Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3) (6 page)

In the face of my stony, shocked silence words tumbled out
of Jude’s mouth.

‘Ceruleans don’t have female heirs. Once we did, but then
something changed. Now, when a male Cerulean and a female Cerulean come
together, the result is always a male child. That’s why women are so precious
to us – do you see? Without them, we wouldn’t continue. A century from now,
there’d be no more of us. We would die out, and then all the people – who would
save them, heal them?’

He looked at me, but I said nothing, and he continued: with
his own voice, but not his own words, I thought. Like he was reciting a lesson learnt
by rote.

‘A female Cerulean is very rare. In every generation, only
four or five are born who can be Claimed. They have the gift, but it’s
incompatible with their human bodies. When they come of age as humans, their
bodies begin to shut down. So we find them. We Claim them. We bring them here.

‘Ceruleans are exceptionally fertile. The first baby
arrives, usually, within a year. The woman nurses the baby until his first
birthday, and then the menfolk take over his care. By then, she’s often big
with the next child – sometimes she’s already had him.

‘The cycle continues this way. The Cerulean woman’s body
handles pregnancy and birth better than any human; she’s able to conceive and
carry and deliver and nurse over and over. If the mate dies, another is chosen
to take his place. Eventually, the day comes when the woman no longer
conceives. Then she either remains here to mother us all – like Evangeline –
or, when her time comes, passes into the light, and the cycle ends.’

He fell silent and watched me warily, waiting for a
response. It took a long while to form one out of the churning mass of thoughts
in my head, but of course there was one question that had to come first:

‘Where is my sister?’

‘I told you…’

‘You told me to come with you here, to Cerulea, to save her
from that Fallen lot. But now I find you’ve brought me here to breed for your
kind.’

‘Your kind too,’ he said. ‘And not
breed
, exactly.’

‘Whatever, Jude! Call it what you want – you lied to me,
brought me here under false pretences.’

He was shaking his head. ‘No. No! I do intend to save
Sienna, if I can.’

‘I?’

‘With you. I plan to find her with you,’ said Jude. ‘Hunt
them down. Daniel was at that club in Newquay, and he came to Twycombe for
Sienna. So they’re around. I’ve tried to find them myself since she was
Claimed. But they’re always a step ahead of me. But you – you interest them. So
I figured…’

‘You figured you’d use me as bait.’

He looked wretched, utterly wretched, and braced for an
outburst. But I was silent, thinking. This was it – my best chance of escape.

I smiled grimly. ‘Fine by me. So when can we go?’

‘I don’t know. It’s my idea. But Evangeline… she wants you
to settle in, understand Cerulea, get to know everyone first.’

‘She’s worried that if I haven’t completely accepted being a
part of this place, I won’t come back?’

Shrewd on her part, I thought.

He nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘But all this hanging about – all those months Sienna has
been with them.’

‘I told you back in Twycombe, Scarlett. They won’t hurt her.
She’s too valuable.’

‘Valuable. What, as a
breeder
? Are you telling me
she’s out there
pregnant
, Jude? With some demon spawn?’

‘I don’t know. I hope not.’

I grabbed his arm, and he stared down at my hand. It was the
first time I’d touched him since shoving him over.

‘Why don’t we just go?’ I said, and I tried to keep my voice
soft, coaxing. ‘Let’s go now. Right now.’

‘I can’t. I won’t. Not behind Evangeline’s back.’

‘Why not? She knows she can trust you. And we’re going for
the greatest of causes.’

I deliberately didn’t add,
‘And we’ll be back.’

Jude was shaking his head. ‘It would be a betrayal.
Evangeline is Mother. She determines the course.’

‘You sound like an indoctrinated sheep!’ I snapped,
snatching my hand away. ‘This is more cult than commune!’

‘Scarlett!’ He looked scandalised. ‘You’ve been here two
days. You’ve met Evangeline for all of a few minutes. Our way of life is
different to what you’ve known, yes. But you can’t make such rash judgements of
us.’

I squirmed a little. He was right. But I missed the boy I’d
known back in Devon – the surfer, the party-goer, the guy who strode into a
burning building to save me. That boy had been fearless. This guy was lacking a
backbone.

