by Ross Turner
Jen looked up at Deacon once more, this time rather sceptically.
“Okay…” He confessed, chuckling. “You don’t get used to it, but he does grow on you…”
The skies were clear and Jen could see for miles every way she looked.
To the West lay the ocean stretching right out to the horizon, and in every other direction for as far as she could see the rolling Welsh hills and mountains gave way dramatically before them.
By now the sunset was in its full glory and far away over the ocean the sun cast its last light of the day across the rippling waves. Great arms of orange reached out in every direction, and the sight drew even Deacon’s all-seeing gaze to focus upon it.
Grimm had been so eccentric and loud and enthusiastic before, but now, as they rose higher and higher into the sky, he was silent and subdued, and apparently entirely contented by the view laid out before him.
In fact, thankfully, Jen barely even noticed he was there, as Deacon took her into his encompassing embrace.
“It’s amazing…” Jen breathed, her voice barely even loud enough for Deacon to hear.
He did though, of course, and he smiled warmly in return.
Jen leant back against his strong chest and he wrapped his arms forwards around her. Though her jacket was draped over her shoulders, Jen felt Deacon’s warmth keeping the chill of their dizzying height at bay.
The light from the sunset cast a final warming glow across their faces, as Jen, moving without even realising, turned to face Deacon, his arms still enveloping her protectively. She crept her hands up his body and over his shoulders, running her fingers lightly through his hair as she did so, and he smiled in the way that only he did, turning her legs to jelly.
Neither on them spoke, but then again, they didn’t need to.
Jen’s gaze was lost in Deacon’s and he pulled her body close to his, gently, but at the same time longingly. And in that moment, overwhelmed with desire and lust and desperate wanting, Jen knew he felt exactly the way she did.
She dropped one hand down from Deacon’s shoulders and his fingers slipped in between hers perfectly, the whole motion smooth and seamless. His hand was warm and wrapped its heat around Jen’s cool palm, pulsating rapidly in rhythm with her frantic heartbeat.
Unable to wait any longer, drawn to him like nothing she had ever felt before, Jen reached up towards Deacon, and he dipped his head down towards hers.
Their lips met, and it was as though Jen’s entire life had been leading up to that moment, and the butterflies that had not left her all night swarmed through to her chest and drove her heart into a hysterical, pounding drumbeat.
She squeezed his hand tightly as he kissed her slowly, passionately. His free hand found the back of her neck and pulled her towards him with a powerful yearning. His lips were warm against hers and he breathed life into her in a way that didn’t even seem possible.
Their eyes were closed, and so they did not see the sun finally disappear over the horizon, leaving only streaking traces behind it.
But they had not needed to see it, for what they had in that moment was worth a hundred and more sunrises and sunsets, and neither one of them dared let it go.
By the time the balloon descended, and the huge wicker basket eventually touched back down to the ground, all traces of the sun were gone, leaving behind the moon shining brighter and more luminescent than Jen had ever seen it. A thousand and more stars were dotted randomly across the sky, gazing down upon them with curious, sparkling eyes.
“And there you have it!” Deacon’s inaptly named friend Grimm announced. “I do hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves!”
Jen smiled and blushed, though most certainly not for the first time that evening.
“We did, thank you Grimm.” Deacon replied kindly, taking his friend’s hand in a firm handshake. “Very much so.”
Jen did notice, however, that Deacon kept one hand inescapably in hers the whole time.
“And might I say…” The strange and eccentric Walter Grimmway continued. “That you do indeed make the loveliest couple!”
Deacon laughed and put his arm back around Jen.
“Why, thank you.” He thanked his odd and bizarrely likeable friend.
“Yes…” Jen added, extending her appreciative gaze out towards Grimm, though her words were a little tentative. “Thank you…”
“Aww shucks!” He replied jokingly, pretending to get embarrassed. “You two had better scoot before you make me blush!”
“Thanks again Grimm.” Deacon bade him a fond farewell.
“Get outta here!” Grimm replied, laughing maniacally. “I’ll see you soon!”
“That you will.” Deacon replied and, doing as they were bid, he led Jen back to the car and held the door open for her once again.
“Let me take you home…” He offered formally, grinning the whole while.
Before Jen knew it, they were hurtling down pitch black, country lanes, and heading back towards Keepers Cottage.
She could still taste his lips on hers and she breathed slowly, trying to quiet her racing heart as she thought over and over again of their first kiss, high up in the sky under the golden rays of sunset, engrossed in her thoughts.
“Ready?” Deacon’s voice broke her daydreaming then, and Jen looked around, blinking as if just waking from the deepest of slumbers.
They were back.
“Oh!” She exclaimed. “I didn’t realise…”
Deacon smiled and slid his hand back into hers where it belonged, though he didn’t speak.
His expression did all the talking.
“When will I see you again?” Jen asked all of a sudden, feeling a pit open up inside of her, filling her almost instantly with dread.
“Well…” He started, smiling his cheeky smirk and easing her worry. “I’m free right now…”
Jen blushed again, but then had an idea and glanced briefly up towards the house.
