The 13th Descent: Book One of The Rosefire Trilogy

by Ky Lehman

  It is what I’ve always wanted to possess, and, to one day, use frequently, but as I flick through its new, crisp pages, my shoulders slump along with my excitement. Although the photo inside the passport is of my face, the name and the place and date of birth listed beside my vacant expression have never belonged to me.

  AMELIE JANE PARACELLE

  PLACE OF BIRTH: HAWTHORN, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

  DATE OF BIRTH: 17TH AUGUST 1996

  Familiar sounds and smells distract me from my disappointment. I still myself and listen, sniffing the air like Chip does, and hone in on Mike’s, Aunt Romey’s and Uncle Craig’s intermingling voices coming from the kitchen.

  I scramble into the bathroom to use the toilet, my toothbrush and my hairbrush in a half-arsed attempt to look presentable before I go and join them; eager to discover what is next on the agenda, and also to find out who moved my eavesdropping carcass from the hallway rug to my bed.

  Please God, don’t let it be Mike. Anyone but Mike...

  I make my way down the hallway, practising my breezy stroll into the kitchen when my spine and my legs suddenly go rigid at the sound of Mike’s dejected tone.

  Then the kitchen suddenly goes silent. Shit! They must have heard me. I’ll bet they’re all glaring at the archway, waiting for me to show my sorry self.

  Expecting to be pounced on, I peek my head around the corner. Aunt Romey and Uncle Craig are sitting at the breakfast bar with their backs to me and Mike is at the stove, frying up what smells to be his favourite breakfast combo of sausage, onions and tomatoes on toast.

  I let out a sigh of relief and attempt to chirrup, “Hi guys.”

  They all turn to face me. Instinctively, I wince, preparing for the onslaught.

  “Hi Ren,” Uncle Craig says with a big smile as he and Aunt Romey stand and approach me.

  They both hug me tight, and as I am squished in-between them, I attempt to make eye contact with Mike. He drops his eyes, scowls and turns back to his cooking.

  Crap. That dirty look said it all. It was Mike who found me in the hallway: he knows what I heard, and why my brain embarrassingly checked out for the third time to date.

  “Alright there, Ren?” Uncle Craig asks as he puts a warm hand on each of my cheeks and angles my face up to look at his.

  “Yep. I’m fine,” I answer with an unforced smile, grateful that I won’t be getting hauled over the coals, at least by him. Reading me like a book, he pinches my cheeks and smiles back.

  “Are you sure?” Aunt Romey presses as she hip-bumps Uncle Craig out of the way to give me the once over.

  “I’m fine,” I emphasise, backing away. “Stop fussing, please.”

  She throws her arms up in defeat, and so does Mike as he strides out of the room, only to return seconds later to retrieve the heaped plate of food he had hastily left behind.

  While Mike wolfs down his fry up in the next room, my aunt and uncle waste no time briefing me on our itinerary: how we are leaving for the airport in two hours, how our first lot of fake passports make Mike and I siblings, and how they both plan on meeting us at the Apple Isle in a few days.

  Seeing my disappointment, Uncle Craig says, “Ren, we’ve got a few things to take care of before we join you.”

  “Like what?” I ask, pouting. I assumed they would be with me to see Mum, Josh, this mysterious little isle and our holier-than-now relatives. Also, their presence would have been a welcome buffer between me and Mike’s wrath.

  “Finding someone to look after Chip for one,” Aunt Romey absentmindedly says as she thumbs through our stack of travel documents.

  “Who organised the phony passports?” I ask.

  “Family friends,” Uncle Craig answers with a smirk.

  “Ah,” I say with a knowing nod. With what the Avalon’s have had to resort to over the centuries, to them, a bit of identity fraud would be like a piss in the ocean.

  With the two hours we have before leaving for the airport, I check through my luggage to see what Aunt Romey has packed for me, and I am pleasantly surprised to see that I don’t have to unpack and repack much at all. I expected for her to have packed every ankle length, high necked summer dress and one piece bathing suit I owned, but she has packed most of what I usually wear when the weather is warm: lots of my colourful tank tops and my mid-thigh shorts and skirts, as well as some of my bikinis. At first I am impressed, thinking that she wants for me to be myself and comfortable, but then I realise that showing a little more skin than is considered demure might somehow get Josh, the exotic bird lover, to notice a Ren.

