Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy

by Janet V Forster

  My shoulders collapsed. ‘It’s not your fault Nick. It’s just life. Fate.’

  ‘I wish things could have been different, though. I wish I could have seen you grow up, been more to you, loved you and picked you up when you cried. I wish I’d known you were in the world earlier … but maybe that wouldn’t have been so good for you.’ He shook his head, his face crestfallen. Blinking hard he dispelled the moisture which had gathered in his eyes.

  ‘Do what you can to establish good sleep habits. Try not to stay out too late, eat properly, get regular sleep, and don’t drink too much. I know I can’t talk, but I’m not having the same sleep issues, right now. Stay away from drugs, even caffeine. Cut it out if you can. Do whatever you can to help yourself by controlling your environment.’

  I raised an eyebrow. Focussing on the practical, he tried to find a handle when there wasn’t one. If this was about birth control, I might have been tempted to disregard his advice, but given the nature of our conversation I decided that there was no harm in following it.

  Only the car expressed itself on our journey home, the vulgar roar unburdening us of the need for further explanation, clarification, and injury.

  He kissed me lightly at the gate. ‘At least now you understand why I drink,’ he said with a wink, leaving me in a slump of exhausted disbelief and agitation. I sensed the weight of his burden shifting across onto my shoulders, the craziness of it bewildering my mind.

  After a while I drew leaden feet up the seemingly gigantic, never-ending steps and went inside. The tiny parcel Mads had given me lay unopened on my bed where I had left it. A mystery. I wasn’t sure that I could deal with another, however innocuous, today but I picked it up anyway and carefully opened it. A note slipped out. It was from Deb.

  ‘This was very special to me once Kate. You should have it now. Love, Deb.’

  Inside in a plain black box lay a shiny platinum angel, sparkling with tiny diamonds, on a delicate chain. Instinctively I knew that she was relieved to let this painfully beautiful piece of her history go at last. It was tied to sorrow and heartache, to great unfathomable depths. It was tied to what was mine now.

  I curled up on the bed, exhausted and over-loaded. The clock blinked six p.m. The metal of the pendant warming in my hand was the last thing I remembered as my mind shut off altogether and I drifted off to sleep, my inner turmoil overcome for the moment.

  28

  DEB AND NICK

  School seemed interminable. I wandered through my lessons zombie-like. When I arrived home Mum continued to torture me with descriptions of the gruesome scenarios she had imagined, after I returned home late the night before.

  ‘Mum?’ I asked later, as we set our small kitchen table for dinner, ‘Is there anything weird between our family and the Edwards family?’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked, her attention too focused on the steaks sizzling in the pan.

  ‘Like something that goes back a while, something that maybe Dad was involved in?’

  She was quiet for a moment. ‘What did Nick say?’

  ‘Not much, just that there’s an issue between the families and his folks don’t want him seeing me.’ I returned to the counter to grab serviettes as she dished up the food, setting George’s aside for when he returned from work later.

  ‘He said that Dad wasn’t meant to come back here, which is weird.’

  ‘You should really talk to your father about this,’ she said, not meeting my eyes.

  ‘Oh come on!’ I waved my hand rudely, exasperated by her stalling. ‘We can’t discuss the weather!’

  She sighed and gave up. I was usually easy-going, but when I chose to stand my ground I could be stubborn. Now was one of those times and she knew it. ‘Let’s eat and I’ll tell you what I know when we’re finished.’

  She ate pensively while I gulped down my food impatiently. After washing and drying the dishes we moved to the sofa and she took my hands with a sad smile.

  ‘Wow, is it that serious?’ I asked tentatively, my stomach sinking like a lead balloon.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know Deb. I’d hoped to escape telling you. Really, I didn’t think it was necessary to burden you with something from so long ago … but they’re obviously not going to let it go.’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ I agreed.

