by Tayte, Megan
‘It’s okay. You weren’t to know.’ He took another sip of his coffee, grimaced, and then said in a lighter tone, ‘So how did Michael get on with everyone?’
But I was shaking my head. ‘No, Jude. Don’t change the subject. I should have known.’
He frowned. ‘I don’t see how. It’s not like you were nearby to feel the pull of those in need – or you got a phone call alerting you, like I did.’
‘I don’t care!’ I declared passionately. ‘Don’t you see, it’s wrong – me sitting here enjoying beef Wellington and chitchatting, and you out there saving lives!’
‘Michael was here with you, and he’s a Cerulean. It’s not so simple that you should always be out there helping people, Scarlett.’
‘But Michael does that. Not tonight, but often – most days. It’s part of his life, part of who he is. And I’m no different to him and you now. I should be helping too, Jude.’
He opened his mouth to speak – to protest, I thought – but I blazed on, tapping my mug to hammer home my points.
‘Just because I turned my back on Cerulea, doesn’t mean I’m the girl I was before all of this. You and me in Newquay, you taking me out and explaining the light, me healing that young mum in the clothes shop – healing her! I took away her pain, Jude! It doesn’t all just disappear because I’m back here at the cottage, back with Luke.
‘I feel… I don’t know, responsible. Like I’ve a duty to use this gift. Like to not use it is wrong. What Sienna and Daniel and the others do, how they use the gift to take lives – that’s wrong. But in a sense, is it any less wrong to have the gift and not use it? Isn’t that taking lives by omission, by failing to save them? If I’d been there tonight, maybe I could have…’
I trailed off then. My mug-tapping had reached such passionate proportions that I’d slopped coffee all over the table.
‘Scarlett,’ said Jude seriously as I got up to fetch some paper towels, ‘if you’d been there tonight, if you’d seen what I saw, you may not be so keen to do what the men do. The women in Cerulea, they’re protected from that horror.’
Images of twisted metal and mangled limbs and terrified moaning plunged me into nausea. I scrubbed at the spillage and demanded fiercely, ‘You think because I’m female that I should be protected from it?’
I saw his discomfort – the truth was, on some level he did believe that, because he’d been brought up to be a gallant bloke. But he knew enough of life off Cerulea not to confess to the outmoded belief.
‘Look,’ I said, sinking back down into the chair opposite, ‘I get it. It’s a harrowing, exhausting, emotional business. You see stuff that no one should see. You wouldn’t wish it on me – you care about me. But Jude, I know my own mind. And as difficult as it might be, I have to learn to help too. You have to show me.’
He said nothing, just regarded me with eyes that were an unfathomable grey.
‘Remember when we left Cerulea,’ I said, ‘when you told me you would leave with me? You said then you were doing it for me, and for Sienna. But also because it was the right thing to do. Teaching me how to help, Jude, that’s the right thing to do, and you know it.’
He sighed, but I thought, by the slumping of his shoulders, perhaps I was getting somewhere.
‘Of course,’ I added slyly, ‘I could go off and do it myself. Appear out of nowhere in the local Accident and Emergency department and start healing people all over the place.’
Jude shot upright, eyes wide. ‘You can’t!’ he declared. ‘There are rules, Scarlett! What if you were discovered using your power? What if you healed someone who wasn’t meant to be healed? What if you went too far with someone, and ended up expelling all your light – then it would be you in the morgue!’
‘The morgue!’
‘Yes, the morgue! I told you that, the day you ODed on time with Luke! If you stay around humans too long, or you overdo the healing – if you let too much of your light leak out, you will go to sleep and you will not wake up! Scarlett, you have to remember this stuff!’
I hid the smile tickling the corners of my mouth. ‘You’d better teach me then,’ I said. ‘Properly. Make sure I know all the rules of being a Cerulean among people really, really well.’
Slowly, his fists unclenched and I saw understanding dawn on him. I had baited him. I wasn’t so stupid as to blaze off and do this alone; I wasn’t so daft that I’d forgotten the consequences of going too far. He looked relieved and then, begrudgingly, amused.
