Five: A Maor Novel (Maor series) (8 page)

Chapter 11

Cosy

Tastes like: Warm Christmas
pudding.

Smells like: Home-made
chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.

Sounds like: Logs crackling
on a fire.

Feels like: A hand-made
jersey.

Looks like: A puppy, asleep
in the curve of its mother’s belly.

I wake, crumpled and aching to the shrill ring of a
telephone. Sunlight streams through the window, directly into my eyes. I throw
one arm over my face and grope along the floor for my cell phone with the other
hand. My neck is frozen in an inhuman position and there is a dull throbbing in
my head, made worse by the realization of who is on the other end of the line.

I chose that bland ring tone especially for my mother
and I’m not sure I’m ready to speak to her yet. My finger hovers over the red
reject icon but I sigh and touch the green one instead.

‘Baby, why haven’t you called?’ mom’s voice berates me
across the airwaves. ‘Your father and I have been worried about you!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, although I most definitely am not. ‘I’ve
just been a little busy – you know - trying to understand everything you’ve
been hiding from me.’

I hear the sharp intake of her breath a thousand miles
away and realize how incredibly angry I am. It isn’t just a simple lie. It’s my
entire life she has fabricated.

‘Your father and I had good reason for keeping this from
you,’ my mother says.
 
‘We did what we
thought was best for you at the time.’

‘You just delayed the inevitable.’

I hear the catch in her reply: ‘We only wanted to keep
you safe.’ God, I am so sick of that word. There is a beat of silence. ‘I wish
we could be there with you.’ Her voice wavers but her weakness only hardens my
resolve.

‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

‘Yes, someday... We just didn’t expect
this
.’

She exhales on the other end of the line and I can
picture her, sitting by the kitchen counter, one perfectly manicured hand on
the back of her neck and the other cupping the portable telephone receiver to
her ear.

‘When were you going to tell me about Tristan?’ I ask,
gripping the phone against my ear and turning my unseeing gaze to the horizon.

Another beat of silence.

‘We weren’t.’

‘So you were just going to drop the bomb on my wedding
day?’

‘No -’

‘The day before the wedding then?’

‘Shaylee, stop it! Just listen -’

Something inside me snaps at the word ‘listen’. It feels
like that’s all I’ve been doing my entire life; ‘listening’ to what others have
to say and ‘obeying’ what others tell me I should and shouldn’t be doing.

‘No,’ I say, ‘you had your chance to talk and I’m done
listening
. I
won’t
be getting married to a stranger, and I
won’t
be taking orders from that glorified bodyguard-’
 

‘Shaylee Greene!’ mom interrupts, voice rising. ‘This
isn’t a game. You have to listen to Kael!’

‘Why should I? He’s only a year or so older than me. I’m
tired of listening to everyone else. It’s
my
life and I’m going to start doing what
I
want
for a change.’

‘Shaylee Greene! You do what he says, do you hear me?’
she shouts frantically into the receiver. ‘He’s your protector!’

‘I don’t need protection. I can take care of myself,’ I
say and hang up.

My cell phone rings and I flip the side switch to mute.
A few missed calls later, another phone begins to ring somewhere in the bowels
of the house, but nobody answers and eventually, it stops. The sudden silence
is deafening. I can hear the electricity humming in the appliances and the soft
whisper of the water fountain below my bedroom window.

Apparently Nan is not home. I wonder where she has gone
and then I wonder why she’s left me alone, after all that talk of ‘things’ and
‘protection.’
 

I shrug, grab a pair of jeans, one of my more colorful
crochet tops that hangs lose over one shoulder in hippie style and a strap top
for underneath, and then I head into the shower. When I’m done shampooing my
hair, I give it a quick towel dry, twist it into a loose knot at the nape of my
neck and dress quickly before heading downstairs in search of food.

There isn’t much in Nan’s refrigerator that appeals to
me, but I manage to find a small packet of mini tennis biscuits in one of the
cupboards to munch on as I stroll through the house.
 
 

When I come to the front room, I stop in front of the
large windows and stare out at the green lawn. A vision looms in my mind.
Me, five years old, stomach aching from
laughter, tumbling down the sloping lawn. At the bottom of the slope, where the
lawn meets forest, I stumble to my feet. The world shifts beneath me but I turn
and shout, ‘Come on!’ and disappear in a drunken zigzag into the trees.

It feels like more than just a vision. It feels like a
memory.

‘We’re all next door.’

I jump at the voice and spin to find Kael leaning
against the door frame. The
memory
is
still so vivid in my mind that I sway against a wave of dizziness. I reach
instinctively for the nearest chair to steady myself, but instead of plush velvet
upholstery, my hand connects with warm flesh. My eyes shoot up to Kael’s as a
crackle of energy passes from my fingertips into his arm.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ he says, frowning
at the place where my hand touches him. I steady myself and quickly snatch my hand
away.

‘Where’s Nan?’ I ask, inching a step backwards. I can’t
help myself; I don’t understand this connection between us and it scares me.

‘At our house for lunch. It’s kind of a weekly thing.’

‘Oh… have you been waiting for me?’

‘Of course,’ he says, ‘you didn’t think we’d leave you
all alone did you?’

I shake my head, although that is exactly what I was
thinking.

‘Your mom called, by the way,’ Kael says.

I groan and close my eyes.

‘I figured you didn’t want to talk to her, so I promised
you’d call back tomorrow.’

‘Um, thanks.’ I glance at him and wonder just how much
of our telephone conversation my mother has shared with him.

Kael straightens and sweeps a hand toward the door.

‘The food’s just about ready,’ he says.

