Home
We had gone to London for a bit as the hunting grounds were closer and no one seemed to notice that we were culling the neighbourhood so to speak plus it was a proper buffet, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Spanish, Italian, African, Irish …great choice. We had bought a holiday home and it was huge loads of room for Vera to wander around safely. Vera was getting big now and we figured it would do her good for the experience new cultures. There was a woman in her 50’s that was the daily cleaner of the house when we were away at home. So we figured we’d have her continue to take care of the house when we were there. Vera in particular took to Mrs Beth Goldman. She would run and jump into her arms and give her hugs. Mrs G. was human, retired due to the bereavement of her husband who had died tragically from cancer. She had care for him and watched him die and it upset her so much she had felt unable to return to work. She had become a caretaker for our house when the elderly lady who lived there before us had broken her ankle and was unable to care for herself. Beth had taken over and when the old lady died too, she had inherited the house and property. Lottie had met her in a book shop. Vera ran and hugged her without knowing her. Lottie was staring in surprise at her. Beth was chuffed that this beautiful little girl would run and hug her so affectionately. The ladies got chatting and Vera stayed around Beth hugging her a lot. Lottie mentioned we were looking to buy a house here and Beth offered this one to us. She was as taken with Vera as Vera was with her. So we bought the house and decorated it in pretty shades of green and rose red and Vera had the run of a beautiful garden set with all kinds of pretty flowers and shrubs too. Beth called daily to clean the house and Vera would rush up to her and cuddle her and hang around and play tidy up with her. This carried on for a while. One night the Dugo rush came on me and Lottie was afraid to leave Vera on her own while we went out. But she was craving it herself in a bad way too.
“How bout we ask Beth if she would mind looking after her for a little while, we don’t have to be long, no playing just a drink? Vera loves her anyway” Bastien suggested. I nodded and looked up her number on my phone and dialled it. Beth picked up on the 3rd ring
“Hey Beth, would you mind awfully looking after Vera while we take a little break? I’m sorry to ask you on such short notice and we won’t’ be very long.”
“Of course my dear, I’d love to spend some time with my little girl.” She giggled. “Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” She said humming to herself as she always does as she hung up the phone. Five minutes later the doorbell rang and Beth was standing on the porch carrying a little bag that was stuffed with books and colouring books and big fat crayons.
“Go on you two and enjoy your break, I and Vera will have a lovely time.” She almost sang as she took Vera buy the hand. Vera started to walk then she stopped suddenly and turned and ran to hug me and Bastien. She squeezed her arms tightly around the back of my neck.
“What’s wrong honey?” I asked. “I and daddy will be back in a couple of hours, you’ll have fun with Beth lovey.” She nodded but said nothing and then as we were going out the door she turned and said “bye” with sad eyes. I wanted to go to her but Bastien pulled me by the arm urging me to leave.
“She’ll be fine Lottie, c’mon we’ll be back in no time, once she gets colouring she’ll forget everything, you know how she is honey.” I nodded and shrugged off the weird feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, thinking maybe I was just being a mom. We went hunting and we had 2 drinks each and half way through draining my second Italian I got that horrible feeling again in my stomach.
“Something is wrong Bastien we have to get back Vera needs us now” I said and dumped the body that was dead already into the hole we dug half full and shoved earth on top and turned and raced home. I had a choking feeling in my chest and I felt like I couldn’t’ breath. I raced even faster and I pushed open the front door just ahead of Bastien and I stopped, gasping when I walked in the front door. The room was messed up, furniture flung upside down, broken mirrors, blood splattered everywhere and I felt my throat burn at that. Where is Vera? I looked at Bastien; his face was in shock too. “VERA” I shrieked, “where are you honey?” I stopped and listened …..SILENCE greeted me. I went nuts then so did Bastien lifting up bits of furniture and flinging it trying to find our little girl. I listened and listened for her heartbeat and heard nothing. Did Beth kill her? I trusted her OH MY GOD and I left my little girl in her care, how could I be so stupid. I was racing from room to room flinging furniture around and didn’t even hear it landing; I was desperate to find my little girl. I knew Bastien was blurring into each room too because I’d hear the swish of air as he passed me. Dam why was this house so bloody big. I paused, I heard a sound, it came from upstairs so I dashed up the stairs with Bastien on my heels and shrieked when I saw the carnage before me. Vera was sitting on the floor covered in blood. I wanted to go and lick her but I was afraid it was her own. She was siting slumped over Beth’s’ body, her hair clumped and knotted with blood. A wide gash across her arm that appeared to be healing itself as we watched. It was amazing yet completely freaky. I got down on my knees getting covered in blood myself.
