Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) (10 page)

“How are you, Emily?” asked
Theo, his voice tender and full of care. He looked into my eyes and
I felt an involuntary shudder go down my spine.

“I’m good, thank you,” I said
primly. “How are you?”

No, this was far too
formal.

“Yes, I’m good as well.”

“Oh good,” I looked at Violet
in a panic, and unable to think of anything else to say, asked,
“How are the renovations coming on? Is everything finished?”

“Yes, why do you ask?” she
answered, which completely threw me. This was one totally weird
situation.

“Just wondering,” I said
lamely, explaining to Tash, “they’ve been renovating Hartswell
Hall. It looked fabulous when I saw it over Easter.” I regretted
the words as soon as they were out and couldn’t bear to look in
Theo’s direction.

Tash snapped out of her
spellbound dream and said in a spikey voice. “You were at Hartswell
Hall over Easter? What about your virus?”

“Er, it was when I was feeling
better. I went for a walk and ended up at the hall,” I mumbled. “I
didn’t go in or anything. I just stood in the driveway and saw the
renovations from the outside.”

This was now mega embarrassing.
I’d just admitted to Theo that I’d been standing outside his house.
Even if it hadn’t been him at the window, he now knew for definite
I was stalking him. Violet regarded me with amusement and I felt
like an insect wiggling on the end of a pin.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” I stood
up quickly, banging into the table and knocking over a bottle of
water. Thankfully, the top was still on. “I have to see Mrs
Pritchard. She wants to talk about my essay. I’ll see you all
later.”

I quickly picked up my backpack
and walked out of the cafeteria as fast as I could, without a
backward glance. I didn’t want to see the expressions on their
faces.

I saw Tash in Art, but she
barely acknowledged me, and although she sat next to me on the bus
home, our conversation was minimal and strained. I was glad to see
Theo and Violet weren’t on the bus. Judging by the gleaming black
Jaguar that was parked outside the college gate, I guessed their
horrible chauffeur had come to collect them.

Good. I didn’t want any more
embarrassing scenes. If I’d stood any chance with Theo, I’d most
definitely blown it now. I’d behaved like an awkward adolescent,
with absolutely no social graces. He was plainly light years out of
my grasp. Too old, too sophisticated and all round too god-like for
the likes of me. I slunk home, feeling pathetic and small. If this
is what love was all about, you could keep it. It wasn’t making me
feel great at all, just a great mass of uncontrolled emotions.
Never had I been so glad to see mum and Granddad. Sometimes, all
you needed was the bosom of your family, I reasoned. Theo could go
take a hike. I was way out of my depth with all this.

The next day, Tash was polite
but distant, while Seth was irritatingly cheerful, trying to joke
us back into familiarity. It wasn’t working, and both Tash and I
were relieved when we arrived at college and could go our different
ways, her to Geography and me to Business Studies. At break time, I
went to my locker, putting away the books I’d just used and getting
out the textbooks I needed for my next few lessons. I was turning
the key in my locker door, when I became aware of someone standing
behind me. I didn’t need to see who it was. I knew. I could feel
his energy surrounding and caressing me, his presence strong and
powerful. I turned slowly and looked into his eyes.

“Hi,” said Theo gently.

“Hi,” I said back, my legs
feeling like jelly, my heart beating rapidly.

“Would you like to take a
walk?” he asked.

I pinched the inside of my
wrist, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. A walk? With the
god-like Theo? What was going on? Was he about to warn me off? Ask
for Tash’s details? Declare undying love?

“Yes, of course,” I answered,
trance-like. “Where do you want to go?”

“Follow me,” he said,
mysteriously, and I had no choice but to do as he said.

He led the way past the
lockers, down the stairs and out of ‘A’ Block. Outside, he walked
through the quadrangle and continued on towards the netball courts,
close to the scene of our previous strange encounter. All the
while, he didn’t say a word. There was a small private area close
to the Games Block, where the wall curved back, and it was here
that he stopped and turned to face me.

“Emily, you must know how I
feel about you.”

“Well, not really,” I admitted.
“You’ve been sending out rather mixed signals.”

“I suppose I have,” he sighed,
“it’s just that…”

He looked into my eyes and I
felt as if I was looking into eternity. Flecks of blue and steel
grey granite flew towards me as I was drawn into his mesmerizing
gaze. I experienced warmth, love, passion, pain, suffering and the
utmost longing, all in a fraction of a second, and I found it hard
to breathe.