“Come with me.” She suddenly replied. “I want to show you something.”
There was not a moment’s hesitation from Deacon.
“Of course. After you.”
“Jen!?” Dyra called when she heard the front door open. She’d been wondering where her youngest daughter had been. “Jen!? Is that you!? I thought you finished earlier tod…”
But her mother didn’t quite have chance finish her sentence, as Jen appeared around the corner to the kitchen with a particularly handsome young man in tow.
“Hi mom.” Jen said immediately, and with not a single trace of hesitance. “This is Deacon.”
“Oh! My…” Dyra tried to find her words, startled possibly more than she should have been.
“Pleasure.” Deacon greeted her, extending his hand in his very formal, and at the same time, very casual manner of doing most things.
“Well…I…” Jen’s mother attempted, in exactly the same way that her daughter sometimes stuttered, which made Deacon smile somewhat. “Please, call me Dyra.” She eventually managed, taking his hand gratefully.
“Thank you, Dyra.” Deacon replied, his rough velvety voice echoing through the house in a manner that neither Dyra nor her youngest daughter were used to.
“Well…” Jen’s mother started then, picking up the last of the glasses she had been drying and placing them back in the cupboard above the worktop on the far wall, adjacent to the oven.
She opened the cupboard door only slightly, and closed it very quickly, as if she wanted to hide what might be inside.
Her concern over the matter was virtually unnoticeable, but Deacon saw it.
“Have you had a good evening?” She asked.
Deacon’s gaze swept over the kitchen in an instant and fixed almost immediately on a framed picture of Dyra, Jen, and a third girl, whom he could only presume was Clare.
The three of them were standing in front of a lake. It looked to be a summer’s day, and they seemed very happy. Deacon didn’t know exactly where the picture had been taken, but judging by the f
act that Dyra and Jen barely looked any different, it couldn’t have been all that long ago.
“It was amazing, mom…” Jen began, her tone excited, not having noticed that Deacon had honed in so quickly on the picture he now held in his hand. “We went up in a hot air balloon and the sun was setting and we…”
Of course Deacon knew what Jen had intended to say next, and smiled as she caught her tongue, almost forgetting who she was talking to.
“And what, sweetheart?” Dyra asked, though her gaze had fallen nervously upon the picture Deacon was holding.
“Is this Clare?” Deacon asked suddenly. Fortunately, and quite purposefully, cutting off potential embarrassment for Jen, but in turn, unfortunately, sending a wave of anxiety coursing through Dyra’s veins.
“Yeah…” Jen replied, stepping round to Deacon’s side and peering over his shoulder at the photo. “That was when we went to the lake…” She recalled, glancing briefly up at her mother.
“Is Clare here?” Deacon asked, glancing round for some reason, as if that would magically make her appear.
“No, I think she’s out…” Jen replied carefully, stealing a quick look over at Dyra. “But she was at the beach earlier, and at The Rusty Oak…”
“Really?” Deacon queried, with genuine surprise in his voice.
How had he not seen her?
Even though she looked very similar to Jen, he didn’t recognise the girl in this photo at all…
“Mom, I’m going to show Deacon sea view side.” Jen changed the subject abruptly then, though Dyra looked no less concerned.
“You know I don’t like you going up there…” Her mother said, concern in her tone still.
“We won’t be long…” Jen replied by way of an argument, taking Deacon’s hand and heading immediately for the stairs.
“Sea view side?” He queried.
“Just be careful please!” Dyra warned, cutting Jen off even before she could speak.
“We’ll be fine, mom.” Jen announced then. “Come on!” She ushered to Deacon as she practically dragged him up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” He questioned again.
“You’ll see! I’ll show you!”
Jen giggled and practically revelled in the chance to surprise him now, after the evening he’d given her.
Without hesitation, when she reached her bedroom, with Deacon still in tow, Jen made immediately for the window in the slanted ceiling.
“Grab that Walkman please.” She asked him, pointing to the CD player lying on her ruffled bed, next to her black, felt CD case and pushing the window up and open easily with her other hand.
Her strength certainly seemed to be returning, along with her figure, Deacon noted, quite admirably.
“And the case…” Jen added on a whim, as she jumped up and pushed herself up out onto the roof, all in one smooth movement. “Pass them up here…”
Deacon handed Jen the Walkman and black, felt case, and she disappeared from view. He practically leapt up and out of the window, landing beside Jen on the rooftop, and she smiled at him thankfully.
“Come on…” She breathed, taking Deacon’s hand and leading him up and over the apex of the roof.
The sky was still brilliantly clear, and above them an entire galaxy of stars swam amidst the blackness, hovering on the very edge of perpetual nothingness, with a dreadfully long way down on either side.
Glowing moonlight illuminated the breaking waves in the pitch black waters of the night, and the sight of it was mesmerising to watch.
“How often do you come up here?” Deacon asked quietly, though there didn’t really seem to be any need for him to whisper.
He crouched low and sat beside Jen on the slanted roof, facing the coast.
