Death Wish (The Ceruleans: Book 1) (26 page)

We stayed in bed a little longer and then, reluctantly, we
kissed goodbye. Luke had errands to run, he said, but I was to come to his
house at five for a birthday tea.

‘Don’t be late,’ he warned.

After he left I took a long shower, slowly working my way
through a shelf of products as I stripped myself of every remnant of the night
before, from makeup to nail varnish, sea salt to bloodstain. I dressed in
comfortable old jeans and a cardigan big enough to hide in, and sat at my
grandmother’s dressing table, combing out my hair and scrutinising the girl in
the mirror. She followed my every move, but I had the unsettling sense that
she
was Scarlett and I was someone, something, else.

Downstairs, I made a coffee. Took it into the living room.
Sat on the sofa. Stared at the rug on which blankets were piled. Sipped the
strong, bitter liquid.

Finally, when I could take the ticking of the clock no
longer, I stood, walked through to the kitchen, opened the back door and
stepped out into the sunshine.

He was sitting on a patio chair overlooking the cove. I went
over to him and sat on the opposite chair, leaving the white metal table as a
barrier between us. I studied him. He wore jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He
sat on the edge of the seat, leaning towards me, his elbows resting on the
table. His eyes were grey, his hair was blond, his lips were chewed and curved
gently at the edges. He looked handsome, yes, but ordinary, as ordinary as the
girl I’d seen in the mirror upstairs. Except for the pallor and the shadows
under the eyes, that is. He looked as drained as I felt.

‘How are you?’ Jude asked.

I’d never found it particularly easy to talk to him; now
that the time had come, I was like the deer in the lane watching my car
advance. Frozen.

He tried again: ‘Are you all right after last night?’

I stared at him. He sighed.

‘I’m sorry, Scarlett – I’m sorry to put you through this. I
can only imagine how strange and frightening this all is for you.’

He
was
sorry, I could see that. And worried for me.
The ice melted a little: I nodded.

‘You know you have nothing to fear from me, right?’

‘No,’ I managed. My voice was scratchy, and I cleared my
throat and tried again. ‘No, Jude, I don’t know that.’

He looked appalled. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, Scarlett!
Surely you know that’s the opposite of what we do. We heal. We help.’

When I said nothing, he added quickly:

‘All these weeks, I’ve been trying to keep you safe, to look
out for you. In the hospital, I healed the bleed in your brain. On the island,
I found you and brought you home. At Bert’s, I stopped you intervening, stopped
you crossing the line. And last night, I brought you back, Scarlett, from the
edge. You nearly died, you nearly died pouring your light into Luke, and you –’

He broke off when he saw the look on my face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m no good at this. You’d think I’d
know the right words to say, but I don’t. There’s no rule book. Just… please,
don’t be afraid.’ He reached a hand out to touch me, but I jerked back so fast
my chair leg shrieked against the patio slab beneath.

‘You’re wrong, Jude,’ I said. I had good reason to be
afraid. Just like the deer standing in the path of my car, I knew instinctively
what was to come: pain.

‘Please, Scarlett. I’m not going to hurt you! I’d
never
–’

‘But it is going to hurt, Jude, isn’t it? What you want to
tell me. It’s going to hurt. Or you’d have said it by now. You’d have said it
long ago.’

He frowned at that, but he didn’t deny it. ‘I would have,’
he said. ‘I would have told you that first day in the graveyard, if I could
have, if it were that easy. But it’s not, Scarlett. It’s complicated. And I
wasn’t allowed to tell you until today. Still, I’ve tried; I’ve tried to lead
you. So it wouldn’t be such a shock. So you’d understand your own experiences.’

I gripped the edge of the table, hard – my lifebelt in the
flood of feelings engulfing me. ‘Understand? I’ve understood nothing, Jude.
From the day I met you, you’ve been an enigma. I’ve seen you do things.
I’ve
done things. The deer was dead! It was dead, and then it wasn’t! The little boy
at the hospital… I thought I was crazy, losing my mind. Then Bert. Then last
night. I healed him. I healed Luke. It’s impossible!’

‘Scarlett,’ said Jude gently. ‘Your hands…’

‘They glow, Jude! With light!’

‘I know they do, but right now – the table – you’re hurting;
please, stop.’

