Sing to Me

By Becca Lusher

Dóma has always liked welcoming newcomers to the Shadow Garden, but there’s something different about the newest arrival. Freyda’s life was hard before she joined the Aekhartain, but that’s not it. No, for the first time in over a hundred years, Dóma might just be falling in love.

But does Freyda feel the same? And if she does, how will this most restrained pair ever admit their feelings for each other?

Luckily, they’re in the Shadow Garden and they have one or two friends around to help them out.

This novella is a sweet little F/F romance about wings, hope, love and gossip. There is a little magic here, but it’s mostly what Freyda and Dóma can make between themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Becca Lusher
• Release date: Mar 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310775802

Becca Lusher

Having an overactive imagination hasn’t always been a good thing: I spent much of my childhood scared of the dark and terrified by the stories my older sister told me (mostly to stop her being the only one afraid of the dark). These days I find it useful. I love stories, I love fantasy, I love things with wings, stars and the world around me, and I have great fun combining them all into my stories.Born in the UK, I live in the wild south-west where I run around with my dogs and get bossed about by cats, while taking photos of gorgeous landscapes, reading lots of books and climbing rocks.I’ve also been known to write stories.

Book preview

Sing to Me

An Aekhartain

Romance

Becca Lusher

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Becca Lusher 2014

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be re-sold.

It’s free, so share if you want, or direct your friends to Smashwords to download their own copy.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Aekhartain

Sing to Me

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Extras

Glossary

Drabbles

Orion’s Kiss Excerpt

Unbound and Free Preview

Acknowledgements

About the Author

~ ~ ~

For everyone out there who falls in love, in whatever strange and wonderful ways you can.

And for those whose love doesn’t fit in with commonplace expectations or traditions.

May the happiness you find be yours to keep.

Heart’s luck to you all.

~ ~ ~

An Introduction

to the Aekhartain

This story is about the Aekhartain, a group of humans made immortal by various accidents or quirks of fate. Some were born in the right (or wrong) places, others simply inherited it in their blood. All of them face their challenges, when the immortal part of them, that essence inside that makes them so different, stirs, wakes and makes itself known to the world. But those are different stories for different days.

All you need to know for this tale is that it takes place in the Shadow Garden. A place on the edge of the universal abyss, where an Entity has laid down her vast power to provide a home for the Aekhartain, this strange group of people she never meant to make immortal.

Part of that immortality is shown in the wings upon their backs, which can come and go as each Aekhartain decides. But they’re not angels. They’re just people, gifted, strange and marvellous people, whose lives have extended into infinity. And like many people, sometimes they fall in love.

That is where this story begins.

Sing to

Me

One

DÓMA WHISTLED AS she walked, feeling light and buoyant in the glistening twilight. The Shadow Garden was all dark blues and dusky shadows today, while overhead the stars burned wonderfully bright. It was a beautiful place to live. Dóma couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t loved it here. Some people found the constant shadow-light difficult to adjust to at first, but to Dóma it had always felt like home.

She knew the newest resident of the Garden didn’t feel that way yet. Freyda wasn’t used to living in comfort, with friends all around her. Dóma wanted to change that, to make Freyda feel like she belonged, in big ways and small. That was why she was walking through the Garden with a little box of ideas in her arms. Well, she had to start somewhere.

As she made her way through the trees, a song thrush kept pace amongst the branches, its melodious song blending seamlessly with her whistling. It was a good day to be out, and Dóma smiled cheerfully down at the box she carried. It was a good plan; she hoped it worked. She so wanted it to work. For herself, for the Garden, and most of all for Freyda.

She’d seen other people come and go in the Garden, of course, during her century amongst Maskai’s trees, but there was something different about Freyda. Something special.

Dóma wanted to make everything right for her, make her smile, make her happy. She’d been friendly to other new residents before, but there was something about Freyda that made her want to do more than make friends.

Mine, a tiny voice inside her heart whispered, but Dóma ignored it.

Freyda was so lonely. Oh, she had her work with Maskai, which no other Aekhartain had ever had before, and everyone was eager to make friends with her. Yet something was missing. It didn’t help that Freyda kept running back to the world whenever no one was looking.

