by Megan Tayte
‘But if the choice had existed, when I died, to just carry on being me: I’d have chosen that in a heartbeat, and the story would’ve ended there. But my choice was be dead or be a Cerulean. Not much of a choice, really. And I always thought that was wrong. Like Michael: ultimately, it was his right to choose as he did. Free will. I never guessed that existed in all this mess. Evangeline never told me…’
‘Why?’ Sienna broke in. ‘I don’t get why she said nothing. Especially once you walked away, on your own – why did Evangeline trap you in a life that was clearly such a struggle? Why repeat the mistakes she made with Peter?’
I shrugged. ‘So many secrets and lies – I don’t know what went on inside her. Maybe she thought giving up the light was sacrilegious. Maybe she thought the life I’ve been living was what I deserved for not being a true Cerulean.’
‘Or maybe she was just nuts,’ said my sister. ‘And all these years I’ve thought our mother was a nightmare… Makes you think, doesn’t it, what it would do to a person, growing up in the thick of all this messed-up lying.’
We both turned instinctively to the newest headstone in the plot, next to our grandfather’s. Blindingly bright in the sunshine and with a simple inscription: date of birth, date of death, name. It had taken us some time to agree on the latter. Finally, we’d settled on the name our parents had chosen for him: Noah.
‘How are you,’ I asked my sister now, ‘about…?’
‘Him?’ She grimaced at the stone. ‘I don’t know. Pretty angry still, I guess. I don’t seem to have your inner poise. Anyone would think you’re the older sister.’
‘And Jude?’
‘Working on it. I’ve told him, no more Enforcing. I have Jack to think of; he comes first. But Jude has to accept that I could… I can’t pretend to be some sweet, delicate soul who scoops up ants in the kitchen and sets them free rather than stamping them into – oh.’
A shimmering beside the bench brought an end to sister time.
‘Eighty-seven per cent majority,’ announced my father the moment he’d materialised.
‘In favour of what?’
‘In favour of progress.’
‘Wow,’ I said. I pictured Estelle dancing around the garden on the island.
Gabe leaned in and whispered to Sienna, ‘I was sitting next to Jude and I happened to notice which box he ticked…’
‘And?’
‘Change.’
Sienna’s face lit up.
Gabe turned to me and his smile died on his lips. ‘Jude went to the cottage,’ he said soberly. ‘To get Luke. Are you ready, Scarlett?’
I looked once more at the Jones plot, at the name cut into the headstone in the centre. Peter. My grandfather. The man who’d given up his light.
‘I’m ready,’ I said.
The nursing staff at the Wellington Hospital Brain Centre looked somewhat startled by the number of visitors that had arrived, en masse, to visit Elizabeth Jones. Cara and Si (who’d caught an early train up that morning). Sienna and Jude. Gabe. Luke. Me.
‘There’s been no change, you know,’ Nurse Cindy told me anxiously, eyeing the cluster of people behind me.
‘I know,’ I told her.
‘We do have a two visitors per bed rule.’
‘I know that too. But it’ll only be for a few minutes. And really, what difference will it make to Mum?’
She thought about that, and then she perked up and said, ‘Oh! I get it! It’s a mass intervention. You think, if you all talk to her together, you may reach her?’
‘Something like that,’ I said.
Cindy threw her arms around me and crushed me to her ample bosom. ‘That’s the spirit,’ she whispered happily in my ear. ‘Go forth in hope!’
‘Will do,’ I assured her.
She let me go and weaved her way through our little throng, beaming at each person in turn. None of them quite managed to beam back.
Inside Mum’s room, it was something of a squeeze getting us all in, around the bedside. A hush fell. Everyone looked at my mother, oblivious in the epicentre. Then everyone looked at me.
‘You can still change your mind,’ said Gabe.
‘I don’t want to change my mind,’ I told him.
‘No one would judge you if you did,’ said Sienna.
‘And no one will judge you if you don’t,’ added Cara.
A movement beside me caught my attention. Luke, turning away to the window.
‘Could you give us a minute, please?’ I asked the others.
Silently, they filed out of the room.
I joined Luke at the window and he pulled me to him. I could feel him trembling and I held him tight, trying to squeeze all the doubt out of him.
‘Luke,’ I said. ‘Look at me.’
He did, and the look in his eyes broke my heart, all the more so for the fact I’d seen it before, months before, when I was dying.
‘I am not dying,’ I told him now, as I’d told him so many times in the past fortnight. ‘I’m not. I’m coming back to you.’
‘But none of us knows how this works,’ he said. ‘No one alive has done this. Maybe it only worked for Peter because he was born Cerulean and he’d never died before, but you have died before, so –’
‘Stop,’ I said, reaching up to lay a cool hand on his blazing cheek. ‘We’ve been through this, Luke. Over and over and over again. You know I have to do this.’
He shook me off. ‘No, I don’t know. Why you? Make Gabe do it. Make Sienna do it. Jude, even. Not you. You stay safe.’
‘But none of them want to give up their light.’
‘None of them want to take the risk, more like – the risk that they won’t wake up.’
‘No,’ I said, but he wouldn’t listen.