We sat silently for a while, staring out to sea. I thought
about Sienna out there somewhere. Stuck, just like me, only worse. With
depraved ex-Ceruleans. The thought sickened me. But clearly, getting off the
island for her – and for me – was going to take some careful manoeuvring.
Because they wanted me here. To pop out babies. Hand them over. Get back on it.
What a way to mother. A new, terrible realisation hit me:

‘Jude, what you said to me when I woke up. That you didn’t
know your mother…’

‘None of us do. We have a year in their arms, and then we
let each other go. It’s the easiest way – we become attached to the male carers,
instead. They’re nurturing and loving.’

‘Leaving your mother to have another child, and another, and
another.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you have no contact with her again?’

‘We see all the mothers when we come to Cerulea, of course.
But we never know formally which is ours. There’s no mother–son bond. It’s a
different definition of motherhood to what you’re used to, I know.’

I felt myself shrink back in the space, away from him, away
from the house. ‘That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard! To have a child,
love that child, and then give him away – over and over and over. It’s
unbearable.’

Distress was written all over Jude’s face. ‘You see, this is
why Evangeline does The Talk. I’m not… I don’t know…’ He took a steadying
breath. ‘Look, I’m sure new Cerulean women naturally feel that way at first.
But the longer you’re here, the more you’ll see that this is a happy, fulfilled
existence. The mothers are doing the noblest of things: ensuring the
continuation of the line. The men are answering their calling – to heal and,
for an honoured few, to create new lives. And the children, they’re very loved
and very happy. I was, Scarlett.’

‘But to not know your mother…’

I thought back to my own mother – vibrant, passionate,
dramatic, loving. She had her faults; God knew she had made mistakes, and had
been self-indulgent and selfish. But before I’d died, that last visit with her,
she’d been everything I could have wished for. To have no memory of her? To
never know her laugh, her scent, the feel of her arms around me? It was
unimaginable.

‘Did you never wonder about her, Jude? Did you never look at
the women here and ask yourself which was yours – your
mother
, Jude?’

I saw by the look in his eyes that he had, but he said, ‘No.
I had all the love and care in the world from the fathers. I didn’t need her.’

‘The fathers?’

‘The men who bring us up,’ said Jude. ‘Like Matthias and
Aaron and Amos in the playroom earlier.’

‘What about your biological father? Don’t you know him?’

‘We don’t need to, Scarlett. You know the African proverb
“It takes a village to raise a child”? That’s the ethos here. Everyone raises
the child. There’s no need for identified parents.’

There was so much I wanted to say to that. My understanding
of child psychology was limited, but sufficient to set off alarm bells clanging
loudly in my head. Parents mattered. Attachment mattered. This way of living –
it was unnatural. Still, right now I wasn’t up for a debate on child-rearing
practices. I was more interested in the female role in all of this – and,
specifically, what was expected of me.

‘So the women are baby machines,’ I said simply. ‘That’s it.
They don’t use their gift. They don’t leave the island.’

‘They’re protected here. Among humans, they may catch
illnesses, have accidents. And just by being around humans they’re drained,
even if they don’t use the gift. All these things, they’re risks – they may
harm a pregnancy, hinder fertility.’

‘So the women stay here. On the island. Year in, year out.
Until they die.’

‘They want for nothing, Scarlett. Anything you want, you can
have.’

‘Freedom, Jude. That’s what I want. To find my sister. Now.
To go home to Luke. Now.’

Sighing heavily, he picked up a twig and began scratching
swirls into the snow now thickening by our feet.

‘I’m sorry, Scarlett. But you’re needed here.’

I could feel the anger building up inside me again. A
roaring beast within was demanding release, to launch itself on the pale,
‘sorry’ boy beside me and do him damage.

‘You will keep me here? Against my will? And what – force me
to have sex with some random Cerulean man? There’s a word for that, Jude!’

‘No!’ he broke in, appalled. ‘It’s not like that! It’s one
man only – a partner. For life. We have a ceremony that unites the couple.
They’re loyal to each other. There’s no force. It’s consensual.’

‘Sounds wonderfully romantic,’ I said sarcastically.

He went back to his twig-swirling.

‘So how does it work, then? Baby-daddy speed-dating at five
p.m. in the dining room? Me at a table, and a long line of blokes waiting to
tell me in three minutes why I should choose them?’

He smiled a little. ‘No. Not quite like that.’

‘How then?’

‘It’s predetermined.’

‘What?’

‘Betrothal, you may call it. As part of their naming
ceremonies, a select few are chosen to be matched to those who’ll be Claimed.’

I took a deep, shuddering breath. This was like watching
Riverdance in slow motion. Freaky. Bewildering.

