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

First thing the next morning, I should have gone and found
Luke – daytime distance rules be damned – and talked out the tension between
us. But once I’d breakfasted and showered and dressed and cleared away the
dishes from the previous evening, I found procrastination far more appealing
than confrontation. And what better means of freedom and escape than riding the
waves?

Surfing, to me, had become more than a hobby. Sleepless
night? Surf it out. Anxious, frustrated? Surf it out. It was therapy – better
than any drug: a way of life, a way of dealing with life. So now that I wasn’t
bound by the limitations of Cerulea, I surfed every day, weather permitting.
Usually, I took to the water around noon, when the other surfers were at
college/work/loafing about in front of daytime TV. But this morning the sky was
blue and the waves were decent and I was too restless to wait.

Down in the cove, I found some of my fellow surfers were out
and in fine form. I waded through the breaking waves and then paddled out. From
their scattered positions Andy and Liam and Duvali and Si called across the
water warm – if rather surprised – hellos; they’d got used to me shunning their
company, I guess. There was no sign of Luke, as I’d expected – he’d be hard at
work on The Project today, as he was just about every day. But there was one
other familiar surfer bobbing up and down on a board across the cove, and she
earned my biggest grin.

‘Hey, girl, lookin’ good,’ I called over to her in the
terrible American accent that always made her smile.

‘Scarlett!’ she cried, and began paddling over to me.

After so many years of sitting on the beach and watching
others surf but unable to join in due to her disability, Cara’s miraculous
healing, courtesy of Jude, had inspired her to throw herself gung-ho into all
kinds of activities previously out of bounds for her. Cycling, jogging, rock
climbing, swimming, trampolining, treetop tightrope walking – she’d tried them
all. But it was surfing that Cara had most taken to, because it allowed her to
be in the thick of things at last – and because her instructor happened to be
the guy she fancied madly.

‘Did you see me on the last wave?’ she said when she reached
me, pushing up to sit straddling her board as I was. ‘Si says it won’t be long till
I’m at your level.’

‘Cara, that won’t be hard. I’m no expert surfer.’

‘Hey! Why do you put yourself down like that? You’re a great
surfer. And cook, as it turns out.’

I searched her eyes for some glimmer of sarcasm, but
apparently Luke hadn’t let slip my little cheat.

‘Did you see Luke’s face when he tasted your starter? Like
he was sucking lemons!’

‘He is a little competitive, I guess.’

‘Tell me about it. Try growing up with the bloke. Do you
know, he once made me spend a whole afternoon building Lego towers with him,
only to declare at the end that although both were the same height, his was the
winner because the colour scheme was more artistic. I was five, Scarlett –
five!’

I started to smile, but her next words sobered me up:

‘And then there’s the whole macho Luke v. Jude nonsense.
Honestly, after what you told us that poor guy’s been through, he deserves a
break. The number of times I’ve tried to get through to Luke that Jude is no
competition whatsoever…’

‘You have?’ It hadn’t occurred to me that Luke and Cara
talked about such things when I wasn’t around.

‘I have,’ she said. ‘Over and over. But he just brushes me
off.’

‘I don’t think it’s just Jude he dislikes,’ I told her. ‘I
think it’s all things Cerulean.’

She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. ‘You
could be right. And Jude? He’s avoiding the issue too?’

‘No. He cancelled last night because he had to… work.’

Cara’s eyes widened, and I saw she was desperate to ask what
Jude had been doing, fascinated as she was by the Cerulean world. But I turned
away and looked across the water to Twycombe, the scattering of houses climbing
up the hill beyond the cove. From here, I could just make out the pink walls of
Luke and Cara’s house.

‘So,’ said Cara, ‘how are we going to get my daft brother to
mellow out?’

‘We?’ I blinked at her.

‘Yes
we
,’ returned Cara impatiently. ‘Why is it you
always think you have to go it alone, huh? It’s near enough a year since you
arrived in Twycombe, and in that time you’ve been the queen of secrets.
Oh,
I appear to have healing powers. Oh, that dude Jude appears to have them too.
Oh, I’m dying but will nobly keep that to myself
…’

I had to laugh at her impression of me. Did I really sound
that posh?

