These Flowers Have a Taste for Blood
Dorothy Darrow
Copyright 2012 by Dorothy Darrow
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Written in the U.S.A.
Chapter 1
LUKE WRIGHT was a bad person. This he knew. He also knew he deserved to pay a penance for his sins, but he wished the sun would just go away. The light blazed through his eyelids, waking him from a much-needed doze, and just plain annoying him.
He fumbled around for his sunglasses, his adolescent fingers whipping around as if playing a one-handed piano solo. After a moment of pawing, he remembered he had lost his sunglasses somewhere around Jefferson City. Luke halted his fingers and brought his stilled hand to his face. With an irritated sigh, he resigned to keep his hand over his eyes to block the persistent light.
Where were they? What time was it? Luke had fallen asleep and had no idea how far his family had traveled while he was out. His only clue was the rough, empty desert surrounding their vehicle, only scrubby brown plants spotting the landscape, and gray mountains on the farthest horizon. The Wright family SUV drove over a cracked and rutted highway, which slit through the arid terrain like the edge of a dull knife. The Wrights were in the middle of nowhere. They had to be near their destination.
Muffled yaps made their way around Luke's ear buds to thump on his eardrums, disturbing his newly wakened freshness. He increased the volume of his music, attempting to drown out his family's quarreling. Beside him, his little sisters Lena and Lucy wrangled over a red crayon. In the front seats, his mother, Lisa, and his older sister, Lara, also bickered, probably over the same thing they had been bickering about before he fell asleep.
The inside of the SUV stunk. Four days of five bodies forced to sit in the car all day and the unholy odor that resulted had permeated the interior as the Wrights moved cross-country from the comfort of their native Salem, Massachusetts, to the obscure desert settlement of LeVir Lake, California. For the last three days, they had played a continual car game that consisted of squabbling about music choices, turning the radio on but not finding a good station, turning the radio off, and then squabbling some more. Luke had lost every time, so he forfeited.
He stared out from under his hand at the miles of desert that surrounded them. The sight of it stirred his blood--he already hated that empty land. He was suspicious of LeVir Lake's very existence. It didn't appear on any maps, a fact he inserted into conversation with his mother at every opportunity. He was playing every card he had to persuade his mom to turn the SUV around and take him back to Salem and his friends, including the "being a total jerk the entire trip" card. Incidentally, Lara was using the same card, and doing a much better job.
As the SUV rolled across nothingness, Luke's thoughts descended into a memory of his father. He saw his dad enjoying a nightly walk, unwinding in the cool New England breeze after a backbreaking day of honest work as a warehouse grunt. His father strolled along the side of the back roads as he did every night it wasn't raining. Luke had once asked his father what he thought about during those long walks. His father had answered, "How lucky I am, Luke. How you and your mom and your sisters make me so lucky." That thought was probably going through his head as a brilliant white light burst to life behind him. The flash blinded Luke's mind, and the next thing he could see was his father's body sailing through the clear, star-speckled night air.
Luke's eyelids yanked apart. The vision had lasted less than half a minute, but a cold sweat had broken out along Luke's back and the sides of his neck, chilling his whole body. But the real chill came from deep inside his mind, where deep-seated feelings of guilt had risen and gripped his entire body with icy hooks. He shifted his body toward the SUV's window, pressing his shoulder against the glass, leaning toward the blazing desert, bitterly requesting the heat he hated to remove the remnant shivers of his daydream.
Trapped in the final hours on the road with four very-female females, Luke closed his eyes and absorbed himself in his playlist. He was listening to Silver & Gold, an all-girl pop group whose boppy songs all sounded the same and whose music he would never admit to liking. Though he would acknowledge that all of the girls in the group were sizzling hotties. His favorite was Kitten, a skin-baring blonde with all the right curves. She looked like she belonged in Penthouse rather than Teen, and Luke should know. He possessed an extensive pornographic reading collection that had taken him five years to attain. He had gathered the magazines from various sources, but the bulk of the collection came from his Salem neighbor's recycling bin. Luke could only hope his new neighbors were careless, horny people. He had packed his prized collection in a large box marked "READING MATERIAL" in big, block letters on the side. It was already at the house in LeVir Lake, awaiting Luke's arrival with breathless anticipation.
"MOM!"
Little Lucy's shriek pierced straight through Luke's ear buds and stabbed his eardrums. He jolted as if he'd been caught doing something dirty.
"No screaming, young lady," Lisa scolded, scowling into the rearview mirror at her youngest daughter.
Five-year-old Lucy pointed frantically at Lena. "She won't give me the orange crayon!"
Lena answered coolly, "I'm coloring the color-by-number impressionistically. I'm making all the blue spaces orange. Mother, I'm coloring the ocean."
Lisa was unimpressed. "Who had it first?"
"ME!" Lucy shrieked.
"Lucille Katherine Wright," Lisa admonished with a warning frown, "wait for Lena to finish, then you can have the crayon. And no more screaming."
In the front seat, Lara sighed. "Really, Mom, you should just have those two put to sleep."
Lisa shot an acidic glare toward the front passenger seat.
"Just a nap, I meant."
Lisa glowered at the road, rubbing her forehead. It meant she had a headache coming on. She'd been doing that a lot lately.
Luke tried to go back to ignoring his family, but Lucy's elbow kept jabbing him. She was trying to steal the orange crayon without an outburst. Luke shielded his side with his hands, wishing Lena would just go back to her monster novel and give Lucy the crayons. As if answering Luke's wish, Lena chucked the orange crayon at Lucy's face. The littlest Wright almost cried out, but she noticed her mother watching in the rearview mirror and sucked in her frustration.
Luke shook his head at the ridiculousness of his family. He repositioned his hand over his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to relax. The unwelcoming desert stared back at him through the SUV windows. Here and there, boulders that had been dormant for centuries awoke to observe him passing. They looked like prison guards vigilantly monitoring inmates transferring from one jail to another.
