He imagined how awful it would be if the police came in at any moment and arrested him, or if someone came in with news about the owner of Grendel Manor being murdered or mysteriously disappearing. But nothing did happen. For some unknown reason, he trusted Ryan to clean up the evidence.
Later on, a handsome blonde-haired guy entered Creaky Crystals. He was tall and toned and everything he wore was designer. He glanced around the store in a way that only a confident man would, his chin high, his lips pursed, and his eyes serious. He found who he was looking for.
‘Nick, buddy, how you doing, man?’
‘Fin, what are you doing here? I thought you had a contract in London.’ Nick couldn’t help but smile as he hurried to hug his best friend. Fin squeezed him tight, too tightly in fact; Nick winced to ignore his painful bruises, then Fin slapped him on the back a few times for good, friendly measure.
‘Yeah, buddy, I’ve still got the contract. They’ve paid me half upfront. I’m literally rolling in it!’ he said, loudly, with a winsome smile, ‘And I’ve got a couple of months to give them the finished plans, so no big rush. I went out to survey the areas a couple of days ago. I’m going again soon, man.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’ Nick remarked. Fintan was a garden designer. He’d studied it as a subject but it was also his father’s line of work, so he’d learnt a lot from him.
‘Yeah, man. But I came in to let you know I’ve got more free time than I thought I’d have; this contract’s easy. It’s for some apartments, they want balcony gardens, so I just have to do one design and then they’ll copy and paste it for the standard apartments, and I’ll do some fancier designs for the penthouse balconies. Easy. Anyway, if you still want to hang out, then this weekend’s good for me, buddy.’
The smile was impossible to stop from appearing on Nick’s face. Fin was the perfect person to talk to about the visions. They’d been friends for as long as Nick could remember. Growing up, they’d discussed every subject under the sun. Fin would understand.
Will he understand? Would I believe him if he told me?
Nick would find a way to ease into the discussion, maybe he could even try bring on a vision in front of Fin to prove it. He’d think of something. It had been ages since he’d spent time with his best friend, so just the idea of socialising with someone who understood him was a comfort.
‘That sounds great.’ Nick smiled, ‘I’ll call you later in the week, yeah?’
‘Nice. See you around then, bud.’
Watching Fin leave the store, Nick grinned, then a harsh finger prodded into his back. He swivelled on the spot.
‘Owwwwwch.’ he exaggerated.
Janet’s face was unimpressed, ‘Oh, come on, Nick, man up! That didn’t hurt.’ She changed her expression fast to a more pleasant one, ‘I’m going to set you up with someone, okay? I’ve decided. You’re wasting your life. I bet you’re hunky friend Fin has a girlfriend.’
‘I don’t think he does at the moment, actually.’ said Nick.
‘Hmm, well… this isn’t about him. It’s about you, and you need a woman.’
He shrugged as a response. Janet looked at him quizzically before talking again.
‘What’s wrong with you, Nick? You’re not protesting or getting all irate like you usually do.’ she frowned.
‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should try to meet someone.’
She squealed with excitement and slapped Nick’s arm. Her brown hair bobbed on her shoulders as she celebrated, ‘I know the perfect girl for you. I’m going to talk to her mum tonight and sort something out. Oh! And I’ll do a Good-Luck-With-Love spell for you tonight. Send some good energy you’re way.’
Thanks, I need it!
He thought about Juliet, again. This time his outlook was more positive. Maybe it was necessary that he met Juliet; so that he could feel ready to date again.
It doesn’t have to be Juliet.
‘Oooo, how exciting, Nick.’ Janet said, and sauntered off with a wide gummy-toothy smile.
It was turning out to be a good day. Nick was happy for Tom and Michael, he was excited to hang out with Fin and share everything on his mind, and now it seemed the right time to date again. There must be other women out there as intriguing as Juliet.
Stop comparing to Juliet. She’s out of the picture!
‘Okay.’ he agreed with himself aloud.
