The Hunter, The Dragon And The Smokey Mountain Angel

$45!” Julia said louder than she meant to.

“Miss, that’s on the cheap too. No offence but have you seen you lately? I mean, you need a lot of attention honey. $45 is a discount, believe me,” said the stylist.

Julia had the money but she didn’t really have the money for that. She was already regretting the $20 she spent on her new dress. This was a big moment. A new job interview would end all this crazy camping within a few weeks but if things didn’t go well then she would only look pretty. She couldn’t eat pretty...

“Thank you Jack, it is a good deal but I must take you up on it another day,” she said as she turned and left, too embarrassed to say anymore.

As she walked down the road, she said to herself, “Okay, I’ll just brush my hair back and put on some make–up.” And as she looked toward the mountain, she thought,

The Waffle House is on the way, so their bathroom will have to be my Salon...

A few minutes later, Julia walked into the Waffle House. “Welcome to Waffle House,” said a server she hadn’t seen here before.

Andrew turned around and smiled.

He said, “I’ve was looking for you all night long.”

Julia smiled and said,” I had something come up and I got carried away, sorry... I have an interview today!”

“With Who?” he asked.

“With the mining company.”

Then the ground began to shake. A flash of blue light filled her vision then passed. Everyone held onto tables as the rumbling continued. The servers ran to the stacks of dishes and placed their hands on them, holding them steady.

The earthquake felt very different to Julia then it did before the treatment and she struggled to understand her feelings and visions attached to the trembling. Moments later the shaking stopped and everyone started talking at once.

“They better be opening an express tunnel to China. This is getting ridiculous,” said one lady to her husband.

Then the server who had first greeted her looked at Andrew and then back at Julia and blurted, “Did you hear about the flying girl?”

Andrew shook his head then looked back at Julia and said, “You look different Julia.”

She slumped unconsciously, and then corrected her posture remembering how she looked before. She said, “I have a new kind of pain medication that helps me walk. I’ll tell you about it later...”

“There is a flying girl in our town!” the server said again.

Andrew was staring at Julia with an odd expression on his face.

Julia looked at the server and said, “You never know what can happen in this town. I’m sure it was some kind of publicity stunt.”

A man sitting in a booth near them turned around and said, “My aunt Debbie was there and she said that the Mining Company was having a clinic. And that they had some experimental medicine that made one man’s arm work again and a girl floated off the table,” he twirled his finger in the air, “and now she can walk again.”

Andrew asked, “Did they get a picture of the girl?”

“There are several videos of her floating but you can’t make out her face or height on any of them. There are other pictures of her but she’s covering her face... Someone said an artist is going to sketch her face based on I–witness accounts but I don’t know if that’s true.”

Julia let out her breath and nodded, not sure what to say next. Then Andrew looked at her feet. Julia watched him watching her. He cocked his head, took a step toward her and started to speak but Julia looked him in the eyes and slowly shook her head. She mouthed silently, “I’ll tell you later.” Andrew’s eyebrows rose as a broad smile spread across his face.

Then she turned and float walked into the bathroom, locked the door and set her bag down. She fumbled through her things until she found the small make up kit, brush and a cheap bottle of perfume she had purchased.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

“I’ll be out in a minute.” Julia said.

Someone huffed loudly, turned and walked away.

It took a few minutes to freshen up with the travel soap she had gotten from Walmart, put on her new undergarments, the new dress and then do her hair and makeup.

She liked the way she was moving. Her body was starting to remember the motions she had been practicing. She checked everything in the mirror again, made a few minor corrections with her makeup and then paused. As she looked into her soft hazel eyes, she felt much older though her appearance was still young. The stress from the accident hadn’t taken all her youth. The girl in the mirror smiled and she smiled back and she felt giddy.

She had one more touch up to do but her hand slipped as she applied her lipstick and she had to pull herself away from the mirror to wipe off the peach colored line running across her cheek...

Then, as she cleaned off the last of the excess lipstick, she paused, something inside her had changed.

As she looked closer, she realized that her skin actually looked younger. Her heart felt young again but her mind seemed filled with...

She looked closer at her face. The few lines that had been around her mouth and eyes had disappeared but she felt ancient. She hadn’t felt this way since she was a little girl. It felt like two lifetimes ago since the time she had played with dolls, loved to dress up and do girl things but all that changed after her parents died.

No, this is different. I feel alive... Like a thousand year old kid.

A lot had happened since she stepped onto that Greyhound Bus. Being bed ridden and heavily drugged for months in the hospital felt like more than a thousand years ago. Again, this was different. Her mind was healing too. The thought of seeing how all her other selves were getting alone in imagined parallel lives had given her alternative perspectives. The wall that she had erected within herself when her parents had died was crumbling.

