The Secrets of Pimsim Cove - 3. Chapter 3

“Hey! Stop him! That’s my bag!” I shouted at the guy as he sped away down the bustling streets of Dublin. I still had my Dolce & Gabbana purse slung over my shoulder, but my clothes...my shoes...my deodorant were all gone!

What was I going to do now? Dialing 9-1-1 on my cell phone blared an angry beeping sound. It wasn’t until I inspected the screen that I saw the big red letters flashing on the screen: No International Service!

“SMURF! No! No! No! You’ve got to be kidding me!” I totally forgot to call our cell phone provider to add international calls, like Mom had me do when Grandma Gigi took Jimmy and me to Aruba, last year and now I couldn’t call the police and tell them…tell them what?

That oh, my luggage was stolen after I left it in the bus station to chase after a little old lady who happened to disappear into a tunnel below the streets of Dublin where she then turned into a green hairy Troll!

The cops would lock me up, or worse, call Mom and send me back home on the next flight to Atlanta.

Well, Mr. Bag-Stealing-Guy, riding around on your cool black motorcycle, sexy leather jacket and mysterious racing helmet…now you must think you’re totally tall, dark and handsome. I really hope you enjoy the bag full of size 3 junior miss fashionware. Stupid fraggle-head!

Okay, think Anna think. Dad’s map listed the surrounding cities and towns, so I just have to find one of them on the list of bus stops. Belbury...not on the list, Charlestonville...not on there either, how about Mills Ferry...oh, that was on the list and so was Newton!

Rushing over to the ticket counter, I already knew that my butt was going to be on whichever bus was leaving first. They were both about the same distance away from Pimsim Cove, so either one would put me a heck of a lot closer than where I was right now.

Mills Ferry was the winner. The bus ride was bumpy. Potholes chewed up ginormous chunks of the road. The further away we traveled from Dublin’s nice clean streets, the bumper it got. The countryside was at least a lovely distraction.

It was so beautiful and picturesque. Farms and charming little villages speckled the gently rolling hills that were covered with lush green foliage, but after a few hours, everything started to look the same.

My tired eyes were thick and heavy, but I just couldn’t rest them. I was too worried that I would fall asleep and miss my stop or that someone would snatch my purse, not only leaving me with no clothes, but then with no passport, credit card or money. Not a smurfing chance that was going to happen...I wouldn’t be that stupid!

I pulled out my journal and wrote down everything I could remember about Bag-Stealing-Guy. He had been sitting on his bike when he raced off, but he still looked like he was really tall. His legs were long, but it could have just been an illusion from all that black. At first I was unsure of his skin color since he had been wearing gloves and his helmet had a tinted face shield, but as he sped away, I saw the back of his neck was very pale in comparison to the black hair that excaped out the back of his helmet. That just left his butt...

“Next stop is Mills Ferry.” Thank goodness the bus driver made the announcement and stopped my mind from wondering off to places it had absolutely no permission wondering off to, like Bag-Stealing-Guy’s butt. Come on Anna, keep it together.

Extra light during the summer was usually one of the best parts of the season, but today it just made the day feel like it was never going to end. Mills Ferry was hardly a town. The bus passed two stop lights and then pulled into a parking lot behind a brown brick building.

This is it? The bus driver must have noticed my confusion, because he shook his head and laughed. “What did you expect, lass? These small towns ain’t nothing like New York City.” He spat out the name as if it were poison in his mouth.

That’s when I realized that we were the only two people left on the bus. Where did everyone else go? Was I that tired that I hadn’t noticed the other people departing at the other stops?

I gathered up my belongings, who was I kidding? I grabbed my purse and rushed down the center aisle of the bus. When I reached the open door, I couldn’t help, but say over my shoulder, “Thank you so much and by the way, I’m from Atlanta and NOT New York City!” before hopping the rest of the way down the stairs.

