by Tayte, Megan
‘No buts,’ broke in Luke, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek. ‘This past fortnight, you’ve helped a lot of people, and that, as Cara put it, is “officially awesome”.’
I smiled and thanked them all, but was relieved when Si steered the conversation onto how the cafe was coming along, leaving me to stare out at the sea that beckoned invitingly beyond the cottage garden and drift in thought.
I was beginning to see why Jude kept so quiet about his healing work; it was highly uncomfortable being applauded for my efforts. Still, it was my own fault, because for the past fortnight, since the day at the hospital, I’d been relating my daily exploits to Luke and Cara and Si. After so long sitting quietly while Cara talked about her online fashion shop and Luke talked about his Project and Si talked about his uni course, I finally had something interesting of my own to share.
It had been surprisingly easy, with Jude’s help, to master the art of ‘the mini heal’, as I’d come to think of it. My gift was powerful, and it didn’t take much physical contact with a person to heal a minor ailment. I didn’t even have to touch the part of the body that was damaged – I could simply lay a hand lightly on a shoulder, or brush against someone, and will the energy to travel to where it was needed.
As for identifying people to heal, a morning spent at the hospital had given me experience across the full spectrum of suffering. I knew well the repellent push given out by someone not meant to be helped (we’d found plenty of those in the palliative care ward). And I recognised the strong pull of a person in serious need (several had called to us in the emergency department). I was to work with those who gave just a mild tug, a quieter call for help.
It was Luke who helped me work out how to do the mini heals. The evening of the hospital visit, he’d come to the cottage and I’d told him everything Jude had said. To say he was relieved would be an understatement: the thought that my healing would be so restrained, that I wouldn’t be in danger of pushing too far, that I’d be protected from harrowing sights – he was elated. Together, we planned out a new daily routine.
In the morning, after a good sleep, I went out into Twycombe and neighbouring villages and I scouted about for people in need. At first I was constantly on edge, waiting for someone to shout, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing! Stop touching that person!’ But I discovered that friendly eighteen-year-old girls don’t attract suspicion at all. Especially when accompanied by a goofy, lovable dog – the ideal ice-breaker and, given his habit of knocking people over, a good reason to hold out a helping hand.
Over the course of an hour or two, I usually found two people to help (okay, some days it was three… or four... once five), and the healing itself was quick and simple. Afterwards, I tried to find a way to melt into the background and watch the now-healthy parties. The look on their faces when they realised they felt better made it all worthwhile.
‘Job’ done, I would head home to recharge ready for an evening with Luke. I managed three to four hours with him before the tiredness got too much. Our time together was shorter, which saddened me, but I don’t think Luke minded too much because I was undeniably...
‘… tired, Scarlett?’
‘No, happier,’ I said. ‘Happier now.’
I pulled myself back to the present to find Cara and Si still chatting away but Luke leaning close and peering at me.
‘I know you’re happy,’ he said. ‘But you look tired, even without healing this morning. Do you need to go up and lie down for a bit? I can manage in the kitchen.’
I shook my head. ‘There’s no point. She’s due soon enough.’
Si and Cara had stopped talking and Cara pounced on my words. ‘She! She! Your mum, Scarlett! Here! For lunch! With us all! You must be so excited to see her!’
For once, rather than tempering Cara’s over-exuberance, I matched her grin and declared with feeling, ‘I am! I haven’t seen her in so long – not since Luke came to Hollythwaite to bring me home.’
‘Is she okay about your… absence?’ asked Si.
‘She hasn’t a clue about it,’ I told him. ‘Thanks to Cara emailing her as me.’
Before my death, I’d set up lots of scheduled emails for my mum, so she wouldn’t worry about me. After my death, Cara had hacked into my account, deleted all the prepared messages and started emailing my mother as me, reasoning that a fluid conversation was a lot more believable. I’d read their lengthy email exchange, and seen she was right; Mum was relaxed and chatty in her messages. The only undertone was disappointment: my mother kept suggesting we meet up, and Cara kept making excuses. At least now I could make up for the distance.
