‘I have a key.’ He dangled one in front of me and then dropped it back into his pocket.
‘Of course you do!’ The thought of strange, albeit handsome men wandering around in my room in the dark was somewhat alarming, just not right now.
‘We won’t let the darkness take you, Kate,’ he whispered.
‘What if it already has?’
‘It hasn’t,’ he said with such certainty it inspired confidence. ‘It’s just anxiety messing with you.’
‘Where is Ethan?’ I imagined him on the wall outside, his face set in a scowl, knowing that James was inside alone with me.
‘He had to go back to our home for a while.’
‘Where is that exactly?’ He pulled me closer and tiny pulses of electricity tingled where we touched. It was intense.
‘A long way away from anywhere … out in the desert.’
‘Is Nick there?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Sometimes he’s hard to find. He gets a bit down … needs to escape.’
‘Because of me?’
‘He’ll come back. When he’s ready he’ll come back.’
I shifted away a little, to try and reduce the intensity of the feel of him alongside me and to ask how he knew this. But as I opened my mouth to speak, he swiftly closed the gap, clasping my body against his firmly and claiming my mouth with his lips and his tongue. I reached for his unruly hair, at last able to entwine my fingers in the thick lusciousness of it as his hand glided under the waistband of my pyjamas and cupped my bottom, kneading my flesh as he drew me more savagely against his hardness. My insides began to smoulder.
‘James …’
‘It’s okay Katie,’ His voice hitched. ‘I’ve waited so long to kiss you.’ His lips found mine more gently.
‘James … I can’t … I’m …’ How to tell him I was a virgin. Suddenly I remembered he knew … thanks, Mads.
‘I won’t,’ he whispered in my ear. I wanted him to, of course I did, but the past haunted me. My beginnings. And weren’t there a thousand other possible complications here … none of which I understood?
His lips fell onto mine again as his fingers moved to my front, to where I was hot, to where I was waiting for his touch. And in a tender torturous rhythm he used them to build a frenzy of indescribable sensations which flared and swelled until finally they erupted and convulsed, like a volcano spewing fire to heaven before it finds the ground and scalds everything in its path.
As the feeling eased I began to feel embarrassed. I was clinging to him like a limpet monkey to a branch on a windy day. Easing up on my grip and hoping that I hadn’t dislocated his shoulder I rolled onto my back.
‘You’re so beautiful, Kate,’ he said. I didn’t know where to look, or what to say. My body throbbed gently.
He chuckled. ‘It’s what makes you so special. A girl like you …’ He shook his head. ‘You just don’t know it do you?’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Sleep now,’ he commanded.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured, and then realised that I had better clarify. ‘Thank you for protecting me.’
I think I spoke anyway, but I’m not completely sure. It was so hard to keep my eyes open. I felt him lift the pendant I wore and then he let it go. It felt hot as it touched my skin again. His arms wrapped around me protectively. If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it.
38
DEB AND NICK
As my belly began to swell, a strange transformation occurred. I became protective. And I began to connect with the fact that the tiny germinating seed inside me would one day be a baby, skin and blood and bones, a heart that would beat and that would be broken. Although I continued to grapple with the burden of my decision, I started eating differently, making healthier choices. Now when my hands fell to my belly they became a shield, protecting the foetus from the outside world. Close your ears Baby, you don’t need to hear about Mummy’s silliness. And yet I spoke, I talked about my father, my greatest insecurities, and when I could I talked about Nick. It was dangerous. Because as I talked I grew to love the little one who listened silently.
‘You need to see a stylist, Deb,’ Elizabeth advised, disapproving of my baggy top and pants as we sat cross-legged on the floor in my room one afternoon studying, ‘or you’ll never get a boyfriend.’
‘I can’t begin to tell you how little I care.’ I flapped the page of my book over noisily not bothering to glance up at her.
‘We can tell,’ Anna added cheekily, wiggling her eyebrows, ‘from the clothes … and the way you never go anywhere anymore.’
