Darkly, Deeply, Beautifully

by Megan Tayte

  Even then, though, I didn’t believe it was enough: the Ceruleans were the Ceruleans – insular, rigid, principled. Even if a few among them, like Estelle, could take the truth, surely not all of them would.

  But when it came to it, Nathaniel had given the Ceruleans no choice. I thought the widower would be defensive and protective of his wife’s memory. But the usually docile cook was enflamed with his mission: the only way to honour Evangeline and Michael, he said, was to make it count – all the pain, all the sacrifice. He assembled the Ceruleans. He stood before them. He told the truth. And he kept telling that truth, through all the denials and disbelief thrown at him, until it finally sank in.

  That was then. Since, there had been several meetings. To unpick the past. To debate options for the future. Gabe had attended one and spoken his piece. Estelle had stood up in another and given a female perspective.

  Interspersed with politics were the two funerals. Evangeline’s, on the island. Attended by the loyal and the forgiving, who gathered in the green field and listened in respectful silence to the readings. And Michael’s, at the church in Twycombe, where we thought he would prefer to rest. Attended, to our great surprise, by so many Ceruleans that they were crammed into corners and doorways and their voices, raised in the hymns we’d picked with Reverend Helmsley, made the candles on the altar tremble.

  And now, they had gathered again. For the Big Day, as the Ceruleans had been calling it. It certainly felt like a day full of meaning to me. But for different reasons.

  ‘Scarlett,’ called a voice from somewhere in the crowd. I pulled out of my thoughts and focused on the faces. Smiled at Estelle, waving at me. And then Jude beside her, pale and red-eyed.

  From the other side of Jude, my father mouthed, ‘You okay?’

  I nodded. Of course I was. I cared about the outcome of today’s meeting. But any change set in motion wasn’t of direct importance to me. Unlike the others, I wasn’t here to search my soul and make a monumental decision. I’d done that already.

  All the chairs were taken now, and Nathaniel was standing at the table, calling the assembly to order. I sat back, ready to watch and listen.

  ‘Welcome,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Thank you for being here. You know why we’ve come together today. You don’t need me to tell you the responsibility that sits on our shoulders. We must make the right decision, not just for ourselves, but for the next generation and the ones to come. But that doesn’t mean we care nothing for those who’ve come before us and made us who we are. We also think of them today – of their mistakes, yes, but also of their great sacrifices.

  ‘Beneath your seat you’ll find a polling card. Each of you must tick one of the two options: to keep the Cerulean order as it has been since we took ownership of the island, or to make changes. The exact nature and scope of those changes would be determined through further votes. For now, we’re starting at the beginning with a simple choice – move forward or stay still.

  ‘We require a majority vote in either direction. If we’re unable to reach a majority today, we’ll meet again tomorrow. And the next day. For as long as it takes.

  ‘Now, I’m not going to give you a speech. You’ve heard enough of me droning on these past days. But I am going to ask someone else to say a few final words before you put pen to paper. Scarlett, if you would…’

  Nathaniel turned to me. Everyone turned to me.

  I jolted upright in my seat. Shook my head vigorously.

  Nathaniel smiled at me kindly. ‘I’m sorry to put you on the spot,’ he said loudly enough for all to hear. ‘I thought – Gabriel thought – you wouldn’t come here today if we asked you to speak. But you’re the only person we’ve not heard from. And I think, today, you’re the very person to inspire us.’

  I could feel the blood rushing in my ears. Speak? To this crowd of people? I’d rather eat my own cooking.

  My father came over to me. ‘Scarlett,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You know the vote today must be for change. And you’re the one who knows best about that.’

  ‘What?!’ I hissed at him. ‘You’re the one who set up a rival group.’

  ‘Only because I was alone. Because I was pushed out of here, Outcast. But you left of your own accord. You chose the different path because you believed in it. They’ll listen to you, because you’re the only one to have had that faith. Since your grandfather, that is.’

  It was his finals words that did it. As if they were some kind of spell, they brought me to my feet.