‘So who gets chosen?’ I asked. ‘What makes a good
breeder
?
Can’t be parentage; that doesn’t matter here, apparently. The bonniest baby
then? The most well behaved? The one who says “Mada” first?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’re just chosen.’

His twig stilled in the snow.

My heart stilled in my chest.

‘What did you say?’

He was silent.

‘Jude, what did you say?’

He returned to his twig, but now he was scratching at the
ground in jerky movements.

‘
We’re
just chosen?’

His scratches became harsh digs.

I stared at him. I didn’t want to ask the question. But I
had to.

‘Who, Jude?’ I whispered. ‘Who is it I’m supposed to make
these babies with?’

He said nothing, only scraped in big, sweeping movements
that suggested a lot of pent-up emotion.

I was about to shout at him, to demand he look at me, speak
to me, when my eyes, staring at the snow in which Jude was fiddling, found
order in the chaos of deep, long scratches. Eight thick lines of earth standing
out in the snow formed a single explosive word:

ME.

I didn’t say another word to Jude on that frigid, darkening
cliff. I stood, took one last, longing look at the suggestion of a shape on the
horizon, turned and walked back to the house. I didn’t run. I didn’t hurry. I
focused on putting one foot in front of the other, on the beautiful simplicity
of being the first to lay footprints in the snow.

I didn’t turn to see whether Jude was following me. I didn’t
care.

In the house, I stamped off the snow from my shoes, nodded
in acknowledgement of Nathaniel’s cheery hello and climbed the stairs. Inside
my room, I locked the door and checked that the connecting door was locked, and
then I turned on every lamp and shut the thick velvet curtains. I ran a bath
with water hot enough to cloud the bathroom in steam. When the water was
flooding out of the overflow, I turned off the taps, stripped off my clothes
and stepped in. The water stung, but I ignored the pain. I lay back until every
part of me but my face was immersed.

I waited for the shivering to stop.

*

An hour later, pink-skinned and clad in pyjamas and robe, I
curled up in an armchair with a herbal tea, and I stared at a painting on the
wall, and I thought.

I thought,
I don’t like that Evangeline.

I thought,
Sienna would hate it here.

I thought,
I’m not a breeder. I’m a person
.

I thought,
All this time, that’s what Jude wanted from
me.

I thought,
Who gives up their babies?

I thought,
I never knew I could be this angry.

I thought,
Luke. Luke. Luke.

Luke! The letter he had written to me; in all the upset, I’d
forgotten.

I launched myself off the sofa and rushed to the bathroom,
to the laundry bin in which I’d shoved the day’s clothes. The cardigan was on
top, and the envelope, when I pulled it out, was only slightly crumpled. I
smoothed it down and took it to the sofa. Raising the paper to my nose, I
inhaled, hoping to catch some distant scent of Luke – sea air and surfboard wax
and cinnamon. But I smelled nothing.

Carefully, I slid a finger along the opening and I pulled
out the sheet within. His letter was longer than mine and handwritten also, in
large, sloping letters. My heart contracted painfully as I realised this was
the first time I’d seen Luke’s handwriting – the months we’d had together had
been too short.

I read it slowly, savouring every curve of every letter.

Dear Scarlett,

I’m writing this in advance of Jude coming back, so I
have time to think what to write.

That is, I hope Jude is coming back. He did promise.
Still, I struggle to trust him, you know that.

I hate that you’ve gone with him. But what else could I
do? If I could have saved you, I would have – you know that, right? If I could
have come with you… Scarlett, I would have.

I hope you’re okay, wherever you are, in that place. That
place Jude can come back from, but you can’t – what is that?

Sorry. I hate this.

I’ve spent all day thinking of what to write, and now I’m
here, putting down the words, I’m lost. There are no words to tell you how I
feel.

That night – dawn – on the clifftop, when you

I can’t write it. Not that word.

I’m making a total meal of this. You know me. Feelings
stuff is hard to get out.

I love you.

I’ve loved you from the first day I saw you on the beach.

I always will love you.

I wish you were here.

I’d do anything to bring you back here.

I know there’s nothing I can do – nothing you can do. I
know I have to accept it. You made me promise to let you go.

I’ll try.

But not yet.

Yours – always yours,

Luke

PS – Cara sends her love. Chester sends a dog-breath kiss.
I’m sending a virtual lemon drizzle cake with extra icing and a kiss in that
certain place that makes you melt.

