Excerpt: Arion

Arion

"My life changed the night that I met my first fairy..."
I lent back in the chair, listening to the girls story. It was a variation on every other, a brief encounter with the supernatural, with the women they sometimes involved seducation or romance. This girl, for that is what she was a young girl of about sixteen or seventeen. She was decked out in common goth garb, her hair dyed a deep purple-black, yellow contact lenses making her eyes shine bright, she was dressed in black and sollemn as she told her tale about the fairy who tried to steal her heart. I fought to stop myself rolling my eyes at her, her story was perfectly pitched, the right amount of emotion thrown in with it. I could tell that she had practiced her tale before coming here and glanced around at the other people in the room, who nodded solemnly as she finished. As she finished, after a round of applause another person took over; I sighed at the blantent fiction in the participants tales, it was nothing more than I expected. some of the stories had a sprinkling of truth tied to them, as if they were repeating some story that they had heard rather than what had really happened to them. I came to the meetings of the Supernatural Encounters club once a week at the local community centre, it was what it sounded like; a bunch of people got together to share their tales of their brushes with anything beyond the ordinary; demons, aliens, vampires you name it someone had met one. I was there for no other reason than to listen to their stories and see if there were any true ones. So far, this night there wasn't and I had to keep myself from laughing aloud a number of times, especially in one woman's tale of meeting a vampire in a nightclub who had lusted after her blood and bewitched her into inviting him home for the night. It was absurb, vampires as a general rule dislike human blood, the prefer the blood of their home land, old world blood. Blood like my own. It tasted different apparently and any old world person can usually recognise another by a glance; of course I was only half Old world so I could have been wrong about the woman but I doubted it. When the stories were finished, everyone mingled; I stood to one side, watching sharing brief conversation with anyone who spoke to me first. Not for the first I wondered what these people would think if they knew what I was. As far as I could tell, I was the only none human in the room, no matter what the rest claimed, I wondered whether they would welcome me with open arms or if they would start mobbing and building a stake to burn me at. For everyones desire to meet something otherworldly, they would run screaming if they did.
"Do you believe all of this?" A woman asked me, she smiled and like me surveyed the room.
"I'm not sure."I replied, giving my general response to such questions. If anyone asked, I generally claimed to have seen a creature out one full moon which made me consider that there might be something more out there, I pretended to be here to convince myself. A decent enough story which didn't make me seem too eager.
"I came out of curiousity. Who would think a small town like this would have such a strange club." she spoke again, studying me. She had shoulder length fair hair and bright green eyes, she was human but there was something about her which stood out and made me notice her instead of dismissing her straight away. She was dressed casually, like myself, her in jeans and a red sweater, myself in black jeans and black top, my jacket hung over my arm.
"So why are you here?" she asked when I didn't speak.
"It's something to do." i replied, which it was. It was something to take up my time, it also doubled as an opportunity to keep an eye on what was happening here, technically that wasn't my job but it wasn't something that the ruling vampire did much of anymore.
"It was definitly interesting. I'm Del by the way." she held out her hand, I shook it, her skin was rough and calloused.
"Elenore." I replied.
Del beamed at me, her smile showing a set of beautiful white teeth "It's nice to meet you Elenore. Do you live around here? I've just moved into town and I might see you around again?"
I nodded "Probably, there aren't many places to go here so you are bound to run into most of these people some time or other."

***
When the meeting broke up, I made my way out into the autumn wind and rain; ignoring the cold I skipped through the puddles and made my way to my next destination. I reached the house in record time, knocking twice on the door to the tiny mid-terraced house I opened the door and yelled in.
"Molly, it's only me." I didn't have to shout, I was here at this time every week and two other times also. Such was my life at the moment, one of routine, like a week that was on constant repeat. It was the part of my life which I loved the most, it was something that i'd never had before moving to the small sea-side town of Saltscar and part of the reason I was here. I knew that things couldn't always remain the same but I could enjoy it whilst it lasted.
I walked into the stifling warmth of her house, stepping from the narrow passage to the small front room. Molly, a grey haired fragile old woman of nearly eighty made to get up from her favourite seat by the fireplace, I waved her back down and smiled.
"Tea?" I asked, making my way into her kitchen after hanging up my jacket. I really need not have asked because like the other things that didn't change, the answer was always the same.
"Have you eaten?" I asked as I placed the drink down on the table besides her seat, pausing to tuck in the blanket around her.
"Of course dear. Angie came around earlier. You look like you need feeding up, you're getting skinnier everytime I see you."
I grinned at that, visiting Molly always made me relax and feel calm about myself. She was the grandmother I'd never had, I'd met her about a month after i'd moved into town. That had been when she was well enough to do her own shopping, I'd helped her carry it off the bus one day. her health had deteriorated since then and now she found it difficult to leave the house. A carer visited her once a day to help out and I visited at least three times a week, more if I was passing by.
"I'm fine don't worry about me." I replied, her concern made me grin even more, it was nice to have someone care for me.
"You really should eat more." Molly said, her face wrinkled with worry. The TV was turned down low and the fire blazed out a comforting warmth.
"I'm going to grab something on the way home."
"I could make you something." Molly protested
"No, I'm fine. Thanks." I smiled at her and sipped my drink.
"Angie was saying that there are some more vampires in town." Molly said.
"I hope they aren't as clingy as the last ones. I've only just gotten Andreas to stop following me."
She laughed "He was only doing what he thought he had to do. He was being polite."
"He was being anoying. He would follow me like a puppy dog most nights and try and carry anything I picked up, run ahead to open doors for me and well he tried to do everything."
"No-one said vampires were bright dear." she laughed
"You would think they'd learn to leave me alone. I haven't seen any new ones though, just the usual."
"They'll likly come and introduce themselves to you in the next few days, if they follow proper etiquette they'll even
bring you gifts."
"hmmmm." I have a box of the useless gifts that they've brought me over the years when they've come to town or when they've being passing through. Molly was right they were only conforming to proper vampire etiquette, that didn't stop it being annoying though. It wasn't the only thing annoying about them, I should know, I know vampires, I have to. I'm married to one, not that I've seen him in years but still. Molly changed the subject and we gossiped about things that were going on in town, especially the part of town that was our world. Like me Molly was half old world, the mystic blood coming from her fathers side, mine came from my mother.
I stayed for over an hour, chatting to her about anything and everything, until it was time to go.
"I had trick or treaters last night." she said as i was getting my jacket on.
"A little early isn't it? halloweens not until next weekend."
"Exactly what I told them. I told them to come back closer to the time. I should give them a trick." She said with a wicked glint in her eye "I could tell them their future."