Albatross

by Ross Turner

  “Why can’t I see…?” He murmured, thinking aloud, frowning and looking again into the darkness.

  But then Jen looked slowly up from where she had buried herself in his chest, shaking visibly.

  “I can…” She whispered terribly.

  Without another word she pulled her phone from her pocket, yet again in another well practiced movement, and turned on the torch.

  The brilliant white light blinded them both for a second, but it illuminated the trees and the shrubs and the bushes for all to see.

  In an instant the noise sounded again, and yet another figure rose up from the undergrowth, exploding into view, caught in the spotlight.

  Whoever he was, he didn’t say a word, and before either of them could get a good look at him, he took off between the trees, darting this way and that so as not to be seen.

  “Who was that…?” Deacon asked Jen, knowing that somehow she held the answer to his question.

  But she shook her head as she replied.

  “He’s not why we’re here…” She replied knowingly, though her words didn’t feel like her own.

  Deacon looked at her with slightly wide eyes, but Jen’s gaze remained focused intently on the treeline stretched out before them.

  “So, why are we here…?” He whispered, naturally, for it was perhaps the most logical question to ask following such a statement.

  Jen only sighed, and her whole body seemed to deflate with that single motion.

  “Come on…” She whispered, taking slow, cautious, terrified steps forward, knowing that she had no choice in the matter.

  This had already been decided.

  She couldn’t escape it now.

  “What are we looking for…?” Deacon asked, pressing her still, as they approached the bushes and scanned the light through the undergrowth.

  Jen sighed again.

  “I try not to think about it…” She admitted, and very honestly so, all things considered.

  Deacon opened his mouth to speak again, naturally wanting to ask why, but something stopped him. He realised all of a sudden that this, whatever it was, was very personal, and had plagued Jen for a very long time.

  He decided not to push too far.

  Within barely moments they found themselves peering between and through and over the bushes, getting closer and closer to the truth by the second.

  Finally then, when they were upon what Deacon somehow knew they were here to find, they peered over a particularly thick bush, only to see on the other side the ground, very far away, and tinted orange by glorious sunset.

  All of a sudden they found themselves stood together once more in the wicker basket, high up above the ground, peering carefully over the edge, drifting lazily in the evening breeze.

  The blue and red balloon above them roared and flurried with hot air from the burner, and Grimm contentedly fired seemingly random jets of hot air up every now and then, keeping their altitude perfectly.

  “What…?” Deacon looked around, bewildered. But when he glanced back to Jen, and saw her expression: happy, free of all worry and concern and fear and guilt, he knew all of a sudden exactly what her mind was doing.

  This was a disguise.

  A cover up.

  A façade.

  Jen’s subconscious was shielding her from the truth. It was protecting her from whatever it was she had been holding on to so closely.

  But at that point, even as Deacon’s liquid eyes revealed all that he was coming to realise, it didn’t really matter.

  Their hands locked together, and then so did their lips. Brushing close and warm and full of hot, longing breath.

  Jen had come very close to admitting the truth to herself, but now that Deacon had her, she had not come close enough.

  It would seem that she still had a very long way to go.

  Dyra’s Warning

  At some point or another during the long night, Jen and Deacon had made their way back down from the rooftop and into Jen’s bed. Or perhaps, more accurately, onto Jen’s bed, for when Jen awoke she found herself cradled in Deacon’s arms, still fully clothed, and not even under the duvet.

  It didn’t matter.

  She wasn’t cold, and she was very comfortable, resting her head upon his shoulder and clutching his torso with her arms wrapped round him.

  “Good morning.” He greeted her warmly, his voice liquid and soft, and Jen smiled contentedly.

  “Good morning.” She replied.

  “What were you dreaming about?” He asked, glancing down at her, and Jen looked back up at Deacon through slightly foggy eyes.

  She should have known really.

  Just as she could have guessed that he would, he had perceived she had been dreaming, and even more than that, that her dream had been significant.

  “I don’t know…” Jen half lied, unable to help herself. “We were looking for something, but we didn’t find it, and we ended up back in the hot air balloon…”

  She smirked at the mention of the Duchess, and Deacon’s cheeky smile in return sent butterflies fleeting through Jen’s body once more.

  The sound of pots and pans knocking together echoed up the stairs then, distant and hollow.

  “Mom’s awake…” Jen noted, though her tone was indecipherable.

  “We should go and say good morning…” Deacon commented, and Jen grinned in return.

  “You can…” She joked seriously. “I’m going to have a shower…”

  Though she might have changed after work yesterday, before their date, still all Jen could smell were the scents of the kitchen on her clothes and in her hair.

  Realising in an instant that she was deadly serious, Deacon grinned in return and raised his eyebrows, rolling his eyes jokingly.

  “You’re impossible.”

  Jen laughed and kissed him softly as if things had always been this way, running her hands through his hair with fingers that ached for more.

  “Good morning Deacon.” Dyra greeted him as he descended the stairs and entered the kitchen to find her prepping for breakfast, pulling pots and pans and plates from cupboards and drawers left, right and centre.

