He dropped my hands and moved to the window, opening it again and letting the wind gust into the room. It seemed to force air into his lungs, helping him breathe and he turned to face me, a wild man.
‘Daniel was so gentle, so different to the rest of us. But in the end, even he couldn’t escape. It got him …’
‘What got him, Nick?’
‘Life … inevitability …’
‘You did what you could, but he couldn’t be stopped. You couldn’t be everywhere at once.’ I moved closer to him and reached out but he pushed me away lightly and turned to lean precariously out of the window into the gusting wind. After a while he drew himself back in and I felt relieved.
‘There is evil here and it will taint you. It will claim you. I’ve seen it happen. Don’t let it take you, Deb. Don’t let it rob you of your goodness … your light.’
‘Come away from here. Go your own way.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t right now. One day maybe.’ His voice lifted with sudden determination. ‘I’m trying to get my head around so many things. I’m trying to understand the incomprehensible. Everything has come at once - my brother’s death and …’
He stopped abruptly and then spoke again. ‘My family is cursed, we are all infected.’
‘That’s not true, Nick. You can fight it.’ He dropped his head sadly and I wished that we’d run away together all those weeks ago.
‘No,’ he mumbled, his expression unfathomable, but his voice resigned.
‘I know about the issues with my father, the relationship with Sofia, their child. We never got to talk about any of that, but I don’t understand why it can’t be laid to rest after all this time.’
There was a moment of silence before he tried to laugh, but it was a cold, hollow sound. ‘Oh Deb …’
‘Where is Sofia anyway, maybe she could speak for herself, put the past to rest?’
‘That’s not possible. Sofia was lost a long time ago.’ Suddenly I understood a lot, the raw emotion on his face the day he had first brought me here, the hatred his family had for mine.
‘My father?’
‘I don’t blame your father for that …’ he sighed, ‘but my family – they’re not so easily convinced.’
A wretched smile stole his face. ‘You’re young and so full of life. You’ve got plans. Live your life. Forget about me. Please. It will be better that way.’
I squared my shoulders, about to argue, but his words stopped me.
‘Please Deb, I want you to.’ His voice was quiet, but determined.
This was the end. Of what? I didn’t even know. My eyes prickled.
‘What happened between the funeral and now?’ I asked, suddenly.
‘What?’ He sounded shocked and I was glad. It was better than the dampened range of emotion which had been our constant companion throughout the conversation.
‘I was there.’
‘Well you shouldn’t have been. It was private.’
‘I was there, hiding outside. I just wanted to see you. See that you were okay. And I did see you. You looked good, you looked strong and healthy. You don’t look that way now.’ My voice had changed, become stronger and more deliberate. I wanted an answer.
‘You shouldn’t have been there, Deb. I wish you hadn’t been. There were …’ His speech which had started off passionately, was becoming increasingly laboured. He ran his hand through his hair and I realised how wasted his arms had become.
‘What?’ I prompted. Something inched its way up my neck as I remembered my strange experience outside the church that day.
‘It was a moment of release, of saying goodbye and letting go.’ He shook his head as though trying to clear it. ‘But in the instability of those moments there can be danger for outsiders.’
‘What sort of danger?’ Lightning cracked in two white lines across the windows and thunder growled discordantly. He forced himself to turn away from it and back to me and I noticed fear again in his face and the rigidity in his arms as he forced them down at his sides.
‘I’m not all there at the moment, you must excuse me.’ He marched to the door, gesturing stiffly for me to follow. ‘It’s the medication talking.’
I followed him out of the room. ‘I’m being looked after, Deb. You can trust in that.’ He wanted me to go, needed me to. The degree of rigidity stealing over his body was scary, the increasing tension like an omen of something approaching. Something wildly unpredictable and explosive. I felt a ripple of terror.
We were on the landing now and I noticed movement below. It was Brendan, his face deadly serious as he looked up at us from his position next to George.
