The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Do you expect me to talk, Mister Bond…?” She asked softly, her lips no more than a centimetre or two from his ear. There was no mistaking the tone of arousal in her voice as she intentionally misquoted that famous movie line.

  “Oh no, Miss Moneypenny…” he countered softly with a knowing smile, “But I’ll be expecting you to scream, later…” This time she did gasp softly as he drew her gently in against him, sliding his hand lower still, to the point where any further movement in that direction would likely see both of them ejected from the room for indecency. “But for now, let’s just enjoy the dance…”

  “I think it must be the tuxedo!” She breathed, feeling the increasing warmth of their bodies pressed so close together.

  “Putting the ‘Oh!’ back into Oh-Oh-Seven…!” He grinned, unable to help himself as he turned his head quickly and planted a light kiss against her neck that was so fast almost no one spotted it. Eileen instantly tightened her own arms around him and drew her head in against his shoulder more, nuzzling softly at his cheek as all thoughts of poor singing evaporated. In that silent, private moment surrounded by dozens of other people, the rest of the world disappeared and they were able to enjoy the simple, intimate pleasure of holding each other as the music played.

  Man… you are so getting…

  Don’t…! He thought sharply, cutting off the lewd tone of the voice in his head. Just for once, don’t!

  And surprisingly, just for once, the voices in his head did what he asked and let him savour the moment without any further hindrance or distraction.

  “Your Highness, honestly, I couldn’t…” Briony protested softly, able to find her voice once more now that the two were relatively alone. The first, soft notes of an orchestra warming up rose from somewhere else in the room, and almost at once, the majority of those present began to pair off in anticipation of a coming dance.

  “Miss Morris, in spite of our own shortcomings and the Germans’ best efforts, my father still currently reigns over an Empire and Commonwealth that encompasses a substantial proportion of the entire world,” Elizabeth began with similar softness, leaning in so that their heads were almost touching as they spoke in confidence. “That Empire includes subjects of many different races, most of them with skin far darker than yours and all of them playing their part in its greatness. Do think yourself too dull to take classes with my sister and I…?”

  “Well…” Briony began, then paused to actually think about what Elizabeth had asked and recognising the context in which she was using the word ‘dull’. “…Well, no, Ma’am,” she answered finally, taking a leaf out of Thorne’s book in addressing the Princess. “No, I guess I don’t…”

  “And have you any reason to suspect our tutor would provide anything other than the best possible education for which a young woman might ask?”

  “No… not at all, Ma’am…”

  “Then what possible reason could there be for you to refuse…?” Elizabeth asked finally. “You do yourself much disservice to think yourself unworthy of such an opportunity. Were you only a few years older, there’s not a young man in this room who wouldn’t give anything to walk with you on his arm.”

  “Until they found out the truth about me…” Briony muttered softly, more bitterness creeping into her words than she expected as her inner doubts and fears showed through.

  “It may be that you’re correct,” Elizabeth conceded with a faint sadness in her tone, “however that would be a far greater statement of their shortcomings than any indication of yours, should they be so foolish. There’s no shame in the colour of one’s skin, Miss Morris, nor in being poor… neither is synonymous with ignorance, and the only potential shame I see in this situation is one of not making the best of the opportunities that lay before you. Will you come and see us on Monday… meet with my sister and our tutor, and see whether he is suitable…?”

  Briony thought long and hard, staring out at the rest of the crowd as her fears and doubts fought tooth and nail against logic and ambition within her own mind. She gave a silent prayer, asking God for his guidance and his strength, and in that moment she suddenly caught the eye of Max Thorne as he danced slowly past, Eileen Donelson in his arms. Looking a little awkward, as if trying to remember movements rarely-used and long-forgotten, he nodded once in her direction and flashed a grin and a wink before they were gone again, disappearing into the crowd as music played on.

  “If it please you, Ma’am,” she began finally, summoning up every ounce of her courage, “it would be both an honour and a pleasure to visit with you on Monday.”

