After a few hours the group, separated in their rooms, could hear Danny return and argue with her grandmother. Laying upstairs, they couldn't fully understand what the two were saying, but they knew it was about the missing tool and Danny accusing Janet; then the door slammed shut again. Danny might not be back until dinner. After a few hours, Sheela called the group down for dinner. Dinner consisted of spaghetti with tomato sauce and home-made iced tea. The pasta tasted like the box they came in and the sauce tasted like it was straight out of the can and lacked salt, but it was food and jetlag killed any appetite that might have existed. Still, the group at least attempted to eat their meal; Janet, who sat at one end of the table beside Sheela, simply poked at her serving. As they quietly ate their meal in the dining room, the front door opened and slammed shut; Danny had returned. Clearing her throat, Sheela called out, "Danny, dinner is ready. We are having pasta. Come in and have some."
Danny simply walked past the dining room with a bag in her hand. She had gone down to the local convenience store at the end of their driveway after failing to find her tool. With a flat tone, she replied, "You are the only grandmother in the world that can't cook. I got myself dried anchovies instead."
Sheela simply shook her head and continued with her meal. With the jetlag affecting everyone, time passed by in a haze and soon it was 10:00pm and outside the windows darkness hid everything from view. As the group retreated to the living room for a game or two; however, the Prince excused himself from the group to go to bed; he had been awake for the past 40 hours and had the mental capacity of drywall. Even though he wanted to, he refrained from kissing his wife before going to bed as he had overheard Irma's interrogation of Will and didn't want to fan the flames. In the living room, Danny teased Irma with the dried anchovies while the other girls, including Sheela, played a card-game and Janet returned to her seat and stared into thin air. Will remained awake for another half hour playing the card game with her friends before excusing herself and headed for bed. As she climbed the stairs, Sheela called after her from the living room. "When you are in bed, make sure the bedroom door is locked. Katja has a habit of stealing shoes and Janet sleepwalks."
Will called back that she understood and headed for bed. In their room, she found her husband lying in bed and seemingly asleep. Will only shook her head; back in Meridian, she had to drag him to bed and now he went on his own free will. After locking the door, and checking it to make sure it locked, she lay down and he immediately wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer. In a dry, sleepy voice he mimicked her complaints of the past months of their marriage. "There you are…Why didn't you come to bed sooner? I almost froze to death without you."
"I do not sound like that. I thought you were tired?"
"I am tired, but I couldn't pass up on this opportunity." He replied with a smile and Will quietly chuckled at him. Bother were suffering from jetlag; they were tired, but not the kind that allowed them to sleep. With a furrowed brow, Will turned her head to her husband and asked.
"Do you think Danny and Janet are weird?"
"I haven't come across a single normal person since I met you. I am beginning to believe that normal is just a myth." He muttered in return and nuzzled against her neck. Ever since the first night they shared a bed, he enjoyed the sensation of holding her. Perhaps it was part of the poison's effects or it was because he deeply loved her. With a content smile on her face, Will looked up at the ceiling while patting her husband's arm that was wrapped around her middle and thinking that he might have a point. "We aren't normal either."
"True, there is nothing about us and our family that is normal."
"What does that supposed to mean? I thought you and I are working out quite well." He said while giving her a questioning look.
"We are, but it doesn't make us and our family normal. My mother threatens to hit you with a vase whenever I mention the idea of bringing you with me for a visit. My friend Irma wants us to start cranking out kids even though we have been married for less than a year. Lastly, you and your sister act more like strangers than siblings- "
"I haven't met her until she was 12 and Cedric managed to bring her to Meridian. There, I didn't think of being a brother, I thought about escaping Meridian. The first honest conversation we had was at The Silver Dragon and you were witness to it. We don't act like strangers to each other; we are strangers to each other." He replied before she could finish.
"Well, we are here for three days. Perhaps you two could have a conversation and get to know each other. After all, you are siblings."
"How do I initiate a conversation without it being awkward?" he asked and tightened his grip on Will. She simply turned onto her side and held him tight. Since they had gotten together, the awkwardness was their constant companion. "The only thing I know about her is that she likes her accounting class; there is no feasible way we could have a conversation about that all day."
"Well, there are a lot of games in the living room. How about tomorrow evening, when everyone is rested, we all play a game."
"Sounds like a plan."
Still unable to sleep, Will ran her fingers along the side of his neck; at this, her husband pulled back a bit and gave her a confused look.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"I can't sleep." She quipped and smiled at him.
"Your friend Irma is already demanding we have kids and your mother wants to kill me for sleeping in the same bed as you."
