Authors: CJ Rutherford,Colin Rutherford
3 – Belfast – Graduation ceremony
One year ago
“Are you going to eat that?” Perri laughed, as she expertly snagged the last bit of bacon from her friend’s almost empty plate, stuffing it into her mouth as she grinned broadly.
“I hate you,” Katheryne said, chuckling, even though it was the crispy bit she loved so much.
Perri’s auburn curls shook as she laughed triumphantly. “Hate you more.” She smiled as she finished their customary exchange, between chews of the bacon.
They sat outside a little cafe on the Dublin road, down the street from the hotel where Perri’s parents stayed last night. The spring sunshine was shining through the leaves, and cherry blossom fluttered like hundreds of butterflies as the gentle breeze disturbed it.
Katheryne smiled at her friend and wondered, not for the first time, how they’d ever ended up this close.
Perri and she were like sisters and best friends rolled into one, but were complete opposites in looks and personality. They were living proof of the age-old proverb that opposites attract.
Katheryne was pretty, beautiful in fact, although she would never have acknowledged that. Her fine featured face held a pair of bright, emerald eyes, framed by long, golden, honey-coloured hair falling halfway down her back. This, along with her slim, willowy figure, attracted more than her fair share of attention from the opposite sex. She had her hang-ups, and more than a few demons in her past, like many other young people, but she’d learnt to deal with them, gradually, with the help of others. The therapist had helped, but it had been her friends who had been there around the clock to help her through the dark moments of self-pity.
It had been a long and tiresome struggle, but Katheryne had a comfortable relationship with food again. So much so, she really missed that last piece of bacon.
Her personality was at odds with her beauty queen looks. Events over the last few years caused her to withdraw into herself, almost to the point of shyness, but once past the barriers, the depth in her emerald-green eyes became clear. Her delicate, beautiful features hid a pool of strength, of which Katheryne was unaware; at the time, anyway.
Perri, meanwhile…well, Perri was just Perri. She was loud and strong willed, but with a smile and sense of humour that she used to diffuse the delicate situations she sometimes found herself in. If she were honest with herself, she would admit she caused a fair percentage of those situations.
Perri’s hair framed a pale face with a pair of dark brown eyes, a button nose and a full mouth, which was usually moving. She was no beauty, but striking, and her personality forced people to look beyond the exterior.
She used her brashness and confidence, along with her looks, to become quite a presence among students and staff alike, and it was unlikely there was anyone on campus who was unaware of her. Any enemies she made didn’t stay around for long. They either left her alone, after realising that winning against her was impossible, or more often, became her close friends.
Perri also had a soft streak a mile wide, which she kept well hidden behind the brazenness and sheer volume, but of which Katheryne was fully aware. She was lucky to be counted as her friend. The pair had been inseparable for years, since meeting at Victoria College boarding school.
Katheryne’s parents had been scientists. Jason and Alice McNair were famous. Their work involved frequent travel, which was why Katheryne, during her secondary education, only saw her parents at school holidays. Even then, it was unusual to have them both at home at the same time.
Perri’s mother was a former student at Victoria, and firmly believed this school had shaped her young adult life, and set her on course for a successful future. She wanted the same for Perri, but the road hadn’t been as straight or uneventful in her daughter’s case.
Today was special. The crowd of passers-by, mostly students and their families, were there for the Queens university graduation. There were dark gowns everywhere, identical to the ones worn by the two girls.
“Hey, Ceilidh!” Perri waved, as a pretty, dark-haired girl passed their table. She smiled as she came over, accompanied by a tall red-headed man. “Hello, Declan.” Perri beamed at him, and Declan blushed. Perri had been flirting mischievously with Ceiledh’s dad for years. “So, are you guys coming down to Lavery’s later? We’ve a couple of pool tables booked upstairs. All the gang’s going.” She played with her hair as she looked up at Declan. “Come on, Dec. Us redheads have to stick together.”
Katheryne and Ceiledh shared a knowing glance. They knew Perri would run a mile if Declan showed the slightest interest, but then they had been playing this little game for a long time.
