End of the Dandelion Wine

Behind her in the living room, someone cleared his throat. The vanilla light snaked in through the widow, and curtains. It illuminated the room, the man stood behind her just inside the cloak of darkness that saturated most of the room, invisible to the eye but his presence crackled through the air, and caused the flesh along Lavinia’s neck to raise in warning. She knew that voice. Instinctively her hand reached back for the door’s lock, she felt the desperate need to escape claw at her brain. A person, that she would ordinarily trust with her life, stood in the baking dark of the parlor...

“What?” She uttered in a shaking voice once again, “What do you want?”

“You should know,” The voice responded, his voice sounded like he’d swallowed nails.

“I don’t!” she cried, and snakes of tears slipped down her summer baked, white cheeks that glowed bright under the moon’s watchful eyes.

“But, you do,” He whispered.

One footstep echoed through the empty, silent house. One clack of feet on the wood floors, two, three, at the fourth they stopped behind her.

“Why?” Her voice cracked, and she stood petrified in place.

“You’re so beautiful, but no one has claimed you.”

“So?” Her voice, even though fear saturated it, sounded like honey to his ears and he grinned maliciously, enjoying the sound of the fear soaked velvet tone that escaped her tense lips and unconsciously her fear led her to lean away slightly.

“This is how I’ll claim you, and you’ll never be able to leave me. You’ll be with me forever.”

A white ribbon flowed as it unraveled, as a serpent would, from his hand, the vanilla night made it appear luminescent, but just one more illusion that the night had to offer.

“What about the others?” The velvet notes slipped from her lips, and his ears drank them in happily.

“They were special, but not you.” He lifted the ribbon up to caress her neck as tenderly as a python is with it’s prey.

She fought to get away, but his grip was too tight, it sucked the life out of her as if death was sipping it from her just as she had sipped at the lemonade earlier.

As the last whisper of breath escaped her lips, and her eyes closed as if she was going to just nap, the Lonely One leaned over her resting form and mumbled incoherently for a few moments. He looked up at the night before turning back to the now still body. Her face only slightly blueish in tint, her skin still baked as if her heart still beat and her eyes remained fixed on him, accusing him of his crimes.

The snake’s eyes looked deep into her accusing eyes, “Now we can be together forever, and your beauty will never end. You’ll remain beautiful to everyone forever. You should thank me.”

Getting no response, he disappeared deeper into the house saturated with darkness.