Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Journey's End ❯ Chapter 2

Journey's End... Part Two

The large house echoed with emptiness, up on the hill over on Davie Street. Surrounded by other semi-Victorian homes, trees and gardens all around, it still looked oddly empty. Inside the only thing left were boxes, one or two pieces of furniture and a few piles of books left to be packed away by the two women who were talking in the living room.

"All right, I can understand you wanting to move away," Rachel frowned, the black haired girl helping her pack up her book cases into some boxes, "after years spent living with the wicked bitch of the west I'd want to move, too."

Nicole snorted, trying hard not to laugh at hearing her ex-lover being talked about like that. The shorter redhead pushed her sweaty hair up out of her face and muttered, "You'd better hope she doesn't hear you calling her that."

"But up on the north coast?" Rachel continued on, completely ignoring the comment, "And in a real haunted house? Are you nuts?"

"Probably," Nicole drawled, giving her best friend a grin, "but I'm still doing it." She paused, "You're welcome to come up and visit, though."

"I'll visit," Rachel sighed, "but only to try to keep you out of trouble. You know I'd wither and die away from Vancouver's social scene."

"True," Nicole picked up another box of books, stacking it up with all the others. She looked over at them thoughtfully and softly muttered, "I wonder if I'll be able to arrange mail order deliveries from Little Sisters?"

"Ah, your supplier of trashy lesbian romances," Rachel nodded, "I understand they will ship across the country, assuming they can get the books past the border."

"There is that," Nicole sighed.

There was a long moment of dead silence in the large living room, and Nicole looked up to see Rachel looking at her sadly. Much more seriously her friend asked her, "You don't really have to move away, do you?"

Nicole sighed softly, walking over to where her friend stood there awkwardly "I'm blocked, Rach," she confessed to her softly, "for the first time in years I can't write, not one single word." A long moment of quiet, "And it's killing me."

"Shit," Rachel cursed, reaching out to hold Nicole gently. They had known each other a hell of a lot of years, and all that time Nicole had written almost constantly. If she really was blocked, something serious was wrong.

"My writing, her affair, the break up, this place," Nicole waved one handed around the now nearly empty old house, "it's all tied up together in my mind. I can't write here anymore, and I just pray that getting away from here will help."

"Yeah," Rachel reached up to wipe at her eyes as she tried to lighten the mood a bit, "we can't have all those heterosexual romances that you write so well come to a stop."

"What can I say," Nicole had a few tears in her eyes, too, "I just write what I don't know. It seems to work, anyway." She smiled at her friend wryly, "And it's not like I'm dropping off the face of the Earth, you know. There's still phones and e-mail."

"You don't answer the phone, usually," Rachel said dryly, "or e-mail."

"I'll try harder," Nicole promised, giving Rachel her sweetest look.

"Yeah, yeah," Rachel looked at her doubtfully. She smiled, "What's a self respecting dyke like you doing writing those straight romances, anyway? Whatever happened to the Great Lesbian Novel that you were going to write?"

Nicole chuckled, "It was sitting in a drawer." A slight smile, "And now it's packed away in one of these damned boxes."

"Maybe you should dig it out," Rachel sighed, "it might be enough to break through your block." She paused, "Do you ever wish we had stayed lovers?"

"You are feeling sentimental today," Nicole smiled wryly, "we were just kids then, Rachel. I figure we were lucky to get out of that with our friendship still intact." Softly, "Besides, we make better friends than lovers."

"True," Rachel backed off a bit. She looked around, then picked up one of the last few boxes. "Well, lets get these out to the U-haul."

They finished up the rest of the packing, loading up the last of the boxes and furniture onto the tightly packed U-haul truck outside. "I'll be back to visit here, too." Nicole promised her friend softly, "and for sure that I'll be back for Pride."

"Just be careful," Rachel hugged her friend close once again, "if this ghost gives you some trouble, come on home! Use your good sense, please."