“What?” I asked softly, “What
is it…?”

He hesitated. “It’s just that …
so much has happened… I just want to keep you safe…” He paused and
seemed unable to continue. It was still making no sense to me.

“I know a lot has happened,” I
said, reassuringly. “You lost your home in Egypt, you’ve moved over
here, you’ve had to start again…” I was trying desperately hard to
understand him.

With a huge effort, he seemed
to gather his thoughts and focus. “Yes, you’re right, I’m feeling
unsettled with all that’s happened. The thing is…”

“Yes?” I whispered, leaning
closer towards him.

“I really like you, you know
that, don’t you?”

“I guess so…”

“Emily, you know there’s a huge
attraction between us, don’t tell me you haven’t felt it…”

“I have felt it,” I said
softly, aware that my whole future lay in the balance with my
choice of words. If I said the wrong thing, I knew instinctively I
would lose him. “I’ve never felt anything like it before,” I
admitted.

So far, we hadn’t touched.
There was an odd formality to what should be an intimate occasion
and again I felt way out of my depth. I didn’t have the experience
to know what to do, and so I let him take the lead. He touched my
face gently with his fingertips and I closed my eyes. A sensation
of immense peace and what I can only describe as ‘togetherness’
filled my being. Was this love? Was it lust? I didn’t think so.
This seemed almost transcendental, a deep, intense spiritual
fulfilment, allied with total confusion.

I opened my eyes and gazed into
his beautiful face. Surely this was the moment when we kissed?

He backed away again, and a
look of torture passed over his face.

“I don’t want to hurt you, and
I don’t want to lose you… ever again,” he said more to himself than
to me.

“You won’t,” I said
uncertainly. “Look, why don’t we just take this slowly, see what
happens?” I decided to take the lead, aware that this intensity,
although delicious in its painfulness, was getting us nowhere. He
stared at me and smiled, a glorious, radiant, sun-warming smile
that transformed his face. “You’re right, sorry, I’m getting heavy…
Not used to feeling like this.” Now he was the one who was
uncertain.

Suddenly, his arms were around
me and I was enveloped in an all-consuming embrace. It felt like a
velvet cloak around me, safe, protective and warm, and I relaxed
into it. Yet still, he didn’t kiss me. He seemed so unsure of
himself, so nervous, it gave me confidence.

“Why don’t we just hang out
together and see what happens?” I suggested, pulling back, aware
that lessons were about to start again, and I needed to get
going.

“Okay,” he said, laughing.
“Let’s hang out together. Starting with lunch. Let me buy you lunch
today.”

“Great,” I smiled at him, and
suddenly my world was transformed. In the space of a few seconds, I
had a boyfriend. And not just any boy. It was Theo. Gorgeous,
sophisticated, model-like Theo. I couldn’t wait to see the looks of
the other girls when we sat down to have lunch together.

He took my hand in his and we
walked back together. I was floating on a cloud of euphoria and
hardly heard a word my tutors uttered over the next two hours. My
thoughts were filled with one thing only. Theo. His eyes, his
smile, his skin, the feel of his arms around me.

Later, on the school bus I
played my favourite Lumineers’ song, ‘Ho Hey’, loudly on my iPod
all the way home, mouthing the words over and over, and grinning
from ear to ear. This song was meant for me. I was totally
hooked.

9.
Surveillance I

Just outside Hartsdown College,
at number 27 Gillyflower Lane, which formed the eastern boundary of
the school and college grounds, Mrs Henforth was enjoying her usual
mid morning tipple.

She took the crystal decanter
out of the sideboard and poured herself a generous schooner of Tio
Pepe sherry. Raising the glass to a photograph of her late husband,
which held pride of place on the crocheted mat on the top of the
sideboard, she said, “Cheers, Harry, here’s to you, darling. Just a
little snifter to see me through the morning.” She picked up an old
pair of binoculars that lay on the coffee table and lovingly
caressed them. Somehow, it seemed to bring her closer to Harry. She
remembered all those happy days when they’d packed a picnic and
taken off across the woods towards Hartswell-on-the-hill. Harry had
liked nothing better than to sit in the bushes, watching the bird
life, while she sat on the picnic blanket and read a book.

