Bluebell E-Book

James Aurelien

• Herausgeber: novum pro Verlag
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 307

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Bluebell by James Aurelien is a riveting story about a young woman, Junie, who after being injured in a motor accident finds herself being sucked into a fantasy world, replete with vampires, shapeshifters, and werewolves. Junie moves in with her parents to recuperate but while her body gains strength, her mind deteriorates. She suffers from nightmares, quits her job and her friends and constantly remembers a mysterious looking woman who appeared at the accident. She locates the woman, Bluebell, and they become friends after Bluebell saves Junie from being murdered by a vampire. Meanwhile, the town is plagued by a series of strange murders, and bloodless corpses with bite marks are found. The big question is – what will happen to Junie and her new-found friends; and are they really friends?

Leseprobe

Contents

Colofon 2

Content warning 3

Chapter One – A Close Call 4

Chapter Two – Fey 7

Chapter Three – Down the Rabbit Hole 13

Chapter Four – Redrum 20

Chapter Five – Rock Bottom 27

Chapter Six – Devlin 32

Chapter Seven – The Cemetery 41

Chapter Eight – Rosabella 45

Chapter Nine – Rune 58

Chapter Ten – Vices 61

Chapter Eleven – Ubel 67

Chapter Twelve – Gotcha 73

Chapter Thirteen – Home Sweet Home 87

Chapter Fourteen – Endora 98

Chapter Fifteen – Peripeteia 107

Chapter Sixteen – Carnage 112

Chapter Seventeen – Trespassing 120

Chapter Eighteen – Lycanthropy 127

Chapter Nineteen – Larua 131

Chapter Twenty – Oliver 144

Chapter Twenty-One – Winds of Change 157

Chapter Twenty-Two – One Hundred and Seventy-One 167

Chapter Twenty-Three – Full Circle 182

Content warning 192

Colofon

Alle rechten op verspreiding, met inbegrip van film, broadcast, fotomechanische weergave, geluidsopnames, electronische gegevensdragers, uittreksels & reproductie, zijn voorbehouden.

© 2022 novum publishing

ISBN drukuitgave:978-3-99131-075-4

ISBN e-book: 978-3-99131-076-1

Lectoraat:Angelo Gardener

Vormgeving omslag:Wabeno, Kdshutterman, Ivan Sizov, Akinshin, SERGEYSHKODA, Elisanth | Dreamstime.com

Omslagfoto, lay-out & zetting:novum publishing

Foto’s binnendeel:Burlesck | Dreamstime.com

www.novumpublishing.nl

Content warning

This book contains content

that some readers may find upsetting.

If this is of concern to you, please see the extensive

content warning list at the end of the book.

Chapter One – A Close Call

“Junie? Junie! Oh, you’re awake!”

I looked up into my mother’s teary eyes realizing I felt dizzy, nauseous and just not right.

“Mum,” I mumbled.

“Yes, dear! Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right!”

A tear rolled down from behind her glasses and fell to the floor. My father stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder. He was smiling, looking relieved and was also teary eyed. On the other side of my bed I saw my friend Callista, who had tears rolling down both her cheeks, smudging her make-up.

“What happened?” It was hard to form the words. It was even harder to focus on anything. I couldn’t remember why I was in this white, bright room which I could only assume was a hospital room. It smelt like a hospital too.

“You got hurt, dear,” my mother explained. She stepped forward and ran her hands through my curls affectionately. “You were at the wrong place at the wrong time. You were walking home from work and … a car hit you.”

I squinted and tried to remember the event, but the last thing I could remember was walking out of the coffee house I worked at; Better Beans. Everything else was a blur.

“Why did it hit me?” My words sounded more like moaning than talking, as it hurt to speak.

“You did nothing wrong, child. The driver was drunk and crashed right onto the sidewalk where you were walking. He hit you and then crashed into a building,” my father said, speaking in a mix of sadness and anger.

“Did anyone else get hurt?”

