by Janene Wood
“26 hours on a plane sounds like just the thing for you then.” She was amused at the thought of the horrendous jet-lag he’d have when he arrived in Sydney.
Jack cringed. “I really don’t want to think about that, thanks.”
As soon as the call went out over the PA announcing Jack’s flight, Kate felt the first painful pinpricks behind her eyes and knew that tears weren’t far off. Ever stoic, she managed to hold them back until he was safely through the departure gate and out of sight, but the instant he was gone, her resistance crumbled and the tears began to flow.
In serious need of a handkerchief to blow her nose and wipe her eyes, Kate rummaged unsuccessfully in her bag. She should have known this was going to happen and been better prepared. Tossing the end of her scarf over her shoulder, she headed back the way she had come, looking for a chemist or a ladies’ toilet, while trying to stem the seemingly endless flow of tears. She caught sight of a sign saying Shopping Concourse with an arrow pointing down, and allowed the vast sea of humanity to carry her toward the escalator.
The flow of bodies in the opposite direction was thick and faceless, and Kate was too upset to notice the tall, brown-eyed man in the black leather jacket who passed her on the escalator. For a few brief seconds they were only inches apart – within touching distance – but then they diverged once more and continued in opposite directions.
Disappointment
Strider beheld the girl in the red scarf almost too late, catching only a glimpse of her profile as she drew further away, but something about her struck an instant chord and his eyes stayed with her until she was swallowed by the crowd.
He knew it couldn’t possibly be her – she was dead after all – but as a trained observer, if his eyes and gut both told him the same thing, he was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least until proven wrong. Experience had taught him the wisdom of keeping an open mind.
Reaching the top of the escalator, he looked out over the sea of people below and caught a glimpse of a red scarf on a slim, blonde-haired figure hurrying toward the retail strip at the right of the terminal. He quickly returned to the lower level and made his way to where he last saw her, his every step hampered by the unyielding crowd, but there was no sign of her.
He muttered a few choice Italian curses under his breath and looked around, scanning from left to right and back again. He checked all the shops in the immediate vicinity, but couldn’t see the girl in any of them. Damn it! He’d lost her. Now he’d never know for sure – not that there was even a remote likelihood of it actually being her, but still…
For the thousandth time he wished he’d had an opportunity to view the body before they buried it. At least then there wouldn’t be this endless cycle of hope and disappointment every time he came across someone who even vaguely resembled her. Eventually he would have to come to terms with the fact that she was gone – it was more than four years after all – and get on with his life. Mostly, he gave a good impression of normalcy: he was gainfully employed and maintained an active if superficial social life, leading his friends and colleagues to believe he was as carefree and available as the rest of them. Even the handful of people with whom he had shared the memory of their brief relationship were convinced he had recovered from her loss. But something deep inside refused to let the last infinitesimal spark of hope die. Intellectually, he knew she was gone, but without having seen definitive evidence of her death for himself, his heart couldn’t help but seek her in the living world.
Strider sighed and took a deep breath. Back to the business of life. He allowed himself one more self-indulgent sweep of the floor and then headed to the bank of telephone booths he noticed earlier. He made a quick call to his sister and then turned toward the exit, his backpack slung over one shoulder.
And there she was, walking no more than ten metres ahead of him.
His heart skipped a beat and he quickened his pace, determined not to lose sight of her again. He closed the gap between them, and although he couldn’t see her face, he felt a strange churning in his guts that he had never experienced in all the similar wild-goose chases he had initiated before.
Through the automatic glass doors, Strider watched the girl step outside onto the pavement and turn right. On her left side was a line of taxis waiting to transport arriving passengers all over the city. He knew he’d have to hurry if he was to resolve this matter before the girl climbed into a taxi and forced him perhaps to follow her all over London. He ran the last few metres to the automatic doors and turned after her, but his fears were unfounded. The girl continued unhurriedly along the path, past the line of taxis and onto the pedestrian crossing leading to the short-term car park on the other side of the through-way.
Following her through the car park, he was content to stay back until the right opportunity arose. The girl passed row after row of parked cars until she found the one she sought, stopping finally beside a yellow Jeep. She rummaged in her bag for her keys, keeping her head bowed and her face in shadow. Maintaining his distance and keeping an entire row of cars between them, Strider crept past the Jeep until the angle between them allowed an almost frontal view of her. He offered a whispered plea for her to lift her face, and it seemed as if she heard him. With a small triumphant cry, she pulled the elusive keys from her bag and raised her head, shaking her blonde hair back off her face and allowing him an unimpeded view of her features.
It felt like he had been punched in the guts. All the breath escaped from his lungs in one long, drawn-out exhalation and it was many seconds before he remembered to breathe again. His mind was reeling at what his eyes had just shown him. Katy was alive!
He took another breath in an effort to clear his head and think. So what now? He had never given any thought to what finding her would mean. Because, he realised with sudden clarity, one of two things must be true: either she had deliberately and callously walked out on him, allowing him to believe she was dead all this time, or, like him, she had been lied to and cruelly manipulated.
