Watch Over You (18 page)

He tried desperately not to fall on his face, his hands barely supporting him. “Tara,” he breathed as he realised that it wasn’t his heart that was pounding away with terror - it was hers. She was afraid. She was very afraid. He half-crawled, half-stumbled out of the store and onto the empty street. Sounds and squeals echoed all around him, and he knew that something was close.

Tara was standing in the front part of the shop, the road and the glass between her and Devan. She was alone. He couldn’t see what the source of such fear was. He placed his hand on his chest over his heart and focused all of what he had into it, calming it down and, in turn, calming Tara’s down. Only then would she be able to think and act. Without taking his eyes off her, he forced his breathing to slow - in through the nose and slowly out through the mouth,.

When he had calmed enough to stand, Devan pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t dare run. His legs were still too shaky and his muscles ached.

The skies above him cracked suddenly and the darkness swept in with such speed that he feared he would be plunged into total darkness at any moment. Rain lashed down and the wind fought him viciously as he struggled to reach Tara. “Tara,” he yelled. She turned her head his way, but he wasn’t sure if she had heard him or if it was merely a coincidence. He yelled her name again and then watched as a small dot formed in the middle of the glass she was staring at and started to spread outwards, slowly darkening the entire surface.

Tiny branches
reached out, veins of black spreading and creating a tangled mesh. Devan’s heart lurched. “No, no, no,” he yelled. Fear and determination propelled him forwards but the strong air currents kept him immobilised.  He took a deep lungful of air and let it out in an almighty scream of her name.

As he reached the pavement, he watched as Tara rose up into the air, seemingly impelled by an invisible force. Howling her name, he fought to reach her, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move. With his heart in his mouth, he saw her get thrust back towards the main window and then, like a movie scene playing out in slow motion, he looked on helplessly as her back
get closer and closer to the glass and eventually made contact. Tiny cracks appeared and then grew as they began to shatter on impact. He shouted, his terror-stricken voice carrying loudly through the air.

Glass sprayed outwards and then Tara was free in the air. She was falling, arms flailing frantically. Devan lunged forwards, the binds that had seemed to hold him back till then suddenly released. As he dove for Tara, almost crying in his desperation, he was thrown back as she hurtled into him with a thump. He wrapped his arms around her tightly as he was knocked onto his back with a force, gravel scraping up his back as they went skidding over the ground. As they slid to a halt, Devan was reluctant to let her go, his arms like iron bands around Tara’s trembling form that refused to open. Panting and oblivious to the sting of pain on his abused back, he raised his head just in time to see a shadow emerge from the store. It rushed towards them and Devan instinctively rolled them over so that Tara was lying beneath him, shielding her from harm. In seconds,
the shadow was airborne, heading their way. As he watched in dread as to what it would do next, it suddenly seemed to ram into an invisible barrier. Just like that, it scattered in the air above them like fireflies and then, magically, faded into nothingness.

Breathing hard, relief coursing through his veins, Devan turned his head to look down into Tara’s
petrified face. With a shaking hand, he stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Are you okay?” he breathed.

“Yes,” she panted. “I’m okay.”

“Good. We need to get going, okay?” He helped her up, wanting to get the hell out of there before the shadow could come back. “Can you walk?” He wanted to look at Tara properly to make sure that she was really okay. He needed to see she wasn’t hurt anywhere; but they didn’t have time. He grabbed her hand and they started to run again - along the empty street, past the fire station, past the dentist and rows of unused cars. They ran for what felt like forever. Devan kept glancing back at Tara, praying that she was okay. She kept checking behind her, too, but nothing was following them.. The rain slammed down against their backs and the wind pushed Tara’s long, wet hair into her face. She kept flicking it away, soft oaths coming from her mouth when it refused to obey.

At the end of the main roundabout, there was a church; on the opposite side. The roundabout gave way to five different directions, but it was the church they were heading towards. Tara slowed, making it difficult for Devan to continue tugging her along. She stopped.

“I can't,” she said, shaking her head. “I can't go in there.”

Devan’s eyes looked around frantically; searching anywhere possible where the shadows could be hiding. “We need to be inside,” he said.

“Not there. Anywhere else. There’s a police station there.” She pointed in the other direction. But that wouldn’t help them - the clock was ticking. She had to get into the church.

“We can't,” he said. He felt his own guilt rise up inside. Of course, he knew full well what the church meant, but that was why she had to go in there. She was close. This was the only way she would learn the truth
about Eric. To deviate would be to risk losing her forever. The shadows were coming.

Chapter Twenty One

Every part of her trembled and screamed resistance as she inched forwards. Dread circled inside her chest as she unwillingly followed Devan. Being led to her death would have been better than this.
Of all the places, why this place?
As soon as Devan heaved the hefty doors open, the smell of polished pews and the aroma of incense that had impregnated the wood over time washed over her. The smells ignited her memories like a match to a firework. She shook her head and took a step back, but Devan didn’t let her.

“We have to go in,” he urged, gently tugging her hand. It was dark and musty inside, yet at the same time, warm and inviting. An odd occurrence, Tara had once thought to herself. She braced herself for what she might see. More shadows, like the one in the store? Visions of Eric maybe? Herself, waiting nervously to take her last walk down the aisle as an unwedded woman. She followed Devan reluctantly down to the heart of the church. She had been a different woman the last time
she had come here. Someone who was happy. Someone with hopes and dreams. Someone who died with her husband three years ago.

