by Sharon Sant
Jacob shot a sideways glance at Luca, aware that he was staring at him.
‘Ellen told me about this stuff, but I never…’ Luca’s voice tailed off. Suddenly, Jacob was someone he couldn’t completely trust anymore. There was a part of him that couldn’t help wondering if Jacob had used this skill before on him… or even Ellen. Jacob could invade someone, control their emotions and decisions, and they wouldn’t have a clue. Luca tried to block the notion from his mind.
‘I know you don’t like it,’ Jacob said curtly, sensing Luca’s internal dilemma. ‘And before you ask, it’s not something I do without good reason.’
‘What do your rules say about it?’ Luca asked, even though the question was against his better judgment.
Jacob knew exactly what his rules said and, right now, he was pretty much breaking every one of them. ‘It’s fine,’ he replied. ‘Let’s get back to that desk and get our tickets.’
Jacob had never spent a more torturous twelve hours than he did on that journey home. Every minute seemed like a day, every overheard conversation sounded ridiculous and inane and grated on Jacob’s nerves so that he felt he could scream down the plane for the whole lot of them to shut up. It wasn’t much better for Luca, who had to endure his friend’s dour, twitchy silence as well as having to keep vigil in case Jacob fell asleep and started screaming in a really embarrassing way.
As the flight had been taken at such short notice and with little planning, when they finally arrived at Heathrow there was no one to meet them. Jacob had not had time to charge his phone before they left the motel either, so while they waited for a train Luca called his mum. She had no information to give them other than what she had already told Luca. Jacob borrowed Luca’s phone to make a call home, although he didn’t really expect anyone to be there. When he was proved right he had no choice but to try Ellen instead, certain that she would be able to give him more details. After a brief, tense conversation he handed Luca the phone.
‘They’re at the General - the respiratory ward. He caught a chest infection and he couldn’t fight it off. It’s turned into pneumonia,’ Jacob said.
‘Will he be ok?’
‘He’s pretty bad, according to Ellen. I don’t know.’ Jacob ran a hand through his hair and flopped onto a bench on the windswept platform. ‘I should have been there.’
‘Mate, you couldn’t have seen this coming.’ Luca sat next to him.
‘That’s just it, I should have done. All this time I thought my bad feelings were down to Alex and Makash, but there was this, all the while in the background… I just didn’t spot it.’
‘Stop beating yourself up. Even you can’t be there for everyone.’ Luca laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘He’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
‘I’m the worst Watcher there’s ever been.’ He looked squarely at Luca. ‘What’s the point of me?’
Luca turned away and stared down the platform. There was no answer to a question like that.
The train journey had taken a couple of hours. There was a short delay as the train pulled into a siding for emergency track repairs, but at least it was quiet, which left Jacob time to reflect on what he might expect on his arrival home. The thought tied his stomach in knots. He knew in his heart that it was bad.
At the station they made their way to the taxis that waited at the rank outside.
‘Are you going home first?’ Luca asked awkwardly. Jacob sensed his indecision, that Luca was probably wondering whether the hospital would be something deeply private, a place for Jacob’s family only, and wondered whether he ought to offer his company or not. Jacob recognised that Luca wanted to support him, but he had been away from his own family for two weeks and was probably desperate to see them too. Besides which, they had just spent a tense and exhausting fourteen hours together travelling.
‘I’m going straight to the hospital.’ He clapped a hand on Luca’s shoulder. ‘Go home. You’ve done enough for me.’
Luca tipped his finger against his temple in a salute. ‘If you need me…’
‘I know. Thanks.’
Luca glanced down at Jacob’s luggage. ‘What are you going to do with that? Want me to keep it at mine until you get home?’
Jacob nodded. ‘Good idea.’ He followed Luca to a waiting cab and, after instructing the driver, threw his cases into the boot.
He watched Luca’s taxi pull away from the rank with a sudden, strange melancholy. Having now decided on a course of action, he knew that it was likely he would never see his friend again. With a deep sigh, he turned to find a cab of his own.
