by Megan Tayte
My bawling them out drew attention from Si and the others. So Jude told Daniel to leave, and he did. Afterwards, Jude wanted to talk, but I drank enough beer to make that pointless. Still, I didn’t knock back enough to forget two things:
1. The promise in Daniel’s goodbye – ‘Later’.
2. The way he left the beach, one moment in the shadows and the next, gone.
~
Jude caught up with me. Told me to steer clear of Daniel. Said he’s a Cerulean, but not like him. ‘Not… good’ was all I could get out of him. Like I couldn’t have worked that out for myself – I mean, that guy had ‘bad boy’ written all over him. Scars. Tats. Muscles. Shaved head. Eyes like a wolf.
Nice.
~
Woke up on the sofa in Si’s summerhouse. I passed out there, he said, mid-party, so they left me to sleep it off. One too many mojitos, I told him. But when I was getting my stuff together I found my mojito mixer where I’d hidden it, in a nook behind the sofa, and it was almost full.
When Jude came over later, I was grumpy as hell. Told him I have a hangover. Not too far from the truth – I have the headache of the century.
~
I keep thinking about an incident when I was a kid. Throwing a ball at Scarlett, hard, and blood gushing from her nose. Her howling. Stroking my finger down her nose, over and over, and her calming right down and saying, ‘Doesn’t hurt so bad now, Enna.’
After the surf today, once we were alone on the beach, I asked Jude whether I’d always had the power to heal. He said yes, a little. But that it’s in adulthood that the light is brightest. Which is why it’s killing me now.
What?
Yeah, my thought exactly. He tried to explain, but I didn’t understand it all. Something about the incompatibility of humans and Ceruleans. He said healing’s draining for a Cerulean. Whatever the light is, it replenishes for him, a full Cerulean, after a little time. But for me, Ms Becoming, not so much. Bottom line: use the light, die sooner.
‘What do you care?’ I asked him. ‘You’re here for me, right, to take me, so isn’t sooner better for you?’
‘I want it to be on your terms,’ he said. ‘When you’re ready.’
Decent of him. Still, the ‘no healing until you’ve Become’ rule sucks. Scuppers my grand plan to go up to the hospital and do a Florence Nightingale, healing the hell out of little old ladies and hunky blokes with broken legs.
~
Daniel turned up at the cottage. Uninvited. Maybe I should’ve slammed the door in his face, but I didn’t. I invited him in.
12: SOMEONE… BAD
Luke cooked dinner for me and Cara and her boyfriend, ‘Lovely Kyle’. We ate at the kitchen table, the radio turned to XFM London, the back doors thrown open to the cool evening air.
‘Now that’s what I call a sausage,’ announced Kyle, waving a banger in the air. ‘It’s all in the size and the curve, you see.’
Chester, lying at my feet, woofed in agreement, but Cara dissolved into a fit of giggles. Which made me laugh. Which felt so good after all the gloom of late that I found I couldn’t stop.
‘What?’ said Luke. ‘I don’t get it. It’s a sausage, right?’
That set us off even more. The two boys across the table stared at us. Cara laughed herself into a bout of hiccups, which initially sent the hilarity level through the ceiling, but once she reached the ‘it hurts’ stage we got a grip. As she sipped a glass of water, normality resumed.
‘Good mash, Luke,’ said Kyle, who was apparently determined to win over his girlfriend’s brother with culinary compliments.
Luke eyed me warily, as if the word ‘mash’ would unleash another explosion of mirth.
I smiled at him. ‘It’s decent. Not a lump in sight. Anyone would think you’re deliberately trying to show me up.’
‘Moi? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘What are you two bantering about?’ demanded a now hiccup-free Cara. ‘Spill.’
‘I cooked for Luke the other night. It was…’
We spoke in unison:
‘… disastrous.’
‘… delicious.’
‘I’m guessing it was inedible then?’ said Kyle.
‘Pretty much,’ said Luke. ‘But hey, that’s okay. Cooking might not be your forte, Scarlett, but there are plenty of other things you’re good at.’
