sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ.
Once I returned to the farm, I continued my duties for the rest of the day, and luckily I didn't hear that voice inside my head again.
But that didn't mean that I had stopped thinking of it.
That deep voice was haunting me somehow. The feeling just kept replaying inside my head and I just couldn't seem to find an explanation to it.
It was like someone had entered my mind, like if the privacy of my thoughts were interrupted by a stranger's voice.
It intruded on my intimate space to bring chaos and confusion.
And the chaos didn't seem to stop.
Because even if I wasn't hearing it anymore, it was disturbing my daily peace.
After I finished all my tasks around the farm, I sat down with my sisters in the living room until my parents returned from work.
Ernest and Doris were taking a nap upstairs, and Lottie had gone out to take Sandy for a run.
Fizzy, Phoebe and Daisy were playing a board game while I tried to keep my head clear of thinking about that consuming voice.
Luckily, my parents arrived just in time to make dinner and I was glad to help them.
Anything to keep my mind busy with something else.
Fizzy went upstairs to wake up the little ones to have dinner with the rest of us, and Lottie returned as soon as the sun set.
We all ate and shared a little chat, but I wasn't paying much attention to any of their conversations. I was lost again in that echoing deep voice throbbing through my thoughts.
It wasn't until I finished putting Daisy and Phoebe in bed and covering them with their blankets, that I passed in front of my other pair of twin siblings' door and saw my mother standing beside Doris' bed, causing me to stop on my foot.
Something they said caught my attention.
"Mom, tell us again how you met dad?" - My little sister, Doris, asked.
"It has to be now?"
"Please mom! It's our favorite sleeping story!" - Ernest insisted.
"That's a story to tell by the beach darlings, not tonight." - She giggled.
"Mom, please." - Ernest begged.
"Okay, but I'll keep it short because you both have to get to sleep."
I stood by the barely closed door, listening to the story that my mother always told us while we were growing up.
She used to take us to the beach and act the whole scenes with the help of my dad.
I knew for a fact that she invented it and made it look like a fairytale for us, but it was always nice to hear.
"So, one day, my mother, who is your Grandma, took me to the beach, not very far from here. I was calmly sunbathing on the beach." - She said and the twins laughed. - "It was a really warm and beautiful day, and the beach was crowded with people around, so it wasn't impossible to hear other people's conversations.
But a really nice voice caught my attention from above the rest. I sat up and took my sunglasses out, searching for him." - My mother said as she acted the scene with her hands. - "I looked everywhere but the truth is that nobody was that close to me to be the owner of the mysterious voice so I gave up.
After that I returned to sunbathing but the voice appeared once more, I turned again, to look for it and I asked my mom if she had heard it too but she didn't understand what I was saying, so I let go and I laid down again.
But then I heard it for the third time..."
"What are you doing Lou?" - I heard a femenine voice behind me.
"Damn, Fizz you scared me." - I jumped.
"Sorry." - She giggled. - "Were you spying?"
"No, I wasn't."
"It seemed like you were though."
"Shut up you dwarf." - I said and pushed her to her bedroom, which she shared with Lottie. - "Go to sleep."
"Yes big bro. Whatever you say." - She rolled her eyes and walked away.
I returned to listen to the story from behind the door.
"And that's how I knew that the sea was joining us. Because your dad and I were soulmates."
🌊🌊🌊
The following morning, Lottie and I did the same as always, we woke up and started preparing breakfast. Not long after Fizzy woke up as well and helped us set the table.
Her and Lottie went upstairs to get the twins and to wake my parents for work.
I made my way to the back of the house with a toast in my hand. It wasn't long until Theodore stole it from me and ate it himself.
I looked at my horse in amusement and shook my head.
I gave them all fresh water and food, and since today it wasn't my duty to clean the stables, I went to the sunflower field to water them and then I proceeded to collect some of the elder ones, so we could later take the seeds out of it.
