When Rosemary finally returned to her apartment, all the lights were still off, but there was a strange feeling in the air that didn’t sit right with her. And then she heard her husband speak before she saw him.

“You got back way too quick to have gone to work and come back,” Ambrose had started with, freezing Rosemary in her tracks at the door. “Are you going to tell me what you’ve really been up to now, Sugarplum?”

He was sitting on the couch, legs spread about an inch or two apart and elbows rested over the meat of his thighs. An eerie silence stretched between Rosemary and her husband, and in the dark of the living room, she saw the whole room as if it were rocking from side to side. She dropped her keys and phone where her purse sat under the small table at the door, and then walked on shaky legs over to him.

She dropped onto her knees in front of her husband and grabbed onto his legs.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Rosemary said in one quick rush of air. Tears stung her eyes for the third time that day, and her face vibrated still from the hit she took.

Ambrose reached forward and ran his thumb along the sensitive area, and she unwillingly flinched from the touch. “You’re bruised,” he said, as if it were matter-of-fact. “Who did this to you?”

Rosemary lifted her head to look into her husband’s warm brown eyes—just like her daughter had—and choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry, baby,” she repeated, and let the tears flow down her face. “But it’s over now. I took care of it, so you don’t gotta worry no mo!”

“Rose, what did you do?” Ambrose persisted, holding her face with both of his hands now.

So she told him everything. From the first encounter to the unexpected call in her office that morning, and then the final meeting, where she gave up that poor boy’s name. Rosemary couldn’t bear to look at her husband while she spilled the beans, so she kept her head down and studied the mud stains on his green Celts sweats, occasionally wiping at her face and sniffling.

“Why didn’t you just tell me the first time, Rose?” Ambrose spoke in a hushed tone, as if he thought Waves might be there with them now, listening in. But Rosemary knew he wasn’t there when he had his answer. He would only come back on the off chance the boys weren’t the right mothers, and then the shit would really hit the fan for her.

“Because I thought I had two weeks, Ambrose!” 

Rosemary looked back up at her husband then, prepared to defend the choices she’d made. But a strange aura outlined Ambrose’s form then, and actual text was centered in each layer, separated by color. Wherever the second sight had suddenly come from, Rosemary had no idea, but it was not normal!

“What in Samhain is THAT?!” Rosemary crawled backwards—away from the couch—and shrieked, pointing at her husband. “You got some wicked rainbow light around ya, Ambrose!”

“Huh?” Ambrose furrowed his eyebrows and looked to his right, trying to see what she was seeing. “What you goin’ on about now? Rose, this better not be some kind of act now. We was havin’ a serious conversation, now come back here and be serious.”

“Baby, I AM being ‘serious!’ You got some aura around you, and it’s freakin’ me out.” Rosemary waved her finger in circles and panted. Despite her racing mind, Rosemary had to wonder if she, too, had been affected. She’d had not just one, but two encounters with Waves, so it was a possibility that he’d done something else to her.

“Sugarplum, did that villain do something to you?” Ambrose said as he rose from the couch. He followed after Rosemary, who had rolled onto her feet and rushed to the bathroom.

Rosemary snapped on the light and walked right up to the mirror. Ignoring the nasty bruise on the right side of her face, she immediately saw the array of colors around herself—except they looked slightly different, and the numbers weren’t the same as her husband’s.

The first color—red—was the closest to her body, and it fluctuated around her like what she would’ve seen in a pair of heat signature goggles. That initial color was for “body temperature,” which Rosemary supposed was helpful for whenever she or Ambrose caught a fever. As of that moment, it read “98.6” degrees Fahrenheit, so Rosemary knew she was safe.

The second color was a bright blue, and it read as “Power” with the number five beside it. Rosemary wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but she thought that perhaps it had something to do with how powerful her newfound ability was? Especially because her blue aura was more encompassing than Ambrose’s was, who had the number zero next to his power level.

The third color was yellow, and this aura was smaller than her husband’s had been. The height, she realized, likely correlated with how high the number listed was for each section. Given that Ambrose’s was twenty-four, and hers was ten for the yellow section, it made sense. The yellow aura was made to represent one’s “Physical” status, of which Rosemary wasn’t too sure what all it entailed. If she had to take a good guess, she’d say it was based on strength simply because she thought her overall health condition was better than Ambrose’s, so it wouldn’t make sense for her number to be lower in that regard.

The top three colors included basic information, and weren’t even really worth mentioning, but she supposed they would be helpful in the event she was trying to find a fugitive in disguise. The aura gave away “Species,” “Age,” and “Name,” so nobody’s true identity was safe from her! Rosemary thought species was kind of an odd statistic to be included, but it could be helpful in determining animal species’!

“Sugarplum, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Ambrose said from the doorway. He walked into the small bathroom and stood behind Rosemary as she studied the array of colors reflected around her in the mirror. Since the aura was kind of transparent, she could somewhat pick up her husband’s as he stood behind her, and it messed up her concentration. 

Ambrose frowned at the bruise she was touching. “That looks nasty, Rose. Why don’t we put somethin’ on it?”

“Ambrose,” Rosemary said in her no-nonsense tone. She turned around to face her husband and gave him a stern look. “I have powers now, baby.”

“I can see that,” Ambrose chuckled. He licked his chapped lips and met Rosemary’s determined gaze. “But what is it, and where the hell’d it come from?”

“I don’t know,” Rosemary sighed, “but I don’t think it matters now, baby. I can see certain things about you through your aura, and I don’t care much if that nasty man had somethin’ to do with it or not. I got powers now, and I should use it to pay him back. He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow, and I reckon it’s high time he’s brought back down to Earth, don’t you, baby?”

Ambrose raised both eyebrows at her. “Well of course, Sugarplum, but how you think seeing colors and numbers gonna help you in a fight, hrm?”

Rosemary laughed and stepped closer to her husband so she could reach up to pat him on the cheek. “You think I want to physically fight him? No, baby, I’m not no superhero! But we don’t all have to wear capes to help, hun.” 

She turned away from her husband and walked out of the bathroom, heading down the hallway to their kitchen. “I’m only going to find him, wherever he may be hiding, and I’m going to expose him for the slimy bastard he is. But first”—she paused to open up the fridge and stare at its contents—“we gots to talk with Milly. I can’t keep this no mo’ from her, an’ I think she can put those boys into some kind of witness protection program before that villain gets to them. What do you think, baby? Is that being too much?”

Ambrose regarded her with watchful eyes, his arms crossed over his chest as she retrieved her big jug of sweet tea she’d made a couple days ago and poured herself a glass. “I think it’s perfect,” he said finally. “Just be sure not to get into any more danger. I don’t want him hurting you ever again, Rose, so now promise me no fighting.”

“I promise I won’t touch him, baby,” Rosemary laughed and returned the jug of sweet tea to the fridge. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, anyway.”

“Good,” Ambrose nodded. He looked over at their old analog clock on the wall and clicked his tongue. “Now let’s not stay up any longer and get some sleep, Sugarplum. We can call Milly in the morning.”

Rosemary downed her cup of sweet tea as if it were a shot, set the empty cup into the sink, and then dusted her hands. She turned toward her husband and offered him a small smile. “You can say that again, hun. I am plum tuckered!”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” Ambrose laughed, but Rosemary knew he probably didn’t feel like much of anything was a laughing matter anymore.

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While you wait for the next episode, try checking out one of these entries below! (Links in author desc!)

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