Dark Vision

by Debbie Johnson

  I took the white space and replaced it with Gabriel: with the weapons he’d described; with the treadmills and the shields; with him sitting on a bench, drenched in sweat, barbells at his feet. I held the image, let it grow and develop. And eventually it clicked into place, like a camera when you press the button and it all zooms into focus: all motion stopped, all the blurring of everyday thought was removed, and a new reality took shape in my mind.

  I could feel the basement walls around me, could listen to Kurt Cobain’s anxious words screeching from the speakers, could inhale the musty smell of a room where battle-ready men work out. Carmel and Fionnula and the cottage all disappeared as my mind fled to the cellar of a red-brick Georgian town house in Dublin.

  Time to push, I thought. It felt right. Not forced, Fionnula had said, but natural – like a wave. I nudged my thoughts along, the humming sound building to a slow roar, the kind you hear when you have a seashell pressed up against your ear. I sent my thoughts away from me, and towards him.

  I opened my eyes. And I was there. In the basement in Merrion Square.

  And those shorts really were short.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gabriel jumped up, so shocked he almost fell over the weight on the floor in front of him. Two hundred kilos. Yikes.

  ‘Are you here?’ he asked. ‘Or just in my head?’

  ‘I … don’t know,’ I replied, looking around. The room wasn’t exactly as I’d pictured it – he’d failed to mention the Athena poster of the blonde girl with her arse-cheeks hanging out of her tennis dress – but it was pretty damned close.

  Gabriel came towards me, eyes sparking a bruised shade of purple. His body was glistening with sweat, and there was more of him on display than I’d ever seen of any man in real life. His slightly-too-long hair curled darkly to the bulked muscle of his shoulder, and I could see the heat radiating from his torso. My hand lifted up to touch his chest, deciding it wanted to know if it felt as good as it looked.

  Nothing. I felt a thud of disappointment hammer through me, quickly replaced with relief. Probably not a good idea to get all hot and heavy during my first out-of-body experience.

  He looked down at my hand and realised that neither of us could feel the touch.

  ‘You’re here … but not here,’ he said, frowning in confusion.

  ‘Yep. That seems to sum it up. I’m actually sitting on Fionnula’s couch right now. Carmel’s probably laughing her backside off, and Fionnula’s … well, a bit pissed, actually. She thought I might not be able to do this. To connect with your mind. And now I’m confused, because I got the impression it would just be talking. Like on the phone. Not being here, like this, actually in the room …’

  I realised I was rambling, just as eloquent in spirit form as I am in the flesh.

  ‘And anyway, do you think you might be able to put some clothes on now?’

  Gabriel thought about it, his expression serious, and then he grabbed a black T-shirt from the back of the bench and pulled it over his head. I felt marginally calmer when some of that shiny muscle disappeared from view. There was still a lot of leg on show, but I could avoid that by not looking down.

  ‘This has never happened to me before,’ he said, ‘and I’ve been around for a long time. It’s … interesting.’

  ‘Maybe for you. I’m totally freaked out. And also – I think – a bit disappointed,’ I said, only realising it was true once the words were out of my lips. I’d told Fionnula I only wanted to make contact, to ‘call’ him – but the devious part of my brain had obviously been a tad more ambitious than that.

  I walked round the room, trying to distract myself by getting a better eyeful of the weapons he’d mentioned.

  It felt a bit like being in an especially hideous museum exhibition. There were massive swords with razor-edged blades, the kind that could cleave a man in two and still shine, and which had undoubtedly been used for exactly that. One of them was mounted over the fireplace, taking pride of place. The blade was double-edged, the hilt decorated with elaborate designs of animals chasing each other in endless circles. On the pommel was a raised engraving of a woman, her features hidden by a sheet of hair, arms held out at her sides. Belly swollen with child. Even an idiot like me could tell it was a fertility symbol, carved in such intricate detail that it looked more like a drawing than something created from metal. The entire sword appeared to be made of gold.

