Deep

  Deep

  A Paranormal Novel

  By

  Natavia

  Copyright © 2019 by Natavia. Published by SOUL Publications. All rights

  reserved www.nataviapresents.com This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales or, is entirely coincidental. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without writer permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Prologue

  Atlantic Ocean 1619…

  T he smell of blood mixed with vomit, feces and urine filled the bottom of the ship. Around sixty slaves were chained by bilboes—leg shackles. Three Caucasian men with a British accent walked down the rickety stairs with pails of food. It had been days since their last meal. A young female slave, around the age of twenty, refused to eat. She gave her scraps to the pregnant woman next to her.

  “You have to eat,” the pregnant woman told Adwoa. Adwoa’s ankles were infected from the rusty bilboes. She was running a fever and couldn’t keep anything down because of the infection traveling through her body. Adwoa was dying.

  “This one is dead!” a sailor yelled out.

  “Throw him over!” a sailor named John replied.

  Loud screams from the dead man’s wife filled the ship as they unchained him. The two sailors carried his stiff body up the stairs to throw him overboard. The third sailor checked for more bodies and found ten more, two were babies.

  “We got ten more!” he yelled out to the sailors upstairs.

  “Eat, Adwoa. You’re going to die,” the pregnant woman said. She put the food against Adwoa’s mouth, but she turned away from her. Adwoa’s lips were cracked and bloody from dehydration. She was frail, and it pained her to breathe.

  “The water is going to take my soul, so I can be at peace. You should come with me,” she said. The pregnant woman was puzzled. Why would Adwoa want her to kill herself and her baby?

  “My baby is still moving inside me. We have a chance. Please, eat!” the pregnant woman cried.

  “I hear her voice. She wants me to join her, so my soul could rest. The water will save your soul, too. Stop eating and drinking from them so we can be free,” Adwoa said. Suddenly, the ship tilted, and the wood squealed from the force of the waves. Water seeped into the cracks of the ship until a hole appeared underneath. The sailor tried to make a run for it, to warn the others above, but he tripped. The pressure from the water slammed his body into the stairs, causing the stairs to collapse.

  “She came for us,” Adwoa said.

  “We’re going to die!” someone yelled out.

  The water began filling up the bottom of the ship, drowning the slaves as they tried to break free, but they were chained. Adwoa closed her eyes, welcoming the feeling her ancestors told stories of. The spirits of the water were real, and they came to save them…

  Shore

  Present day, June 2nd, 2017…

  I sat on the steps to our building waiting for my mother to come home from work. It was late at night, so I always waited outside for her because of the condition of our neighborhood. We lived in the slums where the buildings were falling apart, and the water was barely hot, but it was all she could afford. I wanted to help her, but I had a rare brain disease, so I was considered handicap. At twenty years old, I felt like a child. I had several jobs but had to quit them all because of my seizures but we didn’t want social security. My mother figured my condition would change once we found the right doctor. She didn’t want to believe I was permanently damaged and neither did I. My father was killed at work when I was a little girl—well, I was a newborn baby. He was a manager at a liquor warehouse. Apparently, he fired an employee, who came back two weeks later and shot my father. My mother was a young woman at the time, she was only twenty-one years old. Twenty years later, her life was still at a standstill.

  “Aye, pretty lady. When are you gonna let me come up? I know Sabrina is hard up on money right now. I’ll pay,” a man said to me. He reeked of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot red. His clothes were a size too small, perhaps that was the fashion for men nowadays. He was also far from attractive and old enough to be my father. His name was Lester, and he was the neighborhood pervert.

  “Get the hell out of my face!”

  My bluntness seemed to entice him even more. He grabbed my leg and squeezed, showing me his old gold tooth.

  “I like a feisty little bitch,” he grinned.

  “Leave her alone before I call the cops!” Miranda yelled out the fourth-floor window. Miranda was the neighborhood’s daycare lady and she hated Lester with a passion.

  “Let me know when you’re ready for me, pretty lady,” Lester said while grabbing himself. He caressed my cheek before walking away.

  “Get in the house, Shore! You know there is nothing but trouble this time of night!” Miranda said, smoking a cigarette.

  “I’m not a kid,” I replied.

  “Your mother told me to look after you,” she said, and it angered me. I had a health issue, but I was almost twenty-one years old!

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “We just care about you,” Miranda said, and I smiled at her.

  “Thank you.”