“She’s killed Beth Lottie” Bastien said. “She’s alright herself, the blood belongs to Beth not Vera” he said again as if trying to convince him. We stared at the back of our daughters head. I picked up a low heartbeat, almost a murmur, now that I was kneeling so close to her. I turned her over and was scared to see her, her eyes had rolled back in her head. She had blood in her nose and all over her face. I heard Bastien take out his phone and punch in a number.
“Carlisle, we need you now, it’s Vera, she’s attacked a human and it looks like she’s unconscious. What do we do? Okay. Right, please hurry. They are on their way, he and Edward are just arriving in London at the airport, and apparently Alice had a vision about this!” I tried to follow the instructions Carlisle had given Bastien. I placed her on the floor, cleaned out her mouth and nose, tore open her clothing on her chest and started giving her CPR. I gave her two shallow breaths covering her nose and mouth with my mouth and watched her chest rise up and down then I started compression on her nipple line placing one finger there and one just below that point and started to push 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 and then blew two shallow breaths into her mouth again and then compressions again 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 then breaths and kept this up until she coughed and spurted and breathed on her own. My instinct was to grab her and hold her tight but my training in CPR stopped me and I rolled her over on her side in the recovery position. I saw her left arm was bent at an odd angle. Uh oh! It looked broken. Oh my poor little girl to go through her first kill alone and unsupervised god please let her be alright I prayed. She lashed her arm out suddenly and I heard it break again and I watched in amazement as after a few seconds she began moving the arm normally and wiggling her fingers. She sat up slowly then like she was dizzy and puked. Blood came gushing out of her mouth. It spewed everywhere and then when she was empty she began to cry and tears of blood poured down her face.
“Honey, can I pick you up? Do you hurt anywhere?” She crawled over to me and climbed onto my lap and cried her little heart out. Bastien came in and in a blur picked us both up and brought us downstairs to the now spotless living room. He put us gently onto the couch.
“Wow Lottie, you saved her, is she okay?” he asked, his voice shaking with concern. I shrugged my shoulders gently and let him know I was just about to find out. Carlisle and Edward arrived then and Bastien and I both gave our versions of what happened and the three men gasped at the part of Vera fixing her own broken arms and then the puking.
“Carlisle, what’s going on? Why won’t she speak to me?” I asked. I had tried and tried to but she just shook her head and I looked at Edward, he said he couldn’t hear her thoughts at all. It’s as if she has shut down. Carlisle recommended we bring her home to be around all those that she knows.
“How? Bring her on a plane? She hates planes.” My little girl loves to fly in our arms but hates planes. She looked up once during this conversation and nodded at me.
“She does what to go home Lottie” Carlisle said.
“Is this true honey?” I asked and felt her body go stiff and then relax.
“Lottie honey, Vera is in shock. It looks like she went into some kind of coma after the killing. It could be for lots of reasons, maybe that she killed her friend; Vera’s body went very stiff at this. I shook my head at Carlisle with a look in my eye to silence him, he ignored it, wanting to get to the bottom of this and force Vera to talk to help her. I felt only good vibes from him and nodded softly. Bastien’s eyes begun to glow orange and I heard a strange voice telling me it was safer for Vera to take her home. She needs to feed again but in smaller doses and it has to be a lamb! I stared around wilding trying to source the voice, as did Edward. He appeared to hear the voice and then Bastien returned to himself. He looked at me with a strange look and in less than a heartbeat I was standing holding Vera protectively cradled in my arms next to Bastien with his arms around me, his hands rubbing my back telling me that we’ll get through this.
“She needs to feed on a lamb. The voice told me.” I said.
“Ya, I heard it too.” Said Edward. We closed up the house after we checked for any evidence of blood or Beth. We closed up both houses. Well Carlisle and Edward did, Bastien went to get a lamb for Vera, killed it and then slit its jugular placing a team from a bottle on it and shoved the nipple part into Vera’s lips and squeezed the lamb a bit so the blood would begin to trickle into Vera’s mouth. Vera’s cheeks began to take on a blush colour. She pushed it away after a few minutes.
“Drain what’s left and put it into her bottles” the voice ordered me again. “This will sustain her.” So we packed up and left the house hoping that Vera would rest peacefully now. We got on the plane.
