Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4) (17 page)

‘Michael?’ I called.

‘Here.’

He emerged at the end of the east wing corridor. ‘Sorry,’ he
said, striding quickly towards me. ‘Upstairs was the only place with no people.’

As I hurried to meet him my mouth formed the words ‘Why are
you here?’ but then he stopped in front of me and I registered the state of
him. He was dishevelled, he was black, he was stinking. That smell. Acrid.
Familiar.

‘I thought I should come and tell you,’ he said. ‘A group of
us were called to attend. We’re still working – I have to go back.’

‘There’s been some accident, like the train derailment. You
need me to come.’

‘It’s not just some accident, Scarlett. It’s the care home.
Near Twycombe.’

I grabbed the wall for support, but collided with a huge
artwork.

‘Careful,’ he said, steadying me.

‘Is she dead?’ I whispered. ‘Grannie Cavendish?’

‘I don’t know. It was Jude who said, when we arrived, that
she lived there. But –’

‘I’m coming,’ I said at once. ‘I’m coming now to find her.’

‘Jude won’t like that.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Okay,’ said Michael. ‘But Scarlett, if you’re coming,
hurry. The fire – it’s bad.’

I had to go. I had to go
now
.

But I couldn’t just disappear from Hollythwaite like Michael
had moments ago – the others would worry, and Luke and Cara would never forgive
me for keeping this from them.

I took the stairs three at a time, sprinted across the
downstairs of the house and arrived back at our spot in the rose garden. Luke
and Cara and Si were alone now.

‘Quick,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Where’s my mum?’

‘Down near the front,’ said Cara. ‘What’s –’

‘We’re leaving.
Now!
Get to the car.’ I pulled the
car key out of my pocket and threw it at Luke. ‘You’re driving. Start it up.
I’ll sort Mum.’

Three mouths opened simultaneously to protest and question.

‘There’s no time!’ I snapped. ‘I’ll explain when we’re
clear. Just go!’

Mum’s white shirt was gleaming under the lights of the
makeshift stage, and I kept it in sight as I weaved my way quickly through the
picnic blankets. When she caught sight of me approaching, I forced myself to
slow down and drop my shoulders and smile.

‘All right, darling?’ she said. Rubyella was leaving the
stage to make way for a barbershop quartet, so Mum was easily audible.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Listen, we’re heading off now.’

‘Oh. Now? Okay.’

She waited for me to give a reason, but there was no time to
think up a convincing lie, so I just reached over and gave her a hard hug, then
broke away.

‘Thanks for inviting us!’ I said, already walking backwards
in the direction of the stables. ‘Great day! Well done! Love you!’

‘Love you too, darling,’ she said.

Leaving her looking bemused, I jogged off.

Luke and Cara and Si were waiting in the Mini. I flung open
the passenger door, leapt in and commanded Luke to drive before I’d even
slammed the door shut.

‘But I’m not insured,’ said Luke.

‘Doesn’t matter – just drive!’

He looked at me for a moment – too long a moment – and then
said ‘Belt up’, dropped the handbrake and drove out of the yard.

‘Quickly!’ I urged.

‘Woah,’ said Cara in the back. ‘Where’s the fire?’

Grannie, their last living relative. I couldn’t tell them. I
couldn’t.

‘Scarlett?’ Luke’s hand was on my leg. ‘What is it?’

We were on the drive leading to the gates now, alone.

‘Stop,’ I told him. ‘Stop driving.’

He eased off the accelerator and brought the Mini to a stop.
‘Which is it, Scarlett, go or stop?’

He looked stressed. He was right to look stressed.

I took his hand. Squeezed it. ‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘I
have to Travel – now. You need to drive back to Twycombe.
Safely!
Not
too fast.’

Cara thrust her head between the headrests. ‘What is it?
What’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Tears were threatening – but there was
no time for that. ‘Michael came to get me. The care home is on fire. It’s bad.’

‘Grannie?’ cried Cara. ‘No, no, no, no – not like that!’

