The Progeny

by Shelley Crowley

  “I ermm,” She cleared her throat and let out another girlish giggle, still avoiding looking at him directly. “I’m glad I bumped into you, actually. Well, you bumped into me.”

  When Alexander smiled and expelled the ghost of a laugh, Jennifer’s eyes widened and darted to him. A smile filled her face, showing straight white teeth. Her two front teeth didn’t curve into each other like Elizabeth’s had. Jennifer wasn’t perfectly imperfect like her. She was just a girl who happened to have the same hair colour.

  “Oh yeah?” asked Alexander, trying to focus more on the conversation than the image of his wife that was starting to piece itself together in his mind.

  “Yeah.” She was swaying slightly now, her fingertips playing with the ends of her hair. “I was actually wondering, if you have time, if we could… um… talk?”

  “Talk?” Alexander raised an eyebrow and slotted his hands into his pockets, trying to look casual.

  “Yeah. I’ve been listening to what you’ve been saying to Nico, and it’s clear that you’re not happy with what he’s done. And neither am I. I tried to tell him that in my session with him but… I got scared. But I really want to get things off my chest and you’re the only person I really want to share it with.” She finished with a cringe-smile, as if afraid but hopeful. “Do you mind?”

  “Sure, why not?” He shrugged, knowing by her not so subtle hints that she wanted more than just to talk. The girl was totally crushing on him. And Alexander was lapping it up.

  “Okay, great!” she chirped excitedly and squeezed his shoulder. Alexander’s breath hitched and she beamed into his eyes, obviously feeling some sort of connection, too. She lingered again before withdrawing her hand. The loss of contact was a relief this time, now that Alexander understood that it was just a phantom feeling of something that was long gone. And it was mocking him. “I’ll erhh… meet you in the flower garden? There’s a bench there. It’s so beautiful.”

  “Okay,” nodded Alexander. “How about we go there now?” he added when she turned to leave.

  She spun back, her chestnut hair whooshing inches from Alexander’s face. “Really?”

  “Yeah, if you have nowhere else to be?” It seemed like a pointless thing to ask, they all just seemed to be wandering around aimlessly waiting for time to pass.

  She shook her head. “No. Nowhere else.”

  Alexander’s lips quirked up at the way her voice seemed to have dropped an octave to sound more sensuous. She pulled it off pretty well. “Okay, you lead the way.”

  Alexander followed her across the patio with his eyes on her shapely rear which looked nothing like Elizabeth’s.

  It was quaint in the flower garden, which wasn’t a word Alexander used often. He was sitting on a painted white wooden bench and was surrounded by flowers which had not withered away in the winter weather thanks to the whole ‘garden’ being, in fact, a massive greenhouse. There were vegetables too, and a dark thought burrowed its way into Alexander’s mind as he studied the tomatoes. If only he had some poison… he could kill Nico and no one would know it was him. But this wasn’t a silly tale, this was reality. And in reality, nobody carried poison around with them.

  A ladybug landed on his exposed elbow, it tickled and he jerked. It flew away.

  “I’m so glad that you agreed to talk to me.”

  Alexander pulled his eyes from the disappearing ladybug and looked over to Jennifer, who was perched on the other side of the bench looking stiff and nervous, her fingers fumbling on her lap.

  He sent her a weary smile. “You sound like it’s some great chore.”

  “I know,” she laughed awkwardly and bowed her head. “It’s just that everyone seems so wrapped up in themselves here. I guess everyone is going through a lot.”

  “Yeah, everyone except Daisy,” sneered Alexander.

  “She’s actually really nice.”

  Alexander’s eyes widened and Jennifer seemed to shrink back from their blaze. “You’re friends with her?”

  “Erhh… kind of. I’ve spoken to her a bit. Not much,” she rushed.

  Alexander just looked at her. At her jittery twitches and shifting eyes. Her awkward posture and flushed cheeks. She was nothing like Elizabeth. He didn’t know if the thought repulsed him or relieved him.

