by Rae Else
Not for the first time, El wished that she could see behind the black sunglasses she always wore. But it was pointless; only shadows rested there, deep and thick, in her empty eye sockets.
- Chapter Two -
Blurred
El stood, transfixed as though hypnotised by her grandma. However, Grandma Helena didn’t possess the same power as El. Her grandma had lost that when she’d lost her eyes. El traced the lines of her face, but its angles seemed taut and unfamiliar.
She came closer to her grandma, her voice sounding steadier than she felt. ‘What’s going on, Grandma?’
Helena seemed as stupefied as El. It was the blonde-haired woman who spoke, her voice clipped, ‘You used your power tonight.’
El flushed. Hot shame washed over her. This woman knew what she’d done. Her grandma knew too. How did they know? Her temper flared at her grandma’s silence.
‘What the hell’s going on, Grandma? Who is this woman?’
Helena flinched. ‘This is Anna, your mother. Because you used your power, you’re going to have to go with her.’
El’s eyes widened and swung to the blonde-haired woman. She looked at her properly. Her mother. She examined her petite build, dirty-blonde hair and blue eyes, just like in the photos Helena had shown her. Photos all taken over seventeen years ago, before El’s birth. She hadn’t aged a day. But she did look different to the woman in the photos. That’s why El hadn’t immediately recognised her. El had one picture of Anna framed on her desk in her bedroom. In it, Anna wore a polo neck, her hair loose and her smile wide.
She was as beautiful in real life as she was in that picture. But something about her pristine dress, erect posture and blank expression made her seem less life-like than in that still image. Anna didn’t come towards El for the kind of embrace she would have expected from her long-lost parent. She didn’t even look at her. Instead, her eyes remained on Helena. Was she so indifferent to seeing her daughter for the first time since birth?
El remembered Ingrid once admiring the photo of her mother. She’d said that El was the spitting image of her. At the time, she’d been flattered to be likened to the elegant woman, but now that she was here she detested the obvious similarities. There was no warmth to her.
Anna’s blue eyes swept her face. El felt a rush of cold mark her cheek and gasped. Had she imagined it? Despite the sensation startling her, it woke her up. How could her grandma suggest that she go with this strange, icy woman?
‘I’m not going,’ El said. Her voice grew louder. ‘You can’t make me.’
‘El, please–’ Helena said.
Ignoring her, El dropped her handbag and hurried down the hall. She slammed the library door behind her, clutched her arms around her and started to pace the room. Her mother. Her mother was here. How dare she show up after all this time and with hardly a word expect her to go with her.
The remains of a charred log glowed in the hearth. El grabbed a hunk of firewood from the basket and hurled it on top; the disturbed ashes released a cloud of dust. As she went to pick up another piece, pain seared through her finger. In the glow of the fire, she saw the splinter embedded in a cut. Her hands were covered with scrapes that she’d got from the broken screen.
She inhaled deeply and dug her fingernail under her skin. At least in this she was like everyone else. She could still bleed. Her hands shook. The events from earlier were catching up with her. This new shock would send her over the edge. Sitting down, she tried to regain control, drawing her knees up to her chest and tensing her forearms.
When she was a child, her grandma had explained to her that Anna had run away in her late teens, got in with a bad crowd and got pregnant. Other than leaving El to be brought up by her grandparents, Anna had done nothing for her. No contact. Nothing. Until now. She remembered Anna’s words: There’s no choice. The Order will find her here. She has to come with me. What did she mean? Who would find her?
In the car with Ingrid, El had assumed she would be shut up in this house and become a lonely spinster in the middle of nowhere. But at least if she was locked up, everyone else was safe. Now, her mother had appeared, claiming that El wasn’t safe. A tremor of fear ran down her spine, frosty like Anna’s gaze.
El jumped as the door opened. She didn’t look up at first, but her grandma’s sharp intonation drew her attention, ‘Wait in the car, Anna.’
