by K. C. Finn
***
A photographer followed the wedding party home after the service, which was relatively short after Blod had finished lecturing the preacher on cutting out the boring bits a few days prior to the event. Mam had insisted on having all the pictures taken on the pasture outside Ty Gwyn, especially now that the fallen snow had given us such a beautiful backdrop. While everything was being set up I took my chance and set off to escape up to my room. A day full of love and happiness had only made me think of one thing for hours on end. I barely had one foot on the stairs when I heard Mum appear behind me.
“I’ve checked on everyone and they’re fine,” she chided, “so no sneaking off. Come and have a sandwich.”
I spun on my crutch and glared at her.
“There’s no danger right now,” I protested, “why can’t I just have a chat with him, just for five minutes?”
Mum approached me slowly, something I couldn’t read behind those indigo eyes the same shade as mine. She rested her hands on my shoulders and broke into a smile that made me feel warm even though I was mad at her.
“Your father and I have had a talk,” she began, heaving the words out almost reluctantly, “and he’s right. It’s time I let you go. I’m not going to stop you using your powers ever again. You’ve done so well with them, handled things so much better than I would have imagined.” I felt her hands holding me tighter, like she needed me to keep her steady. “I’ve been looking after you so much for so long that I’d forgotten you would grow up sooner or later. I just want you to remember the warnings I’ve given you, they always apply, wartime or otherwise.”
I nodded, starting to smile too. “Psychic or not, I’ll always have your voice in my head,” I answered.
Mum chuckled a little, her hold on me relaxing again.
“But that freedom starts tomorrow,” she continued, “so please don’t do anything yet, just for today.”
“But why?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” My mother started to walk away with a grin.
Leighton came into the hall in his little waistcoat and trousers, rubbing his head. His hair was sticking up at a funny angle and Mum rushed to adjust it for him, but he batted her away. That pensive look was back on his face.
“Leigh what’s up?” I said as I approached.
But he didn’t have time to answer as Idrys’s deep Welsh voice boomed through the house to call us out for the photographs.
“Tell me later?” I whispered to Leighton. He nodded gently, still nursing his temple.
We all lined up on the snowy ground at the edge of the pasture waiting for our turn to be called. There were several pictures of the bride and groom as Blod took full advantage of her big day to look as good as possible, then there were a few more of just the bride when Bickerstaff got sick of posing and left her to it. Eventually it was the turn of the bridesmaid, flower girl and page boy, which saw Ness, Leigh and I trying to pose with my clonking crutches in the way.
“Oh sod these things,” I cried eventually, chucking them out of the shot and standing behind Leighton.
I leant on his shoulders to keep myself steady, surprised at how strong my knees were to keep me up. It was hard to miss Bickerstaff’s medical mind assessing my stance from the side-lines, but he was smiling so I thought I must have been doing all right. Ness was the next problem, the wriggly little thing refused to stay still for the photo. It was only after some careful persuasion from Bickerstaff that she did as she was told, beaming up at the photographer like an angel even after her massive fidgeting episode. I had the feeling her would-be father had promised her a lot of lollipops for that smile.
Mum was smiling too at Leigh and I, I caught her eye over the top of the camera after the shot had been taken. Leighton was pretty sure he had blinked, so another take was in order. I rolled my eyes at Mum, but then I noticed she wasn’t looking at me anymore. Her gaze was cast way past where we stood at the edge of the field, her smile widening every moment.
“Yur now!” Mam shouted with a pointing finger. “Who’s that ruining our backdrop?”
I turned, still leaning one hand on Leighton to see two shapes under the shadow of the nearest tree. The larger of the two emerged from it and I was surprised to see my father carrying another man on his back. When the other man looked up from Dad’s shoulder, his gingery hair and sparkling eyes gave him away despite the unusual paleness in his face. Mam screamed with delight.
“Good God!” Bickerstaff shouted as he realised who it was. “Are you entirely insane? This boy should be in hospital, not travelling two hundred miles up the country!”
Ieuan ignored him and waved with every bit of strength he had in him. Dad was fast approaching, flashing me a smile as he passed us to deliver the boy to his family.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Bickerstaff, “but he wouldn’t be told. He insisted on coming up right away even if it killed him.”
Bickerstaff glanced at his new bride as she raced past him to join Mam and Thomas in crushing Ieuan from all sides. The former doctor shook his head, starting to grin.
“That’s the Price family all over, I’m afraid,” he concluded.
