Misty Falls
Page 27
Stay, urged Alex.
Roger won’t want me around.
I want you at my side.
Miriam stopped a little way from Alex. ‘I … ’ she cleared her throat. ‘Oh Alex, there’s so much to say, to explain. I know you must hate me but I truly thought I was doing the only thing I could to keep us all safe.’ She used her wrist to dry her eyes. ‘I’m a pathetic mother—I couldn’t stretch my gift far enough. Maybe I should’ve stayed with you—but then he would’ve got to Roger and Jason. And if I had taken you with us, then Roger would’ve never understood. I didn’t want Roger to make the same mistakes, turn into the cruel man that his father had become. And what would that have done to you?’
Alex let her speak, neither forgiving nor condemning.
‘So … so I took the idea from the story of Moses in the bullrushes, letting someone else care for you so you could grow up and be the man you should be. Did I do the right thing?’ She shook her head, annoyed with herself. ‘No, that’s stupid. There wasn’t a right thing—only two wrongs to choose between. Do you forgive me?’ She held out her hands in a beseeching gesture.
On the surface calm, Alex was experiencing an emotional blizzard inside. He turned to me. What do I say?
Say what’s in your heart.
OK, then. ‘I think I understand, Miriam. You had an impossible choice. You didn’t spare yourself pain, did you? You could’ve kept me and let others suffer. I guess that took courage so, yes, if it matters to you, I forgive you.’ Alex looked across to his father, wondering—hoping—that a similar appeal was forthcoming. Roger glanced away. I could feel the sadness well inside Alex.
You have me and Jason and now your mother, I told him. Try to make that enough.
Miriam noted her husband’s stiff-backed stance, her expression reflecting her disappointment. ‘I don’t ask for you to think of me as your mother but I’d like for us to build something between us.’
I could feel a truth within Alex that he couldn’t express himself—it was buried too deep. ‘But, Mrs du Plessis, Alex needs you to be a mother as much as you need him to be a son.’
‘Misty …’ Alex began to disagree.
‘No, it’s there in you; it’s the truth.’
He closed his mouth—possibly another first for Alex, to be rendered speechless by someone else.
‘Then I’d like that,’ Miriam sniffed, ‘I’d like to begin again.’
‘OK.’ Alex’s face broke into one of his gorgeous smiles. ‘Mom.’
Christmas at our house was always a fantastic mess of family, presents, and food. I had warned Alex to be prepared for an attack on his senses: amazing decorations made by Hazel and Willow, helped along by my sisters, Gale, Felicity, and Peace; the shrieks of Brand, Tempest, and Sunny in the little boys’ bedroom, ankle-deep with Lego and animal toys; Dad’s superb cooking making taste buds zing; the smells of the fir tree in the living room and roast goose in the kitchen. Alex and I had vetoed turkey after Thanksgiving.
‘You forgot the sense of touch,’ Alex told me, an appreciative little smile curving his mouth. He ran his fingers down my neck to play with the necklace he had given me on our one-month anniversary—two interlocking hearts. I hadn’t yet opened my one for Christmas but it was small and ring box-shaped. I was guessing it would match.
I shivered, feeling his caress all the way to my toes. ‘I think we’ve got that sense covered.’
‘We certainly do.’
Our kiss in the conservatory was broken up by a loud cough from Sky and a laugh from Zed.
‘Hey, Misty, do you want us to go?’ she asked, eyes sparkling with mischief. Zed and Sky were spending Christmas with her parents in Richmond so we were all sharing lunch together.
Uriel and Tarryn appeared behind them, carrying a huge stack of presents.
‘She can’t reply,’ said Tarryn, ‘because the truth would be rude.’
Alex hid my blush against his chest. ‘Remind me why I wished for more family?’
‘Because you love us,’ said Crystal, emerging with a plate of mince pies from the kitchen.
Xav followed with a tray of steaming spiced apple juice. ‘When you’re not wishing to strangle us,’ he concluded. ‘Misty, have a drink, then you can blame your red cheeks on the fruit punch.’
We helped ourselves to the glasses sitting in little filigree metal holders, a present from Alex’s family in Oregon. There weren’t enough chairs for us all in the conservatory so we had to double up, girls on boys’ knees, though Crystal did try arguing with Xav that he should sit on her. He won. The living room was given over to the children disembowelling their gifts. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Pest batting Brand over the head with an inflatable Rudolf and Brand lion-roaring back, but as the encounter appeared to agree with both of them, I decided not to intervene. Sunny’s hair was looking suspiciously short at the sides. The younger girls had their heads together plotting something but I wasn’t sure what. As Felicity and Peace were showing a gift for getting into mischief (after all, I had set them a very good example in that department), I anticipated the afternoon would turn interesting at about five o’clock when their plans matured. Gale had an anticipatory smile as she sat back and let them plot. Mum, Dad, Auntie Opal, and Uncle Milo were oblivious to the trouble ahead, singing away to Christmas carols in the kitchen as their team prepared the feast.