‘All of them, standing out there, letting you be the one in danger. It’s always you!’
‘Because it has to be me. Today. I want it to be me. Please try to understand. I can save her, Luke. I can bring back my mother.’
I could see the tears building and I hated to hurt him more, but I had to say the words, I had to get through to him:
‘You’d have done it, Luke, the day of the accident. If you could have saved your mother, or your father – any of them – you’d have done it. Because that’s who you are. Who I love.’
‘I love you,’ he said brokenly, and he kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. ‘I love you. I can’t lose you again.’
‘You’re not losing me. You’re getting me back. Properly back. Me. Scarlett. The girl you fished out of the water that day. The girl you taught to surf. The girl you kissed in the folly. The girl you really want to be with.’
But he was shaking his head. ‘I just want you. It doesn’t matter, all the stuff between us. Please, I want you. Don’t risk this.’
‘It’s not risk. It’s just right. We’ll be together, Luke. We’ll bake cakes. We’ll build the cafe up. We’ll walk Chester on the cliff path. We’ll hang out at soft-play centres with Jack. We’ll surf and surf and surf. We’ll have that quiet life we always wanted.’
‘Oh God – any life – I’ll take any life – just please…’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not any life. We have to fight for more than that. It has to be a good life.’
He was crying now and, despite my best efforts, so was I, so we gave up talking and just clung to each other until the worst of the storm had passed.
It was Luke who broke away in the end. I looked up at him and waited. Finally, he lifted an arm and wiped a sleeve across his eyes.
‘So,’ he said, ‘I guess this is the part where I say something poetic about eternity and forget-me-nots.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘this is the part where you say nothing at all. No goodbye. No, “I’ll always remember you.” You just kiss me and look forward to a totally unheavenly life with me.’
He didn’t move for so long that I thought we would have to repeat the whole conversation. But then, slowly, he nodded, and he bent his head and kissed me. There w
as no passion in that kiss, none of his usual energy and humour and desire. But there was soul, so much of it that surely somewhere close by an angel was smiling.
The taste of his tears took me away, to the cove, to the sea, to where it all began. It was hard to leave that place; but gently, slowly, I pulled back. I smiled at him with all the hope in my heart, and then I walked to the door and called in those we now needed. Jude, to take me and Luke from the room afterwards. Cara and Si, to be with my mother.
My father and my sister waited outside. Until it was over. Until Elizabeth was awake and in a fit state to greet her long-lost lover and her long-‘dead’ daughter, and hear their story of treachery and wonder and loss and reunion and darkness and light.
I hugged a sobbing Cara and a sniffling Si, and left them standing at the door, blocking the entrance.
Jude pulled me to him and whispered in my ear, ‘You’re right, thank you,’ and I rubbed his back and said, ‘Be happy.’
Luke was waiting by the bed. I touched my forehead to his and whispered, ‘I love you.’
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.’
I kissed him once more, softly and fleetingly. Then I stepped past him, to my mother. Looking down on her, I said a silent prayer that we’d all have the courage to get through this. And I begged my frozen mother to understand and forgive and want the life I was giving her.
Luke’s hands were on my arms, holding me against him, and Jude moved now to gently tug him away. I felt Luke jerk and let me go, and I looked around to see him squaring up to Jude, fists clenched. Then, in a breath, all the fight left him and he was slumping and Jude’s arm was around his shoulders.
‘Please,’ he said to nobody, anybody.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ I said to him – to all of them.
Then I laid my hands on my mother’s shoulders and I closed my eyes. I let the light begin to flood from me – the light that couldn’t fix her, couldn’t heal what was broken inside her. At once, I hit the impenetrable wall that had blocked me the day she had fallen, and the scar on my back flared white-hot.
I thought about my grandfather, and what he must have decided, in that moment, that made his light pass to baby Gabriel.
I thought about Evangeline, and what she must have decided, in that moment, that made her light so very nearly pass to Michael.
And I took a breath and I made it, the silent choice – the one I had known I would make here today, but had not shared with those who loved me:
I will give my life for hers.
I will die for her.
I will give her my life.
Please, take me in her place.
And whatever God is – a man on a cloud with a long white beard; a mother watching over her beloved children; a spirit in every atom and every space in between; a sunset, a sunrise, the blue of a forget-me-not dancing in a breeze – it took me.
The light was warm, so warm, and bright, so bright, and it was hard, so hard, not to become it.
For a long time, it waited. I waited too. Until it dimmed and dimmed, and I was alone.
It was cold in the dark, and I was afraid.
Then I wasn’t afraid.
I was nothing.
I was no one.
I
was
Who was I?
A shaft of light in the darkness. Then another. Another. Spotlights cast on distant scenes.
From high above, I watched.
~
A boy stands on a cliff and stares out to sea. A huge shaggy mutt nuzzles the boy’s hand. The boy does nothing. The dog whines softly.
~
A woman and a man argue. The man holds his hands up, reasoning. The woman picks up a china figurine and hurls it across the room. When it lands intact on a rug, she crosses to it and grinds Nemesis, goddess of retribution, to dust with her stiletto.