‘Honestly, I enjoyed emailing your mum, Scarlett,’ said Cara. ‘We had some brilliant conversations about fashion. And her wedding planning business ideas. Did I mention, by the way, that since I – you – told her about Cara Cavendish Designs, she’s excited to add me to her suppliers list?’
‘Yes,’ said Si and Luke in unison.
‘Many times,’ added Luke wearily.
Cara looked a little hurt. ‘Well, anyway, all I was saying is that Scarlett’s mum’s pretty cool.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘These days.’
Once, Mum had been anything but ‘cool’. An embarrassment, more like – and a worrying one at that, given her boozing and pill-popping and depressive episodes. But since she and my father had split up, she’d made a big effort to sort herself out. I’d only seen her twice since her transformation, though. While I’d believed then that her progress was genuine, it was new for me after a lifetime of disappointment and I worried that the change in her was fragile. Judging by our phone conversations, which had resumed as soon as I got back to Twycombe, she was in good spirits. But the little flutter of disquiet in my stomach wouldn’t settle until I laid eyes on her. Then I’d know how she really was.
‘My girlfriend the writer,’ Si was musing. ‘Well, it’s good to have a fallback career option.’
Luke snorted. Cara glared.
‘I read the emails,’ said Luke. ‘You do know there are other punctuation marks in the English language than exclamation points, right?’
That earned him a kick under the table.
‘Ow, Cara!’ he shouted. ‘That hurt!’
‘Sorry, brov,’ she said innocently. ‘I forget how strong my new legs are.’
He rolled his eyes and then stood, dropped a kiss on the top of my head and walked across the lawn to the cottage, bellowing: ‘Get those strong new legs working, little sis, and help me sort lunch.’
‘I’ll help,’ I called out at once.
From inside the kitchen came a stern order: ‘No, you won’t, you’ll rest.’ And then a softer-toned tease: ‘Besides, no reheating required in here.’
Cara and Si looked a little mystified, but when I shrugged in a ‘No idea what he means’ kind of way Cara got up and padded away.
Si watched her go with a little smile on his lips, no doubt inspired by the rear view of Cara in her latest design – a maxi dress that was see-through from the butt down. Then he gave himself a little shake, turned to me and said, ‘So, I’ve never met your mum, Scarlett. Is she very like you?’
I had to laugh at that.
‘No, not at all. She’s tall and slim and red-headed. She’s theatrical and emotional and stubborn. She’s a lot like my sister, actually… well, except that my mum’s a good person.’
‘And she still knows nothing about Ceruleans?’ asked Si. Then, quickly, he added, ‘Sorry, do you mind me asking?’
‘No, not at all.’
I trusted Si, I liked him a lot and he was very easy to talk to. Plus, given that he knew all about the Ceruleans, I counted him as one of ‘us’.
‘I thought about telling Mum,’ I explained. ‘I thought, perhaps, given her wealth, she could become a sponsor. But telling her that would mean telling her about Sienna. I can’t do it.’
I blinked away a memory:
Sienna
the alley
&nbs
p; the dead man
the satisfaction on her face.
‘Better Mum thinks Sienna is dead than knows what she is now.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Si. ‘And what about your dad?’
‘Him? Oh, I haven’t heard from him in a year almost. He’s long gone. Their divorce was finalised in February. Good riddance to him.’
Si looked a little lost. He had a good relationship with both of his parents – not difficult given that they were both kind, honest, loving people.
‘The way I look at it, Si, it’s actions that count. My father may be my father in blood, my sister may be my sister in blood, but if they don’t act like a father and sister should, they’re not family.’
‘And Evangeline?’
I thought about that. ‘Well, if she is my great-grandmother and she wants to start acting like that, maybe…’
I left the sentence dangling. I had no idea how to finish it.
