by D B Nielsen
‘I hope you are referring to the Global Financial Crisis, Sage.’ His brows drew together in a powerful frown. ‘Speaking of which, and just what are you doing with Gabriel at that bank he manages, Safie?’
‘Programming.’ I watched my sister attempt to evade the inquisition by keeping her responses brief. To the point. And, thankfully, honest. Well, mostly.
‘Programming?’ my father asked incredulously.
Fi squirmed beneath our father’s stern gaze. ‘Yeah. Coding. Stuff like that.’
‘There’s a stolen artefact in my library, Safie! Stolen! Interpol is involved. New Scotland Yard is involved. They came into our home to question us – they came into this very room where there’s now a stolen artefact displayed upon my shelves – but, according to you girls, it’s not stolen at all but sentient – part of some contract with – and this is where it truly becomes farfetched – with God, no less – and you didn’t think any of this was worth mentioning before you both recklessly began–’ He would have continued to rant if our mother hadn’t placed a restraining hand on his arm. Instead, he made a disgusted sound.
I understood his anger and fear and confusion. Too well.
The enormity of what it meant to love – whether a Nephilim or a child – struck home as I watched my father struggle. It wasn’t that love had to be given of one’s own free will and unconditionally. It was that it was possible to love but still doubt. It was the lack of trust. It was the secrets.
Like St. John, Fi and I had been accumulating secrets – large ones like our role as the Wise Ones, small ones like the angelic blessing over the Manor House. Whilst I struggled with St. John’s twisted history and the many layers of secrets and deceptions – some he wasn’t even aware of keeping from me because his entire existence had been filled with covert and dangerous activities – knowing that there would never be enough time to know them all or understand them fully, our father’s dilemma was similar. He had to decide which secrets were worth knowing and whether he truly wanted to take on the burden of knowing. But first he had to accept what was unbelievable, implausible, incredible. First, he had to trust.
Yet, looking at my mother now as she poured the tea, I wondered how she had managed to remain so calm and in control. She caught my eye as she passed me a teacup and smiled. Instantly the familiarity of the gesture and the aroma of bergamot and lemon brought comfort. I accepted the tea gratefully and, calmed by its steaming scent and warmth, tucked my feet up on the sofa and waited.
I did not have to wait long for an explanation.
‘It’s refreshing to find that I can still surprise my teenage daughters but, you see, I’ve always known,’ my mother said.
Tea sloshed over the side of the cup and onto the saucer as I jolted upright with a squeak.
‘What?’ Fi demanded, equally stunned.
‘Oh, not about angels and demons and the like,’ Mum dismissed with an airy wave of her hand, laughing at our expressions as she settled onto the sofa next to Fi. ‘No, what I’m saying is that I’ve always known that you girls were special. Of course, every parent likes to believe that their children are talented and beautiful and all the rest – but, in this case, I knew.’
‘Oh, Mum!’ I sighed with a small smile and a shake of my head. ‘You know there’s nothing wrong with being ordinary! I bet Dad would prefer us to be more ordinary!’
‘Oh, there are a lot of things your dad would prefer – starting with our ensuite not always smelling of paint and turps, or me coming to bed at three a.m. in my overalls.’ She looked at us thoughtfully. ‘He just has some adjusting to do.’
‘I’d hate to be ordinary!’ Fi muttered, reaching for a slice of carrot cake.
‘You’re anything but ordinary, Safie, but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to leave a pile of dirty, bloody clothes on the carpet for your mum to clean. I’m not your slave,’ Mum teased. Fi would have protested more vocally if she didn’t have a mouth full of carrot cake. Instead, ignoring my twin’s lack of manners, our mother continued, ‘But, as I was saying, I knew you two were special from before you were even born. I could feel it. A mother knows. Don’t scoff. It’s true.’
‘But Dad’s reaction is normal. It’s what I’d expect. Fi and I are really not that special – at least, we weren’t right up until six months ago,’ I reasoned. I couldn’t believe she was so calm. Too calm. I wondered now if she had always blurred the boundary between life and art.
