Brenda Franklin

Excerpt

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     Vacation.
     That is what Elizabeth Parks needed. A vacation to help her relax and try and put herself back together after her father, Samuel Parks’, passing a few weeks ago.
     She was a strong-willed woman with the beauty of a mother she had never known. She had waves of chestnut hair which lightly fell layered against her back, a strong jaw line, a pair of muscular legs she received from the track, and hazel eyes behind a pair of red glasses.
     Many people would crack under the pressure of having to help their father maintain his house while putting themselves through college, and opening a business—but not Elizabeth. Up until this point in her life she had been through times of hardships and struggles managing to keep it together thanks to her father. Now, the world was a sudden roller-coaster ride of emotions and she wanted off.
     In her absence, her and her father’s store, E-Z treats, was being managed by her dear friend, and almost sister, Bethany Jean. The spunky woman followed Elizabeth a year later out of college with her own Associates Degree in Business Administration and tossed around the idea of one day going back for a culinary degree. Beth was instantly welcomed to the Parks’ family business.
     The whole experience had been perfect. From the moment Elizabeth stepped out of college things seemed to go their way. 
     First, her father had received a call from an old friend who owned a small shopping square right on MacArthur Drive in Alexandria, Louisiana, not too far from her father’s home, with the news that he had a spot open for rent. It was their lucky break.
     Samuel borrowed money to help Elizabeth open the store of her dreams with the help of her aunts and a few cousins. They worked recipes she had found and adapted into her own from her mother’s old notebook, written while her mother was in culinary school. She favored the sweet food cooking had to offer and loved to bake above all else.
     Unfortunately Elizabeth never had the pleasure of meeting her mother, Annette, due to birthing complications. Elizabeth felt opening E-Z Treats was a way of accomplishing all of their dreams—but two years after accomplishing them her fairy tale story became a nightmare and her father passed away.
Her one greatest treasure in life was suddenly gone.
     She intended to spend the next week at her father’s old cabin at The Piney Woods Lake getting herself refocused and emotionally put back together. She needed to.
     She used to spend summer months in the cabin with her father and her grandmother, Edith Parks. Right after Elizabeth graduated from high school, her grandmother passed away with cancer, leaving the cabin to Elizabeth and her father. Now she was the sole owner of the old cabin. 
     But as happy as she was to be heading to the cabin she could feel the anxiety building in her chest. The memories of her father rested heavy on her shoulders with every passing minute and intake of breath.
Even though she had lost her father, she tried to keep it together for her employees, her family, and for herself. She had to keep getting up every morning knowing that her father wouldn’t be waiting for her at the store, or that he wouldn’t greet her with his black-coffee breath.
     She smiled at the memory teasing him about it all the time. She would give anything for him to give her one last breath of that coffee-filled air.
     She pulled herself together noticing the slowing traffic ahead. Keeping a tight grip on her sanity, she moved a small strand of her hair from her glasses propped low on her face. She had a bit of a librarian or bookkeeper look about her, but neither job sounded appealing. She preferred to be hiding away in a kitchen, cooking several kinds of desserts, or sleeping away in her soft queen-sized bed which she recently splurged on herself.
     Again she smiled at the memory.
     Her father had been really sweet about her splurge on the bed, helping her get it set up and put away in her new apartment. She released a light laugh remembering how hard it had been to get the bed into her room since she was on the second floor.
     Her face reddened and tears swelled behind her eyes but froze as she felt a duel trimmer ease into her chest. It was an abnormal sensation which pulsed through her body growing stronger as traffic caught up to her. Had she really been going that slowly? This pulse was more than just the car vibrating against her hands. It had life behind it of a different caliber to what she normally endured.
     The pulse drummed strongly through her palms, tingling from her fingertips to her chest. Taking a deep breath, she pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose and looked around for the cause of the sensation building within her, prickling her lungs with every breath.
     Since childhood she occasionally felt what she could only describe as a pulse. It radiated deep within her body, affecting her blood. Like tapping a wind chime, the resonance vibrated through her hand, up the arm, until the sensation worked its way into her chest cavity with a steady pulse.
