The Salvation of Daniel
Copyright © 2014 D H Sidebottom
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual places, incidents and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 D H Sidebottom. Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this book.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
The End
Book 3 Prologue
FAcade
Angel
Empathy by Ker Dukey
D H Sidebottom’s Links
THE MIST APPEARED to be crawling towards me. I didn’t move, refusing to let it push me away. I’d been pushed away too many times and I wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to do it again.
My heart ached as I stood under the cover of the trees, their heavily laden branches providing a secluded hideaway as I watched the small congregation gather by the graveside. A couple of people opened umbrellas when the rain began to fall heavier, immediately dampening down the curling fog.
I recognised most of them. I was surprised Tammy had come; she’d always bullied Mae at school. And Bonnie, another two-faced bitch me and my sister had avoided like the plague.
I swiped at the tears that flooded down my cheeks. A part of me had gone, evaporated from inside me. My soul felt incomplete, my heart had split down the middle.
I couldn’t decipher what the vicar was saying from so far away but I didn’t need his words. They wouldn’t comfort me nor would they take away the ache or the guilt. Bonnie wailed when the vicar threw a lump of soil on top of Mae. What the fuck? Dramatic skank.
My eyes widened when a tall dark-haired man stepped out from behind a woman with a large umbrella. I hadn’t noticed him before, and from the sheer size of him I wondered why. His long black coat was drenched, his dark brown hair slicked across his forehead as streams of rain ran down his face. I could see the drops dripping from his long eyelashes even from the distance between us.
He stood by the edge of the hole, looking down into it with a severe frown. He looked angry; angry at Mae for dying possibly. I understood because I felt it too. The rage that had engulfed me when one of my contacts notified me of her death had been the most unreal feeling I had ever felt, even greater than the grief of losing my parents… or rather my mother.
I cocked my head in puzzlement when he dropped a single deep red rose onto her coffin. His fists clenched before he brought one up to his lips and kissed it then tossed something else into the grave.
Loud sobs filtered across the cemetery, the driving rain doing nothing to stop the weeping as people wandered off.
Waiting until everyone had left, I trudged across the muddy ground and stopped beside my sister’s final resting place.
“Hey,” I whispered as I brought my gaze down to the wooden box that held Mae. A deep tightening in my chest brought on a gasp of pain and I closed my eyes for a moment. The rain beat down on me, punishing me for the sins I had committed against my own flesh and blood. “I’m so sorry, Mae.”
The silence tore at me until the pain became too much and I stepped back to leave. A splash of white from the coffin caught my attention. It was obviously what the tall guy had thrown in. I squinted, trying to focus on what it was but I couldn’t make it out.
Pulling my phone from my inside pocket, I quickly snapped a shot of the object. Opening up the camera album, I swiped at the screen as the rain beaded, distorting the image before I zoomed in and stared in shock.
I stumbled backwards, losing my footing, my heart thudding loudly in my ears, and my arse landing in the mud when a two-year-old us stared back at me. However, this wasn’t one of us, this was the essence of Mae. It was a new photo, the clothes the child wore were modern. She was sitting on the bonnet of a car, smiling widely for the shot. Her long black hair was in pigtails, and her bright blue eyes - Mae’s eyes, my eyes - twinkled brightly. This year’s registration on the car confirmed my thoughts.
Holy fuck.
Mae had a family. I had a niece. And the guy who had dropped in the photo was obviously her husband.
My heart burst for her, my sorrow lifting before intensifying when the reality of what she had to leave behind consumed me. She had found the very thing she had always wanted. Relief coursed through me, any taste of happiness she could have lived before passing should be celebrated. I thought I had broken her when I… when I left. Thought I had given her more of a reason to want to leave this dismal place and join our parents. And the fact that she was now with him agonised me.
He shouldn’t be granted time with his daughter in the afterlife, he didn’t deserve that. The only hope I held onto was that the devil had claimed his rotten soul, and refused him sanctuary with my mother and sister.
I brushed my thumb over the happy picture, saving it to my phone as wallpaper and smiled. I wasn’t alone anymore. There wasn’t only me that remained of the Swift family.
I needed to find them, both her and Mae’s husband. But how much had she told them? Did they think I was dead? It wasn’t as if I could just walk up to them and say hi. I mean I was the exact replica of the woman they both loved and had just lost. That shit would freak them out, especially if they didn’t know I existed.
But I would find them. I needed that little girl in my life more than I needed to breathe. I needed a reason to live now, and she was my only hope. I would look after her, care for her and repay Mae for what I had done.
2 Years later
“DADDY!”
“Yeah,” I shouted through the house as I pulled the bread rolls from the oven.
“Uhh….”