When he got home that night, he found himself wondering if magic rituals or spells worked. Local Wiccans like Mora and Janet ‘casted’ spells for simple things like protection of their family and property. Did the spells actually work? Surely not, else there would be more people practicing magic. Wouldn’t there be?
Seeing the future was possible and seeing ghosts, and there was an Otherworld, And don’t forget the telepathic portal for Christ’s sake!
But was that magic? Did those abilities really give any control over anything? He thought that magic was used to influence things, like levitating objects or mysteriously making things disappear. He’d related wishes with magic too, like wishing for and receiving wealth, other material objects, fame or power. Or was magic more subtle than that? Were apparent coincidences actually magic at work?
I think too much.
Before going to bed, Tom rang and said that Tommy was getting anxious and wanted to talk to their dad already. Nick stressed that he would come over in a couple of days, and that it was important that they tackle telling their dad in the right manner. Tom said he’d persuade his twin brother to calm down and wait.
He slept easy, again.
Chapter 22
Juliet stared at the elderly woman in front of her. Her grandmother look-alike had a warm smile on her face.
‘Juliet,’ the old lady said, wistfully. Then she stepped forward to embrace her granddaughter, but Juliet took a sharp step back.
The air around the woman wasn’t twitching. It looked normal. Juliet cautiously extended her right arm and touched the lady’s shoulder. She was solid.
‘You’re not dead.’ she confirmed out loud.
‘Dead? Sweetheart, why would you think I was dead?’ The aged version of her grandmother asked. Even as the woman spoke, Juliet nostalgically recognised her voice.
‘You died when I was thirteen.’
With a bewildered expression, Juliet’s gran said, ‘Is that what your mother told you? That I was dead?’ Juliet nodded as a reply. Her grandmother continued, ‘I knew my daughter could be spiteful, but I never expected she would tell such a lie.’
‘It really is you, Gran. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sweetheart.’
The way that her grandmother said ‘sweetheart’ was gentle and authentic. Juliet heard her mother’s voice in her head and noticed the stark contrast between the mechanical, false manner in which her mother spoke to her, and how genuine her gran sounded.
‘I don’t understand.’ Juliet started. But then she did understand. The sudden realisation hauled along with itself a mountain of anger.
Why? Why would my mum do that?
‘Where have you been for the past twelve years?’ she asked.
‘May I come inside please, Juliet? I’m letting the cold into your home.’
Juliet stepped aside. Her grandmother walked slowly and prudently in her age. She paused to admire the house.
‘It looks so different to how I remember it,’ she said expressively, ‘Although, I can still see you stood right there, Juliet.’ her gran pointed at a spot in the hallway. ‘It’s a funny memory; you ran up to me and asked if my hair was really a wig. Oh, I had to laugh!’ and she laughed again now, a genial hoot, ‘Your father always told you little fibs about me. Do you remember?’
It took a moment, but Juliet recalled the memory and how awkward she felt at her gran’s reaction, ‘I remember, yes.’
Her gran laughed some more, ‘And now years later I still have my hair. It may be grey, but at least it’s mine.’
‘You look wonderful, G
ran. But, I, I need to know why you haven’t come to see me for all these years.’
‘Of course, I know. I would love to sit down. Do you have tea? I can make it myself.’
Juliet nodded towards the kitchen, ‘I’ll make it. How do you have it?’
Her grandmother said how she liked her tea while they walked into the large kitchen. Juliet motioned a hand towards the dining table. Her gran sat down.
While the tea brewed, so did Juliet’s mind.
Why did Mum lie to me? In her thoughts, she stirred the moment when she told her mother about the car incident. The way her mum showed so little concern; she might as well have been talking about the weather.
Juliet startled herself; she accidentally slammed the drawer shut when she got a teaspoon out. Her body was tense with anger.
‘Are you okay, sweetheart?’ her gran asked.
‘I will be in a minute.’
