Eternal by V. Forrest (primary phonics books .TXT) 📕

years,” Mary Hall moaned. “Which is interesting, because I recall a certain person raising hell in his day.”

Everyone began to talk at once, all having a story about a teenager they knew or a prank they had pulled when they were teens. Thankful the attention had shifted to another subject, Fia slipped into her chair. Peigi let the conversations go on for two or three minutes and then began to strike her pen on the side of her chair, getting everyone’s attention again. “If you have something to say, give me a nod, raise your hand, I’ll call on you.”

“Exactly what is the complaint?” Tavia asked. “Vandalism?”

“Here and there, some graffiti on the boathouses, a few stolen crab pots,” Peigi responded.

“Human shenanigans,” Rob scoffed.

Several more comments were thrown into the ring.

“Yes, Mungo,” Peigi said, recognizing the portly man in the madras plaid shorts.

The voices died down.

“I for one, in light of what’s been going on around here, am concerned for the safety of these kids, not our damned dinghies. They’re at a vulnerable age. The boys are mostly out chasin’ deer, stealin’ rowboats, harmless stuff, but the girls are who we ought to be worried about. There’s a group of them spending an awful lot of time with human boys.”

“You know what they’re doing don’t you?” Eva spoke up, amusement in her voice. “Same thing we were all trying to do at their age.”

“It’s forbidden,” Mary Hall said flatly. “Sex is strictly forbidden before the age of twenty-one and certainly with humans.”

“I’m not saying it’s right.” Eva shifted her long legs. “I’m just saying we all know that’s what it’s about.”

“It’s mostly flirtation,” Rob threw in. “Harmless teenage stuff. We all did it. Those girls aren’t having sex with those boys. They know better.”

“Right. Just like you weren’t jumping that cute little blonde back when we were in high school?” Rob’s brother Joe teased. “What was her name? Samantha W—”

“I think we’re getting off the subject here,” Rob interrupted, his face reddening. “I don’t know that we need to set a curfew, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the teenagers, would it?”

“Maybe talk to Kaleigh?” Mary Hall crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her folding chair. “She’s the one I see out at all hours of the night. Flirting with those human boys who work at the diner and the ice-cream shop. She ought to know better!”

Fia glanced across the circle at her brother. Though Fin wasn’t smiling, she could tell by the twinkle in his eyes that he was amused.

“I have a suggestion,” he said.

At once, everyone quieted.

“Why don’t we all make a point this week to talk to our teens, those of us who have them in our homes or in our families? I don’t mind talking to my little brothers. Rob, you wouldn’t mind talking to your niece, would you? And Mary, you’ve always had a way with our teens. You’d be surprised, but I bet Kaleigh might listen to you better than her own parents right now. She’s always admired you.”

Mary Hall sat up straighter in her chair. “She has?”

The meeting only ran another ten minutes and when it was over, Fia was quick to grab her chair, add it to the stack against the wall, and make a beeline for the door. As she slipped down the hall, she looked back, thinking that if she could catch Fin’s attention, she’d tell him she’d wait for him outside. But when she saw him surrounded by several women, all vying for his attention, she knew he might be another hour.

Just as she was about to turn away, he saw her and held up his hand, telling her to wait.

She didn’t really want to. She wanted to go back to the B and B and get some sleep. She just wanted to put the council meeting and the whole day behind her. But she couldn’t say no to Fin. Never could.

He was out in record time and breezed past her on the sidewalk. “You coming? We’re late.”

“Late for what?” she asked suspiciously.

“You know.” He turned to face her and in the dim yellow moonlight she saw him arch his dark eyebrows comically.

“Oh, no, Fin.” She hurried after him. “Absolutely not.” She glanced behind her to see who was coming out the door. It was hard-of-hearing Little Jimmy, talking loudly to one of the Marys. Fia hurried to catch up to her brother. “We can’t. You can’t,” she whispered under her breath. “Fin, that’s been outlawed for two hundred years.”

Chapter 13

“Fin, this is a bad idea. Fin!”

He veered off the street, cutting through an alley.

“Come on.” She practically begged him. “Let’s go home. Please? It’s late. You don’t need any blood tonight.”

“What I need tonight…what you need,” he shot over his shoulder, “is a little fun.”

“Fin!” Fia sprinted to catch up. Once her brother made up his mind, she knew she had two choices. She could go back to the B and B and let him find his own way out of the mess he’d get himself into, or she could go with him and attempt to keep him out of trouble.

Only four blocks from their parents’, on a street that overlooked the bay, they entered a dilapidated house through the back door. Though it was close to 3 A.M., the elderly Mrs. Hill, Eva’s mother, Petey’s aunt, was seated at her kitchen table. Dressed in a flowered, cotton nightgown, she was eating chocolate-chip cookies and drinking blood from a cut-crystal claret glass while she read a tabloid newspaper that sported the headline “Hollywood Werewolf Party Crashed by Rappers.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Hill,” Fin said with his usual charm.

“Evening, Fin.” Mrs. Hill looked up over the rims of her pink rhinestone-studded reading glasses, her cheeks coloring.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hill.” Fia followed Fin through the kitchen.

The old woman returned her gaze to the paper.

Fin opened the creaky white paneled door that led into the basement of the turn-of-the-century house. Heavy