Chapter One – Last Child

Beautiful Stranger

Wednesday, 29th February 2012

The last heatwave of Adelaide’s blistering hot summer had finally broken with a vengeance. Shivering, I clenched my lightweight jacket into my torso in an effort to block out the icy wind. This day only occurred once every four years, and you would have thought it would make a better show of it.

The city felt oppressive and unfriendly, with the ever present exhaust fumes and the lingering smell of steamed, rotting garbage after two weeks of temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. The buildings seemed to close in on me, and as always, people were scurrying like mice, clambering to get past me impatiently.

Enviously, I glanced across at my friend Bec, walking alongside me, noticing that she was far more aptly dressed for the weather, in long, dark pants and a thick black coat.  Bec, short for Rebecca, which supposedly only her parents called her when she was in trouble, was always more in tune with the world than me. She would have been smart enough to actually take notice of the weather forecast, unlike me, relying on infrequent use of the Weather App on my smart phone, which I’d neglected to look at this morning.

Noticing me looking at her, she laughed and said, “Olivia, if you had more meat on your bones you wouldn’t feel the cold so badly.”

With a resigned smile, I rolled my eyes at her, and she laughed even louder.

It was not considered politically correct to comment on someone’s size in this day and age, but that rule didn’t seem to apply if people considered you to be slim and attractive, which was a category that I was lucky enough to fall into. Bec, on the other hand, would be described as having a well rounded figure, which in different times may well have been classified as plump. There was something distinctly beautiful about Bec though, and those who knew her would swear it was her inner beauty shining through, which was definitely true, but it wasn’t just that; she had a face that smiled, no matter what her mood was. And maybe it was also her long, wavy hair, the fiery colour of autumn leaves on a Japanese maple.

It was Bec’s birthday, and she had plans for a romantic dinner with her boyfriend later in the evening, but we could settle for a late afternoon celebratory drink after work at our favourite pub with Alec and Tanya, which conveniently fell between all of our workplaces. Bec and I had been working together for almost three years now, and had formed a good friendship, but I’d known Alec and Tanya since Kindergarten, and we – the Terrible Trio – had stuck together through thick and thin, for around twenty years now. I’d introduced Bec into the mix a year or two back, and we wouldn’t be called the Fabulous Foursome any time soon, but it was a more than amicable arrangement. Blending friends can sometimes be fraught with danger, but ours was a little like mixing oil and vinegar; it didn’t seem to gel completely, but the combination when shaken made for an enjoyable blend.

As we neared the pub I could see Alec and Tanya sitting at a tall table close to the window, deep in conversation, full glasses in hand. Alec had his usual scotch and dry, whilst Tanya was holding a glass of white wine. The two couldn’t be more opposite.

Tanya was blonde, tall and very slim, bordering on waif-like; whereas Alec was very dark haired and much taller – close to two metres – with a very solid, muscular build. Alec liked to visit the gym at every available moment, but Tanya had no interest in working out at all, and didn’t understand the gratification of being sweaty and in pain after a long session with heavy weights.

Their differences didn’t stop at the physical; they were diametric opposites in just about everything. If one chose black, the other chose white. If one said yes, the other said no. At times I felt like the referee, having to decide which direction we would pursue, but there was never any level of hostility, and they didn’t do it on purpose to divide and conquer. It was just how they were, and I loved them both equally.

After ordering a glass of Chardonnay for Bec, and a gin & tonic for myself, I joined the others, taking the empty stool at the table. Although Alec and Tanya had already wished her ‘Happy Birthday’ before I arrived, we all clinked glasses together and said, “To Bec.”

Fortunately, the potential view of overlooking the busy main road was eclipsed by the hulking form of Alec, who winked and blew me an air kiss across the table. I felt something hit my leg, and looking down, realised he was handing me a gift bag under the table. I looked back up at him conspiratorially as I took the handles.

There had been many times that his charm and boyish good looks had stirred something inside me, but although I was tall, dark haired and slim, which was definitely his type, I was missing a few other necessary attributes, and an after five shadow was only one of them.

Tanya greeted me with a relaxed smile as she pressed her cheek to mine. “Hey, hun.”

“You know how we agreed that we wouldn’t buy you anything?” I said to Bec, with a quick smile at Alec and Tanya. “Well, we lied. Sorry.” As I said the last words, I brought the gift bag up from under the table and placed it in front of Bec, whilst Tanya drew out a large rectangular present from her lap, and placed it alongside the gift bag.

