I noticed has he followed me with his deep stare, first surprised, then obviously amused, and I felt even more annoyed for knowing he was having fun at my expense.
We turned towards Millbank and Lea was once again awestruck, this time by the imposing vision of the Houses of Parliament. His interminable questions were far from being compatible with my sulking, and so I tried to answer him to the best of my knowledge.
Big Ben, on the other hand, gave way to a much more uncommon discussion, due to the never-ending chain of ‘whys’ that came from the need of planting such a huge clock in the middle of the city. As I’d come to understand over the last few days, time, and the implicit need to abide by it, was a concept that stood all too far from Lea’s grasp. And, once more, I caught Gabriel smiling at my frustrating attempts to explain it to him.
To my relief, as soon as we reached Westminster Bridge, Lea’s attention strayed from all those ‘whys’ and set itself on the Eye of London, proudly standing on the South Bank of the River Thames.
“Let’s go there! Please, let’s go there!” he begged, pulling my arm as he jumped up and down excitedly, and his sunglasses ended up jumping from his face, sliding across the pavement.
“Fine! Just stop that!” I hurriedly replied, hugging him and trying to hide his face against my legs, worried if anyone was staring at us. But no one had even noticed Lea’s excited dance. Everywhere, tourists crossed the bridge back and forth, taking pictures of Big Ben and the view of the river from the bridge.
Gabriel silently held out Lea’s glasses and, although the length of his arm marked the distance between us, my hand was shaking when I reached for them. I squatted down, taking that chance to escape his gaze, and returned Lea’s sunglasses to his face.
“Try not to lose them,” I advised and he gave me a mischievous smile.
“Can we really go?” he pleaded and I sighed once more, trying not to think too hard about what that would mean.
“Um, I guess. But aren’t you hungry?” I asked, hoping that would lead his thoughts in other, safer directions, and to my relieve it was as if I’d just uttered a magical spell.
We didn’t sit or eat in the conventional way. From the moment I reminded Lea of that other matter, every time we passed by a supermarket, pastry or coffee shop, he’d run inside, searching with an eager expression for snacks he hadn’t yet tried. I was troubled by how much all those expenses would weigh on my mother’s credit card and guiltily promised myself to restrain my expenses till the end of the month. Besides, Lea looked so happy gulping down cakes, ice cream and sandwiches made of the strangest things. I could hardly thwart his pleading expression as he pointed out yet another piece of cake.
Gabriel never asked for anything, although I ended up getting something to eat in one of our stops. But Lea never asked for something that he wouldn’t immediately share with him, making him bite here and there, and his evaluative expression every time he tried something new almost made me laugh more than once.
Those were all things quite out of character for Gabriel, I thought, just like the tender expression he had every time he caressed the kitten’s fur. Those little acts stood on the completely opposite of his usually cold, cruel and distant personality. Above all, those were all expressions only that child could call upon. And I couldn’t help wonder how different things could have been if he would always act like that.
When we finally reached the London Eye, after many stops and dozens of questions, it was almost four in the afternoon.
I took a deep breath and sat down on some nearby stairs, smiling while Lea jumped all over the place.
“It’s so big!” he exclaimed, opening his arms wide as if wanting to compare measurements. Gabriel leaned against a wall and crossed his arms while watching the giant Ferris wheel.
My feet hurt and I was exhausted. We’d walked nonstop since morning and the lack of any signs of fatigue from either of my two companions only made me more resentful.
“Can we go on one of those?” Lea insisted, pointing his small finger towards the passenger capsules that looked almost insignificant from where we stood, and I made myself smile at his request, not wanting to ruin his enthusiasm. Not that it wasn’t something I hadn’t already expected and, for that reason, had enough time to consider and picture. But still, just imagining Gabriel and myself inside one of those small compartments, with nowhere to run, made me shiver.
“Why go on one of those things when you can simply appear up there?” Gabriel asked and Lea pouted.
“But it’s not the same!” he protested. “Because Mari won’t be with me!”
His justification caught me completely off guard and, by his lack of response, Gabriel, too. I felt my cheeks heat up and stood up not wanting either one of them to notice.
“Let’s go, then!” I decided, feeling awkward by my own embarrassment, and turned towards the ticket booth. “Coming, Lea?” I asked, knowing how he enjoyed taking part in those small things, but the hand I’d stretched in his direction remained empty. I looked back, inquisitively, and saw him standing, suddenly too quiet, all excitement and happiness drained from his face. “Lea?” I called, worried, taking a step towards him, but the sudden weight that surrounded us made me freeze in place. My head instinctively turned towards Gabriel, and I saw him raise his head, as if to smell the air, his dark eyes coming ablaze with that frightening crimson glow, making me take two steps back.
“Lea, take her home,” he simply commanded in that indifferent tone that, in reality, could not be disobeyed.
I felt confused, fighting the effects of his sudden intense presence, and looked at Lea in search of answers. Suddenly everything had changed.
“But Master,” Lea protested, sounding worried and unwilling to obey his request, but Gabriel’s burning gaze made him lower his head, as if he was sorry for having questioned his command.