With a deep breath, she finished preparing the tea. She realised that she didn’t know her gran’s name. It had always been ‘Gran’ to her when she was younger. After her grandmother ‘died’, she never asked her parents questions about her, or if she did, she didn’t remember.
‘What’s your name, Gran?’
‘I go by Lillian Kitchener now.’
‘Kitchener? That’s not my mother’s maiden name.’
Lillian smiled in an almost sad way, ‘No, it’s not. I’ll explain.’
Juliet passed over the cup of tea and offered to hang up her gran’s coat. Lillian took off her grey gloves, put them in her coat pocket, then removed her scarf and coat and passed them both to Juliet.
After hanging up the coat and scarf near the front door, Juliet returned to sit down. She sat with a straight spine and waited.
‘I’ve been living in England.’ Lillian began, ‘In fact, I’ve always lived in England, in Bath. I used to visit here to stay with your parents, and so that I could see you.’
Juliet remembered now that her gran never lived on Lansin Island. She recalled the excitement each time she knew her gran was coming to stay, and then there was the sudden news that her grandmother wasn’t going to be visiting again. She clenched her teeth, resenting how heartless her mum was to tell a thirteen year old that their gran was dead when she wasn’t.
‘You were about eight, I believe, when your parents won the lottery.’ Lillian continued, ‘You must recall moving into this house, and suddenly going on more holidays and having everything you wanted bought for you.’
She did remember. Memories of the house she used to live in were faint. It was a small townhouse in Amiton, and that was all she cared to remember. But she had strong images of the first time she ever saw the house she lived in now. The size of it was like nothing she’d ever dreamed of at that age.
‘How did you know that Mum and Dad weren’t still living here now?’
‘I didn’t. Not until today. I just wanted to see you. If you’re mother or father would have answered the door… then I wouldn’t have left until I got to see you.’ Lillian nodded as if to affirm to herself that she really would have stood her ground to see her granddaughter.
She went on, ‘I came here this morning but no one was home. I knocked at the house across the road. The gentlemen there told me that you lived here alone and that you owned the Chanton Hillview café. He reckoned you’d be working today. So I headed over. It was closed but I knocked away on the door, and a lovely black man came to talk to me. He told me you weren’t working today, so I resolved to come back here this evening. I’ve been on quite the adventure!’
Not compared to the one I’ve been on. Juliet had brushed aside that she’d been held at knife-point, her mind had been invaded and taken control of, she’d dodged shotgun fire, and she was thrown a few metres by an exploding portal and then witnessed a murder so far today. For now, it was easier to ignore it all, with this new discovery that her gran wasn’t actually dead.
‘Why wouldn’t my mum or dad let you see me?’
‘Your mother and I had a disagreement. It was her decision that I couldn’t see you anymore.’ Lillian answered.
‘What did you disagree over? And why would you listen to her? You could have disobeyed her and let me know that you were alive.’ Juliet’s voice steadily raised.
‘I didn’t know that she told you I was dead. I thought that maybe you would seek me out when you were older.’ she began to cry, softly. She sniffed and shook her head guiltily.
‘No, don’t cry, Gran. I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you. I’ll get you a tissue, one moment.’ Juliet found her handbag and passed her gran an open packet of tissues.
‘Thank you. It’s not your fault that I’m upset, sweetheart. I do blame myself for not coming to see you.’ Lillian’s voice faltered occasionally through her sniffling, but it grew in strength as she went on, ‘It was my pride that stopped me.’
‘I still don’t know what you two argued about.’
‘I should give you some understanding first. Your mother was a single child and she was always a daddy’s girl. My relationship with her was never stable. When your grandfather died a few years before you were born, your mother and I struggled to get on. When she had you, we started to get along again, for a while.’
Juliet listened attentively. It was interesting. She’d always taken her mother’s lack of talk about Lillian to mean nothing. She’d never thought it was because of long-lasting relationship problems.