Luke closed his eyes against nature. He let Silver & Gold serenade him with their hit "Juliet," which had the painfully obvious subject of star-crossed lovers. The song reminded Luke of his freshman English teacher, Miss Tremaine, a hidden beauty waiting for her fairy godmother. Unfortunately for Miss Tremaine, only Luke could see her potential. Luke's shortsighted friends just saw her heavy blouses, long skirts, and mousy brown hair stuffed into a sloppy bun. Luke's friends always made fun of him for staying behind after class to help clean up the wreckage from the latest paper ball fight Miss Tremaine couldn't muster the authority to prevent, but he ignored their jibes. Luke had always been a defender of underdogs. His friends had secretly accepted that way back in preschool, but in a high school where plenty of other witnesses noticed and questioned Luke's chivalry, his friends had a reputation to protect.
Luke opened his eyes. He caught sight of his reflection in the window. His light brown hair had gotten shaggy, especially in the front where it nearly reached his matching light brown eyes. He stretched his chin forward, tightening the skin around his jaw so it squared off by his ears. It used to do that without his help, but lately his jawline hadn't looked as trim. Yet another thing that depressed him. He knew he wasn't a bad-looking guy, but he didn't see anything special about himself, and he guessed high school girls didn't either. He thought about how unfortunate it was that girls his age never went for the nice guy. Luke couldn't exactly complain since he had never lacked for a date, but the only girls who showed interest in him were popularity-hungry sycophants yearning to ingratiate themselves with Luke's high-ranking friends. Translation: girls willing to do whatever it took to secure a position in the popular clique. Unfortunately for them (and for Luke), Luke wasn't the kind of guy who enjoyed being used, and he had never gone beyond second base with any of those social climbers. Which meant he had never gotten beyond second base, period.
On his last night in Salem, though, he'd hoped this would change. Mandy Simpkins, a girl who rode his bus, and who Luke had harbored a slight crush on since third grade--a beautiful girl who was anything but a sycophant--had asked him to take a walk with her, and Luke anticipated a sweeping romantic evening he could carry with him to his certain loneliness in LeVir Lake. As he and Mandy ambled along the four tree-lined blocks that separated their houses, their bodies drifted closer and closer to each other. Luke's arm kept brushing hers, and she didn't move away. His spirits were lounging with the stars. But then, just as Luke prepared to make a move, Mandy started talking about "God's Plan," and Luke's interest in her vanished as if someone had flipped a switch. She went on and on about how everything happened for a reason, and that moving from his hometown would help him grow into the person he was meant to be, and his dad was in a better place, blah, blah, blah. Luke ended the night by ditching Mandy on her front stoop and moping the four blocks home. The next morning, his real friends--who knew better than to bring up a scam like God, or even worse, fate--brought him cold pizza and sent him on his melancholy way, promising to visit. Luke knew this wouldn't happen, though. Football training camp started in a week, and of course all of his friends had made the varsity team their sophomore year, leaving him behind (even though he most likely would have made varsity, too, had he not quit sports the previous year).
Luke pushed the memory out of his head. He didn't want to feel sorry for himself anymore. He lowered his eyelids and focused on Kitten's charming voice. But, wait a minute...
"Shit," Luke slipped.
Lucy gasped. "Mom. Luke said the S-word."
Lisa made eye contact in the rearview mirror. "Luke, don't curse. What's wrong?"
"Golly, Ma, my gosh-dern battery just wore out, doggone it."
"Mom," Lena tattled, "Luke's being a smartass."
Lisa scowled at everyone in the backseat. "Luke, stop being a smartass. And no more cursing from anyone."
A few minutes passed in miserable silence. Luke tried restarting his music player, but it only held charge for a few seconds, then it promptly died. Luke yanked the ear buds from his ears and sulked, glaring through his hand at the persistent sunlight, blaming it for his troubles.
Lara interrupted the silence. "What's that?"
Over the horizon, a forest blossomed out of the desert.
"I bet that's LeVir Lake," Lisa said.
Lucy asked, "Where's the lake?"
"It doesn't have to have a lake, doofus," Lara said. "It's just a name."
"Why would you name a town LeVir Lake if there is no lake?" Lucy challenged.
Their mom intervened, "Never mind the lake. I can't even see the town. Just trees and desert."
Lisa continued to follow the aged highway, driving closer and closer to the trees. Luke craned his neck to see out the windshield. The road headed straight toward the woods, but Luke didn't see any breaks in the trees where a car could enter. Lisa continued to follow the road. Luke was afraid she would follow it straight into a tree trunk, but the road veered left at the last second. Lisa turned with it and drove alongside the woods.
Luke scanned the thick tree trunks, which extended at least ten feet into the air before disappearing behind branches. The trees were so dense he couldn't see past the front lines. His eyes flicked from one tree to the next. They didn't look like they belonged in the desert. They almost looked like redwoods, which he thought only grew in the rainy Northeast. How could trees like that survive out here in the dry heat?
After a few minutes of driving with the woods on the right and the desert on the left, a small sign appeared. It displayed a simple red arrow pointing right.
Lisa obeyed the instruction and turned onto a gravelly road. Trees bordered both sides of the car, seeming to inch closer, hugging the Wright family in an unwelcome bear grip. Luke had never had problems with claustrophobia before, but he began to feel suffocated by the towering trunks.
A huge gate waited about a quarter of a mile in front of them. Etched into an arch above the closed double gate, gothic letters spelled out "LeVir Lake." On either side of the gate, a wall constructed of glistening tan stone stretched into the trees as far as Luke could see.
"What's that?" Lena asked, pointing at the gate. "There's a drawing."
The SUV rolled to a stop just outside the gate. Carved into the thick left side of the gate, a large, perfectly round circle adorned the stone. To the right and diagonally down from the perfect circle was another, smaller circle circumferenced by shaky spikes.
"It's the moon and the sun," Luke deciphered. "The moon is the bigger circle, overpowering the sun."
