The Blackwood Curse, page 27
I must have drifted as when I next opened my eyes, I was back in the greyness of the Inside Out. I went closer to the glowing glass and peered through the mirror above them.
None the wiser to my exit from the room, Wax’s father shook his head and threw back another drink and held out his hand flat to show just how shaky he was.
‘You OK?’ Wax asked him, when he was satisfied his mother was comfortable.
‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ his dad replied.
Olivia began to cry. ‘To think we left you alone with that lunatic. He was unhinged,’ she said.
Wax’s dad let out a deep breath and nodded his agreement. ‘You have to know we had no idea, Son.’
‘I know,’ Wax said. ‘A lot of people were taken in by him.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with you, is there.’ his father said as a statement. ‘Can you ever forgive us?’
Wax let out a single blast of laughter. ‘Except anger issues? No. And I guess I can. Things will change. It’ll be easier for us all.’
‘I’d better call 999 for Ainsley’s body,’ he said, wearily taking out his phone.
His mom cried harder and Wax put his arms around her. ‘Don’t cry. Why wouldn’t you believe him? I was all over the place.’ He kissed the top of his mother’s head and she continued to dab her eyes.
‘So what happens now? I guess we should just sell the place. Put the whole sorry mess behind us.’
Wax straightened up while he appeared to think about that. It struck me then that Wax was free. He looked over at the group that included Ollie and I couldn’t tell if Wax could see them or not. Ollie stood silently, looking on, as if he didn’t want to sway his decision either way. I guess he loved his brother very much and didn’t want to tie him down any longer. Still, it was heart-breaking to watch. ‘You can’t,’ Wax said, emphatically, as if he’d made up his mind.
I couldn’t help the small leap in my heart. Hoping it was partly me that had helped him come to that decision. ‘This house must always stay linked to the Blackwoods and owning it is the only way to be sure of that. Don’t you understand? With the fountain and the curse, it can’t fall into anyone else’s hands.’
My heart broke for the enormous sacrifice he was making.
His father looked concerned and came and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘I know the mine is yours, Son. I’m not trying to deprive you of any inheritance, but do you want it hanging around your neck like a great albatross? This is your chance to be young and start to live.’ He gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘You could be free and have an ordinary life.’
Everything his father said was true. However, Wax turned and any doubt I had of what he could see evaporated as he looked directly at his brother. ‘And I will, you can count on it. Ainsley took enough of my life, but I can do that without letting this place go. Ainsley has gone, but he’s left a huge mess. Hundreds of Shades have been called and need my help. They’re frightened and alone and need guidance. I think I owe them that much.’
He still hadn’t looked at me, but I was so proud of him then.
His father embraced him and smacked his back, ‘The title will eventually be yours and I couldn’t be prouder,’ he said. ‘Archibald Breton Waxley-Black, Viscount of Bondsborough.
‘Oh my god,’ Tallulah said, which cut through my shock.
I had no idea Wax was part of the peerage. He looked an unlikely candidate in his ragged, grey ‘Shot Away’ t-shirt and covered in tattoos. Even Ollie sniggered.
Olivia stood and joined in the hug. She looked into Wax’s father’s eyes and something passed between them. ‘We’ll move back here with you … if you want us to, that is,’ she said, a little unsure. ‘At least until you move on with your life.’
Wax hugged her to him and nodded. Hiding his emotion in her neck. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be a family again.’ He pulled apart, head hung low, exhausted and clearly relieved he didn’t have to fight them anymore.
‘Well, that’s settled, then. I think I’ll get your mother off to bed. I’ll have to deal with the police when they get here, then we’ll make a plan of action when we’ve had time to rest,’ his father said, giving his shoulder a last squeeze. Then he helped Olivia out of her chair and headed for the door. ‘Get some rest too. I want us to talk.’
I felt emotion rising in me too, watching Wax. He looked so vulnerable and young. As if conversations like this had happened so rarely in his life, he was bewildered at the thought of them. It did my heart good to think it would be a new era for him. For the first time, Wax had hope for the future.