Bec’s cheeks turned a bright shade of pink, as she set her mouth in a tight pout and looked at each of us in turn. We knew we were forgiven when she pulled the gifts closer and began unwrapping Tanya’s parcel.

She ripped the dark purple wrapping paper off quickly to reveal a large box of chocolate truffles. The scent from the box was tantalising, and that was even before she opened it to offer us each one. Tanya and I both declined, but Alec grabbed one eagerly, and stuffed it straight in his mouth. As he chewed it, he made exaggerated moaning noises to indicate how delicious it was. Tanya punched him lightly on the arm, and screwed her nose up at him, and he laughed loudly, his tongue still lightly layered with chocolate.

“This one is from both of us,” I said to Bec, pointing over to Alec, as she pulled the large gift bag closer.

“Where were you hiding this all day? I didn’t see you with it?” she asked me.

“Alec had it, so prying eyes wouldn’t see it,” I replied, raising my eyes at her.

She peered in the top of the gift bag, and pulled the tissue paper across, and promptly dropped her hands to her lap, like she’d touched a burning candle. She leant back on her stool, and her eyes became glassy.

“You guys,” was all she said, before she leant forward again, and ripped the rest of the tissue paper out of the bag. She tugged at the item, and when it was obvious that the bag wouldn’t release the object, Alec reached over and held the bag for her so she could extract her gift.

“I can’t believe you bought it for me.” She slouched in her stool and stared into the eyes of the dragon statue.

Although it was called a basalt dragon statue – which should have meant it was made of black shiny volcanic rock – it was actually just poly-resin. We couldn’t have afforded the same size dragon in real basalt, but it was the one that Bec had seen when I’d been window shopping with her one lunchtime. Forty centimetres high, and weighing just over three kilos, it was a fierce and wrathful creature, sitting atop the skulls of vanquished foes. Tanya had hated it so much that she refused to share in the gift, even though it was what Bec would have wanted.

Talk turned to our upcoming regular Friday night outing. We tried to mix it up, and not get too routine about the activity, but it usually ended in either a pub or a cinema.

“So, come one, what are we going to see on Friday night?” As usual, when discussing our movie selection, all eyes turned to Bec.

“What? No, I’m not choosing this time,” Bec flustered.

“Well, Walking Wikipedia,” said Alec, using an abbreviation of the nickname that I’d coined affectionately for Bec many months ago, “You always know what’s going on, so it’s your duty to decide.” Bec was like a fountain of knowledge – what she didn’t already know, she could google at the speed of light – which is why we’d taken to calling her our Walking Wikipedia Wonder, and in text messages she was just referred to as WWW.

“But none of those crappy supernatural flicks – no vampires, no werewolves – just real people,” interjected Tanya.

“Yeah, I’m sick of them too. How about an action movie,” Alec agreed.

Whilst we drank our beverages, the discussion about the current movies showing at the cinemas ensued, but after a short while I digressed in thought to Tanya’s prior comment as I stared at Bec’s dragon. Secretly, there was a small part of me that was intrigued by the supernatural elements of the world, and another part of me that wished that some of those elements were real.

Topics like these had only been discussed freely with Alec, as Tanya was distinctly averse to all things other worldly, and I didn’t know Bec well enough to bare my innermost thoughts to, even though her love of the fantasy world would have assured her tolerance.

Alec was different. With him, I could say anything, be anything or do anything. There was an acceptance in him of all possibilities, and he would consider most things without judgement, before deciding if it was for him or not, and even then he wouldn’t judge against anyone if they considered things differently to him.

When I told him I yearned to be more than ordinary, he simply responded, “You’re already special, Liv.”

My fantasy of immortality and indestructibility was met with the same dry logic.

“People who wish for immortality always seem to be the ones that hate their life. I don’t understand why anyone would want to live forever in a life that they supposedly hate!” he’d ruminated, and I didn’t have a rational counter-argument for that.

“And, indestructible,” with an air of disgust he’d scrunched his nose, as if a skunk had just passed by. “How would you die? Ew… Can you imagine what your body would look like when you’re a thousand years old and can’t be destroyed?” When it came to outward appearances, Alec was incredibly self-aware, and he probably spent more money than me on hairdressers, manicures and anti-ageing face creams.

