Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4) (14 page)

The stomach bug turned out to be a lurker, so I laid low for
the next few days. Of course, a Cerulean friend could have had me fighting fit
in moments, but I didn’t call anyone other than Luke to reassure him I was
getting better slowly. Because the worst of the symptoms passed quickly, I was
only really dealing with exhaustion and loss of appetite, which I didn’t feel
merited a healing visit. And I told myself I needed some time to myself to
think.

But when it came to it, I did everything
but
think. I
took long baths. I took long naps. I read thriller novels, the kind with mind-boggling
twists that keep you turning the pages. I watched the
New Girl
box set
my mum had sent me because she thought I was into it, and discovered that
actually I was quite into it, even if the heroine’s fashion sense baffled me.

Come Friday afternoon, though, there was no denying that I
was all better. And hungry. And bored. And lonely. And anxious. Perhaps I’d
overloaded on
New Girl
, or perhaps I was in desperate need of ‘feelings
talk’, because for the first time in my life I sent out an SOS for a girly
chat.

I’d barely had time to shower and dress and put the kettle
on when I heard an engine roar outside followed by a familiar ‘tap-tap-a-tap-
tap
’
on the front door. I smiled as I went to answer it – I’d known Cara would rise
to the occasion. And sure enough, upon opening the door I saw she’d come armed
and ready.

‘Supplies!’ she announced cheerily, hefting up one of the
huge bags-for-life she was carrying. ‘Lead the way, Ms Blake!’

She followed me down to the kitchen and dumped her bags on
the table. I was reaching for the coffee granules when an ‘Oh no you don’t!’
stopped me short, and moments later I was pushed onto a chair and handed a
bottle of iced mocha coffee.

‘Drink!’ Cara commanded.

I hadn’t realised ‘girly chat’ was code for ‘boss me about,
Cara’. But her dimples were out, so I knew she meant well. As I sipped the
coffee – pretty good, in fact – I watched Cara unpack her kit.

‘Feather boas. Man-size tissues. Nail polish. Balsamic
vinegar.
Diva Power Ballads
album. Dough balls. Lemonade. Margarita
pizza. Tiara. Cocktail shaker. Cocktail stirrers. Cocktail umbrellas.
Men
Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
book. Celery. Hippo. That should do us.’

‘Wow, Cara.’

‘Serious business, girly chat,’ she said, pointing a funky
pink cocktail stirrer at me.

I was just bracing myself for her next order, which I
imagined would be something along the lines of ‘Spill it – what’s up?’, when a
rustling at the front door caught my attention. I frowned. Someone was there, I
could hear as much. But I couldn’t feel the presence of a human nearby. Which could
only mean…

‘Sorry!’ yelled Cara down the hallway. ‘I’ve abandoned you.
Can you manage?’ She caught my expression and explained, ‘Girly chat requires
girls. Plural.’

But it wasn’t a girl who entered the room. It was a vampire
and a werewolf.

‘This one’s head’s seriously floppy…’

A face came into view between Edward Cullen and Jacob Black.
‘Hey, Scarlett. Cara, where am I putting these?’

Cara’s instruction was lost on me as I gaped at the sight of
Estelle – mother, islander, Cerulean – arranging cardboard cutouts of
Twilight
characters in my kitchen. I was still staring when she sat down beside me.

‘Ta da!’ she said, doing showbiz hands. ‘Cara texted me that
you were in need of girl time, so I met her at the cafe and now here I am!’

Cara had texted her? I knew the two had hit it off at the
cafe opening, but not to that degree. The more pressing issue, however, was:

‘You Travelled?’

‘Yep.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yep.’

‘Adam taught you to do it yourself?’

‘Yep.’

‘Does Evangeline know you can Travel now?’

‘Yep.’

I could only imagine the fireworks in Cerulea. I almost felt
sorry for Evangeline. Clearly, though, I was alone in that sentiment.

‘Name that song...’ said Estelle, and she started humming.

I got it several notes in, but Cara was way off base: ‘It’s
from the soundtrack to
The Vampire Faerie Wolf of Atlantis
!’

‘Nope, but it is covered on the
Moulin Rouge
soundtrack.’

‘T-Rex,’ I said. ‘“Children of the Revolution.”’

Estelle grinned at me and wiggled her eyebrows, then
demanded, ‘What time is it?’

