The Girl with the Violet Eyes



  The Girl with the Violet Eyes

  The Lost Girl Series: Book 1

  A novel by

  Jen Weddle

  “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”

  -Dr. Seuss

  Dedicated to my mom, dad and Paul- for always believing in me and pushing me to do what I love

  Lost Girl

  Chapter 1

  I have to keep moving on. Another cold and rainy day and I'm staring out the greyhound bus window. I expect to find something, but I feel so lost and it is becoming impossible to find whatever it is that I am looking for. I'm traveling to another lonesome city, and I feel more lost in this world than I have ever felt before.

  My mother once told me that unless someone cares a whole damn lot about you, nothing is going to get better about your life because you can only depend on yourself. I think maybe she was right. Who gives really cares anymore?

  I read the news the other day, the article described a man who tried to help a woman being robbed and he was stabbed. A hundred people walked by and not one of them offered him help. What if one person had helped him, would he still be alive? Was his fate to die in a pool of his own blood with none of his loved ones around to say goodbye? Sometimes I truly believe that my life is fine as the hermit that I am, even if I feel lonely all the time.

  The creepy, lonesome looking man stares at me from across the bus aisle. I can see it in his eyes, he's just as lost and alone as I am, and maybe he's just as lost as the rest of the world. I grip onto my purse tighter, the only comfort I can find. What kind of reaction is this? I want to live in a world that doesn't exist anymore and maybe it never existed. The loud bus driver shouts out some ghost town of a name.

  The elementary school girl in front of me is paying more attention to her cell phone then the world around her. The tiny baby crying as the single mother tries to comfort it. The handsome man staring at me and then down at his hands; maybe he's thinking of some way to escape this world. Just maybe escape for a second to find a little piece of mind, and that's all anyone is looking for anymore. I look down at my body; it doesn't even feel like a piece of me. Where are my legs, my arms, where is my mind? I can hear the old woman trying to silently sob behind me, and I look back at her giving her a hopeful smile. In return I receive a look that could kill. That's what I get for trying to do anything, trying to help anyone. If God lost faith in humanity then I'm not surprised. What's the point in trying to save something so incredibly lost?

  I don't want anyone getting sentimental because it's really not worth it anyways. I mean we all end up in the same place eventually. I guess the reason that I'm acting so melodramatic today is that I'm on my way home to my father's funeral, and he was the last living relative so today is the day that I became an orphan. My life was pretty normal until my 13th birthday, and then things just turned to chaos from there. I let the tears escape my eyes as I recall that fateful day almost 7 years ago. It was the day my father left me and my mother.

  I can recall the day perfectly to every last detail. I was excited because I was finally turning 13, I was becoming a teenager. I was now a grown-up in my youthful eyes, and I had asked for the hot pink Schwinn bike in the store window of our local bike shop. When I rushed downstairs with my little pigtails bouncing against my shoulders I came to a dead stop to find my father’s belongings packed at the door and he was standing there with a hurt expression in his eyes. I had on my party dress that mother had purchased the week before; it was white with little pink polka dots and a big pink bow in the front. Of course, I thought it was hideous but I wanted to make her happy so I wore it. My mother was leaning calmly against the door frame staring at my father, and my father was staring at me. The world started spinning in my 13 year old mind because I knew what was coming, it had been happening a lot to my friend’s parents, and now it was happening to mine. Divorce. That single word that could break up happy, loving families. We were never a happy, loving family but sometimes I liked to pretend we were. I wasn't shocked that my father had his suitcases packed at the door because I knew my mother and him didn't really love each other. At least they didn't anymore, but I liked to think they did at one time. I still believed love was like in the fairytale stories my father read to me at night when I was young to try to get me to fall asleep. It wasn't his leaving that bothered me, but the fact that he was leaving on my birthday. My hands were trembling and the world felt like it was about to collapse. I tried to hold everything inside but my body was convulsing and I soon found myself on the ground shaking and sobbing. My father was the first to speak and it haunts me still today because that was the last thing I had ever heard him say or that I ever got to say to him. Maybe if I saw him again I could tell him the truth that I've missed him and that I love him, but I guess I will never get that chance.

  “Alison, one day you will grow up and you will see that this was for your benefit.” he begins but I interrupted with my obnoxious sobs.

  I continued convulsing and sobbing on the ground and feeling like I was an infant. Why couldn't he have picked a different day and why did he have to pick my birthday. What kind of father would do that?

