Storm Shells
by G.J. Walker-Smith
Kindle Edition
© 2013 G.J. Walker-Smith
Cover by Scarlett Rugers
http://scarlettrugers.com
Other Books by G.J Walker-Smith
Saving Wishes (Book One, The Wishes Series)
Second Hearts (Book Two, The Wishes Series)
Sand Jewels (Book 2.5, The Wishes Series)
Contact the author:
https://www.facebook.com/gjwalkersmith
mailto:
[email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is coincidental.
Storm Shells
By G.J. Walker-Smith
Book three of The Wishes Series
Dedication
For my dad, the best storyteller I know.
Table Of Contents
1. Prologue – Alex
2. December 10 – Adam
3. December 10 – Charli
4. December 10 – Adam
5. December 18 – Charli
6. December 21 – Adam
7. December 23 – Charli
8. December 23 – Adam
9. December 25 – Charli
10. December 26 – Adam
11. December 26 – Charli
12. December 26 – Adam
13. December 30 – Charli
14. December 31 – Adam
15. January 2 – Charli
16. January 2 – Adam
17. January 2 – Charli
18. January 3 – Adam
19. January 6 – Charli
20. January 6 – Adam
21. January 7 – Charli
22. January 9 – Adam
23. February 3 – Charli
24. February 4 – Adam
25. February 15 – Charli
26. February 19 – Adam
27. February 21 – Charli
28. February 23 – Adam
29. February 24 – Charli
30. February 25 – Adam
31. February 26 – Charli
32. May 24 – Adam
33. May 27 – Charli
34. May 29 – Adam
35. June 3 – Charli
36. June 15 – Adam
37. June 26 – Charli
38. June 27 – Adam
39. June 29 – Charli
40. June 29 – Adam
41. June 29 – Charli
42. June 29 – Adam
43. June 29 – Charli
44. June 29 – Adam
45. June 30 – Charli
46. June 30 – Adam
47. July 1 – Charli
48. July 1 – Adam
49. July 1 – Charli
50. July 1 – Adam
51. July 2 – Charli
52. July 3 – Adam
53. July 11 – Charli
54. July 13 – Adam
55. July 13 – Charli
56. July 20 – Adam
57. July 20 – Charli
58. July 24 – Adam
59. July 26 – Charli
60. July 27 – Adam
61. August 3 – Charli
62. August 20 – Adam
63. August 20 – Charli
64. August 20 – Adam
65. December 2 – Charli
66. Three years later – Adam
67. Three years later – Charli
Prologue
Alex
Charli’s mother is a ballerina. That meant that Charli was supposed to possess natural talent when it came to dancing.
She didn’t.
My kid became the first child in the history of Mrs O’Reilly’s dance class to be expelled – at the ripe old age of five.
Joyce O’Reilly broke the news to me when I arrived to pick Charli up. “Come through to my office for a chat, Alex,” she said, leading me across the hall by the elbow.
Rumour has it that Mrs O’Reilly used to be some kind of showgirl back in the day. If that was true, teaching raucous little girls twice a week in the town hall was a bit of fall from grace.
We ended up in the back room, which wasn’t really an office at all. It was a storeroom packed full of chairs and Christmas decorations.
“Has something happened?” I asked, a little afraid.
Joyce looked at me with sheer pity and closed the door. That was not a good sign. “Little girls are like flowers,” she announced, extending her arms. “With a little encouragement, they usually bloom.”
“But?”
“Your sister is not a bloomer,” she said, dropping the theatrics. “Trying to help Charli blossom as a dancer is like trying to grow a flower in the desert. It isn’t going to happen. She doesn’t follow instruction and she’s disruptive in class.”
I widened my eyes, pretending it was the first time I’d heard someone make that statement.
“There was an altercation with another student this afternoon,” she added. “I’m afraid that was the end of the line. I’d prefer it if she didn’t return to class next week.”
“What do you mean by altercation?”
Joyce’s mouth formed a grim line. “I’ll let Charli explain.”
“I’ll have a word with her,” I promised, making a grab for the door handle.
“Alex, there’s a karate class here on Wednesday afternoons. Perhaps she’d be better suited to the martial arts,” she suggested.
“I’ll look into it,” I muttered, escaping the room.
Crossing the big empty hall was like being on parade. Little girls and their mothers scowled at me like I was the enemy. I couldn’t wait to hear Charli’s explanation. Obviously she’d done a real number on someone.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out who it was. Jasmine Tate was sitting on a chair holding an icepack to her eye, wailing like the world was ending. Charli came out of nowhere and launched herself into my arms. I carried my little terrorist to the door without saying a single word.
It wasn’t exactly a clean getaway. Meredith Tate cornered me at the car. “You need to instil some manners into that little brute before it’s too late, Alex,” she hissed.
