Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4) (9 page)

‘... and not unheard of by any means in British waters,’
continued Adam, oblivious. ‘Seriously, you can read all about it on The Shark
Trust’s website. And remember, the papers reported that sighting of a ten-foot
shark near Exmouth.’

‘No, I don’t remember that, Adam,’ said Estelle a little
sharply, ‘because I don’t read the papers.’

We all fell quiet.

She had a point. There were no newspapers in Cerulea. No
radio. No television news. The women who lived here were sheltered, as
Evangeline put it (isolated was how I saw it).

I sneaked a look at my friends. Estelle was staring out to
sea. Adam was staring down at his lap. Jude was staring right at me with a ‘Don’t
you dare ask’ look in his eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak, and I knew the words would be
something along the lines of ‘Time to head back?’, and my stomach tightened at
the thought. So with one neat move I bought myself a little more time and
fractured the awkward silence. I raised my hand, I pointed randomly out at the
waves and I yelled, ‘SHARK!’

Evangeline and I sat in the conservatory by the window. Once
Nathaniel had finished fussing over the table, laying out scones and jam and
clotted cream and a pot of tea, we were left alone, with the doors to the house
and to the garden closed. I assumed this was to give us privacy, but it made me
feel fluttery inside, like a caged bird.

‘I’ve come to think of this table as our table,’ said
Evangeline as she poured fragrant tea into each of our dainty little cups.

I smiled, though I felt only apprehension at the connection
she’d highlighted. Twice before we’d sat at this table alone together. Twice
before I’d sought answers from this woman. Twice before I’d walked away reeling
from her answers.

I remembered so clearly that first meeting – when I was
newly Cerulean. I’d come to Evangeline desperate to go home. But she’d told me
that I couldn’t. I could never go back to Luke. Her words were etched into my
memory:

‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, but a relationship between a
Cerulean and a human just can’t work. For the Cerulean, it’s a kind of torture.
Terrible, life-sapping torture.’

I wanted so much to challenge her today, to tell her she was
wrong. But while I could never call being with Luke torture, I knew Evangeline
hadn’t lied, exactly – just overstated.

No, it wasn’t those words I’d call her on today; it was what
she’d said next all those months ago:

‘In our history a Cerulean has had a relationship with a
human. It didn’t end well.’

‘How exactly?’

‘Misery, Scarlett. For them both. And, ultimately, death.’

At the time, devastated as I was, I hadn’t thought to
question Evangeline further. This Cerulean who’d had a relationship with a
human had been a shadow, remote and of no relevance to me. But now…

Evangeline tipped a smidgeon of milk into her tea. I dumped
milk in my cup with such force a glut of it splashed up into my face.

Evangeline delicately split a scone into two equal parts. I
sawed a scone inelegantly into a wonky slab and a crumbly wafer.

Evangeline smeared her cake with a little jam and a little
cream. I slopped such a massive glob of cream onto my scone that there was
little room for jam.

‘Scarlett.’ Evangeline reached over and put a cool, papery
hand over mine. ‘Whatever it is you need to say, just say it, dear. I
understand you must be hesitant to talk to me after all that’s happened. But
I’m not an ogre. I’m someone who cares about you. I’m your...’

‘... great-grandmother?’ I interjected quietly.

I saw her eyes – green like mine, like Sienna’s, like my
mother’s – widen. ‘How did you...’  Her hand flew to her mouth and covered it.

‘Sienna,’ I said simply.

I watched as the cogs turned in her mind. Shock quickly gave
way to something else – anger, I thought. Or was it fear?

‘What exactly did your sister say?’

‘That our grandfather, Peter, was your son. And that he ran
away and married a human girl and lived out his days shut up in a house on a
cliff, hiding from everything he was.’

It was exactly what Sienna had said to taunt me, almost word
for word. The only part I’d omitted was her saying that Peter had hated his
mother. I wouldn’t relate anything so hurtful – and besides, I didn’t believe
it; my mother had said my grandfather would look at the stars and miss his
Evangeline.

She sighed. ‘Well, in this instance at least, your sister is
right. Peter was my son, my firstborn. He served as a loyal Cerulean, and then one
day he walked away from his Cerulean life to be with the human girl he loved.’

‘Like me.’

‘Like you.’

Silence fell as perceptions readjusted. Evangeline had
thought me ignorant of our connection, and I’d suspected the truth, but without
confirmation it hadn’t quite felt real.