"I guess whoever designed that was a night owl," Lisa joked.
Nobody laughed.
Lisa cleared her throat. "All right, Mr. Interpreter, what does the other stuff mean?"
Starting to the right of the gate, a series of embossed panels illustrated a story. The tale began with a man and woman holding a baby. Behind them, an etched window displayed a total solar eclipse. At the bottom of the panel, a faceless mass cowered. Luke tried to distinguish the next segment of the story, but the trees obstructed his view. He switched his gaze to the left side of the town gate, where the last panel of the wall displayed a triumphant man.
"It's a story," Luke declared. He pointed to the first panel. "It starts with a baby and ends with a hero." He pointed at the last panel.
Lara scoffed. "A story that you can only see the beginning and end of is kind of pointless."
"Not if you have a good enough imagination," Lena said.
"Shut up."
Lisa ignored her children as she opened her power window with a mechanical whir. She stuck her head out and examined the area outside her door. "How are we supposed to get in?" she seemed to ask the trees standing an arm span away.
Luke looked around as well, trying to find a hidden intercom system or coded keypad. He only saw trees.
A horn blasted against the gate. Luke jumped, his backside leaving his seat for a second. It was a moment before he realized his mother had created the sound. She did it again, pressing both hands into the center of the steering wheel, producing a loud, extended, obnoxious bleat.
Lucy jammed her hands against her ears. "Mom-my," she whined. Lisa honked the horn again.
A thin line formed down the center of the Moon and Sun sequence. The line thickened as two sets of hands pulled the gate open from the inside. Two Hispanic men peeked out at the SUV. Confused creases formed around their faces. They dragged the heavy stone doors into town until they had produced enough room for the SUV to pass.
Luke peered past them into LeVir Lake. All he could see was the road they were on continue straight, dividing the town into halves. Not so far away, a tan band underlined the horizon.
Little Lucy asked the question on Luke's mind. "Do you think that wall surrounds the entire town?"
"I think town is an overstatement," Lara said.
She was right. Judging by what they saw beyond the gate, LeVir Lake looked smaller than their subdivision in Salem.
Lisa searched the glove compartment for the directions to their new house. She found it and instructed Lara to navigate.
Lara read the first direction: "Enter the gate into LeVir Lake."
Lisa drove into town. Luke caught sight of the triumphant man's image again and studied it for as long as he could see it. The depiction seemed somehow familiar. Maybe Luke had seen it in a book or something. He could Google it later once they got the Internet set up.
Lisa drove until the SUV had cleared the gate, then she stopped again.
"Turn right onto Prudence Boulevard," Lara instructed.
"Prudence Boulevard is a funny name," Lucy said.
"We used to live on Squirrel Nut Road," Lena reminded.
"Everyone, look for Prudence Boulevard," Lisa ordered.
She drove past colossal houses with expensive cars in the semi-circular driveways, a town square, and a park. A number of people milled about the town, mostly Hispanics, or at least, with Hispanic blood. They stared at the Wright SUV as it passed.
Lisa drove straight across town until the road terminated in a dead end right in front of the huge town wall. She put the SUV in park and looked behind her.
"Did anyone see Prudence Boulevard?" she asked.
Nobody had. Lisa turned the car around and returned through town the way they had traveled, driving back to the town gate. The gate was closed. Lisa stopped the SUV and again asked her children if they had seen Prudence Boulevard. Again, nobody had seen any other roads.
"This is the right LeVir Lake, right?" Lara asked.
"Did you see any other LeVir Lakes, Lara?" Lisa snapped. "We'll look one more time and if we still don't find it, we'll ask someone for directions."
Lisa drove back down the road until the dead end curbed them again. She slammed the SUV into park and smacked the steering wheel with both hands. A short whimper escaped the horn.
"This is terrific!" Lisa vented. "Of course my parents would give me a crummy house on a stupid road that doesn't even exist!"
"Mom," Lara soothed, "let's just ask for directions."
Lisa pursed her lips together and stared at Lara. Lara stared back, knowing exactly how to deal with her mother in that state. Lisa huffed through her nose, forcing herself into a calmer condition. She glanced into the rearview mirror at the rest of her children. She offered them an apologetic shrug. Lucy gave her a patient smile in return. Luke just rolled his eyes.
Lisa turned the car around once more, asking her children to look for someone to assist them. But as they traveled a fourth time through the center of town, all of the people who had been outside staring at the SUV were gone. The Wrights searched for any kind soul to help them, but everyone had simply disappeared.
They were three-quarters of the way back to the gate, and Lisa was fuming again. She was about to lose her temper when Luke finally spotted a local. A teenage girl waited beside a sudsy Rolls Royce, smiling amiably at the SUV as if she were expecting it.
Lisa stopped the car and Lara hopped out. Luke's sister approached the girl, who oozed hospitality as she welcomed Lara's questions.
Luke gawked at the girl. How had he not noticed her every other time they had driven past? She was a knockout. A blonde, she showed off her porcelain-yet-svelte body in a bikini top and jean cutoffs. A large metallic choker all but covered her swanlike neck, and despite an oversized sun hat shadowing her face, Luke could see the blueness of her eyes from the SUV. Plus, as if her natural beauty weren't enough, she was soaking wet from washing the Rolls, and what little clothing she had on clung to the intimate parts of her body. Luke barely noticed when Lara returned to the SUV as he stared at those parts.
"What did she say?" Lisa pressed.
"This is LeVir Lake Avenue. Prudence Boulevard is a one-way street that circles the town. We need to go this way until we see a really wide sidewalk. That's Prudence Boulevard. We turn left onto it. She said it goes the way of the wall."
"What does that mean?" Lisa asked, irritated.
"Maybe it means follow the story," Luke absently suggested, still focused on the girl.
Lisa shook her head. "I hope the truck driver didn't have this much trouble finding the house." She launched the SUV, muttering about road signs. Luke kept his eye on the blonde, turning around in his seat, until she stepped behind the Rolls and out of his view. He turned back around, the tiniest smile on his face. Maybe this town wouldn't be so bad after all.
