CHAPTER THREE

Nora went back to the girls’ locker room after sport, where she met Ruby and Davina. They were prattling about Kyle’s party and they were still in their red and gold cheerleading uniform.

“Hey, guys.”

“Nora, hi,” Davina said. “Heard about the party?” she asked as they packed their backpacks to go home.

“Yeah, Mason told me about it in the gym.”

Nora’s height always made Ruby incline her head up while talking to her, same with almost everybody around her. “OMG! he invited you,” Ruby squealed in delight.

“It’s not like that,” Nora eyeballed her. “The things that excite you….”

“I still think you should tots date him or at least do something with him,” Ruby winked at Nora.

“Jezz Ruby. Subtle much?” Davina shook her head disapprovingly.

“What?” she asked innocently. “He is tall, dreamy eyes, blonde and he likes you, what else?”

“I don’t connect with him. There is no spark, nothing.” They walked out of the locker room and proceeded outside the school. “If I date him, I will probably dump him within 24 hrs. I’ll get bored,” Nora added.

“Oh, that’s okay! At least then you can say you were once in a relationship.”

“And add that to her CV?” Davina gave Ruby a long look, “why are you desperately trying to hook her up?”

“I won’t use the word ‘desperate’,” Ruby made a quote sign with her hands, “just a little love nudge.”

“A love nudge? You set me up for a blind date!” Nora said.

“Urgh! Will you get over that already? That was a long time ago.”

“It was last month!”

“Whateves! let it go,” she waved her left hand dismissively. “I was merely looking out for you,” Ruby shrugged. “You have successfully pushed away every guy that showed any form of interest in you,” she said, gesticulating- she was an obsessive hand-talker. “Remember Andy Chester? The poor boy who asked you out last year and you broke his nose for it? He still runs in another direction whenever he sees you coming.” The girls walked out to the school parking lot where Ruby’s car was parked.

“He called me babe,” Nora said in defence.

“Yeah! Exactly my point!” Ruby flung her right hands in the air. “How many people broke someone’s nose for calling them babe?”

“None,” Davina interjected with a nod.

“You sound like I am a sixty years old lonely woman. I am only eighteen, Ru,” they entered Ruby’s car. Nora sat in the front seat beside Ruby while Davina took the middle seat at the back.

“You will be eighteen for only three months more, you are almost nineteen. Stop claiming eighteen.” Ruby started the car, paused, then gasped as though she just remembered something. “Or is the reason because…,” she shot Nora an odd look, then shook her head. “Nooo I would know…,” she paused and peeped at her again.

“What are you doing?” Nora queered, wondering what was going on in her friend’s head.

“Did her preference changed?” Ruby said out loud to herself.

“Jesus! Ruby!” Davina slapped her back.

“Ha!” she massaged where Davina slapped “What? It happens.”

Nora turned her head to Davina, “What is she talking about?”

“She thinks you like girls,” she replied, rubbing her forehead.

“Oh my God! Eww Ruby!”

“Just throwing it out there,” she started driving. “It has been known to happen.”

“You are so dramatic Ruby,” Davina said.

“Welcome to my world Dee,” Nora sighed and shifted her body on the car seat to sit properly.

The girls drove to Ambrosia from school. Ambrosia’s Diner was the most popular food joint in town. Meadowville residents’ one-stop-shop for various shakes, coffee, pizza, burgers and all kinds of pastries. The only empty booth they found was by the window to their left.

“Hello guys, good afternoon,” a middle-aged waitress, greeted them with a relaxed smile, “what can I get you?” she asked politely.

The waitress had attended to Nora and Ruby at the Diner, several times before. Even though she didn’t recognize them because of the heavy flow of customers regularly, Nora recognized her and knew her name. “Hi Lila, good afternoon,” she smiled at her. “I will have fried chicken and waffles topped with strawberry butter and a strawberry shake.”

“Same order every time,” Ruby said. “Don’t you get tired of chicken and waffles?”

“What? I love it,” she shrugged.

“You are lucky you don’t add weight,” she grumbled.