  ‘Go on,’ said Gabe, nudging me forwards.

  I staggered a little. Stopped. Cleared my throat. Looked around. Thought about throwing up.

  ‘I, er… I don’t know the right thing to say,’ I told the many, many people watching me. ‘And I don’t know the right thing for you to do here today. So, er…’

  I threw a desperate look at my father. He folded his arms and nodded, as if I’d said something profound.

  I tried Jude. He shrugged helplessly.

  I turned to Estelle. She sprang to her feet and pumped her fist into the air and said with feeling, ‘You go, girl! Tell it!’

  Titters of laughter rang through the air as Adam yanked Estelle down, but I wasn’t laughing. I was proud of her. And I wanted to do her proud.

  ‘Oh, what the heck,’ I muttered under my breath. Today wasn’t a day for being meek and mute. I took a leaf from the Sienna Blake book of conduct: head up, shoulders back, chest out, take no prisoners. And I said what was in my heart.

  ‘I don’t think anyone can tell you how to vote today, and I don’t think anyone needs to. You know what’s right for you. It’s just a matter of being brave enough and human enough to choose it.

  ‘My grandfather, Peter, was a Cerulean. A long time ago, he gave that up. Because it was the right thing for him to do. He lived out his days with my grandmother. He was happy – I believe that.

  ‘Then I had the chance to be a Cerulean too. And it wasn’t right for me. Some of you may think I was selfish or weak to walk away. Maybe that’s true. But truthfully, I don’t care what you think or how you judge me. Because when I see that white light at The End, and when I step into it, I won’t have any regrets. Only hope.’

  A yawning silence followed my last words, so encompassing it felt like it would swallow me. Gulping air, I turned to go back to my seat. But I’d barely taken a step when applause rang out behind me. By the time I collapsed down onto my chair, I was scarlet by colour as well as name. I studied a particularly interesting daisy for a moment, two, three… and then Nathaniel shouted above the din for everyone to cast the first vote, and a weighty hush fell on the garden.

  My father was the only person besides me not voting. I caught his eye and made a T with my hands to indicate I was done here. I’d already told him I wouldn’t stick around; I had better things to do today than watch people scribble on papers, collect papers, sort papers, count papers. Gabe nodded at me.

  Beside him, Jude waved to get my attention. ‘See you soon,’ he mouthed. The look in his eyes said Be strong, and I realised that we’d swapped positions. Now, with what was to come, it was him there for me. Like old times.

  I looked away, to Estelle. There was nothing more to say; we’d said it all. Yet she looked ready to burst with the need to say a single word. I blew her a kiss. I gave her a smile. And I Travelled from the island before the word I’d banned for today could slip from my friend’s lips:

  Goodbye.

  I didn’t go directly to London. There was one last place to visit.

  At the vicarage of St Mary’s, Reverend Helmsley welcomed me warmly and sat me down at his kitchen table. He bustled about making tea, talking all the while about church matters. As I listened and made the appropriate interested responses – Really?... Uh-huh… Goodness – I stared out of the window. From here, I could see the church tower.

  ‘… and then such an unfortunate typo in the bulletin. A “worm welcome” to new worshippers indeed!’

  Chuckling away, the re
verend placed a teapot on the table. Then he noted my expression.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said at once. ‘I am sorry. Not a time for humour. Not at all.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I assured him. ‘I was just… er… admiring your tea cosy.’

  ‘Fabulous, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Mrs Hobbs knitted it for me. And a lightsaber! Bit floppy. But grateful very was I.’

  He left me eyeing the Yoda-cosy while he ferried cups and a milk jug and a sugar pot to the table.

  ‘So,’ he said, after he’d poured me a cup of tea strong enough to stand a spoon in. ‘How are you, Scarlett?’

  I smiled at him. ‘I’m good.’

  He studied me over the rim of his cup, and then set it down and beamed. ‘How wonderful. You are. I see it.’

  A little embarrassed, I looked away. At once my eyes were drawn to the tower.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Reverend Helmsley.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The window.’