I looked down. Saw knuckle bones through taut skin.
Registered, finally, pain in my fingers where I was gripping the metal rim too
tightly. I relaxed my hands. Turned them over. Opened them. Two fingers were
bisected by shallow cuts. Red dripped onto the white tabletop. Like the red
dripping on Luke’s shirt the night before. As I healed him.

‘It’s impossible,’ I whispered.

‘Do you
want
it to be impossible, Scarlett?’ asked
Jude.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

But when he reached his hand across the table, I didn’t
snatch mine away. And when he stroked his finger down mine, I didn’t flinch. I
took it all in – the deep blue of the light; the warm shivers of feeling; the
red slashes thinning; the blood paling. The light dimmed, and then gently
dissipated. Jude let go, and I brought my hand to my face and examined the
minute crosshatching of the skin. Tiny line after tiny line, uninterrupted. As
perfect as the day I was born.

‘What are you?’ I whispered.

He was silent, and I looked up and met his eyes. A storm was
brewing in them, but I’d come too far now to run for shelter.

What followed was too surreal to comprehend, so that when I
look back on it now it has the feel of a dream: sounds discordant, colours
jarring – especially the sky: too vast, too bright.

*

‘What are you, Jude?’

‘We call ourselves Ceruleans.’

‘Cerulean – I don’t know what that means.’

‘It’s from the Latin
caeruleus
, meaning “sky
blue”, from
caelum
for “sky”. A Cerulean is someone who bears the light
of the heavens. Light that gives power over life… and death.’

‘An angel. I knew it! You’re a guardian angel.’

‘No, Scarlett, I’m not. Which is why what you did last
night was really, really dangerous. I very nearly didn’t find you in time.’

‘But you have been watching out for me.’

‘I’ve been trying to.’

‘So you’re here for me.’

‘Yes.’

‘To heal me when I need it.’

‘No, I’m not here to bring life.’

‘I don’t understand. If you’re not here to save me… Oh
God. Oh God…’

‘Scarlett…’

‘Power over life and death. You’re here for me.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re here to kill me!’

‘No. No! Scarlett, I’m here to Claim you. To take you to
a life after death.’

‘Heaven?’

‘Home. Where you belong. With your kind. The Ceruleans.’

‘I don’t want to go!’

‘But you will.’

‘I don’t want to die!’

‘But you will.’

‘I’m happy here – Luke and Cara; the cove; the cottage.
Please, please, don’t take this away from me!’

‘Scarlett, I have no choice. You’re eighteen now; you’ve
come of age. You’re dying.’

‘I feel fine!’

‘Today perhaps. But soon, it will begin. You have a few
months at best. To make your peace. Say your goodbyes.’

‘Goodbyes! What… why… I won’t do it! I won’t go with you!
I WILL NOT DIE!’

‘You can’t escape it, Scarlett. Death is coming for you.
Just as it came for your sister…’

*

Everything stopped: the wind, the waves, the magpie circling
overhead. The world stopped turning.

Sienna, dying. Jude, her ‘friend’. He could have healed her.
He could have healed her but he didn’t heal her. He let her die.

The world spun, too fast: the wind was vicious; the waves
were wild; the magpie was shrieking.

I was on my feet.

I was screaming.

‘You took my sister!’

And then I was leaping across the table and I was on him,
sending us both crashing to the ground, and my hand was raised ready to hit him
– anywhere, everywhere. But in the blink of an eye he had flipped me onto my
back and he was straddling me, holding my fisted hands to the grass.

‘Scarlett! Calm down. Scarlett!’

I wouldn’t be pacified; I fought furiously to get out from
under him, screaming, ‘You took her – you took her –
you took her from me!
’

But it was like wrestling with a rock; he was solid,
immovable. Finally, I was too exhausted, too broken, to struggle any more, and
I went limp but for my ragged breathing.

He leaned over me, pale skin framed against the blue sky,
fixing me with eyes that were full of compassion but the colour of steel.

‘Scarlett, you’re wrong – you’re wrong and you’ve missed the
point!’

Pants had become sobs. Jude was still talking but I squeezed
my eyes shut tight and shook my head from side to side, whimpering, ‘No, no
more,’ so that only fragments of his speech penetrated.

