A Royal Rose

Chapter Two

Rose spent the next week thinking about the contents of the letter. At first, she was annoyed that no one had mentioned much more to her about her mother other than that she wanted her father to raise her. Her eighteenth birthday had been her wedding day. It was the day she had begun her ill-fated marriage after a six-month whirlwind relationship. No wonder her grandparents hadn’t given her the letter on that day, but Rose was miffed that they hadn’t chosen another day to do it.

The internet had proven useful by allowing her to look at the address she had been given. An online mapping service let her view that her grandmother was correct in recalling her father had discovered it was a field with nothing more than a circle of trees in the middle. Rose mused that maybe her mother had simply miswritten the address in a hurry to slip away without being detected, but she couldn’t find anything online that was close to what the address in the letter was. The note her mother had written wasn’t enclosed in the envelope or even the box. Rose had no name to research, nothing other than a miswritten address so she quickly gave up her search.

Today was her first full day off since the funeral, Sarah was at work and the house had no one else there. Days off with the house to herself were her favourite, she looked forward to a long steamy shower and watching a box set on the television in her room. The bathroom wasn’t to the level of clean that she would have liked but in a shared house it was hard to keep it to a level that was maintainable. She climbed into the small shower, the water cascaded over her back, deciding that since the house was empty that she would pleasure herself. She wasted no time in sliding her fingers down her stomach. Steam filled the shower cubicle as her hand slid over her pubic hair and opened her outer labia. Rose’s fingers moved over her c******s. Dipping her fingers in and out of her v****a gently and rotated the two actions she moaned, and her legs went weak at the knees. She climaxed hard over her own fingers and held onto the tiled wall for support. Feeling refreshed, she finished washing in her shower and after drying herself, left the bathroom and walked across the landing.

Hearing a creak behind her, Rose quickly looked around. A familiar face was stood on the top of the stairs, it was Lee. “what are you doing here? Who invited you in?” Rose exclaimed whilst she tried to cover herself some more with the rather small faded brown towel. Her face was blotchy from the heat of the shower water and her hair was wrapped in another discoloured, bleach-stained towel. Lee looked very different from the night before; the alcohol had made him look better looking. He wasn’t ugly but her drunken mind had made him look younger and less bulldog looking. His face was sour looking and his voice was hoarse “You better not say anything!” he told her bluntly.

“say what and more importantly to who?” Rose asked, puzzled, she backed away slowly towards her bedroom door.

“Sarah. We’ve been dating for a year” Lee snapped, “I came here yesterday evening from London. I’ve known her address, but she’s always come to my place. I didn’t know her house was the house you lived at until I went online in my hotel room this morning and checked out where I was going to.” he looked and sounded stressed.

Rose blinked several times “You’re Lee? Sarah’s… Lee?” she was shocked. She’d seen Sarah staring at her phone for hours on end sending him messages and talking on video calls to him, but she’d never seen much of his face – a pink blur as Rose caught a glimpse of her phone screen. Sarah and she were just housemates who lived in the same house. Often, they were ships in the night who said mere pleasantries to each other and went about their individual lives. Rose had never paid that much attention to Sarah, especially her love life and now she wished she had.

“If you tell her you’ll ruin everything”

“I saw you before you came back here with me, I wasn’t the first woman you were flirting with at the bar. I have no issue with her not liking me because I’ve told her the truth. However, I think it best comes from you at some point. Can I go get dressed now?” she said.

“she isn’t going to find out!” Lee yelled as he saw red and he walked threateningly towards Rose. The closer he got; she could see he was high on some sort of drug. She quickly darted into her room and locked the Yale lock behind her.

“I’m going to get dressed now and by the time I come out of this room, you best be gone!” she yelled into the door.

Hearing some footsteps thud down the stairs and a door slam, she breathed a sigh of relief. Rose got dressed and decided since he had left, she’d have a quick look through the contents of her grandmother’s possessions in the box. Maybe there was some nice jewellery in the jewellery box that might go with my outfit, she thought. Her grandmother had the strangest taste in costume jewellery but as some of the fashions of the past few decades were coming back, Rose wondered if there could be a little gem in the box just waiting to be found. Ideally, Rose was wanting to wear something of her gran’s today to cheer herself up, especially after the fright of dealing with Sarah’s drugged up boyfriend.