‘Thanks, Cara. But the truth is, I don’t think we can “get”
Luke to do anything. Jude says I’m ace at manipulation. But I don’t want to wheedle
Luke into anything. I don’t want him to not be himself, not make his own
choices. That’s not love.’

Cara was nodding. ‘Fair enough. So the plan is?’

‘The plan is to do the right thing.’ I swallowed and added, ‘And
Luke will have to choose whether to respect that or not.’

‘The right thing?’

I met her eyes, blue as the sea we were floating on. ‘I’m
going to use my gift to help people,’ I told her. ‘Jude’s going to teach me.’

Cara whooped. ‘About bloomin’ time!’

‘You’re not… you don’t think it’s selfish of me? It’ll mean
less time with Luke, you know, and more time with Jude, and being more, well,
Cerulean, when Luke wants a nice, simple human life with me.’

‘Pah!’ She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Selfish would be
pretending you’re just human and ignoring what you’re capable of doing.

‘Listen, don’t worry about Luke, okay? All that time you
were gone, it was really hard on him. It’s only been a month, and the memory
hasn’t faded. He’s scared of losing you. Just give him some time. But
meanwhile, don’t let protecting him get in the way of doing what you need to
do, right?’

She reached over and patted my arm, nearly falling off her
board in the process, and finished with feeling: ‘Like you said: not being
yourself, not making your own choices? That’s not love.’

*

‘Do you know, dear, that pig thing has terrible flatulence
problems.’

‘Um...’

‘Bit like Harold over there, in fact.’

‘Really? Well, that’s… not ideal.’

‘No, dear. Puts you right off your shortbread.’

It was quite a sea change: from talking boys with my best
friend on the waves, to discussing wind issues in a musty lounge full of
biscuit-munching geriatrics. And as always, it was a little bewildering
spending time with Grannie Cavendish, given the fact that she was
intermittently senile. But it was also a blast, because I’d grown very fond of
this diminutive lady, with her sparkly eyes, her kindly manner and her passion
for fairytales.

This was my first visit since I’d returned from Cerulea. I’d
avoided coming until now, because I wasn’t sure how I’d cope in a care home
with eighty residents, most of whom, presumably, were unwell. But when, this
morning, Cara suggested that I visit, because Grannie kept asking for ‘the Blue
Fairy’ and ‘that Scarlett girl’, I decided to give it a go. A quick
twenty-minute visit to put a smile on an old lady’s face, just enough time for
a cup of tea and a chat.

Looking at the clock on the mantelpiece across the lounge
now, though, I saw that my visit was fast-approaching the one-hour mark. Still,
I felt no burning need to rush off. I was quite comfortable here; in fact, I realised,
I felt pretty much as I had in the old days, before becoming Cerulean.

I understood now why, when I’d first met Grannie and tried
to heal her fractured mind, I’d been unable to. The people in this home, all of
them, they were dying – slowly, calmly drifting away. It was natural; it was
their time. None of them needed me to heal them. So there was no clamour here,
no awareness of pain and misery all around. The closest I’d come to a tug had
been on the way into the home, when I’d spoken to the receptionist who, I’d
sensed, had a backache.

No doubt if I stayed for too long I’d find myself wearing
down, as I did around anyone who didn’t need healing, like Luke and Cara and
Si. But for now, I’d found a place with lots of people where I wasn’t in
purgatory as a Cerulean. Even with the smell of disinfectant and the strange,
intelligible shouts of a dozing man across the room, it was good to be here,
with a lady who was a wise old soul.

I looked at her now and smiled. She was merrily warbling ‘Hakuna
Matata’ along with
The Lion King
, which was
playing on the lounge
television. Around us, a few other ladies and gents were singing too. I
wondered how often they sat though this DVD.

Finally, the song ended and Grannie turned to me. ‘Oh,
hello!’

‘Hello, Grannie.’

‘You’re here!’

‘I am, yes.’

‘I haven’t seen you for a long time, I think.’

‘No. I’ve been away.’

‘To the Pride Lands?’

‘Er… no, not quite.’

‘How lovely. Figgy roll?’

I took a biscuit from the selection box she offered me. ‘Thank
you.’

‘You’ve got to get in there, Scarlett,’ she whispered. ‘Or
Harold’ll hoover them all up.’

