Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) (24 page)

We began at the residential home, with Grannie Cavendish. We
sat together and watched
Sleeping Beauty
, and talked about fairytales
and happy-ever-afters and what Harold down the corridor had done to irritate
her this week. Then I kissed her soft, lined cheek and said goodbye, and she
patted my hand and said, ‘Sleep tight, Little Blue Fairy.’

Next we went to Si’s, and talked surfing with him and Geoff
and Duvali and Andy over bottles of Coke. Before we left, I excused myself to
use the bathroom, and ducked my head into the office at the front of the house.
I sat on the sofa and closed my eyes and relived the Cinderella moment I’d once
had there with Luke. Then we left, with nothing more than a casual, ‘See you
later.’

We drove slowly into the city, so I could take in everything
– every landmark, every place that held a memory – to Royal William Yard, and
we ate lunch in the River Cottage Canteen at our table, the one we’d had on our
first date. The Mount Edgcumbe country park called to me from across the water;
I wanted to take the passenger ferry over and walk up to the folly, where we’d
had our first kiss, but Luke vetoed that – too far, too cold, too risky.
Instead, I settled for climbing the steep steps to the parkland above the naval
yard and walking along until we could see the folly high up on the land
opposite. It looked so lonely and precariously placed. I wondered how long it
would continue to cling to the hillside before it tumbled onto the rocks and
waves far below.

When I started shivering Luke hustled me back to the van. He
drove to Twycombe with the heaters blowing full blast, and by the time we
reached the village I was ready to brave the elements again. We walked onto the
beach and right down to the waterline. Luke stood at my back, a giant windbreak,
his arms wrapped tightly around me, and I leaned into him and watched the grey
waves ebb and flow, thinking of all I’d felt here, on this beach, in these
waters: fear, horror, thrill, peace, passion, love.

In a little while, the breaking waves reached the tips of
our trainers, and it was time to retreat. We walked back to the promenade, and
Luke paused by his van, but I tugged his hand to keep him moving. I wasn’t done
in the cove quite yet.

From the clock tower of St Mary’s church, a sorrowful angel watched
us approach. The colours of the stained glass were muted in the gathering dusk.
Less beautiful by far. The thick wooden doors of the church were shut, but under
Luke’s hand they eased open and we stepped into the church. Inside, the lights
were on but the space was deserted – Luke tried the vestry, and I called out,
but there was no sign of the reverend. I was disappointed. I’d wanted to see
him, to thank him.

The church was warm, so warm it made my limbs heavy. I sank
onto the front pew and Luke settled beside me. We sat quietly for a while,
still, looking toward the sanctuary and its focal point, the altar, as if it
were Sunday service and we were listening to a sermon. Respectfully, but not
without doubts.

‘Do you believe there’s a God?’ asked Luke.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I used to think so. I want to think
so now.’

‘If there’s a God, how can he take you away?’

‘I suppose if the reverend were here he’d say there
is
a God, and he gave you and me the gift of all we’ve had together.’

‘But it’s not enough. It’s not enough time.’

I sighed heavily, and he looked at me. ‘What is it?’ he
said.

‘I just...’ I took his hand, and said quickly, clumsily: ‘I
want to say something meaningful. That what we’ve had
is
enough, because
time isn’t linear, and every moment we’ve had will exist eternally, and we can
live in those moments forever. That you can hold on to me, knowing I’m out
there, remembering you, loving you, always. That when we’re apart you can see
me in the sunrise and feel me in the breeze on your skin and hear me in the
crash of the waves. I want to say something beautifully poetic about lying with
you for eternity in a field of forget-me-nots beneath a cloudless sky. But I
can’t.’

He smiled and touched his forehead to mine. ‘You just did,’
he murmured.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t, Luke. I
didn’t
say always.
Or forever. Or infinity. I want to, and I know you want to, because it feels
right, because we love each other, because what we’ve had isn’t enough and we
want more, and forever is more.

‘But forever wouldn’t be fair on you, Luke. You have a whole
life ahead. So many years. You can’t hold on to me. You can’t give me your
heart to keep. This isn’t a fairytale. This is real life. And ours isn’t the
love story of the century, it’s the story of one summer and one autumn and one
winter. Just a chapter in your life. When you’re old and grey, you’ll look back
and you’ll remember that girl you loved first. But there’ll be so much more in
your heart than
this
love. And that’s okay, Luke. That’s how it has to
be.’

He stood up then and walked away from me, over to the
pulpit. I saw his shoulders trembling beneath his coat, his hands fisted at his
side, his head bowed.

‘Luke...’ I said, and I began to stand.

But he held up a hand and said, without turning: ‘Please, Scarlett.
Give me a minute.’

He was angry. I knew him well – he wanted to turn around and
yell at me. How dare I suggest he move on? How dare I give him permission to
find some other girl? Why was I so goddam calm and gracious and sensible about
it all? But the truth was, if he’d looked in my eyes right then, he’d have seen
that I was none of those things. Every word I’d said to him in this place had
sliced through me. The thought of him with some other girl, playing chicken
with the waves, sharing a cake, laughing, tickling, kissing... it was agony. I
wasn’t calm. I wasn’t gracious. I had no desire to be sensible. But there was
no shying away from the fundamental truth: when you love someone, when you
really-
true-love
-love someone, then you have to set them free.