I was very anxious and the stewardess’ were beginning to wonder had we kidnapped her. Edward told them that the little girl had taken ill on holidays and that I was a first time mommy and beyond worried. Him being so charming and good looking he convinced them completely. Well it was partly true. Alice was waiting for us at Farranfore Airport with a car and a change of clothes for Vera. I change her and the pads that Carlisle had swaddled her in as the blood was just beginning to seep through again. We were home in 10 minutes thanks to Alice’s driving. Vera had drunk most of the lamb’s blood at this stage and her heartbeat had become steadier but she was still silent. She sat up and said
“I love you mommy and daddy.” And conked out again.
“Oh thank God” I murmured to Bastien, “She’s coming back to us a bit.” When we got home Esme, Bella, Valentina and Jordan were all waiting for us. Sophia came over and rubbed some purple stuff on Vera’s forehead and said some words under her breath like she was casting a spell.
“That’ll help protect her aunty Lottie.” She said. I tucker Vera up in her bed and Carlisle hooked her up with a blood IV and said all we can do now is waiting. Bastien hugged me and both of us held Vera’s hands so she’d know we were there. She stayed in that coma-like state for 3 days then she opened her blood red eyes and said
“Sorry mommy and daddy, but I had to do it.” We asked her what she meant.
“Beth and I were playing a game of chasing and I fell and banged my head here,” she said pointing to a spot where there was a faint bruise. “So she went off to get a piece of steak to put on my head. But there was blood in it and I couldn’t help myself, I felt an inside voice telling me to drink the blood, so I did and Beth got all strange with me and started saying something about us being like vampires and stuff and that she’d have to tell someone, but who’d believe her. Mommy it was awful, I really thought she was gonna tell on us and I’d be taken off you she said and that someone else would be minding me so I got so mad I bit her finger and the blood came pumping out. She threw me away from her and then seemed to realise what she was doing when she saw me lying on the floor half crying. Then she tried to talk to me nicely mommy but the voice in my head told me not to trust her. She kept saying sorry and stuff but I was scared now and I kept dodging her and all the tables and chairs got knocked down. All I knew was that I couldn’t’ let her catch me. her blood smell was taunting me cause I knew if I went near her she’d catch me and take me away and you’d never be able to find me then mommy!” she said beginning to cry a bit.
“Vera honey, I and daddy would do everything we could to find you and we would find you, make no mistake about that honey.” She smiled then and nodded and cuddled with me a bit and Bastien was rubbing her head and kissing her too and agreeing with me, so she carried on her story. I was glad that Beth was dead at this stage cause if she wasn’t I’d kill her myself for frightening and abusing my little girl like this.
“His blood kept dripping and she was getting a little sleepy now so I went upstairs and she followed me slowly. She kept screaming at me telling me there was no escape and she’d get me. Once she got upstairs she did manage to catch me by the arm so I bit her neck and drank from her a little bit and then slid away from her but I pulled away too fast and she was holding my arm too tightly and it broke. Mommy it really hurt.” Then she smiled and said “but the voice in my head told me what to do to fix it and I did see” she said smiling and wiggling her little fingers. I leaned in and pressed her little hand to my lips and kissed them calling her a good girl. I was very curious about the voice in her head but figured she’d tell me about that too.
“So she fell then mommy and said I was a very bad little girl for hurting her like that and the devil would come and take me to hell to rot there for being so evil. She stopped breathing then but she had managed to grab a handful of my hair and I had to break her fingers so she’d let go. She kept her eyes open wide she said so she could see me going to hell. Mommy is I evil because I killed her?”
“No darling, you’re not evil, she was though and I’m so sorry I let you stay with her honey. I’m so, so sorry, can you forgive me?” I asked her looking at her sadly with a feeling of a huge weight on my shoulders.
“Of course mommy, I love you, you helped me breath just like the lady in my head said you would” She said wrapping her arms around my neck tightly and nestling her chin under my chin like she used to do when she was a baby. She smelled faintly of strawberry shampoo; guess Bella had been helping her clean up. I looked fondly around and seeing her I smiled at her. She looked at me with a what? Expression on her face. I pointed to Vera’s head and mouthed strawberries. She nodded and smiled at me. I looked around Vera’s bedroom and realised that every member of my family including my extended family were in there hanging around waiting to help if necessary. I looked each one in the eye and smiled my gratification at them. They all nodded or smiled at me and I felt blessed to call them my family.
“Vera honey, can I ask you who is the voice in your head pet?” Vera paused for a minute as if she were having a conversation in her head.
