by Sharon Sant
Realising that school would have finished hours ago, Jacob pulled his phone from his trouser pocket and switched it on. ‘I bet Mum’s been trying to call. She’ll be going mad.’
‘You’d better ring her,’ Ellen said in a dull tone.
Jacob dialled the number and his mum answered.
The others heard half of his strained conversation. Ellen, and even Luca, must have appreciated how hard it would be to retain the air of normality after all the madness of the day. Jacob managed it well.
‘I felt a bit ill, so I left school, Ellen came after me and I went to sleep it off at her house because it was easier… no, really, I feel loads better now… I’m on my way back now. Sorry I didn’t call you, I just forgot.’
Jacob ended the call.
‘Was she angry?’ Ellen asked.
‘A bit. I’ll know better when I get back.’
Speaking to his mum had brought to mind a new desolation and he brooded on his future. It was something he had accepted fully now and he was prepared to go, but the pain of leaving behind all that he knew remained. And he felt that he wouldn’t be able to convince Maggie and Phil in the same way as he had done Ellen and Luca, there was a very real possibility that Maggie would have him in hospital before he had uttered the first sentence of an explanation.
He began to run over possibilities in his mind searching for a solution. He thought about all that Dae had told him, all that he had been taught, pondered the truth of any of it. And then, as if it had been hidden and suddenly recovered from a dusty part of his brain, Jacob brought to mind a tiny part of what Makash had told him at their recent, traumatic meeting: the other will never be found. What other? What did he mean? One comforting idea shone through all the confusion and uncertainty and Jacob knew it was not lies: I am a new kind of Watcher, Dae said so. I could make things different – why not? Why can’t I bring change? A plan began to form as he walked. He would go back to Astrae. He would accept his responsibility, but why couldn’t he have both lives? With so much power, why not? He could speak to the Astraen Council, negotiate with them, after all, they had agreed to his exile as a baby, which meant traditions had been broken before. He wondered just how much influence he would have, but it had to be worth a try.
The trio arrived outside Jacob’s house. The air was cooling as the sun slipped lower in the sky sending long shadows to the ground. Along the street, the squeals of a gaggle of younger children could be heard as they chased each other dangerously to and fro across the road in an elaborate game of tag which seemed to involve the entire neighbourhood. Further in the distance tinkled the faint melodic chimes of an ice-cream van, its first outing of the year. A flock of starlings swept overhead in a flurry of angry squawking. Gnats hung lazily in the air around his mum’s gargantuan rhododendron bush. None of it meant anything right now.
Jacob stood with a hand on his gate gazing at Luca and Ellen. He couldn’t say goodbye just like that.
‘Will you meet me later?’
‘Both of us?’ Luca asked.
Jacob nodded.
‘Where?’ Ellen said.
‘At the lake?’
‘Ok,’ Ellen looked at Luca who nodded agreement. ‘What time?’
‘I’ll text you later. I’m not sure yet.’
‘What are you going to tell your mum and dad?’ Ellen added.
‘I really don’t know.’ Jacob sighed heavily and his eyes darkened for seconds, but he rallied, thinking of the possibility of not being away for long. Perhaps there would be some way of not having to tell them anything at all. ‘I’ll think of something.’
The front door had barely closed behind him when Jacob’s mum pounced, holding him at arms length and studying him in a thorough appraisal.
‘I knew you weren’t ready to go back to school. Where have you been? There’s grass all over your shirt.’ Without waiting for a reply, Maggie marched him by the shoulders into the sitting room and took his schoolbag. ‘Sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’
Jacob was agitated and preoccupied, but his weariness outweighed all emotions. He almost fell back onto the sofa, kicking off his shoes and tucking his legs underneath him in one deft movement.
