Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3)

The Ceruleans: Book III

Wild Blue Yonder

By Megan Tayte

Copyright 2015 Megan Tayte

All rights reserved. No part
of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted or stored in an
information retrieval system in any form or by any means (other than for
purposes of review), without the express permission of the author given in
writing. The right of Megan Tayte to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.

To contact the author, visit
www.megantayte.com.

For Pearl, who always
believed.

WILD BLUE YONDER

Unless you can
muse in a crowd all day
On the absent face that fixed you;
Unless you can love, as the angels may,
With the breadth of heaven betwixt you;
Unless you can dream that his faith is fast,
Through behoving and unbehoving;
Unless you can die when the dream is past –
Oh, never call it loving!

– Elizabeth Barrett
Browning

‘Earth’s crammed with heaven,’ wrote poet Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. What if she was right? What if heaven really was a place on earth?
Not bad, I’d say, if it was home to every person I loved in the world, and a
decent coffee house, and a bookshop, and a cinema, and a cove in which to surf.
I’d live out eternity in that heaven. But if heaven was simply a tiny island in
the ocean without so much as a telephone or a chocolate supply, then… then I’d
say, ‘Oh, hell.’

So I’ll say it now: ‘Oh,
hell
.’

The worst thing about dying, other than the pain and the
agonising goodbyes, is that you don’t know what to expect after the event, and
the unknown is pretty frightening. So being a bookish kind of person, when I
found out I was dying, I looked up ‘heaven’ in the dictionary, and this is what
I read:

Heaven (noun):

1. The realm beyond death: the dwelling place of God, His
angels and the blessed dead.

2. A place or condition of utmost happiness.

Before I died, this definition sounded reasonable. Yes,
dying was going to suck, because I’d be parted from my boyfriend, Luke, and my
best friend, Cara, and my mother, Elizabeth, and I’d no longer live in the
cottage on the cliff in the little cove in Devon I’d come to love. But at least
I was going to a better place, I told myself in the odd moment I managed not to
think about all I was losing.

But
after
I died, I could quite happily have hunted
down the dictionary compiler and done him damage with the massive tome. Because
my heaven didn’t quite live up to expectations.

First of all, God. In the place in which I found myself
beyond death, the god wasn’t the kindly faced old bloke with the beard and the
white hair and the brown sandals and the sheet-type frock on the cover of my
old children’s Bible.
He
wasn’t even a he. My heaven was ruled by a
woman with daggers in her smile, her frock was more tailored sheath and her
sandals were of the high and strappy variety.

The angels bit was a little closer to the mark. My
companions did, after all, have power over life and death. But other than their
healing hands, the Ceruleans were regular people – no halo or feathery wing in
sight.

As for the blessed dead, well, in this heaven there was only
me who met the ‘dead’ criteria, and I didn’t feel very blessed… because I was
not
finding this place one of utmost happiness. Don’t get me wrong, Cerulea was
beautiful, and everyone was very kind to me, especially Jude, the guy who
brought me here. And while not on a par with chocolate, the sugar-free vanilla
biscuits the kitchen served up were pretty decent.

But there is no paradise to be had when wings are clipped.
There is no Elysium without the freedom to enjoy it. There is no heaven within
the unforgiving walls of a prison, be they of cold, hard stone or beautifully
blue water.

Of course, though, when I first awoke in my heaven, I knew
nothing of the barriers surrounding me. All I knew was that I was someplace
beyond death, and I hurt.

I hurt a lot.

*

It started with a song, this new life of mine. At least,
that’s my first memory: a lilting voice penetrating the darkness surrounding
me. ‘Daydream Believer.’ But not the jolly Monkees’ version of the 1960s; the
slow, soulful Mary Beth Maziarz track.

I remember my first thought:
Let it be a dream. Let me be
at home, dreaming.
But I wasn’t home. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know
that.

I lay as still as possible, sorting through memories. A meal
shared in flickering candlelight: laughter, warmth, intimacy. Luke’s eyes, wild
and frantic, as he reached for me across the burning beam that separated us;
his silent cry:
I love you. I love you.
The impossibly hot floor beneath
my hands and knees – the rush of air – the impact. The reflection of dancing
flames in photographs on the mantelpiece: my mother, Cara, Luke; my sister.
Death looming over me, crushing me. And then… and then all was hazy, jumbled.
Voices arguing. The acrid smell of smoke. Floating. Flying. A single image:

Three figures on a clifftop at sunrise. A boy, head
bowed, sobbing, holding a girl in his arms who was quiet now, sleeping now, and
to their side another boy, one hand holding the girl’s, the other laid on the
boy’s shoulder, looking up, looking at me.

