Unbelievable, Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen: Knowing me, knowing you

It was nearing four o’clock as we trudged down the narrow lane and up the driveway to Maggie’s cottage. There were no lights on, but as we approached the front door, I saw a candle flickering on the dining room table. I decided to knock, since I had brought guests. We were here for yet more answers; the situation seemed strangely formal, if a little oddly timed for true formality.

She had the door open before I could knock.

‘You sensed me coming!’ I accused.

‘Neona, love, anyone with any sort of sixth sense could have sensed you coming from miles away; you’re exuding emotion like a powerful perfume.’ She scanned me, noticing the slightly bloody nature of my jeans. ‘More experiments?’

‘The last, for a while, I think,’ I admitted. ‘This was more of a reconstruction.

She inhaled a deep breath, swiftly. ‘You didn’t crash a car?’

‘Of course I did,’ I sighed, half exasperated that she hadn’t realised how far I was prepared to go for answers.

‘And what did you find out?’ she demanded, still refusing to acknowledge my wingmen.

‘That I still can’t die!’ I laughed, the tension dissipating.

‘I think you had better come in and explain yourselves,’ she finally addressed the whole trio, looking at Elyssa and Arun for the first time. As she caught sight of Arun’s face, she started backwards, clutching the doorframe, her face a mask of what I could only describe as horror.

‘Ye, Gods, Neona! What mischief is this?’ she exclaimed, grasping my arm and pulling me inside. ‘Who have you brought home?’

‘My new friends,’ I explained. ‘You recall? I told you that I’d found others, others that were like me.’

Maggie and Arun were both frozen in stance, her holding the doorframe for support, him equally stunned. Elyssa looked confused.

‘Have you two met?’ she asked, meeting my eyes, communicating the oddness to me.

‘Why don’t we all come in and have a cup of tea and a nice chat.’ I was determined to gain control of the situation, since Maggie clearly wasn’t yet able to. I eased her fingers gently from the painted wood, and escorted her to the dining room with its flickering candle. Elyssa dragged Arun in behind us closing the door softly against the lengthening night.

I sat Maggie at the table and set the kettle to boil, putting green teabags into mismatched mugs, my fingers strumming the surface with impatience. What was going on? More secrets.

Soon, there we were, the four of us, the four freaks of the South West, sitting around the dining room table in the low-ceilinged room, the dark beams above us decorated with the first spiders of spring. The candle danced in the draughts, its warm light casting strange shadows on our faces, but the flame only reminded me of the other flames I had witnessed that night, serving to remind me of my lack of guilt. I pressed the thought to the back of my mind. There was more going on than met the eye in this room, and I wanted to know more. Even if such knowledge would be painful, I did not think there was anything left to hurt me now. I was wrong.

To my surprise, the hitherto silent Arun made the first remark.

‘You’re looking well, Genny,’ he said, staring at my Grandmother as if he could not get enough of her face. ‘You’re still so beautiful, even after all these years.’

I gripped my hot mug, trying not to speak, willing Elyssa to likewise keep her mouth shut. Whatever was about to pass would be between Maggie and Arun, for it was clear that they had met before.

‘You haven’t changed!’ she shook her head, disbelieving, mouth unable to quite shut. ‘You literally haven't altered at all. It’s as if no time at all has passed, and yet I know it has; I’ve raised a daughter, and it appears that you know my granddaughter.’

‘And you look so much younger than I expected,’ Arun returned. ‘So much younger.’

The world turned slowly, and I was locked to it, the carousel on slow wind against the winds of understanding. For suddenly, I was beginning to understand.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Arun whispered, his voice suddenly low and sweet and husky, leaning across the table to gaze into Maggie’s face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were like this? I’d have stayed.’

‘Because the thought of you, staying ever the same, as I grew older, however slowly, was too much to bear. What would people have thought? How could we have explained?’

‘I came back, you know. Two years to the day. I was about to knock on the door, but then I caught sight of him, and you looked so happy…’ he tailed off, and, disbelievingly, I watched a tear roll from his eye, down his marble cheek.

‘I was!’ she nodded, ‘so, so happy. I found another, and loved him the way I couldn’t let myself love you.’

‘I came back again, at intervals for a while. He left you!’ Arun thumped the table with his fist. ‘He left you to follow his own, selfish path.’

‘No.’ she raised a hand, like a warning. ‘No recriminations. He followed his path, and I stuck to mine. We all had our choices to make.’

‘I used to watch you,’ Arun confessed, watching for her reaction. ‘I’d come back, at intervals in my travels. Come back to see you. To watch your daughter grow, wishing that she was mine.’

‘You never made yourself known.’ Maggie looked sorrowful, her own tears beginning to flow.

‘What would you have done?’ he asked. ‘You’d have told me off for lurking around your life, and then sent me away as you did before.’

She nodded. ‘You knew me too well.’

