by Megan Tayte
I looked down. Saw knuckle bones through taut skin. Registered, finally, pain in my fingers where I was gripping the metal rim too tightly. I relaxed my hands. Turned them over. Opened them. Two fingers were bisected by shallow cuts. Red dripped onto the white tabletop. Like the red dripping on Luke’s shirt the night before. As I healed him.
‘It’s impossible,’ I whispered.
‘Do you want it to be impossible, Scarlett?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’
But when he reached his hand across the table, I didn’t snatch mine away. And when he stroked his finger down mine, I didn’t flinch. I took it all in – the deep blue of the light; the warm shivers of feeling; the red slashes thinning; the blood paling. The light dimmed, and then gently dissipated. Jude let go, and I brought my hand to my face and examined the minute crosshatching of the skin. Tiny line after tiny line, uninterrupted. As perfect as the day I was born.
‘What are you?’ I whispered.
He was silent, and I looked up and met his eyes. A storm was brewing in them, but I’d come too far now to run for shelter.
What followed was too surreal to comprehend, so that when I look back on it now it has the feel of a dream: sounds discordant, colours jarring – especially the sky: too vast, too bright.
*
‘What are you, Jude?’
‘We call ourselves Ceruleans.’
‘Cerulean – I don’t know what that means.’
‘It’s from the Latin caeruleus, meaning “sky blue”, from caelum for “sky”. A Cerulean is someone who bears the light of the heavens. Light that gives power over life… and death.’
‘An angel. I knew it! You’re a guardian angel.’
‘No, Scarlett, I’m not. Which is why what you did last night was really, really dangerous. I very nearly didn’t find you in time.’
‘But you have been watching out for me.’
‘I’ve been trying to.’
‘So you’re here for me.’
‘Yes.’
‘To heal me when I need it.’
‘No, I’m not here to bring life.’
‘I don’t understand. If you’re not here to save me… Oh God. Oh God…’
‘Scarlett…’
‘Power over life and death. You’re here for me.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re here to kill me!’
‘No. No! Scarlett, I’m here to Claim you. To take you to a life after death.’
‘Heaven?’
‘Home. Where you belong. With your kind. The Ceruleans.’
‘I don’t want to go!’
‘But you will.’
‘I don’t want to die!’
‘But you will.’
‘I’m happy here – Luke and Cara; the cove; the cottage. Please, please, don’t take this away from me!’
‘Scarlett, I have no choice. You’re eighteen now; you’ve come of age. You’re dying.’
‘I feel fine!’
‘Today perhaps. But soon, it will begin. You have a few months at best. To make your peace. Say your goodbyes.’
‘Goodbyes! What… why… I won’t do it! I won’t go with you! I WILL NOT DIE!’
‘You can’t escape it, Scarlett. Death is coming for you. Just as it came for your sister…’
*
Everything stopped: the wind, the waves, the magpie circling overhead. The world stopped turning.
Sienna, dying. Jude, her ‘friend’. He could have healed her. He could have healed her but he didn’t heal her. He let her die.
The world spun, too fast: the wind was vicious; the waves were wild; the magpie was shrieking.
I was on my feet.
I was screaming.
‘You took my sister!’
And then I was leaping across the table and I was on him, sending us both crashing to the ground, and my hand was raised ready to hit him – anywhere, everywhere. But in the blink of an eye he had flipped me onto my back and he was straddling me, holding my fisted hands to the grass.
‘Scarlett! Calm down. Scarlett!’
I wouldn’t be pacified; I fought furiously to get out from under him, screaming, ‘You took her – you took her – you took her from me!’
But it was like wrestling with a rock; he was solid, immovable. Finally, I was too exhausted, too broken, to struggle any more, and I went limp but for my ragged breathing.
He leaned over me, pale skin framed against the blue sky, fixing me with eyes that were full of compassion but the colour of steel.
‘Scarlett, you’re wrong – you’re wrong and you’ve missed the point!’
Pants had become sobs. Jude was still talking but I squeezed my eyes shut tight and shook my head from side to side, whimpering, ‘No, no more,’ so that only fragments of his speech penetrated.
‘… sorry… failed you… tell you gently… make you understand… give you time… check in on you, and if you need me…’
‘I don’t need you,’ I sobbed. I opened my eyes; he was a blur through the tears. ‘Let me go!’ I tried to pull my hands from his. His grip on me loosened a little, but he didn’t release me, and I cried all the more. ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘just leave me alone.’
‘I will,’ he said, and there was pain in his voice, but I didn’t care – I didn’t care if I’d hurt him. ‘I’ll go, Scarlett. For now. But I can’t leave you this way. You’ve heard me, but you haven’t heard me. Think about what I’ve said. There is a life after this one. There is a life as a Cerulean. For you. For your sister. Your sister died, but she’s not dead. She’s out there, Scarlett. And she needs you.’
