by Sharon Sant
Jacob didn’t reply.
‘Jake?’ Luca repeated.
Jacob’s expression was blank; utterly motionless, he seemed to be somewhere far away.
Ellen nudged him. ‘Jacob!’
Jacob shuddered, all at once his faculties returning. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about something...’
‘That wasn’t just thinking about something… that was…’ Ellen pulled at his arm. ‘Come on, I’m taking you home, you should be in bed.’ Melissa guffawed and Ellen tossed her hair back haughtily. ‘I’m glad you find it so funny.’ Ellen stared hard at the other girl, daring her to make the joke again. Melissa’s head went down to study her shoes.
Jacob gently prised his arm from Ellen’s grip. ‘I’m ok.’ The sound of the bell rolled across the grounds heralding the start of the school day. ‘Come on, we’d better go in. I promise, if I still feel dodgy by lunchtime I’ll go home.’
Ellen nodded stiffly, but even as he rose from his seat, Jacob felt the earth spinning away and it took all his strength to hide it from the others.
Through the morning the strange episodes of vertigo became more frequent and Jacob struggled to conceal them. On top of these was a general sense of melancholy punctuated by short, intense bursts of profound sorrow, so overwhelming that Jacob hardly knew how to concentrate on the reality of his day.
During morning break, Ellen caught him again, his mind far away, staring into space, unable to hear her until the gloom had loosened its grip.
‘You really should go home,’ Ellen stated with increasing frustration.
‘I said lunchtime. Give it until lunchtime.’ Jacob knew that if his mum could see this behaviour, she would get him back to the hospital. He needed to stay out of her way as much as possible until he could figure out what was happening.
‘I don’t like the way you look,’ Ellen insisted.
‘Cheers. I’d never say that to you.’
‘You know what I mean. Are you going to listen to anything I say or completely ignore me and faint in front of the whole class?’
‘Will I embarrass you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
She slapped his arm.
‘Will you stop doing that? It really hurts.’
She laughed. ‘Oh my God. And I thought Luca was a baby!’
Lunchtime saw Ellen sat next to Jacob in the canteen picking at a plate of limp greenery. The nauseating smell of over-boiled cabbage when they entered the dining hall had persuaded them that salad was the best option, but faced with it now neither of them was quite sure of that decision.
‘This stuff is awful. Healthy eating policy? This looks like they scraped it from the bin.’
Jacob forced a smile. ‘You should have made sandwiches again today. I could have helped you out with your crisps.’
Ellen turned to him. ‘You can’t fool me. You’re still not well, are you?’
‘I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’
Ellen’s forehead wrinkled into a frown. ‘I can’t say I’m convinced, but if you’re sure…’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. How’s your mum?’ Jacob asked, trying to lead her away from the subject of his health.
She shrugged. ‘Some days she’s better than others.’
‘It must be hard for you,’ Jacob said carefully, realising that he had just led them to another awkward conversation.
‘Not especially. Everyone has bad stuff happen to them.’
‘Not like that.’
Ellen gave him a sharp look. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean… you don’t have to hide stuff from me. I’m on your side.’
‘How do you...’
‘It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s wrong with her.’
Ellen’s eyes blurred. ‘I can’t tell anyone,’ she whispered. ‘If I did, me and my brothers would get taken into care. Even Luca doesn’t know how bad things really are.’
He smiled. ‘You can always trust me. I won’t tell anyone. And if you need to talk, I’ll listen.’
She sniffed away her tears. ‘I know. Thanks.’
‘Has she tried to get help?’ he asked.
She shot him a withering look. ‘As if. She doesn’t think she has a problem.’
Jacob hesitated. ‘Have you tried talking to her?’
‘What’s the point? When we do manage to have a sensible conversation she doesn’t remember it the next day.’
Jacob gazed at her. He felt her pain, wanted to reach for her, to kiss her and make it all go away. Maybe, he reflected as he glanced around, the school dining hall wasn’t the place. His hand inched towards hers in a tiny gesture of comfort.