“Can I have French fries and a chocolate shake, please?” Davina said to Lila. She nodded and jotted down their orders.

“I will have the same thing,” Ruby gestured to Davina, “but with a Vanilla shake.”

“I will be back in a sec,” Lila said and left their booth.

Davina and Ruby droned on about cheerleading practice and new dance techniques for the squad, while Nora looked out the window. She saw few students from her school, eating their take outs in a jeep packed across the street from Ambrosia. She recognized all of them from school. She was good with faces but bad with roads, a trait her mum said she got from her father. Or maybe the reason she recognized them was that Meadowville was a small town with a population of 96,274. Everybody knows everybody. The town was relatively quiet and peaceful- the reason Marisa chose to move there with her seven months old baby, after the death of her husband eighteen years ago.

The Diner’s doorbell jingled and a sheriff officer walked in with his hand resting on his gun holster. Watching the officer reminded Nora of the unexplainable incidents at the Reserve. “What happened at Vell Waterfall two months ago with Kyle and his jock friends?” she asked Ruby and Davina curiously.

Ruby and Davina exchanged a surprised look. “Have you been living under a rock?” Davina queried and Nora pouted. Davina sighed and pulled her body forward on her seat, folding her arms on the silver table as she began her story. “Kyle and a few of his teammates went to the Fall to hang out. One of them, Marco and his girlfriend decided that three was a crowd and wanted to take things to the next level so they went into the Reserve. Ten minutes later, they ran out from different directions, screaming that something was chasing them—”

“Here are your orders,” Lila arrived at the girls’ table. She placed their food down while calling out their orders. “Need anything else?” she asked with a smile when she was done.

“No, thank you,” Ruby replied. They began to eat as soon as Lila left their table.

After eating in silence for about two minutes, Nora could not hold back her curiosity. “What was chasing them?” she inquired.

“Nobody knows,” Ruby continued, “they didn’t make any sense.” She stuffed five fries into her mouth at once and chewed for a while. “They said they couldn’t describe what they saw, only how it made them feel,” she sipped her shake.

“How did it make them feel?” Nora asked, impatiently.

Davina slurped her chocolate shake, preparing her answer. “Terrified,” she whispered. “The doctors could not explain what happened to them. They said their heart rate was off the chart and they were palpitating like they just lived through a horrible macabre,” she said, dipping two fries in her shake before eating them.

“I overheard my mum talking to Mrs Espinoza, Marco’s mother. She said her son has not been himself since that night. That he became terrified of everything and anything,” Ruby added.

Nora took a deep breath, “Was that all?” She honestly expected more twists and turns from the story. She was not impressed.

Ruby and Davina stopped eating abruptly and shot their faces at her. “Really, Bennett?” Davina asked, “you were expecting something more than that?”

“No, it’s just—”

“She is abnormal,” Ruby interjected her objection. “What do you expect from someone whose favourite novel genre is dark horror?”

Nora sipped her strawberry shake. “If this place is that dangerous maybe we should not be going there for a party?”

“The Fall is safe. Whatever is in the forest doesn’t seem to hunt outside the forest or during the day. The forest rangers have combed the Reserve several times and came up with nothing. We will be safe as long as we stick together by the Fall,” Davina replied.

“Far and beyond that, I’m not going to miss a night of debauchery…” Ruby grinned.

“Of course, that would be your priority,” Nora shook her head.

“…and Chase is coming.”

Davina looked from Nora to Ruby, “how are you guys friends again?” she asked after observing how different they were from each other.

The girls finished eating and left the diner after paying to Lila.

“I still think my time is better spent at home,” Nora said as Ruby pulled up in front of the Bennetts’ house.

“You always feel like your time is better spent at home or the gym or the library, what is the matter with you? Davina is going to meet up with us at the party and we are going,” Ruby affirmed. “We are going to drink punch that will probably contain alcohol and other kinds of drugs you don’t need to know….” Nora raised her eyebrows. She ignored her and continued with her speech, “…and you are going to make out with Mason because you deserve it—

“What?” Nora chuckled. “I deserve it?”