Declan ran his fingers over his own short crop. “Awk, Perri. Sure ye know this is African sunset, not ginger.”
All of them laughed at the old joke. Ceiledh grabbed her dad’s hand, pulling him down the street as she shouted back over her shoulder. “Aye, we’ll see you there later, but you two need to hurry. You’ll be late for the ceremony.” The crowd swallowed them in seconds.
“Where are your mum and dad?” asked Katheryne, fidgeting as she glanced up the street. “It’s almost time to go.”
“Oh, knowing them, they’re taking heed of the advice I gave them last night.” Perri smirked.
“What advice?” Katheryne smiled, because she already knew the answer.
“To get a room!” Giggles defeated any fleeting attempt to compose herself, and both girls descended into uncontrollable laughter.
“Good morning, girls,” said Perri’s mother, picking this moment to walk up to their table, hand in hand with her husband. The girls looked at each other, tears streaming down their cheeks, and promptly lost any semblance of self-control. They chuckled helplessly.
“You know, I wonder sometimes what sort of monster we’ve created,” pondered Perri’s father, Chris, as he looked on smiling.
Amanda, Perri’s mother, also smiled. “I blame the company she keeps. I mean, she’s always been such a quiet, impressionable child. Well, until the last few years, at least.”
She looked fondly on the two girls as they gradually regained their senses. Amanda loved her daughter dearly, but held no illusions about the impact of Katheryne’s appearance in her life. Amanda suppressed a shudder, remembering her fears of how Perri might have turned out, had she grown up among the group of friends which stole her away from her parents for over a year.
Katheryne had seen the real Perri inside. The moment they met, she sensed a kindred spirit. She knew Perri was secretly desperate to escape the group, which had drawn her into their world of bullying and abuse. The thought of these so called friends turning their spite onto her, terrified Perri. It was Katheryne who suffered more than a year of taunts and attacks, to reach out and give Perri the strength to fight back.
And in customary Perri style, the fight was spectacular, resulting in two broken noses, (neither of them hers), several black eyes, and a healthy collection of bumps, scrapes and bruises.
Since then, Katheryne had been a sister to Perri, more-so in the last two years since the accident which killed Katheryne’s mother. Since then, she’d been a permanent fixture in their lives, an adopted family member who, in Amanda’s eyes, was as close as her own blood.
Amanda felt guilty sometimes, because Chris and she were playing the part of both parents. Katheryne only had her father left after the accident, and Amanda thought, almost bitterly, about him now. This was his daughter’s one and only graduation, and he’d been too busy to come. She remembered the haunted look he’d had at the funeral, his tortured eyes filled with the irrational blame he felt, and the need to find an explanation for what happened. He’d thrown himself into his work, at the cost of everything external to it, even his surviving daughter.
Today, however, was about her girls, so she released Chris, and reached with her hands to both of them.
“Come on you two. We took longer to, um, get ready,” she said, blushing underneath her makeup, “but we’d better be off. God knows, I’m sure this place will be glad to get rid of the pair of you, if even half the rumours I’ve heard are true.”
Katheryne looked across to Perri with a wide-eyed expression as she stage whispered, “How did they hear about you in Science with Mr Johnson?”
Perri feigned a look of shock. “Kat, it was Biology with Mr Johnson, remember?” She swept her hair aside with a nonchalant shrug, and again they descended into a giggling fit.
“Joke, Daddy,” Perri gasped to her father between breaths. Her father gave her one of his hard stares. Perri knew when not to step over the line, but she reckoned today of all days she could push the boundaries. Just not too much. She respected him and his blood pressure too much to go too far. Besides, it was time to go.
As the four of them walked across Shaftesbury Square, towards the main university building, Katheryne had never felt happier. She had no idea of the trials that lay ahead, for all of them.
4 – Belfast – Eyes in the mirror
Present day
“There’s your friend again,” said Perri, smirking, while flicking her eyes toward someone behind Katheryne’s shoulder.
“Stop it Perri!” snapped Katheryne. There was an edge to her voice. Perri was always trying to set her up with someone or other, but this evening she just wasn’t in the mood. She was tired, and knew she should have stayed at home tonight.