I smiled. She’d remembered my name.

‘You know, dear, you’re awfully blue today,’ she commented,
gesturing to her own blue rinse to illustrate the point.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do find myself a little bluer these days.’

Grannie Cavendish appeared to have some kind of ability to
spot the blue light in me – had done so before I was even Claimed, when she’d
taken to calling me the Little Blue Fairy. Once, she’d said that I reminded her
of Peter, and I’d worked out that she’d known my grandfather. I’d thought
nothing then of the link between the blue and Peter in her confused memory, but
now…

‘Grannie, was Peter, my grandfather, blue like me?’

She peered at me for a moment, and I braced myself for a
nonsensical answer – it was never possible to tell where her head was. But she
replied quite clearly, ‘Oh yes, dear. He was blue too.’

I nodded. Even more reason to believe what Sienna had told
me: that my grandfather had been a Cerulean.

‘But not as blue as that other chap, though,’ added Grannie.
‘Now he’s such a lovely shade! Like Cinderella’s dress.’

‘What other chap?’

‘You know,’ she said. ‘The young one. What’s his name? Oh,
it escapes me.’ She frowned and stared off across the room, to where a lady was
up and attempting a waltz.

I wondered who she could mean. Not Jude; he didn’t know her.
Perhaps some other Cerulean had come to the home to heal? I was just opening my
mouth to ask when she said:

‘Peter didn’t like him, of course. Not a jot. Perhaps that’s
why the Cinderella boy left the village. Still, quite a kerfuffle he caused
when he did.’

‘Kerfuffle?’

‘Taking her with him like that. For all that time she was gone,
Peter was beside himself. But then she came back, didn’t she?’

‘Er, I’m not sure, Grannie. Who is
she
?’

Grannie took a long sip of tea and had a little chuckle at
The
Lion King
.

‘Grannie?’ I pressed gently.

‘Yes, dear?’

‘Who left with the Cinderella boy?’

‘Cinderella’s a girl, poppet, not a boy.’

‘Yes, I know that, but…’

‘Do you know, I think it’s fish pie for tea tonight. I like
fish pie.’

I gave up then and sat back to eat my fig roll. It was so
incredibly chewy I bought myself a good couple of minutes to think. Another
Cerulean coming to the cove, getting my grandfather’s back up and then
disappearing for a while with some female whose absence upset Grandad. But
there were only four females I knew of in my grandfather’s life: Nanna, Mum,
Sienna and me. And certainly none of us had gone AWOL with a Cerulean. I looked
over at Grannie. She was engrossed in two cartoon lions falling in love to ‘Can
You Feel the Love Tonight’ and oblivious to the fact that she was dunking a
foil-wrapped biscuit in her cup of tea. Bless her.

I stayed a little longer, until I could see Grannie’s
eyelids were drooping, and then I said goodbye softly.

Her eyes flew open and her hand fumbled for mine.

‘You’ll come back soon?’ she said in the voice of a lost
little girl.

‘Of course,’ I said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

‘And you’ll bring your Ryan with you?’

Ryan was Luke’s – deceased – father.

‘Well, I’ll try.’

‘You’re back to stay?’

‘Yes, Grannie.’

‘Good. Because he loves you, you know.’

Did she think I was Luke’s mum? ‘Er, Ryan loves me?’ I
asked.

‘No, silly. Luke.’

‘Oh yes, Luke.’

I wondered what Luke had said on his visits with Grannie
these past months. Perhaps she’d been his confidante – after all, she was easy
to talk to, blissfully unaffected as she was by anything you said.

‘I love him too, Grannie.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Good. You know, dear, Sebastian the
lobster is right. All you need is love.’

I had no idea who Sebastian the lobster was, but I had a
fairly good idea it was in fact John Lennon who’d coined the term. Of course I
said nothing – I just smiled and gave her a goodbye kiss on her soft, wrinkled
cheek.

On the walk out to the car (after an ‘accidental’ collision
with the receptionist, whose backache abruptly disappeared), I had Grannie’s
last words on my mind. Back in the car, I searched through my iPod until I
found, buried in the backlist, a live recording of The Beatles’ classic by Noel
Gallagher. And as I weaved through the lanes back to Twycombe with the song
blasting through the Mini’s speakers, I thought, was Lennon right? Could it be
that easy – if you loved each other, that was all that mattered?

