Once Upon a Time. . . (on hold)

Brown Paper Bag.

What surprised me wasn't the fact that he showed up in my doorstep, but what he was doing here. He claimed he didn't come for dinner. But it looked like he'd be staying for awhile.

I leaned against the door frame and raised my eyebrows. "So... why are you here then?" I asked, not knowing what else to say.

A flash of lightning illuminated the grey clouds, followed by a soft rumble you'd hear before it started raining. Axel already prepared for the weather, carrying a yellow umbrella in his right hand. I opened the door a little wider to let him enter.

"I'll try to make this quick," he said. I sat on the living room couch and beckoned him to sit beside me. He sighed and did so.

I tapped my feet nervously and waited for him to go on. I heard droplets of water start to poor down on the roof, followed by more rumbles and a soft thunder clap. It'd be awhile till my mother got home. She impressed the owner of the restaurant yesterday, so she already started working.

"Firstly, I'm sorry about what happened earlier in the field. I really like you, but..."

God, as if he wasn't confusing enough already. "But?" I dared myself to ask.

"But... you'll think I'm nuts and you'll probably never want to talk to me again after what's coming next."

I frowned a little. "So... why don't you just not say it?"

"Because I have to tell someone about it."

He had psychological problems? He... secretly had a girlfriend? He was two timing? He actually came here to kill me?

"This is a lot to take in... And again, I'm sorry. Everything about your life seems so... slowly paced, and this is about to ruin it. Do you notice... everything here seems to be... a bit weird?"

I took a cushion behind me and hugged it. "Uh... go on?" I pulled out a box concealed under the table and was glad that my mother filled in more fireflies for our empty jam jars. Whenever we finished our jam, we'd put the jars in boxes under the living room coffee table and fill them in with fireflies if we had time. We'd put leaves and a few other things to make the fireflies more comfortable, but we always put in dampen tissue balls inside. My dad said it'd help them breathe more freely, and a lot of people seemed to be doing that so we figured we'd do it as well.

But back to what Axel said... Everything was weird if you put in more thought to it. Couches and chairs weren't that different from each other except that they had long couches and singular couches, and chairs were usually taller. But of course, he was talking about something else. I just thought about the couch and seat thing out of the blue.

"There's something off, Charlotte. I don't know where to start. Maybe Mrs. Grayjoy really is nuts like you said earlier but she has a point."

Well... maybe she really did? Maybe she knew something we all didn't know. She was one of the oldest people I've seen around here, which was... rather odd now that I thought about it.

"I have no idea where she learned all this, but she said bees shouldn't be able to travel very far. Just look at all the water surrounding our island. Bees are afraid of water. And where's their hive? I don't see any giant hives around here."

I squinted my eyes at him. "Hives? I've heard Mrs. Grayjoy talk about bees... but not about that matter. How do you think she knows all this?"

Axel sighed. "I'm not sure, but for an old lady who apparently forgot how to read, she sure knows how to make shit like this up, doesn't she?"

I found myself nodding. "What should we do?"

He rose both his shoulders. "I don't know, but I think I'm going to ask Mrs. Grayjoy a few more questions. You could come if you'd like. Just be a little patient with her. Her hearing's slightly damaged and she forgets what you're talking about sometimes."