Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2)

by Megan Tayte

  She looked down at her legs, lifted one and wriggled it experimentally. ‘Oh!’

  She tried the other. ‘Ohhh!’

  She reached down and smoothed a hand down her jeans-clad thigh, and then grabbed it, hard. ‘Ohhhhhhhhhh.’

  She took a step forward, and then another. ‘I don’t feel anything,’ she said wondrously. ‘There’s no pain!’

  She ripped open the top button of her jeans and yanked them off, quickly, until she was standing there in her underwear and we were all staring at an indisputably beautiful pair of legs.

  Luke stumbled forward. He walked around his sister, examining her from every angle. He swore quietly. And then loudly.

  ‘Cara!’ he yelled, grabbing her shoulders. ‘Your legs!’

  ‘My legs, Luke,’ she cried. ‘I’m whole again!’

  She grabbed him and spun him around, and the two of them whooped and laughed and cried and whirled around and around in a euphoric dance, casting off so many years of pain and limitation and regret.

  I was so engrossed with the spectacle that I didn’t notice Jude beside me until he said in a low voice, ‘You take care, Scarlett. Stay close to Luke.’ By the time I turned to him he was gone.

  A collision with the fridge door put an end to the twirling, and Luke staggered across the room and grabbed me to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s not me you need to thank.’

  He let go of me and scanned the room. ‘Hey, where –’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  The room fell silent as we considered what Jude had done. For all of a second before Cara exclaimed:

  ‘He healed my legs! My legs are healed! Scarlett, look at my legs!’

  I grinned at her. ‘So what are we waiting for? Call Si! Grab a party dress! Let’s celebrate.’

  ‘YES!’ she shrieked, but in a heartbeat all the joy drained from her face. ‘On no. We can’t. I’m sorry, Scarlett. I didn’t even think…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About you. Here’s me, dancing about all healed. And there’s you…’

  ‘Dying?’

  Luke let out a little moan.

  ‘We have to say the word,’ I said. ‘We can’t pretend it away. I’m dying. Dying. And that sucks. But moping about won’t change anything. So today, at least for today, can we celebrate the good stuff? Being alive and together and healed.’

  ‘We can do that,’ said Cara. ‘We should do that. Let’s have a party!’

  ‘A Cara’s Legs Are Gorgeous party.’

  ‘A Cara’s Legs Are Gorgeous and Scarlett’s Back for Now and We Love Her party!’

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  ‘TUNES!’ shouted Cara, and she ran to the stereo in the corner and began fiddling.

  Luke was noticeably quiet. I turned to find him watching me with such a sad look on his face.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘So much.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  The four words in the English language designed to bring comfort and happiness. Yet if anything, he looked sadder.

  Across the room, Cara began chanting, ‘Part-ay, part-ay.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, poking a finger playfully into Luke’s stomach. ‘Are you up for this, Cavendish? Because if I have to do the party food, you guys are in for an interesting spread.’

  Finally, a smile cut through the gloom on his face. A small one, but it was a start.

  A beat emanated from the stereo, quiet at first but quickly ramped up loud enough to make the glassware on the shelves rattle. I recognised it once the lyrics kicked in: Fun, ‘We Are Young’. I grinned as Cara flung herself into a series of pirouettes that spun her across the room to us, then grabbed my hand and waltzed me around the kitchen.

  ‘I’m dancing!’ she yelled. ‘I’m dancing in the kitchen!’

  ‘In your pants,’ added Luke pointedly. ‘Sis, d’you think you could –’

  ‘Nope. I really couldn’t. Come on, big brother. Stop thinking. Stop worrying. Just dance it all OUT!’ She spun me quickly and then let go so I flew several feet and crashed into Luke, who grabbed me and held me up.

  ‘Scarlett –’

  ‘Dance with me, Luke,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Just dance. There’s nothing else to do right now but dance.’

  So he did. And it was clumsy and it was crazy and it would have horrified any judge of any dance competition ever. And it was divine.