  ‘The Blade of Lugh,’ he said, standing beside me. ‘You’ve seen it before, I think? It was my father’s. Passed down to our family by the Gods. He died wielding it, and so will I.’

  Nice. I stared at the sword. I did remember it. And last time I saw it, he’d been brandishing it in front of me as I screamed my way into motherhood, flames blazing from its shaft. Not one of my happiest moments.

  ‘What did you mean when you said you were disappointed?’ he asked. ‘This is unprecedented. Your spirit has left your body and travelled here to be with me. What else were you hoping for?’

  I screwed up my nose as I pondered the question, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the shining Blade of Lugh. It looked so sharp I reckoned it could even cut my spirit-fingers.

  ‘I don’t know, Gabriel … I think I was hoping I could just, you know, sneak into your mind. The way you do into mine. Fionnula says it’s possible, once I have enough control. Which apparently isn’t quite yet.’

  He was silent, his eyes dark as he stared at the gold blade hanging before us, absorbing the bitter tinge that had coloured those last few words.

  ‘I see,’ he said finally, and I couldn’t tell from his tone whether or not he was angry at my planned incursion into the inner recesses of his brain. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he was – I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed it when he does it to me. It seemed a bit unfair to expect him to be happy about me returning the favour.

  We both stayed quiet for a few moments, ‘Lithium’ crashing away in the background.

  ‘Well,’ he said eventually, raising an eyebrow at me, ‘why don’t we try that now? You’re here, sort of. My mind is open to you, Lily. Whether you need my permission or not, I grant it.’

  I stayed quiet, not sure how to react. Not sure if it was the right thing to do, or whether I was even capable of it if I tried.

  He tapped the side of his head with his fingers and gave me a stomach-melting smile.

  ‘Go on. Try. Knock yourself out.’

  What the hell, I thought. I had nothing to lose, and he was clearly willing. What was the worst that could happen? I nipped that train of thought in the bud right away. It’s never a good idea to ask that question when you live the kind of life I do.

  Instead, I revisited the clean white vision I’d found earlier, urging my friend the fluffy white cloud back into my headspace. I focused on Gabriel, and nothing but him, shutting out the music and the heat and the distractions of all the shiny objects around me. I would have touched him, maybe held his hands, but my body had gone all Ghostbusters on me, so I settled for just looking at him. A lot. Drinking in that perfect face and those hypnotic eyes, opened wide and sparkling with … anxiety? Excitement? I couldn’t tell. He’d braced himself, feet planted firmly apart, as though expecting some kind of attack.

  There were several failed attempts, when it felt a bit like my mind was being used as a battering ram against a metal door. I’d push, and be repelled. I’d shove, and it wouldn’t budge. But, eventually, the door opened. I reached out with my mind, and it swung back to let me in. No words were spoken, no touch exchanged; there was no brass band or choir of angels. I just took a quiet mental step forward, and landed slap bang in the middle of his consciousness.

  It was overwhelming, to start with. Like a film reel playing at the speed of light, projecting snatched images and half-formed conversations: battles and brawls, feast days, celebrations, a small child running free through fields of corn. A mother and a father, cousins and friends, a changing world filled with wonders. A wild, windy hill and a screaming stone.
Horses and carriages and trains and cars and planes. And Gabriel, weeping, hunched over the battered, bloodied bodies of two little girls. The sisters I’d never known.

  I saw him recoil as he felt me in there, fumbling around with all the finesse of an ice pick, and I took a slow, deep breath. Focused on the here and now. On the Gabriel I knew. Tuned into what mattered, like I was fiddling with a radio dial, searching for the best reception.

  Passion. He felt passion. For this world, for its people. For his job. He was driven by responsibility and duty, and really hadn’t been lying when he said he’d die to protect me. I saw it there, shining like a diamond embedded in rock: complete and utter devotion to the Goddess. It ran through him, deep and divine, and had made him everything he was. Given him his purpose in life. And there I was, tucked away in his brain, as a tiny child, scared and frightened as Coleen led me away to my new life. I felt his regret, his worry, his anger at what he’d been forced to do.