‘Don’t make a fuss mum, I’m fine,’ he called after her as she bustled away to the kitchen, even as he did so the very act of laying his head onto the soft arm of the sofa belied his statement. He was exhausted from the day’s trials and craved sleep, though he knew it would be impossible in his current state of mind. Instead he turned over endless possibilities and scenarios, wondering about the best course of action, how things could work. It seemed a problem without answer; every potential solution was unsatisfactory in some detail. If only I could talk to Dae. But then, if he could have spoken to Dae, could he have trusted him?
‘You shouldn’t have gone to school today. Mrs Dulson was worried to death about you when your classmates told her what had happened at lunch and you were nowhere to be found. It was very irresponsible of you to disappear out of school without telling anyone, especially in the light of recent events.’ Maggie frowned as she handed him a glass of orange juice.
‘Sorry, Mum.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say. He could argue, or try to explain but he didn’t have the energy.
‘Did you not realise I’d be going out of my mind? Do you ever think about anyone else?’
‘Sorry.’
‘I was just about to fetch your dad out of work,’ Maggie continued.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t say anything else can I?’ he worked hard to keep his tone civil, fatigue fraying his temper.
‘You’re not going tomorrow and there will be no argument.’ Maggie folded her arms and looked sternly down at her son. ‘And you’re going to the doctors whether you like it or not.’
‘Mum. I’m ok. Stop fussing. I had a virus or something, just like everyone gets and I’m over it.’ He sighed heavily, put his drink down on the side-table and reached for the TV remote, flicking through the channels without really noticing what was on offer. He turned it off again and threw the control on the sofa. ‘I’m going to have a lie down before I go out.’
‘GO OUT!’ Maggie squealed. ‘You can’t go out!’
‘I said I’d meet Ellen and Luca at the lake.’
‘No way.’ Maggie stood barring the doorway as he tried to go to the stairs. ‘I’m sorry but I have to put my foot down about this. Tonight you stay here where I can keep an eye on you. Why can’t they come round here?’
Because I have to leave tonight, ships from another world are coming for me and they can’t land right in the middle of our street without causing a riot.
He shrugged. ‘I just said I’d meet them there, that’s all.’
‘Well you can’t. Go upstairs and I’ll shout you when dinner is ready.’ She moved from the doorway with her eyebrows contracted in an obstinate frown.
Jacob knew it was useless to argue. He would work on his dad later, failing that he would have to sneak out, though the idea of doing so made him unhappy. He sidled past his mum, trudged up the stairs to his room and flung himself onto the bed. Against all odds, he slept almost as soon as he landed on it.
Other than a thin slice of yellow light that crept under the door from the landing, when Jacob woke his room was dark. He realised his mum had been in and left him sleeping because there was a cover over him. Wondering vaguely how it was that Makash had not attacked him again while he had been vulnerable, but relieved all the same, he threw the blanket aside, switched on his lamp and scrambled off the bed. Hurriedly, he searched through his trouser pockets for his phone and checked for messages or missed calls. Seeing there were none, he pulled on some fresh clothes and went to find his parents.
The smell of cooked tomatoes and basil greeted him as he descended the stairs. It made his stomach ache in a surprisingly healthy way. He went into the kitchen and could see from the debris of still unwashed pots that Maggie and Phil had already eaten. There was a plate for Jacob covered up
on the kitchen worktop. Despite his annoyance at having slept for so long, and a mounting sense of panic that events were slipping away from his control again, he was ravenous. He pulled the plate towards him and, without bothering to sit down, started to pick at the pasta Maggie had prepared for him. His parents were watching TV; he could hear the swooping notes of the theme tune to his dad’s favourite sci-fi programme coming from the sitting room. The show featured a being that was a sort of cosmic guardian, stranded far away from his home planet. A man who travelled the universe keeping things in order, a man who looked like a human but was not. The irony was not lost on Jacob.
Maggie appeared at the kitchen door holding two dirty mugs. ‘I didn’t hear you get up. You should have called me,’ she chided him gently. She noted him stuffing pasta as if it would be snatched away at any moment. ‘Why are you eating it like that? I’d have warmed it for you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jacob said after quickly swallowing a large mouthful which hurt his throat as it went down. ‘It’s fine as it is.’
