Artifact

by Bowes, K T

  “Leaving?” Jayden felt stupid.

  “It was all in the letter,” Ed said gently. “Look,” he made a decision. “There are other things that I need to talk to you about, but for now, just have a think about everything and let me know. Most of the counselling clients have cancelled this week, with everything that’s gone on, so you have some time. Maybe talk it over with Cam or whoever you want.” Ed stood up and flexed his fingers. Jayden’s hand fell into her lap. “Sal say’s you’ve just got Clara to see today and then that’s it.” Ed leaned down towards her, feeling pity well up in his chest and striking it away. It wasn’t what she needed from him, nor was it what she deserved. “I love you,” he said softly, seeing the tiny light that went on in her green eyes as she looked up at him. “Please don’t forget that.” He kissed her lightly on her upturned lips and then left the room, going into the now empty vestry to intercede for her with his God.

  Chapter 24

  “I almost didn’t come,” Clara stated, the smallest hint of rebellion in her voice.

  Me neither, the voice in Jayden’s head intoned quietly. “Why did you?” she asked instead, feeling hideously ill-equipped for this session. Clara pouted slightly.

  “It helped me before. I did the homework, but I could only think of five things that the man didn’t take away from me. Not ten, just five.”

  “Five’s good,” Jayden said, trying to sound more positive than she currently felt.

  “What would your ten be?” Clara asked searchingly. “Could you think of ten things?”

  Jayden looked at her aghast. Nobody had asked her. She thought hurriedly for something to say, seeing the expectation on Clara’s pretty blonde face. Her brown eyes glared out challengingly at Jayden, making her feel inadequate. Jayden shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Clara was displeased. “Well, you have to know. You’re the counsellor. Ok then, what would you say my other five things were?”

  Jayden held her hand out for the piece of paper in Clara’s hand, but the girl refused to part with it. “No, you have to guess,” she replied in an annoying sing-song voice, as though it was a harmless child’s game. Jayden wasn’t in control of this session and began to feel fearful. Her mind was elsewhere and she knew that she should call a halt to it. “Are your parents outside again?”

  “No. What are my five things?”

  Jayden gulped. Into her head popped the things that she had lost, the things that Clara still had. “You have your mother. You have your father. You have their love, unconditional acceptance and support. You have your home. You have your name.”

  Jayden looked down at her clipboard and the empty paper on it. Her pen was still in her hand, but nothing was coming out of it.

  “Are those the things you lost?” Clara whispered.

  Jayden nodded and a big fat tear ran from her right eye and plopped onto the paper. It was so bulbous that it exploded on impact and went through the top sheaf of pages. Clara was silent, contemplating the woman in front of her. She was so stiff and straight-backed, her dark hair under as much control as it was possible for rioting curls to be contained and her green eyes looked empty. “You lost more than me,” Clara sighed. “Much more.”

  Jayden’s head gave the smallest imperceptible nod. “I lost my brother too.”

  Never engage in a pity party; rule 101 of counselling. It was almost never helpful. To Jayden’s surprise, Clara came over and sat on the arm of the leather chair. She put her slender arm gently around Jayden’s shoulders. There was more to her than there had been a few days ago. Clara had finally started eating again. “I still have my mum and dad,” she said. “And much as I want to punch his lights out half the time, I still have my little brother, the git. I guess that I’m still me too, deep down. I’ve always liked my name, Clara. It feels kind of sunny and yellow and I can’t imagine changing it. So with my five, that’s ten things. You’re right. He didn’t take everything, I only thought he did.” Clara stood up and looked down at her counsellor. “Thanks, Jayden,” she said generously. “I feel heaps better now.”

  With that, she turned and walked out of the room, her lightness of step marking the return of the fifteen-year-old girl who had not yet been violated. Deep inside Jayden, Lily McGowan stirred and sat up. In a crystal clear voice she brushed the dark tangle of hair out of her eyes and demanded, “It’s time.”

