FORBIDDEN: THE SOULKEEPERS

Chapter Four

                                                            Chapter 4

                                                  The Heart of Haven Hurst

You gotta be kidding.

  I crack open my eyes and realize the muffled thumping and awkward clanging isn’t a soundtrack to my nightmare. It’s real. It’s live. It’s outside the window.

  I push to my elbows and listen. Lovely birdsongs are butchered by a thunderous clang. “A band?” My mattresses are on the floor and I reach over and grab my cell phone, squinting at the digital readout. Seven-thirty on a Saturday morning. I calculate to West Coast time and groan, “Four-freakin’-thirty.”

  As usual, Sundance commandeers the double bed and army-crawls over and licks my cheek. “Hey, ya mind?” I laugh and burrow in the bedding.

  There is more obnoxious drumming and then somebody gets happy with the cymbals. I grimace and feel a tug on my scar. My fingers find the rise where ten stitches stopped the bleeding. Bruises fade, but a black cloud wearing cement shoes sinks deep inside me. I sigh and pray for a reprieve. Please, no memories today.

  My eyes fill and burn, just like every morning since the incident when I wake up to find Self-pity in bed with me. I have to fight him off just to start my day. When I’m feeling strong enough. Some days I win; some days he pins me to the mattress and I have to tap out.

  The space between my eyes starts to throb and tears spill down—a sucker punch. I cry, covering my face with my hands. Okay, Sophia, just let it out and be done with it.

  It doesn’t last long this time because Sundance tunnels under the covers and we’re able to double-team Self-pity until he relents and fades.

   Sundance wants me to come out and play, and I sniffle and smile weakly. Even he knows it’s time to move on. So I haul myself up and trudge to the window. My butt screams pink in Victoria’s Secret plaid boxers. White knee socks make good sliders along the hardwood floor. Last night I cracked open the window for fresh air and now this insane timbre is seeping through unobstructed.

  I push the window all the way up and lean out. No screen!I gape down from the second story. Jeez, somebody could fall out.

  Our house is second from the corner and diagonal from a town square and park that seems to be the heart of Haven Hurst. We are situated among a block of sturdy efficient houses: Craftsmans, Victorians, and Colonials. Homes made of love and perseverance. Despite their ages, they’ve been perfectly restored in sharp vibrant colors, something you’d see in This Old House magazine. I resent their charm because Mom would’ve adored them the way you fawn over puppies in a pet store window. It hurts to think she would’ve been happy here so I push it down, like always.

  Another crash of percussion and cymbals makes me twitch so I search for the source of the morning’s melodic debauchery. A small stage in the park holds a bedraggled eight-piece band that is brutalizing an otherwise pleasant September morning.

  Sundance starts the happy dance on the hardwood floor. “Time to take care of business, huh, boy?”

  I open the door, and he charges down the stairs. I make for a bathroom at the end of the hall. The reflection in the mirror startles me. That can’t be accurate. My long brown hair is doing an encore of last night’s strand-up comedy and my eyes are a lovely shade of zombie red. The scar in my eyebrow? A sleeping caterpillar. I’ve checked it continuously for two weeks hoping one day it will turn butterfly and flit away.

  Will I ever feel the same again? No, because I’m not the same. Part of me will always remember what happened. Memories are cave paintings tattooed on the walls of my mind; they are there for all time.