Ocean Cove

“What?!” I said incredulously but softly. “Lyla, did you just tell me someone might be trying to kill me?”

She nodded slowly. The night air was just a little chilly, but even so Lyla looked perfectly fine just wearing a short shirt and a pair of black short jeans and flip flops. When a small gust of wind blew, I inhaled deeply as her wonderful aroma swirled around me.

I felt dizzy. I actually had to sit down on the park bench and place my head in my hands on my lap just to steady myself.

“And what about that other thing – that you told me?” My head was still in my heads, but I knew when Lyla came and sat down next to me.

“Chase, there are things in this world that… can’t really be explained with science. I really don’t know how to explain it, but the supernatural does exist. There is a lot of stuff out there people don’t know about, that thing that just attacked you is proof of what I’m saying and believe me, there is a lot worse out there.”

“How do you know all of this?” I asked, finally holding my head up. I didn’t feel any

better.

“Well, I’m not exactly what you would call a normal person.” She said cautiously.

“What exactly does that mean? Because I saw how you kicked that thing and no normal person can do that, not to something that size?”

“I can’t tell you everything, but I am part of that supernatural world. Me and my family, we’re… different.”

I got the impression she didn’t want to say any more, so I didn’t press that particular point. But based on what Lyla and Kimberley told me, plus what Kristian believed, could that mean that Lyla and her family are –

“Lyla, why are you telling me this? I get the feeling you don’t go around telling everyone your secrets, so why tell me?”

Lyla looked at me as though I was missing something very obvious.

“Because you just got attacked by a Shadow Hound. A supernatural animal, Chase. One that has to be summoned. Which means someone sent it after you. Which means, someone with magic is trying to kill you.

“Lyla, why would someone want to kill me? I haven’t even been living here that long, well not long enough to make enemies with someone who would actually try to kill me.”

I was back on my feet. If sitting didn’t help me to calm down, I figured some kind of walking would. So I started walking up and down just like Lyla did. That’s when I realized I was shaking slightly.

“That’s why I didn’t want to get close to you. I was afraid I was going to cause you trouble in some way. From the first time I met you, that night I pulled you from the water, I just knew it,” she said, folding her arms.

“Why, would you say that?”

Lyla didn’t answer. Instead she just stood up and looked around.

“You need to get home.”

“What, isn’t it safe out here?” Was my foolish attempt at a joke.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t want to take any risk.”

Lyla was very serious. She brought my bike over to me. From the moment she was more than an arm’s stretch away from me, I started to relax. Being close to her was helping me feel at ease.

“How are you going to get home?” I asked as I sat on the seat.

“Don’t worry about me, really. I’ll be home shortly. I will call Michael to come pick me up and I will be perfectly safe by myself, so there is no need for you to worry about me.”

“Lyla, I can’t leave you here alone in the dark. Supernatural or not, it might not be safe.”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“I’m the one that saved you from the big, bad, wolf, remember?” She teased.

“You sure know how to make a guy feel good about himself.”

We both laughed. It was the first time Lyla really let her guard down with me, but the second she realized how at ease we were, that same old guard was back up.

“Go on, Chase. We will talk later.”

“Okay. Bye. Get home safely.”

As I rode away I couldn’t help looking back at her and it made me feel good to see she was looking at me too.

* * *

I was so relieved when I got home. That feeling of comfort that came over me the second I went through the door couldn’t have been more welcomed. It was only a few minutes past nine, but I really was craving my bed. So I showered, said goodnight to my parents and dropped onto my soft mattress.

From the second my body started to relax, my mind wanted to replay the night’s events over and over. But I had no interest in reliving the attack. If there was ever an animal that needed to be extinct, it was that dog. The one thing I didn’t mind remembering, however, was my time with Lyla. She was always so careful that we never had moments when we laughed together, like tonight.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it too much because I remember turning over in bed and falling asleep quickly. What I would never have known was that after I had fallen asleep Lyla came and sat in the tree outside my bedroom window to make sure I was safe.

“Sleep well, Chase. I – I love you.”

* * *

I woke up to the sound of the sea just beyond the cliff, as was usual every morning. The sound of the waves bashing madly against the cliffs like soldiers trying to break down a barricaded city gate was something I’d become accustomed to, even liked hearing. Coupled with the fact that it was a sunny Friday morning and I’d slept fine the night before, I should have woken up feeling great, but I didn’t and it was obvious why.

The news that Lyla gave me the day before had an odd effect on me. It made the world seem different somehow. Everything, the way the sunlight felt, the sound of the sea, even the way my own body felt to me, seemed different, like the whole world went through some kind of change overnight.

Or maybe it wasn’t the world that had changed, but just the way I saw it. Things I

believed to be impossible I now knew to exist all around me. So what else was going to change?

What else was I going to learn that wasn’t as normal as I thought?