Si grabbed her and held her, but Luke sat rigidly. His inner
conflict was written all over his face – he didn’t want his grandmother hurt,
or worse, but neither did he want me putting myself in danger.

‘Scarlett…’ he said desperately.

‘I have to go.’

‘Hurry!’ sobbed Cara at the same time that her brother
begged me, ‘Be careful.’

‘I will,’ I promised them both, and then I was gone.

*

Fire is hell. Fire is death. Fire is
hot
. Then why
does it have the power to freeze?

I’d Travelled to a gloomy corner of the car park – it seemed
the safest place to begin. But now I was here, I was paralysed.

Reds and oranges licking the black sky.

The stench of smoke and charring.

Blue lights pulsing frantically.

People all around, rushing about.

People on the ground, going nowhere.

Shouts, cries.

The heat – the terrible heat.

‘Hey!’                                               

A hand grabbed me, pulled me around.

‘What the
hell
are you doing here?’

Jude: dirty, furious. I flung myself at him. He patted my
back once, twice, then pushed me away.

‘You shouldn’t be here.’

‘Michael told me. Luke’s grannie…’

‘I know. I remembered you said she lived here. But I warned
Michael not to –’

‘Is she out – have you seen her?’

‘No.’

I looked at the home – the west side was crumbling, but the
east side, the side where Grannie’s room was located, was still standing. ‘Did
you check her room?’

‘I don’t know where her room is. I’ve never been here
before. So I can’t Travel in.’

‘I have. I can.’

‘You can’t go in there!’

‘I can’t
not
do it.’

Now, urgency blew away the fear. As Jude reached out to grab
me again, I lurched back, and before he could get a grip I pictured a little
room with fairytale prints and a bookcase full of Disney movies, and I willed
myself there.

*

The fire alarm was clanging and a sprinkler in the ceiling
was spurting but the air was thick and reeking and the figure on the bed was
still, so still.

I reached her in a single stride and shook her roughly.

‘Wake up!’ I shouted. ‘Grannie, wake up!’

She mumbled something.

‘Wake up! There’s a fire. We have to go, now!’

Her eyes opened. ‘Fire?’ she said, bewildered.

I grabbed her hand. ‘It’s okay, I’m here. I’ll get you out.’

Then it hit me – how exactly was I going to get her out? I
hadn’t even considered that before Travelling in.

The window was out: the room was on the second floor, too
high to jump, and at the back of the home, too remote to attract the attention
of the firefighters. Working our way through smoke-filled corridors was madness
– I’d tried that in the fire at the cottage and had ended up plummeting through
a collapsed floor. Travelling, of course, was the safe and fast option. But I’d
only ever Travelled with someone in tow once – Luke, the night I’d got ill –
and that had been an accident; I’d been totally out of it when it happened.
Jude had never taught me to Travel accompanied. I hadn’t a clue how to do it.

‘Don’t worry, we’re getting out,’ I told Grannie again. Then
I squeezed her hand tightly, closed my eyes and pictured the car park outside.

Grannie began coughing.

I opened my eyes. We were still in her room. I tried again,
and again. Nothing. It was like Grannie was an anchor, holding us here.

Think, Scarlett!

But it felt like someone had opened the top of my head and
poured in hot, sticky treacle.

Now I was coughing too.

The window. We needed air. And if I shouted, maybe someone
would hear me. Maybe.

I tried to coax Grannie out of bed, but she clung to me like
a frightened child, so I had to lift her. She was surprisingly heavy, and I
lost my balance, and we fell backwards, and her weight drove me into the
bookcase, and the back of my head struck a shelf, and we slid into a pile on
the floor, and it rained Disney movies.

The window. We had to move. Which way was the window?

I tightened my grip on her and began
shuffling-dragging-sliding us across the floor, which was wet and – hot, was it
hot?

‘Blue,’ rasped Grannie between coughs. ‘Blue will get us
out.’

I just had time to desperately hope I could live up to her fantasy
before I realised she wasn’t talking about me at all.

