by Tayte, Megan
We all fell quiet.
She had a point. There were no newspapers in Cerulea. No radio. No television news. The women who lived here were sheltered, as Evangeline put it (isolated was how I saw it).
I sneaked a look at my friends. Estelle was staring out to sea. Adam was staring down at his lap. Jude was staring right at me with a ‘Don’t you dare ask’ look in his eyes.
He opened his mouth to speak, and I knew the words would be something along the lines of ‘Time to head back?’, and my stomach tightened at the thought. So with one neat move I bought myself a little more time and fractured the awkward silence. I raised my hand, I pointed randomly out at the waves and I yelled, ‘SHARK!’
13: THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
Evangeline and I sat in the conservatory by the window. Once Nathaniel had finished fussing over the table, laying out scones and jam and clotted cream and a pot of tea, we were left alone, with the doors to the house and to the garden closed. I assumed this was to give us privacy, but it made me feel fluttery inside, like a caged bird.
‘I’ve come to think of this table as our table,’ said Evangeline as she poured fragrant tea into each of our dainty little cups.
I smiled, though I felt only apprehension at the connection she’d highlighted. Twice before we’d sat at this table alone together. Twice before I’d sought answers from this woman. Twice before I’d walked away reeling from her answers.
I remembered so clearly that first meeting – when I was newly Cerulean. I’d come to Evangeline desperate to go home. But she’d told me that I couldn’t. I could never go back to Luke. Her words were etched into my memory:
‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, but a relationship between a Cerulean and a human just can’t work. For the Cerulean, it’s a kind of torture. Terrible, life-sapping torture.’
I wanted so much to challenge her today, to tell her she was wrong. But while I could never call being with Luke torture, I knew Evangeline hadn’t lied, exactly – just overstated.
No, it wasn’t those words I’d call her on today; it was what she’d said next all those months ago:
‘In our history a Cerulean has had a relationship with a human. It didn’t end well.’
‘How exactly?’
‘Misery, Scarlett. For them both. And, ultimately, death.’
At the time, devastated as I was, I hadn’t thought to question Evangeline further. This Cerulean who’d had a relationship with a human had been a shadow, remote and of no relevance to me. But now…
Evangeline tipped a smidgeon of milk into her tea. I dumped milk in my cup with such force a glut of it splashed up into my face.
Evangeline delicately split a scone into two equal parts. I sawed a scone inelegantly into a wonky slab and a crumbly wafer.
Evangeline smeared her cake with a little jam and a little cream. I slopped such a massive glob of cream onto my scone that there was little room for jam.
‘Scarlett.’ Evangeline reached over and put a cool, papery hand over mine. ‘Whatever it is you need to say, just say it, dear. I understand you must be hesitant to talk to me after all that’s happened. But I’m not an ogre. I’m someone who cares about you. I’m your...’
‘... great-grandmother?’ I interjected quietly.
I saw her eyes – green like mine, like Sienna’s, like my mother’s – widen. ‘How did you...’ Her hand flew to her mouth and covered it.
‘Sienna,’ I said simply.
I watched as the cogs turned in her mind. Shock quickly gave way to something else – anger, I thought. Or was it fear?
‘What exactly did your sister say?’
‘That our grandfather, Peter, was your son. And that he ran away and married a human girl and lived out his days shut up in a house on a cliff, hiding from everything he was.’
It was exactly what Sienna had said to taunt me, almost word for word. The only part I’d omitted was her saying that Peter had hated his mother. I wouldn’t relate anything so hurtful – and besides, I didn’t believe it; my mother had said my grandfather would look at the stars and miss his Evangeline.
She sighed. ‘Well, in this instance at least, your sister is right. Peter was my son, my firstborn. He served as a loyal Cerulean, and then one day he walked away from his Cerulean life to be with the human girl he loved.’
‘Like me.’
‘Like you.’
