Chapter 10: 10. More Secrets

"Get first-class tickets," Eva suggested as I pulled out my phone. "Same with the hotel. First class all the way!"

I frowned at her, "Are you sure? That's really expensive."

"I'm sure," she nodded as she skipped away to wander around the park again.

Both Marianne and I sat and stared for a few seconds. Eva was literally skipping like a little kid. I realized she was barefoot too, like her shoes had vanished so she could frolic in the garden square or something.

After staring for a few more seconds Marianne looked to me and asked, "What did she say?"

I finally tore my eyes off the millennia-old demon who was acting like a big kid, and looked back at my new travelling companion. "She said to get first-class tickets and accommodations."

Her eyebrows crept up, "Well I'm not going to complain. But wow."

"Yeah," I nodded in agreement.

My attention finally shifted back to my phone, and I started searching up a first-class flight from London to Santorini. It took a few minutes to narrow down the options, with a little help from Marianne. She was more familiar with travel than me, so she had some helpful tips and suggestions when it came to booking the flight.

Then when I got to the payment part of the process I nearly choked at the price. A pair of one-way first-class tickets cost a small fortune, as far as I was concerned. We were going one-way because we didn't know when we'd be coming back, and in my case, I didn't know if I was coming back to London at all. But either way, we probably wouldn't be heading home from Santorini. Eva had other places she wanted to see, so our itinerary was completely open-ended.

Eva told me there was a credit-card in my purse but I hadn't got around to looking at it yet. I dug into my purse and pulled it out, then found myself staring at it for a few moments.

I was expecting just a normal card, like something from the same place as my Canadian bank card that I grabbed when we were at Ian's place. Instead I found myself staring at a Platinum Card from one of the big-name English banks.

For a moment I thought maybe Eva stole it from somebody's wallet, but the card was brand new and had my name embossed on it. It seemed like the real thing.

Marianne looked as impressed as I was, but she didn't comment.

And the purchase went through without a problem, two first-class tickets were charged to my new card. A few moments later my phone pinged with a couple notifications, as the receipt and the tickets were both sent to my new email account.

Next step was booking a hotel. I'd never done that before, and I didn't know where on Santorini we'd be going. So with Marianne's help I booked us two nights in a suite at a posh five-star hotel in the island's capital city. I figured we could either extend that if we needed to, or we'd be travelling around the island and find someplace else to stay.

A couple seconds later the notifications for the hotel arrived on my phone and the whole thing was done.

I tucked the credit card and my phone back into my purse then smiled at Marianne, "So, Tuesday night we'll be on Santorini. Probably having a nice dinner in some fancy restaurant I guess? Or at the hotel, depends how tired we are from travelling."

She smiled back, "Wonderful. So what..."

We were both distracted by the sound of a child crying. I turned to look, and I saw a little kid on the sidewalk. It looked like he tripped or something, and his mom crouched down to help him up and try to console him.

Then Eva skipped over to the pair, she crouched down next to the kid as well. It looked like she was talking to the boy, and as she did the tears just sort of stopped. The kid calmed right down, and a moment later he seemed to be cheered up. Then his mom relaxed as well, and soon enough the two were walking along together like nothing happened.

Eva straightened up and watched the pair walk away. Then she went back to playing in the garden, while me and Marianne looked at each other.

"I'm not going to ask about that," the brunette decided. "I was wondering if you had other plans for this afternoon?"

I blushed, "Actually there's something I had in mind? I wanted to get my ears pierced. I've wanted to do that for ages, and I was thinking I should get it done now while I have the chance?"

Marianne gave me a slightly curious look, before responding "It doesn't take very long. If you like, I can accompany you? And if you don't have anything else planned, then perhaps I could take you around for some sightseeing?"

"That would be really nice," I smiled. "Thank you."

When we were ready to leave I almost felt bad about having to drag Eva away from the park since she seemed to really like it. As we set out towards a nearby piercing place I'd found with my phone I asked my demon ghost friend, "What's got into you today? I'm not complaining but you seem to be in a really good mood."