My mother smiled, she seemed moved, and stepped back to stand at the foot-end of the bed. “You’re the one in a hospital bed and you still manage to ask that question …”

My father didn’t go off the topic. “Only the driver. He died on the spot.”

I looked around the room. Everything hurt. The lights were too bright. The bed felt too hard even though it was probably perfectly fine. My whole body was aching.

“Do you remember anything?” asked Callista. She reached out to grab my hand.

“Not really … I was just walking home,” I said as I squeezed her hand softly. As I was speaking some things popped back into my head. “I remember the headlights.”

I closed my eyes, and a vivid scenario came back to me; I was just walking when I heard tires screeching behind me and when I’d turned around, I looked directly into the bright headlights of a car coming right at me at full speed.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Callista nodding. I looked at my parents, they both had a worried look on their faces.

“I don’t remember the crash,” I said as I closed my eyes again, trying to remember. “I do remember waking up.”

At the site of the crash, I had woken up after being hit, and there was a woman with me. She had piercing blue eyes and had looked mortified when our eyes locked. Thinking about it gave me a weird feeling but at the time it was the least of my concerns, so I brushed it off.

“There was a girl. A woman. I think she woke me up … but I passed out again. When I woke up again, they were checking on me … the ambulance people. The police were there too. There was a crowd. It smelt like smoke. It was loud. I got carried into an ambulance … and then I woke up here.”

I opened my eyes again to see that both of my parents’ eyes were watery again. Callista was still holding my hand, tears still rolling.

“It’s okay,” I mumbled in an attempt to soothe them. “I’m okay.” It was dead silent for a minute. “Am I okay?”

Callista chuckled. “You broke your hip, five ribs and your arm. You have bruises and stitches, but luckily none of it will be permanent,” my mother answered.

I nodded, at least as much as I could.

“Why don’t you get some rest, dear? The doctor said she wants you here for a few more days just to be sure you’re okay. We’ll be back later.”

“Thank you,” I squeezed it out.

“We love you, baby,” my father added. They gave me a loving smile and walked out. Callista squeezed my hand this time.

“See you later, sweetie,” she said, then walked out too.

I fell right back into a blissful, sedated sleep.

Chapter Two – Fey

Over the next few months my body started to heal. I hadn’t been able to work in a while, so my parents had been supporting me and helped me around the house while I tried to put myself back together. My friends were also helping, bringing me food, running errands, whatever they could do. Much to my displeasure – I felt like a burden, but resting was starting to pay off; slowly but surely, my body started to recover. My mind, however, was a different story; I was scared. Despite the therapy appointments I had been taking, I was scared to leave the house, scared of cars, scared of loud noises. Life had become scary. On top of that there was one thing I hadn’t talked to anyone about; I had been having very vivid nightmares.

At first, I thought they didn’t scare me that much – they were just dreams, after all – but I’d still wake up shaking and drenched in sweat. Then the nightmares progressively got worse until I became too scared to sleep and I couldn’t lie to myself anymore about not being scared. The nightmares were always different, but they ended the same; I died.

It was always a painful and terrifying death. Electrocution, drowning, getting stabbed, getting shot … Besides the fact that I always died they had one more thing in common; whether I’d be murdered or die in some other way, the blue-eyed, red-haired woman I saw on the day of the accident was always there. She could have been the murderer or she would watch me die and do nothing. Sometimes she would smile. I had no idea who she was, and it didn’t seem like she had done anything to me when I saw her that day, but within a matter of months this stranger had become my worst fear.

I kept telling myself that these dreams were just a manifestation of anxiety, that I didn’t know this woman and that she hadn’t hurt me, and that she wouldn’t in the future. I had no factual reason to believe otherwise.