A cry died in my throat. I stilled. I stared at him. There were tears in his eyes. One fell onto me, mingling with the moisture on my cheeks.
‘I didn’t take your sister,’ said Jude. ‘Someone else did. Someone… bad. And that is why, when the time comes, you will choose to come with me. You will choose death, Scarlett Blake. You will choose me. Because it’s the only way to save her, to save Sienna.’
I opened my mouth, the word ‘Sienna’ on my lips – hopeful, desperate, devastated – but by the time I had uttered it he had blurred away into the blue, leaving me lying on my back in the noonday sun, staring at a sky that once again was crashing down on me.
41: WHO SO LOVES
I arrived at Luke’s at five.
I rang the doorbell.
Luke answered. He kissed me.
‘Hello, beautiful,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in.’
He led me up to the roof terrace.
A load of people were there, waiting and grinning. They shouted, ‘Surprise! Happy birthday!’
I burst into tears.
*
In his bedroom, Luke shut the door and sat me down on the bed.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Sienna,’ I sobbed.
He held me and rubbed my back. ‘It’s okay. You miss her today. Of course you do.’
He rocked me gently until the tears subsided. Then he lifted my face and looked into it.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to say…’
He sounded so serious.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s important.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s big.’
I closed my eyes. ‘Hit me with it.’
‘I love you.’
I opened my eyes and drank him in: Luke, my Luke. The guy who pulled me from the deep that first day in the cove, and every day since. He anchored me. He loved me. He loved me.
‘I love you too, Luke Cavendish,’ I whispered.
And I kissed him, as I kissed him that day in the crumbling folly and every day since – like he was mine and I was his and nothing, nothing could ever change that.
*
The roof terrace was alive with people – all the Twycombe gang had come, and they were milling about with drinks, chatting and laughing. A stereo in the corner boomed out a playlist I recognised – someone had swiped m
y iPod.
‘All these people,’ I whispered to Luke. ‘I’ve only been here for the summer…’
He smiled down at me. ‘But you’re one of us now.’
‘Scarlett!’ Cara was at my side. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah. Sorry about the meltdown. It was just a shock. A nice one, though.’ I hugged her. ‘Thank you. This is awesome.’
Si appeared at my other side. ‘Headache gone?’
My head was raging, actually, but I nodded brightly. ‘I feel great, thank you.’
‘Come on,’ said Cara, grabbing my arm and steering me across the terrace. ‘Over here.’
Set against the glass balustrade overlooking the cove was a table laden with food and a pile of gifts.
‘This one first,’ said Cara, handing me an elaborately wrapped package.
It took me a good minute’s wrestling with the ribbon before I got it loose and opened out the paper. Inside was a framed photo taken the evening before at the All That Jazz party – a candid of Cara and Luke and me standing in the marquee, laughing.
I blinked back tears, and gave Cara a tight hug as a thank you.
At Cara’s insistence, I began working my way through the pile – bubble bath, chocolates, surfboard wax, wetsuit boots (‘For winter surfing,’ explained Si) – until only two gifts remained.
‘This is from me,’ said Luke shyly, picking up the smaller of the two.
Cara and Si melted into the background, leaving us to have a moment together.
I opened Luke’s present slowly, swallowing hard when I realised that beneath the paper was a jewellery box. I lifted the lid.
‘Oh, Luke. It’s beautiful.’
It was a simple blue teardrop pendant on a delicate silver chain.
‘I saw it in the jeweller’s window, and it reminded me of that rock you keep by your bed,’ he said.
My breath burned in my throat. The chalcanthite. The same colour as the sea, the sky, the Cerulean light…
And Luke’s eyes.
‘I love it,’ I told him. ‘I love you.’
‘And I love you,’ he said easily, but there was something there, in his voice – a sadness that made my heart lurch.
‘I do love you,’ I told him. ‘You know that, right?’
He smiled at the fierceness of my tone, but moved away, behind me. He slipped the chain around my throat and fiddled with the clasp. ‘Something to wear after this summer, to remember me by…’ he said.
I turned sharply.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Especially not today.’
He thought I was leaving. Because I was meant to be – in a matter of weeks; off to London to build a future.
What future? said a little voice in my head – Jude’s voice.
I shuddered, and Luke said, ‘Hey, you cold?’ He shrugged off his zippie and slung it around me. It was warm and it smelt of him – of soap, of vanilla, of the sea.
I wouldn’t leave.
I couldn’t leave.
‘Luke,’ I said seriously. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to say…’
He smiled. ‘Again? I think we’ve been here before.’
‘It’s important.’
His smile vanished. ‘Okay.’