Eva blushed and admitted, "The garden square is a little oasis of life. The rest of the city is so dead and sterile, there's no green. Everything is encased in concrete and asphalt, glass and steel. And yesterday we weren't in the park long enough for me to enjoy it, so I appreciated the opportunity today."

"Huh," I thought about that as the three of us walked along the sidewalk. It wasn't hard to guess that three thousand years ago the world looked very different. I was sure there were cities back then, but they probably weren't as big as London. And they definitely had a lot less concrete and asphalt and glass and steel.

Marianne asked, "What did she say?"

"She liked the park because it's alive," I explained. "Compared to the rest of the city being all covered in concrete."

That was all the time we had for that conversation as we arrived at the piercing place.

Marianne was right about it not taking long, we spent more time in the waiting area than it took to get the piercings. The process was quick and easy, but not as much fun as I'd hoped. I got some plain gold studs in my ears which were nice, but apparently the healing process meant it would be two to three months before I could safely start wearing whatever other cute fashionable stuff I wanted.

Eva came to the rescue though, no sooner had the three of us left when my demon ghost friend used her magic to speed up the healing. Two or three months became two or three hours, so I'd be able to wear some pretty bling almost as soon as I got my hands on it.

You are reading story Missed Connections at novel35.com

At that point Marianne took the lead, and the three of us began our afternoon of sightseeing.

Which turned out to be mostly old buildings and stuff like that, but somehow it wasn't so boring when we had our own private tour guide showing us around. Though I thought it was funny that our London guide was actually from Paris.

It was early evening when we found ourselves back in the same part of the city we started. I was actually beginning to get a feel for the place, enough that I recognized when we were back in Bloomsbury, and not far from the museum, the garden square, and my hotel.

Marianne and I ended up getting dinner in a slightly posh restaurant. It was in one of the many hotels in the area but not the one I was staying at. She ordered a bottle of wine to go with our dinner, and the two of us enjoyed a very nice meal together.

Eva had been following us around all day but she finally seemed to get bored while me and Marianne were eating. Or maybe the demon ghost just got tired. Either way she disappeared, and I felt her presence fade as well which I took to mean she was resting somewhere inside me.

We had a nice dinner and more nice conversation. I found out Marianne was living in a nearby flat with a couple other international students. One was a Belgian girl name Suzi who was also studying history, the other was a French enby named Bleu who was studying mathematics. And with this being Saturday night, Marianne was fairly certain both her flatmates would be out.

And after she made a point of telling me that, it probably wasn't too surprising that the two of us ended up back at her place after we finished dinner.

The flat was ok, a bit cramped but it looked cosy. There was a small living-dining-room area, a little kitchen, bathroom, and three bedrooms. The bedrooms were a good size, Marianne's was large enough for a queen-size bed, a small desk, and a dresser.

While she was showing me around she picked up a bottle of wine and a couple glasses, and the two of us ended up sitting on a sofa in the living-room area. She poured us both another drink as we sat down together.

I wasn't actually much for drinking wine, but I'd had a glass or two with dinner and I accepted the one she offered me as we relaxed on her sofa.

After having a sip of her drink Marianne looked at me and asked, "I hope you had a good afternoon Lexi? And you enjoyed dinner?"

"Yeah," I smiled. "Thanks for giving me and Eva the tour, and thank you for dinner. Thanks for the wine, too."

She smiled back for a moment, before her expression became a little hesitant. "I have some more questions for you, if you don't mind? After our time today there's a few things I'm curious about."

That didn't sound good, but I tried not to cringe or look worried. I had a sip of the wine and asked, "Ok. What do you want to know?"

She still looked hesitant as she responded, "A few things I've noticed about you over the past two days have me curious, Lexi. You're a Canadian on vacation in London but you have a phone with a UK number. You're only nineteen, but you have a platinum credit card. And again, despite being Canadian, your card is issued from a UK bank. The card itself seems brand-new, I noticed when you had it out today you haven't even signed the back of it."

