Now look what you did.
You caused it!
“If you shall hold Charlene for me, I will make my speech and present my gift.”
Kai bowed at Shelley and Charlene’s feet. I didn’t mind because from here I could see his tight butt in those strange pants. I shook my head. What was wrong with me? Had Henry made me a sex-crazed monster?
“Charlene Kimberly Landry. It is the honour of myself and the mermen of Withernsea to serve you and protect you.” He opened the jeweled box at his feet and held it open to Shelley. “Inside here is a golden bejewelled whistle. Should you or Charlene need me, or my men, you blow on this whistle and we shall be here as fast as our fins and land legs can carry us.” He stood again.
“Kai. This is a truly wonderful gift and your speech was beautiful. We also will help you if needed in any way that we can.”
Kai bowed and then leaning over kissed the top of Charlie’s forehead.
I just fainted, Auntie Ebony. Fan me.
“I shall be on my way. Until we meet again, ladies.”
I escorted him to the door where he bid me farewell.
When I turned Henry was behind me.
“I saw you checking out his butt.”
I smiled. “It’s not as nice as yours.”
“Come out with me tonight, Ebs.”
He called me Ebs!
“I’m quite a good cook. How about you come to mine and I’ll make us dinner? It’s been ages since I entertained. Usually a vision comes and I end up in bed with a migraine, cutting the evening short.”
“I foresee you’ll end up in bed again, but not with a migraine.”
“Ahem.”
We both shot around to face Shelley.
“Well, well. Looks like we don’t need a house meeting any more, Charlie. Unless they both have damp hair because they had a nasty water fight? Hmmmm. No, I don’t think so either.”
“Is the… is the baby… talking to you?” I said.
Shelley rolled her eyes. “Ebony, honestly. Don’t be silly. I think it’s a good idea you get out tonight. You need a break from all these visitors and being cooped up in here, it’s addling your brain.”
As if a baby can talk, Auntie Ebs. Honestly!
Be quiet you or I’ll put that nursery rhyme CD on repeat in your room.
I noticed both Henry and Shelley were staring at me. “Hot drink anyone?” I said and dashed to the kitchen.
Shelley
I put Charlie in her crib, walked into the bathroom and turned on the tap. I needed some me-time. In one morning I’d endured a wailing orgasmic ghost, a miserable seer, an asshole pixie, as well as also being visited by weres and a merman. Then I find while I’m not getting any, everyone else seems to be. It was making me extra grumpy, so a nice soak in the tub it was.
A knock came to the outside door and huffing I opened it to find Ebony on the other side.
“There’s a merman at the door. He says Kai forgot something.”
“Couldn’t he just give it to you?”
“Apparently not.”
I did my best not to stomp downstairs although it was difficult, and I stood in the doorway looking at the man in front of me. Long blonde hair was flicked off his face. The guy looked like a merman Fabio.
He stood with a box in his hand.
“My leader forgot to bestow upon you one of his gifts.” He said. Then he promptly proceeded to throw sea water at me again.
“Good day, Queen.” He said, walking away with the box as I spluttered a piece of seaweed out of my mouth.
I held a finger up to Ebony, who took my cue not to say a damn word. Instead she passed me a hand towel from the kitchen. I quickly ran it over my face and hair.
“My bath awaits. Unless Charlie disturbs, I shall be unavailable. Even if Withernsea itself is in peril. I shall Not. Be. Disturbed.”
“Got it. Go chill.” Ebony said.
I nodded at her and made my way back upstairs.
An hour later I felt different again. The warm water had soothed my tense muscles. I no longer smelled of the sea, and I’d done a quick defuzz everywhere and covered myself in a nice scented body lotion.
Slipping between the sheets next to my still sleeping husband I decided I’d laze around for a while.
I woke to find Theo looking down at me. Charlie in his lap.
“I’ve fed her one of your expressed bottles.”
