Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) (2 page)

And then I saw
him.

He stood with his back to
me some distance away, a tall, white male dressed in jeans and a
blue jacket despite the heat.

The moment my gaze fell on
him he began to move away, walking at a slow, leisurely pace. My
entire world seemed to narrow to just this moment—the stranger
moving steadily away from me.

I couldn’t speak. The two
girls behind me, and the noise and chaos of the park,
disappeared.

I snapped myself out of my
fugue and looked around the park, frantic as the stranger moved
farther away. Then I walked away from the two girls who now had
identical frowns upon their brows, the dimness behind their eyes
beginning to lighten like dawn breaking across a night sky. I kept
my gaze on the white male as I ran in the other direction from the
one he was headed in. I knew now I wasn’t that far from one of the
entrances because I could hear cars roaring past. If I ran toward
the road he would have to...

He came to an abrupt
stop.

For a few moments I just
stood there staring at his back, my stomach tied in knots. Knowing
this would be my only chance, I ran toward him.

I reached him and moved to
stand by his side, peering up into his face.

I had known before I saw
him that he would be beautiful, but beautiful didn’t seem adequate
to describe a face that was perhaps only seen in dreams or bestowed
upon angels. He had a noble profile, aquiline nose and full lips.
His hair was dark brown and curled just at the nape of his
neck.

I knew instantly he was
not quite like the rest of us but seemed to live behind a veil in
this world, not fully a part of it. And my young mind could only
conceive he was an angel come to brighten my very existence with
his presence. The tension, along with the pangs of dread that had
followed me that day, lifted.

I tentatively reached out
and grasped his hand.

He stared ahead for a few
moments, his demeanour aloof as if he didn’t even know I was there.
Then he looked down at me.

I stared up into haunting,
vivid blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes. Everything seemed to
disappear, the people milling all around us as well as the wilting
heat of the afternoon sunshine. The sounds of laughter drifted away
along with that of the grinding traffic churning in the
distance.

All that remained was
him.

A melancholy smile touched
his lips.

“
I should have known I
wouldn’t be able to hide from you, Dallas.” He paused and I was
breathless. Everything hung on his next words. “Come on, let’s get
you that ice cream.”

I smiled for the first
time that morning and let him lead me away to the ice cream
stand.

We sat by the side of a
fountain whilst I ate my cup of ice cream. My legs dangled over the
side of the fountain, my expensive, shiny blue shoes gleamed in the
afternoon sun. I wore jeans and a blue T-shirt and my hair was in
four bunches tied at the end with blue baubles. Although it was
blisteringly hot, he wore his jacket zipped up and appeared
unaffected by the heat. He was also very still, watching me with
sad, deep eyes whilst I talked about everything that mattered in
the world of a five year old. The only time he moved was when he
brought a hand up to lazily push a stray lock of hair that kept
falling into his eyes, away from his face.

When he peered into the
distance and once more brought his hand up to push his hair out of
his eyes, I put my ice cream down on the side of the fountain and
pulled one of the bright blue baubles out of my hair. Eager to
please, I stood so I could reach his hair and gather the unruly
lock of hair into the bauble. I secured it and then sat back down.
His eyebrows came together and he stared upward as if to peer at
the bauble in his hair, his expression one of almost comic
perplexity. I grinned when he gazed at me, proud of my handiwork.
He gave me one of his sad smiles and handed the ice cream to
me.

“
Thank you,
Dallas.”

“
You’re welcome,
Avery.”

His smile widened,
although it did not reach the desolation in his eyes, desolation as
enduring and fluid as the water gushing from the fountain behind
us.

“
I don’t recall telling
you my name, Dallas.”

“
You’re Avery. We all know
that. And,” I added, trying to mimic his accent and deep voice. “I
don’t recall telling you
my
name.”

He chuckled softly. “No, I
don’t suppose you did.”

It was a few moments
before he spoke again, his voice gentle but hesitant.