All at once, a wave of dizziness bigger than any before rocked him. Jacob’s head sank to the table, the cold plastic pressed hard against his forehead as the room spun. Ellen’s hand rested on his shoulder, her voice strange and muffled as if under water. Then, as he stared into the black abyss, he knew. He knew as surely as if he had seen it with his own eyes. His soul sent up a howl of despair; overwhelmed by the lament of every Astraen who had felt the death at that same instant. Jacob could do nothing but groan and shudder as the shockwaves coursed through him.
The Watcher was dead.
Repressed memories surged forward and broke the surface of his conscious mind like a drowning man reaching air; a sudden rush of vivid, flashing images. He was cradled in the arms of his mother, a woman of luminous beauty. Dae was at her side, smiling down with paternal pride. The recollections took a sinister turn. Jacob heard screams, saw again the face of Dae, but this time with sadness etched into every line. Jacob was hidden for a long time, scared, alone, but somehow knowing that to cry out would mean death. He remembered being carried in darkness, the bleary, bewildered smile of the tramp that found him and his box on the steps of a hostel on an unknown world, the sad smiles of the alien nurses as they clucked over him, then the instant rush of love as Maggie and Phil saw him for the first time and decided that he was theirs and they were his. The joy and security of the life the Lightfoots had given him was something Jacob now knew Dae was more grateful for than he could have put into words; he felt it as Dae felt it.
Jacob was left weak from the bombardment of revelations. Then he understood that this had been Dae’s last gift to his son, it was Ioh’s narrative, a mental photo album - pictures of his life that would never fade with time, the most perfect and complete legacy.
The echoes of Ellen’s frantic calling and shaking brought him back to his earthly surroundings. He suddenly felt alienated; painfully separate from the curious gaggling children now gathering to gawp at him while real, profound sorrow unfolded on another world that bound its every being together with him. He stared at the faces around him without comprehension. Then Jacob stumbled to his feet, his eyes blurred. Pushing people out of the way he could only lunge towards the fire exit, could only dash for clear air to soothe his head. His mind raced at a pace he could scarcely keep up with.
Instinctively, he headed across the grounds for a gap in the fence that he and Luca had used a million times before. Beyond it lay the red gritted cross country track that swept through the daisy-starred slopes of the fields. The path was sheltered by spreading trees, just budding with the year’s new leaves. Jacob walked without seeing, the cool spring sunlight breaking over him in delicate waves as he passed under the branches. There was no holding the tears that would come, but he didn’t want to. He wept for the death of the Watcher - his mentor and his father. He wept for his future. But he also wept with happiness. He knew who he was. He was the Watcher now. He was sure of his destiny for the first time. On some level he had always known it, had denied the truth for his whole life, but now he saw it clearly for the first time. He immersed himself in the completeness of his history, no matter of its tragedy.
The attack came swiftly and without warning. His emotional turmoil had left him unguarded, and all Ioh’s powers could do nothing to prevent an assault that Jacob had been so unpr
epared for. Thrown to the ground by a force he couldn’t see, Jacob felt the breath knocked from his lungs. He clutched his chest and peered through the mist of his tears to see a shadow loom. Sunlight and sky disappeared behind a dark, menacing fog which solidified in a way that Jacob had seen before, only now more powerful and terrifying. There was no time to react. The figure emerged and he stared into the face of Makash, his expression cold in its new triumph.
‘Greetings, Watcher.’ The words were sibilant. A frozen smile twisted Makash’s face; his presence seemed to pulse with power. ‘Or is that me?’ Jacob shook his head, as if trying to clear it. ‘I see you are weary, Ioh, sad and weak. You are like a wounded animal. Perhaps I should ease your pain. Would you like that? Would you like to sleep forever and never dream again?’
Jacob tried to sit up and was instantly beaten down. He lay on his back, numb and bewildered. So long he had been preparing. So long he had waited, sure that when the time came for Makash to return he would be ready, and yet he had been crushed so quickly, with such a pathetic fight. After everything that’s happened, is this how it ends?
‘This is how it ends. I have no need for games any longer, my young friend, and who will help you now that my meddling brother has gone?’