‘We had a few arguments when you were very little.’ Lillian shook her head, ‘Your mother thought I was interfering, trying to tell her how to bring you up, but these were never significant arguments. It was when your parents won the lottery that it became worse. I couldn’t stand the way they treated you, sweetheart. Everything became about money. They spoilt you, but that wasn’t the problem. What I didn’t agree with was that when all you needed was a hug, a kiss, or a bit of attention, they didn’t know how to give that to you. They would buy you a needless gift and ignore your emotional needs.’
Under the table, Juliet’s hands were shaking and her body joined in. It was the truth of what her gran said that shook her. She’s never cared. Never. Her body felt warm, almost sweaty. She realised that she was still in her silk dressing gown.
‘I’m going to change into something else, one moment.’ she left the table before her gran could respond. She hurried upstairs and closed herself away in her bedroom.
I don’t want to cry.
The thought of her parent’s money in her bank account annoyed her. She didn’t want the five thousand that they forced on her so that she could ‘treat herself’ after the car incident. She decided to give it charity. But… the house she lived in was given to her by her parents. They bought her the Chanton Hillview. They’ve always thrown money at her.
She couldn’t give it all away. She closed her eyes hard, not wanting to look at the wealth around her. It was nothing compared to what she truly wanted. How could she talk to her parents now? How could she ever feel close to them after this? The thought of their lies made her blood run.
Then she wondered if her gran even told the truth or not. Her instincts told her that Lillian was being honest. It seemed that Lillian knew how to feel love and how to show her emotions. Juliet bitterly wished that Lillian had passed those traits down to her daughter, Mrs Maystone.
How much time had passed since Juliet came upstairs? She’d left her gran downstairs waiting: simply got up and left midway through her gran’s explanation of the past. She shook her head at how rudely she’d treated Lillian.
She slipped off the mocha silk dressing gown and tossed it onto her bed. Hunting for anything comfortable yet presentable, she settled on silver skinny jeans and black socks, and then threw on a plain black tee-shirt.
‘Oh, Juliet. Look how tall and beautiful you are.’ Lillian was sat exactly where Juliet had left her. ‘Your home is wonderful. You have your own café. You are doing so well for yourself. You were always perfect to me, and I knew you’d stay t
hat way.’
Juliet accepted the compliments, uncomfortably, and tried a considerate smile.
‘Will you tell me the rest of what happened please?’
‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Lillian held her mug in wrinkled hands, showing that she enjoyed the warmth of it. ‘Ah yes, so I confronted your mother about the way they ignored your needs. I was rather opinionated at the time and said that they didn’t deserve to raise you. You deserved loving parents.’ she gave a significant nod.
Juliet wasn’t sure how to feel.
‘It escalated into the most dreadful row. It makes more sense now that your mother told you I was dead. I remember vividly my daughter screaming at me, “You’re dead to me, get out of my house!” She said she never wanted to see me again and that I should never come anywhere near you.’
‘And you just left?’
‘I did.’
‘But, for twelve years?’ Juliet asked incredulously.
With a doleful nod, Lillian said, ‘I started a new life. I remarried to a man named Miles Kitchener. He died from a stroke three months ago. We were coming up to nine years of marriage.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Juliet chided herself for the way she judged her gran for not returning. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have your own daughter disown you and cut you off from the only family that you know. She realised that she couldn’t blame Lillian for starting a new life.
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ Lillian had a distant look in her eyes. They weren’t teary, but Juliet got the impression that they were braving through the tears. She must have grieved a lot the past few months. ‘When Miles died, I knew instantly that all I wanted was to see you again. I waited until now because I wasn’t in my right mind. But before it’s my time, all I want is to know you.’
What do I say back to that?
It was impossible for Juliet to be annoyed at her gran. Her gut emotions wanted to empathise with her completely.
‘I haven’t eaten yet. Would you like to stay for dinner?’ the words spilt out of Juliet’s mouth. They felt right.
The most complete smile came over Lillian’s face, and she stood up. She came around the table to Juliet with her arms held out.
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