  “Good morning Dyra.” He replied cheerfully. “How are you?”

  “Very well thank you.” She responded with a chuckle. “Actually…” She continued, pausing in her preparations to look him dead in the eye, somewhat disconcertingly, he had to confess. “Better than I’ve been in a long while…”

  “Really…?” He asked, surprise evident in his tone. “Why’s that?”

  “I haven’t seen Jennifer this happy for far too long…” Dyra explained, though her justification left more questions in Deacon’s churning mind than it did answers.

  “I see…” Deacon commented, not really knowing what else to say, for some reason once again picking up the picture he had examined the night previous, of the three of them stood by the lake. “Well…” He continued. “You should be proud. You have two very beautiful girls here…”

  He looked up at Dyra then from the photo, and her eyes were a complete mystery to him, which even in of itself was something most unusual.

  There were pictures everywhere of Jen and Clare, and of the three of them, Jen, Clare and Dyra.

  Nowhere to be found, however, was there any kind of father figure.

  Dyra looked as though she wanted to reply, but just couldn’t bring herself to speak the words forming in her mind.

  Eventually she managed to find her tongue, but Deacon knew in an instant that her words were not the real truth she wished to speak.

  “Please look after Jen…” She managed. “Please be understanding. She doesn’t mean it…”

  Of course, the all too obvious question came immediately to the tip of Deacon’s tongue, but for some reason he refrained from asking it.

  He was usually so perceptive, but alas, here he found himself, with absolutely no idea what Dyra meant.

  There were so many things that seemed to be eluding him of late.

&
nbsp; He felt as though there was something going on here, some secret, so locked away and deep rooted, that he was simply out of his depth with it all.

  “I will…” He promised, naturally.

  What else could he say?

  He had no idea.

  Nonetheless, amidst everything, he couldn’t help but feel as though Dyra’s cautionary words sounded almost like a warning. As if there was something he needed to prepare for.

  “Jen really seems to be doing much better…” Dyra continued, pressing on regardless of the clear confusion painted across Deacon’s face, though now her eyes had turned back to the pots and pans and cupboards and cutlery. “She looks much better too. She’s a stunning girl, but she hasn’t been looking after herself…”

  “Doing much better…?” Deacon questioned. “Not looking after herself…?” He pressed. “Why? What’s happened…?”

  Suddenly it was as if Dyra realised that she’d said too much, and she cut off almost immediately. Her words that followed, Deacon could sense, weren’t the whole truth, or anywhere near it in fact.

  “Well…” She started, her tone wavering. “Things haven’t been the same since her father left, and, well, you know…” Dyra quickly trailed off.

  As a matter of fact, Deacon did know, for his family life growing up hadn’t always consisted of roses and rainbows, but then, he knew that wasn’t really the problem here.

  But he had nothing else to go on.

  “My family haven’t always been the easiest either…” He agreed, nodding his head and pursing his lips, doubting her words silently, and only in his mind. “I guess these things just happen…” He posed, pushing the matter slightly, wanting the full truth now, but knowing he wasn’t going to get it. “We don’t always get a choice, do we?”

  “No…” Dyra agreed, sighing with deep concern.

  She looked up briefly and caught Deacon’s gaze, knowing that he could see she was hiding something.

  “Maybe someday Jennifer will tell you herself…” Dyra commented then, as if she was thinking out loud, and by way of confirming that she was lying. At the same time though, she sealed the fact that she would reveal no more.

  “Perhaps…” Deacon agreed, though what he had just agreed to, he wasn’t entirely sure.

  There came the sound of footsteps from upstairs and Jen began to make her way down to the kitchen.

  Dyra had finished getting everything out, but it seemed that she was going to leave the actual cooking to Jen.

  “I’m a terrible cook.” She explained to Deacon, laughing slightly, trying to ease the tension she had created. “Jen loves to cook. And she’s so much better at it than I am…”

  “Can I get you a drink?” Deacon offered, glancing over to the kettle.

  “Why, thank you, Deacon.” Dyra replied, and he moved immediately to the cupboard adjacent to the oven, where he had seen Dyra replace her glass the previous night.

  “Wait! Deacon…” She urged quickly, just as he began to open the cupboard door.

  “Yes…?” He asked, pausing, and her expression was fraught.

  “The mugs are in the one below…” She answered, her tone wavering once more, trying to hide her concern.

  “Ah!” He replied, leaning down and retrieving three crock mugs from the cupboard at his feet.

  However, though he’d cracked open the cupboard door only ever so slightly, Deacon had seen, of course, what Dyra hadn’t wanted him to.

  He pretended to ignore the fact, as if he hadn’t seen anything, and tried to push the image of bottles upon bottles and boxes upon boxes of prescription medications, all lined up along the top shelf of the cupboard, far away and out of his mind.

  Had Dyra known how perceptive Deacon was, she would have been perhaps a little more concerned. But for now, at least, everything continued as it should have done, apart from the reams of questions building up uncontrollably in Deacon’s mind.

