Young Writers Society

“Sh, Skye, you have to be quiet. If you sing, they‘ll hear us”.

Skye whimpered but pressed her hand to her mouth. It was so hard.

Outside, they were dying, and she was forbidden even to sing.

“Skye, please.”

Indigo crouched down beside her and pressed her hands into his. “You’re cold.” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I’m always this heat.” she said.

Outside there was a scream. Skye bit her lip and shut her eyes, which were watering from the effort silence needed. Indigo looked concerned.

“Can’t you help it?” he asked.

She clamped her mouth close tighter to make sure no sound escaped and shook her head.

“Maybe we should go out. We’ll have a better chance of getting away than if they find us in here.”

She opened her mouth a fraction to say “The others.”

“We can’t help them now Skye. It was their choice. They chose to fight…They chose to die.”

Out of her eye squeezed a very real, full silvery tear which fell to the ground. “But…”

“No buts. Death is…it’s what we’re all about. The Undead. Please. It’s not your fault.”

“It is, Indigo.” she said, shaking. “It is. It’s my fault and nothing will change it.”

“Listen to me!” he said grabbing her shoulders. “It is not your fault. It’s just the way it goes, Skye. It’s just the way it goes.”

It was just the way it went.

*

SINGERS/MUSICIANS WANTED. APPLY WITHIN.

That was the notice up on the steamy coffee shop window. Skye smiled and wondered if she should apply.

She pulled the charcoal shawl she had over her hair a little tighter in the nippy November air, shut her eyes and spread her mind out into the shop.

Yes, there he was. Not very old. About forty maybe. A smoker. He had survived lung cancer but he was not expecting the heart attack that would hit tomorrow. It would be fatal.

He was unmarried. He was planning on going out with a few of his mates tonight. He’d get back one-ish. Maybe with a pretty girl. Skye knew that was an empty hope. Unless of course, he counted the one that would be keening on his rooftop.

She smiled to her reflection in the mirror the window made as this thought came. The hip length hair customary to her kind was in her case thin and white blonde. Her eyes were wide and green. She was slender, although that wasn’t hard to achieve, starving perhaps would have been a better word. She could taste food, but it never really filled her up. Never served its purpose. She wore grey, white and black, and kept her skin covered even her long fingered hands. Though the paleness of her hands might not bother anyone, the bloodstains from doing the laundry of the dead might.

Her hands twitched instinctively under the finely made soft grey leather gloves. She moved to the door of the shop and went in.

She sat down two tables away from the dying man. He was fingering a newspaper. At the next table were a very much in love couple. At the one beside that was group of giggling schoolgirls.

Skye looked at them wistfully. She should be in that group right now. Laughing with some fellow teenagers. So, she had been alive for several hundred years, but never had she stopped yearning for company.

She just didn’t fit in anywhere. She had tried, back in the eighteenth century. She decided to give up. She couldn’t take it anymore. She had become a lady’s maid.

That had lasted all of three days. Then one of the farm hands decided to die. And Skye went out to keen. It had been a miracle they hadn’t caught her. She had left the next morning and had never tried going against nature again.

She absent-mindedly looked at the little menu stood on the table as a waiter moved over, waiting for her.

“A latte and a-”

She stopped short and listened to his thoughts for less than a second, taking a long blink.

Fullmoontonightfullmoontonighthavetogetouthaveto-

Shut up! I can’t hear the shop, shut up, shut up!

Two sets of thoughts in his head. And one wasn’t human.

But no. No, they hadn’t been around for years. Surely not this far into a city.

“Ma’am?” he asked unsurely.

She looked up. He was dark, tall, broad, with indigo eyes.

“Are you alright ma’am?” he asked, feeling nervous under her stare.

She uttered one word.

“Werewolf.”

*

He hurried away and came back with her latte, and another. He sat down, almost as pale as her.

“How did you know?”

She breathed slowly. “Your thoughts. There are two of them. One’s animal, one’s person.”

He frowned. “You can read thoughts?”

“Look at me. What do you think I am?”

He frowned. She sighed and unbuttoned the old fashioned glove at her wrist. She heard a small intake of breath from her companion.

The abnormally long and white fingers of her hand were blotched the brightest red in places, especially in the cracks where finger met knuckle, and on the soft curve of her thumb.

“Banshee,” he whispered.

Skye nodded and slipped the glove back on.

“I’ve never met one before,” he said. “I’ve seen vampires on the street, I’ve lived with a warlock, and zombies, I’ve even spoken to a yeti up in the mountains, but…I thought you were only a legend.”

“And I thought you were extinct. Were you born or bitten?”

“Bitten.” he answered. “When I was five.”

“Your parents?”

“I don’t know. My first transformation I ran and could never find my way back. Then Phoenix took me in.”

“Phoenix? The warlock on James Street?”

“You know him?”

She rolled her eyes. “Every supernatural in a hundred mile radius knows him. He’s helped us all out at some point. Good guy.”

He nodded.

“I’m Skye, by the way.”

“Indigo,” he answered.

She looked at the man three tables over once again. Indigo very slowly

turned and followed her gaze.

“He’s about to have a heart attack,” she said. “I’m about to go do his laundry.”

He raised his eyebrows in scorn. “Do you do it for everyone?”

“No. Only those in certain families. And only those who believe.”

“How do they catch a glimpse of you though, and then you’re gone?”

“The cloak. Each banshee has one pitch black cloak, it makes you disappear, makes you silent, makes your burdens as light as a feather. It’s good when I have to carry round a wash basin.”

“You have it easy.” he murmured. She took a moment to look inside his head.

Getawaygetawaygetawaynotnaturalnotnaturalnotnatural.

She seems fine to me. And she’s having a hard time of it.

“Your wolf self doesn’t approve of me.” she said sadly.

“Well I don’t approve of him.” he answered.

“But shouldn’t you be getting out of the city? Soon?”

“Yeah, I’m going to the mountains tonight.”

“You should go,” she said taking a nervous glance out the window. “It’s nearly dark.”

He stared at her. “You’re frightened of me.” he stated.

“No, but I still think you should go. Your shift’s over.”

“Fine.” he said standing up and throwing some change on the table. “I

know when I’m not wanted.”

“No, it’s not that.” said Skye, suddenly desperate for him not to go. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had a conversation with anybody. “Look-”

She snatched the pen he used to take orders out of his back jean pocket and grabbed his hand to begin scribbling.

“That’s my phone number,” she said. “I’m living in the little flat above the butcher’s on Queen’s Street. Just ask for Skye.”

He goggled at her. “You really want to see me again?”

“Indigo, I haven’t spoken to anyone in months. Not properly. Years even. And I just had a full blown discussion with you. I’m not letting you walk out that door and never see you again.”

He paused for a moment and then gave her a huge warm grin.

“Call me after full moon alright? I have some washing to do. But first, I’m

going to go apply for this singing position, I’m running out of cash.”

Author's Note: I wrote this quite a while ago when I was bored. I'm not sure where I'm going with it but if you like I will continue. Please leave some crit to make me dance.