That single word made every single hair on the back of my neck snap to attention. I froze, the baking tray burning through the oven gloves until the scorch became too much and I tossed it on the hob. “Annie?”
“Uhh…”
Oh, Christ! What now?
“Baby?”
“Yeah, uhh…” Her voice grew nearer as she clambered down the stairs, her lack of grace holding my heart with horror of her tripping down the damn things… and not for the first time. Annie was anything but graceful. She was what I called a whirlwind; a gust of air that knocked you sideways if you didn’t see her coming. She was an explosion of ene
rgy and she stole my heart every time her cheeky smile and bright blue eyes caught my attention.
It hadn’t been easy. Fuck, raising her had been the most terrifying thing I had ever done, but damn, she filled the hole that had been inside me, and she continued to fill it up every second of every day.
She walked through the door – well I presumed it to be her. She had morphed into a huge ball of candyfloss, white foam covering her from head to toe, with just a peek of her eyes poking through where she had wiped at her face to see, and a few toes stuck through the bottom of the cotton ball. “Annie?”
“Right,” she started, pronouncing her R with a W. “Just listen.” I crushed my bottom lip with my teeth as I tried to hold onto both my sanity and amusement.
“I’m listening, Annie. I’m listening very well.”
“Uh-huh.” She looked up at me through the two holes and I watched as the foam shifted over her face.
“There’s no use giving me your ‘forgive me’ grin, Annie. I can’t see it.”
“Oh.” She nodded then exhaled heavily, the current of air through her nostrils generating little bubbles in the froth. “Well, see I was brushing my teeth, Daddy.”
“With shaving foam?”
She tutted loudly, “No, silly.” Her little head shook from side to side. “With toothpaste. But the mirror was dirty and I couldn’t see if they were sparkly clean.”
I sighed and stared at her. “So you cleaned the mirror with my shaving foam.”
She nodded frantically. “But… I dunno what I did, Daddy. The bottle… it…”
“Exploded?”
“Yeah,” she finished on a whisper.
I sighed and looked over her once more. “You do know that Daddy now needs to punish you, Annie?”
Her little gasp finally brought on my smile. She took a couple of steps backwards and shook her head rapidly. “No, Daddy.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so Annie.” She scrambled backwards when I took a step towards her, then screamed loudly and bombed it through the house. I skidded after her, my feet sliding in the trail of foam she left behind.
I let her gain a distance before I sped up and snatched her up. She squealed loudly as I tackled her gently to the ground. Her little chunky body flipped beneath me as my fingers dug into the plump flesh and I tickled her. Her gasps, giggles and piggy snorts fuelled my soul, each one enveloping it with love and affection.
“I’m gonna tell Uncle Frank,” she choked out as I continued to tickle her. “He’s gonna bust your ass.”
I stopped tickling her instantly and gawped at her. “What did you say, madam?”
She gave that grin again but this time, because the foam had rubbed off her face after my torture, it beamed brightly at me. “I meant to say bottom.”
“I should hope you did. Ass is a naughty word, baby. And ladies should never use naughty words.”
She nodded and then smiled as I tapped her nose and hauled her to her feet. “Right. Let’s start again or you’ll be late for nursery.” I smacked her bum lightly bringing forth another delightful giggle and shooed her up the stairs. “Shower, madam.”
“Yes, sir.” She poked herself in the eye as she saluted me. She snapped to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and turned to me. “Umm.”
I blew out a breath. “Yes?”
“Well.” She beamed at me again. My whole body sagged in despair. “We may have to clean first, Daddy.”
I pressed the plunger on the coffee pot when I heard the front door close and turned to face Frank as he walked in. His expression told me we needed to talk - again. I sighed and gestured to the table before placing the coffee and cups in the middle and grabbed a seat.
“You need to talk to her, Daniel. She’s getting worse.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples when the first signs of a headache thumped across my forehead. “She’s just…” I shook my head and lifted the coffee to pour. “How was she at nursery today?”
He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his inside pocket then rolled his eyes and replaced them when I glared at him. Picking up his cup, he eyed me over the rim and pursed his lips. “Apparently Mae wants to know how you two met.”
The mouthful of coffee that had just managed to calm the tension in my stomach backfired and spluttered from my mouth with force, spraying the table and Frank’s white t-shirt with brown sludge. “What the fuck?”
He sighed and leaned towards me, resting his elbows on the table. “You need to listen to what I’m telling you, Daniel. This is serious. She’s adamant that her mother has been visiting her.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat. My breathing became difficult as my heart rate veered into dangerous ground. Panic and anguish burnt a hole though my insides as I bit back the dread. “You think I should get her tested?”
