These Are Days "Theres Magic All Around you"
The Gilded Lily
Around ten thirty Karen and Mike went back upstairs to where the rooms were.
"We better wake Livvie and Peter." Mike said. "We don't want them to miss breakfast."
"I think Chea and Micky ate more than their share if they did." Karen laughed as Mike knocked on the door. There was no answer. After a minute, he knocked again.
"Maybe they aren’t awake yet." Karen wondered aloud.
"No way, remember Peter usually likes to go on his daily jogs by the beach in the morning. Since we're not home, he still might be in his room. Though not asleep." Mike jiggled the doorknob after another impatient minute. "Room service?" He said affecting a bad falsetto. Karen tried to keep from laughing but quiet giggling escaped her lips.
"We're gonna have to open the door, to see what’s on the other side." Karen said. "Unless you're superman and we can see through the door."
"Yeah, my x-ray vision seems to be on the fritz today." Mike said opening the door. "After you my lady."
"Thanks, Super-Nez." She cracked as she went in. Mike followed in her shortly. They looked around. The room was empty. The beds were made.
"They're both gone." Karen said. "Where do you think they went?"
"It cant have been far." Mike said. "Look, a note." He pointed to a piece of folded paper on the night stand. Mike went to it and picked it up. He read it out loud.
"Dear guys, we went out. There was something I wanted Livvie to see while we were over here. We left pretty early in the morning so we could catch the bus. We didn’t want to wake anyone." Mike read. "Don't worry, we plan on coming back. It's our first time in England, we wanted to see a few things. Love Livvie and Peter."
"Where did they go?" Karen said. "Does it say?"
"Stonehenge." Mike said rereading the note. "They wanted to see Stonehenge and where Livvies ancestors lived."
"Why Stonehenge?" Karen asked. Mike shrugged.
"I have no idea." Mike said. "It could be something interesting to them, its like asking why do you go to the top of the empire state building, cause it interests you."
"Not me, I'm petrified of heights." Karen said.
"But you flew here."
"That’s moving, the building with any luck isnt moving." Karen laughed.

