Chapter 5 #2
“There are eight of us. Well, seven, now that Margot moved up to Bangor to live with her nephew and his husband.” Dorothea slid the plate, long-bereft of any trace of water, into its place in the cupboard. “The Linwood Falls Society of Watchers.”
“Uh…what do you watch?” Uneasiness threaded through the air around them. It sounded like a coven of witches more than anything else. Very New England-y. Jake didn’t want to get on the wrong side of a Maine council of elders, whether they could do magic or not.
Dorothea turned from the window and smiled, making her way in her old woman’s gait back to the kitchen table and plopping down once more.
“The ocean, of course! This entire area is known for its sea monsters.”
“What?” Jake’s eyebrows furrowed as he stared at Dorothea. He’d never heard of that, but then again he’d never visited Linwood Falls before now.
“Oh, the coastline is teeming with them.” A greedy glint sparked in Dorothea’s eye as she spoke of the cryptids. “I’ve seen a few myself. Still trying to get a decent photograph.”
“You have?” Jake was getting nervous. He’d assumed that Dorothea and the other townies were harmless. But there was a wide chasm between “I watch out for sea monsters as a fun hobby” and “I’ve definitely encountered a mythical creature in person.”
“When I was a teenager, out on my father’s lobster boat. A few times since then. I caught a glimpse of one last Christmas. The sightings tend to happen in the winter.”
Jake swallowed, the delicious taste of blueberry still on his tongue. “Who…what did it look like?”
Dorothea smiled wide, clearly believing she’d hooked an interested audience, and reached out to grab Jake’s hand. “Tentacles, my dear. Lots of tentacles. No one I know has gotten a good look at the main body of one of the things. It’s almost entirely tentacles.”
For a second, Jake flashed back to the dream he’d been having when she knocked on her door. Tentacles. In the dream he hadn’t seen what they were attached to, although he didn’t mind how agile they could be. What if the dream-tentacles went one further and entered his—
Stop it. He was here with a sweet old lady. He shouldn’t be thinking about being ass-fucked by a tentacle, even if Dorothea was delusional. The dream was just a product of sleeping with the gentle rush of the ocean in his ear. And meeting the beautiful surfer, of course.
“Well, I hope I don’t see any,” Jake said. “That sounds scary.”
“Well, if you do, make sure you let me know.” She squeezed his hand and released it, standing. “If you’re willing to keep an eye out, I’ll stop by with more pie.”
“Oh…sure.” He could pretend to watch for imaginary monsters if Dorothea brought over her very real and very delicious pie. “Happy to.”
“Good. Now excuse me, I have a few more stops to make this morning before I have my shift watching out at McKendrick’s Point.”
“Wait!” Jake stopped her as she reached the door. “Don’t you want to take the rest of your pie with you?”
Dorothea shook her head and waved him off as she exited. “That’s for you, sweetie. Enjoy it.” She was speeding down the walkway before he could say another word.
That had been an insane conversation. Were all the people of Linwood Falls obsessed with cryptids like her? Or just her little society?
The blueberry pie sitting on the counter drew Jake’s eye back. With only two pieces cut from it, there was plenty left, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast. The sweet berries and crunchy crust called to him. No harm in having a second piece.
Cutting himself a slice, he exited the kitchen and settled into the large upholstered chair by the bay window. Several handmade afghans were draped over it, and the chair enveloped him as he sat, filling him with a sense of coziness he could never achieve in the city.
His eyes went to the ocean as the taste of blueberry filled his mouth once more. It was low tide, and there was an enormous expanse of wet sand between the house and the waterline.
Would he see a sea monster? Doubtful. Would he see Doren again? He hoped he would.
Stop. Jake had to be smarter about this.
He didn’t know the surfer. For all he knew, Doren was a drifter, and had already moved along to another town, chasing another wave.
While Doren had been flirty, that was probably just their personality.
Someone like them would never be interested in a chubby loser like Jake.
Besides, he’d just gone through a traumatic breakup. He had to figure out his life before he could even consider hooking up, never mind dating a new person.
Doren had been sexy, though, no question about that. Considering his dream last night, Jake couldn’t deny it.
His eyes were glued to the sea as he ate his pie, images of handsome shirtless surfers and tentacled sea monsters filling his head.
When his phone rang, he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was his grandmother calling, but the clock on the phone showed…3:30? Had he been staring into the ocean for almost five hours?
That was not good at all.
Jake brought the phone to his ear. He’d have to deal with his brain’s faulty circuitry later.
“Hi, sweetheart. How’s the weather up in Maine? It’s fuckin’ freezing here.”
Jake bit back his request that she not swear. She’d been that way his whole life. It had been embarrassing when he was younger, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. He did his share of swearing, and she should be able to, even if she was his grandmother.
“It’s not warm, that’s for sure.” Jake grabbed an afghan off the arm of the chair and draped it over his bare legs, as if the suggestion was enough to remind him he was cold. “How are you?”
“Typical,” she said, then munched on something for a moment. Chips, maybe? “Men are assholes. You know that. But I didn’t call to talk about my love life being in the shitter. How’s the house? Are you settled in?”
