Silver Lining

Prologue

Prologue ~

My name is Grace Keisha. I'm sixteen. Actually, I'm not. I'm 175. But whose counting? I'm certiantly not - I gave up after 125 years. Ilish may be counting though. She does have a knack for these things. I was born in London in 1836 under the reign of King William VI. The King died in 1837 due to heart failure. As I grew up, I learnt that he did die of heart failure. But it wasn't due to normal heart failure. It was venom that killed him. The same venom that did this to me, and later, my 'sister' Ilish MacFadyen. She, like me, was sixteen. She was born in 1954.

Right now, Ilish is halfway up the tree in our back garden. It's just the two of us and has been since I found Ilish in 1971. I 'adopted' her as it were and taught her almost everything she needs to know. I say almost as there are things even I don't know. She gets a kick out of dousing herself in glitter and running round in the sun with white foundation on yelling, 'The Volturi Are Coming!'. She has this thing in her mind where she thinks that, just because we don't age, we're - wait for it- vampires! Boom! There it is! Another story about vampires. But we're not vampires and this isn't a story about them. The dictionary definition of a vampire is; 'a corpse, animated by an undeparted soul or demon, that periodically leaves the grave and disturbs the living, until it is exhumed and impaled or burned.' The definition of immortal however, is simply ' not liable or subject to death.' Which is good news for me and Ilish, but bad news for you vampire freaks. 

Of course, I'm not telling the whole truth here. We do have heightened abilities. IE speed and sense, and Ilish can also blend into her surroundings which didn't cost any money, but the whole 'suck your blood' thing? Gross! I can tolerate the stuff but the idea of ripping someone's throat open and drinking it from them just makes me shiver. You don't know what type of diseases they have! Ilish is worse- she's sick at the sight of it.

Oh, and this whole 'venom' thing, is actually from a rare snake that was imported a few centuries ago which thankfully died out a few years later. Some people could take the venom - Ilish and I- and others couldn't -William VI.

Anyway, it's been just me and Ilish for 40 years, living in the countryside, two miles from a Welsh town. Why Wales? Because it's isolated and deserted compared to other places. That's why.

They say 'Two's company and three's a crowd' and I'm not sure if the third wheel here is me, or Xavier Williams.