‘… sorry… failed you… tell you gently… make you understand… give
you time… check in on you, and if you need me…’

‘I don’t need
you
,’ I sobbed. I opened my eyes; he
was a blur through the tears. ‘Let me go!’ I tried to pull my hands from his.
His grip on me loosened a little, but he didn’t release me, and I cried all the
more. ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘just leave me alone.’

‘I will,’ he said, and there was pain in his voice, but I
didn’t care – I didn’t care if I’d hurt him. ‘I’ll go, Scarlett. For now. But I
can’t leave you this way. You’ve heard me, but you haven’t
heard
me.
Think about what I’ve said. There is a life after this one. There is a life as
a Cerulean. For you. For your sister. Your sister died,
but she’s not dead
.
She’s out there, Scarlett. And she needs you.’

A cry died in my throat. I stilled. I stared at him. There
were tears in his eyes. One fell onto me, mingling with the moisture on my
cheeks.

‘I didn’t take your sister,’ said Jude. ‘Someone else did.
Someone… bad. And that is why, when the time comes, you will choose to come
with me. You will choose death, Scarlett Blake
.
You will choose
me
.
Because it’s the only way to save her, to save Sienna.’

I opened my mouth, the word ‘Sienna’ on my lips – hopeful,
desperate, devastated – but by the time I had uttered it he had blurred away
into the blue, leaving me lying on my back in the noonday sun, staring at a sky
that once again was crashing down on me.

I arrived at Luke’s at five.

I rang the doorbell.

Luke answered. He kissed me.

‘Hello, beautiful,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in.’

He led me up to the roof terrace.

A load of people were there, waiting and grinning. They
shouted, ‘Surprise! Happy birthday!’

I burst into tears.

*

In his bedroom, Luke shut the door and sat me down on the
bed.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘Sienna,’ I sobbed.

He held me and rubbed my back. ‘It’s okay. You miss her
today. Of course you do.’

He rocked me gently until the tears subsided. Then he lifted
my face and looked into it.

‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to say…’

He sounded so serious.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s important.’

‘Okay.’

‘It’s big.’

I closed my eyes. ‘Hit me with it.’

‘I love you.’

I opened my eyes and drank him in: Luke,
my
Luke. The
guy who pulled me from the deep that first day in the cove, and every day
since. He anchored me. He loved me.
He loved me.

‘I love you too, Luke Cavendish,’ I whispered.

And I kissed him, as I kissed him that day in the crumbling
folly and every day since – like he was mine and I was his and nothing,
nothing
could ever change that.

*

The roof terrace was alive with people – all the Twycombe
gang had come, and they were milling about with drinks, chatting and laughing.
A stereo in the corner boomed out a playlist I recognised – someone had swiped
my iPod.

‘All these people,’ I whispered to Luke. ‘I’ve only been
here for the summer…’

He smiled down at me. ‘But you’re one of us now.’

‘Scarlett!’ Cara was at my side. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. Sorry about the meltdown. It was just a shock. A nice
one, though.’ I hugged her. ‘Thank you. This is awesome.’

Si appeared at my other side. ‘Headache gone?’

My head was raging, actually, but I nodded brightly. ‘I feel
great, thank you.’

‘Come on,’ said Cara, grabbing my arm and steering me across
the terrace. ‘Over here.’

Set against the glass balustrade overlooking the cove was a
table laden with food and a pile of gifts.

‘This one first,’ said Cara, handing me an elaborately
wrapped package.

It took me a good minute’s wrestling with the ribbon before
I got it loose and opened out the paper. Inside was a framed photo taken the
evening before at the All That Jazz party – a candid of Cara and Luke and me
standing in the marquee, laughing.

I blinked back tears, and gave Cara a tight hug as a thank
you.

At Cara’s insistence, I began working my way through the
pile – bubble bath, chocolates, surfboard wax, wetsuit boots (‘For winter
surfing,’ explained Si) – until only two gifts remained.

‘This is from me,’ said Luke shyly, picking up the smaller
of the two.

Cara and Si melted into the background, leaving us to have a
moment together.

I opened Luke’s present slowly, swallowing hard when I
realised that beneath the paper was a jewellery box. I lifted the lid.

‘Oh, Luke. It’s beautiful.’

It was a simple blue teardrop pendant on a delicate silver
chain.

‘I saw it in the jeweller’s window, and it reminded me of
that rock you keep by your bed,’ he said.