  A few seconds later, my mother’s old Chevy Impala pulled into the parking lot. The car was on its last leg and it rattled terribly. My mother worked at a small diner in the inner-city of Annapolis. She depended on her tips because her pay was only two dollars and seventy-five cents an hour. My mother got out of her car and slammed the door. She had a brown paper bag in her hand which meant she stopped at the liquor store before she came home. My mother was an alcoholic which also put pressure on our situation. Sabrina was a beautiful woman despite her disheveled hair and the dark rings around her eyes. She was a curvy woman, perhaps a size twenty. Her long, jet-black hair fell to her hips and her skin was the color of cocoa bark.

  “What happened?”

  “That son-of-a-bitch fired me!” my mother shouted as she walked up the steps to the building. I was used to my mother losing her job. The diner was the only job she managed to keep over five months. I followed her into our small two-bedroom apartment. She sat on the couch and popped the top off her Jameson Irish Whiskey bottle. I sat across from her needing answers because the rent was almost due. The landlord gave us one last warning. If our rent was late again, we would have to move. My mother was the only child of her parents, but they were dead. I have never met my father’s side of the family because my mother didn’t know them.

  “I need to get a job.”

  “Jobs stresses you out and triggers your seizures. I only have twenty damn dollars to my name because I had to get that piece of shit car fixed. We have to move. I can’t come up with five-hundred dollars in a week. Just start packing and I’ll figure out a way,” she said.

  “But, Ma, you bought liquor with the tips you made tonight?”

  “Damn it, Shore! I’m trying, okay! It’s not easy taking care of us! You think I don’t get stressed, too?” she asked with tear-filled eyes.

  “Sorry, Ma. I’ll go pack. Where will we go?” I asked, feeling defeated.

  “Your father’s family’s house. Well, his ancestors’ house. He always said if something happened to him for me to take you there. I’ve never seen it before, but he gave me an old map. It’s been abandoned for years so let’s hope it’s still there. If it isn’t, then I guess we’ll have to sleep in the car until I find something else. I’d rather just leave now before the landlord has all of our belongings outside,” she said. My heart fell to the pit of my stomach at the menti
on of sleeping in a car. There had to be another way. I went to my shoebox bedroom and cried my eyes out. The apartment wasn’t much but it was my home. We moved every year and it was draining. I was so used to it that I only kept a bed and dresser in my room. We didn’t own a TV, but I had a cell-phone. The cell-phone’s service was terminated but I used it for the internet. Social media was my only connection to the world and I actually had a few friends on there who were like me and didn’t have a life outside of their bedroom. I learned how to style my own hair, how to put on make-up and I also knew the fashion because of the internet models. In my head, I attended one of those fancy colleges, had a circle of friends, drove a cute convertible and had a cute boyfriend. But when I opened my eyes, nothing but cracked walls and foggy windows surrounded me.

  I’m gonna find a job and help my mother. Even if it kills me!

  Shore

  Two days later…

  “S

  hore! Do you hear me talking to you?” my mother asked. I walked around the small cabin in the woods not believing what was happening. The drive was three hours away from our apartment, but it took us four hours to find the house because it was buried behind hundreds of trees. I was excited on our way to our new home and anxious because we never lived in a house before. But the excitement went away soon as we found it.

  “We can’t live here. Are you sure you read the map, right? This can’t be it,” I replied. The small bedroom I stood in was supposed to be my bedroom and it faced the pretty blue crystal lake. Virginia didn’t have pretty blue water, so I didn’t understand why the water was so pure. I couldn’t pull away from the dirty window because the scenery was amazing.

  “This is definitely the right house. Your father’s slave ancestors owned it. This house is history and you should be thankful for it,” she replied.

  “The lake is the only good thing about it.”

  “This is only temporary. At least you won’t have to worry about those damn crackheads sitting on our car. Oh, and what about the gunshots in the middle of the night? This ain’t much but it’s ours until we get back on our feet,” she said.

  “I’d rather live in the hood than in the woods. You haven’t seen the movie, Cabin Fever? Or what about Evil Dead? Shit happens to people in the darn woods, Ma! Do we even have electricity? This is soooooo seventeenth century.”

  “Cut the bullshit out, Shore! This will be our home for a while unless you have a better idea. Times are hard and even though we don’t have that fancy mess you’re worried about, we have each other. Just imagine we’re back in our old apartment and I couldn’t afford to pay the electric bill. It’s not like we haven’t lived this way before,” she replied.

  “We only have two-hundred dollars to our name and that was from selling our furniture. We’re in the middle of nowhere and our car is on its last leg. How are we going to work from here? Let’s just get a motel room so I can look for a job in walking distance. People live out of motels all the time.”

  “You have epilepsy, Shore. You shouldn’t be working! I’ll find a job, plus I told you not to work in the first place.”

  “For ten years I had to wear a helmet, Ma. I couldn’t do things normal kids did and I didn’t have any friends. I’m twenty years old and should be having fun, working and going out to clubs. All I do is read books and browse the internet, but I can’t do that anymore since we don’t have Wi-Fi out here,” I replied.