“Her name is Tunie and she’s my angel. She helps me when I need her most.” I heard a few gasps around the room and saw that Alec, Faine, Emmet, Edward and Carlisle had a shocked look on their faces along with my own shocked look.
“Did you say Tunie?” I asked her.
“Yeah” she nodded. “She helped Uncle Alec to help daddy and you and save you from Brian awhile back.” I felt a feeling of happiness spread through me.
“Look” she said. Holding out her hand and in it was a little pink stone with a black dot which was slowly disappearing into her hand. A second later and it was gone again. I breathed out, an action I wasn’t even aware I’d been holding my breath and burst into happy giggles. Everyone else seemed to relax then and the room erupted with hearty giggles from everyone including Vera and Sophia. Vera reached out her hand to Sophia who came over to her and they pressed their foreheads together and noses and hugged each other after that. She seemed to know what Sophia had done without us telling her.
“How bout we ask Beth if she would mind looking after her for a little while, we don’t have to be long, no playing just a drink? Vera loves her anyway” Bastien suggested. I nodded and looked up her number on my phone and dialled it. Beth picked up on the 3rd ring
“Hey Beth, would you mind awfully looking after Vera while we take a little break? I’m sorry to ask you on such short notice and we won’t’ be very long.”
“Of course my dear, I’d love to spend some time with my little girl.” She giggled. “Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” She said humming to herself as she always does as she hung up the phone. Five minutes later the doorbell rang and Beth was standing on the porch carrying a little bag that was stuffed with books and colouring books and big fat crayons.
“Go on you two and enjoy your break, I and Vera will have a lovely time.” She almost sang as she took Vera buy the hand. Vera started to walk then she stopped suddenly and turned and ran to hug me and Bastien. She squeezed her arms tightly around the back of my neck.
“What’s wrong honey?” I asked. “I and daddy will be back in a couple of hours, you’ll have fun with Beth lovey.” She nodded but said nothing and then as we were going out the door she turned and said “bye” with sad eyes. I wanted to go to her but Bastien pulled me by the arm urging me to leave.
“She’ll be fine Lottie, c’mon we’ll be back in no time, once she gets colouring she’ll forget everything, you know how she is honey.” I nodded and shrugged off the weird feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, thinking maybe I was just being a mom. We went hunting and we had 2 drinks each and half way through draining my second Italian I got that horrible feeling again in my stomach.
“Something is wrong Bastien we have to get back Vera needs us now” I said and dumped the body that was dead already into the hole we dug half full and shoved earth on top and turned and raced home. I had a choking feeling in my chest and I felt like I couldn’t’ breath. I raced even faster and I pushed open the front door just ahead of Bastien and I stopped, gasping when I walked in the front door. The room was messed up, furniture flung upside down, broken mirrors, blood splattered everywhere and I felt my throat burn at that. Where is Vera? I looked at Bastien; his face was in shock too. “VERA” I shrieked, “where are you honey?” I stopped and listened …..SILENCE greeted me. I went nuts then so did Bastien lifting up bits of furniture and flinging it trying to find our little girl. I listened and listened for her heartbeat and heard nothing. Did Beth kill her? I trusted her OH MY GOD and I left my little girl in her care, how could I be so stupid. I was racing from room to room flinging furniture around and didn’t even hear it landing; I was desperate to find my little girl. I knew Bastien was blurring into each room too because I’d hear the swish of air as he passed me. Dam why was this house so bloody big. I paused, I heard a sound, it came from upstairs so I dashed up the stairs with Bastien on my heels and shrieked when I saw the carnage before me. Vera was sitting on the floor covered in blood. I wanted to go and lick her but I was afraid it was her own. She was siting slumped over Beth’s’ body, her hair clumped and knotted with blood. A wide gash across her arm that appeared to be healing itself as we watched. It was amazing yet completely freaky. I got down on my knees getting covered in blood myself.
“She’s killed Beth Lottie” Bastien said. “She’s alright herself, the blood belongs to Beth not Vera” he said again as if trying to convince him. We stared at the back of our daughters head. I picked up a low heartbeat, almost a murmur, now that I was kneeling so close to her. I turned her over and was scared to see her, her eyes had rolled back in her head. She had blood in her nose and all over her face. I heard Bastien take out his phone and punch in a number.