Charli’s grip on my neck got tighter and she buried her head in my shoulder.
“Mind your business, Meredith,” I grumbled, opening the car door.
She edged closer to me, furiously wagging her finger. “It is my business! That little delinquent just gave my daughter a black eye.”
I lowered Charli into the car, ordered her to put on her seat belt and slammed the door closed.
“I will handle it,” I told her, doing my best to ignore the brutal glare she was throwing my way.
“Make sure you do.”
It was a pointless argument that could’ve continued all day. I let Meredith claim the win by having the last word, and got the hell out of there.
* * *
We didn’t go straight home. We went to the beach because that’s the place we were both at our calmest. I didn’t let Charli get out of the car straight away. I gave her the disappointed stare-down through the rear vision mirror while I interrogated her.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she insisted. “Jasmine stomped on my music box.”
“So you stomped on her head?”
She shook her little head so hard that her pigtails flicked her face. “No. We danced with wands today. I hit her with mine.”
“Mrs O’Reilly doesn’t think you should dance any more,” I said dully.
“Good. I hate it.”
I was relieved. I hated it too. Joyce O’Reilly’s dance group was practically a cult. The only ones more imperious than the tiny dancers were their mothers.
“Show me your box,” I ordered, getting a little off-subject.
Charli unbuckled her seat belt, rummaged through her school bag and presented me with her beaten-up box.
It was destroyed. She’d been carting it everywhere since she was three years old. To her, it wasn’t just a music box. It was a wish box. Every wish she’d ever collected was stored in it.
“Jasmine didn’t break it,” I told her.
“Did too,” she insisted. “She jumped on it.”
I tried to straighten the broken lid enough to close it while I worked on my lie. “No, it burst at the seams, Charli. It’s just full.”
“Too many wishes?” she asked, leaning through the gap in the seats to get a better look at it.
I nodded, hoping she was buying the story. “You’ve got too much in here.” I held up a little plastic horse. “What’s this?”
“It’s a white pony.”
“You can wish on horses?” I asked sceptically.
“Only white ones – if their tails are black.”
“I see.” I continued sifting through the box. “What else is in here?”
“Storm shells. Lots of them,” she replied proudly.
I smiled. “What would a little girl like you know about storm shells, Charli?”
She clambered between the seats to sit in the front, reached into the broken box and pulled out a seashell.
“You can only collect them after storms,” she expertly explained, “or they don’t work.”
“What do they do?”
She held two fingers up. “They give you two wishes. You already know that, Alex. You told me.”
“You’re right. I forgot. Sorry.”
“Can you fix my box?” she asked hopefully.
“I don’t think I can. It’s just too full.”
She leaned across to peer into the box in my lap. “It’s not that full.”
“Sure it is. It’s not the shells that busted it open. What about all the wishes you can’t see?”
I glanced across to see her imagination working overtime. Her little face was etched with concentration.
“Like stars and birthdays?”
“Exactly. It’s chock full, look.” I handed her the box.
“What can I do?” As always, she sounded desperate for answers, and as always, I had to think quickly to come up with one.
“We’ll bury it in the garden,” I suggested. “When you want to spend your wishes, we can dig it up again.”
* * *
The plan of spending the rest of the afternoon at the beach was abandoned. We went back to the house and spent the last hour of daylight digging a hole in the garden. I wrapped the broken box in a plastic bag and placed it in the hole.
“I’ll miss you, box,” Charli said tearily.
I felt bad for her. If Jasmine Tate had been in the vicinity I might have thrown her into the hole too. I put my arm around her. “You can dig it up when you’re ready. It’s always going to be there,” I promised.
“Okay,” she sniffed.
“But meanwhile, Charli, no more fighting with Jasmine. It’s not nice.”
“Okay. I’ll be nice to her.”
I wasn’t buying it for a second, but I let it go. It wasn’t her first run-in with Jasmine Tate, and I doubted it would be the last.
December 10
Adam
There’s a certain type of pain that you can get used to, especially when you feel like you deserve it. And I most definitely deserved it.
In order to live through it, I had to get out of the apartment. I made the decision to move back in with Ryan just two days after Charlotte left.
Packing wasn’t something I thought I could handle so I did what every twenty-three-year old man would do in a crisis. I called my mother.
I was lying half dead on the couch when she arrived.
“Adam, get up,” she barked, storming in as if she owned the joint.
Mom isn’t one for wallowing. She’s British. She has the stiff-upper-lip thing going on. She’s not especially sympathetic either, especially when she’s pissed. The only thing I’d ever done that infuriated her more than marrying Charli was let her go.
I was no longer the good son.
She stomped to the windows and pulled up the blinds. It made little difference. The weather was as gloomy as I felt. “You are a foolish man,” she scolded. “You’ve made your bed. Now sort yourself out and figure out how to lie in it.”