‘Scarlett Blake, when you want to be, you can be a highly manipulative person.’
I batted my eyelashes at him and said, ‘Just be glad I only use my powers for good.’
He laughed.
‘So when do we start?’
‘Monday morning. Nine a.m.’
‘Suits me.’
‘Do not be tired. You’ll need all your energy.’
‘Early night. Got it, capt’n.’ I saluted.
Jude rolled his eyes. ‘If this is anything like teaching you to Travel…’
‘Hey! I got that.’
‘Eventually. Have you been doing it here?’
I shook my head. The truth was, I’d done it once since coming home – the day after my zonk-out, as a demonstration to Luke and Cara after I filled them in on my months away. Cara had erupted into Chester-level excitement, and had promptly began plotting all sorts of cheeky escapades we could get up to with my newfound ability. But Luke had been white-faced and tight-lipped, and he’d said nothing at all. He’d simply thrown a cushion at Cara to halt her stream of ideas and then changed the subject.
‘Er, no, I’ve not been Travelling,’ I told Jude now. ‘Really, I’ve been nothing but a good little human.’
‘I see.’ He took a swig of coffee and then cleared his throat and said, ‘And how are things with Luke?’
That he’d made the connection between my not Travelling and Luke spoke volumes. With all the history between us, Jude understood. He got me. Which was why I’d so missed his friendship in these past weeks. But now, to talk to him about my relationship with Luke – was it disloyal?
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ said Jude when I didn’t reply. ‘I just want to be sure you’re okay.’
I looked at him and saw the concern in his eyes. This was Jude, who’d told me I must return to Luke, that I must fight for the person I loved. I could talk to Jude; he was rooting for Luke and me to make it work.
‘It’s the same between us,’ I said, ‘but different. It’s like we’re supposed to just pick up where we left off, but we can’t because I’m not the same. I think really he wants me back as I was then. He says stuff like “I like you best as you”. But he means the old me. Not this me.’
‘It’ll take some time to adjust, I guess,’ said Jude diplomatically.
‘I guess. It doesn’t help that I see so little of him now. When I do see him, we’re all about having fun, making the best of the time, not talking about serious stuff.’
‘Have you told him about me teaching you to use the light?’
I shook my head. ‘I thought perhaps if you two were here tonight, with Michael as a buffer, he may chill out a bit about the Cerulean stuff. I thought if we could get to a point that you and Michael talked a little about what you do, he’d get how important it all is.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here, if it would have helped.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll sort it out with him.’ I sighed. ‘“The course of true love never did run smooth”, right?’
‘So they say.’
‘Not for you either,’ I added softly, hoping to turn the conversation now to Jude – I was desperate to know how this past month had been for him.
In seconds he was on his feet and shrugging his jacket back on. ‘In my case, Scarlett,’ he said in a hard voice I didn’t recognise, ‘the course of love shuddered along and then stopped. Dead.’
I winced at the word.
‘Well, in that case it can’t have been love, Jude,’ I attempted. �
�The girl you’ll really love is still out there, ready to find.’
Leaning over, Jude gave me a brief hug and said, ‘Thanks, Scarlett, it’s a nice thought.’ But as he faded away in a blur of blue, I could read the truth written in his haunted eyes: he loved my sister, loved her, and he had lost her forever.
6: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
First thing the next morning, I should have gone and found Luke – daytime distance rules be damned – and talked out the tension between us. But once I’d breakfasted and showered and dressed and cleared away the dishes from the previous evening, I found procrastination far more appealing than confrontation. And what better means of freedom and escape than riding the waves?
Surfing, to me, had become more than a hobby. Sleepless night? Surf it out. Anxious, frustrated? Surf it out. It was therapy – better than any drug: a way of life, a way of dealing with life. So now that I wasn’t bound by the limitations of Cerulea, I surfed every day, weather permitting. Usually, I took to the water around noon, when the other surfers were at college/work/loafing about in front of daytime TV. But this morning the sky was blue and the waves were decent and I was too restless to wait.
