I hear him sigh deeply. “Lucyna, look, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want, but I’m gonna ask anyway.” He takes a deep breath, then says, “Did you use to live in a cult?”
I turn round to face him. “A cult?”
“Yeah you know, a cult, where there’s loads of you all living together, like rurally, and you believe in a certain religion – and other stuff.”
I stare at him troubled. “I know what a cult is James. I’m just wondering why you think I’m from one?”
He rubs his hand over his face. “Because you’re just so different, Lucyna – so completely different to anyone I’ve ever met. You talk different, act different and everything’s like –” He leans forward in his seat, arms resting on his legs, “– I don’t know how to describe it. It just seems like everything’s brand new to you, like the world's a new place to you, almost as if you’ve never really ventured out into it before, and I was trying to figure out why you’d be like that, and the only thing I could come up with was that you’d maybe – lived in a cult of some sort.” He shakes his head, embarrassment creeping over his face. “It doesn’t matter anyway, obviously I’m wrong, so I’m just gonna stop talking – now.”
I sit down on the chair beside him and glance at his mortified face. Then I laugh. I can’t help it. He thinks I’m from a cult and I’m fully aware of what that word’s been denoted to mean since, well, the latter part of the twentieth century, what those places are, the very polar opposite of the good and righteous place I truly come from.
He glances at me and a smile quickly creeps onto his lips. “Okay! I know it was a stupid thing to say but you didn’t have to laugh!”
“Sorry.” I curl my legs up onto the seat, turning to face him. “James, I know I’m different from what you’re used to but it’s not because I’m from a cult.”
He keeps his eyes on me. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me if you had been – you know.”
“I know.”
He starts tapping his fingers on the chair again, opens his mouth to speak and closes it, seemingly changing his mind.
“What do you want to ask me?”
He smiles. “I’m asking too many questions, I know, but I’m just so bloody curious. I mean I know nothing about you but at the same time feel like I’ve know you for ages, which is weird because I’ve known you for exactly two days. Do you know what I mean?” He looks at me, wanting reassurance, and I nod. Of course I know what he means, well except I’ve known him for exactly three weeks and nearly five days – a bit longer than his two.
“Maybe I’m so intrigued because of the whole ‘you saved my life’ thing,” he adds. “Well that and the fact that you’re so bloody cryptic all the time.” He laughs, nudging me with his elbow, then murmurs, “You’re such a mystery, Lucyna.”
“Is that a good or bad thing?” I ask.
He regards me for a moment, his eyes opaque, his expression unreadable. “Both.” He smiles then sets his gaze out over the garden.
I can feel his unasked question still hanging in the air around him.
“What was it you wanted to ask me before, James?”
He laughs. “See, you know me so well already and I know – well not very much about you.” He grins. “Okay, well you said you’re different from everyone else and I wondered – what did you mean by that?”
I look down at my bare feet. “I just meant that I’m well . . . my family, they have different ways, old ways. I guess you could say . . . I was shown the world from a different view. I was raised differently from everyone else. So this is all . . . new to me. How you are, is new to me.”
“How do you do that?”
I look at his amused eyes. “What?”
“Answer a question without actually answering it.”
“Years of practice,” I smile.
He shifts his position, stretching his good leg out before him. “So what do you think you’ll do?”
“What do mean?”
“Well, I just wondered what your plans are. How long you’ll be here for?”
Does he want me to leave? Has he tired of my company already? “Oh – I don’t know – I hadn’t thought. I just –”
“I’m not asking you because I want you to go, because I don’t,” he says with certainty. “You can stay for as long as you want. Well forever, if you like – but only if you keep making as good a cup of coffee as you did this morning. That stops and you're out,” he quips, thumbing over his shoulder toward the door. “But no, seriously, I just meant what will you do? Will you get a job?”
A job? I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get a job. I have no . . . skills.”
“I’m sure you have.” He leans toward me enthusiastically. “I mean I could probably hook you up with something. I have a few contacts. What did you used to do, before you were erm – homeless?”
Take humans to Heaven. I somehow don’t think that’s going to aid me here on earth in attempt to get a human job. “I used to deliver.”
“What like packages?”
I nod. “Yes – packages.”
“Well there you go, then,” he says resting back on his chair, smiling. “You have got a skill. You could get another job doing that. I’ll ask around a few people I know, see if there’s anything going. But in the meantime you could sign on at the job centre and get some benefits. I know they don’t give you much but it’ll be some money of your own till you get a job.”
