“She’s breathing!”
“Are those fang bites?” Maya asked.
Bev shrugged. “I told you. It’s not like that. She must have provoked him if he bit her.”
Analisa shook her head in exasperation. “She wasn’t bitten by a vampire.”
Was she for real? I pointed at the wounds. “Look.” How could she ignore the evidence?
“She’s making a movie about vampires,” Analisa insisted. “That’s just makeup.”
An itching sensation spread all over my body, and I scratched my elbow trying to get rid of it. Could fear manifest itself in hives? I had no idea, but I had a feeling it was just my imagination. “No, it can’t be makeup. Jackson never bites Robyn’s neck in the book, so unless they changed it for the screenplay, that bite is not for the movie.”
“It looks pretty real to me,” Maya agreed.
Bev shoved a chunk of dyed black hair behind her row of piercings. “That’s because vampires are real. Why do you think Bethany set her book here in Sedona?”
“Cualquiera que sera.” Analisa pulled her phone out of her pocket. “What matters is that we get her medical attention. Now.”
While Analisa dialed, the rest of us heave-hoed Amber off the ground and started to carry her back to the street, struggling despite her light frame. She was all dead weight. Okay, bad word choice.
Analisa ran up to us. “The EMTs are coming. They’ll meet us out in that parking lot we passed on the way in and take her to the hospital.”
We’d been hiking for what, ten minutes before we found her? So hopefully we could get her to the ambulance while she was still breathing.
Not exactly how I’d planned to spend my last night as a fourteen-year-old. So much for finding Craig.
“She’s too heavy,” Bev said. “I gotta rest.”
Bev’s breathing suddenly sounded like a three-pack-a-day smoker. No, wait. That wasn’t Bev. That was Amber.
“What’s wrong her?” Maya asked. “Why’s she breathing like that?”
Analisa’s normally calm voice morphed into a Minnie Mouse squeak. “Is she having a heart attack?”
I shook my head frantically. “She’s wheezing. Does anyone have an inhaler?” My friends signaled ‘no.’ “We have to put her down and prop open her air passage.”
As we lowered her limp, convulsing body to the ground, I heard a sickening pop as a searing burn ripped through my left leg. No. No. No! This could not be happening.
A string of words that a nice Two-Day-Catholic girl should never repeat in public spewed forth from my mouth like ash from a volcano. Speaking of which, my knee felt like it was made of molten lava – warm and squishy to the touch.
Visions of physical therapy danced in my head as I tried to bear weight and instead winced in pain. If it was what I thought, then I was currently living my worst nightmare. Potentially career-ending devastation.
But I didn’t have time to think about that right now if we were going to help Amber.
Bev grasped Amber’s hand and squeezed. “Don’t tell me we have two invalids now.”
“I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t. Not really. The pain was debilitating, but I didn’t really have a choice. We had to get the starlet to the hospital.
“Let’s go.” My fingertips grazed Analisa’s shoulder as I steadied myself. I would not let myself cry. At least I was still conscious.
I looked down at Amber’s now nearly listless form, covered in red welts. Wait a second. Did she have those before? Her skin was swelling right in front of my eyes. Heck, in front of her eyes, too. Closed they were mere slits, like the knife indentations pinching into the rising dough of a baguette as it baked.
“I don’t think vampires cause that kind of reaction, do they?” Maya had obviously noticed it, too.
That’s when I remembered I was wearing flip-flops. How did I know? Because I felt a tickle on my toe, followed by a brushing sensation, but was able to jump out of the way despite my hurt knee.
I bent over and took a closer look at Amber’s neck. I’d been so focused on the punctures that I totally missed the tiny little red bumps at the sting site earlier. I slung my off my backpack and dug around inside until I found what I was looking for, then wound up and jammed it into her as hard as I possibly could.
No, not a wooden stake to the heart. Total cliché. Besides, even though she was my rival for Craig’s attention, we’d been trying to save Amber, not kill her. Anyway, duh, everyone knows vampires aren’t real.
