Bloods Gem by Gloria Conway

mind
instead of being depressed.
    I woke to the sound of Mom laughing.
Darkness had fallen and once my vision cleared, I saw her standing
outside talking to some gu y. I looked up
at the bright red and yellow sign that read Pilot. Noticing the big
diesel trucks coming and going through the parking lot, I assumed
we were at a truck stop. I tied my hair in a pony tail and put my
shoes on.
    Stepping out of the truck,
the wind nearly knocked me over.
    “ You okay?” Mom asked grinning. The
guy next to her stared as if I had interrupted
something.
    “ Yeah I’m good,” I said
yawning.
    “ Go get yourself a shower hun. I've
already paid for it.” She tossed me a key.
    “ What’s this?” I asked, examining the
strange looking key in my hand.
    “ It’s a key to the shower.” She
resumed her conversation with the hairy guy beside her.
     
    The shower felt good on my skin. While
washing my hair, I remembered a dream. Blood. Sitting on a bed in a
dark room someone held me down biting me. Though paralyzed, I felt
happy. A strange dream, I pushed away as I hurried to wash the soap
from my head.
    The weather had turned, by
the time I returned to the truck. Mist came from my breath, once
inside I drew a blanket over myself.
    Mom sat smiling at
me.
    “What?” I
asked.
    “I think we’re going to be
okay,” she said. I looked at her beaming, shook my head and let my
head fall back down to my pillow.

Chapter Ten
    Faith
     
    Passing the WELCOME TO
ARKANSAS sign, I was immediately taken by the natural beauty of the
state. It’ s referred to as The Natural State for a
reason.
    Our old truck climbed the steep mountain
chugging the whole way. If the old thing was alive, reaching the
top of the mountain would have been well worth the effort. We
stared in awe as we looked down over the colors beneath us. Long
stretches of trees, as far as the eye could see. Each tree a
lighter or brighter color then the next. Various shades of yellow,
followed by orange and fire red. It was autumn in Arkansas.
    The sunset produced a giant fiery
ball, surrounded by an array of colors. A landscape of unreasonable
beauty, as if Claude Monet had brushed it into being. It was beautiful. Th e complete
opposite of my prior home. I had acclimated to the California smog,
and the pollution surrounding the area in which we had lived. Here,
it was pure. Nearly untouched.
    I would create new, happy memories here. I
felt at ease. This was where I was supposed to be at this time.
    We pulled up to our new home. Wow … it’s a
house . Mom’s new job set us up and it seemed perfect.
A cute white house surrounded by woods. Seclusion with a bit of
land with it. In the country, nice and quiet. Away from traffic.
Perfect place to get lost in my thoughts, with no
interruptions.
    “ So what do you think?” she
asked.
    I shrugged “It’s nice” I said. I Didn’t want
to sound overly enthused. Stepping out of the truck, my legs were
almost numb. As my foot touched the damp ground beneath me, I was
overcome by a combination of odors. The rustic smell of burning
wood combined with wet leaves made me feel one with my new
surroundings. I smiled.
    Absent furniture, with
dark green carpet and cream colored walls. The air smelled stale,
as if it had been closed up for years.
    “ We can fix it up,” Mom
announced.
    “ Yeah. Not a big deal,” I said smiling
back at her.
    After unloading the truck, I stared at the
empty rooms. Mom stood beside me with her hand on my shoulder. “I
got an advance from work. They wired money while we were on the
road, so we could get the stuff we need to get by,” She assured
me.
    “ Oh,” I coughed out.
    “ Want to go to town? We’ll need beds.
Maybe we can find a Salvation Army or yard sales along the way.
Pick up what furniture we can find.”
    “ Sounds good,” I said as we got back
in the pickup.
     
    Siloam Springs is a small town. The less
people the better I thought. We drove through looking at the shops
in the downtown