“You didn’t need to do that. It's not like I need much sleep.”
“So what were you doing in bed? Couldn’t resist me?”
“It’s been a wearing day with visitors.”
“I’m sorry you’re left to deal with this alone. Why not get the visitors to come at night so I can help you?”
“Yeah, I might sometimes, but right now, I’m glad it’s just us.”
“And Ebony, and my mother, and possibly Henry if he’s still here.”
I shook my head. “Ebony and Henry are on a date at her house. Your mother is on a date at her new boyfriend’s. She said for us to not wait up.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “She was able to leave the house?”
Daughter or not, Charlie was back in that crib by the time I uttered the word, “Yes.”
“We have the house to ourselves. Oh thank the Lord. It’s time to make my good wife scream the house down.”
“Well not too loudly cos we might wake the baby.” I said, but Theo’s hearing was already muffled by his head being halfway down the bedsheets.
Henry
Well, my mind might be confused but my body seemed to be handling things.
I’d thought Ebony was gorgeous the first time I’d set eyes on her in my sister’s coffee shop a couple of years ago. However just as I’d been introduced to her, her face had gone grey and her eyeballs had rolled showing the whites. I’d quickly lifted up my mobile phone, only for Jax to hold my arm, telling me that Ebony did this quite often and said it was due to visions.
When she’d come to a few minutes later, Ebony had mumbled something about seeing a vision of a vampire wanting a date. Well, that was that. The woman was beautiful but entirely cuckoo.
I’d been dating Callie. Lust had turned into comfortableness. I’d said I loved her because I thought I did, and also she said it to me and sulked if I didn’t say it back. Things had been good, until they weren’t. Now I knew why. Once she’d dumped me I’d decided I’d have a bit of time ‘single and ready to mingle’ and ‘playing the field’. Any number of clichés about getting my dick wet, I would embrace them all.
But the gorgeous but bloody barmy Ebony was in my life again. I’d tried, and now obviously failed, to resist her. A date was good. A date at her house meant getting to know her and checking out what she was getting at, telling me to open my eyes. While I spent more time with her alone, I’d be able to assess just how bonkers she was and whether it was worth a little madness in my life to have that fine body riding me for hours. I got hard just thinking about it.
Calling in at the supermarket on my way to her house, I bought a bottle of an expensive wine as I doubted Ebony would be impressed by a bottle from the bargain bucket. Then I drove the short ten-minute drive from my house to hers.
She opened the door looking so damn hot in a tight red dress.
“Come in, the food’s almost ready. I just need to do your steak.”
“Thank you.” As she walked ahead, I checked out my appearance in her hallway mirror before following her.
“You look gorgeous.” I said, bending down and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you. You scrub up well too.”
I handed the bottle of wine over. “It’s a good one. I think.”
That earned me a look. “Henry. You will get to know hopefully over the course of the evening that I am a normal human being, well, apart from my visions. I do enjoy a glass of champagne, but I can also appreciate a half of cider. I’ve lived in Withernsea a long time now.”
Over dinner she spoke about her family bac
k in London. I knew from Jax that Ebony had lost her mum in a house fire. I told her about growing up as the older brother of a tiny tearaway called Jax. Conversation flowed easily until before I knew it she was offering me a coffee, the meal was over and it was a quarter to eleven at night. She’d not had a vision at all. Maybe they were an attention seeking kind of thing and because she had my attention, she’d not felt the need to ‘perform’?
We sat on the sofa and clutching my coffee I tried to bring the conversation around to us ending up shagging in her bathroom.
“What was all that about earlier, right, with that short guy? What was he doing at the house anyway? If you don’t mind me pointing out, Shelley lets some strange people in the house. That last one didn’t have a shirt on and looked like he’d poofed out of the 1970’s!”
Ebony sighed and bit on her bottom lip. “Henry. I’m going to tell you something and I want you to hear me out. Not go off about me being crazy, just listen. Then we’ll say no more about what I’ve told you and you can do your own research into it.”
