Why were they friends?

I pondered that question most of the time during supper. This was because Rebecca and Tristan squandered most of the said time demonstrating to everybody just how friendly they were. Maybe not to everybody. Perhaps only to me, seeing as I was the only one disturbed by their friendship.

Mr. Edgar, Madam Felicity, Lea and even Adrian treated it as an ordinary occurrence that Tristan was chatty over dinner. They chortled and smiled along with him because of a memory Rebecca brought up as though Tristan smiling was a daily occurrence. Clearly I was the only one spooked and bothered by this entity that had obviously taken over his body.

I sat opposite him as usual, but what changed was that Rebecca now sat next to him. She didn't need to ask to be passed anything because he had become her personal waiter, on the look-out in case she needed anything at all. He was always there to ask her, "Do you want some potatoes?" and "Should I add you more soup?" and "I hope it isn't too salty?"

The fiend had been possessed by some kind of puppy-dog spirit. I cringed until my face was almost set in a permanent grimace. This out-of-character Tristan was making me ill.

I stayed quiet and chose to remain in the 'suddenly invisible' category to him at this reunion party. I told myself that it shouldn't even matter, since him and I weren't on speaking terms.

Rebecca lifted a spoonful from her bowl of soup and bent to sip, making a few locks of her hair fall forward.

Tristan-the out-of-character-Tristan and not the usual spawn of the abyss-used his hand to push her hair back behind her ear.

"Careful, or you'll get soup in your hair," he said.

I retched.

I suppose the sound reached Lea's ears, for she warned me with a nudge.

"Oh, thank you." Rebecca smiled at him.

"Of course, the best option would be to keep it short. You know, I can cut it for-"

Rebecca lifted a palm. "Do not dare finish that sentence. I haven't forgotten what I went through the last time I let you cut my hair."

"You let Mr. Tristan cut your hair?" Lea asked. "How did it go?"

Oh no. Not another memory.

"Terribly, of course!" Rebecca replied, quite eager to recount the story. "I was fourteen and impressionable. I wished to try a short hairstyle for the summer like I had seen other girls do. Since I was staying here for that season, Tristan asked me to trust him because he'd been cutting his own hair and Adrian's."

"I remember that!" Madam Felicity chipped in. "I wouldn't let him cut mine at the time since he had turned Addy into a hurricane disaster victim."

"And I didn't know that so I trusted him!" Rebecca cried.

"But yours came out really really neat," Tristan argued.

"And also really really short! You cropped it and made it look exactly like yours. You basically turned me into a boy!"

Laughter erupted from all corners of the table except mine and Adrian's. He was immune to laughter, but showcased a smile her and there. it was the first-the first time I had seen him wear an expression close to joy.

"And then he made you wear his clothes," Madam Felicity pronounced. "Didn't you two have a portrait made?"

"Yes, we did." Rebecca nodded, smiling.

"A reminder of my exquisite hairstyling skills and how good you look in my clothes," Tristan proclaimed, his face smug.

"As a reminder to never trust you with my hair," Rebecca dissented, giving him a playful smack on the arm. "Better write that down, Mavis. And you have such beautiful hair too, so watch out."

I only chuckled weakly in response.

*******

I couldn't retreat to my bedroom fast enough.

Rebecca was.....something. She brought out a side of Tristan I hadn't known existed, and I didn't know how to feel about it. I was disgusted by his niceties because it was new and strange. I was perplexed by his having a lady friend because I had thought it an impossibility.

At the same time, I was...annoyed by the fact that he had a friend his age, who wasn't another enigmatic character like Mr. Vlad. I was annoyed that what had been so easy with her was an impossibility with me.

So did Rebecca's presence bother me? It needn't. She wasn't at fault for feelings that were my own. I simply needed to accept their friendship just like the rest of the family did. While she and he were friends, he and I were enemies. I accepted that we could not cross that threshold.

So what was so hard about accepting him and Rebecca's bond?

********

I woke up to the sight of a glinting edge of a blade, descending straight to my neck.

My body reacted first, rolling to the side as the blade sliced through air behind me. I toppled off the bed with my heart in my mouth and clambered to my feet, bumping into the night stand. My feet swivelled, tugged by the pressing urge to locate my attacker.

The only source of illumination in the room was the pale glow streaming in through the windows from the security lights outside, but it sufficed to outline a shadow standing on the other side of the bed. A seven foot tall shadow donned in a dark full-body amour suit....or was it the shadow wrapped around the suit?

