This is part of the #MAYnia challenge run by the Hive account@freewritehouse. Today I have written 1740 words. Some of them were written using the following prompts
Yesterday's Maynia prompt: shattered glass
@freewritehouse/maynia-day-eight

Today's Maynia prompt: fireflies
@freewritehouse/maynia-day-nine
The Daily Freewrite prompt: life is confusing
@mariannewest/day-930-5-minute-freewrite-friday-prompt-life-is-confusing

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_{_{If you have nothing better to do you can read my previous “chapters”: _{One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight}}}

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Mindy woke with a start. Howard sat bolt upright too.

"What was that?" Mindy asked.

"Sounded like glass breaking," Howard said. "Wait here. I'll go and check." He got out of bed putting the bedside table light so he could find his slippers.

"What if there are burglars or something?" Mindy asked. "Don't you think we should call the police."

"Let me have a look first," Howard said. He looked around the room. Mindy realised he was looking for something to use as a weapon. He picked up the vase from the mantlepiece.

"You can't use that as a weapon!" Mindy hissed. "That was my mothers! Put it back!"

"I'll be careful," Howard whispered back and opened the door.

"Howard!" But he was gone, closing the door gently behind him. Mindy looked at the clock. It was almost five am. She had been back in bed for half an hour or so. She got out of bed and tiptoed to the window, pulling the curtain slowly and peeking through the gap.

At first, she couldn't see anything. Then there was a bright flash and for a moment her eyes were sparkling with a million fireflies dancing across her vision. Then it cleared. The garden was lit now. Howard must have put the outside light on, there was a switch in the kitchen by the door.

There, sitting on the patio, looking up at the window that Mindy looked down from - or so it seemed to Mindy - was the fox. Their eyes locked and for a moment Mindy thought something had passed between them, although she couldn't be sure what it was, and then the fox turned and ran.

"Life is confusing." The words and the voice in her head was Jenny's.

It was perhaps the last words she had heard her friend utter before she left for work that fateful night. And now, standing in her bedroom, all these years later, Mindy heard those words echo around her brain over and over again.

"Are you alright?" Howard was at the door.

"What? Oh. Yes, I'm fine. What was it? The broken glass sound?" She was relieved to see he still had Mother’s vase. And it was intact. Howard returned it to its rightful place on the mantlepiece.

“A jam jar. Must have fallen of the shelf.” He looked at Mindy. “I have asked you to either use those empty jam jars or throw them away. They are multiplying at a rate of knots!”

“They’ll be useful when I make jam later on in the year.”

“As long as it isn’t cucumber jam. Anyway, there is shattered glass all over the floor. I’ll go and clear it up and put on a pot of coffee.” He looked at his watch. “No point in trying to go back to sleep now. You get in the shower and I’ll have coffee and toast waiting for you, downstairs.”

Mindy smiled and nodded. He was a good man. She watched him pull on a pair of trousers and a shirt and then pad back out of the room. She took another look out of the window. There was no sign of the fox. Perhaps she had imagined it. But she didn’t think so. Jenny was trying to tell her something. Mindy was sure of it.

The smell of fresh coffee greeted her as she bounced down the stairs half an hour later. Howard smiled and popped the toast down as he saw her.

“I’ve eaten,” he said. “I’ll nip up for a shower. I’ve wrapped the glass up and popped it in the bin.”

He gave her a kiss and a mug of coffee and hurried up the stairs. Mindy stood by the kitchen windows, sipping her coffee, watching the garden brighten as the morning sun began to rise. The fox, if it had ever been there, was not in evidence. She jumped at the sound of the toast popping up and put her mug down on the cooking island. The butter was still a little bit hard to spread, and she made a bit of a mess of it. She wasn’t really in the mood to eat. But food was fuel and the body and the mind needed fuel to function. She chewed slowly and methodically washing the toast down with the hot coffee.

“Ah, that’s better,” Howard said as he came down the stairs. “I feel so much better.”

“Perhaps you should get up at five o’clock every morning,” Mindy said, laughing.

“I feel better for the shower. I am still very much allergic to mornings.” Howard had a look at his watch. “Almost time to go. Have you got everything you need?”

“I don’t think I need very much. Just my purse. And a coat. It can be nippy at this time of the year at Humpbuckle-on-Sea.”

“Not taking your bucket and spade?”

Mindy smiled and shook her head. “Not this time.”