  “So, what do you want to talk about?” asked Alexander, changing the subject and hopefully getting Jennifer somewhat relaxed. He took his eyes off her and started picking at an over-glossed corner of the bench.

  “I erhh…” She cleared her throat. “I actually have a confession to make.”

  “Oh?” Alexander tried to sound surprised even though he really wasn’t.

  “Yeah,” she giggled. The girlish laugh that made Alexander set his jaw. “You… umm… caught my eye, the first morning. At breakfast.”

  “Yeah, I made a pretty big show of myself, huh?” he said, his heart thudding at the memory of stumbling out of the doors and weeping like a pathetic idiot.

  “No, it wasn’t that.”

  “Then what was it?” He turned back after nearly breaking his nail on the stubborn gloss. He was relaxed, slouched in the corner of the bench with his ankle on his opposite knee and his arm draped over the back. All he needed to do with flick his wrist and he could plunge his fingers into her hair. But he didn’t. Maybe that would come later. By the look in her eyes as she gazed at him, he altered his thought pattern. It would come later. And later would be soon.

  “I…” Her breath caught as his crystal blue gaze implored. “I find you very attractive, Alexander.” She covered her face with both hands and shook her head. “That sounded so stupid.”

  “No… no, it didn’t,” Alexander hushed, now brushing her shoulder with his fingertips.

  She lowered her hands at the contact and glanced at her shoulder before locking eyes with him again. The connection lacked heat on his part but Alexander knew how to fake it, and Jennifer was under his spell instantly.

  He slid closer and cupped her chin. Up close, her eyes were still just a solid brown, unlike Elizabeth’s which had had tantalising flecks of green and orange like leaves in the cusp of autumn. Jennifer was frozen as he brushed his thumb delicately up her jaw.

  “You caught my eye, too,” he said, his voice lowered to a seductive whisper. And it was true. She had. But not for the reason that made her breath hitch and her body to slump towards him ever so slightly.

  “I did?” she breathed.

  He pushed her hair back from her face and shifted even closer, their chests now aligned. “Yeah, you did.”

  Her gaze flickered to his lips and he smiled. But she didn’t move. She was frozen stiff, so Alexander took the lead. Slipping his hand to the nape of her neck, he eased her towards him and kissed her. Whatever tension had been left in her body suddenly loosened like water released from a busted dam. She collapsed into him- her hands balled into fists on his thighs as if she didn’t trust herself with them. Their bodies rolled together as the kiss deepened and she let herself get lost in it.

  But as Alexander let his fingers splay through her hair and his tongue to caress hers, his mind was somewhere else entirely. It was almost as if he weren’t in the moment at all, and was on auto-pilot as his very essence travelled back in time.

  Back to when he had first met Elizabeth. The love of his life.

  _____#_____

  Alexander had been seventeen years old, and she two years his senior. He was alone in the market and had spotted her amongst the crowd. It was then when everything suddenly went into slow motion and the passers-by were nothing but wisps. She, too, was alone. Her chestnut hair was tucked under a jaunty hat that tipped over her forehead slightly and held a flower at the brim. Her petticoat and ankle-length skirt were a soft lilac, and tucked in the crook of her elbow was the handle of a basket.

  With his eyes pinned on this new wondrous beauty, Alexander had completely forgotten that his feet were still moving and ended up colliding with a vender’s stall, sending a pyramid of oran
ges toppling to the floor.

  “Oh my…!” Alexander rushed, flustered as the man barked how clumsy he was. He quickly started collecting the rolling fruit, his hands shaking and cheeks beetroot-red. “I’m so sorry.”

  He reached for a runaway orange and he grabbed it as another hand clamped over his. His heart pounded as he stared at the soft, delicate fingers that covered his own. Slowly, he looked up and the woman smiled. A closed lip, gentle smile. It was her.

  He flushed again and he quickly averted his gaze despite his sudden desperate urge to study her beautiful heart-shaped face up close. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

  He picked up the orange and her hand slipped away, her fingertips caressing his.