  ‘Fate works in such mysterious ways.’ Her hands covered mine protectively.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You and Nick. With all the good-looking boys around here, it was Nick you fell for.’ I nodded, waiting, realising that she was making assumptions about Nick and I that I couldn’t deny.

  ‘Your father’s family came from around these parts – did you know that?’

  ‘Not until Nick told me the other day.’

  ‘Your dad never talked much about them, but they were here for generations, until about twenty years ago. They’re scattered all over the place now. Don’t even keep in touch. Anyway, they were here for a long time before that.’ Anxiety flitted across her face like a ghost in a graveyard.

  ‘He’s not going to be happy about me telling you this, but given we’re practically estranged I guess it’s too bad.’ I nodded, encouraging her to continue. ‘He told it to me in confidence before we moved here. I guess he thought he had to.’ Her voice faltered.

  ‘Go on Mum, I have a right to know.’

  ‘Why he wanted to come back here will always be a mystery to me.’ She inhaled so deeply the rug seemed to move closer.

  ‘When your dad was young, probably only a year or two older than you now, he fell in love with Nick’s aunt. Her name was Sofia. Sofia Edwards. She was beautiful of course, but off limits. She was engaged to someone else, not that your father would ever have been considered a suitable match for her, but she was a bit of a rebel. They met up secretly and she fell pregnant. Her family found out then about their trysts and you can imagine what a shame that was to them, how she had let them down and tarnished the family name.’ I nodded, captivated by her story, my mind reeling at the thought of my father involved in something so exciting and troubling.

  ‘They forbade her from seeing him, although he said that she wanted to continue the relationship anyway.’ She shook her head pensively. ‘It didn’t matter anyway, they were so powerful. They ordered him to stay away from her and to keep the pregnancy a secret. They intimidated him. Plied him with money and forced him to leave town. He had to. If he hadn’t, they would have made life very difficult. Sofia disappeared. The family home was a fortress. He only heard from her once again.’

  ‘And his child?’

  ‘Died,’ she finished, explaining. ‘He came early.’

  We sat in silence. My father had a history, a life, I knew nothing about. I remembered Sofia from the photo, her dark painful expression, the lean of the others towards her, their expressions possessive, almost predatory now that I thought of it. I shivered.

  ‘That’s terrible Mum. Do you think that’s why he came back here?’

  She nodded. ‘Maybe he wanted to show them that he could hold his head up high here, make them realise that they had never had a right to deprive him of his home.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  It still didn’t make sense to me. ‘But how did he manage to rent here, wouldn’t they have known it was him?’

  ‘He used my maiden name on the lease. Forged my signature. I only realised when we separated.’

  ‘It’s a sad story,’ I said, unsurprised by his deception. I felt myself softening a little towards him. I knew little of the depths of defeat he had experienced in his past although my mother had certainly suffered for it.

  ‘They made it impossible for him. He had to move away, get a new job, and start a new life. Even extended relatives, who knew nothing about what had happened, found themselves tormented by that family. They wanted them out, every last one of them and they got their wish. They were very influential. They are still very powerful. You shouldn’t underestimate them, Deb.’

  Shaking my hea
d slowly I wondered just what kind of a nest I had stepped into.

  ‘Your father went through a pretty tough time, but that’s as much as I know. We met a couple of years later and he never spoke of it. I think he tried to put it behind him, to pretend his past had never existed, but it haunted him, turned his heart into a dark, cold place. He only told me when he decided to move back here, but it explained a lot. He said the work opportunity was just too good to pass up and maybe he was right, but we could have lived a long way from here and been closer to his office.’ She thought for a moment. ‘There was something that drew him back to this place, and I mean something other than Dorothy.’

  ‘It’s hard to understand why he’d ever want to come back here.’

  ‘Maybe the Edwards would have let it rest if it wasn’t for you and Nick getting together.’

  ‘They sound awful.’

  ‘Powerful people are used to getting what they want. They don’t like it when things don’t go their way, Deb.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed.

