Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4)

by Tayte, Megan

  ‘But I guess that’s not an option for him.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the painting. It was a seascape with amazing shades of blue blended together in such a way that the waves felt real.

  ‘Do you know,’ I heard myself say, ‘that water’s moving.’

  I felt arms slide around me, which was strange, because Luke was across the room last I’d known, and then his breath was hot on my cheek as he said urgently, ‘It’s not the water swaying, it’s you. You’ve gone too far. You need to leave. Now. Go to the cottage. Sleep.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Do you understand me, Scarlett? Travel – go now!’

  ‘’Kay,’ I said.

  And I closed my eyes and I went.

  18: TESTING

  I woke up on the sofa in the cottage. I knew that’s where I was by the squishy embrace of the cushions at my back and the hush in the air that I associated with the deserted west cliff. Only it wasn’t entirely silent, I realised foggily – there was a tapping noise nearby, in the room. I wasn’t alone.

  I tore open my eyes and struggled upright.

  ‘Careful!’ called a familiar voice from the corner of the room and I twisted around quickly.

  ‘Luke?’

  He was standing as far away from me as possible, back to the wall, his phone clutched in his hand, his hair standing on end and his face flushed.

  ‘What is it?’ I said at once. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘What?’ I began to stand, to walk to him, but a wave of dizziness hit me.

  ‘Stay there!’ he ordered unnecessarily as I slumped back onto the sofa. ‘How do you feel?’

  I got out an ‘f–’ before he growled, ‘And don’t say fine, or I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  ‘I’ve felt better,’ I admitted. ‘I’m confused…’

  ‘You’re not the only one. You got dizzy, remember, at the cafe?’

  I nodded. I remembered the swirling water in the painting.

  ‘And I came over and caught you before you could fall, and I told you to go.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the next thing I knew, we were here, on the floor, and you were out cold on my lap!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘My thought exactly.’

  ‘I Travelled you here?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘I know that. I didn’t know what to do. I know you need to be away from me, to feel better. But I couldn’t just leave you like that. I tried to call Jude, but his phone’s off. I was just trying Michael.’

  I rubbed a hand across my eyes. ‘How long was I out?’

  ‘A couple of minutes.’

  ‘What? But that doesn’t make sense.’

  Luke was backing away to the door. ‘Look, I’m going to go. Let you rest.’

  ‘No, don’t –’

  ‘Scarlett!’ he said sharply, making me jump. ‘You scared the crap out of me. Again. You’ve totally gone over your limit and I’m not messing about while you’re in danger like this.’

  ‘No!’ I shook my head, but quickly stopped when the room spun. ‘No, I know my limit, I know what it feels like to go that far, and I’m nowhere near it, Luke. Saturday and Sunday I didn’t come into contact with any people at all. I felt great this morning. And I’ve taken loads of breaks today. I’m a bit tired, but not dangerously. Not at all.’

  ‘You’re not drained?’

  ‘No. If I was, if it was like the last time, I’d have been out for much longer, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Luke’s frown deepened. ‘So what just happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you faint?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Bit funny.’

  ‘Funny drained?’

  ‘Funny ill.’

  ‘You’re ill?’ He was across the room in a few strides and gathering me into a hug. ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett. I thought… Never mind, I should’ve trusted you. Come on, let’s get you to bed.’

  He slid an arm under my knees and lifted me. Usually, I’d have protested at being treated like a swooning woman, but I wasn’t far off feeling that way, so I said nothing, just laid my head on his shoulder.

  Upstairs, Luke tucked me into bed and then bustled about fetching ‘sickbed supplies’ as he called them: extra blankets, extra pillows, tissues, a jug of water, a glass tumbler and a vast assortment of remedies he’d found in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet.

  ‘Really,’ I told him wearily, ‘you can stop flapping about.’

  ‘That’s my job,’ he said. ‘If I can’t stay and be Nurse Luke, at least let me leave you fully equipped.’

