Seed- Part One

by D B Nielsen

  ‘Nothing!’ I sounded petulant, even to my own ears, ‘It was all because of his stupid papers!’

  ‘Tell me everything!’ she demanded as I collapsed distraught on my bed. Saffron’s face betrayed her confusion but she was still looking at me encouragingly, waiting for me to spill the beans. I didn’t think to keep anything back from her – it had long been our habit to tell each other everything. Well, more to the point, I told my sister everything – though I suspected that, on occasion, Fi was more guarded and had some secrets which she kept close to her chest, away from the condemnation or judgement of others, away even from me. But even if I had thought to keep my own counsel, Fi would have wheedled the information out of me eventually. Better to get it over with now than spend the next few weeks with Fi staring at me suspiciously and asking pointed questions.

  By the time I’d finished my sorry tale, a pile of used tissues scattering the bedroom floor, the house had gone silent. Jasmine and Alex were in bed and we’d both missed dinner. The rain was making tiny exclamation marks on my bedroom window and I stared out at the darkness beyond, morosely.

  ‘Sage!’ Fi’s voice was squeaky with suppressed excitement.

  ‘What?’ I muttered, distracted.

  ‘This has got to be the most exciting thing that’s happened to either of us!’ she exclaimed, and added for good measure, ‘Ever!’

  That comforted me slightly. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  She folded her legs under her where she sat on my bed, making herself more comfortable. ‘I can’t believe you’re so lucky!’

  I gave her a look that told her what I thought – that she’d gone completely, stark raving mad. But she merely gave me a playful punch on my arm, rolling her eyes.

  ‘I mean it! Like w-o-w!’ She exaggerated the word, drawing it out, her face aglow with speculation. I couldn’t help myself; my face suffused with colour. ‘I knew it! You like him!’

  ‘God, Fi!’ I exclaimed, ‘It’s not like that. Trust you to focus on a guy when I’ve just told you what I think I saw in Dad’s office. Aren’t you going to tell me I imagined it?’

  She ignored me, not about to give up on St. John Rivers. ‘Maybe I should go check him out myself, make sure you didn’t exaggerate.’

  I was aghast. ‘You wouldn’t! Fi! Promise me you won’t do anything of the sort!’

  She laughed in delight, ‘Course not, silly. Romeo’s all yours.’

  I groaned in embarrassment, wanting to sink through the floor.

  ‘Just stop, okay?’ I begged.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she’d had enough of teasing me for now. I guess she figured I’d been through a lot today, so she didn’t push it like she normally would have done. ‘So, what about this artefact? What are you going to do about it? Sneak back into Dad’s office for another peek?’

  I shook my head, picking at a loose thread on my quilt. ‘No way. If Dad found out I’d be grounded for life.’

  Her lips puckered in disappointment at the truth of my words. ‘Meh. Never mind, I’m sure we can find a way to get access to the artefact again.’

  My brow furrowed. ‘Fi, I’m not so sure you should be involving yourself in this.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ she protested loudly, jerking back as if I’d slapped her. ‘What else am I supposed to do now that you’ve told me? Take a look around, Sage. Apart from taking my driver’s test in a few weeks and photographing most of Kent and London, I’m bored out of my mind. I’m virtually broke and university doesn’t start until September. What’s there to occupy my time?’

  ‘Lots of things...’ She gave me a look as if challenging me to name one. I wracked my brain, trying to come up with something. ‘You could take Zumba classes at the gym. Get Mum to give you more drawing lessons. Get a part-time job.’ Then, snapping my fingers, I said, ‘Hey, I know, extra driving lessons – you could get more practice reverse parking!’

  Swearing, she threw the tissue box at my head. ‘And you can take that idea and shove it up–’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I interrupted, raising my hands in capitulation. ‘I could probably do with your help anyway.’

  ‘Sweet! It’ll be so much fun – just like old times,’ she exclaimed.

