“God, I don’t know,” Beth groaned, casting her eyes skyward. “I met a guy, the usual story. We fell in love, at least I thought we did, but then just after he’d convinced me to move in with him, he suddenly announced that he couldn’t be with me any more and disappeared back to England. So now I’m torn between going back to Paris, to my life there, or setting up in London again and trying to get in touch with him. Ah, sucks to be me I guess,” she said, then shrugged.
“But enough about that, this is your time. The countdown to your wedding, to the start of your new life. I really am so happy for you sis,” she grinned, the term of endearment she’d never used before not feeling as strange as she’d expected.
“Thank you sweetie,” Jenny replied. “And your time is coming. How about we go have a psychic reading, hmm? Ask the gypsy woman to tell you when your tall, dark and handsome new man will sweep you off your feet.”
Beth’s cheeks reddened as an image of Mike popped into her head, and she quickly agreed in order to shift Jenny’s focus off her, even though she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know her future. But if someone could give her hope that one day she’d meet a guy like Mike, it might stop her obsessing over him and then feeling guilty about Violet.
Arm in arm, they wandered over to the row of rainbow-coloured tents, and gazed at the small signs pinned to each entrance. A woman with a clipboard approached them, and asked what kind of reading they were looking for.
“I’d like a general reading please, and my sister would like a future love reading,” Jenny said, handing over the money for both of them and shaking off Beth’s offer of cash. The woman indicated the nearest tent, a bright green one, and Jenny ducked inside, then she led Beth further down the row and pointed to a red tent, with a sign announcing Mirella the fortune teller.
“Thank you,” she murmured, then nervously went inside. She had no idea what to expect, but the smell of the incense reminded her of Violet’s mum Rose, which put her at ease, and she gazed around with great interest. An elderly woman with long black curls streaked with silver sat at a small round table, wearing a bright scarlet dress and illuminated by candles.
“Come child,” she said in a raspy voice. “Take a seat here.”
Her voice sent a thrill of fear through Beth. For a moment she was scared by the strangeness of the woman, the oddness of the charms hanging around her neck and the mystery of the darkened space, and wanted to flee back out into the sunshine. It felt dank inside, but more than that, it was uncanny, with an Otherworldly chill to the air.
“Sweet child, there’s nothing to be frightened of,” the woman said, voice more soothing this time, and Beth was reassured by her tone, and impressed that she’d picked up on her nervousness. Then again, it probably didn’t take a psychic to realise she was feeling uncomfortable.
Pushing away her anxiety, she walked slowly over to the fortune teller and sat down opposite her. The woman gestured for her hand, and she reluctantly held it out to her. Mirella’s hands were clammy but her fingers were soft, and a shiver ran up Beth’s arm as the woman traced the lines on her palm.
“You’re a restless soul,” she began. “Couldn’t wait to leave home, spread your wings, eh?”
Beth nodded.
“And you’ve been across the seas, and were happy there,” she added, looking up at her quizzically.
Beth nodded again. Was she supposed to be agreeing though? Was this woman just reading her reactions, garnering clues from how she responded to what she was told?
Mirella laughed. “Some people do give it all away, which can influence the divination, and then they only hear what they want to hear anyway. You’re right though, it’s good to be a little bit sceptical in a reading, and in life. And you shouldn’t take everything I say as gospel – this reading will be true for today, but your future can change from day to day, hour to hour, depending on the decision you make, the path you take, the person you pursue, or don’t.”
Beth stared at her, suspicious now. What did this woman know about her?
“What do you know about yourself?” Mirella shot back, and smiled as Beth squirmed a little. “What do you want?”
Conflicted, she racked her brain. How much did she want to reveal of herself? Yet what was the point in holding back? She’d never see this woman again, and she was wasting her own time, and Jenny’s money, if she asked anything other than what she actually wanted to know, deep down. She could ask about her relationship with her mother, but that was no use – she was past the point of no return with her, and somewhat surprisingly, she realised she was actually okay with that.
So, taking a deep breath, for calm and for courage, she opened her heart. “I want the love that Violet has. I want a guy who looks at me the way Mike looks at her. Who cares about me, no matter what. Who is kind and considerate, and patient, and who will make a great dad one day.”
“Done!” the woman cackled. “But be careful what you wish for dearie.” And she stood up abruptly and left through a gap at the back of the tent. Surprised, Beth sat for a while, wondering if she would return, and growing increasingly anxious. Had she just made some kind of deal with the devil? What did the woman mean, “done”? She was just supposed to reveal what would occur in the future, not make it happen. Right?
Desperately she tried to remember her exact words. She’d told the woman she wanted a love like Violet had, hadn’t she? A chill ran up her spine as she recalled her answer. She’d said she wanted the love that Violet has, not like Violet has.
Feeling deeply unsettled, she made herself wait another five minutes, just in case Mirella came back and she could ask her to undo whatever she’d apparently done. But the fortune teller didn’t return, so slowly, hesitantly, she made her way back outside to find her sister.