  Chapter 25

  Despite wanting to comfort Jayden, Ed deliberately didn’t touch her. She was unpredictable and shrouded in a pain that made her utterly unreachable. She was prickly like a hedgehog and he knew that no matter which way he tried to smooth her, he would end up with cut and bleeding fingers. He prayed for her and ached, as though his own heart-scars were being torn open with dirty hands. But there was nothing he could do.

  A gentle knock on the vestry door heralded a tall man, broad-framed but slightly stooped. He was muscular rather than fat and his hair had receded to the point where it was cropped closely to his head. Nick McGowan did not look his twenty-nine years, but had aged far beyond that, resembling a man who had surely walked the earth for forty or more.

  Jayden stood as he entered, not wanting to be compromised by being seated. She was stunned by her brother’s resemblance to her father. Dan’s green eyes and strong, square jaw faced her and it caused her to take a sharp intake of breath. Ed watched her carefully. They had agreed that if she were comfortable, he would wait outside in the stone hallway, within earshot if she needed him. Ed looked at her for some clue as to what she wanted, seeing immediately that she didn’t yet know. He pulled open a cupboard in the wall, exposing a kettle, tea pot and some china cups. A small fridge nestled on the floor at knee level and he reached down into it for milk.

  The room was utterly silent and Ed kept his back turned, not wanting to appear ghoulish or curious. He had clearly made Nick a drink before as he didn’t ask him what he wanted, just produced a dark coloured tea. He handed Jayden coffee and she sipped at the too hot liquid, startled to taste the slight kick of alcohol.

  Looking up in confusion, she caught the wink from Ed’s stunning blue right eye. It was so momentary that it was only half there, but Jayden caught the sentiments; encouragement and love in the simple act of adding a tot of whiskey to her drink. She shook her head and let the tiniest smile crawl across her pretty lips in acknowledgement of the curate’s lack of faith. Ed saw and felt relieved. He knew that his was a God of the impossible, but he was wise enough to know that Jayden wasn’t so sure at the moment. “I’ll just be outside,” Ed said, nodding kindly at Nick and running his hand lightly across Jayden’s shoulder. Inwardly she panicked, not wanting him to leave but unable to make him stay without causing a scene. Something told her that if she raised her voice or began a commotion, it would all be over, ruined. She stayed seated and peered out from under her eyelashes at her long-lost brother.

  “Ed said that you didn’t get my letter,” Nick stated and Jayden nodded and looked up to meet his eyes. It surprised her that Fear seemed to have no control over her and that it was easier than she had expected it to be. “Would you like me to tell you what it said?” he asked. She could sense that he didn’t believe her. He suspected that she had just thrown the letter away unopened and was now denying it. Sibling rivalry was still alive and well. Jayden nodded politely and gave a wooden smile.

  “In...prison...” Nick eyed his sister nervously like a rabbit ready to run if she reacted to any of the words he intended to use. “Well...I did a degree in chemistry and then a masters in...actually, none of that matters. I had time on my hands so...” Even he could see that it wasn’t the right track to go down. Any extended time on his hands was his own fault. Nick laboured on, “I’ve been working for a Christian organisation since I got out last year, lecturing and speaking about the harmful effects of drugs. I work mainly with teenagers, addicts and those at risk of becoming addicted. I leave for America in two days. I’ve got a two-year contract to do the same sort of thing with teens in the cities ove
r there. I give a testimony of my own...experiences and then hit them with the facts of what all that stuff does to your head.”

  He stopped, looking at his sister for a reaction, anything that would act as a gauge for what was currently going through her mind. “Ed said that I scared you. I sincerely apologise for that. I wanted to see you and wasn’t sure how to go about it. The letter...”

  “I didn’t see the letter!” Jayden raised her voice and heard the faint shuffle of Ed outside the door. He had left it slightly ajar, knowing that the heavy oak would not necessarily allow her cries for help to escape. The inappropriate thought crossed his mind that someone could be murdered in there unnoticed, squashed quickly by the sobering thought of McLean’s death only a matter of metres up the steps from that same room. Ed sat on the cold stone outside the door; his legs stretched out and his back and head resting on the wall behind where Jayden sat. It was ridiculous to think that she could draw strength from his proximity, but he hoped anyway and went back to praying for her, his dark head bowed and his fringe falling forward in his eyes in uncharacteristic disarray.