It wasn’t dark yet, but most of the small businesses in Mills Ferry were already closed. The bank, the post-office, and even the café on the corner were all dark. A phone booth perched in front of the post-office so I ran over to it, praying that there was a current phonebook inside the narrow little stall.

“Yes!” Snatching the book out, I flipped to the front looking for an area map but I had no luck with that, so then I searched the alphabet listing for the name: McLoughlin. Of course an Irish name in Ireland...there were several, but none of them were Rosy or Stonebrook.

“I guess Pimsim Cove is out of the Mills Ferry district.” The sun was almost setting and it was going to be dark very soon, so unless I want to spend the night in this cramped little phone booth I need to find a place to stay. “Motels...No! Hotels...No! Bed & Breakfast...No! Inns...Hot damn! Bingo!!! Looks like I’m staying at the Willow’s Arm Inn.”

Before I could rush off to the Inn, there was something I had to do. I had to call Mom. She was probably out of her mind with worry and I would have called her as soon as I landed, but with the whole troll-bag-cellphone-screw-up thingies, I just hadn’t gotten to it, so it was time to buck up and dial an operator.

“Collect call to America.” Amazing! It worked just like it did in the movies. She asked me for the phone number and voilà! Mom was instantly on the other end of the phone line screaming at me.

“Mom, slow down...take a deep breath...you’re gonna go into labor if you don’t stop yelling!” I could hear her take a few deep breathes and took advantage of the opportunity to spin my tale that I had been rehearsing before she started yelling again.

“I’m sorry that I left the way I did, but I had to come here. I have to find Dad!” I rushed to continue before she had a chance to order my butt on the next flight home.

“And after the plane landed I found out that my cell phone wouldn’t work. Oh, can you call our provider for international calls?” I could almost see her rolling her eyes at me, so I continued, “and I had to wait for the bus, which took like forever and I’m still not there yet! The buses only go as far as Mills Ferry, but I’ll be in Pimsim Cove tomorrow.” I could feel her starting to calm down.

“So you’re okay?” There was no more anger in her southern twang.

“Yes Mom, everything’s fine, but I really need you to check on the international calling.” She promised to call as soon as we hung up and I promised to call her back tomorrow.

Before heading over to the Inn, I called to check their vacancy and was pleased when a nice woman told me they had plenty of rooms. After jotting down the directions into my journal, I headed south for what she said was a brisk, ten minute trot and she was right.

The Willow’s Arm Inn was awesome. Glossy wood covered every inch of the building, inside and out. After I paid for one night, the woman, the same sweet woman, who had answered the phone, gave me a room key. “You go on and wash-up. I’ll have your dinner ready in a few minutes.” Too tired to argue with her, I just nodded my head and did as I was told.

***

“So little lass, what brings you all the way to Ireland?” Her warm smile was friendly as she sat a big plate of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and two fluffy buttered rolls in front of me, but I was uncomfortable with spilling too much personal information.

I had already watched one nice, old lady turn into a big hairy Troll and then saw a super-sexy guy steal my bag on the streets of Dublin, so I was going to tread lightly on this one.

“I have family that lives nearby. Guess I misjudged the time and it got late, so I stopped for the night.” Vague but polite.

The woman wasn’t a moron. She suspected that something was going on. I was a young American girl traveling in the middle of nowhere…all alone. I didn’t even think about trying to blend in. I used to be really good at mimicking Dad’s accent too, but the big bells and whistles was that I didn’t have any luggage with me.

She looked apprehensively at me, but she forced a smile to her face, when she turned around to walk away, in barely a whisper I said, “I need to get to Pimsim Cove!”

Now that got her attention. She spun around with wide, shocked eyes. “Pimsim Cove?”

I nodded my head and waited.

“Not many people go there.”

“My grandparents live there--”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed in on me. “Who?”

“Rosy and Stonebrook McLoughlin.” I blurted out before thinking. She studied my face, my hair, my eyes, even my freckles and slowly nodded her head. She was satisfied with what she saw and thank goodness, she believed me.

