Gathering Water (6 page)

“I guess it would be weird to be moving in with comple
te strangers, but we’re family,” he said as he waved out the window at a passing car he must have recognized.

“Hah, Cash, it’s
actually more weird that I’m moving in with family. I’ve moved into a lot of strangers’ houses; I’m used to that. Family, however, is completely new. It’s bizarre,” I told him.

“That sucks so bad,” he said.

“What does?”

“I dunno. The fact that living with strangers is normal for you, and living with family isn’t. How nonchalantly you just said that. It really must have sucked growing up.”

Luckily he had just pulled into the driveway so I had a good excuse not to respond.

Ellis
was walking up the stairs with her arms full of linens when we walked in the door.

“Oh good, Cash, you found her. Are you
okay, Della?”

“Uh, yea
h. I wasn’t missing or anything.” I immediately regretted my words, afraid that I was being rude. Maybe she thought I would have gotten lost walking back to my house this morning or something. Or maybe mothers are just naturally that over protective of actual family members. Either way her concern for me was a good thing.

The rest of the evening was like an
episode from “The Twilight Zone”. I was shown my room, which had windows covered in white lace curtains and a light blue quilt covering the bed, took a shower that felt great on my sun-exposed skin, ate dinner at exactly 6:30 p.m. where everyone asked about each other’s day, and went to bed to a chorus of “goodnights”… so strange, right?

I stayed up for a little while reading some of the j
ournals that were in the safety-deposit box, trying to get used to the sounds in the house, especially the exclamations coming from Cash downstairs as he played the latest “Call of Duty”. Eventually my eyes fluttered shut while I was still clutching the journal of one Llewellyn G. Deare.

June 18
th
, 1968

Dear Journal,

How do I get Anise to pay attention to her lessons? Today was the third time this week she has skipped our lesson together, and I’m reaching the end of my patience with her. She was with the oldest Neale boy again, and so upset that I was able to find them! Of course, if she didn’t skip our lessons so frequently, she would know, not only how I could find her, but also how to hide her own presence from me. Finding is one of the easiest ways to use our powers, followed closely by Hiding.

I am happy to see her friendship with L blossom into romance, I just wish they would take their futures more seriously, but I suppose that is typical of youth. She is reaching the age when she will be tested as heir, the age when I must introduce her to the Timeless Ones so that she may have years of experience when dealing with their ways before stepping into my shoes as matr
iarch of this family. The Neales are getting ready to introduce L’s younger brother; L went through the process a couple of years ago and I’m hoping to have Anise ready by that time so that she will not have their undivided attention. The less individual attention they pay to our children, the better. The last few times I’ve tried divining from wind I’ve gotten unsettling whispers, the type of whispers that makes me worry about my daughter being in the presence of the Elfennol for too long. I’m especially glad that she is falling in love already; it makes me hopeful that these whispers are wrong.

“You owe me a dollar.” Those words, followed quickly by a decorative pillow, were my morning wakeup
call.

“How are you awake right now?” I groaned to my intrusive cousin, who seemed
never to sleep.

I’d been staying with my aunt and uncle for
two weeks, and Cash had been an annoying, bossy, overbearing nuisance… I secretly loved every minute of it. Even if he
was
causing me to roll my eyes so often I was afraid they’d fall out, he was also making me feel like I was a part of something. He had quickly wormed himself into the role of cousin, brother, and friend. I wasn’t sure what the differences between those roles were, but I was certain that Cash had become all three for me.

“I don’t owe you anything.” I to
ld him when his words finally sank in, then I noticed him rifling through my few belongings in my dresser. “Hold up, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Yes, you do. A dollar. Is this the only bathing suit you have?”
As always, he completely ignored my privacy, and question, and had rummaged through my drawers until he found the bathing suit I had bought my first day in town.

I’d worn it every
day these past weeks since I couldn’t get enough of the beach, and was in desperate need of a new one; I hadn’t forgotten that I’d exposed myself to an entire ocean of sea creatures because of that thing, but wasn’t sure a new bathing suit would be any different.

“No I don’t and yes that is. What’s wrong with it?”

“There aren’t any straps on it, doesn’t it fall off? You don’t have to be back up at the house until later, right?” My brain just could not keep up with him.

“Uh,
no. The roofers were finished up yesterday and the electricians can’t come out until late morning to get started. And the strap is right there! It comes off.”