Si’s face was scrunched up. ‘I still don’t get that. If Evangeline is a Cerulean and she had Peter, and Peter was Cerulean and he had your mum, wouldn’t your mum be a Cerulean too? I mean, you’ve got three generations in four that are Ceruleans there – great-grandparent, grandparent, grandchild. Wouldn’t the generation between grandparent and grandchild have a Cerulean in there too?’
‘No,’ I said automatically. ‘It’s not inherited. At least, not by girls. That’s why they have to Claim girls who have the potential. And anyway, both partners have to be Ceruleans to make a Cerulean, I think.’
Si shook his head. ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
Now it was my face that was scrunched up. ‘Do you know, Si, when I try to explain it, it’s all Greek to me too. It doesn’t really make sense, does it?’
Si shook his head. ‘What you need is An Idiot’s Guide to Ceruleans.’
‘Sadly, it doesn’t exist. Michael’s my best source of information, and the most he’s ever found is an extension to the Ceruleans’ origins story, and a fragmented family tree.’
‘A family tree? That sounds interesting.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘He emailed it to me last week. I asked him to find out whether I was related to Evangeline, and he got his computer hacker mate on it, apparently. They found this tree buried in some archived computer file. Looks like someone got into genealogy, but then gave up. All it has on it is a single branch of a family with loads of gaps – no siblings listed, for example.’
‘So who’s on it?’
‘At the top are William and Mary – they were two of the eight original Ceruleans, according to the origins story. From them a Robert and Sarah. From them a John and Evangeline. From them, a Peter.’
‘Your grandfather.’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe. It’s not exactly hard proof. There’s no Alice connected to the Peter, no Elizabeth and Hugo underneath them – and no Sienna and Scarlett at the bottom of the tree.’
‘But if it’s true then Evangeline is your great-grandmother – and your – hang on…’ Si muttered under his breath and counted on his fingers. ‘Then your great-great-great-grandfather was a founding Cerulean!’
‘If the origins story is true. And really, how can it be? It’s way too simple: eight saintly soldiers and nurses are granted angelic powers and create a brand-new race of healers?’
‘Blimey, it’s a complicated business.’
‘Too complicated to fathom.’
Si cocked his head. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘Perhaps that’s the point. “What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.” Salvador Dali, the artist. Confusion is a means of control.’
‘Which leads us back to Evangeline again.’ I sighed. ‘I can ask her about it all, I know. But the question is, will that lead to the truth?’
With that sobering thought, we fell silent. From inside the house drifted the clatter of cookware and Cara singing along with the radio, which apparently was tuned to ‘Sounds of the Musicals’. Either that or some hapless pop star had released a cover of ‘Oklahoma!’.
‘How about asking your mum today?’ suggested Si suddenly.
‘No point. She doesn’t know about Ceruleans, remember?’
‘I meant ask her about your family tree. Presumably she knows a thing or two about her ancestry? You could see whether the names she gives tally.’
That hadn’t occurred to me. ‘But wouldn’t my grandfather have lied about his past – to hide what he was?’ I said.
‘Maybe. But the best lies are usually pretty close to the truth. It’s worth a shot.’
‘I’m not sure, Si. Mum doesn’t talk about that kind of thing. My dad used to bang on about it constantly – the Blake lineage, blah blah blah. But Mum… well, I guess there was never any need to. It was always just Grandad and Nanna and the cottage. It never occurred to me to wonder where that all came from.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Si. ‘The older ladies – they love me. Always have done. My gran used to say it was because I’m so gay…’
He flashed me a white-toothed grin and I had to laugh.
10: EVANGELINE
Si was right: my mother took an instant shine to him. And Cara. She already loved Luke, of course, and she was over the moon to see me again, so lunch was a lively, happy affair.
We sat out on the patio, and chatted our way through Luke’s Italian-inspired lunch menu: bruschetta followed by fettuccine Alfredo, and panna cotta with fresh raspberries for dessert. The conversation veered between getting-to-know-you chat and catching up. Mum was most interested in The Project, especially when Luke told her it was not his but ours.
