by D B Nielsen
‘Sage, are you all right?’ he asked concerned.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, but when I reached to take the crystal goblet from his outstretched hand my own trembled ever so slightly.
Noticing this, he said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
I felt suddenly awkward and gauche in front of him, no longer confident of being sexy, sophisticated and mature.
‘No, it’s my fault. I was lost in a world of my own.’
His expression looked grim. ‘Sage, about what was said earlier. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about–’
I cut St. John off mid-sentence, turning away from him to place the crystal goblet on the counter. ‘Please, let’s not talk about this now.’
‘When are we going to talk about it then?’ he asked with a touch of asperity.
‘Just not now,’ I pleaded, looking down at the tea towel in my hand that I was unconsciously wringing with considerable force displaying the depth of my anxiety.
St. John sighed, running a hand through his golden hair. ‘Fine, maybe now isn’t the time with your family waiting for us in the drawing room.’
I instantly felt relieved but, strangely, also deflated. My contrary nature was surprising to me. I didn’t normally act this way. I almost didn’t know myself any more.
But I said to him because his gesture demanded a response, ‘Thank you.’
He looked grimmer still, his mouth thinning into an angry line as he took the tea towel out of my hand and tossed it onto the sink, ushering me out of the kitchen. I felt guilty and anxious for refusing to listen to what he wanted to say and for being too chicken-hearted to discuss the topic which had been open like a raw wound festering since Anouk’s accidentally overheard slip in Paris.
After all, I had already told St. John that one day I wished to have children with him which implied an intimate relationship in the future. In fact, I couldn’t imagine a future without him. But the thought of discussing marriage not even two months since we’d first met would have seemed ridiculous to me before then and still seemed slightly scary to me now. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who was married early and had children by the age of twenty. Only two of my friends had long-term relationships but, even then, we’d all been so focused on completing our Finals, gaining entrance into university and attaining a career that I wondered how serious their relationships really were. And having careers were what girls did nowadays. As much as possible I wanted to have a normal life.
Even though my parents had met at university and married just after they graduated like some fairy tale romance, I had never planned that for myself. It was like what Juliet’s father had said about young girls “ripe to be a bride” that “too soon marred are those so early made” – I found myself agreeing with him. Or, at least, that was my excuse.
St. John remained silent, not even acknowledging my gratitude. He seemed deeply perturbed by my avoidance of his broaching the subject. I thought that we were finished with it, that it was all he was going to say upon the matter, but as we approached the drawing room, St. John murmured into my ear, out of hearing of my family, ‘Just remember, Sage, that you and I have unfinished business.’
I felt myself shiver in response to St. John’s promise or threat, then blush hotly as we walked into the drawing room, anticipating that Fi or the other members of my family would comment on our entrance and tease me in reference to the subject raised earlier. But I found that they were instead seated around Gabriel hanging on to his every word as he told them tales of the Crusades – which, somewhat ironically, I think they believed he must have read in a history book and that a love of history ran in St. John’s family – and I realised that this Nephilim had that rare ability to charm everyone he came in contact with. Sometime in his past, he must have kissed the Blarney Stone.
‘Sage, mon petit chou,’ Gabriel said as he noticed me lingering in the doorway next to St. John who was leaning, casually propped up by its frame, an expression of amusement on his face as he saw Gabriel enthralling my family with his magnetic personality. ‘Your sister wishes for me to place the angel at the top of the tree.’
It was tradition in my family just before the exchanging of gifts to place the last ornament at the tree’s pinnacle. Usually this was Dad’s role but it seemed that Jasmine had her heart set on Gabriel performing the honours and they were all waiting for me to be present at this moment. Feeling my mood lighten, I moved to the cabinet and found the box that housed our Christmas angel, passing it to Gabriel who reached for it, taking it from me almost reverently. Removing the ornament carefully from the box and slowly unwrapping the tissue paper that surrounded it, Gabriel revealed a beautifully crafted glass angel, its hands and wings extended to the heavens.
It was as if all of us gathered there together in the drawing room released our breath simultaneously.
Gabriel, with very little effort, demonstrated his lithe grace, precariously balancing on the ladder that Dad had brought in. He stretched to place the angel at the very top of the tree where it settled as if it had been waiting all year to return there. A collective sigh went round the room but, underneath it, ever so faintly, I heard a musical whispering and realised that St. John had given the Woods’ family a special, angelic blessing. And I wasn’t the only one who had picked up on this as both Fi and Jasmine, eyes wide and doubtful, showed their recognition of the Nephilim’s divine origins – only my parents and little Alex still remained unaware of Gabriel and St. John’s true nature.
As Gabriel removed his hand from the glass angel, it seemed to shimmer and reflect the light, sparkling as if it were alive, much like the Seed. Descending from the ladder without the usual need for caution as if he’d been scrambling up and down ladders all his life, Gabriel joined the family again to look upon his handiwork.
The angel graced the tree and our seasonal celebrations. It seemed an omen, a portent of good things to come. But I wondered if the Nephilim was also ensuring that, with the protection of the angel, the prediction I’d made in Paris might not come to pass. Perhaps it was one way of overseeing events in order to prevent a betrayal by the Woods’ family. I had no way of knowing whether the Nephilim felt that they could trust my family or not.