"Then there's your earrings, you said you've wanted to get them pierced but never had the chance before? Surely they can do that in Canada. And finally," she hesitated again for a moment, "I searched for you on social media last night. I found your account, it was only created on Monday."

Marianne paused for a deeper sip of her wine before she looked me in the eyes. "Any one of those things might be nothing, but all of them together make it feel like you've only been here a very short time. Yesterday you said you first met Eva a few days ago? I can't help wonder if you and she are both new to this world. So I am wondering Lexi, what are you? Are you human?"

I had another sip of wine to stall for a few moments as I tried to figure out what I should say, how I should answer her. Eva still seemed to be resting or asleep or something, I couldn't see her and considering she didn't speak up with any guidance or suggestions I figured she wasn't available.

After a few quiet seconds of thinking I finally sighed, "I'm human, I promise you that. There's more to the story, obviously, but before I tell you I have to ask you to swear to keep this to yourself."

"Of course," Marianne nodded, "I swear it Lexi."

I had one more gulp of wine then took a deep breath. "Ok. Eva and I met early Monday morning. I'd uh, come across this gold bracelet and was wearing it when I had an accident on one of the subway platforms. I don't actually remember which one? It was a long night and I wasn't paying attention, I just wanted to get back to my... To where I was staying. So yeah, I had an accident, and maybe I kind of fell in front of a subway and got myself a little bit killed."

Her eyes were wide as she stared at me, while I gulped the last of my wine.

"Anyways," I continued, "So after I died I found myself standing there on the platform. I guess I was a ghost or something, I was dead but I hadn't moved on yet. And Eva showed up and offered to bring me back to life in this great new body, if I'd help her find her family. I agreed, and presto, Monday afternoon I woke up in a hotel room alive and well and in this amazing new body. That's why everything I have is new? I got a new phone from a shop near the hotel, my old one was either pulverized by the subway or it's in an evidence bag somewhere."

I added, "Oh and Eva doesn't look like me, I look like her. Like she made my new body look a little like her."

When I finally stopped talking we were both quiet for a few moments. Marianne had a gulp of her wine as she stared at me, but I couldn't guess what was going through her mind. I assumed she still had a way of knowing if I lied, which meant she'd know all that was the truth. I'd omitted some stuff obviously, but I figured I answered the question without mentioning what Eva really was or who I used to be.

The silence between us stretched to about a minute, before she finally spoke. And when she did, she sounded a little uneasy.

"That's... Your friend Eva is no ordinary ghost or spirit, if she could do all that. Conjuring up a new body, bringing you back from the dead... She must be incredibly powerful. But what I really want to ask is, what was wrong with your original body? You don't seem the least bit unhappy to have died, and you described this one as being 'great'. You actually seem happy this happened to you, rather than shocked or upset."

I hesitated a moment, then decided to just tell her. I figured if it was going to be a problem, best to find out now before we started travelling together.

After mentally bracing myself I replied quietly, "I'm trans, I was AMAB. And I was still in the closet, I hadn't started to transition. I told you me and my dad had a falling out? That's why. I tried to come out last month and it went really badly. So the body that ended up under the subway was my original guy body, my old ID was all in my deadname."

"This is all I ever dreamed of and more," I added with a little gesture at myself. "She didn't just bring me back from the dead, Eva granted my biggest life-long wish. And in return I'm going to help her find her family, no matter how long it takes."

Marianne's eyes widened slightly as she listened, and when I was done she was quiet again for a few moments, with a thoughtful look on her face.

I was almost holding my breath as I waited to see how she'd respond. Like would she freak out, would she be angry or upset, or would she accept me. And considering what happened the last time I came out to someone, I was prepared for the worst.

She set her wine down, then she leaned closer to me. And to my surprise Marianne pulled me into a gentle hug, then planted a small kiss on my lips before whispering "I understand Lexi. I'm sorry for pressuring you to answer, but thank you for trusting me. And I'm happy for you, that Eva was able to grant your wish."