  47: IN HIS ARMS

  The party was legendary – one that would go down in the annals of Twycombe history for its volume and its turnout and its spirit of abandon. Cara was the star of the show, stalking about in jeans she’d cut into hot pants and enjoying all the attention her beautiful legs attracted. ‘Magic cream,’ she told all who asked (and they all asked). ‘Scarlett got it for me.’ But I gently pushed away her attempts to pull me into the limelight, and come two a.m., when the revellers were showing no signs of slowing, I took Luke’s hand and led him up to his bedroom and locked the door, and there we had our own private party.

  When the sun rose, it was with regret that we surrendered the night.

  ‘How can it be morning already?’ said Luke. ‘We only just watched the sun set.’

  Sighing, I shifted in his arms so I could see better the colours in the sky. ‘Mornings are good too,’ I decided. ‘Let’s make something of this one.’

  ‘Are you sure? We didn’t sleep much. Don’t you want to rest?’

  I pressed lips swollen with kissing to his chest, right over his heart. ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to rest.’

  Showered and dressed, we made our way downstairs, hand in hand. We didn’t get further than the hallway, though, where we were greeted by a snoring surfer curled up like a baby on the hard wooden floor in a sea of empty beer bottles and food crumbs and what looked to be a shredded telephone directory. Luke craned his neck to peer into the living room, and shuddered violently.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘We’re going armchair shopping later. I am not sitting on that one ever again.’ He poked the bloke at our feet with the toe of his trainer. ‘Hey. Reg, isn’t it? Up and at ’em, mate.’

  Grumbling thickly, Reg turned over, swiped feebly at a chunk of pizza stuck to his cheek, lifted a leg, dropped a leg, then promptly went back to snoring. A noxious smell filled the hallway.

  ‘Fancy some fresh air?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes!’ said Luke. ‘Please. Get me out of here.’

  *

  A walk in Twycombe meant a walk to the sea. Today, though, the wind was whipping wildly and even bundled up in our coats we were shivering, so we holed up in the tiny cafe near the seafront. We sat at one of the two tables inside next to an elderly couple drinking tea. It was cosy, but not exactly private, so I steered the conversation through safe subjects – the party last night, where to buy a new armchair, what to do with the old armchair. But then I put my foot in it by asking about Luke’s work schedule for the coming week.

  ‘It’s clear,’ he said, putting his mug of coffee down carefully on the table.

  ‘What do you mean? When are you at the pub?’

  ‘I’m not. I quit.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘The day before yesterday. After Jude told me about you.’

  ‘But why? I mean, I know you don’t enjoy it, but it’s...’

  ‘Scarlett.’ He laid his hand over mine. ‘I have to be with you, for every minute. Jobs don’t matter. Money doesn’t matter. Only you matter.’

  A little musical sigh distracted me. We looked at the next-door table to find the lady there gazing at us with misty eyes.

  ‘So, I’m done with my coffee,’ said Luke. ‘Fancy some fresh air?’

  In answer I downed the last of my coffee. I was just getting up when the lady next to me whispered, just for my ears, ‘He’s a keeper.’

  I said nothing, but I managed to smile.

  Outside, bundled once more in our coats, we hesitated on the paveme
nt. The weather was cruel, but neither of us was ready to go back to the house.

  ‘I have an idea,’ said Luke.

  Arm around my shoulders, he guided me to the seafront – not to the beach, though, but to a derelict wooden shack that I’d barely noticed before. Around the back there was a little sheltered nook, what had once been a storage cupboard, and Luke pulled me into it and shuffled us to the back. We sat leaning against the wood, looking out onto the beach. It was surprisingly warm, if a little dirty.

  ‘I used to play here as a kid,’ said Luke. ‘It was my equivalent of your treehouse, I guess.’

  ‘I bet you bring all the girls here.’

  ‘No. Only you.’

  He laced his fingers with mine, and I leaned my head on his shoulder, and we watched the waves.

  ‘This is good,’ I said. ‘This will be a good memory.’

  ‘We’ll make better ones. Lots of them. We have time.’

  Sighing, I sat up.

  ‘What – what’s wrong?’

  ‘Time. It’s always been time.’

  ‘I don’t understand – you have weeks at least, right? Maybe even months, if you take it easy.’

  ‘Maybe. But this “every minute” mission of yours. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to work.’

