Hi angels and twisters,

I'm going to be doing some light editing over the next few months to this story, so please ignore any notifications that say I have updated the story. I haven't updated it, I'm just editing it.

Vicky xxx

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Ebony POV

'Last night I heard you play the violin...'

The whisper came from the darkness in the far corner of my room, where the lamp's light didn't quite reach. He always spoke to me before I went to bed. His voice would call to me from the dark shadowy pockets of my room or outside on the howling wind. He was like the moon and stars on a cloudy night, I always knew he was there hidden from view, watching, waiting.

He spoke to me like I imagine a lover would, with soft tender words and promises and pet names. He had told me a million times that he loved me. At first I had been terrified but now, I just thought I was mad.

'Ebony, my love. When you played your song last night, all the creatures of the night came to sit outside your window and weep. Why are you sad, my darling? Please let me comfort you.'

I ignored him.

My doctors had told me this was nothing more than manifestation of stress. This man wasn't real. He was a fantasy that I had invented to escape the pressures of moving away from home to go to university... or at least that's what I thought.

A week ago, up on the moor I found a ring half buried in thicket of ferns and moss. I would have walked past it, if the clouds hadn't parted and the sunlight had not struck the metallic surface of the ring causing it to twinkle and catch my eye.

Foolishly I picked the ring out of the ground and playfully placed it on my ring finger. I had only wanted to keep it safe, until I could hand it in to the police. But when I returned home the most peculiar thing happened. No matter how hard I tried to twist, turn, pull, I could not remove the ring. Shortly after that, I discovered that when me and him had cross words, the ring would become red hot, as if someone had taken a flame to the metal.

"Stop it," I gasped.

'How can I, when you will not talk to me?'

"The doctors told me you are a figment of my imagination."

'They are all charlatans and quacks. You must take no notice of what they tell you.'

I rubbed my throbbing finger and wondered if this was really just a figment of my imagination. If it was, it was a bloody painful one. I reached for the tablets that my doctors had prescribed to me. They were anti-psychotics which were supposed to help with the voices. I popped a couple of pills into the palm of my hand, then screamed in agony. I doubled over as white hot heat exploded through my hand.

"Please, stop." I cried.

'First, get rid of the poison.'

I dropped the tablets back into the plastic container and tried to mollify him with an apology, "I'm sorry but the doctor said you were a delusion."

'All humans label unexplainable events as some form of temporary insanity - but I gave you my ring to prove to you I was no trick of the mind, but you insist on testing me.'

"You didn't give me this blasted manacle. You tricked me!"

'Ebony, I gave you that ring four hundred years ago on the eve of our engagement.'

"I find that a hard pill to swallow considering that I was born nearly eighteen years ago," I snapped.

'You have been lost to me for four hundred and seventeen years. Oh Ebony, you were snatched from me and I have endured the centuries alone, waiting for you to be reincarnated... waiting for you to come home.'

"Okay, let me shoot that duck, dead in the water right now. There is no way you and I are going to have a happy reunion anytime soon."

'I do not blame you. Your memories of our time together were robbed from you. This must seem fantastical to you, but the human world is not your home and if you will not to me on your own accord, then I shall come to you.'

"Please don't. I don't need the addition of visual hallucinations to my mental health record."

'When the moon rises to its highest point in the sky on your eighteenth birthday, I will come for you, my love.'

"No, wait. I don't want you to come."

'Be patient, our reunion is almost here.'

His voice echoed in silence, and suddenly the air in the room lightened as his presence withdrew. The silver ring around my finger grew cool. Finally alone with my thoughts, I quietly noted that my birthday was tomorrow.

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Special thanks goes out to Lie-to-Me who made the awesome cover for this story ^.^