Silence fell as perceptions readjusted. Evangeline had thought me ignorant of our connection, and I’d suspected the truth, but without confirmation it hadn’t quite felt real.
I looked up from toying with my scone to see Evangeline wiping her eyes on her napkin.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know you’d prefer this to be unspoken.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Familial connections aren’t fundamental in Cerulea as they are off the island.’
I knew what she meant. In order to live as they did, where children weren’t attached to their biological parents, it was necessary to strip them of their lineage. Jude didn’t know the identity of his own parents. Neither did anyone else. Only the person in charge – Evangeline – held that information.
‘Being related probably doesn’t mean much to you then,’ I suggested.
‘No, Scarlett, you’re wrong. It does matter. I loved Peter. I was deeply saddened by his decision to leave, and I missed him terribly.’
‘You had no contact with him after he left?’
‘I… I went to the cove sometimes and watched him from a distance. With Elizabeth, once she was born, and then you and your sister. I worried for him.’
‘Why? After all, he was happy, wasn’t he? With my grandmother? Not miserable, as you told me a Cerulean would be in a relationship with a human.’
Evangeline blanched a little at the challenge, but she kept her voice even as she replied: ‘What a child sees and what actually is can differ widely. Your grandfather didn’t keep in contact with me, but he did with other Ceruleans, and it was quite clear to me that the life he’d chosen wasn’t easy. It was frustrating. Fraught with guilt. Exhausting. And it demanded he keep a distance from the woman he loved.’
She watched me carefully, waiting for a response. When I gave none, she said, ‘I’m sure you understand what I’m saying, Scarlett.’
I nodded. It was as far as I was prepared to go – long-lost relative or not, I wasn’t about to spell out the difficulties Luke and I now faced to be together. In fact, I found myself determined to defend my choice to be with him.
‘But Peter stayed with my grandmother for all those years; it didn’t kill him as you insinuated. He lived to a decent age.’
‘Fifty-eight?’ Evangeline’s eyes were wide. ‘My goodness, how differently the young see mortality!’
‘Still,’ I said, crossing my arms, ‘nearly four decades with the person you love? It’s more than many get.’
‘Yes, dear, you’re right. But what is better? One year – two – ten with your soulmate, and with them, with them. In love. Lost in each other. Or forty years always apart, always at arm’s length, never intimate?’
‘Intimate?’ I echoed, confused.
She raised an eyebrow and I felt heat rise in my cheeks. Really, this was not a topic of conversation I wanted to explore with my seventy-something great-grandmother! But I had to speak up.
‘Well, of course you can’t be together all the time,’ I said. ‘But still, in the times when you are, you can be… together.’
Evangeline’s mouth fell open. ‘Scarlett! You know a Cerulean can’t be intimate with a human!’
I stared at her. ‘What?’
She reached over and grabbed my hands. ‘Jude warned you.’
‘No…’
‘He did!’ I’d never seen Evangeline so agitated. She all but yelled, ‘He promised me he had!’
I thought back. Had Jude told me not to sleep with Luke? No, of course not! I’d have laughed in his face. Hang on – that last morning in Newquay, right before I left, there�
�d been an awkward exchange. What was it he’d said? Something utterly cringeworthy about seeds. I’d put the weird chat down to his ravaged emotions; after all, Jude had just confessed he was in love with a girl who’d cheerfully committed murder in front of him.
Evangeline squeezed my hands.
‘I, er, thinking about it, maybe Jude did try to warn me,’ I admitted. ‘I just didn’t understand. I still don’t.’
She breathed out and released her hold of me. ‘Oh my dear girl, I am sorry. I told you, remember? Ceruleans and humans aren’t compatible.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘You’re a Cerulean. A born mother. Fertile. You could so easily create a child, with any man. But with a human – Scarlett, your child would be half-Cerulean, half-human. And the two parts... incompatible.’
The words were horribly familiar to me.
‘When the child came of age...’
