Endless Winter (Guardians of The Light)

by J Armitage

“We just wait. There’s not a lot we can do except rest and cross our fingers. Aldric said he’d do a pregnancy test in a few days.”

  “A few days? Can’t he just do one now?”

  “Apparently it takes a few days to show a positive result.”

  “Ah.”

  They lapsed into silence. Eventually Alex broke it.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “What for?”

  I should have been with you this week. I know how hard it’s been for you what with Aethelu gone and everything.

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine. It’s utterly crappy actually. I’ve been hiding away from everyone in my room with no thought to how you felt by all of this and let’s be honest, my part was very small. It’s you that had to endure all the invasive procedures. I’m such a dolt.”

  “Alex, it’s fine, really.” He looked at her with those beautiful eyes which reminded her of Aethelu. “I’m scared too.”

  He put his arms around her and held her whilst they both wept.

  Minutes passed before they disentangled themselves from each other. Alex fished out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. It was embroidered with A.H. It was such an old fashioned gesture, handing a handkerchief to a lady. She’d never seen anyone under the age of seventy carry a handkerchief before but she reminded herself that he was over seventy. It made her smile.

  “You know. I’ve been in this house nearly two months and I still don’t know your surnames. What does the ‘H’ stand for?

  “You never asked Aethelu?”

  “Nope. I guess I never thought about it.”

  “Hyde. It’s our real surname.”

  “I keep forgetting that you all changed your names. What were you called originally?”

  “Robin. Robin Hyde”

  “Robin? That’s a beautiful name. It suits you.”

  “Thanks. I’ve been Alexander for most of my life now though. Robin is long gone I’m afraid”

  “That’s a shame” She smiled at him and then giggled.

  “What?” Alex looked at her in confusion.

  “I’ve just realised. Robin Hyde.”

  “Yes?” Confusion still sounded in his voice.

  “Are you sure you didn’t rob from the rich to give to the poor?”

  “Ah Robin Hood, Yes I get it. No, I’ve not been stealing from the rich” He smiled along with her.

  “Been wearing green tights lately?” She laughed out loud. Alex joined in laughing with her.

  It was such a release, laughing with Alex. The pressure she had been under for the last week finally diminished and she had to admit, she felt so much better because of it. Alex had a special way of making her feel better, lighter even. Eventually the laughing came to an end.

  “I thought you’d hate me” He said what he’d been thinking all along.

  “Why would I hate you? You are a victim of circumstance as much as I am. We are in this together.”

  When he didn’t say anything she held out her hand to hold his.

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “I love you Anais.”

  “I know.”

  She smiled sadly at the direction both their lives had taken and wished it could be different.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The snow was beginning to let up the next day and now was falling in dribs and drabs as if it wasn’t sure it could be bothered any more. She’d still not heard anything from Aethelu and was losing hope. When Alex had found out that Anais was planning to drive to York to pick up her things he persuaded Winnie to let him drive her instead.

  After breakfast they both got into a new model Range Rover which belonged to August. It had been parked at Augusts’ cottage and so Anais had not seen it before.

  The snow was thick but was no match for the four wheel drive. August had gritted the driveway once again and the main roads had been cleared of snow. Few other drivers were attempting to drive in the snowy conditions so they made good time. They sat in silence the whole journey, each in their own thoughts. Anais was taking in the beauty of the scenery. Everything they passed was white, heavy with snow. The only colour was the sky which looked like it had been freshly painted with pinks and pale blues. Anais marvelled at the beauty of the world around her. She realised in all her time in England she’d seen so very little of the country. She’d only seen York and the Manors grounds. She’d slept, thanks to the drugged milk on her way to the manor and had missed so much.

  She decided that as soon as she could get out of the mess she was in, she would travel all around England, the country of her parents. She’d take Aethelu with her and together they’d see everything. She was already mentally planning her trip when the car slowed and she realised they were coming into the centre of York.

  She looked at the castle walls as they went through an archway into the town and remembered her father and her walking the length of them the week she arrived.

  She tried not to cry at the thought of it. Today was the day for picking up her things from the apartment above the shop and nothing else. She didn’t want to waste time on emotion.

  When they got to the shop, Anais was surprised to see that the little sign above the shop door had been taken down.

  Alex fished some keys out of his pocket and opened the shop door. The little bell to announce customers rang although there was no one but them there to hear it.

  Anais should have been prepared when she’d seen the missing shop sign but she was still shocked to see the shelves empty and with a fine layer of dust covering them.

  Half a dozen large boxes were stacked in a corner with ‘Books’ written on each in Winnie’s neat writing.

  “I promised I’d take some of the books home so I’ll load up the car whilst you’re upstairs packing.” Alex picked up the nearest box effortlessly and headed for the door. “Just don’t carry anything too heavy or Ma will kill me”

  Anais made her way to the apartment up a little staircase at the back of the shop.

  It felt strange to be back in her room. It took her back to a time where life was less complicated, but then it was also a time without Aethelu. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had last fallen asleep in this room instead of the six weeks it actually was.

