Blood Shadow: Book of Ariel

gathered to watch on the big screen.

  Our after hour, game after game went by with both mean breaking the previous record with each subsequent try. It was 5:15 p.m. and Maxwell knew that this would be the last game of the day as he slid his quarters into the machine.

  Aaron was a good sport, but he also like to be the Centipede record holder, “Last game before all of that delicious chicken pot pie,” trying to see if he could get inside the head of his younger opponent.

  Maxwell loved his mother’s CPP, but put aside all thoughts of the fluffy crust and meaty and gooey center until after his game was over. That was more than could be said for Daniel, who was in the middle of the fifth set in his marathon tennis match with Andrew.

  “We’re never gonna’ finish this match. All I can think about is chicken pot pie, and we only have a few more minutes before we have to be home.”

  “Are you quitting?” Drew asked.

  Daniel barely even thought about the ‘yellow’ gesture, “Yeah.”

  Drew was relieved, “Cool! Me, too! I don’t even know what the score is and I could care less anymore. Why were we playing so long anyway?”

  “I have no idea. Let’s get out of here,” Daniel replied.

  They dropped the balls on the court and then darted out of the bubble like they hadn’t just played over eight hours of grueling tennis.

  Sharon nearly drowned on the way back to the house, and Blake sensed something was wrong and went back nearly a mile to get her. Earlier in the day he would have been in complete competition mode and left her behind, but something was different now. He channeled all of his lifeguard spirit and rescued Sharon and brought her to shore, where he pumped the water out of her lungs and brought her back to life.

  She opened her eyes after water funneled out of her mouth and said, “Did I win?”

  Blake smiled and then replied, “Yeah, you won.”

  “Thanks Lifeguard Blake,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re welcome, Sharon,” he replied, feeling like his old self again, but this time he had actually saved the women that used to swim circles around him. The race in the water was definitely secondary to the race inside his head on this afternoon.

  Maggie and Kayla started the day working on separate houses, but ended the day in a united effort to finish the last house. The winners on this day were the Jones family, who had lost their house in a hurricane and subsequent flood and had been living in the family’s SUV for a few months. The women walked arm in arm out of the sight and on the way home, never saying a world and only enjoying the satisfying silence of each other’s contentment.

  Nicole and Carla set the table again, but this time they put their signature CPPs on two plates on each person’s place mat. Nicole opted for red plates and Carla serving on blue. Hartwell and Cal walked in and Hartwell was lamenting on his long day watching Cal play pool, “At least you made a game of it yesterday. You barely even let me get out of the chair today.”

  “Good thing we came home for dinner, because I would have started to take your money,” Cal stated.

  “Good thing.” Hartwell added.

  Daniel and Andrew ran through the door and couldn’t get to their chairs fast enough, “No running in the house, boys!” Belinda said as she dragged her giant quilt, folded quilt into the room and then helped Emily bring her quilt into the room for viewing after dinner.

  Blake and Sharon dried off again before coming inside and he said, “Are you going to be up for the treasure hunt tomorrow?”

  She smiled and replied, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Maggie and Kayla walked into the house still arm-in-arm, and then split off to wash their hands and take a seat next to each other. Max and Aaron were right behind them and everyone could hear Max’s elevated tone.

  “I had you until I started thinking about that Chicken Pot Pie! I tried to hold it off as long as possible, but I just couldn’t do it.”

  Aaron still couldn’t believe it, “But, you were only 10 points away! I can’t believe that you let the CPP get into your head,” the big guy said and then sat down next to Maxwell at the table. He then took one whiff of Nicole’s chicken pot pie and his eyes rolled back in pleasure in his head. “Hold that thought… you might be on to something.”

  Everyone was seated around the table when Thaddeus and Garrison wobbled in through the garage entrance into the house and made their way into the main room. They walked into the bathroom and splashed cool water on their faces in an effort of rejuvenation. It was Garrison that pulled back into the driveway a split-second before Thaddeus, and it was Garrison that also had the foresight to load up the fridge in the garage with bear before the race.