  “Oh no, I must share the blame,” she said, her voice as soft as the touch of her fingers. It was almost a purr. Her smile broadened, making dimples indent into her cheeks. The tip of her tongue ran along the top row of her teeth as they were exposed. At the time, the show of her tongue had made her seem mischievous and alluring, but he later found out that it was actually a self-conscious reflex. A way to hide the slight crookedness of her two front teeth.

  Alexander’s heart was thumping so hard that the sound of his pulse was almost deafening in his burning ears. She knew. She knew he had been staring. Of course she knew, he chastised himself, it was so obvious!

  They picked up the rest of the oranges together and piled them up as neatly as they could back on the store table top. The vendor grumbled at Alexander, saying that they were bruised now. To which, the mystery woman smiled again, that wicked grin that she hid with her shoulder.

  Alexander apologised again and again and again until he was saved by the woman linking his arm and tugging him away. “I think you’ve made your point,” she said, her voice low and smoky in his ear.

  “He wasn’t very happy,” said Alexander, unsure of what to do as she guided him passed the stalls. He’d never been this close to a woman that wasn’t his mother before.

  “He’ll get over it.” She looked to him. They were the same height in her low heals. The slight tilt of her hat cast her left eye in shadow and the absence of it only seemed to enhance the colours in the one visible. The flecks of green and orange that swam in her brown iris were hypnotic. “What’s your name?”

  “Allcott. Alexander Allcott,” he replied through a dry throat. Her other hand was now clasping the top of his arm while they walked interlinked, as if they were a couple and not two strangers.

  “Nice to meet you, Alexander. I’m Elizabeth Mills.”

  “Elizabeth,” Alexander repeated as if tasting it.

  She smiled, a simple quirk of her lips. “Are you shopping alone, Alexander?”

  The blood in his veins sang at the sound of his name spoken in her luxurious purr. “Yes,” he said, breathless. “Are you?”

  “No,” she sighed, turning to study a stall. “I’m with my partner.”

  Alexander’s heart sank to his feet.

  She laughed, slapping his arm. She threw her head back and a curl of her hair unpinned itself and tickled his cheek. “I’m kidding! Do you really think I’d be stroking your arm and giving you the eye if I had a partner?”

  Alexander was dumbstruck. His mouth opened and closed but nothing was coming out. Her brown eyes roved his face as if wanting to capture every plane and edge. He was an awkward, lanky teenager with hollow cheeks and short fair hair that touched his brows. He was nothing to marvel at. In fact, when word had gotten around that he was joining the army, people laughed at the absurdity of it. But the way Elizabeth was looking at him, it was as if he was a lost masterpiece.

  Her lips quirked up again and her fingers squeezed the top of his arm cherishingly. “You’re sweet, Alexander. I’m tired of shopping alone, would you mind if I joined you?”

  Elizabeth had instigated the first kiss on their third date as they stood before her front door after Alexander had walked her home. He had been too afraid to lean in so she had. Alexander then wrapped her up in his arms in an embrace so passionate and sensuous that when they finally broke away from one another, they were left gasping and slightly dizzy.

  She had also been the first to utter the ‘L’ word, when curled up in bed together, her lips brushing languidly up the exposed column of his neck. He had wanted to say it for some time, ever since she had smiled – really smiled, with no tongue obstruction. The smile had been so bright and trusting and full. As soon as she had whispered the three most beautiful words in the world to him, Alexander had rushed them back jerkily, like an erratic caged bird finally set free.

  When Alexander had left for war, Elizabeth – his now wife of eighteen months- had held him close and whispered, “I love you, Alex,” as her hand caressed his chest. “You remember that when you are out there.”

  “I love you, too,” he had said back, holding back the tremble in his voice. “And I could never forget.”

  Her hand had turned into a white knuckled fist. “Come back to me.”

  “I will. I’ll be back irritating the hell out of you before you know it.”

  She had laughed but it had been whimsical and sad. “You promise?”

  “I promise. And I’ll do everything in my power to keep it. You haven’t seen the last of me, Elizabeth.” He had kissed her hard on the forehead, with a force that made her fingers knot into his shirt front.