"And I keep telling both of them that it is none of their concern. If we have kids, it is because we planned it. Besides, no one says we have to immediately tell them."
"Your mother is defiantly going to notice if I got you pregnant. I already survived two attempts on my life. There is no way I could survive a third."
"So, you don't want any kids?"
He frowned at her and gently rubbed her back; he had thought of having children one day. Everyone has these thoughts at least once in their lives; now that he was married, the thought had come back more than once. "I want children with you someday. However, I don't want your friends and mother to get involved in it."
Will only rolled her eyes at that and kissed him. This wouldn't be the first time they had this conversation.
XXXXX
The next day, the group awoke to heavy snowfall outside their windows. It had started late the previous night and fell so heavy, that there already lay a foot outside. The sight of the snow made Danny audibly groan and shake her head; since she hadn't found her post-hole-digger, she knew she might not find it until spring and not without a significant amount of rust. Furthermore, she knew she had to shovel the driveway. Skipping the awful breakfast her grandmother was cooking, she put on her jacket and a scarf before leaving the cabin; letting the door slam shut.
Of the group, Elyon was the first to awake and regretted it immediately after trying Sheela's poor excuse for oatmeal. It clumpy and tasted burnt, but she kept quiet and ate her serving before excusing herself to the living room. To her delight, Janet was nowhere in sight and Katja lay on the sofa that stood against the windows. His tan and black patterned fur seemed warm and inviting for petting. Without hesitation, Elyon sat down on the sofa beside the cat and began to pet him; his fur was as soft as it looked. Slowly, every member of the group awoke and suffered through Sheela's cooking before returning to the living room to either sit by the warm fire or play a game. It was snowing too much to go outside and Irma warned them to stay out of Danny's way when she is working.
The last to wake up and come to the living room was the prince; despite the extra sleep and watery coffee, he wasn't fully awake. When he walked into the living room, he wondered why he had done that; he couldn't remember; he mentally smacked himself and thought: Brain, work. I need you to function.
Lucky for him, his wife had more of a morning mind and walked up to him for a hug despite having Irma in the same room. This wasn't a hug of affection; she had been married to him for long enough to know when his mind drew a blank and needed help remembering something; this didn't happen often, but usually occurred when he hadn't had enough sleep. When she hugged him, Will whispered in a low voice, "You were going to a game with your sister today, remember?"
"Oh, right. Thank you." Was his whispered reply and gently patted her back before turning his attention to Elyon, who was busy petting a loudly purring Katja. That old cat was undoubtedly enjoying the attention to the point he started to drool. He cleared his throat to catch the girl's attention. "Elyon, would you care to join me for a game?"
Elyon turned to her brother a little surprised and abandoned petting Katja, who gave her a disappointing look and jumped off the sofa when she petting session was over. As he waltzed out of the living room he rubbed against Taranee and Hay-Lyn, who were sitting in front of the fireplace to keep their feet warm, before disappearing somewhere in the cabin. Hesitantly, Elyon stood up from the sofa, she had hoped for a moment like this but was unsure of what to do. "Umm…sure, what game did you have in mind?"
"I'll leave that up to you." He replied and Elyon moved to the shelf with the games. All the boxes were worn with age and faded; some were patched with duct tape and had the name of the game written on it in sharpie. After a moment, she picked on at random and showed it to her brother as if it were a coat she wanted his opinion on. "How about Chutes and ladders?"
"I have never heard of it, but why not." The two siblings sat at the circular table and Elyon set up the game while explaining it to her tired brother. Things were calm in the room and Will allowed herself to sit on the sofa beside Irma, who was reading a weathered book, to relax and enjoy the sight of her friends and family enjoying their first day of this vacation. Perhaps normal wasn't a myth.
Several hours later, with the girls switching between chatting and lounging and the siblings trying to play their game, Danny returned with a slam of the door. Letting her snow-covered jacket fall to the floor, she leaned against the doorframe of the living room and stared at the group; despite using the bus to clear the path, she had still gotten covered with snow, which now lay two feet deep outside the cabin. With her arms crossed, she smirked and asked, "So what have you guys been up to?"
"We have been lazing around the fire while listening to those to play chutes and ladders." Replied Irma as she stretched out on the carpet by the fire and pointed at the siblings. Elyon had attempted to explain the game to her brother while they played, but she wasn't good at it and Phobos didn't have the mindset to follow his sister's scattered attempts to teach. Danny simply rolled her eyes and groaned.