His dad was in a newly built section of the hospital. Perfectly flat, brightly coloured walls and sleek chrome fittings that would have been more appropriate in a Knightsbridge hotel than a hospital characterised Jacob’s walk to the ward. They seemed incongruous, jarring; too cheery for a place of such sorrow. He got lost a couple of times and had to backtrack as his mind wandered, refusing any logic or concentration. Finally he came to a halt outside the double doors and rang the buzzer.
‘I’m Jacob… my dad’s on the ward… Phil Lightfoot.’ Jacob answered the questioning voice on the other end of the intercom, suddenly feeling like a small, lost child. There was a click and Jacob pushed the door open.
He stepped inside. Before him stood a wide desk; nursing staff buzzed around it and doctors and porters rushed backwards and forwards. Beyond the desk lay the bright main ward with huge windows and short corridors leading to side rooms. A young nurse stepped forwards; Jacob recognised her voice from the intercom as she spoke.
‘Jacob?’ He nodded. ‘This way,’ she smiled, and he followed as she led him towards a room with a closed door. Jacob thought her smile looked sad, as though she felt sorry for him. It didn’t seem like a good sign.
She stopped and tapped at the door before pushing it open only slightly so that Jacob couldn’t yet see what was behind it.
‘Mrs Lightfoot, your son is here.’
Twelve: Sacrifices
His father was in bed, sleeping uneasily, his breathing shallow rasps. He looked weird; not his dad at all but a pale wax copy. There were monitors connected up and a drip in his arm. The tiny room echoed with electrical bleeps and pulses and the gentle whooshing of an oxygen supply. Other than that, it was eerily quiet.
Jacob’s mother rose from the chair where she had been sitting pressing her fingers urgently over her husband’s hand, as if she could massage strength back into him. She turned a tear stained face to Jacob and took a disbelieving step towards him before flinging her arms around his neck and dragging him down into a hug. They stayed that way for a few moments before she let go. Placing her hands to his cheeks, she pulled down his face to plant a tender kiss on his forehead. She did not speak. There were no words she could say that the scene in the room did not say for her.
She returned to her seat. Jacob took a chair at the other side of the bed and stared at his father. Finally, he looked up and spoke.
‘When did this happen?’
‘He started to get ill just after you left.’
‘You should have called me home.’
‘I was going to. But he didn’t want me to tell you. Said he would be alright in a few days… he said that every day. He wouldn’t even let me phone the doctor until one day he couldn’t get his breath.’ Her voice cracked as she fought to contain her despair.
‘Will he recover?’
‘He’s tough but…’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘They let me stay any time I like…’
Jacob gave a short nod. It didn’t take a genius to work out that the accommodating visiting hours meant they thought his dad didn’t have long.
She lapsed into silence again, her attention back on her husband until she suddenly seemed to remember that Jacob was there and ran her eyes over him.
‘You look tired.’
‘I came straight from the airport. I’m a bit jetlagged, that’s all.’
‘Go home, get some sleep.’
He shook his head.
‘No way. I’m not leaving you here on your own.’
‘There’s nothing you can do here, you may as well get some sleep and come back tomorrow.’
If he had told her the truth, Jacob would have said that he was so completely exhausted he could barely see straight. The idea was tempting. He decided on a compromise. ‘I’ll take a nap in the chair for a few hours. Then I’ll sit with him and you can take a turn. I bet you haven’t slept much either.’
She waved the idea away. ‘I’m fine…’ she began.
‘You’re not,’ Jacob cut in. ‘Please, if only to make me happy.’
She opened her mouth to argue but then closed it again before finally relenting. ‘Alright.’
They sat for another half an hour together. Somehow it didn’t seem right to Jacob to go off to sleep when he had only just arrived. Eventually, he yielded to his mother’s insistence that he take his turn and retreated to the high-backed chair that stood in the corner of the room behind the door. He wriggled and sighed for a while, trying to get comfortable. Although he was worn out, sleep wouldn’t come. He had to be content with dozing fitfully, startled back to full consciousness with every tiny noise around him.
