“There has got to be a spell for this,” Hailey groans as she fumbles for her new amulet. Finding it, she murmurs, “Belinda,” and finds herself transported to the mystic library. Groggy, she makes her way through the stacks to the section of English texts. Pulling down a book titled, “Merlin’s Cookbook,” she starts paging through.
“Hangover cures, hangover cures, ugh, find me a cure!” she exclaims. Whining, Hailey adds, “Why is there no hangover cure? Ahuuughhh! So annoying.”
Slamming her fist on the table, Hailey closes the book and buries her head in her arms on the desk. “I only had three drinks,” she says in a sad voice.
Hailey fades back from the library to her bed where she buries her head in her pillow and lets out a low moan. “I am never drinking again!”
Across town, in a different bedroom, a man throws a set of curtains wide. Behind him, a girl screeches. “The light! It burns!”
Rolling his eyes, Mr. Napp turns to his daughter and says reproachfully, “It’s almost noon. You aren’t planning on sleeping the day away, are you?”
“I might be,” mumbles his daughter, Ginny.
“Well you aren’t any more.”
“Euhgh,” Ginny sighs dramatically, throwing her blankets across the bed. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“You slept in,” her father answers.
“Awakened at the crack of dawn.”
Mr. Napp checks his watch. “Five minutes to twelve.”
“By a cruel and unfeeling jailor.”
“I’m your father, and I love you.”
“Using torture so heinous even Becca would tremble.”
“Yes,” Mr. Napp says drily, “sunlight.”
“For the purposes of,” Ginny pauses. She looks up, meeting her fathers amused gaze. “What are the purposes?”
“Father-daughter bonding time,” he supplies helpfully.
Ginny looks back up to the ceiling and asks in a put upon voice, “Why God? What have I done to deserve this?”
“You were born,” Mr. Napp says, a smile playing at his lips. “Now hurry up and get dressed. We’re going on a tour of the city.”
“But I live here.” Ginny says, confused. “Why do I need a tour?”
“Well, remember that your mother was a sculptor?”
“Yes?”
“And that she donated many of her statues to the city? Building them for parks and other public works?”
“So?”
Mr. Napp gives his daughter a leading look.
“Oh!” she screams as she bolts upright in bed. “You’ll show me Mom’s statues! Ohmygod! Yes!”
“Well,” Mr. Napp begins with a twinkle in his eye, “I thought you wanted to rest. If you’d prefer to sleep in…”
“NO!” Ginny rolls out of bed, a tangle of pajamas, unkempt hair, and limbs. Seeing herself in her giant mirror, she gasps in horror. “I need to get dressed! Get out!”
Stroking his chin, Mr. Napp says, “If you’re still tired, we can reschedule. I wouldn’t want you to be too sleepy to go.”
“I feel awake, very awake actually,” Ginny replies, rushing around her room in a buzz. As Mr. Napp opens his mouth to continue teasing her, she grabs his arm and pushes him out of her room. “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes!”
Mr. Napp snorts as he looks at the door, bemused. “Fifteen minutes? I knew your mother. I’ve heard that one before.”
Across town, Hailey’s mother knocks on her door. Carefully, she says, “Honey? Can I come in?”
“No, I’m sleeping.”
Patiently, her mother asks from the door, “If you’re asleep, how are you answering me?”
“I’m sleep talking. Go away.”
“It’s past noon dear.
“Lies.”
“You should be awake by now.”
“I’m not.”
“But you should be.”
“I refuse. I’m going to sleep forever.”
Mrs. Penze sighs, resting her hand on the door. “Honey. I’ll give you thirty minutes, okay? Your father is leaving for a business trip tonight and we’d like to spend some time together as a family beforehand.”
Turning to go back down the steps, he hears the door opening behind her.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Framed in the opening is her daughter, her hair an uneven mess, dark circles under her eyes, and a thunderous expression on her face.
“What? Dad’s leaving? Why?”
“I just told you, a business trip.”
Hailey’s eyes flash. For a second, her diminutive frame seems much larger. “You’re making him leave, aren’t you?”
“No,” her mother answers. “In fact, that’s why we want to talk to you today. We had a conversation last night.”
“About?”
“You.”
Faltering, Hailey asks, “Me? Why me?”
Smiling lightly, Mrs. Penze gives her daughter a complicated look. “We can have that conversation with your father. Come downstairs when you’re ready.”
“Mom?”
“Yes dear?”
“Thanks.” Hailey then steps back in her room.
Standing at the bottom of the double staircase in the center of his mansion, Mr. Napp checks his watch. Then he glances up toward his daughter and says, “You’re late.”
Blushing, Ginny practically runs down the stairs. When she reaches her father, she grabs his wrist and tilts his watch. “Only a few minutes!”
“So you agree that you are late?”
“Um,” Ginny pauses, realizing the trap. “Maybe?”
Mr. Napp laughs as he turns toward the main doors. “Alright, alright, I’ll let you off the hook this time. So where would you like to go first?”
“I don’t know. What are my options?”
Mr. Napp ushers his daughter through the door to the waiting car outside as he continues the casual conversation. “Well it depends. Your mother went through an abstract phase for about a year. She also spent a lot of time exploring the human form. And she created some monuments as well.”
Wrinkling her nose, Ginny says, “Didn’t Beacon say Mom used you as the model for her statues? I don’t want to see a giant naked bust of my dad!”
“Ahem,” Mr. Napp coughs, his face turning pink. Mumbling to himself, he adds in a low voice, “Couldn’t put those in a park.”
