Babelore [Chapter 1]

Babelore
Chapter 1:

Scarlette and her four best friends all turned 17 in May, right at the end of their Sophomore year of highschool and the beginning of what should have been a fabulous summer. They all lived in big, spacious houses in a small suburban town just south of Tampa Bay, Florida. Their city was called Tillipeneigo Shores but everyone Scarlette knew called it T-town. It wasn't a commercial village but it still got some tourism here and there. But not enough to hinder everyone's carefree vacation.
Zenna's birthday was first, on the 7th, then Hanley's on the 11th, Scarlette's on the 12th, Cat's on the 20th and Persephone's on the 23rd. They all had their own individual parties that each and every one of them attended, but as a bonus, this year at the very end of July, Hanley's parents took the girls out into the bay to dolphin watch. Hanley's little brother Chipper came along, but he was very mildly irritating so no one really minded.
It was hot and they'd all worn bikini tops and fleece shorts with flip-flops. Zenna, naturally, looked the best, her chestnut hair freshly highlighted and her tanned skin sparkling radiantly in the afternoon sun. Scarlette wondered often why Zenna hadn't yet tried to be a model. She had considered it a year or so ago but her schedule had been so demanding that she'd almost instantly let the idea slip by to focus on school and her delciously handsome boyfriend, Harris Meaning. He was in their grade but often hung out with some older college football boys and scored all the girls passes into some of the hottest frat parties around (that their parents had no idea they attended, of course).
She leaned over the railing of boat and applied a fresh layer of lipgloss. "I haven't seen a single dolphin," she whined, her eyes sheilded behind huge designer sunglasses. "Where are they?"
"I'm sure we'll see some soon," Scarlette's cousin Hanley said, sipping a Capri Sun and scratching a bug bite on her left shoulder. Hanley always looked kind of hardpressed when Zenna complained, as if she was the soul person in charge of keeping her entertained. "It's still early."
Zenna Lorenholder was kind of snooty. Well, in all actuality, she was completely snooty. But then, she always had been so it was no reason for the other girls to dislike her. They were used to her better-than-thou attitude, and considered it entirely rewarding if they were able to get her nose out of the air at least every once and a while. The group was all very close, but everyone, for the most part, had their secrets.
Scarlette Thetcher ran track and drew colorful sketches in her free time. She was constantly dreaming of artistic escape and found herself twirling strands of her dark, honey blond, medium length hair around her finger as she daydreamed. She liked to have a good time, but understood the boundaries of what was in good taste and what wasn't. Her parents constantly scruinized her every mistake and so she spent a great deal of time just coming up with ways to impress them. She entered drawings in the community fairs and worked hard to gain first string on the track team. Her grades, too, were exceptional. However, she didn't exceed at everything; she had a secret that found its way to the front of her mind, way more than it should have. And she wasn't exactly brave enough to share.
Hanley Redding was Scarlette's cousin on her father's side. Scarlette's mom and Hanley's dad looked like twins. They both had round faces and pink cheeks and had the upper body strength of Paul Bunyan. Thank the lord that hadn't passed down to her or Scar. Hanley wasn't athletic at all but still maintained an almost Barbiedoll physic; instead she read quite a bit and played a mean piano. She could sing, as well, but didn't do it in front of anyone but Scarlette and the other girls on occassion. She listened to the other's problems with extreme, intent interest and was regarded, possibly, as the sweetest and most caring of the bunch. She wasn't afraid to share her problems either, and trusted her friends not to tell. There was only one thing that she hadn't disclosed, not to anyone, not even Scarlette, though she wanted desperately to tell her. It was about this new boy she had met, and his strange likeliness to a gorgeous, undead beast.
Persephone Shinks swam. Not on a team, but for fun, all around the bay and in the pool in her backyard. She was quiet and thoughtful and very shy. She didn't like to talk about things that bothered her and after the summer three years ago and the car accident that had killed her father, she found it easier to keep all of her problems inside rather than reveal them and blubber all over her friend's shoulder's. She lived with her mother and three younger siblings, who she often had to babysit. Her mother was intent on keeping the house and had since taken a time-consuming promotion to make extra money and afford her presitigous membership at the local country club. Persephone missed the time she used to be able to spend with her Mother but was grateful for her friends and for the small stretches of time in which she was submerged in the salty water below the dock, in her own underwater world. At least, that's what it seemed like- like Persephone lived beneath the waves and returned to land just to go to school and do normal teen things like having icecream at Carla's Cones on James' Pass and turning her chemistry papers in too late.