“Look,” he would exclaim,
excitedly, “a Tree Creeper” or “a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker”, as
some feathered wonder flew into view, and out would come the
binoculars. “Yes, dear, that’s lovely,” she would say, on
autopilot, lost in the intrigue of her latest whodunit novel. He’d
spend ages oohing and aahing over each find, pulling out his
battered old sketchbook and avidly sketching them as fast as he
could.

The book was full of his
drawings: chaffinches, green finches, blue tits, long tailed tits,
wrens, blackbirds, thrushes, robins and, best of all, a kestrel.
She vividly remembered the day he’d seen the kestrel. It had sat on
a branch so close to them you could see every feather of its
mottled back and underbelly. Harry hadn’t needed the binoculars it
had been so close. That had been a very exciting day.

Now, she idly picked up the
binoculars and put them to her eyes, twiddling the knobs to get the
lenses into focus.

“Never could work these
things,” she said to herself crossly. “It’s down to having an
astigmatism, that’s what it is.”

She walked over to the front
bay window and trained the binoculars on the trees opposite,
turning the knob furiously in an attempt to focus the blurry mass
of green that met her gaze.

“Ah, that’s better,” she
exclaimed, “l can see a branch, and I can make out the leaves, and…
oh…”

She gasped in surprise as a
large beak and a pair of glittering black eyes came into view. She
put down the binoculars and rubbed her eyes. Then she raised them
again and took another look. There was no mistaking it. A huge bird
sat in the tree opposite, looking at her malevolently, its black
feathers ruffling in the breeze. A glance down its body revealed a
long, sleek breast and two massive taloned claws.

“Oh my, Harry, I wish you were
here to see this,” she exclaimed. “What a beauty. If I didn’t know
better, I’d say it was an eagle. Let me find that bird book so’s I
can identify it.”

She put down the binoculars,
opened the sideboard door and rummaged around, looking for Harry’s
old Collins Book of Birds. A sudden movement caught her eye and she
looked up, just as the bird took flight. For a brief second, it
flew towards her front window and she saw clearly its cruel, hooked
beak, its glinting, gleaming eyes and powerful, outstretched wings.
Its gaze locked with hers and she shuddered involuntarily, as if
someone had just walked over her grave. Then it was gone, skimming
silently over her house and creating a momentary dark shadow as it
flew across the sun.

10.
Getting close

I was right. My relationship
with Theo was the talk of the college. Groups of girls would
whisper fervently as I approached, then fall silent as I walked
past, staring at me with looks of envy, admiration and disgust. How
could I, insignificant Emily Morgan, have possibly ensnared the
best catch in the college? Theo stood head and shoulders above all
the other boys, if not actually, then figuratively. He was, quite
plainly, more handsome, more rugged and more athletic than any of
his peers. He was charming, funny, intelligent and thoughtful. He
was certainly more sophisticated than all the other boys put
together, with a knowledge of the world they could only guess at.
And yet, for all that, he was popular. Boys and girls alike seemed
drawn to him, willing to be charmed by him, falling prey to his
easy manners and social graces, like moths to a flame. It was an
analogy I used all too frequently when I thought of Theo and made
me realise my wings were already scorched and burnt.

I knew I was getting in too
deep, too quickly, but was powerless to do anything about it. I
felt exhilarated, yet out of control; my feelings and emotions like
alien beings that had taken me over. I welcomed this brave new
world that had opened before me and wouldn’t have changed a thing,
yet part of me longed to go back to the tried and trusted world I
knew, where my feelings could remain hidden and I had the comfort
of my friends around me.

That was part of the problem.
Tash and I had fallen out since I started seeing Theo. I would like
to think it was just plain old jealousy, but I didn’t think it was.
I trusted Tash’s judgment implicitly, after all she was my oldest
friend. She’d detected something about Theo and Violet that she
didn’t like and she felt mistrustful of them. It hurt her that I
wouldn’t listen to her doubts and warnings and I knew she worried
about me, rather than being envious. But what could I do? I
couldn’t stay tied to Tash’s apron strings forever. I felt
instinctively that Theo was my future, and that had to come first.
But I also felt the pain of our separation keenly, and wondered if
we would ever get back that cosy intimacy we’d shared for so many
years.