‘O-kay,’ I managed finally. ‘I think I’d better go.’ He gazed ahead giving no indication as to whether or not he had even heard me. After a moment I pushed the door open wider and stepped out.
‘Take care, Kate,’ he murmured quietly as I closed it.
The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up again. Goosebumps prickled across the base of my neck. Suddenly the shadows seemed infinitely and inescapably black.
I jumped at the sight of Ethan. He was perched on the brick wall in front of me, a smirk on his face, his hair in wild disarray. He hadn’t been there a moment before, I was certain of it.
‘Look like you’ve just seen a ghost,’ he quipped, jumping off the wall and falling in beside me as I walked back to the house. He raised his eyebrows at my outfit, but said nothing else as he walked with a slight swagger and a carelessness which hid what I sensed was lethal force.
I shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold, more a sense of what was coming. He regarded me and I noticed his eyes, how they were different to James’ tonight. They were more cobalt than purple, cloaked in mystery and alive with messages which seemed to be going places I didn’t as yet understand.
‘Bye Ethan,’ I called as he walked away, so much hidden behind the mask of his retreating image, so ordinary, so at odds with his extraordinary life.
The house had returned to silence. A glow came from beneath Mads’ door. I snuck stealthily into my room, relieved not to have to explain anything to anyone. I was tired, but my confused brain writhed. For hours I tossed and turned, the silky metal surface of the angel on my chest warm from constantly running my fingers over it.
Eventually I fell in and out of a strange twilight sleep. I thought I saw a glowing ember outside my window, the hard contours of Ethan’s face lit for a moment by orange radiance before it died, only to be reborn in gold as another glow burst to life, and then his eyes changed and it was James and then everything vanished in a puff of smoke and I felt a deep aching loss. A well of emptiness. The smoke became mist, and a multitude of winged angels disappeared into it, and then the mist became morning, but by then I had finally drifted into a deep and thankfully dreamless slumber.
32
DEB AND NICK
Daniel’s funeral was closed to outsiders, but I went anyway and hid in the shadows of a large crooked tree with wide beams across the road from the church. A magpie regarded me with beady eyes, but otherwise I went unnoticed. The Edwards family arrived in sleek black sedans, a knot of dark clothes and hats. Nick’s mother’s face was hidden behind a veil but her body had a slump to it which was very different to the proud posture of the photos in her house. Even her gloved fingers seemed limp on her husband’s arm. He was a tall distinguished-looking man with a curl in his greying hair who stood soldier-stiff, propping her up and resolutely holding back his own emotion.
Nick arrived at the last minute, just as I thought he wouldn’t. He emerged from yet another black car, his face chiselled like a fine wooden carving, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hair cut military short. It took me a moment to realise that this stranger in a formal suit, a white lily in his lapel, was actually him. He stood beside his mother, tall and strong, his head held high in a way that set him apart from the other mourners. She seemed to inhale his strength and stand a little straighter as she reached out to him gratefully, almost desperately, clasping his hand in hers like it could return Daniel to her. They proceeded into the church, Nick on one side of her and his father on the other, and the others followed.
The priest, his white robes a stark counterpoint to the mourners, stood outside for a while initially engaging in a head-bobbing conversation with Brendan while shaking hands and offering commiserations as those gathered sombrely passed into the church. Beside him an older man with a Santa-Claus beard and mane of white hair plaited down his back stood sagely. His sunglasses were the only thing which seemed modern about him. He too wore white robes but his feet were shod in sandals which looked as though they dated back to biblical times. He leant on an ornately carved staff and I noticed that most deferred to him as they passed.
When everyone had finally entered, he too disappeared into the shady interior. After some minutes, the strains of Amazing Grace drifted out and touched me and I cried quietly, snivelling alone, hidden behind the tree, the magpie my only witness. I remained there with the bird even as the bell tolled and the hearse and families departed and everything grew silent again.
