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  Dark Veil

  Book One in the Belonging Trilogy

  S.L. Naeole

  Dark Veil

  Book One in the Belonging Trilogy

  © 2011 by S.L. Naeole

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Crystal Quill Publishing through Smashwords

  All of the situations and characters in this novel are fictional. Any similarities to actual people or situations are completely coincidental and wholly unintentional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a

  reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  www.slnaeole.com

  Fonts by www.kevinandamanda.com

  Editing by Pauline Nolet

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fallon

  It’s been a long time since I smelled the salty aroma of a pier. As the ferry pulled up to its slip, I inhaled deeply the combination of drenched wood, fog, seaweed, wet rope, and something else that I couldn’t figure out. It didn’t matter, of course; I’d never seen this pier before and didn’t know what existed beyond it.

  “Welcome to Black Cat Rock,” my mother said as she came to lean beside me on the railing. “What do you think so far?”

  I frowned. “I can’t really see anything. Is it always this foggy?”

  She shook her head. “The captain said that there was a storm last night and this fog is what’s left. Once we get away from the pier, you should be able to see everything. Anyway, I came to get you. Dad’s already in the truck, and he wants to leave as soon as the ramp drops.”

  I looked at the gray haze that covered everything and frowned again. How could anyone see well enough to drive in this? All I could make out were shadows that could have been anything. Even now, my imagination wanted to believe that the quickly moving dark spot in the gray mist wasn’t a car, but an animal stalking its prey.

  “Fallon, hurry up! Dad’s waiting.”

  With a sigh, I left my perch from the top deck of the ferry and followed my mom down the metal stairs to the bay where all of the cars going to the island sat parked. Our truck, an old beater with a large moving trailer hitched to it, was rumbling with impatience.

  “It’s about time you got down here, kitten,” my dad laughed, his dark brown eyes crinkling with amusement. “They’re going to drop the ramp soon; get in so we can be first in line.”

  My nostrils flared and my jaw popped to the side. “We’re the only ones here,” I huffed.

  “Get in the truck, child,” Mom said as she opened the passenger door and pushed the seat forward.

  I climbed into the back, grumbling at the narrow bench that I’d outgrown years ago. “When can we get a new car again? I’m tired of feeling like a canned tomato back here.”

  “Hush, Fallon. You can ride your bike anywhere you want after we get to the house; it’s only going to be a little longer.”

  I saw Mom’s face in the rearview mirror, her dark brown skin glowing with happiness at the mention of the house. It was her childhood home, where she grew up and where she and Dad got married. It had passed on to her when my grandparents died, but this was the first time I would ever see it.

  After spending the past thirty years in the Air Force as mechanics, both Mom and Dad had finally retired and chosen to return to the small house at Black Cat Rock. The last time they’d been home was just before they adopted me fifteen years ago.

  “Has it changed much?” I asked as the truck rattled forward, the ramp lowering as the ferry stilled. Boys grabbed ropes and were tying them to posts as we moved past them, their faces obscured by the haze.

  “Besides the fog?” Mom laughed. “I’ll let you know when we get further in.”

  In less than a minute, we were bouncing down the wooden pier toward a gravel road. Dad honked his horn at a couple riding one of those bicycles with two seats and called out to them. They waved as we passed. “That was Kay Byron and David Fong. Remember them?” he said to Mom.

  “Yes. And they still have that ugly tandem bicycle,” Mom laughed.

  When the road changed from gravel to asphalt, Dad made a left turn. The sky was still gray; the only break in the bleakness was in the little rainbow stickers that I’d stuck to the rear window of the truck when I was six and we were driving across the country. The once bright colors were now faded, but even dulled, they brightened up everything.

  “Are they people you used to go to school with?” I asked.

  Mom turned around in her seat and nodded. “Kay and David are the only people who’ve dated longer than Dad and me.”

  Dad snorted. “Yeah, by about two hours.”

  “That’s because you overslept and missed the first ferry to school,” Mom laughed.

  They looked so happy, so carefree to be here. I could only hope that I’d feel the same way. After spending my entire life moving from one place to the next, I wasn’t sure how I’d handle staying still. And in a place that was so small that it didn’t show up on most maps no less.

  Black Cat Rock was a tiny island off the coast of Maine. According to its website, it was one of the top ten vacation spots on the east coast and was most famously known for being the honeymoon destination for a recently married royal couple. “Yeah, but where will I go to school?” I remember asking myself as I closed my laptop.

  “Oh, this is the main road, Fallon. Take a look,” Mom said with a grin, forcing me to look out the side window.

  The two-way street was lined with two and three-story buildings that looked as though we’d driven back in time. They were Victorian in style, and each one had large bay windows with the names of the businesses held within painted in big, bold letters on the glass in gold or black paint. The wide cobblestone sidewalks in front of them met up with narrow, recessed doorways, and I half expected to see Jane Austen’s Anne Elliot pop out of one of the many souvenir shops with a set of coasters and a Black Cat Rock t-shirt.

  “Modern,” I commented.

