Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (26 page)

There didn’t seem any point in going out in the world now anyway. There was no meaning to anything without her. Danny now felt like that little boy in
Northern Lights
who’d had his demon cut from him. Like a ghost. But not dead. It was like his soul had been corrupted, having had the missing piece slotted perfectly within and then taken away again. He’d never be able to feel for another what he felt for her. He’d only be aware of his incompleteness for the rest of time.

Corrupted. Busted. Broken.

Nothing would ever lift him again. No book he read could ever inspire him, no optimistic dreams of the future would ever find a place in his mind. That’s how it seemed, until he received the letter.

Danny had just returned home from college and saw it on the doormat. He knew immediately whom it was from. Not that he’d ever seen her handwriting before but somehow he could feel her energy emanating from the white envelope, from the five letters that spelled out D-a-n-n-y along with the dainty little squiggle beneath his name. As he looked at it he breathed in deeply, filling every last corner of his lungs like they’d never been filled before, as though the moment had just given him the breath of life.

He quickly scooped up the envelope, a twinge of paranoiac guilt soon jabbing him in the guts, making him gasp. He looked back towards the street to see if anyone had noticed him. What scandal! Someone may have seen Danny pick up an
envelope
!

It wasn’t just any random letter though. It was a letter from Samuel Allington’s fiancée, the man who would kill someone for having impure thoughts about his love.

Danny tore off his scarf, kicked off his shoes and rushed up to his room, shutting his door behind him. Nervously he tore open the envelope and took out the letter.

Dear Danny,

I’ve been looking all over for you! Where have you been, my lost one? Sam has been acting weird recently. I need to speak to you. Can you meet me tonight? Please. I’ll be at
The Waggon
waiting for you. I just want a little chat. Sam’s out of town so there’s no worries about getting caught this time!

Yours

Stella x

Reading her words set the fires within him combusting once more. At the same time, his hands felt cold, like they were covered in blood. Here was his death warrant.

Weeks of repressed emotion erupted inside him again, that bastard goblin going berserk on some concupiscent inspired conniption fit; she’d taken control of him once more. He could have ignored the letter, could have set fire to it and thrown it away but no. He’d opened it, had read the words which were really an incantation, and now he was helplessly trapped in her spell. There was no way he was going to resist seeing her this evening.

He just hoped to hell that Samuel really was away. He didn’t want to die, although it felt like he’d already trod on the trapdoor and was now falling helplessly back into that world of revenge-seeking angels.

He had a shower, he brushed his teeth, and he put on his best shirt, a grey and black chequered Ben Sherman, one of the few things he hadn’t bought from a charity shop. After then standing in front of the mirror for ten minutes making sure his hair was tamed and immaculate, Danny put on some aftershave. It seemed at this point that the evil goblin had also found a voice:

Not just going for a little chat, are you? Making all the efforts you would for a
date
, aren’t you?

The goblin was absolutely right. This was all so he could make an impression on her. He was wondering if she’d meant to imply anything more when she’d said about not getting
caught
this time. How far would she go behind his back? She’d already planned to meet him so would she go even further than that?

Of course not!

Why would she have agreed to marry Samuel if she was going to have adulterous thoughts about Danny, some nobody student who worked in a chip shop? Even so, as Danny set off for the pub, it felt like he was walking to his own funeral. The black clouds had blown in from the ocean and were crying all over the town. Step by step his feet splashed through the puddles on the pavement, mechanically making his way to that temptress, like a ship drawn to the call of the destructive siren.

With his head to the ground, Danny could see his legs moving but it was almost as though he was watching someone else’s legs. He wasn’t aware that he was making that thought process to the brain to lift his knees and arch his legs. It felt like something else was doing it, as though a malevolent spirit had attached strings to his limbs and was now controlling him like a puppet, manipulating him to his doom.

When he walked into the pub he ran the back of his hand over his forehead. The rain had mixed with the hair gel and trickled into his eyes, making them sting, blurring his vision. He coolly went to the bar and ordered a drink.

He knew that she was already there. He could
feel
her.

The rain had evidently kept many people at home this evening as there weren’t many punters present, just a few students and a few regulars. Rainy days were a way of finding the true alcoholics. The emptiness was good in a sense because there was less chance of anyone seeing him, but also bad because then he would stand out more.

After paying for his drink he then glanced over to her. He could swear her eyes weren’t real. Eyes just weren’t that colour. It was as though they’d been replaced by two sparkling amethyst gemstones. She sat on a beige leather settee in the corner of the pub by the fire which was roaring away nicely.

Hoping the rain hadn’t disturbed his delicately arranged hair too much, Danny made his way over to her. There was a space next to her on the settee, or there was a stool on the other side of her table. Which one to sit at? Which seat would she expect him to sit in? He could sit right next to her, but then that really would look like he was out on a date with her. As the goblin had made it clear to him, that wasn’t the nature of this meeting this evening. Yet he’d sat right next to her on the beach that day. And sitting right next to her would increase the chances of their bodies accidentally, or not so accidentally, coming into contact…

He sat on the stool opposite. He’d have his back to the rest of the pub sitting there. Less chance of anyone catching sight of his face. It was the most sensible option, and making that decision gave Danny some relief in that he was able to have at least some control over his actions. Besides, sitting opposite her he was able to hold her fully within his eyes.