  He was desperately trying to fit together the pieces of this bizarre jigsaw, but every time he thought he was coming close, a hundred more fragments were thrown at him, leaving him feeling lost all over again.

  “Morning!” Jen greeted her mother as she frolicked into the kitchen, setting her hands immediately to work on breakfast, without even the slightest hesitation.

  Her hair was still wet and tied up into a bun to keep it out of the way.

  “Good morning, Jennifer.” Dyra replied, clutching the cup of coffee Deacon had just handed her.

  Within minutes Deacon and Jen were waltzing round the kitchen, singing and dancing with and between each other, and somehow, amidst the whole spectacle, cooking eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, and anything else they could lay their hands on for breakfast.

  Jen’s voice soared, just as it had always used to, and Deacon’s wasn’t half bad either, Dyra noted.

  “So, what are you two doing today?” Jen’s mother eventually asked, once the food was all ready and they sat down to eat.

  Jen looked expectantly at Deacon, and he gathered by her expression that she wasn’t working.

  “Well, I have to nip home…” He started between mouthfuls. “I have a few things I need to get done…” Then he looked over at Jen. “If you’d like to come?” He asked.

  Jen nodded and smiled, her mouth full of bacon and egg.

  “Have you spoken to Clare?” Dyra asked then, her question and her gaze very direct, looking intently at her youngest daughter.

  Jen swallowed nervously.

  “Not so much over the past few days…” Jen admitted.

  “Good.” Dyra replied, with something in her voice that wasn’t quite venom, but that wasn’t overly pleasant either.

  Deacon, of course, didn’t comment, but silently he was shocked.

  What on Earth…?

  “Do you live far, Deacon?” Dyra asked then, cutting that particular conversation off and turning her gaze upon him again, and for not the first time that morning.

  Her expression was strange, and entirely unreadable.

  Something wasn’t right here.

  Deacon could feel it.

  “I’ve moved quite a few times…” He started apprehensively.

  “I know that feeling…” Jen agreed, and for some reason knowing that Deacon was a bit of a drifter too made Jen feel slightly better about the whole thing, though Dyra didn’t say a word on the matter.

  “I live about twenty minutes down the coast…” He told them.

  “Do you live with family?” Jen asked then, for some reason feeling the sudden, fleeting urge to meet them.

  But a flash of regret crossed Deacon’s face at her words, and instantly Jen wished she could take back her question.

  “No…” He replied carefully, his gaze darting between Jen’s stricken face and her mother’s stony expression. “I don’t…”

  HOME

  It was perhaps half an hour or so later that Jen found herself once again in Deacon’s car, hurtling down the coastline towards his home. She didn’t know exactly where they were going, but she trusted him; perhaps more so than she trusted most people.

  And, unfortunately, that included her own mother, Dyra. Particularly after a few things she’d said, and the way she’d acted that morning.

  Deacon had been quiet since they’d left, and looked deep in thought, and Jen didn’t want to breach the silence just yet.

  She could only imagine what her mother had told him while she’d been upstairs.

  How could she have been so stupid as to let Dyra get him alone!?

  Whatever she’d told him, though Jen doubted it was the full truth, it couldn’t have been good…

  Deacon reached out suddenly and flicked from the radio and over to his Bluetooth, selecting a band that Jen had never heard before, as they shot into a mountainside through a lengthy tunnel, under the orangey glow of artificial lights.

  When they emerged back out into the sunshine, Jen cast her gaze out to her left and at the steep drop off from the side of the road, leading
directly down to the water below.

  The ocean swelled and rose dramatically and glistened green and blue and turquoise all at once. In the far distance offshore, wind turbines spun erratically in the howling winds. Jen watched them turn in frantic rhythm, as the band she did not know sung about cinnamon and lipstick and summer and love and living and believing.

  On the whole, she had to admit, she quite liked them.

  They passed through yet another two tunnels, and the road grew very narrow and wound its way left and right precariously between high sided cliffs on one side, and steep drop offs on the other.

  Deacon’s driving was impeccable however, and Jen felt not even in the least bit uneasy.

  Soon enough he left the main road and turned down another lane, picking up speed between bends and flying round corners smoothly.

  Another song by the same band came on then.

  ‘You might have got the best of me, but you’ll never get the rest of me…’

  How apt, Jen thought to herself, considering the circumstances.

  No one had got the best of her yet, except perhaps Clare.

  Did she even have anything left to give?

  Or had she already lost most of what made her, well, her?

  Almost before she knew it they had arrived, and Deacon pulled into the drive of a house that looked like something of a holiday home.

  Large, front facing doors and windows revealed tall, white walls, lined with balconies and spiral staircases visible through the expanses of glass. The driveway extended a full two dozen feet out from the front door, framed on either side by lush grass and flowers.

  There was a single step that led up to the door, and looked like it was made entirely from white marble.

  Deacon immediately stepped out and Jen followed him inside, as he unlocked the large, glass paned front door and remotely turned on the lights.

  She was in awe.

  “This is incredible…” Jen breathed almost immediately.

  The house was spotless. The walls were for the most part white, with only limited decoration, and most of the surfaces were clear of anything at all.