There was an arm around me, and another snaking around
Grannie, and my first instinct was to struggle, but then my stinging eyes made
out a line of Latin text on a thick forearm and I knew we were saved.

‘Hold on,’ said a deep voice in my ear, so I did.

*

When I opened my eyes I expected to find myself back in the
car park, the hub of the rescue operation. But we were in a copse of trees at
the edge of the grounds. It was darker here, further from the flames, but the
night air was lit with a soft blue glow.

I struggled upright and leaned over Grannie Cavendish, who
was lying at my side, staring up. For one terrible moment I thought the stare
was vacant, but then she blinked.

‘Oooo, pretty,’ she said. ‘All the stars.’

‘Is she okay?’ I croaked, focusing on the hands, pressed to
her shoulders: the source of the light.

‘Yes,’ said the man beside me. ‘She’ll be fine.’

I let out the breath I’d been holding. It emerged as a
hacking cough. Leaning forward, I tried to drag in some air.

‘Now you,’ said the man.

I felt his hands on my shoulders, and then the blissful
warmth of his light, and then... the tightness in my chest, the burning in my
throat, the throbbing in my head – gone.

‘Thank you,’ I said, looking up. Then: ‘Oh! It’s you!’

The man from the boat. The man from the graveyard. The
Cerulean. Part of the team here tonight.

‘Michael told me you’d gone in,’ he began, but then he broke
off to help Grannie, who was struggling to sit up.

‘Oh dear,’ she said, patting down her thin cotton
nightdress, ‘I need a handkerchief.’

‘I don’t have one,’ he said. ‘But you can use my shirt.’

‘Gracious, no!’

I rummaged in my back pocket. Earlier tonight, when I’d
changed out of the wedding dress, I’d still had that napkin layer on me and I’d
shoved it in my jeans. I could hardly leave it about for Mum to find; she’d
have known at once what it was because the ink had leaked through and on the
wispy ply was a perfect copy of the picture. I retrieved the flimsy tissue now
and held it out to Grannie.

But just as she was about to take it from me, a hand – a
big hand – closed over mine and the man said, ‘Wait – let me see that,’ and I
was so shocked by his touch that I let go.

He took the napkin from me and tilted the picture towards
the light cast by far-off flames and he drew in a ragged breath. ‘She kept it,’
he said. ‘All this time. She kept it.’

‘Such pretty stars,’ chirped Grannie, pointing upwards. ‘Look,
see.’

But I didn’t look at the stars. I looked at him.

Him.

‘It’s you,’ I said. ‘You’re him.’

His head snapped up, but then stilled. He waited, watching
me intently, distant flames reflected in his eyes. The man from the boat. The man
from the graveyard. And the man from my mother’s memory wall.

‘You’re Rafe,’ I said.

His lips quirked, and then curved into a smile.

‘Hello, baby girl,’ said my father.

Grannie and I huddled together in a corner of the village
hall, out of the way of all the comings and goings. Having been designated a
makeshift shelter, the hall was thronging with people: paramedics, firefighters
on a break, residents and staff of the home who hadn’t required hospitalisation,
and an army of locals who’d turned up to help.

The medics had finally finished treating us. Given the
smoke-blackened state of us both, they seemed sure we’d have breathing problems
and insisted we both take oxygen for some time. But eventually they had to
concede that we were fighting fit – albeit perhaps not mentally, given that one
of us was crooning ‘He’s a Tramp’ from
Lady and the Tramp
and the other
was conspicuously white-faced and quiet. Muttering about shock, they’d left us
with a cup of tea each, a packet of cookies and a large blanket, which we soon
made good use of. But even the warmth of the cover and the rush of sugar in my
bloodstream and the cheery Disney sing-a-long couldn’t stave off the turmoil in
my mind.

My father.
Here.

‘Scarlett?’

A hand waved in front of my face, breaking my bleary-eyed
stare.

‘I’m fine,’ I assured Michael again in a voice that didn’t
sound like my own.