‘I wondered what made you girls different, what it was you had,’ Mum murmured, looking fixedly at her teacup.
‘Sick fashion sense and a super cool mum,’ teased Fi with a nervous smile. ‘Well, at least, one of us has.’
‘Fi,’ I shushed her in the mildest scolding tone.
But that was when our mother began to cry; she couldn’t help herself. It was like the dam had broken, the floodgates open, and she didn’t even know why she was doing it.
Immediately, I grabbed the teacup from her trembling hands and Fi and I both held her and patted her hair and stroked her neck and back while she howled. I wasn’t at all sure if she was even aware of us still in the room, of our cool arms locked around her firmly and our words of love and encouragement.
It was like a trap. I had been half expecting this, and now that the moment had fallen upon us, I didn’t know what to do or say – nothing more than reaching for the box of tissues and waiting to offer her a fresh cup of soothing tea. Her usual panacea for such emotional ills.
But nothing much happened.
In the end, it was a whimper. Out of a sense of dismay or defeat, she stopped blubbing.
‘I’m a shit mother, you know that?’ she confessed on a dejected sigh.
Shocked – both at the profanity and at her own perspective – I protested along with my sister, ‘No way! You’re a brilliant mother! We couldn’t have had better!’
‘That’s wearing it rather thin, girls.’ She looked at us with red, swollen eyes. ‘You don’t understand. And you won’t until you’re a mother. I’m meant to protect you. You’re my children. Haven’t done much of a job of it, have I?’ Mum appealed, her voice anguished.
‘You have,’ I argued, grasping her hand tightly. ‘You have, you know? If it weren’t for both you and Dad we wouldn’t have been able to take this on. The Wise Ones. Everything. You both prepared us for ... well, life really. Look at us – really look at us – we’re the best of both you and Dad–’
‘And there’s the worst bits too,’ said Fi, making Mum break into a sobbing laugh. Then, as if aware of her gaffe as I flicked her a reproachful look, she continued, ‘I mean that you’re creative and resourceful and bold and stubborn and–’ Fi looked at me for help.
‘–and fighters – you fight for what you believe in, what’s important to you, what’s right,’ I added, giving my mother’s hand a squeeze. ‘Where do you think we get it from?’
‘And you taught us everything we know – all those birthday challenges, decoding, tracking down clues, solving puzzles ...’ Fi said, continuing to stroke her back.
Mum was looking at us intently. There was a kind of wonder in her amber coloured eyes.
‘You did protect us. Maybe it was an unorthodox upbringing. Maybe it’s hard for you to understand. But you raised us for this and gave us the best tools to see it through,’ I explained.
‘So I wasn’t a complete failure ...’ she said softly.
‘Not a failure at all,’ I assured her, handing her the tissue box again.
‘Nah, nowhere near a failure,’ Fi told her in a deliberately casual voice. ‘Besides, if you’ve fucked up with us, you still have time to do better with Jasmine and Alex.’
‘Safie! Watch your language!’ Mum looked at her sharply. And just like that I knew that everything was going to be all right.
ETERNITY WAS IN OUR LIPS AND EYES
CHAPTER TWENTYONE
Eighteen.
The digital numbers on the bedside clock had ticked over to seven minutes past six in t
he evening and I was finally deemed an adult. Fi would be following me in exactly twenty-eight minutes.
Eighteen. And an adult. Legally an adult. At least in the eyes of society.
I wondered who had come up with that idea – who had decided that at eighteen, you were old enough to drink alcohol. To vote. To be sent away to fight in a war and to kill and to die for your king or country or ideology.
Eighteen and I still didn’t have my UK driver’s licence. But I had fought in a war – or, at least, a battle. I had killed a person. Two ... no, three people if you counted the baby. Technically more, if I thought about the attacking enemy Fravashi.
I tried not to think about technicalities.
Eighteen and I still held onto my virginity. But I was engaged to be married to the man I loved. I was prepared to kill my own beloved fiancé, my soulmate, in the name of love, but could not commit to the act of intimacy that would seal that love. A conundrum.
Eighteen ... and yet I felt as old as Methuselah. Older.
