REFLECTIONS ~ The Necklace's Secret

After a few minutes, the door opened. Rene stood there in a suit as usual but without the jacket. He started at seeing Charlotte's face.

"Um hello. I believe you knew my mother?" Charlotte asked hopefully. "Julia Rains?"

"Yes." he said, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

"Um could we come in and talk to you about her please?" she asked. He looked up and saw Claude behind her.

He hesitated for a moment. As he did so, a woman's voice was heard from further inside the house. A British woman. A northern woman. Her voice sounded so familiar...

"Rene, who is it?" the voice said.

"MUM??" Charlotte gasped.
An odd silence followed. Then hurried footsteps were heard somewhere deep in the house, reaching the door. A woman appeared. She looked a lot like Charlotte but taller, she had blue eyes like her older brother Claude instead of grey eyes like her daughter and she was a lot better looking, definitely someone who would make all the men stop and stare. She looked in her early 30s, perhaps late 20s just, but it was known for a fact that she was almost 40. She was wearing indigo dress that came down to just above her knees and she was barefoot. She walked towards the door where her family stood, stunned.

"You're... you're..." she said, choking on the words in shock.

There was an awkward silence as Claude and Charlotte just stared at Julia while she and Rene stared back at them.

"Hi mum." Charlotte said weakly.

After the awkward silence, Charlotte suddenly ran into her mother's arms and hugged her. The two began crying a little. Claude entered too.

"You're alive?" he asked his sister. She looked up and nodded, tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry for keeping it from you. Because we were so close I thought that they'd take the answers from you by torture or telepath if you knew. I'm sorry." she said.

"Come in." Rene said. Claude entered and Rene shut the door behind him. The group walked through into the living room/sitting room. In the middle of the room, a young boy was playing with toy cars. He was obviously Julia and Rene's son. He looked about 4 years old. He looked up as they walked in and gave the most adorable, heart melting smile.

"Mum, who are they?" the boy said, coming over to say hello.

"This is your uncle Claude," Julia said, "and this is your sister Charlotte."

"I never knew I had a sister." the boy said. He had now come round the couches and he was holding his father's hand.

"That's because she was kept secret." Julia said, crouching down in front of him. "She had to be kept secret so that the people I worked with wouldn't find out she was special. If they found out, they'd lock her up and make her use her power for them."

"They're mean." he commented. "Why hasn't Uncle Claude visited us before?"

"We had to keep ourselves a secret too, so I couldn't tell him otherwise they would've made a mindreader get the answer from him."

"Are they here to stay? Will they be here for Christmas and our big New Year Party?"

Julia turned to look at Charlotte and Claude.
"Will you? Please?"

"I'd like to. I'll ask my boss whether I can have more time off." Charlotte said. "He might not be too happy. I haven't been doing that much recently, ever since I found out about you."

"You have a boss already?" Rene asked, frowning.

"Yes. I work for the Organisation." Charlotte explained, knowing that they'd know what that was.

"I'd like to talk to you about that later." Julia said. "What about you Claude? Can you forgive me?"

"Yes. I'll come. I'll bring the family over." he said. Julia stood up and he gave her a hug. Her son smiled happily and joined in the hug, followed by his father and his new found sister.