Another night I woke up drenched in sweat. I was shaking and out of breath. With great effort I took a sip from the glass of water on my nightstand and sighed. My alarm would go off in a few hours; it was the first day I’d go back to work at the coffeehouse. I was looking forward to it but I wasn’t looking forward to the lack of sleep I’d have to deal with. Coming to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, I decided to turn on my television and channel-hop. Before I got to a channel I wanted to watch, I came across the news. There was a fragment that caught my attention, about a teenage boy who had gone missing the day before. The boy was living in a hospice and had gone out for a walk but never returned. His caretakers said he went on the same walk every single day and there was no reason for him not to come back. It was unlike him. Everyone was really worried about him. I hoped they would find the poor boy.

When I arrived at work later, my boss didn’t put me straight back into waitressing but gave me tasks that I could do without overworking my body, considering I had broken several bones in the accident. Most of them had healed or at least started to heal but my body was still tender.

I spent the day taking and making phone calls, answering e-mails, ordering supplies, and occasionally processing a few orders at the counter, so I had the chance to stand up and walk around a little.

I was enjoying a decaf soy latte on my lunch break when a gorgeous little butterfly found its way inside the office space in the back and settled on the wall across from me. It stayed there until my shift was over.

Funnily enough, when I opened the door hours later to go home, the butterfly flew out the door.

After my walk home, I was relieved to have made my way back safely and concluded that it had been a good day. On the evening news I saw the missing boy again, there were still no leads.

At around sunset a cat I had never seen before found its way inside my house through an open window, walked around for a bit and then before I could put it outside made its own way out again. It was curious but I didn’t think much of it. It wouldn’t be the first time a strange cat had ever infiltrated someone’s house, I thought.

For the next few days, and evenings, the days remained enjoyable, but the nights continued to be harrowing. The same graphic, terrifyingly realistic nightmares every single night had started to take a toll on my body … I was feeling exhausted every single day and had developed a new fear of death. It manifested in the fear of eating: what if someone poisoned me? What if my food was contaminated? And fear of people: what if they’re out to get me? What if they are armed? You name it …

I had just begun recovering from the expected fears caused by a potentially fatal car accident, but it was starting to feel as if it had all been for nothing. Undeniably, fear was now ruling my life. It felt as if I was living in one of the thriller shows I always loved to watch, or maybe one of the true crime shows. Who knew? All I knew was that I didn’t like it one bit, and the shows weren’t so great anymore either.

On a rainy Friday morning at the end of the week I had called in sick, because I was so fatigued and anxiety ridden that it was simply too much for me to leave the house.

Since my night had been filled with terror once more, I was up early and caught the morning news while the sun was rising.

Another person had gone missing.

It was the second person reported missing within a month, something that had never happened before in the small town of Cunabula.

The sick boy had still not been found and now there was another missing person’s case. This time an elderly woman had gone missing. She was taking a stroll in a park in the early morning and never returned. Her caregiver went inside to look when the old lady didn’t answer the door for their morning visit, and found no one inside and called the police. Later, they found her walker still in the park but there was no trace of the woman. The police were expecting the worst.

I turned the television off and sighed. News like this didn’t make me feel any better when I was already terrified of the world.

I tried to shrug it off and told myself it must have been an accident, just like with the missing boy. These were accidents. Soon they would be found, and they would either be well and had just been lost, or some unfortunate accident had happened; there was no foul play, I concluded. There couldn’t have been. With that in mind, I decided to go and have the breakfast that my extremely understanding boss had offered me.

He had empathy for the situation I was in and told me it would be good for me to get some fresh air, go outside and interact with someone.

So, I went outside, looking exactly how I felt (not good) and started to mooch towards the coffeehouse. It being early July, the weather was pleasantly warm with a light breeze dancing through the trees. The streets were filled with people rushing to get to work.

It was only a ten-minute walk to work from my home but considering I was walking extremely slowly, it might have taken me a bit longer on that particular day.

I was looking at some flowers on the sidewalk when I was startled by a dog barking on the sidewalk across the road to my left. Much to my horror, my eyes fell on the woman who I had seen on the day of the accident and since then in my nightmares, every single night.

