by Nicola Shill
Yes, that was what Cassandra had thought – and she thought it still, despite Emma’s rebuke. She was smarting with rejection, and lashing out at Emma would have been the easiest thing to do. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Emma that she could leave if that was how she really felt, but it occurred to her in the nick of time that she would be expelling her last remaining friend. Instead, she stepped forward and hugged Emma. ‘I’m sorry. Thank you for helping tonight, and for standing by me. Let’s just leave this all for the morning and go to bed.’
— CHAPTER 52 —
Get a Dog
Cassandra slept until midday the next day.
She would have gladly slept forever rather than face the dreadful reality that she had only one friend left in the whole world and was at serious risk of losing her, too.
When she stumbled into the kitchen, Dad had cleaned up all traces of the party and was sitting at the table, eating a plateful of mini quiches. Sylvia was sitting with him, drinking black coffee.
Cassandra found a loaf of bread in the pantry and slipped two slices into the toaster. ‘Where’s Emma?’
‘She went home,’ Dad said. ‘She woke up a few hours ago and decided it was best to let you sleep. She thought you’d be pretty upset.’
Sylvia snorted.
‘I’m sorry about your party,’ said Dad. ‘Teenagers can be very mean.’
‘Or maybe they were just fed up,’ said Sylvia.
‘Sylvia,’ Dad growled.
‘Stop mollycoddling her.’ Sylvia waved newly manicured fingers through the air. ‘You’re not doing her any favours, you know. She needs to grow up and start taking responsibility …’
‘Oh, ’cos you’re such an adult yourself,’ spat Cassandra. ‘You’re a great one to be talking about responsibility with your maxed-out credit cards and gazillion frequent flyer miles and that stupid, gas-guzzling status symbol you drive.’
Sylvia stood up, laid both hands on the edge of the table and leaned in towards Dad. ‘This is your fault. You fix it.’
Cassandra began spreading Vegemite on her toast as though she hadn’t heard or didn’t care.
Sylvia straightened up and started to leave, but just before she passed through the doorway, she turned back and took one last swipe at Cassandra: ‘It’s no wonder you’ve got no friends. It serves you right. You piss everybody off with this environmental crap.’ She stalked from the room.
Dad sat holding his knife and fork poised over his plate, frowning at his quiche.
Cassandra carried her plate of toast over to the table and sat in Sylvia’s vacated seat. ‘How did you bring yourself to marry her?’
‘That’s enough!’ Dad dropped his knife and fork on to his plate with a loud clatter. ‘Sylvia’s right. You are pissing everyone off. Can’t you just tone it down a bit?’
The intensity of Dad’s anger surprised Cassandra and she might normally have backed off, but her mood was so black that she hit out as if there was nothing left to lose. ‘Honestly, Dad! How can you love such an uptight, shallow, bitch?’
‘Cassandra! I said that’s enough.’
There was frosty silence in the kitchen while they both ate. Cassandra was instantly sorry for her outburst, but she just couldn’t stop wondering how Dad could love both her and Sylvia when they were so completely different.
‘Was my mother like Sylvia?’
Dad showed no sign of having heard.
Cassandra reached out and put her hand softly on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have said that.’
Dad picked up his knife and fork. ‘I was young when I met Anna. I was still at university and we were all trying to save the world in one way or another – some more than others.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘She was very passionate. She was vibrant, wise, alive … and so beautiful. I’d never seen anything as beautiful. The most amazing part was, she actually liked me – a lot. It didn’t happen all that often.’ He grunted. ‘It still doesn’t.’
‘Is that why you’re with Sylvia?’
‘Cassandra.’ Her name came out as a warning growl, but after a few seconds of silence, he answered, ‘I know you can’t understand what it is I love about Sylvia. I wish you could. I wish you’d try a bit harder.’
‘Are we resurrecting this old argument, Dad?’
‘I suppose not.’
