Kristen Ashley - Lacybourne Manor

In the end, Brightrose Cottage was lovingly, beautifully and meticulously restored and it showed in every inch of the home. It was cosy, quaint, warm and inviting. You didn’t live at Brightrose, you didn’t visit Brightrose, you experienced Brightrose.

At Sibyl’s announcement that she wanted to move to England, Bertie demanded, “What on earth are you going to do there?”

Unfortunately, no matter how much he loved her; there were limits to his patience when it came to his daughter’s flightiness. She was thirty-one years old; she had to find an anchor.

This, Bertie felt, should come in the form of a man (although he would never dream of uttering this notion in front of his feminist wife).

But Sibyl didn’t allow herself to get close to men. Bertie found himself having the most unusual wish that his elder daughter could treat his sex the way his younger daughter did, taking them (quite terrifyingly frequently in Bertie’s opinion) and then leaving them with nary a thought.

Sibyl seemed, as with most anything, to find the most damaged men she could collect (quite terrifying infrequently in Mags’s opinion). Then she bent over backwards, turned herself inside and out and then twisted herself in knots to sort out all their troubles. And then, even though most of them would have probably laid down their lives for her, she scooted them on their way so some other woman could sort out their new problems of having lost the glory that was Sibyl.

“I’ve no idea, Daddy,” she’d answered his irate question, her voice small, so small he kicked himself for his sharp tone. “But I feel I need to be there. It’s the only place I’ve ever been truly happy and at peace.”

Now, how could a father argue with that?

Especially when that peace had been found mostly in his company and he knew exactly what she was talking about when it came to Brightrose Cottage.

They’d then argued about how, since there was no mortgage on the property, she could live there without paying. They’d won her over by explaining that Scarlett’s medical school would cost more than the house was even worth and they’d signed the deeds over to her.

Mags and Bertie were thrilled when Sibyl had found a part-time job in a local community centre working with old people and children (how much trouble could old people and children get her into?). She supplemented this with a small but soon lucrative business selling handmade bath oils, salts, lotions, shampoos, conditioners and divinely scented candles to exclusive shops and boutiques around Somerset (oils, salts and lotions didn’t live and breathe or have angry ex-husbands, which they felt was a good thing).

It seemed Sibyl was more at peace in England, but neither Bertie nor Mags could shake the feeling that their daughter still seemed restless.

And they knew exactly why.

For, as the weeks, months and years passed, it became more and more clear that Sibyl’s abiding belief that her one true love would walk in and shine his light on her life was not going to happen.

Throughout the telling of the dream, Marguerite muttered, “Oh my,” and a couple of times, the stronger, “Oh my goddess”.

Sibyl, as usual with her mother, didn’t leave anything out, including an abbreviated version of the very passionate activities that preceded her dream lover’s grisly murder.

Nor the belief that this lover was her lover, the man of her dreams, the man who would change her life forever.

Which, of course, led to the distressing fact that at the end he’d been killed.

“What do you think it means, Mom?” Sibyl knew her mother read tarot cards, runes, tea leaves and palms as well as dreams. She wasn’t really good at doing any of this but she tried very hard.

“You say this man was vivid in your dream?” Mags asked.

“I could draw you a picture, that is, if I could draw,” Sibyl answered.

“Describe him,” Mags demanded.

Sibyl did, in great detail, leaving nothing out.

“Oh my,” Mags whispered.

“Will you stop saying, ‘oh my’ and tell me what you think this means?” Sibyl was at her wit’s end.

Mags sighed hugely. “Honey, it means you need a man.”

Sibyl rolled her eyes. Even being a militant feminist, her mother often solved many serious issues with the words “you need a man”. Mags was very into the healing power of sex.

Then again, Sibyl’s mother had been lucky enough to marry the love of her life, had a completely faithful marriage and an active sex life that continued to this very day (a fact that Sibyl unfortunately knew all too well).

In order to get her emotion in check, Sibyl counted to ten. Bertie had taught her this tactic years ago when it seemed clear that Sibyl would never learn to control her fiery temper.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it, spectacularly, did not.

Then Sibyl said, “I need to get some sleep, I’ve got to be at the Centre tomorrow.”

“Where’s the cat?” Mags asked.

Sibyl had no idea why her mother would want to know where Bran was. “He’s wandered back in the room somewhere, why?”

“Because that damned dog of yours would probably make any murderous scoundrel a cup of tea if he had opposable thumbs. The cat would scratch his eyes out.”

Sibyl couldn’t help but laugh because this was true.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, baby. Get some sleep, go out on the prowl this weekend and find yourself a blessed man, for goddess’s sake. No woman should endure a year long dry spell.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mom,” Sibyl uttered the expression of gratitude but her tone said very clearly she didn’t mean it.

Mags, as usual, ignored her daughter’s tone. “I’m serious, Sibyl. Even if it is only sex, or companionship, everyone needs it.” Sibyl remained silent at Mags’s tender urging. Mags sighed and then said, “See you soon, my darling girl. It’ll be April before you know it.”

Finally.

The thought of seeing her parents in April did make Sibyl feel happy and relaxed.

“I hope so.” Again, Sibyl’s tone said exactly how she felt.

After hanging up the phone, Sibyl left the shutters open. She lay in bed thinking of the dream, or more to the point, the man in the dream. He was immensely handsome, dark and… well, hot . His touch set her on fire, it was fevered and insistent and nearly worshipful. Until she was ripped from the bed, his presence seemed the only thing in the universe. There was nothing else but him, his hands, his mouth, his body. He was her very essence (except a male), her other part, her completion.

Mallory broke into her thoughts by lumbering onto the high bed and settling in squeezing poor Bran and Sibyl to the edge leaving them hanging on for dear life. Somehow, even in this awkward but familiar position, she was finally able to allow her mind to calm enough to go to sleep.

Even if she did do so with the image of the handsome, hard-jawed, dark-haired man burned on the backs of her eyelids.

“Oh for the love of the goddess, get out of the car, will you?”

Sibyl was addressing her dog and cat, who both, somehow, managed to fit themselves into her old, red MG convertible.

Sibyl didn’t know how she’d managed to get herself in this terrible snag nor did she know how she managed consistently to find herself in a variety of terrible snags, something which happened with disturbing frequency.

Her day had not gone well. It was a busy day which included Bingo Afternoon at the Pensioners Club of the Day Centre and try outs for the kids’ Annual Talent Show in the Community Hall. Sibyl was responsible for running all the myriad community programmes put on in the Centre and Hall. The Day Centre and Community Hall comprised (along with a vast kitchen, several small offices, some storage rooms, a stage and narrow backstage area) an enormous, but dilapidated old building on a Council Estate in a deprived area of Weston-super-Mare, a small, seaside city in the West Country.