And suddenly, so did the pain – an agonising weight on my chest that jarred my ribcage.
“Breathe, Winnie. Breathe!”
My chest was thumped repeatedly. No! Take me back to the other place, the tranquil one decorated with rainbows. It was so cold here and I forgot to do something essential. It nagged at me.
“Oh man, Winnie!” A frenzied voice. “Come on. Breathe!”
Ah, that was it. I’d forgotten to inhale. I tried to suck as much air as possible in a single breath. And gagged, expelling a bucketful of the judge’s expensive pool water. It spewed from my mouth and nose, as I writhed on hard tiles coughing viciously. My eyelids flew open in time to see Smith hovering millimetres from my face, eyes shut and lips parted, ready to give mouth-to-mouth.
“Whoa,” I rasped. Apparently, water was not meant to travel down the trachea. I spluttered and retched, weakly batting him away. “Surely two women in a twelve hour period is greedy. Even for you, Smith.”
“Thank all that’s good!” He gathered my sodden form to his broad chest. I was aware of his muscles and bare skin against my cheek, even in my less-than-optimal state. “What the hell happened to you,” he shouted, squashing me to him. Talk about mixed messages.
“Easy. I nearly just died.”
“Yes. I was privy to that.”
“Stop yelling, it’s my lungs that are injured, not my ears.”
“Well?”
“Er, cramp?” I lied. Mentioning weirdness out loud just seemed to confirm the lunacy infecting all I did, so sharing was out of the question.
“I had to lever you from the floor of the pool. You wouldn’t come free. It was bizarre, like you were fixed to the bottom. And …” He gaped at my leg. “You’re bleeding.”
He shrugged off his soaked shirt without dislodging me. It was suspiciously already unbuttoned. He blotted the blood with the costly fabric. His tailor would have an aneurysm. Any soreness lessened with his touch, but I should not think this way. Vegas had another girlfriend. Of sorts. He was obviously partial to wolverines. His loyalty remained questionable, so I resisted being sucked in, regardless of the courteous way he acted. Zen: Mountain!
Meanwhile, I grappled more with not ogling Smithy’s body than with determining the origins of my aquatic bondage. It was clear: I’d had an out-of-body experience due to a soon-to-be-discovered brain tumour. Neurosurgery would be required and I would be bald for a while, which would be frosty in the winter, but then beanies were fashionable right now.
I dragged my eyes from his amazing washboard tummy, working to disregard firm curves begging for the touch of unhurried fingertips. The physical impact he had on me was similar to plummeting over a sharp drop. I would not give in to the temptation of his closeness. Even if he hadn’t chosen someone else, mental patients made poor girlfriends and I could not inflict that upon him.
“Maybe you should lie down.”
“Maybe we should see if I can sit on my own?”
Smithy gingerly let go of me, his hands extended to catch me in case I collapsed. He shuffled backwards on his bum in sodden undershorts decorated with jellybeans. He shook the water from his hair. Watching this was a reward beyond measure. I thought about making a habit of nearly drowning – or even better – of finding ways to drown Tiffany without earning a murder rap. I stayed upright. He removed his hovering hands.
“Whoa!” It was Smithy’s turn to take a breath. He blinked and averted his eyes to inspect the adjacent wall, swallowing hard. “Um, you might want to …” he flickered a hand in my direction, “make an adjustment.”
I looked down. Oh, how I envied my A-cup sisters! The macramé Fortescue purchased in lieu of decent swimwear had crawled apart, leaving transparent cotton suctioned to me like wet t-shirt night at the pub. My cheeks flamed red, igniting my anger. There would be consequences for my tenuously employed butler!
“Do something, for pity’s sake, Bear. I still have peripheral vision.”
“If you do not keep your eyes fixed on that area over there for the next two minutes, you will be living without them. Clear?”
“Crystal,” he said gruffly. I tramped over to my towel, dried as much as possible, and attempted to readjust the stubborn strips of Lycra. “Do you need a hand? Or two?” Smith aimed for witty but achieved hopeful.
The hide! I clung to the riled facade so as not to say Yes, please! As many hands as you want. “If you dare act on that dumb saying of yours, ‘I’d rather ask for pardon than permission,’” I mimicked, “I will tell Bea!”
“That’s harsh. You made me sound like Goofy.”