  ‘What? But –’

  ‘I know you want as much time with me as possible. But I want good memories for you, Luke. And when I die, the very end...’

  ‘You have to give me that. Please. I want to be there for you for all of it, Scarlett. I need it. I need it to be me who holds you. Me.’

  He spoke so fiercely – need, he needed this. It would help him to be there. Help him to let go of me. But I couldn’t let him go through what he had with his parents; I couldn’t let him witness all the ugliness of death.

  There was only one answer: to protect him from the worst of my death.

  ‘I need it to be you too,’ I said. ‘I want your eyes to be the last thing I see in this world. But I want those eyes filled with love, not horror. So I won’t wait until the very end. We won’t have every moment. We’ll have all the good ones, all the ones that count. And then, one day, when the balance shifts, and you look at me and see a dying girl instead of me, Scarlett, then it will be time to hold me and let me go.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I have a drug to take, Luke. It will be peaceful. I’ll just fall asleep. In your arms.’

  ‘But your sister! Scarlett, I thought you always believed that was wrong.’

  I thought about my sister, running into the ocean. I thought about my mother, lying on a stretcher. I thought about someone else’s mother, stepping off a cliff, falling, falling.

  ‘Sometimes, the wrong thing is the right thing,’ I told him.

  I watched emotions play out across his face as he took it all in. I saw anger, and fear, and guilt. Then, finally, a sort of quiet sadness. Taking his face in my hands, I kissed it all, every inch of it, forehead, temples, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, chin, lips, lips, lips. I kissed him until he couldn’t be sad, he could only be here with me now, loved and in love.

  *

  ‘What we need,’ I said as we walked back to the house, ‘is an occasion. Something magical that we can squeeze a million memories into.’

  ‘If it’s another party, can I suggest not inviting Reg?’

  I grinned. It was so good to see him trying to be his usual self.

  ‘Not a party,’ I said. ‘Christmas. It’s only a few weeks away.’

  His eyes lit up. ‘I love Christmas!’

  ‘Fir trees and fairy lights…’

  ‘Mince pies and mulled wine…’

  ‘Carols and candlelight…’

  ‘Crackers and party hats…’

  ‘Piles of presents…’

  ‘Elf on the tele…’

  ‘“White Christmas” on the radio…’

  ‘Snow! It might snow…’

  ‘Snowmen. Sledging.’

  ‘Cara can sledge!’

  ‘With Si.’

  ‘You could invite your mother.’

  ‘Yes! Yes! She’d love that.’

  We stopped in front of his house, flushed with excitement.

  ‘Christmas,’ he said.

  ‘Christmas,’ I promised.

  One Christmas, one last Christmas, to stand for all the Christmases we would never have.

  48: TODAY

  November days melted into December, and day by day the quiet street on which Luke lived became a little busier. It was the lights that brought them, the people who stood on the pavement looking up at the house, pointing, smiling, snapping pictures – first our neighbours in Twycombe and then their friends, and then their friends, and then anyone and everyone from the area who’d seen the photo published in the Plymouth Herald beneath the headline ‘THE MOST FESTIVE HOME IN DEVON?’. It was fair to say, I think, that Luke and Cara had got a little carried away with the outdoor lights attached to every square metre of the house, the fencing and the shrubbery. And the herd of twelve LED reindeer in the front garden. And the enormous inflatable Santa wobbling about on the roof. Not to mention the many, many decorations inside the house, from tinsel to wreath, candy cane to bauble, glittery star to nativity doll, winterland train to wind-up singing penguin. An unkind onlooker may have commented that it looked like the spirit of Christmas had vomited all over the house. But I loved it – the tasteful decorations and the tacky ones, the whole exuberant ‘ultimate Christmas’ experience. I loved it so much that chez-Cavendish became chez-Cavendish-and-Blake. The cottage on the cliff was cold and dark and lonely compared to this hub of cheer, so I stayed with Luke and Cara.

  It seemed to me that the light of the Cavendish home did more than act as a beacon in the community; it seeped into me and pushed against the slow creep of darkness. Sure, in those last weeks the medication disappeared faster, and it was progressively harder to wake up in the morning. But the sense of imminent threat I’d been living with since the day of Bert’s funeral, since a stone from the clock tower nearly killed me, receded. There were no more near-accidents through absentmindedness and clumsiness. There was no tiger stalking about, watching me. All was calm, safe, and when Jude called daily to check on me, I reported no dramas.

