Dark Heart Forever (6 page)

‘I just knew,’ was all he said, not meeting my eyes.

I rubbed at my knees. ‘I’m not going to ask why you sent me away – from the waiting room.’ I paused. ‘I thought I heard—’

‘It’s complicated,’ Luca cut in. ‘I wish I could tell you in some way that wouldn’t freak you out, but you need to trust me first …’ He trailed off. I continued looking down at my legs. And we sat for a minute or two, not speaking.

‘I’ve got something for you.’ He rummaged in his pocket, drawing out a battered-looking notebook. ‘A long time ago I went to my favourite place in the whole world and …’ He paused for some reason, as though thinking out his next sentence. ‘Well, let’s just say I found, buried under some rocks by a river we call the Water Path, a book.’ He held out the notebook. ‘This book.’

I took it from him, turning it over in my hands. It was covered in faded pencil sketches; ethereal, abstract loops and curls. I looked at Luca questioningly.

‘Whoever wrote in this book was going through some awful turmoil. They were in love, but something had gone wrong. Or got in the way. The bond was breaking.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘If you read it, you’ll see.’ He touched my arm. ‘I want you to keep it.’

‘Why are you giving this to me?’

‘Because something about this book has led me to you, Jane. I don’t know how, but I know it is connected with you, and me.’

I frowned, but I too had the strangest sensation as I held the journal. The same feeling I had when Luca touched me. A feeling of warmth and safety, of home.

‘OK.’ I slipped the book into my coat pocket, remembering the shopping and that I was late. ‘I have to get back … My mother will be worried.’

He smiled. ‘Of course. But I will see you again soon.’

‘I hope so,’ I said, meaning it. I got up from the bench and started down the path. I glanced back to see Luca still seated. ‘You’re staying here?’

‘Yes. I’ll get home from here,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come again … tomorrow, or …’

I remembered Evan. ‘Oh … tomorrow … I have a thing,’ I said awkwardly.

‘Right,’ he said, getting up to stand, his back to the wood. ‘We’ll find a way.’

And as he slowly moved backwards towards the trees he seemed to merge into them. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving me to make my way home.

When I got back to my bike and my mother’s shopping, I slipped the notebook into the pocket of my hoodie before picking the bike up and continued up the track to the house.

If it hadn’t been for the weight of Luca’s present in my pocket, I still wouldn’t have believed he existed. But not only did I now know this for sure, I also knew that when I was with him, I felt more real than I’d ever felt in my life.

I was relieved to see Dot and my mother watching TV when I walked into the living room. Our remote home means Dot relies on me for company. But Dad’s accident had zapped some of the pluck and curiosity out of her. Instead of following me around the house like an eager puppy, these past few weeks she had switched allegiance to Mum, and become timid and clingy. It unsettled me. I relied on Dot to be the life to my soul. She encouraged me to take risks and, though I’d never thanked her to her face, I knew that without her I would be a whole lot lonelier and more ‘insolar’ than I already was.

‘Hey, kiddo.’ I ruffled her untidy blonde curls. ‘Wassup?’

Dot looked up. ‘Can I sleep in your bed tonight?’ She glanced uneasily at my mother, who returned one of mock disapproval. ‘Just one more night,’ Dot pleaded. ‘Please?’

‘If it’s OK with Jane, then I suppose …’ Mum smiled at me. ‘One more night?’

What I really wanted was to curl up on my bed and unpick the unbelievable events of the past hour. I needed to rationalise. Convince myself I was a normal sixteen-year-old girl. But I had never been ‘normal’, and what was happening in my life now, though it should surprise me, kind of didn’t. I also needed to get to the bottom of why Luca freaked me out less than Evan did. With Dot next to me, I wouldn’t get the chance.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘One more night.’

‘Thank you, sweetie,’ Mum said, getting up to go into the kitchen. ‘I’ll make us something to eat.’

‘You’re brave,’ Dot said, winding melted cheese round her fork. ‘Don’t you feel brave?’