Jake glanced around the living room. Everything was where it had been when he had come through the door the day before. He hadn’t brought much with him. He hadn’t had much to bring after Phil had taken their entire life with him when he’d left.
“It’s fine, Gram. I didn’t bring anything to settle in, really. I haven’t had a chance to set up any holiday decorations yet.” Surveying the first floor, Jake considered where to move the furniture in order to make room for the tree. Just the thought of it was exhausting.
“You love Christmas! And it’s already the middle of the first week of December. You don’t want to get depressed because you missed out on your favorite season.”
Jake sighed, running his right hand over the vibrant knots of the crocheted afghan. She wasn’t wrong, but his psyche was as tangled as the strands of yarn between his fingers.
This was his grandmother. He always told her the truth.
“I’m worried,” Jake whispered, closing his fist around a section of the handmade blanket.
“About what, sweetie?”
“That I’m getting sick again.” That wasn’t quite right. He was sick. His medication and his attempts at exercise and meditation mitigated it, but… “That it’s getting bad again.”
“Do you want me to come up there?” Jake’s grandmother’s voice filled with a fierce determination. She had never doubted the seriousness of his mental illness, nor stopped believing in his ability to thrive despite it. “I can be there by seven.”
“No, Gram. I’m okay.” There was something about having someone else living with him when he was ill that made everything worse. He didn’t want a witness to it. “I’ve just been sleeping a lot. And I lost a few hours staring out the window. Nothing so terrible.”
There was a pause as Jake’s grandmother parsed his words. When she spoke again, there was reluctance in her tone. “I’ll let you be. But if you need me, there’s not a thing in the fucking world that can keep me away. You know that, right?”
“I do.” Jake’s voice broke as he answered. He’d lost his mother at a young age, but he couldn’t have been luckier than to end up with his grandmother. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. Everything will be fine. Now, tell me about Maine. Have you met anyone?”
Jake’s gaze went to the beach without him thinking about it. Nope. He wasn’t telling her about his awkward conversation with Doren. He didn’t need to sound more like a loser.
“This crazy lady came to the house.” Jake smiled at the memory of Dorothea’s recent visit. She was nuts, but she’d get along well with his grandmother.
“Crazy lady?”
“To welcome me to the neighborhood. Not sure how she knew I wasn’t just a tourist, other than the fact that no one vacations here in the winter. She said some weird stuff about sea monsters and tentacles. But she brought amazing blueberry pie.”
Gram snorted on the other end of the line, then broke into a loud braying laugh. “She’s one of those assholes, huh? Monster watching is a cult in Linwood Falls. Charlie was one of ‘em, too.”
Jake blinked several times at her words. “Great-Uncle Charlie believed in sea monsters?”
“Oh yeah, he sure the fuck did.” There was humor in her tone, but also a slight tinge of bitterness.
“He couldn’t be bothered to support his sister and great-nephew, but he had no problem buying thousands of dollars in high-tech binoculars and monitoring equipment.
It’s all he talked about whenever we spoke. ”
Huh. Jake stood and glanced around the house once more. Was all that equipment still around here somewhere? Maybe it was worth something. He hadn’t gone down into the basement yet.
“Do you think it got sold off when he died?”
“Don’t know. Maybe it’s still in the house. Or maybe he left it to the rest of those nutters.” There was a series of loud sounds as she sucked at the dregs of a fountain drink through a straw. “But, hold on. There’s something else you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”
Damn. Why was she so good at this? He could never hide anything from her—a poor grade, a fight with his friends, or a crush.
“Gram…”
“Just tell me, Jakey. I’m going to get it out of you eventually. Did you meet someone? Some handsome librarian?”
Jake groaned and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. No matter what he did, both his dreams and his grandmother were determined to keep Doren front of mind.
“It’s not a big deal. I ran into a surfer on the beach outside the house when I first got here. They grabbed Miranda Priestly when she escaped.”
Gram sputtered on the other end of the line. “A cute surfer! What more do you want? Those long, lean surfing muscles? All that big dick energy?”
“Gram! Stop!” Blood rushed to Jake’s neck and face at her words. Did all the elderly people in his life have to keep talking about sex?
“Come on, Jakey. A surfer hottie is the perfect rebound from Jackass.”
Jake did love that Gram hadn’t said Phil’s name since they broke up. But just because she was excited was no reason to do something stupid.
“No one should have to put up with my illness, Gram. It’s bad enough you have to.”
Jake knew his words would piss off his grandmother, but he couldn’t help it. That’s how he felt.
“Don’t you fucking do that, Jakey! You deserve love. You deserve to be happy. And if you forget that, I’ll drive up there right now and yell at you until you remember.”
The ferocity in her words warmed Jake’s heart.
“I…maybe. But not right now. Besides, I met Doren for all of three minutes yesterday morning. I may never see them again. And no one’s going to want to be saddled with a chubby, mentally ill failure.”
“Jakey—”
“I’ve already had one breakup this year, Gram. I think that’s enough. Let me get through the holidays. Maybe the new year will be better.”