Analisa yanked the curtains closed after the doctor left. “I still can’t believe how fast you reacted, Dani.”
“No kidding,” Bev said as she leaned against the exam table. “I’ve been stung by a scorpion before but it was nothing like that.”
Maya tossed me my shorts. (I couldn’t wait to get out of this ugly hospital gown.) “Amber’s lucky you were there.”
Oh, I forgot to tell you. We never did make it to the road. The EMTs, who had to hike into the wilderness to find us, confirmed my suspicion. Amber Alexander had a rare anaphylactic reaction to a scorpion bite. Like all kids with peanut allergy, my EpiPen is more precious than an American Express card – I never leave home without it.
Analisa smiled. “You saved her life.”
Yeah, I guess I did.
So she could go right back to kissing Craig.
Using crutches to take my weight off of the injury, I limped away from the ER behind my friends. Yay me. The scorpion bite wasn’t all I was right about tonight. Forget barre exercises at the prestigious Manhattan Ballet Conservatory summer intensive program. Or even yoga exercises at one of the little New Age shops lining the streets of Sedona. The next few months would be spent doing PT exercises on the long road to recovery.
If I was lucky.
I didn’t even know how I hurt it, but the doctor diagnosed it as chondromalacia, which is basically just a fancy name for when the knee cap rubs up against the thigh bone instead of gliding smoothly against it, roughening the cartilage underneath in the process. Freak accident? Repetitive stress injury? Who knows? Not that it mattered. Serious dance careers have been over before they even began for much, much less.
Shit.
“Dani!”
For the second time today, a guy blocked my path as Craig’s unmistakable voice crashed my pity party.
Er, make that the first time today. If the clock above the registration desk was to be believed, it was nearly three AM.
Tomorrow already. My birthday.
“Uh, hi.” Wow, when did I become such a sparkling conversationalist?
He rushed over and enveloped his arms around me. “Are you okay?”
The wrap on my knee and crutches under my armpits should have been his first clue. But even though I’m fluent in sarcasm, I decided to play it straight this once. “It hurts,” I said with a shrug.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to coordinate my tux to your crutches,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I guess I never got around to asking you, did I?” He shot me a sheepish grin. “Will you go to prom with me?”
Good thing I had the crutches to prop me up, because I nearly fell over from the shock. “But what about Amber Alexander?”
“The doctors said she’ll be okay. We’re just going to film some scenes without her for the next few days, and then she’ll be back at it next week, so you don’t need to worry about her.” He smiled. “You saved her life.”
“Yeah.”
No wonder painkiller abuse was so rampant. I must have only imagined he’d asked me to prom. It was nice while it lasted.
“So, you never answered,” he said. “Will you go with me?”
The Vicodin was definitely causing hallucinations. “To prom?”
Craig nodded, his bright blue eyes silently pleading with me to answer. I felt a hot flush in my cheeks.
“But I thought you liked Amber.”
??
?As a friend.”
“You kissed her.”
He laughed. “It’s called acting.”
“That’s not what the L.A. Informer said.”
He laid his hands on my shoulder and held me an arm’s length apart. “Do you really believe everything you read in the tabloids?”
“But Hadley said--”
“Oh, come on,” Maya said. (I didn’t even realize she was standing right there.) “Just answer him already!”
Before I could respond, Craig’s mouth was on mine. Kissing me. Slowly at first, then with more urgency. Tingles danced throughout my body as I kissed him back.
Finally he pulled away. “That wasn’t acting,” he whispered. “Happy birthday, Dani.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The adventures continue in the Dani Spevak Mystery Series – Codename: Dancer, Pointe of No Return (June 2012), and Pas De Death (2013). This short story stands alone and can be read in any order, although chronologically it is #2.5.
***
After writing her first manuscript (which she now realizes was blatant Nancy Drew fanfic) at the ripe old age of nine, Amanda Brice took a nearly twenty-year hiatus before returning to the craft. She is a two-time finalist for the Golden Heart® award, and is president of Washington Romance Writers. An attorney by day, Amanda is also a popular speaker on the writing conference circuit with her copyright law workshops. For more information, please visit www.amandabrice.net.
