by Lee Monroe
As Evan shut the boot of his car, I stood awkwardly holding my bike, rucksack on one shoulder, the other hand swinging my bag like a silly little girl.
He pushed his hands through his hair, then stuck them in his jeans pockets, his eyes on me.
‘You make me nervous, Jane,’ he said, grinning. ‘And I never get nervous.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I like that you’re serious. You know, not shallow like a lot of girls. You don’t talk just to fill a silence.’ He paused. ‘But that does make it more difficult to ask you to come out with me. You know, on a date, because … I have no idea what you think of me.’ And even in the dark I could see he was holding his breath.
I smiled, shivering slightly, though it definitely wasn’t the cold.
‘That would be nice,’ was all I could come out with.
‘That’s a yes?’
‘It’s a yes.’ I looked back up at the house. ‘But I really have to go.’
‘That’s cool.’ He stepped towards me and, before I could think about it, leaned down to kiss my cheek. I felt the stubble on his chin and his hair brushing against my face. ‘Tomorrow night?’
‘OK,’ I said, dazed. ‘Tomorrow night.’
‘Great. I’ll pick you up.’
‘No,’ I said quickly, thinking of the sheer excruciation. ‘I’ll meet you in the town.’
He grinned. ‘Of course. Outside the old petrol station at six? We can take it from there.’
‘Fine,’ I waved the shopping at him again. ‘See you at six.’
I watched as his car reversed away and turned to go down the mountain road towards the town. When I finally resumed walking up the track to our house, I couldn’t keep the goofy smile off my face. I slung my rucksack and the shopping over the handlebars of my bike and trudged forwards in a daze. A rustling in the bushes halted me, making me turn to the side of the track.
‘Who’s there?’ I said loudly.
‘Jane.’ A voice came from my left, low but intense. I caught my breath and stopped, squinting in the half-light, already knowing who the voice belonged to.
A shape emerged from the long foliage by the track. A dark coat, green eyes. I lost my grip on the bike and it crashed to the ground, two tins of dog food rolling into the undergrowth.
‘You?’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘You came back.’
He looked weary, the dark shadows accentuated by his white skin. He moved slowly towards me.
‘I came to explain.’ He licked his lips, and I saw his eyes were hooded, evasive.
I put out my hand to touch him and, though he kept his own hands by his side, he smiled. ‘Your father – he’s OK?’
I nodded. ‘What happened to you that night? Why did you send me away?’
‘Long story.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his eyes, then looked back down the track. ‘Can we walk somewhere? Just for a bit.’
I glanced at my bike on the ground then back at him. He bent and picked up the dog food from where it had rolled, examining the labels. ‘Mr Chow’s Chow Time,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
I snatched the tins from him, my mouth twitching. ‘Dogs. No class.’
He watched as I stuffed the tins back into the plastic bag.
‘There’s a path around the hill.’ I indicated a small opening in the trees across the track. ‘But I have to be back in twenty minutes or Dot will start fretting.’
‘Ah. Dot.’ Luca smiled. ‘She’s very protective of you.’
I frowned. ‘How do you know that?’ I said sharply. ‘Have you been spying on us?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I’m just … perceptive.’
‘Hmm.’ I walked over to my bike and dropped the shopping down next to it. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’
Luca and I trod without speaking along the damp path that circled our side of the mountain. I came here a lot in the summer, with the dog, and sometimes with Dot. When the sun was out the view down to the small town and the surrounding landscape was spectacular. It was a peaceful place.
‘So,’ I said eventually. ‘Explain to me why you’ve suddenly appeared in my life?’ I glanced at him. ‘In my waking life … Because those dreams have stopped.’
Luca stopped and walked to the edge of the path, looking down at the trees. He cleared his throat.
‘Remember what I told you before … About stretching the bound—’
‘The boundaries of my reality,’ I finished for him. ‘Yes. I remember.’
‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘This is going to sound … fantastical. But imagine that there is a place like this, where … living things, beings with hearts and minds and … longings … exist.’ He tried to smile. ‘Where somebody like you grows up feeling as though they don’t fit in with everyone else. Like there is a part of them missing. And even though they know they should stay where they are, be happy without that missing part, they can’t. They are only aware of that empty space.’
I stared at him: flashes of my childhood. Of the birthday parties, year after year, where local kids had come, under duress, because I didn’t know how to play with them; of the times I had hidden when relatives visited; of the need I had always had to sit, reading, thinking by myself. None of the people around me understood me, and I wanted to be understood. I loved Dot more than anything, but she didn’t understand.
‘I can imagine that,’ I said, holding his gaze, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t I focused on something else he’d said.
‘You said “living things”.’
He took a deep breath before answering. ‘I am human, in most ways,’ he said finally. ‘Except I can live forever, if I want to.’
‘My God.’ I stared at him and then my eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re really two hundred years old?’
‘No.’ He grinned now. ‘I’m seventeen. But I will stop ageing when I reach fifty.’
‘Seriously?’ I wrapped my arms around myself, dumbfounded, and examined Luca’s face. Not a hint of a smile. ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’
He shook his head.
I breathed out heavily. ‘So … where do I come into all this?’
‘You’re the one,’ Luca said simply. ‘The one I’ve had in my dreams for a long time. My missing part.’
I stared at him, not knowing whether to laugh. Whether this was some kind of surreal joke. But at the back of my mind I felt recognition too. I know I did. It was just I couldn’t articulate that. Because it didn’t make sense. Yet.
‘God. I’m flattered and everything but—’
‘And I am your missing part,’ Luca interrupted me. ‘Hence … your dreams.’
I frowned a little. ‘You mean, even though I didn’t know you existed, I have been missing you?’
‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’
I shivered. ‘Let’s keep walking. There’s a clearing a few metres ahead and a little bench. My dad made it.’
We continued until we reached a circular patch, clear of trees and bushes, where my father’s carved bench nestled back against the wood. I sat down and, after a pause, Luca joined me. I rubbed my hands together, not looking at him.
‘So. What you’re saying is kind of … insane.’
He laughed and his face lit up. Lovely moss-green eyes shining in the dimming light. ‘I know.’ He turned his face up to the sky. ‘But where I come from, we have the dubious privilege of pursuing the insane. We know no real boundaries – though we are advised not to exploit that.’
A heavy movement behind us made me jump. Luca put his hand on my arm, reassuring. ‘It’s an owl,’ he said, calmly. ‘Nothing to be frightened of.’ And then there it was, the soft call of an owl behind us. I relaxed.
‘How did you know I needed help,’ I asked quietly, ‘that day?’
‘I just knew,’ was all he said, not meeting my eyes.
I rubbed at my knees. ‘I’m not going to ask why you sent me away – from the waiting room.’ I paused. ‘I thought I hea
rd—’
‘It’s complicated,’ Luca cut in. ‘I wish I could tell you in some way that wouldn’t freak you out, but you need to trust me first …’ He trailed off. I continued looking down at my legs. And we sat for a minute or two, not speaking.
‘I’ve got something for you.’ He rummaged in his pocket, drawing out a battered-looking notebook. ‘A long time ago I went to my favourite place in the whole world and …’ He paused for some reason, as though thinking out his next sentence. ‘Well, let’s just say I found, buried under some rocks by a river we call the Water Path, a book.’ He held out the notebook. ‘This book.’
I took it from him, turning it over in my hands. It was covered in faded pencil sketches; ethereal, abstract loops and curls. I looked at Luca questioningly.
‘Whoever wrote in this book was going through some awful turmoil. They were in love, but something had gone wrong. Or got in the way. The bond was breaking.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘If you read it, you’ll see.’ He touched my arm. ‘I want you to keep it.’
‘Why are you giving this to me?’
‘Because something about this book has led me to you, Jane. I don’t know how, but I know it is connected with you, and me.’
I frowned, but I too had the strangest sensation as I held the journal. The same feeling I had when Luca touched me. A feeling of warmth and safety, of home.
