by Tayte, Megan
‘No, she admitted that my grandfather, Peter, was her son – her firstborn.’
‘What is it then?’
I plucked a leaf off a nearby bush and began tearing it into pieces. ‘She told me if Luke and I… that any child we had would be like me.’
There was a pause. I got on with destroying the leaf.
‘Er, Scarlett? What’s the drama? You knew that.’
‘Yes, apparently you thought you warned me off sex with my boyfriend before I came back to Twycombe.’
I threw the word ‘sex’ at him like an insult and he cringed, but then looked baffled again.
‘But I did, Scarlett. Remember, on the balcony in the Newquay apartment? I said…’
I held up a hand to stop him. What was the point in berating him for having failed to deliver the message clearly enough? That day he’d been a mess – broken in two by Sienna’s betrayal. It wasn’t his fault.
‘It’s fine, Jude,’ I told him. ‘My fault. I didn’t understand.’
‘Oh,’ said Jude. Then: ‘Oh! Does that mean you and Luke…’
‘Jude! I am not going into that with you.’
‘But are you sure you’re not…’
‘Pregnant? Yes.’
‘But Ceruleans are really fertile.’
‘I get that, Jude, but I am not pregnant!’
‘Right. Sorry.’
The leaf was no more. I picked another and got to work.
‘Is it common knowledge,’ I asked, ‘what happens if humans and Ceruleans get together?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I mean, we’re all taught from an early age that we can’t be with humans because of how they drain us. But the offspring thing – I only know because Evangeline told me, back when you first came to the island. It was one of the reasons you weren’t meant to go back to Luke. I don’t know why I didn’t explain it then.’
‘Perhaps because it would mean talking about sex?’ I suggested wryly.
He smiled. ‘Perhaps.’
We fell quiet. I replayed the conversation with Evangeline over and over, pushing aside all my initial reactions and trying to lock down which elements were niggling at me. I’d stripped an entire branch of leaves before I reached a point of clarity.
‘You’re right, Jude. What is the drama? I mean, from Evangeline’s point of view. Isn’t her mission to create an army of us? You’d think she’d be delighted at the thought of me having kids who’ll turn into Ceruleans one day. Especially girls. She needs more females. So why has she been so careful to warn me off?’
Jude thought about it for a while. Eventually, he threw his hands up in defeat. ‘I don’t know. I guess it’s simply not the way we make new Ceruleans.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘Tell me again – how exactly do you make new ones?’
‘Through Cerulean partnerships on the island, and through Claiming the rare girl in a generation who has the Potential to become Cerulean,’ said Jude at once in a somewhat robotic voice that made me wonder whether he’d had to learn and recite this in his school days.
‘Potential,’ I echoed. ‘That’s what I had, you said, and Sienna, and Estelle, and Evangeline, and all the other women on the island.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where did that Potential come from, Jude?’
He shrugged.
‘If we’re to believe the origins story, the first Ceruleans were given the gift because they were worthy of it. Which implies Potential is linked to worthiness. But that can’t be right, because neither Sienna nor I were worthy of this. Dying soldiers eager to do God’s work? Yes. Teenage girls wrapped up in surfing and boys? No.’
Jude was frowning now.
‘It’s all a bit vague, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You get told to go Claim a mysterious girl whose Potential has been identified – by who, we’ve no idea. The girl, apparently, is just a normal human with no connection to the Ceruleans.’
‘Scarlett –’
‘But I’m not a normal human with no connection to the Ceruleans, am I? And neither was Sienna. Three generations of my family are Cerulean. That has to mean something, Jude.’
‘It’s just a coincidence. Evangeline was very clear when I went to Claim Sienna, and then you –’
‘Clear on what? What exactly did she tell you about us?’
There was some connection to make here – I knew it. If I just asked the right questions, found the right angle.
‘She said that you were human girls with the Potential to be Claimed as Cerulean,’ said Jude. ‘That’s it.’
Frustrated, I threw aside the leaf I was shredding.
