Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3) (3 page)

I wanted to be alone. To think. And cry some more. And maybe
throw some stuff, like that totally inaccurate ‘Hame’ll Dae Me’ cross-stitch.

But it wasn’t the room in the Birth Place that Jude showed
me to. It was a bedroom in the hotel. Right next to his. My room from now on,
he explained.

It was the mirror image of Jude’s room in layout, but where
Jude’s was fairly basic in its decor and had that bachelor pad feel to it, this
one had clearly been put together by someone with an eye for design and a penchant
for the colours pink and green. The carpet was deep and luxurious and the
colour of spring grass; the walls were a soft coral and dotted with canvases
depicting meadow views. There was a bed, king-sized and high, with blush
bedding; a sofa, cerise and plump, with assorted scatter cushions in green; a
vintage-looking white wardrobe and matching chest of drawers and bedside units;
a bookcase filled with novels; a jade vanity dresser with ornate mirror; and,
at the far end of the room, a wide wooden desk with emerald swivel chair set
before tall French doors. Someone had been busy in an electronics store as
well: in my initial sweep of the room I took in a large wall-mounted flatscreen
television, a DVD player, a sound system, a mini fridge, a kettle and, on the
desk, a netbook – fuchsia-pink, of course.

‘Do you like it?’ asked Jude. He was standing behind me, in
the doorway still.

‘It’s lovely,’ I said, my first warm comment to him in
hours.

‘We want you to be comfortable here. If there’s anything
else you’d like…’

I walked around the room, trailing my hand over furniture,
examining the artworks on the wall.

‘What’s that door?’ I asked, pointing to a wooden door in
the wall opposite the bed.

‘En suite.’

‘And that one?’ I pointed to a door directly opposite the
bathroom, next to the headboard of the bed.

Jude cleared his throat, then said, ‘It’s a connecting door.
To my room.’ I was opening my mouth to give him my opinion on
that
when
he added, ‘It locks from your side – see.’ He showed me the lock. ‘So I can’t
come in unless you want me to.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Good.’

We stood awkwardly for a moment, until Jude said, ‘Okay
then. I’ll leave you to…’

‘Good night.’

There was another pause, during which Jude seemed to be
wrestling with himself over something. I walked to the door to the room and
placed my hand on the handle – pointedly.

‘Good night, then,’ he said. ‘Sleep well. And just knock if
you need me.’

I closed the door on him, and turned the lock until it
clicked. Then I crossed to the connecting door and checked it. Locked.

In seconds I was across at the desk, flipping open the
netbook and booting it up. While it chugged through its startup procedure, I
chewed my nail impatiently. Finally, I was in. I searched the desktop for a web
browser. Nothing. I checked the menus. Nothing. I did a system-wide search.
Nothing.

Dammit.

I searched the room, riffling through drawers and shelves,
even the bathroom cabinet. iPod. Kindle. Hair dryer. But no phone, no tablet,
nothing that would allow me to connect to the outside world.

I sank down onto the sofa and hugged a cushion to me.

An image popped into my mind: the garden of the cottage at
Twycombe. Lying on my back raging at Jude, because he meant to take me; had
taken Sienna, I thought. He’d been on top of me, restraining me, and then, in
no more than a second, he’d melted away into a blur that was gone before I
could even try to focus on it.

I’d asked him, today, about the Travelling. Indirectly. What
was it he’d said? ‘The men do that.’ Did that mean only the men were physically
capable of it? The feminist in me growled unhappily. Surely not.

I thought about my gift, to heal. I’d used it several times
before my death, and the knowledge of how to use it had been inherent, no
thought required. I placed my hands on someone who needed healing, I willed
them healed, and the energy rose up inside and radiated out from my hands.

Now I tried to locate the source of that energy. It was in
my chest, as I remembered. A warmth. A light. I found it at once – it was so much
brighter, so much stronger.

Closing my eyes, I
willed
myself to Travel: from this
bedroom in an old hotel on an island off the coast of England to home, to the
cottage on the cliff.