The ‘friend’ in question, had so far avoided her gaze, as every time she glanced round, he vanished into thin air. This was the third bar they’d been to this evening. It was their friend Stacey’s birthday party, but this, ‘invisible stranger’ turned up, according to Perri at least, right after they arrived in each one.
Perri was good with faces, especially cute boy faces, which this one obviously was, judging by the eager expression on her face. Perri liked boys. Considering they’d attended an all-girls school, it was amazing she’d racked up the amount of boyfriends she had. Katheryne knew Perri wasn’t a slut or anything; it was just her confidence and manner made it easy for her to go after anything, or anyone, she set her sights on. Sometimes the boys in question even had a choice, Katheryne thought, with an inward chuckle.
“C’mon, it’s your round,” Perri shouted over the music, as she dragged Katheryne to her feet, and pushed through the crowd toward the packed bar. Although the student population dwindled at the end of term, a Saturday night in Belfast was always buzzing.
As they stood there waiting, Katheryne’s eyes were drawn to the mirror behind the bar, and she stood staring at the crowd reflected in it. Something wasn’t right. It felt like someone was watching her, and she tensed as she glimpsed a reflection of dark eyes staring at her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose up. Goose bumps appeared on her arms as she felt a mild electric shock wash over her body. Her face flushed, and her heart raced as she tried to turn, but she couldn’t move a muscle. She was a rabbit trapped in the headlights of an onrushing car, waiting for the inevitable to happen, completely dazzled and mesmerised by the intensity of those impossible eyes. Both of them were trapped, unwilling and unable to look away from each other. The longing reflected from the gaze hit her full force. She felt love, denial and hopelessness, and part of her broke inside. This being, whoever he was, was in pain.
“What’s your’s luv?” shouted the barman over the noise, shattering her out of the spell. For a second, Katheryne reeled in shock, but she shook herself and turned to look around. A horrible sensation of loss settled at her core, as she desperately searched the crowd; but whoever those impossibly bright, dark eyes belonged to had disappeared.
At this point, all Katheryne wanted to do was turn to Perri and tell her she wanted to go. Her heart was beating harder than she could ever remember, and a cold pit formed in her stomach.
Unfortunately, Perri was busy talking to a tall blonde man and his friend; for a second Katheryne wanted to run, knowing this would be another matchmaking fiasco.
This may have been on Perri’s agenda, until she turned and saw Katheryne’s terrified expression. She turned to the guy, shouting they’d be right back, before grabbing Katheryne by the elbow and heading for the door. As they got out into the fresh air, Perri turned to her friend, a look of consternation on her face.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Perri frowned, standing with her arms crossed, waiting for an explanation. She knew Katheryne hadn’t wanted to come out this evening, but earlier she’d detected the signs of the depression she thought passed months ago. She wasn’t about to take any crap excuse for bailing on her and her friends. Especially, she mused, when the guy she’d just been talking to seemed so responsive.
“I think . . . Perri, I don’t understand what I saw, but whatever it was I can’t explain it,” said Katheryne, breathlessly. Her head reeled. What she’d just seen, if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing, was impossible, but she needed to tell her friend.
Perri’s concern, the suspicion she’d had a few minutes ago in the club, perked itself up again. She’d also seen something which disturbed her.
“OK, Kat, you’re scaring me now.” Perri’s voice trembled. She hadn’t seen her friend this jumpy in months. “Are you sure you even saw anything? I mean, it was pretty dark in there and the lights...”
Katheryne cut her off sharply. “I’m not crazy, Perri. I might not know what I saw in there, but I’m sure it was real . . . well, sort of . . . I think.”
The uncertainty in Katheryne’s voice mingled with something else, and Perri shuddered when she realised it was fear, terror even.
Katheryne’s voice trembled as she spoke. “It was the dream, Perri.” She looked up, and Perri couldn’t mistake the fear in her eyes. “The guy I saw in there. I’ve been seeing him in my dreams.”
For a second, Perri looked like she would ridicule the whole idea.