I did not recall the mechanics of it, of how I died, but I
did remember the light. Such a beautiful shade of blue. And beyond it… well,
here I supposed. Cerulea. Where I belonged, I had been promised. With my own
kind. Away from the limitations of a dying body. Safe from the bad guys, the
‘Fallen’ – twisted killers who’d like to persuade me to their side; who’d
already snatched my sister for their cause. My sister, Sienna, whom I was here
to save. But the cost: permanent separation from the people I loved and the
world they inhabited.

The pain was engulfing. I lay frozen, hiding beneath the
bluebird’s wings, as the song played out, thinking,
If I don’t believe the
dream, it can’t be real.

The song ended and something rustled nearby. I focused on
breathing deeply, steadily.

‘Scarlett?’

The voice was familiar, low and reassuring. Still, I didn’t
stir.

‘Scarlett, are you awake?’

A sigh somewhere close by, and then footsteps moving away,
and a door opening and then closing again, leaving me to silence.

I did not open my eyes. I did not want to know where I was.
I just lay there, thinking of everything I had lost. An endless montage of
memories played across my mind:

Luke in his Kiss the Cook apron, kneading dough for homemade
focaccia, laughing at some dumb joke I made.

Cara and I huddled over steaming hot chocolates,
deliberating the relative merits of vampires versus werewolves.

Luke dancing like a delighted bear amid a flash mob of
choreographed surfers.

Mum stroking my hair gently as I sobbed, telling me
everything was going to be all right.

Luke behind me, hollering encouragement, as I surfed along a
tunnelling wave.

My sister standing in a hot and dark nightclub – but not my
sister, some trick of my ailing mind.

Luke beneath the covers, trailing kisses down my throat,
making that sound in his throat that drove me crazy.

Luke.

Luke.

Luke.

I reminisced until the pillow beneath my cheeks was cold and
wet with tears and, finally, sleep dulled the pain once more.

*

The next time I stirred, there was no music, no rustling, no
voice, only memories.

I played a game of ‘let’s pretend’. I was home in Twycombe,
tucked up in my bed beneath the patchwork quilt my grandmother had made me.
Beside me, curled into my side, was Luke – solid and warm. In just a moment, I
would open my eyes and see him: hair dark and unkempt; cheeks eternally
flushed; lips unutterably kissable; eyes a bottomless blue. He would smile at
me, languidly and suggestively, and then lean in…

I opened my eyes long enough to get a flash of a white
pillow and a white wall beyond. No Luke. I squeezed them tight again and
descended into the blackness behind my eyes which, I knew, extended down to the
depths of my heart.

*

Voices snaked into the silence, sending little slivers of
light to pierce the darkness.

… still not awake?

No.

Well, passing over is never easy on the body, or the
soul. It takes time, Jude.

What if she doesn’t wake up?

She will.

I mean, what if she just doesn’t want to?

She came with you, Jude, when she could have gone into
the white light. She chose you, us. She will want to be with us.

She’s spirited, though. When she finds out –

She will step up and do her duty. It’s simple… But you
still look worried.

I just don’t want her to hate me.

Why would she? After all you’ve done for her… She won’t
hate you. Quite the opposite.

She loves Luke.

And she has let him go.

Then why doesn’t she wake up?

Patience, Jude. She will when she’s ready, and then
you’ll have all the time in the world.

‘No,’ I wanted to say, ‘I already had my time. I had my
eternity. I had infinity in the palm of my hand. And it was gone too soon.’ But
what was the point of arguing? What was the point of anything?

Even as I felt a warm hand close over mine, I slid silently
away into the only forever that interested me.

Memories were all I had now.

A cry disturbed my dream. Shrill. High-pitched. A baby
somewhere nearby. Odd. Still, no reason to surface. But before I had time to
sink deep into the past once more, I felt a warm breath of air on my cheek.

‘Scarlett?’

I was statuesque.

‘Scarlett, I know you’re awake.’

I was immovable.

