Unbelievable, Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Later

We left the school, a quiet swift-moving threesome, weaving through the exodus of students to the main road. Straight past the bus stop; I watched my ride filling with the usual suspects, and felt a strange sense of freedom. Maggie would still be out; she wouldn’t notice my absence until later. Friday was her day at the Green Park market in Bath. She’d set up her stall in the old railway station and sell the handmade potions and lotions to locals and tourists, bringing home a small fortune. We always ate well on Friday night; she’d arrive back at the cottage with Indian takeaway, our favourite treat. Vegetarian, of course. Another adjustment.

We wandered along the road and down the hill towards the park as the light began to wither. It was still February, still cold, even though I couldn’t feel it. I think I’d felt permanently cold for months now, as if my body had chilled, a little of the life drained away, flooding to fill an empty space somewhere in the universe; the space that they’d left. August had been damp, September more so. The last hot, sunny day I remembered…

I shut the thoughts off as we passed under the bypass, my footsteps echoing off the curving walls of the short tunnel. I noticed that Elyssa and Arun moved like cats; stealthy, padding, their rubber-soled shoes muffling the sound. My heavy boots drowned their footfalls, and I felt clumsy in comparison.

We weaved round, under the railway bridge, then over the park drainage channel that led down to the river. Crossing the river made me shudder; it was still and green, flowing softly beneath us, a great snake; the Midgard serpent, making its way back to the ocean. I felt drawn to it, drawn like Eve. I sought the surface for apples, but they were hidden in the depths, calling…

‘What’s the matter? Fear of water?’ Arun touched my arm.

‘Aquaphobia.’ Clarified Elyssa, turning, mid-step, laughing. ‘The river can’t touch you, if blades don’t!’ she glanced at me from under her eyelashes, a tad coquettishly.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked, turning my eyes back to the water, one hand gripping the iron rails of the bridge parapet.

‘Somewhere quiet, away from prying eyes. I want a proper demonstration of your powers!’ she laughed again, tossing her long, startlingly black hair like a shampoo advert.

Powers. It sounded fake. I thought: superheroes, comic books, witchcraft. I thought I heard the sound of Maggie’s ringing laughter, but it must have been Elyssa, dancing ahead on her nymph-like feet.

Arun nudged me with his arm and I resumed forward motion.

We weaved round, doubling back over the canal; the river divided upstream; the main flow crashing down over a huge weir, a sliver diverted round the other side of the Lock Keeper pub, running higher, smoother, slower, past the gates of the marina and down through the lock; a passage for the boats. There were so many boats here; narrowboats, widebeams, river cruisers, little rubber tenders. I could imagine that in the summer, the pub would be a hub of activity, and the waterway traffic would be heavy with live-aboards and pleasure boats, all out to enjoy their freedom.

Turning onto the towpath before the pub, we dropped steeply down the side of the canal, under the road, past the lock with its great, black-tarred gates, white-tipped. Magpie. As if on cue, a lone pied bird soared across the water, disappearing into the field, heading for the trees.

One for sorrow.

Must have been post-ironic: I’d had my fill of it, hadn’t I?

We followed the towpath as it weaved and wound, down through the quietness of the ebbing afternoon, out into the fields where the river rejoined into one, then lazed along. We walked until eyes did not reach.

Elyssa stopped suddenly, turned and grinned. ‘Time to play!’ she said.

‘Steady, don’t scare her!’ Arun cautioned, but she laughed again, flicked her hair back and leaped onto the fence that ran beside the path, dividing river from field. Swift and nimble as a cat, she swung herself aloft, until she was standing atop the fence, balanced perfectly, hair lifting in the breeze.

Arun rolled his eyes and, dropping his bag, slumped down on the damp grass by the fence.

‘What’s she doing?’ I asked, crouching down beside him to get a drink out of my bag.

‘Showing off.’ He replied, tersely. ‘In order to encourage you to demonstrate your abilities, she is first going to treat you to a showcase of hers.’

I gulped flat pop thirstily, my mouth suddenly dry with nerves.

Then she jumped.

Arching like an Olympic diver, she soared out from the fence then, falling like a stone flat on her face, she crashed down onto the towpath.

‘Holy shit!’ I spluttered liquid across the grass, narrowly missing Arun, who looked rather disdainfully at me as Elyssa lay, frozen, only feet away.

He didn’t look concerned.

Throwing the bottle aside, I rushed to her, but she rolled over as I reached for her, laughing, her perfect face unmarked by the gravel path into which it had just smashed. Before I could speak, she was back up on the fence, a flash of lightning in the green of our surroundings, her grey jumper merging into the sky.

She leapt again. Arching out an arm as she fell, she plucked a drifting leaf from the air on her descent, before once more crashing, flat-faced, to the floor.

