PART 1-1

PART 1

“The path to paradise begins in hell.”
Dante Alighieri

1. The Awakening
“She is safe, Gardeneus.”
The man behind the desk regarded her with a single unblinking eye. “Oh?”
Her eyes flashed. “Gardeneus! Some trust?”
He laughed. “Trust you, Angelique? I think not!”
She sighed irritably, swearing under the furious intake of breath. “Go to hell.”
The laughter did not stop.
Angelique made no move to stop him. It had been years since she had seen Garden, and now that she had it was just like him to act like a jackass. She crossed her arms over her stomach and stared at a particle of dust on the floor. Everyone liked Garden, it was true. But why the hell did it have to be her who felt this way about him? Every time she looked at his face she felt as if someone had thrust her headfirst into a burning furnace. She didn’t even know what it was about him. Hell, she didn’t even know why. And now that idiot Magistrate had put her on Marie’s assignment, of all people. Garden’s niece.
His long-boned fingers traced the indentations in the wooden table. “Does she know?”
“Of course not. Someone has to tell her, don’t they?”
He chewed his lip, then raised his head and pointed at her. “Do it.”
Outside in the hallway, she yanked open the closet cupboard and assessed her reflection.
Mirror Angelique smiled back at herself, mocking her. The conversation with him had left her bronze skin pulsing with heat, and bright red spots stood out on her cheeks like someone had spanked them. Tendrils of her hair which had escaped her twist hung around her face like vines; they only added to the effect. Annoyed, she poked them vehemently back into place. She disliked looking feminine. Female cried weak and protection seeking, in her opinion. If she couldn’t make herself male, she thought, then this was the best you got. Track suits were her language and dark trainers her religion.
She remembered how, in the early days, she’d done crazy things when she realized. She hadn’t, not for a long time. He had been her first, after all. Night after night she would wonder why this green-eyed, dark skinned human belonging to the male species starred in her dreams, and then, come morning, in her thoughts. Then came the heat shocks when she looked into his eyes, the electricity when they touched, the funny fluttering in her stomach when she heard his voice.
And then she knew.
She hated this weakness; this female trait. She hated needing him to survive. She hated the way that a part of her stung with something when she went a day without seeing him, or with something else when he spoke to other girls. Suddenly she’d felt like she needed to do something; anything. So she’d shaved herself bald. For a while it had helped, but a hairless head didn’t change much. It was worth it, though. The few moments afterwards when she’d felt her fingers slide over the bristly new-born hairs and felt the acute satisfaction of having control over this one small thing. But then she’d seen him and it had all crashed away like a falling weight.
Later, when he had left, she would stay awake at night. She let the pain shatter over her like cracking glass, as every cell in her body screamed to feel what it needed him to feel. But when she closed her eyes, his face danced before her eyes, and his laughter rang in her ears.
She was in love. And there was nothing she could do about it.

When morning finally came, Marie was glad.
Days and days had passed and the dreams had not ceased. The same one, every time. A dark woman who stood on the street, watching her. She would never speak, but only regard her with huge and beautiful eyes. Marie would yell and yell but never would she get an answer. Then, she would soundlessly disappear, taking her dark secrets with her. And Marie would awake with a feeling of dread she could not explain.
She sat up in bed and massaged her aching head with one hand as she reached for a glass of water with the other. They all said that you only dreamed when you were in the state of deepest sleep, but after a night of dreams she felt like she hadn’t slept at all. It was 8:30. She always tended to oversleep, too, when it happened. She was about to man it and get to the bathroom snappish when an overwhelming sense of tiredness enveloped her. Screw it, she thought. Screw uni.
Uni or not, however, her stomach was roiling with acid. She realized she hadn’t eaten for over thirteen hours. She went into the bathroom and splashed water on her face. Then she looked up at the familiar face in the mirror.
But it wasn’t familiar. Still the same girl- dark hair and eyes with a pale face, slender arms and a flat body. But things had changed- small things. Something had changed in the set of her jaw, or maybe the depth of her eyes, or the sallowness in her cheeks. Small things, but things all the same.
She descended downstairs to fix herself breakfast. She lived alone; Marie’s parents had disappeared when she had been six. She had no siblings, or known relatives. She’d lived in a government childcare unit till she had turned eighteen. It hadn’t been a bad place, but the hands that touched her were clinical, the food packed in plastic Tupperware containers organic, and the bedcovers smelt of laundry powder. There was nothing wrong with this, she had told herself. Nothing at all. But some small part of her ached to feel a father’s arms. To smell her mother’s perfume when she went to sleep.
She preferred living alone. The reminders of her parents were few and far between.
She was midway through extracting a box of cereal from the pantry when she sensed something moving behind her. On an impulse, she went to the curtain and peeked through it into the street beyond. And froze.
The streets buzzed with the usual morning traffic, but there, bang in the middle of it all, was the woman.
Worse, she had seen Marie. And worse still, she was looking at her with those eyes, just like she did in the dreams. Her first thought was to run, but she felt like someone had taken out all her bones and stuck them back in the wrong places. She couldn’t move. And the woman was getting closer and closer. In proximity, she looked different to the woman in the dreams. There was the dark hair stuffed into an untidy bun, but there was something soft about the way the lines adorned her face, and she had trustful eyes. She had a smooth curvature, and slim limbs, but muscles flexed in her bare arms as she walked towards Marie. Marie realized that at some point she had opened the door, and now, contrary to her judgement, she was standing there staring at the woman, who had come to a halt in front of her. She was not much taller than Marie, and they were almost at eye level.
“Hello,” said the woman pleasantly. “My name is Angelique.” She held out a long-fingered hand which Marie, still stupefied with horror, did not take. Angelique retracted her hand without a change in expression. “I know this must be very surprising for you, having a strange person turn up on your doorstep, but-“
“I know you.”
Angelique raised her delicate eyebrows in confusion. “You do?”
“I have recurring dreams about you.”
Angelique frowned, and mumbled something under her breath about a garden. She forced her lips into a smile with an obvious effort. “Look, I totally understand if you’re freaking out about this, but you need to come with me.” She began chewing frantically on a fingernail. “Um…” she paused and then said a very unladylike word. “I’m so sorry. I’m not very good at this, am I?”
Suddenly, ironically, pity erupted in Marie, for this woman, for whatever it was she had to say to her. The words flew out of her mouth of their own accord. “Why don’t you come in?”
Angelique’s eyes widened, and she was silent for a moment or two. “All right,” she finally said. “Thank you.”