~
A girl spoons instant coffee into two mugs, pours on water, pours on milk. Takes a sips. Screws up her face. Tells the boy at her side sadly, ‘It’s bad, but not bad enough. Not like she makes it.’
~
A baby and his father sit on the sand. The baby bashes a spade on a plastic bucket. His father slowly lifts the bucket. The sandcastle collapses.
‘Never mind, Jack,’ he says. ‘We’ll keep trying.’
~
A boy wipes furiously at a spot on a kitchen counter. He knocks over a box of cereal. It spills onto the floor. He raises a foot, crunches it down once. Turns and walks away.
~
A girl rubs moisturiser into hands that lie limp. Shapes nails with a file. Paints them red, to match her own. Adds a sparkly overcoat: ‘Very you, sis.’
~
A woman and a man stand before a white gravestone. A low moan escapes the woman. The man puts his arm around her. She lets him, but she holds herself rigid, separate.
~
Two girls sit in a sewing room. One mends, carefully, a tiny tear in a mermaid’s costume; the other reads to the baby on her lap.
‘“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” You remember that, Alex. Now come on, let’s clap: we do believe.’
~
Three boys on a roof terrace pass a bottle of Jack Daniels between them. The one who sits alone, on a chair made for two, points at the setting sun.
‘The colour of her hair,’ he says. ‘You see it? Somewhere between gold and red.’
~
A woman and a man stand before a wall of memories.
‘Those are our son’s footprint,’ she says. ‘Remember? I made you dip his feet in paint and press them to the card. Before she took him from us.’
The man reaches out to touch the tiny print. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says.
~
A boy paces furiously the length of a room. When another steps in his path, he shouts at him, ‘We should never have let her! We should’ve bloody stopped her!’
His friend murmurs softly.
The boy pushes him, goes for him.
His friend holds on, just holds on, until shove turns to shudder.
~
A woman and a girl drink coffee in a beachside cafe. The woman is so lost in staring at the girl that she adds three, four, five spoonfuls of sugar to her latte.
‘You’re doing it again, Mum,’ says the girl. ‘You can blink, you know. I’m not going to disappear.’
The woman leaps up and reaches over and hugs the girl for so long that their coffees cool.
~
A girl bounces a baby on a bed. ‘Silly Auntie S. is awfully snoozy,’ she says. ‘Wake her up, Jack.’
The baby lunges forward and wallops his aunt with a plastic block. ‘Ba!’ he chastises.
~
A boy lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
A girl marches into the room. Cuts off Ed Sheeran’s ‘Photograph’. Scans the playlist. Selects Oasis: ‘Stop Crying Your Eyes Out’. Gives the boy a pointed look. Marches out.
The boy turns to face the wall. His shoulders shake.
~
A girl and an old lady watch a movie.
‘You see?’ says the lady, ‘it worked for Sleeping Beauty. And for Snow White. Why wouldn’t true love’s kiss do the trick?’
~
A woman rocks a sleeping girl gently in her arms. She strokes her hair. She sings to her. She tells her, over and over, ‘I love you. I love you.’
~
A girl sets a photo frame on a bedside table: two toddlers with identical dresses and identical pigtails and identical eyes, hand in hand in a field of wildflowers.
~
A girl and a boy stand together on a balcony, looking out at a city of lights.
‘Are you sure?’ says the girl.
The boy smiles. The girl smiles.
The boy leans in. The girl leans in.
Their lips meet.
Nestled between them, their little son sighs in his sleep.
~
A boy lies on a bed
, beside a girl who does not move.
He smooths down her hair. Twists a strand around his finger. Strokes her cheek. Presses his lips to hers.
He buries his face in the patchwork quilt.
‘Scarlett,’ he whispers. ‘Please, Scarlett, wake up.’
~
Scarlett.
I was Scarlett.
And I was awake.
But here, not there.
I had to get back there.
Hello? I said. Is anybody here?
All was black.
Please, I said. I need help.
Then: light, dazzling light, and silhouetted within, a figure. I didn’t know who he was at first, because it hurt to look at him. But as soon as he said my name, I knew him.
Scarlett, he said. How you’ve grown.
Grandad, I said. I’ve missed you.
No need to miss what you never lost.
Am I lost now?
You tell me.
Where am I?
Between the first life and the next. Are you torn between the two?
No. I want to go back. But I don’t know how.
Didn’t you ever watch The Wizard of Oz?
What?
Ruby slippers? Tap three times? There’s no place like home?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I am.
Grandad! This isn’t the time!
It’s exactly the time, actually. You want to live? Then do it. Stop hovering here, watching people stumble about without you and waiting for someone to rescue you. No one’s going to turn up with a magic wand or a pair of snazzy red shoes. You save yourself.
How?
Make the choice.
It’s that simple?
Everything’s that simple. Free will, remember?
I can go back?
You can go back.
Oh. Oh!
So this is goodbye.
Goodbye?
Only for now.
I don’t like goodbyes.
Then focus on all the hellos to come. Go on, love. Don’t waste another second. Take yourself home.
Home…
Home…
… home!
I knew it in the millisecond before I forced my eyelids open – I knew it by the metallic taste in my mouth and the tang of salt in the air and the shriek of a seagull circling somewhere overhead.