‘You look better,’ Maggie continued as she crossed the cool, tiled floor, opened the dishwasher and deposited the mugs.
‘I feel better,’ Jacob admitted. ‘Has anyone called for me?’
‘No. And even if they had I wouldn’t have woken you.’ Maggie turned to face him with her hands on her hips.
‘I know.’ Jacob took his plate to the table and sat down. ‘Mum,’ he began carefully, ‘do you know much about where I came from?’
Maggie jumped, for a second her expression froze as though she had been prodded with a sharp stick. Then she pulled up a chair across the table from her son. She let out a long sigh of resignation.
‘I wondered when this conversation would happen. It’s only natural I suppose, now that you’re older, you want some insight into your background. We don’t get much information, you know, from social services. They give as little as they can get away with. They say too much may affect your relationship with the child.’
‘It’s ok, Mum, I understand that. Just what you know.’
Maggie took a deep breath, ‘You were found on the steps of a hostel-’
‘In a box?’
‘Yes,’ she replied with a curious look on her face. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Just made sense, if you were going to dump a baby it would probably be in a box,’ Jacob explained quickly.
Maggie seemed relieved. ‘Well, yes, it was in a box. But I don’t think you were dumped in that sense, I think whoever left you there cared very much. Everyone who came into contact with you that first few days had the feeling it was out of necessity you were left, not rejection. I think that must make it easier to come to terms with?’ She regarded Jacob steadily. He remained quiet, listening keenly, and so she continued. ‘You were taken to hospital first, then foster parents for a couple of weeks, then us. There really isn’t much more to tell. Of course, there was quite a lot of publicity when you were first found, appealing to your mother to come forward, that sort of thing… but she must have been long gone.’
‘How old was I?’
‘About three months.’
‘So, my birthday…’
‘Yes,’ Maggie anticipated the question, ‘your birthday… we chose a date, we don’t know really when it is or how old you are exactly.’
This was something that had never occurred to Jacob before. It made him feel oddly incomplete. Perhaps Dae hadn’t thought it important, perhaps it wasn’t on Astrae. ‘Is there anything else? What was I like, what did you think when you first got me, did anyone guess anything about where I was from?’
‘I remember one thing that everyone said who cared for you, in the early days. Sometimes a baby is born that seems to know more than it should; the nurses call them ones who have been here before. They said you were like that. Far more aware than any baby they had ever come across, almost as if you were thinking adult thoughts. And you were so quiet, never ever cried.’ Maggie’s look became far away, her thoughts in the past. ‘When we got you home… I loved you more, I think, because you always seemed so sad, like some great tragedy had befallen you and you would never be able to tell anyone. I wanted to make it better.’
Jacob stared at her, mesmerised by the recollections that were returning to him. He remembered Maggie’s tender looks. He remembered how afraid he had been to cry; his very life had once depended on his silence. Every piece of information made the puzzle of his past more complete. ‘What about my eyes? Didn’t you ever wonder?’
‘To be honest, it never occurred to us until your Uncle Dan mentioned it. Then we went to see a paediatrician and he sent us to an ophthalmologist who ran tests and said you were fine so we didn’t see any need to worry about it. He didn’t know what caused it, said he had never come across anything like it before, but it could probably be explained by some unusual pigmentation or light reflection, something in the iris. We didn’t take much notice and I think he just mentioned everything he could think of because he didn’t really know and didn’t want to look stupid.’ She smiled at the memory.
‘What do you think causes it?’
‘I think it’s just one of the things that are strange and wonderful about you, of which there are many. I don’t worry about it. I’m just glad we got you for a son. Whoever left you and for whatever reasons you arrived on those steps, I think it was destiny that you would come to us. And I think that one day they will know their loss and be very sorry for it.’ Maggie reached across the table and squeezed Jacob’s hand. He looked down quickly at his plate so that she wouldn’t see the signs of a tidal wave of emotion threatening to drown him. ‘Come on,’ Maggie let go of his hand and her tone became briskly maternal once more. ‘Eat that up or you’ll be wasting away in front of my eyes.’