“Yes, you deserve it. You’ve been a good girl. I am sure the Big G,” she pointed at the sky, “will forgive you this once.”

“Alright! That’s it, I’m going,” she opened the door.

“Wait! I’m not done.” Ruby stretched an arm over Nora and shut the door back. She held Nora’s face to hers. “Now say after me. Today, I’m going to let go and have fun and I am not going to ditch my friend at a party for the tenth time this year.”

Nora knew not replying would not be to her advantage so she repeated after her grudgingly.

“Today, I’m going to let go and have fun…,” Ruby nodded as Nora repeated after her.

“Today, my life begins again, say after me,” she ordered again.

“We are in July, nothing is beginning again—,” Nora grumbled.

“Repeat after me and mean it,” Ruby shook her.

Nora exhaled and had a fresh view. If in two months she was going to someplace she didn’t know yet, it was time she embraced her present and try to act like she didn’t feel like something was missing in her life. “Okay! Today, my life begins again! Let’s do this! Let’s have fun!” she shouted with sudden enthusiasm.

“Good, now that’s the attitude I want to see tonight,” pointing a warning finger at Nora. “Now out! Shush!” She waved Nora out of her car. “Shower, relax and come over by 7. Toddles!” she grinned from inside the car and zoomed off.

Nora smiled at her larger-than-life friend and waved at her.

She entered the house and did exactly what Ruby told her to do. She switched on her MP3 player which was the first thing she did every time she got home and hummed to Blakey & Jones’s Prism of love while she had a cold shower. She came out of the shower, changed into a short gown and fell on her bed humming to James Bay’s Let it go.

The wall of her room was originally painted blue, like every other room in the house, but Nora repainted it to mint green two years ago. Her room interior was also in different shades of green. On the right side from the door was her bed and on the left side, her dressing room and in front of that, her bathroom. Down to her bed was her music collection carefully shelved and her study desk.

Marisa wasn’t home yet, like she had told her in the morning. Nora rolled on her bed while checking her Instagram page before drifting into sleep.

She woke up an hour and twenty minutes later, sweating and her racing heart felt like it was going to burst through her rib cage. She just had a dream, the same dream she always had occasionally. Her body tensed as she remembered the dream. It was always the same.

A thick dark cloud and heavy rain, a car in a ditch off the road. Nora knew people were in the front seats but she could never move her legs in the dream, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to help them or at least see who they were but she felt glued to a spot. She felt their fear of imminent death like death was slowly snuffing life out of them. Walking towards the crash site was a man- no, not a man- he was too tall and huge to be an ordinary man and he glowed so brightly, she had to shield her eyes in the dream. She woke up before the man reached the crash site, like always.

Her phone rang suddenly which startled her, breaking the utter silence in her room. She checked her phone. It was Ruby, calling to remind her of the party in case she changed her mind. If Nora didn’t want to attend the party before, she wanted to now after her dream episode. She needed the distraction. She didn’t pick Ruby’s call, she went to the bathroom instead. She washed her face then came back to the room and sank on her bed, taking deep breaths to slow down her racing heart rate. She sat still for about three minutes then realised her player had stopped by itself.

6.20 pm and she still hadn’t called her mum about the party. She sluggishly picked her phone to call. Once she was able to assure her that they were not going into the Reserve, Marisa was delighted her daughter was going for a party with actual people. She reminded Nora to be home before midnight and hung up. Nora got up and changed into a black short, a purple chiffon spaghetti top and a jean jacket in her dressing room.

Her phone rang again and she picked this time. “I’m getting ready Ru…yeah. I was asleep…yes, I’m up and almost ready…I won’t be late… hum…bye.”

She dropped her phone and went back to her dressing room. She put her hair up and studied her reflection in the mirror then decided to let it down. She had very long hair, sometimes deciding how to style or pack it became an issue for her. Most times, she let it flow except during her martial art training. She brought out a pair of ash and black sneakers to wear. After applying light makeup and checking herself for the last time, she concluded she was good to go and left the house. Fifteen minutes later, she was at Ruby’s and thirty minutes after, they arrived at the party.