Page 10 of The Bloodfeather Promise
Chapter Two
Fifteen months later
Sea Cove, Florida
Emerson Jane Banner
Isink deep, then deeper still, the turquoise waters closing over my head. The immenseness of the gulf drowns out all sound, leaving only a muffled roar soothing my eardrums.
When I open my eyes, the sun drifts above me, a diluted, shimmery tangerine ball. Dipping and swaying, borne along by the current, a white feather floats by. Blood stains the translucently pale quill as if it was violently ripped from an unlucky seagull’s wing. I don’t know what will happen to it, but I have ideas. Either it will end up beyond the second sandbar, drifting toward fathomless water, or it will end the journey cast up on the sand along with the seashells. Some kid will pick it up, stabbing it on top a lopsided sandcastle as a makeshift flag, or use it to write messages in the wet sand where the beach rolls into the water.
I remember the first time I found a feather marked with blood. I’d just turned eight. I wanted to go looking for the poor injured bird. I could rescue it. I could nurse it back to health. Teach it how to fly again.
“It’s a bloodfeather,” Grandpop said. “And the bird it came from is long gone, dear.” He explained that, much like a four-leaf clover, a bloodfeather was a lucky find, signifying a new beginning. I cried anyway, convinced the bird missing that feather was surely dead. How could you lose something, bleed from the loss, and not die? Grandpop only chuckled, gave me a hug, and said everything would be all right.
Only recently have I experienced the sadder meaning behind the word. Fifteen months.Has it really only been fifteen months?
My eyes squeeze shut again, and I tell myself it’s because the salty sea water stings.
Just my face juts from the water as I rise to the surface. The Gulf of Mexico is so flat today. It looks like a sheet of glass. I’m buoyant, floating like an upended sea turtle when something grabs my ankle. There is a quick jerk, and under I go, inhaling water before floundering to my feet in chest deep water.
“You trying to kill me?” I glare at Noah, pushing dark strands of hair from my eyes.
With a smirk, he leaps toward me, his hand landing on top of my head. Pushing me under again, he yanks me up just as quickly.
“Ha!” Noah’s eyebrows wiggle like an evil genius in a horror movie. In an accent similar to a vampire with a lisp, he says, “If I vanted, yessss. But there arrr betterr vays than pulling your vankle. Come. I show you.”
“Jerk.” I tear away, spraying water at him with a swipe of my arm. “Work on that accent, Count Chocula.”
“Vat do you mean?”
I giggle when he sends a scoop of water back with his forearm and we engage in a splashing war until a speedboat whizzes by. The boat’s wake sends rolling waves, gently knocking against our bodies as we move to stand waist deep in the emerald green waters.
Noah loses interest first in our game of trying to drown each other. “Wanna head back up and lay out?” Flipping his baseball cap backward, he jerks his chin toward the beach.
“You’ll have a nice strip of white across your forehead wearing your hat like that,” I warn, beginning the trudge toward the shoreline. The sand is so brilliantly white, our colored beach chairs, towels, and a small cooler stuffed with beer, wine, and water, look like jewels scattered about. “And you’re gonna look incredibly silly. Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?”
Noah sloshes through the water behind me. “Haven’t you learned nothing can distract from these movie-star good looks of mine?” he counters. “Besides, Devon loves me so much, she doesn’t care how silly I look.”
“Such confidence,” I toss over my shoulder. “Not many women prefer a man with a two-toned forehead. Love really is blind, I suppose.”
“Good thing she’s not just with me for all the hot sex.”
“Ewww.” I puff in exasperation while biting back laughter.
Devon Reagan lies sprawled in the middle of an aqua blue towel emblazoned with tiny pink flamingos. She looks like a sacrificial offering to the gulf, her towel situated between two of the three chairs.
We don’t even garner a raised eyebrow from her as we plop down in the chairs on either side of her towel. Noah shakes his dirty blond hair like a dog would, the shoulder length strands spraying salt water everywhere. Eyes still closed, Devon just smiles and murmurs in approval, “That feels good.”
Noah squints over the rim of his sunglasses, his gaze roaming her bare back. “You’re burning, babe.” He grabs a bottle of suntan lotion, flipping the cap open. Leaning over from the low-slung chair, he rubs coconut scented liquid between her shoulder blades. He carefully avoids the thick, twisted braid of blonde hair she has pulled into the crease of her neck and the string of her hot pink bikini, tied in a bow in the middle of her back.
“Hmmm. That feels even better.” Devon stretches her arms above her head.
“Jeez. Get a room, you two,” I mutter under my breath. My two best friends hear me over the slap of gentle waves on the shoreline.
Noah flashes me a grin. There’s nothing sexual about it. We tried the boyfriend/girlfriend thing in tenth grade, then quickly realized being friends was far better than being a couple. “You need some lotion too, E.J.?”
“No, thank you!” I reply cheerfully.