  “Indeed, it would please me, Briony…” Elizabeth replied with a smile, using the girl’s given name for the first time. “…The pleasure will be all mine…”

  In that moment, the bright light of hope and innocence suddenly burning within her heart, Briony actually began to believe that for the Princess at least, the colour of her skin and the truth behind her heritage meant nothing at all.

  30 Queens Road

  Melbourne, Australia

  They’d fallen onto into bed together the moment Rupert had said his goodnights and a lightly-snoring Briony had been tucked away beneath her own blankets in the room at the other end of the upstairs hall. Breathless, semi-drunken fumbling grew into a sudden burst of intense lovemaking that eventually subsided into the final, shuddering cries of passion. Naked and cradled in each other’s arms beneath a rumpled cotton sheet, Thorne stared silently at the ceiling and listened to the thrum of the room’s window-mounted air conditioner as the heaving in his chest began to settle, his upper body coated in a fine sheen of perspiration.

  Already succumbing to exhaustion and struggling to remain awake, Eileen turned slowly around to face away, and he reacted by shifting into a classic ‘spooning’ position, his bare arms encircling her as if they might protect her from all the world.

  “It’s been a long time… since we danced…” she murmured, her eyes barely open as her hand reached out for one of his and their fingers entwined. “…Long time…”

  “I thought I’d lost you,” Thorne whispered suddenly, not even sure himself where the words were coming from as his other hand lifted from her and began to stroke gently at her hair, drawing it back from her face. “Back there at Kibrit… when that last missile hit the gates… I thought you were dead…”

  “Lucky…” she mumbled, finding it increasingly difficult to follow his words as her eyelids fluttered once or twice more and then remained closed. “…Just lucky…”

  “Something in me died…” Thorne continued, not realising she was fast slipping into a deep sleep. “…and I think…” he paused, steadying himself and not sure if he possessed the courage to continue “…I think I realised something in that moment too... something I should’ve realised a long time ago.”

  “Mmmh…?”

  “I love you…” He breathed softly, his voice thick with emotion as moisture glistened in the corner of his eyes. “I love you, Eileen…”

  “Mmmh…” she mumbled, the tone almost sounding like a confirmation as her shoulders began to rise and fall with the steadiness of sleep. “…Love you, too…”

  A soft snoring began seconds later, the gentle sounds of innocent sleep interspersed with the occasional twitch and incoherent mutter of someone already sliding into dreams.

  You’re going to hurt her, the voice warned again, sadness clear in the tone as he continued to stroke her hair gently. This will end in nothing but pain for both of you.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Thorne demanded as loudly as he dared, carefully lifting Eileen’s head just enough to slide his right arm out from under and allow him to roll over onto his back once more. She whimpered once in her sleep as he did so, curling into a vaguely foetal ball and snuggling her back into his side as if seeking unconscious security in the confirmation of his presence.

  I… we… For the first time he could recall, the voice suddenly seemed lost for a reply, and that in itself was enough to g
ive Thorne pause. …We’re not sure… It answered finally. We can’t see everything, but we feel it all the same.

  “Ah, melodrama…” he countered, suddenly feeling unnerved by the conversation and trying unsuccessfully to make light of it. “Just what we all need right now…”

  This is important… imperative…!

  “What is, damn it? What…?” He hissed softly, frustration overflowing now as he balled his fists at the invisible voices that lived within his own mind. “Mysterious messages… cryptic warnings… ‘I’-this and ‘we’-that… what are you…?”

  “I… we… don’t know… came the almost forlorn answer after a long time. W-we’re you… but… not you… we don’t understand.

  “At Kibrit you warned me I could ‘watch the skies and still not see them coming…’ You told me that before any warning was raised about the rocket attack, but I know that was what you meant.” There was fear in Thorne’s voice now… fear of an unknown he was afraid it might not be possible to explain. “How did you know…?”

