Blackfin Sky (3 page)

Or Sky dying, apparently.

Sky took a deep breath before answering. ‘I’m really not sure what’s going on here, whether this is some weird mass hysteria or delusion or something, but I am clearly
not
dead, because … well, I’m just not.’

Lily stared at her, her lips forming a tight, thin line. ‘Then answer this – where have you been since the night of your birthday? Because you certainly haven’t been here.’ Sky had just opened her mouth to protest at the absurd question when Lily shot any answer she might have given to smithereens. ‘And who the hell did we bury in the cemetery three months ago?’

The drive to Gui’s Garage was short but awkward. Sky wasn’t entirely convinced that the whole
dead girl walking
thing wasn’t some elaborate prank, or maybe even a dream. That said, there was no way her mother would have been able to maintain the charade this long. And Sean just wasn’t that mean.

The structure of the garage had been cut into the hillside like some kind of dragon’s lair, with the only natural light trickling in from the direction of the shore. This meant that Gui always kept several lamps blazing whenever he was inside the garage, the warm light spreading out across the forecourt like a yellow carpet.

As they pulled to a stop in front of the open garage doors, Sky felt a weight lift off her. Her father would set things straight. He always did.

‘Gui?’ Lily’s voice was crisp, so Sky gathered she was still in trouble for not being dead. Naturally.

A
bang
came from inside the garage, followed by a muttered curse. Finally Sky’s father appeared.

The open doors were easily wide enough for two cars to pass through side by side, but Gui still somehow managed to fill the entire space. A huge man by any standards, he seemed even more so as Lily trotted over to him, skipping over the puddles in her patent stilettos. Sky slid out of the car and followed her.

‘You look good, Lily.’ Sky heard the soft affection in her father’s voice, almost as though he hadn’t seen her in a while, which was absurd.

‘You were right.’

These three words were all Lily could utter before Gui’s eyes fell on his daughter, and the wrench he had been holding slipped from his fingers.

‘
Mon dieu
…’ Sky bent to pick up the wrench, holding it out to her father. ‘
Coco
?’

The wrench once again clattered to the floor as Sky was swept from her feet and spun in a circle, her father laughing like he had just received the best gift in the world.

‘Daaaad!’ Sky shrieked as he spun her again. But it was no use; the seven-foot gargantuan simply laughed and spun her some more. Somehow, the sound of Lily’s red patent toe tapping against the concrete broke through the giant’s joy, and he finally set Sky back down on her feet.

‘I assume you’re coming back home now?’

There was no obvious emotion on Lily’s face, but Sky knew better than to overlook the hopeful gleam in her eye. Yet she couldn’t fathom why her mother would say that, as though her father didn’t live with them.

‘Mum, what do you mean,
coming back
?’

Her father’s hand squeezed her shoulder lightly, though it was the light squeeze of a grizzly bear. ‘None of that matters now,
coco.
Now that you have returned to us, nothing else matters.’

Neither of Sky’s parents could be coaxed to say more on the matter during the drive home to the Blood House, nor as they tiptoed awkwardly around one another for the rest of the day. She kept catching them shooting strange looks at her – and at one another – but as soon as they saw her watching, their smiles were painted back on even more thickly.

That night as Sky lay awake, counting the luminous stars on her bedroom ceiling, she tried not to think about all the strange things that had happened since last she counted them – only twenty-four hours ago.

She tried not to think about the weird things Sean and her parents had said about her having been gone for the last three months, and the way everyone at school had reacted to her appearance that morning. And the fact that, according to her mother, there was a dead girl buried in Blackfin Cemetery under a headstone with her name on it.

3

It seemed that Sky had only just closed her eyes when she was woken by a hesitant pounding knock which could only be her father’s.

‘Hey, Dad,’ she called, scrubbing her nest of hair back so she would at least be able to see him. Not that his immense figure was easily missed – especially when he was wearing that same look of disbelief on his face he’d worn since the wrench-dropping incident at the garage.

‘How are you feeling,
coco
?’ Her dishevelment brought a knowing smile to her father’s face. ‘A special coffee morning, eh?’

‘Definitely.’

A few minutes later, a freshly scrubbed and clothed Sky followed the scent of her father’s most magnificent blend down into the kitchen, the stairs creaking cheerfully under her feet. Her father hugged her like a bear as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. Sky wriggled free, laughing and half-smothered.

‘Where’s Mum?’

Gui frowned. ‘She has gone to work at the diner.’

Sky couldn’t hide her snort. Considering her daughter had just returned from the dead – at least, according to everyone but Sky – Lily might have taken a day off work. She couldn’t decide whether her mother’s absence was a sign that Lily was taking her alleged return from the dead very well, or very badly. Gui read the thought in her eyes.

‘Your mother believes it will be best for us all to get back to normal as quickly as possible. She … she knows how you dislike being the subject of gossip.’

Sky thought about that as her father heaped their Saturday pancakes onto two plates on the breakfast bar and poured them both coffee. She had to give her mother credit for her excuse, even though she suspected it had more to do with avoiding Sky’s questions.

Sky looked up from her coffee to find her father staring. Not just the usual kind of staring Sky encountered in Blackfin, either. This was the kind that told her her father was worried.