I froze in the middle of the street and felt my chest tighten. I couldn’t breathe. My legs suddenly felt heavy. I felt dizzy. It was like time slowed down. Then she locked eyes with me. On her face appeared the same look of horror she had had when I woke up after the accident.

She backed away from the dog that was still barking at her and started walking away with her head down. She was walking so suspiciously fast she might as well have been running.

I watched her take a few steps back, and then my freeze response had shifted into a flight response; before I knew it I just started running. Even though she was walking away from me, and still on the other side of the road, I felt I had to move, to run away. I sprinted to Better Beans, ignoring how running still hurt my fragile hip, and rushed inside. One of my co-workers saw me come in and looked at me from behind the counter.

“Are you okay, Junie?”

I must have looked out of my mind. I had huge bags under my eyes. My skin had been breaking out. I was in my sweats with a dirty hoodie and on top of that, I was now panicked, panting and sweating. I had run, as if my life depended on it, into a calm, serene little coffeehouse where bubbly music was always playing and it always smelled like pies.

Besides my worried co-worker there were several customers giving me weird looks.

“I-I guess, sorry, rough morning,” I said, and sat down at a table in a corner.

“Okay,” Vienna, my co-worker said, still looking worried. She finished cleaning something behind the counter and walked up to me. “What happened?” she asked softly, as she sat down across from me.

“I, uhm, had a flashback,” I said, while avoiding eye contact.

That wasn’t the truth, I knew it was real, but I didn’t want to have to explain the whole situation, and I would probably not be believed anyway.

“Oh, honey, from the accident?” Vienna asked sympathetically. I nodded. “It must be so hard for you. You know we’re all here for you, right? Well, Ian said you might be coming in, so tell me what you want and I’ll bring it to you.”

I nodded again. “A hummus bagel and a chocolate muffin please,” I mumbled with a forced smile.

She brought them over to me a few minutes later with a large glass of freshly squeezed juice. I enjoyed my free breakfast, sure, but I could not stop thinking about what had just happened. Who was this girl? Why was she at the crash? Why had I started having these nightmares? Why was she always in them? And why did she look mortified once again while locking eyes with me?

Chapter Three – Down the Rabbit Hole

All through the weekend, and the days following, my anxiety was through the roof and my nightmares had become even worse. 

I was sitting at my friends’ apartment one afternoon for the first time after the accident. I had managed to find the courage to go there and spend time with them, but it seemed as if I could barely focus on them. My friend group consisted of my cousin Davin, my friend Callista – whom I had considered my best friend ever since high school and who was coincidentally Davin’s girlfriend – and their roommate Stellan. Stellan and Davin had been friends ever since elementary school and had decided to get an apartment together after enrolling at the same university, Callista moved in later.

The three of them lived together in a decent sized apartment on the second floor in a quiet part of town. The apartment was well kept, modern and had been full of plants and flowers ever since Callista had moved in.

I was sitting on the couch in the living room with Dasch’s (Stellan’s dog) square head on my lap. My friends were all talking but I couldn’t help but zone out.

She was in town, I kept thinking. It was all I had been thinking about ever since Friday morning.

“Junie!” said Davin suddenly, his deep voice snapping me out of my overthinking. “I asked if you wanted some pancakes. Stellan’s making those wildly good chocolate chip pancakes. You know, the ones that are somehow still healthy.”

I quickly looked around and realized that I hadn’t even noticed Stellan who was sitting next to me getting up. I simply nodded.

“Okay, I’ll go give him a hand then,” he said as he got up from sitting next to Callista.

Callista scooted closer to me. “Are you okay, Junie?” she asked me with a look of concern.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

I looked at her, with the desire to spill it all, about the nightmares, the anxiety, the girl, and the weird feeling I’d had in my stomach ever since I laid eyes on her again, but I couldn’t.