  “Smartass,” she laughed. “Ooh, that’s where Dad and I went for our first date: Kimble’s Stacks. They serve the best pancakes all day, every day. Except Sunday; Sunday they serve waffles.”

  She pointed to a little restaurant with white tables covered in blue floral tablecloths outside. It was busy, with a short line forming to the left of the door.

  “So is that where you had your first kiss?” I asked.

  Dad coughed. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “Mom?”

  She nodded and then smirked. “We had cranberry pancakes, shared an ice cream float, and then he kissed me right here-” she pointed to the corner of her mouth “-in front of all of his friends. It was very scandalous.”

  “Ugh. That’s it? Josh and I were making out in front of his friends from day one.”

  “Can we not talk about your mouth making out with anyone?” Dad groaned. “I’m still a father, for crying out loud.”

  “Fine,” I sighed, turning my attention to the people and buildings that we passed. It was easy to spot the tourists, their arms filled with shopping bags, their skin glowing from too much of the sun that we’d obviously missed.

  The smell of food wafted through the open window, and my stomach growled. “Can we stop to get something to eat? I’m starving!”

  “Oh yes, come on, Ray. Let’s get some breakfast at Lyssa’s mom’s place. A plate of fried sardines and some sourdough toast sounds fantastic after that ferry ride.” Mom looked at Dad expectantly.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. We pulled up in front of a small shop that had been painted a dusty purple, with bright red scrollwork and cream trim framing the large pan
ed window in front. A group of teens rushed out of a swinging door as Mom climbed out of the truck. I watched them, the way they moved down the sidewalk, their heads pulling back with carefree laughter. They were dressed comfortably, with old shirts and cut-off shorts, their feet exposed in flip-flops that looked worn and thin.

  “Maybe you can catch up to those kids later and introduce yourself,” Mom said as she pulled back the bench seat to let me out.

  “Maybe,” I replied before taking a closer look at where we were and seeing no name painted in the window. “Where are we?”

  “This is the Wisteria. My old friend Lyssa’s mom used to run this place, although I believe that Lyssa’s probably running it now,” Mom said excitedly. “They don’t do much business in the morning, but come lunchtime, this place will be packed with people. No one gets off the ferry without hearing about this place.”

  We walked in through the doorway, and I was immediately struck by how simply the place was decorated. The tables were plain, no tablecloths or decorations covering them. The menu was written in chalk on a large blackboard hanging above the counter, a cake plate keeping the flies away from a pile of muffins sitting on the counter’s tiled surface.

  The walls were covered in framed newspaper articles and photographs of the island, with peeps of the same lilac paint that covered the outside showing through. Light fixtures that jutted out from the walls gave the space a strange, yellowish glow, while the lone window let in just enough light to see that the floor was wooden and heavily scuffed.

  “It hasn’t changed,” Dad commented as he pulled up a rickety wooden chair. “You’d think after all these years they’d at least get a fan. It’s only seven and it’s already stifling in here.”

  We sat down around the table nearest the door, and Mom called out to someone in the back. A tall, elderly woman appeared, her hair piled atop her head in a messy knot, her face pulled down with age. “Who the hell is yelling in my restaurant?”

  “It’s us, Mrs. Simon. Ray and Vangie,” my mom said with a laugh as she stood and gave the old woman a hug.

  “Raymond Timmons and Evangeline Dowd? What brings you two back to Black Cat Rock?” she asked, returning the hug. She released my mom and turned to Dad, who stood to give her a hug as well. I was struck at how tall she was, even compared to my parents who each stood over six feet.

  “We’ve retired and are finally moving in to the old house,” Dad answered, his grin wide as the old woman pinched his cheek and then slapped it playfully.

  “Well, it’s about time you came home. Everyone lost touch with you two right before the war started; must have been all that moving you guys did. I hope your wanderlust has finally left you.” She stopped talking and looked at me, her expression strange. “Who’s this? Did you bring her here for breakfast?”

  Dad’s voice lost a bit of its playfulness when he replied, “This is our daughter, Fallon.”

  Right away, I knew what she was thinking. There’s no way I was Raymond and Evangeline Timmons’ daughter. Mom’s and Dad’s skins were like the color of dark chocolate, Mom would say, while mine resembled a cup of tea at best. We all had thick, black hair, but while mine was straight with pink streaks framing my face, theirs pulled up in tight springs against their scalps, darker than black, darker than sleep. Dad kept his cut short, but Mom had allowed hers to grow, ironing it straight every other morning and then pinning it up, unable to let go of decades of military regulated hairstyles.

  But what people noticed most, beyond the differences in skin color and hair, and even height, was the color of our eyes. Mine were brown; simple, boring brown; the kind of brown that most people in the world had. But Mom’s and Dad’s eyes were this odd, golden shade that looked like they’d stared at the sun too long and the color stuck. It was bright and vibrant, and no one who saw them could ignore the difference.

  But different on the outside meant squat when on the inside, all I ever felt from Mom and Dad was how much they loved me. They were my parents, and it didn’t matter how many strange looks we got because we were a family. A very hungry family.