Opening her grandmother’s jewellery box, she rummaged around in it, the box was a floral-patterned fabric box that was well worn, it had two layers inside and underneath the first removable layer was a small velvet bag tucked away under some tangled gold chains. Rose picked the bag up and opened it with her fingertips, tipping the tiny bag up onto her palm she saw a small glass locket on a silver chain that contained what looked like herbs and bits of glitter. A small piece of purple card was with the locket which said “For Rose’s 18th birthday. Love Aine, her mother”. Rose got tingles pulse throughout her body; her eyes welled up. She had finally held something that her mother had touched. Since she was small, her mother had been this amazing image of a woman in her mind and touching this object made her real. Reading the note again, she doubted she could even pronounce her mother’s name. However, with a quick internet search on her phone, she found out it was an Irish name and not said how she would have pronounced it at all.

Deciding to go downstairs, the locket around her neck and a long candlestick she had got from her bedroom in her hand, she went downstairs to double check that Lee had truly left. Looking around, he wasn’t in the living room when she checked but, in the kitchen, he stood menacingly by the back door holding a kitchen knife.

Lee pointed the blade at her, “promise not to tell her” he growled. His face was red and ugly with frustration. Rose gripped the candlestick hard, glad she’d brought it downstairs with her but as it was short and stubby it wasn’t much of an opponent against a knife.

“Put the knife down! You are not in the right frame of mind for this kind of thing. What have you taken anyway?” Rose said. Lee paced the kitchen, as he thought. She watched him as he wrestled with his conscious.

“Sarah and I are great together. I knew I messed up after you and I hooked up. I’ve only had a line or two…just for the confidence to come over here and tell you to not say a word. I want your word you ain’t gonna tell her!!” Lee started to rant, “You’ve spoiled everything. Anyway, you shouldn’t have thrown yourself at me, you were desperate!”

Rose took offence at this and barked back at him “Me? Desperate!? Says the man wielding a knife and begging me not to say anything! You’re scum”

Lee charged at her with the knife, the two of them jostled around, trying to avoid slicing their own skin. The candlestick flew out of her hand and hit the wall. She managed to push him off by kneeing him hard in the crotch and when he recoiled off her, she kicked him hard in the ribs which were painful only in socks and stood on the hand holding the hilt to the knife. Lee let go of the knife, she grabbed it herself and pointed it at him. “f**k off!” she snarled at him.

Lee grunted in pain, scurried off the floor, ran off and let himself out the front door quickly, the door shut locked behind him. Rose stood in disbelief in the living room, not quite sure what had happened. What would I say to Sarah? Would he mention anything to her? Rose wondered.

Examining the living room, it was a mess, furniture knocked into and the carpet had pulled up even more at the sides due to the struggle. There was a huge dent in the wall and paintwork missing from where the candle had smashed into it. Her thoughts of how she was going to explain everything to Sarah were interrupted by a repeated tapping at the window by a blackbird. Rose stopped her fretting to admire it, she’d not seen many birds this close in this part of the town. When she looked over it stopped tapping. Yet, when Rose started to pick some items off the floor that had fallen off the nest of tables… the tapping continued. Opening the sash window to scare the bird off, the way it looked at her was unnerving, it didn’t even flinch. The second she had the window open; a loud male voice could be heard in her head.

“Rose don’t be alarmed. It is me, the…err…bird” the voice in her head told her.

Rose looked at the bird in shock, his beak wasn’t moving but the deep male voice continued, “You were in danger, I am your family’s bird. I am trained to sense when any of you are in peril. Your mother has been searching for you for a decade now, we’ve never been able to find you because you’ve not worn your necklace… until now, I see”.

Rose was still stunned, and she fingered the small glass locket. I’m still drunk she thought, turning the locket side to side in her fingertips she asked, “Why can you only find me when this is on?”

The bird bounced inside onto the inside window ledge, “It activates your Fae powers” the blackbird replied.