Echoes in Eternity (The Pella Series Book 1) (4 page)

“What are you apologizing for, Ellie?” he asks in a low voice.

“For scaring you when I slid off a little,” I say chagrined.

“I don’t scare easily,” he says as a matter of fact, “and I’m all for taking chances, but if you’re not prepared, you shouldn’t be rock climbing.”

“Oh, but this is basically bouldering! Not rock climbing.” I protest.

“Bouldering is if the 
boulder
,” he says emphasizing the word, “is done on rocks that are less than fifteen feet high! This is about forty maybe forty-five feet high. And you had no gear. Granted that the climb is on a steady angle, it is still dangerous without the right gear. Don’t you care for your own safety?” he asks pointedly. 

“I do...” I say gazing ahead at the rising sun in a low voice.

“Why did you do it then?” he asks in an emphatic whisper, his fiery gaze behind his sunglasses steadily on my profile making me flush, and heating me up and searing me inside.

“Because, I needed it!” I say curtly.

“Need? Need to fall off a giant rock?”

I turn my face to him, and lift my sunglasses off and look at him, angrily. “No. You wouldn’t understand it,” I say then turning my head back to the rising sun over the mountains and listening to the steady, constant, comforting waves of the Pacific is behind me. His gaze remains on me, but he says nothing. I sigh.

“It gives me a euphoric awakening. Keeps me
in the here and now... The experience... It separates the day from the night for me...” I say, and he looks puzzled. I give a small smile, but my eyes remain sad.

“It’s more emotional, and spiritual than just physical, although it’s a part of it. It lets me focus. Helps me to close off everything outside,” I say, and the sun finally fully peaks its head over the mountains.

“But, you didn’t seem focused. You were distracted,” he observes. I shrug without an answer.

I turn
to the other side, and watch the rising tide. “We better keep moving. The tide will get higher pretty soon,” I say rising to my feet unsteadily. He quickly rises on his feet to steady me.

“I’ll help you down,” he says. And it’s not a request.

Once we are down on the flat ground, I turn around, “thank you, for saving the day,” I smile.

“You’re leaving?”

“Of course, I have to drive to LA today for a job interview. I need to get ready.”

“Can I walk you back?” he asks, and when he sees my puzzled expression, he adds, “just to make sure you make
it home safely,” he adds with a small curl of his lips.

“That’s very kind of you, but, I’ve walked this road on my own daily for years. I’m sure I can find my way safely,” I reply dryly.

He extends his hand again, and when I take his extended hand, I feel the same jolt of electricity coursing through me. I quickly pull my hand back and hold it in my other palm.

“It really was a spectacular sunrise,” he says as if h
e has another meaning. “Beautiful company, exquisite scenery,” he says softly.

“Thank you. I...uhm, better get going. Nice to meet you, Alex,” I say not knowing what else to say.

“It was my pleasure, Ellie,” he says in a husky tone, his voice caressing my name. I turn without looking back and start jogging towards home. I can feel his penetrating gaze behind me, looking at my back forlorn, despaired, and as if I left him bereft of something he starved for. Who is he? I yearn to know. 

             
I plug my ear buds again, and turn my boob Pod on. Kings of Leon is singing 
Closer
 on repeat:

“
Stranded in this spooky town,

Stoplights are swaying and the phone lines are down,

This floor is crackling cold,

She took my heart, I think she took my soul,

With the moon I run,

Far from the carnage of the fiery sun
....”

The sunrise on the arch coupled with a fiery song awaken something in me I can’t name, something that calls deeper in my soul, farther than anyone had ever reached. That feeling deepens the pain and emotional aches rippling from the depths of my being I didn’t know existed. What the hell is wrong with me? 

“I am so frigging sick in the head! Maybe Sarah’s shrink is right,” I groan, and run faster. I make a wide loop around the beach inhaling the salty and briny air. I climb on the back of the hill at a jogging pace, and make my way home through the back road. I run into the house from the back entrance used for deliveries, and make my way up the stairs getting into my room trying not to run into anyone.
 

             
I run into my bathroom turning the shower on. I take my boob Pod off and wrap the ear buds around it. I then take out my smart phone to check the message. It was James, my uncle’s butler. 

*What time will you be retuning Miss Ellie? I shall inform your uncle of breakfast time. I would appreciate a courtesy text back.*

              I sigh at his text with his proper grammar and full sentences. For a minute I contemplate not texting him back for the untimely embarrassment but I decide that it’s not his fault and text him back.

*Home now. I’ll be down in 30 mins.*

His answering text comes back right away.

*Thank you Miss.*

I smile
. If it was any other friend, I’d be giving him a three-hour time-out, but James is as much family as my nanny. Without writing a response back, I toss my smart phone on the bed and start getting undressed dropping my clothes on the floor as I walk towards my bathroom.  Years of habits instilled by Stella kick in and I go back grunting to pick my clothes up and put them in the hamper. Then I pull the scunci off my ponytail, turn the water as hot as I can tolerate to loosen my muscles. My shower is large with a seamless glass enclosure. I wet my hair and shampoo it. Smells of lilacs fills the shower. It is my favorite scent. I close my eyes, tilt my head back and let the water run the suds run out of my hair. I can feel the suds lazily making their way down on my back. After lathering the sponge with freesia body wash, I am ready to scrub my arms. I hold my right arm up to run the sponge and there I notice two fresh pinpricks under my arm only about an inch apart on my side at the base of my right breast. I look at it curiously. Those marks weren’t there yesterday. Insect bites maybe, but two of them at the same time? It’s quite strange that I didn’t feel any bite earlier. 