In the centre of Twycombe I parked beside the village square
that overlooked the sea. Across the expanse of lawn the church of St Mary’s called
to me – I could just slip across and take a moment for myself on the bench next
to my grandparents’ graves. But hearty banging coming from the opposite
direction acted as a homing signal, and I pulled a carrier bag from the back
seat, locked the car and walked slowly down the road.

I passed the little parade of shops that formed the
commercial centre of the village. The post office, the grocery store and the
tourist shop were closed on this Sunday afternoon. Pausing outside the tiny
cafe, I peeked through the window. The inside was empty and the floor by the
door was carpeted with junk mail. I nodded, satisfied, and walked on.

My destination might be described by the realist as little
more than a wooden shack on the beachfront. But to the romantic and the
visionary, this rundown, ramshackle former fishmonger’s was a blank canvas,
alive with opportunity.

This was The Project. This was Luke’s dream.

Cara had told me the story over a large mocktail one day.
Before I died, I’d signed over to Luke and Cara a sizeable sum of money (the
fortune my father had dumped in my account as a farewell gesture after Dear
Johning me), and with Cara’s coaxing Luke had decided to invest some in setting
up his very own cafe.

The problem was location. Twycombe was not an option; it was
a small community already served by a popular cafe, so the competition would be
too fierce. The city of Plymouth seemed the obvious answer, but nothing could
entice Luke to work over there. He was a seaside guy, as he put it, not a city
guy.

Then one February morning Cara had popped down to the cove
for her beloved mochaccino and found the cafe shut up and a sign on the door
announcing the closure of the business. After getting over her
caffeine-withdrawal horror, she hot-tailed it back to the house and informed
Luke she’d found the perfect location for his foodie business: sea views,
walking distance from the house, serving a clientele he knew and loved, with no
competition from any cafe business. But the premises were too small, Luke
decided, and he had bigger ambitions. That’s when his eyes were drawn down the
road to this large, derelict shack.

By that point Luke had been working hard to fix up the
cottage with the help of contractors, and though Cara told him he was insane to
take on the shabby old eyesore on the seafront, he was quite confident that he
could bring the building up to standard. Two months later he’d signed the deeds
that made him the owner, and for the past few weeks he’d been here every day,
clearing the structure ready for the contractors to start work. It was coming
along beautifully, he told me when we met each evening after a long day’s work
on his part, though whenever I came by it still looked more home-for-vermin
than cafe to me.

The front doors, like the windows, were boarded up, so I
made my way around to the back, picking my way carefully through stacks of wood
and bricks, and squeezing through the narrow gap between a wall and a skip full
to bursting with rubble. The banging had stopped, but I could feel someone
nearby, that nagging tug on my energy.

‘Luke?’ I called as I neared the one functional entrance to
the building.

‘Scarlett?’ came his voice, muffled.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes! Just watch your footing. I pulled up some floorboards…’

Gingerly, I pushed open the old wooden door and made my way
inside. I focused on balancing on joists until I reached a solid floor and then
looked up. My eyes widened.

Luke, standing a few feet from me all hot and dishevelled,
waved his screwdriver about in a sweeping gesture. ‘What d’you think?’

‘Wow!’ I said. ‘What a difference!’

Last time I’d been to the beach hut, as Luke lovingly called
it, it had been a dark and dingy space subdivided into poky rooms. Now, Luke’s
busy hammer had wreaked havoc, and the result was a huge, echoing space that I
could see would be flooded with light once the boarding was removed from the
windows.

I took a deep breath. ‘No fishy smell!’ I declared in wonder.

He grinned. ‘No fishy smell – it was the old counter that
reeked of it, and that’s buried in the skip now.’

‘This is going to be amazing, Luke! I’m so proud of you.’

I felt choked up with emotion, and I lurched forwards and
wrapped my arms around him tightly, not caring about the sweat on him or the
dirt or… yeesh! Was that a spider on his shoulder?

‘It’s because of you, Scarlett,’ he said, hugging me back
hard with the hand that wasn’t wielding a screwdriver.

I brushed away the crawly beast and then closed my eyes and
gave in to the moment. But it was too fleeting.