“It’s Dad…” Leigh muttered, clearly stunned. He tapped my hands where they were leaning on him. “Let’s go to him, Kit!” he pleaded, more excited than I’d ever known him be.
Dad beamed at us both as he came back towards us, but when he looked at me he pointed again to the tree behind me. The other figure was still there. I watched, open mouthed like a goldfish as the other person stepped out from under the branches’ shadows, stretching his arms wide open, his messy dark hair flying everywhere against the wintery breeze.
“Thirty paces!” Henri shouted.
Slowly, I let go of Leighton’s shoulders.
“No, no!” Henri shouted, half laughing, “Get your aids!”
But I didn’t. I knew that it was an all or nothing kind of motion. If I started to run I wouldn’t be able to stop or I’d be face deep in the snow. It was a soft landing, all things considered, so before anyone could catch me I put every bit of power I had into my knees and ran for it. The distance was much less than thirty steps when I was running, jarring every bone in my body as I streaked desperately towards Henri and his open arms. He watched in awe as I sped at him, wrapping me up as I fell into his arms, my knees finally spent.
He held me up and kissed me deeply, sending warm tingles out all over my face despite the cold air. I pulled him close, my arms around his neck as I felt his warm body next to mine. It was a while before either of us had breath again to speak, both grinning at each other like a pair of Cheshire cats, trying to think of the perfect things to say having spent so long apart. I had nothing, no words that could express the relief and joy and completely all-consuming love that was gripping me in that moment, but Henri looked me up and down and grinned, creasing his lovely chocolate eyes.
“You’re wearing the dress I made you.”
I looked down at myself; the navy fabric with the white polka dots was bright against the white winter scene around me. I shrugged happily at Henri.
“I was the only bridesmaid, so I could pick whatever I wanted to wear.”
He beamed at me, his strong arms holding me steady again.
“And you chose this?”
“Always,” I replied.
“All right Romeo, put the girl down.”
My father had found us. I turned to find him being swiftly followed by my mother and Leighton who were rushing up with my crutches. I took them rather gratefully as my weak legs shook in the cold snow, grinning when Henri kept a warm arm around my waist still. Dad rested his hand on Mum’s shoulder and she took hold of it tightly. Leighton stood in the middle of us all, smiling at everyone, until his stomach gave a huge echoing growl.
“I think that means lunchtime,” Henri observed as the rest of us laughed.
We set off as a group at my slow pace back towards Ty Gwyn, where the newly reformed Price family had bundled Ieuan int
o the wheelchair to take him inside. Leighton steadied my walking on one side with Henri on the other until we too were back at the kitchen door. The smell of fresh cakes invited us in and Leigh broke free to attack them. Henri turned to me and kissed my cheek softly.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“Love you too,” I mouthed, eyeing my Mum and Dad carefully.
Once Henri too had gone inside, Dad stopped Mum and I from following. He gave me a sombre look; his dark eyes open wide with thought.
“This war’s not over, you know,” he said quietly, “Henri will have to go back into service soon.” I gulped; it was the last thing I needed to hear on such a happy day. “But,” my father continued, “I was thinking of pulling him into my department, given his experience so far.”
“Henri, a spy?” I asked in disbelief.
“He’d make a fine one,” Mum added, “but he’d need an assistant at home of course.”
I saw them standing there together, but not as my parents any longer. They were an operational team, working side by side to rescue good men from the war and help occupied populations fight back against the oppression of the Hun. And now they were inviting me to be part of the family business, to learn how to really help Henri like I’d wanted to all along. I nodded furiously, unable to even say yes. Mum swallowed all her reservations, looking to Dad for reassurance. He grinned proudly at us both and gave a little nod, turning to lead us indoors.
No expense had been spared in collecting as much food as Mam could muster, gathering all our rations together to produce a splendid feast. When I found my place at the overcrowded table Leighton had a mouthful of cream and jam. His skinny legs were swinging happily as I sat down beside him, watching Mum and Dad trek off to the places laid for them at the other end of the kitchen. My little brother looked at me and his eyes widened suddenly. He dropped the food he was eating and waved his hand for my attention as he tried to chew and swallow faster than was humanly possible.
“Don’t do that, you’ll choke,” I sat, slapping his back as he coughed, “what is it?”
When Leigh had finally got his mouthful down he cleared his throat, pulling my ear nearer to speak in a hushed voice.