Neither his heart nor his head could reconcile the Kate he knew with someone cold-hearted enough to carry out the former option; he knew her inside and out and would stake his life on her abiding love and loyalty. There was no doubt in his mind that she, too, was an unwitting pawn in someone’s scheme to keep them apart.
But who...and for what reason?
The sound of the Jeep’s engine turning over forced Strider back to the present. He couldn’t let her drive away without talking to her, but he didn’t want to leap out at her like some crazed stalker either. He needed to find a more suitable time and place to have a proper conversation.
Kate reversed the Jeep from its parking space, changed into first and accelerated toward the exit. Strider stepped out from between the parked cars and watched her go with a tight, uncomfortable feeling in his chest. He took careful note of the license plate and then turned quickly in the opposite direction. He sprinted, retracing his steps and emerging on the opposite side of the road to the taxi rank. Fortunately, there was still a long line of vacant taxis waiting for fares. If he remembered correctly, the road exiting the parking station merged with this through-way half a kilometre ahead, and if he timed it right…
Fate continued to smile on him. He engaged a taxi and soon caught sight of the yellow Jeep jammed in a snarl up ahead as one road merged into another. He instructed the obliging West Indian driver to slow down and stay behind the Jeep. They followed it for forty endless minutes, allowing Strider plenty of time to consider his options. He would follow her to wherever she was going and make himself known to her, finally putting to rest the grief and lingering doubt that had haunted him ever since being shown the simple grave, marked with a plain wooden cross bearing her name.
It had never seriously occurred to him to question whether it truly was Katy lying beneath that mound of dirt. Tayo was her friend after all, and when he broke the news of her death, he appeared every bit as grief-stricken as one would expect. Kate and Tayo
had known each other long before Strider arrived on the scene, and if he had never warmed to the other man, he had no reason to believe Tayo was capable of something as treacherous as this. But something must have seemed off, even if he didn’t realise it then. Why else would he look for her face on every woman he encountered thereafter?
He absently stroked the smooth, pink scar at the base of his left thumb, the way he often did when he was working through a problem. Today he found it a welcome distraction from the whirlwind of thoughts spinning out of control in his head. He remembered vividly the night Kate cut him, giving him that scar. It had been balmy and clear, so typical of the long, lazy evenings in that part of Africa. They felt like the only two people in the universe, as if the stars and moon had been created for their enjoyment alone. They’d watched the sun sink beneath the distant hills to the west and eaten a picnic of flat bread, goat’s cheese and spiced antelope meat, washed down with the last of the grappa he had smuggled from home. For dessert, they fed each other tiny balls of sweet tamarind candy until their tongues turned purple. When they kissed, her lips were sweet and even more intoxicating than the liquor they drank. They were both a little drunk by the end of the night and ended up falling asleep on the blanket they had made love on.
That was the night he proposed. The night Kate agreed to marry him. The night she gave him the bracelet she had made, woven and decorated from the tanned hide of the male kudu he had shot a few weeks before. It was a betrothal gift, she told him with a mischievous smile, which she just happened to be carrying around in her pocket...
A few weeks later, he woke up one morning and learned Kate was gone. Forever.
Strider gasped in sudden agony. Even now, he couldn’t think about the day he’d been confronted with her death without actual physical pain. He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, willing it to subside.
When he woke up that awful morning, he noticed the leather band was missing from his wrist. In the overall scheme of things, it had been an insignificant detail, but now, in light of Kate’s “resurrection”, he couldn’t help wonder what had become of it.
Kate followed the M4 from Heathrow, toward the city. At Notting Hill Gate, she turned off and gradually made her way into a quiet, tree-lined square surrounding a small, leafy park. By the time Strider entered the square she had already parked opposite a row of newly painted Victorian townhouses. The taxi pulled to the kerb and Strider thanked the driver for his assistance, all the while keeping both eyes on Kate.
He watched her cross the street just as a sandy-haired man in a navy blue suit emerged from one of the townhouse. Kate called out and ran eagerly toward him. The sound of her voice sent a shiver of longing down Strider's spine and a thousand bitter-sweet memories crossed his synapses in rapid succession. He reached for the door handle, his yearning and impatience for once overriding caution and reason.
The man in the suit looked up at the sound of Kate’s voice and hurried down the steps to meet her. Strider froze, one foot on the ground beside the taxi, spellbound by the image of the two lovers coming together, focused only on each other. They kissed deeply, and Strider burned with the unexpected shock of it. The tightness in his chest threatened to crush him but he was unable to wrench his eyes away. He struggled to get himself under control, knowing that this changed everything. And nothing.
Strider climbed back into the taxi and pulled the door shut behind him. Leaning his head back against the headrest, he closed his eyes and spoke with a weary, heart-sick voice. “Change of plans, driver. Take me to Pimlico please.”
After seeing Ryan off to work with an enjoyable but exceedingly unsatisfying kiss, Kate returned to her flat to finish the small amount of unpacking and tidying up that remained undone from the day before. The solitude was pleasant enough, but she missed Jack and their usual Sunday brunch. He was hundreds of miles away by now, hopefully feeling a little more like himself again.
