Love by the Stroke of Midnight

enough signals. I knew I couldn’t help apart from be here for you and…well, Paden was here.” She scowled. “Not sure why.”
Marcail didn’t comment on the sending signals thing. She was used to and accepted Bonnie sensed things that others didn’t notice.
“Paden.” Marcail had to ask. “Are you two involved?”
“Me and…” Bonnie blinked. “No, you ninny, I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole, I told you I’m not sure I trust him. Evidently he’s here for you, didn’t he say?”
“Told you.”
“Go away.”
“What?” Bonnie asked, startled. “Why?”
“Damn. Now look what you’ve made me do.”
“Oh not you, sorry,” Marcail said, contrite and worried her sister thought she was referring to her. “The annoying voice in my head. Do you get them?” She’d never asked, as she’d thought if Bonnie wanted to tell her she would do. Now, though, it seemed important.
“I am not annoying. You’re just refusing to open your mind. Listen to your sister.”
“Sometimes. I find them soothing.” Bonnie poured the tea and handed a cup to her sister. “Here.”
“Soothing?” Marcail shook her head as she accepted one of the delicate china cups that Bonnie favoured. “Thanks, I wish.”
“No?” Bonnie leaned forward. “Really?”
“Really. I mean, why do I have these stupid conversations in my head?” Marcail demanded. “At first, when I was wee, I thought everyone did. Then when they tried to say I might be a bit addlepated at school I thought it was just me. Mum and Dad reassured me some people had the ability, and it was nothing to worry about. They said those with no abilities didn’t understand. Like the teacher. So I was okay then, it gave me someone to chat to.” She grinned self-consciously. “When I realised I’d conjured up a different voice to my own, for years it was fine. Just something that I had. Then when I was about seven or eight I was out with Mum one day and overheard someone in the supermarket talking about someone who heard voices and was quite, quite mad. So I wondered if I was, you know? Then I thought, well, it’s me and if I’m crackers so be it and sort of accepted it. Now I just wish it would shut up.”
“Not a chance. You need me. I’m here for you.”
“Like now,” Marcail said with a snap in her voice. “Telling me I need it. For goodness’ sake, who needs a voice telling you that sort of stuff. I mean…” She mimed quote marks and rolled her eyes. “You need me, I’m here for you.”
Bonnie nodded. “Crap, isn’t it?” she said sympathetically. “You’ll just have to hope it all gets shown to you sooner rather than later.” She bit her lip. “I’m still not sure I trust what’s going on though.”
* * * *
And that, Marcail thought later as she unpacked in her room at the castle, was all Bonnie would say about it. She’d pleasantly but pointedly changed the subject and began to talk about Marcail’s projected trip, offering her advice and adding cheerfully that she might not know a lot about New Zealand, but if Marcail went nowhere else she had to go to Wanaka and see the Lone Wanaka Tree. A tree, in the water, that had sprouted decades before from a fence post. All she said, when Marcail asked why, was that to them, it mattered.
To Marcail’s amazement, annoyance—disappointment—she wasn’t sure which, her voice visitor stayed silent. She’d decided she’d call it Cyril. For years she’d had no need to be annoyed with it or give it validity but now? It was easier to think, ‘bog off Cyril’ than ‘bog off stupid voice in my head annoying me rotten’. Especially as Cyril Murchison had been a particularly obnoxious boy in her hospitality—all things cookery—class at school. He’d got his comeuppance though when he’d untied the bows on one of her and one of her friend’s aprons once too often and Marcail had ‘accidentally’ spilled egg and flour down his back, with an insincere, ‘Oops, my bad. Just as well it’s not hot fat and your front, eh?’ He’d given her and her mates a wide berth after that, and it had been worth the detention she’d received for doing it.
“Thanks, mo ghaol, what a name to pick. What’s wrong with my own name?”
Marcail sniggered. To say, ‘shut up you’re getting on my nerves, my own name’ was a bit of a mouthful.
The sound of laughter, male laughter, echoed around her room.
“Okay, Cyril, that’s enough for today. Let me enjoy my first night home without worrying about brain farts or whatever. Give me a break.”
“As long as you promise to open your mind a bit more from tomorrow. And not bloody Cyril. Just…just see… Deal?”
Marcail sighed. “Okay, deal. How about Dragh?” Gaelic for ‘nuisance’.
‘‘I won’t answer that. Why not my name?’’
“Do I need to answer silently in my mind as well? Like, I do not know your bleeping name and do not say I do. I do not.” How daft did she feel, talking out loud to a blank wall? “Gah, I feel stupid.”
‘‘If you say so. Now, as for replying? Up to you. While we’re close no need. Later…? Hmmm. We’ll talk about it when the time is right.’’
She waited, but there was nothing more. At least it was only in her mind, and she couldn’t see Cyril. If he popped up in her bathroom, there would be murder and mayhem. She sang in the shower, and no one but no one was allowed to hear. Also, she tended to be naked.
The wolf whistle she was convinced she heard was irritating. She gave a two-fingered salute. The laughter that followed made her scowl and grin reluctantly. “Okay then, but the bathroom is still for my eyes only.”
Marcail toed off her boots, stripped to her underwear and had a shivery wash. One quick touch on the barely warm radiator convinced her that her mum hadn’t turned the radiator on until she actually saw that Marcail was there. The castle,