Rosenburg Station

Brianna and Davy had rolled into town on their motorcycle. Because of the length of the trip to Davys parents and back, the cycle was almost out of gas. They coasted into Liverpool literally on fumes. They quickly found a gas station to fill back up at. George had wanted them to refill his gas tank when they got back. It would be rude not to do so. Brianna went into the station which was part station and part coffee shop. For what Brianna had seen, there was a lot of eating places in the town. Brianna sat down at a small booth table. Davy joined her.
"I got the motorcycle gassed up." Davy said. "Are you ready to go?"
"We never had anything to eat!" Brianna noted. "And I ain't looking for this Jeanne Carter till I get some food in me belly." Brianna said. She stopped talking. Davy looked at her. "I been in England too long." She said as she finally noticed her strange new accent.
"Its almost like its natural." Davy laughed.
"Are you kidding? I sound like a bad late night comic." Brianna said.
"Don't worry, it gets better with time." Davy said. He sat down at the table. "Okay, if it will make you happy, then we'll have something to eat."
"It'll make me and my tummy happy." Brianna said patting her stomach. Davy laughed as they were approached by a woman. She was about their height, maybe shorter. She had long bright red hair, it was in a twist in back. She looked at both of them. Davy turned to look at her.
"Ma'am, we'd like to order now..." Davy said as he was turning.
"I'm no waiter." The girl said.
"Yeah, I know." Davy said as he looked at her. Brianna looked at him, and winced. She swore she could see those little sparkles in his eyes, the one she knew revealed he was attracted to a new girl. She took a deeper look. she sighed relief. The reflection was coming from some candles on a birthday cake across the aisle from them. She turned her attention back to the scene.
"Do you remember me?" Davy asked. "Jeanne?"
"Maybe," She said squinting at him. "Didn't you used to be taller?"
"Ha ha." Davy said getting up. "Jeanne Carter?" He said.
"Yeah." Jeanne said. "Davy Jones?"
"Thats me." He said.
"Yeah." She replied, very blasé. "So whats up?"
"We came to look for you." Davy said. "We were supposed to get married today."
"Thats news to me." Jeanne said. "I got married two years ago."
"Two years ago?" Brianna asked.
"Yeah." Jeanne said. "My ma and pa said it was all right for me to marry whoever I wanted to cause it didn’t look like you were coming back." She said chewing a piece of gum loudly.
"But wait, my parents told me that we were gonna get married today. And it had to be today so that my parents would get part of the money that your folks had." Davy said.
"Oh yeah." Jeanne said, totally spaced out. "They called that off when I got married to Chris." She said. "Yeah." she said with a strange smile.
"My parents still need money to pay for the house." Davy said. "I was hoping maybe you can help."
"I don't know." Jeanne said. "I am like real busy right now." She said. She put some glasses on. "Yeah."
Brianna pulled Davy into the seat next to her. "Davy, I hate to inform you but your friend is h i g h." She said spelling it out. Jeanne did a split in the middle of the aisle and slid all the way to the floor.
"Oh that was awesome." She said on the floor.
"Thats enough." Brianna said getting off of her seat. She grabbed Jeanne off the ground by her shirt collar. She gave her a steely gaze into her eyes. "I don't care if you are on the planet earth right now or the planet Venus. Your old friend Davy is asking for some help right and you are too zonked out of your mind to do either of us any good right now." Brianna said shoving her into a chair. "Now you can help us, or not. That’s up to you. But I would rather you help us."
Davy looked her Brianna with a shocked expression. He had never seen her be this aggressive with anyone. He looked at Jeanne. Whatever was making her act bizarre seemed to be wearing off slowly.
"I'm sorry Davy." Jeanne said. "What can I do for you?"
"We need to raise the money, and fast." Davy said. "The banks deadline is tomorrow." He said. "The other night at the gilded lily we had a band contest. A lot of people came to it. I think we can raise a lot of money for the house." Davy said.
"But there is only two bands in town." Brianna said. "The Monkees and the Beatles."
"Thats funny!" Jeanne said. Brianna gave her a hard shake. Jeanne seemed to snap out of it. "Oh what do you want?"
"Can you help us find at least one more band to play with us?" Brianna said. "One more would make it a kind of revue."
"Sure." Jeanne said. "I know of two bands." She said getting up. "Give me your number at the gilded lily." She said. "When is this thing?"
"Tonight hopefully." Davy said. "All we have to do is get the Monkees and the Beatles, and secure the place to play tonight."
"You mean you don't have it yet?" Jeanne asked.
"This is all very last minute." Brianna said handing over the number. "Will you help?"
"I will." Jeanne said taking the number. "I won't forget. This is kinda important."
"You bet your bippy its important." Davy said. "Me parents won't have a home."

Stonehenge

Peter and Livvie got out of the taxi at the famous stone structure. A bus took them halfway to where Stonehenge was, then they had to take a taxi cab the rest of the way. Peter asked the cabbie to wait. the driver did so, with the kind of money Peter was paying, he wasn’t going to go anywhere. Peter and Livvie had previously been looking for where Livvies ancestors lived in England but when they go to where they thought the settlement was, there was nothing but a green field. Livvie then remembered that she once heard the house was sold, then moved stone by stone to a millionaires property when she was about 10 years old. They walked around the large landmark in awe.
"Wow, this is incredible." Peter said. "You read about a place so much and see it so much in pictures." He said smiling. "Buts its not anything compared to seeing it for the first time up close and personal."
"I know." Livvie said. "The history of this place is very like mystical and stuff." She said. "It was once thought that druids put the stones up."
"People nowadays claim its aliens." Peter said.
"People will claim anything to get their face in the news." Livvie said. "That much I've discovered while living in your time. We had it in my time too, but now you have radio, newspaper and television when those technologies were just starting to be created." Livvie said.
"They say threes magic here." Peter said.
"Do you think so?" Livvie asked him as they went into the center.
"I tend to think magic is everywhere, if you don't believe in magic, there isn’t much more to life then." Peter said. "It would be pretty boring." He motioned to the ground. "Sit down, I want to show you something."
"Okay." Livvie said moving to the ground. He instructed her to cross her legs like he was. She did so.
"Close your eyes and clear your mind." Peter said. "If any of the guys were here they would say its easy for me to clear my mind."
"That’s not true Peter." Livvie said with her eyes closed. "You are very smart , in my opinion. It may not be the conventional way of smart but you know a lot of things that are important to you." She said. Peter smiled.
"Thanks." Peter said. He closed his eyes. They sat there for several minutes. Livvie suddenly felt a light upon her. It was very faint but it slowly got brighter and brighter. It seemed to grow around her. It grew and grew until it surrounded her. She couldn’t quite believe it but it was like someone was saying something important to her. As she strained to listen to the voice she now was certain she heard in her head, the light went out. All she could see was darkness. Her eyes flew open. Peter was looking at her.
"Did you feel it?" She asked him.
"Feel what?" Peter asked her.
"I felt like there was a light, then there was a voice. One voice. And then it went dark. The next thing I knew my eyes were open." Livvie said. "Did you see anything?"
"No, unfortunately." Peter said. "Nothing as exciting as what you seem to have seen and heard." He continued. "What did you see?"
"Just a light."
"Then what did you hear?" He asked.
"Just one voice but it was very hard to hear." Livvie said. "It almost sounded like a girl. It sounded like she was saying that something was going to change. A big change is coming in all of our lives."
"What kind of change?" Peter asked as they got up.
Livvie looked around at the stone formation as she thought.
"I tried to hear the rest of it, but I couldn’t make it out." Livvie said. "I think I know the voice. It was very familiar. Someone we know."
"Who?"
"Karen." Livvie said. "I don't know why but I'm fairly sure it was Karen!"