  I eyed the teetering pile on the bedside table. ‘I appreciate the thought. But really, I don’t need elasticated bandages. Or insect bite relief cream. Or… what is that?’ I gestured to an unfamiliar ointment tube.

  Luke examined the label and then coloured smartly. ‘Er, sorry. I just grabbed everything in there.’

  My bleary eyes finally made sense of the label: Haemorrhoid Heave-Ho! Quick relief from pesky piles.

  ‘That is not mine! Most of the stuff in there dates back to my grandparents.’

  Luke shushed me soothingly. ‘Now, I’ll just bring up some snacks in case you get peckish. My mum swore by Marmite sandwiches whenever I was ill, said they –’ He broke off and leaned over to peer at me. ‘Scarlett, you’re awfully green.’

  ‘No food!’ I managed to gasp.

  ‘You feel sick?’

  I nodded miserably. Luke hurried off muttering about a bucket.

  I lay back on the pillows he’d bashed into shape beneath me and closed my eyes. Stupid sickness. Stupid dizziness. And what was that random collapse all about? Poor Luke; I’d thought the days of seeing that stricken look on his face were far behind us.

  Still, he’d calmed down now he’d realised I was simply off colour. A stomach bug or something. I grimaced at the thought. After so many months of perfect health as a Cerulean, illness was a bit of a shock. It hadn’t occurred to me that healers got sick. But clearly we did, because here I was feeling wretched, and of course illness was the only explanation for dizziness and nausea. Oh. Well, except…

  I made it to the toilet just in time to be spectacularly sick.

  ‘Scarlett, you okay?’ shouted Luke. ‘Sorry, stupid question.’

  I should have said nothing, should have just reassured him I’d be fine and sent him on his way – and then dealt with it myself. I blame feeling simultaneously horrendous and horrified for what happened next.

  ‘Scarlett?’ Luke appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you want me to –?’

  ‘You have to go!’ I hauled myself up, swaying wildly on my feet.

  ‘What?’ He looked unsure whether to come over and steady me or keep his distance.

  ‘To the late-night chemist. Now! NOW!’

  ‘But there are stomach settlers in that medicine stash.’

  Before I could get a word out a wave of nausea hit me and I turned and gripped the sink, just in case. I swallowed deeply and then met his eyes in the mirror. Ignoring the fact that I looked a total state while he looked at a total loss, I carefully enunciated the words:

  ‘Go. To. The. Chemist. And. Get. Me. A. Pregnancy. Test.’

  ‘Get a... what?’

  ‘Go!’ I shouted hoarsely and, eyes wide, he fled.

  *

  An hour later (an hour! Apparently, Luke had been forced to drive into the city to find a chemist open so late) I was a lot fresher thanks to a long, cool shower and sipping three glasses of water, but I was no calmer. If anything, as I sat on the edge of the bath and studied the test kit’s instructions, my anxiety was ramping up with every word.

  I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t be.

  But I could
be. Of course I could. Since I’d come back from the island, I’d found all sorts of excuses to be intimate but not quite intimate with Luke. But a couple of weeks back, he’d surprised me with a romantic meal in the cafe – candlelight, music, wine, the works – and I’d been swept up in the mood and worn down by the need in his eyes, and well...

  ‘You okay in there? You done it yet?’ called Luke through the closed bathroom door.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I said.

  Delaying would only prolong the agony, I knew, so I threw on the bathroom taps to give me a little privacy and then fumbled about with wands. Finally, I was done.

  Luke knocked again. ‘Scarlett?’

  I opened the door. ‘Three minutes,’ I told him.

  Three minutes to save us. Three minutes to doom us.

  He eyed the tests (yes, plural; I’d done all three from the multipack kit just to be sure) lying side by side on the toilet cistern and said, ‘Come out here. I want to talk to you.’

  ‘In three minutes.’

  ‘Now,’ he said firmly. ‘Before you read the results.’

  He reached out and took my hand and tugged me out of the bathroom and back to my bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed. I stood gripping the headboard grimly.

  ‘Sit,’ said Luke.

  ‘Can’t.’

