Dark Heart Forever (5 page)

The papers and magazines were kept in front of the counter and as I headed towards them I could see the headline of the
Hassock Gazette
. You couldn’t miss it.
WHERE DID THE MYSTERIOUS HERO GO?

I took a sharp breath, frowning. I couldn’t think about this any more.

Him.

Nearly a month had passed since the accident. I’d spent weeks going over every detail, and I still couldn’t make sense of it. I’d just stayed in my room, reading old historical romances of my mother’s and moping about with Dot. The whole family was in shock as Dad convalesced at home, slow and fragile. He was getting better now, but it had shaken us all up. My mother had stopped going on about sending me to school, at least. But she seemed permanently stressed, snapping at me and Dot over the slightest thing, telling us to get out from under her feet. But I didn’t want to go anywhere. My dreams had stopped. Luca had gone. And though I should have been relieved, all I felt was let down. Crazy. I didn’t know him.

Taking a copy of the paper and dumping my basket on the counter, I nodded at the boy working the till. He’d been at my school, a couple of years above me. Eric. One of the few people at Hassock Academy who hadn’t bothered to torment me. He was nice enough … maybe a little dim. Eric glanced up at me once and started adding up the items. When he got to the
Gazette
he paused, taking in the headline.

‘So cool,’ he said, looking up at me. ‘That guy. Like some kind of superhero.’

‘Superheroes don’t exist,’ I said witheringly, grabbing the paper and stuffing it in my rucksack. ‘They’re for little boys.’

Eric straightened up. ‘I know that,’ he said defensively. ‘It’s just, you know, pretty weird how he was kind of “wandering around” a mountain road.’ He put the rest of the stuff into a plastic bag. ‘You have to admit it.’

I shrugged. ‘No, I don’t.’ I took the bag from him and handed him a ten-pound note. As he counted out the change, he kept looking up at me. I put the money in my purse and smiled tightly at him.

‘Hey?’ he said, recognition finally coming. ‘You’re Jane Jonas!’ He banged his hand triumphantly on the counter.

I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again he’d have disappeared. But he was still there.

‘Jane Jonas …’ He jiggled about on the spot. ‘You’re the girl from the accident.’

‘I’d appreciate it if you’d just shut up,’ I said coldly. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Jane – Jane Jonas,’ he chanted, before his eye caught something behind me and he stopped.

‘She told you to shut up,’ said a voice I vaguely recognised. ‘So do it, moron.’

There was a silence as I turned to take in my rescuer. Tall, blond, smiling at me now, tiny little creases around pool-blue eyes. I swallowed, realising once again that I wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion.

‘Hi Evan,’ I said, willing my face not to burst into flames. ‘It’s OK. I can handle it.’

Evan moved swiftly and confidently towards me and reached out his hand.

‘Let me take that,’ he said, grabbing the plastic bag. ‘And that,’ he slipped my rucksack off my shoulder. ‘You must be a little shaken up still … after what happened.’

‘I don’t—’ I started, as he pushed a stray curl off my face and tucked it behind my ear.

‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘You don’t want to talk about it.’

I nodded, all the feisty draining out of me.

‘I’ll give you a lift back home.’

‘It’s OK. I’ve got my bike.’

‘And I’ve got a car.’ He opened the door to let me through. ‘So I win.’

Evan drove slowly up back to the house. I hadn’t said a word walking to his car, and now that I was sitting in the front seat next to him, I just concentrated on not looking at him. I didn’t look at his long, muscular legs, I didn’t look at his strong, steady hands holding the steering wheel. I definitely didn’t look at his perfect, straight nose and his streaked, messy hair. But I didn’t have to – I had committed every part of him to memory in the entire half-hour I’d spent in his company since we’d met.

I stared ahead of me as we pulled off the main road and focused on keeping my heart rate down. I should have been asking questions. Making conversation; something like, ‘Hey, I hear you ran away and lived like a vagrant for six months and caused your family no end of heartache and worry.’ But I couldn’t. His physical presence made me shyer than ever.