Both gauntlets gripped the handle of the sword which had struck my bed, and my eyes drew in more details as they focused on the way the blackness of the shadow moved, as though it was on fire-with black fames.

Like the fur coat of the Abyss' Hound.

The realisation struck my nerves and my knees buckled as the same ominous dread that had overcome me that day seized my body again.

The shadow lifted its head. Instead of a helmet, he wore a mask. It was a hideous ruby face mask with protruding white fangs set in a scowl, and a pair of black horns on the sides of its head, curved back like a ram's.

I stared into the dark bottomless depths of the round sockets where the eyes ought to have been, and I knew instantly that no human body existed beneath that suit.

In a flash, the masked shadow jumped onto the bed and swung the blade at me.
Screaming, I ducked and ran towards the dressing table, frantically jerking open the first drawer where I kept a knife. I had done so since the first plague attacked. I fished it out and turned to point it at my foe.

The masked shadow stood there, holding his sword at the side.

"Stay back!" I commanded, my grip tight on the blade handle.

The shadow, mocking me, tilted his head and stepped forward. It didn't matter that I was frightened to the bone, nor that I had brought a knife to a sword fight. What mattered was that by hook or crook, I had to survive.

The masked shadow raised his sword at a horizontal angle and swung at me, aiming for my neck. I ducked and ran while the things on my dressing table clattered to the floor, including a glass that shattered.

Pain shot up my leg as he kicked me, and I fell, screaming. With adrenaline pumping fast in my veins, I resorted to writhing forward to get away, except I was easily pinned to the floor by his foot stabbing me in the back. I gasped for air with the pressure on my lungs.

But as I happened to be a rather relentless adversary, I blindly swung my knife back, hoping to land a hit on his calf. Once the pressure released, I staggered to my feet and turned.

Screaming bloody murder, I brought down my knife on the shadow's sword-wielding arm, and gasped at how easily the blade sliced through. The limb was indeed severed, from the gauntlet, only it stayed floating. Suddenly, the shadow vanished into nothingness.

There was nothing left of him, including the sword.

I blinked, my breaths short and fast. It felt like...cutting through a clump of feathers.

Perplexed and frayed, my gaze flicked all around the room to locate where the shadow could have possibly disappeared to.

Had I killed him? It didn't feel like it.

The door slammed open and the room was bathed in bright light at the click of a switch.

"Mavis?"

Footsteps approached, hands grabbed me, and blue-grey eyes bore into mine. Lea.

"Mavis, are you okay? We heard some noises. Why were you screaming?" Her hand caressed my cheek, her touch warm and tender while her eyebrows furrowed with worry. From the breathy way she talked, it appeared she had come in haste. Behind her stood Adrian, watching me with curious eyes.

"I....er...." I stammered, my voice hoarse.

More people rushed into the room.

"Mae dear?"

"What happened?"

"Oh my goodness, look at this mess!"

Soon the whole Devereux family was in my bedroom making a fuss and demanding answers. Lea made me sit with her on the bed while I wracked my brain for believable lies.

"First of all, give me that," Lea said gingerly as her hand covered mine-the one clutching the knife.

Madam Felicity gasped in horror, her hand flying up to her chest. "Mae dear! Why in Lady Fate's name are you wielding a knife?"

"You keep a knife in your bedroom?" Mr. Edgar demanded, shocked.

"Well..." Lost for explanation, I simply looked at all of them, my gaze eventually landing on Tristan. His jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

"I...I saw a spider," I finally found some words.

"What?"

"A spider?"

"A spider threatened you enough to have you use a knife?" Adrian inquired, not the least bit convinced. Lea took the knife from me and handed it to him. "A butcher knife?"

"Er...I happen to be really talented with butcher knives," I said, forcing a smile. "They're quite formidable when it comes to squashing bugs. You know, I have worked as a butcher many times before and this one time a fly the size of-"

"Quiet," Adrian cut me off, agitated. "You still should not keep a knife in your bedroom."

"But it was a really big spider!" I continued to spin my web of lies, "and I am terrified of spiders!"

"Oh darling, if you were having a spider problem, you should have told us!" Madam Felicity cried, rushing to my side and taking my hands in hers. "I would have called an exterminator to take care of it right away." She gasped, cautiously looking around. "It couldn't still be here, could it?"