  He sighed. ‘Scarlett, you have to calm down. First of all, the chances are you’re ill – nothing more. I mean, think about it. We use protection. And you said yourself you’re not even late. And doesn’t morning sickness start later on and come, well, in the morning?’

  ‘I don’t know, Luke,’ I snapped. ‘I’m not all that experienced in being pregnant.’

  My heart squeezed painfully when I saw hurt flash in his eyes. He was only trying to help. But he didn’t understand.

  He stood up and came over and took my hands. ‘Listen to me. You have to calm down. We can handle this. We’re not kids. I’m twenty. You’re nineteen. We have a good relationship. We have good friends and family. We’re financially secure. We have homes. We can handle this.’

  I stared at him. Surely he wasn’t suggesting –

  ‘Scarlett, if the test’s positive… I know it’s a shock. I know it’s not something we’ve discussed, and it’s probably something you don’t feel ready for, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It could be a happy thing?’

  His eyes were so full of love that I struggled to breathe. I didn’t deserve that love. I didn’t deserve him.

  I wanted to tell him. But I couldn’t stand to see his hope melt into fear. ‘I can’t…’ I mumbled.

  He stepped back and studied me.

  ‘Can’t?’

  ‘Three minutes!’ I said desperately. ‘Must be time.’

  I thrust past him and rushed to the bathroom. There I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered a quick prayer, and then I looked. Three wands bearing a single line each.

  ‘NOT PREGNANT!’

  I raced back to the bedroom. Luke was sitting on the bed, and I threw myself onto him and hugged him hard.

  ‘Negative. Not pregnant. No baby.’

  He was quiet, just stroking my back lightly.

  ‘Luke?’

  I clambered off to sit beside him.

  ‘That’s… great,’ he said. He was smiling, but he didn’t look half as relieved as I felt.

  ‘You – you wanted it to be positive?’ I whispered.

  ‘Such a tone of horror!’ He sighed. ‘No, I won’t say that I wanted it to be positive exactly. We’re young. We’ve got lives to lead. But if it had been, like I said, we could handle that.’

  ‘But babies aren’t something to handle, Luke. They should be wanted, loved, treasured.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to say is that I want kids. Some day.’

  I looked away from him so he wouldn’t see the pain in my eyes.

  ‘But clearly it’s not what you want,’ he said.

  I was desperate to turn to him and tell him he was wrong – that of course I wanted children. That was my instinctive reaction. I’d always thought, since I was a little girl playing with baby dolls, that one day I wanted to be a mother. But now…

  Did I still want children one day, knowing what I knew? It seemed to me that was the fundamental question I had to answer before I could even begin to think of telling Luke the truth: that any child we made would most likely not remain human. Had tonight’s near-miss brought me any closer to a conclusion?

  I pushed aside my horror at the thought of pregnancy and looked beneath. There it was: regret. I understood Luke’s lack of jubilation. We loved each other. We’d love a child that was part-him, part-me. Babies were beautiful, miracles. That one didn’t exist; it was a little sad.

  But did the sadness outweigh the horror?

  ‘Scarlett?’ Luke slid his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got this all wrong. Here you are, ill and upset, and I’m piling pressure on you. There’s no reason we need to be discussing kids right now. Like I said, we’re young. We’ve got lives to lead. So let’s put all this away, and get back to enjoying what we have right now. Well, except for the bit where you chuck your guts up…’

  I smiled, then yawned.

  ‘Into bed, missy,’ he instructed at once. When I was back under the covers he tucked me in tight enough that I’d probably be immobile all night, and said, ‘Now sleep. You look like a zombie movie extra.’

  ‘Urgh.’

  ‘Indeed. Good job I’ve got a thing for dead girls.’

  My eyelids were heavy now; all the adrenaline of this evening had seeped away, leaving me totally spent.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he said, and I did.

  ‘Love you,’ I mumbled sleepily.

  ‘Love you too,’ said Luke, and I felt his lips touch my forehead.

  ‘We okay?’

  Perhaps he answered. But if he did, I didn’t hear him.

