Tagan's Child (49 page)

He grabbed her
elbow. “You need to leave Talina,” he said in a low menacing voice.
She pulled her arm free from his grip. “What? Leave the party when
it just started to get interesting?”

Something about
Ahran’s expression made me feel nauseous. “Tell her she’s a liar
Ahran,” I insisted, searching his eyes for the reassurance I
needed.

“We need to
talk,” he said, his eyes pleading with me.

I felt like I
had suddenly stepped onto a sinister merry-go-round at a Halloween
funfair. I felt off kilter and the soundtrack was sliding out of
key.

“So you are
saying you did kill my sister?” My voice rose an octave. I couldn’t
quite believe I was asking him this.

He opened and
then closed his mouth. The merry-go-round started to spin
faster.

“Ahran?!” I
demanded. Why wasn’t he saying no? People started to look in our
direction.

“Sophie, let’s
go somewhere more private,” he said as if he were placating a child
who was about to throw a tantrum.

I stood stock
still trying to make sense of what was happening. “You killed my
sister?” I said in a slow, disbelieving whisper.

He took a step
towards me. “Please let me explain.” I kept hearing his words but
every one of them jarred as if the pieces of the puzzle he was
handing me were the wrong shape.

“Do not come
near me,” I hissed. Suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen in my
system. I tried to breathe in more air but for some reason it made
no difference.

I caught
Talina’s satisfied expression.

“I’m going to
leave now,” I said in a daze and walked blindly out of the
room.

Ahran followed
me through the doors.

“Sophie, let me
explain.” I could hear the desperation in his voice. He had still
made no attempt to contradict what Talina had said.

“There is
really nothing I want to hear you say at the moment,” I said
coldly. “Don’t follow me, I need to get away from here and away
from you!”

I was
completely unmoved by the pain in his eyes.

“It’s not what
Talina would have you think. It was a terrible accident.” He was
determined to tell me whether I wanted to listen or not.

Waves of nausea
gripped my stomach.

“I don’t want
to hear this,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself in a vain
attempt to stop crumbling into a million little pieces.

“She spun
around the bend, she was driving too fast, I managed to avoid her
but …”

Tears were
streaming down my face and I rammed my hands over my ears.

“Stop it, just
stop it!” I screamed.

The bones in my
legs had suddenly disintegrated and my gut began to twist
violently. I reached for the wall to steady myself, gasping for
breath. My beloved sister had died because of Ahran.

He put out a
hand to offer me some support. “Don’t touch me,” I spat. My hand
came to rest on the wall in time and I was able to stop myself from
collapsing into a heap on the floor.

Everything was
a jumble in my head and I struggled to make any sense of it.
“Katie’s dead because of you. When were you planning on telling me
this?”

“I wanted to
tell you, I tried to tell you so many times but I couldn’t bring
myself to do it.” I could hear the anguish in his voice.

“What else have
you lied to me about?” I said, raising my head to look him in the
eyes.

“Nothing. I
swear,” he said desperately.

I’m not sure I
even recognised him. I turned away feeling like a robot. “Please
don’t follow me,” I said flatly.

“Sophie,
please.” His voice was a strangled cry. I held up my hand to him
and started to walk away. I wasn’t sure at that point where I was
going, all I knew was that Toby was safe and I needed to find some
air.

I can remember
thinking, what a clear, beautiful evening it was. I walked up the
hill, inhaling the smell of the grass that had been warmed by the
sun’s rays that day. It evoked that smell of the sun on Ahran that
first time I had met him. How long ago had that been? I really
couldn’t be sure. The last ten minutes had been so surreal, it made
me doubt everything that had happened.

I had no idea
whether the portal was still there but that’s where I found myself
heading. Home seemed a distant reality and somehow I had to get
there. I walked to the spot where I thought the portal was and took
a few faltering steps forward. The gut-wrenching sickness gripped
my stomach and I welcomed it. Within a few moments I was stumbling
through my woods. I’m not sure how long it took me to get home, it
could have been minutes, it could have been hours.