“I’ll meet you there,” he promised, this time in a softer, more reassuring tone and, before my still puzzled look, he turned his back on us and walked away. The speed of his movements left me utterly stunned and too aware of just how much he usually restrained himself around me. Before I could even sort out my thoughts, he was already gone, disappearing among the people walking by us. I stood there completely lost, until Lea’s small hand on mine brought me back to reality.
“Come. We have to go,” he told me with a serious tone, towing me in the opposite direction, and I focused on following his footsteps that, for someone as small as him, almost made me run.
“Where are we going?” I asked, noticing we were going back towards the bridge.
“Home, as Master said,” he replied without even turning to look at me. I couldn’t help shiver noticing he put away his childish manner, concentrating on obeying Gabriel’s command.
“What happened?” Where did he go?” This time he didn’t answer, zigzagging between the heedless mass of tourists filling the streets. “Lea!” I called out in frustration, pulling his hand and making him stop for a moment, and he finally looked at me over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry.”
“How’s that possible!” I objected. “Everything was fine just a minute ago and then, suddenly, what happened?” He held my hand between his small ones, lowering his head enough to peer at me over his sunglasses.
“Please, Mari. The important thing, right now, is leaving this place, OK? And fast! We’ll talk latter, OK?” he replied, obviously trying to reassure me, but his urgent tone betrayed the concern he was covering up.
“Fine,” I conceded and decided I might as well help him. “Come. There’s a passageway leading to the subway on the other side of the bridge.” It was my turn to pull him by his hand.
“And we can take that subway?”
“It doesn’t really matter, right? If all you want is to get out of here. We’ll change lines later on.”
He nodded, agreeing, and we tried to cross the bridge as fast as we could. We were almost all the way across, the subway sign already visible markin
g the Westminster station, when Lea suddenly stopped, making me stop as well. I looked down at him, a question bubbling in my lips, but his stiff, hard expression made my heart jump, fearing the worst.
“Lea! Talk to me!” I ordered urgently, squatting before him to hold him by his tiny shoulders, and he draped his little arms around my neck.
“Pick me up.”
“What?”
“Pick me up!” he repeated and I obeyed, raising him from the ground. “There! Turn towards there.” He went on, pointing to the river, and I did as he asked.
“What ...” I stopped myself when his light body began to glow and I immediately tried to hide him under my coat. “Lea! What are you doing!” I demanded but it didn’t stop that inhuman glowing.
“I’ll have to leave you for a bit. Just keep going towards the subway.”
“But ...”
“I’ll meet you there, I promise.”
It was the last thing he told me. Next his body was shrinking, and folding, until all that was left in my arms was a bundle of clothes. A small shape stirred from under the empty shirt and a black, swift shadow jumped from my arms, nimbly landing on the ground. The small cat didn’t even stop to look back, quickly running towards where we’d come from, his small bell tinkling over all the other noises, until I couldn’t hear it anymore ... and I was alone.
I hurriedly folded his clothes, so it would be easier to carry them, and picked up his empty shoes and socks that had fallen at my feet. I looked around for a second, worried that someone might had seen anything, but, just as before, the people crowding the bridge only had eyes for the more eminent tourism attractions.
Not knowing what was really going on, I decided it was best to do as I’d been told. Something had clearly gone wrong and, suddenly, I didn’t feel safe anymore and all I wanted was to go back home, as Gabriel had initially instructed.
I came down from the bridge to Parliament Street and anxiously waited for the traffic lights to change. A cold wind tousled my hair and I looked up at the sky. The practically non-existent clouds from that morning had tripled and now ran too fast, as if they also were trying to run away from something. My stomach knotted and I squeezed my hands together. I had to remain calm, I told myself, especially since I was mainly imagining things. I still didn’t know what had happened, which meant the bad feeling coursing through my veins was nothing but the fruit of my vivid imagination. Maybe they’d just left to do something, who knew? After all, I knew nothing about their strange world or about what drove them to take this or that action, and neither did I want to know! Still, I cursed at the red traffic light that seemed to take too long to change.
And then, suddenly everything was silent. I only noticed something was really, really wrong when the car that should have sped past me seconds ago remained in the same place.
I stopped breathing as I slowly looked around and concluded I could only be hallucinating. I’d finally gone mad, I thought, since there was no other possible explanation. The world, all around me, had stopped, as if frozen in time, from the cars before me to the smallest of leaves falling from a tree!
An arm grabbed me by the waist, easily raising me from the ground, and a cold hand covered my lips, silencing my unthinking scream. The image of the frozen world blurred away, leaving me dizzy and sick to my stomach, but still I desperately fought with all my strength against whatever it was that had grabbed me. Darkness enveloped me, making me unable to think coherently, and although I could hear other sounds, which meant that the illusion of that frozen world had disappeared, a much deeper, much darker madness took over my mind.