“Goofy is as goofy does. Just pretend that crack in the wall is Miranda Kerr. Naked.”
It was a low blow, objectifying a member of my own sex like this. But I needed the ordeal to be over, to run and hide in my room. After giving Fortescue the roasting he deserved.
“I’d rather it was you,” he said, so softly, I almost didn’t catch it.
It was the last straw. He was turning into his father, chasing an assortment of women at any given time. I would not be a party to it. The man from my fantasy did not share himself about like a song on LimeWire.
“I’m going.” I double-wrapped myself in the towel. It was all I would be leaving with – my dignity remained by the pool. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I was joking, Bear. Have breakfast with me? You can wear another one of my shirts,” he said. “I didn’t really see that much. Are you sure you can walk?”
I could probably also raid his collection of lacy bras from some past fling. I hobbled out of the judge’s building before his son could make further appeal. Dripping wet and fed up, I crossed the alley into the warehouse, firmly ignoring mysterious, vanishing crime scenes.
My head hurt from more than just a near-drowning at the hands of an invisible assailant. I grappled with so many unexplained dead ends that defied logic; I could no longer distinguish reality from illusion. Had I been attacked last night? Had Hugo really committed homicide? There was not a shred of evidence.
Big deal if I fantasised some guy called Seth, who whispered poetry at me in the night. There was most likely a dumb Freudian interpretation about sexual frustration or teenage hormones run amok. It would definitely get worse since the breathtaking vision of Vegas in sopping shorts branded my brain. I limped towards Bea through the maze of display cabinets. She wore white gloves and was holding a dust brush as she knelt at the foot of a giant, winged skeleton tall enough to project three stories into the atrium void.
“I demand to know who Seth is.”
She removed the gloves and secreted them in the voluminous pockets of the pinafore she wore over her clothes. Her cats stretched nearby, cleaning themselves. Normally, she rose with a well-oiled ease that would turn other sixty-year-olds green. But today she struggled to her feet, gratefully accepting my hand and leaning heavily upon me.
“Mike’s not sick is he?” I asked. It seemed an increasingly commonplace affliction.
“No, just routine maintenance. You are out of bed early, Winnie.”
She completed work on our statue Mike. Skilfully made of pinned bone (mostly human), reinforced by a fine tracery of golden wire, he crouched on a huge slab of ebony granite in the exact middle of the collection space. Poised with every joint straining, he partially spread enormous ribbed wings as if about to tear the bonds of the material world and blast into the heavens.
One outstretched arm punched the air, elongated by a gold sword studded with sparkling diamonds. On his brow perched a gold circlet, diamond-encrusted spines projecting from it – his halo. Empty orbs yearned skyward, his death-head’s leer a caution to all sinners. The avenging Archangel Michael, who threw Satan out of the Garden of Eden, watched over us. He was one-of-a-kind and priceless.
“I couldn’t sleep. I had to check …”
Aunt Bea knew what I’d been up to already, I was certain. “Of course you did. We’ll fix that ankle first. The occasion has arrived to open the golden box.” I scratched at my wrists. They were suddenly itchy. “Something wrong with your wrists?”
“Probably just a heat rash.” A funny one isolated to two identical red patches. “You didn’t answer my question. And you weren’t surprised at the mention of that name, which tells me it’s familiar to you.”
“I do not deny I know that name, Winsome. You have always been exceptional at spotting untruths, less so at unravelling the intent behind them. And your questions will be answered in intricate detail in due course. But for the moment, you are bleeding all over my nice clean floor. We do not wish to make more work for Mrs Paget.”
The four of us eventually met in the kitchen. Again. I’d showered and changed into a playsuit and sandshoes. Fortescue placed a bowl of brown sludge and a glass in front of me, filled with something that resembled radioactive slime.
“You must eat something, Winsome. Keep your strength up. Stewed fig and black-quinoa compote with wheatgrass juice.”
“Mouth-watering.”
It was the truth. There was often a surge of saliva before vomiting. The Keeper’s diary rested nearby on the table – innocent looking until closer inspection. Its fiendish partner sat next to it: the stunning golden box, flattish and as long as my forearm. I wasn’t deceived by its appearance; something harmless wouldn’t require a lock. That Bea, Fortescue and Mrs Paget refused to handle either item did nothing to lessen the foreboding.
