Lena and Beatrice:
“uuuuuuh,” Lena groaned. Her eyes blinked into the unadulterated sunlight pouring in through the open curtains. “Wow, that is so bright.” She complained.
She heard something clanking to the floor in the next room. Light footsteps pattered down the hall until Beatrice’s small frame popped through the doorway. She skidded over the wood floor beaming. “You’re awake!” She cried.
Lena squinted into the light, shielding her eyes with a hand.
“Oh, let me get that!” Bea rushed to the window and tore the curtains so roughly that the curtain rod tumbled, clattering to the ground. “Oh, I am sorry!”
Her excitement was bouncing around the room, making it difficult for Lena to figure out which way was up. She scrunched her eyes shut, realizing there was still sleep stinging at their corners. She took the opportunity to wipe it away while Bea got it together.
Lena blinked into the sudden silence to find Bea seated quietly by the bedside, propped up by her nightstand. The curtains were closed. Lena sighed and opened her eyes fully. “What happened?” She croaked, feeling at her throbbing temples.
Flashes from the night before stung her imagination. She pictured the criminal slamming her to the ground, the spilled coffee. Her scalp throbbed as she shuttered, as the metallic click resonated through her with a shutter. “You… You saved my life.” Bea offered a small smile. Her shoulders fell inward.
“Hold on.” She lept up from her station and rushed from the bedroom door. Lena listened, sitting up in bed and shoved the pillows behind her back. A few minutes later, Bea flew through the door with a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. “Here.” She beamed.
“I made it myself!” She offered proudly. Lena reached for the cup she extended.
She studied Bea’s face. Still trying to make sense of everything. “I was looking for you.”
Bea’s face sunk. “I know.” She looked at the cup between her hands.
“How did you find me?” Lena asked, taking a sip from her mug.
“I heard you.”
“Were you in the Myrtles?” Lena asked again, puzzled at the timeline.
“How did you get to me so quickly?”
Bea shrugged her shoulders, still looking at the swirling contents of the mug.
“Bea, what… what happened to him?”
Again, Bea shrugged. Her face was paler than usual. Her eyes were the size of saucers, somewhere far away.
“Bea, I want to understand, that man… he was huge. what was it you were saying sorry for?”
Bea fidgeted with the mug.
“Whatever you did, you shouldn’t feel ashamed. You saved my life. I,”
“I didn’t do anything,” Bea cut in hastily. Looking up at her friend for the first time. “I didn’t do anything to him.” She confirmed, rocking back and forth slightly on her podium.
“So what happened? He had a gun. He pointed it right in my face. I couldn’t move with him on my back, and then you showed up and.” She lifted the mug in her hands, “Now we are here and safe. How did that happen? You have to tell me. I hate being in the dark. I need to know how you did it.”
As she spoke, a mischievous smile lifted the corners of Bea’s lips. “Welcome to my world. Now you know how I feel.”
Lena laughed at the unexpected answer. “Okay, Touche.”
She sipped at her coffee, deep in thought.
“But… if someone could give me answers, I’d want them too also.” Bea conceded.
“I heard you scream, and I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was behind the bushes, right behind where you were. I saw the man above you, with that thing in his hand ready to hit you with it, and I told him to stop. He didn’t listen. So, I told the snake wrapped around his neck to finish what it started, and quickly.”
“Wait… what?” Lena tried to picture the man. “I don’t remember seeing a snake…”
Lena’s head started to pound again. She took a sip of coffee and set it down on the nightstand behind Beatrice. “I think I need some water.”
“Oh,” Beatrice lit up and leaped from her spot. “Stay there. I will get it. I hope you don’t mind. I had to look everywhere for the coffee stuff. I found it all, but I ended up getting very acquainted with your kitchen.” She smiled, but a hint of sadness remained.
“Thank you,” Lena settled back in. Her head was still swimming through the new details. Bea slipped through the door with a glass of water. She handed it over with a sigh. “I know none of what I say makes sense. I’ve been journaling since I came to the park. Jerry taught me this thing he called journal storming. He told me not to talk about things he’d put down on my list of things not to say. He said it would get me locked away or labeled crazy. If crazy places are even half as bad as that jail was, I would rather never talk to anyone again than go back. Those people were surrounded in dark shadows.”