“Kit,” he began carefully, “you know that psychic stuff that Idrys told us about ages ago?”
“Yes?” I replied, my breath hitching in my throat.
Leighton took in a little gasp of his own, breaking into an excited grin.
“I think I can do it.”
THE END.
If there was ever an embodiment of the idea of the ‘troubled teen’, then it was me, but probably not in the way you’d think.
I wasn’t, for example, a smoker or a boozer; I didn’t stay out late or smuggle anything (or anyone) untoward into my room at home. In fact, I stayed in. A lot. I would come home from high school aged 15 and find myself crawling straight into my bed at four o’clock, out cold until gone six and still in my uniform with Mum calling me down for dinner. My entire life was a pattern of eat, sleep, school, sleep, eat and so on; not a scrap of energy or enthusiasm for life, waiting desperately for the time when I could throw off the shackles of the 9-to-4 school day and finally use what little pep I had to do something better with my life. A myriad of doctors and therapists told me that I was depressed and filled me up with drugs, packing me back off to school like that was the answer to my problems.
It took me a further four years to work out what was really going on.
At age 13 I developed what I now know to be called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.), a debilitating physical condition that attacks every major system in your body from the nervous and digestive systems to the musculoskeletal, hormonal and beyond. Between the ages of 13 and 16 (what some would call the best years of your life) I went from being a spritely, bright child to a surly, aching, exhausted teen who saw every morning as just one more day of pain coming her way. I dropped out of school and spent eighteen months trying to recover from what I was still being told was depression and anxiety, but no matter what I tried I just couldn’t get better. I knew that there had to be another explanation; I just had to find a way to prove it.
For my 18th birthday I was taken away for a week’s holiday. I deliberately didn’t pack my anti-depressants, suffering a week of cold-turkey withdrawal in order to flush them out of my system once and for all. This is not a practice recommended by doctors and I don’t advocate it, but it was the only thing I felt able to do at the time. Coming home from that holiday I had a fresh perspective on my physical health, realising that I was never mentally depressed, but that my body was the one letting me down. I had an illness and it took me another whole year before I met a doctor who could put the label M.E. to my symptoms.
Armed with this knowledge I returned to college and then went on to university, all the while making my way through different doctors and different treatments until I could find one who would push to get the diagnosis I so desperately needed. I was 22 years old when the letter finally came to tell me what I had been suffering from for the last nine years. It was a relief, but also a sadness, the final confirmation that I am living with a condition that has no known cure and will be likely to affect me for the rest of my life. At the point when I received that letter in November 2011, I felt as though the life I had been wading through suddenly needed a new purpose and a proper direction, something I would still be able to achieve if and when my condition worsened.
So I started to write.
I have written several self-published books in the last twelve months and it has been pointed out to me repeatedly that each one of them contains characters that are physically limited, pained and/or mentally scarred in some way. This is no co-incidence, but it is something that was creeping into my work without a definite conscious knowledge; I think I simply found it more engaging personally to write about imperfect people. That was until I sat down to write my first novel for Clean Teen Publishing, entitled The Mind’s Eye. In this book my central character suffers from Juvenile Systemic Arthritis, a severe and debilitating condition that presents many of the same musculoskeletal symptoms that I face every day. Whilst I am not always bound to a wheelchair, the immobility that my character Kit faces isn’t just about her legs not working. The Mind’s Eye is an exciting wartime adventure with paranormal fun, but at its heart it is also a story about a girl just like me, struggling to work out how to find a place in the world where she can feel valued and still be useful to the people she cares about.
Scenes within The Mind’s Eye are a mixture of Kit’s psychic visions of the Second World War interspersed with her own struggles in her home life. I have a feeling that some people might consider those latter scenes to be the ‘boring bits’, the ‘filler’ that has to happen between the tense, exciting action moments. To me, however, I could take or leave the incredible and heart breaking scenes of war, because the real struggle that touches my heart is that of a lonely young girl quite literally trying to stand on her own two feet in a world where all the odds are stacked against her. When you read The Mind’s Eye, spare a thought for Kit and the life she has to lead every day, because her fictional creation represents countless other people out there who face physical and emotional struggles that ordinary folk can barely comprehend.
The real story of The Mind’s Eye isn’t that of the glorious Allies beating back Jerry, but of Kit Cavendish beating back the sentence that life has handed her with the newfound love and support of the people around her. It is a story that is very important to me and I sincerely hope it will find a place in your hearts too.
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