Two houses straddled Prudence Boulevard, making it look like a driveway. Lisa almost passed it again before Lara discovered it with a yell. Lisa swerved left, nearly knocking the SUV onto two wheels. Lucy gripped Luke for protection from their mother's driving.
The SUV followed Prudence Boulevard, which moseyed about the town in a continuous circle. They crossed over the last stretch of LeVir Lake Avenue, passing the familiar dead end, and proceeded to loop around the other half of town. Prudence Boulevard literally followed the wall, never leaving more than a couple hundred feet between itself and the glittery stone. Luke examined the squished yards and houses of the residences on the wall's side of the street, and he hoped the Wright's new house wasn't one of them.
As the SUV yet again neared the gate to LeVir Lake, the Wrights recognized the moving truck that contained most of their possessions. The two younger girls shrieked and pointed. After four-and-a-half days of living in the SUV, they had finally found their new address.
Lara's jaw dropped as Lisa pulled into the driveway. "Is this our house?"
The house was easily three times larger than their home in Salem. The brown brick walls towered over them, gradating from dark to light as it reached the beautiful terra cotta roof. Luke gawked at the huge, carefully tended front lawn. The grass was greener than it had any right to be in the middle of the desert. As Luke opened his car door, surprisingly temperate air embraced him. If he hadn't just ridden half a day through the most boring desert in the world, he would have never known that behind the town wall they were surrounded for miles on end by barren, scorched, unforgiving nothingness.
Luke marveled at the size of the front lawn. It was perfect for touch football with his friends. He felt a temporary lift in spirits before he remembered his friends were three thousand miles away.
"Luke gets permanent lawn duty," Lara yelled as she bounced out of the SUV.
"That's not fair," Luke whined. "Mom."
"Not now." Lisa was still awestruck by the house. Luke figured someone who had grown up in mansions would be accustomed to large houses, but her eyes kept scanning the façade, her jaw slowly descending and the corners up her mouths perking as she comprehended the size of the dwelling. Luke shrugged, climbed out of the SUV, and stretched his legs on his way to the front door.
"Luke," his mother called as she shook out of her daze, "don't wander off and leave your stuff here for us to move."
Luke didn't listen. He reached the front door and grabbed the knob. It was unlocked. The red-painted door opened without a squeak--something Luke wasn't accustomed to. He left the door wide open, allowing a draft to circulate through the house.
Luke examined the first floor, starting with the fully furnished living room. Red-stained wood, dark red leather, and wrought iron furnishings and décor graced the room. Everything was of the finest quality, from the elegant furniture to the state-of-the-art entertainment system. It wasn't the kind of decorating Luke had expected from a house his grandparents owned, what with the bright white wainscoting and pastel wallpaper in their Hamptons house that had made him nausea with its over-the-top chipperness. He actually kind of liked this darker design, though it still held the sickeningly sweet smell of old money and old leather.
The next room was a fully equipped kitchen stocked with any and every appliance the Wrights could need, though Luke couldn't envision his mother or sisters--none of whom possessed a knack for cooking--juicing anything anytime soon. His father had been the chef of the family, and Luke had tried to learn from him, though it seemed he had inherited his mother's propensity for burning everything he couldn't just stick in a microwave. It's a good thing he liked TV dinners and sandwiches. He checked the cabinets. All empty. Luke was glad his mother had decided to keep the family dishes (along with their bedroom sets) as she sold off nearly everything else the Wrights owned to finance their move west. She had refused to take any more money from her parents for that cause, though they had ended up buying most of the Wrights' possessions anyway. Luke tried to imagine the old 32-inch tube television that had been in their living room for as long as he could remember replacing his grandparents' 60-inch high-definition projector screen--they were too good to watch anything other than classic movies "the way they were meant to be viewed"--and he somehow couldn't fathom it.
The kitchen connected to the dining room, where a polished wooden table stretched across the floor. Luke estimated twelve people could sit comfortably at that table. His family didn't need all that space. Their Salem house had been the perfect size. Luke found himself exploring the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room for the growth chart his mother had maintained since Lara was born. He found only a freshly painted doorframe.
Having lost his eager curiosity, Luke shuffled out of the dining room, passing a half bathroom manifestly darkened by the house's black and red color scheme.
The next door Luke opened led to the master bedroom. The vast size of the room dwarfed the king-sized four-poster bed it held. Red-stained wood made up the bed frame as the sheets and pillowcases shone crimson, accompanied by a bright scarlet comforter. A matching armoire, vanity, and dresser completed the set. The master bathroom was black and red like the half bathroom in the hall, but the master bathroom contained two sinks, a Jacuzzi, a claw-foot bathtub, and a separate shower, all with room to spare.
Luke finally realized why Lisa had agreed to move there. Her parents must have described the master bathroom to her. Compared to the stall she had to share with her husband in the Wrights' old shack, her new bathroom was like her own personal Turkish bathhouse.
Luke ended his tour of the first floor with the parlor, the type of room with which he never believed he'd inhabit the same house. Parlors belonged to rich people who liked showing off their richness. Expecting red wood and sanguineous cloths, he was shocked to find the parlor bathed in white. The couches and chairs were spotless. A white wood Luke had never seen before formed the tables. The curtains were delicate white lace. The fireplace was marble. Luke decided not to enter the room. Besides the fact that he didn't dare soil the whiteness, the blatant opposition of this room to the rest of the first floor creeped him out.
The time had come for Luke to go upstairs and find his new bedroom. He circled the first floor again, hunting for the stairs, wondering why he hadn't seen them on the first go-round. Next to the half bathroom, Luke found a big, heavy door he had somehow overlooked. It flaunted the same Moon and Sun sequence as the LeVir Lake gate. Luke opened the door.
The stairs.
