Marnie woke and headed downstairs. Her mind ran through all of the hundreds of different things she needed to do before the fair began, beginning first with breakfast.

She had her frankly enormous cheese wheel sat in the basement, all ready to be wheeled over. Her cloth was woven, dyed and dried. There were seven rolls, each dyed a different colour of the rainbow - she'd planned to arrange them in a curve, but they didn't seem long enough, perhaps she'd have to make do with a stripe. It wouldn't look as good, but surely Lewis would still appreciate the attempt.
Although, even if she did have an objective better stall than Pierre, Marnie was pretty sure Lewis would pick his, trying to avoid favouritism. And Pierre always had stupidly large veg in his stall, whilst apparently not growing anything all year. It was the one time of the year when Marnie resented her relationship with Lewis a little - she loved the man, but by Yoba, his insistence on keeping this relationship a secret wore her down.

"Shane!" The shout was more to distract her thoughts than to summon the man. "Breakfast!"


Five minutes passed and Shane still hadn't appeared. Marnie needed someone to talk about anything other than the latest bunny-jewel dress. Or Mayor Lewis. And Shane would witter on about Lucie or talk to Jas instead of Marnie, and she'd be able to let her mind relax.

Marnie stood, striding over to the door and banged on it. Loudly.

The door hadn't been shut properly, and the latch gave way as her fist collided with wood. The creak of the hinges seemed to last an age as it swung open, moving quickly enough to slam into the wall behind the door, breaking a hole in the plaster. Marnie winced, then peered into the dark room.

The empty dark room.


The last time Shane hadn't come home had been when Lucie appeared on her doorstep at 5 in the morning, saying he was out cold but going to be fine. But there had been no Lucie to reassure her this morning. No Shane, no Lucie, no reason for Marnie's mind not to immediately leap to the worst possible conclusion.


Lucie had allowed herself a lie in. All the way to 7:30.

That used to be the time she'd wake to go to work, complaining about the early morning and yawning her whole way to work. But not this morning. She woke 15 minutes before her alarm was due to sound, and lay in bed, enjoying the warmth of her covers. She'd have to get up soon, go feed the demon and her other animals, go water the crops, then head over to the town with her stuff for the grange.
It wasn't an impressive collection, but it was only her first year in the valley, so she'd take anyone to task that mocked her small collection of potatoes, turnips, garlic and tulips. She was proud of them.


She was glad she was already awake when some ham-fisted heathen banged on her door. If that had been her wake up call, she would have been so grumpy, but as it was, she was determined to be cheerful and upbeat. No visitor at stupid-o-clock in the morning would spoil her mood. It wouldn't.

"Oh, Marnie," She said, opening the door and suddenly feeling very embarrassed by her pyjamas. They weren't that bad. Just short. Shit, the t-shirt was longer than the shorts, that was not a good start.
Marnie didn't seem to have noticed.

"Shane didn't come home last night," Marnie began, her words coming out quickly. "Can you help me find him? Please, Yoba, I'm sorry but-" She cut off as Lucie flushed slightly, and opened the door a little wider.

Shane was asleep on her couch, a small trickle of drool clear on his cheek. An arm draped towards the floor and he mumbled something in the depths of his sleep.
Lucie stepped back in front of Marnie, rubbing her upper arm and making a face that wasn't quite a smile and wasn't quite a grimace. It was sheepish, and embarrassed, and slightly pinker.

"He fell asleep whilst we were watching a film and I didn't have the heart to wake him."

Marnie sighed and leant against the wall of Lucie's house.

"You could have told me."

"How?" Lucie protested. "My phone hasn't had signal since I got here, and I don't have a computer."

Marnie raised an eyebrow at her.

"I live a five minute walk away. You have no excuse."

"What if he woke and I'd just vanished? That's pretty rude if you ask me." Lucie's defence sounded lame to her own ears. Marnie crossed her arms and looked at the young woman like an exasperated mother.

"It's worse to let me think my nephew had killed himself!" She snapped. Then, with a visible effort, she sighed and turned. "I'm glad he's alright - but next time the two of you have a little sleepover, do an old woman a favour and tell me?"

Lucie snorted.

"Old Woman my arse - you're like in your late 30s, Marnie," Lucie muttered. Marnie frowned at her and then let a small laugh escape her. Now Lucie looked puzzled.

"Lucie. I'm 54." Marnie pressed a hand to her mouth then shook her head. "I'll forgive you for not telling me Shane was here, but that's only because you are terrible at guessing ages."

Lucie scratched the back of her neck, internally cringing at herself, as Marnie walked down the path.

"Well - 54 still isn't old, so whatever," She called after Marnie.


Shane was still asleep when Lucie came back from gathering her various food-stuffs together for the fair. He woke as she hummed to herself, trying, and failing, to plait her hair in the two braids that Haley had done for her. God, that sort-of-date at the Stardrop seemed to be eons ago now.

He stretched on the couch, peering around the room confused for a few moments, then his brain woke enough for him to remember where he was. He smiled as he realised the noise he could hear was Lucie lowly murmuring a slow song to herself. Leaning back against the couch cushions, he let himself relax, savouring this quiet moment in the morning glow.

Lucie emerged from the bathroom, and noticed Shane, sat up and looking at her.

"Morning, sleepyhead," she teased. Shane smiled lazily at her.

"Your braids are lopsided."

Lucie slapped him with the back of her hand, and shoved his feet off her couch so she could sit.

"Your brain is lopsided," she retorted, sticking her tongue out at him. The laugh rumbled in Shane's chest, low and tangible. "Haley made it look so easy, but I'm terrible with hair and make-uppy things."

Shane looked at her, or rather, inspected the hair, and then offered to fix it.

"I had to learn how to do hair things 'cause of Jas." Was the explanation offered. Lucie didn't object.


His fingers were gentle in her hair. They held small bundles with such delicacy, lightly pulling the braid tight, unlike Haley who had yanked the hair into place and then moaned when Lucie objected. This was tender, almost affectionate.
It felt wrong to talk whilst he did it. There was almost a ritualistic feel to the parting of hair, and twisting and turning of strands between his fingers. Lucie felt like a priestess being prepared for a sacred ritual, not a woman being out-done in the ways of hair by her boyfriend. Or not boyfriend. Her…Shane. Whatever he was. If they weren't going public with this whole thing, Lucie didn't know if she was allowed to think of Shane as her boyfriend.

He snapped the small band in place, securing her hair firmly as a knock sounded on the door, breaking the moment back to reality.

Lucie awkwardly shuffled upright, away from where she'd sat at Shane's feet.

"Who is it?" She called, hoping to Yoba and any other gods that might hear her prayer that she sounded normal. As she moved she caught sight of the letter of her desk. The letter she'd received over a week ago. Her eyes grew wide and she spluttered as a dry voice answered:

"Who do you think? It's the person you invited here."

Lucie's eyes were wide as she yanked Shane upright and shoved him towards the bathroom.

"It's my dad," she hissed. "Just…go in there. Don't say anything."

"Are you going to let me in?" Her dad called from the other side of the door.

Shane and Lucie had a silent argument, filled with gestures, mouthed words and widened eyes. No words were really needed to convey 'hide in the bathroom' and 'I don't want to hide in the bathroom!'

"Lucienne." Oh, she really was in trouble. "You have windows. I can see you trying to shove that poor man into your bathroom."

Lucie burned as she turned to face the window. She lifted a hand to wave to the man outside the window, barely moving it, barely breathing.

"Hi, Dad," she winced. "Meet Shane."