Suddenly Maggie warbled melodiously and flapped her wings. I looked up to where she sat, alone on the branch and she stared back at me with curious eyes. It seemed strange that she had remained so still until now. As I stepped out from my cover of shade, she emitted a short, loud call and then clapped her beak together in alarm, like a machine gun. When I stepped back she fell silent again. We stared at each other for a while.
‘What is it?’ I asked, a little self-consciously, given that I was now conversing with a bird.
‘Are you lost? We can’t stay here forever.’ I gazed out at the abandoned church. Mist had begun to settle on it, whitening its stone façade and the land surrounding it, although the sky above was clear and bright and the sun was dazzling on the road. I’d never seen mist this late in the day before. It made the church seem like an island in a bubble of its own, like a catatonic being, both there and someplace else, a very, very long way away.
‘Look at that,’ I marvelled, ‘an incredible sight, and no-one but us to see it.’
The breeze picked up and moved tendrils of the damp swirly haze towards us, unsettling Maggie again. Clearly she struggled with any sort of change.
‘It’s okay,’ I soothed, ‘just an atmospheric phenomenon.’ But she wasn’t happy. Her caw was ear-splitting and she flapped her wings unhappily.
‘You go,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She cawed again and then departed, the branch bouncing as she left, leaves fluttering to the ground in her wake. I watched her move away, a strange wistfulness coming over me as she became smaller and smaller and finally vanished. I envied her freedom.
A strange cool sensation settled on the surface of my skin. Tiny beads of moisture from the wisps of mist had collected there in a fine coating. I began to tingle. It was almost pleasant at first, like mentholated balm, but the feeling deepened and suddenly it was agonising.
It was impossible to stand still. Inadvertently I stumbled further into the mist to where the air was densest as I tried to relieve the ache. The murmurs started then and the ground trembled slightly, like I’d stepped into the world of Lilliput and each footfall was enough to cause an earthquake. Suddenly the discomfort stopped as did the need to move. I halted and the world shivered. A ripple of fear dissipated as my surrounds settled and everything seemed the same again. But my relief was for a moment only, because it was then that I realised that the place in which I was now standing was quite different to the place I had been in before.
I was inside the cloud now, within its shade, the line of sunlight at its perimeter as clear a boundary as any I’d ever seen. Around me the vapour was alive with movement and sound. I turned and the world spun, the church and the tree and the whispering mist whipping around me in nauseating coils.
Tottering slightly I placed a hand to my forehead and closed my eyes. Without the visual cues everything stilled.
‘Who are you?’ I called tremulously.
The answer came from all around me, no single voice discernible, more like a choir of drafts, many different windy tones. ‘We are the light which is separate from the darkness.’
My gut twisted like a ferret in the beak of a hawk, but I could not run. ‘I am afraid,’ I cried.
‘Do not be afraid,’ the choir called in lyrical wistful tones. Strangely the words seemed to reassure me. Exhaling at last I dared to crack open my eyes. The air had grown denser still, like it was filling with spirits of the mist who were crowding together. I forced myself to inhale and exhale, although my heart was beating so frantically
it hurt and my breath felt jagged rather than smooth.
‘This is the place where we lost our darkness. The place where it was taken …’
Foreboding washed over me as the voices faded away. I closed my eyes again. It seemed easier that way. I frowned so deeply, it almost sliced my forehead in two.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He called out to our light when he stole our darkness, but he could not take it ... not like he did with the others. It would not go into him. Sometimes that is the way. There is light that must wait … wait for the vessel which is most pure. Wait for The One.’
The voices lifted like a preacher embracing rhapsody.
‘The hope of the future. The vessel inside you …’
The reassurance I had felt earlier deserted me. There was clearly some misunderstanding here.
‘No,’ I whimpered.
‘The One.’
‘No,’ I cried out, even as I trembled.