I was raising my hand to point at the clock when Cara and
Estelle sang out in unison:

‘Pimm’s o’clock!’

And with that they began rummaging through the paraphernalia
on the table, cackling like two witches over a cauldron, and I sat back and
watched them and wondered whether I’d come to regret bringing these two together.

*

Two hours later we were sitting outside at the patio table
and the jury was still out, but we’d certainly made good use of Cara’s
supplies.

The pizza and dough balls were long gone, but Cara’s
cocktail mix was going strong – vile as it sounded, the vinegar and lemonade
made a drinkable mocktail version of Pimm’s, though Cara had to admit she’d
muddled the standard accompaniment (cucumber, mint and orange) with that of a
Bloody Mary (a celery stalk).

Cara was wearing a voluminous pink feather boa and a
flashing tiara, which complemented her hot-pink mini dress pretty well. Estelle
had a green boa draped over her shoulders and a cocktail umbrella protruding
from her ponytail, which jarred with her all-black serious Goth look. All of us
had lurid neon ‘Fuchsia Sunrise’ toenails, including the hippo teddy.

Edward and Jacob were watching over us, Aretha Franklin was
demanding a little respect loudly from the stereo in the kitchen, and the
Men
Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
book was wedged under a table leg to
remove an irritating wobble. Only the tissues remained unused – so far.

We’d started off keeping it light, chatting about the cafe
opening, Cara’s business, Estelle’s novel writing and why, apparently,
life-size cutouts of
Twilight
actors weren’t bizarre and dated but in
fact an essential part of a girls’-night-in kit.

But there was a deeper meaning to girl time, and as I braced
myself for the interrogation I knew was coming, I was surprised to find that it
wasn’t just me who needed to talk.

Cara led the way by telling us that while she was happy with
Si, she was struggling with insecurity. He was so confident and attractive and
popular that she sometimes wondered what he saw in her – nice legs or not. And
a recent incident in the city had upset her. A gang of white youths had shouted
racial slurs at Si, the bottom line being that he should ‘go back where he came
from’. Cara and Si had ignored them and walked away, but she worried now that
her silence had hurt him.

Estelle admitted that all wasn’t rosy in her relationship
either. She and Adam had rowed often in recent weeks over her emerging need for
more freedom. He understood her perspective, and she suspected he had his own
niggling doubts about the Cerulean way – she knew he missed their first baby,
for one thing, who was being brought up by the mannies. But it was hard for born-and-bred
Cerulean Adam to challenge the norms, and Estelle said he’d been in tears when
they’d told a livid Evangeline about Estelle’s off-island escapade.

Then it was my turn. I’d intended to skim over the surface,
but in the face of such raw honesty from my friends, I spilled it all like a
girl who’d been downing proper Pimm’s by the pint glass. They were surprised by
my revelations – Cara by the intimacy issue and Estelle by the family tree –
but sympathetic, if lacking in solid answers as to what I should do.

‘So far as I can see,’ said Cara, licking the sugared rim of
her glass, ‘a possible half-Cerulean baby is bothering you a lot more than a
lying mother and an estranged Cerulean father.’

I winced at her bluntness, and then remembered to be relieved
that she’d quit pushing me to find my father. ‘I mean, I’m curious about him,’
I said. ‘But if Evangeline’s not telling me about him, and Mum’s not telling
me, and the man himself has never turned up and told me, I figure there’s a
message there.’

‘I’ve never heard of a Rafe,’ said Estelle. ‘But then I
can’t keep track of all the blokes off the island. As for the human plus
Cerulean equals half-Cerulean to be Claimed thing, well, it’s kind of what I’d
always figured anyway.’

‘Why?’ I asked her.

‘Because my mum was a total tramp.’

Cara choked on her drink.

‘No, really,’ said Estelle in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘She’d
slept with half of Truro by the time she ODed when I was ten. I remember the
constant stream of dodgy men coming through our council flat. I swear, when she
died I was glad to get into the foster system. It gets a bad rep, and I had
some lazy-arsed foster parents, but at least none of their hands wandered.’

Safe.
The word she’d kept using when we were on the
island together, in every explanation for why she liked living there. I’d had
no idea.

‘Estelle,’ I said, ‘that’s...’

‘... the past,’ she said firmly, wiping a smudge of
jet-black mascara from under her eye.

Cara and I exchanged a quick glance, and I saw that
Estelle’s revelation had upset her too, but for once she didn’t probe.