  Astutely, he’d known where I was looking. Not at the top of the tower, from which my brother had fallen, but at the stained-glass window set into the tower halfway up. It depicted an angel and a baby glowing with light. The angel was looking down on the child and shedding tears. Once, I’d interpreted them as tears of grief; now I knew there were other kinds of tears to cry.

  ‘I saw that window so many times when I was a kid,’ I said, ‘when my grandparents brought me to church. But I never imagined…’

  ‘How could you have?’ said the reverend kindly. ‘Your grandfather kept his secret well. As did I.’

  I looked at him now. ‘My father told me.’

  ‘But you’d like to hear it from me.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Reverend Helmsley looked heavenward and touched a finger to the cross around his neck. Then he told me the story of a man named Peter.

  *

  Once upon a time a boy met a girl. Birds sang, flowers bloomed: they fell in love.

  But theirs was no easy match. Peter was not like Alice, and Alice was not like Peter, and Peter’s mother, Evangeline, and his father, John, were against the relationship. ‘You have no future together,’ they told Peter. ‘That girl will only hold you back.’

  Peter did not agree with his parents. Despite the obstacles he and Alice faced, he knew she was what he needed, what he wanted: only her. He went to Alice and he told her the truth of who he was: a Cerulean. And Alice, in response, sank onto her knees and proposed to him.

  A year later, Peter and Alice were living a new life together – but often apart – in a cottage on a cliff, when a hammering came at the door. Peter was not surprised to see the reverend of the local church standing there. The two men, both deeply religious, had become the best of friends, friends who confided in each other. But he was surprised to find a bundle thrust into his arms: the tiniest of babies. Blue.

  ‘Quickly, Peter!’ the reverend implored. ‘Heal him.’

  And so Peter laid the baby on the rug before the dancing flames of the fire, and he put his hands on the still little chest, and he did what he’d done so many times before. But it didn’t work.

  And Alice – kneeling beside Peter and clutching her achingly empty womb – cried, ‘Oh, please. Not a baby. I can’t bear it.’

  And Peter found, in that moment, that he could not bear it either.

  Peter would never describe his own experience of what happened next. So when, nineteen years later, the man who’d once been that tiny cold baby came knocking, it was Alice who sat him down and told him, in simple terms, how it was:

  Peter gave up his light, gave it to the baby.

  The baby awoke, glowing. He awoke Cerulean.

  Peter did not awake for some time, but when he did, he was not glowing. He was human.

  The baby was taken to the island, to be reared by his own kind. They named him Gabriel, for the angel.

  Peter remained in the cottage on the cliff with his Alice. A year later, they had a daughter – human, of course. They named her Elizabeth.

  And on the day of her christening at the church of St Mary’s, the reverend unveiled a brand-new stained-glass window, designed and funded by the most reverent member of his congregation, Peter Jones.

  *

  When he was finished, we both wiped tears from our eyes and took calming sips of tea – that Great British cure for all ills.

  ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett,’ said Reverend Helmsley, ‘that I didn’t tell you of this before. Your grandfather, on his deathbed: he was quite adamant that I should keep his secret. I’m sure, had he known what lay ahead for you and your sister, he’d have thought differently.’

  ‘But you did tell me about Gabriel’s mother,’ I said. ‘My paternal grandmother.’

  Back when I was dying and desperately trying to make peace with that, the reverend had told me about the death of a woman in the cove. Soon after giving birth, she’d run away into the night and thrown herself off the cliff by the cottage, ‘to escape the demons inside her’, as the reverend put it. But before her fall, she had committed to Reverend Helmsley’s care her baby: Gabriel. Dead already in the harsh elements, though she did not know that as she fell, in the belief that her son, at least, would evade the pain that had overwhelmed her.

  ‘The poor woman,’ said Reverend Helmsley, eyes misted with the memory. ‘It explains, perhaps, something of your brother’s confusion.’

  Gabe had made the same suggestion. Forcibly. Several times. That Michael had been ill, and that his illness ran in the family.