Down in the cove, I found some of my fellow surfers were out and in fine form. I waded through the breaking waves and then paddled out. From their scattered positions Andy and Liam and Duvali and Si called across the water warm – if rather surprised – hellos; they’d got used to me shunning their company, I guess. There was no sign of Luke, as I’d expected – he’d be hard at work on The Project today, as he was just about every day. But there was one other familiar surfer bobbing up and down on a board across the cove, and she earned my biggest grin.
‘Hey, girl, lookin’ good,’ I called over to her in the terrible American accent that always made her smile.
‘Scarlett!’ she cried, and began paddling over to me.
After so many years of sitting on the beach and watching others surf but unable to join in due to her disability, Cara’s miraculous healing, courtesy of Jude, had inspired her to throw herself gung-ho into all kinds of activities previously out of bounds for her. Cycling, jogging, rock climbing, swimming, trampolining, treetop tightrope walking – she’d tried them all. But it was surfing that Cara had most taken to, because it allowed her to be in the thick of things at last – and because her instructor happened to be the guy she fancied madly.
‘Did you see me on the last wave?’ she said when she reached me, pushing up to sit straddling her board as I was. ‘Si says it won’t be long till I’m at your level.’
‘Cara, that won’t be hard. I’m no expert surfer.’
‘Hey! Why do you put yourself down like that? You’re a great surfer. And cook, as it turns out.’
I searched her eyes for some glimmer of sarcasm, but apparently Luke hadn’t let slip my little cheat.
‘Did you see Luke’s face when he tasted your starter? Like he was sucking lemons!’
‘He is a little competitive, I guess.’
‘Tell me about it. Try growing up with the bloke. Do you know, he once made me spend a whole afternoon building Lego towers with him, only to declare at the end that although both were the same height, his was the winner because the colour scheme was more artistic. I was five, Scarlett – five!’
I started to smile, but her next words sobered me up:
‘And then there’s the whole macho Luke v. Jude nonsense. Honestly, after what you told us that poor guy’s been through, he deserves a break. The number of times I’ve tried to get through to Luke that Jude is no competition whatsoever…’
‘You have?’ It hadn’t occurred to me that Luke and Cara talked about such things when I wasn’t around.
‘I have,’ she said. ‘Over and over. But he just brushes me off.’
‘I don’t think it’s just Jude he dislikes,’ I told her. ‘I think it’s all things Cerulean.’
She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. ‘You could be right. And Jude? He’s avoiding the issue too?’
‘No. He cancelled last night because he had to… work.’
Cara’s eyes widened, and I saw she was desperate to ask what Jude had been doing, fascinated as she was by the Cerulean world. But I turned away and looked across the water to Twycombe, the scattering of houses climbing up the hill beyond the cove. From here, I could just make out the pink walls of Luke and Cara’s house.
‘So,’ said Cara, ‘how are we going to get my daft brother to mellow out?’
‘We?’ I blinked at her.
‘Yes we,’ returned Cara impatiently. ‘Why is it you always think you have to go it alone, huh? It’s near enough a year since you arrived in Twycombe, and in that time you’ve been the queen of secrets. Oh, I appear to have healing powers. Oh, that dude Jude appears to have them too. Oh, I’m dying but will nobly keep that to myself…’
I had to laugh at her impression of me. Did I really sound that posh?
‘Thanks, Cara. But the truth is, I don’t think we can “get” Luke to do anything. Jude says I’m ace at manipulation. But I don’t want to wheedle Luke into anything. I don’t want him to not be himself, not make his own choices. That’s not love.’
Cara was nodding. ‘Fair enough. So the plan is?’
‘The plan is to do the right thing.’ I swallowed and added, ‘And Luke will have to choose whether to respect that or not.’
‘The right thing?’
I met her eyes, blue as the sea we were floating on. ‘I’m going to use my gift to help people,’ I told her. ‘Jude’s going to teach me.’
Cara whooped. ‘About bloomin’ time!’