‘What is Potential, Jude? How are you taught to define it?’
‘We aren’t.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And you never thought to ask?’
He reddened in the face of my anger. ‘Yes, actually,’ he fired back. ‘I asked Barnabas once. He said something about the person having Cerulean in them, but that it can only be realised at the point of death.’
I stared at him, all vestiges of irritation draining from me.
‘Scarlett?’
‘The girls you Claim are half-Cerulean.’
‘Er, well, I suppose if they have Cerulean in them…’
‘Just like any child I had with Luke would be half-Cerulean.’
‘Well, yes.’
I couldn’t sit still – I leapt to my feet. I couldn’t stand still – I began walking back and forth.
‘Evangeline said it today and I missed it,’ I said. ‘I heard the words but missed the meaning. She said my mother was human, definitely human, but that she should have been born half-Cerulean, like me and like Sienna. Jude, she said we were half-Cerulean.’
‘O-kay,’ said Jude slowly. ‘I’m getting that this is exciting somehow. But so what if having Potential means you’re half-Cerulean? I mean, isn’t that what we always thought, that a person with Potential has Cerulean in them?’
I stopped and opened my mouth and I almost spelled it out – the impossible idea that had struck me. But logic gagged me. What if Jude was right? What if Potential really was some innocent, random thing? Better to be sure. Better to know for myself before blowing his Cerulean world apart.
I turned away, towards the house. Only the very top level was visible above the trees, a sliver of white against the sky. She knew. She had the answers. I could march back up there, shut her in the conservatory and try to wrangle them out of her. But somehow I knew already what my great-grandmother would say: ‘My dear, I’m sorry, but it’s not my place to tell you this. If you want answers, you’ll need to ask –’
‘Scarlett?’ Jude’s hand on my arm tugged me around to face him. ‘You’re worrying me,’ he said. ‘Especially with all the pacing right by a cliff edge, given your history.’
I forced a smile. ‘I’m fine. It’s just... everything Evangeline said. I have a lot of thinking to do, I guess.’
‘About you and Luke.’ When I said nothing, he added, ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to make it work, being with him. Perhaps that’s the answer: just be with him. I mean, would it be so bad to have a child someday who was destined to become a Cerulean?’
‘I suppose that depends,’ I said.
‘On what?’
‘On whether my child grew up to fall in love with a Cerulean or a human.’
15: THE MEMORY WALL
The next day, Sunday, was meant to be a quiet one. Luke was working with William, and after my usual morning healing session and a surf, I’d intended to make a start on the bunting I’d (rather stupidly) offered to make for the cafe’s grand opening. But a night tossing and turning and thinking and fretting had wiped pottering about in Twycombe off the agenda. Today, my focus was fixed further afield.
I took care dressing. For some reason – perhaps because of the destination – it felt important to look my best. After some deliberation I chose a fitted shirt, smart trousers and soft-soled pumps. I brushed my hair until
it shone, and then pulled it back in a tight French plait that ensured no wisp could get in my eyes. As a final touch, I added a necklace Mum had recently sent me.
It was only when I checked my reflection in the mirror on my wardrobe door that I realised the overall look. Everything was black: clothing, footwear, jewellery, even my hair tie. I looked, depending on your perspective, like a Goth, a funeral goer or a cat burglar. The thought made me smile a little.
My phone, lying on the bed, chirruped. It was a text message from Luke.
Hey you. You okay? How did it go yesterday? What are you doing today? xx
I struggled to decide what to text back. The truth – Not really; mind-meltingly; heading off into the realm of impossibility – wasn’t going to help matters. Luke would be round in a flash. So I went with my old reliable: the white lie.
Good, thanks. Just chilling. Call you later. xx
I was about to put the phone back down; I didn’t want to be disturbed for the next few hours. But then I thought better of going off with no means of putting out an SOS, and after flicking the switch to silent mode, I slipped it into my pocket.