  She sat on the bed and looked around. Unlike the shop, it had been left exactly as she had left it all those weeks before. The book she had been reading was still on the bedside cabinet with the page she had just read folded down at the corner to mark where she was. The ornate wallpaper was the same as it had always been, so similar in style to some of the rooms of the manor. She should have made the connection straight away.

  Her clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe and she wondered if she would even need them. Pretty soon she would be too big for them all. She pulled out a few pieces ready to pack. She could wear them until they got too small and then afterward. After the babies arrived. It was a strange thought. She supposed she’d have to go back into town at some point and buy a whole set of maternity clothes. It was a scary thought. Perhaps she’d leave that particular job to Arcadia who would relish the chance of a clothes shopping trip and would undoubtedly do a much better job of it. To take her mind off it, she turned her attention back to the room and the job in hand.

  She noticed her jewellery box sat as it always had been on her dressing table. She went over to it and lifted the lid. Mostly it was full of costume jewellery. Assorted earrings and necklaces all tangled together. She didn’t want to take most of it back with her but there were a few items she wanted. A drawer in the bottom held her mother’s engagement ring and both parents’ wedding rings. She took them out and put them carefully in her purse. The other item she was looking for was buried in the tangle of beads and silver chains. She dug through the mess until she found what she was looking for. The star necklace. It took ten minutes to untangle it from the others before she could get a closer look. When her parents died, the rings and this necklace were brought back t
o her by the policeman who told her of their deaths. It was the sight of the necklace that made her believe it. Her mother had worn it all the time and it was unique. At least Anais had thought it unique at the time, before she knew of thirteen other almost identical copies, exactly the same in all but the jewel on the front

  She’d worn it on a few occasions but mostly it had lived here in this jewellery box. Even though it reminded her of her mother, she didn’t like to wear it. It was clunky and oddly heavy.

  Holding in her hands she looked at it more closely. It looked too new for its age. It still had straight lines and had not lost its sheen. She knew that her mother cleaned it regularly which explained some of it. It held its star shape well with the elongated points held together by a cross bar. The black pearl still perfectly set in the centre. It was a lot thicker than any jewellery Anais would normally wear. She thought it unsightly.

  Even now, knowing that it was part of her history she wasn’t entirely enamoured with it. She shrugged and put it on anyway. It felt heavy around her neck. She took it back off and slipped it into her pocket.

  She turned her attention to a small book at the side of the jewellery box. It was a photo book of her family.

  The pages were folded and creased with being looked at so many times. She opened the book at a random page. Photos of her and her parents at the beach when she was about twelve years old filled the pages. In every shot they were all smiling. Photos of her and Sarah surfing, of Alistair being buried in the sand, of them all eating ice cream. She noticed that Sarah was wearing the star necklace even then. She looked closely at one of the photos. It was a close up shot of her and her father. Her black hair was wet from swimming in the sea and curling up at all angles. Her father was smiling at the photographer, her mother. It was a rare photo of her father without his glasses. He rarely took them off, only for bath and bed and in this case for swimming in the sea.

  He looked so young. She’d never noticed before, to her he was just dad and she accepted him the way he was. He always dressed older and had an old fashioned manner about him which must have aged him. The glasses and the grey streaks which he dyed into his hair also did a good job of aging him. On the beach, without the glasses and the suits he looked much younger than he was pretending to be. She compared it with a photo of her mother taken on the same day. Sarah would have been about thirty four when it was taken. Still young looking but laughter lines were starting to appear around the corners of her eyes. Her youthful looks were just starting to fade. She was still a great beauty and the lines only enhanced her appearance but there was no denying she looked a lot older than her husband. A husband that was supposed to be ten years older than her.

  Anais wondered how Sarah had not known. It was so obvious looking back over these photographs. Eight years had passed since these were taken and her mother had started to get grey hairs of her own by the time she died. How much longer could her father have kept his secret from his wife? She must have noticed that he never aged. No amount of grey hair dye or old fashioned clothing could hide his youthfulness forever.

  Anais suddenly realised that her mother knew. She must have known. Looking at these pictures it was a wonder she’d not noticed before herself. He must have told Sarah his secret. She wondered when he must have told her. When it became obvious? When they got married? Perhaps she always knew the truth. Anais wondered if that’s why they moved to America in the first place. Move to a place no one knows you and then you can shave a few years off your age. It made sense now that she thought about it. Her parents had told her that they had moved to America because Alistair was Sarah’s tutor at university and their relationship had been frowned upon. She’d believed it then but now looking at these photos she wasn’t too sure. She felt angry at her parents for not telling her the truth. She looked again at the picture of her mother. Thirty four. She did the calculation again in her head. Her mother was always vibrant and full of life and had a youthful spirit but she was also a master of makeup. She had years of experience of making Hollywood stars appear youthful. It was almost mandatory to be young in an ageist society like Hollywood. Looking at the photo of her mother without make up on the beach she realised that her mother had also lied to her about her age. She looked a good decade older than she professed to be. At least in her forties.