After gathering enough will, I was finally able to push myself out of bed. I trotted downstairs, but my parents had already left which meant that today I had to make my own breakfast. So I got myself a bowl of cereal – if I had do get my own breakfast, I really wasn’t in the mood to cook anything. And I was hungry.

I took my cereal with me to the couch, but just as I had sat down there was a knock at the door – at 6:30 in the morning.

I took my time getting up, but the second I was up an immense feeling of apprehension washed over me. I couldn’t explain why I suddenly felt like this. It wasn’t like I knew who was at the door or knew where these feelings were coming from. Nonetheless, I threw that aside and answered the door.

I was shocked to see that it was Hilda.

What freaked me out the most about her was how normal she looked. She was wearing a long, green sundress and a pair of flip-flops. Her locks were kept in place at the back with a rubber band. Around her neck and wrist were a chain and bracelets that looked like they were homemade jewelry. Dangling from both ears were two flat, circular metallic pendants with strange signs on each side. I guess the way she looked when I first met her was how she always looked.

“Um, Good morning, Miss…”

“It’s just Hilda to you. I came to see your mother, is she…,” She dropped what she was saying and I noticed how her eyes seemed to scan the air around me. For some reason, it seemed so familiar.

“You’re still seeing that girl, aren’t you?” She said this kind of forcefully, actually causing me to step back a little, an opportunity Hilda used to enter. She walked past me and placed the box of herbs she was carrying on the kitchen counter. She then came back to me. It angered me how she walked around like she lived there, or furthermore, was invited in.

Then, out of nowhere, something occurred to me. If what Lyla said was true, that the supernatural did exist, did that also mean Hilda’s warning was valid? And did she really have magic? Was she really a witch?

“What does it matter to you if I am? It’s not like anyone’s getting hurt, besides it’s not any of your business.”

Hilda looked like she was going to lose control of her anger, but in a flash, she changed to something I never thought I would see on her face, sympathy.

“You’ve got a good family. I would hate to see something bad happen to you, and so young,” Hilda said softly. She headed towards the door, but turned to face me before she left.

“Let me tell you this though, if you continue to see this girl, there will be serious consequences. Just remember that. Good morning to you.”

After she closed the door, I made sure to lock it behind her. If this meeting had occurred one day before, it wouldn’t have bothered me one bit, but knowing what happened, I couldn’t help being curious about what bothered Hilda so much, though I just couldn’t bring myself to ask her. I felt that would make her think she was right. I couldn’t stop my pride from getting in the way.

I went back to the couch to finish my corned flakes, but now my mind was stuck on one issue. If Lyla wasn’t human (which she admitted), what exactly was she? It wasn’t like I had a list of supernatural beings I could check… or maybe there was.

Without finishing my now soggy breakfast, I left the bowl of cereal on the coffee table and ran upstairs to my computer, already knowing what I would look for. The last time I tried searching, I didn’t know what to look for, but this time I had a better idea. I typed one word in the search engine: Aquamun. Only about twenty-two results came up, spread out over two pages. This was good.There wasn’t the usual crap to shift through and the junk I did come across was easy for me to dismiss with one click.

Then something caught my eye. This website didn’t have the history of Aquamuns going back to some old places like ancient Greece or Egypt. It was more like a small blog, which mainly told about how Aquamuns acted and held a few more details.

From reading about the man who wrote the website, I learned he was a man whose father actually used to live on East Island in the early 1900s and believed his parents had been taken by Aquamuns. Ever since then his family had been trying to protect everyone else from them by sharing as much information as possible.

The website told that all Aquamuns had some form of blue eyes. It was proof of their connection to the sea. That really didn’t sound very believable to me, but then I remembered all the Morgans really did have some form of blue eyes. But that could just be a coincidence, though it was strange that even Marcus and Salathia had the same eye color.

According to the website, Aquamuns were very hard to distinguish from humans by the naked eye, so normal people couldn’t just pick one out in a crowd, but there were things that people could pick up on, like with time, coming to notice how they always seem to be comfortable in any type of weather or how they produced a scent like no other creature.

All these were things I’d noticed about Lyla and she did admit to me that the supernatural was real; that she herself wasn’t normal.

Could the Morgans seriously be Aquamuns?

As I was about to close the page, I saw there was a second page and out of mere curiosity, I clicked it.

The second page was a very old drawing of a family. There were four of them. A tall, very intimidating man, a very beautiful woman with a kind, loving face, someone that looked to be their teenaged son who was very muscular, and standing next to him was a young girl who looked to be in her early teens.

The text underneath the photo said it was a drawing of a family someone believed were Aquamuns that lived on and left East Island in the 1800s. The strange thing was, they almost

looked like the Morgans. The photo was drawn and it was very old and didn’t have any color, but still the man and woman looked a little like Marcus and Salathia. The boy and girl, however, didn’t look that similar to Lyla and Michael, but then again, if I had to guess, I would say maybe that’s how they looked when they were younger. And then there was Nikolai, who was missing from the photo. But why? Maybe he wasn’t born yet, I thought to myself.