As if on cue, blood peaks out of both of the pinpricks, stays there within their tiny meniscus for a moment, and then lazily run down through my side on their own tracks. It’s mesmerizing. I touch the slowly oozing blood to see if it’s real. My fingers are smeared with crimson streaks of blood. It then starts trickling out of the pinpricks in a slow but steady pace for a minute. I put my fingers on the tiny holes. Surprisingly, I could feel the pulsing under my fingers. I press the holes a little harder. Shower water from my back dilutes the blood and run
s it down the drain turning the water pink. When I move my fingers away from the pinpricks, the blood starts trickling steadily again. Out of morbid curiosity, I hold my left hand underneath the holes cupping to see if the blood is running steady enough to be pooled. 

Sticky and slippery dark crimson blood courses its way down, some of it making into my left palm, and some still manages to mix with the shower water running down on my side. It finally coagulates and stops and I bring my palm containing the tiny puddle of blood up closer to my eyes. I dip my index and middle fingers of my right hand into the pooled blood. Bringing the now bloodied fingers up to my eyes to closely examine them. The blood seeps slowly down towards my right palm as I hold my hand up. It flows purposefully in such a way down the pad of my palm heating up my skin as it makes its way down my right hand. It’s an odd tingling sensation which starts heating up when it reaches my wrist, and it marks around my slight birthmark, filling, painting and darkening it. When the birth mark heats up, it makes me feel as if I’m getting branded with a hot iron, burning, I automatically shake my hand and let the water wash out the blood immediately. I will examine the holes in the mirror when I get out. 

             
I scrub myself and get lost in my thoughts. I let the water run on my head, and then turn my back to let it run on my back tilting my head up slightly. That’s when I see the bloody hand-prints on the shower wall! Bloodied fist marks imprinted on the glass wall and the fresh blood is trickling down to the shower floor. As my eyes get wider, I see a fist landing on my shower wall with such a force, it appears to have left another bloody fist print, then another, then another then another. “
No! Alexander! No, please!
” I whisper automatically, my hands covering my mouth to mask my horror. But the fist marks appear to be landing relentlessly over and over and over again. No sound. Just the impact... Blood trickles down mixing with the shower water. I bite into my hand trying to smother a scream which comes out anyway. Two people run into my bathroom simultaneous, but upon finding me still in the shower, they turn their backs in embarrassment, and just don’t pass beyond the bathroom door. I continue to scream, but for a different reason now since I am mortified with the unexpected company in the bathroom.

Sarah,
 
the woman I have a hard time calling ‘mom’
, and Uncle Gabriel stand by the bathroom door awkwardly, their backs turned to me, and Uncle Gabriel shielding his eyes with both hands manages to mutter, “I’m terribly sorry. I thought something was wrong!”

A third and a much shorter person enters into the bathroom with her eye mask pushed over her head shoving the other two aside, muttering “nothing to see here,” and approach
es the shower grabbing the large bath towel holding it up for me. 

I turn the water off, still not able to take my eyes off the shower wall where the bloody fist prints first appeared, and now disappeared as if they have never been there at all. I’m still shaking, fearful that my dreams and my reality are overlapping. Stella wraps me up, handing me another towel for my hair.

Sarah and Uncle Gabriel are still standing with their backs turned to us by the bathroom door. “Coast is clear,” grumbles Stella.

When I stop shaking, and wipe my eyes off with the back of my hands very unladylike, the steady stream of tears continues rolling down. But I still manage to notice that Stella is wearing two different color leg warmers, a pink one and a fuchsia under her cotton shorts, with an XL t-shirt that says “
Born to be Wild
”, and her silk pink eye masks with the embroidered words “
Do Not Disturb
” written which incidentally was the only thing pushing her curly graying blonde disheveled hair back which is hanging in two uneven pigtails. Her hands are wearing socks while her feet are bare. 

For a moment I forget what I had just experienced and ask her between sobs, “Stella, are you wearing socks on your hands?”
 

“Yes!” she scolds me, “I didn’t get a chance to take ‘em
 off since I heard you scream bloody murder, and I fell off the bed. I just ran here! What did you expect me in, a ball gown?” 

But she still pulls me in a hug and tugs me out of the bathroom into my bedroom still pushing mom and Uncle Gabriel out of the way as if they were fixtures in her way.
 

“But why?”
 I ask between my tears trying to distract myself. 

“Oh, every night I lather my hands with lotion, and put the socks on, and that keeps my skin smooth as a baby’s bottom. One of my beauty secrets,” she dazzles, “which reminds me, you didn’t shower in very hot water, did you? It’s bad for your skin, you know.”

“Stella!” barks Uncle Gabriel exasperated. 

She turn
s around to him and says, “Well, it 
is
 bad for her skin. It loosens it. Just before you get out of the shower, turn the water to cold and let it run over your skin, ok? It completely tightens it. Two minutes tops. You’ll thank me when you’re older!” 

Sarah rubs her temples as if she is ready to explode with the biggest migraine headache she’s ever experienced. Uncle Gabriel clears his throat uncomfortable with the way the conversation
is going and gently asks, “Ellie, do you mind telling us what happened?”

I’m not sure if I can share this with them. They’re definitely going to think
that I am “crazy,” I worry. But, my trust in Stella fights with my personal doubts that Stella would ever do that. Despite how small Stella is, she guides me on to my bed, sitting me down and hugging me protectively. I hold onto her, just completely spent.

“I thought I saw blood on the shower wall,” I whisper.
 

“Blood?”
The three of them ask at the same time. 

“Yes, like in my dream. Fist marks and blood.”
 

Stella understands immediately, Sarah doesn’t and she finally says, “This is too much for me to handle. I am traumatized here! I think I will make an appointment with Dr. Newman.” She turns her back all flustered to leave to get to her room to arrange for that appointment.
 I sigh exasperated. I have to move out of this house, away from her, and soon.