It was a little like avoiding the elephant in the room.

‘You ever play pool?’ asked Evan eventually.

‘Pool?’ I shook my head. ‘There’s nowhere you can play pool here. Not for miles.’

‘I know a place.’ He glanced at me. ‘It’s a way out of here, but it’s a good place to hang out.’ I nodded, both hoping and dreading that his next question would be ‘Want to come sometime?’ When nothing came I stared out of the passenger window and studied the roadside bushes. Evan changed gear as we began the ascent up the mountain road and my heart beat more quickly. In a couple of minutes we’d be there, where that
thing
had forced Dad off the road.

I felt Evan’s eyes on me. ‘You OK?’ he asked softly.

I exhaled, determined not to see the crushed fence on the other side of the road. ‘I’m fine.’ I smiled at him. ‘Really.’ Through the trees I could see the lights on in our house a mile or so up. ‘You can drop me where the rough track begins. I can walk from there.’

‘Whatever you want. But I’d be happy to take you all the way.’

‘No need.’ I started gathering up my bags. ‘If you could help me get the bike out …’

As Evan shut the boot of his car, I stood awkwardly holding my bike, rucksack on one shoulder, the other hand swinging my bag like a silly little girl.

He pushed his hands through his hair, then stuck them in his jeans pockets, his eyes on me.

‘You make me nervous, Jane,’ he said, grinning. ‘And I never get nervous.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I like that you’re serious. You know, not shallow like a lot of girls. You don’t talk just to fill a silence.’ He paused. ‘But that does make it more difficult to ask you to come out with me. You know, on a date, because … I have no idea what you think of me.’ And even in the dark I could see he was holding his breath.

I smiled, shivering slightly, though it definitely wasn’t the cold.

‘That would be nice,’ was all I could come out with.

‘That’s a yes?’

‘It’s a yes.’ I looked back up at the house. ‘But I really have to go.’

‘That’s cool.’ He stepped towards me and, before I could think about it, leaned down to kiss my cheek. I felt the stubble on his chin and his hair brushing against my face. ‘Tomorrow night?’

‘OK,’ I said, dazed. ‘Tomorrow night.’

‘Great. I’ll pick you up.’

‘No,’ I said quickly, thinking of the sheer excruciation. ‘I’ll meet you in the town.’

He grinned. ‘Of course. Outside the old petrol station at six? We can take it from there.’

‘Fine,’ I waved the shopping at him again. ‘See you at six.’

I watched as his car reversed away and turned to go down the mountain road towards the town. When I finally resumed walking up the track to our house, I couldn’t keep the goofy smile off my face. I slung my rucksack and the shopping over the handlebars of my bike and trudged forwards in a daze. A rustling in the bushes halted me, making me turn to the side of the track.

‘Who’s there?’ I said loudly.

‘Jane.’ A voice came from my left, low but intense. I caught my breath and stopped, squinting in the half-light, already knowing who the voice belonged to.

A shape emerged from the long foliage by the track. A dark coat, green eyes. I lost my grip on the bike and it crashed to the ground, two tins of dog food rolling into the undergrowth.

‘You?’ I said, trying to catch my breath. ‘You came back.’

He looked weary, the dark shadows accentuated by his white skin. He moved slowly towards me.

‘I came to explain.’ He licked his lips, and I saw his eyes were hooded, evasive.

I put out my hand to touch him and, though he kept his own hands by his side, he smiled. ‘Your father – he’s OK?’

I nodded. ‘What happened to you that night? Why did you send me away?’

‘Long story.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed his eyes, then looked back down the track. ‘Can we walk somewhere? Just for a bit.’

I glanced at my bike on the ground then back at him. He bent and picked up the dog food from where it had rolled, examining the labels. ‘Mr Chow’s Chow Time,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

I snatched the tins from him, my mouth twitching. ‘Dogs. No class.’

