by Andy Tilley
‘I think I’m ready now doctor. And thanks again for driving me all this way at such short notice. It really is very good of you.’
‘Oh please Mrs Williams, think nothing of it. All part of the service. Please, after you.’
Hill opens the door and steps aside to allow June to enter. The room is small and dimly lit by a single angle poise lamp that sits on a desk at the far side of the bed. In the pool of light beneath it there are papers and notes that the nurse uses to record the condition of her patient and chart the vital signs as they scroll across the monitor mounted on the wall above it. Rose lies motionless on the fringe but Hill is pleased to see that rather than fuel June’s angst, the sight of her helpless daughter steels the mother and there are no fresh tears. Whilst June draws a chair closer to Rose’s bed, Dr Hill moves around the end of it to inspect the medical notes.
‘Can she hear me Dr Hill? I mean if I talk to her, will she be able to hear me?’
‘I believe she will June, yes. Would you like me to leave?’
Hill curses his breeding and the gentlemanly behavior demanded by it. If the answer to his polite gesture happens to be yes then he is going to have one hell of a time coming up with an excuse to pries open one of Roses eyes, an action necessary if he is to confirm that the hospital staff haven’t removed her diamond lenses and in doing so let down her only defense.
‘Oh no that won’t be necessary. You do what you have to doctor, we’ll be fine.’
The doctor doesn’t need a second invitation. He reaches for the lamp and angles it toward Rose’s face, igniting a corona of dazzling blond hair around her head that sets the pillow on fire. Gently he takes the upper and lower lid of her right eye and draws them apart to expose her cornea. It’s white, bright white and he sighs with relief. Leaning closer he can see a pale milky swirl upon her pupil and satisfied with this he releases and allows the eye to close.
‘Good. Very good. Tell me June, did you know that Rose had contacts?’
He should have looked up fully first, then perhaps Hill would have seen that June is talking to her daughter. Barley audible as her words are (even to someone who is awake!) she is engrossed in her one way conversation and hasn’t heard the doctor’s question. Hill walks back around the bed and places his hand on June’s shoulder.
‘Listen to me June. I’m going to leave you alone with Rose now. I’ll wait for you outside so you take as long as you need. But this is important so you have to listen to me before I go. Rose has contact lenses. I think they’re cosmetic but that doesn’t matter. They have to be left in place June. If they’re removed and Rose should wake without them then her eyesight could be permanently damaged. Do you understand me June? They have to stay in her eyes, no matter what.’
The woman finally looks away from her daughter and nods for the doctor but this isn’t enough.
‘What did I say June?’
‘That the contact lenses have to stay in place.’
‘That’s right. It’s very important so should a nurse or even a doctor ask about them then you just tell them to talk to me before they do anything, okay?’
This time her nod is a lot firmer and with it, his work done for the night. Dr Hill slides quietly from the room and leaves mother and daughter alone to try and work out how they can reconnect across the darkness that divides them.
Chapter 17
It’s early morning by the time that Setantii and I finally arrive back from the hospital and pull to a stop on the forecourt of Hartford Manor. The winter sun is just rising, with barely the strength to lift and hold a thin band of mist above the woodland beyond the lawn where Rose fell last night. There it stays; a grey canopy unable to rise higher but refusing to fall. Is this what I am to become? A stubborn grey haze trapped between sky and ground, undecided and so unable to commit to either existence? I shudder at the thought. Not at the gravity of the decision I face, immense as it is, but at the realization that this marks the first time that I can remember ever doubting my choice not to ascend and to stay with Rose. But it isn’t me, Cristian Chevalier that falters. It is something else. It is the developing silkie inside me, as yet unnamed, that has begun to stir and fight for its right to life. Setantii feels it too. Smiling, she puts her arm around me and together we walk up the entrance steps.
Uncle John isn’t here to greet us but there is a note from him pinned to the door. I’m the first to reach out and take it down.
To Cristian,
Be strong son, and follow your heart where ever it leads.
To Setantii,
When this is over, I beg you to bring my May back to me. No matter how much of her soul remains, it will be enough to complete me.
John T
‘And will you?’
I thrust the note into Setantii’s hand and give her a moment to read it.
