It's time, it's time! Halloween time, of course!
October. Cooling air, colorful leaves blowing across the ground, and the sound of bare branches scratching against windows in the night…
I love this time of year. So here we go, Halloween!
The world of Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I like to play in it.
AMAZING GRACE
Chapter 1 – Reflections on Mortality and Being Wet
"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…"
Well, the sounds were supposed to be sweet. Bella's voice wasn't meant for giving glory to God, apparently. She got another dirty look from the ever-so-perfect Mrs. Mallory, Lauren's mother, who was sitting in the pew in front of her. So Bella couldn't carry a tune.
Just another thing she couldn't right in the eyes of this town. The funeral service went on as Bella sat alone at the end of the aisle in the small Calvary Chapel Church.
She sighed with relief when it was over, flowing out the door with the rest of the group. Mort had lived in Forks all his life and worked at the TruValue Hardware Store for forty years, so a large group had come to pay their final respects. They gathered in the parking lot, waiting to follow the hearse to the cemetery.
She saw Mrs. Mallory glancing at her skirt and boots. Mort Jacobson's funeral. Couldn't they just let her be? Mrs. Mallory was from Southern California. She kept herself looking SoCal perfect, going into Seattle for her haircuts, manicures, and clothes. She didn't seem to want any of the small town look rubbing off on herself.
The other people at the funeral smiled at her occasionally but didn't make any gestures to invite her to join them. She knew that to long-time Forks residents, she was the daughter of the chief of police's flaky wife. She had to earn their trust. Which meant that Bella was currently stuck between the small town provincialism and the hypocrisy of transplants who made a point of not blending in. At least in Phoenix she had been invisible. Not here. Everyone seemed to see her, and almost everyone seemed to have some kind of a problem with her, except for the guys who wanted to ask her out.
Bella shuffled her feet and wondered why she was here. Mort was a nice old man, but old men die. That's what everyone does. Can't avoid it. Bella shook her head at that thought. It wasn't charitable. Just because the Mallory's were snots didn't mean she should think like that. This town, it was caging her in. She needed to get out.
She shivered as the wind blew through her sweater. A lazy wind, too lazy to go around so it went through. She hugged her arms to herself and peered at the sky. A lifeless sun peered through a break in the clouds. Her truck wasn't working again, and she didn't feel like hitching a ride with anyone. She edged away from the crowd and out onto the grassy border that passed for a sidewalk in this town and started the walk home. God, they didn't even have sidewalks here.
Maybe the rain would hold until she made it home.
The few drops the breeze spattered against her face warned her this was not her lucky day. The downpour hit before she made it more than a few hundred yards. Result: she would be soaked by the time she reached the front door.
Bella grimaced when she spotted Charlie's patrol car in front of the house. Shit. He hated seeing her wet. Maybe she could sneak in…
No luck. He was at the dining room table, cleaning his gun. She had put leftovers in the fridge for him and an empty plate was next to the gun. "Hi, Dad," she said.
"Hey, Bella." He glanced her over then peered out the window. "That happen from the truck to the door?"
She shook herself off, pulled off her shoes and reached for a dish towel to dry her hands and face. "Truck's at Dowling's for repairs."
"Oh," he said, looking back down at this gun.
She waited for it. "Something Jake couldn't fix?" he asked.
"Jake's got mono," she replied.
"Right," Charlie said, moving his too perceptive gaze from her face back to his weapon. "Billy said something about him not feeling well. I hope he gets better."
So did she. Jake was her little ray of sunshine in this gloomy town. Sure he was younger than she was, and had a puppy-love crush on her that he made no effort to hide, but he was good company.
The dish towel was soaked so she headed for the bathroom upstairs for something a bit larger.
"I can give you a ride to school tomorrow if you like," he called after her.
"That would make you late," Bella said, a bit too quickly. "I'm going to call Angela for a lift to school."
Once in the bathroom, she ripped off her soaking clothes. She felt awkward in skirts. She had worn boots to hide the fact that she didn't have the right shows to wear with a skirt. Once she had switched to sweats, she came back to the kitchen.
"You were dressed up," he commented.
So he noticed she had been wearing her wool skirt. It was the only one good outfit she had and it itched when it was wet.
"Went to Mr. Jacobson's funeral," she said.
Charlie nodded. "He was a good man. I wish I had been able to get away, but there was an accident down on the 101 by Ruby Beach. Nasty."
"Anybody hurt?"
"Unfortunately, yes," he replied. "Couple of kids on motorcycles."
"Sorry," Bella said. She knew from the look on his face and his constant lectures that kids and motorcycles didn't mix. "Anybody from town?"
"No, they were from Port Angeles. Met the new doctor when I went to the hospital to finish my reports," Charlie said.
Bella smiled. A new doctor would probably be someone she would get to know pretty well, given her luck.
"He's really something," Charlie said.
"Is he different? Sporting tattoos or something?" Bella asked.
Charlie pushed his plate away and Bella took it to the sink automatically.
"Really good looking," Charlie said. "Very professional and soft-spoken."
"Hm," Bella replied, distracted. The truth was, she couldn't stop thinking about Jake being sick. It was so weird. He was never sick.
There was something else going on, too. Something she couldn't understand. Billy wouldn't take him to the Forks Community Hospital. At least there, she could have visited him. With her truck down, the only option was taking the bus out to Billy's on the reservation and that really wasn't an option. Bus service wasn't very reliable in the area. Of course, Charlie would take her anywhere, anywhere she wouldn't mind being seen in a cop car. Which, of course, was nowhere.
She was stuck in the house.
Bella sat on her bed, absent-mindedly stroking the new purple bedspread Charlie bought before she moved back. The lady at the store helped him pick it out, he had told her. His homecoming gifts of the bedspread and truck had touched her. He had really wanted her to be happy in Forks.
She stared out the window into the twilit horizon. The forest was visible across the field opposite the house. Actually, the forest was visible from anywhere in town, though the water streaming down her window partially obstructed her view at the moment. She sighed and shivered, thinking of how cold the rain had been on her walk home. There would be no going out in this rain.
Still, something compelled her to stare.
Was there something out there? Probably just the wind in the trees, but she thought she saw movement in the tree line, a shadow jump from the ground to a branch high up in the tree. An impossible height for a man.
She shook her head. Probably just a trick of the wind and rain.
Finally she gave up staring out the window and went to bed. After tossing and turning most of the night, fell asleep around 4:00 a.m., just in time to get up at 6:00.
Xx
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Sorry I'm starting a bit late this year. I'm being laid off from my job of twenty years later this month. Hope your October is better than mine.