I reached out in desperation towards the tree like a sailor to a sinking boat. It had offered me sanctuary before. It represented salvation, a safe place to retreat to. But as I tried to run in that direction, a breathtakingly beautiful great blue-white light bloomed in the midst of the shadows, breaking them up and altering the fabric of what was there into the continually shifting patterns of a colourful kaleidoscope with the brightest light at the core. It was like looking into the sun and I had to reach up to shield my eyes from the glare. As it moved closer I tried again to run but the air behind me had turned into glass and I was trapped, powerless against it. The light moved closer, burning through my fingers into my eyes like a welder’s torch even as I clenched them shut.
‘Please,’ I entreated. ‘Leave me alone.’
It didn’t. Maybe it could not comprehend my words, or maybe it knew so much more than I did about anything. It came up against me, hard and penetrating, burying itself in me with such force that I fell to the ground, screaming in agony. It was as though I’d swallowed down a mug full of broken glass, and my insides were being liquidised. The agony was horrific. Pain became my world. And then a sense of horrendous isolation and vulnerability hit me as I twisted on the ground in front of the church.
Quite suddenly it all stopped. I became aware of a different light. The sun which shines in the sky every day. Its warmth bathed me in kind healing which simplified everything. I was back where I belonged. The whispers had gone. All around me was warm and silent, just as it had been before. Slowly I straightened myself, the tightly knit ball of tension which had claimed me gradually releasing. And what had been so recently intolerable was replaced with warm anaesthetic numbness and I felt enormously grateful. Strange as it may seem for a while I think I slipped away.
When I came to I was lying flat on my back in the middle of the road between the church and the tree, the pale blue forever hanging over me. Stumbling to my feet, I scurried from the road and back to the shelter of the tree. What had happened to me?
Branches swayed and leaves murmured in the breeze. The bark was cool and hard and bumpy, with pieces flaking off it, just as it had been before. But even so, the world seemed a little less familiar to me now, a little less solid. I clasped my arms around the broad trunk. It felt firm and reassuring. I stayed that way hoping that no-one would drive past and wonder at the crazy girl with the penchant for trees. Had I fainted? A car could have run over me. But one hadn’t. One hadn’t even stopped. There hadn’t been a single car in all this time. Not one.
Finally as the minutes ticked by and everything remained just so, I ventured cautiously away from my zone of safety and looked around. The scene seemed desolate and surreal, but I knew I was back and not still in that other place. Nothing remained of anyone, not a tissue, or a flower. Nothing. And the mist had disappeared. There were no clues as to anything that had happened here today.
In both directions the road remained empty, the church a silent sentinel. I must have fainted, it was the only explanation. I had fainted and I’d had some kind of nightmare. I’d been alone. It had been a scary experience.
I touched my stomach, the place where I’d thought the light had entered me. Already my recollection seemed unreliable, in the way of dreams. My stomach felt fine. In fact, it felt better than fine. It was glowing, like a little bit of sunlight was vacationing there. I shook my head.
‘God help me please,’ I prayed, heading down the hill towards home. ‘I need to pull myself together and get on with living my life.’
33
KATE
Monday’s master class was a complete disaster. I felt like running from the room screaming or sitting under a sign which said ‘flaky moron with big bum,’ because that would be less humiliating. Much throat-clearing accompanied the end of my performance and Lara left the room, presumably to use the toilet, although I knew better. She was sweet, couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘That sucked big time, Kate.’
‘Are you okay, Kate?’ Kristina, my piano teacher, asked quietly, taking me aside from the others and inclining her head towards me. ‘You don’t seem yourself today.’
I dropped my head. I was definitely not myself today, but how could I explain? Err, don’t worry about me, Kristina. Nothing more than a little homicidal ideation. Hee ... hee … I was just wondering whether I would transition today or possibly tomorrow into … into … err something really bad, and mow you all down with the machine gun I’ve just recently stashed away in my boot. Cue maniacal laugh. Don’t worry, only kidding.
‘I’m fine, just tired … a difficult weekend … personal stuff. I’m sorry!’ I swallowed hard, not wanting to cry.