The memory of how she felt when she told Andrew about her killing that boy in his house came to mind. Until now, she just killed everything. She never gave the act of killing a second thought. “What needed to be done had to be done by someone,” she often said to herself. These thoughts and feelings were unlike anything she had ever experienced about herself. She had been a kid the last time she allowed these feelings a space within her to express themselves.

She looked at herself and whispered, “This feeling runs deeper than that.”

The ground began to shake even as the presence grew in her awareness. She readied herself for what was to come next. The visions and sensations she felt when the presence came had started to feel normal but these memories were not her own. In some ways, these other memories were like looking at a past life. But even that wasn’t right because she didn’t know what a past life felt like or even if past lives were real but maybe other–lives, like the ones she had seen in the visions, were real though...

She felt as if she was going mad but she wasn’t scared. That comforting feeling she had experienced at the clinic when the doctor had spoken to her in that strange voice settled over her. In her mind, she saw a shattered image of herself, as if looking through a cracked mirror. Only the creature she saw in one of the many reflections was not her.

The image of her younger self expanded. The changes she had experienced, as a little girl facing the loss of the two most important people in her life had caused part of her to shut down even as another part seemed to grow up all at once. After the funeral, her uncle Jim told her that she would be staying with him. Her uncle was the opposite of her dad, who had been a scientist and intellectual. Everything from the way they dressed, their smell and the way they looked at life was polar–opposite.

She remembered riding to her new home from her parent’s funeral that dark day. Her uncle’s truck was the only thing that felt real. As she watched the mountains pass by in the distance, her reflection in the window showed a very different girl wearing a little black dress. That dress was not unlike the white one she had on now. This other girl was quiet and free of the pain she was feeling. She looked sad but strong. That girl she had seen in the reflection was the part of her that would dominate the rest of her life, until now.

That was when everything had changed,

When I had changed.

She had stopped taking calls from her old friends. Her teachers reported that she was the brightest student in their classes but she shunned all interactions with her classmates whenever possible.

Months later, her uncle started fearing that something was wrong. He began pushing her to be more feminine and take more interest in her friends at school but she only studied harder and stayed out late in the woods.

He asked, “Do you know what’s in those woods?”

“Animals,” she answered.

“Animals are the least of your worries,” He replied.

She remembered the change in his face when he pulled out a small 45–calaber pistol. He looked at her as if she had just discovered that Santa Claus didn’t exist. He said, “I’ve tried stopping you from going out there but you are stubborn. If you’re going to stay out so late then you’re going to learn how to shoot a gun.”

“Aren’t I a little young for that,” she had said.

Then he handed her the gun and replied, “You’re too young for a lot of things. But your my sister’s daughter and I’ll be damned if you go into those woods without a way to defend yourself.”

Julia stared into his watery eyes.

He didn’t blink as she took the gun from his hand. It was heavy in her hands but she felt like the whole world had just opened to her…

After weeks of safety training, target practice and then an introduction to the rest of her uncle’s arsenal, he allowed her to venture back out into the wild with a fully loaded pistol strapped to her hip. That gun gave her a sense of power over nature. Nature had taken her parents and now she would walk through nature’s wildest parts fearlessly. That gun had protected her body many times from both man and beast but on that day, on the first day she held that gun it was another symbol of what she was becoming.

Julia felt something inside her crack. The walls she had built, over 12 years ago, had kept the core of herself locked away. She realized that all the pain she had been through had put her in a state of shock and she had made that state of being a part of her personality. She wasn’t ashamed of the person she had become, but there was more to her. She had rejected half of what she was that day in her uncle’s pickup truck.

She liked the person she had become but being a badass all the time really wasn’t who she was anymore. She suddenly felt much older.

She thought,

Being strapped to a bed for all those months hadn’t been all bad. It had given me a second chance to live as a whole person again. I am a badass but I am a pretty badass who loves my son, has regrets and now I have a second chance.

The girl looking at her in the mirror suddenly felt like the woman she imagined she could become.

But who am I now?

She remembered a type of numbness settling over her like a shell during those years after her parents had died. Her uncle had tried to warn her that she couldn’t shut the world out. He was always trying to get her to have more girlfriends but she wouldn’t listen. Looking at herself now, knowing that everything had changed made her feel... stronger. Deep inside that young girl who loved and enjoyed flowers, the girl who still believed in true love and magical endings was alive again.

“You need to smile more Julia,” she whispered to herself, “You need to believe in yourself and God. There is more to all this than even you can know. There are things that others can’t understand about you but that’s alright, Uncle Jim was right...”

Then that feeling came again. It wasn’t a simple vibration she was feeling anymore, not since the clinic, now it was like the purring of some enormous cat watching her from far away. It was that same humming she had felt channeled through her body. The feeling was warm and comforting...

You are not alone.

She looked away from the mirror and thought,

I really am going crazy.

She said out loud, “Am I going crazy. Did the accident trigger some form of schizophrenia? What is this presence? What are these memories? Is Joshua real?”