It was Cat Jennings however that kept all the girls from losing it. She was outgoing and fun, sweet and energetic and entiterly lovable. And though sometimes she made rash decisions and acted on instinct rather than logic in situations that required deliberation, the girls loved her unconditionally. She was a tad immature and flighty and goofy. She put her hair up in side-ways pony-tails and wore those half-shirts that looked stupid on all the rest of them (except maybe Zenna, if she ever deemed the article of clothing worthy of wearing), danced and sang along with practically any song that came on anywhere, without a shred of embarassment, and ate Twizzler's like they were the last thing on Earth. She couldn't keep a boyfriend longer than a week because they just couldn't keep up with her and she had absolutely no idea what she wanted to do with her life. But it didn't matter. Even though her outgoing, inane ideas landed the girls in hotwater on several occassions (such as last April's springbreak escape to Sea World with Cat's older brother Carlos which wound up getting them all drunk in a hotel room in Georgia and nearly ended all of their relationships after it got out they kind, sorta, all made out with the Swedish poolboy Borg, who pronounced all of their names wrong but looked really cute in a Speedo.) they all still seemed to love her the best. It was hard not to; she was just so...sweet.
Persephone laid on the wooden bench beside the cock-pit of the boat and fidgeted with the little seahorse necklace she had on. "Dolphins aren't that fond of boats," she heard herself saying. "I mean it's a huge machine and it makes a really loud noise and goes really fast. They're scared." She knew from personal experience that when she stayed still, underwater, the dolphins came much closer and seemed much more at ease. She'd even half way ridden one once, a few months ago. It had came up to her, nudged her shoulder and made a small clicking noise. The way they communicated fascinated Persephone and as much as she wanted to stay underwater with it and listen to its chirping forever, she knew she had to breach the surface for air soon. She'd started to wiggle her legs and cup the water with her hands, making her way back up to the surface when it slid between her legs and gave her a quick push up. It'd felt extraordinary as she ascended, ten times better than it ever felt when she'd taken horseback riding lessons in eighth grade.
"Oh!" Zenna squealed, pointing. "There!"
Scarlette who had been in the steering room with her slightly tipsy uncle and her aunt and younger cousin popped back out into the sunlight, adjusting the strings keeping her navy blue top from falling off of her pale shoulders. "Where?"
Hanley touched the railing and stretched her back to look behind the boat, to the left. There, crashing into the waves created by the boat, headed up towards the bow, were three shiny skinned dolphins, breaking the surface. Persephone had seen plenty of them but she still didn't want to let the chance of seeing a real group of them pass her by. For the most part, she'd only experienced loners, which she'd heard was rare, looking for a companion. They'd all approached her, curious by her ability to swim without goggles- the saltwater just didn't burn her eyes like it did everyone else- and hold her breath maybe just a little bit longer other people, and brush by her waist and let her touch their noses. These three looked excited to be alive; the way they constantly exposed their fins made Persephone think they were showing off.
Cat appeared beside Scarlette who, not expecting her entrance, jumped a little. The thin brunette laughed, her chocolate eyes reflecting the sun and sparkling with light. "Calm down Scar, I'm not going to hurt you."
Scarlette's heart always sped up when Cat was this close to her. It was part of her secret...the way Cat made Scarlette feel was not normal. She took too much interest in the way Cat's lips were shaped (her upper lip much more dipped than any of the others and her bottom lip full and pouting), or how long and shapely Cat's legs looked when she sat down and stretched them out before her. She liked Cat's smooth, sultry voice a little too much, and worried if the others knew that she had more pictures of Cat saved on the harddrive of her Teal netbook than any of the others in her Bestfriends Folder. But it was only part of the secret. The feelings weren't new. She's always felt this way.
"Oh," Scarlette said, chuckling, "I guess I forgot you were here or something."
Cat pretended to cry. "Way to make a girl feel noticed," she pouted.
Oh I notice you, Scarlette thought, pushing a strange of her hair off of her forehead, maybe a little TOO much. "You know what I mean," she told her, and stuck out her tongue.
The five of them stood in a single file line along the edge of the boat and watched the dolphins dance off into the sea. One of them jumped out the water, for a second, none of it's seemingly slippery body touching the waves. Even Zenna looked impressed for a moment, though that quickly faded and she went and sat on the bench Persephone had been laying on and texted her boyfriend.
It was common knowledge that Zenna and Harris were the it-couple, but Zenna had just told the others that she had practically fooled around with Ty Ulrich last Friday at the skanky-get-together they'd all attended. Harris however, knew nothing and Ty, who was intimidated by Harris's large, quarter-back shoulders bulging beneath his polos, had no intentions of telling him. Zenna didn't either. Sure she'd thought Ty was hot in this I-pluck-my-eyebrows-and-file-my-nails sort of way, but Harris, with is wavy blond hair and beryl eyes was the guy that every girl at Bayview High wanted to call theirs. Well every girl but Cat, Scarlette, Hanley and Persephone; they had a code- they couldn't covet or date one another's boyfriend. They had a lot of codes and they'd drawn up a list in their secret hiding place in seventh grade so they wouldn't forget them.