Dad was asleep upstairs and Mum had made us all cheese on toast. I couldn’t eat mine. I was still too churned up inside. Dot was morbidly obsessed, as she had been for the past few weeks, with the night of the accident.

‘Not really,’ I muttered. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘I wouldn’t say that. You ran to get help.’ She squeezed a large dollop of tomato sauce on to her plate. ‘In the freezing darkness. You must have been terrified.’ She shook her head. ‘Thank goodness for that boy. It’s such a shame he ran off before we could thank him.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, looking down at my plate.

‘Makes me shudder to think we have wolves around here,’ she went on.

Dot’s eyes were wide, her hands still clutching her knife and fork.

‘Do wolves eat people?’ she asked anxiously.

Mum and I exchanged a look.

‘They’re predators, sweetie,’ Mum told her. ‘But they’re very rare.’ She glanced at me. ‘We just have to make sure we don’t go wandering into the woods at night. Alone. Then we’ll be OK.’

I lowered my head, feeling her eyes still on me. Did she know?

‘Did you see its face?’ Dot couldn’t stop asking questions.

‘Think so …’ I had a flash of those black eyes, the red mouth, the teeth, the huge, vaulting body. I got up abruptly. ‘I’m going to be sick.’

‘Jane?’ Mum stood up too, hovering awkwardly over me. ‘Sweetheart …’

I ran, nearly tripping over the sleeping dog, to the bathroom downstairs. After I’d been sick I stayed, crouched over, a mixture of fear and disbelief coursing through me.

I’d waited sixteen years for something to happen in my life, for a sign that I fitted in somewhere … with someone. Was my destiny a strange, skinny boy in a black overcoat? A boy who came to me in my dreams, who’d never die. Who came from a world straight out of Tolkien, but with whom I felt no fear.

And what about Evan, a mysterious human boy in my waking life, who made my hair stand on end just by being next to me?

I shook my head, trying to empty some of the thoughts out. What was this all supposed to mean?

‘What’s happening to me?’ I said out loud.

The sound of footsteps outside the door made me look up. My mother stood, holding a dishcloth in her hands. She was looking at me, not smiling.

‘I made you some hot chocolate,’ she said, her eyes dropping away from mine. ‘It’ll make everything seem normal.’

‘Normal?’ I said quietly.

‘It’s important to get back to normal.’ She half turned to go back to the kitchen but stopped. ‘Back to what you know.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s possible,’ I told her, stupidly melodramatic. ‘Stuff has happened—’

‘I know, and you have been very brave.’ But her tone was abrupt, hostile even. ‘And now you have to try very hard to move on.’ She turned round again and there was warning in her eyes. ‘To leave it behind.’ She stepped out into the hallway and shouted to Dot to finish her meal, leaving me baffled. What was she getting so riled about?

I waited until Dot was asleep before I slipped out of bed and padded as quietly as possible to my hoodie. I took the notebook out of the pocket and, glancing quickly back at my sleeping sister, pushed the rest of my crumpled clothes off the chair and curled up on it.

I opened the book to the first page.

To my dearest darling,

I don’t know if I will ever see you again, it’s getting harder to come to you. I am needed at home. I know that soon I will have to choose between you and my family, and it is SO hard. I love you. I didn’t think it was possible to love a boy so much. But
…

The page was torn and I skipped to the next page to find a clearer entry.

I saw you today and we lay in our favourite spot, listening to the babbling, spitting brook, and I had my head on your chest and felt your heartbeat so strong, and wanted never to come home. But real life is intervening, sweetest. I am lying on my bed, knowing that soon I will need to go to my mother and tell her I will never leave her, and always look after her because I am all she has got. She won’t live forever. That is clearer to me now than it ever has been.

I turned the page to see a drawing of a river and some trees. It wasn’t good, it was naïve and out of proportion, and in the corner there was a crudely drawn pair of wings with the words
My Angel
written underneath. I felt as though I was intruding and I wondered who she was, this love-struck girl. And how on earth Luca had come to have her diary.