The door closed and Wax came and stood in front of us all. His emotion had cleared and he just glared at us all one by one – particularly me in the mirror. ‘So is someone going to tell me what you assholes have really been up to?’
After a beat of silence, everyone spoke at once.
‘The tunnel was a last-minute opportunity to get around the curse. We couldn’t ignore it,’ Ollie said.
‘And Beccah was safely in the Inside Out – well she was to begin with and Jedediah was on her side, anyway,’ Tallulah threw in.
‘He led us to the fountain, which was really his anyway,’ Archie said.
Everyone pled their case until Wax had to put up his hands to shut us up. ‘OK, OK, I think I got the gist of all that. You managed to save our arses. Thank you.’ His eyes flicked to mine and, for a moment, I felt a tiny glimmer of hope that he still felt the same about me. Then it was gone when he turned to his brother, clicked his fingers and pointed at me. ‘Send her back to my IP. I want a word with her … alone.’
My heart dropped into my stomach. I was scared. Really, this time. Tallulah giggled and grinned at me like a traitor.
Chapter 29
I stared into Wax’s beautiful glacier-blue eyes. Eyes that now looked tired and not at all repentant. I wanted him to spill out apologies, begging me to forgive how he’d acted, but instead he was stern; as if he was waiting for something from me.
Suddenly, it all got too much. I hated that he made me feel this way. That it mattered that he was angry or thought of me at all. Tears prickled behind my eyes and I battled to get them to stay put. My face felt hot and I’m sure I came across angry. ‘So what now? Your girlfriend is gone and all your plans are out of the window.’
Infuriatingly, he gave me no help to argue. In fact, he didn’t bite at all. He just raised his eyebrows as if I’d surprised him.
I continued, regardless. ‘What? You think we can pick up where we left off after you sold me out and smooched with a girl right in front of me?’
I could tell he was trying not to laugh. The corners of his mouth went to twitch and it was clearly taking effort to hold them in place. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to pull out my own hair and scream how much I hated him for what he did. ‘It was like I didn’t exist,’ I said in the end, through gritted teeth to stop myself. ‘The whole time she was out there with you, you only had time for her.’ Now I’d started speaking, it was all coming out from the depths of me and I couldn’t stop. Tears began to stream down my cheeks and all he did was stare back, astonished, and, in the end, sad. He let me rant on and that made me more wretched.
I went on about Pete and how alone I was until I’d met him and how he’d blown it, ‘Because I’m stupid and you’re sexy and have the whole quiet, brooding thing going on. But not anymore. No, sir. No way.’
He followed what I said, his eyebrows raising, then squinting, trying to follow and make sense of my tirade. At some parts he frowned, like he was sad or concerned. Others his mouth moved as if to smile and thought better of it, which was wise in my current, unhinged state. However, the thing that upset me most was that, through it all, he listened and didn’t butt in once, when all I wanted was for him to wrap his arms around me and tell me it was OK. But he didn’t because he couldn’t. It was something he would never be able to do.
Then he said those three words that just stopped me dead.
‘I love you.’
He didn’t shout them, just said them matter of factly, as if the idea had just come to him right then.
I sat and stared at him as my chest heaved in and out with everything I’d just thrown at him. ‘I’m dead, Wax,’ I said, simply, without even voicing the whole ‘I’m stuck in here thing’. ‘And even if, by some miracle, we manage to break the curse, it would mean everyone would go. Ollie, Tallulah and the others might pass over. We would never see them again.’
We stared at each other another full minute while the thought sunk in with both of us. ‘The elixir only works on live people, Wax. Ainsley said it himself. It was the whole reason they had to get Lila out of here.’ I thought about how we’d all taken a drink before Wax had got to the cave. How, deep down, we’d all hoped for a miracle. But it didn’t come. Even my ability to manifest as a spirit in their world was temporary. ‘They all drank it and they’re still Shades, Wax,’ I said, more gently.