‘Like what?’ I wasn’t fishing; I genuinely hadn’t a clue. Luke had his cooking. Cara had her fashion customising. Even Kyle had a talent – he was the lead guitarist in a band. Me?
But what does it matter? said a little voice. Dreams are pointless when there is no future.
‘You’re a pretty decent surfer these days.’
True. ‘Thanks, Kyle.’
‘You have a nice singing voice.’
Did I? ‘Thanks, Luke.’
‘You’re an awesome clothes model!’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Okay, Cara, you can stop laying it on with a trowel. I said I’d come tomorrow and I will.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Luke.
‘Fashion shoot. Tomorrow. Si’s,’ said Cara between chews of sausage. She swallowed. ‘For the new website. I told you about this, brov.’
‘Did you? Sorry, I’m sure you did. So Scarlett’s modelling what for you?’
‘Suits. Dresses. Skirts. Tops. Underwear.’
A mouthful of peas went down the wrong way. Kyle gave Luke some resounding thwacks on the back.
‘What’s a basque?’ asked Kyle.
By the time Cara had finished explaining, his eyes were boggling. ‘They sound kind of… impractical.’
‘Never stopped my sister wearing them,’ I said.
The table fell silent. It was an awkward kind of hush, far removed from the laughter that had so recently filled the room. Damage done now, I pressed on. I had to.
‘Speaking of Sienna, I’ve been reading her diary. And she mentions Daniel a lot. I wanted to ask you guys about him.’ Luke opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. ‘I know – you’ve told me he wasn’t about for long, just around the time Sienna was here, and that they were kind of intense but you don’t know how intense. I’m not asking that. I just want to know what you thought of him.’
Cara spoke out at once: ‘He was hot.’ When both her brother and her boyfriend cringed she added, ‘A fact’s a fact.’
‘You liked him then?’ I asked her.
‘Like I like Damon or Klaus or Eric or Angelus.’
‘Who?’ said Luke.
‘Bad boy vamps,’ said Kyle in the kind of weary tone that suggested he knew more than he wanted to know about the subject.
‘Knee-meltingly sexy, but responsible for a serious body count. You know, the heartless murderers you can’t help but –’
‘Cara!’ snapped Luke.
‘What?’
‘Engage the brain before speaking!’
‘What? Oh, because Sienna died? But I’m not suggesting Daniel’s a heartless murderer. Or a vampire, come to that. I’m just saying he gave me the heebie jeebies…’
‘Well, I liked him,’ said Kyle. ‘Seemed like a straight-up bloke to me.’
He launched into a story about a party at which Daniel took over a guitar and led a campfire sing-along of Brit rock classics, but I stopped listening once he deviated into chords and tabs for the ’Phonics’ ‘Maybe Tomorrow’. I was thinking about that word, that word that Cara had uttered so casually and Luke had leaped right upon: murderer.
My sister had not been murdered. She hadn’t been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the sea. But Luke had spoken of seeing another head in the waves that night, another person out in the water with Sienna, and Jude was adamant that she’d been taken – by ‘someone else. Someone… bad.’ Daniel?
Luke’s foot nudged mine under the table. ‘What’s this all about?’ he said, for my ears only.
‘I just wondered what Sienna saw in Daniel. Why she was dating him.’
‘She was? I didn’t realise… Who
told you that?’
‘Jude.’
‘How would he know?’
‘Jude saw them together, or she told him about it, I guess.’
‘You guess.’
I stared at him. He was right to call me on that, I realised – it was a guess. An impression based on a conversation with Jude that was hopelessly hazy owing to the fact that I’d been drunk as a skunk on tequila at the time. I’d better add ‘Sienna + Daniel = item?’ to the long list of questions to ask Jude when, finally, I found the courage to face him.
‘You okay?’
Luke was looking at me worriedly. I didn’t want him to worry. I didn’t want him to look in my eyes and pick up on even the slightest iota of what was going on inside me. I grabbed at the easiest means of distraction.
