Let's Buy A House

Evening was upon us once again. The journey to Llanwrtyd had taken the better part of two days. I was tired, cranky and weary. If I never took another bus or train again, it would be to soon. But somehow, I was inexplicably relieved. I'd been trying to gain entry into Llanwrtyd for centuries, each attempt a failure, but now, just when I was beginning to believe that the guardians had really been successful, I found my ticket in.

I was brought up short by the thought that was mine, yet not. The voice had spoken in my head, but the thoughts were definitely not mine. I was nineteen years old and I never even knew Llanwrtyd existed before today. Why would I have spent centuries trying to come here?

"Okay, I have had enough now." Mum yelled right in the middle of the street. Thankfully, there was no one to hear her. "That signs says we are in Llanwrtyd, Wales. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wales is in the United kingdom. We are in another continent!" She roared in agitation.

Yeah, about that....

"Young lady, you are going to answer me, and you are going to start right this moment." She vowed.

I stared at the angry mien of my mother, opened my mouth and promptly shut it again. Suddenly, I was bone weary. Every part of me demanded I found somewhere to curl up and go to sleep for a million years. The moment of truth was upon me and I didn't want to face it. I wasn't afraid of telling mother what I'd done to Frank and his mistress, but I was afraid of telling her the truth about the love of her life.

Darting wide eyes around the empty road once again, I found what I'd seen previously. A deserted street that led to a well paved street with beautiful stone houses that lacked extravagance, unlike the ones back home. There was peace here. I felt dual emotions regarding that part of the town. On one hand, I wanted to immerse myself in this new idyllic world and begin life anew, like the years with Frank had never existed in the first place. On the other hand, I wanted to rip apart the safety and joy of the people who lived here. I wanted to revel in their terror and agony. Their anguish was fuel for my soul.

Yep, I was headed straight for the loony bin.

"Kiera. Shiloh. Ballad. I'm not speaking to a brick wall. I demand answers, right now." I scowled at her. Even my middle name was a boy's name. I wondered why they didn't go ahead and carry out a gender reassignment surgery for me since they wanted a boy so desperately.

"I'm tired and I'm sure you are too. There should be an hotel here somewhere. Let's check in and I will tell you everything. I promise." I deflected.

"Not happening." She declared belligerently. "I want answers now. What's going on? Why are we here? I want to go home." She folded her arms across her chest before pulling out her lips as well.

When exactly did I become the mother and she the child?

"We are in the middle of the road in an unknown town. Is this the first impression you really want to give them?" Her glare was unwavering. "Yes we are in a different continent, in a place neither of us have ever been before. If it wasn't absolutely important, do you think I would have done this? There's a lot I want to tell you mum and before you yell at me, can you please take a few minutes to listen? Just five minutes. Once we get to the hotel and I tell you everything and you still want to leave, then I won't stop you. You can call dad to come pick you up."

"Your dad's not here?" Her brows furrowed as the fight drained out of her.

Her daughter just dragged her to a different continent and the one thing that registered in her brain was that her dear husband was not waiting for her in the hotel.

"No mum, he's not." Pulling out the handle on the suitcase, I faced forward and walked deeper into the town, knowing she had no choice but to follow me.

It was an arduous task before we were able to find the hotel. Turned out there was several miles between us and the nearest human being. We trekked with heavy luggage for several miles before we saw an old pickup truck. The car stopped a few meters in front of us before we could even signal for help. We limped towards it and found an old man with a bed of white hair behind the wheel.

"Where are you ladies off too?" His eyes crinkled at us.

"The nearest hotel sir." Without waiting for a reply, I dumped my suitcase in the bed of his truck.

"You are new in Llanwrtyd aren't ya?" His accent made it hard to understand him but after a quick glance at each other, mum and I concurred that he wasn't a serial killer.

"Yes. Can you drop us off at an hotel please?"

"Sorry ladies. No hotel here. We do have a fantastic bread and breakfast. Mrs Clark runs it. She's a nice little lady. Will give you the shirt off her back, 'cept her cats of course. Let me give you this piece of advice, don't even touch 'em. They're her babies and she won't ever let anyone hurt 'em. You're not cat haters are you?" He turned back to peer at us curiously.

"No." Mother and I affirmed simultaneously.