‘You know Cristian, this is something that I haven’t quite decided yet. When I eventually leave your Aunt May, which I will when my time caring for you is over, I’m really not sure how much of her soul will remain intact and whether or not it would be best to take it for myself or give it back to John. And let me say that this outcome won’t be swayed by John’s damned intervention last night. No, I can forgive him that because both he and May have been magnificent over the past decade, really they have. You have my promise that I will decide based only on what is best for them and that may well mean your Uncle being set free to finally grieve for his wife. ’
It suddenly strikes me that as much as I know about Setantii’s role as my guardian, I know little of her relationship with my aunt and uncle. Never mind that, I am almost ignorant about how the silkie and my biological mother were together! When I was a child Setantii had been very real, a kind of imaginary friend. When I played she would play too, whisper in my ear and laugh as we searched for Rose hiding in the woods. At school she would guide me to the answers, fend off bullies and on the way home bring cars to a halt should I step from the curb without looking. Of course she had never explained her true nature, the fact that she had invested a part of her self in me and so she remained something that I had created, a secret guardian that I truly valued. After my mother had committed suicide, and as my father and I had fled to Aunt May’s, Setantii fell silent. I was desperately sad to begin with and her abandoning me like this had been a double blow. During those ten days of furtive travel I began the process of coming to terms with both of these losses and reasoned that the stress of everything had perhaps forced me to grow up, cast aside childish things and with them my imaginary friend. I know now that Setantii was in fact herself grieving and panicking too, desperate to recover the situation, talking inside my father but never once neglecting the duty of care she had for me. Only when Setantii and my father had made sure that I was safely in the care of Aunt May and Uncle John did they separate and Setantii take up her new place within the body of my aunt.
‘You see Cristian, when I entered May it had to happen quickly. I needed time if I was to explain things to her, allow her to lapse in to madness where I could gradually convince her that everything was going to be okay, that I was in control but that she would be safe. Believe me, I took no pleasure in draining her soul so quickly and so completely but the alternative would have taken months, years maybe and I couldn’t risk that That’s why there is so little left of your Aunt May inside here today. I had to shut her down immediately, take almost all of her and leave only the faintest memory of what she was for me to present to the world, keep John by my side. It had to be this way if I was to be able to continue looking after you properly. Do you understand Cristian?’
On some level I think I do. What’s more Setantii sounds genuinely remorseful for what she has done to my aunt. But I still can’t get past my loathing of this creature. This silkie that invaded my family, contaminated my mother and laid a seed inside the fetus she was nurturing; the rudiments of a child that would one day become me.
‘And was it the same for my mother Setantii? Make your excuses and raid he
r like this did you? Strip everything that she was and take it for yourself, murdering what was left when you’d done with her? ’
‘I didn’t kill Dawn Chevalier! Trust me, you knew your true biological mother Cristian. She wasn’t a mere puppet like May has been. No, Dawn took her own life that day, after she’d taken Christine’s eyes.’
We are in the drawing room now having walked slowly whilst we talked. I need a rest too, for a short while at least before I get busy again, grab a bag and leave for god knows where. Above the fire place is a picture of the woman that we are talking about. Dawn Chevalier, my mother who (if I am to be brutally honest) was never really much of a comfort or help to me. I loved her of course, but I had sort of loved Setantii too back then, never guessing that they were one and the same; silkie and human mother’s sharing body and soul to tend their child together. That’s if Setantii is to be trusted on this for I have no reason to believe that she hadn’t dealt with Dawn the same way that she now treats her sister, May. Having sensed my doubt Setantii leans forward and begins to offer her reassurance in calm, deliberate tones.
‘Ancient I may be Cristian but it is only in recent times that I have become powerful enough and humanity sufficiently plentiful for me to be confident about replicating.’
Replicating. What a strange word to use. It sounds like something a machine might do, not a sentient being but then again, is a human birth anymore than this; the replication of parent genes with perhaps the odd twist?
‘You remember me telling you once that man and silkie have common ancestry Cristian? Well for mankind the separation of our two species was total but for silkie it wasn’t. Like the turtle must find a particular beach or a salmon the exact river where she was born so silkie have to return, only able to seed ourselves in the soul of humanity from where we came. I had failed once already and so I took great care in selecting your family as one that would give me the best chance of nurturing a new life through to ascension. Your father is a brilliant mind, physically strong too but it was his money and influence that convinced me that he could protect you better than most. His young wife Dawn was an excellent candidate too. She didn’t have the strength of purpose of your father but if anything her mind was sharper than his. The thing that impressed me most about her was how open she was, a free spirit. It still took time to bring her around to my way of thinking though and in this aspect your father’s stubbornness and money didn’t help. He employed all kinds of doctors and treatments to try and shake me from her but in the end her madness went away all by itself as she accepted the idea that we could work together, as equals, to bring our next generations into the world. And so you were born Cristian.’
Setantii is smiling again but this time it isn’t so warm. There’s a falseness about it that’s difficult to grasp but I know it’s there none the less. I feel like I’m staring at one of those magic pictures; knowing that somewhere within that matrix of confused dots lies the full picture yet it refuses to reveal itself to me, no matter how long I look.
‘And we were good together Dawn and I. You were happy and safe under our wing until..’
The smile is replaced by a tight lipped frown as Setantii considers her next words carefully. I stay silent, not wanting to interrupt her thoughts as I feel sure that they are leading toward a long sought answer about why my mother died.