  I rush back to the kitchen to question my aunt about her packing motives, only to charge in on her and Uncle Craig talking about Georgie Pa. I lean against the door frame and listen to them excitedly recap Georgie Pa’s reaction over hearing that his Rhoda is alive: how he fell to his knees, clutched at his heart and wept; about how Aunt Romey repeatedly apologised to the emergency operator when Uncle Craig realised that what they thought was a heart attack was just a father’s overwhelming joy, and once Georgie Pa had settled down, how he proclaimed that for his girls and in the spirit of lives lost and found, he vowed to do whatever it takes to stop drinking.

  Aunt Romey then drifts back to recall years instead of hours ago, sharing warm, smile-inducing memories of Georgie Pa and Nanna when she and my mum were kids. How they would catch the two of them slow dancing and kissing in the kitchen, and how those moments were some of the rare times she saw her mother blush. How in the middle of the night, they would hear Georgie Pa softly singing Nanna back to sleep after one of her nightmares. How she would hide his favourite toffees around the house in places she knew he would find them. Even though I have heard these recollections before, seeing my aunt’s eyes light up with love and pride as she speaks about her parents has me straining to remember why I stomped into the kitchen in the first place.

  “I’d hate to break this up, ladies,” Uncle Craig says, tapping his chunky watch, “but we’ve really got to get moving.” He goes to hunt down Mike who hasn’t reappeared since he took off with his food hours earlier.

  I hear the front door open and their heavy steps going down our short flight of porch stairs, their deep voices wavering in and out as they carry our luggage from the house to Aunt Romey’s car.

  “Want some help?” I call out, hoping Mike will answer me.

  “Nah. We’ve got it, thanks Ren,” Uncle Craig calls back.

  No grunt. No snarl. Not even a bite from Mike. Usually when he is this furious at me, I at least get a nip. He is never this quiet. This distant. This cold. My pride is just hanging on by a fingernail: the need to run over to him and beg him to scream in my face is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a lid on.

  Uncle Craig announces that he is driving and Aunt Romey sits up front alongside him, leaving me, Mike, and the chasm between us to fill the back seat.

  He intently stares out of his window. I am pretending to intently stare out of mine. From the corner of my eye, I can see his face in the window reflection: he is grimacing like he has a stomach ache he is trying to will away. The edges of the chasm are crumbling and falling away fast, so much so that I can feel my right arse cheek is hanging over the side. I am terrified, and it’s not because of the fall. It’s because for the first time ever, I’m not sure if my best friend will reach out and catch me.

  After an agonisingly long car trip, we say our see-you-soon’s to Aunt Romey and Uncle Craig and silently stride side by side through the glass sliding doors into international departures.

  We stand together in the long queue to the check-in counter, looking everywhere but at each other. Our most animated movements are inching forward when the loud, young family of five in front of us eventually do. So many times, I try to catch his eye, but he won’t have a bar of it.

  More standing. More shuffling along. More heart palpitations. More silent waiting in one of the world’s busiest airport terminals.

  Finally, we board the plane to Singapore as siblings
. Estranged siblings. In our allocated seating, we sit side by side, flying through the black night like polite strangers quietly reading or pretending to sleep.

  We arrive at Singapore airport to change flights and our identities. My new passport says that I am now “RUBY CAROLINE FLAHERTY” from “CAPE YORK, NORTH QUEENSLAND.” This time my birthday is in November making me nearly eighteen and a half, and Mike and I are no longer brother and sister.

  Because we have an hour and a half before our next flight takes off, and I can’t bear the thought of another torturous half-a-day trapped in an enclosed space with him this shitty at me, I decide that now is the time to take a stab at breaking the ice: here on solid ground with easily accessible emergency exits amongst all these relaxed, smartly dressed people in this posh boarding lounge, hoping our surroundings will make Mike think twice before getting loud as he has been known to do when he is this mad.