"You guys don't just look weird but are boring as well." This insult went unrecognized by the group, so she changed gears and motioned Irma to follow her. "Irms, go to the basement and get me a package of frozen soup veggies. I am not planning on suffering through more of grandma's cooking."
"Are there spiders in the basement?"
"No, I RADE-bombed that place last week. There is nothing living in that basement. Now go and get the veggies. I don't trust your friends with the freezer and neither do I trust grandma." With that, she clicked her tongue and Irma sprang up to follow Danny's instructions. When Irma was out of the room, Hay-Lyn dared to shoot Danny an annoyed glare.
"Danny, why are you always so angry?"
"I am not angry pigtails. I am just dead inside and stopped caring about others feeling. It has served me well throughout the years and I suggest you keep your comments to yourself before I make you eat more of grandma's oatmeal."
In the basement, Irma shoveled through the chest freezer for something that resembled vegetables. None of the bags were labeled and the single lightbulb in the center of the room barely light the room. As she sorted through the freezer burnt bags, trying to figure out if the one she was holding held soup vegetable or spinach, Irma heard something on the other side of the basement. The basement was split into two rooms, one for storage and one containing the boiler and heater. The latter one was unfinished and shrouded in darkness. Irma looked over her shoulder at the dark room but couldn't see anything; shrugging it off as the cabin settling or the pipes adjusting to the temperatures, Irma returned her attention to the two bags in her hand.
That was when she registered a strange smell that hadn't been there before; it was a mixture of damp earth, mildew, and rotting fruit. It started as a light whiff and grew stronger by the second. As the smell grew, the temperature dropped to the point Irma could see her own breath. Her nerves were yelling at her to get out, but her knees were frozen in place. Her stomach sank when she heard another sound coming from the unfinished room behind her; it sounded like a low, guttural, groan of an injured animal, but something in her mind told Irma it wasn't an animal. She wondered what she should do as the stares were half-way between her and the unfinished part. Her hands instinctively clenched down on the frozen bags in her hands as she contemplated using them as weapons. Then, there came another sound, but it wasn't a groan; it sounded like a hushed whisper with a cricket undertone repeating something that sounded like a chant.
"irmsirmsirmsirmsirms"
Her eyes widened in horror as she realized it was her name that was being whispered on repeat. That was when she found her knees and made a mad dash for the stares; however, the young woman couldn't resist taking a glance at the unfinished basement doorway. She let out a shrill cry or panic when she saw two white, glowing orbs, near the ground as if the thing was crouching down ready to pounce. In a panic, Irma threw one of the frozen bags at the thing and dashed up the stairs on all fours fully expecting the thing to grab onto her ankle. Fueled by fear, she reached the top of the stairs within seconds and slammed the door shut behind her; leaning against it for extra measure.
Her friends immediately rushed into the kitchen where the door to the basement was to find Irma close to tears. Will immediately pulled Irma from the door and held her tight. Between gasping sobs, Irma tried to explain what she saw. "There is something in the basement…It knew my name…it…it"
While Taranee and Hay-Lyn joined Will in the effort to calm down a sobbing Irma, Danny and Phobos exchanged a questioning look while Elyon hung back from the group, worried but unsure of what to do. The commotion was cut short by a chuckle coming from behind Elyon. It was Sheela, who had rushed from her bedroom the moment she heard the scream from the basement. With her hands on her hips, she shook her head and smiled. "Did Katja scare you that bad?"
Irma looked up at Sheela in shock and surprise, "That wasn't Katja, that thing could speak. It said my name."
"Did it?" Sheela raised an eyebrow at Irma and asked again. "Did it really say your name?"
"Well…" Irma thought for a moment and allowed her nerves to calm down. "It said Irms."
"Hmm…" Sheela kept her eyebrow raised and gently patted Irma on her shaking shoulder. "You know, I often think Katja says my name and then I realize it is just another sound a bobcat makes." With growing curiosity, the prince approached the door to the basement and was about to turn the knob when Sheela turned and smiled at him. "I don't think that is a good idea. Irma just scared the living daylight out of old Katja. Trust me, I raised that boy from a kitten, and nothing is worse to handle than a spooked bobcat." She then turned her attention to the rest of the group. "I suggest we all go to the living room and help Irma relax by the fire while Danny cooks dinner."
Unsure of what to do, the group sided with Sheela and guided Irma back to the living room while Danny took the bag of frozen vegetable on the floor of the kitchen and headed for the stove. Still hanging back, Elyon stopped in the hallway when she noticed something on the top of the stairs leading to the second floor. Sitting there, casually looking down at her with sleepy eyes was Katja.