Twilight of the Abyss: Chapter One
Chapter One
I sighed, staring out the window. The scenery that passed me by was a blur as I tried to not focus on my current problems. Just a few weeks ago, my best friend, Amber, had died. No one knew that it was my fault, it was a secret that I’d take to my grave. Somewhere beyond my sightless eyes, the scenery changed as my mom left I-95 and started through the last form of civilization before we would come to Spoons, Florida.
To the very place that I was being exiled.
“Bella, honey, are you sure you want to go through with this,” my mom asked me. Not for the first time since we started our now four day drive from New York to my father’s backwater home. She had been stalling the whole way down. I think that was why she offered to drive me and not have me fly down.
“I’m sure Pixie,” I said. “The doctor said I had to have a change of scenery.”
“I know, sweetie, but why your father? He hasn’t even bothered to call you since the divorce. Are you sure you don’t want to travel back up to Pennsylvania and live with your aunt? You’ll be closer to me.”
I shook my head. I knew she was worried about me. My mom, Daphne “Pixie” Crane, looked like her nickname. She was petite and slender with short brown hair and large muddy jade eyes. She always wore light, flowing clothes that made her look like some supernatural hippy or butterfly. Everyone called her Pixie, she insisted on it. I only called her ‘mom’ in my head.
“Bell-bell, what happened to Amber was a horrible accident, but you don’t have to go this far. We can still turn around.”
I choked back a sob at the mention of my former best friend’s name. Everyone knew that I had been the last to see her alive, that our last moments were one of argument. Of all the stupid things to fight over, we had argued over characters in a book.
“You’re just taking Shannon’s side! You think I haven’t noticed how the two of you keep whispering at lunch, leaving me out of it! I’m your best friend, Amber! Not her!”
“We were just talking and I think she makes a lot of sense.”
It was all my fault. If we hadn’t fought, she wouldn’t have died. Not that anyone knew that. I had left the apartment long before Amber died, but she was killed because of me.
When that quack doctor that mom sent me to in an effort to make sure that I was adjusting well to Amber’s death suggested that I have a change of scenery, I surprised both mom and myself when I said that I wanted to live with my father. He left us when I was five to live with his mistress, saying that he had to do the right thing. He got her pregnant and he wanted to be with his new family. Birthday cards and Christmas cards did not a father make, so it was a mystery as to why I wanted to exile myself so far from my loving mother.
The truth was that I wanted her to be safe. Mom had raised me, so I felt loyalty to her. Dad - No! I would never call him that. It was Clive! Clive had none of my loyalty, so if I put them in danger it mattered little to me.
“I want to do this, Pixie,” I said. “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
“I know, Bell-bell, but I wish you wanted to stay closer to home,” mom whined. She only called me ‘Bell-bell’ when she was trying to be cute or was really stressed about something. My full name was Belladonna Lily MariSue Nightshade. She named me Belladonna. It meant “beautiful lady”, a trait that mom wanted me to have. Nightshade was the only thing of Clive’s that I kept until my mom could remarry. That would be the happiest day of my life, but Pixie was not even dating. She still loved Clive for some unknown reason.
“I have my reasons for this, Pixie,” I said. “Please, just trust me.”
She sighed and we turned off the main road and headed down the side road that would lead us to Spoons, Florida. In the four days that my mom and I had been traveling, she had taken a lot of side trips. We stopped in Pennsylvania to visit her sister for the night. Then, she drove off in Maryland so we could visit the Renaissance Fair. In South Carolina we just had to stay at some Bed and Breakfast that mom found with all that quaint Southern charm.
An hour or so down the road, we came to the faded wooden sign for Spoons, Florida (pop. 180, if that). This was not what I was expecting. I had thought that Florida was nothing more then a huge endless beach, broken up only by Disney and Sea World. I had thought that all I’d see would be beautiful models and buff bodybuilders, parading around in half naked glory or slow, shuffling geriatric inhabitants waiting for Death to claim them in between games of Bingo. I did not expect Spoons.