     Out of concern for Elizabeth, her father had her examined as a small child. After a few tests, they concluded she was healthy with no physical signs of problems. Since then she has remained quiet about her ability. It had grown with her and became a second sensory she could use to her advantage.
     With such an unusual gift, games like hide-and-go-seek was easy to play, while other things like surprise birthday parties or a friend playing a joke was ruined early on by her innate ability to feel the people before she entered a room.
     Every so often she would get a little surprise with her gift. She would run across a different pulse, which in the end would always disappear before she could locate its source. The pulse ran on a different frequency than all the other normal people around her. She craved so badly to chase after each pulse with this abnormality and here was her chance. She filtered quickly through the static of all the other pulses around her like tinkering with a radio station. It was hard to focus on an exact location for the pulse while staying in her own lane with the fast moving traffic, but Elizabeth was determined.
     There! She instantly caught sight of a car sliding in and out of traffic behind her. One…no! Two!
She gasped as the yellow convertible weaved in and out of traffic dangerously fast, barely missing each car. There was no sign of it slowing as it continued to catch up. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as the pulses increased.
     She was so close to seeing the source of the odd pulse causing her to frantically hug the window to get a better look.
     The convertible slid into the lane next to her. The normal pulses around her were all but gone with the arrival of the people in this car—their pulses outweighed everyone else’s.
     And just as quickly as the car slid in beside her it moved forward and away.
     I need to get a better look at them!
     Elizabeth tried to speed up, but traffic was just too tight of a fit and she didn’t want to risk getting into an accident just for a look at them, no matter how much her body ached for a peek.
     I know I’m not crazy. I can feel them. They’re different! She cried out in her mind, so close to getting a good look at them and yet so far.
     Virgil could hear the sound of Elizabeth’s voice loud and clear, as though she sat beside him. But it was Helena who sat in the passenger seat, unaware by the sudden intrusion into Virgil’s thoughts.
     He scanned the area quickly and found the blue BMW hugging the pickup truck in front of it. In a last second decision Virgil changed the course of the convertible, pulling back in beside the BMW.
     What? Elizabeth looked into the car at Virgil, who looked back at her with curious eyes. She admired the two people. His dark-brown hair was a nice contrast to the woman sitting beside him, whose golden hair was neatly braided and held firm against the sharp incline of her shoulder.
     They both had an eerie beauty with pale skin, slender builds, and an intelligent look about them. They could pass for royalty in Elizabeth’s mind, although the man seemed wilder. His eyes were inviting and full of curiosity, but behind that something dark stirred.
     They truly were not what she had expected to find emitting the vibrant pulse within her.
     It’s them. No question. She felt shear certainty, astonishment, and excitement.
     But why?
     She leaned closer into the window. She wished his eyes would unlock the answers she so dearly wanted to ask.
     Virgil stared at her, confused himself by what he was hearing. He pushed into her mind, picking up on her shock and excitement. He pushed aside her thoughts of flattery and fought through the bombardment of questions, memories still fresh in her mind, and raw emotions he could see almost boiling over within her. And if things couldn’t get even more confusing, to his astonishment, she was aware of him within the confines of her mind even if she wasn’t yet sure of it herself
Elizabeth could feel a pressure in her head behind her eyes like a building headache; yet she was too distracted by Virgil to really know what he was up to. She was frozen in the moment, staring in awe of him as he collected small details of who she was. She was hoping that by some miracle he could answer some of her questions and perhaps solve a riddle that she had been holding since a child, but he was just a good looking young man.
     The thought saddened her a little bit. 
Elizabeth didn’t have the time to stare at him when vehicles were still moving around her. She forced her eyes to check the road and realigned her driving.
     Helena finally caught wind of Virgil’s distraction and lightly touched his shoulder.
Virgil quickly mumbled what he was feeling and hearing from Elizabeth to Helena. She too, turned her attention to the small BMW. Elizabeth brought her eyes back out the window just in time to see Helena smile kindly with a wave.
     Who are you? Elizabeth whispered lastly in Virgil’s mind before he pulled the car away with her name clinging in his thoughts. In seconds they were long gone and out of sight; their pulses nothing more than a faint tingle.
 

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