After the ladder was put away, we began the ritual of exchanging presents. Gabriel was surprised when I presented him with a beautifully wrapped rectangular object, but seemed genuinely touched when he unwrapped it to find the latest cookbook by Nigella Lawson, autographed by the celebrity chef herself which I had obtained by standing in the bitter cold outside Waterstone’s in Piccadilly for two hours. The rest of my family were equally pleased with their gifts, especially my Mum who loved her new earrings.
I was, in turn, amazed when St. John and Gabriel presented gifts to all my family too. Secretly, I thought it was quite sweet – especially when, as Nephilim, they had lived through centuries of Christmases before the time of Christ and probably wouldn’t put much store in such a tradition. But when Gabriel handed me a designer labelled bag from Chloé, I burst out laughing.
‘Bah, Sage,’ Gabriel murmured quietly to me, ‘I was forbidden to pay for your beautiful dress, so instead I have found something a little less lover-like that St. John would approve of.’
I removed the item from the bag and tore away the tissue paper to reveal a gorgeous Chloé handbag that was probably way too stylish for me. But it pleased me so much that Gabriel had thought of me that I jumped up to give him a hug. I turned then to thank St. John only to find that he forestalled me.
‘That’s from Gabriel, Sage. My gift to you will have to be given later. In private,’ he stated cryptically, his jade green eyes unfathomable.
I wondered what it could be, curiosity warring with nervousness, but replied in turn to St. John, ‘So will yours.’
He raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. And I was once again struck by his flawless beauty as he gave me an enigmatic smile which I returned. I felt like Jane Eyre then, an equal with Mr Rocheste
r, but the moment passed as my father interrupted us to thank St. John for the rare bottle of one hundred-year-old cognac he’d received, and I didn’t get an opportunity again that day to be alone with St. John.
Dusk was gathering by the time St. John and Gabriel left to return home. By this stage, Jasmine had fallen asleep on Gabriel’s lap and Mum had to remove her draped form from the young Frenchman before he could leave. After they said their goodbyes to my family, I walked them out with Dad to St. John’s car which was parked at the front circular driveway. Giving Gabriel kisses on his cheeks and again thanking him for his lovely gift, I turned to St. John who was in deep discussion with my father about some detail concerning the Akitu festival. I shivered slightly in the chill winter air; my sleeveless dress no protection from the elements. As ever, St. John was aware of my every movement, and quickly brought the discussion to a close, thanking my father for his hospitality before moving towards me.
If my Dad thought it unusual for his colleague to draw me into an embrace and kiss the tip of my nose before St. John jumped in his car to drive back to London, he didn’t say. Bemused, I allowed my father to take me by the arm and walk me back into the warmth of the Manor House as the Audi’s headlights disappeared in the distance.
‘That’s a very interesting young man,’ my father murmured. Whether he was speaking to me or simply to himself, I couldn’t tell. I merely nodded in agreement.
But when Dad opened the front door for me to precede him into the house, I caught sight of his expression and from the twinkle in his eye I could tell that my father knew just which way the wind was blowing. As he moved into the breakfast room, he simply gave my elbow a squeeze in acknowledgement and then went to embrace his wife, wrapping his arms around Mum as she stood at the kitchen counter dishing the leftovers into Tupperware containers. She laughed as he planted a kiss on the back of her neck. I left them there in the kitchen, not embarrassed at their loving display, but for the first time envying them their intimacy.
The next couple of days I saw nothing of either St. John or Gabriel and we’d slowly fallen back into our old routine as Jasmine and Alex whined that they were sick of eating leftovers and Mum tried to find innovative ways to make ham more palatable. Fi and I continued to go hiking in the woods, despite the steady fall of snow. I figured that if I was going to learn to navigate then, like learner drivers, it had better be in all conditions.
That was why I found myself being berated by an exhausted Fi as we stood in the middle of a wild copse of trees and ferns, hair damp and straggly as a result of the continuous snowfall, fingertips and lips turning blue.
‘We’re lost!’ Fi complained loudly, stamping her muddy, wet boots on the ground; snow and pebble crunching underfoot. ‘Again!’
She gave the snow a protesting kick with the tip of her boot for good measure.
‘No, we’re not lost ... exactly,’ I protested, rubbing my hands together, creating heat from the friction, and blowing on them to keep warm.
‘Then where are we ... exactly?’ Fi repeated rather snidely, throwing her arms wide and gesturing that we were surrounded by trees on all sides.
I looked at her disgruntled face as Indy pulled on the leash looped around my wrist for the umpteenth time, sticking his snout into another rabbit hole, and I had to keep a firm hold of the leash in my abstraction or he would have disappeared.
‘I don’t exactly know but if we just retrace–’ I broke off, distantly registering Fi’s scoff, as I looked back along the path we’d just taken.
Our footsteps were now buried beneath the powdering of snow. Fi was right. We were well and truly lost.
‘I don’t know how this happened,’ I grumbled, pulling out my compass, ‘I was following the trail.’