PPS – Sorry. Was that inappropriate? But what do you
write to your girlfriend who’s gone someplace where you can’t follow, and you
miss her, and you love her, and you just wish everything could go back to the
way it was?

PPPS – I’m having some trouble signing off. Because then
that’s it. The last contact with you. And there’s a lifetime of things I wish I
could have the chance to say. But you know them, don’t you? You know how I
feel. And I know how you feel. And that’s enough.

It has to be.

In several places the ink of the letter was blurry. By the
time I’d read it for the fifth time, my own tears mingled with Luke’s had
rendered the letter an illegible mess. But it didn’t matter. I knew the words
by heart.

Finally, carefully, I re-folded the paper along the lines of
the original creases and slipped it back into its envelope. Then I put it into
the pocket of my pyjama top, the one right over my heart, because I wanted to
feel it close to me, this one, final connection to the boy I loved.

Luke.
The ache for him was physical, ripping at my insides.

A knock on the door interrupted my descent into tears. It
was light, tentative.

‘Go away, Jude,’ I shouted.

There was a pause; then: ‘It’s Estelle.’

I hesitated for a moment. I really didn’t want to see
anyone. But I could hardly shout ‘Go away’ again. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve
and then stood, crossed to the door and opened it.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ she said, eying my robe.
‘Only you weren’t at dinner, and Jude said you had a headache, so I thought I’d
check that you were all right.’

He’d lied for me? Why that surprised me, given all his lies,
I didn’t know.

‘I’m fine,’ I said automatically. ‘Just…’

‘Having a meltdown? Thinking about smashing some stuff?
Considering a leap over the balcony?’

I blinked at her.

She smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it. Been there. Done that.
Got the “HOW many babies are you saying I’m gonna have?” t-shirt.’

I laughed then. The noise sounded alien, and it made me
nostalgic for Luke and Cara.

‘Can I come in?’ Estelle asked.

I opened the door fully. ‘Sure.’

She stepped in. ‘Nice,’ she said, looking around. ‘My room
has the same layout. Only it’s pink and orange. Oh – can I check your
bookshelf? I’ve nearly finished all mine.’

‘Help yourself,’ I said, and she scurried over. ‘Do you want
a drink?’ I offered, figuring I’d better be polite.

‘Do you have mint tea?’ she said, fingering her way along
the novels.

I rummaged through the box of hot-drink sachets.
‘Peppermint?’

‘That’s it. Yes! An Adele Parks,’ she announced, pulling a
novel from the shelf.

As the kettle boiled she kept up a running commentary.

‘Marian Keyes: no, read all those. Cecelia Ahern: got them.
Austen: lovely, but too wordy for me at the moment.
Twilight
?’ She
looked up at me. ‘You like paranormal romance?’

I shook my head emphatically:
no.

‘Ah well, leave that one be then. Lisa Jewel: read it. Jane
Green: read it. Karen Adams: never heard of her. Carole Matthews: that’s a
maybe. Ooo, look here –
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
. LOVE that
book. The Colin Firth interview is hilarious.’

‘You like women’s lit, I take it,’ I said, pouring boiling
water into a mug.

‘Love it!’ she declared. ‘Before I came here, I read all the
new releases. Wanted to be a writer myself, in fact…’

I paused in dunking the teabag and looked over at her. She
had stood now with a small stack of books and she met my gaze. I wondered
whether she read the question in my eyes:
What of that dream now?

I held the mug out to her. ‘Tea’s ready.’

She placed her books down on the sofa and took the mug from
me, inhaling deeply. ‘Looks vile but smells divine. Can’t get enough of it at
the moment,’ she said, sitting down on the sofa.

I resumed my seat in the armchair and picked up my
fast-cooling orange green tea. Looked vile. Smelt okay. Tasted… well, it was no
Starbucks mocha full-caff with extra cream and chocolate sprinkles, that was
for sure.

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked her.

‘Almost two years,’ she said. ‘It was the very end of
January when I came.’

‘Two years. So you’ve…?’

‘Had a baby, yes. I’m expecting my next in the spring.’

My eyes flew to her stomach. Beneath the baggy black jumper
she wore, a swell was visible.

‘My partner’s Adam,’ she went on. ‘He Claimed me. I was in
love with him long before he told me about Cerulea, about all this. So it was
easy for us.’ Lips edged with black liner curved up in a kind smile. ‘You must
have so many questions, Scarlett. If I can help at all…’

‘You seem happy,’ I said. ‘Content.’

