longer.blue

Before we begin regularly posting, a recap.... Part 3 of 8 The Skye Sisters Saga with Raine Skye (@@romanticraine.bsky.social) and Billie Skye (@billieskye.bsky.social) (Billie continued) << Do NOT move. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.>> I huffed out a laugh that didn’t sound like mine. Fifteen minutes. Like whatever the hell this was could be paused, bottled up, and saved for when she arrived. Still, I typed back: {{ Fine. I’ll be the one drinking in front of the sad-eyed ghost of our mother. Don’t take longer than 15. }} I set the phone face down on the bar and tipped back what was left of my martini. The bartender reappeared then, sliding another across to me without waiting for me to ask. Maybe he’d seen the look in my eyes. Maybe he didn’t want me asking questions. Either way, I tossed that one back faster than I should’ve, and the warmth hit me almost immediately. Not enough to blur things, not yet, but enough that the shadows in the corners seemed to lean closer. I caught the bartender glancing at the portrait again and then back at me. This time I called him on it. “You know her?” My voice came out harder than I intended, but he just ducked his head, muttered something about checking the back, and disappeared again. I thought about following him and demanding an answer. Before I could move he slipped back behind the bar, sheepish and quiet. I ordered another martini, locked onto him as he made my drink, mad-dogging him and daring him to meet my eyes. He didn’t. He just kept his focus on my drink, sliding it across the bar towards me like his life depended on it. By the time the third empty glass hit the bar, I wasn’t sure if the dizziness was the gin or the room itself. The air had thickened, heavy with smoke that wasn’t there a minute ago. The mirror glared back at me, the portrait still watching, but I refused to look at it now. I fixed my eyes on the people instead. A couple near the fire whispered too quietly for me to catch. The man at the end of the bar never touched his drink. Another shadow slipped past me in the glass, but when I turned, no one was there. Ghosts. I felt them now, the way you feel a draft before the door opens. They stirred at the edges, swirling between the tables, their gazes flicking back and forth as though waiting for something. For Raine? For me? I pushed a bowl of pretzels aside untouched, laid my palms flat on the bar, and whispered under my breath, “What the hell do you want from me?” The phone buzzed again. << Order me a Guinness Black. I’m almost there. >> << On second thought, order me two. >> My hands shook as I typed back. {{Already done. But if this thing moves while I’m babysitting it, I’m leaving the tab in your name.}} I didn’t lift my eyes back to the mirror. I didn’t have to. The portrait was still there, waiting, and now the room itself seemed to be waiting with it. The ghosts pressed closer. I could feel them, cold threads at the back of my neck, whispers shifting across the low beams, eyes I couldn’t see but knew were fixed on me. The weight in my chest grew sharper, heavier, until every breath felt borrowed. The edges of the room blurred, the mirror tilting in my vision like I’d had more to drink than I had. I clenched the bar to steady myself. I wasn’t drunk. This was something else. The floorboards groaned. The shadows thickened. And just when I thought I couldn’t take another second of the room spinning, the door creaked open. A rush of cold air swept in, breaking the press of silence. Raine’s silhouette filled the doorway, framed in the glow from the street outside, steady against the haze of ghosts that seemed to draw back at her presence. For the first time since I’d walked in, I finally exhaled. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Raine As my feet crossed over the ancient stone threshold, the air in the room changed. It was static and oppressive and as my eyes began to adjust to the dimmed light, I noticed a fog that swirled just around the edges of the room. Something about it all pulled at memories deep in my mind. Something I had felt before. Frantically, my eyes began to move about the room, both searching for Billie and trying to reason out what we were facing. No matter what I reasoned or decided, I knew I had a lot of explaining to do. Things were right…but not quite right. Everything and everyone was a little too old, as though time had stopped decades ago. My brow furrowed as I took hesitant step after hesitant step. I’d walked up and down this street so many times in the last few weeks and never, not once, had I seen this pub. But my sister pops into town and somehow instantly finds her way into it? Into a pub where time seems to have stopped…even more, gone backwards…where a portrait of our mother hung…a portrait that to my baby sister shouldn’t have been able to ever exist. My head turned and my eyes met those of the bar man, narrowing on