But wiser? Well, there was only one way to test that theory.
Determinedly setting out to find my twin sister, I finally tracked her down in the twilit garden, polishing her prized Ducati till it gleamed like dwindling sunlight falling on a still sea.
‘I need your help,’ I stated bluntly.
She had heard my approach and wasn’t startled to see me, taking her time to look up from her focused task. Still clutching the rag cloth in her left hand, her hazel coloured eyes narrowed upon my face assessingly. Seemingly satisfied with what she read there, her only response as she dropped the rag cloth back into the bucket and wiped down her palms on her dirty jeans, was to mutter, ‘Well, it’s about bloody time.’
Indy trailed behind us as we made our way back into the house, having given up on chasing down the last of the jays beating its wings against the dusky air as it flew homewards. Suddenly, I felt nervous – but with sparking excitement and not fear.
Within moments, I found myself sitting before Fi’s vanity; its mirror plastered with old post-it notes and photos – as if she hadn’t time to clean out her past life to make way for the new or, perhaps, like me, she couldn’t quite let go – the tubes of lip gloss, pots of blush and powder spilling over her vanity table in artistic, colourful disarray.
‘I suppose you’re skipping tonight’s birthday celebrations,’ she said, sweeping the hair back off my face.
It was a statement, not a question. She knew my intentions. She had seen the purpose written on my face. It was the reason why I was letting her preen and pluck and powder me.
I hadn’t forgotten about the celebration dinner; I just chose to celebrate my eighteenth birthday in my own way. It was, as Eliot claimed, “better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing; at least, we exist.” At eighteen, if I could kill, then I could love.
Fi went immediately to work on me like a blank canvas. Seizing an eyeliner pen and wielding it like a dualist – she was getting quite expert at that too – she said, ‘Hold still. Open your eyes wide.’
I sat quietly still, doing as she asked, until I was preened and plucked and powdered to satisfy Fi’s exacting fashionista standards. Next, she retrieved the formal gown hanging in the back of my wardrobe, still virginal in its designer clothes bag – out of sight and out of mind till this moment – the perfect dress. The dress I had chosen to wear at my school formal which I had never got to wear. It was a fantasy of flowing champagne coloured silk, the sweetheart neckline and waistline of the bodice detailed in Belgian black lace. Strapless. Draping to the floor in a shimmering waterfall like the ball gowns worn by those Hollywood goddesses on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.
Finally, after being assisted me into my dress and teetering in Louboutin stilettos – like taking a page out of Cinderella’s fairy tale with its crystal embellished sheer beige mesh and glittering silver-toned heel – I looked in the mirror, shaking my head in amazement at the profound transformation. Remembering what St. John had said aeons ago when I had worn the designer dress from Chloé, I reasoned – hoped – that tonight he might give into that temptation.
‘Sage, you look amazing.’ Fi’s compliment increased my confidence tenfold; her obvious admiration fortified my resolve and I was ready for battle – but this time with my very own guardian angel.
Coaxing a soft curl back into place and with a last glance in the mirror, I turned to leave.
‘Wish me luck.’
She did – the briefest of contacts as she slipped her slim fingers into mine and squeezed. Then, on a wistful note, ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me borrow that dress some time?’
Despite not being able to thank my sister enough for all her help, I responded by shooting her a look over my shoulder as I swept majestically out of the bedroom.
Her voice breezed after me on a cynical laugh. ‘Yep. Didn’t think so.’
Collecting my wrap and evening bag as I walked past my bedroom, I made my slow way downstairs, reluctant to explain to my parents that I wouldn’t be present at the eighteenth birthday celebrations they’d planned for Fi and me. Six months ago, I would never have asserted myself in such a manner – though sulky, unwilling, angry, miserable, and angst-ridden, I had still fallen in with the family’s move to London and applied to various top UK universities rather than follow my own desire to remain in Sydney and attend university there. I was no longer angry with them for dragging me way from such simple dreams – after all, I’d found my true purpose in life and, more importantly, I’d found St. John – but it was because of this fateful move that I now felt like the anonymous narrator in Rebecca when her husband, Maxim, claims: “I can't forget what it has done to you. I was looking at you, thinking of nothing else all through lunch. It's gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. It won't come back again. I killed that too, when I told you about Rebecca. It's gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older ...”
