Why Are All the Good Guys Total Monsters? (2 page)

My mother is a newspaper journalist.
As wonderful as she is, that officially makes her one of the most inquisitive
people on earth. So there are few secrets in our house.

She knew that as much as I loved our home in London, I’d been looking forward to spending the summer at Orlaith’s house in Edinburgh, Scotland. She also knew that she’d been offered the chance to cover a great
assignment in New York instead of going to Edinburgh with me, and that
something had to give. Either that or we could agree to go our separate ways,
at least for a midsummer holiday. So that’s what we did. And that’s why I was
on a flight from London to Edinburgh with enough butterflies of excitement to
make me feel like I could fly there on the strength of my own exhilaration.

I loved Edinburgh. I loved Orlaith’s house with its moon
garden full of flowers and lantern lights that looked spectacular at night. It
was her little piece of paradise in the middle of the bustling Scottish city.

Orlaith was one of my mum’s best friends; she was like
extended family. We holidayed with her almost every year, and she came to visit
us in London. She lived alone, except for a fluffy blue cat called Midnight.

As the plane flew over the city of Edinburgh at night I
could see thousands of lights below. The streets were a glittering metropolis
of traffic and activity, with beautiful historic spires stretching up into the
skyline. The city of spires was great. There were plenty of historic monuments
and cobblestone streets to keep the average tourist happy, but equally I’d
always found it to be a modern city with a young population, alive with vibrant
energy and excitement. It was wonderful to be back. I never imagined living
anywhere except London, but there was something magical about Edinburgh that
kept drawing me back to it.

I took a taxi from Edinburgh airport to Orlaith’s house
which was an old townhouse tucked into the niche of a cobblestone alley. The
garden, long and narrow, gave it its magnificence. The high walls on either
side prevented those with a curious nature peering over, and most people
wandered past unaware that it existed. It was almost a secret. Even the
branches of the huge umbrella tree dipped unseen below the skyline.

The taxi pulled up in front of the house, and I noticed that
the lights were on inside. A smiling face peered out the window, and then Orlaith
came hurrying to the door to welcome me. With her fresh complexion, wide hazel
eyes and shiny auburn hair pinned up in a loose chignon, she looked far younger
than her forty years. She’d never quite got around to marrying the right man,
something she had in common with my mother.

I was lovingly smothered, given something to eat and then we
sat out back in the garden catching up on all the news. The garden was lit by
solar lamps and neon fireflies entwined across the honeysuckle plants and night
scented stock flowers whose scent I wished I could bottle. It looked totally
magical.

‘Mum will be in New York by now,’ I said, checking the time
on my watch. Her flight had been hours ahead of mine, and we’d arrived at the
airport separately. At seventeen, the trip to Edinburgh was the first flight
I’d taken completely on my own.

‘She called earlier. She says she misses you already, and
she’ll call in a few days.’

I smiled.

‘Oh and this arrived for you.’ She handed me a letter. The
envelope was lilac and my name had been written in deep inky purple.
To
Vesper
, it said.
Private and confidential. Do not open until Midnight
.

‘Is this some sort of joke?’ I said, thinking it was a
prank.

‘No. A young man delivered it himself this morning.’

I turned the letter over in my hands, tempted to open it
right there and then. ‘Did he say who he was?”

Orlaith shook her head. ‘No, but he was a cutie. A real
looker.’

We both smiled.

‘Perhaps you’ve got a secret admirer,’ Orlaith said, her
Scottish accent adding a hint of intrigue.

The thought gave me a shiver of excitement, and then
realisation sunk home. ‘No one knows I’m here, no one except us — unless you
told someone. Gossip travels like wildfire.’

‘I don’t think I mentioned it to anyone. No, I’m sure I
didn’t. I’ve been far too busy lately — and that’s what I wanted to talk to you
about. I’ve been invited to Glasgow for a few days to exhibit my new
paintings.’

‘That’s great,’ I said. Orlaith was a freelance artist who
painted fantastic flowers and faeries. I wished I had her talent, which I
didn’t. I reckoned I’d follow in my mum’s footsteps when I finished my
education and become a journalist.

‘It means you’ll be on your own. I feel bad because your
mother isn’t here to keep you company while I’m away.’

‘I’ll be fine. I know the city, and I’m sure you’ve got
enough homemade dinners in the freezer to save me from starving.’ I was
exaggerating about the starving, although cooking’s not my thing.

Orlaith bit her lip. ‘I don’t know if I should go.’

‘I’ll eat out most of the time anyway. I really want you to
have your exhibition, and I’ll have fun here.’

We finally agreed that everything would be fine and that
tomorrow morning Orlaith would drive to Glasgow.

I was looking forward to coping in the city on my own. I
thought it would be a great adventure.

We had another coffee, this time with a slice of home baked
cake, and were chatting away, especially about the letter, which I was
considering opening, but everything must have caught up with me because when I
woke up, I was still sitting in the garden opposite Orlaith who was snoozing
contentedly with the cat curled around her feet.

It was a warm summer night with hardly a breeze but I was
shivering slightly. I checked my watch. It was after one in the morning. Where
had the time gone? Had we really slept past midnight? In my mind I immediately
blamed the relaxing scent of the flowers and tiredness from travelling. Then I
remembered — the letter!

It was still in my hand but now it looked different. The
purple ink had faded to sepia, as if it had been written a long time ago, and
the lilac envelope was a similar shade. It was as if the colour had drained
right out of it.

While Orlaith continued to snooze, I tore the envelope open.
A letter was neatly folded inside. There was no message, no words that I could
see, only the faded sepia signature that was barely visible.

I hurried over to one of the solar lanterns and studied it
carefully. Nope, not one word of the message was readable. It gave me the
strangest feeling, so I folded it again and put it back in the envelope.
Whoever the guy was who’d sent it was clearly playing some sort of game.