“Yes.” I begin playing with my fingers. Benefits? What are they?
“I don’t mind giving you money, it’s not that, it’s just I imagine you’ll want some of your own. But don’t worry, though,” he pats me on the arm, my skin prickling at his touch, “you’ve got plenty of time and I’ll just lend you what you need till then. Just have a think about it and go from there. There’s no rush. I’ll help you – you know I will.”
“Thank –“
He waves his hand cutting me off. “New house rule. I’ll stop with my annoying adage if you stop thanking me for everything. What do you say – is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal.”
“You promise.”
“I promise.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die.” He laughs, it petering off at my foggy expression. “You know – cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye – you never heard it before?”
I shake my head.
A grin plays on his lips. “God, we always used to say that when we were kids. You sure you haven’t been off living on the moon or something?” He regards me with amusement. “Don’t know who Oasis are – now this.” He chuckles, shaking his head as he gets up from his chair tucking a crutch under his arm. “You want a coffee – I’m making?”
“No, thanks.” I shake my head at his retreating back. “I’m fine with my water.”
‘Cross your heart and hope to die’. His words ring around my mind like warning bells. The irony of a saying that could never in a thousand years, ever apply to me but I take heed because I know when I do have to leave him, which with every dawning day comes ever closer, then it really will be like dying. Because to think of spending a day, let alone an eternity, without ever again seeing his beautiful face or hearing his voice is unbearable.
I know then I will unequivocally wish for the day to come when I can truly cross my heart and die.
Chapter 8
Hunger
Turning my gaze from the beige coloured walls up to the white ceiling above, I watch as beams from the morning sun dance across it in perfect symmetry, a mosaic of colours glistening all above as I lay here on my bed.
Which I’ve done for the last eight hours.
I haven’t read a book, or watched the sun rise, or done anything of substance. I’ve done nothing but watch the dark through to light and think of James, wondering how I didn’t see it sooner that I’m in love with him, how I didn’t realise that what I felt for him was love?
Everything is making such sense now - the strength of the feelings that initially confounded me, my constant desire to be by his side, the things I have done to be with him, all pointing to that one emotion. At least I now know it was love that fuelled my desire to save him, that my selfishness was sanctioned by my level of feelings.
Love – the ultimate emotion, the crux of all others.
But how can such a euphoric feeling as love, ignite me with happiness and dull me with misery at the same time? To love him is so extraordinarily wonderful but to have him so close and for him to never be mine tortures me beyond belief. More than anything I want to feel the complete ecstasy that love creates but I can’t because the darker side of it resides within me too - a yo-yo of emotions - my happiness tarnished the instant reality strikes like a cacophonous peal of thunder, yanking me back to the now.
So instead of fighting against them, I relinquished control to the medley of conflicting emotions and just let myself imagine how it would be if James and I were together, if I weren’t a Bringer, if I were human, if James felt for me as I do him. If he loved me.
And what a dream it is.
Once again closing my eyes, I imagine his voice whispering the words I long to hear. He holds me in his strong arms, wrapping them around me, pulling me close to him. I can almost feel the heat of his skin on mine. I tilt my head up, eyes meeting his, and then he leans down and kisses me, a wondrous, tortuous vision of a reality that will never be mine.
I open up my eyes after the closing scene, knowing I can’t spend all day in my fool’s paradise, that soon enough these thoughts will be all I’m left with for eternity.
Forcing myself into reality, I sit up, swing my legs over the edge of the bed and, seeing straight out the window, I’m surprised to see James sitting in the garden by the large barrel pot examining the plants in it.
An overwhelming rush of exhilaration charges through me at the sight of him. It’s like now I have this knowledge, now I’m fully aware the extent of my feelings for him, they’ve ramped their velocity up to the maximum. And I can barely contain the excitement at the thought of just being near him.
I’m changed out of my bed clothes and into a pair of jeans and t-shirt in under a minute, and on my way downstairs.
James is sat with his back to me and doesn’t register my presence, so I just stand here for a moment, leant up against the door frame, watching him, giving myself a little time to lock in my overzealous feelings, to stop myself from just blurting out the truth of how much I’m truly in love with him.
When I finally feel I’m safe to speak, I say, “Good morning.”
He turns at the sound of my voice, eyes squinting in the glare of the morning sun. “Hey,” he says, voice gruff. “How you doing?”