About a week or so later, a week of not working but ruminating, obsessing, and feeling odd instead, I decided that I had had enough and that I had to find her. I told myself that this was the way; not talking it over with people who I knew I could confide in, no – I was still telling myself that this woman was just a regular woman who had no intention of harming me, and that if I could just find her, and see it for myself, I could just let it go. Everything would go back to normal and I could go back to just living my life as I had been doing before the accident. I could do this myself. I wouldn’t have to bother anyone anymore. They had done enough.

I started by attempting to write a plan. I wrote down the location and time of the accident, the location and time I had seen her in the street and any other information I could come up with.

I wrote down what she had looked like both times, what direction she was walking in the last time; and then something occurred to me that I thought might be helpful.

The second time I had faced her, while walking to the coffeehouse, she had had a bag on her arm – not a bag like a purse, but a plastic bag – a bag from a store. I didn’t recognize the design and I also didn’t remember any text, but it was a standout design, full of colours and prints, and I figured I would recognize it if I saw it again. This could be something, I thought.

I wrote down the details: the size of the bag (small), the colours of the bag (black and neon blue, pink, red and yellow), the type of prints (plaid and checkers) and that it was plastic material, and so the next day I set out to find the store it had come from.

That day I was living on autopilot. I was anxious, short of breath and my chest hurt, more than the usual amount, but I was determined to figure it all out and find her, so I tried to ignore the pain. I was in survival mode. 

I stomped down the street to the centre of town, which was not too far from where I lived, barely further than my walk to the coffee shop. On arriving, I started eyeing the stores that had only just opened since it was so early in the morning. I did not want to waste a second.

I didn’t recognize anything in this street, so I decided to continue on to the next street, hoping that the store I was looking for was actually in town and it hadn’t just been some random bag she had with her.

Luckily, I didn’t have to search much. As I walked up the second shopping street my eyes immediately fell on a store whose front had the exact same colours and prints as the bag the nightmare woman had been carrying. I didn’t even bother to read the name of the store as I rushed inside.

It was a small, alternative style store; one that I had never really bothered to go into …

There was hard rock music playing and there was band merchandise – racks and racks of it. I saw a glass display with things like hair dye, extensions, contact lenses and jewellery. There were shelves upon shelves with shoes and there were some skateboards and CDs. There was a man behind the counter busy on a laptop while nodding along to the music that was playing. There were no customers inside. After a brief analysis of the store, my eyes fell on a bunch of plastic bags that were hanging by the counter. They were the same bags as the one she had. I knew I had found the right place.

However, I didn’t really know what to do next. I couldn’t just wait there for hours, hoping she’d walk in. I wasn’t even sure if she’d come back here again.

What if she had just randomly been visiting Cunabula both times I saw her and she didn’t even live here? What was I to do? Come back here every day, buying stuff I didn’t even need, just so I didn’t seem too suspicious, hoping I would run into her one day? I sighed, pretended to look through some band shirts and then I walked out again.

I noticed that across from the store was a small bench and I walked over and sat down. On the lamppost a few feet away from where I was sitting was a missing persons poster with both the missing boy and the elderly woman on it. I couldn’t bear to pay much attention to it.

I just stared at the store gloomily, unsure of what to do. I must have sat there for a good half hour before I decided to go back home. On my way home I concluded that all I really could do was wait and just hope she’d visit the store again. It seemed like a long shot, but I was going to take the chance.

I started sitting on the bench across from the store every single day. Apparently the store was named Checkers. They must really like that print, I thought. It was on their bags, the wallpaper and on the tons of shoes they sold there too.

I brought food with me every time I went to sit on the bench so it would look like I was sitting there with a purpose other than what could probably be classified as stalking a woman.

At this point, I had to tell my boss that I’d had a relapse and needed more time to recover, which luckily, he understood and accepted, but the price I had to pay for lying was the daily fear of running into him or a co-worker every time I was on bench duty.

I figured if that were to happen I’d lie and tell them I came here only to get some fresh air, but the idea still made me nervous. Of course, I also had to dodge Stellan and Dasch when they were out on a walk, a run or a bike ride from time to time. I had lately been avoiding him and the others.