  I hadn’t argued with him; it seemed cruel to do so. But I didn’t believe Michael’s actions were so easily swept aside, that he should bear no responsibility for the choices he made.

  ‘Perhaps,’ was all I said now. I stood up. ‘Thank you for the tea. And thank you for sharing with me.’

  The reverend stood too. ‘You’re welcome, of course. Anytime.’ His eyes widened. ‘You will come back, yes? Someday soon. For tea and talk.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll come back.’

  My grandfather’s friend smiled at me. ‘Your faith… oh, Scarlett. Peter would be so proud of you.’

  I was almost to the door when he caught up with me and pressed something into my hand.

  ‘For today,’ he said.

  I looked down and saw a small metal prayer token. On one side were hands palm to palm in prayer. On the other, familiar words:

  O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed,

  The courage to change what can be changed,

  And the wisdom to know the one from the other.

  ‘Have courage, dear,’ were the reverend’s final words to me.

  Sienna was waiting for me on the bench in St Mary’s graveyard.

  ‘Nice place for it,’ she said sarcastically as I settled down beside her.

  ‘It is,’ I replied honestly.

  We sat together, shoulder to shoulder, alone but not alone. Never alone.

  ‘You know, this is where it all began for me,’ I told her. ‘All the… otherworldliness. I met Jude right over there, in that corner, the day after I came to Twycombe. He was healing a rabbit. His hands were glowing.’

  ‘Bet that freaked you out,’ said Sienna.

  I laughed. ‘It really did.’

  We were quiet for a bit, staring ahead at the Jones family plot.

  ‘It was a nice funeral,’ said Sienna.

  ‘It was,’ I said.

  ‘Not quite as nice as mine, though.’

  I whipped around. ‘You were there, at your own funeral?’

  She didn’t look at me, but she nodded. ‘Your reading was very moving,’ she said.

  I stared at her for a long moment, and then sighed and looked away again.

  Her shoulder bumped against mine.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For caring so much. For forgiving. For being you.’

  ‘Not much point being anyone else, is
there?’

  ‘No. I’ve always thought that.’

  She nodded at our grandfather’s grave. ‘I thought you knew what Grandad did, Scarlett,’ she said. ‘I thought you knew you could do that too, but you’d chosen to stay a Cerulean.’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t know. I just accepted what Evangeline said. That there was no going back.’

  ‘Do you think she realised? When she was here, her hands on Michael? Do you think she knew the door she was opening for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I like to think she did.’ I focused on Peter’s grave. Smiled. ‘All this time,’ I said. ‘All the struggling. And it was that easy. Let go.’

  Sienna turned to me and she wasn’t smiling. ‘It’s not easy, though, is it? It’s a massive choice to make. Giving up being special. All that power – the ability to make a difference. I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Because you have Jack to think of.’

  ‘But it’s not just about Jack. It’s about me. I want the light. That’s how selfish I am. Like Gabe.’

  ‘You could just as easily argue that giving up the light is the selfish choice, Sienna.’

  ‘Maybe if you just grabbed any old person and gave them the light and they didn’t even want it, let alone deserve it. But the way things stand…’ She poked me, hard, in the side. ‘Are you sure about this, Scarlett?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Grandad – we don’t even know how he did it.’

  ‘I know how he did it.’

  ‘But what if it goes wrong?’

  ‘It won’t go wrong.’

  ‘What if you don’t wake up?’

  ‘I will wake up.’

  ‘How can you be so sure? How can you be so calm about this?!’

  Her eyes were tearing up and I sighed – I’d spent so many years only ever seeing my sister’s eyes bright and sharp; I missed that Sienna a bit.

  I tried to explain:

  ‘I’m calm because finally there’s hope. Who you are now fits you, but it’s never fitted me. I don’t love this life, I never have. The responsibility. The guilt. It doesn’t sit right. But how could I admit that? What sort of person doesn’t want to be gifted? It’s… well. As Cara put it, it’s not how most stories end.