  “I know it's your birthday honey, but your mother and I we can't agree on anything anymore. She wants me to leave.” he looked at me with sad regret, and I stopped shaking and felt a sudden anger rising through my body. I slowly rose up from my previous defeated position, and balled my fists up. Thirteen years of my regressed feelings were boiling to the top and I couldn't control any of them at that moment. I looked at my father with the sweetest look I could muster up and then all hell broke lose.

  “Oh daddy, I realize one day I will grow up and maybe one day we can have a normal relationship. It's my birthday and no “normal” father would ever leave his child on her thirteenth birthday, but I guess you've never been normal have you? While my friend’s daddies came to their ballet recitals, softball games and their plays where were you? Oh, that's right you were at work.” I looked up at him to see if I'd hurt his feelings, and then I continued, “Daddy, you know what I want for my birthday, what I really want is for you to leave. You don't help us anyways and you're never around anymore so it's not like you'll be missed here.” I finished with my fists clenched tightly, my fingernails dug into my skin drawing blood.

  My face was hot and flushed and I was about to explode, but my father stood his ground and he stared hopelessly in my direction. The one thing I will never forget is the single tear drop falling down his left cheek, and the pained expression as he grabbed his suitcases and tried to walk outside with his remaining dignity to the waiting taxicab. I ran to the kitchen window when I heard the front door slam and watched him walk out with his head hanging low and his shoulders slumped; I watched as he placed his belongings in the trunk of the taxi and I saw him turn around and look back at our house longingly with red swollen eyes. It broke my heart to see my father this way and even if he was never around, I still loved him and I felt horrible about the things I said when he left. I didn't even get to tell my dad goodbye before he left and then I felt a hot breath on the back of my neck that sent shivers down my spine.

  “Alison Callahan, I think you made a mistake.” She whispered sweetly as she placed the sharp, shiny object to my throat. I could see the light reflecting her tangled red hair off of the knife and I held my breath for what was about to come.

  “Your father was the only one able to stop me from doing this.” She began. “Oh, he will be happy to see what his leaving has caused. His little princess is about to lose her head.” She snickered as she brought the knife's edge hard down on my throat. I could feel the hot blood coming
through my fingertips, and trickling downwards. As quickly as the blood had came out of the wound it had stopped. The blood had disappeared and there was no wound where there had just been one. I cried out and stepped back, and in my state of shock I screamed for what seemed like an eternity. Our neighbor, a sweet old lady by the name of Ms. McHenderson came to my rescue. The site she walked in on probably appeared to be terrifying. My mother was looking at me with awe-struck eyes holding a butcher knife and waving it in the air above me and I was holding my neck, screaming and crying so hard I couldn't breathe. Ms. McHenderson rushed to my side and grabbed me in her arms and we were out the door in mere seconds leaving my mother behind. When I looked over Ms. McHenderson's shoulder the sight I saw was terrible; The knife had crashed loudly to the ground, my mother sat on the ground shaking with her knees to her chest, her mouth open and her eyes growing larger by the second.

  I close my eyes and grip the side of my seat as the bus driver screeches to a stop in front of “Jacksonville, IL.” I open my eyes and stare straight ahead at the outdated bus seat's diamond pattern. I draw the pattern with my fingertips; I try not to notice any of the strangers getting on the bus because I really don't do well with people or in any kind of social environment for that matter. I close my eyes again and rest my head against the back of my seat. I sense someone stop abruptly in front of me so I quickly open my eyes to see a very tall, handsome man standing above me trying to shove his suitcase in an overhead compartment with little to no luck.

  “This seat taken Ma'am”, He asks coolly in a southern drawl.

  I look up to see a set of big, luminous gray eyes staring down at me, and he gives me a lopsided grin. His dark hair just touches his shoulders and it has a wavy texture. He is wearing tight black pants and a dark gray t-shirt fitting snuggly to the contour of his muscles. He could be a famous rock star with his cool and calm demeanor. I lick my lips, and try to guess his age. He seems to be in his mid twenties and I smile up at him and scoot over to the empty seat on the other side of me. Even a hermit like me is a sucker for a cute man and a southern accent. The bus starts to move again jolting me forward and I grimace feeling aggravated. Me and the stranger ride in silence for awhile but I can feel him ogling me from his seat, and I can't help but catch a few glimpses from the corner of my eye at his intriguing eyes and perfect body. I try to stare out the window but the rolling corn and bean fields are becoming somewhat endless. The stranger looks at me skeptically and it makes me look over at him so that we lock eyes for just a few seconds.

  “Are you lost?” He questions me with his intriguing eyes.

  Unusual Circumstances