  I… we… have flashes… flickering images of memories that aren’t ours… a short pause, then: …and yet are ours somehow. It’s hard to explain… we don’t understand either. We just ‘know’ things… sometimes we know them for a long time… we’re waiting for them… and other times we only ‘remember’ things just before they happen. The rockets were one of those. We saw them coming. Saw them in the sky somehow, but only as they flew from the U-boats’ silos…

  “U-boats…?” Thorne repeated, frowning. “How could you know that?”

  We remember it…? Foresee it, perhaps…?

  “Which one, for Christ’s sake…? Even you don’t sound convinced.”

  Both… neither… he could swear he ‘heard’ a shrug in that tone. The words are meaningless… we just know…

  “Just like you ‘know’ anything between Eileen and I will end in disaster?” He moaned angrily, barely monitoring his volume now as the first tear streaked down the side of his face and his frustration and fear rose fully to the surface. “You just ‘know’ it will end in this so-called ‘pain’ you keep wailing about?”

  You’re playing at relationships right now… flirting and kissing and fucking like you were both teenagers again. The world’s in flames and you want to play house: in what fantasy does any of this end well…?

  “Is it possible…?” Thorne fought back, picking up a change in inflection. “Possible you sound almost jealous!”

  Not jealousy… came an immediate reply that sounded firm and also – surprisingly – more than a little hurt. Not jealousy… just… regret. I… we... remember the kissing, the touching… how good it felt to be inside her… We don’t see this future yet, but we know there isn’t one. The tone of that voice in his head suddenly turned merciless and ice-cold. Hindsight was a mission of sacrifice, intended to save the world we knew: there is no happy ending in our future.

  “What… are… you…?” He moaned again, clasping at his head with both hands as if that might assuage the tension he suddenly felt there. “Am I insane? Is that all this is?”

  Part of us is you… the voice answered after a long, somehow thoughtful pause. Don’t you understand that at least…? We’re what you will become… what you’ve been… Are we real or just a figment of your imagination…? Even we don’t know… and what does that matter anyway? We will help you… if you let us…

  “And pushing her away is part of that?” He whispered back, his stomach churning with fear and anger as tears began to fall in earnest. “I’m not ready to accept that…” he added finally, assuming agreement from the silence that had followed his earlier question.

  We know… came a simple, sorrowful reply that was loaded with shame and anguish …and we’re sorry…

  Thorne woke early that next morning in spite of the best protests of his stiff and aching body, and dressed in nothing more than boxers and a loose-fitting robe, he staggered down stairs to the kitchen seeking solace in coffee to clear his addled thoughts. A thousand fears whirled in his mind, the remnants of as many nightmares that even now were fading from his recall in the cold, hard light of day.

  As he entered the small kitchen, the full-length windows looking out over Queens Road and Albert Park Lake beneath a clear and painfully-blue sky, he discovered to his surprise that Briony was already up and dressed in a sensible summer skirt and blouse of nondescript design, a thick, cotton apron hung over the top. Several plates of cooked food – scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and tomato – sat steaming on the kitchen table, while the absolutely divine smell of percolated coffee sent an unexpected charge of caffeine clarity racing through his fog-laden mind.

  “I’ve made you both breakfast,” she declared happily, fussing about the stove-top percolator as she prepared two large, china cups for pouring. “Rupert’s already gone out: he said he had some messages to send… I think he thought you’d know what he meant.”

  “I do, and thanks for the brekky,” he nodded, seating himself down at the table and dragging the nearest plate toward him. “Eileen’s still sleeping – she seemed exhausted last night and I didn’t want to wake her.”

  “I’d have thought you’d both be tired,” Briony remarked as she plonked a cup of black coffee in front of him, and the deliberately casual way the words had been uttered did nothing to hide the pointed barbs behind them.

  “Did I just hear that…?” Thorne asked in disbelief, more surprised than angry as a vaguely-embarrassed grin struggled to find purchase in his features below a raised eyebrow. “And do you mean what I think you meant?”