Dóma frowned about that. Surely after the way Freyda had been treated there was nothing in the world worth returning for.

I guess we’ll have to give her a better reason to stay here instead, eh, Sym?

The song thrush gave a low two-toned whistle, but whether in agreement or doubt Dóma wasn’t quite sure. Nor did she really want to know. So she hefted her precious ideas box higher in her arms and marched on with a determined hum in her throat.

SOMEONE WAS HUMMING. Freyda woke slowly, stirring in the delicious warmth of her covers, and opened her eyes to the soft twilight of the room. It was always gloomy in the Shadowy Garden, the light caught in the in-between hours of dawn and dusk, never quite brightening into day, never quite darkening into full night. Yet always, always, the stars burned in the firmament above, as bright and clear as midnight in the desert.

Freyda loved the stars. Seeing them shining up there reminded her of so many things – sad, lonely, but good too.

The stars had been her refuge for so many years. Her confidants, her only friends, her seeds of hope. She still hadn’t quite adjusted to seeing them whenever she looked up, though, whatever time of day. Yet she liked that they were there, watching, waiting, listening.

Sighing, Freyda rolled onto her back to sprawl amongst the covers, frowning up at the ceiling where shimmers of light rippled across it like water.

The humming came closer; a soft, lilting melody that tugged at emotions Freyda thought long lost. Ones she’d buried deep after her mother had left. It was the kind of tune she’d forgotten existed, and had never expected to hear again. Or wanted to.

A whistling tune of tumbling notes interrupted the humming, and laughter drifted in through the window. Had enough of my song already, have you, Carroll? a familiar voice chuckled. Think you can do better?

Freyda held her breath; of course it was her. Who else hummed as easily as she breathed? Who else’s voice rolled in a constant, unconscious rhythm, so full of song that it poured out of her like the mists of a waterfall?

Dóma. Even her name had its own rhythm, a sighing rise and fall. A sound of longing.

Carroll whistled again, making Dóma laugh and Freyda smile.

Is that a challenge, Master Blackbird? Well, in that case, I accept! Come on, Sym, let’s show this poor excuse for a thrush how a real songbird sings.

Since he’d started it, Carroll went first, his song tumbling into the twilight air as bright as the stars shining above. Freyda closed her eyes. She loved listening to him; he was the sound of freedom, of hope, of friendship. Of imagination.

Well, now, wasn’t that pretty? Dóma praised once the blackbird had fallen silent. And yet, I think we can do better. What do you say, Sym?

Chuckling softly, the song thrush took up the challenge, easily demonstrating how her kind had earned its name.

Not one to be outdone, Carroll tried again. Then Symphony. The two birds battled and entwined their melodies until Dóma was laughing. Alone in her room, Freyda smiled. She loved to hear them both sing, even if it made her feel left out, adrift. Alone.

She couldn’t sing, or hum, or whistle. There was no music inside her, no beautiful song waiting to break out. No one had ever thought to teach her, and it was too late for her now. She lived in silence.

My turn, Dóma declared.

Carroll whistled, and Dóma copied him. Symphony echoed them both, and soon the three of them were whistling in a round. They sounded pitch-perfect and wonderful. Together, bonded in a way Freyda would never know.

Envy and other emotions twisted deep inside her, hard and painful enough to make her gasp. Rolling out of bed, Freyda grabbed a pile of clothes and headed for the bathroom to get dressed. She couldn’t listen to them anymore. Not when they were so beautiful.

And she was not.

A LOUD CLICK stopped Carroll mid-flow, and without even a peep of farewell the blackbird flew off. Leaving Dóma staring at the nearest window, wondering just what she had to do to get Freyda’s attention.

I’m like a silly schoolboy, she muttered to Symphony. Showing off my skills to impress the girls.

Symphony flicked her wings and darted off into the trees, making the glass beads and mirrors dance.

Reminded of why she was there in the first place, Dóma sighed and reached into the box. Pulling out a string of glass beads from the glittering jumble inside, she held it up to spin and sparkle in the starlight. Freyda wasn’t used to the perpetual twilight of the Garden yet, so Dóma had designed the light-catchers to try and make her feel more at home.

Anything to get her attention.

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