No matter how many times we discussed these issues, his opinion rarely wavered, except once when he’d been a little smitten by one of the actors in a vampire movie, and he almost considered an extended lifetime with him would be worth changing his stance.

Alec and Tanya could always be trusted to keep me grounded.

Looking across at Alec, I could see he was no longer concentrating on the movie conversation either. His attention was focussed on something different altogether.

As if sensing I was watching him, Alec sighed, dropped his shoulders and directed his focus to me. “He’s watching you.” His emphasis was on ‘you’, with a small inference of disappointment.

“Who?” chorused Tanya and Bec in unison, both alerted to the subtle change in atmosphere when Alec sighed.

“The hot dude,” he answered a little curtly, as if he thought they should know already.

“What hot dude?” asked Tanya, with a smirk. We were both quite used to Alec and his constant search for the perfect mate.

“The one over there.” Alec nodded his head towards a table behind us, looking positively miserable.

“Don’t look over,” I rushed out, stopping the girls from turning their heads to look in the strangers’ direction. Alec had already been staring at the guy for a few minutes, and it seemed rude if we all did the same.

Bec couldn’t help herself, and stole a glance anyway.

“He’s very intense, isn’t he?” she remarked.

“I don’t know, I’m not allowed to look at him,” countered Tanya, with a little grin.

“Sorry, just don’t all look at once. It feels weird,” I apologised, pulling a strand of long dark hair behind my ears as I looked down intently into my empty glass, studying the slice of lime, like it was about to tell me an entertaining story.

“I can’t see any hot dude over there,” was Tanya’s only response after sneaking a peek. Alec looked at her incredulously, as if she’d just told him she wanted to turn into a werewolf.

We were interrupted by the sound of breaking glass behind me. Impelled to turn around, my eyes sought for the source of the distraction, but even with the bar full of people, I only saw one.

With one elbow on the bar, facing our way, the hot dude, as Alec had so inexpertly described the stranger, was the most achingly exquisite human being I had ever seen. It was certainly lucky that I was sitting down, because my knees went weak, which may have been as a direct result of forgetting to breathe.

At a glance I noticed every intimate detail of his chiselled face, yet if asked to describe him, words wouldn’t be enough to adequately picture him. He made Alec look ordinary, which was quite an accomplishment. I could understand Alec’s reaction to the gorgeous stranger because I felt drawn to him too.

It felt like the world had slowed down to give me time to really appreciate his extraordinary beauty. An overpowering perfume of vanilla, cinnamon and wildflowers wafted over me, assaulting my senses, leaving me weak and light headed.

Forcing myself to take in deep breaths, the room started to come back into focus, and it was then that I realised that the stranger was watching me. I felt compelled to keep my eyes locked in an unwavering stare with his.

Feeling a hand on my arm, the spell broke, and I quickly turned back to my friends, feeling tightness across my chest, and a dull ache in my limbs, as if fuelled by a numbing drug.

Releasing his hand from my arm, Alec mumbled, “He’s been watching you ever since he walked in. He was standing next to you at the counter when you ordered. Didn’t you see him?”

I didn’t get the chance to answer because Bec stood up abruptly, and announced that she was leaving to get ready for her hot date with Ian.

As if it were a cue to leave, we all stood up, hugged Bec goodbye, wished her a lovely evening and gathered our things. I grabbed the green shopping bag from the floor beside me, that contained the books that Bec had leant me; a series that she’d read a few times and loved. Of course, they were Bec’s, so they were young adult fantasy books, and I was eager to immerse myself in them.

Before we left I glanced back to the bar, where I’d seen the beautiful stranger, and noticed that he’d left. Disappointed, I felt my eyes lower, and as I exhaled, my shoulders dropped.

Tanya had followed my gaze, and said, “You guys have taste in your feet. There are definitely no hot dudes here.” And she promptly walked out.

I looked across at Alec, and he just shrugged. We couldn’t all have the same taste in men, his shrug seemed to say.

“No sad and sorry daydreaming when we’re gone either, not unless it’s about that hot dude,” Alec demanded, as he leaned over to wrap me in a big bear hug from the driver’s seat. He planted a big loud kiss on my lips before I got out of the car.

Tanya got out of the back seat, and squeezed my arm as she settled a parting kiss on my cheek before getting into the front passenger seat that I’d just vacated. I waved to them as they drove off together.