“Carlisle, we need you now, it’s Vera, she’s attacked a human and it looks like she’s unconscious. What do we do? Okay. Right, please hurry. They are on their way, he and Edward are just arriving in London at the airport, and apparently Alice had a vision about this!” I tried to follow the instructions Carlisle had given Bastien. I placed her on the floor, cleaned out her mouth and nose, tore open her clothing on her chest and started giving her CPR. I gave her two shallow breaths covering her nose and mouth with my mouth and watched her chest rise up and down then I started compression on her nipple line placing one finger there and one just below that point and started to push 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 and then blew two shallow breaths into her mouth again and then compressions again 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 then breaths and kept this up until she coughed and spurted and breathed on her own. My instinct was to grab her and hold her tight but my training in CPR stopped me and I rolled her over on her side in the recovery position. I saw her left arm was bent at an odd angle. Uh oh! It looked broken. Oh my poor little girl to go through her first kill alone and unsupervised god please let her be alright I prayed. She lashed her arm out suddenly and I heard it break again and I watched in amazement as after a few seconds she began moving the arm normally and wiggling her fingers. She sat up slowly then like she was dizzy and puked. Blood came gushing out of her mouth. It spewed everywhere and then when she was empty she began to cry and tears of blood poured down her face.
“Honey, can I pick you up? Do you hurt anywhere?” She crawled over to me and climbed onto my lap and cried her little heart out. Bastien came in and in a blur picked us both up and brought us downstairs to the now spotless living room. He put us gently onto the couch.
“Wow Lottie, you saved her, is she okay?” he asked, his voice shaking with concern. I shrugged my shoulders gently and let him know I was just about to find out. Carlisle and Edward arrived then and Bastien and I both gave our versions of what happened and the three men gasped at the part of Vera fixing her own broken arms and then the puking.
“Carlisle, what’s going on? Why won’t she speak to me?” I asked. I had tried and tried to but she just shook her head and I looked at Edward, he said he couldn’t hear her thoughts at all. It’s as if she has shut down. Carlisle recommended we bring her home to be around all those that she knows.
“How? Bring her on a plane? She hates planes.” My little girl loves to fly in our arms but hates planes. She looked up once during this conversation and nodded at me.
“She does what to go home Lottie” Carlisle said.
“Is this true honey?” I asked and felt her body go stiff and then relax.
“Lottie honey, Vera is in shock. It looks like she went into some kind of coma after the killing. It could be for lots of reasons, maybe that she killed her friend; Vera’s body went very stiff at this. I shook my head at Carlisle with a look in my eye to silence him, he ignored it, wanting to get to the bottom of this and force Vera to talk to help her. I felt only good vibes from him and nodded softly. Bastien’s eyes begun to glow orange and I heard a strange voice telling me it was safer for Vera to take her home. She needs to feed again but in smaller doses and it has to be a lamb! I stared around wilding trying to source the voice, as did Edward. He appeared to hear the voice and then Bastien returned to himself. He looked at me with a strange look and in less than a heartbeat I was standing holding Vera protectively cradled in my arms next to Bastien with his arms around me, his hands rubbing my back telling me that we’ll get through this.
“She needs to feed on a lamb. The voice told me.” I said.
“Ya, I heard it too.” Said Edward. We closed up the house after we checked for any evidence of blood or Beth. We closed up both houses. Well Carlisle and Edward did, Bastien went to get a lamb for Vera, killed it and then slit its jugular placing a team from a bottle on it and shoved the nipple part into Vera’s lips and squeezed the lamb a bit so the blood would begin to trickle into Vera’s mouth. Vera’s cheeks began to take on a blush colour. She pushed it away after a few minutes.
“Drain what’s left and put it into her bottles” the voice ordered me again. “This will sustain her.” So we packed up and left the house hoping that Vera would rest peacefully now. We got on the plane.
I was very anxious and the stewardess’ were beginning to wonder had we kidnapped her. Edward told them that the little girl had taken ill on holidays and that I was a first time mommy and beyond worried. Him being so charming and good looking he convinced them completely. Well it was partly true. Alice was waiting for us at Farranfore Airport with a car and a change of clothes for Vera. I change her and the pads that Carlisle had swaddled her in as the blood was just beginning to seep through again. We were home in 10 minutes thanks to Alice’s driving. Vera had drunk most of the lamb’s blood at this stage and her heartbeat had become steadier but she was still silent. She sat up and said
“I love you mommy and daddy.” And conked out again.
“Oh thank God” I murmured to Bastien, “She’s coming back to us a bit.” When we got home Esme, Bella, Valentina and Jordan were all waiting for us. Sophia came over and rubbed some purple stuff on Vera’s forehead and said some words under her breath like she was casting a spell.