I winced, shuddering, imagining what that kind of impact could do to a normal face. As she rolled over, grinning, she unclenched her fist to reveal the leaf, intact. She held it out to me like a baton in a relay.

‘Your turn.’

‘It won’t be half as pretty,’ I muttered, tensing my shoulders against the rising fear.

‘You’re scared?’ she looked incredulous. ‘Haven’t you done this before?’

‘No,’ I shook my head.

‘But your wrists?’

‘Small, neat cuts. Scars that easily healed. I tried to drown myself in the bath, once, but it wasn’t deep enough, really. And I cheated.’ She had the intensity of a priest hearing confession as she listened.

‘But you survived the crash,’ she pointed out. ‘Arun showed me the news reports. I saw the car; there’s no way you walked out of that. You must have been seriously mashed up. What happened?’

‘I don’t remember,’ I hissed. ‘The farmer must have pulled me to safety. I think I crawled from the car.’

‘So he saw you? He saw what you could do?’

‘I don’t remember.’ I repeated. ‘The last thing I felt was the hot tarmac on my face, the road against my cheek, heat-haze. The first thing I knew, I was waking up in my own bed without a scratch.’

‘Only one way to find out,’ she taunted, pointing to the top of the fence. ‘Up you go!’

I gritted my teeth, avoided Arun’s penetrating gaze as he watched me dare myself to emulate her.

Clumsy, like a drunken monkey in comparison to Elyssa’s gymnast-like elegance, I hauled myself atop the fence, balancing precariously in the slight breeze. It must have been no more than four feet high, but it felt like a precipice. The towpath looked harsh and unforgiving, its gravel ready to tear my face apart.

Only one way to find out.

Don’t think, just jump.

I had no lift, no swallow-dive for me. I sailed out, then crashed down, feet first. My left ankle snapped as it connected with the ground, and my left wrist followed suit. My head banged against the path, grazing my temple. I tasted blood where I must have bitten my lip.

My two witnesses were silent. I lay, gazing at the river, overcome with pain. The bone breaks seared like roaring flame, and my ears filled with the sound of crackling, buckling metal.

Don’t scream. I reminded myself. Somebody might hear, somebody might see. I dragged myself upright, using my torso to lift myself off the ground. My eyes wouldn’t focus, flooded with tears of agony. Keep it together. Another self-warning. Elyssa edged around me, her eyes locked to my bent and broken ankle. Arun crawled forward, taking me gently in his arms, lifting my limp, flopping wrist.

‘Come on, now,’ he encouraged. ‘Magician, heal thyself,’ he bastardised the phrase.

My bones must have heard him. Unbelievably, I felt my ankle straightening. Elyssa rolled back the leg of my jeans and pushed the break straight with her cold hands. Arun lifted my wrist into straightness. More pain blurred my mind and I bit harder on my drying lip, breaking the skin once more, tasting blood.

Their cold hands felt the warmth at the same time I did. The pain shifted into heat, dazzling through my body. My heart shot into a thundering run, pumping my blood impossibly fast. I could hardly breathe. Releasing my lip, I panted, desperate to get the air in. my shuddering breaths rent the air ragged, until my heart slowed once more, and the pain flowed away into nothing, and the sound of the road came back into my consciousness.

I flexed my left wrist to find it once again working perfectly. Elyssa pulled as Arun pushed me to my feet. I stood squarely, on stable ankles. She dusted gravel from my face and I felt the skin shivering back over the graze, my lip rounding, unsplit.

‘Now that was quite something,’ Elyssa whispered, looking a little awed.

‘At least you know, now.’ Arun released me, finally.

‘Know what?’ I questioned.

‘How you survived.’

But as he said it, my head filled once more with the sound of music:

I'm coming out of my cage, and I’ve been doing just fine; Gotta gotta, gotta be down, because I want it all… I just can’t look; it’s killing me, and taking control… But it’s just the price I pay; Destiny is calling me; open up my eager eyes…

Because suddenly, guilt is overwhelming me, and my stomach is churning with surprise.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elyssa grips my arms and shakes me, and I realise that I’m singing out loud, badly.

I falter, cease, begin to cry. Tears run down my face as I see the past clearly for the first time.

‘If I can heal so quickly, why didn’t I do something? I could have gone back; I could have dragged at least one of them from the car… don’t you see? If I had only known my own strength, they might still be alive.’

A gust of wind made me blink. I started back. Elyssa dropped her grip. I ducked past Arun, retrieved my bag, and started to run away, back up the towpath, needing normality to flood back. Maggie. Yes, she’d be waiting, with the Indian takeaway and the kettle on for a cup of peppermint tea… if I ran all the way, I’d be just in time to meet her.