Albatross (9 page)

              “Well…I…” Jen’s mother attempted, in exactly the same way that her daughter sometimes stuttered, which made Deacon smile somewhat. “Please, call me Dyra.” She eventually managed, taking his hand gratefully.

              “Thank you, Dyra.” Deacon replied, his rough velvety voice echoing through the house in a manner that neither Dyra nor her youngest daughter were used to.

              “Well…” Jen’s mother started then, picking up the last of the glasses she had been drying and placing them back in the cupboard above the worktop on the far wall, adjacent to the oven.

She opened the cupboard door only slightly, and closed it very quickly, as if she wanted to hide what might be inside.

Her concern over the matter was virtually unnoticeable, but Deacon saw it.

“Have you had a good evening?” She asked.

              Deacon’s gaze swept over the kitchen in an instant and fixed almost immediately on a framed picture of Dyra, Jen, and a third girl, whom he could only presume was Clare.

              The three of them were standing in front of a lake. It looked to be a summer’s day, and they seemed very happy. Deacon didn’t know exactly where the picture had been taken, but judging by the fact that Dyra and Jen barely looked any different, it couldn’t have been all that long ago.

              “It was amazing, mom…” Jen began, her tone excited, not having noticed that Deacon had honed in so quickly on the picture he now held in his hand. “We went up in a hot air balloon and the sun was setting and we…”

              Of course Deacon knew what Jen had intended to say next, and smiled as she caught her tongue, almost forgetting who she was talking to.

              “And what, sweetheart?” Dyra asked, though her gaze had fallen nervously upon the picture Deacon was holding.

              “Is this Clare?” Deacon asked suddenly. Fortunately, and quite purposefully, cutting off potential embarrassment for Jen, but in turn, unfortunately, sending a wave of anxiety coursing through Dyra’s veins.

              “Yeah…” Jen replied, stepping round to Deacon’s side and peering over his shoulder at the photo. “That was when we went to the lake…” She recalled, glancing briefly up at her mother.

              “Is Clare here?” Deacon asked, glancing round for some reason, as if that would magically make her appear.

              “No, I think she’s out…” Jen replied carefully, stealing a quick look over at Dyra. “But she was at the beach earlier, and at The Rusty Oak…”

              “Really?” Deacon queried, with genuine surprise in his voice.

              How had he not seen her?

              Even though she looked very similar to Jen, he didn’t recognise the girl in this photo at all…

              “Mom, I’m going to show Deacon sea view side.” Jen changed the subject abruptly then, though Dyra looked no less concerned.

              “You know I don’t like you going up there…” Her mother said, concern in her tone still.

              “We won’t be long…” Jen replied by way of an argument, taking Deacon’s hand and heading immediately for the stairs.

              “Sea view side?” He queried.

              “Just be careful please!” Dyra warned, cutting Jen off even before she could speak.

              “We’ll be fine, mom.” Jen announced then. “Come on!” She ushered to Deacon as she practically dragged him up the stairs.

              “Where are we going?” He questioned again.

              “You’ll see! I’ll show you!”

              Jen giggled and practically revelled in the chance to surprise him now, after the evening he’d given her.

              Without hesitation, when she reached her bedroom, with Deacon still in tow, Jen made immediately for the window in the slanted ceiling.

              “Grab that Walkman please.” She asked him, pointing to the CD player lying on her ruffled bed, next to her black, felt CD case and pushing the window up and open easily with her other hand.

Her strength certainly seemed to be returning, along with her figure, Deacon noted, quite admirably.

“And the case…” Jen added on a whim, as she jumped up and pushed herself up out onto the roof, all in one smooth movement. “Pass them up here…”

Deacon handed Jen the Walkman and black, felt case, and she disappeared from view. He practically leapt up and out of the window, landing beside Jen on the rooftop, and she smiled at him thankfully.

“Come on…” She breathed, taking Deacon’s hand and leading him up and over the apex of the roof.

The sky was still brilliantly clear, and above them an entire galaxy of stars swam amidst the blackness, hovering on the very edge of perpetual nothingness, with a dreadfully long way down on either side.

Glowing moonlight illuminated the breaking waves in the pitch black waters of the night, and the sight of it was mesmerising to watch.