“That’ll help protect her aunty Lottie.” She said. I tucker Vera up in her bed and Carlisle hooked her up with a blood IV and said all we can do now is waiting. Bastien hugged me and both of us held Vera’s hands so she’d know we were there. She stayed in that coma-like state for 3 days then she opened her blood red eyes and said
“Sorry mommy and daddy, but I had to do it.” We asked her what she meant.
“Beth and I were playing a game of chasing and I fell and banged my head here,” she said pointing to a spot where there was a faint bruise. “So she went off to get a piece of steak to put on my head. But there was blood in it and I couldn’t help myself, I felt an inside voice telling me to drink the blood, so I did and Beth got all strange with me and started saying something about us being like vampires and stuff and that she’d have to tell someone, but who’d believe her. Mommy it was awful, I really thought she was gonna tell on us and I’d be taken off you she said and that someone else would be minding me so I got so mad I bit her finger and the blood came pumping out. She threw me away from her and then seemed to realise what she was doing when she saw me lying on the floor half crying. Then she tried to talk to me nicely mommy but the voice in my head told me not to trust her. She kept saying sorry and stuff but I was scared now and I kept dodging her and all the tables and chairs got knocked down. All I knew was that I couldn’t’ let her catch me. her blood smell was taunting me cause I knew if I went near her she’d catch me and take me away and you’d never be able to find me then mommy!” she said beginning to cry a bit.
“Vera honey, I and daddy would do everything we could to find you and we would find you, make no mistake about that honey.” She smiled then and nodded and cuddled with me a bit and Bastien was rubbing her head and kissing her too and agreeing with me, so she carried on her story. I was glad that Beth was dead at this stage cause if she wasn’t I’d kill her myself for frightening and abusing my little girl like this.
“His blood kept dripping and she was getting a little sleepy now so I went upstairs and she followed me slowly. She kept screaming at me telling me there was no escape and she’d get me. Once she got upstairs she did manage to catch me by the arm so I bit her neck and drank from her a little bit and then slid away from her but I pulled away too fast and she was holding my arm too tightly and it broke. Mommy it really hurt.” Then she smiled and said “but the voice in my head told me what to do to fix it and I did see” she said smiling and wiggling her little fingers. I leaned in and pressed her little hand to my lips and kissed them calling her a good girl. I was very curious about the voice in her head but figured she’d tell me about that too.
“So she fell then mommy and said I was a very bad little girl for hurting her like that and the devil would come and take me to hell to rot there for being so evil. She stopped breathing then but she had managed to grab a handful of my hair and I had to break her fingers so she’d let go. She kept her eyes open wide she said so she could see me going to hell. Mommy is I evil because I killed her?”
“No darling, you’re not evil, she was though and I’m so sorry I let you stay with her honey. I’m so, so sorry, can you forgive me?” I asked her looking at her sadly with a feeling of a huge weight on my shoulders.
“Of course mommy, I love you, you helped me breath just like the lady in my head said you would” She said wrapping her arms around my neck tightly and nestling her chin under my chin like she used to do when she was a baby. She smelled faintly of strawberry shampoo; guess Bella had been helping her clean up. I looked fondly around and seeing her I smiled at her. She looked at me with a what? Expression on her face. I pointed to Vera’s head and mouthed strawberries. She nodded and smiled at me. I looked around Vera’s bedroom and realised that every member of my family including my extended family were in there hanging around waiting to help if necessary. I looked each one in the eye and smiled my gratification at them. They all nodded or smiled at me and I felt blessed to call them my family.
“Vera honey, can I ask you who is the voice in your head pet?” Vera paused for a minute as if she were having a conversation in her head.
“Her name is Tunie and she’s my angel. She helps me when I need her most.” I heard a few gasps around the room and saw that Alec, Faine, Emmet, Edward and Carlisle had a shocked look on their faces along with my own shocked look.
“Did you say Tunie?” I asked her.
“Yeah” she nodded. “She helped Uncle Alec to help daddy and you and save you from Brian awhile back.” I felt a feeling of happiness spread through me.
“Look” she said. Holding out her hand and in it was a little pink stone with a black dot which was slowly disappearing into her hand. A second later and it was gone again. I breathed out, an action I wasn’t even aware I’d been holding my breath and burst into happy giggles. Everyone else seemed to relax then and the room erupted with hearty giggles from everyone including Vera and Sophia. Vera reached out her hand to Sophia who came over to her and they pressed their foreheads together and noses and hugged each other after that. She seemed to know what Sophia had done without us telling her.