“We got married here,” she said to Devan, without him needing to prompt her this time. “It was so beautiful and bright in here that day. We had so many flowers; so many people. Everyone that mattered to us was here, in this one place.” She paused to turn and take in the views around her. Like every place she had been with Devan on this odd journey, it was old and unused and had been standing here a while with no visitors. It was a sad affair that a place such as this would be abandoned too. Hymn books were piled at the end of each pew, dusty and laden with cobwebs. The edges of the thin carpet that ran along the aisle were tattered and frayed, patches of it worn away from years of people coming in and out. Windows that were once bright in colour were now thick with dirt. Some of them were broken and smashed. Above her,  there were nests dotted around in the beams; below on the ground were smatterings of bird droppings.

“Why are we here?” she asked, as if only suddenly remembering that Devan was there. “Are we staying?”

“We’ll stay for a while,” he said. “We don’t have much time left.”

“Much time?”

Devan evaded the question by asking his own. “There was a shadow in the store?”

Tara recalled the male shadow that had walked towards her. She thought about the fear that had overcome her; how the ground had suddenly shuddered beneath her and the girl had appeared again out of nowhere. Then she was flying backwards, but it was like falling through mud, like something holding her back. “There were two,” she said. “The girl. She was the one who pushed me out - but she was helping me.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

So many questions and wonderings collided in Tara’s mind and she didn’t know what it was she wanted to ask. What was foremost in her mind, though, was Eric and fear. Fear that, in a moment, she was going to see him again. Even worse, that she was going to see visions of him on their wedding day. She dreaded that. She hadn’t meant the vows quite that literally.

Till death do us part.

She hadn’t known that would come true so soon. She had meant when they were old and grey and laughing at the amount of wrinkles they had. When they had grandchildren and great-grandchildren. When they had lived a long life together. She had meant when they reached that point that they were too far gone with their senility to remember each other’s names. She hadn’t meant soon. She hadn’t meant now.

She’d tried to watch the video of their wedding after Eric had died, but each time she reached that part, she wanted to take them back. She wanted to say “Even in death, we don’t part,” because that was the truth. Eric might have gone from his world, his body might be dead, but for Tara, there was no parting, only a longing that she couldn’t soothe.

“His family didn’t come to our wedding,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she said it or why she even remembered it, but it was true. On Eric’s side of the church, it had been filled with people from his art classes, people he had helped off the streets - strangers. She couldn’t name anyone there whom he had actually been related to. It hadn’t felt odd at the time, but now it seemed like she was missing something.

“Eric had been homeless himself,” Devan said. “He probably didn’t have a family to bring. I wouldn’t. There’s not a soul in the world who knows me that would come. Even if I died, there would be no family there,” he said flatly, but Tara could hear the undertone of sadness in his voice.

“Eric didn’t have a family at his…” She paused again. She hated to say the word. It felt like lies to her. “…funeral,” she finished. “He had friends there. Not like when we got married, but people he had helped. People he worked with, but no family.”

It occurred to Tara how terribly sad that was. Not just for Eric, but for Devan too. The world had these
wonderful men in it - men who gave up so much of their time for others - yet they got nothing in return. She thought of her own mother and father and guilt pricked at her conscience. She hadn’t called either since Eric had died. She’d ignored calls. Not visited. She had a family and she was throwing them away because the only thing she wanted in the world was gone. Eric.

“I was so nervous when we said our vows,” Tara said, her mind flitting from one memory to another. “I was so afraid I’d say something wrong or pass out. My head felt like it was floating away. Eric held my hand all the way through and I remember trying to speak and being afraid of saying his name wrong. Eric William Saunders. It’s not really a hard name. I thought at one point I was going to throw up right then. I gripped Eric’s hand and told myself that he was there. I remember that he squeezed my hand right back as if he knew I needed it. He always seemed to know things like that. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and think hard enough, I can feel his hand squeezing mine.” She closed her eyes, as if trying to do just that. “I wish he was still here,” she said softly.

Tara’s mood was slipping and she knew that this wasn’t the time for another breakdown. God knows she had done enough of that already. She glanced around her. It was just the church. No shadows. No scary things hiding in the dark. No Eric. There was a crucifix in the middle of the stained glass windows behind the main altar. It was a church so there was nothing strange about the icon being there. What was strange, however, was the two birds facing each other on either side of the image - perfect reflections of each other and perfect reflections of the swallow on Devan’s hand.

She swung around to face him, her eyes falling to his hand. Without thinking or asking, she strode over to him and grabbed his hand. Devan inhaled sharply and froze for a moment, caught unawares. It wasn’t bleeding anymore so it was no longer bandaged.

“Tara, no.” He tried to yank his hand away, but she held on firm, jaw set with determination.

“Let me look.”

“I said no.” With one hard wrench, he freed his hand from Tara’s grasp. He clenched his fist and held it to his side. His face morphed into an expression of pain - but she so badly wanted to see his tattoo again.

“It’s the same,” she exclaimed. “The same as those.” She pointed to the windows. Devan didn’t turn to look. He simply stared at her, tight-lipped and grim. She met his eyes and stared back, waiting. She wanted to know. “Tell me what it means,” she demanded. “It must mean something important for you to have it and not let me touch it and for it to be here. Tell me what it is.”

“It’s a swallow.”

“I know it’s a swallow, but why? What is it there for? Why are they here in the window too? They are the same. Even the colours.” She stepped closer to the window. They weren’t too high up. She pulled up one of the choir boys’ chairs, pushing aside the twinge of guilt at her irreverence, and climbed up onto it.

“We should go,” Devan said to her. “We can't really stay here for long. It’s not safe.”

“I'm not going anywhere until you tell me.”

The door of the church squealed on its hinges just then, making them both pivot in fright towards the sound. Sunlight burst in through the open door and Tara wasn’t surprised in the least to see Eric. She had expected it. She knew he would come. It didn’t mean, though, that she could ignore the longing in her chest at the sight of him. This time, she didn’t run for him. She didn’t call his name or try to get his attention.