Fairy Rings

2. Stupid

The world was still while Naveaha gazed out her window; her long, thick woolen hair had been pulled back into a bonnet while her pink fuzzy tank top with matching shorts barely clung to her. Her slender figure huddled on the bed with a good book. Her room was just how she had left it before going to University and given all of the insanity that happened there; she was happy that it was the same. It was clean and tidy, with her drawings hanging on the walls, low music singing in the background, and the candles flickered. She had just finished brushing her teeth before curling up, and it was almost time for bed. The full moon danced in the sky as the clouds rolled by it, leaving a ripple effect on the grass as the wind blew. She had almost forgotten how beautiful of a sight it was: the cows in the barn, the sheep in the hay piles left outside while the guard dogs watched over them, and the fixer-upper motorcycle sitting in front of the house. All that scenery, and she couldn't help but be relieved to be sitting there at the moment. Years of hard work, endurance, dieting, and exercising with little to no social life had all paid off, but now it was exhausting.

Her first semester of school had gone off with a bang. Sure, it was hard to see Tom and his girlfriend everywhere she went, but other than that, it was smooth sailing. She had found a suitable roommate who loved school and track just as much as she did. She was making the best of it until Tom's girlfriend started picking fights with her. It was senseless. First, she could hear them arguing in the halls, and what little peace she had was ripped away when Tom tried asking her to stop going anywhere he was going, but his girlfriend found out and decided that the two were still good friends. Emerging herself in the pages, she licked her fingers before turning the page to reveal the fate of her favorite heroine. The book was about a little girl whose father traveled the country to find the perfect place to settle down. They went to a horrible town and found a band of outlaws who kidnapped the girl. Another page fluttered through her fingertips, her eyes darting across the page. The story was beginning to pick up when suddenly a knock came at the door.

"Naveaha," her mother peered her head into her room. I have a visitor. Make yourself scarce. Don't come downstairs for any reason; keep your music on and close those blinds, alright?" Confused and slightly shocked, Naveaha sat up and made her way to the window. There was a large glaring light coming from the porch.

"Who's here?" She asked, but her mother had already shut the door and headed downstairs. 11:32, the clock read with its bright orange glow. Was this woman crazy? Naveaha shuddered, recalling their previous joking about her mother's s*x life and how it would be picking up again where it left off once she left for the dorms. She never thought it was really going to happen! Great for her mother. Shrugging it off, she rested on her side and piled up pillows underneath her body so that she could see out the window. She tried to close her eyes; however, it was too quiet. She let her tired eyes graze along the fields while she attempted to recall the noises from the big city that had pampered her, the trucks, the cars, and the occasional train. Out on the ranch, all she heard were the animals; if they stirred at night, it meant trouble. Still, her eyes grazed over the barns, the grass, the tall, dark silhouette, and a pale face standing out front that seemed to stare into her window. . .

Her eyes widened. A tall, dark silhouette with a pale face stood out, staring at her window?! The quiet world around her came to an even more deafening halt; not even the music seemed to stay with the growing silence; the horror that consumed her drove her mad as she sat there. It was a tall, pale man in a black-clad outfit; the moonlight radiated off him, making what little of him that wasn't covered by his outfit shine like a beacon. What was he doing? Was he waiting for a turn to come inside? The thought was revolting, so she quickly made up another plausible explanation for him standing there outside her window like a creep. The new explanation had to make him less scary, less of a threat to her very existence. Things like this usually happen... she thought out loud; it wasn't like she was wrong. The city had sunk its claws into the country the year before she started high school, making her mother's ranch within city limits which somehow gave authority to all the crackheads and junkies to try feeding dead bodies to the pigs they had. They had to install a high-voltage shock fence with a privacy fence just before the wooded area that neighbored the city. An hour passed of her trying to determine what the man was doing; she had an explanation that didn't make her stomach turn. Now, she needed a reason for him being there. She thought he could be a solicitor, but what kind of solicitor comes in the middle of the night? A man getting an estimate for a building her mother had briefly spoken of the day before, a thief, a ghost, maybe a murderer, the list went on and on. She was almost about to fall asleep when her phone rang. Clambering to the side of the bed, she swatted at it to turn it off. Missed a call from Back Stabber. It read 3 unread texts from Back Stabber. Sighing, she laid back down on the bed. She had meant to block his number, but after months of him not texting her, she had completely forgotten about it.

Hey, Veronica told me about the fight. What's wrong with you? Can't you leave us alone? The first text read I KNOW TAT YOUR THERE. ANSWER THE PHONE b***h. The second read. The third text was even worse. Tommy had become quite a piece of work since she stopped hanging out with him; he was mean, crude, downright hateful, and even bullied her, but on a different note, it astounded her how a man could make it to his senior year of college and still not be able to spell worth a damn.

Why don't you text your girlfriend? She wanted to text back. It wouldn't have helped her situation, though. Suddenly, the realization dawned on her; those two set up a scarecrow outside her window! Now he wasn't going to get a text back! Turning her phone off, she rolled over and tried her hardest to fall asleep, but no matter how hard she tossed and turned, she could still feel eyes searing a hole through her. This was how it went for another hour or so, tossing and turning, no sleeping, absolutely nothing till she decided to check and see if he was there again. Was it really there, and if it wasn't a scarecrow, then who was it? Sitting up, she let out a huff of anger; what did this man want? Was it her scarecrow, and her mother had just put it there to keep her in her room like she used to when she was little? Did Tom and his girlfriend have anything to do with it at all? Usually, a crackhead would be gone by now. Not this one... Climbing out of bed, she closed her blinds and blew out the candles before deciding to confront her mother. Naveaha didn't want to think about it anymore, but it would be nice to know what was happening.

This creepy guy's standing outside my house... She finally texted Tom back. She hoped to get a text back saying that he had been waiting for her to walk outside, but her blood ran cold when she heard her phone ring, and the figure still hadn't moved. It could be a stupid prank, after all.

"Tom, tell Veronica and her minions that this isn't funny." She answered the phone.

"Try not to panic, okay, Ava? How long has the man been there?" God, she hadn't even checked, but it seemed like hours. Looking at the clock, she rolled her eyes in an attempt to convince herself that it was a prank. No one would stand there that long except a trained guard. This creepy man had to be a prank.

"You know what! Just tell Veronica it was hilarious, and I called the police; I'm going to bed." Naveaha ended the call and threw the phone on her bed before walking to her mother's room