It was Michael who’d brought us here. Michael who’d found us
in our secluded spot; who’d told Rafe that the home’s manager had ticked off
the full register of staff and residents now, and that everyone who could be
helped had been helped.

‘You should go now,’ he’d told Rafe.

I’d thought Rafe would dismiss Michael then. Why hadn’t he?
Why hadn’t he told Michael he wasn’t ready to leave yet? Why, after dropping a
kiss on Grannie’s cheek, had he simply murmured to me ‘I’ll see you soon’ and
then disappeared?

‘Why did he go, Michael?’ I said now over Grannie’s chorus.

‘Who?’

‘The other Cerulean. Rafe.’

Michael frowned. ‘The man who brought you out of the fire?’

‘Yes,’ I said impatiently. ‘Why did he go?’

‘His work was done.’

But it wasn’t!
I wanted to yell. Turning up like
that, saving the day, allowing me to connect the dots and know at last who he
was – he couldn’t just run out on me like that.

‘I’m going now,’ said Michael. ‘It’s been a long night.’

I nodded. After all the healing he’d done this evening, he must
be drained. Oh – that was it. That was why Rafe had gone so suddenly. He’d
healed Grannie and me and who knew how many others before that. He was wiped
out. The hurt little girl inside calmed a little. He said he’d see me soon.
He’d be back.

My
father
.

It was unimaginable.

Michael was still staring at me. There was something wrong
with his eyes. His pupils were drowning out all but a sliver of muddy iris.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked, but he was already saying:

‘Good night, Mrs Cavendish.’

Grannie broke off her humming and reached out a wizened hand
to pat Michael. ‘Nighty-night, Ryan,’ she said.

Michael looked at me and I shook my head a little.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘for coming to get me tonight.’

But he was already walking away, and in moments he was swallowed
up by the crowd.

‘Dear, dear,’ said Grannie. ‘If I’ve told my son once, I’ve
told him a hundred times – broodiness is
not
an attractive quality in a
lad.’

Broody. It was a good word to describe Michael. Clearly, he
wasn’t on best form tonight. But then who could blame him? I’d overheard a
firefighter tell a medic that ten residents so far hadn’t survived the fire –
rescued but swept away by the shock. I wouldn’t be the only Cerulean haunted by
nightmares tonight.

But at least Michael was safe. I hadn’t seen Jude since I’d
gone into the home, and I was worried – why hadn’t he found me? He must know
where I’d be: at Grannie’s side, at least until her family arrived.

I studied the door across the hall, willing it to open and
cursing whenever it did and a stranger walked through. Grannie warned me ‘a
watched pot never boils’ and, randomly, that I should ‘just keep swimming’, but
I couldn’t take my eyes off that door. Until, finally, it was flung open with
such force that it crashed loudly against the inner wall and a familiar figure
rushed into the hall.

Luke was as panicked as I’d ever seen him and even from a
distance I could see his chest heaving as he scoured the room.

‘Here!’ I called to him, and his head turned at once.

He darted across the room, and before Grannie could get out
the words, ‘Luke, darling! I’m out and about in my nightie!’ he’d dropped to
his knees in front of us and grabbed a hand each.

‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded, looking from Grannie to me,
back and forth. ‘Where are you hurt?’

‘We’re fine,’ I assured him.

‘You’re filthy!’

‘But fine.’ I squeezed his hand, hard. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t
call. I couldn’t remember your number, and my phone died in the fire.’

‘
In
the fire?’ Luke fell back on his heels. ‘What
happened?’

‘It was nothing – we’re safe now,’ I attempted, but Grannie
wasn’t going to pass up this chance to tell a good tale.

‘Fire in the home, Luke!’ she declared with all the aplomb
of a melodrama actress. ‘Scarlett woke me up, and then we had a bit of a cough
together, and then we fell over, and then we did some more coughing, and then
the blue angel turned up and
swooooshed
us out of there. Then we stopped
coughing and had some cookies. And tea. Though there was too much sugar in
mine.’