‘So, photo shoot tomorrow. Me in a black lacy basque…’
Unfortunately, the last words fell during a lull in Cara and Kyle’s discussion, which meant my little private flirtation was decidedly public. Hashtag-awkward. But Luke looked torn between smiling and smouldering. Which was infinitely better than worrying.
Kyle cleared his throat. ‘Right, well, um, great dinner, thanks, Luke. Shall we clear up and then put the film on?’
‘You cue up the DVD; we’ll clear away,’ said Luke, standing up.
I stood too and began relaying plates, glasses and table sauces to the kitchen counter.
Luke waited until Cara and Kyle and Chester had disappeared into the living room, and then said, ‘About that basque…’
I’d barely turned to face him before he trapped me against the fridge with his body and kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me… until I inadvertently squeezed the ketchup bottle in my hand and sent a spurt of crimson across the tiled floor.
‘Oops. Sorry.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I’ll clear it up.’
‘Not yet.’
He kissed me again. My knees began jellifying and I was sliding down the fridge door when:
‘Hellllloooooooo?’
We broke away as Cara appeared in the doorway.
‘Are we watching this film or what? Kyle and I are just sitting there staring at the menu screen.’
‘We’re coming,’ I assured her.
After a last, lingering kiss, we headed, hand in hand, for the living room. There, two sofas were set at right angles. Cara and Kyle took the one under the window, and I curled up against Luke on the other one with Chester at my feet.
‘This is the film about the zoo near here, right?’ I asked.
‘Yep,’ said Luke. ‘But it’s Americanised – it’s based on the Dartmoor zoo, but they moved it to the States, and the actors are American. And the story’s a bit different to the book it’s based on. But yes, it’s the film about the zoo near here.’
‘Ah.’ Confusing much?
Luke pressed play, and I settled against his chest as the film began.
I wanted to like it. For Luke’s sake. Because he was trying to do something nice and romantic. And the story was feel-good, overall, with Matt Damon saving a crumbling zoo and sort-of falling for Scarlett Johansson in the process. But what Luke had failed to mention was that the main character was a widower, grieving the loss of his wife. And his sadness was all I could think about.
To lose the person you love – it was unbearable.
I thought of my grandparents, how Grandad had died just a month after Nanna passed away. Fell asleep and never woke up, like he just wanted to be with her. I thought of Luke’s grandparents – of Grannie Cavendish, happy enough to inhabit the real world until her husband keeled over during a game of bowls, and then retreating to a land of happy-ever-afters, unable to live in a reality where her husband could be taken from her. I thought of Luke’s parents, who had died together in the car crash. Given the chance either would have stayed for their children. But if they had only themselves to think of, would they have been glad to go together – so that there was no missing, no aching, no longing, no separation?
Luke’s thumb, rough from kitchen work, absently traced circles on the back of my hand. Each circle was an impending full stop. Each moment together was one moment fewer.
To lose the person you love – it was unbearable.
13: FAMILY LOYALTY
Well, that was a ‘Good Friday’ – not.
I knew I wasn’t right. I’ve known it for a long while. All the headaches. The dizziness. But I wanted to put it all down to too many late nights, too many cocktails – or else hormones or something.
I don’t remember what happened. I was on the beach, getting out of my wetsuit after a surf, and then I was in A&E. This doctor chap was in a right tizz, showing me brain scans and sniffling into the sleeve of his white coat.
I Peter Panned him: ‘Death is only the beginning. And dying, after all, will be an awfully big adventure.’ That choked him right up. He started on about referrals and specialists, and I nodded and said all the right things. Then I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could.
Si took me back to the cottage – he was the one who’d seen me collapse and called an ambulance. He was worried, but I cooked up some story about blood sugar issues, and he seemed to buy it.
No one can know the truth. Only Jude.
~
I thought Jude would flip out about the A&E episode – worry I’d nearly died and he’d missed it. But apparently I had that all wrong. Because he didn’t miss it (Si called him and he came to the hospital and checked on me while I was out). And because I was in a bad way, yes, but not in the ‘nearly dead’ category.