  19: FREE WILL

  The stomach bug turned out to be a lurker, so I laid low for the next few days. Of course, a Cerulean friend could have had me fighting fit in moments, but I didn’t call anyone other than Luke to reassure him I was getting better slowly. Because the worst of the symptoms passed quickly, I was only really dealing with exhaustion and loss of appetite, which I didn’t feel merited a healing visit. And I told myself I needed some time to myself to think.

  But when it came to it, I did everything but think. I took long baths. I took long naps. I read thriller novels, the kind with mind-boggling twists that keep you turning the pages. I watched the New Girl box set my mum had sent me because she thought I was into it, and discovered that actually I was quite into it, even if the heroine’s fashion sense baffled me.

  Come Friday afternoon, though, there was no denying that I was all better. And hungry. And bored. And lonely. And anxious. Perhaps I’d overloaded on New Girl, or perhaps I was in desperate need of ‘feelings talk’, because for the first time in my life I sent out an SOS for a girly chat.

  I’d barely had time to shower and dress and put the kettle on when I heard an engine roar outside followed by a familiar ‘tap-tap-a-tap-tap’ on the front door. I smiled as I went to answer it – I’d known Cara would rise to the occasion. And sure enough, upon opening the door I saw she’d come armed and ready.

  ‘Supplies!’ she announced cheerily, hefting up one of the huge bags-for-life she was carrying. ‘Lead the way, Ms Blake!’

  She followed me down to the kitchen and dumped her bags on the table. I was reaching for the coffee granules when an ‘Oh no you don’t!’ stopped me short, and moments later I was pushed onto a chair and handed a bottle of iced mocha coffee.

  ‘Drink!’ Cara commanded.

  I hadn’t realised ‘girly chat’ was code for ‘boss me about, Cara’. But her dimples were out, so I knew she meant well. As I sipped the coffee – pretty good, in fact – I watched Cara unpack her kit.

  ‘Feather boas. Man-size tissues. Nail polish. Balsamic vinegar. Diva Power Ballads album.
Dough balls. Lemonade. Margarita pizza. Tiara. Cocktail shaker. Cocktail stirrers. Cocktail umbrellas. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus book. Celery. Hippo. That should do us.’

  ‘Wow, Cara.’

  ‘Serious business, girly chat,’ she said, pointing a funky pink cocktail stirrer at me.

  I was just bracing myself for her next order, which I imagined would be something along the lines of ‘Spill it – what’s up?’, when a rustling at the front door caught my attention. I frowned. Someone was there, I could hear as much. But I couldn’t feel the presence of a human nearby. Which could only mean…

  ‘Sorry!’ yelled Cara down the hallway. ‘I’ve abandoned you. Can you manage?’ She caught my expression and explained, ‘Girly chat requires girls. Plural.’

  But it wasn’t a girl who entered the room. It was a vampire and a werewolf.

  ‘This one’s head’s seriously floppy…’

  A face came into view between Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. ‘Hey, Scarlett. Cara, where am I putting these?’

  Cara’s instruction was lost on me as I gaped at the sight of Estelle – mother, islander, Cerulean – arranging cardboard cutouts of Twilight characters in my kitchen. I was still staring when she sat down beside me.

  ‘Ta da!’ she said, doing showbiz hands. ‘Cara texted me that you were in need of girl time, so I met her at the cafe and now here I am!’

  Cara had texted her? I knew the two had hit it off at the cafe opening, but not to that degree. The more pressing issue, however, was:

  ‘You Travelled?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Adam taught you to do it yourself?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Does Evangeline know you can Travel now?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I could only imagine the fireworks in Cerulea. I almost felt sorry for Evangeline. Clearly, though, I was alone in that sentiment.

  ‘Name that song...’ said Estelle, and she started humming.

  I got it several notes in, but Cara was way off base: ‘It’s from the soundtrack to The Vampire Faerie Wolf of Atlantis!’

  ‘Nope, but it is covered on the Moulin Rouge soundtrack.’