Back to Table of Contents
The Vanishing Spring
By
Carey Corp
The first time Tyler Diaz heard the Legend of the Vanishing Spring, he was sitting on an intricately carved bench overlooking the tiny pond next to the “Members Only” clubhouse, wishing he could disappear.
Face tipped skyward, he let the sun’s first powerful rays of spring banish the chill from his veins. Letting his eyes drift shut, he indulged in a moment of homesickness. The more the earth warmed, the more he would miss La Villita: the heavenly aroma of the taquerías wafting on the breeze, the swirling rainbow of festive colors adorning both shops and shoppers, the soothing cadences of español rolling off a thousand tongues in heated conversation.
Here, no one spoke Spanish, not even in school. Kids studied only the most pretentious romance languages, plus Japanese, and—ugh—Latin. Even everyday conversation was a crazy Stepford blend of stuck-up English, ghetto teen, and French.
“We’re going to La Petite Mais’ for lattes. Wanna come?"
Tyler shook back his dark curls and blinked at the blonde Barbie flanked by her silicone regime. No matter how long he lived among them, he’d never get the kids of Quimby Acres—especially the girls. They seemed to have an endless supply of money to waste on crap—clothes, electronics, and the other various, over-priced accoutrements that accompanied a life of privilege. Often when he stared at their expensive haircuts and European wardrobes, he wondered how they would fare if their families ever fell from grace.
Not that he knew what it was like to be poor. He wasn’t from el barrio, didn’t have cousins with gang affiliation doing time for drive-bys. He came from an average, middle class Mexican-American family. His great grandparents had emigrated from Mexico City before his abuelo had been born. Since then, three generations of Diazes had grown up less than a block apart in Little Village on Chicago’s West Side. Well, almost grown up.
That was all B.C.
Before his papi met Carmen.
Carmen was an overpriced accoutrement, herself. Totally absurd. Ty still couldn’t comprehend how an honorable, hardworking family man like Hector Diaz had fallen under Carmen’s evil spell. She wore eight hundred dollar, bubblegum pink warm-up up suits, worked out like a prison inmate, and treated her ridiculous little chorkie like she’d given birth to him. It—the freakin’ dog—had gone to the Bahamas with Carmen and his dad, riding in the luxury of a handbag that cost more than most people make in a year!
The first thing Carmen had done, as soon as she’d gotten the obscenely large engagement ring onto her French manicured, anorexic finger was to get his papi to sell the lucrative property he owned. Her second nefarious act was moving them out of La Villita to the gated community in Wilmette. The third and most unforgiveable feat was to convince Hector Diaz he owed it to himself to see the world, while his only son—a minor at that—deserved a first rate, private education under the custodial eye of their housekeeper, Helga.
What Carmen had really done was strip the vibrancy from Ty’s life: the colors, smells, cacophony of sounds, and, most importantly, the rich familial relationships. In La Villita, he was an average seventeen-year-old boy surrounded by su comunidad; in Wilmette, he was treated like a two-dimensional Latino Versace model. But even as they appreciated his good looks they still managed to make him feel like a minimum wage pool boy. Which reminded him why he was sitting by the pond trying to shake of his foul mood in the first place—because he’d been mistaken for landscaping staff and ordered to sweep grass clippings up from the communal sidewalk. Which he’d done, much to his humiliation and the confusion of the actual grounds crew. But it was easier than trying to explain. He wondered if there’d ever come a day where that kind of mierda didn’t bother him. Not likely.
“Well?”
The blonde, whose name was Paxton—or maybe Payton—interrupted his pity party. She thrust her ultra-glossy lower lip at him in full on pout mode. Clearly, she expected more attentiveness from the Quimby pool boy. “Are ya coming, or not?”