“Clare and I come up every night…” She replied just as quietly, placing her Walkman in her lap and unzipping the black, felt case slowly.
“The two of you sound very close.” Deacon commented, and though she could not see it, Jen knew he wore his cheeky, understanding smile in the dark of the night.
“We always have been…” She replied, though there was a haunting tone to her voice that Deacon couldn’t quite place.
It was almost as if there was more that Jen wanted, or needed, to say. But, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to speak of it.
Without another word, barely even able to see the CD’s in the case because of the dim light, Jen began to flick through the pages by starlight.
She had done this practically every night now for almost as long as she could remember, and she knew very nearly the exact order of the CD’s anyway as she thumbed through.
“What about that one?” Deacon asked suddenly, resting his hand upon the page Jen had just flicked over to, and she knew exactly which disc he meant.
From Clare xx
A silent, moral battle ensued within Jen then. But, strangely enough, she didn’t come to the immediate conclusion that she thought she would.
In fact, it was the second time she had cast aside her concerns and come to this particular answer of late.
Screw it.
This taking chances thing was starting to become a habit…
Though, she imagined, it would only be a matter of time before her luck ran out…
She reached inside the wallet of the page and slipped the disc out and immediately into the Walkman, with a practiced finesse that she had perfected over many months.
Plugging in the headphones, Jen gave one earpiece to Deacon, put the other in her right ear, and leant her head almost instantly upon his shoulder. His arm came round to warm her and to keep her safe, and she had missed that feeling so much, for it was something that her older sister Clare never did any more.
The songs on the CD were old, cheesy, and in many cases, hilarious. It was safe to say that, for the first time in a long time, once more, Jen had a laugh and a joke with Deacon in a way that she had thought would never again be possible.
She was back on top of the world, for the second time that day.
After a while, partway through the disc, the moon and the stars had shifted enough, and their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness so, that they could pretty much see everything they were doing.
Deacon produced from somewhere, Jen didn’t quite know where, a pad and pencil, and he began sketching something across two thick pages. His hands moved so fast in the dim light that they were a blur, and pouring from his fingertips came the exquisite image of the two of them sat alone on the rooftop.
In the distance he drew the glowing horizon and the waves breaking on the shore, the stars and the moon, and somehow even the sky; though it was just blackness to look at, he brought it to life right in front of Jen’s eyes.
As she watched him work she leant further and further into his chest, and his heavy heartbeat thudded a steady, calming rhythm in her ears, which, after only a little while longer, sent her cascading into yet another dream filled night.
This time though, whilst she might have felt safer than she had done in a very long time, Jen’s mind and thoughts were still lost and troubled. They plagued her terribly as the hours of darkness wore on, and the cold seeped its way into every crevice.
The Façade
Young, troubled Jennifer Williams found herself in the same place in her dream that night as she had done previously. However, this time, she felt something looming ominously and precariously over her, taunting her as if she was supposed to know what it was.
The streetlights still lit evenly spaced yellow spotlights as far up and down Memoria Lane as she could see, though the road was more chokingly narrow than she had ever remembered it.
Shrubbery on either side of the lane pressed in closer than ever before, strangling the road and anybody who happened to pass along it, which, in this case, was only poor Jen.
Within moments of recognising once again where she was, Jen found her legs churning slowly, carrying her down the endless lane towards a destination unknown. In the back of her
mind she knew, at some point or another in the past, her destination would have been the shop where Clare worked, or at least partway there to meet her.
All of a sudden, a hauntingly familiar but still startling noise, off to the side of the road, in the bushes, caught Jen off guard and she jumped in fright.
“Help!” She called immediately, and not for the first time. “Is anybody there!?”
But, as she knew would be the case, nobody came to her aid.
She tried to run again, but she couldn’t move.
She tried to think of a way out of this, but her mind would not work.
The figure approached from the bushes once more, seeming to surgically separate itself from the shadows and glide over the ground towards her, its movements smooth and purposeful.
Horror gripped her.
But then, unexpectedly, fresh life flooded through her. It was a feeling she was becoming gratefully accustomed to, and she smiled with heavy relief when she saw that the figure was indeed again Deacon.
He didn’t speak at first, and still she couldn’t.
His hand swept up to the back of her neck and head, and he ran his fingers gently through her hair. Pulling her closer, kissing her lightly on her forehead, his touch filled Jen with warmth and security.
“Are you okay?” He asked her quietly, pulling her head into his chest so that she could feel his pulsating heartbeat yet again.
Jen couldn’t speak, but instead she crept her hands up to clutch his shirt and nodded into him.
“What happened?” He asked her, his voice the softest and harshest of whispers.
“I…I don’t…I don’t kn…” Jen began, but even as she began to speak, she knew her words was false.
How could she keep living this lie?
“I…I can’t…” She tried again, but the words, even though they were much closer to the truth, stuck in her throat like needles, lodging themselves in her windpipe, suffocating her with guilt.
Suddenly another noise from the bushes drew both their attentions, and Deacon looked over sharply, scanning everything with his all-seeing gaze.
