We Are Here

Chapter Two

The Lonely Ingram Home

Teddy, her hood on her head to protect from the now-again violent winds, lightly knocked on the door. The second her knuckles landed on the door, the lights on the porch abruptly shut off. Loud shuffling and yelling could be heard on the other side and Melinda seemed uneasy.

“I don’t like this,” she whispered fearfully.

Teddy rolled her eyes. “Mel, please. The second I hear what I need to, we’ll leave them alone and won’t come back for another decade. OK?” Mel snorted, now feeling like the younger sister. Mel didn’t press the issue about being scolded like a child because the door knob began to turn.

The door creaked open with an eerie cry, possibly from the oak trees, and a man stood in the barely lit doorway. Because of the darkness, Teddy couldn’t see who exactly it was opening the door, she didn’t relax her position. She could even feel Seth behind her become rigid when he saw the figure open the door.

“My God!” was a man’s scream. His scream, just as shrill and eerie as the oak trees, caused the porch lights to flash back to life. Teddy now exhales at realizing the man was definitely, Narcissus Ingram.

He looked completely the same. The same hollow cheeks, light blue eyes so clear and light they looked white, and those red lips that were always turned in a lighthearted smile. He was still lanky, but pretty nicely built with muscles exactly where they needed to be.

His skin was perfectly chalk white, like a piece of chalk went crazy over him. Then, his blonde hair was so impossibly pale it was about white in color. It was easy to say that his hair was long (it reached a little past his broad shoulders) in a long stream of off white. Thank God he restrained that mass with a rubber band, which emphasized his lovely cheekbones and pretty eyes.

“Is it really the Masons?” Narcissus yelled and the trio cringed. Another light from down the street flickered on. “Oh, please come in! NEROLI!” Thank God, Teddy thought to herself. Narcissus quickly moved out of the way to let them quickly file in and shut the door with a loud bang.

I don’t think its changes at all, Teddy thought. Everything was the same. It still had that old Grandma house-feel, filled with antiques and valuable clocks and collections of handkerchiefs. Fortunately, the last one was just an exaggeration.

Narcissus must have been at work the last decade because he had designed the place a little more like his workshop or A.K.A Lady Gaga’s dream house.

Neroli then must have tried her damndest to try and un-weird the house. Teddy could just picture her stomping through the house on one of her warpaths, clutching the now broken plants and the smashed antique clocks.

But regardless of what it looked like before, it looked like an average cottage on Belladonna Place, the epitome of the boring countryside. A couch was directly to the left, a tan couch with lace all around the outside. A little coffee table, snugly put between the couch and TV, was covered everywhere with magazines and old coffee cups and empty Danish boxes.

Neroli.

“Jesus, Neroli! We have guests!” he said as he cupped his hands over his mouth. He looked around, his barely visible eyebrows high. He turned to the left and he remembered quickly where she was when he saw the tan couch.

A beautiful, silver-haired cat was lying peacefully on the couch, her eyes half open. Looking up at the human screaming her name, the cat yawned sleepily and stretched out her paws to shake the feeling of sleep out of her.

“Neroli, we have guests! Grow some opposable thumbs and get up!” He jammed his hands in his pockets angrily. Narcissus rolled his eyes and turned back to the Masons.