Man of my dreams . . . yeah, right
, until she saw the pained expression on Katheryne’s face.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Perri, realised the sight she’d seen earlier might be linked to what Katheryne was talking about. She felt a shiver go up her spine, and looked around quickly, but saw nothing beside the normal human traffic of a late Saturday evening.
Katheryne slumped down on the low wall outside the bar, and closed her eyes. “I didn’t get a good look at his face, but his eyes, it was like they were looking into me, not just at me. God, I’m going mad.” Katheryne snorted. “Must be the lack of sleep.”
Perri narrowed her eyes. “You told me the dreams had gone.”
This just gets better and better
, she thought.
“Well, about that.” Katheryne looked down at the ground. She supposed she’d better get this over with. “Gone might have been too strong a word.” She could tell Perri was angry with her, and she didn’t blame her. She’d sworn to her she hadn’t had a dream in weeks. It was the only way she’d been able to persuade Perri to take the job in Dublin, while she stayed on in the apartment they’d rented shortly after graduating from Queens. Now the look of guilt on Perri’s face nearly broke Katheryne’s heart.
Perri, however, gave herself a shake, and stood up. “Wait there and I’ll get our coats. You can tell me all about it when we get home.”
Katheryne nodded her head in thanks, and sat waiting for her friend. This was a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to.
*
Across the street, a young man and woman sat on a bench with their backs to the club. Both of them had piercing blue eyes. His were unusually dark, a shade of blue just lighter than black, while the girl’s were the colour of pale morning dew. The woman’s long hair was the colour of pale gold, almost white. He had wavy, jet black hair reaching down to the nape of his neck, but besides these cosmetic differences, their similarity was unmistakable. But then, this was common in twins.
The blonde woman looked over her shoulder, at the solitary young woman sitting on the low wall, and chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” grunted Derren sullenly, making a conscious effort not to look round himself.
“I can see why you fell in love with her, she is beautiful. Different, somehow, from the others.” Krista turned to her brother. “How is that possible, do you think?” The question was rhetorical, but she raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
Derren did his best to ignore his sister’s question, but it was no good. Krista always enjoyed exploiting her brother’s discomfort. It was a game they both played.
“I wonder what the Leadership back on Sanctuary might say about your . . . attraction,” she said, teasing him.
“I’m not in love with her,” grumbled Derren, even worse-tempered this time. He turned, so his sister could look up into his eyes. “I’m
not
in love with her.”
“If you say so, little brother,” muttered Krista, as she glanced over again, smiling. The girl with the dark red hair had returned with their coats, and both got up ready to leave.
“Explain how she could see you again?” asked Krista, taunting her little brother of all of seven minutes. “Her, and her little red-headed friend there too. That shouldn’t be possible. We should be invisible to everyone here.”
“Her friend,” replied Derren in an exasperated tone, “whose name is Perri, in case you’re interested, seems to have some level of power. Undeveloped, but enough to break through a common diffraction cloak at least. Once I realised she could see me I fixed the error. It won’t be a problem again.” Derren’s face reddened. He didn’t like making mistakes, but he had made too many assumptions about the level of power they expected to encounter here.
“And Katheryne? How do you explain that one?” Krista looked at him with her crooked smile.
“I’m not sure,” Derren replied, as he shifted in his seat. Krista sensed an undercurrent of deception. “It may be something to do with the fact I’ve been shielding her visions for the last two months. We’ve become . . . close, somehow.”
“Hmm, close.” Krista leaned over and whispered into her brother’s ear. “Keep telling yourself that, brother dear. One day you might even believe it.”
She stood up and held out her hand. “Come on, they’re leaving; we better stay close . . . just not too close, okay?” She smiled wickedly, and Derren gave her a smouldering look.
“One day, dear sister, one day.” This was all he could manage, but he’d get his own back, even if it meant putting pepper in her pants, like he’d done as a kid. Hmm, that might even be worth the pain, he thought.
“What are you smiling at?” asked Krista as they walked after the two girls.
“Oh, nothing,” said Derren, still smiling. “Nothing at all.”
As they followed at a distance, Derren’s thoughts turned to the first time he’d seen Katheryne’s face.