‘Grannie!’

Another familiar figure had burst through the door, this one
similarly out of breath but half-blind with tears.

Pandemonium ensued as Cara threw herself at Grannie, hugging
her and sobbing wildly, and Si appeared and attempted to calm his hysterical
girlfriend.

Luke slumped on the seat beside me and crushed me to him. ‘I
was so scared,’ he said. ‘I was
so scared
.’ He took in a shuddering
breath, and it came out as a cough. Pulling back, he said, ‘Scarlett, you
absolutely
reek
of smoke! What happened? How confused is Gran?’

‘She’s not,’ I admitted.

He balked.  ‘You went
in there
, into the fire, to get
her?’

‘Well, yes. But we weren’t right in the fire – it hadn’t
reached her room.’

‘But you didn’t know that before you Travelled!’

Luke’s fingers on my waist were digging in painfully, and I
squirmed and he loosened his hold, but he didn’t let me go – he pressed me
closer to him.

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ he said. ‘You must have been
so frightened.’

‘A bit.’

‘A lot!’

‘Okay, a lot. But there was no choice to make, you know
that.’

We looked at Grannie. She was stroking Cara’s hair and
reprising ‘He’s a Tramp’ in a soothing, lullaby tone.

‘I thought, as I was driving... but she’s okay,’ said Luke. ‘She’s
here and she’s okay. Thanks to you. Scarlett, I –’

‘No,’ I cut in. ‘
Not
thanks to me. I didn’t get us
out, Luke. I couldn’t work out how – how to Travel with her.’

He looked confused, and then he remembered his grandmother’s
tale. ‘The blue angel?’

I nodded.

‘Jude?’

‘No.’

‘Jude,’ said Si from somewhere beside me, and I turned to
put him right too. But then I realised he was looking past me, towards the
door.

I spun around and saw Jude loping across the room. He looked
completely exhausted, but he was whole – intact – unhurt – here. The knot of
anxiety in my stomach unravelled at last.

‘Hey,’ he said, stopping to stand before me and Luke. He
eyed Cara and Si and Grannie beside us, who were locked in a group hug. ‘Everyone
okay?’ he asked me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You?’

He nodded.

‘Where have you been?’

He gave me a strange look. ‘Healing. Where else?’

‘I thought all the healing was done.’

‘We’re just done.’

‘But Michael said it was all over ages ago.’

‘Did he now.’

Jude looked behind him, found a spare chair, pulled it over
and slumped down.

‘Is there a problem?’ asked Luke.

‘There is in my book,’ said Jude. ‘Michael went to Scarlett
though I explicitly told him not to.’

‘Why?’

‘
He
thought she should know about the fire, given the
connection to you.
I
thought if he told her she’d come rushing here and
put herself in danger.’

Luke nodded. ‘I appreciate you trying to protect her.’

I had an out-of-body moment as I watched the two guys
talking – well, normally. This was a first.

But then Jude turned to me and his fierce glare snapped me
right back into the moment. ‘I didn’t want Scarlett doing something
stupid
,’
he said. ‘Like Travelling into a raging inferno! I told her not to go in there.
She knew I couldn’t follow her.’

‘You saw her before?’ said Luke.

As Jude explained his version of events to Luke, I sat
quietly and tried to work out what it was in Jude’s words that had set off an
alarm bell in my head. But trying to pin down a logical train of thought in my
fuzzy mind was like trying to catch a frantic moth in a room full of lights.

Luke and Jude were deep in conversation now about the
motives for Michael’s interfering, and I found myself less impressed by their
ability to talk to each other and more irritated by the fact they seemed to
have forgotten I existed. I wasn’t interested in their verdict on Michael – as
far as I was concerned, he’d done what he believed was best in the
circumstances, and at least
he
didn’t treat me like some fragile little
girl who needed protection.

I didn’t need protection. I needed answers. Right now.

And so, interrupting rudely, I demanded of Jude: ‘Who’s
Rafe?’