Lust For Blue - Kaylor

The Sighting

December 12th 1884 - five years later (approx.)

The Opal Mountain lake stretches far across its clearing. It is still; it is silent. Taylor Swift calmly sits beside the lake, wrapped up in her new fur coat - a present from her husband. Snowy the horse is munching on some grass a few meters away. It's early morning and nearing the first minute after midnight. A pale hue is beginning to creep its way over the horizon, signs of a new day fast approaching. Taylor delicately sips from her paper cup of peppermint tea, freshly made before her short secret journey into the woods. Her foot slowly taps against the soft ground in anticipation. She drapes her arms around her waist trying her best to block out the harsh mid winter chill. Despite the temperature, she feels stronger in the woods for some reason. Braver, even. Perhaps it's the mountain air.

"Any second now", Taylor whispers.

She places a gentle hand on her shaking knee in an attempt to calm her agitation. Taylor does this every year since the vampires were banished - waits by the lake on the morning of her birthday. Taylor remembers it all so clearly; The kidnappings, the bloodshed, the violence. She remembers Karlie's last words and she just about remembers her sweet face - though her image is distorted now; blurry. And she remembers that very night she cried herself to sleep, only to be woken by the sound of three mournful wolf howls from the Opal Mountains that sounded very familiar...

Now each year she waits on a sturdy log by the lake and listens for those same three howls that have sounded out on the exact morning ever since.

Sure enough after a few minutes more, one long eerie wolf call wails out through the woods like a lost banshee. And then a second one - slightly higher in pitch - howls out in the same way. Finally, the third howl makes its call. It's the lowest of the three, the saddest and the longest.

The last howl finishes and resounds around the forest, a peaceful silence falling upon the lonely open space once more. Taylor closes her eyes and lets the noises of the surrounding woodland take hold once more - the birds, the insects, the leaves on the branches of each oak and pine. She lets herself be consumed by the nature and its soft whisperings. She wishes she could be one with it, maybe a flower or a sturdy tree. Just so she wouldn't have to deal with the harrowing sorrow that knocks at her every thought each day like an unwanted visitor.

Taylor wonders where the Haim werewolves or their mermaid friend ever disappeared to. She has seen glimpses of fur and tails between the trees. Sometimes she spots a glimmer of scales in the lake. Rumours had spread quickly that many of the other magical creatures went into hiding for innocent fear of being hunted in the same way as the vampires. But Taylor knows this is not the truth. They are simply being more careful, now that the most powerful and protective creatures of the forest were out of sight.

In the absence of vampires, the forest knows.

No one hunts mermaids unless they want 'poison fish meat' for black market sales. Nobody cares for werewolves unless they are seeking a death wish or slashed face.
But vampires? That's different. All because of one ancient misunderstanding, Taylor is forced to live the rest of her life in mourning of the one person she truly wanted to be with for all eternity.

She thinks about where Karlie is right now - living in Liberty Moors with her sisters. She wonders what has become of her palace, desolate and abandoned since the bloody battle that sent her away. Taylor thinks about her bedroom, dusty and crawling with spiders and bats. Her makeup table covered in a layer of cobwebs; her chandelier dead and eerily swinging in the breeze. Maybe her marble sink is cracking because of lack of use. Maybe there is a family of birds living under her bed.