“Bea, I am not going to say anything to anyone. Thank you for opening up. But, I was coming to find you cause I want you to stay with me while you get on your feet. I want to help, but I can’t unless you tell me everything.”
Bea lit up, then looked to the floor again. “What do you want to know?”
“I know what I saw last night, granted; it wasn’t much ’cause my face was in the pavement for most of it, but I know that no matter how hard I struggled, I was no match for the guy.”
Lena’s phone buzzed across the nightstand. It had been sending alerts incessantly for the last half an hour.
“Do you need to get that?” Bea asked quietly.
“Not right now. I want to hear your side, what you saw.” Lena stated.
“I saw a man getting ready to hurt you. He’d already hurt you, and it made me angry to see you hurt.”
Lena nodded. “Thank you, Bea, you are a good friend.”
Bea shook her head. “I told you before I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he was determined to do what he was doing. It…” She frowned. “I could hear a tiny piece of him crying inside. Like, he didn’t want to do what he was doing. But it was outweighed by his desire to feed the snake around his neck.”
“Okay, so…” Lena thought of how to word her question. She sipped at the water and then, realizing how thirsty she was, gulped the entire glass down. “Okay, so you saw a snake.”
“Yes, I talked to it too.”
“I didn’t hear you say anything about or to anyone other than the man. All I heard you say was stop and then apologizing.”
“The snake spoke to my mind. You know how…” Bea looked up at the ceiling as if imagining something, “You know how when you dream, it can seem like, when you are in the dream, it lasts forever, but when you wake up, it’s like no time in comparison has passed?”
“Yes.” Lena had written a piece on dreams just recently. The topic struck a chord.
Bea smiled. “Well, it was like that, the conversation we had passed in the blink of an eye, but it felt like forever.”
“That makes some sense… But, you can talk to animals?” Lena asked, more intrigued than ever.
“That’s just it… I don’t think it was an animal.” There was a foreboding in Bea’s tone.
“Is that why I couldn’t see it?”
“Jerry couldn’t see the things attached to people either. But he could feel them.” Bea was looking at the ground again.
“So. Okay, so what did the snake thing say?”
“Well, the snake told me it was hungry, and the man wouldn’t stop… Even if he stopped what he was doing to you and ran away, he’d find another victim. So I told the snake to take its’ hunger out on the man before he did something awful to someone else. I told it to finish what it started and go away forever.”
Lena puzzled over this new mystery. She knew what she had seen. She knew what she heard. The details that Bea was feeding her fit perfectly in the in-between accept that things that don’t exist can’t kill a 6’5 beast of a man. She watched her new friend sipping at the nearly empty coffee mug. Neither could a 5’2 imp of a person. She nodded slowly.
“I believe you, Bea. I, I guess I just don’t understand yet. But I believe what you are saying.”
Bea didn’t lookup. Lena’s phone buzzed again. “You should get that,” Bea murmured. “It might be important.”
Lena swiped her phone from the nightstand. There were five alerts for local news that might affect her. She discarded the first two. Her eyes bulged at the third option. Her jaw dropped open by the end of the first paragraph.
Man found in Central City Park, cause of death seems to be strangulation. Police are following up on leads left at the crime scene. No names or personal information will be released as it is an active crime scene.
Lena looked up at Beatrice. “Bea… You should read this.” She handed the phone over to Bea, who read it, a smile built slowly over her face as her eyes followed along.
“See, I told you I didn’t do it.”
As she finished the sentence, a heavy knock sounded and echoed around the room. Both of the girls nearly flew from their skin as they straightened to attention.
“That’s strange. I never have visitors.” Lena flung back the covers.
The authoritative knock resounded again. “Open up. Metro City Police.”
Bea’s eyes widened fearfully. “Lena?” She whispered.
Lena put a hand on her shoulder. “Go into the bathroom and hide in the tub. Lock the door.” She whispered back. “Don’t worry, Bea. You are safe.”
Her heartbeat in her throat. Lena tried to play it cool, but her voice was restricted as she spoke to reassure her new friend.
You didn’t do anything wrong. She reminded herself. YOU were the victim.
She made her way to the door and waited for Bea to close the bathroom door before unlocking and unbolting the front door. Five men in uniform were waiting behind a man in an important-looking suit with a badge posted at his beltline.
“Hello? How can I help you.”
To be continued…