“Not.” Ty knew that he was just another accoutrement to these girls. A piece of hot Latin arm candy. He might as well be dead on the inside, for all they cared. He’d give anything to meet a genuine girl, one with real relationship potential. Maybe in the next lifetime…
Provoked by his rudeness, five surgically perfected faces puckered into a singular expression of dismay. So he added, “I mean, no, thank you. I’m just going to chill for a while—enjoy the sunshine.”
“Whatever.” Blondie was clearly “out.” As she circumnavigated a precarious spin in her brand-new stilettos, one of the brunettes in her entourage stepped forward. It appeared that Blondie had competition for the final word.
The brunette, Alayna,—or possibly Aylana—arched her brow in a manner that could only be described as très supercilious. “Don’t sit too long by the Vanishing Spring,” she chirped with a smirk. “We’d be totally bummed if you ended up like Eleanor Quimby.”
“Who’s that?” Apart from the logical connection of sharing a last name with Quimby Acres, Ty had no clue who she was talking about.
“You haven’t heard the story of Eleanor Quimby?” Scandalized by Ty’s ignorance, she paused until he confirmed her accusation with a twist of his head. As gleeful as a reality TV junkie in the throes of watching someone’s private humiliation become public spectacle, she continued, “Quimby Acres used to be a farm. Back in eighteen seventy-two, seventeen-year-old Eleanor Quimby threw herself into this very pond to escape being married off to an old man. Eyewitnesses saw Eleanor tumble into the water, but by the time they got to her, she was gone.
“Everyone assumed she drowned. They tried to dredge the pond for her body, but they never reached the bottom. That’s how they figured out the pond was a spring. Some think Eleanor was swept away by an underground river. Others believe she’s down there, still. Waiting.”
Ty suppressed an eye roll at the girl’s excessive dramatics—no wonder she hadn’t gotten the lead in the fall play. “Waiting for what?”
“For you!” The brunette’s bespangled hand shot forward and grabbed Ty’s shoulders. He flinched while the audience cackled in delight. Apparently, it was an old joke and he was its newest victim.
Regaining his composure, he leveled his gaze at the gaggle of pampered, urban princesses. “I think I’ll live dangerously and take my chances.”
“C’est la vie,” she giggled.
Not to be outdone, the blonde turned back, her eyes holding a slightly different invitatio
n for Ty than the one that fell from her lips. “Drake’s parent just left for Paris. He’s throwing an epic party tonight. Meet me there? Ten o’clock?”
Whether because he wanted them to leave, or because he couldn’t face another dismal night watching Discovery Channel with Helga, he said, “Sure. I’ll stop by.”
Clearly the victor, if only in her own vacant mind, the blonde flashed her dark-haired friend a satisfied smile that declared “Game on!” and ordered, “Let’s go, Biatches.”
As the Quimby girls sashayed away, Ty picked up a small, white stone and plunked it into the spring. Small ripples danced across the previously smooth surface as the rock sank into the bottomless depths. Maybe it would come out on the other side of the world. In China.
As he mused about the opposite end of the earth, the water rippled again. Then the rock broke the surface with a faint pop. It curved through the air to land at his feet, which was undeniably weird.
Ty raised himself off the bench and walked to the water’s edge. Something shimmered like sapphires just below the surface of the water. He knelt for a better look, ignoring the jagged rocks pricking his knees and shins. The brilliant sun cast a reflection of Ty’s surroundings onto the glassy surface of the spring. The effect was like looking in a mirror. Except, in the center, where his image should’ve been, was something else. Something entirely unexpected. A girl—with lovely, peculiar eyes that moved him in a profound, intimate way.
Ellie May Quimby blinked down at the reflection on the mirror surface of the little pond and reckoned she’d dallied too long in the sun. In place of her cornflower eyes, inquisitive brown ones peered at her from beneath long lashes. Short, unruly curls replaced her straight, black braid. And perhaps most importantly, the image was of a comely boy.
He was a stranger to these parts, certainly not anyone Pa had occasion to do business with. Nor did he attend Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s—a dandy like him would’ve been the talk of the congregation. She didn’t recollect his likeness from the brief time she’d attended the parish school, neither.