Cash wasn’t the only thing t
hat had given me headaches the past weeks. I’d been going full steam into the house repairs, which meant phone calls and work quotes and walk-throughs. There wasn’t even anything I could physically
do
yet and I was still exhausted from it all.

“Well, hurry up! We’re going to the beach in five minutes!”
He threw the bathing suit at me and strode out the door to his room across the hall, not bothering to close my bedroom door behind him.

He
had said the only thing that would actually get me out of bed and into that swim suit without fighting with him. I didn’t want him to know that though, so I still grumbled pretty loudly at him. Had to keep up appearances, and all.

I actually beat him outside, but that’s only because I didn’t tell him we were racing and took the steps two at a time to get to the door before him.

“I win!”

“You would have if you’d gotten to the
jeep before me… but you didn’t,” he said as he was getting into his vehicle while I was busy sticking my tongue at him.

“I didn’t know we were driving. No fair.”

“I didn’t know we were racing, and I still won. Hah.” But he eased his gloating by handing me a muffin, which I ate quickly before putting on my sunscreen in the car.

The reason we drove was attached to the roof of the car. As soon as we pulled into the parking space Cash pulled down a surfboard covered in art and started walking down the beach towards the water. I
really hoped he wouldn’t make me try and ride that thing, so I remained silent as he knelt in the sand rubbing something that looked like a bar of soap over his board, hoping he’d forget I was there. I’d been down here a couple of times each day and surfing looked so cool. And impossible. I was mesmerized watching all the surfers ride a wave as easily as a cowboy rides a horse. While standing. Sexy, sun-kissed cowboys. Well, except Cash. Gross.

Either way,
the very idea of surfing was intimidating.

While I was mentally preparing an argument to sit this one out in case Cash insisted I try it
, I noticed a shadow on the sand signifying someone was standing behind me. The change in light made Cash look up from his board rubbing and grin at whoever was behind me.

He had his back to the rising sun, which made it a little difficult to see his face, and the on
ly thing that I could definitely make out about him was that his teeth were very very white. When he stepped closer I noticed his dark hair, streaked from sun exposure with a creamy caramel color, and his warm skin tone. His copper-brown eyes were crinkled in a returning smile, and I had to struggle not to take a step back. The hunky sun-kissed wave-cowboys had nothing on this guy, and the perfect musculature on his bare chest made me a little uncomfortable.

His presence
made my shoulders tense and my eyes narrow, and not just because he was pretty. It was because he was a guy, and with the exception of Cash I’d had way too many bad experiences with guys, so my guard was up. For some reason my lack of parents made most boys think I was the type of girl to ask out in secret, never introduce to the friends and parents, and then get mad at when I don’t put out. Nothing like being a foster kid to give you a bad reputation.

“Dove, man, how
’s the surf today?” Cash asked, raising his hand up for a fist bump.

“Haven’t been out yet, but it looks pretty good. So, is this her?” The guy, Dove, nodded in my direction.

“Oh sh-, sorry. Della, this is Dove. Dove, this is my cousin Della Doe Deare.” Cash loved introducing me by my full name because of the “comical alliteration”. Jerk.

“Dove, like the bird? It’s nice to meet you.” I
was trying to be friendly. Having Cash around made me feel a lot more secure about meeting another peer.

“Yea
h, like the bird. Nice alliteration, Della Doe Deare.”

“Watch it, Dove.
” Cash scolded him, then turned to me. “He gets the bird thing a lot, Della, but it’s way better than his real name. Dover, as in ‘Ben Dover’, so don’t let him give you any flack.” So, Cash was allowed to make fun of my name, but no one else was. I didn’t even get the vibe that Dover, ‘Dove’,
was
making fun of me, just stating the obvious. Either way, I had to duck out of the way since Dove took that moment to grab a handful of sand and rub it all over my cousins moppy hair.

“Come on, man. That joke got old in middle school.”

“Yet it still pisses you off.”

“Whatever. You going in, Della?” Dove brought the attention back on me.

“Er, on one of those? I think I’ll just go swimming, or something.”

“What? You have to come out! Why do you think I brought my long board?” I, of course, had no idea what he was talking about.

“You can just watch today, don’t worry. It’s not like there’s much to ride, just some windswells. Not good for beginners. Just go up the beach a bit if you decide to get in the water. Don’t want your cousin here to ride over you,” Dove said.

