Episode 1: Swan

October

"Are you sure the place is cleaned?" asked Kacey Troy with the phone pressed against her ear and while stirring a pot of Bolognese sauce in her kitchen. The air was heavy with the scent of fresh red tomatoes, and onions that tangled the air like the white spiral cord of the house phone nestled in between her ear and shoulder. As she gradually added crushed garlic and freshly chopped herbs, she stirred with a silver ladle, though she paused briefly by the gaze of one of the photographed frames of her parents. A young couple at the time and two-month-old, Kacey, held in her father's arms as they stood in front of a garden patio.

'They seemed so happy', she thought but shook her head full of bouncing auburn spirals to rid herself of those lingering thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm sure, Kace. The lawyers, well Uncle Mac, mentioned they have cleaners come in every month or something like that" replied Alison Jones, one of Kacey's varsity friends, engrossed by her new 'boy toy' kissing her neck and she lets out a feverish moan.

"Seriously, Ali we are on the phone," Kacey retorted and rolled her eyes at her friends.

"How old is he this time?" She added with a sigh and continued stirring.

"Hold on," she replied while halting 'boy toy' from kissing any further down her belly.

"Nineteen and a half," she answered while holding him by his hair up, this time in-between her thighs.

"I'm going to go, Ali," bewildered but not surprised by her friend's antics. Both Alison and Kacey were in their early twenties, and final year of varsity.

"Woo bye!" she elongates the word, ending the call and before, Kacey figured, things would've really got started. Deciding to have the sauce simmer for some time, she wiped her hands on her apron, put the house phone down in its place and took out her cell phone leaving it on the counter and entering the bathroom.

'Ring ring'

The phone vibrated and rang from an 'Unknown Caller ID' till it stopped; a notification popped up of one missed call, but seemingly disappeared as it appeared. Kacey, returned from the bathroom, walks over to the stove with the sauce and pasta ready. She grabs a dish and gets her dinner ready, settles on the couch, but burrowed her eyebrows in confusion, 'Did my phone go off?' She thought though proceeded to dig in to her meal with a 90s sitcom in front of her. A completely different scenery from her dorm room she once shared with Alison to hometown she grew up in. The house a charming three bedroom, two bathroom house decorated with antique vases from her parents travels.

As she digged into her meal the steam float about from the pots, fogged up all the kitchen windows and the slanted cross drawn on one of them, fitted right in place, soon to be gone before noticed.

 メ

Monday mornings are the worst for Kacey and that's usually because of piles of unfinished assignments being due the Tuesday morning. She knew that starting when you get them is easier, but it has only been six months since the passing of her parents, and grieving can emerge in all forms. Conveniently, she pardoned herself. A mess of textbooks, clothes, book pages and coffee cups from AstroBucks Coffee lay about in her room which was also evidence of her 'grieving' as she put it; although that was always the case throughout the years.

"Your room is a reflection of your heart," she recalled a saying from her grand Aunt Elizabeth's ways on "How to be a real lady," when she made her monthly visits from New England.

"Yeah, well then my heart looks like crap right now, Aunt Liz" scoffed Kacey and proceeded to dress herself in black jeans, black boots and a cream pullover with a Greenhouse University emblem. She packed all essential textbooks and papers, and headed off for a drive in her late father's hatchback to attend one of her journalism class.

Her mind buzzed with thoughts of the inheritance in- between the chatter of students and lecturer. After the passing of, Jonathan Troy and Natalie Troy, her parents; she received a notice of eviction for her their home she was staying in. The notice was not nearly a stun as the mansion she had inherited soon after. The Troy family had moved from New England to the States when Kacey was born. It seems her grandfather, father's side, found it necessary to make their family the sole heir to his fortune and residence.

"Perfect timing," she reported to Aunt Elizabeth after hearing the news,

"Oh and please send my condolences to the grieving family at this time," she added in embarrassment and hung up the call at the time.