Oh dear, was Ebony about to come out with something cuckoo and ruin the good vibe we had going on?
“I can already see by your face that you still think I’m a sandwich short of a picnic. I can’t blame you. If it were the other way around, I’d already be out of the door.” She grabbed hold of my hand. “Just hear me out, okay? Then if you want, you can leave.”
As her hand held mine the strangest sensation traveled over my wrist, up my arm, and across my shoulder, my neck, until an electrical style jolt hit my brain. My vision went black and then pictures flashed over my mind. Theo with fangs. Shelley with blue threads coming out of her fingers holding what looked like Satan up in the air, Darius as a werewolf. I dropped her hand and leaped back away from her.
“What was that? What the fuck just happened?”
Ebony sat there staring at her hand. “What did happen? I, I felt a spark come from my hand and then your eyes rolled and you went pale. Did you-, did you see things?”
“Is it some kind of virus? One that gives hallucinations? I saw Theo with fangs. Other weird shit.” I sprang off the sofa and moved towards the door. “Did you drug me? Did you put something in my food?”
“You experienced what I do.” Ebony now had tears falling down her face. “You had some kind of vision. Please, please, let me tell you everything and then you can think I’m crazy, drugged you, and you never have to see me again. I’ll tell Shelley I can’t help her any more, but please, just hear me out, Henry.”
Her gaze was so pleading and she looked so desperate that I found myself walking back to the sofa.
She asked me to wait and came back with another bottle, this time vodka. “You might need something stronger than the coffee.”
“I already had my limit this evening. I’m driving.”
She looked up at me. “You can stay. I have a spare room if you prefer. Or, I can phone for a taxi to take you home.”
I sighed. “Go on then, pour me a drink.”
Ebony swallowed. “I’ve been having visions since I was young. They got stronger after my mother passed. She was also a Seer like myself. I get warning visions but sometimes they aren’t much use to people, only a snippet. I predicted that Shelley would end up with Theo; that Kim would marry Darius.
“Theo is a vampire. He’s 127 years old. Shelley was turned just before Charlie’s birth. She’s also part witch and part wyvern. Frankie Love, who you probably know, has an app you can sign up to that teaches you all about the supernaturals of Withernsea. There are a lot of us. Your sister, Jax, has no idea of what we are at this moment in time, although things change.”
I took a drink of my vodka. “You realise this sounds absolutely cray-cray, right, and by all accounts I should be running the hell out of here and phoning you a psychiatrist?”
“Tristan who you fought today is the leader of the Pixies of Withernsea. Darius visited as the Leader of the Hogsthorpe Pack. Kai with the nice bottom is the leader of the mermen.”
I snorted.
“Charlene will rule all of Withernsea when she’s older. The prophecy states she’ll save Withernsea from destruction and no one will have ever seen anyone like her. That’s why they are all visiting. They are offering their servitude. I’m staying because if I get a vision warning of Charlie being in danger from any of them, I can pass it straight on and warn Shelley and Theo. I can help keep her safe.”
Just as I was about to tell her I was out of here, her words from earlier whispered into my mind. Open your eyes.
I thought about the fact that Theo slept in the daytime and came out at night. That he talked about poor circulation if you touched him because he was cold.
Shelley telling me that I could help myself to anything in the fridge, except her tomato juice, because it was a rare variety and expensive.
The weird Mary who was always here one minute and not the next.
I looked across at Ebony. “Who’s Mary, Ebony?”
She swallowed. “Mary is Theo’s mother. She’s a ghost who up until today was tethered to the house. Theo drained her when he was first turned into a vampire. That’s why you only see her occasionally. She runs out of energy and goes translucent or disappears completely.”
“Right.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in and seems crazy. Right now you think you’re dreaming right, or you need a psychiatrist? I know because at one time I was you.”
This statement made me focus on her, take note of her words.