“God, Dover, that only happened one time. But yea
h it’s best to go down a bit.” Cash picked up his board and started walking to the water with Dove.

“Man, I wish she’d get on a board. You should feel it when she’s in the water, it’s like she takes the whole ocean inside her….” Cash was clearly talking about me as he walked off, and though I was tempted to follow him
and listen, I knew I couldn’t do it without being caught. Besides, I was craving the water again.

I kicked off my shoes next to Cash’s, and hiked down the beach to a place that was clear of surfers before getting in the water. Getting hit by a
six-foot surfboard was not my idea of a good time. As always, I swam out to the sandbar that was out a few dozen feet from the shoreline.

As soon as I got into a rhythm swimming, my mind started to relax and the
prickling-sensation started again. I’d never done drugs, but this feeling is what I’d always imagined it would be like. I was a junky for the way I felt in the water. My skin was charged and everything seemed more real in the world. I was more real; more alive, and could feel the life around me, enveloping me. I swam and floated around a bit, relishing the feeling as I always did, before deciding it was probably time to head back in.

Cash and Dove were waiting for me when I made the trek back to
our spot on the beach, and I could feel the wonderful tingles leave my body as I approached them. I was a little self-conscious around Cash’s new friend, as he and Cash were both staring at me when I walked towards them, and my shoulders tensed in response.

The twinkly feeling
might have left, but I still felt pretty charged, like I had drunk a few cups of coffee for breakfast.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting
,” I started awkwardly, as both boys had their mouths agape.

Cash was the first to snap out of it.
“No problem. How do you feel?” His eyebrows were raised while he awaited my answer.

“Er, great actually. Refreshed. A little creeped out by you two, though. What time is it?”

“Almost ten o’clock.” This was from Dove, who had finally composed himself and checked his phone for the time.

“Crap. Cash, I need to be at the house like, now. Mind dropping me by there?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure thing. I’ve been wanting to take another look anyway. Dove, you coming?”

“Absolutely. I’ve got the da
y off, so I’m game for anything,” he said, and we all walked to the parking lot, stopped by an ancient blue truck where Dove dropped his board off, and hopped into Cash’s Jeep.

August 3
rd
, 1968

Dear Journal

Today has been another trying day with Anise. She actually showed up for her lessons and spent the first ten minutes mooning over a handful of flowers and not paying an ounce of attention to anything I was telling her. To be honest, I lost my temper a bit. I relaxed my body and let myself feel the light breeze, willing the prickling feeling to grow and taking in the power the small wind offered, just the way my own mother taught me so long ago. Gathering power is the first thing we are ever taught, and Anise already knows how to do that, and how to recognize when others are doing the same. Still, she failed to realize that I was Gathering, which is a dangerous habit! You never know when enemies are near! So I released the Wind I had gathered in a small funnel towards her, scattering the flowers in her hands, and mussing up her hair something awful. It was quite impressive.

She was, of course, awed with my display, and had no idea it was because of my temper. She’s insisting on learning how to do it, and while the funnel is impressive looking, it takes a great deal of energy to be truly destructive, an amount of energy that only the Elfennol can hold. There are much more effective ways to fight an enemy with Wind; sucking the air from their lungs or making small objects travel through the air to distract or defend take much more concentration and training, but so much less energy. I remember the first time I saw the funnel, and I suppose I reacted similarly. I mustn’t be so hard on her. At least not now that she is actually interested in her studies.

There were already two cars parked in the driveway when we got to the house, and since one was definitely Luke’s I had to assume the other one belonged to the electrician. The two men were sitting on the porch, deep in conversation, when me and the boys jumped out of the car and greeted them.

“Uncle Luke! Della said you’ve been helping her
out. What all needs to be done? She’s been pretty close-lipped about it.” Cash came right out and demanded, not even bothering with the niceties of “hello”.

“Wait.
Uncle
Luke. Is that, like, a southern title of respect for old guys or something?” I was aware that the two of them knew each other, but I was certain
someone
would have mentioned our being related!

“Well, it’s a title of respect for uncles. Great-uncles, that is. He’s our grandpa’s brother. Didn’t you know?” And before either of the rats would explain, they led the electrician into
my
house, and left me standing on the porch like an idiot.

I’d been in town a little over two
weeks, seen Luke nearly every day and he didn’t think that this was an important tid-bit of information? I guess I understand now why he was so willing to help me.