Chapter 7
Darkness Falls
Rhiannon... Today…
The closer Rhiannon got to the hospital entrance, the more her pace slowed and her feet dragged. She wasn’t sure she had the energy, or the strength required, to see her mum looking so sick, and her dad looking so scared. Their little family would implode if Beth died, and the fear of that possibility paralysed her.
For long moments she stood out the front of the building, staring up at the second floor windows, physically unable to walk through the doors. Again she found herself in limbo, in that liminal state between knowing and not knowing, where fear for her mother was still balanced equally with hope, and she could pretend for a second that all was well, or would be. But she couldn’t stand out here forever – at some point she had to go inside and face the doctor, and the prognosis, and discover whether her world would ever feel right again.
Steeling herself, she marched up to the door and slipped inside, trying to ignore the hospital stench – antiseptic mixed with the aroma of boiled vegies, sweat and fear – that sought to strangle her. A nurse she hadn’t seen before smiled and asked if she could help her, but Rhiannon shook her head and headed for the stairs. Her heart lifted though. The smile had given her hope – yet it evaporated the minute she stepped onto her mum’s floor, and the nurse she’d seen that morning stared at her with red-rimmed eyes and a look of quiet panic.
Time. Sound. Life. Everything halted around her, and she felt as though she was wading through thigh-deep mud, so achingly slow was her progress down the corridor to the room at the very end. Every instinct inside her was urging her to turn around and flee, to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction, to get as far away as possible from this place, from this life, from this looming death.
Her stomach clenched in fear, and a cold sweat broke out all over her body. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t know such an awful truth. She didn’t have the strength.
Just as she was about to give in to her basest urge and escape from this building that felt like a tomb, her father poked his head out from around the furthest door, and the broken look on his face froze her where she stood.
“Dad?” she whispered, voice ragged.
/>
Mike tried to speak, but his mouth just opened and closed, unable to form words, and she saw in his eyes that he couldn’t think a coherent thought either.
She rushed into his arms, but there was no warmth, no comfort there, as her father’s body shook and his unfocused gaze took her in without comprehension of who she even was. His blank expression chilled Rhiannon to the core, and she feared the worst, while not able to get any real confirmation out of him either way.
Dread clutched at her heart, and her blood ran ice-cold with fear, but she had to know. Gently disentangling herself from her dad, she took one tiny step after another until she stood in the doorway to her mother’s room. Hope flared again as she gazed at the figure in the bed, face relaxed and peaceful, body less thin, less fragile, than it had seemed in Mike’s arms that morning. Her mum looked like she was sleeping, and Rhiannon walked quickly towards her, hand stretched out to touch her cheek, to hold her in her arms.
But as she got closer, terror seized her, and she jerked backwards when she noticed the grey pallor and unnatural stillness of the body. This couldn’t be her mother, couldn’t be the vivacious and energetic woman who never stopped moving, whose face was always rosy with excitement, or passion, or the simple joy of being alive.
A strangled sound came from the doorway behind her, and she sensed someone approaching her, reaching out for her.
“No!” she screamed, as she turned away from the bed. “This can’t be right! Do something!”
The nurse took her arm, but she shrugged it off.
“She can’t be dead, okay? She’s not dead, she’s just under the anaesthetic still, right? She’ll wake up any minute and talk to me, won’t she?” she demanded, but her voice came out sounding far less certain than she’d been hoping for.
“Rhiannon,” the nurse whispered, gently, calmly. “Come outside, come and be with your dad.”
Horror washed over her, the answer clear though the nurse hadn’t actually replied to any of her questions. Wildly she gazed around the room, drowning in panic, in denial, in anger. Distantly she heard the sound of thunder from outside, while the silence of the room she stood in slammed into her.
There was no sound. That fact alone made her understand the awful truth. Every other time her mum had been in hospital the room had hummed, with machines, with people, with breathing. Her mum wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t even being helped to breathe. This was it. This was final.
A numbness descended around her, and she felt herself sink to the floor for the third time that day. Everything slowed, then stopped altogether, as she sat where she’d fallen, body crumpled, mind stilled, heart broken. She waited for the blackness to take her.
* * * * *
A hand on her arm and a gentle murmur of voices eventually pierced her consciousness and brought her back, and she became aware that she was sitting on a cold hard plastic chair in the hospital corridor. Her dad knelt in front of her, clutching her shoulder. Dimly she realised he was talking, and she tried to focus on his words, but a fresh shock of fear slammed into her.
“Brodie?” she asked, panicked, but her dad smiled – or grimaced, she wasn’t sure which. “It’s okay, he’s with his friend,” he replied, voice hoarse with pain. “Laura left a message for me, that Ben’s mum picked him up, and he can stay there until we’re ready to get him.”
Rhiannon nodded, remembering what her teacher had said, what felt like a lifetime ago, and grateful for that small mercy.
Awkwardly her dad took her hand. “Did you want to see your mum, and say goodbye properly? The doctor suggested –” he began, then trailed off and stared into space again.
A shiver of revulsion passed through her, and she stared at him with eyes full of pain and fear before shaking her head. But the nurse bustled over then, cool, calm and collected.