  “Good call on that fridge, Gary.”

  “No problem, Thad. It was the least I could do after whipping your butt.”

  Thad looked at Gary and the two sobered up as Thad said, “That still doesn’t sound right,” as they took their place at the table with the others.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  While many people enjoyed Carla's chicken pot pie, it was Nicole's CPP that won mass appeal. Nicole’s CPP made everyone feel like they were back at home as small children and the feeling was quite comforting for most. Of course, the competition was about which dish was enjoyed most, not the dish that stayed down the best. That distinction would belong to Carla’s organic and healthy pie with reduced salt that contained only fresh vegetables.

  After dinner, the two groups were instructed to sit down on the couch for some family time and TV watching. Emily and Belinda told the hunters to park on the left side of the room and the vampires and protectors to sit on the right, as the group fully expected to be shown quilts that once again separated them as a species. The two women were about to reveal their individual quilts for the group but they decided to get together for a brief moment and discuss something.

  Emily whispered to Belinda, “Is your quilt about vampires and protectors?”

  “Not really,” Belinda whispered back. “Is yours about hunters?”

  “Not really,” Emily replied.

  “Then I think we should make a few modifications,” Belinda stated.

  “I agree.”

  The women then dragged their quilts into the knitting room after they told the group to just hang tight for a few minutes, or “Talk amongst yourself,” as Emily put it in her best Brooklyn accent.

  They emerged five minutes later holding two ends of one very long and large quilt and walked in front of the group.

  “We were in separate rooms most of the day and we didn’t talk at all,” Belinda said.

  “Except for the time I said excuse me when I walked past you to go to the bathroom,” Emily joked as the group laughed.

  There was a warm feeling in the room that something special was about to happen. No longer was this group looking over its collective shoulder and waiting for something bad to happen.

  Emily looked at Belinda, “We feel that this quilt symbolizes our struggle…

  “and is a testament that good things can happen to good people,” Emily continued, finishing the thought.

  They unrolled the quilt and it spilled out over the sparkling clean floor as they displayed it at first and then had some help from the rest of the group. They joined the line along the couches and chairs being covered by the quilt as the entire family watched TV. The top of the quilt that Belinda completed read, “ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY!” with a few family members and the bottom half that Emily sewed had depictions of the remaining family members covering all of the various façade changes they all could make.

 

  After the first good night of sleep in years, Linda and Brenda Vinson awoke and met each other in the kitchen over two nice tall cups of coffee. It wouldn’t take them more than a three or four hours to drive from Brenda’s home in Pennsylvania to the Hartwell residence in Beach Haven, so the women were taking their time.

&
nbsp; “Did you sleep well?” Brenda asked her daughter.

  “Yes,” Linda replied, “but I kept having dreams about mermaids.”

  Brenda jerked her neck to the right side, as the two women were sitting next to each other at the round white kitchen table.

  “Oh my, I had those dreams, too! I even saw a merman or two in the mix.”

  “But there was this one girl…” Linda said.

  “Yes! She was all shiny and glittery.”

  “We have to go see her,” Linda stated.

  Brenda smiled, “Something tells me that it’s going to happen today.”

 

  With the glittery girl and her family en route to Beach Haven, it was time for the third and final day of competition between the families at Casa de Hartwell.

  “What are you guys doing today?” Daniel asked Hartwell and Cal as he sat next to Andrew at the breakfast table.

  Hartwell looked at Cal, which showed how unfocused he was on the day’s events.

  “I think we’re bowling,” Cal stated, sounding somewhat sure of the plans.

  “Cool!” Drew exclaimed.

  “You don’t want to play golf?” Daniel asked his cousin.

  “Not really,’ Drew replied.

  Hartwell had a brain blast after sitting out most of the conversation.

  “Why don’t we play a few rounds of golf and then end the day with a few games of bowling?”

  “Can we get in on that?” Aaron asked the group.

  “Are you tired of playing against me?” Maxwell asked.

  “No, I just thought it would be fun to be with the group for a