“How often do you come up here?” Deacon asked quietly, though there didn’t really seem to be any need for him to whisper.

He crouched low and sat beside Jen on the slanted roof, facing the coast.

“Clare and I come up every night…” She replied just as quietly, placing her Walkman in her lap and unzipping the black, felt case slowly.

“The two of you sound very close.” Deacon commented, and though she could not see it, Jen knew he wore his cheeky, understanding smile in the dark of the night.

“We always have been…” She replied, though there was a haunting tone to her voice that Deacon couldn’t quite place.

It was almost as if there was more that Jen wanted, or needed, to say. But, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to speak of it.

Without another word, barely even able to see the CD’s in the case because of the dim light, Jen began to flick through the pages by starlight.

She had done this practically every night now for almost as long as she could remember, and she knew very nearly the exact order of the CD’s anyway as she thumbed through.

“What about that one?” Deacon asked suddenly, resting his hand upon the page Jen had just flicked over to, and she knew exactly which disc he meant.

From Clare xx

              A silent, moral battle ensued within Jen then. But, strangely enough, she didn’t come to the immediate conclusion that she thought she would.

              In fact, it was the second time she had cast aside her concerns and come to this particular answer of late.

              Screw it.

              This taking chances thing was starting to become a habit…

              Though, she imagined, it would only be a matter of time before her luck ran out…

              She reached inside the wallet of the page and slipped the disc out and immediately into the Walkman, with a practiced finesse that she had perfected over many months.

              Plugging in the headphones, Jen gave one earpiece to Deacon, put the other in her right ear, and leant her head almost instantly upon his shoulder. His arm came round to warm her and to keep her safe, and she had missed that feeling so much, for it was something that her older sister Clare never did any more.

              The songs on the CD were old, cheesy, and in many cases, hilarious. It was safe to say that, for the first time in a long time, once more, Jen had a laugh and a joke with Deacon in a way that she had thought would never again be possible.

              She was back on top of the world, for the second time that day.

              After a while, partway through the disc, the moon and the stars had shifted enough, and their eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness so, that they could pretty much see everything they were doing.

              Deacon produced from somewhere, Jen didn’t quite know where, a pad and pencil, and he began sketching something across two thick pages. His hands moved so fast in the dim light that they were a blur, and pouring from his fingertips came the exquisite image of the two of them sat alone on the rooftop.

              In the distance he drew the glowing horizon and the waves breaking on the shore, the stars and the moon, and somehow even the sky; though it was just blackness to look at, he brought it to life right in front of Jen’s eyes.

              As she watched him work she leant further and further into his chest, and his heavy heartbeat thudded a steady, calming rhythm in her ears, which, after only a little while longer, sent her cascading into yet another dream filled night.

              This time though, whilst she might have felt safer than she had done in a very long time, Jen’s mind and thoughts were still lost and troubled. They plagued her terribly as the hours of darkness wore on, and the cold seeped its way into every crevice.

The Façade

             
Young, troubled Jennifer Williams found herself in the same place in her dream that night as she had done previously. However, this time, she felt something looming ominously and precariously over her, taunting her as if she was supposed to know what it was.

              The streetlights still lit evenly spaced yellow spotlights as far up and down Memoria Lane as she could see, though the road was more chokingly narrow than she had ever remembered it.

              Shrubbery on either side of the lane pressed in closer than ever before, strangling the road and anybody who happened to pass along it, which, in this case, was only poor Jen.

              Within moments of recognising once again where she was, Jen found her legs churning slowly, carrying her down the endless lane towards a destination unknown. In the back of her mind she knew, at some point or another in the past, her destination would have been the shop where Clare worked, or at least partway there to meet her.

              All of a sudden, a hauntingly familiar but still startling noise, off to the side of the road, in the bushes, caught Jen off guard and she jumped in fright.

              “Help!” She called immediately, and not for the first time. “Is anybody there!?”

              But, as she knew would be the case, nobody came to her aid.

              She tried to run again, but she couldn’t move.

              She tried to think of a way out of this, but her mind would not work.

              The figure approached from the bushes once more, seeming to surgically separate itself from the shadows and glide over the ground towards her, its movements smooth and purposeful.