I lifted my head and took them in, seeing through their smiles to the concern behind. I couldn’t tell them, because they would slip up at some point and then everyone would know. He would know and I’d already made that decision. ‘I’m just hanging to get out of here, so what’s the point,’ I lied, slathering a grin across my face. Of course, they suspected that my transformation had something to do with Nick, that I’d been put off men for good. Maybe they were right. Either way it was okay. Suspicion was just suspicion.
‘Fun is the point,’ they cried in unison, laughing.
‘You’re eighteen, not eighty.’ Anna tossed a scrunched-up piece of paper at me.
It hit me on the nose and I chucked it back. ‘Well, you go and enjoy yourselves, don’t let me cramp your style, girls.’
‘You’re such a dork, Deb,’ Anna chirped as we settled back down to study.
Somehow I managed to claw my way through finals, but I gave the graduation party a miss, much to the horror of my friends.
‘Who would I ask, anyway?’ I enquired as they droned on about what I was missing and how I’d never have another opportunity like it.
‘We can think of at least ten guys.’ Elizabeth looked at me over the top of her glasses as we drank colas in the kitchen. Her black hair was scraped into a side pony tied with a luminous green bow. Mum was out. ‘You might need to invest in something from this decade though.’ She eyed me up and down.
‘I’m not going,’ I stated plainly. ‘It’s not long until Mum and I go away and I’ve got lots to sort out.’
Finally they gave up on me, leaving me to make wisecracks from my spot on the bed as they giggled, indulging in a madness all of their own and finally departing with big crimped hair and colourful make-up, in shiny minis and big belts to go drinking and celebrating. They made me laugh, but I felt relieved when they left. Relieved, and a tug of something bitter. Regret maybe.
With five months of my pregnancy still left to go, Mum and I told George together, physically restraining him as his face turned puce and his eyes bulged as though about to pop out of his skull. ‘Mother-fucker!’ he yelled, wrenching himself free. ‘I’m going to kill the bastard.’
‘George!’ My mother was shocked. I’d never heard him swear in front of her. His eyes slid guiltily over to her, but her look of condemnation wasn’t enough.
‘I. AM. GOING. TO. KILL. HIM,’ he exploded again, without the expletives this time, but smashing his hand against the wall passionately for added emphasis. He glowered at me as I slunk back, avoiding his fiery gaze.
‘Of course you’re not George,’ Mum said calmly, instantly deflating him. She put the kettle on. ‘This is something that happened between Nick and Deb. Deb is eighteen and well … she willingly took part in this and she’s not ignorant, she knew what could happen.’ Had I really? What I remembered was a moment in time and him and I in it. And now there was this consequence to deal with.
She returned to where he was standing and took his arm in hers, drawing him to the kitchen where he slumped reluctantly onto a stool at the counter. ‘We’re going to respect her wish, that’s what we’re going to do. It’s the right thing.’
He seethed impotently, knowing that he would do Mum’s bidding but the cup of coffee she placed in front of him remained untouched.
‘He’ll be okay tomorrow, Deb,’ she insisted, pouring his cold coffee down t
he drain when he’d left. ‘Just give him a chance to process this.’
But he wasn’t and I missed him. His protectiveness and his idiocy, his teasing. I even missed the dirty mugs and plates he’d leave scattered around my room. He avoided me, possibly because he felt that he’d failed somehow and because it hurt too much to talk about.
I told everyone that I was going on an overseas adventure with Mum, but in the last months of my pregnancy when we could no longer hide my belly, we bid George a subdued farewell and travelled to rural Victoria. We moved into a slightly dilapidated but quaint rental house on an immense wheat farm, set in front of a stand of eucalyptus and surrounded by rolling hills and meadows. Little house on the prairie.
In the mornings we’d wake to a blanket of white over the trees and hills, like a ghostly world had been watching us sleep. I’d stand on the veranda in the cold, thawing fingers wrapped around a steamy mug of coffee, watching it slowly recede, rising in wisps and puffs, the trees magically reappearing in patches of disembodied branches and trunks with darkness behind.