  “You look like your mother,” Mrs. Simon said with a smile, her pale green eyes twinkling. “Now, what’ll you three be having before we start playing catch-up?”

  “Ray and I’ll have the usual with two cups of coffee,” Mom ordered. “What do you want, Fallon?”

  I looked at the numbered meals on the chalkboard and grimaced. “There’s no bacon.”

  “We don’t serve bacon here.”

  “You don’t serve bacon? What kind of place serves breakfast without bacon?” I huffed. “Do you have anything on the menu that doesn’t include fish in it?”

  Mrs. Simon looked at me in shock. “You don’t eat fish?”

  A cold shiver ran through me at the thought of consuming those scaly, slimy things. “No. Ugh…”

  “You two raised a daughter who doesn’t eat fish?”

  Mom and Dad both shared a look of embarrassment, and I frowned in confusion. “What? What’s so bad about not eating fish?”

  Dad sighed. “Fall, this is a fishing town. Tourism only lasts a few months out of the year here, which means that the people survive off of what they catch in the ocean. No one here doesn’t like fish.”

  “Fine. I’ll have your fish sausage and some scrambled eggs,” I relented.

  “That’s a good girl,” Mrs. Simon said before leaving to head back to the kitchen. She returned after only a few minutes and gave us the once over again. “This is nice, seeing you two back here after all these years. You haven’t aged well, though. Especially you, Raymond. You look like you could use some time on Joe’s boat, get some sea air into you, and some of that…bacon out of you.”

  This name made Mom’s face light up. “How is he? Last time we saw him, he and Lyssa had two little ones. Is he finally captaining his own boat?”

  Mrs. Simon’s smile fell slightly as she nodded. “He took control of Benny’s old boat about a year after you two left that last time.”

  “And Lyssa? I’m pretty sure being mother to two teenagers must be as karmatic for her as it is for me considering the hell we put you and my mom through. How is she? Does she only have the two? Or did she and Joe finally agree on three like she wanted?”

  “Lyssa’s dead,” Mrs. Simon said stiffly before she turned around and headed back toward the kitchen.

  I looked at Mom, her reaction a dramatic one. Her mouth hung open for a short period of time, unable to utter a single word as she stared at the spot where Mrs. Simon had stood. Then she turned away to stare at the wall, her eyes blinking rapidly as tears formed quickly, fat and heavy and unstoppable. I had never seen her cry before; I didn’t know what to do.

  Our food arrived in silence, and Dad and I ate just as quietly while Mom ignored the food on her plate completely. I didn’t ask who Lyssa was, or why her being dead was such a big deal. My parents hadn’t talked about the people from Black Cat Rock often, so this Lyssa person was as much of a stranger to me as Mrs. Simon.

  When Dad asked for the bill, the old woman finally spoke. “You never paid for food here before; why start now?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Dad answered. “Come on, Mrs. Simon. Let me pay this bill and all the past bills right now.”

  The old woman looked at Dad with disapproval. “You want to pay me back now? After all these years? Is it because I told you Lyssa’s dead, because if so, I don’t want your pity. She’s been dead a long time-”

  “No! No, that’s not it at all. A lot of time has passed, and we’re all different people now. Vangie and I…we came back to make amends and start over. Let us start here; let me pay the bill.”

  The woman snorted, and then walked away. She headed toward the counter and crouched down behind it, disappearing from view for only a moment before reappearing with a stack of notebooks in her hands. “According to these books, you two owe me over three thousand dollars and forty-two cents, not including the sixteen for your brea
kfast.”

  Dad coughed. “Three…three thousand? Are you still on the sauce, old woman? There’s no way Vangie and I ate three thousand dollars worth of sardines!”

  “You didn’t. But with compounded interest and late fees, that’s how much you owe.”

  “Late fees?!”

  Mom stood up, unnoticed by anyone but me, and walked out of the restaurant. I followed her, glad to leave the arguing behind. “Mom?”

  She turned around when she heard me call out to her, surprised that I hadn’t chosen to stay. “Fallon. Oh honey, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her puffy face with the back of her hand. “You’re probably thinking I’ve lost my mind, huh?”

  “No. I just…you…”

  “You’ve never seen me act this way. I know. Lyssa was my best friend growing up. We used to dream about getting married together, having children together, and raising our families together. When your dad and I enlisted, she wanted to join up, too, but she wasn’t old enough yet and her mom wasn’t going to sign the papers letting her go.

  “When we came back that last time, Lyssa was pregnant and depressed. She didn’t want to stay on this island anymore and asked us to take her and her kids with us to Germany after your adoption was finalized. I wanted to, I did! But we couldn’t. We were already under so much scrutiny by the family court that we just…we couldn’t take on anything more. We didn’t want to risk losing you.

  “When we told her, she said to us…well, she said to me, anyway, that it was okay. She said she learned a long time ago that she couldn’t depend on us and that she’d find her own way off the rock. That was the last time I heard from her.”

  Mom began sobbing at those last words, and I did the only thing you’re supposed to do when that happens: I hugged her. Even though she stood half a foot taller than me, she leaned her head down on my shoulder, her body shaking with sadness and guilt.