‘Anyway, what are you doing here?’ said Luke, stepping back,
right back. ‘It’s too early yet, isn’t it? You should be at home, resting.’

I sighed. ‘I don’t need to rest, Luke.’

‘Yes, you do. You have to take it seriously, Scarlett, the
exhaustion. That day when I couldn’t wake you…’

Etched onto his face was all the horror he’d felt. I ached
for him. If only it could be simpler for us.

‘Luke,’ I said, ‘I know my limits, and I’m a very, very long
way from them. You have to trust me.’

‘I do trust you!’ he protested.

There were many answers I could give to that, and I knew
what treacherous territory they would lead to. Best to get some fresh air and a
shot of sugar into our systems first.

‘I picked up a picnic for us,’ I said, pointing to the
carrier bag on the doorstep. ‘Take a break and sit outside for a bit with me?’

‘Sure,’ he said at once.

I picked my way back across the joists carefully – there
were evil-looking rusty nails sticking out everywhere that had ‘tetanus’ written
all over them. As I retrieved the carrier bag I looked back to see Luke
striding from joist to joist with ease. I shook my head; I really needed to
toughen up.

Outside, Luke took my hand and helped me over a mound of
rotten wood and onto the beach, where we sat down. I rummaged in the carrier
bag and produced two bottles of lemonade, two pre-packaged bacon, lettuce and
tomato sandwiches and a packet of Jaffa Cakes.

Luke smiled at the offering. ‘Back to the usual Scarlett cuisine,
I see.’

‘Not funny,’ I told him sternly.

He opened his bottle of lemonade, which had apparently been
shaken up on the journey over, and got doused in a sticky, sugary shower.

‘Now that,’ I said, ‘is funny!’

He growled at me, grabbed a fistful of my t-shirt and hauled
me in for a long kiss. His lips tasted salty, like sea spray.

‘Ah well,’ said Luke when he pulled back. ‘Good job it’s
warm today.’ And casual as you like, he pulled off his soggy t-shirt, dumped it
on the sand beside him and reached for a sandwich.

I tried not to ogle his chest. All those months working at
the cottage and then here – well, let’s just say he was looking good. I told
myself to focus. We needed to
talk
right now, not…

‘Scarlett?’

The edge in Luke’s voice snapped me round. I traced his gaze
– he was looking at the carrier bag on which was emblazoned ‘Jimbo’s Quick
Grabs’.

‘You bought this food from the convenience store by
Grannie’s home?’

‘Yes. I’ve been to see her.’

His eyes widened and the sandwich in his hand trembled so
that a slice of tomato slipped out and fell to the sand.

‘Cara mentioned that she’d been asking for me,’ I explained.

‘But all those people! Scarlett!’ Colour was flooding Luke’s
cheeks and I was starting to worry for the fate of the bacon and lettuce between
the slices of bread he was waving about. ‘You’re not meant to go near people –
sick people – loads of people –
any people
!’

‘Luke,’ I began, ‘it’s fine…’

‘IT’S NOT FINE!’ he roared.

Shocked, I jerked back. He saw the hurt in my eyes, and his
shoulders slumped.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted. I just… Scarlett, you
have to be sensible! You have to take care of yourself.’

‘I am, Luke. I do.’

‘No. No, you don’t. You’re terrible at it. All those months
you lived here before, and you were so horribly ill, and you kept pushing
through it – you weren’t careful, you were reckless. And now, you have this...
this...
thing
, and it can take you from me again.’

‘Luke…’ I put a hand on his chest. Beneath the hot skin I
could feel his heart fluttering like a caged bird. ‘First of all, it’s not a
thing
,
it’s a gift. Second of all, I’m not going anywhere again. I chose you. I chose
Twycombe. I’m staying here.’

‘But Jude told me, when he came that day you wouldn’t wake
up, he told me this thing in you can kill you! Go too far and you’re dead!’

Thanks for that, Jude,
I thought. So
not
a
detail that needed to be shared with Luke.

‘I’m not going to die, Luke,’ I tried to interject, but he
was talking again:

‘Bad things happen to you, Scarlett. Things fall on you. You
fall off things. The fire –’

‘That was then, Luke. It’s different now. I’ve already died;
death doesn’t want me now.’