“Mariane! Breathe!” That voice. Not knowing how, my body immediately obeyed it and the burning in my chest, which I only now noticed, started to slowly dissipate. “That’s it. Easy,” he whispered in my ear and I could feel his warm breath against my skin. The arm wrapped around my waist held me firmly against his body, and the cold hand over my lips trembled slightly. “Hush ... calm down ... I am not going to hurt you,” he added, but his words didn’t make any sense, my head pounding painfully. My wild eyes kept searching the darkness around me, panic drowning me in raving waves of fear, and then it was as if something deep inside me had simply broken, and the world around me became silent. Something wet and warm trickled down my cheeks, but my mind remained blank, as if I were no more than a windup doll that finally had come to a stop. All that was left were far away sensations, like his trembling hand over my lips and the sound of his deep voice.
I heard him groan under his breath and his arm crushed me against his body even harder, almost as if he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t unwillingly let go of me. Time and space escaped me and, what most probably were just a few minutes, seemed like an eternity.
His soft sigh and the warmth of his breath broke the muteness in my ears and his cold, trembling hand finally released me. Even so, I only noticed he’d let me go when he carefully dropped me on the ground, since I obviously couldn’t stand on my own.
The sound of a small bell told me we weren’t alone, but, even though I commanded it with all my might, my opened eyes saw only darkness.
“Thank you, Lea. I’ll take care of the rest. Watch over her and take her home.” I listened his velvet voice and then silence, once again.
I wondered if the world had stopped, once again, and, when I tried to pinpoint exactly when that had happened, I simply couldn’t find an answer.
A small, warm hand was gently placed over my head, but for a moment I couldn’t even tell if it really was my head he was touching.
“Mari? Mari! Can you hear me?”
His voice came to me from very far away and my mind couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or wide awake. Part of me insisted I was responsible for the concern in that child’s voice, and my heart stirred telling me that I didn’t want to be the cause of his pain.
In what felt like an inhuman effort, I blinked, trying to make sure my eyes were really opened and, bit by bit, light started returning to my sight. The first thing I was able to focus on were his silver eyes, brimming with unshed tears, and then his smile of relief as he noticed I could see him.
I looked around to see we were in what looked like a dark, narrow alley. And the surface under me was cold and hard.
I raised a hand, unsure I could do it, and stared at it, doubting it really belonged to me.
I understood my brain had completely shut down, leaving me deaf, blind, mute and unfeeling, except to him, and ran a hand through my face, strangely wet by tears I didn’t remember crying.
As my mind became more aware, I was finally able to sort my thoughts out and recall the latest events, which lead me to sit up too fast, making me dangerously dizzy.
“Take it easy,” Lea admonished me, holding me with his gentle but surprisingly strong hands. “You can’t just stand up like that.”
“What happened? What’s going on?”
“If you think you can stand, we better get going. We can talk on the way,” he told me and I looked around once more, feeling confused. The last thing I clearly remembered was standing by the sidewalk, waiting to cross a street, wishing the traffic light would change, and then ... then the world had stopped!
“We’re near a church and a subway station. Master brought you here because it’s safer,” he clarified, answering my silent question, and I leaned against the cold, damp wall to push my stiff body up until I could stand on my two legs. “Come, this way,” he encouraged me, and I tried to follow him as fast as I could, taking into account my knees kept buckling with every step I gave.
I could still feel the cold touch of his skin against mine, which made my stomach fold into a dozen knots. My chest hurt from the effort of having to breathe, and the evening light that poured all over the main street temporarily blinded me again.
Lea walked ahead to guide me, constantly turning back to make sure I followed. His head looked like a wind vane, turning and peering in every direction, suspicious of everyone and everything, his quick small
steps tense and alert. And, when we finally went down to the subway, he stood upright beside me, trying as he could to support me.
The dim lights of the underground brought some measure of relief to my throbbing head. I convinced myself as best as I could that I was feeling better and wasn’t, in any way, going to attract any unwanted attention by falling or fainting in front of all those people.
As soon as the subway car doors closed, Lea sighed in relief, releasing part of the tension he’d accumulated, looking visibly tired. However, we didn’t talk. The subway cars ran packed at that time of day, masses of people entering and exiting at every station, and all I could do was pull Lea into a corner, holding him against my legs so that he wouldn’t be stepped on or dragged away by the human torrents.
When we finally reached our destination and went back to the surface, the sun had already begun setting, the cool air making me shiver, but I was practically back to my usual self.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long for the bus. I gave Lea his ticket and watched as he passed it through the machine; and couldn’t help feeling sad as I recalled the curious happiness that had beamed on his face when he’d done the same exact thing just that morning. Once more, in just a few hours, everything had changed. And now Lea wasn’t smiling anymore, nor did he look like an excited child, and Gabriel wasn’t with us.
Lea took a seat near the window, just like before, and turned his attention to the progressively darker world outside. I knew immediately his attempt to avoid my questions for what it was. But right then I just couldn’t spare him. I needed answers, bad! And the time we’d spent in silence up until then had only granted me enough time to calmly review all that had happened, giving me the chance to picture half a dozen or so worst case scenarios.
“Lea?” I called him and he clearly hesitated before turning to face me. “What happened back there?” I asked, going straight to the subject, and my question was so predictable that he didn’t even think before replying.
Blood of the Pure (Gaea) Page 31