Yes, I was eighteen. But I felt so much older.
Delicious smells assailed my nostrils as I walked into the kitchen, making my mouth water. For a moment, I regretted what I intended doing – but only for a moment. Mum was humming softly to some inaudible tune playing in her head as she removed a tray of battered zucchini flowers from the oven.
‘Sage!’ she exclaimed in surprise, almost dropping the tray at my sudden appearance. As she took in my sartorial splendour, she blinked. Twice.
‘You’re not staying for dinner.’ Again, it was a statement, not a question.
Abruptly, I was a child again. Abashed. Contrite. I stammered, ‘Mum, I’m so–’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to your father.’ Placing the hot tray on the kitchen countertop, she interrupted me with a serene smile and a wealth of experience and knowledge behind her amber coloured eyes. Surprised at my entrance, she might have been. Surprised at my desertion, not at all.
She didn’t have to ask me whether St. John was worth it. She didn’t bother to question my judgement. Instead, she continued calmly, ‘They say to follow your heart, but people don’t often do that. I’m proud of you.’
I started towards her, tears threatening to fall from my eyes. My selfless, intuitive, creative mother. She understood. She understood me.
‘Sage,’ she whispered, running her hand over my soft curls, careful not to disturb them.
Do not cry, I told myself fiercely. Blinking back the moisture from my eyes, I pulled away to look at her. A whole head above her small frame, she seemed petite but indomitable to me.
She touched my cheek. ‘You have a good heart, Sage. Trust your heart.’
Which was how I came to be outside St. John’s imposing freestanding St. John’s Wood terrace as the first stars twinkled dully above, the streetlamps flickering to life all over London. No longer considering himself my Nephilistic Keeper, St. John had been avoiding me. And I knew why. Ironic really, all things considered. Wasn’t I the one to run at the first hint of intimacy? Hadn’t I been afraid for far too
long?
My heart was thumping loud enough to burst through its fragile cage as I dismissed Gabriel’s chauffeur who had been at my disposal for this very reason. Gabriel’s keyring with its spare key to St. John’s front door dangled from my suddenly nerveless fingers as, looking up, I observed the warm glow from the first floor windows of my fiancé’s principal bedroom suite.
I moved quickly before I lost my resolve.
The rest of the house lay in darkness as I entered; the sound of the key turning in the lock and the mute movement of the front door as it swung open, displacing the still air, was deafening to my ears. The atmosphere was hushed and pensive but I had no doubts at all that St. John knew I was there.
The silken sweep of my dress whispered on the hardwood treads as I ascended the staircase to the first floor suite, which occupied the entirety of the floorplan. Stifling my sudden fear, I hesitated but a moment as the tip of my shoe met the spill of golden light, then continued upwards and onwards.
So attuned to St. John, I automatically honed in on his position as I crossed the threshold of his elegant bedroom; my senses alerting me to his presence by the window, even before I saw him standing there.
St. John stood with his back to me, hands thrust into the pockets of his customary black jeans; a silent effigy as if sculpted in stone by the hand of a master. His gaze was fixed in the distance beyond the window panes but unblinking, as if lost in reverie. He remained unmoving. Still. Silent. This afforded me time to settle into calm and take my fill of his sublime beauty. Dressed casually in faded black jeans and a thin cotton t-shirt, barefoot, his brass coloured, slightly overlong dishevelled curls a halo of spun gold under the warm lights in the bedroom, he was a feast for my ravenous eyes.
I walked towards him, barely daring to breathe, as if the entire world was holding its breath in the distilled twilight. Discarding my wrap and evening bag on an occasional chair, I approached him silently – the only sounds: my breath and the soft sigh of my silk gown – stopping less than an arm’s length behind him. The heat of his body emanated in response to my approach as if it knew what his mind refused to accept – that he was mine. But still, he did not turn around to face me.