Jacob stared at him. Brother? Makash was Dae’s brother?
‘He did not tell you?’ Makash sneered, reading Jacob’s thoughts once more. ‘You thought he was so good and great… You may think I am a demon, Ioh, but I am an honest demon. You have inherited the title of Watcher and all the great power that goes with it, but my brother lied to you, and isn’t that more important?’ Jacob’s thoughts were chaotic as he struggled to take in these new revelations. ‘I am your kin,’ Makash continued, his tone softening. ‘We share blood and bonds even stronger than blood. I know how you yearn to stay on Earth, how you wish to be ordinary, how you cling to love. You once told me to call you Jacob, and I will call you Jacob if you wish it. Believe me, there is another way.’ His eyes changed, they became pleading as he held out a hand in friendship, drawing Jacob in as they had done once before, and Jacob felt himself succumbing. ‘Nominate me and you can always be Jacob. Tell the people of Astrae that you relinquish your responsibility to me and I will go in your place. Give me your powers and I will give you peace, and you will never have to leave Earth.’ Makash paused, letting his speech sink in. ‘Let me help you.’
Jacob stared numbly. Makash’s words were carefully chosen and wrenched at Jacob’s wounded soul. He wanted to believe that Makash could end his pain, wanted more than anything the chance of simple happiness that Makash offered. It would be so easy. All he had to do was say the words. He paused, tempted, so close to uttering them.
But Ioh knew it could never be so.
‘Dae wouldn’t lie to me. Why should I believe you?’
‘You refuse my offer?’
Jacob felt the force of Makash’s malevolence more tangibly on his frame, pressing him into the ground. ‘I don’t believe my father would lie to me.’
‘Why would he hide his paternity, all the truths of your existence until the very end when he could no longer control you, if it wasn’t to trick you?’
‘You’re lying! I don’t believe you!’
Makash bowed his head in mock respect but his eyes transformed, glittering hard with malice like black coals. ‘Very well, you have made your choice. With you dead, the Astraen Council will have to accept me as Watcher… the other will never be found. But I do you one last service; I allow the humans you care for to live, there is no need to waste my energy on them now.’ He smiled silkily. ‘Never let it be said I have no compassion.’
Jacob was overwhelmed with the sense of defeat, tired and drained from his loss, comforted by Makash’s promises that his loved ones would be left unharmed, confused and wounded by the possibility of Dae’s manipulation. He had been fighting too long, and Makash was right, there was no one to help him now. He was lost without Dae’s guidance; perhaps there had never been or would be anyone on his side.
‘I see your heart is no longer in the fight. Let me soothe it for you.’ Makash knelt beside him and stroked his hair lovingly. Jacob’s whole body stiffened. Unable to move, his wide, fearful eyes cast down, he watched as Makash gently laid his long-fingered hands over Jacob’s own breastbone. Impossible iciness suddenly penetrated his chest, a feeling like creeping death. Jacob convulsed; frozen fingers reached his heart, wrapping around it, constricting it. Makash was literally squeezing the life out of him. Slowly, slowly, Jacob’s pulse stilted, heartbeats struggled like a tiny bird caught in a giant’s fist. Lights exploded in his head; then the spring sky above him seemed to darken. Every artery felt as though it would burst as Makash’s grip tightened.
‘I am disappointed, Ioh. Dae had promised the Astraen Council great things from you, a new kind of Watcher to take our people forwards.’ He shook his head. ‘Instead you are nothing but a little boy.’ Makash seemed to be expending no energy at all in his ruthless assassination. He regarded Jacob with curiosity. ‘I have to admit, I had spent some time trying to understand you at first, to know why you are so stubborn, why you love so fiercely. But I soon found that you were tedious, and now, even when I dispatch you, you suck all the joy out of killing by making it so easy,’ Makash’s face twisted, ‘just like your worthless mother.’ Jacob’s eyes widened still more in realisation and horror. ‘Yes, you remember now, don’t you? You heard her screams in your sleep, even as a child before you knew who you were.’ And suddenly, as if Makash had flicked a switch, Jacob remembered. ‘She might have been alive now had she mated with me, and perhaps this inconvenient mess could have been avoided. But she chose my snivelling brother and produced you, the child who denies his true name, who loves the weak and pathetic people of a primitive world as if they are so many pets, no ambition, no vision – just like your father. I disposed of Kela. Dae is gone. Now I will dispose of the product of that unfortunate union.’
