The breakfast room was almost empty. The bakery scent had definitely been coming from in here; I could see a long table lined up against the wall laden with baked goods that had my stomach aching. They looked fresh, and delicious. There weren’t any individual tables like you'd expect; instead, there was just one massive wooden bench that looked as old as the B&B had from the outside. Its surfaces were worn and grooved with time, and what was probably once dark wood was now pale. There was a long bench on either side, and five place settings at the table, two of which had a little plate with a single slice of toast, and all with a golden knife and fork on either side.
There was something about the golden knife and fork that I found particularly perplexing. They looked so out of place in this rustic room, but there they were.
I belatedly realised I wasn’t alone. Finn-the-absent-receptionist-and-maybe-baker was laying out even more baked goods on the back table (my mouth watered when I realised they were croissants), and someone else was fiddling with what looked like a very extravagant and exciting coffee machine.
Momentarily distracted by the promise of coffee that wasn’t instant or from the swimming pool staff room, I moved towards it in excitement. The person using it in front of me turned as I stepped into their vicinity, and I let out a small gasp.
The person was a child, certainly not an adult, and much too young to be having coffee at that time of the morning (I really had been spending too much time with Mum this summer, with thoughts like that). He was almost as tall as me, but now I could see that he was gangly in the way that only teenage boys were. What was more shocking, though, was the fact that his skin was entirely grey.
Not grey, as in, wow, he looks a bit poorly, he looks a bit grey. No, he was grey, as in his skin was like molten silver. Even his irises were a shade of grey I’d only seen described in fantasy novels. I didn’t realise real people could have eyes that colour.
As if sensing my judgement (or maybe reacting to the gasp), the boy frowned at me. I felt the immediate need to apologise. Who was I to be judging him? He was clearly very unwell if he was that colour of grey. I’d read an article once about a man who ate silver every day and his skin had turned grey. Maybe the boy’s parents had him on a weird metal diet.
I mumbled an apology and my eyes flittered around, too embarrassed to make eye contact with him again. It was then that I realised he had tiny silver horns sticking out of his hair.
A memory pinged. The demon! He must be a cosplayer, I realised. That was why he was wearing little horns, and had written that he was a demon in the identification section. Ugh, Finn must have thought I was an idiot when I'd written ‘she/her’ into the box. I grimaced at Frank, and he finally spoke.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘Uh,’ I wasn’t often lost for words, but the deep baritone that came out of Frank’s mouth was just as unexpected as his silver skin. ‘Coffee?’
Frank rolled his eyes. ‘Get in line.’
‘I am?’ I pointed out, as I was stood behind him.
‘Oh ’
‘Would you mind showing me how to use the machine?’ I asked. If he was already annoyed, I might as well ask. And I'd rather ask an annoyed Frank than Finn. ‘The one at
work only has two buttons, and this one looks as though it could 3D-print a car if I pressed the wrong thing.’
That seemed to throw Frank.
‘Sure,’ he said after an uncomfortably long pause.
‘Great,’ I tried to sound enthusiastic, but I squeaked like a deflating balloon.
A delicate cough from behind had me turning around.
Another cosplayer. The woman standing there was maybe two or three years older than me, which was a relief because that meant the entirety of the B&B was not made up of underage travellers. She looked every inch the image of a princess, with dark skin so perfect it was almost glowing from within, blonde ringlets that fell to her waist, a floaty dress that seemed to change from pink to purple and back again every time I looked, and – the big giveaway – she was wearing a tiara.
‘Aurora,’ I guessed out loud before I could bite the words back. ‘No, wait. What’s the name of the princess from the Barbie movie?’
The woman’s immaculate smile never dropped, but her eyes sharpened.
‘I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about,’ she said, in a clipped voice. ‘But would you mind ever so much passing me a cup and saucer?’
‘Oh, I was just ’ I trailed off. ‘Never mind.’
I did as the princess cosplayer (Princess Peach?) asked, handing her a cup and saucer from the table the coffee machine was on. The woman thanked me politely, which then reminded me that I had been the rude one by getting her cosplay wrong, and I grimaced.
Which was when I saw the wings. They were almost the height of the woman, and made of some type of gossamer or silk. They shimmered in the breakfast room that was only lit by the windows on the far side, and there were no LEDs or sequins that I could see. There were thin lines, almost like iridescent veins, that spread the length and breadth of the wings, and I was mesmerised.
The wings were tucked into the woman’s back, out of reach, and it finally made sense why she was so insulted when I had guessed she was a princess. She was a fairy princess. And those wings must have taken quite a bit of work to make.
‘Don’t mind Titania,’ grumbled Frank from behind her. ‘She’s like that with everyone.’
‘Titania,’ I exclaimed, turning back to face him. ‘I should have guessed that! I did A Midsummer’s Night Dream for GCSE, as well.’
Frank gave me a look that said ‘okay, weirdo’ which I was very familiar with coming from people my own age, but it felt a bit rude coming from someone who was clearly younger than me, even if his voice had broken already.
I was readying a biting retort that would have entirely humbled Frank for the rest of the day, if not the rest of his life, when a cold wash came over me.
It was like being dumped in a bath of cold water, if the cold water was thick and gluggy like slime. I shuddered at the sensation – what was that? Had Frank thrown something over me? Had I been electrocuted by the coffee machine?
But the sensation stopped as quickly as it had started. I winced, and opened my eyes again, expecting myself to be covered in something horrid. As I examined my body, though, I found myself to be absolutely fine.
I looked up at Frank in alarm, ready to demand he tell me what he’d done, but I couldn’t see him.
Well, I could sort-of see him. Through a translucent body. A translucent body that was hovering a few inches off the ground.
‘That was so funny! She properly shuddered ’ Frank’s voice sounded like it was travelling through something thick.
Something that looked like a ghost.
I whipped around. Titania was sitting on one of the benches, her long wings, that definitely were not made of any material known to man, draping on the floor. Fairy princess.
Frank moved to the side of the thing that had appeared in front of (and through) me, and his horns were shaking as he continued to laugh.
Demon.
I looked up at the thing in front of me. Ghost.
Fairy princess. Demon. Ghost.
‘This isn’t cosplay, is it?’ I whispered.
‘What’s cosplay?’ asked the ghost. ‘Oh! You’re new. Hello! It’s nice to meet you!’
And then I fainted.