“Ralph takes deliveries down there twice a month,” My heart sank. I couldn’t wait another week or two. “But you’re in luck. He’s heading down there in the morning. He usually leaves here around eight o’clock, so you better be up and ready before seven if you’re gonna catch a ride with him.” She quickly turned on her heels and walked away.

The time change, jetlag, worry, and a big whopping headache on top of it all, made it impossible to fall asleep. When the alarm clock buzzed just before seven, my eyes felt like I had been rubbing them with sandpaper.

The little complimentary bar of soap was good enough for washing up, but without a tooth brush I had to make do with gargling over and over so at least if my breath wasn’t fresh…it would still be fresher.

Ralph was already loading up the truck when I got downstairs. I walked over to introduce myself to him, but before I had a chance, the woman from last night stepped outside holding two big thermoses.

“Hope you slept well.” She said and handed me one of the thermos filled with delectable smelling coffee. Rubbing at my red eyes, I shook my head. “Thanks, but not really. This time change is really messing me up.”

The woman walked over and handed the other thermos to Ralph and gave him a quick peck on his cheek. “Honey, this is the girl I told you about.” He looked up for a moment and grunted before quickly returning to loading his truck.

“He’ll drop you off when he stops at Pimsim’s General Store.” General Store…Oh sweet! I needed to replace my necessities that rode off with Hott-Dude-on-Bike.

“Thank you so much for helping me.” I hoped that she could see that even though I didn’t gush with the whole truth, that I was very appreciative of her generosity.

She smiled and patted my arm when she passed by to head back into the Inn. I turned around in time to see Ralph slamming the rolling door down on the back of the delivery truck and rushed to the passenger door to keep from being left behind.

I didn’t have to worry about Ralph asking me twenty questions. Ralph didn’t ask anything. He didn’t even say anything.

He grunted when it took me too long to get my seat belt untangled and snapped into place and then again when he changed the radio station from a rock station, full of songs I’d never heard of, to a country station full of songs I’d never heard of.

It would be nice to know how long the trip would take, but Ralph didn’t seem like the type to enjoy the ‘are we there yet?’ game so I rode along in silence. I thought about pulling out my ipod and popping in my earbuds, but I was too scared of him to do that either.

***

Field...field...barn...field...tree...cow and then suddenly in the distance everything changed. We came over this hill and I saw a glimpse of the ocean. It was past a thick forest of trees.

It was still quite a ways off, but as we drove closer the ground along the road started to have more sand than dirt mixed into it and the rolling hills resembled sand dunes. The trees were taller than any that I had ever seen back at home and several of their limbs and trunks were intertwined in a beautiful twist of nature.

The forest suddenly stopped and that’s when I noticed the high stone wall that surrounded the entire town of Pimsim Cove. The wall spread out to the right and to the left of town and stretched for what looked like a mile.

WOW! My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. Squint...rub, rub! Was that a drawbridge? Squint...rub, rub! And a moat, a real moat? Cinderella called and she wants her castle back!

Cassy’s parents took us to Oktoberfest one year and I had been impressed by their fortress walls with a drawbridge and a moat, but now, compared to the real deal, they totally looked cheesy.

When we got a little closer, I watched in amazement as the massive drawbridge opened up and lowered down with thick iron chains. Someone’s job was to hide on top and lower the bridge as people approached. How cool was that?

The sun twinkled off something on top of the wall. Every twenty feet or so there were shiny thingies on poles. They were real sparkly, whatever they were, but I didn’t know if it was just for decoration or if they actually served some sort of purpose.

Ralphs deadpan face showed no reaction to this amazing sight. I guess the thrill of the eccentric had worn off a long time ago. That usually happens when you’re live somewhere incredible, to you, it’s just ordinary.

The bridge lifted and closed right behind us and I swear we drove back through time or at least right into a Norman Rockwell painting. The town looked like it had been constructed in the 1950’s and had never been changed again. It was perfect.