In the car Mindy was silent. Howard didn’t like the radio on when he was driving. He said he found it distracting. Mindy always thought that was odd. She found music helped her concentrate. She thought about the fox. Was it really Jenny trying to send her a message? Was it Jenny’s spirit animal?

Honkers Heaven station was tucked away, down a small lane that led off the high street. At this time in the morning Mindy was surprised to see it so busy. There was a small queue to get into the carpark. She mentioned her surprise to Howard.

“Commuters,” he said.

“There can’t be that many people working in Humpbuckle-on-Sea,” Mindy said. “It’s off-season, after all.”

Howard looked at her, his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled.

“London,” he said. “We’re only six stops from London.”

“Oh,” Mindy said. “I’d forgotten about London.”

“Lucky you!”

They found a spot easily enough at the far end of the car park. It seemed most people wanted to park as near to the station entrance as possible. People were getting so lazy, Mindy thought. Reluctant to walk even two hundred yards from one seat to another.

Howard had bought tickets online, but had to collect them from a machine at the entrance. It wouldn’t accept his card so he had to join the ticket queue anyway. The man behind the glass just shrugged when Howard complained.

“Customer service,” Howard said under his breath as he passed Mindy her ticket. “I remember when that used to mean something.”

The platform for trains going to Humpbuckle-on-Sea was on the other side of the track. They had to take the tunnel underneath. Mindy wrinkled her nose. It always smelled of urine. She wondered how many people - men of course! - used the tunnel as a toilet.

They were early so, while Mindy sat on a small, rather uncomfortable plastic bench, Howard went to the kiosk at the end of the platform for a paper and a coffee.

“Tried to short change me,” he said when he got back. His face was crumpled into a frown “Gave them a twenty and gave me change for a tenner. Argued the toss too.” He took a sip of the coffee, and pulled a face. “Bloody disgusting. Wasn’t cheap, I can tell you.” Mindy didn’t say anything. Howard wasn’t a morning person. He was usually in a reasonable mood when he first got up but after half an hour to an hour his mood always soured. She had learned that his grumyness diminished as the morning grew older. It was best to let him vent in his own way.

The train pulled in and they got on. The carriage they got on was almost empty. A man with headphones on at one end, and a young woman at the other. Mindy chose a window seat facing forward and Howard flopped into the seat opposite.

As Mindy had come to expect, Howard’s mood brightened in step with the ever-rising sun, and by the time the train pulled into Humpbuckle-on-Sea he was smiling and chatting.

Arriving in Humpbuckle-on-Sea always made Mindy feel strange. She had left the town not long after Jenny was murdered. It was no longer the safe small town she had known. Something had changed. Not just that her best friend - and four other women had been murdered - but the place seemed different. Greyer. Darker.

Shadowy.

Even on a bright summer day there seemed to be a sombreness about the place. They police said they had solved the case. But for Mindy, it hadn’t felt right. Arthur Krip wasn’t the murdering kind. People laughed when she said that. But she knew she was right. His aura wasn’t tainted. And besides, she had seen the real killer.

The vision of the large naked man floating in the sea of blood was still with her. That had been Krip. He was already dead before Jenny had died. Mindy was sure of it.

The man with the knife who lurked on the shore had killed Jenny. Mindy was sure of it. The man made of shadows. And the Shadow Man had killed Arthur Krip too. Mindy was sure of that. And if what she believed was true then she doubted very much that Arthur Krip had killed those other four women.

The Shadow Man had been responsible for all the deaths that night. And Mindy suspected that the other girl, Penny Draper, had been attacked by him too. And although she didn’t really know Penny - she had met her once at a party thrown by a mutual friend - Mindy didn’t think she killed herself, either.

The Shadow Man had brought death and distruction to her beautiful, pretty, sunny, seaside town. And when he disappeared he had left some of his shadows behind.

“Are you alright, dear?” Howard asked as he took hold of her arm. “You look pale. Do you need to sit down.”

She smiled and shook her head.

“Thank you, Howard,” she said. “Thank you for looking out for me. I’m fine. Let’s go and meet my niece. And that nice little girl.”

Howard forced a smile. She could see he was worried. And he wasn’t as sensitive as she was to the things that went on around him. She knew he didn’t think she was crazy. But he probably thought she’d imagined things. But Mindy was worried about that little girl. Because if the Shadow Man was back then he wouldn’t let her alone.

Not until she was dead.