Real life is intervening
… What did she mean?

I shut the book, saving the rest for another time, and got back into bed, gently shifting Dot over as she slept.

I didn’t dream that night, I fell into a peaceful sleep. But my last thought was of a rushing stream, beside which a girl and a boy lay blissfully in each other’s arms.

‘Y
ou need to relax your shoulders,’ Evan told me as I bent, cue in hands, over the table. ‘Just let them flop.’

I tried to do as he said, but it was difficult to relax with a demi-god beside me. Evan laughed. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ he said, picking up his bottle of beer and taking a swig.

I trained the wooden cue to line up with the white ball. I knew I needed to hit it against the red ball so that it rolled into the corner pocket. I took a clumsy shot and the ball bounced off the side of the table and on to the floor. I grunted impatiently.

‘I’m a most unsatisfactory pool partner.’ I looked apologetically at Evan. ‘I should have warned you that I’m not the most coordinated person in the world.’ I went over to pick up the ball and as I straightened up, caught him watching me carefully. ‘Feel free to play with someone else.’

‘I don’t want to play with anyone else,’ he said, smoothly. He finished his beer. ‘But I’ll get us another drink and we can have a break.’

‘Great.’ As Evan walked over to the bar to get himself another beer and a Coke for me, I looked around the crowded room to find somewhere to sit. Against a wall was a soft leather couch, unoccupied and inviting. I headed for it, sat down and curled up with my legs tucked under me.

We’d driven out a few miles to this pool hall. It was mostly men, boys. A few girlfriends stood around, looking bored and swigging at bottles of Bacardi Breezer or whatever, dressed up to the nines on a Saturday night. I’d spent two hours hurling my dismal clothing around my bedroom. Eventually I’d cut the sleeves off an old tight black T-shirt and turned it into a mini-skirt over black tights and newly washed white Converse plimsolls. Then I’d ironed a white cotton shirt and put that on top. I washed my hair and let it dry in big glossy curls. Looking in the mirror, I was relieved to see that I didn’t look a complete mess. At least my legs were long and the shirt disguised my burgeoning chest. The last thing I wanted was to look like I was showing off my body. I didn’t like it enough to do that.

‘You look great,’ Evan had said, when I’d arrived to meet him five minutes early. Amazingly my mother had been pleased I was going out. With a boy. Dot had obviously convinced her he wasn’t an axe-murderer and when I’d finally got the courage to tell her and Dad I had ‘a sort-of date’ she’d not batted an eyelid. Dad had muttered something about the years flying faster than a rat out of a trap. But Mum had shushed him, telling him he should be glad I was just doing what all sixteen-year-olds do.

She’d insisted on giving me a lift in her car as far as the main street, leaving too much time to get there of course. I was pretty sure she’d spy on us for a while before driving off again. But I was too grateful for her good mood to mind if she did. It made a nice change from the gloom and doom she’d be spreading lately.

‘It’s good to see you have legs,’ she said, giving one of them a pat. ‘Great legs, too.’ She’d smiled wistfully. ‘Your grandmother had a great pair of pins.’

‘You think there’s too much leg?’ I said, worried, pulling down my skirt.

‘At your age, there’s no such thing.’ She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Have fun. And tell this Evan we’d like to meet him sometime.’

‘Mother.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Are you trying to get rid of him already? ’Cause he’s kind of got a history of running away.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure that’s all behind him now.’

We had pulled up just behind the main road, in accordance with my specific instructions.

‘Go on. And I’ll see you back home by eleven. OK?’

‘OK.’ I opened the car door, nerves gripping my stomach. ‘But don’t be surprised if I’m back in half an hour.’

As I shut the door, I left Mum shaking her head, smiling, waiting a bit before she started the engine. I wished I shared her confidence about the evening. Honestly. I was terrified.

And sitting curled up on the leather sofa, looking at these other girls, I felt immature and clueless. What the hell does he see in me? I thought, watching as Evan joked with the barman and collected our drinks.