  I knew exactly what Fi was referring to – our annual treasure hunt. Devised by our parents, each birthday brought a new challenge where Fi and I would be expected to solve riddles and mysteries based on history in order to find our birthday presents. It began as a brain-teaser when we were around seven and developed into more and more elaborate quests over the years – until, that is, we’d stumbled across the books on hidden codes, secret languages and grand designs which Dad had used to devise the treasure hunts and that had put an end to them. But it was fun while it had lasted.

  One of the most memorable treasure hunts that I could recall was what I termed the “Medusa Door”. When we’d woken the morning of our thirteenth birthday, we found a note stuck to the back of our bedroom door. On the card was a Medusa head, the symbol of one of the three Gorgons in Greek mythology. I immediately thought of the scary myths of the Medusa in ancient times that turned mortals into stone, but Fi suggested that the image was similar to the frescoes on the garden wall at the end of our property.

  We were both right.

  The moon-faced Medusa held the second clue; the words “Fortunate Isles”. Luckily, fascinated as I was with Camelot and King Arthur, I knew that the “Fortunate Isles” was a reference to the Elysian Fields. In Celtic mythology, this was in a faraway location, an isle at the very limits of the mythical ocean surrounding the earth.

  ‘Sweet! I know where the next clue is!’ shouted Fi, rushing ahead of me towards the river which backed onto our property. As we approached, Fi stripped down to her underwear and dove in, strong strokes propelling her towards the diving platform on the opposite bank. I hesitated, unwilling to dive in after her as I was nowhere near as good a swimmer. But where Fi was a capable athlete and more artistic than me, I complemented her weaknesses with my book-learning.

  In fact, ever since I could remember, Fi and I were like two sides of the same coin, developing complementary skills that allowed us to act as one entity in our investigations. Fi’s interests in art and popular culture, combined with her rare navigational skills and athletic ability, bolstered my own skills in linguistics, history and science. Her more practical talents, when pooled with my own expertise in “nerdy” subjects as she termed it, never failed to offer us a complete solution to our problem. Together, we made a strong team. Eagerly pouring over every new challenge until we solved it, the solution pointed us to always another card with another image and riddle. We solved these ones too, racing on to the next brainteaser.

  The quest on our thirteenth birthday finally lead us to the “Cabinet of Curiosities” in Dad’s study where we found our birthday presents; delicate Pandora charm bracelets, chosen to suit our different personalities.

  Rousing me from my silent contemplation, Fi questioned, eyeing me strangely, though she was used to my trance-like states of concentration, ‘What about your St. John? Do you think he’d help us?’

  ‘He’s not my St. John,’ I denied, though secretly I wished he was, ‘and, no, I don’t think he’d help. He doesn’t even know me.’

  She sighed, shifting position on my bed. ‘I guess. Well, anyway, we’ve got a week to plan.’

  My stomach gave an embarrassing growl at that moment, distracting us both. ‘I’m starving. What about you?’

  Fi laughed in response. ‘D’you know, now that you mention it, I am too. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been quite this hungry since ... well, since I don’t know when. How about a late night snack? There’s bound to be some leftovers in the fridge we can heat up.’

  I leapt off the bed in reply, my stomach rumbling again in protest. It had been years since we’d behaved like naughty children, sneaking into the kitchen to steal food. There was a time when we were like young jackdaws but, instead of collecting glittery objects, we squirreled away in our
pockets handfuls of nuts or dried fruit to pick at when we were feeling peckish. No matter where we moved during those early years, the pantry door was always open to us. We carried a portable feast in our pockets that we could nibble on whenever and wherever we fancied.

  But Mum put a stop to all that.

  Mum enjoyed entertaining. She would throw lavish dinner parties, making exotic dishes from time-honoured family recipes. Rich and decadent, the meals were extravagant feasts. One of her masterpieces was croquembouche; a conical tower of custard-filled profiteroles stuck together with caramel and decorated with spun crystallized sugar and sugared violets. It was a temptation two five-year-olds couldn’t resist. When Mum found her dessert stripped of sugared violets and missing several custard puffs at its pinnacle, she hit the roof. Our portable meals vanished overnight as she moved our treats to hard-to-reach places but, by then, we’d begun kindergarten and snacking in class wasn’t permitted by our teacher, a real witch called Miss Meagher who used to make kids sit in the “naughty corner” when they disrupted or played up in her class.

