Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) (9 page)

“Look, I know she showed up
here yesterday, but I didn’t invite her. In fact, I’ve gone out of
my way to push her away.” He looked pleadingly at his mother. “I am
not putting things in jeopardy, believe me.”

“But there is an attraction
between you. You can’t deny it,” cried Violet. “I’ve seen how she
reacts to you. And how you react to her.”

“This ‘attraction’ needs
nipping in the bud,” said Aquila menacingly. Pantera glanced at him
anxiously.

“No, Aquila,” she said quietly.
“We don’t want that. Leave the girl alone.”

Theo stared angrily. “What are
you saying, Aquila? I’ve told you. Emily isn’t a problem. I can
handle it.”

“The question is, Theo,” said
Mr de Lucis, talking slowly, “can
she
handle it?

Just how serious is this
attraction? And could it get out of hand?”

“We don’t want to risk
everything we’ve worked for, everything we believe in….” added
Violet. “The stakes are too high.”

“Honestly!” said Joseph,
looking round at everyone incredulously. “We’ve only just got here,
and already there’s a problem. Can’t you just tell this girl to
take a running jump?” He looked questioningly at Theo.

“Theo,” said Mrs de Lucis
softly, looking into Theo’s eyes, “I need to know. Is she the one?
The one you’ve been waiting for all these years?”

“I …. I don’t know.” Theo’s
voice was barely a whisper. “I think she may be.”

The room was silent as everyone
took in the significance of his words. Aquila stared at him with an
intensity that was bordering on ferociousness. Pantera placed her
hand on his arm, restraining him from further outburst.

“Do you know what you’re
saying, Theo?” asked Mr de Lucis.

“Yes, I do,” cried Theo,
defensively, “and I do understand the implications. And you have to
believe me, I would do nothing to put us all in danger.” His voice
dropped low again. “But if she is the one, I can’t let her go
again.”

Mrs de Lucis sat back and
pressed the palms of her hands together thoughtfully. The others
all watched her. “The way I see it,” she said, at last, “is that we
must proceed very carefully. There is too much at stake to squander
on a mistaken infatuation. I suggest, Theo, you get to know Emily a
little better. In a few days, invite her to Hartswell Hall, so we
can all meet her. Take things slowly… Then we will decide on the
best course of action.”

“You put at risk all that is
dear to us…” began Aquila, but Mrs de Lucis put up her hand.

“My word is final on this for
the present,” she said in a firm voice, turning to her husband,
“Leon, my love, are you in agreement with me?”

“Yes,” he said, then added
ominously, “it’s essential we keep any potential threat close at
hand. That way, we can deal with things quickly should the danger
become too great.”

He addressed his son. “You must
take great care, Theo. Our existence may depend upon your
actions.”

“Yes,” said Theo, “I
understand. Now, is there anything else, or can I go?”

“You can go,” said Mrs de
Lucis, giving her husband a worried glance.

Theo got up, his face taut and
strained. As he walked towards the door, Aquila made a sudden
movement towards him, pinning him against one of the old oak
bookshelves.

“Nothing can get in the way of
the Blue Moon Ball,” he spat out venomously, his face close to
Theo’s, his voice little more than a whisper. “Do you
understand?”

Theo stared at him, then
roughly pushed him aside and walked out of the door without looking
back.

“Be vigilant, everyone,” said
Mrs de Lucis in a calming voice, looking round the room. “Keep a
close eye on Theo, we can’t afford to alienate him. Especially you,
Aquila.”

Aquila snorted derisively and
swept out of the room, followed by Pantera.

Joseph and Violet went after
them, leaving only Mr and Mrs de Lucis behind. She stared
thoughtfully out of the window, the sunbeams playing on her blond
hair, making it shine like a golden halo, and giving her white skin
the translucency of fine porcelain. Her husband came to stand next
to her.

“Aquila informs me the local
‘situation’ has come to an end,” she murmured, under her
breath.

“And can’t be traced to us in
any way?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.
“It was most regrettable and not as we intended. But it reinforces
the fact we are dealing with a force that has powers beyond even
our comprehension, and that we must never underestimate its
capabilities. To believe we control it could be our undoing.”

She turned and smiled sadly at
her husband, who bent to kiss her cheek.

