Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy

by Janet V Forster

  Exhausted and bloody, battered and bruised, awash in sweat, so utterly drained, I reached for her. She was placed on my abdomen, still slightly gooey and warm.

  ‘She’s perfect.’ The midwife’s voice was touched with a pang of sadness now. She busied herself wrapping up soiled sheets. ‘You’ve done so well. It went beautifully.’ Departing, she left Mum and I together. Mum leant over quietly to examine her.

  ‘She is beautiful, Deb.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. I swallowed, but I could not swallow down the emotion that went with such empty suffering and I sobbed.

  ‘Julia,’ I blubbered the name of my baby. Mum’s name. She opened her eyes and I immediately saw that they were very unusual in a baby. Brilliant and green. The eyes of her father. There could be no mistaking it.

  She stared up at me reproachfully, and after a short while she began to wail. The three of us cried for a long time.

  I fed her only four times, her soft mewling and snuffling alerting me to her needs. She fed on the rich yellow colostrum my body had already prepared for her. Her skin was impossibly smooth and she was soft and warm with her own indescribable baby smell. Her tiny fingers were fragile, like matchsticks, perfectly formed and delicate next to my thick ones.

  Her little body was already plump and pink and thick black hair covered her head. Hello Chicky. Her gaze tore my soul apart. I saw myself, unkindly reflected in her pupils. Her mother. Failing her before her life could even begin. She would carry the shadow of my past into her future. I clung to her, terrified of letting her go, petrified of keeping her. What would she face without me, without her protector? What would she know?

  You have to go Chicky. You’ll be safer without me. They’ll come for you otherwise, and I want you to spread your love. I don’t want you to live in their shadow-land. I want you to glow and shine and be everything you can be.

  A lonely bouquet sat on the window sill of my hospital room. Pink and white orchids from Jim. Unexpected, although he didn’t come to visit. The note read: Deb, the mist has cleared and you can see the stars. I gazed at the flowers and I gazed at the note. I wondered about life and all that had brought me to this place, and to him.

  ‘Are you ready, Deb?’ Mum asked ludicrously the next morning. I’d spent the night awake, drinking in every aspect of my tiny one, my state of mind somewhat close to insanity. How could you ever be ready for something like this?

  ‘It’s all organised. A wonderful family, who are desperate for a child.’ The hint of a quiver touched her voice. I looked at my baby one last time. ‘Will you take a last photo, Mum?’

  ‘Of course, Darling.’ Her hands shook so much the photo was sure to be blurred. I tried to smile, but my mouth quivered.

  ‘Just take one of her, Mum.’

  When she had I leant down and kissed her. She was warm and swaddled in pink. Goodbye Chicky. Her eyes closed and her mouth pouted as she drowsed.

  ‘Take her, Mum. Just be quick. Don’t bring her back no matter what you hear,’ I cried desperately. I placed her in Mum’s arms. Quiet tears seeped out of my eyes. She took her and turned away.

  ‘Are you sure Deb?’

  ‘Go Mum!’ I shrieked, racking sobs consuming me as she rushed from the room.

  I gave her up. I’d so conditioned myself to the idea. Become almost superstitious about it. If she stayed with me then she would not be safe. Something bad would happen. I let them take her, because that was what fate intended for my child of light. But my heart was broken. For many nights I woke believing she lay in my arms. My body waited for her, my breasts leaking and tender. I could feel her warmth, her tiny body. I could hear her cry. But it was only a phantom. Each time I realised it I’d grieve her loss again.

  Mum returned to Three Kings soon after Julia’s birth, but I stayed on in the countryside sharing tractor rides with farmer Jim and stories of the ideal that was New Zealand. It started to sound appealing.

  In the early morning he showed me how the mist had disappeared and how you could see the stars and he put his arm around my shoulders and it felt good. He didn’t ask questions, but I knew he’d listen if I spoke. I just didn’t want to.

  ‘It’s weird isn’t it?’ he asked one day and I nodded. It made no sense at all. The mist and the watchful waiting presence were gone. Gone, like they’d never been there at all. Gone. Why?

  Although the world around it seemed to move, Three Kings was no different when I visited six months later. The great stone entities regarded me unsympathetically as the sea tugged at the beach and although it was as warm as always, everything seemed chilly to me. This was goodbye. Goodbye to the place that had never seemed like home anyway.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Mum said, and I knew she was pleased. I shrugged like I didn’t care and that was partly true.

  ‘You’re going to do well Deb, I know it,’ Mum said, trying to convince herself as well as me. ‘You’ve got your whole life in front of you.’

  I left soon after. The memories were not as easy to leave behind as I’d hoped. Although I never saw Nick again, although I moved to New Zealand and married Jim, I couldn’t help but think of him whenever I thought of Julia, and so the sadness of the past remained a part of my present.

  EPILOGUE

  KATE

  Dreams of warm wet beaches and a perfect turquoise ocean found me as I lay in James’ arms. Dreams of a place where lovers embraced and the sun never set … where time stood still. Where love spread her long golden fingers and pain disappeared like it had never been there at all.

  A small boy with black hair and sandy feet ran and played in the ocean shallows. A boy living life, just as he should. And from where she sat nearby, his mother sang as she watched him.

  Suddenly he looked up. ‘Come home, Kate,’ he called.

  The green of his eyes swirled like the coldest, deepest waters, and yet the gold around his pupil was like the sun, like a perfect day. I felt the shade of a cloud and then a breeze as it blew across the sand, whisking the grains into the air and forcing the boy to raise a hand to protect his eyes.