It really could be true. Lyla’s family really could be Aquamuns.

I closed the page and cleared my history.

* * *

My mind was so filled with the possibility that the Morgans might be Aquamuns that I hadn’t really thought much about the fact that someone was trying to kill me; or at least that’s what Lyla thought. When she first told me, I was actually a little scared. Okay, more than a little. But finding out the supernatural was real actually trumped that in my book, so unless whoever was after me had something more than pitbulls up their sleeves, I’d decided not to dwell on it too much.

The Saturday morning following the attack, my parents had a surprise for me.

“Dad,” I said at the breakfast table eating a bowl of porridge. “I was wondering, since I got my license, if I could get a car.”

It was something I’d been thinking about for a few days and was prepared to hear “No,” but what I wasn’t ready for was, “Actually, your mother and I had been thinking about that and decided that you should have a car.”

“Really?” I asked, completely surprised. Where did this come from?

“Yup,” Dad said, getting up from the table. “Follow me.”

He took my outside where Mom and his cars were parked. There was another one next to them.

“Dad, if this is some kind of joke, I’m going to tell you right now, I might cry. Is that my car?” I asked, pointing to the one at the end. Dad smiled broadly and took some keys out of his pocket and threw them at me.

“She’s all yours. You’re going to have to take really good care of this car, Chase.”

It was a red 1976 Chevrolet Impala and it looked like whoever worked on it put their heart and soul into rebuilding and customizing it.

“I will Dad, I promise.” I said excitedly as I climbed in and felt the interior of the car. “I’ll treat Shelia like a princess.”

“Shelia?” Dad asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah,” I said this like it was obvious. “A car’s gotta have a name. How did you get this?”

“I bought it from your friend Kimberley’s Dad, Jack. I had to take your Mom’s car to his garage and I saw this little beauty there. When I asked him about it, he said he only restored it for the fun of it. I asked him if he was interested in selling it and he said yes.”

“Wow. Seriously, thanks a lot Dad; you have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Actually, I do. You’re welcome. I have to take off now. Try not to scratch it too soon.”

“Is it okay if I take her out for a ride now?”

“Sure,” Dad said on his way to the house, “Just remember to drive on the left.”

I pushed the key into my new car and turned it excitedly. I don’t even have to say how it made me feel when I first heard Shelia’s engine come alive.

I was about to drive off when I suddenly got the urge to do something else. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted to take the car out for a drive badly. But for some reason I suddenly realized how important it was I deal with this first.

I drove Shelia over to the Morgans. Once there, I felt that strange, magnetic feeling, but it was only for a second because a moment later Lyla walked from around her house.

Looking through the windshield, I noticed she was surprised to see the car. I wondered if that was because she had some kind of Aquamun ability that let her know when someone was near – like a sixth sense. The very thought surprised me, because it meant I was starting to think of the Morgans as Aquamuns.

Lyla walked over to the passenger side of the car and bent down to talk through the window.

“Hmm, nice car,” she said admiringly, looking around at the inside.

“Thanks. You wanna go for a ride? I kinda want to talk to you anyway.”

“Chase, I don’t know.”

“Lyla, come on. That night you said you would talk to me to explain things more and you never did. In fact, it kinda feels like you’re avoiding me again. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t want to talk about you or your family, I just need some information.”

Lyla looked towards her house and back then hopped into the car.

“How far are we going?” She almost sounded excited.

“No idea, but I really wanna test her out.”

I started the car again, took us out of the Morgans’ driveway and went onto the road, but before I had my fun with Shelia, I needed to have my talk with Lyla first.

Out of nowhere a huge feeling of nervousness rose in my stomach, which I found to be unsettling because I wasn’t at all so nervous to be around Lyla anymore.

“So, what is it you want to talk about?” Lyla asked as trees flashed past us. At present I wasn’t going more the forty miles per hour.

“Is Hilda a real witch?” I asked bluntly.

“Why would you ask that?” Lyla sounded completely surprised, but she quickly caught on. “You think she might be the one who sent the Shadow Hounds after you?”

“She came over to my house yesterday and knew I was still talking with you and she told me if I didn’t stop… well, let’s just say she said I would pay for it.”

I was a little taken aback when Lyla chuckled. But it wasn’t an amused chuckle.

“To be honest, that’s not necessarily a lie. Chase, yes, Hilda is a real witch but I don’t believe she is the one after you. She considers herself more of a protector. If she is checking up on you because of me, it’s because she wants to make sure you’re safe. Trust me, even though she has no reason to fear us,” Lyla added softly, “I don’t think Hilda is the one who attacked you. But if you’re looking for suspects, I wouldn’t look past the Somorians, particularly your friend Kristian.”