My breath burned in my throat. The chalcanthite. The same
colour as the sea, the sky, the Cerulean light…

And Luke’s eyes.

‘I love it,’ I told him. ‘I love
you
.’

‘And I love you,’ he said easily, but there was something
there, in his voice – a sadness that made my heart lurch.

‘I
do
love you,’ I told him. ‘You know that, right?’

He smiled at the fierceness of my tone, but moved away,
behind me. He slipped the chain around my throat and fiddled with the clasp.
‘Something to wear after this summer, to remember me by…’ he said.

I turned sharply.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Especially not
today.’

He thought I was leaving. Because I was meant to be – in a
matter of weeks; off to London to build a future.

What future?
said a little voice in my head – Jude’s
voice.

I shuddered, and Luke said, ‘Hey, you cold?’ He shrugged off
his zippie and slung it around me. It was warm and it smelt of him – of soap,
of vanilla, of the sea.

I wouldn’t leave.

I couldn’t leave.

‘Luke,’ I said seriously. ‘There’s something I’ve been
meaning to say…’

He smiled. ‘Again? I think we’ve been here before.’

‘It’s important.’

His smile vanished. ‘Okay.’

‘It’s big.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Hit me with it.’

‘I’m staying.’

He opened his eyes. ‘You’re what?’

‘I’m staying.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Beyond.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not going to London. I want to be here. I want to be in
Twycombe. I want to be with you.’

The shout he gave near-deafened me, and then he had swept me
up and was twirling me around and around and I was laughing and he was
whooping, and then he lost his balance and we crashed down and wound up buried
in a beanbag, nose to nose.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is a good thing.’

‘Good like finding a pound coin in the pocket of an old
coat, or good like finding a fifty-pound note in the street?’

He grinned. ‘Good like winning the lottery.’

He scrambled off the beanbag and helped me up. Then he threw
his head back and hollered loud enough that all of Twycombe probably heard:
‘SCARLETT’S STAYING!’

A cheer went up, so raucous that all of Twycombe definitely
heard, and I made myself smile though my cheeks were on fire and my heart was
aching.

They want me here.

I want to stay here.

I don’t want to go.

Cara appeared and announced she needed Luke for something.
He gave me a smacker of a kiss – sweet with happiness – and then his sister
tugged him away.

There was one present left on the table. It looked lonely
there, so I picked it up and tore off the paper. It was a notebook –
funky-coloured and spiral-bound. Another thoughtful gift. I thumbed the pages,
ready to inhale the scent of fresh, new paper. But to my surprise, I found they
weren’t blank. Words were scrawled on them in heavy ballpoint pen. The handwriting
was large, spiky… familiar.

Heart stuttering, I scrabbled for the wrapping paper I’d
dropped on the table. I’d missed the tag, taped to the back. It read:

Scarlett.

This was Sienna’s, and she wanted you to have it today.

I hope it helps.

Jude

Oh,
oh
.

Florence and the Machine came onto the stereo. ‘Never Let Me
Go.’

Hugging the notebook to my chest, I moved over to the
balustrade and gazed out to sea. Sienna. My sister was out there. Not in the
sea, but beyond it someplace. She was not lost. She existed. And I could see
her again.

But if Jude was telling the truth then to find Sienna, to
save her, I would have to go with Jude, and leave Luke.

I couldn’t leave Luke. I loved him.

And yet if my sister really did need me… I loved her too.

Above the music, voices rose in chorus: they were singing
‘Happy Birthday’. I turned to see Cara and Luke behind me, carrying between
them an enormous silver platter. On it were dozens of tiny white-frosted
cupcakes sprinkled with little red stars and arranged to spell
Scarlett!
They set the platter down on the table, and Luke picked out the cake marking
the dot of the exclamation point, the only one with a candle. He held it up to
me, smiling and singing. Everyone was smiling, everyone was singing.

No, not everyone.

Over Luke’s shoulder, a stillness in the scene. Behind my
friends, leaning in the doorway and looking on silently, soberly: Jude.

‘When the time comes, you will choose to come with me.
You will choose death, Scarlett Blake. You will choose me.’

The flame flickered in the breeze.

The singing stopped.

‘Go on, Scarlett. Blow out the candle.’

I looked at Luke. Life.

I looked at Jude. Death.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.

And made my wish.