“Ugh, how could I have miss
ed that?” I said to myself.

“How could you have known?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had completely forgotten that Dove was standing right behind me.

“Don’t
do
that! You nearly scared me to death!”

“Don’t spe
ak? I was here the whole time. It’s not like I snuck up on you.” He couldn’t keep the mirth out of his voice.

“Well, breath
e louder or something next time.” I thought about going into the house after my cousin and apparent uncle, but couldn’t make myself. I was pretty pissed at them both. So I stormed around the porch until I got to the stairs leading to the back yard and sat on the top step, trying to calm myself by looking at the water. That lasted all of thirty seconds before I stomped my way downstairs to pace in the yard, only getting angrier when one of my feet crashed through the wood of the last step down. So, I was being childish. Get over it. Their betrayal stung, and even if it were an over-reaction, it was taking me time to process the fact that the only two people I had started to trust had lied to me. I had been lied to a ton of times in my past, but that was supposed to be in my past, and never by people that I trusted.

After a few minu
tes of angry-mumbling to myself while treading a path in my own yard, I looked up and saw that Dove was sitting on the top step I had so recently vacated, looking at me with a worried crease in his brow.

“So, what’s up Della? You
okay?”

“Just, I don’t like that kind of surprise,
all right?” I told him.

“Aren’t you already kind of close to Luke?”
he asked as he walked down the stairs, hopping over the broken one.

“Yeah, I am, or I thought I was.”

“And I know that you’re getting along well with Cash.” He stood right in front of me, in effect blocking my pacing, and looked in my eyes.

“If you call being annoyed within an inch of my life ‘getting along well’, then yes.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked past him to the ripples in the water. I was still plenty mad, and having this
boy
get in my face wasn’t helping any.

“Well, maybe they wanted it to be a surprise?”

“Surprises don’t really equate with happiness in my world, so pardon me.” Even
I
realized how rude I was being.

“What malicious reason could they have had for hiding it?” He sounded
exasperated
with me and raised an arm to push back his hair, holding it with one hand to keep the wind from blowing it around. Wait a second. The wind? I looked around and saw more evidence of it: the water was rippling and the weird grassy stuff was swaying. But I didn’t even feel the slightest brush of air on my skin. I must have been blocked by the house or something.

“I don’t know. To mess with my head or something.” But that rang false. I thought about the question for a few more minutes,
but I couldn’t think of a way that hiding our familial ties was mean… That realization took the proverbial wind out of my sails, and my anger deflated to something a lot more uncomfortable to me: hurt.

“Well why wouldn’t they tell me, then?”
To my horror, a couple of tears slid down my face. I hadn’t cried since I was a little girl, and here I was, crying, because I’d had my feelings hurt.

“I don’t know, Della. Maybe you should ask them yourself.” His voice
held no trace of the annoyance it had earlier, and he took a step forward and
hugged
me. Of course, I stood there stiff as a board, not reciprocating in the least and trying desperately not to notice how he smelled like
my
ocean and a little citrusy, like he’d been eating an orange.

I’m not a hugger, remember?

“What are you doing?” Cash’s voice rang out from the house. Apparently I was gone long enough to worry about, because standing on the porch were Cash, Luke, and the electrician, who probably thought I was completely cuckoo. At his question, Dove jumped about a mile high, quickly released me and shuffled back like he was feeling guilty. I just stood there staring at my cousin. Or glaring. Potato potahto.

“Della, we’ve finished up and Carl here has another appointment
,” Luke sheepishly injected. He wouldn’t make eye-contact with me.

“Oh, I’ll be right there.” I figured it was incredibly bad form
not to personally talk with Carl while he was actually there, so I walked up the stairs (shoulder-bumping Cash as I went by him) and had Carl go over his notes with me and give me a quote for the job. And holy crap, was it a lot of money even with the discount I got for taking down all the drywall myself, and using the discount at Luke’s for a lot of the materials.

After saying goodbye to the electrician I puttered around the inside of the house for a while, too chicken to go back outside and face Cash and Luke, and anxiously twisting the
same armlet I’d put on in the bank around and around on my arm. After a few minutes, I steeled up my nerves, took a deep breath, and almost walked directly into Luke. I guess he didn’t feel like waiting around for me to come talk to him.

