Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Ahhh!” I scream. My heart catapults into my throat as a strong hand shackles around my ankle. The banana tumbles toward my bedroom door as I fall forward on the landing.
Theo is the killer. I’m the innocent victim. The banana is the gun. Flailing and kicking, I wriggle from his hold on my leg, sacrificing one of my shoes.
Banana.
Door.
Slam it shut.
Lock it.
With my bum on the floor, back against the door, knees to my chest, and breathless—I peel the banana. I should be freaked out. The man is possessive of his fruit but as he jiggles the doorknob, all I can do is grin. I feel alive. That might classify me as my own breed of crazy.
“Don’t come out—ever,” he grumbles.
CHAPTER FIVE
My name is Scarlet Stone and the reasoning behind most everything I do is—because I can.
The sun.
After a long night of fighting sleep, reading, and fighting more sleep, I shower then throw open the curtains.
“Well … shit.” I laugh at the ridiculousness of yesterday’s charade with Thor—Theo.
The curtains don’t cover windows; they cover French doors leading to a small, private balcony and stairs. He ‘locked’ me in a room with another exit. The white noise of rolling tides in the distance greets me as I step out onto the deck and ease into the sun lounger with a faded-red seat cushion and a small round table next to it. A thin layer of sand and salt is caked to the top of it.
“Well done, Nolan,” I whisper. This place is exactly what I need.
Here I can just be. At least that’s what Echart Tolle and Wayne Dyer have been inspiring me to do. Everyone should stop their forward momentum long enough to contemplate the words of these great spiritual teachers. It really doesn’t matter where we’re going—it’s about where we are. I hope here, on this deck or somewhere along the miles of sand emerging from the ocean, I’ll find clarity, acceptance, and … peace.
Too bad Zen wasn’t an “in” thing years ago when my dad presented me with long lists of jobs. Sorry, Oscar … this is my meditation day. I’ll be busy all day nurturing my spiritual health … in a chair … by the pool. We didn’t have a pool, except in my dreams.
If everyone spent more time doing that, I believe we could achieve world peace.
However, contemplating life is not an easy task. For me, it’s overwhelming right now. It feels like a game that I don’t know how to play. Is it all luck? Does skill mean anything? What are the rules? And what happens when it’s over? I close my eyes and let those thoughts play in my head while seagulls cry in the distance.
“Scarlet Stone?”
I open my eyes and sit up. “Yes?”
The little, old Asian man at the top of the deck stairs, wearing baggy linen trousers, a matching frock-type shirt, and black Tom’s sandals, presses his palms together at his heart and bows. “Good morning.”
“Sorry, uh …” I share, at best, an awkward smile. There’s an uninvited stranger on my deck. That’s … strange. I knew only one of my neighbors in London.
One.
And we only talked on rare occasions and only about the weather.
I’m short, but this man is definitely shorter—five feet max. “So, uh … sorry, how do you know my name?”
“Nolan.”
I nod.
“You come for breakfast. Yes?”
“Uh …” It’s food. Why is my brain hesitating? “Do you live close by?”
He nods and points to the small, pale yellow house over the grassy dune, maybe a hundred meters away.
I look down at my white satin dressing gown. “Give me five minutes?”
A nod and another bow as I stand.
I slip on a long, white T-shirt that used to be Daniel’s, over my rainbow-striped bikini, then shove my feet into my flip-flops.
“I’m at a disadvantage,” I say, slipping on my sunglasses. “I don’t know your name.”
“Yimin.” He moves his hand toward my face.
I pull back a fraction.
“May I?”
After a few seconds, I return a slow nod. Yimin eases off my sunglasses.
“Eyes need a little sun too.”
“O—K.”
He nods once and walks down the stairs. I follow. I’ve been in Savannah for twenty-four hours, and I’ve experienced weirder—as in complete mad—moments than I have the previous thirty-one years of my life combined: Nolan’s parents, Theo the angry giant, and now the little Asian man leading me to breakfast. People who live in the U.S. demonstrate more peculiar behavior than I’d imagined.
Yimin slips off his shoes. Then he wipes his feet on a grass mat before opening a warped screen door that resists his first attempt. I kick off my flip-flops and brush the sand from my feet before stepping inside.
“Please. Sit.” He nods to the table by the window with only two wooden chairs: one painted red, the other gold.
“The red one.”
I pause before my bum hits the seat to the gold chair.