I looked up from toying with my scone to see Evangeline
wiping her eyes on her napkin.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know you’d prefer this to be
unspoken.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Familial
connections aren’t fundamental in Cerulea as they are off the island.’

I knew what she meant. In order to live as they did, where
children weren’t attached to their biological parents, it was necessary to
strip them of their lineage. Jude didn’t know the identity of his own parents.
Neither did anyone else. Only the person in charge – Evangeline – held that
information.

‘Being related probably doesn’t mean much to you then,’ I
suggested.

‘No, Scarlett, you’re wrong. It does matter. I loved Peter.
I was deeply saddened by his decision to leave, and I missed him terribly.’

‘You had no contact with him after he left?’

‘I… I went to the cove sometimes and watched him from a
distance. With Elizabeth, once she was born, and then you and your sister. I
worried for him.’

‘Why? After all, he was happy, wasn’t he? With my
grandmother? Not
miserable
, as you told me a Cerulean would be in a
relationship with a human.’

Evangeline blanched a little at the challenge, but she kept
her voice even as she replied: ‘What a child sees and what actually
is
can differ widely. Your grandfather didn’t keep in contact with me, but he did
with other Ceruleans, and it was quite clear to me that the life he’d chosen
wasn’t easy. It was frustrating. Fraught with guilt. Exhausting. And it
demanded he keep a distance from the woman he loved.’

She watched me carefully, waiting for a response. When I
gave none, she said, ‘I’m sure you understand what I’m saying, Scarlett.’

I nodded. It was as far as I was prepared to go – long-lost
relative or not, I wasn’t about to spell out the difficulties Luke and I now
faced to be together. In fact, I found myself determined to defend my choice to
be with him.

‘But Peter stayed with my grandmother for all those years;
it didn’t kill him as you insinuated. He lived to a decent age.’

‘Fifty-eight?’ Evangeline’s eyes were wide. ‘My goodness,
how differently the young see mortality!’

‘Still,’ I said, crossing my arms, ‘nearly four decades with
the person you love? It’s more than many get.’

‘Yes, dear, you’re right. But what is better? One year – two
– ten with your soulmate, and with them,
with
them. In love. Lost in
each other. Or forty years always apart, always at arm’s length, never intimate?’

‘Intimate?’ I echoed, confused.

She raised an eyebrow and I felt heat rise in my cheeks.
Really, this was
not
a topic of conversation I wanted to explore with my
seventy-something great-grandmother! But I had to speak up.

‘Well, of course you can’t be together all the time,’ I
said. ‘But still, in the times when you are, you can be… together.’

Evangeline’s mouth fell open. ‘Scarlett! You know a Cerulean
can’t be intimate with a human!’

I stared at her. ‘What?’

She reached over and grabbed my hands. ‘Jude warned you.’

‘No…’

‘He did!’ I’d never seen Evangeline so agitated. She all but
yelled, ‘He
promised
me he had!’

I thought back. Had Jude told me not to sleep with Luke? No,
of course not! I’d have laughed in his face. Hang on – that last morning in
Newquay, right before I left, there’d been an awkward exchange. What was it
he’d said? Something utterly cringeworthy about seeds. I’d put the weird chat
down to his ravaged emotions; after all, Jude had just confessed he was in love
with a girl who’d cheerfully committed murder in front of him.

Evangeline squeezed my hands.

‘I, er, thinking about it, maybe Jude did try to warn me,’ I
admitted. ‘I just didn’t understand. I still don’t.’

She breathed out and released her hold of me. ‘Oh my dear
girl, I am sorry. I told you, remember? Ceruleans and humans aren’t compatible.’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean exactly?’

‘You’re a
Cerulean
. A born mother. Fertile. You could
so easily create a child, with any man. But with a human – Scarlett, your child
would be half-Cerulean, half-human. And the two parts... incompatible.’

The words were horribly familiar to me.

‘When the child came of age...’

‘Death,’ I whispered.

Suddenly, the air in the conservatory was stifling. I pushed
back from the table, my chair shrieking on the floor tiles, and I was ready to
stand and back away, but instead I froze, clinging on to the table, as
Evangeline finished soberly:

‘Or, when the time comes, if the child so chooses, he or she
becomes a Cerulean.’

OhGodohGodohGodohGod
.

If Luke and I were to have a child, he or she would follow
in my staggering footsteps. To knowingly, willingly create a child that was
destined to die or be a Cerulean? To put my own child through everything I’d
been through? I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t.

‘You see?’ said Evangeline gently. ‘You can’t be intimate.’