“By myself is how I’m going to be lying in it, Mom.”
I sounded pathetic. I probably looked pathetic too, but I gained no sympathy from the queen.
“Stupid boy,” she growled, stamping out of the room.
* * *
My mother stayed with me for hours that morning, trying to put my life back in order. From the couch, I could see her down in the bedroom, packing Charli’s belongings into boxes. It was brutal.
She eventually reappeared in the room waving something at me. “Adam, what are these?”
I lifted my head, glancing at the rings in her hand. “Her wedding rings.”
My mother pushed my feet off the couch and sat down beside me. “You mean to tell me that girl had these beautiful rings and wouldn’t wear them?”
“They didn’t fit her, Mom,” I muttered. “Nothing about this life fit her. Send them to Alex too.”
Finally she took pity on me. “I can’t bear to see you like this,” she said gently. “Why don’t you just call her?”
“No.”
“Fine.” She jumped to her feet. “I shall call her myself. Maybe I can talk some sense into her.”
As far as I was concerned, Charli had already come to her senses. That’s why she left my lying, scheming ass.
“You can’t call her,” I mumbled.
“Watch me,” she said, holding her phone to her ear.
I did watch her – and the look of horror that swept her face a few seconds later. It was a perfectly understandable reaction. Charlotte’s phone was charging in the kitchen, right where she’d left it. Now it was bouncing around the counter playing the ringtone she’d assigned to the queen – the theme tune from Psycho.
Mom ended the call. “Some days I could wring that girl’s neck.”
“But you miss her, right?” I asked, almost smiling.
“I do,” she admitted. “Terribly.”
* * *
I was hoping Ryan wouldn’t be there when I moved back in. But not only was he there, he had company.
My brother has a thing for blondes – the dirty kind – the kind who see no shame in parading around someone’s apartment wearing only a towel.
Thankfully Ryan was fully dressed, lounging on the sofa. His plaything was in the kitchen.
“You’re moving back in?” he asked, sounding less than thrilled.
“Yup.” I kicked the front door shut with my foot and lowered the box I was carrying to the floor. “Rule change.”
I didn’t need to elaborate. Ryan knew exactly what I meant. When we’d lived together before, we had a very strict policy about random half-naked blondes roaming the apartment, especially the dirty kind.
“Have you met Isobel?”
The blonde, who was fussing around in the kitchen, looked up at the sound of her name. She waved across at me. “Hi’ya,” she greeted in a strong cockney accent.
“Hello.” I looked at Ryan, smirking. “Broadening your horizons, I see. Shopping internationally now?”
“English girls are spectacular, Adam. It’s the Australians you have to be wary of.”
I shoved his feet off the coffee table and sat next to him. Both of us idly stared at dirty Isobel.
“Australian girls don’t make you food,” I muttered. “You make them food.”
Ryan lazily cocked his he
ad. “Isobel’s a stewardess. It’s in her nature to serve.”
“You really are a dick, you know that?”
“So are you. That’s why you’re moving back in here all sad and alone.”
He made a valid point. I settled further into the sofa and sighed. Was I going to enjoy rooming with my slut brother again? No. But this was my new mediocre life. Until I could figure out a way back into La La Land, this was it for me.
December 10
Charli
Mitchell Tate always seemed to get me at my worst, but as usual he didn’t complain. Pathetically, he was probably used to it.
He’d borrowed Melito’s jeep to make the long journey to the city to pick me up. I was glad we had a long ride ahead of us. It gave us time to catch up.
Kaimte was still blissfully laid back, and so was Mitchell. The only aspect of his simple life that had altered was the absence of a few of our friends. Zoe and Rose had returned to England six months earlier, keen to get back to the real world. If Mitchell was heartbroken, he didn’t let on. “They still email me,” he said, shrugging.
“Do you ever write back?”
A huge grin swept his face. “I will, one day.”
Bernie and Will were also gone. They’d moved further north, skipping out late one night to avoid paying rent arrears to Leroy. Melito and Vincent were still there though, and made a big deal of my arrival by inviting us to a barbecue on the beach later that night.
Mitchell agreed instantly, rattling off a list of names of people he wanted me to meet. Like any transient town, there was a constant influx of new friends to replace those who’d moved on.
“So you’re still happy here?” I asked, pacing his tiny shack.
He set my suitcase on the wooden floor. “It’s the happiest place on earth. Give it a day or two and you’ll remember why.”
* * *
Within ten minutes of arriving at the shack, we were in the surf. Every particle of stress within me dissolved the second the water washed over me. Mitchell and I spent the next hour lolling near the water’s edge, tumbling in the low breaking waves and talking.
He was surprisingly curious about my New York life and all things Adam. “I thought you loved him.” He said it as if he was reminding me of something I wish I hadn’t said.