Author's Note: When I said Laila took over half the story, I wasn't kidding. :P

Chapter 3

Laila nearly fell backwards into the tree. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stared wide-eyed at the woman. "Great—aunt—Laila?" She took a deep breath and shook her head, forcing herself to stand on her own, to meet the woman's friendly gaze. "I—I'm sorry. You—uh—startled me." She stared hard at the woman, her thoughts swirling like a sudden blizzard. A bit older than her—older. She had thick blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and her clothes were—well, Laila supposed styles would have changed over 70 years. But still. They were decidedly odd.

And she thought she could see a hint of her own features in the woman's face.

"Goodness, you look as if you've seen a ghost!" The woman laughed, then looked around, the laugh turning to a slightly mischievous smirk. "And I'd say that's rather unlikely, even if we are standing in a graveyard. Besides, I think they tend to come out at night, don't they?"

Ghost….seen a ghost….

The words tickled something in the back of her mind, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. For a long moment she just stared at the woman, blinking. "I'm sorry, do I….do I know you?"

She just looked at Laila for a moment. "You know….you seem familiar too. Though I can't imagine where I've seen you." She held out a hand with a friendly smile. "I'm Allison Wood. Are you new in town?"

"I…." For a moment Laila just stared at her. The words no I'm actually old in town popped into her head but she bit them back. Great aunt Laila…. "I'm….I'm just passing through. I'm…." Her voice trailed off and she looked away, searching desperately in her mind for a name. She couldn't just introduce herself as Laila Wood. "I'm Ellie. Ellie Blake." She took the woman's outstretched hand and shook it a little stiffly. She couldn't make sense of what was happening. She couldn't imagine that this could all be real—

"Oh, Blake? Some kind of relation?" The woman's voice drew her from her thoughts and she started a little and looked up.

"Uh, yeah. Distant cousin." Goodness, she was a horrible liar. "I was, uh, passing through, so…" She shrugged and nodded towards the gravestone. Robert Blake. Died 1945. "Y—you know. Decided to—"

"Oh, what kind of cousin, then?" Sudden interest flared across Allison's face. "I've been doing some research into my family history lately—I find it kind of fascinating…..I want to know where I came from." She smiled, and there was something dreamy in her eyes. "And besides, there's something about touching the past, you know?"

Laila found herself smiling a little. "Yeah…I know." How often had she stared at her grandmother's old, yellowed letters, and wondered what kind of woman she had been?

Wondered if she would have been friends with her, if they could have met?

"So you're Laila's—uh—great-niece, right?" It felt so strange, talking about herself like this—as if she were a different person—a person from the past. "I've—uh—I've not looked much into my family history, myself. But you'd be from her—her brother, is it?"

Allison grinned. "Yes! Eddy Wood was my grandfather." She laughed. "This is….honestly, what are the odds? I've always sort of wondered if this kind of thing really happened, you know, in real life. Running into a random distant relative in a graveyard…"

"I know, it sounds like something out of a story." Laila found herself laughing. "Maybe we'll find out we've inherited a large amount of wealth from some random uncle we didn't know we had."

Allison burst out laughing. "Oh my—oh my gosh! That's genius." Her grin was infectious, and Laila couldn't help smiling back. "Hey so—we should keep up. Where did you say you were from?"

"I…." She paused for a long moment. Here she was, Laila Wood, the girl who always made up stories, completely at a loss for a good story. "Well, I actually grew up here. Moved away. Planning on—um—moving back soon. When I'm….married…." She cringed at her own awkwardness and suddenly wanted to either run away and never look Allison in the face again, or blurt out the truth. "The, uh, the town's changed quite a bit since I've lived here."

"Oh—congratulations!" Allison's gaze went to the ring on her finger, and Laila thought she saw a hint of wistfulness flicker across her face like a passing breeze. "When's the big day?"

Laila shook her head, her eyes moving to the gravestone. "I—I'm not sure. We haven't set a date." Her voice was quiet. "He's fighting overseas."

For once, the words were genuine.

She tried to smile again and forced her gaze away from the gravestone. "Anyway—enough about that. What ever happened to the old house? You know, the old Wood house." The words were carefully light, conversational. As if she had no more interest in it than—well, a distant cousin.

A shadow passed across Allison's face. "Oh—Edward got it. My brother, I mean." She sighed. "I wanted it, but….well…." She shrugged. "At least it's in the family, I guess."

Laila raised an eyebrow. "Your brother?" Had that—that man—been Allison's brother? She clenched her fists at her sides and felt her cheeks grow hot. "So do you happen to know why your brother's keeping bodies in his attic? Not bodies—people!" The words came out before she could stop them and she froze when she realized what she had just said, staring wide-eyed at Allison. "I…." She forced the word out, but couldn't finish the sentence. "I…"

Allison's eyebrows shot up and she stared at Laila. "He's what?" Fire simmered below her voice. "He's—what?"

"I'm sorry, it's really kind of a long story and it's really hard to explain." The words tumbled out, falling over each other. "See I met this man called the Doctor and he's an investigator but Rey said he was a fake one—but I didn't know that—and—and—and…." Her voice trailed off. "I sound like a crazy person," she said in a small voice.

For a moment Allison just stood there, staring at her. Her eyes flamed and she gripped the bouquet of flowers, hard.

"I….I'm sorry….I'm sorry I was in your house?" Laila managed.

"It's not my house," she said darkly, and turned, dropping the flowers on the gravestone and stalking off across the graveyard without another word.