‘I knew you were awake yesterday, and the day before. I
figured you needed some time to… process. But you can’t keep hiding like this.’

I was unyielding.

‘Scarlett Blake, your eyebrows are wiggling. You’re rubbish
at faking sleep.’

I was… busted.

‘Bog off,’ I growled without opening my eyes. Only my mouth
was really dry and my tongue was thick and it ended up sounding more like
‘Guff’.

A snort nearby had me peeling open my eyelids just enough to
glare at the boy leaning over me. Pale, lithe, impossibly attractive, with ash
hair and slate-grey eyes. Usually, he looked whacked, but apparently hovering
at the bedside of a sleeping girl was restful, because today he looked vital
and glowing.

‘Welcome back,’ he said.

‘Ngh,’ I grunted, and squeezed my eyes shut again.

‘How do you feel?’

‘Like sleeping. Forever.’

A sigh. Then: ‘I know you must be sad, but…’

It was my turn to snort.

‘Okay, more than sad. Funereal. Mournful. Anguished.
Devastated. Morose…’

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to tease, Jude?’

‘Wouldn’t know. I don’t know my mother.’

My eyes open involuntarily. ‘What?’

‘Didn’t
your
mother ever tell you it’s
pardon
,
not
what
?’ he smiled.

I thought about closing my eyes again, but already my
peripheral vision was picking up details of the surroundings, and natural
curiosity pulled me to look past him, around the room. It was simple and
square, with white-washed stone walls lit by the soft glow given out by a
single bulb suspended from the ceiling. The only furniture was the bed, a table
and an ancient-looking wooden chair. The door – closed firmly – was of thick,
solid wood, as was the frame of the window whose view I couldn’t make out from this
angle. The only interesting thing in the whole room was its one adornment: a
framed cross-stitch with wonky letters spelling out an unintelligible phrase.

Jude sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you ready to shake it
off now?’

I glared at him. ‘Shake it off! Just like that? I
died
,
Jude. Died! I’ve lost everything, everyone.’

‘It feels that way now,’ he said quietly. ‘But you have to
give Cerulea a chance. There’s a home for you here – a life and a purpose. And
there are people who care about you; a lot of people. Me, for one.’ He cleared
his throat. ‘Please, Scarlett.’

He was right, I knew. I couldn’t lie in bed forever sulking
like a petulant toddler who hadn’t got her way. There was no going back; I was
here to stay. Being here had been my choice – in death, I could have gone into
the white light and been reunited with my grandparents. But I’d chosen blue:
Jude, Cerulea. Saving my sister.

I sat up in the bed and searched for something profound to
say –
Where am I? How long have I been here? What’s beyond that window?
–
but in the end my lips said of their own accord, ‘What does that mean?’

‘What does what mean?’

I pointed to the frame.

‘Hame’ll Dae Me,’ he read smoothly. ‘Scottish. It means home
will do me.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘In answer to your other questions,’ he went on, ‘you’re in
Cerulea, in the Birth Place, and you’ve been asleep for eleven days, fifteen
hours and –’ he checked his watch – ‘forty-two minutes. You missed Christmas.
And New Year.’

There was a long, pregnant pause during which I gaped at
him. Then I demanded sharply: ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, I knew about the healing people with the hands, and
the ability to travel from place to place in the blink of an eye. But
mind-reading? All this time you’ve been eavesdropping on my thoughts? That’s…
that’s. Oh my God – that time we were talking on the sofa and I was thinking…’

‘Scarlett!’ He held up a hand. ‘Relax.
Not
a mind
reader. Just fairly obvious what you’d want to know straight off.’

‘Oh. Right. Good.’

Silence fell. I fiddled restlessly with the quilt as I
remembered:

Three figures on a clifftop at sunrise. A boy, head
bowed, sobbing, holding a girl in his arms who was quiet now, sleeping now, and
to their side another boy, one hand holding the girl’s, the other laid on the boy’s
shoulder, looking up, looking at me.

When I looked up, Jude was watching me, and I saw in his
eyes that he could tell what I was thinking. Not, after all, because he could
read minds, but because he knew me – he knew me well.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

And he did. He told me the story of my death, from the
moment he’d arrived on the scene – seconds after Luke’s frantic call. Finding
me unconscious in the cottage. Carrying me out. Healing Luke. Breaking it to
Luke that there was no healing me. And then…

‘It was Luke,’ he said. ‘He was adamant that it was what
you’d wanted. No pain. No suffering. You were too far gone to inject yourself
with the morphine. I fetched it, but he…’

Tears were choking me. I bit my lip to hold back the flood.
Not now. Not yet.

