This is kind of my contribution to Evil Author Day. I don't know if I will make it a real story.

She watched the waves as they lapped the bottom of the ship. It was quite mesmerizing to watch. She could almost feel the calling of the sea. She knew it wasn't possible for her to actually feel the sea, but it did bring a sense of calmness in her. She gathered the bundle in her arms more securely and let out a contented sigh. It wasn't a bundle per se. She was holding her one-and-a-half-year-old son to her chest. He was sleeping and from the smile on his lips, it was quite clear that he was dreaming. Was he feeling the sea too, she didn't know.

It was on a whim she decided to make this trip. Lady Luck had smiled upon her when she found out that she had won the lottery. She could have done anything with her unexpected fund, but she decided to do one thing that she never thought she could – That was visiting the place where her parents died.

She was just in her teens when her parents, who were just a normal couple from middle-class background, decided to go on to their second honeymoon. They wanted to rekindle their love, they said. Although, she didn't know if there was anything to rekindle because her parents were always sickeningly in love with each other. But she indulged to their childish enthusiasm and even teased them for it for a while. She had begged off of joining them, however, because she was already enrolled in a summer class for her creative writing course. In the end, she was left under care of her paternal uncle when she sent her parents off.

She never knew it would be the last time she would ever see them. Their plan had made a routine stop at London before continuing to Paris. But right after it took off from Heathrow, it encountered a sudden hailstorm. Meteorologists were baffled by the sudden appearance of the storm as there was no indication of it whatsoever. The pilot tried to land it safely, but ultimately it crashed down near the West County. All 326 passengers and crew-members were declared dead.

Her life took some drastic changes since then. Her uncle, while a good man, wasn't financially stable. In addition to that, he was quite old and needed constant care. She tried to control the upheaval of her life as much as she could. She suppressed her grief and dove headfast into her routine. She completed her high school along with caring for her ailing uncle. And just when she graduated, she had lost the last link of her family, her uncle. She was figuratively adrift alone in the vast sea. She didn't know what she would have done with her life when she went to her vacation.

That was when she met him. She was, by no means, a stranger to romance, but she never felt such an all-consuming attraction for another individual before. He also confessed to her that he had never met someone quite like her. They both knew that they could never be together save for the two months of vacation. But she didn't care, she wanted to be selfish, she wanted to be carefree. She wanted to relish the feeling till it lasted. At the end of that vacation, they said their farewells and went their separate ways. Almost inevitably, some months later, she was holding her new-born son.

Her son became her sole reason to feel alive again. She could feel the love, the adoration that welled in her heart whenever she looked at that tiny face. She made a promise to herself that she would give him the best life. She would become the best mom for him.

[IOS]

Naturally, the wreckage and debris were cleared and bodies which were not claimed were cremated. She didn't want to go to the site of the crash, but the place where her parents' cremation took place. It was a tiny, little idyllic English village. It was nearing the end of October when she arrived here. The pastor of the local church was sympathetic. He handed over the urns containing of her parents' remains himself. The father even held her son when she broke down hugging the urns to her chests. When the elderly man learned that she would be staying in the village at least for the remainder of the month, he became quite energetic in describing the places she could take her son and enjoy the typical English village life. Quite frankly, she came to enjoy the pastor's company for the short time she spent at the church.

The village didn't have a hotel or an inn in the general sense. It was not a tourist spot. So she had to arrange to stay as a house guest for the duration. The pastor arranged it all for her. After thanking the man profusely for his help, she settled in for the week or so she planned to stay there. But her son was quite restless so she thought about taking a stroll before the nightfall.

She walked the length of the lane of the house she was staying in. While returning, she spotted a young couple standing at their yard. The woman had a child of her own in her arms, a boy from what she could guess at the distance. But the strange thing was, the child and her son almost in sync, started to point each other and started to babble in their baby talks.

"You want to make a new friend, honey?" She tickled her baby and earned herself a giggle, "Let's go and say hi."

She crossed the road and approached the little cottage. She could see the couple trying to shush their baby who was still trying to reach out for the squirming bundle in her arms.

"Hello, it seems that our little one decided for themselves that they wanted to make a new friend." She called out for the couple.

The man was lean but not scrawny. He had black, messy hair and hazel eyes behind round frame glasses. The woman was a little shorter than the man, had wavy waist length red hair and vibrant emerald eyes. The baby in her arms seemed to be an amalgamation of the both of his parents. The baby had soft, messy black hair on his tiny head and the same vibrant emerald eyes just like his mother.

The tiny thing wanted to jump out of his mother's arms and reach out for her son. While his parents kept looking at her with wide eyes and slackened jaws.

"You can see us?" The man blurted.

She frowned, why shouldn't she? They were standing right in front of her.

"Um… yeah. Was I not supposed to?"

Instead of replying to her, the man turned to his wife, "Did the charm fail?" He appeared quite panicked as he asked.

She was confused, what was a charm? Why would it fail?

The wife replied, "I don't think so, I can still feel it."

They were not making any sense to her. If it was not for her son, she would have turned around and marched straight back to her home. The pastor didn't warn her about weird individuals of the village.

"Um… sorry to bother you. We'll just go." She turned away and had taken a single step when the woman called out –

"No, please, stop! Forgive us. We are quite frazzled with taking care of our son. Please, won't you come in?"

She turned back while trying to keep her son steady in her arms. Would it be okay to accept their invitation? They didn't look like weirdos even if their speech was quite off. But she too had her fair share of weirdness in life, didn't she? In the end, she shrugged and plastered a smile on her face.

"Thank you for inviting us. Else, I think my son would have invaded your home."

The man chuckled as he came forward to unlatch the gate, "And from the looks of it, our son would help him whole-heartedly. Please, do come in." He ushered in.

She stepped into their yard and bent down to set her son on the well maintained lawn, the other woman did the same with her son. Almost immediately the two toddler rushed to each other on unsteady legs and stopped only inches apart. They intently looked into the other's eyes before giving each other big smiles.

"Well, that was the fastest friendship I have seen forming in my life." The wife smiled at the chittering children.

"Ah, where are my manners?" The man slapped himself on the forehead, "Hello, my name is James Potter. This is my lovely wife, Lily and that apparent chatterbox down there is our son, Harry."

"Hi, my name is Sally Jackson, and the other part of the chattering duo is my son, Percy."