The Kelpie's Curse (book #1 in the Kelpie's Entrapment trilogy)

Day 3 pt. 2

***

"Do you think she's going to be alright?" Evelyn asked, having calmed down considerably after washing the dishes. She was concerned about Renestrae being alone, though who could really blame the girl for wanting time to herself after what she had seen the day before.

"I'm sure she'll be fine. Ren is pretty resilient after all," Kali answered.

Well she couldn't very well argue with that. She knew most would have been terrified of water after experiencing what Renestrae had. Most people wouldn't have kept swimming, and in a river no less. No, Renestrae Frank was very good at bouncing back, but Evelyn still worried.

She sighed heavily before giving Kaloria a pointed look. "How was she this morning?"

"Oh, she's just fine," Kali answered, purposely not understanding what she was being asked.

Evelyn massaged her temples lightly, already feeling annoyance at Kali's deflection tactic. "You know what I mean. You were up before her so I'm sure you could tell if she was having another nightmare or not."

Personally Evelyn was happy she wasn't a morning person. The one time she had seen Renestrae's reaction to a nightmare was bad enough, so much so that she never wanted to see a repeat performance.

Kali sighed. "When doesn't she have nightmares, Ev?" There was a pause and Evelyn watched as Kaloria's eyes began to water.

"That bad, huh?"

Kali drew in a ragged breath. "You should have seen her last night. Just the mention of someone drowning was enough to terrify her."

Evelyn scowled. She knew this kind of thing was bound to happen. Her psychology classes had told her as much. "I told you she should have talked to someone."

Kaloria scoffed. "You really think her parents would have paid for that." It wasn't a question. "Besides, she has us to talk to."

"And a lot of good that has done her!" Evelyn growled. "Any time she's told us anything about that incident we've had to pry it out of her. Honestly, I don't think she would have told us at all if it hadn't been for you waking up because of her thrashing during that sleepover."

"Ev-"

"Don't you Ev me, Kaloria," Evelyn growled, her patience wearing thin. "You know as well as I do that if she's never willingly talked about drowning then there isn't any way in hell she's going to willingly talk about what she found yesterday, and she needs to! She-"

Suddenly the door opened with a bang, effectively cutting off Evelyn's frustrated tirade."

"You guys are never going to believe what I found," Renestrae exclaimed from the doorway.

"A Leprechaun," Kali guessed smiling.

Evelyn wanted desperately to shake her head.

"That's Ireland, you dolt. We're in Scotland," Renestrae called back.

Unable to suppress a smile as she decided to join in, Evelyn called out "Lucky Charms!"

"Breakfast cereal," Renestrae groaned. "That's absolutely ridiculous."

Evelyn furrowed her brow in confusion and had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she wasn't going to like Renestrae's answer to her next question. "More ridiculous than a Leprechaun?"

Renestrae smirked and raised a single dark eyebrow at her, still standing in the doorway. "Of course it's more ridiculous than a Leprechaun. Now follow me. I'm telling you, you're not going to believe this."

Evelyn sighed, as she was sure it was going to be more nonsense, but followed anyway.

"You know, I wouldn't mind meeting one," Renestrae said when Evelyn fell into step beside her.

Evelyn had a bad feeling she knew what her friend was talking about. "A Leprechaun?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes, but I think I'd rather meet a Clurichaun."

"What's a Clurichaun?" Evelyn and Kaloria asked at the same time. They then looked at each other strangely for such a thing had never happened. Usually, when it came to things that didn't exist, Renestrae and Kaloria seemed to be in sync.

"The Clurichaun is the Leprechaun's fun-loving, partying cousin. I think the Clurichaun would make a much better mascot for St. Patrick's day than a shoemaker, don't you?"

Honestly, Evelyn had no idea how she was supposed to answer that, but Renestrae rambling on about mythology when that wasn't even the topic tended to be a good sign. "Umm, sure."

"Alright, here it is!" Renestrae exclaimed as she opened the shed door and stepped off to the side so that they could take a look.

Evelyn was stunned speechless, but not in the way that someone might classify as good. She cast a glance over at Kaloria and it was just as she feared. The girl seemed just as excited as Renestrae. This was not good.

"How far do the dates go back?" Kaloria asked excitedly.

Gravestones?

"Pretty far, but that's not the interesting part."

"Gravestones?" Evelyn whispered as her blood boiled in anger but it didn't appear that Renestrae or Kaloria had so much as heard her.

"Really? What's the interesting part?"

"Gravestones?" Evelyn said a little louder but still the girls didn't appear to hear her. Jeez, what the hell was with them anyway? Give them something that didn't exist or was creepy and the rest of the world might as well not exist.

"There is a huge majority that have the same cause of death. According to these stones, quite a few of these people drowned in the beck."

Wait a minute. Why did Renestrae sound happy about that?

"So what are you getting at?" Kali asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Evelyn tried again. "Gravestones?" However, like before, they didn't appear to hear her at all.

"That many people drowning at the same time? Doesn't it seem kind of odd to you? We need to get to that library. There may be more to this than we think."

Oh. My. God. The girl had the nerve to sound excited. That was it, her patience was officially at its end. Renestrae needed a serious dose of reality because she didn't see Scooby-Doo anywhere and this was definitely not Mystery Inc.

"Gravestones, Renestrae? Are you kidding me?"

That time they must have heard her because both Renestrae and Kaloria suddenly flinched as if they'd been struck.

"The two of you need to wake the fuck up and come back down to Earth. A boy died yesterday! This is no time to be chasing fairies and legends that aren't real!" Evelyn shouted and watched as their eyes grew wide in shock. Good! Maybe they'd actually get it for once.

"But I-"

"I don't care! This is no time to be chasing after unicorns. Personally, I'm ashamed of both of you! Grow the hell up! I'll be waiting in the car!" With that, Evelyn turned around and did just that, though she could feel Renestrae's angry stare on her the entire way there.