  I saw him on the back row at my school nativity play, watching as I played third angel on the right, head wrapped round with silver tinsel. And later, at my university graduation ceremony, applauding on a day I thought I’d been alone. He was proud of me, of what I’d achieved with a minimum of encouragement. A silent spectator, looking at me from afar, never making contact but always there, always distant.

  Nearer to the here and now: me again, leaning against the bar in the Coconut Shy, trying to avoid his gaze on the night we first properly met. I saw it from his eyes as I collapsed into his arms after my vision, the way he felt when he cradled me against his chest, lifting me from the beer-stained nightclub floor. The warmth and the protectiveness that surged through him, shaking his self-control.

  Then I was with him days later, while I’d been lost in the Otherworld. Smashing his flat-screen and camping out at the side of Bidston Hill, desperate for me to return. I felt his fear and anger and desperation when he couldn’t find me. And when he did find me, when I finally woke up and he saw my eyes blink open for the first time, I felt what he felt: love. Love so strong, so unyielding, that it scared me. Terrified me like nothing I’d ever encountered.

  I snatched my thoughts away, felt them race from his mind like smoke billowing out of tunnels, away from the pure emotion that was too much for my poor, undeveloped psyche to handle. I was so shaken that if my body had been there with me, I’d have needed a lie-down. I retreated to the other side of the room, needing some distance between us, scared of accidentally falling into his head again, of getting sucked into a mental black hole.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, taking a step towards me.

  ‘Yes … no,’ I replied, feeling the equivalent of a panic attack swamp my spirit-body. My heart, back on the sofa in Fionnula’s cottage, would be racing hard, I knew. I took a breath, forced myself to calm down. A cardiac arrest wasn’t going to help anybody.

  ‘I’m OK, Gabriel,’ I said. ‘That was just a bit … intense. Thank you … for letting me. But I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No – I was trying too hard not to scream like a girl. I had no control over what I was thinking, and can only hope it wasn’t anything too embarrassing. Or anything that … scared you.’

  He looked deeply concerned, and I wasn’t naive enough to think he didn’t have yet more secrets hidden in that brain of his. The peace we shared, this man and I, was always fragile, and allowing me into his mind had probably taken more bravery than flying into battle with the Blade of Lugh. He’d taken a risk, made a sacrifice, and now he was starting to think he’d made a mistake. That I’d seen something so upsetting, I’d fled, trembling, across the room.

  In reality, though, it wasn’t some deep dark revelation that had scared me. Not just scared me but petrified me, leaving me stunned and shaken and fluttering with the overload of it all. The shocking revelation had been that he loved me – a love so fierce that most women would kill to experience it even once in their lives.

  But then, I’m not most women, am I?

  I’m a woman who has lived her whole life in a bubble of quiet solitude and isolation – a life of adaptation and contented acceptance. What I’d seen – what I’d felt – in Gabriel had been the opposite of that. It wasn’t contented. It wasn’t quiet. It was loud and passionate and it blazed so bright and so hot that I was scared to go near it for fear of being consumed in the flames.

  Try explaining that in words of one syllable. With time, I might be able to think my way through it – but right then, I still felt singed.

  ‘I need to go,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m starting to feel a bit weird. For all I know, Carmel’s shaved my eyebrows off by now. Thank you again, and I’m sorry – sorry that I did that. I shouldn’t have intruded. I don’t even have the excuse that you do, of not being able to control it. Hope I didn’t kill off any vital brain cells, or anything, by trampling round in there.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll cope, Lily,’ he said, his expression telling me he wasn’t buying my light-hearted spirit-girl act. ‘Take care, and learn well – I’ll see you soon, a ghra.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  When I came to, Carmel and Fionnula were sitting on either side of me on the sofa, like a pair of demented bookends.

  ‘Oh, thank the Gods!’ said Fionnula, grabbing my hands and shaking them, hard. ‘We thought we’d lost you!’