But my relationship with Luke... intimacy was a part of us,
an important part. I couldn’t deny Luke that. I couldn’t expect him to be
celibate!

‘Scarlett?’          

Evangeline’s voice was sharp and I looked up. Her eyes
weren’t on mine, but on my stomach.

‘You’re not… you couldn’t be…?’ The anguish in her voice
surprised me.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘We’ve been careful.’

‘You’re sure?’

Pressing a hand to the womb I knew was empty – would always
be empty, now? – I said, ‘I’m sure.’ Then: ‘Oh, that’s it! We take precautions.’

She gave me a sad smile. ‘Naturally, dear. But we both know
they’re not foolproof. Ninety-nine per cent effective at best. Are you prepared
to take the risk?’

I stood and walked away to the window and stared out, seeing
nothing of the view. Fear had gripped me and it taunted me:
It can’t work.
You’ll lose him now.

But then a cool, logical voice stepped in to argue back:
But
Peter made it work. He loved Alice. Alice loved him. They spent a lifetime
together. They managed without intimacy…

Hang on.

I spun around.  Evangeline was watching me expectantly.

‘My mother,’ I said. I didn’t need to say any more;
Evangeline knew what I meant:
But Peter and Alice were intimate! They had a
child!

‘Your mother is a special case,’ she said. ‘The exception,
not the rule.’

‘She is… she was… what
is
she?’

‘Human. She was always human.’

‘But how?’

‘The exception, not the rule.’

‘You can’t lay down rules and then straight away tell me
they don’t always fit!’

‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t
know myself how she was born human – only that she was.’

I thought furiously. Evangeline, great-grandmother:
Cerulean; Peter, grandfather: Cerulean; Elizabeth, mother: human. It made no
sense. Unless… I thought back to when I’d cracked open this giant can of worms.
What had Evangeline said?
Peter was my son.
Not,
Yes, I’m your
great-grandmother.
She hadn’t admitted that.

‘Is Elizabeth not my grandfather’s?’ I said. ‘Did my
grandmother have an affair with another man – a human man?’

Evangeline’s eyes widened. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, I
don’t think so.’ There was reluctance in her tone that struck me as strange –
as if she wished she’d thought of that and then presented it to me as a simple
explanation for Mum’s humanity.

But if that wasn’t the truth – and I couldn’t believe it
was; my grandmother was a devoted wife – then that left another, equally
horrifying, possibility:

‘She was like me,’ I said. ‘Mum got ill. She died, or nearly
died. And she found some way to stay
human
.’

I thought of what that meant. Oh God, all of this mess. I
could have stayed human, stayed with Luke, all along…

But Evangeline was shaking her head. ‘No, Scarlett. Think
about it – if that were true, your mother would have known that you and Sienna
would face the same fate and she’d have been open with you about that. The
truth is that there is no way to remain human when you’re part-Cerulean. And
there is
nothing
special about your mother.’

I bristled instantly at the implication, but before I could
say a word Evangeline was adding firmly, ‘Your mother should have been born
half-Cerulean like you and Sienna, but she wasn’t. She was born human. She
couldn’t be a Cerulean.’

‘So she’s just an exception to the rule.’

‘Yes, that’s all.’

I sank back into my chair and surveyed my untouched scone.
The cream had melted and collapsed onto the plate in a despondent, floppy mess.
I felt a lot like that cream. I didn’t know where to start sorting through all
I’d learned today. What was it with this place and mind-boggling revelations?

Evangeline, it appeared, was having a similar moment. ‘I’m
so sorry, Scarlett,’ she said quietly. ‘I feel like whenever you’re here, I’m
the bearer of bad news.’

I met her gaze. I wanted to find duplicity there – some
shadow that suggested she’d lied today. But she looked genuine.

‘I don’t want delivering difficult information to be my role
in your life,’ she went on. ‘I was looking forward to seeing you today. I hoped
that in time perhaps we might become closer.’

That surprised me. Then realisation dawned. ‘You think I’ll
come back,’ I said, not bothering to hide my disbelief. ‘You think I’ll change
my mind and come back to live on the island!’

She sighed. ‘Is it so bad that I hope for it? I’m not a
young lady, Scarlett, and with each day that passes I’m a little less… alive, I
think.’

I stared at her. Was that it, the change in her? Thinner,
frailer – was she ill?

‘No one can live forever, Scarlett,’ she said, seeing the
question in my eyes. ‘And when I’m gone, Cerulea will need a new Mother to
lead.’