Luke flicked on the light--a single bulb in the middle of the ceiling--and hiked up the steps. Another door waited at the top of the stairs. He imagined how pitch black the staircase would be with both doors closed and the light switched off. Luke wasn't afraid of the dark, but he didn't yearn to be in there under those circumstances. He could imagine the terrible fuss little Lucy would make. Not only was she terrified of the dark, but she was deathly afraid of people under the stairs, along with every other ghoul, goblin, and monster ever fathomed. Lena, a horror aficionado and practicing sadist, loved reading scary stories to her little sister, augmenting Lucy's fears.
Luke emerged on the second floor. He found a sitting area by the stairs, three large bedrooms, each with adjoining bathrooms, plus an additional half bathroom near the end of the hall. Unlike downstairs, all of the upstairs rooms were unfurnished. The newly-laid carpet was dull beige and the walls were standard eggshell--the first facets of the house that made Luke feel at home. The only customization on the second floor was the bright blue floor tile in the otherwise white hall bathroom.
After Luke investigated all of the bedrooms, identifying the largest and hoping he would get it, one unexplored door remained at the end of the hall. Luke anticipated finding a second linen closet (he'd already found one next to the stairs), but when he opened the skinny door, he met emptiness. There were no shelves or clothing poles, only dark space. Luke peeked past the doorway. The space was long and narrow, as if the architect had reserved a chunk of the left side of the second floor especially for that strange room. Bolted to the wall next to the door, a ladder led up to the attic.
The long room made Luke nervous. He flicked a light switch, but all it activated was a single bulb somewhere in the attic.
Something rustled across the attic floor.
Luke tensed, his fingers digging into the doorframe. He realized his nervous actions and felt ridiculous, telling himself it was just a rat scurrying around...a very large rat. Any interest he had in exploring the attic abandoned him. Luke turned the light off and left the long room, listening for the skinny door's latch to click so the room couldn't surprise him later by opening itself.
Luke wandered into one of the bedrooms and glanced out the window. There were no screens on the other side of the glass. Luke opened the window and stuck his hand straight out of the house. He'd never been able to do that before. It was strangely liberating. Without a screen, he could see everything outside his house clearly, without a layer of gray distorting it. He looked down at the front lawn, spread out before this side of the house. His jaw dropped when he saw the scene.
His mom and sisters were in the back of the moving truck merrily chucking Luke's stuff from the trailer out onto the lawn. His bags were lumped everywhere. Boxes had fallen open, his possessions spilling out.
A sobering thought struck Luke. If his family dumped out the box containing his nudie magazine collection, Lisa would ground him for life--not to mention she would take them away. Not his beautiful centerfolds! Not his voluptuous pinups!
Luke dashed down the stairs and out the front door, his feet moving so quickly they barely touched the ground. Lisa and Lara had a box in their arms, about to hurl it into the yard. The big, black "READING MATERIAL" label was prominent. Luke dashed to the very spot he needed to be in just in time for the box to bash into his chest, knocking him hard to the ground.
He sat up and checked to make sure the box was still sealed, then he glared at his family. "What are you doing?!" he wheezed. He would have shouted, but his breath was gone.
Lisa planted her hands on her hips, staring down at her son from the trailer. "I told you not to disappear and leave all your stuff here. We unloaded the SUV. Then we called for you. We couldn't find you so we moved your stuff out of the way."
"You moved my stuff out of the way," Luke parroted, his lips puckering into a sour scowl. "All over the front yard?"
"That was my idea," Lara interjected.
"Don't raise your voice with me, young man," Lisa decreed. "You were warned and you didn't listen. If you didn't want your stuff all over the yard, you should have moved it. You didn't, so we did. Now get your stuff out of the yard."
Lisa disappeared into the trailer.
"Where's the furniture dolly?" Luke demanded. "I need the furniture dolly since you guys aren't going to help me."
Lara yelled from the front door, "I called shotgun. Mom's next. Your junk's last." With an evil toss of her hair, Lara disappeared into the house.
Sometimes Luke believed the entire female race was against him. Or maybe his satanic older sister had just brainwashed them all into treating him like scum.
The majority of his boxes were too heavy to lug inside and up the stairs by himself without the dolly. As Luke pushed them across the lawn into one big group, he regretted his more-stuff-into-less-boxes packing approach. But how was he supposed to know it was a stupid way to pack? It wasn't like he had much practice stuffing his entire life into boxes. It must have taken all of his sisters plus his mom to get them off the truck. The last couple of boxes he had to throw all of his weight into to get them to budge. His sneakers dug into the plush, well-trimmed lawn, leaving little brown patches in the bright green grass. The desert sun beat on him and sweat saturated his hair and clothes. The dark, engulfing garments typically worn by depression-riddled adolescents like Luke were suitable attire in New England during any part of the year, but the Southern California summer proved too powerful for the habit, even in the deflated heat of the LeVir Lake oasis. Luke would have to pull out his old shorts and tank tops, an act he was hesitant to do. The majority of his body hadn't seen the sun for nearly a year, rendering him objectionably pale. Luke hoped he'd be able to work on a tan before he met anyone new. Especially the girl from the Rolls Royce.
Luke finished gathering boxes. Time for a break. He sat on the "READING MATERIAL" box and buried his head in his hands. If only Kitten were there. She could pamper him, make him feel better about the move. Maybe give him a massage...
"Where'd you come from?"
Luke flinched at the unfamiliar voice, his face snapping upward. The car-washing beauty smiled down at him. She had traded her wet bikini top and cutoffs for a sleeveless, midriff-exposing turtleneck and cutoffs. Much classier. The sun hat still shadowed her face, but it couldn't overpower the spectacular blueness of her eyes. Her metallic choker poked out from under the turtleneck.
"What?" Luke asked--except instead of the word he had meant to say, he released a guttural squawk.
The girl unsuccessfully tried to suppress a cute giggle. "Where did you come from?" she repeated.