There was a clearing just inside the forest behind Cat's house where the girls often sat and discussed problems. Cat's house connected to the more grown over stretch of shore along the bay that bordered their neighborhood, so the clearing had a sandy floor and was made up of a wall of tall, hardy Queen Palms, and much shorter Areca Palms. The only thing that grew within the wall was a short, fernlike plant that thrived yearround and bloomed dark purple, almost lily-looking flowers at night. They called it the Lavender Lily, though none of them had been able to find any references to such a plant online growing in that area, or at all really, and didn't tell anyone about it, scared they would want to move it or, worse, pick the blooms and hurt it. Hanley was the first to find it, when, in the fall of their fifth grade year, they'd gone exploring into Cat's forest and found the area.
"Look!" she'd exclaimed, kneeling down beside it, "Isn't it pretty?"
They'd all agreed that it was the most beautiful flower any of them had ever seen, even more beautiful than the blood red roses that Scarlette's mother grew in her front lawn, or the pale yellow daisys that Persephone's first boyfriend, Jameson, who had moved away to Kentucky a month before, had bought her on Valentine's day. Hanley deemed it their goodluck flower and they buzzed with excitement over the discovery of it, and their new hangout.
The list of codes they'd come up with two years later spoke of not stealing each other's boyfriends, taking proper precautions not to get pregnant like that skank Julia in eighth grade had done, promising not to let each other get fat or fail algebra, and swearing to each other that if ever they had a secret to share, they'd do it there, in that clearing, beneath the palm fronds and in absolute confidence that it wouldn't leave that stretch of turf.
Hanley had a secret that she'd been needing to tell the others for a long time now. It wasn't incredibly juicy but she had a feeling (and hope) that it could get that way. It was about a boy. His name was Remington- no last name, or at least he didn't disclose one- and he was devilishly good looking. His hair was as black and shiny as ebony and his eyes were an entrancing shade of navy. Not only did he appear to be chiseled out of granite, but he was tall, very nicely built and had this michevious grin that made Hanley weak with lust. He'd come sauntering into her life at the beginning of May.
She remembered it with such detail that more than once she worried if she'd just envisioned it and it hadn't happened at all. That was, until, she'd gotten his note. When she met him, she was sitting outside, finishing "The Chosen" by Potak, getting a start on her summer reading list for Honor's English Three. It was dusk, and bugs had began to bounce against the porch light above her head. She heard him first, making his way through the forest, but she hadn't taken much interest. A lot of her neighbors had dogs and cats and they were so often getting free and roaming the streets and everyone's backyards that she was sure that it was just the Patterson's hyperactive scottish terrier or one of the Lawson's malteese's that she didn't even look up from her book. Not until he spoke, anyways.
His voice was so smooth and his accent was so fluent, "Hey, Girly," he said, the words floating up her yard to her, as she lounged in the lawn chair, "Come here a minute, would you?"
Sure, it startled her, but as soon as she'd whipped her head around and saw him standing there, at the end of her yard, one hand on the trunk of a tree, the other motioning her towards him, she was enchanted. She placed her plastic Harry Potter bookmark between the pages of her novel, laid it on the table and drifted down to him.
"Yes?" her voice almost seemed a plead, begging for him to speak more.
His eyes bore into her and replied, "Could you, perhaps, tell me how to get to Kennar?"
Kennar was two cities east of T-town and pretty unsettled as far civilization in Florida went.
"Oh," she said, "Yes. Just go back out through there," she pointed down the side of her yard up towards the road, "Follow the road to the highway and the streetsigns will take you East, through Lorncaster and into Kennar."
He nodded, polite. "Thank you very much," and bent forward, placing a kiss on her cheek. His lips were icy and left her skin tingling. She placed her fingertips to the place he'd kissed and looked down at her flip-flops, blushing. It wasn't normally like her to be so blundering, but he was just so CUTE.
"I'm just passing through," the stranger explained. "And I appreciate your help. I'm Remington."
Hanley smiled at him, wondering what it was that made her trust him so quickly, and not worry that he wore all black- a tight-fitting black t-shirt and black jeans and boots- and stood in her yard, after the sun had gown down. "I'm Hanley," she said.
Remington gave her another magical smile and said, "That's a pretty name. Hanley," he repeated, trying it out with his Northern accent. "Very pretty."