  I take a deep breath, lean towards him and whisper, “So…with the recent changes and all, what are we supposed to be to each other now?”

  “WHAT?” he yells, throwing himself back in his chair like he has been electrocuted.

  “With our new names, what are we to each other now?” I softly repeat, the double meaning to my now regrettable question hanging over my head like an axe.

  “You’re asking me this, here? Now?” he snarls, glaring at me and breathing heavily.

  Well done, Ren. That broke the ice, and started an avalanche.

  My soaring anxiety brings with it uncontrollable trembling, and my eyes become hot and twitchy, threatening to overflow. But, then I remind myself I’d rather be up to my neck in his frosty words than suffer another minute of his cold silence, and that I deserve the payout that’s coming to me.

  I brace myself and peek up at him, quickly looking straight back down when I see the gutted expression shrouding his once glowing face. It is in this tragic moment that I realise that I haven’t seen his light since he first showed it to me all those hours ago.

  “Well, um…our new passports say that we’re no longer siblings, so what is our relationship to each other?” I quietly ask, attempting to downgrade my loaded question into an innocent one.

  “You want to know what you are to me?” he growls and abruptly stands. “Do you?” he seethes as he leans forward, staring me down. “You are my first breath. My last breath. And all of the heartbeats in-between. You are my joy. You are my pain. My one true hope. For God’s sake, Ren, you are the mother of the children I finally realise we will never have.” He inhales deeply through his clenched teeth making a hissing sound. “And, after all this time, you still have no friggin’ idea.”

  Pinned in my seat, all I am capable of doing is blinking and assisting the hot rush of tears to spill down my cheeks. As he holds his glare, I see the amber flecks in pools of rich brown ripple, flicker, and vanish. I gasp and slowly point up at his changing eyes, shocked and devastated at how that light that allows me to see into is soul has faded too. He gives me a curt nod acknowledging what has gone.

  He sighs, in what I pray is regret and not relief, and with an indifferent gaze and a distant tone I don’t recognise, he softly and terrifyingly says, “You know what you are to me, Serenay? You are my greatest disappointment.” He pushes away from the table, snatches up his backpack, turns and strides away from me.

  My panicked heart rips me out of my seat and propels me forward. “Mike!” I scream, tripping over a chair leg and ungraciously falling to my knees.

  Everyone in the lounge immediately turns towards the commotion I’m making, everyone except for him.

  Chapter 11

  My very public panic attack has landed me in the airport’s first-aid station where I am laying on a hard cot in a small white room, looking up into the pretty face of a young Singaporean nurse named Min who likes to negotiate.

  As per our agreement, now that I am calm and my blood pressure is back within normal range, she is finally going to give me back my mobile phone.

  First, I try and call Mike’s mobile which is turned off and goes straight to voicemail. I leave a teary message saying that I’m really sorry I upset him and that I hope he is OK, in-between begging him to call me back as soon as possible.

  Then I call Aunt Romey. After establishing multiple times that I’m alright, she explains that I will be taking the next leg of the trip on my own because, “Mike is finding his own way there. But, not to worry,” she reassures me, “because once you land, you will be accompanied the rest of the way.”

  “Accompanied by who?” I ask.

  “Family,” she answers.

  In other words, it’ll be a cousin I haven’t seen since I was in nappies, or a relative I have never met before. Fan-bloody-tastic…

  “So, you’re sure Mike is on his way there?” I clarify, again.

  “Yes, Renay. I’m sure,” she answers with a weary sigh.

  “And you’ll tell him that I’ve been trying to call him.”

  “Yes, Renay. I’ll mention it.”

  “And you’ll tell him how sorry I am.”

  “No, Renay. I won’t,” is her stony reply.

  “No? What do you mean, no?” I ask, completely taken aback.

  “That’s an exchange to be had between the two of you, face to face, heart to heart,” she states.

  Thinking of the hope sapping words he left me with, my breathing grows rapid and my bloodshot eyes dribble more tears. “He’s been mad at me before, Aunt Romey, but not like this. And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure of what I’ve done,” I whimper.