  It made sense. Perhaps her parents had got together when her mother was a student but instead of them moving to America a couple of years later, they moved ten or more years later. Her mother would have been aging the whole time whilst Alistair remained the same. Moving to another country would enable them to both reset the clocks.

  Anais was angry but the more she thought about it the more it seemed a reasonable conclusion to come to.

  Why didn’t they tell her? Surely she would have to find out sooner or later. Fair enough, it would have been too much to come to terms with when she was a child but she was seventeen when they died. Surely that was an appropriate age to be told that her father was forever young and that she had inherited half his genes.

  She screamed out of sheer frustration and threw the photo album on the bed.

  She was surprised when the tears threatened to start again. She felt more angry than sad.

  “Stop!” She said out loud to herself and the empty room but it was too late. A wave of emotion enveloped her and the tears finally began to fall.

  Everything that had happened over the last few weeks finally overcame her and she collapsed sobbing onto the bed.

  She let the tears fall until the emotion passed and she stopped crying. She found a tissue and wiped her eyes. She really didn’t want Alex to see her upset as he’d want to know what was wrong and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to put it into words.

  She could hear him moving the boxes downstairs and the tinkle of the little bell told her when he was coming into or going out of the front door of the shop.

  She found a suitcase and threw in the clothes from the bed. There was nothing else here that she really wanted so she zipped the suitcase.

  All her memories had been packed up and put in storage when her parents had died. There was nothing here that held any sentiment to her.

  Suddenly she realised what she wanted to do next. When her parents died and the lease ended on her house she threw everything of theirs in boxes and put it all into a storage facility. This included all her father’s journals. He wrote in his journals habitually, never missing a day. He had hundreds of them, all of which were now packed willy-nilly in boxes and sat gathering dust in an industrial complex storage facility just outside York. She would ask Alex to take her to pick up the journals so she could finally see the truth about her parents.

  She picked up the suitcase, unzipped it and put in the little photo album and threw in her mobile phone and charger which she’d found on her bedside cabinet. She had one last look around her old bedroom and headed down the stairs.

  Before she’d even got halfway down, Alex was running up to meet her.

  “I’ll take that, you are not carrying anything in your condition” He took the suitcase from her before she could complain and ran down the stairs.

  She took the opportunity to take one last look at the little shop, knowing that this would probably be the last time she would ever see it. It was empty now of books, Alex having packed all the boxes into the car. The only thing remaining was the old fashioned till, the empty bookshelves and the open sign which Anais turned to read ‘Closed’ as she left through for the door for the last time.

  She caught sight of her tear streaked face in the car’s rear view mirror and quickly turned away from Alex. If he had noticed, he didn’t say anything as he pulled away from the shop. She surreptitiously wiped her eyes again with her sleeve to avoid a conversation she didn’t want to have.

  To Anais surprise, Alex pulled up a few minutes later outside a restaurant that advertised ‘Lunch 2 for £10’

  She didn’t feel like eating but she knew Alex would report back to Winnie so she st
epped out of the car and began to follow Alex towards the restaurant.

  It was a mock Tudor style pub with a large car park.

  Once inside, Anais could see it was popular with families. Small children ran around between the tables, balloons advertising the pub in their hands. Colouring in sheets and crayons were available for the younger patrons.

  “Wow, very lively” Said a flustered Anais as a toddler ran past her stepping on her foot as he went.

  “I’m sorry, is it too noisy? We can go somewhere else if you like.”

  Anais shook her head and smiled. “No it’s fine... really!” she added when he began to look worried.

  A server came and seated them in their own booth which afforded them a little privacy. Anais could tell Alex was trying to make her happy.

  “What can I getchya?” their waitress plastered on a fake smile as she waited for their orders.

  They both ordered steak and chips although Alex ordered beer with his whilst Anais opted for a glass of orange juice.

  The waitress wrote it all down in her little note pad and left them alone.

  “I thought it would be nice to have a meal out before we went home” Alex looked shyly at her.

  “Yes it is, actually about that...”

  The waitress returned with their drinks cutting Anais off.

  Anais took a big drink from her juice which tasted watered down.

  The toddler who had stepped on her foot earlier ran past dribbling melted ice cream behind him and getting a big blob of it on the bottom of Anais coat.

  “Tyler!” The child’s mother screeched and ran to pick up her wayward son. She carried him over to Anais and Alex.

  “Say sorry to the nice lady for getting ice cream on her coat.” She held on to Tyler with one hand whilst dabbing the offending stain with a napkin that she had fished out of her pocket.

  “No!” said the boy, struggling to get out of his mother’s arms. His ice cream was now in danger of falling out of its cone completely, dripping in a big vanilla puddle on the floor.

  “I’m so sorry!” The poor woman looked distraught as she finally saw the sticky mess on the floor. She bent down to try to mop it up, giving her son the diversion he needed to escape her arms. He ran off dropping his now empty cone on the floor.