The streets were clean with old fashion light posts lining both sides of the road. The buildings were amazing with crisp new paint. The perfect lawns were all freshly manicured.

Either I had just entered the twilight zone or Ralph’s truck had a DeLorean engine hidden under the hood, but I didn’t see the flash of lightning needed to make the 1.21 gigawatts that made the flux capacitor work.

The General Store was easy to spot. It was the big building with ‘General Store’ carved in stone over a row of wide windows. Ralph pulled around behind the store and backed up to the loading dock. He grunted when he turned off the truck and I took that as his signal to get the smurf out.

“Thank you for the ride.” I tried to sound cheerful as I leaped out of his truck cab and into the thick salty ocean air.

***

It was still early afternoon and since I needed to get a couple things, before I went off to find my family, I hurried to the front of the General Store and went inside.

“Please have all of the modern day necessities.” I wished under my breath. The first row was full of cans and boxes of assorted crackers and cookies followed by bread, then crates of veggies then, “Bingo!” I didn’t realize I had shouted until a man further down the aisle looked up and frowned at me.

I grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste then set out looking for the rest of the items that needed replacing. I only had a little cash on me. This place didn’t look like they accepted credit cards, so I comparison shopped and checked the price of each item and decided to only get the essentials.

“You better put that bag of candy back on the shelf right now, Stony. I told you that I want you to cut back on the sweets.” The scolding voice drifted across from the next row over.

“But Rosy, I really like the caramels. What if you let me get them today and I promise to cut back next week?” He tried to bargain with his wife.

Stony...Rosy...could they be here…in the store…right now? I crept down the row to the end and peeked around the corner. The old couple standing in the middle of the next aisle was adorable.

“No,” the woman scolded, “that’s what you said last week.”

The old man pouted and placed the big bag of caramel candy back on the shelf and the woman lovingly smiled at him. “If you promise not to eat them all at once, you can get the little bag.”

His eyes lit up as he gave her a kiss on her tanned cheek and grabbed a much smaller bag of candy and placed it into her basket.

When they continued down the aisle toward me, I panicked and ran in the opposite direction, but not before Rosy looked up at me and our identical emerald green eyes locked for just a brief second. I rounded the row and continued until I was in the far back of the store.

I could still hear their voices off in the distance as Stony asked her, “What’s wrong?” She hesitated then told him that she must have been imagining things.

Think idiot! You came half way around the world to see these people and now that they are right here in front of you, you’re gonna run away and hide? Real mature! Shoving the items that I needed to purchase onto the nearest shelf, I calmly walked towards the front of the store only to see them already outside.

“Oh no, I’m gonna lose them!” I took off running out the store just in time to see them cross the street a few blocks down. Do I holler? Do I chase them?

I don’t want to run up behind them and scare them. They might think I’m a crazy mugger! While I was debating what to do, they disappeared around the next corner. Hurry up or they are going to be gone and just like that, as if just thinking the words, I reached the narrow walk way and it was empty. Smurf! Smurf! Double Smurf!

I jogged several more streets down, but they were gone. How could two more little old people have given me the slip? “Oh dear God, I hope they didn’t turn into Trolls too.” Like on cue as soon as I said it, I saw my grandparents pulling out of a dock in a little boat.

Okay, so they weren’t Trolls, but I had still lost them.

I needed to go back to the store and buy the stuff I had stashed onto a random shelf and when I turned around to head back to the store, Bag-Stealing-Guy buzzed right past me on his black motorcycle! Incredibly, my bag was still strapped to the back.

Now, I full out ran, but I stuck as close to the buildings as possible. I didn’t want him to see me in his mirror and take off. I just needed to know where he was going and to get my bag back.

I followed him to the edge of town. Thankfully, it was a pretty small town and I was in really good shape from years on the track & field team, and it also helped that he was going kind of slow.