  “It’s more about what you haven’t done, Renay.”

  Here I am worrying about all of the things I may have cocked up, and now I have to worry about the things I haven’t gotten around to cocking up yet? “What do you mean?” I ask, suddenly finding my voice.

  “Having someone’s trust is a rare and precious thing, and to gain yours, here in this challenging world, lifetime after lifetime, has always given Mike the hope and strength of purpose he needs to stay on the path he chose all those centuries ago. This is the first time after a remembering that you don’t trust him, and he is scared of what that might mean,” she explains.

  “But, it’s not just him. I don’t trust anyone!” I loudly admit.

  “I know, Renay. And Mike is well aware of it too,” she says, a little too expectantly.

  The weight of my despair drops like a boulder into the pit of my stomach, crumpling my innards and smouldering what’s left of the once raging fire in my belly.

  After a long, heavy silence, Aunt Romey eventually breaks it by adding, “Mike has given up more than you realise to help us, Renay, and his love for you is only a part of it. He holds on to one gift you continued to give to him and no one else, and without it, he is lost. ”

  Lost. I know the feeling. But, “What do you mean, given up?” I ask with a roar that comes out more like a squeak.

  “Being who he is, and descending as many times as he has, well, he has regressed, Renay, and a soul can only regress for so long.”

  The loud speaker unexpectedly bellows across the small space, startling me and interrupting us. “Final boarding call for Flight K138-”

  “That’s you! You better get going!” Aunt Romey yells in my ear.

  “But-”

  “Know, trust, that you are taken care of, dear Rose. Have a restful flight and we’ll see you soon,” she says and abruptly hangs up.

  “But…but…,” I stammer down the disconnected phone line.

  Nurse Min re-enters the room looking concerned, even more so when she sees the phone limply hanging from my hand and my pale and gaping expression. “Are you OK?” she asks, hurrying over to me.

  I weakly nod, hand her the receiver and slump back down on the cot. She places one hand over my forehead and takes my pulse with the other as her hard stare scans my face.

  Once satisfied, she reaches into her front pocket, pulls out a small zip lock bag with two smoky grey pills inside it, hands it to me
and says, “I have been told to give you these sleeping tablets, and to tell you, ‘Know, trust, that you are taken care of.’”

  I sigh and tut knowingly. It seems my Aunt Romey and her Avalon arm has a very long reach.

  “You must take them now,” Nurse Min says in her no-nonsense way, handing me a glass of water, “and quickly gather your things so we can get you to your flight.”

  The idea of some thoughtless, unfeeling shut eye, and believing that it is Aunt Romey who is offering me this assisted rest, I thankfully take the pills and the water and gulp them down before I can think twice.

  With Nurse Min’s much needed help, I groggily board the plane and find my seat. Teetering on the edge of consciousness; my last thought being how quick and effective those little grey pills are, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  After what feels like just a cat nap, I wake up with my head and torso squished into the hard crevice between the seat and the window with a serious case of cotton mouth and a crick in my neck that screams that I’ve actually been asleep for hours, maybe even days. A fast talking flight attendants soon sees that I’m awake and chirpily introduces herself as Stephanie, who happily informs me that we have just entered British air space, that I am the easiest passenger she has looked after in a while, and that, “You’re dog also slept most of the way too!”

  I snort, realising that my hearing must still be as foggy as my eyesight. “Sorry, Stephanie, what did you say?” I ask, squinting in her direction.

  “I said that your dog has also slept most of the way too! Wow, he’s a big one, isn’t he? I would’ve thought he’d be too big to assist a little lass like you, but what do I know. And unusual looking…I’ve never seen a breed like it! He’s kind of like a black, shaggy-haired fox, but the size of a Great Dane! And his name! Where in the world did you come up with that? Or should I ask, what were you smoking at the time?” she snickers. “We’re getting ready to land, so best you fasten your seat belt now, Miss Avalon. Unless you need some help?” I shake my head no. “Well, alright then!” she chirrups as her blurry, petite form turns and bustles up the aisle.