Her damp and tasselled hair clung to the side of her face, her cheeks still glowing from the whip of the wild weather. She wore a black velvet jacket with a puce coloured vest underneath. It was tightly fitting and low cut against her ripely shaped breasts, as Danny could not help but notice.

Her ruffled appearance gave her a different edge this evening. She didn’t seem as soft and buttery as during their previous liaison. She was more spice and zing, the wind and the rain having invigorated her, stirring up her senses as she seemingly oozed a celestial pheromone. She looked like postcoitus lovemaking, heat and passion tangibly simmering on the surface of her skin. Danny imagined it was a sight that Samuel saw often.

All her wild orchid beauty was there, but this evening she was more like nightshade, dangerously tempting and ready to destroy.

‘Lovely weather,’ she said to him, her sweet voice infused with a slight huskiness.

‘We’re supposed to be getting a lot more rain this week. There’s some low pressure sitting over us right now,’ Danny replied.

He internally cursed himself for sounding like an old woman on a bus.

Ben Sherman, Danny? Might as well have come in cardigan and slippers
.

When he was nervous he often struggled to find good things to say. Repeating weather forecasts was a crutch he over-relied on.

Stella nodded in reply.

Nice. She’s loving this, Danny. You got her really turned on now.

‘I got us a seat by the fire so we can dry off, as much as I would like to get out of these wet clothes,’ she said as she opened her velvet jacket apart a little as if it needed demonstrating.

The action inevitably drew Danny’s eyes to her body and he felt a fluttering of excitement as he looked down into her cleavage.

She wrapped her jacket round her once more as Danny felt a cold trickle of rain-gel down the side of his face. He looked to the fire for warmth.

‘Where have you been, Danny? Busy reading your Dickens? I missed you!’

Danny sat up.

She missed me? What exactly does she want me here for?

‘Yeah, I’ve been busy. Exams coming up and stuff,’ he replied. He immediately realised that his answer was as cold as the rain that continued to pound against the window. It seemed to be falling so frantically as though it would soon break the glass. ‘Would have liked to…’ he carried on, ‘you know, sit on the beach again. If it was the weather for it.’

‘Yes. That would have been lovely. I’ve wanted to talk to you again.’

He so wished that Samuel Allington didn’t exist. If only that flash-boy and Stella weren’t together, if only he could feel free to tell her that he’d missed her like hell.

‘Why?’ he asked her. ‘Why did you want to talk?’

She continued to hold his gaze for a few moments, and Danny noticed a sadness welling in her eyes. She leaned forward.

‘Sam’s been a little troubled recently. I know what happened. I know that he saw us and I know what he did to you. I tried to explain to him that there was nothing going on but he just wasn’t having any of it.’

There it was spelt out for Danny.

There’s nothing going on with you two. She said it! Nothing going on because she’s not interested in you!

Danny replayed her words in her head. Nothing
was
going on? She didn’t say that nothing
is
going on. Of course there was nothing going on
that
day. They’d only talked then. She’d only pecked him on the cheek. What relation does that have to what is going on right now?

‘I’m so sorry about that,’ she went on. ‘So sorry I got you into trouble. I missed you, Danny, because I know that you’re someone who could understand me. I know that, because when I look into your eyes, I know what you are.’

She fell silent and Danny could not help but prompt her. ‘What do you…’

‘I’m thinking of leaving him,’ she said, before he could get out the rest of his sentence. ‘He’s like a weight that I’m carrying around. All the time.’

‘But don’t you… Aren’t you in love with him?’

She sat back again and looked through the streaming raindrops on the window. Through a gap in the seafront hotels she could see a violent ebullition of waves flurrying along the beach.

‘It’s easy to say you love someone. But some you love more than others. Some you can love as though they were the missing part of yourself. And when you find that other half you know that it isn’t possible to love anyone else more.’

‘Yes.’

‘But I know that leaving him will destroy him,’ she said as she brought her attention away from the storm outside.

‘You have to do what you feel is right,’ Danny said with an inevitable hint of disappointment in his voice.

‘I know you know what it’s like. To feel lost. Not being able to touch the one you desire. You feel consumed by it, like it’s taken you over. But that frustration burns so much because there’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘You… know that, do you?’

‘I can see that you’ve been searching. What can we do?’

‘Maybe there’s something.’

‘Okay, Danny. You name it. Tell me what you want me to do. Anything you want. Anything to help you.’

‘Anything?’

‘Yes, my lost one. What would help? What do you want?’

‘I would like…’

‘Yes?’

‘I would like… to know what it feels…’

‘Yes?’

‘To kiss you.’

It had slipped helplessly from his tongue like a tear would fall from the eye of a bereaver.

‘I see. So that’s what you were thinking, is it?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Want me to describe it to you? Not that I would know what it’s like to kiss me, exactly! Something like that you’d have to experience for yourself, I’m afraid. And I don’t think that would be a great idea.’

‘No. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Why? I asked you what you wanted.’

‘Yeah…’

‘So if that’s what you want…’ Stella stood up. ‘We’d better go somewhere where no one can see us.’

She stepped away from the table and floated across the room towards the ladies’ WC.

Danny was numb with disbelief. Had that conversation really happened? He had to gather himself together but right now he felt like he was in a dream, like he had been breathing in too much oxygen.

She was waiting for him. She was waiting for him to come and fulfil his ultimate fantasy. This would probably be the greatest moment of his life, but one that would also signal the end of his life. Samuel Allington had told him to stay away from her, that he would kill her if he didn’t, and he’d completely betrayed that.