Defeat and fear was replaced by cold focused rage and Jacob felt some spirit return. Far off voices were calling, willing him to survive. He plunged desperately, instinctively into the dark place of his mind.
Makash threw back his head in a mirthless laugh. ‘That’s it little boy - fight! Let’s have some sport before I finish you!’ He moved his face closer and cocked his head slightly, staring at Jacob, his voice a low hiss. ‘But Jacob will let you down, Ioh. See… see how the light is already fading.’
Seventeen: Luca’s Secret
‘Luca!’ Ellen pulled at his shirt, dragging him from Melissa’s amorous embrace.
Luca and Melissa had hidden themselves from view behind the mobile cabin that was the temporary science block. It wasn’t hard for Ellen to find them; it was where Luca had taken her every lunchtime for months.
‘What are you doing?’ Luca turned around sharply.
‘Get lost, Ellen. You can’t have him back,’ Melissa threatened.
‘Oh, grow up.’ Ellen turned away from her and spoke to Luca, her panic growing. ‘Jacob’s run off.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t understand, something is really wrong.’
‘Something is always really wrong,’ he muttered.
‘Luca!’
‘Ok, ok. Get Dulson then.’
‘I can’t get Dulson. How can I take Dulson to him when I don’t know where he’s gone! He passed out in the canteen and when I finally got him up he was crying. Next thing, he bolted out the fire doors. When I followed outside I couldn’t see him anywhere.’ Luca sighed. ‘Please, Luca.’
He paused for a moment, taking in Ellen’s anxious expression and then seemed to snap into action. ‘I think I know where he’s gone. Come on.’ Leaving Melissa with her mouth hanging open, he grabbed Ellen by the hand and they ran for the fence.
Luca’s usual languid expression was replaced by the look of someone suddenly alive with purpose. Ellen glanced to her side as they ran, she caught his eye and he grinned. The same thing from anyone else might ha
ve made her angry, but she had known Luca long enough to understand. She knew how he always felt he had lived in Jacob’s shadow for as long as they had been friends, despite what Jacob might think. It didn’t bother him. But on occasion there was the chance for Luca to shine, and she felt, as he did now, that this might just be one of those rare moments.
They cut through the ragged gap in the wire fence, Ellen squealing as her hair got snagged. Luca gently pulled her free and they emerged on the illegal side, ducking quickly behind bare forks of shrubbery and making their way swiftly to the cover of the trees before they were seen.
‘How do you know this is where he’s gone?’ Ellen asked Luca as they followed the path.
‘You can cut across the fields to Jacob’s house easily; we’ve done it loads of times in the past.’
‘How do you know he’s gone home?’
‘I don’t, I’m just guessing.’ Luca stopped walking and, shielding his eyes, scanned the green slopes ahead. ‘He must have been shifting; I can’t see any sign of him. Unless…’
‘What?’ Ellen’s voice betrayed her increasing anxiety.
‘If he’s passed out somewhere we won’t be able to see him until we’re right on top of him.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘He didn’t look great this morning, did he?’
Ellen chewed her lip. ‘Hurry up, let’s find him.’
They began to follow the path again with a new sense of urgency. The ground was dry; clay-coloured dust puffed up under their feet. Ellen was convinced that they would find Jacob somewhere in a bad way, she just hoped they wouldn’t be too late to help. Suddenly, she stopped and clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Phone him!’
‘Can’t you?’
Ellen shook her head, ‘Haven’t brought my phone with me today.’
‘Don’t you or Jacob ever use phones?’ Luca asked in an exasperated tone.
‘Just do it.’
Luca dialled and held the phone to his ear as Ellen chewed the ends of her hair, gazing over the rolling fields while she waited for news.