I felt nothing, no rush of air, no change in light, but
still when I opened my eyes there was hope. It was dashed instantly. Same room.
Same old hotel. Same island off the coast of England.

Either women did not have the gift of Travel, or there was a
trick to it I’d have to be taught.

I sighed. What now?

A good cry, apparently, given that my eyes were welling up
and heat was rising in my chest.

I allowed myself a long bout of
feeling
. I sobbed
into the sofa cushions. I threw the sofa cushions. I collected them all up and
threw them again. Then, exhausted, I collapsed onto the sofa and scanned the
iPod. There were thousands of tunes. I started with angry, shouty songs, the
kind of music I hated. Then I tortured myself with every song I could think of
that reminded me of home.

‘Town Called Malice’, The Jam. Luke and I had danced to it
crazily, uninhibited, in our little penthouse haven in Newquay.

‘One Day Like This’, Elbow. The song that had been playing
in the car the day Luke and I first went out together, the day I first realised
I liked him.

‘Never Let Me Go’, Florence and the Machine. At my party,
the day I turned eighteen, the day I learned I would die. The day I wished for
more time.

‘Birdhouse in Your Soul,’ They Might Be Giants. Cara driving
away after a shopping trip, windows down, singing loudly, tunelessly.

‘Someone to Watch Over Me’, Ella Fitzgerald. In Luke’s arms,
swaying beneath a canopy of stars, he as handsome as I’d ever seen him in a
black suit and tie, me thinking,
I want it to be you who watches over me,
not Jude.

‘Set Fire to the Rain’, Adele. My mum and I dancing around a
roaring bonfire of designer clothes.

‘We Are Young’, Fun. Dancing it out in Cara and Luke’s
kitchen, Cara in her knickers – legs beautifully healed, Luke’s arms around me,
his whisper in my ear:
‘I-love-you-I-love-you-I-love-you.’

‘Kiss Me’, Ed Sheeran. The folly. Moving past the fear. The
first kiss.

‘Wherever You Will Go,’ Charlene Soraia’s version. Finally,
a song to turn the tide. It had come on the radio a few days before The End,
when we were baking gingerbread. Once Luke had registered the lyrics, he’d put
down his spatula and wrapped his arms around me and held me tight and said,
‘I’d come with me, if I could.’

There were no tears left. Something else had filled the
aching place inside. A kind of steely calm.

I put the song on repeat. I turned it up to maximum volume.
I crossed to the French doors, turned the handle, pushed them open wide and
stepped out onto the balcony. The air was so cold it made me gasp, but I didn’t
balk. I stepped forward, to the wrought-iron balustrade, and I stood looking
out at a world I couldn’t see.

Somewhere out there, in the thick blackness of the night,
was everyone I loved.

My mother, blissfully oblivious yet to my passing. Still
grieving the loss of her eldest daughter, but looking forward now to a long and
happy relationship with her remaining child.

My friend, Cara. Cheerful to the end. Embracing of anything
beyond the norm. But sad to lose me and, I was sure, haunted by the fact we’d
never said goodbye.

My… my… Luke. What would he be doing now? Was he too
outside, up on the roof terrace, staring out at a starless sky and wondering
where I was, whether I was okay?

I stood and I stared and I thought. I thought about finding
a way back to them all.

*

To thaw my frozen body, I took a long, hot bath. The
bathroom was old-fashioned in a chic kind of way – claw-footed slipper bath,
pedestal basin and a toilet with a chain to pull. The tiles on the wall and
floor were new, though, and the shower attachment was, I found to my soggy
surprise, majorly powerful.

Wrapped in a soft bath sheet, I stood for a time before the
mirror, eying the hollow of my throat – bare. For months a blue pendant had
lain there; Luke’s gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. Gone now. Lost, or
taken? Either way, I felt naked without it.

The haunted eyes of the girl in the mirror made emotion
swell up again, but I was done with crying, so I busied myself exploring the
contents of the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. Both were packed with
clothes – underwear, nightwear, vests, t-shirts, knitwear, jeans. Whoever had
stocked them had a good sense of my style (if you could call jeans-tee-and-cardie
a style: Cara, my fashion-loving friend, certainly hadn’t), and everything
looked to be in my size. Jude, I thought. He’d gone to some trouble to make me
feel at home here. I hoped that hadn’t included going through my underwear
drawer back home to find my bra size.