He nodded slowly and looked down to his coffee. “I’ve never known her be this… stubborn, Daniel. Yeah, Annie’s a feisty little thing but hell, she talks with such animation that it’s becoming difficult for me to determine what’s real and what isn’t.” He leaned further towards me and placed his hand over mine. My eyes snapped up to his as the awkwardness of the situation grounded us both. “If…” He gulped back his own worry and squeezed my hand. “If Annie has… the same as Mae, then we’ll deal with it. I promise you that I will carry you every step of the way.”
I nodded, not knowing what to say. If Annie had… well, if she had, then I knew I couldn’t go through that again. I refused to watch her die like her mother had. I wouldn’t accept it and I wouldn’t allow it.
We were both silent for a while, contemplating what was to come. I caught the flash of Frank’s eyes in my direction every once in a while but I chose to ignore him until his next sentence made me choke on my tongue.
“Daniel. What if…. What if Annie isn’t… lying?”
My eyes widened, my tongue curling with shock as my tonsils started to swell. “What the fuck, Frank?”
He shrugged and sipped at his coffee casually. “I dunno, Dan. It’s just… She’s unwavering, resolute that the woman with long black hair and piercing blue eyes is visiting her. She talks of their conversations. She smiles as she relays it all, Daniel. Her eyes tell me that your little girl believes in what she is telling me.”
“It’s just…”
“She’s four,” he continued, ignoring me. “They say that sometimes they can… see things we can’t.”
Jesus Christ. “I really hope you are joking.”
He shrugged again. “Who knows.”
I stood up quickly, my chair scraping across the floor tiles with a loud squeak. “MAE IS DEAD!”
He looked up at me, pain and regret on his face. “I know. I know she is but…”
“I fucking killed her, Frank. There are no buts… I watched as she died in my arms, wondering if she heard what I said to her before she went.”
He nodded and gave me a remorseful smile. “I know.”
I turned, palming the sink as I stared out of the back window into the garden. The wind had picked up, scattering the many dead leaves to one side of the lawn, providing an area for Annie to destroy when she came home. My heart ached. I had desperately tried to remove Mae from my heart over the past two years, forget what I had done to her, forget how I had destroyed her soul but Annie, all the constant reminders that Annie produced made it more difficult. The pain was once again starting to suffocate my spirit.
“I’ll book her in with the doctor.”
“Okay,” Frank whispered before I heard the door close behind him.
Next door’s bloody cat leapt onto the shed roof after a bird, knocking the wind chimes and creating a loud but pleasant tune. The large poplar trees that bordered one side of the garden suddenly seemed eerie as the sun crept halfway out from behind the clouds that hung heavy in the grey sky, creating long dark shadows across the deep green grass.
A shiver trickled up my spine when my imagination created a vivid image of Mae running along
the sand, a red and yellow kite whipping in the air behind her. Her loud happy laughter echoed around me, the vibrant pitch bringing a small smile to my lips.
It was ridiculous, but I missed her. I had only had the pleasure of her company for a few weeks but in that short amount of time, that woman had given me more than anyone ever had. She had given me Annabelle, my beautiful daughter, but more than that she had given me an area in my heart that was clean and untouched; a fraction of pureness. She had scraped away the blackness and found the part that still beat and craved to be touched.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention when I felt eyes on me. My senses shot to life as my eyes scanned the garden looking for evidence to back up the sensation. Nothing seemed off, but everything seemed wrong. It wasn’t a crazy one-off feeling, it was a strong deep knowing. Someone had been watching me.
I knew they had gone when my body relaxed, all previous tension draining from me. However, I grabbed the gun I had illegally stashed in a box at the top of the wardrobe and went to scope the area around the house. I knew I wouldn’t find anything, they had already disappeared but I needed to tell my brain that.
The wind picked up even further, blowing the last remaining leaves off the tree and propelling them down towards the gates at the rear of the garden. I followed them, and stopped dead when I saw the pile that had already collected there.
The mound assembled ready for Annie to trample through had been pushed aside, a tell-tale sign that the gate had been opened. The rear gate was never used, it led to a dark alley I refused to let Annie go through.
Yet, for the first time in eighteen months, someone had used it.
“ARE YOU FUCKING crazy?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes as I peeled off my jacket and slung it over the back of the kitchen chair. Katey watched me, her furious eyes following me as I pulled open the fridge and took the milk out, opening it eagerly and gulping the contents straight from the bottle. “It would seem that way,” I finally replied, wiping the milk from around my mouth with the back of my hand.
She opened her hands and gawped at me. “It’s bad enough that you’re now talking to Annabelle, never mind watching the husband. What the hell is wrong with you?”
The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) Page 1