A corridor of trees greeted me, all naked and skeletal with large clumps of gray-green Spanish moss hanging down like scraggly witch’s hair. The air smelled moist and there were signs along the road that warned of alligators. The actual town of Spoons was a ‘blink and you miss it’ kind of place with twin rows of shops along Main Street and a large, white church at the crown. Everything looked too perfect to be real, as if it came from some kind of dream or movie.
Mom drove to Clive’s home. She had memorized the directions that he sent her when we told him of my plans. I think it surprised him that I even thought of him for this. I could still remember how delighted he sounded on the phone, flustered and eager to make everything perfect.
“You’ll love it here, Donnie. I promise.”
I cringed as I thought of going through even a day of being called ‘Donnie’. When I was a kid, Clive used to call me his Belladonnie, and then just shortened it to Donnie. It was mute evidence that he had always wanted a boy. Not even his new wife could produce the desired son, giving him a little girl named Laurel instead.
Clive’s home was a large wooden structure out in the middle of the swampy woods. His classical black and white police cruiser sat out front, resting peacefully by a flashy red car. The house was surrounded by a white picket fence and flower gardens along the edge. It looked like a postcard.
“Bell-bell, we can still turn back,” mom said. This time, I almost said yes.
Instead, I gathered my courage and left the car. Mom went to open the trunk while I walked to the front door. They had been expecting me and I found myself surrounded by Clive and his new family in seconds.
Clive was a large, sturdy man with graying blonde hair, bushy mustache and beady blue eyes. Mom still kept his pictures up by her bed and the only thing that time had done to him was add a few wrinkles and the start of a nice potbelly that drooped over his belt.
His new wife, Jasmine, was a perfectly horrid woman. While some would call her pretty with her light mocha skin, slender body, short black hair and wide smile, I thought she was ugly. This woman took Clive from my mom, and I was not about to forgive her. She knew he was married, that he had a family. She just didn’t care.
Their daughter, Laurel, was the perfect melding between them. She had Clive’s sturdy form, highly unattractive in a girl, and her mother’s flawless skin. Her long black hair was up in a ponytail that shined in the hot sun.
All three of them looked happy to see me.
“Donnie, welcome! I heard about Amber. I’m so sorry,” Clive said as he swept me up in a huge bear hug. “I hope your stay here is just what you need.”
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Jasmine said, clicking her long nails together. She looked like a snake, sizing me up for her next meal. “Clive has said so many wonderful things about you.”
“We gave you the attic room,” Laurel told me. “You have it all to yourself. It’s almost like a small apartment, with its own entrance and everything.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. I watched as Jasmine’s little smirk slid off her face as mom brought over the suitcases.
“Daphne,” Jasmine twittered. “You look well.”
Mom frowned and pushed the suitcases at Clive, smacking him right in his stomach. “I have a room in the next town. I’ll leave after I’ve seen to Bella and know that she’s settled in.” She refused to look at Jasmine, and it was obvious.
“We did set up the couch for you, Pixie,” Clive said. “You don’t have to leave so quickly.”
Mom’s frown deepened. I knew that she would never stay under the same roof as that husband-stealing hussy. Clive knew it too, and it was cruel on his part to even suggest such a thing. Surely he knew that mom still cried herself to sleep on their anniversary, that she couldn’t say his name without getting misty-eyed. That she never dated because no man would ever compare to her first and only love.
Clive led us inside the house and up to my new room. Laurel was right, it was like my own little apartment. There was a bedroom and a small study space with a full bathroom off to the side. A door and some stairs made up the private entrance and there was even a tree by my bedroom window. I could almost picture myself living here, climbing out on to that tree to sneak out to a party after being grounded. It was almost too perfect.
“I enrolled Donnie in the local school,” Clive said. “Everyone is really excited that she’s coming. You and she have been almost mythical figures in my past, Pix. We’re a small town, and people tend to gossip. They know I was married once, but to actually meet Donnie…”
“It’s Bella,” I said. I finally looked at Clive and told him, “My name is Bella. Not Donnie. I don’t like that name.”