‘You’re going into business together! Setting up a cafe here! Scarlett, how exciting!’ Mum’s eyes shone with emotion as she leaned over to hug me.
Across the table, Si and Cara were beaming at this display of maternal pride.
‘Well, it’s really Luke who’s doing the work for now,’ I told her. ‘I just turn up now and then and try not fall down any holes.’
She laughed at that, and so did the others. But as Mum began firing questions at Luke about the premises and the menu and the decor, and he shot back answers with passion, I sat quietly, unwilling to take any ownership of this exciting new venture. Because it wasn’t mine to own. My path… well, that was separate. Only I couldn’t tell my mother about that.
‘Well, if the food’s anything like this, it’ll be a roaring success,’ Mum declared at last as she scraped her plate clean of panna cotta.
I smiled at the sight: I was so used to my mother picking at desserts. And mains. All food, in fact, thanks to her obsession with staying slender. She still was, but she looked healthier these days.
Mum caught my smile and returned it, then said eagerly, ‘Can I come down for the grand opening?’
‘Of course!’ Cara said at once.
Luke shot his sister a loaded look, and Mum caught it and turned to me.
‘That would be great,’ I said quickly, before she could read anything sinister into Luke’s concern.
‘Fabulous! And in return, you must all come to Hollythwaite in September. I’m hosting a wedding fair there!’
‘Ooooooh,’ said Cara at once.
I held up a hand. ‘Hang on. I’m lost. Isn’t the house for sale, Mum? And aren’t you going into wedding planning, not exhibitions?’
‘I had a better idea. I’ve been dying to tell you, but I wanted to wait until it was all set up and I could invite you to a proper event.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘I’m keeping the old pile to hire it out as a venue! I’ve moved into the old lodge at the front gates, and the big house has been spruced up. I started marketing the venue two months ago: weddings, conferences, exhibitions. There’s been a great deal of interest. I’m even in talks with the Girl Guides to host a jamboree on the grounds – imagine that, tents everywhere!’
‘Wow,’ said Cara. ‘That sounds amazing!’
I shot her a look. She missed it. So
did my mother.
‘Thanks, Cara,’ said Mum. ‘And of course you’re welcome to exhibit your designs at the wedding fair. You can have a free stand.’
Cara’s squeal said it all.
I exchanged looks with Luke, and he touched his leg to mine under the table.
‘So,’ said Mum, turning to me. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you’re an inspiration,’ I said.
She really was. Here, sitting in the garden of the cottage with my boyfriend and my friends, radiating energy. I remembered well the last time she’d sat on this patio almost a year ago now, perched demurely on the edge of her seat in her formal dress, lipstick-stained mouth pursed at my lacking hostess skills, whiffs of gin wafting across with every self-absorbed, emotional declaration she uttered. But now… well, she wasn’t perched, she was settled right in; she wasn’t dressed for Ascot, she was dressed for the seaside; she wasn’t pouty, she was smiley; and it was a mocktail she was sipping as she laughed and questioned and listened and engaged. Were it not for her stiletto heels, I’d barely have recognised her.
She caught me looking at her and gave me a little private smile as if to say, Don’t worry, darling. I won’t let you down again. Then she said hopefully, ‘So you’ll come in September? To the fair?’
I hesitated. I couldn’t go, theoretically. Hollythwaite was beyond the Devonshire border that Ceruleans couldn’t cross. But there was only one way to test that ‘fact’.
‘Yes,’ I said.
She clapped her hands. ‘That calls for another round of Cara’s mocktails, surely?’
Cara sashayed off to work her magic, Luke cleared the plates – refusing all offers of help – leaving Si and Mum and me to watch the afternoon’s entertainment: Chester chasing his tail.
‘Scarlett,’ said my mother suddenly, ‘is it me, or is the cottage whiter than before?’
I sat upright. The fire – she had no idea about the fire. She mustn’t find out; she’d be so upset.
‘Yes,’ I said slowly, buying time. ‘Luke did some work on the cottage.’
‘Really? You never mentioned that. Why did he do that?’