He watched as I stuffed the tins back into the plastic bag.

‘There’s a path around the hill.’ I indicated a small opening in the trees across the track. ‘But I have to be back in twenty minutes or Dot will start fretting.’

‘Ah. Dot.’ Luca smiled. ‘She’s very protective of you.’

I frowned. ‘How do you know that?’ I said sharply. ‘Have you been spying on us?’

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I’m just … perceptive.’

‘Hmm.’ I walked over to my bike and dropped the shopping down next to it. ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

Luca and I trod without speaking along the damp path that circled our side of the mountain. I came here a lot in the summer, with the dog, and sometimes with Dot. When the sun was out the view down to the small town and the surrounding landscape was spectacular. It was a peaceful place.

‘So,’ I said eventually. ‘Explain to me why you’ve suddenly appeared in my life?’ I glanced at him. ‘In my waking life … Because those dreams have stopped.’

Luca stopped and walked to the edge of the path, looking down at the trees. He cleared his throat.

‘Remember what I told you before … About stretching the bound—’

‘The boundaries of my reality,’ I finished for him. ‘Yes. I remember.’

‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘This is going to sound … fantastical. But imagine that there is a place like this, where … living things, beings with hearts and minds and … longings … exist.’ He tried to smile. ‘Where somebody like you grows up feeling as though they don’t fit in with everyone else. Like there is a part of them missing. And even though they know they should stay where they are, be happy without that missing part, they can’t. They are only aware of that empty space.’

I stared at him: flashes of my childhood. Of the birthday parties, year after year, where local kids had come, under duress, because I didn’t know how to play with them; of the times I had hidden when relatives visited; of the need I had always had to sit, reading, thinking by myself. None of the people around me understood me, and I wanted to be understood. I loved Dot more than anything, but she didn’t understand.

‘I can imagine that,’ I said, holding his gaze, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t I focused on something else he’d said.

‘You said “living things”.’

He took a deep breath before answering. ‘I am human, in most ways,’ he said finally. ‘Except I can live forever, if I want to.’

‘My God.’ I stared at him and then my eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re really two hundred years old?’

‘No.’ He grinned now. ‘I’m seventeen. But I will stop ageing when I reach fifty.’

‘Seriously?’ I wrapped my arms around myself, dumbfounded, and examined Luca’s face. Not a hint of a smile. ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’

He shook his head.

I breathed out heavily. ‘So … where do I come into all this?’

‘You’re the one,’ Luca said simply. ‘The one I’ve had in my dreams for a long time. My missing part.’

I stared at him, not knowing whether to laugh. Whether this was some kind of surreal joke. But at the back of my mind I felt recognition too. I know I did. It was just I couldn’t articulate that. Because it didn’t make sense. Yet.

‘God. I’m flattered and everything but—’

‘And I am
your
missing part,’ Luca interrupted me. ‘Hence … your dreams.’

I frowned a little. ‘You mean, even though I didn’t know you existed, I have been missing you?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

I shivered. ‘Let’s keep walking. There’s a clearing a few metres ahead and a little bench. My dad made it.’

We continued until we reached a circular patch, clear of trees and bushes, where my father’s carved bench nestled back against the wood. I sat down and, after a pause, Luca joined me. I rubbed my hands together, not looking at him.

‘So. What you’re saying is kind of … insane.’

He laughed and his face lit up. Lovely moss-green eyes shining in the dimming light. ‘I know.’ He turned his face up to the sky. ‘But where I come from, we have the dubious privilege of pursuing the insane. We know no real boundaries – though we are advised not to exploit that.’

A heavy movement behind us made me jump. Luca put his hand on my arm, reassuring. ‘It’s an owl,’ he said, calmly. ‘Nothing to be frightened of.’ And then there it was, the soft call of an owl behind us. I relaxed.

‘How did you know I needed help,’ I asked quietly, ‘that day?’