Their faces were solemn. Oddly, no one demanded an explanation for my ankle, which was bandaged and resting on its very own chair. My throat grated as if I’d swallowed a fistful of staples. It seemed trundling home with peculiar wounds was now the norm. Added to my skirmish in the bushes last night, I was forging a new, utterly undesirable battle habit.
The anticipated blow-up with Fortescue had also been a fizzer. He’d taken one look at the bandaids-and-twine arrangement that failed so spectacularly to operate as a one-piece and been mortified. He didn’t buy it. He had never seen it before and declared it an abomination, throwing the swimsuit in the bin. It was a hunch, but to me Mrs Paget looked especially devious. Poker would never be her game. But my hypothesis lacked a plausible motivation. Why would she buy me something so revealing?
I simply refused to think about Vegas. If I was at all honest with myself, he had actually behaved faultlessly at the pool and I was jealous Tiffany had been with him in a way I would secretly like to. But being honest with myself called for maturity, which was in lean supply. So, I continued to project my anger and humiliation onto Smith instead. It was for the best. I did not want to get my heart crushed by a manwhore.
Bea cleared her throat. “The time has come to open the box.”
“How is this an education, exactly? Aunt Bea?”
I kept my tone light but had difficulty hiding my growing irritation. Mrs Paget’s gaze slid towards Bea. In other circumstances her eyes glittered with mischief, but I could not help but notice how watered and rheumy they were. Fear swirled in my gut; their declining health was definitely not symptomatic of the flu.
“In. Due. Course,” Bea said.
Distracted, I let them keep me in suspense. I pulled the box towards me and snatched the key, fiddled with the lock until it popped, held my breath and opened the lid. A dagger with an odd wavy blade was embedded in red velvet, etched with the same symbols as those on the triangle in the diary cover. The ornate handle was gold and studded with rubies of myriad size. The knife looked very old, very valuable and very sharp. I stared at its point.
“Is that …”
“Pick it up, Winsome.”
“Blood?”
I stretched out my fingers and touched the rust-coloured stain. As I did so, my consciousness jerked from the kitchen to another place altogether. I found myself in a large, windowless office that flickered dimly by candlelight. It was a well-appointed room with stylish furnishings and a rug rolled out of the way on the floor. Bare shelves with dust-free voids of various shapes and glassed cabinets, their doors partly open, spoke of ornaments and artefacts recently cleared and sent elsewhere.
There was a diagram on the ground – a triangle – drawn in red wax. The same ornamental knife from the kitchen rested in the middle. A woman stood off to one side grasping the very diary I’d read aloud from yesterday between her shaking hands. I knew her from my dreams. Raphaela. She faced away from me, but it was clear she was in a bad state.
Her thick chestnut hair, once pinned up, had come loose and hung in stringy clumps down her back. Her light pants and sleeveless top were grubby and stuck to her body with perspiration. She was barefoot. Raising the diary – my diary – to her forehead, she pushed the golden triangle on the cover against her brow.
“Come to me now, Enoch the Watcher. I call on you, in this my last hour.”
And before I’d blinked, a slight man in a black suit and tie appeared in a flash of blinding light. He was so utterly bland, his features so average that he seemed deliberately designed to blend in, able to come and go without ever attracting notice. He would not be recalled in a police line-up, witnesses unable to describe him for an identikit drawing. It was a convincing camouflage.
His voice echoed in my head. “Your time is now, little one. You are no longer the Keeper-in-waiting.”
“Oh, Enoch. What have I done? I’ve ruined everything! I saw what they did to Billie. My Warrior is dead because of me.”
“Do not berate yourself, Raphaela Baptiste. Your Warrior fulfilled her pledge with honour. We have time, yet.” He spoke softly, nearly inaudible, but of course I heard him clearly in my mind.
“There is only one Keeper left,” she said, the words rushed. “I was so selfish! So lonely. It was a single moment of weakness after four hundred years of steadfast service. I wanted a baby and he could give me one. I didn’t think I would really fall in love with him. I didn’t think he could fall in love … with me.”
Such a misery-tinged admission there never was. That ominous word ‘Keeper’ again, which had popped up more than weeds lately. Well practised at avoidance by now, I ignored the diary reading that clamoured for recognition.
“Don’t hurt him. Finesse,” Raphaela spat the name as though a mouthful of spoiled food, “forced Seth to reveal my whereabouts. Forgive me, please.”