"Good. That's real good. My pa always said that people who hate animals are horrible scums. No good people they are. By the way, I'm Bill. Not Billy. He's my stepbrother, see. I have a ranch not far from here and my brother sells cars. Both used and new. And there, that's the town's best diner. Everything they serve in there is delicious." Of course it was the best. It was probably the only diner in the town.

He jabbered on and on as he drove farther into the town. I tuned him out as I people watched. It was as charming and quiet as I thought, not many people moving about even though it was during the day. Most of the town seemed to consist of families, at least every person I'd seen had been part of a couple, most of them in the company of their children.

"Okay. Here is Gracie's BnB." He announced a small eternity later. I exhaled gratefully and jumped away from the truck. I'd never met man who spoke for long periods of time as Bill. He didn't even care that we weren't contributing to the conversation. We knew literally everything about Bill. From the size of his ranch, to the names of his children, to that of his parents and his favorite spots in Llanwrtyd but the man didn't even know our first names. 'Must love the sound of his voice' the voice piped up once again.

The building he brought us to was antique and also charming. The wooden steps led to a brown balcony and a woman in a rocking chair and a black cat in her lap. She closed the book she was reading and clabbered to her feet.

"Guests! Oh, what a beautiful sight." She exclaimed happily, even clapping her hands together.

'Sheesh, desperate much?' The voice said again.

"Shut it." I whispered.

"What?" Mum asked.

"Nothing." I widened my eyes at her before hurrying to the bouncing grandma. I was talking to myself now?

"So, I'm listening." We were in the room Mrs Clark had put us after she nearly talked our ear off as well.

Gulping down my drink, I hacked several times because it went down the wrong way. Mum only stared at me impassively.

Tough crowd. "Okay. Um, full disclosure, I was upset at the time so technically, it wasn't my fault but dad's." At mother's look of protest, I launched into the story before she could object further.

The further I went into my story, the more whiter she became. When I got to the part about dad's mistress, she became so pale, I was afraid she would faint.

"You...you burnt your father's car?" She stuttered, her face devoid of any color.

"Yes, I did. I needed him to be preoccupied while we made a run for it."

"But why did we have to run?"

"Because I heard dad tell his mistress that the only reason he hasn't killed you yet is because your father left his entire wealth to me. He asked her to wait until I was twenty one when he could get the money and he would be rid of the both of us."

The bed in the room was a king sized bed and mother hadn't been sitting at the edge but somehow, she managed to collapse on the floor at my news.

"How? That's not possible. You. You are lying to me! Frank would never do this to me!" She wailed, swiping angry tears away from her eyes as she trashed around on the floor. She managed to get to her feet sometime later before turning on me again. "I'm going to call my husband and ask him about this. There has to be a mix up somewhere."

I took out the genie box and produced the first two documents and passed them to her silently.

"I believe you recognize your father's handwriting." I announced calmly and waited for her to unfold the papers. "You bought told me the only thing he left me was the $30,000 for my college fund, so how did I know about any of these? Also, the money we've been spending, I found it along these documents in a secret room Frank sealed them in. I have several more documents here. They are about you mother. He didn't run into you in college and fall in love. He had been trailing you for years before he planned that meeting that day. He has been with you for so long because he hasn't been able to get your dad's money. He doesn't have any reason to keep you alive anymore. If you go to him now, he'll kill you. And them he'll kill me too."

Mother swooned and I yelped.

It took several minutes before she was awake again. She spent the night screaming and crying her eyes out and nothing I said could console her. "Why?" She mumbled over and over. I could do nothing but be there for her.

The first ray of sun filtered into the room and washed over mother and I curled over each other. I was unsure how we'd ended up in this position but sometime in the night, holding mother was the only way I could reduce her tears into sniffles.

"Hey." I called softly, my voice lower than a whisper.

"Hey." She wouldn't look at me.

"Frank never loved me." She mumbled out of nowhere. "What didn't I do right?" That was nearly the same question I'd asked myself days ago.

"You did everything right mum. But he is wrong. There's nothing that can be done to correct someone who's wired wrong." She nodded mutely. She stared at the walls in a lost daze once again.

"What now?" She mumbled again.

"We make a new start mum. We have a second chance to do everything right."

"I don't understand." Her face crumpled again, tears threatening to fall once more.

"I mean, we have almost half a million dollars mum. We are in a different country. He'll never find us. The slate has been wiped clean. Now we can do whatever we want. What do you want to do.?"

"I don't know?"

"Would you like to buy a house?" I blurted.