He had taken his longest stretch of about half an hour when there was a gentle tap at the door. His eyes snapped open and he looked up to see Ellen come in. At first, she didn’t notice Jacob and went straight to Maggie, handing her a paper cup.
‘I got you a coffee. Have you eaten today?’
Maggie took the drink and smiled up at her, then threw a glance in Jacob’s direction. Ellen followed her gaze and for a moment, it seemed, she forgot herself as she flushed with pleasure.
‘Jacob…’ she breathed.
He couldn’t help himself; his eyes flashed brilliant blue and a tired smile lit his features. ‘Hey…’
‘When did you get back?’
‘Not long ago.’
She beamed at him. For the first time since Jacob had arrived at the hospital, Maggie was smiling too as she watched them.
‘If you want to go to the coffee shop for a while, don’t mind me,’ Maggie offered.
Ellen sat on the chair opposite Maggie. ‘Later, maybe.’ She shot Jacob a significant glance, one which he understood and returned. Reunions would have to wait. ‘How is he?’ Ellen asked.
‘The same,’ Maggie replied, her attention returning to her husband’s sleeping form.
‘He hasn’t been awake at all today?’
‘For a short while, before Jacob got here. I think the drugs are making him sleep at the moment.’
Ellen’s gaze travelled back to Jacob, who had pulled his chair closer to the end of the bed. Her hand, out of sight of Maggie, touched his. He interlocked his fingers with hers, drawing strength from that small contact. The significance of her simple gesture set his nerves tingling in a dangerous cocktail of contrary emotions. They sat like this for some time, while he savoured the feel of Ellen’s hand in his, until Ellen spoke again.
‘If you need a break, Maggie, we can keep watch for a while.’
Maggie looked up. ‘Maybe I’ll get some air,’ she decided after a hesitant pause. She reached for the small handbag stowed on the floor beneath the bed and left the room without another word.
Ellen waited for the door to close and then reached for Jacob, pulling him into a fierce hug. ‘I missed you,’ she whispered, her warm breath tickling his ear.
He closed his eyes and held her, drowning in the scent of her hair until she pulled away. ‘Did you find her?’
He didn’t need to ask who she meant. ‘Yes,’ he said, and stopped her as she began her congratulations. ‘But she’s gone again. Makash got to her.’
Doubt clouded her features. ‘But…’
‘It’s a long story.’ He glanced at the bed. ‘Now’s not the time.’
She nodded. ‘You look shattered,’ she said, now taking in the tired hollows of his eyes.
‘It’s been a long few weeks.’
‘How’s Luca?’
‘Faring better than me, I think. I just left him at the train station to make his way home.’
She smiled. ‘His mum has been going crazy. She really missed him; don’t know what she’ll do when he goes off to uni.’
‘She’ll probably buy a house in the next street to his digs. Or enrol on his course…’ Jacob’s quick grin faded. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without him.’
They lapsed into silence.
Ellen’s attention returned to Jacob’s dad. ‘Can you do something?’ she asked, glancing over at Phil’s sleeping form.
‘You know I can’t.’ He turned to study her. The truth was that he had fully intended to cure his father, despite the ancient laws that forbade it. But he also knew what the consequences of that would be. Now he was here, Ellen sitting before him. He thought of losing his life and her again, and he wasn’t sure if he could go through with it after all. Guilt for letting Alex down so badly still weighed on him, and he wondered whether it would be better to leave things to take their own path. Right now, he didn’t feel capable of doing anything properly.
‘Death comes,’ he said. ‘It is the natural order of things.’
She sat back in her chair and stared at him. ‘Did that just come out of your mouth?’
The words had felt unnatural to him as he spoke them, but there was a part of him that now resented her questioning of his authority. ‘You know this.’
‘God, you sound just like one of them.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you’ve changed. You’re more Ioh and less Jacob every time I see you.’
‘It’s who I am.’
‘Maggie and Phil, they brought you up. You owe them something… God only knows I would have killed to have your childhood.’