‘Luke took your life,’ said Jude.

I tried to process that. Luke, doing that for me. Luke,
letting me go. Luke,
killing
me.

Death looming over me, crushing me.

I shook my head. ‘My death isn’t on him,’ I said. ‘Someone
else was there, in the cottage. Someone held me down. Put a hand over my mouth.
A knee on my chest. Jude!’ I grabbed at him. ‘Someone
killed
me
!’

He put his hand over mine, which had a fistful of his shirt,
and squeezed lightly. ‘Scarlett, you were hurt, badly hurt, and your head…’

‘You think I was seeing things?’

‘I think you were very hurt, and very frightened.’

I let go of Jude and leaned back on the pillow, frowning. It
felt so real, the memory of that someone. But then, hadn’t the tiger I’d
hallucinated seemed real? My sister in a Newquay club?

‘There was no one else in the house, Scarlett, when I got to
you – and I was with you soon after the floor collapsed.’

Slowly, I nodded. What did it matter now in any case? It was
the past; it was gone. But Luke, he was still out there.

‘How is he?’ I said. ‘What he saw, what he did – it must
have hurt so much.’

I kept seeing him on the clifftop, his shoulders wracked
with sobs. He’d have been left all alone when Jude took me. Arms empty. Heart
broken.

Jude cleared his throat. ‘I haven’t been back to Twycombe.’

I shot up. ‘But you promised you’d let him know I was all
right! Eleven days – he’ll be so worried!’

‘And I will let him know. Once I know you
are
all
right.’

I hadn’t even thought about it. All these months of
sickness… were they over now, forever? Was the thing in my head gone?

‘Am I – am I healed?’

He smiled. ‘You tell me.’

I moved my head about, up and down, side to side. For the
first time in months my vision kept pace with the movement and there was no
pain in my head, not even the slightest twinge.

‘Wow!’ I said, and I swung my legs out from under the covers
and stood.

‘Oh!’

Jude was at my side in an instant. ‘What is it? Are you
dizzy?’

‘No! Not at all!’ I paced across the room, back, across. ‘I
feel… normal again. Like myself.’

His smile was wide, but mine was fleeting. I was at the
window, suddenly desperate to see, to understand. But there was nothing – just
thick blackness. Not even a distant light. It reminded me of the view out to
sea from the headland on which the cottage stood in Twycombe.

‘It’s late,’ explained Jude.

Turning to him, I asked, ‘How long have you been here
today?’

‘A while.’

‘Have you visited often?’

‘I didn’t want you to wake up alone.’

‘I remember music…’

He pulled a phone from his pocket and waggled it. ‘I know
you like tunes. I thought it may comfort you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said softly.

He nodded, and then cleared his throat. He was usually so
confident; it was strange to see him awkward with me.

‘Tomorrow morning I’ll come and take you on a tour. And then
you’re to meet the others. And Evangeline.’

‘Who?’

‘Our guide and inspiration. She is Mother here.’

‘Mother? She’s not my mother.’

‘She is now.’

‘I have a mother!’

‘Shush,’ said Jude, casting a look at the door. ‘Don’t
shout. We don’t do that here. Certainly not in the Birth Place.’

‘The what?’

‘This is where we’re born, and where we’re nursed as
children. And it’s where we take care of those who are reborn as Ceruleans. Now
that you’re here, awake, everyone is looking forward to meeting you. Especially
Evangeline.’

I should have known then. He didn’t sound like Jude: ‘you’re
to meet’; ‘She is Mother’; ‘we don’t do that’; ‘reborn’, all delivered in an
even, robotic tone like one reciting lines drilled over and over.

And I should have known when he patted my arm and murmured,
‘You’ll come to like it here.’
Come
to?

And I certainly should have known when, after he told me to
get some rest and then said goodnight and left the room, I heard the quiet
click of a key turning in the lock.

But after all we’d been through together, I wanted to trust
my friend. So I lay back and I closed my eyes, and I thought of Luke until
memories blended into dreams.