She turned her head to the left and right, never losing eye contact and she said, “Do I have multiple personalities?” She continued staring into that mirror and into eyes that seemed to hold many more secrets than the ones she had known a year ago...

KNOCK, KNOCK! “Can you please hurry up? My daughter needs to pee.”

“Oh, I’m finished now miss.” Julia replied as she pulled herself away from the mirror, threw all her things into her bag, hefted it over her shoulder and opened the door.

An older woman wearing a jean skirt with her hair pulled up into a bun scowled at her. A little girl, dressed in the same outfit as her mother was dressed in, rushed into the bathroom and Julia smiled and hurried back into the restaurant.

Andrew stood next to the closest booth to her holding a plate with an omelet filled with everything she loved. He said, “Wow!”

Julia looked around to see what he was talking about but Andrew said, “Julia, you look beautiful.”

She inhaled his words and then nearly kissed him. He looked handsome in his goofy visor and apron and the way he was staring at her made her blush.

He said, “I made you lunch.”

Julia’s stomach growled and her mouth started watering. “You want a coke or sweet tea?”

She didn’t want him doing things for her but at the same time she loved that he had thought about her. He smiled and placed the omelet down on the table before her and said, “You look... very nice. I... He turned– stopped and said, “Oh, you want tea, right?”

Julia said, “That would be great,” then she sat in the booth and slid her bag under the table. A few seconds later Andrew returned with a cup filled with iced tea and silver ware. She said, “Thanks Andrew. I’m very hungry.”

“Where are you really going looking so good? I don’t have any competition, do I?”

“It’s for that interview at the mining office.”

The other servers were staring at him with their ticket books in hand, tapping their toes. Andrew smiled looking relieved and said, “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes and let you eat. I have to do some cooking now.”

“Naw, it’s okay Andrew,” said an elderly woman from a few booths down, “Seeing you stammer over that pretty girl is worth waiting a few extra minutes.”

Andrew’s smile widened but now it was he who was blushing. He walked back to the grill and said, “Miss Steele, you know you’re my first love. I can’t let your poached eggs and fried ham sit uncooked another moment. It’d be neglect.” He glanced back at Julia and saw her eating and then he began cooking.

Julia poured more hot sauce all over her omelet and took another bite. The omelet was gone in minutes. She began fishing though her wallet for cash when Andrew walked up to the booth and said, “Wow you eat fast.”

“Air Force habit. I was always eating and running.”

“I’m paying for that omelet Julia.” Andrew said in a tone that meant he was ready for an argument.

“You need to take her for a real dinner Andrew,” said Miss Steele, “A girl needs a thick stake and dim lighting.”

Julia said, “Andrew, I don’t want you to do that.” she looked at Miss. Steele and then back at Andrew. She continued, “I have a lot of problems right now and I don’t want you tied to me when I have all this to work out.”

Andrew shook his head. He said, “I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. But other than getting a job, and needing to find out what happened to your son, what other problems do you have.” Andrew bit his lower lip and said, “Never mind– not appropriate.”

Julia thought about the weird ability to fly... She wasn’t sure if it qualified as a problem. And then there was the presence that was both reassuring and scary because she thought that she might be crazy. She said, “We all have issues but finding my son is the most important,” Julia paused as she thought about her suspended driver’s license, “But it seems that even that has to take a back seat to other things, just so I can survive each day.”

…And stay out of jail.

“Tell me about it honey,” said Ms. Steele, “I remember when $50 would fill up your grocery cart.”

“Have you seen the Sheriff about your son yet?” Andrew asked.

Julia shook her head.

Leave me an address and description and I’ll call them while you go get your job. You can leave your bag here,” he lifted her bag from under the table. Her foot had been resting on it, so as it rose she floated up a little; she shifted her posture and then quickly sank back down. Andrew noticed but he acted as if he didn’t see anything.

Julia’s eyes widened as she looked at him and she mouthed, “Later.”

He nodded slightly and continued, “When you get back I’ll tell you what happened with the police and then you can tell me about that mountain... Then I’ll bring you home. I’d take you up the mountain now but there’s no one to cover for me...” He held his breath as he waited for her answer.

“You are sweet Andrew,” she said as he handed her a pen and paper. She took the pen and wrote down her address, Noah’s description and Rand’s phone number.

Andrew looked at the paper then said, “Don’t worry, we’ll find your little boy. Now go get that job.”

Julia smiled and she hugged him before she could stop herself. His muscles tightened under his uniform.

He said, “I’d wrap my arms around you but then you’d smell like a hash brown all day.”

Julia smiled and said, “Thanks Andrew. I’ll be back for my bag in a few hours.”

He smiled and said, “I’ll put it next to my bag in the back.”

Julia nodded.

“She’ll be back for more than that bag.”

“Oh hush Ms. Steele,” Andrew said with a smile.