I don’t know what Luke found in that corner of the church,
but when he came back to me the tension in him had lifted. He stooped down, and
I thought he meant to sit beside me again, but he kept lowering until one knee
met the cold stone of the floor. He took my hands in his, and he said with a
smile that told me he really-
true-love
-loved me:

‘You’re wrong about the always. Scarlett Blake and Luke
Cavendish. For a summer and an autumn and a winter they took each other. To
have and to hold. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness
and in health. To love and to cherish... till death did they part. That’s how
I’ll remember us,
always
. Do you promise to remember us that way,
always
?’

Leaning into him, I touched my lips to his. ‘I do,’ I promised.
I threw my head back and shouted so that the words rang out in the empty
church: ‘I do, I do, I do.’

*

Darkness had fallen by the time we left the church, and the
lanes leading to the cottage were the nightmarish tunnels of a labyrinth. The cottage,
when it came into view, was like something out of a ghost story – eerie,
desolate, dark. I felt a terrible pang for having abandoned my little home. I’d
been back only briefly since I’d left, to gather clothes and books and other
items for Luke’s house. The plan had been to grab and run today too – we’d only
come to collect a load of Christmas presents I’d bought online for Luke and
Cara and unthinkingly had shipped here. But now, as I stepped inside the
cottage and flicked the light switch to disperse the shadows, I felt a desire
to be here, just for a little while, on this day of goodbyes.

I said as much to Luke, and he agreed. He headed off to the
kitchen to fire up the old boiler, while I moved from room to room, trailing my
hand over my grandfather’s writing desk, my grandmother’s favourite easy chair.
I loved this place. I would miss it.

The fridge was empty, the cupboards pretty bare, so we had
to make do with soup-in-a-cup followed by tinned custard for dinner. But we
made an occasion of it, eating by candlelight at the kitchen table, the radio
playing softly in the background. Then we moved to the living room, and Luke
lit more candles and we curled up on the sofa and watched mindless television.

I must have dropped off, because one minute I was watching a
politician clatter around a ballroom dancefloor in a revealing flamenco dress,
and the next a panel of judges was telling some sweaty bloke clutching a
microphone that he’d really made the song his own. I sat up groggily and Luke
said, ‘Bed?’

‘Bed,’ I agreed.

He kissed my cheek and said, ‘Up you go. I’ll lock up down
here.’

I stumbled drowsily out into the hall and peered at the
grandfather clock for the time. The hands were at the four and the seven. That
wasn’t right. No ticking, I registered belatedly. It needed to be wound. Well,
that would have to wait.

I went through the motions sluggishly in the bathroom, but
in the bedroom I didn’t bother doing anything more than pull off my jeans and
collapse into bed. Soon, Luke slipped under the covers with me and I reached
for him and started kissing him, slowly, sleepily.

‘Shush,’ he said. ‘Rest now. There’s time enough for that
tomorrow.’

So I snuggled into his arms, and his arms relaxed around me,
and we drifted off in the darkness.

And we didn’t hear the candle fall.

And we didn’t smell the smoke.

And we didn’t feel the heat rising.

And we didn’t see the yellow glow of light flickering
through the floorboards.

We slept, dreaming of a tomorrow that would never be.

The bonfire at Hollythwaite.

Tyger, tyger, burning bright.

Sienna circling joyously, taunting the beast in the
flames.

My mother writhing on a throne, tied down, fighting her
bonds.

A stranger stroking my face. ‘Sleep now. Sleep.’

Flames, consuming.

Smoke, suffocating.

‘Sleep now. Sleep.’

I woke up with a single word on my lips: ‘No.’

I didn’t know what I was responding to, but when I opened my
eyes I saw it wasn’t a
what
, it was a
he
. Silhouetted at the
window, a man. Impossible to identify in the low light and through the smoke.

The smoke.

Smoke.

Smoke in the room!

‘No!’ I shot upright. ‘No –
no
!’ I shoved Luke. ‘Wake
up! WAKE UP!’

His eyes flew open, and he took it all in – the smell, the
smoke, the heat. But not the man at the window. He was gone.

We both flew out of the bed – he the window side, me the
door side. I crashed into the bedside table and saw, too late, the small blue
shards that littered it. The chalcanthite, smashed to pieces.

Luke was at the window, wrestling against the old sash mechanism.
‘Quickly,’ he yelled, ‘it’s the only –’

But the rest of his words were drowned out in a wrenching
creak, and I threw myself back into the wall as an old ceiling beam collapsed,
bisecting the room, and a wall of fire sprang up between us. For a minute, we
just stood there, staring at each other through the flames. Then we began
shouting:

‘There’s no way through. I can’t get to you!’

‘The window! You have to jump now – quickly.’

‘No! I won’t leave you.’

‘You have to. You can’t die here!’

‘Neither can you!’

