Authors: Katie M John
*
All that night, I was attacked by dreams that made no sense. Dreams full of blood and mud, of cold grey glinting steel and a winter sky cut through with a flock of cawing black birds. And even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was there; standing at the side of my bed, her one crone hand pressing the air from my lungs, the other injecting my heart with a terrifying love poison When I woke, breathless and half terrified at the breaking of the dawn I felt I’d been through the ravages of battle.
4. INTO TEMPTATION
Overnight the snow had draped the garden in a soft sheet of whiteness, well and truly burying the evidence of the hyacinth crime. I didn’t hear Sam leave for college and I wondered if he’d headed home last night instead of staying.
When at last I set off, Blake’s coat bundled up in my arms, I saw the ghostly remains of Sam’s footsteps pressed into the snow late last night. Using them as my guide, I let my own feet press heavily into them imagining them pressing into the surface of my heart. But amongst the weighty sadness, there was a flutter as if a fledgling bird was fluttering its wings; it was the knowledge that today I’d see Blake.
I walked to college slowly, enjoying the sensation of the whole world being asleep. By the time I arrived, I was late even by my standards; time keeping not being one of my strengths. The whole school was in class and now I had the dilemma of missing lesson or making an embarrassingly dramatic entrance into English
;
and with Blake’s coat!
Swearing, I glanced at my watch but before I could register the time, my eyes were distracted by something laying on the surface of the snow. Crouching down on my
hind quarters
with the morbid curiosity of a child, I inspected the fragile corpse of a butterfly; its rich orange and red wings like a blood stain against the snow. I looked down in horrified fascination at the wretched creature, which having been completely out of time with the rest of the world, had perished as a result. I reached out my hand to touch it but as soon as my finger made contact with it, it disintegrated into a coloured dust spreading out across the snow like a smear of paint on a blank canvas.
A pair of navy converse alerted me to the fact that my bizarre behaviour was being closely witnessed. The embarrassment held me in suspension and I took a long blink hoping that whoever it was might just vanish. A hand came down into view, offering me a hand up - the exact opposite of what I wanted. My desired direction was down into the ground because I knew without looking that the hand belonged to Blake.
Rejecting his help, I struggled to my feet, hot blood rushing to my cheeks. I could barely think how I would be able to look at him and when I finally managed to brave it out, all I could see was an amused and curious smile dancing over his lips.
Snow began to fall and, whether it was the blood rushing to my head, or the effect Blake had on me, I had the sudden feeling of being turned slowly upside down inside of a snow-globe. Time slid; the snow fell in slow motion and Blake looked deep into my eyes. I was transfixed on a single snowflake that was balanced on one of his long dark eyelashes. His brown eyes were the only promise of warmth in the whole landscape.
The spell was suddenly broken by Blake’s warm and amused voice, “Ah! It would seem that we’re both faced with the same dilemma.’ His eyes flashed with promise.
I smiled back in response, not trusting myself to speak without making a further idiot of myself.
“So…are you going to tell me what is quite so fascinating about that particular patch of floor?” he said, laughing.
I shrugged, “Nothing - it was nothing. I was tying my shoe lace.”
Blake looked down at my zip up boots and looked away, letting it go.
“So to be or not to be?” he said nodding in the direction of the English block.
“I don’t know. Dwell’s a real time beast.”
He smiled, “Some people just find time more important than others.” He looked at me and I couldn’t help but sense he was trying to say something more, that he was urging me to understand a hidden message but before I could fathom, he went on, “Look, I don’t know about you but I am freezing and the thought of Dwell’s frosty reception doesn’t fill me with a warm glow. However…” he cracked a flirtatious smile, “…hot chocolate at the bookshop seems tempting. How about it? Can I tempt you?”
This was the moment. This choice, at this point would set the whole future in motion. I hesitated and Blake seemed slightly surprised which I found to my surprise a little irritating. Sensing my indecision he shuffled slightly, not quite so sure of himself as he had been.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you probably have to be somewhere after class. It was rude of me to assume you didn’t have other commitments.”
He turned to move away and as he did, I was grabbed by an extreme sense of panic. The moment was about to slip through my fingers, “No!” I blurted out rather too loudly. “I mean, no, I don’t have anywhere to be after class.” My stomach lurched.
Blake smiled at me holding out his hand for his coat which I realised with yet more embarrassment, I’d been hugging tightly to my chest. We made our way out of the side gate walking side by side with the tantalising understanding that it would have been natural for us to reach out and take each
others
hand but knowing it was wildly off limits. It was only when we were half-way down the road that I realised all of this had happened outside the window of Sam’s Maths class, giving him a ring side view.
Blake and I walked most of the way into town in silence and I wondered if Blake was truly aware of the enormity of what I was doing. I shifted my thoughts to more abstract things, like the feel of my leather gloves, the snow flakes on my velvet jacket, the crunch of the snow underfoot, the flash of red from a robin. Things that were delicious but harmless and somehow in Blake’s presence they all seemed more delicious than I’d ever noticed.
*
I was brought back to reality by the quaint ring of the brass bell above the bookshop door. Blake pushed the door open, striding backwards so that I could go through first. His old world charm struck me as out of place and it made me smile in a way which he’d probably not intended it to.
We made our way to the back of the shop and ordered two mugs of creamy hot chocolate, with marshmallows on top for me and nutmeg for him, before settling down into a sofa each. At last the tension caused the silence to break.
“I’ve got a bit of a confession to make,” he said looking slightly uneasy, “there’s a reason I asked you to come here with me and it’s going to sound like a really embarrassing cliché so I apologise in advance.” He smiled a wry smile and took a deep breath. “Here goes; I’m certain that I’ve met you before but I don’t know where or how?”
“You’re right, that was lame.” I laughed. “I’m positive that we haven’t met before,” I replied, certain I’d have remembered.
“But you see, we must have done,” he said with an odd certainty.
“No, really…” I nodded. “You’re confusing me with someone else.”
“No, I don’t think so…” he coughed with embarrassment, “You see I must have met you before because for the past three years I’ve dreamt of you.” He blushed and took refuge in his hot chocolate.
Laughter burst out of me before I had a chance to stop it and I saw from Blake’s reaction that he was being deadly serious. My laughter turned to confusion, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I did warn you I was about to make a fool of myself and I wasn’t going to say anything, but I need to know - I need to know how it’s possible that you - and it is you
-
have been in my dreams for three years when both of us are convinced that we first met only a couple of days ago. If it helps, I do know this sounds crazy so that’s good because it means I’m not
actually
crazy,” he said with a nervous laugh.
I looked over to the counter, embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. “If it helps I’ve a special – um - I mean strange feeling about you too. Oh god, did I say that - that came out
wrong.
I mean it’s not as if I think you’re odd or weird
or ...
” I blushed realising I’d fallen into a tangle of words that wouldn’t unravel no matter how many words I now desperately threw at it.
He smiled, “So Mina, how do we go on from here?”
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