  It was like recapturing our childhood. We snuck downstairs, making sure to avoid the fifth step which creaked, and made our way to the kitchen at the back of the house. The flagstone floor was icy beneath my bare feet as I tiptoed over to the stainless steel double door refrigerator to see what we’d missed for dinner. A wedge of light appeared as I stuck my head inside.

  ‘Some leftover chicken, smoked salmon and salad,’ I threw over my shoulder at Fi.

  Suddenly, the overhead light was switched on and I almost jumped out of my skin.

  ‘Sorry!’ Fi whispered, coming to stand next to me.

  ‘Next time, warn me first!’ I hissed at her before turning my attention back to the contents of the fridge.

  That night Fi and I dined on cold roast chicken, smoked salmon and potato salad. It tasted like ambrosia. Sitting across from one another at the kitchen counter, it was like the old days – we shared silly stories, giggled over past crushes and made plans for the following week. It was good to see Fi in such high spirits and recovering her appetite, especially as eighteen months ago she’d been in hospital for almost a month, giving us all a scare with her eating disorder. I now wondered if that was another reason why our parents had not told us the news of the move to London until after our Finals, fearing that being constantly uprooted might have been a subconscious trigger for her problem.

  But I’d always thought that the constant moving had upset my equilibrium more than Fi’s – she was a rare breed, so exotic that she could transfix others with the force of her personality. Though we looked identical, I always saw Fi as something other than me, with her slightly more hazel eyes and the kind of undefinable magnetic quality that drew a person’s gaze. Both guys and girls were captivated by Fi and, perhaps, the lack of privacy and personal space was sometimes stifling for her, at odds with the need to maintain popularity, which never bothered me as much as I preferred to remain in the background. She looked the type that was always outgoing – a party girl, outdoorsy type, more into fashion – but she also projected a vulnerability which she seemed completely unaware of. It was funny – Fi’s extroverted persona often overshadowed her intelligence and sensitivity, whilst my introverted nature led people to mistake my resolve and competitive streak – but we perfectly complemented one another and, like all sisters, she knew exactly what was needed to cheer me up.

  By the time we went upstairs to bed I was feeling more myself – maybe not fully reconciled to my punishment but certainly not as depressed as before. With the rain providing a dull tempo where it hit my windowpane, I fell asleep to confused images of symbols and maps and golden-haired cherub and a pair of mocking jade eyes.

  I woke to a relentless pounding in my head, only to realize it was Fi banging on my door.

  ‘Sage, let me in!’ she demanded through the thick oak. I stumbled my way across the bedroom, wrenching open the door so that I could stumble back across the room to flop belly-down onto my bed. ‘About time! I’ve been waiting for you to get up all morning!’

  I lifted my head to gaze at the clock on my bedside table, blinking several times in disbelief.

  ‘It’s seven in the morning, Fi! Are you insane?’ I groaned, pulling the quilt back up.

  ‘No, I’m not insane,’ she said, pulling the quilt back off me onto the ground, ‘Dad’s left for work, Mum’s getting the brats ready to see a Disney movie in town, I’ve already done an hour of Pilates, and it’s finally stopped raining. You’re coming with me for a nature walk so I can teach you how to use a camera properly.’

  ‘Why in the world would I need to learn how to use a camera? I know how to use a camera – point and shoot.’ I countered, not bothering to move from my bed.

  ‘Firstly, you don’t know how to use a camera!’ Fi insisted, ‘And, secondly, I need to give you a crash course in judging lighting conditions, depth of field, aperture – never mind, you’ll learn. The point is that if you get an opportunity, you can take photos of the artefact. And if you have photos of the artefact, you can study the symbols. Get it?’

  ‘Got it,’ I muttered as I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I almost decided to go back to bed when I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

  I was a disaster.

  My eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy, my skin a pasty colour from last night’s bout of crying. I was never going to be the kind of girl who managed to remain pretty when they cried. I didn’t do sweet and vulnerable. I couldn’t cry dainty tears nor pout prettily. I splashed some cold water on my face and cleaned up the ravages of last night as best I could.