El’s mother lingered in the doorway for a moment looking like she’d argue, but with a cursory glance, left.
El ignored her grandma as she sat down on the Chesterfield sofa next to her. Instead she looked at the painting on the wall. Burne-Jones: Doom Fulfilled. Its dark hues depicted the hero Perseus battling with the sea serpent. Battling the serpent. That’s what she did every day. El remembered the feeling of the heat in her chest as it had flared earlier, that’s what she had to keep at bay all the time. The serpent power that slumbered in her. She recalled the sensation of it shooting into her eyes – sudden – like that of a snake striking. Tonight, it had won. The power was her curse to bear as it was her mother’s, and had been her grandma’s and all of Perseus’ descendants before them.
The painting that hung next to this was brighter, with more red and yellow pigments. It showed one of the ways legend said Medusa’s curse was passed to their line. Perseus and his wife, Andromeda stood on a dais staring into a pool. Medusa’s head rested in the background – the trophy Perseus had taken when he’d killed her. The gorgon’s eyes were reflected in the water. Her lethal gaze would turn a person to stone, but her reflection was safe, or so they had thought.
El had listened to stories of how curiosity had cursed Perseus and his children, the gorgon’s power seeping through the water to them. Another legend told that the snakes that still lived, writhing and hissing upon the severed head, had bitten him. Still more likely El’s grandma said, was that Perseus extracted the snake’s venom and deliberately claimed the terrible power.
El had shuddered at Helena’s stories when she was younger. The first descendants possessed the full power to turn humans to stone, but over the centuries his bloodline had become diluted and the serpent power weakened. Where the first descendants could transform the very molecules in any living thing, those that came later could only temporarily alter them, and bend them to their will. The power that El had used tonight.
Her gaze was hard as she stared at the painting. She knew her grandma was scrutinising her. Although Helena couldn’t see, her other senses were acute. She would be noting the shift of El’s muscles and tension within them.
‘I’m so sorry, my darling,’ Helena said. ‘It’s my fault. I never should have let you start working at Cobbold. It was too much, too soon.’
Usually El would have argued and accused her grandma of stifling her, but she couldn’t after what had happened. A surge of guilt swept through her. Her grandma was trying to share her burden. El shook her head, her vision blurring. It was her fault. She wished she could take it back. It had all happened so quickly. One mistake. One she still couldn’t explain.
It had been years since she’d slipped up so unexpectedly. She remembered when she was young, walking through a field with her granddad. Some of the bullocks in the pasture hadn’t socialised yet. On seeing El and her granddad, the cattle were skittish and stamped their hooves. The sound and movement had drawn El’s eye and she’d incited them to stampede. She’d felt her granddad’s arms around her, his frantic heart frightening her more as she gazed back. He’d only just made it out of the field with El shaking in his arms.
A couple of years later, one of the employees on the farm had brought their teenage son to work with them. Seeing strangers so little, El had been fearful of the unknown boy. With a stray glance, she had unwittingly bid one of the farm dogs to attack. The boy had escaped the worst of the bites, but had needed stitches in his arms, legs and face. She’d seen him back on the farm a few times over the years, his face permanently scarred. Sometimes she still dreamt about
him and believed that there was a kind of justice in this. He haunted her dreams as she so rightly deserved.
But it was the booming of her granddad’s shotgun that she recalled most. The pellet that had pierced the dog’s skull that day had sent a tactile current through the air that seemed to embed itself beneath her skin. She had carried the guilt with her, knowing full well it should have been her lying there, bleeding out, and not the innocent animal.
These reminders had helped her regulate and control her power over the years. Or so she’d thought. To add to this list of dead animals and mutilated people, there could now be a man’s death. No wonder her grandma had been so reluctant to allow her any freedom.
El lifted her head and looked at her grandma. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice broke. ‘I promise I won’t go out. I won’t ever leave the house – just let me stay.’