‘I don’t know what that means, Scarlett. I just know that I
worry. I worry all the time.’ He hung his head and picked at his sandwich.

He looked so miserable; I hated to see him that way. It
saddened me. And it angered me a little.

‘Give me that,’ I said, and I took the remains of the
sandwich from him. Then I shifted so that I was kneeling in front of him, so I
could look him right in the eye, and I took a deep breath and said what needed
to be said:

‘I get it. That you love me. That you want to protect me. I
get that you got really, really hurt, and you’re frightened it could happen
again. I could make a million promises to you now that everything will be okay,
that we’re in our happy ending now and nothing will ever hurt us again. But
that won’t make it all better. You lost your parents, and I lost my sister, and
we both know stuff happens, stuff that hurts, stuff you can’t control. But you
can’t live your life in fear, Luke. At some point you have to believe me when I
say I love you and I’m yours and I’m staying here. With you.’

‘Scarlett…’ His voice was rough with emotion, and he pulled
me onto his lap and buried his face in my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to
fight. I’m so happy you’re back. I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ I said, stroking my palm up and down his
back.

He took a shuddering breath and let it out slowly. And then
took in a very sharp breath and shoved me, hard, to one side so that I fell,
sprawling, onto the sand. I lay there, stunned, for a second, and then he was
hauling me back up, ejecting apologetic words:

‘Seagull! Diving! Sandwich!’

I looked up to see the bird beating its wings vigorously, a
limp lettuce leaf hanging from its beak.

‘Are you okay?’ demanded Luke.

He was gripping my arms tightly and his face was lined with
tension. Before I could point out the obvious, he beat me to it.

‘Man,’ he said, letting me go. ‘What is
wrong
with
me? It’s just a seagull.’

‘Yep. Just a seagull. I’m fine. We’re fine. No seagull’s
going to come between us.’

He smiled, and then sighed.

‘Logically, I know it’s nuts,’ he said. ‘This Jude thing.
This fear of what you are now, what you can do. My head tells me constantly to
chill out, be rational. But my heart… I’m not Cara. I don’t just take all this’
– he waved his hands about vaguely – ‘magic stuff in my stride.’

‘Nor do I!’ I assured him. ‘But I don’t have any choice
because it’s who I am now. I never did have a choice in all this, remember –
not really. It was Cerulean or dead. Staying a regular human girl wasn’t on
offer.’

‘I know. I know that.’

I took a deep breath before continuing. We were just
starting to get somewhere, I thought – he was settling down, seeing sense. I
was loath to say anything that may send us back to square one. But we’d come
this far...

‘Now that I am a Cerulean, Luke, I kind of have to get on
with it. Make a life here, with you, that works for who I am now.’

He stared at me, unblinking, and I thought,
This is it.
This is where it all unravels,
and I felt the familiar prick of tears. But
then he grabbed my hands and squeezed them tight and said:

‘I get it. I do, Scarlett. You can’t spend the rest of your
life just hanging about alone all day and then seeing me each evening. You
deserve much more than that. Cara has her fashion business. I have this place.
You need your own thing.’

‘And you know what that thing is, right?’

His eyes flicked down to my hands, and he nodded. Then he
looked up and said:

‘But do you know how? I mean, I know you took away the scar
on my nose, and helped Cara’s legs, and you told us Jude explained some of it
to you in Newquay…’

‘I don’t know enough,’ I admitted. ‘I’m frightened to go out
there alone and just make it up as I go along. I don’t want to do the wrong
thing. Heal the wrong person. Go too far.’

‘You’ll need guidance then.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Michael, perhaps? He seemed like a decent bloke.’

‘He is. But he’s got his teaching at the school, plus his
own healing work, plus the artworks for the beach hut.’

‘Right,’ said Luke. Then he straightened his back and added,
‘Ask Jude, then. I bet he’d help you.’

‘Er, well, yes,’ I spluttered. Holy cow –
he
was
suggesting the training I’d nervously come here to announce to him?

‘Scarlett,’ said Luke, a little exasperated, ‘isn’t this
what you want? Me to trust you? Support you?’

‘Yes! I just thought, you know, you and Jude…’

‘Look, if he’d have come last night – where was he, anyway?’