The Troy's had passed away in a tragic car accident and not much could be said about it. The culprit, a truck driver, was never identified and the only witness to the crime, an elderly woman, passed away two days after the accident. After the funeral in New Hampshire, near her parent's previous home, automatically Kacey became the sole beneficiary, and she figured she would move out or rather accept eviction from their home and move into the mansion. Alison's family, an eloquence of lawyers including herself, took on the legal matters for her,

"That's one less thing to worry about," she whispered to herself while twirling a pencil in her textbook unaware that the lecture room had fallen silent.

 "I assume your paper on mass communication is what you're referring to, Ms. Troy?" a woman's voice announced behind her.

"No, I was talking about how Ali's lawyer background and helping out…"

Kacey answered, though trailed off, realizing who the speaker was. Her lecturer Ms. Roberts, a modest elderly woman, stood facing Kacey with pursed lips and a peeved expression.

"The paper is on the list too," she assured with a cheeky grin, Ms. Roberts sighed, retorted that it had better be and went on with the class.

Kacey took the rest of the day off, a usual occurrence, for a much-needed break, and now drove back home. A three-hour drive, depending on the traffic, although one she enjoyed. A scenery of tall yellow and green forest trees motioned after each other, looking into the rearview mirror, she loosened her caramel brown messy bun of hair and stared quizzically at her face; dark hazel eyes a fawn olive tan and a face she thought to be rather plain.

A flash memory played in her mind's eye, of her mother chasing a toddler, Kacey, around the house to brush her unruly curls. She trotted about bare foot in a yellow frill dress, hem covered in patches of mud and giggling laughter, an atmosphere she wished she could return to.

A white swan stood in the middle of the road, momentarily cut off the lucid nostalgia, and left Kacey's car swerving off the road and into a nearby tree.

In a daze, Kacey awakened after passing out on her steering wheel, a trickle of blood drips from her nose onto her shirt and ears buzzed from the impact. She sat in full view of trees, the forest had been a blockade for the car and if accelerated any further down she would have reached the cliff's edge. In search of her phone, Kacey reaches to the backseat for her backpack and, unaware of the cloud of smoke that rose up from the hood of the car.

A hand grabbed Kacey and pulled her out of her car. As it flared up in a blast, her eyes widened in disbelief and a girl's voice behind her nonchalantly stated,

"Not much of an explosion, but the impact would've been a shock"

"No kidding", she replied in a shaky voice.

The voice belonged to a beautiful girl; rich umber tone and striking light brown eyes. Her brunet hair styled in a sleek low ponytail and wore a beige jumpsuit with a feathered earring that dangled from one ear. She looked not much older than Kacey, though had a presence of serenity that you would usually encounter from an elderly woman.

"I'm Mandisa," she said while getting up and extending a hand out.

"And, I'm Kacey Troy, but you can just call me Kacey or Kace."

A reply, she added with a child- like grin and grabbed her hand in assistance as she stood up. Kacey sensed her uncomfortability and went on to ask if she has any place to be and not wanting to be an inconvenience.

"Oh no worries, I was on my way home actually," answered Mandisa. 

"Your accent is strange though are you American?" she added and Kacey nodded.

"Yes and I think your British?"

"South African actually," 

After making a call to the mechanics for her car, Mandisa offered Kacey a ride home. They drove away on the same path, leaving behind a swan that peered at them across the road.

An hour or two after their drive, Kacey seemed slightly exhausted as he propped her forehead against the car window. Mandisa queried if she had any injuries on either her body internally or externally, and she responded that she felt no pain in any way. "I'm probably just tired, you know," noted Kacey with her signature grin. They had not spoken much and Mandisa pondered whether the accident had an emotional toil rather, and prompted questions for conversation, although omitted any information about her.

"Yeah, so that's that, and I might be moving into a fancy place sometime," said Kacey, as they pulled up to her home. Mandisa suggested if she needed any help with anything, but Kacey turned down the offer in an attempt to not be a burden further.