When he turned to the right and disappeared, I picked up my pace. There was no way that I was going to lose this guy too! I’d had it up to here with surprises and right now, I just wanted my stuff back.

Reaching the corner, I saw his bike was parked beside a beat up, old pick-up truck in front of a little white boat house, that was built half on land and the other half extended onto the water.

A small wooden sign hung on the side of the building advertising, ‘Boat Engine Repairs.’ Trying to stay in the shadows, I crept as close as I could, before I had to dash across the open space and stop quickly, before running into the wall.

The windows on this side of the building were open, letting the ocean air in and the oily smell of grease and gas waft out.

“You’re late!” Someone inside growled.

“No...I came by last night, but you weren’t here.”

Their voices sounded like they were right inside, so I crouched down and made my way over to the far window and hoped that they weren’t looking in that direction. Hearing the two of them ramble in that thick Irish brogue made me realize how Americanized Dad’s accent had become.

“You want me to believe that you couldn’t find me? Come on Sean, I’m not that hard to find.” The man talking had his back to me. I could see Bag-Stealing-Guy toss my red, white and blue bag over to him. He stepped perfectly into my view when he reached out to catch it. My heart thudded when I saw him.

Dad? I gasped and fought hard not to yell out his name. No! It couldn’t be him. He looked like my dad, he looked exactly like him, but this guy’s hair was longer and shaggier and he obviously hadn’t shaved in a few days.

“Rook!” I whispered. Why the heck did my uncle have this guy steal my bag? That’s when Bag-Stealing-Guy stepped beside him...crap, he’s the other guy from the picture.

“Well, if she’s Windsong’s kid,” Bag-Stealing-Guy said, “what makes you think that just taking her stuff is gonna make her turn tail and run back home? She’s a McLoughlin and I didn’t think you guys got scared off that easily.”

Wait...I thought they were talking about me, so who the heck is this Windsong person? Just then Bag-Guy looked up. I don’t think he saw me, but goodness was he gorgeous. Sexy black hair and crystal clear gray eyes. Hey! He’s a thief, remember?

“I know. That’s what I’m afraid of!” Rook walked over to the door, still carrying my bag. “Let’s just keep this between the two of us.”

Bag-Guy rolled his eyes at him as a deep laugh rumbled his broad shoulder. “Of course, I don’t want Rosy scaling me alive.”

***

When Rook left the boathouse, I hid around the corner and prayed that he wouldn’t look over and see me. He climbed into his rusty old truck and drove off.

I waited for Bag-Guy to follow him out, but there was no sign of him. Creeping back down the side of the building, I looked to make sure that his motorcycle was still there...duh, of course it was, I wasn’t deaf. There’s no way that I wouldn’t have heard it start up from where I was hiding. So, where was he?

Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind, yanked up from my crouched position until my feet were dangling several inches above the ground. His strong arms crushed me to the front of his chest. “Didn’t anyone teach you that eavesdropping is wrong?” He growled beside my ear.

“Oh yeah? Well didn’t your mother teach you that stealing is a sin?” That got Bag-Boy’s attention and he dropped me on my butt. Ouch! I jumped up and whirled around to face him and only saw anger in his face. When he suddenly stepped away from me, I started to ask him not to go. I had tons of questions and I hoped that he would have a few answers.

“Michael--”

“You know Michael?” He glared at me with his cold-as-ice, steel gray eyes. Okay, the guy might be sexy, but he was also seriously scary. In his blitz attack, I had dropped my purse and when I reached down to grab it from the ground, to retrieve the photo tucked away inside, he disappeared.

“Okay, you people really have to stop with the Houdini crap! It’s totally creepy!” I spun around looking for any sign of him, but there was nothing. He was gone. The long dock spanning out into the water was empty.

I glanced back through the boathouse windows, but no sexy Bag-Guy there either. I just stood there and stared out at the calm gentle water of the ocean...that’s when I heard it. It was laughter. I think the fish were laughing at me!