Their concern wasn’t completely unwarranted. I had been daydreaming a lot lately, and it was times like this that I wished I hadn’t told them. But, if you couldn’t tell your best friends what was happening in your life, who could you tell?

When it felt so real, and it was always the same recurring imagery, it didn’t seem right to call it a daydream. It always started the same; I was engulfed in blackness, but felt no threat.

The air around me was cool, but it smelled sweet; floral and heady.

As I concentrated on my breathing, the glow from the moonlight started to strip the darkness of its cover. As shapes emerged, I realised I was in a small field, surrounded by big, old, gnarly trees that reached up towards the sky. I felt so calm.

A slight movement up ahead distracted me. I couldn’t avert my eyes. Someone was walking towards me.

I could hear the rustle of the trees as they swayed gently in the breeze, and it felt soothing.

As the figure got closer I started to make out the face, but it confused me. I strained my eyes, thinking I was mistaken. It was a face that I’d only seen in photographs.

She looked at me with such affection. I didn’t need to study her face to know her.

I reached out to her, unable to breathe – I had no room in my body for another breath. An overwhelming feeling of happiness enveloped me, filling me with amazing warmth. I felt like I was going to explode.

My mother had been visiting me in my daydreams for a few weeks now, and at first it had been unsettling, but now I found it relaxing.

I’d never known her. She had died on the day I was born. Her death had always been blamed on childbirth, and for that I had always felt a degree of guilt.

The older I got, the more I looked like the pictures I’d seen of her. So my first dream had startled me because I thought I was seeing me; long dark wavy hair, slightly layered to take out some of the thickness, petite rosebud lips, defined cheek bones and hazel eyes with long lashes.

Lately, I found myself actually looking forward to my daydreams.

Not feeling motivated to cook anything for dinner, I heated up some leftover soup. I’d had one too many gins, having had one or two more when I got home, and it was no longer warming the cockles of my heart, but numbing the inside of my head, and giving me a stomach ache. The vegetables and fluid intake would do me good.

After pottering around the house doing menial chores, I grabbed one of the books that Bec had lent me, and curled up on the lounge with a few pillows to have a read, but soon decided it was more comfortable to read in bed.

Whether it was eye strain from reading or a case of too much gin, I didn’t last long reading, and turned the light off to sleep.

I was engulfed in blackness, but felt no threat.

The air around me was cool, but it smelled sweet; like a vanilla cupcake.

In the same field as previously, I was surrounded by huge overhanging trees that reached skywards like living towers.

Someone was walking towards me. But they weren’t familiar in a way that I’d expected.

I thought I recognised the face, but it confused me. I strained my eyes, believing I was mistaken.

When close enough, my eyes met with a pair of bottomless chocolate brown eyes, framed with long, dark lashes.

A strong scent of vanilla wafted over me, with a hint of cinnamon, too.

He stared at me for a long moment, but I couldn’t read his expression at all.

The silence between us became something tangible, like a juicy red apple, and I felt a desire to pluck it from the air, but, tongue tied, sure that nothing that was going to come out of my mouth would be coherent, I didn’t dare try to string a sentence together. I wasn’t sure I could, even if I tried.

Eventually, it was the stranger who took the first bite, and his teeth tore right to the core.

“You’re pregnant,” he stated, calmly and matter-of-factly, with no edge of uncertainty in his voice at all.

Nothing could have prepared me for that, and my jaw dropped.

Patiently, he watched me as I stared at him open-mouthed, willing myself to utter a word, as the seconds passed.

He took a step forward, closer to me.

“Do you know how your mother died?” He spoke softly, with tenderness.

An uncomfortable heat prickled over my whole body, and I longed for my usual dream, where I felt safe and comforted.

He was actually looking at me with genuine concern.

“Who are you?” I asked, finally finding my voice. I couldn’t even get angry. I felt lost. A million thoughts were rolling around in my head.

He watched my face intently, and his expression became quite pained.

“A friend,” he said quietly.

“A friend,” I repeated. A couple of seconds passed quietly. “Does my friend have a name?”

“Cael.”

My eyes sprang open, and I found myself tangled in damp cotton sheets, a light film of perspiration covering my whole body. Untangling myself, I sat on the side of the bed, and ran my fingers through my hair, scratching at my head.

Cael.

The beautiful stranger.