“The pathway gets ever harder,
my love,” she whispered to him.

“But the prize is worth it,
Viyesha,” he reminded her. “You must never forget that.”

PART TWO: DESIRE

8. A Change of Heart

The first day of the summer term
was sunny and warm. I woke up with the 7am alarm, drew back the
curtains and let the bright rays of sunshine fall on my face. The
sunrise was amazing; red, yellow, purple and golden hues streaked
across the sky like a crazy Impressionist painting. I stared for a
moment enrapt, bowled over by the beauty of nature. Things might
not be great for me, but you couldn’t deny the sheer magnificence
of the morning sky. I pulled on my new skinny blue jeans and pale
blue sweatshirt, relieved on the one hand to be going back to my
regular routine, seeing my friends and getting back to normal,
nervous on the other about seeing Violet and Theo, and wondering
how they’d be with me, what to say to them, if indeed they deemed
me worth talking to.

I must have been quiet at
breakfast because my Granddad gently put his hand over mine and
said comfortingly, “Never mind, Emmie, if he’s not interested in
you, he’s not worth bothering with. Concentrate on your studies and
your friends. Someone else will come along who doesn’t play games,
you wait and see.”

I smiled at him sadly. The
problem was I didn’t want anyone else. I only wanted Theo. How
could anyone else compare to him? Those deep cornflower blue eyes,
that flawless skin, the tousled hair, the perfect looks. I pulled
myself up short. What was I doing? They were his physical
attributes. I knew nothing about him at all. We’d scarcely spoken
more than a few words. Talk about shallow. Since when had I gone on
looks alone? I’d always said personality was more important, the
ability to laugh and share a joke. I had no idea if Theo even had a
sense of humour. He might be a prize idiot for all I knew. And yet,
I knew, instinctively, that he and I would be a perfect match. I
felt with every particle of my being that we would be good
together, would share the same sense of humour, belonged
together.

“Stop it,” I told myself. “He’s
not interested. Get over him. It never even got started, so there’s
nothing to even get over.”

Still that niggling voice in my
head refused to be silent, reminding me that he had been watching
me from the upstairs window at the hall, had even told his mother
about me. I had made an impact, I knew. I just couldn’t work out
why it was so problematic for him. What was it he’d said to me,
that day by the tennis courts? “Stay away, for your own sake.” What
was that all about? It seemed a touch over-dramatic. I sighed.
There was something here I couldn’t fathom.

“I’ve just heard the most
amazing story on the radio,” said my mother, walking into the
breakfast room and breaking into my thoughts.

“What’s that?” I asked,
blankly.

“A local woman has been found
dead,” she answered. “Apparently, she was in her forties, but when
they found her, she looked as if she was over 100. Her husband said
she’d been full of life and energy one moment, then suddenly
started ageing and died the next. The coroner said he’d never seen
anything like it.”

“Yuk. Sounds like something out
of a horror movie,” I said.

“Probably overdid the
anti-ageing products and they backfired,” suggested Granddad.

“That’s very funny, Granddad,”
I said, laughing. “You’d better watch it, mum, you might be
next.”

“Not funny,” said my mother,
pretending to be upset. “By the way, have you seen the time? It’s
ten to eight. If you don’t go now, you’ll miss the bus.”

“Alright, I’m out of here,” I
said, grabbing my backpack and making for the door.

“Just for the record, Emily,”
she called after me, “You’ll be old yourself one day.”

“Not me,” I called back.

I met up with Tash and Seth,
walking up to the bus stop.

“Alright?” said Tash.

“Yeah, sorry haven’t been
around over the hols, I felt pretty bad. I think it was a virus,” I
glanced at her. She looked back, not smiling, which wasn’t
encouraging.

“You better now?” she
asked.

“Yes, have you done your
assignment on love poetry?” I ventured.

“Don’t even mention it,” she
sighed.

“No don’t,” said Seth, “I don’t
want you two quoting love poetry at each other again.”

“Seth!” we both exclaimed at
the same time, and as we laughed, just like that, it seemed we were
back to normal.