              Horror gripped her.

              But then, unexpectedly, fresh life flooded through her. It was a feeling she was becoming gratefully accustomed to, and she smiled with heavy relief when she saw that the figure was indeed again Deacon.

              He didn’t speak at first, and still she couldn’t.

              His hand swept up to the back of her neck and head, and he ran his fingers gently through her hair. Pulling her closer, kissing her lightly on her forehead, his touch filled Jen with warmth and security.

              “Are you okay?” He asked her quietly, pulling her head into his chest so that she could feel his pulsating heartbeat yet again.

              Jen couldn’t speak, but instead she crept her hands up to clutch his shirt and nodded into him.

              “What happened?” He asked her, his voice the softest and harshest of whispers.

              “I…I don’t…I don’t kn…” Jen began, but even as she began to speak, she knew her words was false.

              How could she keep living this lie?

              “I…I can’t…” She tried again, but the words, even though they were much closer to the truth, stuck in her throat like needles, lodging themselves in her windpipe, suffocating her with guilt.

              Suddenly another noise from the bushes drew both their attentions, and Deacon looked over sharply, scanning everything with his all-seeing gaze.

              “Why can’t I see…?” He murmured, thinking aloud, frowning and looking again into the darkness.

              But then Jen looked slowly up from where she had buried herself in his chest, shaking visibly.

              “I can…” She whispered terribly.

              Without another word she pulled her phone from her pocket, yet again in another well practiced movement, and turned on the torch.

              The brilliant white light blinded them both for a second, but it illuminated the trees and the shrubs and the bushes for all to see.

              In an instant the noise sounded again, and yet another figure rose up from the undergrowth, exploding into view, caught in the spotlight.

              Whoever he was, he didn’t say a word, and before either of them could get a good look at him, he took off between the trees, darting this way and that so as not to be seen.

              “Who was that…?” Deacon asked Jen, knowing that somehow she held the answer to his question.

              But she shook her head as she replied.

              “He’s not why we’re here…” She replied knowingly, though her words didn’t feel like her own.

              Deacon looked at her with slightly wide eyes, but Jen’s gaze remained focused intently on the treeline stretched out before them.

              “So, why are we here…?” He whispered, naturally, for it was perhaps the most logical question to ask following such a statement.

              Jen only sighed, and her whole body seemed to deflate with that single motion.

              “Come on…” She whispered, taking slow, cautious, terrified steps forward, knowing that she had no choice in the matter.

              This had already been decided.

She couldn’t escape it now.

              “What are we looking for…?” Deacon asked, pressing her still, as they approached the bushes and scanned the light through the undergrowth.

              Jen sighed again.

              “I try not to think about it…” She admitted, and very honestly so, all things considered.

              Deacon opened his mouth to speak again, naturally wanting to ask why, but something stopped him. He realised all of a sudden that this, whatever it was, was very personal, and had plagued Jen for a very long time.

              He decided not to push too far.

              Within barely moments they found themselves peering between and through and over the bushes, getting closer and closer to the truth by the second.

              Finally then, when they were upon what Deacon somehow knew they were here to find, they peered over a particularly thick bush, only to see on the other side the ground, very far away, and tinted orange by glorious sunset.

              All of a sudden they found themselves stood together once more in the wicker basket, high up above the ground, peering carefully over the edge, drifting lazily in the evening breeze.

              The blue and red balloon above them roared and flurried with hot air from the burner, and Grimm contentedly fired seemingly random jets of hot air up every now and then, keeping their altitude perfectly.

              “What…?” Deacon looked around, bewildered. But when he glanced back to Jen, and saw her expression: happy, free of all worry and concern and fear and guilt, he knew all of a sudden exactly what her mind was doing.

              This was a disguise.

              A cover up.

              A façade.

              Jen’s subconscious was shielding her from the truth. It was protecting her from whatever it was she had been holding on to so closely.

              But at that point, even as Deacon’s liquid eyes revealed all that he was coming to realise, it didn’t really matter.

              Their hands locked together, and then so did their lips. Brushing close and warm and full of hot, longing breath.

              Jen had come very close to admitting the truth to herself, but now that Deacon had her, she had not come close enough.

It would seem that she still had a very long way to go.