by Mike Shevdon
I held him, being careful to support his neck which had a tendency to flop over to one side, and transferred him onto my shoulder, putting his mouth next to my ear, but making it easier to stroke his back and comfort him. I rocked from side to side and gradually the yelling subsided to a low-level grizzle.
Blackbird opened drawers and pulled towels from the rack, settling onto the bed. She held her hands out. "Pass him over."
"I've just calmed him down. Give him a moment.
"He's hungry, that's all. Pass him to me."
I gave in and lowered him into Blackbird's arms, whereupon he started crying again, just as I had predicted. Blackbird ignored the yelling and lifted her top, exposing a pale breast before lifting the baby's open mouth to a brown nipple. The crying was muffled for a moment and then subsided into a noisy suckling.
"See," she said. "Hungry."
I humphed and looked away. For some reason the sight of my son locked onto his mother's breast made me uncomfortable. Alex had been bottle fed as Katherine had problems with breastfeeding, not the least of which were several bouts of painful mastitis. Consequently I'd got used to seeing babies bottle fed, taking my turn as it came, but while the sight of my son gulping from Blackbird's swollen breasts was perfectly natural, I didn't feel that it was a spectator sport. Perhaps it was too many years of looking at women's breasts for entirely different reasons.
"Why don't you get some sleep," Blackbird suggested. "You look done in. I won't be long. As soon as he's finished his feed I'll put him back down — he should sleep for a couple of hours at least.
I took her advice, taking a brief shower while she fed the baby and then climbing into bed as she settled him back down. After a few minutes she climbed into bed beside me, sighing with exhaustion as her head hit the pillow.
"Hard work?" I asked.
"No, he's fine. Just a long day."
I rolled over onto my side, watching her stare at the ceiling. "I've been thinking about names," I told her.
"Not again, Niall. Not now," she protested, squeezing her eyes shut.
"A family name might be nice, do you think?"
"The Feyre don't name their babies until after the first halfyear. We've been over this a hundred times. He won't get his name for ages yet."
"It doesn't stop us choosing a name for him," I said.
"It's bad luck to name him early, and if you choose a name you'll start to use it, you know you will."
"I thought the Feyre didn't believe in luck."
"Tradition, then."
"Traditions can change? Neither of us is fully fey. Maybe he should have a name after three months, as a compromise."
"It's just not the way it's done Niall, you must try and understand."
"It seems a strange sort of tradition that won't give a child a name. Katherine had chosen Alex's name almost before she was born and it didn't do her any harm."
"Your son isn't Alex and I'm not Katherine, now turn the light off and go to sleep. He'll be awake in four hours and he'll want feeding again whether he has a name or not."
"It doesn't stop me thinking about it," I said.
"As long as you don't say it out loud." She deliberately made her voice sound more sleepy to discourage further conversation. I rolled onto my back and clicked the light off, staring up into the dark.
James was nice, and it could be shortened to Jim, though I didn't like Jimmy. Perhaps Paul — you couldn't really shorten Paul to anything.
With that thought, sleep claimed me.
The moonlight bled all the colour from the night. The grass looked grey as Alex hurried across the open space. When she reached the shelter of the oak tree she stopped, breathless, looking back where she'd come.
There were no lights on behind her, no alarms rang. She let the glamour concealing her fall away. Then she noticed the outlines of her footsteps were printed across the lawn where the dew had been disturbed. She stared at the prints, and one by one they smudged and vanished, leaving the grass pristine. She turned her back on the house.
Beyond the row of trees it was no longer lawn, but meadow. The grass would be longer but she'd leave less of a trail. Some cows had been allowed to graze the far field. She looked at her trainers and the bottoms of her sweat-pants which were already wet with dew. She frowned again and they were dry.
"Lovely night, isn't it?"
"Fuck!"
When Alex peered beneath the tree she could see a shadowy figure was leant against the tree trunk.
"Does your father know you use language like that, Miss?" Tate's voice was low and clear in the stillness of the summer night.
"You near enough frightened me to freaking death. What are you doing creeping around like that? You could give someone a heart attack."
"I'm not creeping. I've been here all the time. You, on the other hand…"
She placed her hands on her hips. "I couldn't sleep. I needed a walk." Alex's expression dared him to contradict her.
"A walk that required you to erase your footsteps?" said Tate, glancing back at the lawn.
She followed his gaze. "It looked so smooth. I didn't want to spoil it."
"What I can't figure out, Miss, is why you bother lying to me when you know I can hear the difference," said Tate.
She looked at her feet and then up at the shadowy outline under the tree. Even now she knew he was there he was still difficult to see. It was hard to tell where Tate stopped and the tree carried on. "Yeah, well. It's easier than telling the truth, ennit."
"Ennit?"
"Isn't it? Is it not?" She laughed in the dark. "I can't believe you're correcting my grammar."
"Where were you going?"
She looked across the moonlit meadow. "Out. This place is doing my head in."
"Were you planning to come back?" he asked.