  She leaned forward to straighten up a stack of books on the coffee table and knocked one off. Leaning down I picked it up for her. ‘Maybe you should leave this place, Deb. Leave now before suffering really touches your life, damages you.’

  ‘It seems so silly though, Mum.’ I placed the book on top of her pile. ‘I mean, I understand a little more now about why they don’t want me around, what they have against Dad, but that’s ancient history.’

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ she agreed, ‘and it wasn’t as though he committed a crime. It was immoral yes, but nothing more than that. When you and George became friendly with Nick, I started worrying a little, but still … after all this time I thought they might just let sleeping dogs lie. I haven’t even heard mention of Sofia Edwards since we’ve been here. It’s like she never existed.’

  The hair on my neck prickled. What had happened to Sofia?

  ‘I saw a photo of her at Nick’s house,’ I said, noticing her shocked expression too late.

  ‘You’ve been to his house?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes, well just once when his parents weren’t there.’

  We both sat pondering, surrounded by the sounds of silence, the creeks and moans of the wind, the humming fridge. Mum stood up and began switching on lamps, as we both suddenly became aware of how gloomy the house had become.

  ‘You should be careful,’ she warned, her face aged by concern in the lamplight. Moving to the kitchen she filled the kettle with water, turning it on before returning to the sofa.

  She sat down slowly, a thought weighing on her mind. ‘You’ve not done anything have you Deb? Anything … you know?’

  My face flushed and she brought her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Please tell me you used protection!’

  How could I answer? How could I explain the power of the connection which had brought us together, which seemed to override conscious thought? Loss clawed its way across her face. She swallowed.

  ‘Deb!’

  ‘I’m going to the chemist tomorrow, Mum. It won’t happen again, I promise.’ She exhaled, trying to calm herself, to reassure herself. Her lips twitched as she tried not to tell me how irresponsible I was.

  ‘The more I think about it, the more I think that any connection with that family is ill-advised. I don’t want to meddle, you’re eighteen now, but won’t you consider ending it? Now, before you’re in too deep.’ I could hear her desperation, but leaving him wasn’t an option I was willing to consider.

  ‘It’s too late.’ I placed my hand on her arm. ‘Maybe it was always too late. Like you say, fate brought us together. I know you don’t want me hurt and if I could choose differently I would, but I can’t. Of course I wish his family weren’t monsters and didn’t hate us. I can’t begin to understand how they could hold on to a grudge after what must be more than twenty-five years.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘Some people have the ability to hold onto bitterness forever Deb. No matter how hard you try to prove yourself to them your energy is wasted.’ She spoke from experience.

  ‘You’ve suffered in your life, Mum,’ I said, as the kettle began to shriek. She jumped off the sofa, relieved to have somewhere to run to, some way to deflect the conversation.

  She spoke from the kitchenette. ‘I want you to have a different life. I’ve found peace so late. I want happiness for you, and love. I worry that if you do this, that won’t be the case.’ The teaspoon clinked against the side of a mug as she stirred. ‘You’re only a couple of months away from freedom. I don’t want that stolen from you.’

  She returned to the sofa with two steamy mugs of tea and a shot of brandy for herself on a tray. I guessed she needed it. Usually I made the tea, but tonight the roles were reversed. We sat companionably and she seemed to forgive me, knowing that I needed her. After a while I rested my head on her shoulder and she played with my hair, dragging the fine, almost white strands through her fingers. We both retreated to our thoughts for a while.

  Finally she seemed to come up with a new perspective, one in which she blamed herself. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this before now. Maybe I should have, but who can know the future?’

  I stood up and stretched. ‘You’ve told me now Mum, that’s what matters.’ My body was ready for bed, but my mind was buzzing. I was certain that sleep would elude me.

  ‘I love you,’ I said, leaning over and kissing her forehead.