A noise had caught her attention and she thought it had been her parents. Her heart raced, and she was unsure what to do- she felt safe with this guy, but her parents, no doubt, would not understand her instant trust. "My parents," she mouthed, turning back around. But he was gone.
Three and a half weeks had gone by, leaving her dreaming of his eyes, and formulating a myriad of reasons why he was sneaking down her block trying to get to Kennar- on foot, no less- and wishing he'd make another appearance just to answer some of her questions, before she saw the little white piece of paper sticking out of the curling bark of the same tree he had touched that first night. She got it, curious, and unfolded it.
"Stopped by to see your beautiful face," the note said, written in carefully scripted cursive, "sorry I missed you. Hope to see you soon, Hanley." And it was signed with an elaborate R. She'd refrained from telling the other's about their meeting, almost postive she'd just dreamt the whole thing, but now she knew it'd been real, and she desperately wanted the other's opinion on who (or what) he was.
The thing was, his confusing existance also provided another problem- Hanley had a boyfriend.
Now she stood beside Cat who stood beside Scarlette, who looked a little frazzled, like she always did when Cat was near her, and read the three texts she'd gotten since they'd boarded the boat an hour ago. Tory Wilson was cute in his own dorky way, with close cropped, sandy brown hair and normal, crayola crayon, green eyes. He played baseball just like her little brother Chipper and joked around too much but she loved him. He'd asked her out last year after the Spring formal and they'd been going steady ever since. He was the shoulder that ever girl wanted to cry on, and the guy that every mother wanted to find out their daughter was dating. He was polite, charming and ate all his vegetables. Never in a million years did Hanley consider him lacking in any way, whatsoever. Until Remington. Remington was everything Tory wasn't; he was mysterious and sexy instead of open and boyishly good-looking, he was pale and had the most intriguing accent. Tory had a tan that dipped down into the the v-neck of his baseball jersey and said things like "I reckon that'd be fun" when she invited him out somewhere and "Oh Boy!" when her mother made mashed potatos. In no way did Hanley dislike any of those things about him...but she couldn't help but imagine what Remington would say instead in such situations. She'd only spoken to him for five minutes, at that, and already he was her favorite thing to think about.
"Anything interesting?" Cat asking, motioning to Hanley's phone. "Tory missing you?"
Hanley nodded and read the first text: "Hey Babe, have a good time on your boat ride. Tell the girls hello!" She read, the second one: "Just Paramore's new video and thought of you." She read the last one: "I miss you."
Scarlette said, "Aww," and looked genuinly impressed. "He is such a Sweetheart. It's hard to find a guy like that. I'm lucky if Leslie remembers to text me all day. I swear he's only dating me because I help him in English."
Cat shoves her playfully. "C'mon, he adores you. You're the only person he talks about more than himself."
Leslie Fissure was the wide reciever for the Bayview Barracudas and sported a head full of black curls and a set of stunning amber eyes. Yes, he was sort of narcissistic and kind of pigheaded when it came to sports, but overall he was nice guy and had a soft spot for Scarlette, at least. Sometimes he would even tell her she was pretty, or buy her flowers to say it for him. Unfortunately, Scarlette wasn't as into him as she wished she was. She knew he was gorgeous and hot and she noticed the way the other girls in her grade looked at him when he met her outside her classes, but she didn't feel any particular spark. And lately, he'd began to bring up the subject of taking-it-all-the-way and, honestly, the idea kind of made her feel sick.
Cat's last boyfriend had been one of her older brother Carlos' college buddies named Redmond, though everyone called him Red. They lasted nine days and then he tried to have sex with her in the back of his Blazer after a movie one night and she told him that she'd sooner die a virgin than lose her virginity behind Cinemas' Eight on a Wednesday night. None of the girls blamed her. Red was good looking in a tall, maybe a little too boney way, but he totally wasn't worth THAT.
Truth was, all the girls were virgins. Zenna had fooled around a few times with different guys but the threat of teen pregnancy scared all of them enough to keep their pants zipped until the right guy (with the right condomn) came along. And truth was they had too much on their plates right now to think about anything that life altering. Zenna had told the girls about her fling with Ty, but not about her make-out session just two days ago with Carlos. Persephone had started taking a stop-watch with her when she went swimming and just recently she'd clocked herself at able to hold her breath for a whopping twelve minutes (that wasn't normal AT ALL). Hanley distinctly remembered Remington's canines and actually considered the fact that he wasn't, you know, exactly human. Scarlette recognized the fact that she had a huge crush on her friend, but couldn't exactly share that with the group. And Cat herself was beginning to have feelings that none of them were normal. Least of all, her.

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