Celestial Worlds

Chapter Nine

I wake up with no Debby.

I run to the kitchen to only find Jonathan eating pancakes.

"I'm guessing you didn't cook that," I say.

"We have a telephone. Might as well use it." We laugh and I ask where Debby is.

"Oh, she had to run an errand in the farm. You know, things like this happen often." Then I remember something. The Quest. The Beam sent me there because I was born there.

"Um, were you guys...the first one to own that plantation?" I ask nervously.

"Uh, no," He says slowly. "Apparently, the first owners of Brown Oaks were a couple named Adam Tennessee and Valencia Royce. The farmers who were working for a long time heard rumours that they had a little baby girl who died because her father was a lunatic. The girl died because of murder committed by her father."

I stopped breathing. Rumours, I tell myself, they are just rumours.

It takes a while to find my voice, and when I do, it comes out tiny, "W-When did the family live there?"

This time Jonathan turns to me, "You're scared aren't you? Come here," he says, "I'd rather not tell."

"No really, I'm fine, go on."

He considers this for a while then finally, he says, "I don't know, during the 1870's maybe. I don't know, probably a long time ago. The attic wasn't tampered because there were rumours that it was haunted by the little girl which scares the shit out of me sometimes when I remember it." He shudders. He stands up from the table and goes to me, abandoning his plate of pancakes. "Come on, I'll show you something," He says, grabbing my hand and tugging on it like he always does when he shows me something. He leads me toward the backdoor and outside. We stand in a garden. Bursting with colour and blooming flowers. Irun mu hand along the petals of the flowers and Jonathan hands me a bunch of roses.

"Debby will kill you." I take the roses and inhale the fresh scent.

"I don't mind." I turn to him, only to find him smiling at me. I think about all the things he did for me. The sacrifices he and Debby made.

"Do you want to go out?" I blurt out.

He gives an amused laugh. "Shouldn't guys ask girls and not the other way around?"

I shrug. "You and Debby did so much for me, now don't argue." I turn to him. "What do you say?"

He turns to me with a smile and says, "Why not?"

The drive to Bay View was about fifteen minutes. On the way, he told me about the historic statues at Bay View and the souvenir shops that sell overpriced back scratchers. We arrive and he parks near the entrance.

"Are...are you going to shop for clothes?" He shifts, which means he's uncomfortable.

I laugh at him and say, "No. I was planning to go to the bookstore...do you mind?"

"No, in fact, I needed to go there about a week ago."

"Why didn't you?"

He shrugs. "I didn't want to, but I needed to. To buy some books, that is."

We walk to the bookstore, which is a two-storey walk-in store with huge shelves full of stacks and stacks of books. I tell him to go where he needed but he insists on coming with me.

Since my-Debby's-books is almost finished, I am currently intrigued by the run of the story and I crave for more of the like. I scan for other books that are classics and I recognize one from Debby's shelf.