"Well, I..." I shrugged. "I don't know."

I truthfully did not know what had happened with the second plague.

"Oh dear. Ed, we should call an exterminator immediately."

"It is three-thirty in the morning, my dear."

She pouted. "But the big spider."

"Are you sure it was a spider?" Adrian asked me. "Perhaps you didn't see properly and it was just a shadow. It was dark when we came in."

Well, it was a shadow alright. I glanced at Tristan, whose gaze hadn't stopped piercing me since he came in and observed the scene.

I ignored Adrian and turned to his mother. "Could the exterminator come tomorrow?"

She nodded and ran her hand across my hair bonnet in a comforting gesture. "Of course, Mae dear. Will you be able to sleep tonight?"

I smiled. "Yes, with that assurance."

With the crisis averted and somewhat resolved, everyone else soon went back to sleep except Tristan who volunteered to stay and help me clean the mess.

Silence reigned between us as he observed the broken pieces of glass on the floor. I wished to tell him everything that had transpired, but I could not bring myself to. There was a rift between us on account of unresolved feelings, and I didn't know how to cross it.

After a few seconds of awkward nothingness, he spoke first. "What happened?"

Relief washed over me, but only for a moment. I twiddled my thumbs. "Like I said, a spider-"

"Mae-witch." He sighed and turned to look me directly in the eyes. "What really happened?"

Recalling that hideous mask and the way I was almost beheaded in my bed caused my skin to crawl. It had been terrifying.

"There was a masked shadow," I started, avoiding his sharp gaze. I didn't want him to notice how frightened I was. "It tried to kill me."

"From the beginning."

I gulped. The beginning. In other words, the second my life flashed before my eyes in that glinting sword above me.

I breathed in and exhaled. "I woke up and he was there..." Keeping my voice levelled was what I focused on. Stay calm, don't fiddle. "He was going to behead me with a sword."

"Who?"

"The masked shadow," I answered and struggled to describe him. "He...he's a shadow but he wears armour and a mask. The suit...the armour doesn't make any sound. Not even when I severed the gauntlet. It was...it was like I cut through a pile of feathers and he...just vanished."

I looked up and found Tristan wearing a grave face, his forehead creased in thought.

"What do you mean vanished?" he asked. "Did you defeat him?"

"I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders and stood up, placing a hand on my hip as the other rubbed the back of my neck. "I don't know, Tristan, but it didn't feel like it. I couldn't have severed his limb with just that one strike, but I did. There was no reaction, no blood. He simply disappeared into thin air. "

Tristan scoffed. "Of course you just had to fight back."

"Well what was I supposed to do? Stand there and let him take my head?"

"Run," he stated, as though it was the most obvious thing to do.

"To where?" I pressed. "Outside where he could attack everyone else? Didn't you say it's best the family didn't know? That we're supposed to keep this curse a secret from them? Honestly, I'm rethinking that because how am I supposed to keep it a secret when I could get attacked at any time?"

He ran a hand down his face in frustration. "You just have too, alright? It will be harder for everyone if they know. And it would worry my mother to death."

"Ah, so it's alright if I'm the only one it's hard on? It's alright if I die?" I snorted.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "That's not what I said."

"I heard what you said," I stated dismissively, devoid of emotion. "And I understand, so you can go back to sleep now."

He didn't move an inch. "The broken glass-"

"I'll pick it up."

His jaw clenched. "So I should leave?"

No. I'm scared.

"Yes. I'll be fine on my own."

His gaze lingered a little longer, and I hoped it was because he was conflicted. I hoped he would oppose and say he would stay in case the masked shadow reappeared. But in true Tristan fashion, he extinguished that little hope by turning around and walking out, leaving the door closed behind him.

The silence was deafening. As it grew even louder, so did my anxiety.

One didn't hear shadows-one could only see them once they crept upon you. I hadn't heard him come into my bedroom. I hadn't heard the sound of his footsteps or the clank of his armour while he moved. I hadn't heard him lift his sword, and had only awoken by mere coincidence. A second later, and my head would have rolled.

I couldn't trust my ears-only my eyes. And so I had to keep them open.

Author's remarks.

My my my, my dear protagonist is in quite a pickle! Not only with her night visitor but with the latest addition to the Devereux household.

Will she be fine on her own?

Thank you for reading 😊and don't forget to vote⭐️!