”  A bright light blinded her eye. Felicitas stirred blinking.

             
“It’s alright Miss Rebold; you fainted while Betty here was drawing your blood. Are you feeling okay now?”

             
She focused on the faces watching her. An aging doctor in a white lab coat peered at her through a pair of black horned rimmed glasses sitting cock-eyed on his nose.

             
She sat up slowly.

             
“I’m okay. I always faint when I get my blood drawn.”

             
Betty unloaded a small bundle on the metal tray beside the examining table.               “Should have warned me. You almost caused me to break the needle off falling backwards like that.”

             
Felicitas glanced at the package. The writing on the outside read: Now That You Are Pregnant. She groaned and Betty noticed.

             
“Yes honey, it was positive. No doubt about it.”

             
She turned away from the unwanted packet of materials devastated by the news. Her stomach knotted and she thought she might faint again.

             
“I can’t be pregnant. It‘s impossible.”

             
“All teenagers think it’s impossible to get pregnant, but when you have sex you take a chance.”

             
“That’s just it. I’ve never had sex. I am a virgin.” She mumbled her rebuttal.

             
The elderly colleagues exchanged glances. Dr. Garrison took a seat on his stool and rolled over to the examining table.  He adjusted his white lab coat then attempted to straighten his glasses.

             
“Miss Rebold let me enlighten you on the reproductive system. It is possible to get pregnant without penetration. It can happen in heavy foreplay, as long as semen enters the….”

             
Felicitas shivered in disgust. She was a straight A student, biology being one of her best subjects. She didn’t need a lesson on sex education from someone’s grandfather.

             
“I know how it works.” She surprised herself at her disrespectful tone. “What I am trying to tell you is that I have never done any of that….ever.” She scanned their faces hoping for some sort of answer.

             
Dr. Garrison crossed his arms in front of him and eyed Felicitas.

             
“Well Miss Rebold the blood test is accurate, you are definitely pregnant so how do you think you got this way?”

             
She didn’t want to answer his question; she didn’t want to talk about that night to anyone, not yet. She shrugged and embarrassed herself by throwing out a lame suggestion.

             
“What about asexual reproduction.” She wished she hadn’t said it the very moment the words left her lips and even though Dr. Garrison’s spectacles sat cock eyed on the bridge of his nose she could see the laughter in his eyes.

             
“Miss Rebold I hardly consider you a single-celled organism.”

             
He rolled his stool back to the makeshift desk and scribbled something on her chart and she was convinced he must have written a disparaging note about her intelligence. He clicked his pen closed and placed it back into the pocket of his coat.

             
“Miss Rebold, do you have a boyfriend?”

             
“Yes”

             
“Do you kiss your boyfriend?”

             
“Of course.”

             
“Have you ever made out?”

             
“Kind of…I mean yes…but all we did was kiss and not even that much. I am a stickler on keeping my purity and not going too far. It’s very important to me and he knows that and we have never….”

             
“Do you drink alcohol?”

             
“I am under age.”

             
“I didn’t ask you how old you were I asked if…..”

             
“No! I don’t drink. Never have. I know what you’re getting at but you’re wrong. Listen to me, I have never had sex, never even come close and there is no chance my drink was ever spiked or anything like that. I make sure not to put myself in those situations.”

             
Dr. Garrison slapped his hands on his knees and wheeled himself back over to the desk to retrieve her chart. “Call the pope Betty; we have another immaculate conception on our hands.”

             
Betty cackled like an old bird. “Lord have mercy!”

             
Felicitas jumped from the examining table avoided the small package and

headed for the door.

             
The bright afternoon sun was blinding in contrast to the faded fluorescents of the clinic. She shielded her eyes with her hands wishing she hadn’t left her sunglasses behind in the waiting area. As furious as she was with Ma and Pa Kettle for making light of her situation she dare not return to retrieve them. Aside from shielding her eyes from the blinding light, her glasses would hide the tears welling up and trickling down her cheeks.

             
A million thoughts crowded into her head. The journal entry of August 27
th
must have actually happened. But how? It just wasn’t possible. She needed to talk to someone but whom? Certainly not her parents they would never believe her. She couldn’t tell Ian he wouldn’t hear anything past the part of her being pregnant and would probably go berserk. He had pretty much begged for intimacy and she always refused him; now he would think she had cheated on him and would probably break up with her.

             
The tears escaped but she brushed them away with the back of her hand while her thoughts dwelt on that evening. She shook her head as if somehow the blurred images of the hazy memory would clear.  She shook her head again this time denying the possibility. No, it couldn’t have happened because what took place that night was impossible.

             
She checked the time on her cell. She would have to hurry; she barely had enough time to dump her computer in the trunk, sneak into the restroom and remove all traces of tears and then be sitting at their special table waiting before Ian arrived. 