I spent the
next few days in suspended animation. It was like I had been
cryogenically frozen and it was taking a while to thaw out. The
problem was each time I thawed a little, I felt such heart
shredding, gut tearing anguish that I simply wasn’t strong enough
to deal with it and so I pressed the quick freeze button until I
was numb again. I stayed in the house, acting like my own personal
jailer. I kept the doors locked and the curtains pulled and ignored
the phone each time it rang, which was pretty much on the hour,
every hour, through the day and night until I ripped the plug out
of the wall. When I could be bothered to eat I ate what hadn’t gone
off in the cupboards. Ahran came a number of times, banging on the
door. On one occasion, I sat on the other side listening to him
calling my name, my mind and body numb. He could have easily kicked
the door in but he chose not to.

I’m not really
sure what went through my mind those first couple of days. I just
remember feeling utterly betrayed. Ahran had lied to me. It wasn’t
an inconsequential detail that had just slipped his mind, no, the
man I loved, who I had begun to trust my future with, had caused
the death of my precious sister and left her to die in a ditch. It
was this rather weighty detail he had neglected to tell me.

It sounded like
something on The Jeremy Kyle Show, a jaw dropping story you
marvelled at disbelievingly but were secretly thankful that it was
happening to someone else and not you. I spent most of the time sat
on the sofa, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling or sleeping.
Unfortunately, when I slept my guard was down and I dreamt a series
of terrifying dreams involving castles and guns, being chased by
faceless men, women in black dresses with red fingernails trying to
gouge my eyes out and a dream home that burst into flames every
time I put the key in the front door. Each time I woke up drenched
in sweat, screaming Ahran’s name. The whole cycle was abhorrent and
exhausting.

Eventually, the
desire to talk to Toby overrode everything else I was feeling. He
was the only thing in my life that came close to making any sense,
even if he was half alien. I wanted to cling to him and prevent
myself from drowning in my own personal sea of despair.

Where was the
phone that Ahran had given me? He had wanted me to call him if I
came across anyone suspicious. It turned out that the person I
should have been most suspicious of was him. It was an
uncomfortable irony. I had only used it once, the night Bennie had
come over and we had called Ahran to check out whether he was for
real. I grimaced. Ta da! Fake.

Perhaps the
palace’s number was on it. I hurried downstairs wracking my brain
as to where it was. I searched in all the obvious places and tried
to think back to when I had last had it. It had been at the
hospital after Audrey’s attack. I went to my coat hanging on the
coat rack in the hallway and sure enough it was in the pocket.

Bingo! There
were two numbers, the first was Ahran’s, the second read ‘Halsan’.
The only person I wanted to talk to was Toby, I certainly didn’t
want to talk to the King or Queen but before I could talk myself
out of it I hit the dial button for the palace and a man’s voice I
didn’t recognise answered.

“Oh hello,
could I speak to Toby McAllister please?” I knew I probably
wouldn’t be lucky enough to be put directly through to Toby but it
was worth a try.

“Who is calling
please?” asked the accented voice on the end of the line.

“Um, it’s
Sophie McAllister.”

“One moment
please.”

I waited some
time.

“Hello Sophie,
this is Sulaan.”

“Ah Sulaan,
thank goodness. I would really like to talk to Toby, is he
there?”

“Just hold on
one minute.”

I rolled my
eyes to the ceiling in frustration, was it always going to be this
difficult to speak to him when he was staying at the palace.

After waiting
an age I heard the line click.

“Sophie. How
are you?”

It was Halsan.
Tears of frustration began to sting my eyes. Was it too much to ask
to speak to my nephew? I didn’t want to explain myself to anyone.
“I’m fine thank you, can I speak to Toby?” I wasn’t in any
condition for small talk.

“I’m afraid he
has gone out with Ley.”

“I just want to
know if he’s okay.” I was struggling to prevent the tears from
betraying me. I missed him like crazy and felt terrible that I left
him in the way that I had. Such was the shock I had felt after
Talina’s disclosure I had barely known what I was doing. That
evening and the last couple of days were such a blur.