Several deep, steadying breaths later, I repeated my mantra: Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Then I closed my eyes, and I visualised a gloomy wooden shed with a rickety old door and a wonky window, and I willed myself there.
The air smelt different. Musty. Woodsy.
A distant beat was audible – music.
I cracked open an eye. A huge, fat, black spider dangling in front of my face looked back at me.
Letting out an involuntary shriek, I scuttled backwards into a lawnmower. Then pressed a hand to my mouth. Then felt a grin press against my hand.
I tiptoed over to the window of the shed and peeked out. Across immaculately manicured lawns stood a sprawling mansion house. My childhood home. Hollythwaite.
I’d done it. I’d bloomin’ done it.
The smile faded.
I’d thought this through carefully last night. I knew what Travelling here successfully meant. I was standing in Hampshire, way beyond the Devonshire boundary that Ceruleans were taught they couldn’t physically cross. I’d exposed a Cerulean lie. Which begged the question – how many other elements of Cerulean society were built on lies?
That was for another time. It wasn’t Cerulean lies I was here to uncover today, but those closer to home.
I creaked open the door to the shed – William’s shed – checked that the coast was clear and slipped out. Ducking down, I walked along the hedge that bordered the rose garden, attempting to be at once stealthy and casual, in case I was discovered. I was following the music – Jack Johnson’s ‘Better Together’ – and an off-key soprano I could now make out singing along. At the end of the hedge I stopped and peered around the corner.
Mum was sitting cross-legged on a tartan picnic rug laid out in a sunny spot on the lawn, alongside a portable stereo, a bottle of orange juice and an enormous pile of fabric swatch folders. She was leafing through a folder, and as I watched she stopped, released the metal arches in the middle and pulled out a square of gold brocade.
‘Fancy,’ she said approvingly, ‘but not fusty.’
She looked so genuine. She didn’t look like a woman capable of deceit. I wanted to step out of my hiding place and go to her, and see her face light up when she saw me, and know that she loved me – she loved me – and she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
But I didn’t go to my mother. I closed my eyes and pictured a different place, and I left her alone to her swatches and her singing and, perhaps, her secrets.
*
The old house was, as I’d hoped, deserted, my newly generous mother having given all the staff Sundays off work. It wasn’t, however, storing a lifetime’s accumulated belongings and memorabilia as I’d expected – it was stripped bare of all the clutter and much of the decor and furniture I’d grown up with. Mum’s renovation was more extensive than I’d realised.
As I walked from room to room, I had to agree with William that she’d done a wonderful job. The house was airy and bright and colourful and at once traditional and modern, the perfect blank and beautiful canvas for any kind of event.
In the front living room, I couldn’t resist sinking into a massive red sofa scattered with funky cushions. It was sublimely comfortable, and I thought ruefully of all the days I’d sat on the stiff, hard Chesterfield that had once stood on this spot, its leather covering ice-cold in winter and painfully sticky in summer. Scanning the room, I saw nothing I recognised. Even Hugo’s old and gloomy oil paintings were gone, replaced with artworks in various styles depicting areas of the Hollythwaite grounds.
I stood and walked over to one, a watercolour. I recognised the scene as being the field of wildflowers behind the house, the hill down which Sienna and I had once raced and where, what seemed an age ago, Luke had come back to me. Reaching out, I touched my finger to the exact spot where I’d been sitting when he fell into my arms.
A noise somewhere in the depths of the house made me start – Mum was inside. I closed my eyes, searched my memory bank for an image and left the house.
*
I arrived, somewhat painfully, in the midst of a prickly plant that had certainly not been there the last I’d known. Scrambling clear, getting several deep scratches in the process, I looked quickly around. I was alone. And I was in a Zen-style garden with lush plants and tropically coloured flowers and black stepping stones and white raked sand and an ornamental pond and a dancing fountain. It was beautiful, but somewhat surreal given the fact that my whole life the garden to the gatekeeper’s lodge had been nothing but a straggly lawn. My mother had been serious about making this her home then.