Clive had the good grace to flush with embarrassment. “Sure, Bella,” he said softly.
Mom said her good-byes and made me promise to call her every night. She gave me a new cell phone, one that she’d pay for as long as I talked to her. She wanted to make sure I was happy.
“Christmas won’t come soon enough,” she whispered.
“It’s only October,” I said. “Christmas is only two months and some days off. Time will fly by.”
I watched her drive off and let Clive bring me back inside. I left without a word to unpack my clothes. This was my home, my self exile. If only they knew the truth.
How could I tell them? How could I tell my mom or Clive that I had found out that I was more then human? I was the reincarnation of the last Fairy princess, the only one who could save the remaining Fairies from the dark grip of Morgause. It sounded so silly, so much like a bad fantasy novel that I didn’t believe it at first.
However, Amber’s death was real. And so were the changes that happened after I found the Sacred Wand, a royal tool that only I could use. I was changing into the real princess, and I could either accept my destiny or watch all the ones I cared for die at the hands of the Dread Overlord of Evil.
With a sigh, I took a look in the mirror to see if I could find any new changes in me. My orangey-red hair had darkened to a fiery red that shimmered under the sunlight. My freckled skin had smoothed out to a beautiful creamy completion. I was still skinny, but I seemed to have developed curves and now had a body that caused men to take a second glance. My muddy jade eyes, so much like Pixie’s, had darkened to emerald green.
I put away my clothes and books in my new room. It had been decorated a bit too girly for my taste. The pretty pink canopy bed and white dresser with flowers painted down the side were things that I would have liked when I was five. Sitting on the bed was an old familiar face, the stuffed teddy bear that Clive had given me before he left. Mom must have packed it in with his stuff since it went missing not too long after that. I really hadn’t thought of it until now.
I sat down on the bed and picked up the bear. The soulless black button eyes gazed up at me, sadder now then when I had first gotten him. I could remember holding him when I slept, naming him ‘Boo Bear’ because Clive gave him to me after I fell off my bike and got a huge scrape on my knee. Boo Bear made me feel better and I had clung to him when Clive took his suitcase and left the house, leaving my mom to cry on the floor by the door.
It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t my fault that Clive left. At first, mom didn’t want to tell me why he had left and I was confused to the sudden change in my living arrangements. Then, one night, Pixie couldn’t stand it anymore and told me the whole story, holding me like her own Boo Bear.
“This doesn’t make up for it,” I whispered to Boo Bear. “You don’t erase years of neglect and being shoved aside for someone else.”
Boo Bear didn’t answer me, but continued to stare at me with those shiny eyes.
I tossed him in the closet. Out of sight, out of mind. Sitting back on the bed, I pulled out the cell phone. I could hear Clive and Jasmine setting the table down stairs, their voices murmuring up. I was sure they were talking about me. I highly doubted Jasmine really wanted the daughter of Clive’s first wife to be staying with them.
Home wrecker.
I smiled when I saw that mom had already programmed her numbers into the phone. I dialed her cell, but it went straight to voice mail. Mom sometimes forgot to charge her phone up. It was the only really flighty thing that Pixie ever did.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “So far, everything is okay. The room is perfect for a five year old. I don’t think that Clive even remembers how old I am. Since tomorrow is Columbus day, I’m sure that he has some family thing planned. I miss you already. I’ll call you again tomorrow. Love you.”
Snapping the phone shut, I made my way downstairs. Jasmine smiled when she saw me and Laurel jumped up to show me around the house. There were pictures of the family everywhere; Jasmine, Clive and Laurel. Here, they were smiling at me from a family picnic. Over here, they waved at the top of some cruise ship. This picture had them sitting by a Christmas tree, crumpled paper piled around Laurel’s body as she proudly held up a Boo Bear of her own.
“I’m really glad that you’re here,” Laurel said. “I always wanted a sister.”
Words in chapter: 2639
Words total: 5082