Wax absorbed what I said without saying anything. I hated that I’d had to lay it on the line so brutally. Even his genius brain couldn’t get them out of this one.
I relented a little. ‘For what it’s worth, I love you too,’ I said eventually. ‘Even though you don’t deserve it.’ I tried to recapture my anger of earlier, but it was replaced by an overwhelming hopelessness. I started to cry again. ‘I can’t be a spectator on everyone’s lives, Wax. And I can’t expect you to stay on your own, can I? I can’t pretend I’m not trapped in here. It’s worse than death.’ I stared at him and he looked back at me, his own eyes glassy with emotion. ‘Say something, please.’
He closed his eyes and, for once, I actually thought he’d accepted and agreed with something I said. ‘I have an idea.’
I went to interrupt and talk over him, but his eyes held such sadness that I knew whatever it was was not going to solve a thing, well, not for him, anyway. ‘Go on,’ I said, scraping my tears away on my fingers. ‘No more spells or computer systems or robots,’ I threw in.
He smiled a little and shook his head. ‘No robots.’
He bent down, rummaged in his bag by his feet and pulled out the glass bottle and put it on the desk between us. I recognised it right away. ‘Elixir? But we already know that it won’t work on me.’
He took a deep breath as if he was summoning the courage for something. ‘Do you trust me?’
I studied him to gauge him for a moment. ‘Smooching other girls in front of me, aside, you mean?’
He rolled his eyes and grinned. Then he got serious again. ‘Shades sleep, right?’
I nodded, not sure I was going to like where he was going with this. ‘Yes, but—’
‘I think I can put you into sleep mode on my computer until I get you back – properly, I mean.’
I stared at him blankly. ‘Why? What are you going to do?’ All my accusations of earlier disappeared in my absolute panic that he was just going to leave me.
‘You said you hate it there and I can make it easier. You can sleep until I find a way to get you out.’
‘You’re crazy,’ I said, already thinking of excuses of why it was a terrible idea. ‘It could take you years,’ seemed the most obvious.
‘You won’t know or feel anything. The next thing you’ll know is that you’ll wake up with me.’ He finished speaking and there was such a plea in his eyes and such an unsure smile that I couldn’t ignore what he was saying.
It was too fantastic to ever come true, but he believed it and was offering me a way.
And I was tired. So tired of it all. Of being upset. Of being alone. ‘Can I say goodbye to everyone first?’ It came out before I had a chance to overthink it.
He closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Of course.’
We both knew it was the best idea in a terrible situation. ‘Then let’s do it.’
‘It’s not as easy as that. We’ll do it first thing in the morning when I’ve had time to think it through. I don’t want to make any mistakes.’
I knew what it was; it was a plea for rest, to process what had happened. I had to remember this was hard on him too. He’d gone through some monumental changes today. The vulnerability in it made me love him all the more, if that was possible. It was so open and honest, I couldn’t argue against it. I just nodded. He looked paler than usual. His eyes were low with exhaustion and a small vein pulsed just above his eye. ‘You’ll sleep, then?’ I said, half joking, not convinced he would.
‘I always sleep when you’re here.’ It broke my heart, because I knew that I couldn’t. I’d be right here watching him fall asleep and long to be able to be right there in the bed with him.
He angled the monitor and got under the quilt, patting it down so he could still see me. We watched each other for what felt like hours, until his eyelids lowered and he eventually got dragged into sleep.
* * *
I was wide awake. I guess it was the idea that I could be in suspended sleep for ever and if my parents turned off my life support back home, I’d cease to exist. I hadn’t had the heart to remind Wax of that. I was going along with his plan for him as much as anything else.
My world was pixelated in Wax’s IP but I’d never really examined me. My person. I felt real. To look at, everything was there: arms, legs, fingers and toes, but everything seemed a weird colour or out of focus. I laughed the same, cried the same, felt exactly the same as I was in the real world. Wax had designed a complete replica of his house like someone would a doll’s house. Except I was living in this one.