I chose a pair of soft white pyjamas from a drawer, then fetched
the towelling robe – lime, to match the room – from the bathroom and put that
on too. It was thick and fluffy, like wearing an enormous hug.

Warm at last, I turned my attention to the next pressing
need: my stomach was complaining loudly that it had been a really long time
since that slice of welcome cake. I explored the contents of the mini-fridge:
covered cups of juice and creamy milk, a pot of yoghurt and a sandwich wrapped
in cling-film. In a cupboard next to the fridge I found tableware, cutlery, a
tray and more provisions: a tin of biscuits, a bowl of fruit and a box full of
herbal tea sachets. I made myself up a tray and took my meal to the bed.

Turning on the television with the remote revealed no
channels – neither terrestrial nor satellite. Another reminder of how cut off
we were here. The prompt instructed me to insert a DVD, so I got back out of
bed and looked in the cupboard beneath the television where, in my earlier
hunt, I’d seen DVD box sets. I selected a
Friends
one, just plucking any
randomly from the box, and put it in the player.

Back in bed, I worked my way through the jam sandwich, yoghurt
scattered with blueberries, a banana, three vanilla biscuits and a raspberry
tea. I tried to focus on
Friends
. It was the one where Joey accidentally
wins a twenty-two-foot sailboat at an auction.

I thought about the jetty I’d seen out on my walk with Jude.
I thought about the little dinghy I’d seen bobbing about beside that jetty. I
thought about trying to creep out and pilot the little dinghy home – home to
Luke.

Then I thought about Jude, right through the wall. There if
I needed him. There to guard me?

Later, when I turned off the television and dimmed the
lights and I lay curled under the thick eiderdown, I thought again of that song
Luke had played, and I ran the end of the second verse over and over in my
mind. And I wondered whether the boy in the next room could be more than
someone to watch over me. I wondered whether, if I trod carefully, wisely, he
could be the someone who brought me back to Luke.

The next day dawned grey and drizzly. I was washed and
dressed and waiting impatiently on the sofa when Jude knocked for me. When I
opened the door, he looked nervous.

‘Morning,’ he said. ‘How are you? Did you sleep okay?’

‘No’ was the truthful answer. I’d tossed and turned, and
when sleep did come, it brought with it dreams of tigers and storms and fires
and Luke curled up in his bed, crying. But there was little point dragging Jude
into all that. I wanted him relaxed. I wanted him on side. There was something
I needed him to do.

‘I feel better today,’ I told him.

‘Good.’ He smiled tentatively. ‘Hungry?’

‘Ravenous.’

‘Are you up for breakfast downstairs?’

He didn’t add ‘with the others’, but I caught his drift.

‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘But first, we need to talk.’

I stood back and ushered him in and then shut the door
firmly behind him. He stood right inside the door, looking at me. There was
dread on his face.

‘Luke,’ I said simply.

He looked a little relieved that I wasn’t shouting or crying
or asking more questions.

‘You promised,’ I reminded him. ‘That you’d go back – just
once – to tell him I was okay. He’ll be waiting. Worrying.’

He nodded soberly. ‘What do you want me to say to him?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just give him this.’

I handed him a letter I’d handwritten that morning – at the
desk by the window, on neon-pink stationery I’d found in the desk drawer. I’d
gone through half a pad of paper before creating the simple one-page note:

Dear Luke,

I’m okay. I’m sad, I miss you, but I’m okay.

They have Friends here. I watched The One with the
Proposal, where Monica proposes to Chandler. I thought of you and me in the
church. I meant what I said that day. I still do.

Give Chester and Cara a hug from me.

Love you. Love you.

Scarlett

I wasn’t happy with it. How to sum up in just a few words
all the feelings in my heart? But I had to be so careful in selecting what to
say. I didn’t believe Jude would respect my privacy. I believed he would read
it. And I knew that if I said too much, Luke may never receive this. And I knew
that if I said too much, Jude wouldn’t trust me.