"I'll try," Nicole answered softly. They said their final farewells, Nicole climbed into the cab of the truck, and she was off.

The city passed her by, seeing the familiar shops and stores disappear behind her. It took about twenty minutes to get out of the city moving onto the highways and towards the north. The traffic was quite dense to start with, thinning out as she went farther and farther north.

'I'm glad that the weather's still clear,' Nicole noted. The trees lined the road, less and less signs of human habitation around her. In between the small towns scattered around, there was just the road, a few other vehicles, and her.

She had a CD in the car stereo, background music for the drive. It was one she mixed herself, a bit of Tatu, Etheridge, some Indigo Girls, All about Eve and other bands. One of her favorites came up, and with a slight smile she began to sign along.

"Won't you let your hair down, won't you kick your shoes off," she sang energetically if a bit off key, "maybe shake the blues off awhile, or even crack a smile? Are you reading fortunes, or reading Nietche, find another teacher, cause he's not worth an apple..."

She reached the town in the afternoon, slowing down as she ran through the city center. It wasn't the largest town, but there was a fair sized grocer, a decent library and a coffee shop, the essentials as far as she was concerned. She left the town, bouncing up the rough road, and smiled slightly as she came around the corner to her new home.

Journey's End. The beautiful turn of the century house sat not far from the edge of a cliff, the sea far bellow. She stood there a moment, taking a deep breath of the fresh air. She looked up at the three story house, and silently debated her next move.

"I'd better get the bed inside, if nothing else," Nicole sighed to herself, unlocking the front door of the house, leaving it open and walking back to the truck..

Nicole wrestled the single bed and bedframe out of the back of the truck, feeling a bit relieved that she had packed the single bed away so that she could get at it easily later. She heaved the pieces through the open door, then leaned them up against the hallway wall.

There was a momentary chill in the entrance way, and a figure stood looking over at her curiously. Blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, stirred by an unfelt breeze, her expression calmly inquisitive. Oddly, Nicole didn't feel any danger coming from her, no hostility at all.

"Good afternoon, Miss Reid," Nicole offered, hoping that the information she had found was correct. The ghost looked rather startled, and she added, "At least, I hope that's your name."

The ghost stood there in the hallway, looking at Nicole for a few moments, then she nodded just slightly. With that, Laura Reid simply faded away, the afternoon light brightening a bit as she disappeared once again.

Nicole puffed out a breath, feeling oddly disappointed. "I wonder if that's her way of saying hello," she murmured to herself softly. She looked over at the bed pieces, the up at the stairs, and for a moment she was tempted to just set the bed up in the living room. 'I'll have to get it up there sooner or later,' she thought, and with a sigh began to drag the bed pieces upstairs.

A few hours later and most of the furniture and boxes were inside, stacked roughly in the living room for now. Looking at the pieces she had, Nicole knew she'd have to go buy a few more items of furniture for the old house, but somehow it didn't bother her. In a way, she was even looking forward to it. Tiredly she hauled herself upstairs, flopping down on the bed to have a short break.

"What's your name?" the voice could have been a whisper of the wind, it was so soft.

Nicole opened her eyes, seeing the ghost standing there by the bed, looking down at her. "Nicole," she answered softly.

The ghost's lips tugged up in a smile, "Laura."

Nicole heaved herself up tiredly, sitting up on the bed. "It's nice to meet you, Laura."

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Vancouver, British Columbia has a thriving gay and lesbian neighborhood in the West End of the city, including Davie Street. It's also near the corner of Davie and Bute that Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium is based, the largest gay and lesbian book store on Canada's west coast. That store is having an ongoing feud with Canada Customs over what books can and can not cross over the border into the country, as mentioned in the story For further information on this there's a non-fiction book called 'Restricted Entry' about Little Sister's battles with customs, and a pair of fund-raising comic books called 'What's Right?' and 'What's Wrong?' The song that Nicole signs along with in the truck is by the band All about Eve.