‘It’s big.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Hit me with it.’
‘I’m staying.’
He opened his eyes. ‘You’re what?’
‘I’m staying.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Beyond.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not going to London. I want to be here. I want to be in Twycombe. I want to be with you.’
The shout he gave near-deafened me, and then he had swept me up and was twirling me around and around and I was laughing and he was whooping, and then he lost his balance and we crashed down and wound up buried in a beanbag, nose to nose.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a good thing.’
‘Good like finding a pound coin in the pocket of an old coat, or good like finding a fifty-pound note in the street?’
He grinned. ‘Good like winning the lottery.’
He scrambled off the beanbag and helped me up. Then he threw his head back and hollered loud enough that all of Twycombe probably heard: ‘SCARLETT’S STAYING!’
A cheer went up, so raucous that all of Twycombe definitely heard, and I made myself smile though my cheeks were on fire and my heart was aching.
They want me here.
I want to stay here.
I don’t want to go.
Cara appeared and announced she needed Luke for something. He gave me a smacker of a kiss – sweet with happiness – and then his sister tugged him away.
There was one present left on the table. It looked lonely there, so I picked it up and tore off the paper. It was a notebook – funky-coloured and spiral-bound. Another thoughtful gift. I thumbed the pages, ready to inhale the scent of fresh, new paper. But to my surprise, I found they weren’t blank. Words were scrawled on them in heavy ballpoint pen. The handwriting was large, spiky… familiar.
Heart stuttering, I scrabbled for the wrapping paper I’d dropped on the table. I’d missed the tag, taped to the back. It read:
Scarlett.
This was Sienna’s, and she wanted you to have it today.
I hope it helps.
Jude
Oh, oh.
Florence and the Machine came onto the stereo. ‘Never Let Me Go.’
Hugging the notebook to my chest, I moved over to the balustrade and gazed out to sea. Sienna. My sister was out there. Not in the sea, but beyond it someplace. She was not lost. She existed. And I could see her again.
But if Jude was telling the truth then to find Sienna, to save her, I would have to go with Jude, and leave Luke.
I couldn’t leave Luke. I loved him.
And yet if my sister really did need me… I loved her too.
Above the music, voices rose in chorus: they were singing ‘Happy Birthday’. I turned to see Cara and Luke behind me, carrying between them an enormous silver platter. On it were dozens of tiny white-frosted cupcakes sprinkled with little red stars and arranged to spell Scarlett! They set the platter down on the table, and Luke picked out the cake marking the dot of the exclamation point, the only one with a candle. He held it up to me, smiling and singing. Everyone was smiling, everyone was singing.
No, not everyone.
Over Luke’s shoulder, a stillness in the scene. Behind my friends, leaning in the doorway and looking on silently, soberly: Jude.
‘When the time comes, you will choose to come with me. You will choose death, Scarlett Blake. You will choose me.’
The flame flickered in the breeze.
The singing stopped.
‘Go on, Scarlett. Blow out the candle.’
I looked at Luke. Life.
I looked at Jude. Death.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.
And made my wish.
***
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you for reading Death Wish, the first of my five-book Ceruleans series. If you enjoyed the book – and I hope you did – please share it with others and leave a review online. As a self-publishing author, I very much value readers’ support.
To find out more about me and my forthcoming books, you can visit www.megantayte.com.
With best wishes,
Megan
CONTENTS
PART 1: UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS
1: INGLORIOUS
2: ONCE
3: REASON IN MADNESS
4: THE GUY IN THE GRAVEYARD
5: I AM I, AND YOU ARE YOU
6: THE ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM
7: MOXIE
8: TWITCH
9: ONE FOR SORROW
10: TRUST ME
11: ONE OF THEM
12: LOBSTERS, EH?
13: HOW TO BE A MOTHER
14: MOTH TO A FLAME
15: CINDERELLA, INTERRUPTED
&n
bsp; 16: THE IN
17: CHEZ CAVENDISH
18: DEATHLESS DEATH
19: SERVIAM
20: ONLY THE BEGINNING
PART 2: FRAGMENTARY BLUE
21: SUNRISE
22: SEA CHANGE
23: KISS ME
24: DEAR SCARLETT
25: FRIENDS OR FRIENDS?
26: FACE-OFF
27: FOREBODING
28: LOST
29: THOSE WHO COULDN’T SAVE HER
30: HOLY SHAMOLY
31: SKYFALL
32: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING YOU’LL EVER SEE
33: THE CLAMOUR THEREAFTER
34: EPIPHANY
35: DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
36: SHOW TIME
37 : NEVER LET ME GO
38: HUSH. LIE STILL.
39: WHAT THE HELL, SCARLETT
40: OUT THERE
41: WHO SO LOVES
AUTHOR’S NOTE