The box of cooking utensils and canned food was still sitting in the corner of the kitchen where she had left it the previous afternoon. She was about to get down to work, when she noticed the flashing light of her answer phone. She pressed play and wasn't entirely surprised to hear Jules' voice.
“Hey Kate, it's me,” said the message. “I know I said I'd come round this afternoon but my black sheep of a brother just rang from the airport to tell me he's in town. I haven't seen him for ages, so we've got a lot of catching up to do. I know you'll understand. Hey! Why don't you come round for dinner tomorrow night? I really want you to meet him. I'll make lasagne...you know you can't resist my lasagne. See you tomorrow, sweets, around 7.”
Hmm. That was disappointing on the one hand, but since Kate was keen to meet Jules' mysterious brother, it also gave her something to look forward to. Now, to work...
Once Kate’s chores were out of the way, her attention turned inevitably to the leather-bound book that had found its way into her possession so mysteriously. Carrying the canvas bundle to the dining table, she unwrapped it with a small thrill of anticipation. It took only a moment to realise something was stuck in a pocket at the back of the volume, something she hadn’t noticed yesterday. Expecting the mundane – a birthday card or perhaps a dried flower – she was surprised instead to find a delicately fashioned cross attached to a slender silver chain.
Picking up the cross, she turned it over, examining it minutely. It had been carved from a piece of violet chalcedony and was framed by a delicate silver setting. The colour was remarkably similar to a pair of amethyst earrings she owned, carved into the shape of two tiny butterflies, which Tayo bought her when they visited Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar together. They were the exact colour of her eyes, or so he’d said. They were beautiful, but reminded her too vividly of a time she would sooner forget, so they had been relegated ever since to the bottom of her jewelry box.
On impulse, she lifted the chain over her head, letting the cross fall between her breasts. For some reason it felt as if it belonged there. Her fascination grew.
Opening the book at random, she began flipping through the pages, which were full of beautiful, detailed drawings and paintings of various people and places. It was a sort of visual journal, she realised with delight; a mixture of life-like portraits and snapshots in time. The mysterious Magdalena was extremely talented, managing to capture the essence of each subject, despite the limited space and the limitations of the chosen medium. Other pages contained what looked like poems or songs, while yet others contained lists of names, dates and other miscellanea.
Kate's hand froze as she came to a page near the back of the journal. She could scarcely believe what she was looking at! It was an ink portrait of herself and her three brothers, Simon, Sam and Jack. All three of them were laughing and looking impossibly young. Kate looked to be about ten, and her brothers just a few years older. How could this be? How could the same person have done this picture and the earlier ones from more than 200 years ago? It was impossible. There must be at least two artists, she reasoned, the second one adopting the same style and technique as the previous one, like a fine arts forger. But who drew this particular picture? Why was it in this strange book-cum-journal? And how did the book come to be here?
Kate decided to return to the beginning and hope that if she went through it methodically, some of the answers might reveal themselves.
The first page was just as it had been yesterday when she translated the inscription and read it aloud to Jack, Jason and Jules. She read the words again to herself, but the only abnormality she could discern was the fact that it was written in Romanian. Did Maggie have something to do with it? Did she draw the picture of Kate and her brothers? It was possible, Kate supposed, but it didn't explain the rest of it. Maggie was definitely past her prime when she lived with the McDermotts, but she wasn't two or three hundred years old!
Kate skipped over the self portrait of Magdalena. The next few pages were devoted to someone called Ion, who was depicted first as a laughing baby, then as a tousle-haire
d boy, and finally as a handsome young man with a cheeky smile. Magdalena's son, perhaps?
Kate turned the next page and then the next few, until she came to a portrait entitled, Katryn – 1761. Looking closer, there was something familiar about her, and Kate wondered if perhaps she had seen a depiction of her before, perhaps in one of Carolyne's art history textbooks or in a gallery. Her beautiful face was certainly memorable.
Kate turned another page and was immediately transfixed. An enraged woman with wild, Medusa-like hair, wearing a long skirt and embroidered blouse, was hurling a fireball at a woman who looked like the Katryn depicted in the previous page.
Kate felt an irresistible urge to touch the page and feel the heat of that fireball, but as soon as her finger made contact, she knew she had made a mistake. Before she knew what was happening, her mind somehow detached from her body and was then dragged down a long, dark tunnel. Very gradually, she became aware of another consciousness blending with her own, consuming it. Her sense of self was pushed into the furthest recess of their joint consciousness, until she was no longer a separate entity.
Getting to Know Kate
Strider raised a hand to knock on the door while preparing himself for the onslaught of his little sister. Juliet was nothing if not demonstrative when it came to the people she loved, and she adored her big brother. Living with a wide expanse of water between them meant they hadn't seen each other as often as she would have liked over the last few years, but the channel had been a welcome buffer for him. It was entirely his fault their get-togethers were so sporadic, but Kate’s death almost broke him and the only way he’d managed to hang onto his sanity was to focus on work and shut everything else out.
“Oh, my God! Marco!” Jules shrieked as soon as she opened the door, immediately launching herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Marc held his ground and squeezed her tightly, lifting her off the floor and spinning her around in a circle.