by Andy Tilley
Silkie, aswan, baakenko, maita. Call them what you will but this is their purpose. Call them Earthlings.
These were to be the last words that Setantii would ever dictate to Thomas Chevalier. He had almost missed them too, amidst the rattle of chains and clatter of the disembarkation ramp as the ferry had docked.
The sun is sinking fast on Sule Skerry. Time for dad to feed and settle his daughter down for the evening. As Thomas stands a loose piece of paper slips from the folder he clutches and floats toward the sea. He only just manages to catch it with a rather stiff lunge before the mischievous breeze has time to dunk it fully into the waves. It is an important piece of paper too, one that contains the details of what will happen over the next few days. Thomas clutches it tightly and sits back down on the rocks, tearful as he remembers May, ready to confess just one more time for his part in her slow demise. It had been Aunt May who had told him that one day he would receive the letter, or at least the words had come from her lips. Thomas closes his eyes and raises his hands to cover them but he can still see how quickly her face had changed that day. A moment of shear delight (catching a glimpse of her nephew climbing down the steps to leave the boat) instantly replaced by abject horror as Setantii entered and introduced herself. Thomas had accepted then that this was how it had to be, that there could be no gradual transition from a loving aunt to a maternal, ancient entity that protectively grabbed Cristian and held him on the dockside whilst Thomas shook John’s hand. Everyone knew of course that the delivery of Cristian into his aunt and uncle’s care that day had to be done quickly (and secretly too) but only Thomas and Setantii knew that the selkie would stay there also, invade May and take charge of raising her offspring for the next ten years. For his part, Thomas was to say goodbye to his son forever and build a new life in which he could raise a blind daughter in preparation for the day when her sight would be restored and the infant silkie in her exorcised. This was the deal between man and silkie, a deal that empowered each of them with custody of one of the two children that they shared. Thomas Chevalier would raise his daughter to become human; Setanti would ensure the development of her next generation by mentoring Cristian’s ascension.
‘I’ll write soon with all the details of what you have to do Thomas!’
Uncle John had looked at his wife with a rather puzzled expression as May shouted this but Thomas hadn’t reacted, incapable as he was of hearing anything above the screams of his own conscience and grief for the son he had just condemned. Weeks later, perhaps only days after he and baby Christine had moved into the first of the seventeen homes that they were to rent during the coming years, the letter (that had almost been lost to the sea) had arrived.
Sule Skerry, December 1st 2010. Bring Christine, six white mice and a girl called Ruby Stevens from Hartford. She has blue eyes and red hair and she is as pure Setantii as remains today. No substitute will be acceptable.
Today it was November the 26th and Thomas Chevalier has completed his side of the deal to the letter.
Chapter 15.
My name is Cristian Chevalier and tonight I am consumed by misery and remorse. The woman I love is broken and I cannot say that she will ever be returned to me. I am the one who did this to her. The secret I kept broke her heart. My failure to protect her broke her back. I tried but the animal that I took to stand between her and Setantii’s stag was too small and I too unpracticed at this dark art. If it hadn’t been for Uncle John then god knows how much would be left of her now. Thankfully his bravery at the very last saved her life from the stag and her soul from the monster that controlled the beasts attack.
‘Rose? Rose, can you hear me darling?’
My love’s hand is warm in mine but still it refuses to recognize my voice. It’s been like this for three hours now, ever since her motionless body was laid on these crisp white sheets and I begaan my vigil next to her. The nurse has asked me to leave three times already. I know that once Rose’s mother arrives my time with her will be over but for now, I refuse to go. Before I leave her side I have to know if it is paralysis or hate that denies me her recognition. She looks so beautiful. Were it not for the medical paraphernalia connected to her arm and a bruise smudged onto the bridge of her delicate nose, a person could easily mistake the coma she has slipped into for sleep. That’s what I have made of my Rose, a Sleeping Beauty. But it will take more than a gentle kiss on her cherry lips to wake her.
‘I won’t leave you here Rose, I promise you I won’t. I’ll bring you back to me love, no matter what or how long it takes.’
Behind me there is a slow, mocking handclap.
‘What a heart wrenching scene. And such lovely words too Cristian. But think hard before you make a promise that you may not want to keep.’
I don’t have to turn around to know who has spoken. Neither do I have to maintain any pretence of what it is.