“Cash and Dove are running down to the diner for some
lunch, they’ll be back in a few,” Luke said, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You’re not going to just let this one go, are you?” He asked.

“What? No! Seriously.
You’ve had plenty of time to say something to me about it. I want to know why you didn’t. What’s the big deal?” It went against life-long habit to confront him like that, and I could feel my pulse speed up as a result.

“Well, I didn’t tell you at first because you seemed terrified of the idea of family. That’s the whole reason why John McCay bought you over to my place instead of dumping you on Connor
’s doorstep that first day. We didn’t want to scare you off,” he said, finally looking me in the face.

“Okay… I get the first day. But Luke, seriously. I’ve seen you almost every
day since then and you still haven’t said anything. I haven’t heard anyone in Connor’s house mention you either,” I found that strange, especially since Connor and Ellis were constantly trying to get me over to this or that relative’s house for dinner; I was running low on excuses.

“About that. You see, me and Toby, your granddad, had a falling out a while back. I’m not exactly a welcomed member of the family these days,
‘cause nobody wants to get on my brother’s bad side. Except Cash,” he laughed. “That boy doesn’t have the sense God gave him. To be fair, Cash didn’t know about me until he was about 8 or 9, so you’re really ahead of the game.”

“So, this is mostly about some dumb family drama? I have family drama? What are you two fighting about?”

“Girl, this is just a little peek into the drama of the American Family. And just typical brother things. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

“So, being a part of a family means dealing with this type of nonsense? Gee, what was I thinking all these years?” I said in my most sarcastic voice. This was turning out to be more complicated than I thought,
and that’s saying something. “Anyway, I’m still mad at you. It was really stupid not to tell me. I haven’t even met Toby yet, and couldn’t care less that he’s my grandfather. Is there anything else family-wise I should know?”

“W
ell, of course there’s more you should know. Unfortunately, you’re gonna have to figure that out on your own,” he said mysteriously.

“What! What do you mean
I have to figure it out on my own? What else is there?”

“If I told you, you’d just think I was crazy. So, what are you going to do with the rest of your day?”

“You suck. Ugh, I guess I’ll get started on the walls.”

“We’re gonna have to move out a lot of this furniture first. That way we can get to that bad spot on the floor, and don’t have to work around it all.”

“Where am I supposed to put it all?” I asked, looking around.

“Well, there’s a storage pl
ace a mile or so away, just need to rent a space for a couple of weeks. Should only be a hundred or so. We can use my truck, make a few trips. You don’t need to move everything, just the smaller stuff. The really heavy things we can just move around, keep those sheets on them for protection. And looky there, we got ourselves some worker bees to help us.”

The worker bees turned out to be Cash and Dove, who had
just gotten out of Cash’s Jeep laden down with white plastic to-go bags full of food.

After eating, we spent
the rest of the day in agonizing physical labor and trips to my new storage unit. Luke was right; it was close. We ended up dropping him off at his store a couple of hours in and Luke said I could borrow his truck until I got to work the next day.

W
e threw all the little knick-knacks that had littered the counters into the drawers of the cabinets and dressers, cushioned with old newspaper. Luke insisted on keeping all the paintings on the walls at his house in his garage. Most of the frames were in really bad shape and I was afraid that a lot of them were ruined.

It was actually kind of fun, doing all that work with Cash and Dove. I’d decided to for
give Cash since he really made it impossible to stay mad. Well, stay mad at him for only one thing as he was constantly doing little things to irritate me.

The guys talked a little about college. Cash had dropped out at the end of the last semester and was about to start training to become a firefighter, much to Aunt Ellis’s horror. Dove was taking the next semester off from school to become a physical therapist, said he needed a “break” before he had to start all the clinicals. Since I had absolutely nothing to add to the conversation, I just listened and relished the normalcy of my life in that moment.

We were a very grimy bunch by the time we were all finished, and I decided to leave the truck at the house for the night so I’d have an excuse for a run in the morning. I rode shot-gun in the Jeep back to the house where Cash dropped me off before taking Dove back to where he left his car.

In the shower I
thought about what Luke had said, how there were other secrets that he wouldn’t tell me about. I thought about Llewellyn’s diary that I had been reading, and all the things she wrote that didn’t make any sense. The strange sensations were happening more and more often: tingly, full, energetic, and I was feeling comfortable for the first time ever. I decided to experiment a little and try one of the exercises that Llewellyn had described in the last journal entry.