  Nick raised his head in placation. “Ok, ok, you didn’t see the letter. I’m sorry.”

  “What do you want from me?” Jayden asked, standing up. “Why are you here? How did you find me?”

  Nick wisely stayed seated. “I see Mum every couple of months...”

  “Liar!” Jayden cried. “Aunty would never let you near her!”

  Nick looked down at his hands knotting and unknotting a piece of thread that he had pulled from his green puffer jacket.

  “I visit when she’s in respite care. She gave me your address last time I saw her.”

  Jayden shook her head angrily now. “She can’t even remember her own name. I don’t believe you!”

  Nick looked away once and then stood up. “I am truly sorry, Lily. I am so sorry for everything. I wanted...I don’t know what I wanted. I shouldn’t have come.” Disappointment and Misery crowded round him compounding his agony. “I was wrong, I was so wrong. Nothing I say will ever make it right. I guess I wanted you to see that I had changed, that salvation comes even to people like me. I did a prison Alpha course and gave my life to Christ. He’s helped me turn it around and put it all to good use, all the wicked stuff, Lil. It has a purpose. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. Heck, it’s taken me nine years to forgive myself, so I don’t expect you to. I wanted you to know that I’m sorry and that I mean it.” Nick moved slowly towards the door, understanding that the meeting was over. At the last minute, he turned and said quietly to his broken sister, “You lost everything because of me. I do know that.”

  Then he was gone, striding down the long stone corridor and out into the surprise twinkling of sunshine. There were tears in his eyes, but his heart felt strangely lighter. He knew that he would probably never see his sister again and that it had always lurked as a frightening possibility. Some part of him had hoped that they could forge something from the ashes, but it had always been a long shot. His mother had been very lucid the last time he visited. She had understood that he was leaving and that if the two-year contract went well, he might never return to the land of his birth. But towards the end of the visit as she was growing tired, she had patted his hand and called him ‘Dan’ and it had broken his heart.

  Ed stood quickly and went into the vestry. It was wood panelled and dark; a large leaded window obscured by a flying buttress holding up the side of the building. The stone floor had been covered with an ancient maroon rug with gold inlay, worn by the rubber soled feet of generations of clergymen. Jayden had poked the toes of her boots underneath one edge and stared down at her hidden feet aimlessly. Ed had heard Nick’s last words, acknowledging that he had caused this woman to lose absolutely everything and from their conversations over the past few days, had known that the man felt deeply for what his selfish youth had caused.

  Jayden looked up at Ed finally and he was stunned by the clearness in her face. She looked almost childlike and beatific as he stared down at her, a slight crease in his brow. Unshed tears glinted in her eyes, but she seemed completely in control despite her ordeal. Then to his surprise, she smiled. “I didn’t lose everything,” she said, “not really. Just five big things. But not everything.”

  Chapter 26

  “Why have you got that colour shirt on?” Jayden asked Ed as he sat with her in her living room. He had walked her home, poured them both a large glass of red wine and then sat with his arm possessively around her shoulders. Nick’s letter had somehow been pushed underneath the front door mat at some point in the previous week and was crumpled and slightly damp. It sat unopened on the dining table with the electricity bill which had accompanied it.

  Jayden closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Ed’s cloth shirt under her right palm, the steady thrum of his heartbeat and knowing that it all had to end. Ed rubbed at the centre of the purple shirt, feeling nervous sweat pooling at the base of his back. “I need to take up my new office soon. The new vicar starts at St Jude’s tomorrow. You’ll really like him. He’s quite young and enthusiastic. He’ll shake things up.” Ed tried to smile at Jayden as she sat up, looking ashen and shocked.

  “Please don’t go?” she whispered and Ed’s brow creased in fear. He sat forward and turned in his seat so that he could look at Jayden full in the face and read her expression, not that he thought it would help much. Where this woman was concerned, he felt utterly clueless.