“He’s
absolutely fine, although he is really missing you and keeps asking
when you are coming back.”

“I don’t think
I will be coming back for a while. I think perhaps Toby ought to
come home.” I knew it was a long shot.

“You know I
can’t allow that to happen at the moment Sophie.”

My sob came out
before I could stop it.

“Sophie, are
you alright? Ahran told me you’d had a disagreement, surely it is
something that can be resolved.”

I almost
laughed. No, this was really something that could not be resolved,
unless Ramians had the ability to bring the dead back to life.

“I’m sorry, but
I don’t want to talk about it.” Could you please ask Toby to call
me when he gets back?”

“Yes of course,
as long as you are sure there isn’t anything else I can do.”

“No, I just
want to speak to Toby.”

“Very well,
take care Sophie, we shall speak again soon.”

“Goodbye.”

I threw myself
onto the sofa cushions and sobbed my heart out. What of my life
now? I had lost everything. I laid there for a long time. The last
conversation I’d had with Ahran played over and over in my head.
Why hadn’t he told me he had been to Hatherley a year ago?

The evening
Katie had been killed Toby had been at a party and Katie had gone
to collect him but never made it there. Her car had been found
facing the opposite direction in a ditch about a mile out of the
village. Why had Ahran been following her? And why had she turned
around? Thinking back to that evening I searched for the answers to
my questions. It all made very little sense. And then a thought
occurred to me. There had been a wrapped present sat on the kitchen
side. Toby must have forgotten to take it with him. Had Katie lost
her life that night because she had turned back to get it? I
wrapped my arms around myself as the events of that night came back
with crystal clarity. Tears fell silently down my cheeks. The sense
of loss I had felt the moment the doctors had told me they had been
unable to save her, came back with such force, pressing down on my
chest so painfully, that I hardly knew how to take my next breath.
And then to learn that the man I thought I loved had been the cause
of the accident and hadn’t told me, only amplified my anguish. I
just wanted to be sucked down into the earth, never to feel or be
again.

I must have
fallen asleep because I woke up cold and in the dark. As much as I
never wanted to set foot in Ramia again, I knew if I wanted to see
Toby I was going to have to go back. If he didn’t call this
evening, I would call again tomorrow and arrange to visit him.

I switched the
lamp on, went into the kitchen to advance the heating and switched
the kettle on. I hadn’t had a cup of tea since I’d been back and I
needed the reassuring feel of a mug of tea in my hands. There was a
bitter nip in the air and the heating would provide no more than a
background heat so whilst the kettle was boiling I laid a fire in
the log burner and lit it. Unfortunately, there was a far colder
chill at my core that I suspected even my wood burner would
struggle to warm. I sat back on my heels and stared into the flames
for a long time. Ahran had managed to rip a gaping hole in my chest
and there was no band aid big enough to cover it. I feared it would
never heal, that I would have to live the rest of my life with an
open wound, a constant reminder of how I had lost everything. I
closed my eyes and hung my head. Was breathing always going to be
this difficult? I curled up in a ball on the rug in front of the
fire, the kettle forgotten, and hugged myself, hoping the pressure
would contain the pain, but the agony continued to pulse through me
over and over again. For the first time in my life, I wondered
whether it was really worth carrying on.

*****

I opened my
eyes unsure of how long I had been lying on the rug. These moments
of blackout had been a theme over the last few days. The fire had
gone out and I stared at the cold black emptiness of the wood
burner as it imitated what my life had become.

Suddenly, I
felt an overwhelming urge to hear my best friend’s voice. I
gingerly got to my feet, my bones feeling like they were a hundred
years old. After plugging the phone back into the wall, I sat on
the sofa and took a deep breath before dialling. After a few rings
she picked up. I didn’t know what time it was, it could have been
midnight for all I knew.

“Hello?” she
answered.

“Bennie, it’s
me.” My voice was flat.