Dad cut and loaded half a mini quiche into his mouth and chewed pensively. He swallowed and tried to explain: ‘Cassandra, I’m thirty-nine years old. You can’t possibly know how it feels to be my age and starting to wonder if you’ll ever find love again; picturing yourself old and alone.’
Cassandra wasn’t at all convinced that Sylvia was the solution. She wanted to say, ‘get a dog,’ but she held her tongue.
‘But why Sylvia?’
‘Cassandra, I love Sylvia. I’m not so desperate that I’d marry someone I didn’t love.’
Cassandra was more surprised than she should have been by that statement.
‘To answer your first question: No, Anna was nothing like Sylvia. Sylvia’s so easy. Your mother – ahhh, Cassandra, I loved her, but she was such hard work. She was difficult to please. I couldn’t live the way she wanted. Sylvia’s the complete opposite.’ He laughed. ‘Anna would have hated Sylvia.’
Cassandra was thrilled to hear it.
‘Sylvia … all I have to do is give her money and idolise her and she’s happy.’ He frowned and scratched his head, adding, ‘Well, sort of.’ He sighed and stared at the window. Cassandra only just heard the murmured, ‘Sometimes.’ He looked down at his plate, nudged his knife and fork together, then finished quietly, ‘Not at all, really.’
— CHAPTER 53 —
Alienation
Cassandra’s favourite times now were when she was at home alone.
One such precious moment arrived almost a week later on a mild Friday evening. In a flurry of activity, Dad charged into the house straight from work, directly into his bedroom to change clothes. Moments later, he reappeared followed by Sylvia in a cloud of perfume, her high heels clicking unsteadily on the hard, smooth tiles. She studiously ignored Cassandra, as was her habit now. Cassandra was happy with that situation. The less often she had to speak to Sylvia, the better. It was a relief for both of them to have been able to give up pretending to be building a friendship for Dad’s sake. Dad seemed thankful, too, no longer being required to intervene in disputes and try to choose which side he should be taking.
Cassandra didn’t bother to lock the front door as she watched the car hurtle erratically up the road. She pictured Dad driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other searching pockets for some essential item, squirming and lifting his hips to allow access to his pants pockets. She knew they would be back within minutes for the forgotten article. Sure enough, the sound of the car had barely faded into the distance before it was roaring back down the road. The car skidded to park diagonally across the driveway and Dad leapt out, leaving the door open, and sprinted up the front path, fumbling with his keys. Cassandra opened the door and he stopped sorting through his keys to race through into the bedroom, reversing the process seconds later: out of the bedroom, out the front door, down the front path, into the car and off up the street, this time driving less erratically but much faster.
Now the evening was all Cassandra’s own. The luxurious possibilities floated around her mind. Maybe she would savour the tranquillity and read one of the books she had wanted to start. She made herself a cup of tea. It came a poor second to fungitea, but it was the best she could do. She had tried boiling up mushrooms soon after she’d come home, but the result was disgusting and only served to convince Sylvia that Cassandra was completely nuts. She chose a book and decided to read in the back yard while there was still enough light. Tea in one hand, book in the other, she nudged the sliding door open with her elbow and stepped outside.
Cassandra saw her cat standing a few metres away. She’d been very happy to be reunited with Lira on her return, but it ha
d taken a while to stop seeing the cat who had attacked Gita whenever she looked at her. She approached Lira, intending to stroke her, but Lira crouched and bounded behind a large terracotta pot. Cassandra heard the hysterical twitter of a bird being caught. She dashed forward, shouting at Lira, who darted off into the garden and disappeared over the fence with a small bird clamped securely between her jaws. Cassandra climbed up to look over the fence, but it was too late. Lira had disappeared from view. Cassandra could offer the bird no assistance now.
It was too much for Cassandra. The bird reminded her of the willie wagtail she’d seen on the agora the day she first rode a dragonfly, and its capture brought back sickeningly vivid memories of Gita’s trauma. Cassandra wanted desperately to know how Gita was doing.