‘Death,’ I whispered.
Suddenly, the air in the conservatory was stifling. I pushed back from the table, my chair shrieking on the floor tiles, and I was ready to stand and back away, but instead I froze, clinging on to the table, as Evangeline finished soberly:
‘Or, when the time comes, if the child so chooses, he or she becomes a Cerulean.’
OhGodohGodohGodohGod.
If Luke and I were to have a child, he or she would follow in my staggering footsteps. To knowingly, willingly create a child that was destined to die or be a Cerulean? To put my own child through everything I’d been through? I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t.
‘You see?’ said Evangeline gently. ‘You can’t be intimate.’
But my relationship with Luke... intimacy was a part of us, an important part. I couldn’t deny Luke that. I couldn’t expect him to be celibate!
‘Scarlett?’
Evangeline’s voice was sharp and I looked up. Her eyes weren’t on mine, but on my stomach.
‘You’re not… you couldn’t be…?’ The anguish in her voice surprised me.
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘We’ve been careful.’
‘You’re sure?’
Pressing a hand to the womb I knew was empty – would always be empty, now? – I said, ‘I’m sure.’ Then: ‘Oh, that’s it! We take precautions.’
She gave me a sad smile. ‘Naturally, dear. But we both know they’re not foolproof. Ninety-nine per cent effective at best. Are you prepared to take the risk?’
I stood and walked away to the window and stared out, seeing nothing of the view. Fear had gripped me and it taunted me: It can’t work. You’ll lose him now.
But then a cool, logical voice stepped in to argue back: But Peter made it work. He loved Alice. Alice loved him. They spent a lifetime together. They managed without intimacy…
Hang on.
I spun around. Evangeline was watching me expectantly.
‘My mother,’ I said. I didn’t need to say any more; Evangeline knew what I meant: But Peter and Alice were intimate! They had a child!
‘Your mother is a special case,’ she said. ‘The exception, not the rule.’
‘She is… she was… what is she?’
‘Human. She was always human.’
‘But how?’
‘The exception, not the rule.’
‘You can’t lay down rules and then straight away tell me they don’t always fit!’
‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know myself how she was born human – only that she was.’
I thought furiously. Evangeline, great-grandmother: Cerulean; Peter, grandfather: Cerulean; Elizabeth, mother: human. It made no sense. Unless… I thought back to when I’d cracked open this giant can of worms. What had Evangeline said? Peter was my son. Not, Yes, I’m your great-grandmother. She hadn’t admitted that.
‘Is Elizabeth not my grandfather’s?’ I said. ‘Did my grandmother have an affair with another man – a human man?’
Evangeline’s eyes widened. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ There was reluctance in her tone that struck me as strange – as if she wished she’d thought of that and then presented it to me as a simple explanation for Mum’s humanity.
But if that wasn’t the truth – and I couldn’t believe it was; my grandmother was a devoted wife – then that left another, equally horrifying, possibility:
‘She was like me,’ I said. ‘Mum got ill. She died, or nearly died. And she found some way to stay human.’
I thought of what that meant. Oh God, all of this mess. I could have stayed human, stayed with Luke, all along…
But Evangeline was shaking her head. ‘No, Scarlett. Think about it – if that were true, your mother would have known that you and Sienna would face the same fate and she’d have been open with you about that. The truth is that there is no way to remain human when you’re part-Cerulean. And there is nothing special about your mother.’
I bristled instantly at the implication, but before I could say a word Evangeline was adding firmly, ‘Your mother should have been born half-Cerulean like you and Sienna, but she wasn’t. She was born human. She couldn’t be a Cerulean.’
‘So she’s just an exception to the rule.’
‘Yes, that’s all.’
I sank back into my chair and surveyed my untouched scone. The cream had melted and collapsed onto the plate in a despondent, floppy mess. I felt a lot like that cream. I didn’t know where to start sorting through all I’d learned today. What was it with this place and mind-boggling revelations?