I had barely been outside, let alone meeting up with my friends, only seeing them when they loyally came over to help me out. However, when they did come, it wasn’t very convivial. I would do my best not to show that I wanted them to leave as soon as possible but it seemed as if I wasn’t doing a very good job at that. They didn’t stick around much longer than they had to, and it seemed as if they felt like they didn’t have much choice.

I went to the bench at different times every day, figuring that it would give me the best chance of catching her some time. I secretly admitted to myself that all of it had become an obsession.

It took almost a whole month of obsessively lurking on that bench, neglecting myself, my house and my social life, before I spotted her again. Initially I panicked when I saw her. She did almost run away when she saw me the last time. I knew that if she saw me my effort would have been for nothing. She’d leave before I got the chance to talk to her.

So, when I finally saw her walk up to the store, and before she had the chance to see me, I rushed into another store to hide from her gaze.

I was now standing in a random clothing store while adrenaline pumped through my veins. I peeked through the display windows to see if she went into Checkers, and she did. She hadn’t seen me. Now I just had to wait until she came back out and then confront her. I had no idea what I was going to say as we had never said a word to each other, but it just felt like something I had to do.

To avoid looking like a fugitive, I greeted the employees at the clothing store and started looking through the racks of clothing. I kept close to the windows so I could look up as often as possible to see if she went back out. It probably took less than two minutes before she did.

I watched her as she walked out of the store, this time without a bag it seemed, and down the street. I almost flew out of the store.

“Wait!” I blurted out.

She turned back, looking at me from across the street, awaiting my response. There was that mortified expression again.

“You-you were at my accident!” I stuttered, as I walked up to her. The odd feeling in my stomach was starting to come back again.

She blinked a few times and her expression changed to confusion.

“Remember me? I was in a car accident five months ago. I saw you.”

I was now standing next to her. It took a few seconds for her to react, and then her expression changed once again.

“Oh, of course I remember you! What happened was horrific. I’m glad to see you’re doing okay,” she said, and gave me a warm smile.

The energy she gave off was a complete one eighty-degree reversal from the fear that had been installed in me by my nightmares. I could see that she was eager to continue walking. I had to quickly continue talking to keep her attention.

“Did you wake me up?” I blurted. “Did you call an ambulance? Why were you there?”

“I called the ambulance, yes. I happened to be nearby.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” I concluded. I didn’t really know what to say now that I was speaking to her and her seemed to be perfectly fine. I guess I had fulfilled my quest.

“Are you okay? You seem … like you’ve just seen a ghost,” she said, and squinted a bit.

“I, uhm, yeah. I’m okay.”

“Good,” she said and smiled again. “Well, I’ve got to go, it was nice to meet you conscious and well. Stay safe.”

“I’m Junie,” I blurted as she started turning around again. I stuck out my hand for her to shake.

“Bluebell,” she said as the turned back and shook my hand with her gloved one. Her handshake felt awfully stiff.

I tried to think of a quick way to stop her from leaving. I wasn’t sure why. “Would you like to go for lunch or something? It’s on me. I feel like I owe you.”

She laughed. “You don’t owe me anything! I would love to, but I really shouldn’t. I have somewhere to go.”

“Please?” I squeaked, out of ideas now. She looked a little startled, or did I catch a bit of annoyance?

“Uhm, okay, I guess I can shuffle some things around. I just ate though so don’t stuff me,” she said, and winked.

We both laughed and I led the way to a little lunch place nearby.

Chapter Four – Redrum

The lunch was going well, but there were also more questions rising in my head than I previously had. Bluebell seemed to be a really nice person. She had been really empathetic towards my struggles, to the point where it seemed to almost hurt her a bit. She didn’t eat much. She didn’t seem to want to talk about herself much either. I attributed it to her being somewhat socially awkward. It didn’t seem as if she had lunch with people often. However, she was a good listener.

What hadn’t stood out to me before was that Bluebell looked rather rough from up close. She had beautiful blue eyes, though; that was undeniable. Red, wavy hair up to a little above her shoulders.