‘OK.’ I slipped the book into my coat pocket, remembering the shopping and that I was late. ‘I have to get back … My mother will be worried.’
He smiled. ‘Of course. But I will see you again soon.’
‘I hope so,’ I said, meaning it. I got up from the bench and started down the path. I glanced back to see Luca still seated. ‘You’re staying here?’
‘Yes. I’ll get home from here,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come again … tomorrow, or …’
I remembered Evan. ‘Oh … tomorrow … I have a thing,’ I said awkwardly.
‘Right,’ he said, getting up to stand, his back to the wood. ‘We’ll find a way.’
And as he slowly moved backwards towards the trees he seemed to merge into them. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving me to make my way home.
When I got back to my bike and my mother’s shopping, I slipped the notebook into the pocket of my hoodie before picking the bike up and continued up the track to the house.
If it hadn’t been for the weight of Luca’s present in my pocket, I still wouldn’t have believed he existed. But not only did I now know this for sure, I also knew that when I was with him, I felt more real than I’d ever felt in my life.
I was relieved to see Dot and my mother watching TV when I walked into the living room. Our remote home means Dot relies on me for company. But Dad’s accident had zapped some of the pluck and curiosity out of her. Instead of following me around the house like an eager puppy, these past few weeks she had switched allegiance to Mum, and become timid and clingy. It unsettled me. I relied on Dot to be the life to my soul. She encouraged me to take risks and, though I’d never thanked her to her face, I knew that without her I would be a whole lot lonelier and more ‘insolar’ than I already was.
‘Hey, kiddo.’ I ruffled her untidy blonde curls. ‘Wassup?’
Dot looked up. ‘Can I sleep in your bed tonight?’ She glanced uneasily at my mother, who returned one of mock disapproval. ‘Just one more night,’ Dot pleaded. ‘Please?’
‘If it’s OK with Jane, then I suppose …’ Mum smiled at me. ‘One more night?’
What I really wanted was to curl up on my bed and unpick the unbelievable events of the past hour. I needed to rationalise. Convince myself I was a normal sixteen-year-old girl. But I had never been ‘normal’, and what was happening in my life now, though it should surprise me, kind of didn’t. I also needed to get to the bottom of why Luca freaked me out less than Evan did. With Dot next to me, I wouldn’t get the chance.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘One more night.’
‘Thank you, sweetie,’ Mum said, getting up to go into the kitchen. ‘I’ll make us something to eat.’
‘You’re brave,’ Dot said, winding melted cheese round her fork. ‘Don’t you feel brave?’
Dad was asleep upstairs and Mum had made us all cheese on toast. I couldn’t eat mine. I was still too churned up inside. Dot was morbidly obsessed, as she had been for the past few weeks, with the night of the accident.
‘Not really,’ I muttered. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. You ran to get help.’ She squeezed a large dollop of tomato sauce on to her plate. ‘In the freezing darkness. You must have been terrified.’ She shook her head. ‘Thank goodness for that boy. It’s such a shame he ran off before we could thank him.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, looking down at my plate.
‘Makes me shudder to think we have wolves around here,’ she went on.
Dot’s eyes were wide, her hands still clutching her knife and fork.
‘Do wolves eat people?’ she asked anxiously.
Mum and I exchanged a look.
‘They’re predators, sweetie,’ Mum told her. ‘But they’re very rare.’ She glanced at me. ‘We just have to make sure we don’t go wandering into the woods at night. Alone. Then we’ll be OK.’
I lowered my head, feeling her eyes still on me. Did she know?
‘Did you see its face?’ Dot couldn’t stop asking questions.
‘Think so …’ I had a flash of those black eyes, the red mouth, the teeth, the huge, vaulting body. I got up abruptly. ‘I’m going to be sick.’
‘Jane?’ Mum stood up too, hovering awkwardly over me. ‘Sweetheart …’
I ran, nearly tripping over the sleeping dog, to the bathroom downstairs. After I’d been sick I stayed, crouched over, a mixture of fear and disbelief coursing through me.