He nodded too, a silent agreement. And then they just stared at each other across the table, across the years of emptiness and jealousy and regret.

It was time for the waters to break on my heavily pregnant pause. I rose to my feet and placed both hands square and flat on the smooth, worn surface of the beautiful old table. I formed my words carefully, not quite believing what I was saying, not quite trusting myself to have found the truth. My voice was unsteady, alien, as if I wasn’t working it properly.

‘You knew who I was,’ I addressed Arun. ‘The second I walked into that English classroom, you recognised me; because I look very like my Grandmother did when she was my age. But you were too shocked to say anything. You had to contrive some sort of situation, find out why I was there. Because you’d come back to this town to watch her, hadn’t you? To check up on her. And, all of a sudden, history was repeating: another White girl to play with.

Because that’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? Playing with me. We’re all pieces in your twisted little game of chess: Maggie, my mother, me, Elyssa…all of us. What’s it all for, Arun? Why have you pretended to be my friend? To get close to Maggie again? I take it you were lovers, once. In fact, she was the only lover you could ever have, wasn’t she? The only one that didn’t die the first time!

‘And you!’ I turned to accuse Maggie. ‘Your one, your intended, was Arun? And yet, you pushed him away because you were too scared to be what you are. The same way you pushed away Nathan. I thought you were different, different from her, but you’re just the same! She learnt from you, didn’t she? She learnt how to live her normal little life. There was no huge falling out about her being afraid to be different, because you’re the one who’s afraid!’

I couldn’t help it; I couldn’t stop. I kept going.

‘So what did happen, when my mother came of age, at eighteen? What happened to cause such a rift between you that you could never bridge?’

Maggie stared at me, dumfounded, the tears running freely down her face now. She looked as if I’d physically hit her.

‘Neona!’ she cried. ‘Stop!’

‘No!’ I was harsh, but I needed the truth; all the lies were pressing down, hot on my back like pokers, straight from the blacksmith’s fire. ‘You need to tell me the truth!’

Elyssa placed her hand over mine, gently, and said ‘Neo, calm down. We can discuss all of this rationally, just sit down.’

‘No!’ I shouted, banging my palms against the wood. ‘All three of you have lied. Arun lied about knowing who I was; he contrived that bloody newspaper article breakdown as a way of half-showing me, before I knew what he was. But as soon as he discovered I was just like you, he should have told me. He should have told me he knew who I was and he should have told me that he knew Maggie. For Christ’s sake! He was very nearly my Grandfather!’

‘Neo,’ Elyssa tried again. I shook off her hand.

‘You!’ I turned on her. ‘You still haven’t told me about your past. You’ve only told me how Arun met you and tried to leave you for dead: what a lovely story that was! Where did you come from? Who are you? What do you know about me and my family that you’re keeping from me?

‘And you!’ I turned back to Maggie. ‘What happened with my Mother?’
They all three stared at me until, finally, Maggie spoke.

‘She met a man... A man that was poisonous, bad for her. He drew her in with his mystery and romance, and she, a young girl afraid of this new power she commanded, was smitten. He asked for her hand. I refused. I knew what he was, because I had known Arun. This man was the same, and yet not the same, for, while Arun is a good man, this man was pure evil; I could sense it all over him.’

‘A good man?’ I scoffed. ‘Do you have any idea how many women he’s killed for his carnal pleasure? He tried to leave Elyssa for dead; hit her with a car, tried to run, did you know that?’

Maggie ignored my interjection. ‘I said no, but she ran away with him and married him anyway. Your father.’

I gasped. ‘My father?’

‘Jared DeWitka. Descent of the wicked. Yes, Neona, you are right; his blood runs in your veins, and you are destined to become like Arun. I couldn’t be sure, but seeing Arun again has confirmed all that we have talked about. Do I believe that you are wicked? No, of course not, but he was… still is.’

‘How was… is… he wicked?’ I demanded. ‘What has he done?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ she chided. ‘Were you too young? The way he used to treat her. I could feel her pain and anguish from here, over one hundred and fifty miles away. He discovered her power, you see, and he abused it. Abused her.’

The image of my mother flying through the glass door once again sprung into my mind, and as she lay there in the pool of blood, I raised my face to look into my father’s eyes. Come to think of it, I’d never seen that babysitter again, eased out the back the way she was. And he’d left soon after that, too.

‘Why did he leave her?’ I demanded. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ Maggie sobbed, as she experienced my childhood pain again through me, her emotional medium. ‘She never told me; we didn’t speak, remember?’

‘But when he left why didn’t you reconcile then?’ I demanded. ‘All these separations; it’s as if you wanted to be alone. Do you still want that? Am I in your way? Is my presence interfering with your solitary little life?’

She was sobbing uncontrollably now; she was beyond answering. Elyssa touched my hand once more.

‘Enough!’ she counselled. ‘Enough, now.’