"Sure, yeah. Got nowhere else to go, have I?" She looked at her feet again, and then up at the gnarly figure against the gnarly trunk. "Were you spying on me? Is that how you knew I was out here?"
"No."
She shook her head. "Now who's lying."
"You think anyone can walk in or out of the High Courts of the Feyre without someone knowing about it?"
"Did I trip the alarm?"
"Better than alarms," he said.
"You were following me."
"I was waiting for you."
"Are you gonna tell Dad?" she asked.
"Tell him what?"
"That I was sneaking out."
"I thought you were going for a walk?" he said.
She tried to make out his expression under the shadow of the tree, but it was impossible to read in the deeper shade near the trunk.
"Yeah, right," she said.
"Let's walk then." He separated from the trunk and walked out so that the moonlight slid across his shoulders. The bleached light made his long hair seem grey.
"How old are you?" she asked, moving out into the light alongside him. They began walking gently around the perimeter of the lawn.
"That's a very forward question, Miss."
"Don't ask, don't get. That's what Mum always says."
"Does she, indeed?"
"So how old are you?"
"Very." He said.
"How old's that?"
"What's the oldest thing you know?"
"What, like animals and stuff?"
"Anything."
"The Earth. That's the oldest thing, ennit? Isn't it?" she corrected herself. "Or the sun. That's older, I s'pose.
"I am younger than the sun," he said, "and the Earth."
"Well yeah, everyone is, aren't they."
"Not so old after all then." There was a low sound that might have been soft laughter.
"What about… that tree." She pointed to an oak with a huge canopy at the edge of the grass.
"I remember it as a seedling."
"Really?"
"Perhaps."
"What about my house? My mum's house, I mean."
"That is not even as old
as the tree. There was a time before the houses were built when all that estate was farmland, much as you see beyond." He nodded at the fields laid out under the moon. "Before that, not even farms."
"That's harder to imagine, somehow," she said. "It's like my house ought to be older."
"It's what you grew up with," said Tate.
"What did you grow up with?"
"Forests. The deep woods and silent streams that were there long before mankind forced itself on the landscape."
"How old are you, really?"
"I've stopped counting."
"Very convenient."
"Age does not mean so much to the Feyre. We do not age as humans do. Once you stop growing you will stop ageing too."
"At least I won't have to worry about wrinkles like Mum does."
They reached a fence and Tate held the gate open for Alex to walk through. They continued in silence for a while.
"I was going to see her."
"Who?"
"Mum. That's where I was going. Dad won't take me, so I thought I'd take myself."
"Ah, the truth. At last."
"You won't tell Dad?"
Tate was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Why do you think your father does not take you to see her?"
"Dunno, I think he's afraid of what she'll say when she finds out I'm not dead."
Tate said nothing, and they continued walking. By now the side of the house facing them was in shade and Alex kept glancing towards the house, wondering whether they were being watched from the darkened windows.
"She's not gonna believe it to start with, is she? I mean, it's like mental. Isn't it?"
"Yes," he said quietly, "It's like mental."
"Are you taking the mickey?"
"Sorry, Miss?"
"Never mind. So are you going to tell Dad?"
"What is there to tell? We went for a walk."
Alex glanced up at him. "Yeah, we did, didn't we. Do you play tennis?"
"No," said Tate.
"Fellstamp played with me. He kept trying to look up my skirt."
"The way Fellstamp told me, you kept bending over in front of him."
"I never!" She glanced back towards the house. "He cheats."
"So do you, apparently."
"Yeah, well. He started it."
"It does not make for good tennis if both of you cheat."
There was a pause.
"Anyway, the bats are broken."
"So I heard."
"Does he talk about me?" she asked.
"Who?"
"Fellstamp."
"Not especially. Why?"
"Nothing. I mean he obviously said something, you know, about the bats."
"He said he didn't think you'd be playing tennis again."
They rounded the end of the house and turned along the frontage. For the first time Alex could see Tate's face. The individual bristles on his chin caught the light so that it looked like it was frosted.
"I could fix the bats," volunteered Alex.
"Perhaps you should. They weren't yours to warp like that."
"I never warped them. They were twisted already," she protested.
Tate's eyebrow rose fractionally.
"He was cheating," she repeated, defensively.
Tate shook his head, slowly.
"He does look kinda cute in shorts, though, don't you think?" Alex grinned.
"I don't think I've ever noticed," said Tate.
Alex looked up, letting the moonlight fill her eyes. "All that working out with swords and stuff really defines the thigh muscles, you know what I mean?"
"I imagine you see him a little differently, Miss," said Tate.
"Why do you call me Miss, Tate? Only Mullbrook and the stewards call me Miss, and they have to because they work here, but you say it like you don't mean it."
"It pleases me to call you Miss, Miss." There was that low sound again, a soft huffing that might have been laughter.
"Yeah, well, seems to me like you're taking the piss, Miss," she said.
"Then what would you have me call you?"
"My name?"
"Very well, Miss Alexandra."