Helena grasped El’s hand. ‘I want to keep you safe, darling. I always have. I wish there was something to tell you, to make this easier, but you’re no longer safe here.’ She gave her hand a squeeze as though she could transmit what she wanted to say through pressure. ‘There are others like us. Others who have the power we do. They know about you, and they’re looking for you.’
A lump rose in her throat and the room spun away from her. Her grandma had always told her that they were the sole heirs of Perseus’ line and power. She pulled away from her grandma and closed her eyes. Others like them, like her. What else had her grandma hidden?
‘It wasn’t just to protect humans that I taught you to conceal your power,’ Helena said. ‘It was to protect you from these people, to keep them from finding you. You’ll see when you go to London–’
El stood up, moving away from the torrent of her grandma’s words. She clomped over to the window and stared out as if trying to see beyond the darkness. People were looking for her and the solution was for them to go to London. How many times had she wished to go there? She had visited Colchester, a small town where the local high school was. Cobbold House was situated on the outskirts of the town too. But it was safer for everyone if El stayed away from people as much as possible. Had her grandma gone mad, suggesting that she go to London? All those people: crowds in their thousands, millions in fact. All things her grandma had forbidden.
El thought of all the times she’d turned down Ingrid’s invites to gigs and shopping trips. Her grandma had always said that El’s power was a liability. Even Ingrid’s visits here had been limited, minimising the danger El posed to her own friend. And tonight, her grandma had been proved right.
El’s world collapsed as she stared out at the gardens and lawns. No breath of wind stirred the hedgerows or undergrowth. It was as if the grounds were holding their breath, waiting for the next shock to come. Her blood curdled at what her grandma had concealed. She turned around and stared at the black lenses and thought of the first time that she’d seen her without them. The naked skin was a tracery of scars around deep hollows, where tattered flesh remained.
El had only been five years old when she’d asked her grandma the question that preyed on her, every minute of every day. Even then, she had known enough about her powers to realise that her life, and any life with their ability, wasn’t an easy one. She’d touched her grandma’s scars and asked her if she’d cut her power out. Her grandma had invariably said that it was an accident, that she’d lost her eyes in an accident.
‘Your eyes,’ El blurted out. ‘Your power? Did you cut them out because of–’
‘The Order,’ Anna answered, her flawless figure appearing in the doorway. She now had on the addition of a leather jacket. She raised her eyebrows. ‘And if you don’t hurry up, you’re going to be faced with the same choice: to go with them or rid yourself of your power.’
El’s gaze shifted between the two women. Shock, disgust, anger hitting her all at once. Each feeling wrestled with the other, vying to be the one to break free. She felt the same bite of cold on her skin as her mother watched her. It seemed she didn’t have a choice. It was a toss-up between going with her mother, the ice queen, or blinding herself. She felt a stab of frustration again at the half answers they were giving her.
‘Okay,’ she said.
Anna nodded curtly and hurried out. El and Helena followed.
In the hall when they got to the front door Helena’s voice sounded, ‘Stay safe, my darling.’
Stopping, she frowned at her grandma. Questions swirled around her head, but there was only one that flew to her lips, ‘You’re not coming?’
Helena shook her head. ‘There’s no time to explain, but it’s better for you and Anna that I don’t.’
All thought of sulking with her grandma evaporated. She didn’t forgive her for her lies, but she didn’t want to leave her and fell into her grandma’s open arms.
‘I love you, Melita,’ Helena whispered.
A film of tears sprang to El’s eyes as she hugged her. Her granddad’s pet name for her was usually enough to lighten her mood but now it just cemented how alone she was. He had passed away a few years ago. At times like this he’d have made fun of her grumpiness, have swept her up in a bear hug until he’d squeezed all the worries from her. Then again, he’d been normal. Human.