The Gilded Lily

Davy and Brianna had just barely finished recounting their tale for the gang at the gilded lily. Chea, Micky, Karen and Mike listened on. The inn's eating area was empty at that time so it wasn't really busy. Archie and Phyllis came over to listen.
"All we have to do is get a place to play, get the Beatles to play with us and hope Jeanne comes through on her promise of two more performers for the revue. She said she also knew a great guitar soloist, she can get him to come too." Davy said. "We need a place first off."
"Use this place." Mike said. "That is if Archie will let us."
"I don't know." Archie said.
"Okay, how about this: we charge so much a head. You get 15% of the take at the end of the evening. The rest will go for Davys home sweet home." Karen offered.
"Well..."
"Come on Archie, think of it, five performers in one night?" Phyllis said. "Think of all the attention our place will get! People will come for the entertainment and come back for the food."
Archie thought for a minute. "Make it twenty and you got a inn for the night."
"All right." Davy said as Mike shook his hand. As they let go, the Beatles come in.
"You lads needing another band tonight?" Paul asked. "I heard through the grapevine that we'll be doing a charity concert tonight for a friend in need."
"That’s right." Chea said. "We'll need you tonight. We'll perform, then you will. Lord knows who will be next."
"Us." A voice in back of the Beatles said. "That’s who." The band turned to look at the small group of people who just came in. Chea squealed.
"That’s the who!" Chea said.
"Who?" Micky asked.
"That’s right!" Chea said. "Their rocking psychedelic sounds were a major part of our sixties pop culture." Chea said. "That Pete Townsend. What a babe." She sighed.
"Hey!" Micky protested.
"But no more than you." Chea quickly made up to him.
"We found this other guy on the way in." A man Chea knew as Roger Daltrey said. "Some guitar player. Says his name is Eric Crapton, or Clapton."
"It's Clapton mate." He corrected Roger.
"Jeanne sent us." Keith Moon said. "She said an old friend of hers needs some help."
"That would be me." Davy said standing.
"Friend, you're beyond help." Keith cracked. "Just kidding, mate."
"We're just waiting on one more band to come." Davy said. "Then we can start at around twoish." The door to the inn opened.
"Another band?" Chea sighed as she saw the new band come in. "If another 60's icon band shows up, I'm gone."
"Hello Mick!" Keith yelled out to someone. The last band of the revue came in. It was Mick Jagger, and his Rolling stones.
"That’s it, I'm leaving." Chea said.
"Chea." Micky said laughing.
"I don't care, I'll get back on the plane if I have to." Chea said. "I'm suffering from serious 60's overload."
"I didn't think that was possible with you, Chea." Karen laughed.
"Me neither." Chea said. "But based on everything we've gone through, nothing but nothing is impossible anymore."
Peter and Livvie came in amid the mayhem of bands talking and figuring out their sets. Eric tune his guitar in the corner. A bluesy sound filled the inn.
"Should we tell Karen about what we saw at Stonehenge?" Livvie asked.
"Not right now." Peter said. "She looks busy." He said as she looked on at Karen and Mike talking to various bands.
"I know none of these people." Livvie said. "Except the ones we already met."
"I get the feeling we'll find out soon enough, the joint looks like its gonna really jump tonight!"

to be continued...
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