TWO SHADOWS

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

1. The Meeting....................................12. The Drive and the Mall.........................103. Schedules and Classes..........................214. School and Lunch...............................325. The Ride Home..................................396. The Dance......................................457. Consequences...................................518. The Plan.......................................579. Recovery and Mysteries.........................6610. Mirrors and Moons.............................7811. Home Again....................................9212. Sweet 16......................................10213. The Book......................................11714. The Vision....................................13215. Truths, Friends, and Food.....................14516. Friends or Foe................................155

Chapter One

I sat looking out over the small dimly lit town. Wow, this sure is beautiful I thought to myself.

In the distance, as the sun was setting, I could see the far reaching hills. I barely heard the sound of the car coming up the gravel drive. I figured it must be Dad coming up to get me. He always came up the butte to bring me home when I stayed out too late. I struggled to move out of the cross legged position I had been sitting in and stand up. My legs were shaking under the weight of my small frame. I walked to the edge of the cliff and leaned over the railing. I wanted to take in all that I could before we went back to town. As my mind busied with all sorts of thoughts, I saw a flash of headlights and heard the car engine turn off. I could barely see Dad stepping out of the car.

My father was considered a hottie and a good catch by many women over the age of 20. He was strong, but not too muscular, and though he was in good shape, he concealed it under his baggy clothes. He was clean cut, but still had a rugged appeal. His prior military experience gave him a strong, determined stance. My friends would get all weird around him, but to me he was just Dad.

"Sam, are you ready to go home yet?"

Dad wouldn't allow me to walk home after dark. He would rather I sat up here alone than walk the long path down to the house. I really feared nothing, but he was so protective. With my mother gone, I felt like I was all he had left. Meredith, my stepmother, wasn't much of a companion, as she was gone all the time. Anyway, what was there to fear here in my small town? Nothing ever happened?no kidnapping, no murders, or anything of the sort. I felt insulated. Everyone knew everyone, and if you did something bad, news of your misdeed would travel to your parents before you reached home.

"Yes, I'm ready. Let's go," I replied with a sigh.

I moaned as I snapped out of my reminiscence. My legs still tingling, I struggled to walk to the car. The pins and needles sticking in my foot were enough to make me hop a bit in an attempt to make the pain stop. As I hopped along, I stumbled, catching my balance by grabbing a small tree near the edge of the cliff. A few more steps and I might have fallen off the edge. There was a small gap between the tree and what was left of the railing; part of it had fallen off some time ago. I wondered whether it would ever get fixed.

Then I passed a large pine tree that seemed to grow a foot wider every year, and suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Out of nowhere, I saw a dark shadow fly by. I nearly jumped out of my skin; I jumped just high enough for my hair to get caught on a tree branch.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!"

I felt like I was dangling from the branch by my hair. It was a battle between me and the branch; who would win? How did I always manage to get myself into these positions? I stood on my tip toes, trying not to put added pressure on my hair, and I reached up to untangle the mess.

"Dad, are you going to help or not?" What was he waiting for? Couldn't he see that I was in pain? Dad appeared to be watching something, but I was not sure what it was. For a moment, my mind drifted back to the shadow. Maybe he saw the same thing I'd just seen. What was that thing? I've seen some strange things in the past, but this shadow gave me an odd feeling. Whatever the thing was, it must've been large, because its shadow had blocked out the stars.

"Sam, are you okay?" Dad finally snapped out of his daze and noticed that I needed help. He walked up to me cautiously, as if he sensed something was about to happen. He reached up and started to untangle my blonde knots from the wayward branch. It seemed like it was taking forever to free my hair. Once he finished, Dad shook his head at me as if to stay that I was a dork.

I made my way over to the car. I decided to walk slowly, being careful to avoid other potentially adversarial trees. I reached for the car door and looked around once more to make sure nothing was there. It seemed the night was growing darker, if that was even possible. There were suddenly no stars visible in the sky; it was if I was in a void. Sometimes these strange occurrences made me wonder if I should be afraid to come to the butte alone. This was not the first time I had seen strange things, and while it never seemed to bother me before, this was becoming a frequent occurrence. Rumors had gone around about people seeing large wolves around the borders of our small town. Maybe that was what was prowling around here tonight.

The drive home was silent as always, except for the low-playing classic 80s music on the radio. The quiet time Dad and I shared allowed us to calm down and clear our minds. Dad was not big on talking, anyway. He usually zoned out after about the third word I said. He called my endless talking my "girlie mumbo jumbo" and said that it was a great way to go to sleep. Of course, I knew he would miss it if I didn't talk to him at all.

We pulled into the driveway, and I could see the beautiful sparkling stars in the sky again. It seemed strange that they were visible now, but while on the butte, the sky had grown so dark that they disappeared. I made my way out of the car and walked over to open the garage for Dad. I used every ounce of strength to heave up the heavy door. Dad believed it was good exercise and we did not need an automatic door opener, but I begged to differ. I told him all the time that we needed some modern conveniences, but he didn't care.

The funny thing was that I didn't even know why Dad worried about parking in the garage. His beat up, old 1986 station wagon with over 100,000 miles on it was not going to be damaged by the weather. He carefully drove into the tightly packed garage, and while I stood outside, I wondered why I had to be subjected to this slave labor. My dad insisted on having a clean garage, but it was always full to the brim because my stepmother never threw anything away. I would laugh at the fact that Dad had tennis balls hanging from the ceiling, so that when he was parked at just the right angle, the balls would rest on the windshield on the driver's side. I think he treated it like a game to see how quickly he could get into the garage and be parked perfectly. Once in the garage, you would have to wedge yourself out of the car, because every box had its place, and they were all spaced evenly throughout the space. He must have measured every inch of the garage to make it this...