Lullaby (The Fable Series, Book 2)

Chapter Seven

I should do this more often.

My ensuite bathroom at home has a shower, so I hardly ever take baths. Even here at the cabin, I've been showering upstairs every evening out of habit, totally ignoring the beautiful porcelain clawfoot tub in the downstairs bathroom.

I hold my champagne glass in the air, admiring the way the warm candlelight glints off the bubbling golden liquid.

The boys looked mildly shocked earlier when I passed on supper and instead took a crystal champagne flute out of the cupboard. I half filled the glass with sparkling champers, then reconsidered and filled it to the very brim. Ben and Alastaire were thrilled – they've been trying to get me to drink with them for weeks now. They weren't as thrilled when I said I was drinking it alone, in the bathtub, and I was locking the door behind me to keep out any unwanted visitors.

The fruity bubbles sparkle on my tongue as I take a sip, sinking back deeper into the cashmere water and its coating of scented white foam.

Kitty left a small vial of ridiculously expensive bubble bath waiting for me. She bought it earlier today during our shopping trip, and I literally felt physically ill when I saw the price tag on it. Over three hundred dollars for a tiny glass container. It might as well be liquid gold.

The shop assistant explained that it's a unique concoction of blue lotus flower, Egyptian oil, tuberose, frankincense and over ten thousand jasmine flowers harvested at twilight in Grasse, France.

It sounded like a BS sales pitch to me, but Kitty bought it immediately, despite my protests.

She probably left the vial here for me just to make a point. I hate to admit it, but this stuff is amazing.

Just one single drop sent a cloud of otherworldly fragrance snaking through the air, utterly intoxicating. The effect was so powerful, so sudden, that it reminded me of scenes in movies or books where the witch carefully adds a single drop of something to her potion, and the entire thing changes color before exploding in a puff of smoke.

I hum to myself as I lather the sweetly scented foam over my body, flinching as my fingers touch the tender spot over the scar, just below the curve of my left collarbone. Oddly enough, the bath foam almost seems to soothe the angry purple bruise. There's a faint fizzing sensation, then a marked, temporary numbness. Could it be the jasmine?

Still not worth three hundred dollars. But I'll admit, it's pretty magical.

Magical.

I mentally banish the thoughts of angels and ghosts and fairy tales which are crawling around the edges of my mind. All this strange stuff keeps on happening to me, but the only rational explanation is that they're hallucinations and delusions bought on by my stress from the accident, and the events of recent weeks.

I don't know how long it'll take me to get over everything, but that doesn't matter.

It's in the future.

As are any decisions I'll have to make around record labels and the band and a career in music.

Everything Elliot said was really thought-provoking, but now's not the time to think about it. All of that can wait.

Right now, my whole world is this small, darkened bathroom, the bubble-filled tub and the ring of candlelight.

That is, until I hear the door creak open.

Before I even have time to register what's going on, the shadowy figure has closed the door behind him and is standing at the edge of the bath tub.