‘The trail is now several centimetres under layers of snow, Sage. What did you think you were following?’ Fi rolled her eyes at my obvious ineptitude.
‘I don’t know,’ I began shaking the compass in my hand, snow obscuring my vision. ‘This thing’s broken.’
‘Dammit, Sage! Give it to me!’ Fi removed the compass from my hand before I ended up breaking it myself with my violent shaking.
I was completely disoriented and found myself surrounded by stands of identical mossy oak and lichen searching for some sort of landmark, anything that might guide us home. The forest floor was covered by new-fallen snow, ferns and bracken, and smelled of damp soil and rotting wood. Teardrops of melted snow clung to the frosty branches like glass Christmas decorations reflecting what little light the forest held under its canopy of dark, tall trees.
‘Do you have any idea where we are?’ Fi asked impatiently as I circled around our little group, tugging on Indy’s leash.
‘No,’ I finally admitted to the shrill lone cries of a bird which could be heard in the distance mocking me, echoing through the forest’s desolation. I tried to suppress a shiver but failed as I suddenly realised how isolated we were and that this place gave me the creeps.
Looking into the forest ahead with its thicket of silver birch trees, their ghostly outlines curiously visible against the darkness of the woods and the illumination provided by the whiteness of the snow, I thought of the way they symbolised death and the sorrow of loss. Legend even had it that the black marks of the birch trees were caused by knife slashes because the trees refused to break under the force of the wind at the command of the Old Man of the Blackfoot Tribe, inciting his anger, so he took his hunting knife and defaced the tree’s beauty. None of this brought me any comfort at this moment, instead making me feel even more helpless as the myths each held death and violence.
As if I’d conjured up the horrors lurking in my thoughts, Fi stopped tapping at the compass to get it to work and jerked her head to the left, whispering, ‘Do you hear that?’
I was about to respond in the negative when I realised that the sounds of the forest had faded, now completely silenced and, even as the snow continued to fall, there was a strange, haunting emptiness in the woods. It was too quiet, too still, as if it had suddenly been abandoned by every living creature. And perhaps it had been – perhaps the eerie cry of the bird overhead was its warning to us as it fled the woods.
My heart began to pound in fear as the forest became a vacuum, a hollow space that was quickly filling with the chill and damp of the falling snow. The stillness and silence were disquieting and I turned to Fi for comfort.
But Fi was now bent double, crouched on the ground, her hands over her ears as if the forest was screaming at her a cacophony of noise. I didn’t know what was wrong with her as she continued to rock to and fro as if in pain, my only thought was to get her back home and call the paramedics. I bent down to lift her up but as I touched her she began to whimper and moan, frightening both Indy and me with her behaviour.
‘Make it stop. I can’t bear it,’ she groaned, her voice raw with terror. Rocking back and forth on her heels as she crouched low to the ground, she reminded me of a wounded animal.
‘Fi? What is it? What’s wrong?’ I begged, crouching in front of her and trying to pull her hands away from her ears, but she swatted me away in horror. ‘Fi, what do you mean? Make what stop?’
She whimpered, ‘The voices. Make them stop. I can’t bear it.’
Over and over again like a simple litany she pleaded with me to make it stop but I had no idea what she was talking about and I had no time to find out either. Suddenly, the wind whipped up, wildly sweeping with cruel force over the treetops, whistling through the spindly branches, stirring up flurries and eddies of snow, which whipped pinpricks of icy, sharp needles onto exposed skin.
It seemed that there was worse to come as my senses became alert to the overwhelming stench of rottenness and putrefaction which was hauntingly familiar to me. The woods now smelt like a swamp and overhead the trees closed in around us, an oppressive prison; the trunks forming rows of bars more secure than any cage.
Time seemed to stretch into eternity, mocking my capacity to think clearly or react,
but Fi was whimpering at my feet and I knew we needed to move because there was a predator in the woods and we were its prey.
Scanning the chalky sky for stalking shadows, I felt sick with fear.
‘Get up, Fi!’ I ordered in desperation, grabbing her under her armpits and wrenching her to her feet, uncaring of whether or not I was hurting her.
I half dragged, half stumbled with her along the frozen ground, our steps hampered by the new-fallen snow, sinking into its formless softness which slowed us down considerably. The faster I desired to move, the worse things became. Indy’s excitable nature with his oversized puppy paws and lack of grace kept tripping us up, his leash wrapping around our ankles time and again.
But I was shockingly aware of the disturbing pulses of aggression and violent energy sparking across the forest ceiling and of the sound like a heartbeat – whomp, whomp, whomp – dogging our every step. This predator was toying with us as we tried to escape. And I felt the desperate need to move faster still, to try and outrun it.
Adrenaline kicked in and I felt myself virtually lifting Fi off of the ground to at least run with her under the cover of the more dense copse of trees ahead but my efforts were impeded by Fi’s unusual fit – her head fell back over my arm as listlessly as a doll and her eyes were shut tight but I could see that under the bluish stain of her lids they were moving rapidly. She continued to mutter under her breath, while her long damp chestnut strands dragged in the slush created by our footsteps as I tried to hold her upright.