The way her lips moved drew Luke's attention to her mouth. "Massachusetts."
"Salem?"
"How did you know?"
The girl shrugged. "That's the first town in Massachusetts I thought of."
"Most people think Boston first."
She shrugged again. "You don't seem like you're from a big city."
Luke stared at her lips. They were amazing. When they parted to form words, the inner, moist area of her mouth formed perfect curves, and each time the two lips came back together was like watching a sweet, sensuous kiss.
"I hear Salem's pretty Halloween-y," the girl conversed.
"Yeah," Luke responded, his words automatic as he ogled the gorgeous mouth. "A lot of witches and Puritans pop up in the fall. You know, because of the witch trials. What are you into?" Luke wasn't sure whether he was actually interested in the Halloween customs of LeVir Lake or if he was trying to slip in a flirty suggestive phrase.
The girl paused at the question. Luke was afraid she had assumed the latter and was offended. He forced his enchantment with her lips to break, but before he could apologize, she answered casually, "Same kind of thing." She smiled. "How many sisters do you have? Eleven?"
The lips sucked Luke's attention back to them like a magnet dragging iron filings. He moistened the separation between his own lips. "Three."
"I don't have any siblings," the girl said, "but I can't complain since I have my cousins."
Luke nodded, barely listening.
"Mostly all of the Padreses live here on Prudence Boulevard. I live next door."
Luke was pleased to hear it.
"How'd your family find out about LeVir Lake?" she pried.
Luke's concentration left the girl's mouth as his chronic brooding flared up. "My grandparents gave us this house."
"Who are your grandparents?"
"I doubt you know them. They've never been here."
"Then how do they have a house here?" She seemed to ask herself more than she asked Luke.
"Someone told them about LeVir Lake, and they fell in love with the description or something like that, and they bought a house on the spot."
"From whom?"
"I don't know. I'm not sure they knew."
"That's not very wise," the girl said, still mainly to herself.
Her thoughts wandered as she observed Luke's new house. She was examining the roof. Her gaze was so intense Luke thought she might be looking straight into the attic.
Quicker than a blink, the girl switched her demeanor, and the subject. "Do you need help moving in?"
"No, I'm okay." He didn't want to bother her.
She surveyed the boxes. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
The instant he answered, Luke realized his mistake. If he didn't accept her help, the girl would leave. If she left, she might think he was antisocial because it was clear he did need help, and then she would never talk to him again.
"Actually," Luke admitted, "I will have to lug all these boxes upstairs. I was waiting for the furniture dolly, but I can use you."
That didn't come out right, but the girl didn't notice. She squatted next to the "READING MATERIAL" box, ready to pick it up.
Luke helped her lift, but her strength surprised him. She barely needed his assistance. She grinned at him from across the box. Luke smiled back at her lips.
Lara appeared at the front door. "Luke, we dropped the dolly down the stairs and it busted, so you'll have to move all your stuff by yourself." She noticed the girl. "Or not."
"Hi again," the girl greeted. "Thanks for telling us about the dolly, but we don't need it. See?"
She tilted the box as a demonstration, and it almost tumbled out of her and Luke's grip.
"Yeah." Lara went back into the house.
Luke looked at the girl. She looked back at him and giggled.
Chapter 2
IT WAS JUST past eight before all of Luke's bags and boxes were in his new room. Lara had called the bedroom between the sitting room and the hall bathroom, so Luke was stuck between Lena and Lucy's room (the biggest room) and the long, eerie room that led to the attic. Luke made sure not to put anything against that long room wall.
Luke sat with the girl on his bedroom floor. She opened boxes while he unloaded them, tossing the contents around his room to where he'd eventually organize them. He hadn't had time to decide on a furniture layout yet since the girl had talked to him all day. Luke was amazed her voice hadn't given out yet.
The girl brimmed with information about LeVir Lake. She told Luke the history of the town wall, and how the original settlers had used the same glistening stone to build the mayor's mansion. The stone was fireproof, so when the rest of LeVir Lake had succumbed to terrible fires in both 1892 and 1986, the wall and mayor's mansion survived.
The girl also revealed that all of the wood used to make the red wood furniture in the house had come from the woods surrounding the town. "Almost every piece of furniture in LeVir Lake was once part of that forest," she said. Luke asked about the white wood in the parlor, but the girl simply said it was imported.
Luke enjoyed the girl's company, though one thing she kept mentioning throughout the day agitated him: God. Her ceaseless talking definitively outed the girl as a hardcore Christian. Luke decided not to fault her for it, though, since the way she kept referring to God as a flesh and blood person she could bump into on the street was almost involuntary, probably a byproduct of Bible-thumping parents, and could be cured with the right help.
"Listen to me prattling on while I open boxes willy-nilly," the girl chuckled. "You're probably going to pack right back up not too long from now. How long are you staying?"
The question caught Luke off guard. Did she think he was on vacation? He tried to imagine the kind of person who would deliberately sentence himself to a boring oasis in the middle of nowhere for a vacation.
"As long as I have to live with my mother. I'm afraid she's here for good."
It was the girl's turn to be caught off guard. "Here for good?" she repeated. Her spectacular blue eyes stared at Luke. She appeared frozen. Luke quickly grew uncomfortable. As the girl continued staring at him, his upper body slowly leaned away.
The girl snapped out of it. "Well," she said, "it's good to have you."
Luke wondered if she meant it.
The girl returned to the boxes. "After the Great Fire of 1986," she explained, picking up her lecture where she had left off, "the first buildings rebuilt were the town hall and the schoolhouse. You don't have to worry about the schoolhouse, though. You've graduated, right?"
"I wish," Luke laughed. "I'm only fifteen."
The girl's jaw dropped. He had blown her away again, but this time he had expected the reaction. "Fifteen?"
"I'm an early bloomer," Luke explained. "It's genetic. How old did you think I was?" Most people guessed between seventeen and twenty-two.