Strange sounds, unheard by other humans, haunted the fields and forest then. Lonely sounds. An owl, like a lighthouse in the fog just before dawn. Whispers like static carried to me by long-fingered phantoms, spiralling and withdrawing, chilling me inside. ‘Deb.’ The mystery called to me, drawing me across the field and into the forest, to where the darkness still lingered a little, to where mint and pine filled my nostrils and to where I could touch the rough bark and reassure myself that this was real, that it wasn’t a delusion, and it did not disappear each evening.
I saw the boy there. Small and dark-haired, always somewhere in front of me, visible only in quick snatches of tantalising bits I couldn’t describe, possibly the bounce of his hair or his laughter.
‘Hello?’ I called, disquiet making my voice ring out hollowly as his chuckle became the flap of wings above me, the glint in a magpie’s eye. Slowly I retreated, creeping backwards cautiously, arms out wide as I picked my way over the uneven ground. I never felt threatened as such, but I did feel watched. I felt like someone or something was watching and waiting in those woods.
But the sun would arrive and I would forget the feeling. I’d trip through the wheat fields in jeans and boots pretending I was in France, maybe Tuscany, although I didn’t have a clue what they farmed there. Sometimes in the hours of my solitude on glorious days as I lay on a hay-bale chewing long stalks of grass and watching the sun set I’d imagine that my baby was extraordinary.
‘It’s just you and I Chicky, and we’re a long way from everywhere,’ I said, pulling my beanie down low and plucking another piece of grass, which was difficult with mittens on. My stomach quivered as if in answer. ‘We’ve got to hide, but I know you know that.’ In my womb she listened. ‘It’s because you’re so special. All of that love inside you wants to burst out in golden rays like sunshine.’ Another wriggle and a gentle knock. ‘But there are bad people in this world and they are afraid. They are afraid that when you share your love and everyone is happy, there will no longer be a place in the world for them. You scare them Chicky, and they will come after you. I know they will.’ The photos which hung on the wall at Nick’s house flashed into my mind, the many faces … the haunted one in their midst. ‘So it’s just you and I for now … and Granny,’ I added with a sad smile, knowing that my mother’s future would be as haunted as mine.
The sun was setting in broad orange swathes vivid against the gathering darkness as the measured chug of a tractor arose. Sitting up I saw farmer Jim nearing, a collie on the back and one running behind.
‘All good?’ he asked with a wave.
‘All good,’ I nodded.
He cut the engine and jumped to the ground, rolling a cigarette slowly and carefully from loose tobacco in a bag he tucked back into his pocket when he was finished. He stood with one foot on a hay-bale, leaning forward onto his raised knee as he smoked, exhaling so that the tendrils drifted in sluggish threads away from me. His hands were powerful and enormous; his fingers calloused and stained with tar.
‘You were in the woods yesterday,’ he remarked, his face unclear through the smoke for a moment before it drifted away.
‘I sometimes go there,’ I admitted.
‘Mysterious places, woods.’ I turned to him, waiting for more, wondering what he knew, but he said nothing else. He was kind of still inside, that was his way. Still and self-assured, not interested in making an impression, honest. It kind of appealed. I felt comfortable around him, breathing came easily and I didn’t feel the need to explain myself.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, catching his eye for a moment before he turned away to gaze off into the twilight.
‘You want a ride back?’ The dirt track passed our home, the grumble of the tractor on its journeys to and fro a regular feature of the landscape.
‘Okay.’
He helped me up and I squashed in beside him. The tractor made us shudder gently against each other as we crawled along the bumpy dirt road with the dogs running behind. Every now and then my eyes drifted sideways to him. I noticed just how big he was, how the muscles rippled in his tanned forearm and how square his jawline was. He was rugged, masculine, but there were laughter lines around his mouth and eyes which softened him a little and his flaxen hair curled under his hat into the nape of his neck.
Our gaze met as I appraised him, but it wasn’t awkward. ‘You ever been to New Zealand?’ he asked suddenly.
‘No, never.’
‘It’s a beautiful place,’ he said, wistfully, lost in memories.
‘Oh?’