Jacob’s head stayed bowed over his plate as he crammed pasta into his mouth furiously so that he wouldn’t have to look up.
There was a knock at the front door and Maggie bustled out of the kitchen. Jacob breathed a huge sigh, rubbed his eyes clear and ran his hands through his hair. It had been a difficult conversation, but one he felt would ultimately help his parents to understand when the time came to leave. He had the sense that his mum understood more about him than she even realised herself.
Ellen came into the kitchen.
‘Hi.’
‘How come you’re here?’
‘Don’t sound so pleased to see me.’
‘Sorry, I meant I thought you would meet me at the lake later.’
‘Yeah, well, Mum was doing my head in and Tommy and Alfie are sleeping over at Bogey’s, house so I thought I’d come over anyway. How are you feeling? You’ve got more colour in your cheeks.’ She sat down next to Jacob.
‘Yeah. I had a long sleep.’ He studied Ellen closely. ‘You look tired, though.’
‘I feel it.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I can’t get all that stuff out of my head. I honestly feel as if I’ll never be right again… does that make sense?’
Jacob nodded. ‘That’s the thing. Once the doorway has been opened, it will always be unlocked. I’m sorry… but you’ll probably always be tuned in a bit from now on.’
They fell silent. The moment was interrupted by Maggie.
‘Sorry to disturb you two lovebirds.’ She smiled a little tensely. ‘Jacob, you know what we just talked about… well, there was something… around your neck. It was taken off because of the risk of strangulation, daft health and safety and all that, but your foster parents let me have it. Took me a while to find it but… well, here...’ On the table in front of Jacob, Maggie placed a heavily engraved metal disc on a chain. ‘You might as well have it now. Do what you need to do with it.’ Her voice faltered. She scurried out of the kitchen before Jacob had time to reply.
Jacob picked up the amulet carefully and turned it over in his fingers. It was a couple of inches in diameter, the metal was heavy and had the look of tarnished silver, but it didn’t feel cold like silver, it was warm like flesh.
‘Me too.’
Jacob read to himself, deciphering the inscriptions. They were rune-like, characters, clean geometric shapes; Jacob knew the language from his lessons with Dae. He frowned for a moment, then smiled slowly as he drew his face up to Ellen’s.
‘Well?’ Ellen returned his smile, seemingly infused with the feeling of well-being and security which radiated from Jacob and the artefact in his hand.
‘It’s a blessing, protection… it’s like a sort of spell, a shield. It’s very difficult to explain, but whatever you want to call it, it’s fantastic!’
Quickly, he slipped the long chain over his head and tucked the amulet under his T-shirt. As the metal lay next to his skin, he felt rejuvenated, invincible. ‘My father must have had it made for me before he sent me away.’
Ellen gazed at Jacob, deep in thought. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said slowly. ‘If he had it made for you why didn’t he tell you about it before? If he knew you were in danger and this would help… why didn’t he say anything?’
Jacob’s smile faded. Immediately he was reminded of Makash’s accusations. Ellen was right, why did Dae hide the amulet’s existence from Jacob? Jacob gripped the disc, closed his eyes and delved deep into his newly completed collection of memories for answers…
…he was a baby. There was a figure leaning over him holding the amulet, but it was not Dae, it was the figure of a woman. She was tall, slender, hair spun from pure gold thread, glowing skin, and high cheekbones. She spoke to him in a soft voice, lifting his head easily and placing the disc around his neck, tucking it beneath his clothes. ‘Always stay safe.’ She ran her fingers gently around the side of his face and down to his chin as a gesture of affection. He could still feel her delicate touch and it made his heart ache.
She was suddenly snatched away from his vision. The image faded…