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know where home is,’ I replied.

  Nick stood on a small dune at the edge of the beach where the sand met the straggly grass. He seemed frozen, more a part of the scenery than the action. He gazed out … not at me, because I think I was invisible, but at the young boy who’d called, and who now danced along the beach in the direction of an upended bucket and half-built sandcastle.

  In the sky above the hill behind him a great and dark expanse had opened like the funnel of a tornado. Fingers of darkness extended from it.

  An army of shadowy figures spewed from the belly of the beast. An army marching forward … towards the boy who played, oblivious, and alone. His mother had disappeared, her song lost to the past.

  Too soon the ghouls would arrive. Panic swelled inside me. I had to do something.

  ‘Come, Kate,’ the boy called again. ‘Come home.’

  I stared at him, deep into the world within his eyes. The reality there had changed. What had first appeared to be the truth was no longer.

  A TASTE OF: ODYSSEY

  1

  KATE

  The bed jolted and I was rudely awoken. The warm chest which had been my pillow slid out from under me. I sat up, bleary-eyed in the dark. The mattress bounced and I felt him bending down to pull on his shoes.

  ‘James?’ A feline flash of gold in the night, the radiance in his eyes as he turned back to me for a moment before turning away.

  ‘I have to go, Kate,’ he said, intent on his laces as I flicked on the lamp and stared at him.

  ‘Why?’

  Finished, he ran his fingers through his messy hair and turned to me.

  ‘Ethan. He needs me.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  He shrugged. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘He snaps his fingers and you jump,’ I barked, immediately remorseful and also wondering how it was that he had even heard those fingers snap.

&
nbsp; He didn’t lower himself to arguing with me, just continued to pull on his jacket. His hair was in disarray. Some of it fell forward and some stood straight up. His clothes were rumpled, but that was to be expected.

  ‘This probably wasn’t the best idea anyway,’ he said. I swallowed down something sour.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t mine. You were the one who appeared in my room last night.’

  ‘I know.’ There was a moment of silence.

  ‘How do you know he needs you?’ I asked, wondering whether I really wanted the answer. Maybe it would have been better to turn over with a ‘See you later.’ In fact, if only I’d stayed asleep and he’d vanished, leaving a note. I sighed wistfully.

  ‘I can’t explain now.’ His voice was as mechanical as the quick peck he gave me on the forehead. He moved towards the door briskly and I leapt up, rushing after him.

  ‘But I thought ...’ What was it I had thought, exactly? That we were a couple now? That we could pretend that there was nothing at all strange about the way we had been thrown together and that I could take him home to meet my parents? ‘I thought he was in the middle of nowhere.’

  He stopped in the doorway for a long moment and then turned slowly. ‘You’re safe for now, Kate. I wouldn’t leave you otherwise.’

  I rolled my eyes ungratefully. Safety hadn’t entered my mind, although terror had stolen part of my night. Terror which had stemmed from nightmares, forgotten too soon maybe, because sometimes you needed to hold onto the darkness long enough to understand it.

  He tried a smile, but it looked more like a grimace, his jaw too tight and the white of his teeth showing. He seemed annoyed. This wasn’t necessarily all about me. I was being selfish. Suddenly he seemed to gather himself and so did I. I walked towards him.

  ‘Is he okay?’

  He hesitated and then came to me and reached for my hand. ‘All will be well soon.’ A soothing current flowed through his fingers into my body. ‘I know it, so you can relax,’ he said, his voice like the murmur of panpipes in the wind. For a moment I was mesmerised before I shook myself out of it.

  ‘Relax?’ I blurted. He seemed surprised by my reaction.

  ‘Were you trying to do something to make me less of a nuisance, James?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Of course you were.’ It hadn’t worked for long.

  ‘I want to come with you.’

  ‘No. It’s just not possible. I’m sorry.’

  His face softened. ‘I’m sorry I have to go, Kate … and that you can’t come.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Of course.’ His smile was small, but genuine this time. He lifted my fingers to his mouth and his kiss was like a whisper. Then he moved away again, fast, striding out of my room and into the passage. I ran after him, my hair cascading wildly down my shoulders in curls and snarls.

  ‘When will you be back?’ I called, but he was gone, the door banging behind him and the house quickly returning to silence. In the distance his car engine rumbled and then the sound waned. Desolation descended.

  I flopped heavily onto the bed. It seemed a much colder and less welcoming place now. The sheets and pillows were still indented from where he had lain but his vitality and warmth were lost. As I turned into the pillow I caught the faint sweetness of him there. My mouth watered.

  The clock blinked. Five a.m. It had been a really long night. I wondered what hell the morning would bring.

  WHAT’S NEXT?

  Also by Janet V Forster

  Odyssey; Book 2, The Last Anakim Trilogy

  Ascension; Book 3, The Last Anakim Trilogy

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Janet V Forster is a psychologist and author who has lived in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and two children for the past fourteen years. She was born in South Africa where she spent the first twenty-five years of her life before moving to London for two crazy years and travelling extensively. Throughout her childhood she devoured books like a great white shark does hapless sardines and was frequently accused of being anti-social as a result. Thankfully she didn’t really care, often preferring to escape into the magical world of fiction, or music, which is her other passion.

  Whether you want to find out more about Janet, her books, watch trailers or clips or start a conversation, she would love you to visit her at www.janetvforster.com or feel free to connect on Facebook.

  If you enjoyed Awakening, please look it up on Amazon and post a review. Your feedback is highly valued by the author who reads each and every one.