Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (2 page)

S
arah pegged bath towels onto the clothes line. She could do it without crying now. Before, when she had been freshly ‘abandoned’, the towels had reminded her of nappies and all she had lost. Her lover Pagan, her beautiful stepdaughter Glimmer. Sarah hated remembering, but some days were more haunted by the past than others, and this appeared to be one of them.

Even Father Karl hadn’t been able to reach her when she was in one of these moods, but she missed his attempts. In his patronising way he would remind her that she still had her son. But Vandal was so like his father that he only made her ache more.

Pagan had been seventeen when he’d first come to her, wounded and alone, seeking sanctuary for himself and his royal charge, a baby he called The Catalyst. Exiled aliens. He’d called her world Magoria, the Waterworld, and had been stunned by the brilliant colours he’d found here; greens, blues, even the pink of her skin had surprised him as only royalty bore that blush where he came from. His world, the Earthworld of Ennae, was all brown: people and plants, no animals. Sarah couldn’t imagine it. Still. She’d seen her world through his eyes and it had been startlingly beautiful and all the more poignant by the fact that she’d fallen instantly and desperately in love with him.

Sixteen years that had lasted. Sixteen years of breathtaking sunsets and magpies carolling. Now Sarah’s life was full of the stench of rotting fruit in her abandoned orchard and crows squawking over scraps in a bin she’d forgotten to empty. Perception was a terrible thing.

But memory was worse. She ached now to remember how she’d welcomed those two runaway aliens into her home and her heart, changing her life to accommodate their secrecy, stifling her horror as the pretty blonde toddler she had come to love displayed powers that terrified her. Pagan had powers too, to heal, to open the way between the worlds. And Vandal was his father’s son. In more ways than one. Barely into puberty and already grown women were giving him second glances, but they were wary ones because he was getting a reputation as an angry loner, and who could blame him? Sarah would be angry herself if she wasn’t so sad. Yet despite the attention Vandal’s good looks attracted, he ignored it all with the same single-mindedness his father had displayed.

Pagan had lived to protect his royal charge, Glimmer, and Vandal’s sole focus was on reaching his father in the Earthworld of Ennae to bring him back. It was all Sarah’s fault. She should never have broken down and told her son the truth about his father’s identity and the reason he’d abandoned them. Now nothing she said could discourage Vandal. Although, if she searched her heart, maybe she’d realise she wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe she wanted Vandal to succeed, to bring Pagan back. But the danger …

Better to pretend Pagan and Glimmer were dead. She’d have closure then. But every time she tried to forget, the details of that last day flooded her mind. She’d been standing in the bathroom covering her newly emerged grey roots with hair dye, trying to pretend to herself that she wasn’t eleven years older than her lover. Consequently, she’d looked like a sticky echidna when Pagan had run in and told her that the girl she thought of as her daughter had disappeared, presumably returned to their homeworld of Ennae. He needed to go after her. She was only sixteen. He had to protect her. That’s what Champions did. Even if it meant leaving his lover and his son behind.

Duty.

Had he actually said that word? Or had she imposed that meaning on his actions later? It wasn’t love. He had cared for Glimmer the way a Champion should, objectively, keeping a respectful distance. Sarah was the one who’d fallen in love, with both of them. Pagan’s love …

She fumbled a peg and dropped it into the dirt, snatched the edge of the towel before it could drag in the fine brown dust. Bloody drought. Barely enough water to wash, none for watering the garden. It was easier to be angry at the weather. Being angry at people hurt. Hating Pagan because he’d never loved her was destructive. Wishing a painful early death for his pretty young betrothed waiting for him on Ennae made Sarah feel like the wicked witch of Magoria. And thinking about them reunited was the sure road to a stomach ulcer.

She took another towel out of the washing basket. ‘Better to have loved and lost,’ she said but didn’t believe it, couldn’t while she was in so much pain. Maybe with time …

‘Here you are.’

Vandal.

Sarah took a moment to calm herself before she turned to face her son. He was coming down the back steps, his dark unreadable eyes meeting her own.