"I don't know," the girl admitted, "but I definitely thought you were older than fifteen." She kept spitting out his age. Luke couldn't help but feel insulted.
"I'll be sixteen in a few weeks. How old are you?"
"Seventeen," she answered, still shocked at Luke's youth.
Luke stopped minding her astonishment. He had been alone in his room for several hours with a hot, older girl. He wondered how far the evening would take them.
"I usually don't talk this much," the girl confessed. "I'm usually very introverted, but I'm trying to be more...not."
"Being introverted isn't always bad," Luke caught himself saying. He hoped she didn't take his comment as a subtle hint to shut up. Luckily, the girl wasn't prone to hearing the unintentional offensiveness in Luke's remarks.
"I've missed saying things I'll never again have the chance to say," she said.
"Like what?"
"Just...stuff. To people who've"--she searched for the right word--"moved. God made life short" (Luke resisted the urge to roll his eyes) "and I don't want any regrets. That's why I came right up to you and introduced myself. I don't want to miss a chance to make a new friend." She blushed.
"You didn't."
The girl's eyelids popped open to their full extension. She nearly squeaked, "What?"
Luke had done it again. She probably thought he meant she hadn't made a new friend. "You never introduced yourself," he clarified.
The girl thought over everything she had said throughout the day. She exhaled a laugh. "You're right," she realized. "Well, I'm Jan. Janice Cristina Padres." She rolled the R's. Luke found it amusing. Unlike most of the people he had seen in town, she didn't look Hispanic.
"I'm Luke."
"Just Luke?" she joked. "Like Cher?"
"Wright."
Jan's grin dissolved. "Oh, okay." She looked down, embarrassed.
"No, Luke Wright. W-R-I-G-H-T."
"Oh," Jan said as she realized the misunderstanding. Her cheeks flushed.
"Don't worry. It happens all the time."
Jan giggled her embarrassment away. Her tinkling laugh evoked one from Luke as well.
Jan broke down the empty box in front of her. "We don't get many people moving out here unannounced," she said. "And you seem so thrilled about it," she observed sarcastically.
Luke drew in a breath. He had been waiting to vent since the Wright SUV crossed the Massachusetts state line.
"I've lived in Salem all my life--my dad's family has been there since before America existed--and all of a sudden I have to pack up right before my junior year of high school and move to a place I've never even heard of. Did you know this place isn't on any maps?"
"Yes. We kind of make sure of it," Jan said. "But why did you have to pack up and move?"
Luke felt the self-pity well up again. "My dad died last year."
The world stood still for a moment, until Jan touched his hand. "I'm so sorry," she said. Her touch felt nice--the first sympathetic touch he'd received that felt truly sympathetic.
"He was the breadwinner, you know?" Luke continued. "And my mom...well, she was filthy rich growing up and never had to take care of herself. She gave it all up to marry my dad, but he still took care of her every need."
Jan nodded, resembling a therapist who actually knew what she was doing. "And when he died, she suddenly had to take care of herself and four children."
"Yep. Long story short, she asked her parents for help, and they gave her a house."
Jan removed her hand from Luke's. His fingers extended for a moment, reaching for her to come back, but Luke reined them in. He hoped Jan hadn't noticed his involuntary desperation.
"That was nice of them," Jan said, talking about Luke's grandparents, not his fingers. With a quick glance at the ceiling, she leaned back, flanking her hips with her palms, which pressed firmly into the soft carpet.
"I guess," Luke mumbled.
Luke recalled the first time he had met his maternal grandparents. It was three months ago at their Hamptons beach house. The instant Luke had crossed the threshold into luxury for luxury's sake, the sickening smell of fresh-cut flowers and arrogance turned his stomach. He had already known the meeting with his grandparents would be rocky, but the nauseatingly sterile stench of the overbuilt sea shack did nothing to help. Lisa's parents had disowned her after she broke off her years-long engagement with some loaded jerk and eloped with Lawrence Wright, a lowly laborer. But the moment he died, they begged her to take their assistance in exchange for Lisa letting them meet their grandchildren. Her parents had filled college savings accounts for Luke and his sisters, plus they gave each sibling five hundred dollars cash to compensate for missed Christmases and birthdays. Luke knew he was supposed to be grateful, but during the Hamptons visit, his grandparents had harangued Lawrence's failure to provide for his family after his death. Each disparaging word sparked indignation in Luke, and every single tissue in his body wanted to tell the rich snobs off, but warning glances from Lisa had kept Luke at bay. His mother had looked physically ill from her parents' remarks, but she wouldn't dare dispute them for fear of losing their aid.
Personally, Luke didn't see why they had to accept his grandparents' assistance. Surely his family could find a way to make it on their own. Lara seemed to agree with his sentiments when she told Lisa to stick the money and the house back in her parents' hands and never turn back, but his older sister's new personal entertainment system indicated her true feelings were somewhat different. Luke still had his entire five hundred dollars tucked away, not wanting to touch it, feeling it would taint his father's memory.
Luke slid his fingers along the carpet, letting the fibers bite his fingertips.
"My mom sold most of our possessions to pay this strange guy to drive the moving truck to LeVir Lake. He's a real creeper, this guy. His skin is white--like copy paper white--and he's so greasy that when light hits him, it reflects off his body in sheets." Luke shivered at the memory of the bug of a man who Lisa had entrusted with their remaining possessions. "But he was cheaper than professionals, and he told my mom she was too pretty to be a widow, so my mom's happy. He got paid, so he's happy. My grandparents have their long lost daughter back, so they're happy. The people closing ESCROW on my childhood home are happy. I'm not happy, but no one cares about me."
"I care," Jan assured.
Luke appreciated her words, but he wasn't finished with his rant.
"I had to leave all my friends, all my memories, everything I've ever known. How would you feel if you suddenly had to move away from your home?"
Jan glanced at the ceiling again. "I don't think I'd mind all that much. I've always wanted to leave LeVir Lake."
"That's what I always thought about Salem. But then I had to leave my entire life behind."