Orlaith blinked awake and thought it was funny that we’d
fallen asleep, which took the edge off of my concerns about the letter.

‘If you’re going to be here on your own, you’d better know
about the new flowers in the garden,’ she said. ‘See those little white flowers
over there, the ones with a touch of pink? Those are fairy lanterns. I bought
some bluebells and these were among them. I’ve also got white roses with very
large thorns so be careful with those.’

‘I will,’ I assured her. Many of the flowers in the garden
were hazardous. Among the beautiful and the dangerous, Orlaith had several new
flowers to show me. She always had something different and was forever sending
away for exotic plants from all over the globe. Tonight, in a corner of the
garden near the huge umbrella tree were blue flowers on tall, silver–grey
stems. I imagined I could take one of the slender stems, dip the tip in ink and
use it as a long, exquisite pen.

‘They’re lovely. What are they?’ I said, bending down to
touch one of the flower heads that resembled a cornflower.

Orlaith pulled my hand away. ‘Be careful. It’s a Cupid’s
dart. If you believe the folklore, it could just make you vulnerable to
someone’s romantic wishes.’

Honestly, that didn’t sound too bad. Romance had been like
ether in the air for me. Okay, so I’d had a few crushes that never ever
materialised into anything other than longing from a distance at good looking
guys who always seemed to think I was invisible. As if fate had a sense of
humour, two boys at school had crushes on me, but I wasn’t interested in them.
Sometimes I wondered how anyone would ever get together. We all had crushes on
the wrong people. So that’s why Cupid’s dart was okay by me. That and the
thought I may have a secret admirer, even though in my wildest imagination I
couldn’t figure out who he could be. A summer romance was a thrilling thought,
even if it was unlikely. I certainly didn’t know any guys in Edinburgh. Did I?

I was still raking through my memory archives of past trips
to Orlaith’s house when a moth — and this moth was big — flew right past me,
its wings almost touching my hair.

I let out a yell. Not that I’m scared of moths, but this thing
wasn’t some fluttery little nondescript grey moth that you see zooming around a
light bulb on a warm summer’s night. No, this moth had attitude. It had
colourful translucent wings and very long antennae that sparkled like metallic
bronze.

‘Ah,’ said Orlaith, ‘it’s a Fairy moth. I haven’t seen one
of those in years. Maybe it’s the fairy lantern flowers that have brought it to
the garden.’

‘It’s big,’ I said, on alert in case it took another
fly–past.

‘I’ve got some wonderful moths that come to my garden. There
are Grey Daggers, Alchymists, Death’s Head Hawk–moths as big as your hands —’

‘Okay, I get the picture,’ I said, before the thought of
these gave me nightmares for a month. ‘Cutesy little moths I’m fine with. But
moths that would have trouble fitting into my purse are a bit scary. Those with
the ability to fly away with my purse are definitely off my cutesy radar.’

Orlaith laughed, and then she said, ‘Oh I see you’ve opened
the letter.’

‘Yes, but I can’t read a word of it. And it’s faded. It’s
really weird.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, ‘perhaps it’s written in invisible ink.’
She got up from the chair, and Midnight the cat padded after her into the
house. The patio doors were open wide and I saw her rummaging around in one of
the desk drawers where she kept her artist pens and brushes.

‘What we need is a black light pen,’ she called to me. ‘I
should have one around here somewhere.’

‘Black light?’

‘It’s not really black light. It’s ultraviolet light that
makes the ink appear if you shine the light on it. Ah, here we are. I knew I
had one.’

That she actually owned an invisible ink pen with a light on
the tip that made the ink readable was one of the things I adored about
Orlaith. She never ceased to amaze me.

‘I bought it for writing dinner menus for a restaurant I do
artwork for from time to time. They like everything handwritten in calligraphy,
and I thought it might be fun to have invisible ink menus where the words only
appear when you hold them up to the table lamps.’ She seemed so enthusiastic
about her idea.

‘Did they go for it?’

‘Nooo,’ she said. ‘No sense of adventure. Still, it’ll come
in handy now.’ She handed the pen to me. ‘Click it on, it’ll light up.’

I pressed my finger on the top of the pen and it shone with
a pale, violet glow. I held it near the letter. The message was still
unreadable but the signature was now visible. It was a shadowy scribble with an
old world flourish. I was sure it said — Sabastien.

Suddenly the cat’s hackles rose up. He prowled into the
garden then stopped, ears flat, and spat with all the ferocity he could muster.

‘What is it?’ I said, keeping my voice down to a whisper so
that whatever it was couldn’t hear.

Orlaith didn’t know.

The cat was still adamant about protecting us, even as
Orlaith picked him up and carried him into the house. ‘It’s just the wind
blowing the leaves,’ she reasoned.

I could tell by the look we exchanged neither of us believed
that for a moment. There wasn’t a breeze; it was perfectly still.

I followed her into the house and cast a look back at the
garden. Perhaps it was my imagination, but beyond the umbrella tree, I thought
I caught a flicker of silvery lights darting about in the shadows.

I locked the patio doors securely, said goodnight, and then
climbed into bed. The linen was fresh and clean and I pulled the duvet securely
around me. The house had two spare bedrooms and this was the one I always slept
in. It was cosy and comfortable, and until tonight, it had always felt safe and
secure.

Moonlight shone through the window. It illuminated half of
the room and highlighted the ancient spires in the night sky. I snuggled into
the covers and wondered about the letter, what the cat had sensed in the
garden, those silvery lights, and why I felt like I was being hunted . . .

Orlaith was up bright and early and
so was I. The suspicions of the previous night had faded just like the ink on
the mysterious letter. She’d made breakfast for us and had packed her bags for
the trip to Glasgow.