‘Just hanging out the washing,’ she said mechanically. So much of their conversation was mechanical now. Neither of them wanted to touch the other’s pain for fear of stirring their own, so they kept their thoughts to themselves. Sarah knew it wasn’t healthy, but it kept her going. Moving forward. Leaving the past behind. The alcohol helped.

‘I’m going out.’ He stopped in front of her. With those wide shoulders and narrow hips he was so like his father. Only Vandal’s liquid black hair barely reached his shoulders, and he wore colours — a blue singlet and jeans, a red duffel bag. Pagan had only ever worn brown, whether to be constantly prepared for his return to Ennae, as he had said, or simply from nostalgia, Sarah wasn’t sure. But months after he had left her she was still wondering, unable to stop thinking about him; where he was, what he was doing, whether the Sacred Pool that had transported him back to his homeworld had erased his memories of her as Glimmer had predicted it would.

He was impossible to forget. Equally impossible to forgive.

‘Will you be home for dinner?’ she asked her son.

Vandal looked into her eyes and shook his head, slow, determined.

She wondered if he was still brooding about Father Karl’s abrupt departure; blaming her for that abandonment as well.

‘See you in the morning,’ he said.

It was parental neglect to let a boy who was only thirteen take off for the whole night, not even bothering to ask where he was going, but Sarah simply said, ‘Sure. See you then.’ Staying alive was hard enough. Caring for someone else … out of the question. Vandal was responsible, and his father had taught him how to defend himself. No one would get the better of Vandal of the House of Guardians in a fight.

That was how she thought of him now. His father’s son. Not Vandal McGuire. Maybe he’d never been Vandal McGuire, even though that was the name on his birth certificate. That hurt too — her son having to bear her name because Pagan hadn’t considered marrying her, hadn’t asked for the child to carry his name.

Then again, why would he? He was betrothed to someone else back home in the brown kingdom, and fourteen years in Sarah’s bed hadn’t changed that.

She turned back to the clothes line, looking at the towels, unable to find her place for a moment. New towel. That’s right. Vandal’s soft footsteps faded as she reached into the basket and took one out, selected two plastic pegs, one pink, one blue, then hung the thick white towel beside its white partner, diagonally across from the blue towels. ‘You guys stay together,’ she said to them approvingly. ‘You’re loyal.’ She pulled a blue face-washer out of the basket and turned the clothes line around so she could peg it next to the blue towels. ‘You don’t go off … to the pool or the beach and leave your family behind.’ She liked that metaphor. ‘You stay here where you belong.’ She patted one of the towels then turned back to the basket.

Vandal stood a few paces away, sick to the pit of his stomach. His mother was losing it. She’d go completely mad if he didn’t bring his dad back. His Aunt Melissa had already been forced to take over most of the funeral home work, ‘temporarily, until Sarah is feeling better’, she’d said, but Vandal knew that wouldn’t be any time soon. The empty vodka bottles in the rubbish bin were testament to that. It was up to him to work out how to open the way between the worlds and bring back the man his mother loved.

‘Dear little towels. You’re no trouble,’ she said.

The sick feeling swelled and Vandal had to leave. He slipped away quietly, picking up his pushbike from where he’d left it propped against the front steps. He swung onto it and pedalled slowly at first, crackling his way up the gravel drive. Then he hit the smooth bitumen road and put on some power, liking the way his leg muscles stretched and pumped, like a machine. He imagined he could pedal forever and wondered whether endless stamina was a legacy of his Guardian blood. His father had been able to chop wood for eight hours at a time.

His father …

Vandal picked up the pace, pedalling harder, racing recklessly fast down the road. A car came in the opposite direction but he barely noticed the whoosh as it passed, keeping his eyes on the sweep of corner ahead. He must be doing at least sixty. Would he make the bend or would he crash and burn? It hardly mattered. Unless he died, he’d be able to heal himself— he’d done it dozens of times. The bushes beside this particular corner were spattered with blood. No rain to wash it away.

The crashes hurt of course. Hurt like hell. But in a perverse way Vandal wanted the pain. It reminded him that he was alive. And the healing practice was strengthening his powers. He could feel that. One day he’d be strong enough to open the way between the worlds. One day soon. Today?