‘You know that last time I interfered I nearly died!’
‘That was different, they were dead then. He’s not yet. There is still hope, and the old Jacob would have done something, he would have saved his dad while there was still the tiniest thread of hope.’
‘You’re saying you want me dead?’ Jacob stared at her.
‘Of course not.’ She paused. ‘But sometimes I wonder whether the Jacob I knew is already dead,’ she said quietly.
‘Ellen, I’m the same as I’ve always been.’
She drew a breath and spoke slowly. ‘When you went away, your parents were so good to me. I loved being at their house, it was like I had a piece of you still.’ Her sad smile was a fragile thing; she stared at a spot on the wall as though looking into the past. ‘When I went round, sometimes I’d pretend to use the bathroom and sneak into your room. It was a silly thing… but I just wanted something, some connection. I used to sit on your bed, touch your belongings, it was like… I could soak up the leftovers of you through my fingertips…’ She held his gaze. ‘When I kissed Luca, I was kissing you. It was always you.’ Her tone hardened again as she seemed to snap back to her surroundings. ‘But you’re not the same since you’ve come back. Astrae has turned you into Ioh. I didn’t fall in love with Ioh… I fell in love with Jacob.’
She sat back and regarded him steadily, expectant of a response. Her admission had taken him by surprise. She had never said those words to him, the ones he had so desperately waited to hear for so long. But they were tainted by a caveat, something he could not negate; he was the Watcher and it wasn’t as simple as discarding that part of himself, no matter how he might want to. Love had to mean complete love of all that he was.
His reply was cut short by the return of his mum. She handed Jacob a packet of sandwiches as she took her seat across from them. ‘Everything alright?’ she asked carefully, looking between the two of them, who now sat as though an invisible wall separated them.
‘I need to go home for a while. Tom and Alfie will want some dinner and Mum’s not been well again.’ Ellen gathered her belongings and swept from the room without looking back.
Maggie’s questioning look rested
on Jacob.
‘Forget it, Mum. It doesn’t matter.’
Maggie sighed. ‘You don’t realise what you have there.’
‘I said forget it.’
She fell silent, the argument dying in her throat. Jacob’s attention turned to Phil, who had started to wheeze.
‘What’s that? Is he ok?’
‘He has trouble catching his breath, occasionally. It’ll stop in a minute.’
The sound tore at Jacob’s already wounded soul. He stared across the bed at his mum. How could she stand this, day after day? Eventually, his dad’s breathing settled again and all was quiet, save for the sounds of the machinery keeping him alive.
Jacob had no idea of the time when he woke in the chair with a crick in his neck. He stretched gingerly and his eyes roved the room, for a moment confused. His sleep had been deep and full of dreams he couldn’t now recall. The sandwiches Maggie had picked up for him caught his attention as they lay on the side-table, untouched. He was suddenly ravenous and realised that he probably hadn’t eaten for around twenty-four hours. Yawning, he reached for them.
‘You want something to drink with those?’ Maggie said, extending her arms as though she had dozed off herself.
‘I’ll go down to the coffee shop,’ Jacob said, rising from the chair.
Maggie stopped him. ‘It’s ok. It’ll take you an age to find it, I’ll go.’
Jacob was about to argue and then thought better of it. He understood her innate need to feel useful; it was part of her make up, how she dealt with stress. ‘That’d be good, thanks.’
While she was gone he stared down at his dad. He seemed so small and helpless. He wasn’t supposed to be seen like this. The man who made cheesy jokes and bickered affectionately with his wife, who sported ridiculous Hawaiian shirts on summer evenings and even more ridiculous beards, who burnt the burgers at barbeques and insisted that they were only well done… he wasn’t there anymore. Jacob fought to swallow the lump in his throat. Ellen’s words echoed in his mind and he blocked out the warnings that were firing at him from all quarters as decisions were slowly being made.
Almost as though his dad had sensed Jacob’s internal dilemma, his eyes slowly opened and focused on his son. A weak smile appeared. ‘Jacob…’ he croaked.