             
Stepping inside the dimly lit coffee shop the strong smell of ground coffee greeted her nose, along with the spicy aromas of fresh baked pumpkin bread. Autumn had truly arrived. The delicious pastry was a seasonal favorite served only during the months of October and November. She took in a deep breath filling her lungs with the comforting scents. Then a wave of nausea swelled over her. The sweet perfume combined with the pungent coffee overwhelmed her. Then more nausea… she saw Ian sitting at their table along with a moist piece of pumpkin bread and two hot ciders. She bolted for the restroom.

              “You okay Taz?” Esther knocked on the bathroom stall. “Are you throwing up?”

             
Felicitas wiped her mouth and opened the door. Esther gasped.

             
“Ooohh you’re pale as a ghost.  Do you have the stomach flu? Get away from me. I don’t want it.”

             
“I don’t have the flu Esther.”

             
“You’re not turning Bulimic on me are you?”

             
“No.”

             
“Then what’s up with you? Ian’s been here for half an hour waiting. Where you been?”

             
Felicitas ran her fingers through her auburn waves pulling them away from her face. She splashed cool water on her neck and examined herself in the mirror. She did look pale but doubted anyone would notice in the dim lighting. Besides she never tanned her ivory skin anyway due to her mother’s strict regulations on skin care and keeping your youthful appearance.              

             
“Esther, you busy later?”

             
“Just going to the game tonight. Why?”

             
“Is it okay if I sleep over after? I kind of want to talk to you about something.”

             
“Sure…..wanna talk now?”

             
              “No, not here. It’s one of those things that have to be discussed in total privacy.”

             
Esther raised her perfectly tweezed brows. “I’m intrigued. Wanna go to my house and talk now?”

             
Yes, she would love to sneak off and get this new piece of news off her chest but Ian was waiting so confiding to Esther would have to wait too.

             
Felicitas nodded. “It can wait until after the game.”

             
“Well then you better get out there and claim your man. You can’t leave hot stuff waiting. Catlin was all over the fact you weren’t here. You know she takes any chance she can. I had to run interference.” Esther pulled a mint from her pocket.               “Here suck on this just in case your breath smells like vomit.”

             
Felicitas popped the candy into her mouth. The peppermint took effect on the nausea eliminating it immediately. She took one final glance in the mirror.  There was no evidence she had been crying so she left the bathroom. 

             
.

             
Esther was right. Catlin was sitting at the small booth, her body leaning over the table, her face as close to Ian as she could manage. Felicitas fell onto the cushioned bench and slid up close to Ian. 

             
“Hello Catlin.”

Catlin jumped, surprised; the look of guilt instantly showing on her face.

              “Oh my God Taz, you look horrid. You feeling okay?”

             
Ian put his arm around Felicitas pulling her closer and placed a kiss on her coral lips. “She looks great to me.”

             
Felicitas smiled as Catlin’s intended insult fell flat.

             
Ian pulled her toward him and gave her another kiss this time on top of her head.

             
“Where were you? I saw your car and thought you were here already so I ordered. Hope your ciders not cold.”

             
Felicitas picked up the mug to delay              giving an answer. She took a small sip. The tart cider combined with the peppermint in her mouth was utterly repulsive. She swallowed nearly gagging in disgust.

             
“I was early so I took a walk. It’s such a beautiful day and all the trees on this street have the prettiest color leaves. Besides you know how I love the smell of autumn.”

             
Ian smiled and Catlin attempted another disparaging comment.

             
“Taz you’re such a simple little nature girl.  I am at the mall with your mother checking out fall colors in the latest fashions, and you’re looking at dead leaves and smelling small yard fires. You’re too funny!”

             
Ian kissed Felicitas again this time lingering a tad longer on her lips. “That’s what I love about her.”

             
Catlin squirmed in her chair and gave it one last shot. “You are so right Ian. I wish I could be more like her. Taz you’re so carefree, never worrying about how you look. Like this piece of pumpkin bread, you can eat something like that and you don’t care about adding pounds. I wish I cared more about enjoying life than my figure. But I have to fit in my homecoming dress. Can’t return a fifteen hundred dollar formal.”

             
Ian whistled, “You spent fifteen hundred dollars on a dress!”

             
“Well of course. I'm in the court. I can’t accept the crown in just anything. Have you picked out your dress yet Taz?”

             
She hadn’t yet, even though her mother and grandmother had made several attempts to take her shopping. Every time they tried something interfered causing them to reschedule. Felicitas knew they both would insist on spending a fortune on the dress and now considering her recent news she was relieved a dress had not been purchased.  She had never been pregnant before and wasn’t sure how long it would be before she began to show. A dress that fit today may not fit a month from now. The nausea returned.