Suddenly the corner was upon him and Vandal kept pedalling, leaning in, lifting gravel and skidding, sliding, but somehow miraculously making it through on a clear line to the next straight stretch. His legs slowed and eventually he stopped pedalling and coasted.

Disappointment came and went. Maybe it was time to stop hurting himself and find other ways to strengthen his power. Healing, warding and opening the way between the worlds; these were the skills a Guardian possessed, and though Vandal had been born in what his father called Magoria, the Waterworld with its infinite variety of colours, he was still a Guardian. And a powerful one at that. While his classmates had been busy with water pistols, Vandal had been learning the dance of swords with real metal that cut and bruised. His father had shown him how a Guardian would heal the wounds — a pretend game — and little had Vandal known at the time that the large hand resting over his own had been capable of the act. Sarah had convinced Pagan to keep his powers secret, even from his own son. Vandal hated her for that now. For withholding the truth.

Maybe the time would come when he understood, but now he could only feel anger at what he had been deprived of. He could have been a full Guardian if he’d had proper instruction, he was sure of it. Instead, his father had pretended it was all a game and that the words of the rituals had no power. Playing at Guardians.

Well, Vandal was done playing. His father might have thought he could walk away from his responsibilities without giving them another thought, but as soon as Vandal could master his powers he was going to Ennae. Let his dad explain that to Lae, the woman he had gone back to. Vandal was determined to make his dad feel so guilty he’d have to return to his mum. And if that didn’t work … well, he’d do whatever it took to convince him. In a rash moment Vandal had told his mother he would kill Lae, but in the cold light of day he’d realised he couldn’t. Still, he had to do something. Soon.

The lake turn-off loomed up and he wheeled onto it, steering his bike down the dirt track, dodging Coke cans and beer bottles. His wheels bumped through the gravelled parking area littered with used condoms. ‘Gross,’ he muttered, but there was no denying the pang of jealousy, instantly quelled. His life was too secretive for a girlfriend, but he noticed the way girls glanced at him, particularly in swim class. They liked the way he was put together. In fact, most of them openly stared. But his weirdness was a barrier no one had crossed, and he was relieved about that. Isolation he could deal with, the bitchiness of girls his age was too harsh. Even while they were leering at him they’d be making snide comments. He hated that. Hated them.

Besides, he’d never get to the Earthworld of Ennae if he wasted his time socialising. Yet despite his best intentions, at night when he was falling asleep, Vandal would often fantasise about having a girl beside him. He would watch himself strip the cool, wet swimsuit from her to reveal warm skin beneath. Then he would imagine how it would feel to touch the breasts he had seen jiggling as the girls warmed up beside the pool, to knead them with his fingers and to glide his palms over the nipples he had seen poking through wet lycra.

In reality he could probably coax one of his classmates up to the lake, or even a senior girl. In fact, the right senior would probably drive him so they had somewhere comfortable to … do it. But just because he could, didn’t mean he would. His father’s legacy went beyond looks. Vandal had Guardian power, and if he ignored that simply to gratify the lusts that came and went inside him, he’d never work out how to get to Ennae, and his mother would never get better. It was easy to dismiss his surging desires when he looked at them that way. At least while he was thirteen.

The gravel ended and Vandal dismounted, wheeling his bike across dirt to prop it against a paperbark tree. He stripped off his singlet and stuffed it in the duffel bag before turning to the lake. It was still. And hot. The leaves in the trees above and around him barely moved. The water, far receded from its usual shoreline, was like glass.

Perfect.

He crouched and unlaced his joggers, left them on top of his duffel and walked across the cracked dried mud to the waterline. A year ago it had taken him half an hour to swim to the other side and back. Now it would be lucky to take five minutes. If the drought wasn’t broken, this time next year the lake would be dry.

It was the same on every continent, as though the water was … disappearing. Logically Vandal knew it couldn’t leave their atmosphere, but recently he’d heard something about the atmosphere expanding, as though their planet had suddenly received an influx of air. Hot air. In the African desert, firestorms had been reported crossing dunes and scientists had no idea what they were feeding on. Some theorised that it was gasses. Unknown gasses.