In the front seat, the driver struggles to contain his smile as well, studiously keeping his eyes forward.
Oblivious, Ginny hops into the car and turns back to her dad. In a serious tone, she says, “I want to see the monuments and the human statues. But none of you, okay?”
“Not into abstract art?”
“Not yet.” Ginny shakes her head as her dad sits next to her. “I don’t know anything about sculptures, but I will. Once I do, then I’ll be able to appreciate that type of stuff. But for now, I’ll stick to the basics.”
“Right,” her father replies, his tone contemplative.
“What?”
“That was,” Mr. Napp pauses, “a very mature answer. That’s all.”
“Well,” Ginny replies with a hint of vulnerability, “I am growing up.”
“Very true,” Mr. Napp says with a wistful look in his eye as he regards his daughter for a few seconds. Then he turns to the driver and says, “Prospect Park first, I think.”
As the car travels, Hailey heads into her living room to meet her parents. Hearing her, her mother calls out, “In here honey.”
“Take a seat,” her father adds.
“Okay, so are you guys finally coming clean?”
Hailey’s parents trade looks.
“Honey,” her mother begins. “We’re worried about you. You’ve lost a friend, and that’s a lot of tragedy to deal with, particularly at your age.”
Interrupting, Hailey snaps, “Great! So this is just some intervention, huh?”
“No,” her father interjects. “Please, let your mother finish.”
“Fine.”
“As I was saying, you have a lot to deal with right now. We’re worried about adding to your burdens.”
“I can handle it,” Hailey says sullenly.
Diplomatically, her mother replies, “We believe you. But we also know how hard it is to know your limits. However, it seems like not knowing is more of a problem than knowing will be.”
“Yes, exactly!” Hailey says, leaning forward in her chair. “So you’re gonna tell me everything, right?”
“We will tell you what we feel you’re ready to know.”
“Exactly,” her mother adds, “we’ve talked about this and we think it’s necessary to know how you feel. We want to talk about your future.”
“My future?”
“Our first concern,” her father says, “is that you’re still going to school at St. Cecilia’s. It can’t be easy, after what happened to Amanda and Bella. So we want to know if you’d like to switch schools. Maybe go somewhere out of the city. Somewhere new, without all the baggage.”
“No!” Hailey exclaims, jumping out of her chair. “Absolutely not! You can’t make me transfer schools!”
Raising his hands in surrender, her father replies, “Whoa, whoa! We’re just asking. You don’t want to leave, and we can support that.”
“Oh, okay.” Hailey sinks back into the chair.
“We’re asking because,” her mother hesitates, glancing uncertainly at her father. “Because, well, we were looking at buying a second house.”
“What?” Hailey blinks, confused and surprised. “Why?”
Her father answers. “Because I’m going to be away more, and I needed a place to stay. We’re also planning on moving after you go to college, and that’s not too far away so I’ve been keeping an eye on houses on my trips. We didn’t plan for things to happen this fast, but the opportunity popped up and we didn’t want to pass.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Hailey replies in a flat voice. “Why can’t you just stay in hotels? And if you really needed a place, why couldn’t you just get an apartment? Why would you need a whole house?”
“Like we said, it's for once you’re away at college. With your father’s work he wouldn’t need to stay here for your school,” her mother answers.
“Okay,” Hailey says, uncertain. “But,” she pauses, her eyes flickering back and forth between her parents. “It still feels like you aren’t telling me everything.”
“We aren’t,” her father answers in an even tone. “But that’s not because we’re trying to hide anything from you. It’s because there are lots of details we need to work out and frankly most of them are boring adult stuff.”
“What about what you said? About you living there more?”
“Not for a long while,” her dad answers soothingly. “There will be a lot of things that need to be done in the short term before we can close. Once we do, I’ll take you out there and you can help me decorate. Deal?”
Hailey studies her parents’ faces for a few long seconds. Then, cautiously, she says, “Okay. It still feels like you aren’t saying everything, but this is a start.”
Across town, Mr. Napp and his daughter stop walking.
“So who are these people?”
The pair stands in front of a set of statues of various people shaking hands. A smiling woman has one hand clapped on the back of a man in a wheelchair, her other hand shaking with a third man. The third man bends at the waist, one hand reaching out to the man in the wheelchair.
Mr. Napp frowns. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. She made this one before we met.” Then he steps closer. “This woman could be her,” he frowns, studying the statue, “I guess not. This isn’t her. Sorry.”
“How can you tell?”
“The shape of her face is wrong.”
“How about the other two?”
“No clue. If they’re anyone we used to know I don’t recognize them now.”
“Well what’s the title? Maybe that will help jog your old man memory.”
Mr. Napp shoots his daughter a kind, but irritated look as he bends over to read the plaque. Brushing the accumulated growth and dirt off it, he reads off, “Refuge among Friends: The place we can always find.”
“That’s cute.” Ginny walks over to the statue and reaches out to touch.
Before her fingers reach the statue, Mr. Napp stands and says, “Alright! That’s four parks and twenty statues. Let’s take a lunch break, shall we?”
“Sure,” Ginny replies, dropping her hand.
As she walks away, a whisper floats along the breeze. It sounds so faint that only the barest hint of the words catch her ear, and even then it is so close to silent that it almost fails to register.
“…hhheaarr mmeee…?”
Dismissing it as a trick of the wind, Ginny pauses for a moment and glances around the park before shrugging and continuing to follow her father back to the car.
The mysterious voice continues! But this time with a new target. Perhaps this signals some new change for our heroines? Find out next week in… “A Return to Normalcy!”