Tash sat next to me on the bus
and I was hugely relieved when neither Violet nor Theo was waiting
at the bus stop by the hall. With any luck they wouldn’t be at
college today and I wouldn’t have to address the problem of what to
do about them. They seemed to take days off with alarming
regularity and I couldn’t understand what they did or why the
college allowed it.

“No Blondie,” Tash said
pointedly.

“No,” I agreed, “I don’t know
what’s going on there. It’s all a bit strange.”

“Told you I thought there was
something about her that wasn’t quite right, didn’t I?” Tash
laboured the point.

“Yes you did, but as I haven't
seen anything of her, can we just drop it? Please? It’s getting
humungously boring.”

“Okay. Consider the subject
dropped.”

“Did you hear that story on the
radio, this morning?” Seth called over.

“What about the local woman
who’d aged and died?” I asked.

“Yeah. Weird or what? How can
that be possible? She was in her early forties but apparently
looked over a hundred when she died.”

“I reckon she’d lied about her
age,” surmised Tash. “Probably was older than she said, then she
got ill and suddenly started looking her age.”

“My Granddad reckoned she used
too many anti-ageing products and they backfired,” I said.

“Ha ha,” laughed Seth. “Let
that be a lesson, Tash, not to overdo it. You’re always using some
cream or other. You’ll wake up one day all wizened and shrunken,
looking like a mummy. That’s what they reckon she looked like.”

“Oh, totes hilaire, Seth. You
are so not funny. Do you see me laughing?”

“No, heaven forbid you might
get laughter lines,” he taunted.

He ducked as Tash threw an
exercise book at him.

I beamed. It was good to be
back with my friends. I felt as if life had resumed some degree of
normality, and so it had until lunchtime, when events took a very
unexpected turn. We’d had an uneventful morning. English Lit and
Business Studies had gone past in a blur, and I felt slightly
disembodied, the after-effects of the virus still with me. Violet
did not appear and I allowed myself to relax a little.

At lunchtime, I sat with Tash
in the cafeteria, enjoying a pepperoni pizza and salad, both of us
looking forward to Double Art in the afternoon and chatting about
our Abstract Art project for the summer term.

“I was thinking about using
light and dark and shadow,” I said.

“I thought I might do something
with broken glass and newspaper,” said Tash, “you know, experiment
with different textures. Oh no…” She broke off suddenly and focused
on the opposite side of the café. “ It’s the terrible twins.”

“What d’you mean?” I asked,
turning round and following her gaze.

There, standing against the
opposite wall, the sunshine framing them in a glow of bright light,
stood Theo and Violet. My stomach lurched and my heart flipped. I
felt the blood rush to my face and was conscious of going bright
red. I turned back rapidly.

“What’s with you?” asked Tash,
incredulously, staring at me. “You’re as red as a tomato.”

“Nothing. Nothing,” I muttered,
looking down, desperately trying to calm down and stop
blushing.

“Yeah, it looks like nothing,”
said Tash sarcastically. “OMG, they’re coming over. Don’t
look.”

It was too late, I’d already
turned, and, like an idiot, I felt my hand rise up waving at them,
as if someone was pulling my arm like a puppet on a string. Never
had I felt more gauche and awkward, and totally not up to the
situation.

“Hi, mind if we sit with you?”
asked Violet, her crystal voice friendly and reassuring.

“No, not at all,” I said, in
total shock.

“Hi,” said Theo, his beautiful
smile lighting up his face, his eyes blue and dancing.

“I’m Theo,” he said to Tash,
going to shake her hand, “pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” said Tash, allowing
her hand to be shaken, and gazing into his eyes.

I felt a stab of jealousy and
watched for any sign of static electricity between them. Was he
flirting with Tash? He couldn’t be. It was me he was interested in.
Tash appeared to be spell bound, overcome with the iridescent
beauty before her.

“Do you have a name?” asked
Theo.

“She’s called Natasha,” I said
loudly, causing Theo to break his gaze with Tash and look at me. I
saw with alarm that she continued to stare at him. “Tash for short,
isn’t it?” I almost shouted at her, forcing her to break her
gaze.

“Yes, yes, it is,” she said
falteringly.

No. This was not going well.
The last thing I wanted was for Tash to fall for Theo. If I
couldn’t have him, I most certainly didn’t want her to succeed.