‘Setantii, this is not the time. And for your information my decision stands. This changes nothing for me. Did you really think that crippling Rose would lessen the love in my heart? Love can’t be defeated so easily Setantii. This is something that you will never understand, no matter how many souls you devour!’
My outburst is the final straw for a nurse who has already risked the wrath of her matron by allowing me to stay at Rose’s bed side. The nurse stomps from her reception desk at the ward entrance and into the room, her face puffed and fuming as she sees Aunt May, confounded by the fact that yet another stranger has managed to slip past her guard. The nurse isn’t to know that a silkie has touched her mind.
‘Right, I don’t know who you are but this really is enough. Besides which, Mrs Williams is at the front desk and as neither of you are relatives?’
The question hangs in silence long enough for it to become rhetorical.
‘Exactly. So please, if you don’t mind I’d like you to leave now. Both of you please.’
I am so reluctant that the nurse, struggling to retain her patience and polite demeanor, is forced to lean across my shoulder and physically unclench my fingers from Rose’s hand. I release them one by one, with no real resistance but enough for me to be able to tell Rose in future (should she ever find it in her heart to forgive me) that the nurse had to remove me from her bedside. Stealing a final kiss from my beauty’s softly breathing mouth (but she doesn’t wake, why won’t she wake?!) I stand and leave the room. Setantii follows me, wary of the glare I’ve given her and staying a cautious two paces behind as we make our way through the open ward and out into a deserted and silent corridor. Hospitals at night are an enigma to me;, permanently poised on the precipice of tragedy and yet so quiet. Just like the lady and the man striding urgently towards me now. Desperate as they are for things to be okay inside whichever of these rooms it is that holds their life in the balance, still their urgency daren’t place a foot too hard on the tile for fear of making noise. As it turns out, the room that they place their trust in is the same one that holds my heart. The low lighting in the corridor makes it difficult for the woman to see anything through the tears in her eyes and only when she is less than ten feet away does she see something that bumps the plight of her daughter down her priorities. She stops dead in her tracks. As it turns out, the room that they place their trust in is the same one that holds my heart.
‘Dawn? Dawn Chevalier? But…’
As Setantiishe offers anbegins to explaination for this unsettling encounter, sheSetantii moves forward and stands at my shoulder.
‘Oh no my dear, I’m afraid I am not her. My name is May, Dawn’s sister. Dawn left us almost ten years ago. Oh how awful for you to be surprised like this. Did you know her well?’
‘I knew she had…, but you look so….yes. Yes wWe were friends, for a while and….Cristian!’
Finally, as her confusion clears, June Williams has recognizesd me. From where, I have no idea but she knows who I am and I can tell from the hate she is spitting at me that she holds me responsible for her daughter’s condition. And why wouldn’t she.
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br /> ‘You stay away from my daughter you hear! You just fucking stay away from her!’
The enigma is dispelled. Apparently if you happen to put a mother’s child into a deep coma then she will become frenzied in a hospital, regardless of the time of day. It is left to her companion to protect me as frankly I don’t have the stomach for it, deserving each clenched fist that she pounds into my chest. At least this woman’s anger is pure, bursting with the hate of a real mother. I wish my mother had been left alone to love me like this, instead of having to share her maternal duties with the entity that had invaded her. Eventually she is restrained, hugged firmly and turned away to be dragged past me. She isn’t screaming anymore, but she is crying loudly and I pickstep up my pace to get away from the pain I have caused her. It’s a relief to finally step outside, and hear the soft plastic doors flap closed behind me. he
‘Well that went well don’t you think?’
I’ve really had enough.
‘Listen you heartless bitch, that woman has just learnt that her daughter is possibly paralyzed for life and with an outside chance that she may never recover from her coma! So if you could just try and understand that…’
‘Try and understand you say! Oh I understand Cristian, all too well. And before you condemn me for my lack of sympathy think about this. I have already lost one of my offspring and a second is all but gone to her human father. And these are souls that it takes more than nine months of pathetic huffing and puffing to bring into this world. For twenty five years I must drape myself in human garb whilst I wait for my protégé to arrive, every day spent anxiously hoping that nothing will harm the human child that carries it. So don’t you dare presume to tell me I know nothing of a mother’s angst at losing a child!’