‘When Dawn fell pregnant with Christine I immediately thought why not take the opportunity to seed her again? It was a mistake and I admit that I was wrong not to have involved her in the decision but, well let’s just say that I had misread the situation. Dawn was so angry when I told her, angry that I had taken another of her children and looking back I can understand her feeling this way. On two occasions she tried to terminate the baby and twice I had to control her mind, stop her from carrying it through. Eventually she conceded that I was not going to let it happen and an uneasy truce was restored. But she had been clever you mother, cloaked her true intent in irrelevant nonsense and hidden it deep inside her mind, only developing those plans on the occasions when I left her to be with you. This is how she managed to keep her murderous preparations from me for the next five months of the pregnancy, how she hid the crucifixes in her bed, ready to plunge them into the eyes of her daughter the moment that she was born.’
Pop! The picture comes into focus! And at the center of it stands Dawn Chevalier; brilliant and brave. A wonderful mother, prepared to risk everything in the hope that her baby girl will be given a chance at a normal life. She knew that a person’s eyes are not only the gateway to their soul but more importantly the sole passage through which silkie can enter and leave it! She knew that taking her daughter’s eyes like this, gruesome as it was, would trap the fledgling entity inside. Of course she couldn’t have known how Setantii would react, but for Dawn Chevalier it was a case of better the devil you don’t know. My mother took a blind leap of faith that day, one that might yet pay off for Setantii’s instincts to protect the things she had planted inside my sister and I had forced her hand. Betrayed by Dawn she had turned to my father, no doubt lied as she struck a deal with him that would buy herself time. Better this than accepting defeat there and then and abandoning the offspring trapped within baby Christine.
‘And that’s why my mother had to die. Because she closed the eyes of her baby and beat you.’
The bitterness of my words tightens Aunt May’s expression further until it freezes, as still as the photograph of her dead sister that smiles at me over her shoulder. Other than this, there is no response.
It’s time for me to pack.
Chapter 17
Ten minutes is all it takes for me to bundle the things I will need into a rucksack and sling it onto the back seat of the car. I would have been quicker had it not been for Lloyd and Bruce insisting on helping me. I hate leaving the dogs like this. They’ve seen the bag, know what it means and twice I have to tell them to jump down from the back seat of the Range Rover. Remarkably, explaining that Stan will be coming around soon to keep an eye on them seems to settle the pair and I return the dogs to the house with little resistance. Setantii has gone. She hasn’t left a note and so I have no idea where she might have slid off to but this isn’t a surprise for it was made quite clear that what I must do I must do alone. As I drive through the woods the satnav thinks about how best to get me to the address that Setantii gave me, on the way back from the hospital. By the time I reach the gates it’s done deliberating and instructs me to turn left, adding that the journey will take just over an hour. Just sixty minutes separate me from Jack Noble; a man who I have never met but a person with the capacity to have the most profound impact on my life.
Initially I’m making good progress but as the hedge rows and dry stone walls of the country side are cleared to make room for shops and houses, the morning rush hour jabs the brakes and idles the engine. I have three days left and with time so short every delay sat at traffic lights notches my frustration up a level until it has to be released. With the motorway finally in view I swing the steering hard right and pull out of the queue, onto the opposite carriageway, force at least three cars to mount the curb before cutting back in and stealing onto the slip road at the head of the line. The swarm of beeping rage I kick up is soon left behind as my speed finally returns to meet the schedule set by my satnav. It isn’t only the journey that is frustrating me either. Since I talked to Setantii outside the hospital come to realize that, for all her attention over the years, she hasn’t actually told me more than a handful of tangible details for me to consider here. I mean, if everything I know is true, then all I really know is that by the time I leave Sule Skerry I will either be human or something else completely! Something higher, set free to feed on the souls of the race I will have denied. Not much to go on at all and I pray that Jack Noble will have more for me to go on. There it is again! A nudge hardly felt but undeniable. A gentle jab from deep inside my mind, prodding my thoughts away from a decision already made. Less than four hours ago I had resolved
not to ascend, not to step foot on some remote lump of rock that Setantii had called Sule Skerry. I had set off on this journey not to rise but to cement my feet firmly to the ground. My search for a man called Jack Noble had been undertaken for one purpose only; to discover clues as to how Rose, my mother and sister might be avenged. Now I find that my agenda over the next few days has been completely rewritten, and pretty much without my having a conscious say in it too! Confirmation of this fact is glowing on the passenger seat. Enlarged on the ipad screen beside me there is an article about the Orkney’s. It contains a small section of map and the picture of a place called Stromness; a tiny Scottish seaport clustered around an old harbour built from grey stone long since heaved out of the island itself. Stromness is a step off point, for the ferries and smaller craft that I can clearly see on the photograph seemingly being lifted onto the causeway by a high North sea tide. This a town that, without any recollection, I have asked my ipad to find for me. This is the town that is the final stepping stone to a place called Sule Skerry.