‘Right.’ I follow his gesture and lead the way out the
front door. Kael falls into step beside me and together, we make our way toward
the hedges that separate Nan’s property from his.
 
 

‘Are you feeling better today?’ he asks.

‘Yes, thanks,’ I say, flushing at the memory of fainting
in the hall – and the memory of his arms around me. I hate that his first
impression of me is one of weakness.

‘You were up late,’ Kael observes.
 

‘So were you,’ I reply.

He gives me a wry smile.

‘One of the side-effects of my job.’

I want to ask him what exactly that means. Where does he
work, or is he referring to his position as my bodyguard? What does he mean by ‘side-effects’
and how does that translate into insomnia?

We’ve reached a gap in the hedge and Kael steps back,
puts his hand on the small of my back to lead me through and I forget what I’m
about to say. The static flows between us until we’re on the other side of the
bushes and he drops his hand.

We pause on the other side and look at each other. The
look is pregnant and awkward, like we both want to talk about this thing that
happens when we touch, but we’re too afraid to broach the subject. After a
moment, Kael glances away, at the house and says: ‘Well, this is it.’

I turn my attention to the modest single storey home
that looks almost frugal beside Nan’s double storey. There is a distinct aura
emanating from the earthy, face brick façade and cottage-pane windows. The
porch is covered with hanging plants and I can smell rosemary, lavender, sage,
garlic and roast meat. I’m not sure if the herbal aromas are coming from the
home-made, hanging herb garden, or from the kitchen.

‘It’s lovely,’ I say, and mean it. Even from the outside,
I can tell this isn’t just a house, it’s a
home
.

We head up the steps and Kael opens the door for me to
step through. Inside, is a living room, modestly furnished with an oversized,
brown sofa. Piles of well-thumbed books are strewn across a rectangle, wooden
coffee table. A small bookcase in the corner is filled with old and new recipe
books, and there is a magnificent cuckoo clock that dominates the wall opposite
the front door. A small basket lays on the floor, beside an old leather armchair,
overflowing with spools of embroidery thread in every color imaginable.

The room is empty of people, but full of life. The smell
of roasting meat wafts, with the sound of laughter from somewhere at the back
of the house.

‘They’re in the kitchen,’ Kael says. I follow him through
a room with an enormous pool table into a large open-plan dining and kitchen
area.

‘Bluebell!’ Nan rises from a bar stool at the curved
kitchen counter. ‘Did you sleep well?’ I nod, kiss her cheek and step back to
take stock of the other occupants of the room.

‘Let me introduce you to the Gregors,’ Nan says, ‘This
is Sandra.’

A grey-haired woman with pink, apple cheeks and
laugh-lines around her eyes beams at me and limps around the counter. She wipes
her hands on the blue and green checkered apron spanning her ample waist, throws
her arms around me and squeezes.

‘It’s great to have you home again, love!’

Her voice has a touch of Scottish brogue and it rumbles
from deep in her stomach, gentle and joyful in one. I’m not used to hugging
strangers, so I squeeze her back awkwardly for a second, and then step back.
She’s looking at me like I’m a long-lost daughter and it makes me feel guilty
and warm at once. Should I remember her? Why don’t I?

She smiles at me, grabs hold of my hand and squeezes.
She seems to understand me somehow.
It’s
okay if you don’t remember
, her eyes say,
I remember you
. I blink back the unexpected moisture in my eyes,
squeeze her hand and return my attention to Nan.
  
 
 

‘You’ve already met Jake,’ Nan says. She takes a step toward
Jake and slips her hand into the crook of his arm. It’s such a casual movement,
but my eyes lock on the point where her pale fingers meet Jake’s sun-bronzed
skin. I look up at his face, then at hers, searching for any tell-tale signs.
Does electricity flow between them too? Is this a normal
seastnan
thing, part of the bond? Both of them are smiling and
there is no hint of discomfort or awareness between them. Have they just become
so used to this phenomenon that they no longer notice it?

‘This is Kael’s brother, Kent,’ Nan says, drawing my
attention to the younger version of Jake with the mischievous eyes. He can’t be
more than two or three years younger than Kael, but there is an air about each
of them that makes the difference seem like decades.

‘The Kent who gets into trouble playing pranks?’ I ask,
remembering the snippets of Nan and Jake’s conversation in the car. Jake laughs
and ruffles his grandson’s hair.

‘Your reputation precedes you, my boy,’ he says.

‘Aw, gramps!’ Kent grins, face reddening. He grabs his
grandfather around the back of the neck and rubs his knuckles playfully against
his graying head.
 
 

‘Now boys,’ Sandra admonishes, as they erupt into a
playful fight, nearly toppling the vegetable trays beneath the counter in their
exuberance. ‘This kitchen is too crowded, off with you.’

Kent plants one last right hook on his grandfather’s arm
and scampers out of the kitchen with Jake hot on his tail and their shouts of
laughter trailing behind.

‘You too, Kael,’ Sandra says but he makes no move to
follow. She frowns and waves a dish towel at him. ‘Go on. Shaylee will be fine
here with us for a while.’

My
seastnan
grunts,
snatches a bright red apple from the fruit basket on the counter, looks at me one
last time and disappears from the kitchen.

Sandra watches him go with a pensive expression.

‘That boy is way too serious,’ she mumbles.

She shakes her head and hands me a knife, glass bowl, two
tomatoes, a cucumber and a head of lettuce. I assume she wants me to make
salad, so I start chopping as she busies herself peeling potatoes. Nan sits on
the opposite side of the counter, watching us.

We work in companionable silence and I begin to relax,
content just to bask in the warmth of a well-made home.
Is this how it was before
, I wonder.