  Jayden suddenly dipped forward and Ed grabbed at her shoulders in concern as she seemed to bend in half over her knees. She moaned and he slipped off the seat and knelt in front of her wondering what was wrong. “Your wife,” Jayden said sadly. “I’m sorry. This has all been so surreal this past few weeks that I keep kidding myself that we have a future. It’s ok, I understand.”

  Ed seized Jayden by both shoulders and made her sit up and look at him. His handsome features were screwed up in a look of disbelief. “I don’t have a wife, Jayd. I have no idea why you keep referring to one either.”

  “Raff said...”

  “Raff!” Ed spat his brother’s name with an angry edge to his voice. “You really need to stop listening to that guy. He talks utter crap, Jayd!”

  “So, are you divorced?” Jayden looked so innocent that it exasperated Ed to the point where he could have screamed.

  “No, I’ve never been married. It’s the Church. It’s my calling, my faith. He calls it my ‘wife.’ He’s always done it and he knows I hate it but it’s easier just to ignore him.”

  “The Church? The Church is your wife?” Jayden was feeling emotionally drained and unbelievably dim.

  Ed pulled her face up to look at him, trying to get her attention again, aware that he was quickly losing her to a veil of tired confusion.

  “I partnered with them,” Jayden said, sounding utterly exhausted.

  Ed pulled a face and looked at her quizzically. “What? Who?”

  “The demons,” she replied sadly, “the negative stuff and the lies about myself. Grief and Shame and Disgust, sometimes Death and Guilt. Guilt was always there hovering. It’s my fault. I partnered with them in my own destruction.”

  She sounded as though she was rambling and Ed became concerned for her mental state. He ran his fingers up the side of her face, compassion pouring from his eyes into her soul and warming her through like summer sunshine.

  “When you experience hurt like mine, you accidentally let them in. Jesus says to forgive, but I didn’t want to hear that, I haven’t been ready. But they crowded round me, Anger, Self-pity, Resentment, Intimidation, they comforted me and told me what I wanted to hear. I partnered with them. Don’t you get it? I willingly partnered with them.”

  Ed did get it. He nodded, genuinely acknowledging her pain and understanding her dilemma. “I get it,” he said simply, smoothing her hair back from her sweating brow. “It’s ok. You can ask them to leave. Jesus gives you the right to tell them to go. Let me help you?”

  Jayden leaned
her head against Ed while he prayed for her, rebuked the swirling hoards in the apex of the roof and heard their strangled final breaths through his spiritual ears as the abyss sucked them back in, ending their nine-year reign of terror. “They’ve gone,” Jayden said finally, sitting up and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “It’s so quiet.”

  Ed went out to get fish and chips from the lower end of the High Street while Jayden had a shower and sorted herself out. She struggled to keep her cast dry, but the lure of the cleansing water was cathartic. The spray pounded her head and back, washing away the misery and agony along with the filthy residue of the familial spirits who had claimed the rights to Jayden’s existence, sneaking in and taking up residence with a hastily and falsely given permission. Jayden sat at the table by the window, watching Ed while he sourced plates and cutlery. She ate with gusto like a starving woman released from prison and presented with a banquet table.

  Ed smiled fondly at her, but after a while became nervous, plucking at his shirt front with shaking fingers, as he set his cutlery down gently on the table. “Jayd, I need to talk to you about some things.”

  Jayden’s heart bounded in fear, righting itself when the new lease of life which coursed through her veins censured it and gave her confidence. Ed looked increasingly afraid and Jayden waited for the awful truth which would end their friendship-relationship-whatever it was. The handsome cleric sat back in his chair, agony and fear radiating off him. “Jayd, when the Reverend McLean phoned the acting bishop to ask for help, he actually got the new bishop, who was down in Lincoln visiting and answered the office phone, quite by chance. The new bishop decided that he would send someone he trusted to take a look at what was going on. The retiring incumbent had hinted at certain things not being quite right, so he thought he might get it checked out. I went to stay with Raff, but the curate sent to investigate, rang to tell me that there was a death in his family. He couldn’t go. I had no choice. The vicar of St Jude’s had never met me and so I stood in as his curate. Jayden, there were huge things wrong.”