El scooped up her handbag, wiped her eyes on her sleeve and walked to the car. She looked back at Helena. She was the same age as her granddad was when he’d passed away. Eighty-seven. Yet, you’d never have known it. Her dark brown hair was flecked with a few streaks of grey, just as the lines in her olive skin were faint. She could pass for a woman half her age. El had always known that their line was blessed with a longer spell of youth than humans. It’s why Anna hadn’t aged a day in seventeen years either. Perhaps all people with powers aged slowly. El tried to fix her grandma’s image in her head, wondering when she’d next see her.
As soon as El climbed into the car, Anna started the engine. El looked back as they raced away. Her grandma’s figure receded; the doorway in which she stood seemed to swallow her. She’d be okay, El reassured herself. Although her grandma was blind, with the rest of her heightened senses, she was very able. Despite this, El couldn’t help feeling that there were no blessings for her grandma, or for any of them. Their line was cursed. They were cursed with these powers. And now, El was being forced away from the one person who had always been there to help her bear them.
Soon the car was hurtling down the road and she gazed out the window, numbed by all that had happened. The trees became fewer, and were eventually replaced by streetlamps as though they had been stripped of their branches and turned to stone. Their glow, along with the head and tail lights of the surrounding cars on the motorway blurred as El’s tears ran freely. The stream only ceased when exhaustion pushed her into a dreamless sleep.
- Chapter Three -
The Shuttered Eye
El started awake as the blare of a car’s horn petered out. The city reared up outside the window. Huge tower blocks flanked the road, their shadowy surfaces reflecting neon lights, cast from the signs and windows of bars and clubs. Pedestrians spilled out of doorways, whilst others congregated on the pavement. It must be midnight or later, but the hour seemed meaningless to the people outside. There was a steady movement of cars and buses, the odd bicycle or moped too.
El watched couples and groups in fascination. Their outfits caught her attention. A group of girls in short dresses caught her eye, their calves strained as they tottered on heels. She tried to guess where they were going. For drinks? Dancing? On dates? When they halted at traffic lights, she watched the crowd at the junction. Their chatter, laughter and footsteps buzzed in her ear – the pulse of the city.
Anna swung the car into a side street and the scene was obscured. A modest concrete building stretched out before them, the road sloping down into a basement car park. The gloom thickened before the glare of fluorescent strip lights passed over them, casting alternating bars of shadow and light. They halted at the far side, where there were lots of unoccupi
ed spaces.
‘Do you live in this building?’ El asked, the first words to punctuate their journey.
‘No.’
El waited. It seemed this was to be the only response. She unbuckled her seatbelt.
‘Wait here,’ Anna said.
A few metres from the car, Anna surveyed the basement. El wondered what she was looking for. Then she saw it. She blinked once, twice. There was something appearing above Anna. Globules of liquid glittered and came together to form something. As the water grew and changed, El traced its shape, noticing the vertical lines at its base. It looked like an eye. A closed eye. The lines at the bottom were like the lashes on an eyelid. She gawped.
Something rumbled in the basement. She peered back, trying to see what it was. When her gaze snapped back to Anna, the watery eye was gone. Okay, that was … weird. She had managed to shrug off the feeling of Anna’s cold gaze but couldn’t as quickly forget the appearance of this unnatural, watery shape. Anna beckoned her to come out of the car. Still amazed, El slunk over to join her mother.
She heard movement and looked over the roofs of cars. A man with an impressive beard and ponytail approached. He wore ripped jeans and a white, linen shirt. He had some chunky metal and leather bracelets on too. She could imagine Ingrid’s comments on this guy’s get-up – in danger of looking Messiah-like, but the jewellery and ponytail offset the look.
‘El,’ Anna said, ‘this is Adam. Adam, my daughter, El.
Anna’s words surprised her. She wondered how she could introduce her as her daughter but in the car, say nothing as she was crying her eyes out.
El shook hands with the man.
‘Pleased to meet ya,’ he said.
When Anna looked at her, El felt the same coolness. She wondered if the watery shape that had appeared in the air earlier had anything to do with the peculiar sensation her eyes gave off.