Setantii is right about this and for a fleeting moment I pity her. Christine will be human for that was the deal she made with my father and she will not renege on it, regardless of what becomes of me. But I’m pleased too that she has finally accepted my decision, that I will not ascend and instead allow my silkie brethren to retire to some dark corner of my mind and wither there. She deserves some recognition for this.
‘Thank you Setantii. Thank you for understanding my decision.’
Worryingly Aunt May’s face looks smug, not at all accepting of either my thanks or my choice for a future life.
‘Your decision? Your decision isn’t made yet Cristian, believe me.’
‘But you just said that you’ve failed twice already Setantii, with Christine and I.’
‘Christine yes, but for you I have high hopes. But there was another, before I came to the Chevalier family. And that is someone that I want you to go and speak to Cristian. A man who once had to make the same decision that you face now. He made his choice and I respected that. All I ask is that you listen to him before you make yours. Surely you owe me that much? But you have my promise that if, by the time you have finished listening to what he has to say, your decision still stands then so be it. A human you shall be and I will not, indeed cannot stop you. Free will is the key to your ascension Cristian. Nature demands that nothing can happen unless you truly want it. It is a choice that only you can make.’
Setantii’s declaration makes my blood boil up! If this was to be my choice and mine alone then why did she try and gouge the heart out of my girlfriend at the tip of a raging stag’s antler? Oh, she will answer this before any more deals are done!
‘So what the hell was the point in trying to kill Rose then Setantii? Is that anything at all to do with my free will? Couldn’t you have just taken her, walked her toward me and spat in my face, have her tell me that she hates me and doesn’t want to see me again?’
‘And do you really think that you wouldn’t have known?’
Of course I would have. It’s impossible to mistake the fiery passion of love and hate with the insidious flame that a silkie brings to a loved one’s eye. But still, to try and kill Rose like that?
‘So you chose to threaten her instead, hold her safety to ransom and demand that I ascend. This still doesn’t seem to have much to do with free will Setantii!’
‘Not a ransom Cristian. As I said, I could not trade her life for your ascension for that would break the laws of nature. No, I was simply removing a distraction if you like, giving you a little less reason to humanize yourself, that’s all. Callous it may be, but the silkie inside you is far more important to me than you can yet understand Cristian. So please, will you go and talk to the man who has the answers you need?’
I agree to go and talk, tell Setantii that I will go and talk to whoever she wants me too. What I don’t mention is that I’m doing this only in the hope of gleaning information, picking up clues to any weaknesses that this stranger may be aware of and that may point the way for me to discover how best avenge what this demon has done to Rose. ar
Chapter 16
Whilst Cristian Chevalier listens to Setantii’s instructions outside of the hospital, June Williams leans awkwardly against the door of her daughter’s room, taking a minute to pull her self together after having fallen apart so completely in the corridor. Jeremy Hill stands beside her (patting her back gently as she sobs) encouraging her to take her time. He knows that there’s no point to it, that Rose won’t care if her mother cries or laughs or sings but for June’s sake he waits, patiently whilst secretly wishing that she would hurry up and let him get on with what he must do.
Of course Jeremy Hill isn’t Rose’s doctor. He isn’t even what one might call a friend of the family but never the less he was the first person to be told about what had happened on the lawns of Hartford Manor, albeit to a girl that he had first met less than twelve hours previously. He had been at home when he received a call, just before nine o’clock this evening. When Hill picked up the phone he had heard John Trent on the other end, urgent and pumped with adrenaline. This was Uncle John, the man who had fired the gun that killed the stag and he was recounting how, almost immediately after the animal had died, he had found himself in savage fight with Aunt May. Hill might have laughed at this image (a large, fit man being thrashed by his tiny wife) but he knew better, for as frail as May Trent’s body is, the creature inside it had made slender arms both fast and accurate and the small fists they yielded had managed to bloody her husband’s nose and blacken his eye before finally being subdued. Hill had listened to John’s account with suspicion and remember’s thinking how over the top this response was to Rose’s rescue seemed, a view shared by Uncle John and raising serious concerns about Setantii’s motives for attacking her. Hill hadn’t understood what they might be but he had been convinced that Rose William’s was perhaps more significant to the silkie within May Trent than simply playing an annoying bit part in Cristian’s ascension should make her. The men’s agreement about this had been whispered but clear; Rose was somehow important and she must be protected until they could find out more.