  “I know I’m only fourteen years old, Uncle Max, but the last three of those were spent trying to block my ears at night while Aunty Maude brought home a different man almost every month… at least, it seemed like it after a while…”

  “Mmmm…” was all he could grunt for a moment, amazed that she would so openly bring up the subject of his and Eileen’s sex life but also cognisant of the fact that any reference to her now-dead family might also bring back terrible memories that were still far too raw in her mind. He took a sip of the strong, sugarless coffee as he considered his response.

  “And you think what’s happening between Eileen and I is like that…?” He managed finally, still more intrigued than angry, although he suspected he probably should be unhappier about a fourteen-year-old of that era so openly discussing sex with a man she’d only met a few weeks earlier, regardless of how implicitly she now trusted him.

  “No…” she relented, her tone softening as she sat down beside him with her own coffee. “Not like that… nothing like that…”

  “But…?”

  “But…” she began slowly, then continued in a rush as if she might not be allowed to get the rest of the words out. “But… ‘from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’…”

  “Which one is that from…?” he asked with a soft sigh, making a conscious effort not to roll his eyes.

  “Book of Mark, Chapter Ten: Verses Six to Nine…” she answered automatically, knowing full well he didn’t believe and not caring a whit. “What God has joined together…” She repeated. “You’re not wearing it right now, but I’ve seen you wearing a ring sometimes…” She paused for a moment, her words faltering as she ventured beyond the point of no return and fear swept over her. “I… I don’t want to believe it, but… but…”

  Everything suddenly became a great deal clearer for Thorne as she spoke that last sentence, and any personal pain he might have felt over memories of times long past paled into insignificance in the face of the courage displayed by the young girl sitting next to him.

  “I was married,” he admitted in a kind voice, managing to keep his own sadness mostly out of the tone. “My wife died a few years before I returned fro
m the future with Hindsight…”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry…!” She exclaimed immediately, tears welling in her eyes as she suddenly understood. “Uncle Max, I’m so sorry…!”

  “Sorry for what?” He asked in return, laying a reassuring hand on hers and shaking his head. “How could you have known?” He forced a smile. “Eileen and I have known each other for a long time,” he continued, feeling the need to explain at least something of the background behind them as if he were feeling some level of guilt over their current situation. “We dated for a while – I guess you’d call it that – but then we broke up. She was a lot younger than me, and she wanted more than I was able to give her at the time; I didn’t think it was fair to lie to her, and we ended it by mutual consent.” He shrugged. “We remained friends. I met my wife, Anna, a year or two after that and we were eventually married. She got sick, however… sick with something for which there was no cure…” he added, unable to bring himself to mention the name of the callous, deadly virus he’d cursed so many times as he’d watched her wasting away. “She died…” he finished simply, “and I came here with Hindsight.”

  “But you and Eileen… you’re back together, now…?” She ventured carefully, still feeling terrible over unknowingly broaching the subject of Thorne’s dead wife and terrified she might repeat the error.

  “Yeah…” he answered slowly after a moment’s thought. “Yeah… I guess we are…” He shrugged. “We’re both a lot older now, and there are other things that have changed… things that have changed the way I feel…”

  “Things like…?”

  “While we were in North Africa…” he continued after another brief sip at the coffee, “...before you and I met… Eileen and I were caught in a Nazi rocket attack. We were separated at the time, and one of the rockets… a huge one, big enough to level a city block… landed close to where Eileen was working. The explosion was massive; far too big – I thought – for there to me any chance she could’ve survived…” Briony realised his hands were shaking softly now around the coffee cup, a reflex reaction to the outpouring of emotion as he recounted the story. “I know you’ll tease me later for saying it, but that she did survive was nothing short of a miracle: a miracle in which a friend of ours lost both his legs, saving her life.” Lost in thought, he shook his head roughly as if trying to empty cobwebs from his own mind.