I didn’t linger on the whole seeing-me-unconscious thing, because it’s too grim to think about. But I did ask how he could tell I wasn’t pegging out right then. He just knew, he said. He always knows, with everyone. Whether they’re in pain or ill. How close they are to death. Whether they can be healed or not.
Not, in my case.
He can’t tell me exactly how long I’ve got. Weeks, a few months at best. Makes no difference. I’ve no intention of waiting until The End like those movie geeks who sit in the cinema until the very last credit has rolled. That’s not me – I’m on my feet for the first note of the theme tune.
Theme tune, now there’s a thought. Maybe I should Google ‘music to die to’.
~
I thought it was just me. I assumed – ha! – that I was unique, different.
But it’s not. Jude says it’s Scarlett too, or it will be once she’s eighteen.
I don’t understand. Why both of us? It’s not like Mother or Father have a Cerulean bone in their bodies, screwed-up and self-involved as they are. Father heal? He’d step over a dying man unless there was a bank note sticking out of his pocket. And Mother? She can’t even heal herself, let alone anyone else.
Jude has no answers for me on this. He just says both of us are special cases.
I have to talk to her – she has to know. I left my phone at Willake, and I can’t remember her number, so I can’t call. I’ve written and rewritten the email to her countless times. But how can I tell her all this? I know her. She won’t see things my way. When she knows the truth, all Scarlett will see is ‘Death’, not ‘Life’.
I’ll wait. Buy some time with the drugs the doctor gave me. Give her all the days she can have without this pressing down on her. Soon enough she’ll be eighteen. Then I’ll tell her. And we can go together.
~
Clubbing in the city. Jude was all for me taking it easy, but a girl’s gotta live – even a dying girl has that right. He wasn’t up for coming, but told me to call if I needed him. Gave me a pay-as-you-go phone in case of emergency. I took ‘emergency’ to mean ‘Ow, I’m dying’ and not ‘Oh look, Daniel just walked into the club’.
That guy is too cool for school. Just leaned on the bar, drinking Jack Ds and watching me dance. Eventually, all I could think about was his eyes on me, so I lost the others and we found a corner. And talked.
I don’t know what to make of it all, this talk of
fractures and factions and falling. Of the rights and wrongs of using the light. Of family loyalty.
I’m sticking with Jude. I trust Jude.
Still, there are two numbers in my phone now: Jude’s, and Daniel’s.
~
Party at Si’s. Got drunk. Really drunk. Jude put me to bed.
I asked him, ‘What will it be like when I die?’
He said, ‘Like falling asleep. With me right beside you.’
But recently, falling asleep? Not so easy.
It’s the dream that keeps me awake. The dream I don’t want to have, but that comes every night. Scarlett’s standing over my grave, watching them lower in my coffin. She’s not crying, but she has that look on her face – the one she had the day the paramedics carted Mother off to pump the gin and tablets from her stomach. Thirteen years ago, but I’ve never forgotten. I pushed my sister behind me then; I tried to stand between Scarlett and the Bad Thing.
I don’t know how to do that this time.
14: NEVER SAY NEVER
I was curled up in an armchair by the fire, Sienna’s diary on one arm and a box of tissues on the other, when my mobile rang. The ringtone, American Authors’ ‘Best Day of my Life’, sounded all wrong in the shadowy room. Loud, hopeful – an anthem from just a few weeks past but a lifetime ago. I silenced it quickly, and then checked the caller display.
Mother.
It had been a while since she’d called. It used to be every day, sometimes several times. She was often drunk, then, or drugged to the gills on tranqs, failing miserably to cope with her daughter’s death. But I hadn’t spoken to her in weeks now. Not since the day I’d discovered she’d been lying to me about Sienna – that she’d hidden from me the truth that my sister’s body had never been found. There had been emails since, and texts, begging me to understand. I hadn’t replied to any.
It was late to take a call. I should have gone to bed. Closed eyes that were gritty from crying; drifted into dreamland.
Scarlett’s standing over my grave… she has that look on her face.