The moment she said it she looked like she regretted it. I was going to let it go so easily.

“Why do you say that?”

She looked like she wanted me to drop the topic.

“Somorians have their own kind of magic, which Kristian might have access to. You know how he already doesn’t like you because you associate with me. He might be taking it a step further.”

“You think he would actually try to kill me?”

The thought that Kristian, even though we were friends, might want me dead for simply talking with Lyla was a little scary.

“Maybe, maybe not. I can’t be sure of much without more proof though, so I’m not accusing anyone.”

After that we stayed silent for a while. Then, when I turned onto a long stretch of road that we were the only ones on, Lyla leaned out the window as if making sure the road was clear. Then turned to me and smiled. It made me feel good to know she was finally getting more at ease with me.

“Chase, when a girl is promised a ride, she expects a ride.”

I looked at Lyla for half a second and smiled coyly. I knew this day was going to be fun.

I floored it.

* * *

When I got back to the house after taking Lyla home I saw Justin, Brandon, Maranda and Rachael wanting for me inside Justin’s dad’s jeep.

“What’re you guys doing here?” I asked when I got out the car. They came over to look at Shelia.

“We’re heading into town and wanted to know if you would like to come since you’ve never been,” Rachael said as she checked out the outside of the car.

“What do you mean? I’ve been to Bermintown many times.”

“Not Bermintown, dude. We’re going to Ridgetown. It’s the capital of our fine little island. It’s bigger and better than Bermintown.” Justin said.

I told them I would go, but decided to first leave a message for my parents on the answering machine in case they got home before I did so they wouldn’t worry. Instead of taking separate cars, we all went in Justin’s dad’s jeep.

New York was pretty amazing. Even though I lived there all my life, I always loved every minute there. So I was very surprised by how amazed I was by Ridgetown after living in the big city. It was so amazing. There were a lot of modern buildings, but most of them looked like they were renovated or remodeled after old buildings which gave them a very unique and beautiful look.

Most of the buildings weren’t more than three or four stories high, though they were a few that went higher. There so much to see. Night had already fallen, but the city was still alive with people, sounds and lights.

“I can’t believe I haven’t been here before,” I said in awe. The others laughed. I’m sure I must have looked like an awestruck tourist.

We spent our time just walking around visiting stores and we bought a few things. It really was a lot of fun. Exactly what I needed at the time. The only thing that would have made it any better was if Lyla was there with me.

“Come on, Chase. Time to go,” Justin said to me as we’d finished dinner in one of the fast food restaurants. It was after eight and even though I was having a great time, there were still moments I was finding thoughts miles away, but thankfully my friends were having such a good time, they didn’t notice.

When we climbed back into the jeep I took a seat in the back at the left window. Maranda was in the middle and Brandon at the other end. Rachael was in the front passenger seat. Even on the trip home we were still chatting. Lyla was still on my mind, but I felt too good to get into one of my moods and to be honest, I felt things were finally getting better with Lyla. Nothing felt wrong.

Justin decided to take a short cut home, which turned out to be a long, deserted road with nothing on either side but more forest. Then all of a sudden, a strange feeling came over me. No, it was more like it passed through me. It made every part of my body tingle and made me feel like something had just tried to turn me inside out. It wasn’t painful, but it was unpleasant.

Then suddenly there was a loud explosion and the jeep went out of control. We were all screaming as Justin tried to get the jeep under control, but he wasn’t making any progress. We just keep swirling and spinning.

Then suddenly it all stopped. Not in a natural way, but in the same way it would if a kid was playing with a toy jeep and pressed his hand on it to stop it if it was going too fast.

Seconds after the jeep had stopped, the others were still in a panic, but I was surprisingly alert. I hopped out of the jeep and noticed that someone had gotten out of a car on the other side of the road and was coming towards me – it was Hilda.

“Are you all alright? What happened?” She asked urgently.

“We’re fine. Justin just lost control of the car for a second, but everything’s cool now.”

I stepped back a little from her, though I didn’t think she noticed because she was busy examining the jeep. When she finally looked back at me, she seemed more at ease and said:

“You lot should get along on home. It’s dangerous out here. And tell your friend he needs to be more careful on the road.”

She didn’t say another word. All she did was turn, get back in her car and drive off.

After calming down, Justin got out of the jeep to check for any damages and was extremely relieved when he didn’t find any.

“But where did that explosion come from then?” Maranda asked when Justin got back

in.

“I honestly don’t know and since it didn’t come from the jeep, I really don’t care. I just want to get out of here.”

Justin turned the key for the car slowly, as if he was afraid if he turned it any fast, it wasn’t going to start. But the engine did come on, which we were all relieved to hear.

I might not have had a clue about exactly what happened, but I was sure of one thing – that was magic. That was attempt number two on my life.