  As winter set in outside – sea winds that stung, frosts that lay unmelting on the ground – we hibernated in the warmth of the house. Luke turned down every man-and-van offer that came his way, and other than the occasional trip to the supermarket and his visits to his grandmother, barely a minute passed in the day when he wasn’t by my side. Cara had school, of course, and in the afternoons she walked Chester, but she didn’t date, she didn’t shop, she didn’t work on her business; she spent what time she could with me. Sometimes a visitor would pop in (when your home screams ‘Hooray for Christmas!’, people take it as read that you’re feeling hospitable), but while Luke was kind and polite, he didn’t encourage anyone to stay long. He was protective of me, and reluctant to share too much of our precious time.

  We tried to spend that time wisely, making moments that were meaningful. We realised quickly that the mundane was unbearable – such a waste of five minutes, vacuuming a floor or ironing a shirt! – but that too much poignancy was equally hard to handle: there is only so long you can sit with a tissue box talking about love and life and death. So we found a way to be together that worked for us.

  Most of the day we busied ourselves with activities we could talk and laugh over: cooking, mainly. We made preserves and jams and chutneys; we baked breads and cakes and pastries; we even made an elaborate village of gingerbread. I say ‘we’ – it was, of course, Luke doing all the hard work, while I generally made a nuisance of myself ‘helping’. Soon, we had more food than we could possibly eat, so Cara started taking basketfuls around to neighbours and friends – who promptly ordered more, so that a bespoke catering operation sprang up in the Cavendish kitchen.

  Come the early evening, when the kitchen was cleaned up and the last o
f the day’s products were sitting out to cool, we’d curl up together in the living room and watch a movie, a Christmas one. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we were quiet, alone in our thoughts. Either way, by mutual agreement, in that time we were allowed to just stop and be. Happy. Sad. Accepting. Angry. Whatever feelings had been simmering through the day. Movie time was our therapy, the film simultaneously stirring emotions and diffusing their intensity. Elf, for example, Luke’s favourite seasonal film, saw us laughing so hard we cried, and then really crying, and then laughing again because Buddy the elf was yelling, ‘Santa! Oh my God! Santa’s coming! I know him! I know him!’

  After the movie, we’d spend a little time with Cara, which usually involved playing her newfound passion in life, Twister. Hanging about on my hands and knees did nothing for my headache, so I manned the spinner and stored away a zillion funny mental images of my boyfriend and my best friend bent into unnatural shapes and laughing uproariously.

  Then, it was time for bed. We went up early each night, Luke and I, but we didn’t sleep until late. Beneath a canopy of fairy lights, we lay together and we loved each other, and all that existed was Luke and Scarlett, Scarlett and Luke, as it was meant to be.

  *

  It was the tiger that turned the tide. I hadn’t seen him since Hollythwaite, so when I awoke in the dark one night to find him right beside the bed, it gave me quite a shock. And then I saw that he was not pacing, not riled up as he usually was. He was still and silent, sitting back on his haunches, watching me. Watching over me.

  The Ancient Chinese believed he was the protector of the dead.

  Hours later, when it was still dark but the first birdsong was audible, Luke found me sitting at the kitchen table, hammering away at the keyboard of my laptop with Chester at my feet.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, sitting down beside me.

  ‘Writing letters,’ I said. ‘Don’t peek. They’re for… after.’

  ‘Scarlett.’ He put a hand over mine, stilling it. ‘Not today.’

  I looked up at him, saw the dread in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘Today.’

  I’d been talking about this day for some time. One day set aside to get my affairs in order, to prepare for what was to come. I’d have done it before now, much earlier, but every time I brought it up Luke was so resistant, and I hadn’t wanted to push. The business of dying was ugly and painful; it was so much easier to make mince pies and watch The Muppet Christmas Carol and bury ourselves under the bedclothes. But there was no ignoring the tiger. The reprieve I’d been granted was over. The threat was back. Death was coming for me – next week? next month? – and I needed to be ready.