him and watching as he stepped back slightly and nodded, his eyes cutting to where my sister was sitting beneath the portrait that was, unmistakably, our mother. I took a deep breath and somehow moved my feet forward, as though they were trudging through every sand of time that had passed since our mother had sat for this portrait. The air became heavier as Billie emerged from the shadows and her stunning features were illuminated in the faint light of the oil lanterns and gas lamps. I instantly recognized the look on her face from times when she was a kid, the frantic look that told me she was on the verge of a full on panic attack and I was the thin string of a life line tying her to the world and all reason within it. And as I squared my shoulders and took a breath, I knew that was exactly what I had to dig deep to be once more for her.* +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Billie “Don’t.” My voice cracked sharper than I meant it to as I leaned back on the barstool, martini glass turning between my fingers. “Don’t give me that look like I’m about to shatter. I’m not twelve. I’m not hanging off a ledge by my fingertips waiting for you to talk me down.” I gestured vaguely upward, though my eyes never rose to meet the portrait. “You see it, right? Tell me you see it, Raine. Because I’ve been sitting here with strangers that aren’t strangers, with ghosts swirling in and out of the corners like they own the place, and all I can think is… why me? Why now?” I forced a laugh, low and brittle. “I walked into York, ordered a drink, and suddenly our dead mother’s staring at me like she knows I’ve been trying not to look her in the eye since I was a kid. So go on then. Order your Guinness. Tell me what the actual F is going on, because the bartender sure as hell isn’t talking.” +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Raine They never talk. *I grumbled under my breath, the long dead patrons sipping their drinks as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on at all. I lifted one Guinness black and necked it completely before sitting down. I lifted the second one to my lips and paused, turning to the bartender, holding up my fingers and nodding to the bottle of Glenturret sitting next to him. I had no idea what we were about to uncover, but I suddenly realized I was going to need more than a stout to do it. I downed half the next glass, pausing to suck in a deep breath as I really studied my baby sister. She was right. There was none of the fragility that I’d seen from her for so many years. None of the delicate, broken girl that I was certain would shatter into a million pieces if I said the wrong thing. My sky blue eyes moved from her to the portrait hanging above her. There was no denying that it was our mother. I downed the rest of the glass just as the bartender returned, silently clanking the bottle of Glenturret down on the table, along with two crystal tumblers before walking away. I twisted the top of the bottle and poured two glasses, shaking my head* I’ve been walking up and down this ancient road for weeks and I swear to fucking God this place wasn’t here. *I shook my head as I looked up at the portrait, the weight heavy in my chest as I lifted the glass to the portrait* Slàinte mhath. *I said without a hint of humor or happiness behind it before turning downing what was in my glass and turning my eyes back to my baby sister* How in the bloody hell did you end up in York in the first place? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Billie I let out a laugh that cracked halfway between a scoff and a choke. “How did I end up in York? I don’t know, Raine… maybe the same way you ended up in York, necking a pint under our dead mom’s portrait in the pub that time forgot.” I tipped back the last of my martini. “I was in Paris, ticket home to San Francisco in my hand, espresso half-finished in the Air France lounge. Then the board flickered ‘Heathrow,’ like a glitch. Or a dare. Next thing I knew, I was walking past my own gate without a second thought.” I snapped out of it, my eyes cutting back to hers, sharp again. “But maybe the better question is, why the hell was this place waiting for me?” +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Raine *I poured another glass of whisky in my tumbler before sliding the other across the table to yours, this time slowing my drinks to sips, almost more to give my hands something to do and to give myself time to pause and collect some coherent thought. There was no reason to any of this. My eyes scanned the room once more before I leaned in and almost said under my breath* The better question might be when in the hell. Because I certainly couldn’t have found it if you were sitting here, in this place, of that I’m sure. Is she the one doing this? *My eyes moved back to the portrait* Is dad? Is DC? *I took another long drink, emptying the glass once more before refilling it*