‘You’re not… you don’t think it’s selfish of me? It’ll mean less time with Luke, you know, and more time with Jude, and being more, well, Cerulean, when Luke wants a nice, simple human life with me.’
‘Pah!’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Selfish would be pretending you’re just human and ignoring what you’re capable of doing.
‘Listen, don’t worry about Luke, okay? All that time you were gone, it was really hard on him. It’s only been a month, and the memory hasn’t faded. He’s scared of losing you. Just give him some time. But meanwhile, don’t let protecting him get in the way of doing what you need to do, right?’
She reached over and patted my arm, nearly falling off her board in the process, and finished with feeling: ‘Like you said: not being yourself, not making your own choices? That’s not love.’
*
‘Do you know, dear, that pig thing has terrible flatulence problems.’
‘Um...’
‘Bit like Harold over there, in fact.’
‘Really? Well, that’s… not ideal.’
‘No, dear. Puts you right off your shortbread.’
It was quite a sea change: from talking boys with my best friend on the waves, to discussing wind issues in a musty lounge full of biscuit-munching geriatrics. And as always, it was a little bewildering spending time with Grannie Cavendish, given the fact that she was intermittently senile. But it was also a blast, because I’d grown very fond of this diminutive lady, with her sparkly eyes, her kindly manner and her passion for fairytales.
This was my first visit since I’d returned from Cerulea. I’d avoided coming until now, because I wasn’t sure how I’d cope in a care home with eighty residents, most of whom, presumably, were unwell. But when, this morning, Cara suggested that I visit, because Grannie kept asking for ‘the Blue Fairy’ and ‘that Scarlett girl’, I decided to give it a go. A quick twenty-minute visit to put a smile on an old lady’s face, just enough time for a cup of tea and a chat.
Looking at the clock on the mantelpiece across the lounge now, though, I saw that my visit was fast-approaching the one-hour mark. Still, I felt no burning need to rush off. I was quite comfortable here; in fact, I realised, I felt pretty much as I had in the old days, before becoming Cerulean.
I understood now why, when I’d first met Grannie and tried to heal her fractured mind, I’d been unabl
e to. The people in this home, all of them, they were dying – slowly, calmly drifting away. It was natural; it was their time. None of them needed me to heal them. So there was no clamour here, no awareness of pain and misery all around. The closest I’d come to a tug had been on the way into the home, when I’d spoken to the receptionist who, I’d sensed, had a backache.
No doubt if I stayed for too long I’d find myself wearing down, as I did around anyone who didn’t need healing, like Luke and Cara and Si. But for now, I’d found a place with lots of people where I wasn’t in purgatory as a Cerulean. Even with the smell of disinfectant and the strange, intelligible shouts of a dozing man across the room, it was good to be here, with a lady who was a wise old soul.
I looked at her now and smiled. She was merrily warbling ‘Hakuna Matata’ along with The Lion King, which was playing on the lounge television. Around us, a few other ladies and gents were singing too. I wondered how often they sat though this DVD.
Finally, the song ended and Grannie turned to me. ‘Oh, hello!’
‘Hello, Grannie.’
‘You’re here!’
‘I am, yes.’
‘I haven’t seen you for a long time, I think.’
‘No. I’ve been away.’
‘To the Pride Lands?’
‘Er… no, not quite.’
‘How lovely. Figgy roll?’
I took a biscuit from the selection box she offered me. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve got to get in there, Scarlett,’ she whispered. ‘Or Harold’ll hoover them all up.’
I smiled. She’d remembered my name.
‘You know, dear, you’re awfully blue today,’ she commented, gesturing to her own blue rinse to illustrate the point.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do find myself a little bluer these days.’
Grannie Cavendish appeared to have some kind of ability to spot the blue light in me – had done so before I was even Claimed, when she’d taken to calling me the Little Blue Fairy. Once, she’d said that I reminded her of Peter, and I’d worked out that she’d known my grandfather. I’d thought nothing then of the link between the blue and Peter in her confused memory, but now…