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  But everything in his power had not been good enough. And with a baby cradled in her arms, her waiting had never ended.

  _____ # _____

  Overcome with the sensations of a brewing fever, Alexander broke away from the kiss with a gasping cry and slammed Jennifer back against the bench. She wheezed as her back collided with the wood, her flat brown eyes wide and fearful. Her lips were swollen from their kiss and Alexander suddenly felt riddled with guilt and shame and disgust. Unruly shivers crawled their way up his spine and sweat collected on his brows as he stared.

  “Wh-what’s wrong?” asked Jennifer. She reached out to touch him but something in the sharpness of his glare made her freeze. “Alex?”

  He jerked up to his feet. His shirt was now clinging to his back where sweat had built between his shoulder blades. He felt nauseated and wrong. So very wrong. “It’s Alexander,” he hissed, forming a snarl.

  She gulped and must have collected some nerve because she actually grabbed his wrist this time. Bad move. Alexander’s nostrils flared with anger and his skin itched and burned with her touch. He slapped her hand away and flung open the door to the greenhouse. He could hear her following him and the clatter of her footsteps made his jaw set.

  “Alexander, wait.”

  The whiney, neediness in her voice was enough to make him want to spin around and knock her to the ground. She wasn’t Elizabeth. She would never be Elizabeth. Why the hell had he agreed to meet up with her? He had known where it was going to lead and a part of him had wanted that. Wanted that closeness. Craved that intimacy. But it was with the wrong person.

  He should have followed his original plan and stayed away from brunette women.

  “Alexander!”

  “Get the fuck away from me,” he snapped over his shoulder, not able to stomach looking at her.

  He couldn’t get their kiss out of his head. It taunted him like a guilty deed. The way her hair had curled around his fingers and had held a coppery sheen. Elizabeth’s had had strands of gold when hit with the sunlight. The way her lips were tentative and shy. Elizabeth’s had been sure and powerful.

  She was nothing like Elizabeth.

  Nothing like his wife.

  No one would ever be like his wife.

  He would never feel the way he had felt when he had been with her.

  And yet the incessant desire to see Seb gnawed at his insides.

  “What do you mean? Did I do something wrong?” Jennifer continued to whine, following him across the lawn. The bottoms of his socks were soaked with the dew from the grass and he wondered for a
distracted moment if Nico had finally bought him some shoes. “Alexander!”

  “Fuck off! Leave me alone! I don’t know how else to say it!” he snarled. And she finally did. As he continued to storm up the patio, he no longer sensed her presence behind him, and it felt like a weight being lifted.

  But not for long.

  Heart palpitations made him buckle over, wheezing. He dropped back into the nook he had found himself in when he had hidden the last time.

  He was no longer hiding from her.

  Now he was hiding from things that he could not escape.

  He sank to the flagged ground and put his head between his tucked-up knees, trying to block out the images that flashed in his mind. His past rose up like an ominous fog, dark and invading and terrible.

  “I’m sorry!” he wept, his throat threatening to close up. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth! I didn’t know!” His cry was shrill and desperate “If I had known, I would never have left you. I would have stayed. I would never have left you alone.” Tears poured down his cheeks and his pulse thumped in his ears. “It wasn’t my fault. I just didn’t want to die!”

  He was taking sharp, ragged breaths that weren’t filling his lungs. He felt them expanding in his chest, and he was seething at the constant thrum of his erratic heartbeat. It was like it was mocking him. It seemed to be chanting;

  You’re alive now.

  You’re alive now.

  You’re alive now.

  But you’re too late.

  She’s gone.

  The familiar crackling of static sounded above him and Alexander picked his head up, blinking away the unshed tears that obscured his vision.

  “Attention all of the Cured,” said Nico over the intercom. “Dinner is being served in the main dining room.” There was a beat of crackling silence. “Please attend,” he added, having probably noticed the few members of his little posse who had refused to eat the day before. Alexander had planned to be one of them but that burger had looked to inviting. An hour later, he had wished he had stuck to his guns.