“I can take you in,” she offered, gently yet firmly grabbing Rhiannon’s arm as she spoke and hauling her to her feet. Too numb to protest, she allowed herself to be led back inside the darkened room and deposited by the side of her mother’s bed.
Her mother. Was this eerily still figure really her? Had it ever been her? Slowly, achingly, she lifted her eyes until she was peering at the body, then reluctantly, gradually, her gaze swept upwards to the face.
It looked like her mum, yet it didn’t. The features were the same – the hollowed cheeks, the high forehead, the delicate nose – yet the lips gave it away. They were still full, yet the colour was no hue Rhiannon had ever seen, the blueish tinge as confronting as the chilling stillness of the demeanour.
Haltingly she reached out a hand to stroke her mother’s face, and was confused when she noticed how much it was trembling. Some part of her had an irrational fear that the body would suddenly be reanimated, would lash out at her in some way. Which was stupid, because she’d love nothing more than for her mum to come back from the dead. Well, to not be dead in the first place. With a great effort, her mind shied away from the image of zombies that had entered her head, distracting her from her task.
As her fingers hovered over her mother’s cheek, she forced herself to really look at the body before her, and realised with sudden clarity that Beth was not in the room with her. She was no longer housed in the pile of flesh and bones laid out on the bed beside her, and that awareness made it easier for her to reach out and gently touch her mother’s face. The cold, clammy skin didn’t repel her as much as she’d imagined it would, and on some level she understood the nurse’s wisdom in forcing her to come back inside and see the body.
At least now she knew that it wouldn’t be her mum that they buried, wouldn’t be her mum trapped underground, desperate to escape. Beth had found a release from the pain and sickness of the last six months. She was free, no longer tied to this mundane physical body that had been so racked with illness and agony. Which meant she wasn’t here anymore to haunt her daughter – or to help her.
That was when Rhiannon’s tears started, when the feelings of loss became real, and she sank down onto the bed, holding her mother’s hand, no longer overwhelmed by the eeriness of the situation or repulsed by the cool flesh that she clutched.
“Oh Mum, I need you. I know I should be grateful that your pain has ended, but I’m not. I want you back! It’s selfish of me, I know, but I can’t do this without you. I can’t live without you. None of us can. What about Brodie? What about Dad?” she demanded, voice tortured, and her head and heart just as angry as they were devastatingly sad.
“It’s not fair!” she cried. “How could this happen to you? How could this happen to me?” Her sobbing became louder, her shoulders shook harder, and for a while she didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop crying.
A gentle hand on her arm eventually broke her reverie, and she turned to see Rose standing before her. The older woman drew her into a warm hug, and Rhiannon tried to get her tears under control, to hold it together in her presence. The priestess was the most composed person she’d ever known, and she was shocked to see just how distraught she was.
“Oh sweet girl, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Rose said, as she held her tight, one hand gently stroking her back. Rhiannon felt warmth flowing into her, and wondered if she was trying to calm her with a spell. Then she realised how sad Rose would be too.
For Beth, who’d had such a painful relationship with her own parents, Rose had been a mother figure, a mentor and a friend, the two women weaving magic together in their small, close-knit circle, as well as spending time together over cups of tea, sharing their lives, their hopes, their dreams.
And the priestess, who had no children of her own, had been like a grandmother to her and Brodie, joining their family for festive holidays and birthdays for as long as she could remember, babysitting them when they were younger, always there to support them in any way she could. For Rose, losing Beth would be like losing her own daughter, so this was a deep and terrible blow for her too.
“I’m so sorry for your loss Mrs Tyler,” she managed to reply, voice a
whisper. “I just… I can’t get my head around it. How can she suddenly not be here? What are we going to do without her?”
Rose didn’t answer, perhaps loath to utter any of the ridiculous cliches people expressed at times like this.
“She’s in a better place.”
“It was her time.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
Instead she just held Rhiannon’s shaking body close and was present with her pain, supporting her physically as well as emotionally as she cried, honouring rather than trying to diminish her grief.
And eventually the young girl ran out of tears. She took a deep, gasping breath, making an effort to get herself back under control, then rubbed a hand across her face, trying to wipe her eyes dry, before disentangling herself from Rose’s embrace.
“Thank you.” She sighed as she turned red-rimmed eyes to the corridor, then back to the hospital bed, and the body that was no longer her mother’s. “I guess I should see how Dad is,” she added apologetically, and Rose tried to smile in return.
“I’m here if you need me sweet girl, if any of you need me. I love you all very much, and I am so very sorry that you have lost your beautiful mum. There are no words that will make it easier. Just know that I am here for you, whenever, however and whatever you need.”
Nodding, Rhiannon felt her eyes start to well again at the older woman’s kindness, and impatiently brushed the tears aside as she made her way out to where Mike still stood, leaning brokenly against the wall.
“Dad,” she said softly, touching his arm. She repeated herself twice before he finally came back to the present, and her heart broke all over again at the pain and desolation writ so large across his face.
“Come on, we need to pick Brodie up, and try to explain it to him, and go home,” she said, but her voice caught on the final word. Home. Would their house ever be that again?
Into the Storm: Into the Storm Trilogy Book One Page 7