"Now you're teasing me. Why can't you call me Alex like everyone else does?"
"There is power in names," said Tate.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that how you are called in some ways defines you. Miss is a title, not a name. Once you would have been Mistress Alexandra."
"Makes me sound like a floozy, or a school-marm."
"It is an honorific, or it used to be."
"I quite like that. The Honourable Mistress Alexandra Dobson," Alex tested the title out for style, "accompanied by the honourable Mister Tate… do you have a family name, Tate?"
Tate smiled, "Not exactly, no."
"Any brothers or sisters?"
"No."
"I have a brother now," said Alex. "A half brother, really, I suppose. It's going to be strange, he'll always be younger than me."
"I expect so, Miss."
"There you go again."
"Sorry, Miss."
They reached the drive leading to the main entrance and Alex stopped. "I should go back to bed, I s'pose."
"It will be light soon," confirmed Tate.
"Thank you for the walk."
"You're welcome, Miss."
"You won't need to mention this to Dad, will you?"
"It'll be our secret, Mistress Alexandra."
She hesitated and then smiled. "G'night then."
"Goodnight, Miss."
Alex walked back towards the house and mounted the steps to reach the main door. It was locked, but that was only a moment's thought. As she pushed the door gently open, she looked back. The circle of the drive curved away from the house, rounding a stand of trees beyond the lawns and flower beds, all flooded with moonlight. There was no sign of Tate.
Her gaze lingered on the drive for a moment, and then she shook her head.
"G'night, Tate," she murmured, and slipped inside.
"You look better today," said Blackbird, the hat's rim lifting as she glanced sideways.
"I'll take that as a compliment," I said.
"That was a reckless thing you did yesterday."
"That's spoiled the compliment somewhat."
"You need to be more considered in your actions. If you keep blundering into things you're eventually going to meet something nasty."
"I've already met several things that were nasty. So far I've survived."
"Through sheer luck, but that luck won't hold forever."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence."
"That's the trouble, you're cautious when you should be bold and overconfident when you should be cautious."
"I'll try and do things backwards in future, is that today's lesson over with?"
"Close your eyes."
"Is this the lesson now or are you still berating me for letting Angela touch me?"
Blackbird looked sideways at me under the brim of her hat, and then forward again. "Close them," she instructed.
I did as I was bid and closed my eyes.
"What can you see?"
"Nothing, I've got my eyes closed."
"Really? You see absolutely nothing?"
"Well, not nothing, but nothing that makes any sense. Splodges of colour, sunlight I suppose, the light through my eyelids."
"You can make no sense of it, so you ignore it."
"What am supposed to do, make shapes out of it like you do with cloud formations?"
"What can you hear?"
"You." She waited while I listened again. "I can hear the birds singing, there are cows in the fields across the way there."
"What else?"
"A plane, maybe?" I lifted my face into the light to hear better. "Is that a plane or is it traffic from the road? I can hear noise from the kitchens now that you mention it, and if I listen very carefully I can hear the breeze."
"Anything else?"
"What else is there?" I asked.
"Your heart."
"My heart? I'm supposed to listen to my heart? What's it telling me?"
"It's not telling you anything, at least not in sound. It is pumping blood through your ears fifty or sixty times a minute. Each pump has a pulse, and if you were to listen to my chest you'd hear my heart pumping much the same," she said. "Say Dockweed."
"Dockweed, why?"
"Does it sound louder to you when I say it, or when you say it?"
"When I say it, because I can hear it inside me."
"Then why can't you hear your heart?"
"Sorry?"
"You are able to hear my heart, if you listen, and a word is louder when you say it then when I say it, but when I asked you what you could hear you did not hear your own heart. It is pumping blood through your veins, through your ears, and yet you do not hear it. Why not?"
"I suppose because I'm used to it."
"More than that."
"Because it's my heart?"
"Yes, and no."
"Why then?"
"Because, if you could hear your heart then you would hear nothing else. It's loud in your ears but your brain has learned to ignore it because it contains no useful information. Instead you can hear the bird in the woods or the tiger sneaking up on you, conditioning and survival has made it so."
"Evolution in action," I said.
"Not evolution, perhaps. Some say that in the womb we hear our heartbeat and that of our mother, and that only later do we learn to filter it out. Not evolution, but choice."
"What's this got to do with my lesson?"
"What can you feel?"
"I don't know — the seat we sit upon, the breeze on my back, the dampness of my shirt. Am I supposed to be feeling my breakfast digesting in my stomach?"
"So seldom do we truly listen, truly feel, that we forget that the world exists whether we perceive it or not. We hide our heads under the blankets like children and pretend there's nothing there."
"Are you saying that there really are monsters under the bed?"
"I'm saying that for reasons of comfort and the freedom from being overwhelmed by our sense of the world, we choose to ignore a great deal of it, but we forget that we have chosen and continue as if what we have chosen is all there is."
She let me think about that for a moment, and then continued, "I'm saying that you block your sense of the world, and that to perceive it better you will need to unblock your sense and see the world anew."