‘So,’ she said to Estelle, ‘you think your mum most likely
slept with a Cerulean.’

‘Yes. I asked her once who my father was. All she’d say was
a tattooed bloke with a velvet voice who was gone by morning.’

‘Do you think it was deliberate? A one-night stand to get
her up the duff?’

‘I think that’s exactly how it works. They send a group of
studs out to impregnate. They watch, from a distance, until the kid comes of
age, and then they Claim her – well, or him, I guess.’

‘That’s twisted.’

‘Way too twisted for Ceruleans,’ I broke in. ‘Think about
it, Estelle: if it was deliberate, if Evangeline and your father knew about
you, they’d never have left you in that situation with your mother. They’d have
brought you to the island. Ceruleans are all about minimising suffering, not
allowing it.’

‘I was human, Scarlett. Can’t bring up a human on the
island.’

‘What about Michael? He was human, and he grew up there.’

Estelle cocked her head. ‘You have a point there. You think
he was half-Cerulean and they rescued him from some diabolical mother?’

‘Maybe. Who knows?’

‘Michael?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s told me as much of Cerulean history
as he can.’

‘We’re off-topic,’ interjected Cara. ‘The question for today
isn’t how half-Ceruleans get made, it’s whether Scarlett – and my brother –
would be prepared to make one.’

I looked at my two friends across the table. Cara’s tiara
bulbs had blown and Estelle’s ponytail umbrella was wilting.

‘Would you do it?’ I asked seriously.

‘Yes,’ said Cara at once. ‘If I wanted kids someday, I
wouldn’t let the Cerulean thing put me off. What you can do is amazing.
Healing. Saving lives. It’s a gift, not a curse.’

‘But there’s no choice, Cara. No free will. It’s so damn
hard.’

‘
Was
hard, for you. But the kid’s experience of
turning Cerulean wouldn’t be anything like yours, Scarlett. For you, the
Claiming was a total shock. You were all alone and you thought you had to do it
to save your sister.
And
you thought being Cerulean meant losing
everyone you loved. But you can bring the kid up to know what’s coming, and afterwards,
they can keep their human life, like you have. Then they’ll accept the change –
maybe even welcome it and transition before they get ill.’

‘Plus, you have to remember,’ said Estelle, ‘that the times
they are a-changin’.’ When I stared blankly at her, she added, ‘Bob Dylan song?
Never mind – my point is that by the time the next generation is our age, the
Cerulean way will be different.’

‘You sound sure of that.’

‘I am.’

‘So you’d do it – have half-Cerulean kids?’

‘I wouldn’t be afraid to,’ said Estelle. ‘If you love Luke
and you both want kids and you’ll love those kids, that’s what matters. And
ultimately, it really doesn’t hurt the world to have more Ceruleans in it someday.’

‘Someday,’ I echoed. I sat back in my chair and looked up at
the sky. Blue. Cloudless. On the stereo, Candi Staton was imploring young
hearts to run free. ‘This is crazy,’ I said. ‘This is stuff for the distant
future, not now. I’m not even ready to be a mum.’

‘I don’t think anyone ever is. But once you have a baby,
you’ll know you could never, ever regret it.’

At the mention of motherhood, all the lines on Estelle’s
face softened and she smiled with such tenderness. Motherhood! And yet she was
only twenty.

‘I just never saw myself as a young mum,’ I said. ‘And the
way Evangeline was talking, even if Luke and I are careful...’

‘I bet your mum didn’t plan to have kids when she did,’ said
Cara. ‘I mean, how old was she when she had Sienna?’

‘Nineteen. My age.’

‘And my mum was twenty. Really, it’s not like we’re talking
thirteen. A baby at your age isn’t exactly shocking.’

I frowned at Cara. ‘Sounds a bit like you’re trying to talk
me into this.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe I am. Luke loves you. You love Luke. Having
a baby together is totally magical.’

‘Nothing brings you closer,’ added Estelle.

I turned to look at her. ‘You too?’

‘Sometimes, Scarlett,’ she said, ‘you worry too much. You
can choose to just let this go. Let God or the universe or fate or science or
whatever it is you believe in decide.’

‘A baby!’ breathed Cara. ‘Teeny toes! Fuzzy head! Chubby
cheeks! I’d be a cool auntie. Oooo – I could start a baby fashion line!
Lickle-ickle socks with –’