‘It’s time to go,’ he stated firmly. ‘Nick needs to rest.’ I looked back at Nick, at the stranger who had stolen the man I’d thought I loved. His face was marble-like.
‘This was always going to be a dark place for us, Nick, wasn’t it?’
‘I guess so,’ he murmured.
Shadows from the slamming trees outside the windows flicked violently across the floor and then onto his face. ‘Don’t come here again.’
I hesitated and Brendan’s voice boomed out from below.
‘Now!’
As I left him, I sensed the change in atmosphere, the sudden drop in temperature and a loss of pressure. Maybe it was simply the storm which was almost overhead, or maybe it was something else. I was too distressed to give it much consideration as I ran towards a worried-looking George. Brendan ushered us out impatiently, but he needn’t have. By that point, all I wanted was to escape.
We rushed past him, almost desperate in our bid for freedom from the oppressive environment of the house, embracing the howling gale and biting rain instead. Wind whipped my hair into a wild frenzy and rain seemed to gnaw at my skin, but I didn’t care. As we ran down the drive, lightning speared the sky and the roar of thunder made the ground vibrate. Tears of frustration blurred my sight and my throat ached from the swell of supressed emotion.
I could feel his eyes on me through the windows of the upstairs landing. I knew that something wasn’t right, but it was something so far out of my field of experience that it was pointless even considering it. Rounding a bend in the drive I realised that we had finally vanished from his sight.
We made a swift retreat to the car as the gate closed and I collapsed there, my chest heaving, snivelling and moaning as I sobbed. George looked alarmed at the extent of my feelings, uncomfortable in the presence of emotion so visibly displayed, but lovingly tolerant. He touched my arm.
‘Just go,’ I managed. ‘Let’s get away from here.’
Without hesitation he started the car and drew away from the curb with a screech. Driving was easy.
‘We shouldn’t have gone,’ I blubbered. It was impossible to hold onto fantasy now, or even memories. Everything was tainted.
‘Yes, we should have,’ he replied resolutely. ‘At least you know where you stand now, Deb! You can be miserable and you can get it over with and get on with your life. Move away from this place.’
I stared out of the window. The fortresses were obscured by dense rain and thick air. George drove cautiously along the slippery road, leaning forward to try and improve his visibility. Trees thrashed wildly in a ghoulish dance and vegetation was strewn across the road forcing him to detour every now and then.
‘You’ve got so much living to do Deb. You’re barely an adult.’ I scowled in response, but he ignored me. ‘This will be hard for a while, but you’ll have fun again, you’ll see. Getting caught up with such a strange family, well that would stay with you, damage you.’ He chanced a quick look across at me, before returning his eyes to the road. ‘He’s not well, Deb, anyone can see that.’
He was definitely ‘not well’, whatever that meant. I felt exhausted. I closed my eyes.
‘Must say,’ he said as I drifted, ‘I thought they’d have staff. I mean, it’s such a big place, no wonder it gets so dusty. It would take you a month to get from one end to the other and then I
guess you’d have to start all over again.’
He drove for a while and I noticed that outside the weather had settled. ‘And the garden. I was expecting more. Something manicured. It was so overgrown Tarzan would get lost. You’d think they’d at least sweep the leaves up from time to time.’
‘Must just have been the storm, George,’ I mumbled, opening an eye. He glanced across at me and raised an eyebrow.
‘I don’t know,’ I added sitting up a little straighter in the seat. You had to wonder. Where had all the staff gone?
35
KATE
Weeks passed and the weather started improving. It was unpredictable at first, tantalising warmth interspersed with colder snaps. Tiny cherry blossoms appeared and the days were brighter for longer. We were all a little more cheerful.
James and Ethan were around although they seemed less obvious than before, a face in a crowd, a car falling in somewhere behind me, a muscular shoulder vanishing around a bend as I neared. They no longer pretended to be philosophy majors in the park near the practice rooms. But sometimes I’d find James leaning against the practice room door as I arrived in the midst of a group of students, like he wanted me to know he was around. He’d disappear almost as soon as I saw him.