"Well," Jan said, "you're in LeVir Lake now, and you'll never leave. No one has." She spoke ominously. Luke furrowed his eyebrows, wondering what she meant, but before he could ask, Jan informed him, "My family has lived here since the pioneer days. LeVir Lake was established in the early seventeen hundreds before anyone but the Native Americans knew about the West. When my ancestors arrived here, the LeVirs paid them to build the town. And we never left." Jan stabbed the scissors into the seal of the next box. She muttered, "And we never will."
A deep absorption nested in Jan's face. She twisted the scissors, making a large hole between the box flaps, but failing to open the box any further.
Though Luke's curiosity had piqued at her sudden personality shift, he watched Jan yank the scissors free of the sticky packing tape and decided a change of subject was in order.
"Are there a lot of kids our age in LeVir Lake?"
"No. There's me, you and your sister now, my cousin Marc, and the mayor's daughter." She added that last mention almost under her breath. "There are a lot of little kids, though."
"What is the mayor's daughter like?"
Jan stiffened. "Why?"
"Just wondering. You don't like her or something?"
"No," Jan said firmly. "I don't like her or anyone in her family. You need to stay away from them."
"Why?"
"The LeVirs are ruthless, heartless, horrible creatures, especially the mayor's children. Colette and Jean-Beau LeVir." Jan stroked the broken tape on the box. "They're terrible."
"I'm sure they're not that bad."
"Believe me," Jan declared, "if you survive here more than a week, you'll hate them, too."
"Survive?"
Jan realized her error. "I meant live. If you live here more than a week." She hung her head. "I said the wrong word."
Luke reached over and gently pushed her arm. "It's okay. I say the wrong thing all the time. I live with all women. Everything I say is wrong."
Jan smiled. Luke was glad to see her lips bow up again. She glanced out the window.
In a flash, her smile disappeared and panic ambushed her face. "Oh no. I've got to go." Jan jumped to her feet and raced for the bedroom door.
"Wait." Luke grabbed her wrist before she could depart. "Why are you leaving?"
Jan stared at her trapped wrist, seemingly amazed that Luke could catch her. She shook herself out of her daze and answered, "It's dark. It's too dark."
Luke looked out the window. The sky was still very much light blue, streaked with trace amounts of pink and purple.
"I'll walk you," he offered.
"There's no time. You stay here. I'll see you tomorrow." Jan tore out of Luke's grasp and dashed to the stairs.
"Wait, I just thought of something else," Luke called, following her into the hall.
Jan halted at the door to the stairs. She flapped her arm, indicating for Luke to hurry up and speak.
"You said no one ever leaves LeVir Lake," Luke said, "but the man who drove our moving truck was returning to LeVir Lake."
Jan froze.
Luke added, "He said he was eager to return here because of some big event coming up, but he didn't say what. Do you know what it is?"
Jan's hands shot out from her sides and seized Luke by his arms. Luke flinched.
"Promise me," Jan ordered.
"Promise what?"
"Don't ever leave this house after dark. Warn your sisters and your mother, too. Never wander in places without sunlight. And don't go into the attic until I tell you it's safe."
"Why?"
Jan shook him. Her grip was excruciating. "Promise me!"
"I promise, I promise."
With that, Jan was gone.
Luke darted to his bedroom window and stuck his head outside. Jan sprinted across the lawn. She looked behind her as if something was chasing her, but Luke saw no one or thing outside but her. A woman waited for Jan at the front door of the house to the right. Once Jan was inside, the door slammed shut so hard it made Luke flinch from across the yards.
Luke leaned out his window and watched Jan's house. He caught the woman from the door and a man peeking out from behind a side window's curtains. Luke assumed they were Jan's parents since the woman looked a lot like Jan, only older and with dark hair. But when he peered closer, he saw the man was really, really old. Age had lashed severe lines into his sienna skin. His dark eyes peered from beneath saggy lids and brows, and even if his lips hadn't been pursed in a contemplative scowl, they were thin to the point of nonexistence. Luke didn't see any resemblance to Jan in the old man. He figured the man was probably a family friend, or at most, a distant relative. Perhaps one of the original Padreses who built the town. Luke snickered at the notion. The couple withdrew from sight.
Someone in Jan's house opened an upstairs window. Jan leaned out and waved at Luke. Luke waved back. Jane rolled her eyes at his misinterpretation of her signing. Without using words, she gestured for Luke to close his window, then she disappeared back into her house.
Luke lingered at his window to catch any further activity in Jan's house, but it was still.
Luke sat on his bed, but some lumpy thing under his bottom prevented his comfort. Luke leaned over and pulled the thing out from under him. Jan's sun hat. She had forgotten it in her rush to get home. Luke molded the hat back to shape as he thought about the peculiar new friend he had made.
What did she mean about not going into places without sunlight? Luke glanced at the shadow his bed cast on the floor. His gaze glided across the cluttered floor and up the long room wall, pausing to take in the blank space.
Luke's stomach rumbled. He placed his hand over his belly and felt his insides vibrate, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since his gas station breakfast. Jan had kept his mind off of everything but her.
Luke ambled to the stairs. Even though both the upstairs and downstairs doors were open, he flicked the light on to keep from traveling through shadows.
Noises drifted from the kitchen. Luke investigated. Lisa, Lara, Lena, and Lucy were making sandwiches.
"Luke," Lisa hailed, "we were wondering when you were going to grace us with your presence. Did your friend leave?"
"Just now," Luke answered, drooling over the sandwich fixings.
"Go ahead and make a plate," Lisa said. "It's our first dinner in our new house and I want to spend it as a family. We're eating in the living room. The dining room is a bit crowded."
Luke peeked into the dining room. The table was stacked high with unopened boxes.
The family convened in the dim living room. Lisa commented about having to buy some brighter light bulbs. Luke looked out the window at the black sky, wondering where the natural light had gone. Jan hadn't kidded about it being dark soon.