Make Yourself at Home

By Maia Rebekah

I remember how the rain poured when we boarded our flight from Virginia two weeks ago. A typical, gloomy, East Coast April day. Penny and I both have seasonal depression, so when the opportunity arose to take a ten-years-overdue honeymoon to sunny Djerba Island for two weeks, we didn’t hesitate.

I wish we had.

When we got to the Djerba Dreamscapes Resort, I couldn’t believe we’d been able to afford it. Free drinks. Food fit for royalty. Breezy, sunshiny, luxurious honeymoon suite. We met the Wilsons on day two and hit it off immediately. They came to celebrate thirty years of marriage. Left some time last week, maybe. I didn’t see them much near the end.

“Oh, my word,” MaryBeth said on day three, her Wisconsin accent toothache-sweet, “You simply gotta try the beach buggy tour!”

Still decked out in her new pearls, she was encrusted in sand from head to toe. Bob must have been wearing sunglasses, considering the pristine raccoon mask cutting across his otherwise filthy face. Penny—ever-patient—closed the spa reservation email she’d been so excited to show MaryBeth.

The older woman rambled on. “They gave the option to go without a guide—the island is so small, ya know—but I insisted we get one. Didn’t I, Bob?”

“For sure.”

“Good thing too! Did you see the way that camel guy looked at us?”

Penny looked up at me, grinning. “What’d’ya think, Odie? Maybe after my spa appointment in the city this afternoon? Sunset buggy ride?”

Later, our cab stopped outside the spa. The tall building, shrouded in crawling vines and flowers, faced the ocean. Partially hidden, a sign over the door read Lotophages Island Spa. I walked Penny to the entrance, allowing myself a peek inside. The lobby was an open-roofed courtyard sporting a stone fountain and choked with various flowering plants.

A willowy woman approached us from the desk, beaming. “Welcome!” she said, clasping Penny’s hand in both of hers. “I’m Aergia. You must be Penny.”

“Yup! This is my husband, Odie,” said Penny. My memory might be warped, but I swear a shadow flicked across the receptionist’s face at that. Penny continued, “He’s just dropping me off.”

Aergia was smiling again when she said, “Oh, that’s fine. Your room is being prepared now. Would you two like to sample some jujube tea while you wait?”

I guess we must have accepted. I vaguely recall Penny gushing about how delicious and floral it tasted.

I returned to the resort in a daze—thought I was getting heat-stroke—so I vegged in the suite with a cool wet towel on my head, trying to rehydrate. That evening, I awoke to a lukewarm wet towel on my head and a rush of panic yanking my nerves. “Penny!” Her appointment had ended an hour ago.

I flew out of the resort and hailed a cab, trying not to think of my obviously-tourist wife waiting for me in the dark in a foreign country. But when the cabby asked for my destination, it was like my brain stalled. “It’s uhh— It’s a spa.” Of course, he needed something more specific. “Okay, hold on. I’ll find the confirmation email.”

But the message that I’d received less than twelve hours prior was nowhere to be found. I checked all my inboxes. I tried describing the place, but the details were fuzzy. Was it a green building? A garden? I remembered the receptionist’s plastic smile, but not much else.

That was day three.

That night and into the morning of day four was spent trying to get ahold of Penny’s cell, then calling every spa listing in the resort’s city directory. I called the police, who were zero help. After all, she wasn’t missing; I’d just misplaced her. Most concerning was that Penny didn’t just return to the resort on her own. As much as I wanted to be the strong, heroic husband, she was a capable woman, perfectly able to call her own cab. She should have been back by then.

Throwing sleep and caution to the wind, I spent the next days and nights wandering the island, searching for the building that would surely spark my memory if I saw it. I interrogated locals, but no one could help me. Near the end, I only managed to scare them off with incoherent ravings. On day seven, I bumped into the Wilsons. MaryBeth yelped when she saw me, and she pulled Bob across the hallway, hissing, “Don’t ‘MaryBeth’ me! He killed her, Bob! I just know it!”

Day thirteen. I walked a stretch of beach I was certain I had already searched once before. The mirage boiling over the sand almost made it seem to appear out of thin air, but there it was: the ivy-flocked building that had lived just beyond my memory for the past several days. Slack-jawed, I wiped the sweat from my crispy face and gazed up at the familiar sign. Even as I stood there, my brain took several moments to sort out whether I had truly arrived.

I stepped inside. Locked eyes with shiny desk lady. “My wife—” I muttered.

“Maxed out her credit card this morning. Perfect timing for once, Odysseus.” She spat my given name like bile. “She’ll be right out.”

“But… how—”

She left before I could ask.

“Oh, babe!” Penny exclaimed upon seeing me. “Best day ever! I’ve never felt so pampered and—Odie! You look miserable! What happened to you?”

I gaped.

She continued, “Do you still want to take that buggy tour tonight?”

It took forever to convince her of what had transpired. She truly believed she had only been in there for a few hours, though she couldn’t count the cups of tea she’d consumed at a whopping ten bucks per glass.

But she’s beside me now, awaiting take-off and attempting to put her phone into airplane mode. Ding. Just before she hits the button, her notifications bar explodes. Ninety-seven missed calls from Hubs <3.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maia Rebekah is an SNHU graduate, an aspiring copy editor/proofreader, and a staff member at Havok Publishing. She’s a roller-coaster junkie who loves reading and writing Christian sci-fi/fantasy, hiking, playing board games, and listening to outdated Christian rock.

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