The evening’s ambience was ruined. Cassandra returned to the house and curled up with her tea and her book in an armchair beside a wide window that faced on to her front yard. But she couldn’t concentrate to read and a sip of her tepid tea made her feel nauseous. As darkness descended, she stared forlornly out of the window, wishing for a glimmer of light.
Even her cat was conspiring to alienate her from this world.
Cassandra could no longer remember why she had ever wanted to return. She was unhappy at school and unhappy at home. Everyone would be better off if she was not around – well, except maybe for Grandma and Emma. Dad’s disinterest about what had really happened to her still confused her and she’d started to interpret it as lack of caring. Maybe he would have preferred it if she hadn’t come back. Perhaps he’d begun to see the advantage of a fresh start with Sylvia.
Meanwhile, her recollections of the fae world had repainted themselves into an idyllic paradise. There were fae who loved her and who she loved and missed very much. Her thoughts were constantly running back to that world … and Lorcan. Whenever she was sad – and she was sad a lot lately – she uncurled her hand and pressed the palm he’d kissed to her cheek, imagining Lorcan kissing her there … which was weird because it was far more likely that he would say something insulting and they would end up fighting. But that last moment with him, when he’d kissed her palm, held a deeper truth than all of their other moments combined. How ironic, after all the time that had been available to them, for her to finally recognise that she wanted to be with him at the precise moment when the door between them clanged shut with cold, stark finality.
She was finding this human world harder and harder to live in. It seemed more foreign to her than the fae world had when she first arrived in it. Not only did she miss the fae desperately, but they had changed her perception of the human world. She could no longer float blissfully in the warm waters of ignorance and denial.
She could no longer stay.
— CHAPTER 54 —
Familiar Ground
Cassandra had been sitting in the darkness for hours, lost in thought, when Dad and Sylvia arrived home.
Sylvia took one look at Cassandra’s woebegone expression and turned away with an impatient humph to retire to bed. Dad sat on a chair facing Cassandra and took her cold hands in his.
‘I don’t fit here anymore, Dad.’
Dad sighed. His shoulders sagged in defeat.
‘You already knew,’ Cassandra realised.
‘No. No! Not that you don’t fit in. That’s up to you.’ Dad let go of Cassandra’s hands to rub his own over his face. He suddenly looked old and weary, and Cassandra felt guilty for making life difficult for him lately. When he looked back at her, she could tell that a difficult decision had been made.
‘Your mother was a beautiful woman,’ he began.
This was not what Cassandra had been expecting. ‘I know. You’ve told me …’
He continued as though he hadn’t heard her, as though he’d already journeyed back into his past. ‘You’ve got my eyes though.’ A half smile flickered on his face and then disappeared without a trace.
‘I hadn’t known her long, but I loved her. I didn’t know anything about her except that I wanted to marry her. She said she wanted to marry me, too, but before we had got around to planning a wedding, she became pregnant.’ He cleared his throat and fidgeted, seeming uncomfortable with the recollection of his youthful, foolhardy belief that the future would take care of itself. ‘Then you were born. We were young and impulsive. We still planned to get married, but in the grand scheme of things, it kept getting pushed along.’ He cleared his throat again.
‘I began to notice she wasn’t as happy as she used to be. She became increasingly introverted and, well, she was hard enough to live with before, but she got worse. She criticised everything – as you do now.’ His voice became barely more than a whisper, as if he hoped she wouldn’t hear this bit. Perhaps he didn’t want to hear it himself. ‘We lost a lot of friends that way, and we started to fight. Eventually, it became more than she could endure.’ He stood up and stepped towards the window, staring out into the night. He cleared his throat again.
When he next spoke, his voice was louder and more level, more purposeful. ‘I know where you’ve been, Cassandra, and I think I know where you’re going.’
Cassandra narrowed her eyes. That was impossible. Where did he imagine she had been?
Dad’s face was turning red, and his eyes were filling with tears. He rubbed a hand over his mouth as if trying to prevent the next part of the story from coming out.