Jude took the letter and slipped it into his back pocket. ‘It’s
Sunday,’ he said. ‘Where will he be?’

‘At home, I would think.’

‘Okay. If you’re happy to spend some time with the others,
I’ll go to him this morning.’

I nodded. ‘Please… just be kind to him, okay?’

‘Of course, Scarlett. Luke may not like me very much, but
I’ve nothing against him. I’m well aware he’s a nice bloke with an aching
heart.’

I caught my breath and tears threatened to well up, but when
he took a half-step towards me I pushed them away.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I hope it helps, Scarlett. Helps you let go.’

I forced a smile.

*

Downstairs, I expected a dining room packed with people, but
there were just three guys, sitting at a table by the window.

‘Where is everyone?’ I whispered to Jude as we crossed the
room.

‘Back doing their thing,’ he replied. ‘They only came
yesterday to welcome you.’

He greeted the guys, and pulled out a chair for me at the
head of the table.

‘Morning,’ said the other Ceruleans through mouthfuls of
scrambled egg and toast.

I greeted them shyly and sat down. I remembered Michael, the
guy who’d been kind to me at the welcome party. But while the other two looked
vaguely familiar, I couldn’t say I recognised them from the sea of people to
whom I’d been introduced, so there was no way I was going to remember their
names.

‘Adam,’ said the guy to my left helpfully. He was lanky, all
angles, with a shaved head.

‘And David,’ said the other, seated next to Jude. He looked
young, and his sculpted blond hair reminded me of a Ken doll.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Scarlett.’

Laughter broke out around the table, and Adam, seeing me
flush, said quickly, ‘Sorry, Scarlett, we don’t mean to tease. It’s just that
we know who
you
are.’

A voice from behind interrupted:

‘Good morning, Scarlett!’

I turned to see a man I did recognise: bushy beard, nose
like a mushroom and a benevolent smile. It was the man Jude had spoken to
yesterday at the party to enquire where Evangeline was. Nathaniel, he had
called him.

‘Good morning, Nathaniel,’ I said politely, and his smile
widened.

‘Sleep well?’ he enquired. He was carrying a spatula, and he
pointed it at me as he spoke.

‘Thank you, yes,’ I said politely.

‘Found your supper?’

‘Er, yes…’

‘Nathaniel takes charge of the kitchen,’ explained Jude.

‘Cook supreme,’ added Adam.

‘Makes really good eggs,’ said David through a mouthful.

Nathaniel gave a faux sigh. ‘I take it, by your blatant
flattery, you lot are angling for thirds?’

Nods all round.

‘Jude?’ asked Nathaniel.

‘Please.’

‘Scarlett? Do you like eggs, dear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Scrambled? Poached? Boiled? We don’t do fried, all that
nasty oil…’

‘Um, poached would be nice. Thanks.’

‘Right then!’ And with that he turned and marched off,
spatula in hand.

‘Nathaniel has a thing about eggs,’ explained David. ‘We
reckon he read that
Mr Strong
children’s book and took it as fact that
to be strong you have to eat a
lot
of eggs.’

The chickens I’d spotted outside yesterday made more sense
now.

‘Don’t see you complaining about the diet,’ pointed out
Michael.

‘Not me,’ said David. ‘I just thought, coming from over
there, where it’s all bright packaging and convenience food and everything’s
got additives, eggs on toast might be a shock. You’re probably used to Mars
bars and Pot Noodles for breakfast, right?’

I looked at Jude. He was trying not to laugh. I looked at
Adam. He was laughing.

‘Um,’ I said. ‘I pretty much lived on toast, before,
actually.’

‘Oh,’ said David. ‘Well, not so much to adjust to then.’

I smiled at him. It was kind of him to realise I was having
to adjust, I thought.

Nathaniel came back shortly, and I had to fight the urge to
smile at the sight of him pushing a vintage brass tea trolley into the room
like a demure old lady. He doled out platefuls of eggs and toast, told us there
was plenty more where that came from, and then wandered off again. Conversation
lulled as we tucked in, and eventually – being female and English and brought
up to be polite – I felt the need to break the silence.

