Helper, Carer, Fiend

Chloe gazed at Lucy across the dining table. She was everything to Chloe, her life even. Lucy had only been around for about a year, but it felt like a lifetime. And a wonderful lifetime at that, despite all the tragedy that had befallen her over the last year. Lucy had been there for her. Now she played many roles in Chloe's life, including mother, sister and best friend. Even though it was only around a year ago, Chloe couldn't remember how they'd met. It was as though before Lucy there'd been nothing.

Lucy had just cooked the most amazing meal for Chloe's fourteenth birthday. It had been just the two of them. Chloe didn't like her friends coming round, preferring Lucy's company, and preferring to keep it all to herself. Lucy was twice Chloe's age, but she understood Chloe in a way that none of her other friends ever could. Lucy was so intuitive. She always seemed to know or sense what Chloe wanted, sometimes even before Chloe knew herself it would seem.

Lucy was beautiful too, and Chloe aspired to be just like her. They had the same jet black hair, and Chloe was growing hers to the shoulder-length that framed Lucy's face like a portrait when she wore it loose, as she was now. Her skin was perfectly smooth, and a kind of brownish white colour. She could have stepped straight out of a Victorian photograph, her sepia features broken only by her piercing blue eyes. She never wore make up, and if she were to do so it would detract from her natural beauty. Her fingers were slender and gentle looking, her nails perfectly manicured. But it was her face that held Chloe transfixed. She could stare at Lucy for hours, aspiring to look like her, studying her. Her beauty was mesmerising, and behind those eyes lay a deep mind, full of wisdom. There was so much more that Chloe wanted to know.

Chloe was woken from her daydream as Lucy smiled and excused herself from the table. Even the way she walked was somehow graceful, her long skirt clinging occasionally to her thighs, just long enough to offer any admiring man a glimpse of the perfect body beneath those flowing clothes. There was no man in Lucy's life though. On the one hand Chloe found this strange, as she knew that Lucy had many admirers. Conversely though, she couldn't have got through the last year without Lucy's undivided attention. With her perfect figure, Chloe wondered why Lucy didn't flaunt herself occasionally. But then Lucy was modest in every respect, always wearing long skirts and high-necked sweaters with long sleeves.

Chloe heard Lucy climb the stairs, potter about for a while, and then the sound of splashing water as she turned on the shower. The evening had been perfect, and Chloe was tired from the excitement. She smiled contentedly as she closed her eyes and began to reminisce about her time with Lucy.

Only when she'd gone back in her mind through the meal she'd just had, the film that Lucy had taken her to see earlier, and the shopping trip they went on that morning, did her thoughts arrive back before all the excitement. Once again she realised and appreciated Lucy's ability to make her life so intense that she could live the day and forget all the yesterdays. It was less than three months since a hit-and-run driver had killed her father. But she was over it now to the extent that she had somehow almost forgotten it, such was the healing power that Lucy provided. It was devastating at the time, being so sudden and coupled with the fact that the police didn't catch the culprit. It was made worse still as it had followed the death of her mother only six months before. She'd died peacefully in her sleep, although the inquest recorded an open verdict, the Coroner being unable to determine a cause of death. She thought what it must have been like for her dad, waking up next to mum and finding her dead beside him. Lucy had comforted and supported him through the period that followed, just as she had when he lost his job a month before. Her dad could see a lot of her mum in Lucy, as the two of them had been such close friends and Lucy had taken on some of Chloe's mum's traits. From then on, Lucy had become a mother figure, as well as everything else.

Further and further she regressed, reliving family trips to the zoo, the cinema, the shops, so many happy days out. Being an only child, Chloe grew to love Lucy as an older sister. It was only a month or so after they had all met that Lucy's boyfriend had thrown her out and Chloe's mum invited her to stay with them. Chloe was so happy that day. Her new best friend, and her mum's too, was coming to live with them. Then Chloe remembered how they'd met in the first place.

It was a year to the day; her thirteenth birthday and Chloe's parents had taken her to a swanky restaurant. She'd knocked over the salt cellar and her mum told her to throw the salt over her shoulder. She'd asked why, and her Mum said that it would land in the Devil's eye and keep him away. Chloe had chuckled at this, as if the Devil would be walking past at that precise moment and she wouldn't notice him, all red-skinned, with horns, hooves and a pointy tail. Her mum had said that just like God, the Devil was all around and could assume any form that he chose. Unlike Chloe, her mum was a little religious, or at least superstitious. The flying salt had taken Lucy by surprise as she hurried by innocently, and was suddenly showered with the stuff. Chloe's Mum had instantly rushed over to apologise, but Lucy had been really sweet. The two of them talked, and eventually swapped phone numbers. They stayed in touch, and that was the beginning of the whole relationship.

Chloe woke with a start, and instinctively rushed upstairs to tell Lucy all about their anniversary.

The bathroom door was ajar and Chloe peered in. She could just make Lucy out through the steam and the frosted glass shower door, but the silhouette was black. Opening the door wider, the steam dissipated into the hall, allowing Chloe a clearer view. She was not mistaken. The figure behind the glass was black. She was transfixed as a shadowy arm reached up and turned off the water. Fear, fascination, something was rooting her to the ground. Then the shower door opened and Lucy stepped out. Chloe wanted to scream, but she was frozen. She looked at Lucy's face, a delicate sepia colour as always, smiling back at her. But her chest and her shoulders, her arms and legs were covered in hair. Not normal hair, but thick wiry hair, like that of a horse, almost like fur.

As she stood and stared, Chloe managed to force out the only two words repeating themselves over and over in her head: "Lucy". "Fur". "Lucy". "Fur".

© Steve Laker, 2000.