She continued to look at me with pity-filled eyes for a full minute, wondering whether I might disclose anything further. Lucky for her, I didn’t. ‘I don’t want to pry,’ she eventually added, ‘but you don’t look well.’ She wasn’t joking. I closely resembled Morticia on a bad hair day. ‘Maybe go home and get some rest. Take the day off and get back into the swing of things tomorrow.’
‘Sounds good,’ I nodded with a shallow smile. I had absolutely no intention of following her advice. Rest at the moment, didn’t seem like a remotely possible goal, or even a good idea really. Now was the time to refocus and in order to do so I needed the solitude and inspiration only music could offer me. Practising would distract me and help me relax.
I headed to the practice rooms, closeting myself, head down, hammering away at a poor undeserving piano, the keys almost flying from the board in fright. My softer side seemed to have abandoned me, not even Debussy could entice it out, but after three hours I could breathe a little more evenly.
I tried to call Nick that evening, but couldn’t reach him. He was probably already on a flight to some faraway destination. Thanks a lot! He’d left me to shoulder this alone, thinking maybe that he’d done his duty by appointing James and Ethan to watch over me, but in truth abdicating responsibility.
‘You look like you need a hug, a couple of pills and a very long sleep,’ Francois said that evening as we sat in his room. He drew me close and rubbed my back soothingly as I slumped against him like a little child, letting everything go for a moment. ‘I can help with two of those things.’ He stood and returned moments later with a glass half filled with water, and two small white pills.
‘No, no, I’m fine. Really.’
He looked dubious, his lips drawn together. ‘Take them anyway, they might help you sleep.’
I threw them back with a slug of water. ‘I just need a sack to pull over my head.’ Falling back on his bed I pulled the pillow over my face instead.
‘Katie Baby,’ he said with a small grin, lying down on his side next to me. ‘Why so grim?’
Pushing the pillow off my face I opened an eye, realising for the first time that he was dressed in a carefully co-ordinated ensemble. I looked down to his feet.
‘You’re wearing your Jimmy Choos … in bed.’
‘Uh huh,’ he nodded, waiting for me.
‘You’re wearing your Jimmy
Choos because?’
His grin turned into a beam so wide it looked like it might hurt. ‘Pierre’s sister is here for a few weeks. We had lunch.’
‘Oh that’s lovely,’ I replied, knowing how much Pierre missed her.
‘She’s lovely,’ he nodded enthusiastically. ‘He told her about us. She was fine about it.’
‘What?’ My own smile grew broad as I forgot my troubles for an instant and hugged him tightly. ‘That’s fantastic for you guys. Such a relief.’ We lay for a moment, squeezed together and then fell apart. ‘You look like you’ve been set free.’ He smiled up at the ceiling.
‘Oh Kate, it feels that way.’ Suddenly his expression changed. ‘We’ve just got to work out how to tell the folks.’ He turned to me, but now he looked as though he’d sucked a lemon.
‘That’s not going to be easy.’
‘No. Anyway, we’ll get there one day.’ We lay in silence for a while both lost in our own thoughts before he spoke again. ‘But we’re talking about me, when you’re the one who looks like you’re in training for a role in The Adams Family.’
I closed my eyes, felt like they could just stay like that. ‘Seriously,’ he interrupted and I could hear the concern in his voice. ‘What about you? You don’t look good.’
‘No? That’s not the first time I’ve heard that today.’ I just didn’t have the energy, couldn’t burden him. And I didn’t want to be institutionalised.
‘Kate!’ he insisted, irritated by my lack of response.
‘I can’t tell you how long this weekend has been, Francois.’ My voice was as gruff as the growl of a grizzly bear low on its daily Omega 3.
‘Poor Baby,’ he replied soothingly, and I realised that he was thinking about the assault on Saturday.
‘Like you say, I just need a very long sleep and then I’ll be okay again.’
‘Come.’ He tugged me off the bed and dragged me through to my room.
Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy Page 24