‘So,’ I asked the table at large, ‘what are your plans for
today?’

‘Recuping,’ said Adam. ‘I did three days solid on the
mainland. Could barely focus by the time I got here yesterday.’

‘I’m due at Kikorangi at ten,’ said Michael. ‘Teaching an
art class. Oils today.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘It’ll be messy.’

‘I’ll go back over after this,’ said David.

Jude paused in slathering a triangle of toast with butter to
ask, ‘Mrs Bloughton again?’

David nodded soberly. Then he turned to me and explained,
‘She’s an elderly lady who lives in a council flat. Such a lovely soul. She
leaves the heating off – worried about the bill. It’s cold enough in her flat
that the taps’ve frozen. Found her blue the other morning. Not her time. Got
her back up, got the heating on. Left a wad of bills on the kitchen counter.
But I don’t trust her to put that towards the heating. The way she is, she’ll
probably put the whole lot in the church collection plate this morning. For
“some poor soul needier than her” – that’s what she told the vicar last time.’

‘Did she see you heal her?’ I asked.

David’s eyes flicked to Jude, who nodded.

‘No,’ David said to me. ‘It’d be pretty hard to do our job
quietly if everyone saw us all the time. All those questions.’

My jaw dropped, and I turned to Jude. ‘You can wander about
invisible?’

‘Well, not quite invisible. But blurry; hard to focus on. If
we’re careful and don’t linger, most people don’t notice us like that.’

‘You didn’t mention that yesterday!’

He winced a little at the sharpness of my tone but answered
evenly, ‘It’s part of Travelling – the same skill.’

‘What else is there? What other superhuman powers?’ I
addressed the question to the others, not Jude.

‘Travel, heal. That’s it,’ said Adam. ‘Wish we could fly,
though. Then we could wear pants over tights – awesome.’

Adam and David broke into banter about whether they’d stuff
their pants if they had to wear tights, while Michael looked on, bemused.

I turned to Jude. ‘Do you do that often, being “blurry”?’

He looked at me warily. ‘No…’

‘Jude,’ I said, warning in my tone. ‘How often were you
there but I couldn’t see you?’

‘Busted, dude,’ laughed Adam.

‘Not often,’ said Jude. ‘I just checked on you briefly, from
time to time. I never came in your room or anything…’

I pointed a fork at him. ‘We’ll talk about this later. At
length.’

He nodded.

‘So,’ said Michael. ‘If you didn’t know about the blurry
thing, I guess you haven’t had The Talk yet with Evangeline?’

I shook my head. ‘Will I meet her today?’

‘Doubt it,’ said Adam. ‘She’s –’

‘Indisposed,’ said Jude sharply. He stood up. ‘If you’re not
heading back today, Adam, will you take Scarlett around, reintroduce her? I
need to go to the mainland – I’ve an errand to run.’

‘Sure,’ said Adam, smiling at me. ‘Happy to.’

I smiled back. He seemed a nice guy. And perhaps, without
Jude around to censor him, he’d open up and I’d get some more insight into this
world.

‘Toast!’
bellowed David abruptly, making me jump.

It was a war cry, galvanising the lads into action. They
lunged forwards, simultaneously reaching for the last triangle of toast in the
little silver rack on the table while doing everything in their power –
jabbing, whacking, slapping – to keep the others’ hands off it. I shoved my
chair away and stood back.

‘Children,’ tutted Michael who, I belatedly realised, had
also stepped out of the fray. ‘Every morning…’

He pushed his glasses up his nose, and as he did so I caught
sight of a tattoo on his inner arm. A familiar word in a familiar style. I
looked quickly back at the other guys. There, on Adam’s arm as he reached for
the toast. There, on David’s arm as he held his prize aloft. There, on Jude’s
arm as he threw up his hands in defeat.

Serviam.
I will serve.

Branded, that’s what I thought. Someone had branded these
boys – like they were cattle to be kept in line.