There was a knock - three times, quiet yet firm.

  ^Visitor! Visitor!^ Mimi barked, looking up at the weathered door of the beach house.

  Ever walked out of the bedroom, a slight frown on his face. “Who could that be?”

  Zoe smiled, putting three plates of lasagne on the table. “Oh that’s just the guest I invited. Be a dear and let her in?”

  She answered Ever’s raised eyebrow with two of her own and gestured towards the door. He walked to front door and opened it.

  “Hello Ever,” Nyx said. Her dress rippled in the winter wind, indistinguishable from the darkness outside.

  “Mother?” Ever turned around. “You invited my mother to join us?”

  “Don’t leave her in the cold now,” Zoe called from the dining room.

  “Right, sorry.” Ever stepped aside as Nyx dipped low to come inside.

  “You’re just in time for dinner, mum.” Zoe said. “You cooked for us last time, so this time it’s my turn.”

  “‘Mum?’” Ever said, bamboozled. He looked at his girlfriend. “Are you my sister now?”

  Zoe snort-laughed; even Nyx raised a delicate hand, fingernails midnight blue to mask a smile.

  “Just…” Zoe patted the chair. “Sit down now. Your dinner’s getting cold.”

  —-

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  “I thought I’d test my new-found powers by reaching out to Nyx through my mind,” Zoe said. She tsked, turned and shot a warning look at Ever hugging her from behind, who was absent-mindedly playing with a roll of her tummy fat. “Anyway, I didn’t think it would work, then I heard her voice in my head! To think this is how you guys always talk.”

  “It’s not how we always talk,” Ever replied. “Just… when it’s more convenient to. Like when we were at the snow cabin. Mother spoke to me through her mind to come outside to see her.”

  “You were there that night?” Zoe asked.

  “Yes,” Nyx replied. Both of her hands were busy: one stroking Nika and the other Mimi, the animals nestled side by side in her lap. “That was the night that Ever called me ‘mother’ for the first time.”

  “I see…” Zoe said, nodding slowly. “Anyway, I wanted to better understand what I can do.”

  She shuffled away from Ever and sat so that they were three corners of a triangle. Her gaze fell on the sausage dog and ghost cat. “I can’t talk to animals.”

  “Only I can do that,” Ever said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.

  “Uhuh.” She stared at him, furrowing her eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “I’m… saying something to you through my mind.”

  “Oh. What are you saying?”

  Nyx watched the exchange between the mortals like a game of tennis.

  Zoe exhaled. “Never mind, you couldn’t hear it anyway. So I can’t mind-talk to Ever, but I can see him in reaper form and hear him speak in reaper form. Oh!”

  “What?” Ever asked.

  “Can I speak with Death?”

  “I don’t know.” Ever let his eyes unfocus. *Mentor–*

  Yes, I’ve been listening this entire time. No, she can’t speak with me, not because she isn’t able to but because I don’t want to talk with her. It’s not personal.

  “What did he say?”

  “He says he won’t talk to you and that it’s personal,” Nyx said gently.

  That’s not what I said! Death hollered, shaking clenched, bony fists. You can’t do this to me, I’m your real son! Your own spirit and bone!

  Ever and Nyx laughed, leaving Zoe scratching her head.