‘I’ll go out the door. I’ll be okay. Go – jump – quickly!’

‘Scarlett.’ He reached out a hand, palm first.

I mirrored him, and then begged, ‘Go, please.’

I didn’t hear his last words over the roaring in my ears,
but I saw them on his lips: ‘I love you.’

‘I love you,’ I cried, and then, without waiting to see what
he would do, I turned away from him.

When I opened the door the wall of heat that hit me was so
fierce that I thought I would melt, but I stepped out and slammed the door shut
behind me. Some distant part of my brain registered that there were no flames
up here, so it was strange that a burning beam had fallen in my bedroom. But
there wasn’t time to think, only to find a way out. Walking was too much – I
dropped to my knees and crawled along the landing.

I nearly made it to my sister’s room. I was on the threshold
when an old, creaking floor joist gave way. And then, so quickly time must have
been folded, I wasn’t upstairs any more; I was downstairs, in the living room.

I did not black out, though I wished that I could. I lay on
my back, half-buried in lath and plaster, staring at the dancing flames
reflected in the glass of the framed photographs on the mantelpiece. My
grandparents. Luke and Cara. Sienna and me in the meadow at Hollythwaite. She
was smiling. She was beckoning.

Someone said my name.

Darkness loomed over me.

Death, come for me. I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t see
through the smoke and the pain and the horror, but I knew him.

I tried to struggle, I tried to shout for Luke, for Jude,
for Luke. But his hand was over my mouth and his knee was on my chest, pressing
me down, down, down into the fiery pit of hell.

*

Scarlett! Is she… oh God, please, no, no, don’t take her,
please.

She’s alive, Luke. Now hold her and lie still while I heal
you.

Not me, her! Heal her!

There, it’s done. Your leg was broken, but –

Scarlett, Scarlett... Jude, quickly! Heal her!

I already did what I could for her, Luke, as I brought
her out. The smoke inhalation. The injuries.

What? But look at her! She’s not healed!

No, she’s not.

Try again. Try again!

I’ve done all I can for her. I can’t heal what’s killing
her. I never could.

Killing her – no – not now.

I’m sorry, Luke. She’s not going to get up and walk away
from this.

How can she be dying?

Because it’s her time.

But it was meant to be peaceful. Beautiful! She can’t die
like this! You have to do something, Jude – please, I’m begging you.

I can’t help her now, I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t even
take away the pain in her head.

Pain? She’s in pain? Oh God. We have to do something.

There’s nothing we can do. Just be with her and wait
until...

No. No! That is NOT what she wanted. If you can’t heal
her, if this is the end, then it has to be the way she wanted it! She didn’t
want suffering. Waiting. When it came to this, she wanted what Sienna had.

What? No.

Yes.

You’ve misunderstood, Luke. Scarlett and I talked about
it. You shall not kill – the most fundamental law. She believed in that.

Once, maybe. Not any more. She has morphine ready. She
was going to inject herself.

She can’t do that!

No, she can’t. Not now. But… God help me, I can.

Luke – you can’t!

I can’t give her the passing she wanted, that she
deserves?

You can’t kill her!

Then you do it.

What?

She told me: a Cerulean can preserve life, and he can
take it away. You’re the one taking her from me. So go all the way, Jude. I
will hold her in my arms and I will love her and I will say goodbye. And you
use your light to end her suffering. Take her – do it! Do what you came here to
do.

I can’t, Luke!

You won’t.

Because it’s –

Don’t you dare say ‘wrong’. Don’t you dare. Screw your
principles. I have only one: love Scarlett.

Sirens. They can’t find us here. They’ll take her to the
hospital – she can’t die there – her body, her mother... We have to move.

Then it’s time to make a choice. Help us, or judge us.

What do you need me to do?

My house. Kitchen drawer. By the stove. Wooden box
containing a syringe and vial. Go now and get it.

Where will I meet you?

The cliff path.

I can take you there now, both of you.

No. I will carry Scarlett.

*

An angel released me from hell. He called my name, and
commanded me to come to him, and I glided upwards on wings that were singed but
magnificent.

The heaven he called me to was everything I’d dreamed of.
Home – that place of sand and rocks and water and sky, so much sky.

Beautiful.

But the angel was crying. And his promises were broken by
the breeze:

love you...

hold you...

remember...

always...

sunrise...

waves...

eternity...

field...

forget-me-nots...

Scarlett...

Scarlett...

There was a moment of clarity, of brilliance, and I
remembered his name,
Luke
, and I remembered its meaning,
giver of
light
. And my soul cried out for that light.

But the breeze became a wind, and the wind became a spirit,
and it tore me from his arms and cast me out of heaven. As I fell – flew – fell
into the sky the last I saw of that world was 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, holding the girl’s hand and
looking up, looking at me.

In the fathomless sky all was light. And the white was
release, but the blue was salvation. So I chose it. I opened my heart, and I
let all that was blue flood into me, Become me.

The hand in mine was warm and steady. I clung to it, and it
led me away. Away from all that had been so right, so precious. Away from the
unbearable beauty of being. Away, into the wild blue yonder.