“I give you the gift of Celestial Blessing to soothe your sorrow and conquer the coming trial. My forgiveness was already yours. Be at peace, Raphaela.”
And suddenly I perceived the most glorious and magical sight of my life. Enoch the Watcher showed his true self. He erupted in white flame, growing too large for the room and his suit to contain. A wheel of fire writhed about his huge torso, his massive multiple wings, and the glowing bright eyes that covered every millimetre of his powerful body. But the inferno did not consume him.
He shimmered and changed like a mirage in the desert and I had to concentrate on keeping him in my mind or he slipped from view. He was as luminous as the sun and his incandescence filled every particle of my being with a joy so intense that, if I never had an emotion again, this would be enough. And then he turned and gazed directly at me. It was impossible, as his face never left Raphaela, like he could see in all directions at once.
“I will be with you soon, Winsome Light. Be safe, my child.”
I had no time to examine anything else as the enormous, angelic spirit of the Watcher departed and in its place stood the ordinary man once more. He’d shared telepathic knowledge, calling his physical body Enoch Smalls, Solicitor and executor of the upcoming will for Raphaela Baptiste, who was about to give her life for the supposed sin of wanting a baby. His job, among many, was to oversee the transference between the old and the new Keeper. I still stubbornly denied what this meant. Raphaela straightened with renewed energy.
“Was any affection Seth displayed towards me real, Enoch? Or did he trick me in order to do the Crone’s bidding?”
“You awoke a love in Seth he thought he had lost forever. You are carrying his child.”
“It is a girl.” I sensed she did not need affirmation. “Well this is for the best then,” her voice caught. “I wouldn’t wish the Keeper’s fate on anyone.”
“Are you determined to follow this path?” Enoch said, his doubt poorly disguised. “For the first time in my reckoning, the future is unclear. Only one Keeper remains after you. We would try to conceal the infant.”
“This is the only way forward, Enoch. I am Keeper until my end, and the Crone beholds the Trinity closer now than since the loss of her accursed possession. My daughter would never be safe. That wretched witch would hunt her down, stopping for nothing. Wherever she goes, love dies.” Raphaela forged on briskly. “My hope of a child was a dream unfit for harsh reality. I should have known. I am responsible now for the greatest danger we have ever faced. The occasion of my own death has been too long coming.”
“So be it.”
“Have I doomed the new Keeper?” she whispered. “The very last of us.”
“Her path is more winding and difficult to read than any before. I do not know.”
She offered Enoch the diary and it disappeared in a twitch of his finger. He grasped her hand. “Courage, Raphaela. Your sacrifice is unheralded in my vision. I cannot distinguish the outcome of your actions.”
“I know this is the right thing to do. I just know.” She nodded goodbye.
And then, Enoch was gone from the room. Raphaela moved quickly now, determined. She stepped through the gap in the triangle to sit cross-legged on the floor. Taking care not to dislodge the contents within, she withdrew a lighter and lit the black candles that sat outside the red wax, beginning a soft chant. I could not make out the language. With a red taper, she completed the complex designs of the triangle, closing the breach, and snapped the crayon in pieces.
Constantly murmuring, she daubed the dagger’s blade with clear fluid from a vial, tipping the remnants over herself and crushing the glass in her palm. A sweet smell invaded the space. Blood trickled from her hand but she continued the ritual undaunted. Raphaela sprinkled ash within the triangle and broke the saucer it had come from. Carefully, she hid the dagger in the V of her legs. And then she visibly calmed herself, and waited, the incantation never ceasing.
Her patience was soon rewarded. Or penalised. A sinuous black vapour slipped under the office door, gaining momentum. Writhing tendrils of mist coiled on the air, until they solidified into a teenage girl of such startling beauty she halted breath. She wore a tight, red, patent-leather dress that revealed her magnificent voluptuousness. Shiny black stilettos enhanced the length of her shapely legs. Silken black hair tumbled down her back, falling below her waist. Her skin glowed, her complexion flawless.
I was transfixed by the youth of her face. Try as I might, I could not drag my focus from her alluring almond eyes, as black as night, and rimmed with lashes long and thick enough without mascara to stir envy. Her full lips were as luscious as models in magazines. But the perfect smile that stretched her mouth on sighting Raphaela was as cold as ice, and did not reach those entrancing eyes.