  In between brushing my teeth I called out, ‘So where is this supposed to happen?’

  ‘Thought we’d go into the forest. Maybe as far as that Dickens’ place.’

  I popped my head out the bathroom door, ‘You are insane! That place has got to be more than two kilometres from here through the forest! I’m grounded, remember?’

  Fi rolled her eyes, ‘Who’s going to know? Besides, technically we’ll be in the area, close to home. It’s not like you’re going to London.’

  ‘I guess,’ I muttered, not convinced.

  ‘Look, do you want my help or not?’ she huffed.

  ‘Well, of course I do!’

  ‘Then hurry up!’ she said, which was how I found myself in the wilderness of an English countryside on a frosty November morning. It reminded me of one of Coleridge’s poems which we studied for our Finals with it being “o’erwooded, narrow, deep, and only speckled by the midday sun”. Actually, there was no sun – what sky I could see was bruising for a storm. I was so glad Fi was navigating as I would have gotten us lost within the first fifteen minutes. I’d already lost my sense of direction and blindly stumbled after Fi’s retreating back.

  ‘This way,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure I was following and hadn’t fallen down a rabbit hole or tripped over something as I was prone to do.

  ‘Isn’t there a trail?’ I asked petulantly, pulling my scarf up round my ears to keep out the cold.

  ‘We’re following the trail, Sage!’ She sighed. I guess I was a lost cause.

  An hour later found us against stands of mossy oak and lichen. The forest floor was obscured by ferns and smelled of damp soil and rotting wood. Teardrops of fallen rain still clung to the branches like Lalique crystal decorations reflecting the light. Fi took the camera hanging around her neck out of its case, motioning for me to move closer to get a better look. For the next hour she demonstrated its functions and use – till my head was buzzing with terms and information on pixels, shutter speed and white balance. I was never so happy as when she finally decided to take a break.

  ‘Not bad for a beginner,’ she said when she was finally satisfied I could do more than point and shoot. ‘A few more lessons and then I’ll teach you depth of field.’

  I groaned. This was torture!

  ‘Can we go home now?’ I pleaded, shivering as the
chill seeped through my clothes.

  ‘I just want to check out the Dickens’ place before we head back,’ I could hear the suppressed excitement in her voice as she looked past me into the dense forest. ‘This way.’

  ‘I thought you hated Dickens?’ I asked annoyed, feeling my right boot sink into mud as I trudged wearily behind her.

  ‘I liked watching Oliver!’

  Swatting a wet branch away from my face, I replied acidly, ‘That’s a musical. Not a book. You hated having to read Great Expectations, remember?’

  She glanced back at me briefly, ‘I hated having to read it for our Finals. I hated having to sit our exams. I hated studying Dickens for our exams. But I didn’t hate the book.’

  We finally broke through the overgrowth and Satis House loomed before us. It was dismal, derelict, gutted – old brick seemed to buckle under its own weight and many of the windows were boarded up; those that remained on the lower floor were behind rusted iron bars. Stones jutted at awkward angles and the balustrade was crumbling in places. It was like looking at a decomposing face. Around the towers where birds seemed to have set up nests, rusted guttering seemed to embrace the architecture as if the house was holding itself together, but only just. One side of the house was in ruin – there was no roof, merely a rotting facade. Fire stains marred the brickwork there and the panes of broken glass revealed the house had been disembowelled. The great iron gates which surrounded the property were padlocked against trespassers. Through these, I could see the courtyard – nature having long ago reclaimed the path leading up to the house. There was an atmosphere of brooding menace as the sky seemed to roil in turmoil behind Satis House, as if it had been painted by Turner or Constable in crushed eggshell, indigo and gunpowder oils with thick angry brushstrokes.

  I was horrified.

  ‘So, it’s true,’ Fi breathed, fascinated. ‘There was a Miss Havisham.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ I snapped back, annoyed. ‘This house hasn’t been derelict for a hundred and fifty years! There must have been a fire – probably some time in the last twenty years – which gutted the building!’