  ‘I’m fine!’ I shrieked. ‘Now back off. If you breathe on me much more, I might pass out from the fumes! What’s the problem? What happened?’

  ‘The problem is, you kind of went unconscious,’ said Carmel, staring daggers at me. ‘For ages. Eyes rolled back in your head – not a good look, for future reference. Lady Barfly here was going nuts – said it wasn’t right. She thought something had gone terribly wrong; portents of doom and all that. And there was nothing we could do but watch, and wait. And in her case, belch a lot.’

  ‘Well, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘As you can see. Nothing wrong with me at all. Fit as a fiddle. Feeling groovy, in fact.’

  I jumped up from the sofa and danced a little jig to prove I still had full use of my limbs, but it didn’t seem to do much to reassure them. Fionnula stood up as well, and managed all of three seconds upright before she tumbled back on to the sofa.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That wine must have been corked.’

  ‘The first bottle, or the third?’ asked Carmel, bristling at Fionnula, and glaring at me. I’d scared her, and she was bitingly angry because of it. I’d need another Champion to protect me from the first if she carried on like this.

  ‘I really am all right,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry if I worried you. It wasn’t intentional. Nothing I ever do these days is intentional. So just bloody forgive me, OK?’

  She thought about it for a beat or two, eyes still sparking, then held up her hands in surrender.

  ‘OK. As you asked so nicely, and you did that Lord of the Dance thing so well. Now tell us what happened.’

  ‘I went to him. Gabriel. I was there, in his basement, with him. He could see me, and I could see him, but I couldn’t touch him – I mean, anything, not just him. I was like a ghost, there in spirit only. And, you know, we chatted.’

  I left out the parts about the mind invasion, unwilling declarations of love, and my retardo-girl response to it all. For the time being, that would remain firmly beneath my ever-expanding secrets hat.

  ‘You were actually there?’ said Fionnula, hiccuping at the end of the word. ‘Not just in a visualisation of it?’

  ‘Yes, I was actually there. In the non-flesh. Walking and talking.’

  Her bleary eyes narrowed, and I noticed that the liquid eyeliner she took such a pride in applying was now most definitely smudged.

  ‘That’s very … interesting,’ she murmured.

  ‘That’s exactly what he said. What is it with you people and “interesting”?’

  ‘Well, sweetie, when you’
ve lived as long as we have, there’s not much new under the sun, is there? Been there, done that, bought the pashmina. But for you to have had the power to do that, to go to him in your other form, is important. Especially when you’re so new to it all. Your powers are there, but still developing – and I’m only just starting to think you might be capable of a lot more than I suspected. The connection between the two of you must be impossibly strong …’

  She tailed off into silence, and for a minute I thought she’d passed out cold. I started to do a visual drool check to see if she needed putting to bed, but she suddenly looked up at me, blue eyes shining with what looked suspiciously like tears.

  ‘Lily, you are so very, very lucky,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ I replied, feeling a wave of exhaustion flood over me. I needed to rest, be alone, and recharge my now very frazzled nerves. ‘Lucky Lily. That’s me. Remind me to buy a frigging lottery ticket tomorrow, why don’t you? Now if it’s all right with you, I’m going to bed.’

  The next morning, I had to fight two hungover hags just for the chance to go out on my own. I’d had a terrible night, tossing and turning so much the sheets were bound around my legs like twists of ivy.

  I’d been tortured with dreams – of him, of Gabriel. And me. Of a different me, one that was ready for all of this. One that was ready to love and be loved, to share and open up and be … well, normal. Because in the midst of all this craziness, the one thing that had terrified me was that: the idea that all of this came down to love, to an equivalent of Julia Roberts’ dopey ‘just a girl, just a boy’ speech in Notting Hill. The thought sent me into spasms of dread. Go figure.

  I showered, looked on as Fionnula prised her eyelids apart with a crowbar, and announced I was going out for a walk.