Just as well I’d organized for Alex and I to meet up with Summer and Angel about then to go for a walk along the Thames. It was one of our traditions ever since we found out that Angel could do really cool things to the river water—a little fountain show to round off the festivities. It also got Summer out of her less-than-happy home.
‘I have to thank you,’ Tarryn said, tapping my knee to gain my attention.
‘Me? What for?’
‘For teaching me that my gift could be used to save lives, not just predict their end. Uri and I have realized that together we can bring some soulfinders back from the brink. On some rare occasions, if they haven’t completely passed on, we can lay a trail home.’ She grimaced. ‘We can also combine our gifts to see how someone died, which is very useful to Uri and Victor in their work—not that I’m so thrilled about that part of my gift.’
‘You will be when you get justice for those who’ve been the victim of crime,’ said Uriel gently.
‘And you might stop the wrong person being convicted. Think what that would mean to someone’s life,’ added Zed.
Tarryn shrugged in surrender. ‘See, there’s more to my gift, as you predicted. Thank you, Misty, for starting me down this track.’
‘Just a shame you had to die to do it.’ Xav winked at me.
Alex opened his mouth to tell Xav he didn’t find that crack very funny, but I put my finger against his lips.
‘I’m not intending to repeat the experiment, but I’m glad it worked out well for you both,’ I told Tarryn and Uriel.
Sky giggled. ‘That’s so sweet.’
‘What’s sweet?’
‘The way you get Alex to shut up. When I first met him, I thought no one would dare stop him as every word he speaks is so …’ she wriggled on Zed’s lap, ‘mesmerizing.’
‘Watch it,’ growled Zed, ‘or I’ll have to have words of my own with him outside.’
‘Power down those macho boosters, bro,’ broke in Xav. ‘Haven’t you noticed that when he’s with Misty—which is nearly all the time as far as I can make out—he is as foot-in-the-mouth as the rest of us.’
‘Unless they get their gifts together, combining truth and persuasion, then we are all doomed to do what they say,’ added Sky.
Alex laced his fingers with mine. So we are an unstoppable combination?
Too right, partner.
You make me humble; I make you … ?
Happy.
Good one. I make you happy. And together we can rule the world. The last was said with a cheeky smile as it wasn’t quite a lie.
Just as well I have no ambition to rule.
Aw, spoilsport. Alex pushed me up from his knee. ‘Talking about facing your doom, I believe you owe me a game.’ He gestured to our family ping-pong table set up on the veranda undercover.
‘Cool!’ Sky jumped up. ‘I’ll play!’
‘I’ll take you on next,’ I promised, ‘but Alex and I have something of a grudge match to settle. I thrashed him in Cape Town and he’s been waiting to get his revenge.’
‘Thrashed? Hah, hardly,’ Alex scoffed.
‘Grudge match?’ Xav rubbed his hands. ‘Nice.’
‘I’ll umpire,’ offered Crystal.
‘I’m keeping well out of it,’ said Tarryn swiftly. ‘Uri, if you value your life, stay put.’
‘Prepare to have your excellent butt well and truly kicked!’ I warned Alex, tying back my hair, readying for table-tennis battle.
‘You’re on.’ He picked up the bat and ball resting on the table at the far end, rolling his shoulders to loosen up. Oh my, it was hard to concentrate: he looked so gorgeous—and he was all mine.
The first serve whistled by me.
‘Oh, weren’t you ready?’ he asked with that smile that told me he knew exactly what I was thinking.
‘I am now,’ I replied, getting serious.
‘Don’t get mad, get even,’ counselled Zed.
‘I’m on it. Stand back everyone: this is about to get bloody.’
And the result of the match?
In the end, it didn’t matter as the prize to the victor was a kiss.
Win or lose: we both won.
Joss Stirling lives in Oxford and has always been facinated by the idea that life is more than what we see on the surface.
You can visit her website at www.josstirling.com.
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Copyright © Joss Stirling 2014
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First published in this eBook edition 2014
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ISBN: 978-0-19-273736-6
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Cover artwork by Johanna Basford. Photograph by rvika/Shutterstock.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
About the Author
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