Her nose was unusual. It was crooked and scarred, like someone had hit her on the nose hard enough to break it several times, with something other than just a fist, because that wouldn’t explain the scarring. She also had scars on her lip that looked as if she had suffered cuts there.

Overall, her face seemed as if it had seen some rough times. Her skin was pale to the point that it looked unhealthy, and she was painfully thin. Bluebell herself seemed harmless, soothing my fears a little, but from the looks of her it seemed as if she might herself be in some danger. I had been afraid to ask, as I didn’t know how to bring up such a thing on our first meeting.

She was wearing a t-shirt, which was weird as it was unusually cold for a late summer’s day. She had those gloves on her hands. Overall, there was something odd about her, but it didn’t show in the way she spoke.

“Would you like anything else?” our waiter asked when we finished our food, ignoring an extremely annoying fly that had been bugging us, especially Bluebell, the whole time.

“A green tea for me please,” I answered. “No honey, please.”

I looked up at Bluebell, who still looked as awkward as she had when we sat down.

“Me too,” she added. She had only eaten a small cupcake and had had nothing to drink yet. The waiter nodded and went on his way.

“Any other plans for today?” I asked, trying to make conver­sation.

“Actually, I have to start packing, I’m going away for a bit.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a little disappointed for some reason. “Where to?”

“Invicta.”

“Wow,” I said in disbelief, “that’s not a small trip.”

Invicta was a country hours and hours away from Aspera.

She smiled. I noticed she had perfect teeth. “I have family there that I need to go see. It’s been a while.”

“That’s awesome, do you go there often?”

She shook her head. “They mostly visit me here, so it’s a nice change.”

Our tea came, and we thanked the waiter.

“So, what’s your family’s relation to Invicta?” I asked curiously.

“They love the food there,” she joked. “No, they do, but they just love the country, and they feel at home there. One day they just moved and never looked back.”

We drank our tea and talked a little about travelling which Bluebell seemed to have done a lot of. She was born here in Aspera but had travelled everywhere one might want to go to and she had lived in quite a few places too.

I couldn’t wrap my head around how a girl who couldn’t have been much older than me had found the time and money to do all that, but I didn’t ask. I did find out that she was also living in Cunabula, so I figured I’d see her around more often.

After we drank our tea, I went to the bathroom and Bluebell, who had offered, paid the bill.

The fly had stopped zooming around the table at last, and now sat on a small plant. When I came back to the table a moment later, I caught a very annoyed look on Bluebell’s face, before her expression quickly changed when she saw I had returned.

“Ready?” she asked warmly. I nodded and we got up. I grabbed a napkin from the table.

As we walked out, the fly went out with us and disappeared at last.

We shared some small talk outside the café. She told me she hoped I’d feel better soon, and I wished her good travels. Before we said our goodbyes, however, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer …

“I just wanted to ask … Are you okay? I don’t know what your living situation is but if you need someone to talk to, feel free to reach out to me.” I quickly scribbled down my phone number on the napkin that I had taken from the café and handed it to her.

She smiled at me, but it seemed rather forced. “Thank you, that’s really nice,” was all she said.

We shook hands one last time and went our separate ways. Feeling relieved, although still having that odd sensation in my stomach, I made my way home contentedly.

Later that day, I lay down on my couch going over the lunch we had had earlier in my head. I hadn’t mentioned anything about the nightmares or about why I was afraid of her. I hadn’t asked her why she had looked so startled when she saw me. She never asked me why I was so eager to talk to her and had practically yelled at her in the middle of the street, which I thought was a bit odd.

It had been a very pleasant lunch though, despite her seeming a bit uneasy. The way she looked was still on my mind. She looked as if she’d been held captive without sunlight or food for a long time and hadn’t slept during that time either; and the scars on her face and the broken nose … I tried to get it out of my head, reminding myself that I had given her a way to reach me if she needed to and that I had done what I could.