‘James …’ I called, stopping him, since I was alone.
‘Don’t go.’ He returned, looking at me expectantly like I needed to have a good reason to call him back.
‘Uh …’ I fumbled, thinking how bizarre it was that he knew so much about me, but that I couldn’t even ask a simple question without anxiety. ‘How are you guys?’
His eyes blazed. I’d almost forgotten how intense they were. I swallowed and a finger found its way to my lip. ‘Fine Kate. And you?’ Could this be any more surreal, I thought, flashing back to our conversation in the car weeks ago.
‘Okay. I just …’ I reached up to brush a strand of hair away, but my hand stayed there like a shield and I looked down, increasingly hesitant. What exactly did I want from this man? It was very confusing. Suddenly he reached out and I felt his fingers on mine as he moved them away so that he could look into my eyes. His brows were drawn together, his lips were parted slightly. Goosebumps prickled along my arms and I felt light-headed.
‘You just?’ he prompted, as Nishlyn and Lara rounded the corner, distracting me for a moment. When I turned back he was gone.
‘Who is that?’ Lara prompted, nudging me.
I waved my hand dismissively. ‘No-one, just a friend.’ She winked at me and I blushed. Nishlyn swiped his access card and I followed them into the practice block with a last glance back. Nothing, just light and shadows.
I wasn’t even sure what I’d wanted to say to him. I wished I could say that I didn’t think about him, that I didn’t wish he was an accountancy or actuary student, or that his brother wasn’t quite so forbidding. But then I would probably never have met him. My feelings presented potential complications, for me, for them. Still. I couldn’t say that I didn’t want what I couldn’t have.
Nick’s ongoing silence was confusing me. Although he was notoriously inconsistent and I never knew what to expect, dumping this on me and vanishing seemed a bit extreme even for him.
His revelations had scarred me, had shaken the ground beneath me and lifted it to reveal the truth. There was no ground. He had cursed me with knowledge. I envied those around me, still waiting, still enjoying the illusion. Maybe they would be lucky enough to hold onto it until the end.
The night was warm and close, unusual for October. Inside, the kitchen was a hive of activity, alive with the sounds of cooking and chatting, with clattering cutlery and crockery. I stole the solitude, inviting no-one as I slipped out on nimble feet to the pool, the rumble of traffic providing a dull background noise, but no intrusion.
Gliding through the water I dived down and then burst through the surface, rolling onto my back. A slippery seal, maybe even a mermaid. Yeah right! Peace. I floated, supported, relaxed. My hair was a fan around me, soft and wet and heavy. Immersing myself in the sensory serenity, I drifted.
And slowly my eyes grew heavier and I closed them as I slipped across the smooth surface, the tiniest of ripples propelling and lulling me. I was an organism, an element maybe, almost one with this mysterious fluid. The weight of self-determination lifted and a great sense of well-being descended. I looked up into the gathering dusk, observing the darkness merging with the light, leaving only the tiny stars glinting far away messages. I sensed red farewells and blue arrivals and in noticing, I realised that we were there too, maybe even more there than here. That the fleeting instant of our consciousness, a tiny flickering flame, is embraced by forever at the end, whatever that means. That we are always, somewhere, somehow, in some way the tiniest part of everything. Backwards and forwards, forever, in the elements, or in the spaces we know nothing about.
The darkness around the pool came to life. Shadows tangoed, sharing passionate embraces, while the silver mist whispered and thickened over the water, spiralling into wild eddies as the breeze tugged at it.
Fused with the water I became a part of the moment. As the disembodied sensation increased, so did the realisation that my perception had changed, that I wasn’t simply observing and judging, but being. I was a part of nature, intertwined, enmeshed, inseparable. Fused. Even space was alive, the nothingness, the voids and cavities were alive, the air moving in and out of my body, revealed a billion mysteries. As I became more and more immersed, the gloom seemed to lift and spin into millions of tiny sparkling splashes and spots, spiralling, twirling in every colour imaginable, and I became entranced, hypnotised by the beauty of the spectacle.