  “I’ll worry about work, just finish unpacking.” My mother kissed me on the forehead before she left out of the room. Tears fell from my eyes because deep down inside, I knew I couldn’t live a normal life. My biggest fear was having a seizure that I couldn’t wake from, so it was a must that I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

  Shore

  Four days later…

  M y mother was inside the house making us sandwiches and fresh lemonade. It was humid, and we didn’t have an air conditioner, but sitting by the lake gave me a slight breeze. I was sitting on a rock looking at the small fish swim around. One fish glowed, and it had colors like the rainbow.

  “What kind of fish is that?” I said out loud. Looking further into the water, I saw my reflection. The lake seemed like it understood me for some reason.

  Step into the water, Shore. Our queen wants to see you, the voices said. I could feel a seizure coming. Every time I heard voices or saw crazy images, I’d collapse then wake up in a hospital. It had been happening since I was a little girl and it had only gotten worse as I got older.

  I can’t swim.

  Yes, you can, Shore. Come swim with us. You’re home now.

  Leave me alone!

  It’s time to come home, the voices were echoing in my head and made my nose bleed. I used my shirt to stop the bleeding.

  “Excuse me. Can I fish here?” a voice asked from behind. I turned around and almost fell off the rock. The man hurriedly rushed over and caught me. My body got lost in his strong arms as he held me. His scent was unusual but nonetheless he smelled good.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, staring into my eyes. He was dark-skinned with a unique complexion. There was an emerald tint to his skin underneath the sunlight. His teeth were perfect and white like flour. When he stood up, he was extremely tall. The stranger was around six-foot-six and he had pretty and thick curly hair that was brushed into a ponytail. He was shirtless and only wearing basketball shorts and tennis shoes. The stranger also wore a gold seashell necklace around his neck which I thought was odd for a man. The guys on social media wore Jesus pieces with diamonds and many other things around their necks but not seashells.

  “Do you hear me talking to you?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry. What was that?”

  “Never mind, you look fine to me. Can I fish here? I have been coming here for a while because I thought it was abandoned,” he said. His voice oozed sexiness. Hell, everything about the man was perfect. His full lips curved into a smile when he talked. Staring into someone’s face and not talking to them was rude and weird but I couldn’t help it.

  “Ummm, uh. I’m no—not sure,” I finally replied.

  Damn it! I’m stuttering, and he probably thinks I’m crazy.

  “Okay then. I’ll see you around,” he said and walked away. I began feeling guilty. Besides, what did I have to lose by letting him fish at the lake?

  “I’m sorry! You can fish here!” I called out to him.

  “Appreciate it,” he said and walked back over towards me. I noticed he didn’t have fishing rods or even a bucket to keep them in.

  “So, where is your stuff?” I asked, and he chuckled.

  “I use my hands when I’m fishing. Do you want me to show you?” he asked. Before I could respond, my mother ran out of the house with a shotgun in her hand. I slapped my hand against my forehead because she was embarrassing me!

  “Get your ass away from my daughter! This is private property!” she yelled at the stranger.

  “Put the gun down,” he said. My mother dropped the gun on the ground and everything that was happening from that point on was out of the ordinary. A stranger comes out of nowhere and he actually got my mother to listen without putting up a fight?

  “I’m not here to cause any harm. I just want to fish for my father. Is that okay with you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” my mother replied.

  “Are you okay, Ma?”

  “Yes. I’m going to finish our lunch,” she said and walked back into the house.

  “Wowwwwww, I’m surprised she didn’t curse you out,” I said, and the stranger looked down at me.

  “I’m not a threat. Sorry for my rudeness but my name is Zambezi.” He extended his hand out to me and I shook it.

  “I’m Shore.” I couldn’t stop blushing if I wanted to. Zambezi didn’t seem like a city boy and I wondered if he lived close by.

  “Do you live near here?” I asked.

  “Very close but we don’t have a lake behind our house,” he said. I put my hair behind my ear and looked down at my outf
it. I cursed myself out for wearing my short summer dress without any shoes. Something told me to polish my toe nails, but I didn’t unpack everything yet.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “A year older than you,” he chuckled.

  “You don’t know my age.”

  “Twenty,” he said, and I blushed again.

  “How did you guess that?”

  “I’m good at guessing a lot. Do you want to watch me fish?” he replied.

  “Sure, it’s not like there is anything else to do.”

  Zambezi stepped into the lake after he took his shoes off and I sat back on the rock with my chin rested on my hand. There was something about him. I had many crushes in the past, but Zambezi was different—very different. He went inside his pocket and sprinkled something in the water.