With Wax sound asleep, I wondered over to the IP version of his bed and lay down. I felt the softness of the quilt and sunk into the deep, welcoming mattress. I came over with a soul-deep weariness that would take more than one night to go away. Maybe Wax’s idea to sleep wasn’t so bad. I was so tired of it all. It would feel good to let go and get carried by the stream for a change.
I sighed and turned over and let my mind wander for what felt like ages. Until the wonderful smell wound its way to my nostrils and the strong arm snaked over my waist and pulled me towards him.
Wax. I’d know his smell anywhere. The heady smell of clean soap and pure him. I turned into his chest and he gripped me tightly, his mouth burying in my hair and kissing the top of my head. ‘Am I dreaming? Are you here in the program?’
‘Does it matter?’ he said, moving down to kiss me on the mouth.
Fleetingly, I thought of our first messages on the laptop and wondered if this was some kind of virtual meeting on the network, like that. But then his mouth found mine and I didn’t care. His arms gripped me between my back and the bed and I opened my mouth and welcomed him. He tasted real, warm and wet and we rolled over until I was looking down at him. It was dark and I could just make out the pixelated angles of his face and the flaming wing tattoo by his ear. My whole body rested and felt all of his, warm and hard, against me. I couldn’t see his eyes, but knew he was watching me as much as I was him.
He was right. It didn’t matter if he’d come to me in a dream or some kind of chat room. We were together somewhere and it felt as real and alive as if we were in his bed. ‘I love you,’ I whispered, figuring I was never going to get a better chance to say it.
‘I love you,’ he said right back.
I watched his lips say the words with my heart swelling to breaking point. He sat up with me in his lap, kissed gently down the side of my neck and I threw my head back, losing myself in the feel of him.
Then I understood, totally. Wax was giving me this one last perfect night of life, before he put me to sleep and it was as heart-breaking as it was perfect and beautiful. We would join together before we blew apart into a thousand shattered pieces.
* * *
I forced myself awake a few times to check he was there and he was. Wax slept the rest of the day and all through the night and I was right there with him. Then, at some point during the dawn, I must have dozed, because, with the creeping grey light, he was gone.
I went to the computer screen and the grey of his room looked no different to the Inside Out. It was so early. Except the rosy tint of dawn stole between a gap in the curtain to give away the real world. Wax’s world that would forever be separate to mine. I imagined the dawn chorus of birds all competing in the garden for the loudest song. My world was so silent. Just the gentle mechanical hum of the computer system.
Wax was still in bed, his breathing moving the duvet gently. I remembered last night with a delicious ache in my lower abdomen. I blushed and my body warmed at the memory.
He’d woken while I was lost in thought. He lay there blinking, but his eyes were on me. He was paler in this light, but he looked happier and refreshed. ‘Morning,’ he said croakily, a crafty smile stealing across his face that instantly sent mine bursting red.
‘It was real,’ came out before I could stop it.
He sat up and put his feet out of the bed, onto the floor. He ran his fingers back through his messy hair and, still with his mischievous smile, said, ‘Tech is a modern marvel.’
I put my hand to my mouth and laughed. He stood and padded over to me, but when he looked down at me his head tilted to the side and he looked sad. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. In the end he just said, ‘I’ll shower and get the others.’
I think it was the longest fifteen minutes of my life, particularly as I understood it was probably the last fifteen minutes of my life. The current one, anyway. There was one last place I had to go, that Wax would not understand.
Ollie had usually been the one to throw me out of the IP into the Inside Out, but today I concentrated like I never had before. Just like when I went from the IP to a phone device, I imagined the fibre optics and wires like tunnels, until I screwed my eyes shut and landed straight into the tunnel between the houses. I guessed that was the limit of the Waxley-Black Wi-Fi reach. As soon as I got my bearings and was confident that I’d actually done it, I ran the rest of the way to my aunt’s.
