Evanora & Lucian

I believe in the supernatural. The things that happen that are not easily explained. And against my better judgment, I will tell about the time I met a fifth cousin. I saw the headlights before I heard the knock. Who is this at eight o’clock at night. I thought to myself. It’s not a delivery truck. Fed Ex or the Post Office. They do make deliveries in cars.

Christmas or not, I haven’t ordered anything that would be arriving this close to the holiday. Christmas is in two days for crying out loud.  They knock again. “Hold on,” I say not loud enough fo be heard outside the house. I shouldn’t answer the door at all. I’m trying to watch “The Story of God” on Netflix, or is it Amazon. I don’t know...it’s a good series though.

I don’t recognize the car or Suv, No, it looks more like a Jeep. Maybe I did order something last week and forgot about it. I would have remembered. Or at least I like to think I would have. I’m in the window. I’ve turned all the lights on. My truck’s in the garage, so they know I’m home.

I really don’t want to be bothered. Here goes nothing. “Hello,” I say without opening the heavy storm door “Can I help you?” I don’t recognize these people. A woman, a man. The woman says she’s my fifth cousin. 

They’re both in their mid to late twenties. Good looking couple. She’s not familiar. Maybe, I will recognize the name. “What’s the name?” I ask.

“Evanora,” she says. I smile and wait. “Oh,” she says. “right. My last name. Wright.” I say nothing and wait. We look at each other. She says, “Wright, W-r-i-g-h-t.”

“Oh, okay,” I say. I don’t recognize the name. “And how, I mean, by who are we related?” I ask. “What relative? Is this your husband or is Wright your maiden name?”

“Wright is my maiden name,” states Evanora. “This is my fiancé, Lucian. We don’t live far from here. Well, next state over. We’re getting married in the first week of July and we’ll be taking our honeymoon here. We wanted to invite you and wanted to ask you if you could tell us more about the area and some things to do. We also wanted to know if we could stay in your guesthouse while we’re on our honeymoon.

“Excuse me,”  I replied. “I don’t have a guest house. Granted there are a number of things to do here. A young couple like yourself should be headed to the Caribbean, taking a safari in Kenya or tour of Italy.” 

“We will...later,” Evanora said. “We’ve decided to marry and honeymoon stateside. We would like to celebrate with as much as the family as possible. We’re combining our wedding with the family reunion. That’s why we would love to use your estate.”

I smile and think to myself...this woman is whacked. Did I not tell her none of that she wants to use exists. “We see that we’ve come at not the best time, Henry. We have a hotel reservation. We’re here for three more days and we would like to buy you lunch and we can discuss payment.

She knows my name, Maybe she is a relative. Any con-artist will find out a lot about you after doing their homework, Her knowing my name proves nothing. But, who’s being conned here? I’ve asked for no money. Nor am I taking any. Causse if I take one red cent from these people it’s me who will be spending time in jail. It’s obvious they’re not working with a full deck.

“Henry,” Evanora relayed, “now that we’ve seen your property I think It will more than accommodate two hundred and fifty to three hundred guests.”

“The place sits on an acre and a half at best,” I replied. “You couldn’t fit food and decorations for that many people here.”

Evanora replied, “So listen, we’ll call you in the morning. Not too early...at ten-thirty, eleven. And we’ll schedule a late lunch, where, a time and a place that’s not too crowded.  Lucian and I will look for a handful of restaurants and ask your suggestion. Until tomorrow.”

She and Lucian took a couple of steps and seemed to evaporate off the top step into the night. The headlights grew smaller as the Jeep reversed out of the driveway and blended into the falling snow. I can’t say which way they went once they came to the end of the driveway, And I never mentioned it before. I felt it was no big deal. The headlights, the brake lights that would usually be visual going down the street simply weren’t once they left the driveway. I walked down the steps, looked right, looked left...no brake lights heading away in either direction. No sign of their vehicle.

The Next Day

“Hello, Evanora,” I say recognizing her name on the caller-id. She called around the time she said. 11:45 am. 

“Henry, hello. Sounds like I didn’t wake you,” she said.

“No. I’ve been waiting for your call,” I said. “We misunderstood one another. I don’t have what you’re looking for, but the least I can do is…” Before I can finish she cut me off.

“Before you say no, come meet us for lunch and hear us out. I think you’ll find our proposal a very good one. If you don’t want to talk about our proposal, let’s meet to exchange family stories. I’ll tell you how I came to know the people in the family. Good?”

“Good,” I said. “If you are family, Evanora? We should figure out how we’re related. What did you decide? Did you and Lucian decide on the restaurant you like?”

“Yes,” she replied. “We heard you like seafood so we chose a seafood restaurant. We plan to get a table looking out over the city. I think you’re familiar with the restaurant The Edge of Dawn.”

“It’s like you read my mind,” I said. “Not everyone likes fish, shrimp, and crab so I wasn’t sure if I should suggest it at all. But it was going to be my first and actually only suggestion.”

“So we have a one o’clock date,” she said. 

“One o’clock it is,” I stated.

I arrive at The Edge of Dawn and find Evanora and Lucian. “I see you’ve picked out the perfect table,” I said.

“As if there’s a bad one,” Lucian stated.

“So, you approve?” I asked.

“Another place we will be adding to our places to visit while we’re staying at your guest house,” he said.

“I chuckle. Listen,” I replied. “As you saw last night. I live on an acre and I have one spare bedroom. And not nearly enough room to accommodate two hundred people not to mention fifty.”

“Before you turn us down,” replied Evanora “I’ve laid all the arrangements out in an e-mail I sent to you. Look at it when you get home. If you still think it’s a bad idea. We’ll leave it alone. For now, cousin Henry, let’s eat, look at pictures and discuss family.”

We talked to and about family. We looked at pictures. I recognized cousins in pictures in which she was a small child running around or at somebody’s feet. We figured we missed one another at the occasional family reunion I attended because she was much younger and our families were not so close as others. We talked to my mother and father and hers. Evanora is family.

I told Evanora and Lucian, “to get together with family at your wedding will be great. But you have to understand. You can’t mislead family, you can’t mislead my mom and dad, your mother, your father…”

Evanora held up both hands, “let’s talk about it tomorrow. If tomorrow you think it a bad idea, we won’t say any more about it.”

I throw up my hands. “Okay,” I said.

“Can we shake on it?’ she asked. We do. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said.

I make it home. I’m very much interested to see what’s in the e-mail she and Lucian have sent me. I open the door of my house and everything begins to change around me. My phone vibrates and beeps and the picture of one of the log homes that I had been looking at is shown on my phone. 

The floor plan on my phone is much bigger. The one I was looking at was no more than 4,000 square feet. This which was forming around me was 13,000 square feet or more. I had to get out of the way. I ran outside. The land, my acre had expanded and continued. There was green space, green grass for a good stretch. Then under the light of the moon, I saw mountains rise then trees rise upon them. 

When the house had finished transforming lights rose from the ground beside the brick pathway leading to the front door. Brick steps led to the door. When I reached the door it swung slowly open as if it was expecting me. The stairwell led to a lower floor and to the floor upstairs. The island, the kitchen, the dining room was twice as big as my house, the house it transformed from. The living room set inside large bay windows looking out onto the mountain range. The fireplace, enormous. The deck wrapped around the house from the top floor to the bottom floor. Bedrooms and bathrooms were on all floors.

My cellphone rang. “Well. How do you like it?” Evanora asked.

“It’s great,” I responded. 

“Everything you were looking for?” she asked.

“Yeah, but,” I said.

“We’ll talk when I visit tomorrow,” she replied.