‘You see, this is all familiar ground to me. It was a night like this. We were sitting in the front room, you were asleep in your nursery just down the hall – do you remember our old house?’ Cassandra gave the barest shake of her head. ‘Anyway,’ Dad continued, ‘She told me where she’d come from. She was fae.’ His voice cracked when he said it, and he glanced at Cassandra to watch the shock of comprehension flash across her face. He gave a humourless laugh and turned back to stare out of the window again. ‘She’d been a watcher.’ He nodded as he said it, knowing Cassandra understood. ‘She said she had fallen in love with me before I even knew her and had chosen to become human to be with me. But the more time she spent in the human world, the more certain she became that she couldn’t stay. There was too much she couldn’t live with, and she hated how powerless she felt to change things. People are very resistant, as you’ve been finding out.’ He stepped back and crumpled down into his chair again. Tears were now streaming freely from his eyes. His voice was sounding choked and snatchy as he struggled to get the words out.
He heaved in a breath to continue. ‘She kissed me, told me she loved me and went to check on you.’ He took another deep, shuddering breath. ‘I never saw her again.’ The last sentence was blurted out as though he was glad to be rid of it.
He rested his forehead in his hand and stared down at the floor. ‘I’ve never loved anyone else the way I loved Anna. Except you.’ He sniffed long and loud and rubbed the back of his hand roughly over his eyes. He took her hands again and looked at her directly. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you Cassandra, you see. It’s just that you’re very special. I don’t know if you’re right about not fitting in. I can’t tell you where you belong: that’s a decision only you can make. But I want you to know that I understand and I give you my blessing for whatever decision you feel you have to make. If you choose to leave, I want you to go knowing that I don’t blame you and I will never stop loving you – as I have never stopped loving your mother. If you ever meet her, tell her I still love her. She’ll be proud of who you’ve become.’
He stood up unsteadily, kissed the top of Cassandra’s head and walked out of the room.
Cassandra fell asleep that night as she had most of the nights since her return: sobbing into her pillow. But tonight, the tears were for a different reason. She wept for the poignant story of two lovers torn apart by their differences, and she wept for the realisation that her mother may still be alive. She wept for the decision she knew she was making: that she would find a way to return to Gillwillan – for good this time. She cried a bucket of tears for her damaged relationship with her father
. Her heart broke to think of leaving him unhappy, but swelled with love for the sacrifice he’d made in giving her the truth, which he knew might take her away from him. For the first time, she felt glad that he loved Sylvia and would soon have another child to love. Her hand slipped under her pillow to touch the tiny spider’s-web shawl she kept tucked there. She was sick at heart, but she was also resolute. She would spend time with Emma and Grandma tomorrow and find a way of telling them she was leaving that they would hopefully understand after she was gone. How she was to do that, she didn’t know.
The following day she would go to the boatshed, rediscover Gillwillan and make them take her back.
— CHAPTER 55 —
Lodestone
Lorcan sat on Cassandra’s windowsill and watched her sleep.
He’d been visiting her this way every night since she’d left, all the while trying to ignore the extravagance she lived in. Strictly speaking, it hadn’t been every night. He’d been able to stay away for almost all of the first week, pretending everything was normal and that he was unaffected. What a joke. He was profoundly affected: down to the core. He was having trouble sleeping and, when he did manage to get to sleep, he was plagued by nightmares. No wonder he was in a perpetually foul mood. Everyone who came into contact with him was snapped and snarled at. His reputation for being a charmer with a dark streak was becoming more dark than charming. Even Garris was starting to avoid him, and when they were together, he looked at him with sad understanding in his eyes. Lorcan hated that: he hated people feeling sorry for him.
Life felt empty without Cassandra in it. She was infuriating most of the time, but at least she was never boring. He suddenly saw with startling clarity that he had become bored with his life. Even his work was engaging him less of late. Since he’d sampled life with Cassandra for company, he knew that he would no longer be satisfied with his former state of ennui – the listless, dissatisfied boredom that he’d become used to. Whether he wanted it or not, Cassandra had become his lodestone; his attraction to her had become an incessant magnetic pull.