Evangeline, it appeared, was having a similar moment. ‘I’m so sorry, Scarlett,’ she said quietly. ‘I feel like whenever you’re here, I’m the bearer of bad news.’
I met her gaze. I wanted to find duplicity there – some shadow that suggested she’d lied today. But she looked genuine.
‘I don’t want delivering difficult information to be my role in your life,’ she went on. ‘I was looking forward to seeing you today. I hoped that in time perhaps we might become closer.’
That surprised me. Then realisation dawned. ‘You think I’ll come back,’ I said, not bothering to hide my disbelief. ‘You think I’ll change my mind and come back to live on the island!’
She sighed. ‘Is it so bad that I hope for it? I’m not a young lady, Scarlett, and with each day that passes I’m a little less… alive, I think.’
I stared at her. Was that it, the change in her? Thinner, frailer – was she ill?
‘No one can live forever, Scarlett,’ she said, seeing the question in my eyes. ‘And when I’m gone, Cerulea will need a new Mother to lead.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not offering you the position, Scarlett – and in any case, it’s not for me to offer, merely recommend to the other Ceruleans, who vote on it. But the potential could be explored.’
‘I’d be the very worst person for that job!’ I spluttered.
She smiled. ‘Perhaps. But you are, after all, family – my only female Cerulean descendent. You’re regarded fondly and with respect by the Ceruleans, despite your choices. You have the backbone to do what you believe is right, to make sacrifices.’
I was shaking my head so hard the conservatory was a blur.
Ignoring me, she finished: ‘And you remind me a lot of myself. You know, I wasn’t always an old lady. Once, I was young and full of zeal, just like you.’
‘But there are other women who are obedient and who believe in the rules of this place.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said thoughtfully.
I felt the urge to burst out laughing. This was crazy – all of this was crazy! When I told Luke about it later…
Oh. That thought sobered me at once.
‘Anyway,’ said Evangeline, ‘that is a matter for another day.’
I said nothing. My head was aching and my stomach was in knots and I was plagued by the sense that our conversation had moved too fast and I’d missed something.
All at once, I wanted this to be over. My eyes scanne
d the room, seeking an escape route, and settled on a path leading through a verdant valley. Not a scene through the window, but that on a framed poster on the wall. One of those religious ones, featuring a Bible quote.
‘“Then you will know the truth,”’ I read aloud, ‘“and the truth will set you free.”’
Evangeline started and twisted around to follow my gaze, then turned back to the table. I waited for her to say something profound, but she only picked up the cup before her, brought it a little shakily to her lips and took a sip of tea.
‘So,’ she said in light tone that signalled our serious talk was over, ‘why don’t you tell me some more about your life in Twycombe. Jude tells me you have a dog…’
And we both settled down for a past-its-best cream tea and a discussion on how best to train a dog. Meaningless, yes, but safe. In the circumstances, that was the best a conflict-averse great-grandmother and a conflicted great-granddaughter could manage.
14: POTENTIAL
I was angry. Frightened. Confused. I should have run home to Luke and let him hold me as I poured out everything Evangeline had said. But the intimacy – I didn’t know how to tell him that. And in any case, old habits die hard.
I turned to Jude instead.
He was in the living room, sprawled on a sofa with Adam and laughing at a DVD playing on the big plasma screen. As I walked in he took one look at my face and his smile faded.
‘Can we take a walk?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ he said, leaping up.
Outside, there was no need for discussion; of their own accord our feet followed a familiar path winding away from the house to a far-off peninsular – the furthest point on the island from the house and the closest point to the mainland, to home.
‘So,’ said Jude, sinking down onto a carpet of moss beneath a tall pine tree, ‘I take it by the weighty silence and the look in your eyes and the fact that we’re here after your chat with Evangeline that it didn’t go well.’
I managed a weak smile as I sat down beside him.
‘She denied the family connection?’