She tilted her head to one side and thought before answering
seriously, ‘I’m pregnant. Pregnancy makes me content. And the island is
beautiful – hard to tell now, with rain and snow, but come the summer it’s that
place in the sun where most people dream of living. And it’s quiet here – few
people. Safe. Calm. And the others here are kind. And Adam is… everything. And
I know I’m doing something important, something worthwhile. And I’ve started
writing here – my first novel!’

That was a lot of reasons to be happy with the Cerulean
life. So why did I feel like there was an unspoken ‘but’ hanging in the air?

‘Do you miss home?’ I probed.

She shook her head. ‘No one to miss. I was a foster kid; my
last family probably still hasn’t noticed I’ve gone.’

‘Well, if not people, don’t you miss the places – the
freedom?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s peaceful here. And it’s safe.’

That word again.
Safe
. I couldn’t help wondering why
that was so important to Estelle, why she’d had cause to fear feeling
not
safe
.

I was quiet for a while, swilling the last of my drink
around in the mug, while Estelle combed fingers through her long hair, humming
quietly under her breath.

‘How can you bear it?’ I said eventually. ‘Giving them up –
the babies?’

‘I don’t see it that way. Every mother must learn to let go;
it’s part of being a mother. Here, we do it a little earlier.’

I wondered whether she believed her own words. It was hard
to read her; she wore so much makeup that her face was a mask.

‘Jude said he doesn’t know his mother. Does that work both
ways? Do the mothers recognise their own children after they leave here?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘My first is still here, and so
little still, I’d know him anywhere. But then I’ve only the one to remember.
The others, those who’ve been having babies for longer – I don’t know. I would
guess so. If there’s some defining characteristic…’

‘Oh!’ I said.

‘Oh?’

‘Sorry, I just realised – my welcome party, that room full
of people, it’s been bothering me how alike everyone looked.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That. Not exactly a model of
multiculturalism here, that’s true.’

‘Everyone’s white. Everyone.’

‘So that it’s harder to tell whose child is whose, I
assume.’

‘You assume.’

‘Well, Evangeline mentioned something…’

‘Evangeline. Will you tell me: what do you think of her?’

Estelle paused again before answering. I was beginning to
think she needed time to frame not a natural response but a proper one.

‘Evangeline is kind to us,’ she said. ‘When she’s around, I
can relax. Like when she delivered my baby. I trusted everything she said. It’s
easy being with her. A calm way to live.’

I nodded, though Estelle’s complete surrender made me
uncomfortable.

‘And Adam?’ I asked. ‘He’s happy too?’

‘I think so. He certainly seems that way when I see him.’

‘But how often is that possible, with him over there and you
here?’

She smiled. ‘He comes home to me every night, Scarlett. His
work on the mainland is his job. I am his home.’

I looked at her, this young girl: already pregnant with her
second child, with a stack of books to read, a novel in her mind to write, and
a man she loved and who loved her back. She was happy on some level, I could
see that. And yet it was hard not to see all the darkness she projected too –
black, black, black.

‘What if you hadn’t loved him?’ I asked her. ‘Adam? What
would have happened then?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It was only ever him
for me. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’

*

Later, once Estelle had left with her books and a secured
promise from me to find her the next day for a cuppa, I sat on the sofa for a
long time.

Jude knocked on the interconnecting door three times. I
ignored him.

By the time the digital clock on the television read 00:01,
I’d made scant progress in sorting my jumbled thoughts. In fact, I’d achieved
little else than working my way through an entire box of tissues and biting my
lower lip viciously enough to make it bleed.

I leaned my head back on the cushions and closed my eyes. A
vision of my father, Hugo, walked into my tired head. Why he was there I’d no
idea – he’d recently sent me a Dear John letter and then paid me off to leave
his life, so he was hardly welcome in my mind. I’d never really got on with
him. Stiff as he was, and distant. Oh-so posh. Obsessed with horse-racing and
cricket and the
Financial Times
. Oh yes, and paperwork. He was
paper-obsessed. Every minute element of his life was on paper someplace. Lists.
Word maps. Graphs. Diagrams. Once, in my early teens, I’d found a pie chart
entitled ‘Non-Work Time Allocation’. One sliver of the pie was labelled
‘Family’. It was so tiny he’d had to type the label vertically. The guy was a monumental
ass.