I’d never been inside the lodge; it had been locked up when I lived here. Peeking through the windows hadn’t been an option either, covered as they were with thick curtains. So I had no idea what lay in store for me inside – but judging by the attention that had gone into creating the garden, I suspected my mum had been busy within.
The back door was unlocked, and I eased it open and stepped into the kitchen. I walked slowly through to the tiny hallway, leading into the living room and a miniature yoga studio, then climbed the narrow stairs and ducked my head into the first bedroom and the bathroom. On the upstairs landing a strangely undulating seat was positioned under the window, and I knelt on it and took in the view of the garden and the green slopes and, on the hill beyond, the big house.
Mum’s new home was stunning, as I’d known it would be. But surprising. Here, in this little stone lodge, whitewashed walls and latticed windows were the only testament to the past. All else was starkly modern in design. No pastel armchair. No quaint end table. No damask curtains. No ornament, even. Just smooth lines and bold colours and unusual shapes wherever I looked. This lodge was the very antithesis of the cottage on the cliff, and that puzzled me. Mum had grown up in Twycombe amid chintz and china figurines, and had lived in a similar style in Hollythwaite for all those years with Hugo. Perhaps she wanted to reinvent herself after her divorce. Or perhaps I really didn’t know her well at all.
There was one room left to explore, and I’d left it until last deliberately. Surely here – if not anywhere in the big house or the rest of this lodge – there would be something that spoke of a woman with a past. Other than a picture of Sienna and Mum and me downstairs on the living room windowsill, I’d seen nothing in the entire house that was familiar.
Guilt stabbed at me as I turned the shiny knob and opened the door to my mother’s bedroom. I’d been in and out of her room constantly as a child, but here, in the space she’d claimed as her own, there was no pretending that this wasn’t an invasion of her privacy.
As I looked around my first impression was of light – warm, restful light that reminded me of sitting on the beach at Twycombe on a balmy-hot day and staring at the hazy line where sea meets sky. My second was of contrast. This room was different to all the others.
The gauze curtains fluttering at the window. The quilt smoothed neatly across the bed. The rug on the sanded floorboards. The crystals swaying from the light fitting. The frames arranged artistically on the wall facing the bed.
Blue. The room was blue.
Which wasn’t odd, particularly. Except that I now realised I hadn’t seen the colour amid the purples and reds and yellows and oranges and greens in the rest of the lodge. In fact, thinking about it, blue wasn’t a colour I associated with my mother at all. Had I ever even seen her wear it?
My eyes were drawn to the wall of frames. I caught a glimpse of red hair before I tore my eyes away.
I needed something else to focus on, and I found it: on the bed, a patchwork quilt made up of blue-infused fabrics. I sank down and stroked a flowery square. It was from a sundress I’d worn as a baby. Next to it, blue stripes from Sienna’s first apron. Then denim, my grandfather’s old overalls, and pink-and-baby-blue swirls from Nanna’s sunhat, and the very palest of cornflower satins, from Mum’s teenage church dress. My grandmother had sewn this. I remembered her giving it to Mum the same Christmas she gave Sienna and me our own. She’d talked us through each square carefully, and her cheeks had pinked up with pleasure as she said, ‘So you may always keep a little bit of us close to you.’
My eyes filled with tears, and I found myself aching for my mother now. I didn’t want to be sneaking around in her room alone. I wanted her here beside me. I wanted her to place a finger under my chin and lift it and say, ‘It’s all right, Scarlett. Come and look at my pictures. You have nothing to fear.’
Without taking my eyes off the quilt, I fumbled my phone out of my back pocket, found her number and pressed ‘call’.
‘Hello, darling!’
‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, putting on my best ‘Happy Scarlett’ voice.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said at once.
‘Nothing.’
I heard music in the background at her end. The unmistakable rhythm of a ukulele and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole singing his version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’.
‘What’s with all the Hawaiian music?’ I asked, thinking of Jack Johnson earlier, then slapped my forehead – as far as Mum was concerned, this was the first tune I’d heard from her all day.