HONEYBEE| Sam Uley

eleven

Estella sighed as she felt the swinging bench softly shuffle beneath her, swaying her casually from one side to the other as though it was attempting to softly hush her to sleep. Blankets were tucked up all around her to protect from the wind blowing through the trees around her house. And in her hands, was a faded, possibly out-of-tune guitar. It was her fathers and her hands ghosted gently over the strings. One day, she would have to do something about their things, she couldn't keep all of it forever, but right now she didn't even have the heart to move her father's toolbox from where it sat just within the back door.

Absentmindedly, her chilly fingers began to play 'you are my sunshine' the number one song at the top of her fathers playing list whenever she asked him to play- he claimed it was because it was his favourite, but really it was because her mother adored it. Michael would strum the guitar, his little girl sat beside him singing along in her pretty voice as the mother cooked in the kitchen and it would be perfect. Now she couldn't even bring herself to sit in his rocking chair that was a few feet away, rocking eerily in the wind. She didn't know how to live without them and that was growing abundantly clear over time.

The previous day, there had been a spider in the bathroom, a creature she was absolutely terrified of, and she had no idea what to do except flap about in fear and hope it vanished, while secretly hoping that it didn't because if it had, she'd be even more scared, not knowing where it was. She regretted to admit, she eventually called Harry for help- the man had laughed at her and questioned why she didn't just ask Sam- the concept of that was weird to her but she merely shrugged and said it was because she was closer to Harry. Why would she call Sam?

She was so lost in thought, strumming her fingers against the strings in the familiar pattern that she didn't even notice when someone walked easily across the porch to her. Though when she snapped out of her daze, she smiled, hands still.

"Allison," she greeted and the woman grinned as she took a seat beside the pretty younger girl, rearranging the blankets around them both somewhat motheringly as Estella placed the guitar down. They were both comfortable with one another, and that was something that was so incredibly relaxing. "How are you?"

"I thought I'd come and take a seat over here for a while if you don't mind. There seem to be arguments in my house at the moment," she spoke so bitterly that it shocked Estella to see it coming from such a warmly sweet woman, the younger of the two blinked in shock and Allison Uley sighed, reiterating.

"It's Leah and Sam, It's always Leah and Sam, he spent the day at that house up the hill," she pointed weirdly upwards to the sky when she said that but Estella understood her perfectly. "And she found out and got all angry with him. I know she's your cousin and I love her, I really do... But she's getting right on my last nerve. All since Sam cut his hair off when he was ill and started working out some more, doing some work for the council. It seems that, ever since he started doing things for himself, she's been getting annoyed. And he's my boy, you know, I just want him to be happy, that's why I helped him out to get his own place. As much as I love him and need him around, he's old enough to get his own life started," she rambled and Estella listened to each and every nerve calmly, unsure why it didn't sadden her more to hear someone saying bad things about her cousin- maybe she secretly agreed.

"Would you like a cup of coffee, Allison?" Estella questioned calmly and for the briefest of moments, Allison seemed shocked- she had almost forgotten that she was talking to Estella and not Katherine. A day didn't go by where she did not miss her best friend but it felt so painfully comforting to sit beside her best friends daughter and speak freely as if it were old times. When she followed Estella into the kitchen, her heart almost stopped.

Everything was how it should be... and that was agonising. More so than it would have been if the entire kitchen had been stripped out and refitted. Michaels red and grey tartan coat was still hung over the back of his chair at the table, the cushion indented from where he sat everyday, Katherine's ribbon still hung from one of the cupboard doors, fluttering in the wind from the open window, the table had three placemats laid out and beside the sink sat Michaels mug, clean but as though it was waiting- Katherine always had it waiting for him. Her eyes just continued to scan the oh-so-familiar room and it told her everything she needed to know about the broken girl in front of her— Estella Clearwater was not okay and Allison was determined to make sure that she would be.

Allison was no idiot, she heard the legends and she'd watched her own son go through something, something so utterly peculiar that she knew the legends could possibly be true. She'd seen the way he looked across at Estella on the day she'd returned and maybe it was cruel for Allison to meddle in her sons life, especially when he was already being guided unwillingly into things by the ancestors, but Leah Clearwater certainly had Sue rooting for her- and Estella had nobody. She wouldn't allow the sweet honeybee in front of her feel the pain of heartbreak too, not from her own son.