The Curse of Thelonious [✓]

one

CHAPTER ONE

"Oh c'mon, Lera, hurry the hell up! Why are you walking like an eighty year old when we're only eighteen? Get your ass here!" Anya complained, grabbing hold of her sister's arm and forcibly dragging her outside.

Lera grumbled. 

Their family was moving back to Clearford, the small town they had been born and brought up in before relocating to London many years ago. Unlike her twin sister, Lera really didn't want to go back and although she knew it was childish, she was delaying the journey as much as possible.

'It's alright for Anya,' she thought, a frown spreading across her heart shaped face. Her sister was the loud, outspoken one with confidence radiating from her pores. Lera was much more reserved than her twin and she knew reconnecting with all the local kids would be difficult for her. She was barely able to remember them but could recall the way she felt when they ignored her and flocked to her much more popular sister. Although they looked very similar – their skin golden from the mixture of their parents' races, dark hair in uncontrollable messy waves and stormy grey eyes like their father – they were polar opposites in character.

"Quickly girls! The M25 will be packed if we don't hurry up," their father, Erik, called out as he grabbed hold of the last few boxes to pile up in the boot of the car. His pale skin was slowly becoming pink in the unusual heat for British winter as he waited for his daughters to finish bringing the last of the bags.

Lera slipped on her faded leather jacket and followed her sister out of the front door, her steps dragging against the gravelly driveway. Their mother was the last to leave the house, carefully locking the front door to follow the rest of them. She stood in the doorway, her tight curls illuminated against the porch light as she studied her daughters' expressions – one excited and one sullen.

"Perk up, Lerato," she said to the younger twin, squeezing her hand affectionately to cheer her up in the way only a mother could.

Her mum was the only one who called Lera by her full name, having named her after her own mother. It meant love in her native Sesotho, one of the official languages of South Africa and she held the name close to her heart. "It's not the end of the world! Aren't you excited to see everyone again?"

Lera didn't reply, instead absentmindedly gazing at her mothers dark brown hand enclosing her much fairer, tawny one. She sighed out loud, the breath released making her wavy fringe fly up. "I'm just scared, mum," she murmured, quietly enough so her sister couldn't hear her. "What if they don't like me? They always did like Anya better." 

Mariha lightly flicked her daughters' forehead with the spare pair of socks she was holding – her girls were bound to get cold toes on the journey – and reassured her. "Then they're hardly worth being friends with, aren't they?" she answered, a smile lighting up her face.

Both Anya and their father were already seated in the car, the latter chuckling as his daughter chattered away about everything she could possibly remember about Clearford and its residents. "Mama, can you hurry and drag Lera faster?" she complained with her hands on her hips in a dramatic fashion. "I'm dying to get there already!"

Mariha laughed at her over-excited daughter and they all got in comfortably before leaving London behind, much to Lera's disappointment. Before long, they were driving along the motorway which thankfully, wasn't as packed as it usually was. They had managed to just miss rush hour and the journey wasn't much longer than three hours.

Lera really didn't want to move back to Clearford; she had gotten comfortable living a bustling city life in London. Being stuck in a town with nothing more than a handle of shops, one puny post office, a tiny Sainsbury's for groceries and some outdated restaurants wasn't quite her cup of tea. But her father had gotten a much better job working as an engineer for Clearford station, probably the only building that wasn't falling apart. The tiny town was smack bang in the middle of a few larger cities making it the perfect position for his job and because their mother worked from home as a literary editor, it was only logical they relocated. London was ridiculously expensive – where else would a measly sandwich be £3? – and as their dad owned the house he grew up in, Clearford was the best option despite her reluctance.