  ‘I know you do, and I love you Deb, so much.’ She clasped me to her so tightly my breath rasped in my chest. ‘Always, no matter what,’ she stated, finally releasing me so that I could breathe more easily.

  29

  KATE

  I opened my eyes to what seemed like midnight, momentarily disoriented in the complete darkness. The clock next to my bed blinked. It was only seven thirty. Unusually, the house was still quiet and the gap beneath my door did not glow. I yawned and stretched, immediately regretting it as my head started to throb. Two headaches in one day seemed unfair. Fumbling around for tablets in the drawer next to my bed, I decided that a nice soothing bath would be a good idea and so after I’d swallowed two painkillers, I stumbled bleary-eyed into the bathroom. Relaxing in warm water was an appealing fantasy but not possible after the events of my day, which insisted on breaking through every calm meditative thought I could muster. Eventually I gave up and hauled my lobster-pink body from the water with a heavy sigh.

  I pulled on old but much-loved, once-pink, flannelette pyjamas, washed to paper thinness, but with no holes in obscene places, and thick socks with zebra stripes, leaving my hair in a shambolic bun on top of my head. I glanced in the mirror on my way out.

  ‘You make a God-awful superhero,’ Sam noticed happily.

  ‘Get away pesky serpent,’ I whispered tersely, ‘anyway, it seems more like super-villain in the Edwards family.’ I attempted a forbidding expression, one that would instil trembling terror into the coldest heart of the biggest barbarian, but suddenly noticed a piece of lettuce stuck between my front teeth. It somewhat detracted from the fierceness of my expression (a vegetarian monster is not that scary), and I shook my head at my stupidity, quickly rinsing out my mouth and hoping that Nick hadn’t noticed earlier.

  A gentle rain had started falling, soft static outside the window. I had just turned on the kettle and was rummaging in the breadbin trying to find a piece of bread which had been baked this side of the millennium and would not crack a tile if dropped on the floor, when I heard the endless multi-tonal chime of the doorbell.

  I froze. And then I remembered. It came flooding back with all of the cruelty of a school bully who had just noticed a sticky toffee wrapper stuck to your bottom. With everything that had happened in between it seemed like years ago that I had been attacked in the club. James. My car. I looked down at my pyjamas, my socks.

  The chimes started up again. Was there no mercy in the world?

  I opened the door a crack, stuck my nose out, sighed, and opened it a little wider.
He was dripping on the doorstep, his face shadowed by a hood covering his head to keep the rain off, my keys proffered in his outstretched hand. It was probably just as well I couldn’t make out his expression.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, moving forward into the light, quite unaware that I regularly dressed this way.

  The weekend had taken its toll. I swallowed hard and tried to smile, but somehow I failed and my lip wobbled and my eyes watered. After a while I gathered myself enough to lie unconvincingly.

  ‘Yes, fine. It’s just been a really long weekend.’ Had it really only been less than a full day since he’d rescued me?

  He wasn’t persuaded, but handed the keys across to me anyway. I’m sure his instinct was warning him away. The sooner, the better.

  ‘You’re parked on the road near your front gate.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks so much.’

  ‘No problem.’ He hesitated, then turned to go.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a moment? Cup of tea, or something?’ Idiot. What does, ‘or something’ mean. I felt a hot rush and bit my lip.

  He looked up at the quiet house and then across at my drawn, but red, face.

  ‘Just for a short while, I’ve got to get some work done.’ And then please never bother me again.

  I took him through to the kitchen and tried not to pour boiling water on myself, or drop the sugar bowl on the floor, while he sat at our functional, but ugly, chipped wooden table looking self-assured and too gorgeous for eight o’clock on a Sunday evening.

  ‘There you go,’ I said, ‘white, with two.’

  ‘Err, okay. Thanks.’

  How did he have it then, was it black with one? I scratched my head, but that failed to provide enlightenment. Had I even asked?

  Realising my anxiety, he took a sip and smiled, brightening the room. ‘It’s good Kate, thanks.’