Phoebe joined me after a while, she just sat on the grass behind the sunflower field and watched me while I worked.
"How are you feeling today Phee?"
"I'm fine, how are you Lou?"
"Perfect."
"I asked mom earlier today if you can take me to the beach and she accepted. Can you take me?"
"Yeah, we can leave once I finish this. What about Daisy? Is she coming?"
"No, she and Fizzy are cooking today."
"Okay, yeah. Do you want to go and prepare Theodore and Princess while I finish this?"
"Yes!" - She said standing up and running back to the stables.
Phoebe and Daisy had named their horse princess when they were nine, they didn't even know it was a male at the time. But they seemed happy about it, so nobody judged the name election.
I laughed to myself at the memory and I focused on finishing my task before Phoebe returned.
Today the weather was a little colder than the day before, but that didn't stop us from putting on our swimming suits.
Phoebe set the saddle on our horses and about half an hour later we were both galloping through the forest and towards the shore.
We got down and I tied the leash of our horses to the nearest tree, because if we both were going to get into the sea, it was going to take us a while and there was always a little chance that they would escape, even if they were as trained as they were.
Something might scare them and give them the impulse to run away.
So it was better to be careful.
Phoebe didn't waste a second to take her shirt and shoes off and ran to the water.
I followed her after I finished tying the horses and gave Theodore a soft tap on his head.
I took off my own shirt and sandals and stepped on the warm sand with my bare feet.
I watched Phoebe as I was walking towards her, she was already damped and jumping through the waves.
I smiled to myself.
The sea was my home. I could spend the whole day here and just be completely happy.
No worries, just endless freedom.
I made it to the edge of the water and kept walking into the depth of it, where Phoebe was already swimming and owning the place.
It wasn't until I felt the water surrounding my waist that I heard it again.
She's not even paying attention to me. She brought me here to flirt with that stupid life guard. Is she kidding me?
I gasped and turned around, alarmed by the sudden voice interrupting my actions.
The fact that Phoebe didn't even flinch, confirmed my previous guess. It was inside my mind.
Still, I needed to make sure I was right.
"Phee, did you hear that?"
"What?!" - She asked while jumping backwards against a crashing wave.
"The male voice?"
"I didn't hear anything Lou."
"Yeah, okay." - I said and walked closer to her, getting the water up to my chest.
I finally covered my nose with my fingers and drowned my head underneath the surface of the water, closing my eyes and enjoying the fresh water damping my entire body.
I want an ice cream. Yeah, I'm going to buy an ice cream. Gemma won't even notice I'm gone anyways.
The voice was literally everywhere inside my head, even more now that everything around me was silent.
It's practically impossible to hear something while being underwater, but yet the voice was as loud as ever.
It was mixed with my own thoughts, it was stopping me from doing anything else, I felt like I was losing my breath.
I needed to be out of the water.
I recovered my body conscious and resurfaced.
I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with oxygen and trying to calm my heartbeat.
I don't even know where the freaking shops are. I won't survive a week here.
There it was again.
His voice. His hypnotizing, breathtaking, soothing voice.
It was playing in my head and it also had muted the outside world somehow, because I could see Phoebe talking to me but I couldn't hear a thing she was saying.
It was like all the world stopped every time he spoke to me.
Well, he wasn't speaking exactly to me, but he was inside me. And I could hear it.
"Phee?" - I called her, swimming towards her spot.
"Yeah?"
"How did mom meet dad?"
"Mmm, she always says that she heard his voice ringing in her mind and she started looking for the owner of the voice until they found each other for some kind of magical spell. But I don't know, she changes some things every time she tells it."
"She always says it was because of the sea, right?"
"Yeah, she said the other day that is a legend of this place, I guess that's why she always tells us the same story. I don't complain though, it's beautiful to hear." - She shrugged. - "Sometimes I wish it would be true."
"Yeah..." - I trailed.
It might be.