“Once I didn’t have visions and then I did, and my mum told me this was all real and I wasn’t going insane. Then the visions showed me mystical beings that had only ever been in story books and I said ‘No, Mama. You need to get me to a doctor because I’m ill. The children at school are calling me crazy'. But you know,” a tear slid down her face. “You get used to pretending people’s hurtful talk doesn’t harm you after a while. You get used to the name calling and the fact everyone thinks you should be out of the community and into an asylum.”
I wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Why haven’t you run yet, Henry?”
“I don’t know.” I said honestly, and then I leaned over and kissed her because if I was going mad I might as well enjoy the ride.
The next morning I awoke in Ebony’s bed. I turned towards her. She was still asleep, looking peaceful and angelic, her dark hair splayed out across the pillow.
The memories of everything she’d told me and what I’d seen in that weird hallucination rushed back. I couldn’t make sense of any of it, but I owed it to Ebony to go back to the farm with her this morning and find out the truth.
I got out of bed, deciding for once I’d make Ebony a hot drink. As I left the room, I found I was shaking my head. Was I really believing this was real? Maybe I was going cray cray too?
Ebony
I woke up, the ache between my legs reminding me of the glorious early hours of the morning where we’d not been able to get enough of each other. Then I turned over and saw the space next to me. I sat up and noted there were none of his clothes around my bedroom. A huge thumping sadness beat against my chest as I registered the fact he’d gone. Then I heard a noise downstairs. The clattering was followed by an ‘oh shit’ from a familiar voice and I let out a large exhale as both relief and joy flooded my body that he was still here. Footsteps padded up the stairs and Henry walked in holding two steaming mugs.
“One coffee for the lady,” he said putting my mug at the side of my bed.
He walked back around to ‘his’ side and placed his mug on the bedside table there before flopping back onto the bed. “And a nice cuppa for me.”
“I thought you’d left.” I told him honestly. “When I saw the clothes gone.”
His mouth dropped open slightly as he looked around the room. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I just wanted to be dressed as I didn’t know if you had a maid coming in or anything. I didn’t want you to be sued or to cause heart failure to anyone.�
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“A maid! Oh my God, Henry, what are you going to come out with next? Do you want to have sex against a tree and call me Lady Chatterley?”
“Not only posh folks have maids. My mum hates cleaning, she has a maid service come round once a week.”
“Fair enough. It’s a shame you’re dressed though.” I bit my lip.
“You are aware clothes come off right? Let me show you.”
And he did.
Henry said he’d drive us both across to the farmhouse.
After showering and dressing, I heard him honking the van horn and realised it was almost 9am. Locking the door behind me, I ran down the path and jumped into the passenger seat of the van. The front foot-well was full of discarded crisp packets and chocolate wrappers, plus empty pop bottles.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“You’re a filthy pig.” I told him.
“You weren’t complaining last night… or this morning.” He chuckled.
My phone rang and I answered it. Kim started speaking.
“Ebs, babe. I got you another date, and yes I am here before 9am. Can you have a vision to see what I’m coming down with because it’s not normal. I actually thought I’d better be here to open up as Lucy can’t get here until 10am. I’m sick, Ebs. Sick.”
“You’re not sick. Well, I’ve not had any such visions about you anyway. Perhaps you are either growing up, or scared of what Shelley would say if she found out the place wasn’t open on time.”
“I suppose. Shelley really is bloody terrifying when she gets a mood on. Anyway, you owe me big time. I have got you a date with…” she made a drumroll noise, “Dmitri Rosario from Withernsea AFC. You’re welcome.”
“Actually, Kim, I was going to ring to tell you.” I looked across at Henry, who was glaring out of the front windscreen. His knuckles were clenched around the steering wheel so tightly I was surprised it hadn’t come off in his hand. “I’m seeing someone. It’s early days, but you know me. I don’t want to see anyone else at the same time. Can you cancel my membership?”
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