‘What’s happening to me, Dad?’ she asked, her voice quavering a little.

He paused with the coffee-pot halfway to his cup. ‘What do you mean?’ At her incredulous look, he rephrased. ‘Over the past ninety-three days, or since you reappeared yesterday?’

She thought of the grave in the cemetery and shuddered. ‘Both.’

Gui chewed his pancakes thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘I don’t know how to answer that,
coco
. I do not understand it myself.’

Sky could tell her father was being deliberately vague, just as she knew that pushing him for answers would achieve nothing except a brisk hair-tousling and a long garble of French to distract her. She hid the band of dread tightening around her with a scowl.

‘I wish you wouldn’t call me
coco,
Dad. I’m not an egg
.
’ The French endearment – which literally meant
egg –
had always sounded gross to Sky.

Gui winked at her as he refilled the coffee she had somehow drained without realising. ‘You were once,
coco.
’ He laughed, easily drowning out Sky’s elongated
eeeeeeewwwww
from the breakfast bar as he put his empty plate in the dishwasher. ‘Your mama had to work today, but Jared said he would take care of things at the garage…’

‘Who’s Jared?’

Gui froze, then faced his daughter with an expression Sky couldn’t place. ‘Ah, of course you two have not met. Jared has been working at the garage for a couple of months now. He is a good boy, you will like him. Although he makes me listen to the
death metal.
’ Gui leaned in, his eyes wide. ‘I do not like it.’

Sky took her time chewing the lump of pancake in her mouth. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know you’d hired someone to work with you at the garage.’ Then the bizarre truth of her situation hit her, and it left her cold. ‘I really was gone, wasn’t I?’

Her dad wiped his hands slowly on the dishcloth. ‘You really were.’ Then his beaming smile stole over his face. The switch was odd, considering he had believed his daughter was dead not twenty-four hours earlier. ‘Let’s go and terrorise some fish.’

She didn’t respond right away, still trying to process everything. But Gui’s false cheer was hard to ignore for long. He nodded encouragingly, and Sky withheld a groan. As much as she loved spending time with her father, she would rather be doing anything other than sitting quietly in a tiny boat on Blackfin Lake in the inevitable rain, waiting for a tug on the fishing line.

‘I will even let you steer!’

Sky hugged her knees to her chest, the first drops of rain just starting to cling to her hair like tiny crystals. She watched them fall onto Blackfin Lake, but they didn’t make any impression on the glassy stillness of the water. Water that never reflected anything but the sky, even when Sky leaned over the edge of the boat to try to see beyond the surface.

‘Here’s another!’

The boat rocked violently as her father stood, and Sky jerked back to avoid toppling over the side. Gui pulled in the line with a skill she would never have managed. Once the fish was close enough, she dipped the net into the water and switched with Gui so he could haul in the enormous catch. He did so like the twenty-pound, two-headed trout weighed nothing.

‘Another two-header?’ Gui shrugged. ‘Can we go now? I’m freezing!’

The rattling of her teeth emphasised Sky’s point. Gui opened his mouth then snapped it closed again. His eyes scanned the shoreline as he thought before answering.

‘How about if we head up to Oakridge and see if we can get some pie and hot chocolate?’

‘Oakridge is an hour away. Can’t we just go home and I’ll make us hot chocolate there?’

‘I … uh … I could take you shopping! Get some new jeans for your mother to throw out, yes?’

This was a rare offer indeed from the man who had vowed never to set foot in a women’s clothing store again after being forced to intervene in Sky’s constant fashion battles with her mother. Well – battles, full stop. And Gui conspiring to buy her a pair of the forbidden jeans was unheard of.

‘Dad, what’s going on? Why don’t you want to go home? And why did it seem like you’d moved out when Mum and I came to see you at the garage yesterday?’

Gui sat down, the boat swaying precariously again, letting one of the fish they’d caught slide back over the side. ‘I … Ah. Well, you see, after you di – uh,
disappeared
, your mother and I weren’t getting along so well, and I went to stay in the garage for a few days so we could each have our space. That is all.’

Sky peered up at him suspiciously. ‘And? Why don’t you want to go home
now
?’

Gui spread his hands. ‘Is there something wrong with wanting to spend time with my little girl?’

He was avoiding something, she could tell. What – or who – was another matter.

‘Pah!’ Sky rolled her eyes, then handed him the oars. ‘Take us in, Dad. I’m getting a serious case of frizz here!’

Gui laughed and started rowing, his powerful muscles taking them quickly back to the shore.

‘What, no argument?’

Sky stood with her phone in her hand, brandishing the text message from Cam as though it would add weight to her argument. She’d been surprised to find the phone still active after her alleged three-month absence, but a check of the call history at least confirmed that it hadn’t been used in all that time.

I can’t believe my mum didn’t get it cut off right away.

Sky frowned. As prickly as her mother could be at times, she didn’t doubt Lily loved her – in a very suffocating, strict,
Lily
kind of way. And her mother’s behaviour hadn’t changed one bit. But Sky kept catching her father looking at her with worried eyes, like he had the first time she’d ridden off on her bike without stabilisers. Apart from that, though, nothing about her parents would indicate that they had been living apart not twenty-four hours earlier. Nothing about them would indicate their daughter had recently returned from the dead, either.