I’d waited sixteen years for something to happen in my life, for a sign that I fitted in somewhere … with someone. Was my destiny a strange, skinny boy in a black overcoat? A boy who came to me in my dreams, who’d never die. Who came from a world straight out of Tolkien, but with whom I felt no fear.
And what about Evan, a mysterious human boy in my waking life, who made my hair stand on end just by being next to me?
I shook my head, trying to empty some of the thoughts out. What was this all supposed to mean?
‘What’s happening to me?’ I said out loud.
The sound of footsteps outside the door made me look up. My mother stood, holding a dishcloth in her hands. She was looking at me, not smiling.
‘I made you some hot chocolate,’ she said, her eyes dropping away from mine. ‘It’ll make everything seem normal.’
‘Normal?’ I said quietly.
‘It’s important to get back to normal.’ She half turned to go back to the kitchen but stopped. ‘Back to what you know.’
‘I’m not sure if that’s possible,’ I told her, stupidly melodramatic. ‘Stuff has happened—’
‘I know, and you have been very brave.’ But her tone was abrupt, hostile even. ‘And now you have to try very hard to move on.’ She turned round again and there was warning in her eyes. ‘To leave it behind.’ She stepped out into the hallway and shouted to Dot to finish her meal, leaving me baffled. What was she getting so riled about?
I waited until Dot was asleep before I slipped out of bed and padded as quietly as possible to my hoodie. I took the notebook out of the pocket and, glancing quickly back at my sleeping sister, pushed the rest of my crumpled clothes off the chair and curled up on it.
I opened the book to the first page.
To my dearest darling,
I don’t know if I will ever see you again, it’s getting harder to come to you. I am needed at home. I know that soon I will have to choose between you and my family, and it is SO hard. I love you. I didn’t think it was possible to love a boy so much. But …
The page was torn and I skipped to the next page to find a clearer entry.
I saw you today and we lay in our favourite
spot, listening to the babbling, spitting brook, and I had my head on your chest and felt your heartbeat so strong, and wanted never to come home. But real life is intervening, sweetest. I am lying on my bed, knowing that soon I will need to go to my mother and tell her I will never leave her, and always look after her because I am all she has got. She won’t live forever. That is clearer to me now than it ever has been.
I turned the page to see a drawing of a river and some trees. It wasn’t good, it was naïve and out of proportion, and in the corner there was a crudely drawn pair of wings with the words My Angel written underneath. I felt as though I was intruding and I wondered who she was, this love-struck girl. And how on earth Luca had come to have her diary.
Real life is intervening … What did she mean?
I shut the book, saving the rest for another time, and got back into bed, gently shifting Dot over as she slept.
I didn’t dream that night, I fell into a peaceful sleep. But my last thought was of a rushing stream, beside which a girl and a boy lay blissfully in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER SIX
‘You need to relax your shoulders,’ Evan told me as I bent, cue in hands, over the table. ‘Just let them flop.’
I tried to do as he said, but it was difficult to relax with a demi-god beside me. Evan laughed. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ he said, picking up his bottle of beer and taking a swig.
I trained the wooden cue to line up with the white ball. I knew I needed to hit it against the red ball so that it rolled into the corner pocket. I took a clumsy shot and the ball bounced off the side of the table and on to the floor. I grunted impatiently.
‘I’m a most unsatisfactory pool partner.’ I looked apologetically at Evan. ‘I should have warned you that I’m not the most coordinated person in the world.’ I went over to pick up the ball and as I straightened up, caught him watching me carefully. ‘Feel free to play with someone else.’
‘I don’t want to play with anyone else,’ he said, smoothly. He finished his beer. ‘But I’ll get us another drink and we can have a break.’
‘Great.’ As Evan walked over to the bar to get himself another beer and a Coke for me, I looked around the crowded room to find somewhere to sit. Against a wall was a soft leather couch, unoccupied and inviting. I headed for it, sat down and curled up with my legs tucked under me.