‘My brother is over there. Sometimes I think I should go.’
‘You should, Jim.’
He regarded me for a long moment, his eyes drifting briefly down to my stomach and then back to the road. It seemed as though he might say something, but we continued on in silence. It was another thing I liked about him, he never asked and I never had to explain.
39
DEB AND NICK
As my pregnancy progressed I began to experience vivid recurring dreams. They were triggered by the turmoil of emotion inside me, I think. Dreams of loss. In them I looked down at my baby girl asleep in her crib, perfect and beautiful, her cupid bow mouth making suckling movements, her tiny fingers twitching as she dreamt. I stood in breathless awe of the miracle that was this little creature, the love inside me swelling and almost overwhelming me. But as I leaned over to kiss her warm forehead, I heard the static, the whispers, not ‘Deb,’ but ‘Dead,’ over and over again and her skin became increasingly translucent, the peach turning to white and then fading to grey. Fading until she disappeared, like the mist in the morning, going, going, gone. Vanished, like she had never existed, except for the gut wrenching feeling within me. I woke with my hand on my heart, sickened and sweaty, hot tears on my cheeks.
‘Dreams are like fun-fare mirrors Deb,’ Mum said, and I thought of a house of horrors and my reflection in one of those mirrors. A monster.
My waters broke one bright afternoon as I sat on an old wooden rocking chair on the porch, my feet dusty-bare, pushing back and forth in a gentle creaking rhythm. I had one eye closed and my book was on the floor. Sooty, Jim’s cat, was in my lap. It wasn’t what I’d expected, not a sudden gush, just a gentle leaking wetness. Mild cramping soon followed.
‘Mum,’ I yelled. ‘It’s happening.’
The contractions continued throughout the night, mild at first but more intense and closer together as morning arrived. Mum fetched tea and rubbed my back. She sang to me and let me squeeze her hand, saying nothing when I swore and almost crushed her fingers. I paced. Finally she became too nervous to wait any longer.
‘It’s time, Deb.’ She grabbed my bag and helped me into the car. The mist was thick. I’d never seen it this dense, like a wall we had to drive through.
‘Lord help us, Deb,’ Mum cried. ‘I feel like I’m driving by feel.’
I clung on to the arm rest, my body rigid with tension and
pain as another contraction hit me with a vengeance. Breathe and count. Breathe and count.
‘I guess we’re not usually out this early,’ I gasped, as the car inched along the long farm road. If it weren’t for the bumping under the tyres, it would have been hard to believe that we were anywhere at all. The whiteness outside the windows was total, like we were driving through nothingness.
Suddenly up ahead, orange lights beckoned through the fog.
‘Thank the good Lord.’ Mum tooted the horn. In less than a minute Jim was at the driver’s side window.
‘You okay Mrs Brayshaw?’ The sweet smell of tobacco filled the car.
‘Well Jim, it’s the baby. It’s time.’ His eyes swept across to me, to where I sat sweating and counting. I caught them for just a moment, kind dependable eyes, calm even now. Backing away he beckoned to my mother.
‘Follow me; I’ll escort you out of here.’ My mother exhaled loudly, her shoulders slumping with relief.
The tractor started up again and we followed close behind its orange beacons. Just before the main road the belt of mist ended and we drove into brilliant sunshine. It was as though we’d been in another universe altogether. Like the church outside Three Kings, I thought suddenly. Jim pulled over and waved to us as we passed him. When I looked back I could see him still standing there, gazing after us, the dogs at his feet.
‘You’re a champion,’ the midwife cried, as I nearly bit through my tongue. ‘One more push and the head will be out,’ she lied. I did as she said, wondering when my body would finally give up, or give out. My hair was plastered to my face, my nighty was wet and sticky in places and my lower half was completely exposed but I just didn’t care.
‘Almost there, just one last one …’ she coaxed. Violent bloody images of what I might do to her came to mind.
‘You said that already …’ I shouted, pushing against my mother as my insides stretched and tore, my body opening impossibly to finally release her out into the world.
Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy Page 28