And then I became aware of another in the moment with me. Another who was also aware, who was watching me, waiting somewhere behind the mist on the other side. He had the advantage, like looking through a one way mirror, pressing a button which overrode my mind’s controls, removing the inhibitions imposed on me and showing me what I could not usually know. Suddenly, without any conscious intention on my part, like it was driven there by another driver because that was where it had to go, my mind zoomed in to focus on the presence, and I saw a face.
My heart pulsated frantically as it hovered somewhere in the middle of the multitude of flickering spots. I wanted to cover my eyes and scream. Such a thing could not be real. But as much as the image was overwhelming, confronting, too strange, terrifying, it was also glorious and amazing and if it was real, I realised on some level, that it should be seen.
Slowly the flickering spots vanished and space seemed to settle and become space again, shadowy voids. He stood at the edge of the pool. Shade enveloped his body, but the moon shone on his sculpted face, making him glow vampire-white. He observed me without discomfort, with the curious scrutiny of one from another realm.
The essence of my being, not the physical body which still felt the water on it, was magnetically drawn through time and space into his slow presence and he examined me. It felt like an eternity, but it was more likely seconds, and then the spell was broken as great wings broke up the night sky. I gasped and spluttered in the pool, sinking beneath the surface and reappearing to a night much colder than I had realised. Shivering, my teeth chattering so hard they hurt my jaw, I stumbled from the pool desperate for warmth and security, the golden glow of the kitchen. The mist was gone. Shaking with cold and shock I tottered into the house to thaw.
Who was that? God? The devil? Or one of those angels? Something else from the other side? Was it that simple? Was I that delusional? It was quite possible.
I rubbed myself so hard with the towel that afterwards I looked as though I had a nasty case of shingles.
‘You must be completely insane,’ Pierre scolded, flicking on the kettle. ‘You’ll die of hypothermia.’
‘It was such a nice day,’ I chattered.
‘Yeah, but the water’s freezing and the air still gets really cold at night.’ He shook his head and I hung mine.
‘Get dressed and I�
�ll bring you some hot tea.’ Shaking uncontrollably I did my best to pull on another pair of attractive pyjamas, these with bows and bunnies.
‘Tea,’ he said a few minutes later, passing me a mug. Hot and sweet.
My heart swelled with gratitude. ‘That’s delicious Pierre.’
‘You’re as white as a sheet, Kate.’
‘It’s just the cold.’ He covered me with the doona and sat beside me.
‘Next time remember. If there’s no-one else in the pool it’s probably for good reason.’
‘Go away,’ I said, and he did, but with a gentle kiss to my forehead.
Unsurprisingly, my sleep was disturbed by unsettling dreams. Mist at the window. Dense, a sheet of white, but alive. And then a face in the mist, the face from the pool, disembodied, distorted and exaggerated in the way dreams are, the features gaunt and hollow, the skin grey, the black hair longer, hollow malevolent eyes staring through the glass at me. The beauty was absent, stripped away, only the darkness was left. His lips flared in an angry spitting snarl of incomprehensible words as he spoke. And then I woke. It occurred over and over again. Disappearing as I stirred, reappearing as I slept, unreliable memories that vanished as I sought them, like bubbles popping when you touch them.
36
DEB AND NICK
Burying my head in my books I did my best to put Nick and his family and everything that was weird and screwed-up aside, but two weeks later life threw me a curve-ball. My period was extremely late.
I tore down the road to the pharmacy, kicking myself all the way. Idiot! Who would have sex without protection in this day and age? Everyone knew the risks. My mother had taught me about the birds and the bees when I was young, tried to immunise me. We all knew about HIV. I’d failed, refused to learn, allowing myself to succumb to lust, to throw caution to the wind. Did I value my life that little, or him that much? I shook my head, trying to shake off my foolishness, but it stuck like a lifetime of hurts.
Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy Page 26