“
Do you want to talk about
what happened with your nanny at the bank?”

I froze with a spoonful of
ice cream halfway toward my open mouth, my eyes locked on
him.

His gaze was gentle as he
peered down at me. “It is all right, Dallas.”

I was able to breathe
again and let the spoonful of ice cream continue to my open mouth.
His expression grew serious, his gaze earnest as he
spoke.

“
Do you understand what
happened and why what you said upset Alessandra?”

I brought the ice cream
down to my lap and lowered my gaze. Tears pricked my eyes. I so
desperately needed him to like me.

“
What you can do, it is a
gift, one that must not be misused. It is a very big gift for a
child to have, a burden in some ways. Your grandmother tried to
take that burden away from you for a while, but she was not able to
take all of it away. What I am trying to tell you is that you must
not use it to hurt people like Alessandra, okay?”

I nodded. He smiled at me
and the moment of misery was swept away.

He reached a hand
absentmindedly toward his hair, but stopped when he remembered the
hairband holding the unruly lock of hair in place. He glanced at me
and a small smile touched his lips before he looked off into the
distance. The smile melted away and his expression soon resembled
that of someone weeping silently, completely unaware of the tears
cutting a glistening trail down their cheeks. Misery welled up
within at the sight of his sorrow and I spoke without knowing what
it was I meant to say.

“
Luna? What’s
Luna?”

He looked at me, his
eyebrows raised in surprise. “You can read my mind,
Dallas?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.
It just came into my head.”

“
I think you
can.”

There was another of those
long, thoughtful pauses. His voice was heavy when he
spoke.

“
Luna was one of your
ancestors. I was thinking that she would have adored
you.”

He looked away again and
suddenly appeared smaller, as if he were shrinking inside his
clothes. His misery and yearning, along with pain so raw and
intense, smothered me. Desperate to say something to make him feel
better, I said the first thing that came to my mind.

“
She’s not
dead.”

He looked up, his
attention focused entirely on me for the first time that
afternoon.

“
What...what did you
say?”

His voice was low, his
expression blank. I wouldn’t have known how affected he was by my
words if it wasn’t for the powerful emotion I could feel rolling
off him and the intensity in his haunting blue eyes. I faltered for
a second or two, the ice cream forgotten.

For the first time in my
life, I was frightened of this power, this knowledge that always
came unbidden, terrified I was about to say something that would
wound him as much as it had wounded Alessandra.

“
Um...she’s not dead. She
changed,” was all I said in the end.

He studied me in silence
for a few moments, and it felt as if someone was brushing feathers
along the insides of my skull.

“
Stop that,” I said,
giggling and bringing my hands up to my forehead. “It
tickles.”

He reached for my ice
cream and extracted the cherry at the bottom I had been trying to
reach. It seemed he had completely forgotten what I had said, so I
continued to tell him about my world, my dolls, and even the mean
nanny.

When the ice cream was
finished, I scrambled off the side of the fountain. He took the
empty cup from me and tossed it in a trash can.

“
Thank you for buying me
ice cream, Mr Avery.”

“
It was a pleasure,
Dallas.”

“
I just need you to take
me home so I can get my teddy, and then I can come and live with
you.”

He appeared completely
speechless, and for the second time that afternoon, pulled himself
away from his thoughts and focused on me completely. I thought I
saw blind panic in his eyes.

“
Dallas, I...you.... I’m
afraid that’s not possible.”

I felt my chest clench
with anxiety for the second time that afternoon. I stared up at him
in bewilderment, wrenching anguish at his words, making it
difficult to breathe.

“
But...but...I promise
I’ll be good.”

“
It’s not because of that,
Dallas. I would if I could, but you belong at home with your
parents.”

Tears rolled down my
cheeks. “But I don’t want to be with them. I want to be with you.
I’ve been w—”

“
Hush, Dallas.” He knelt
and pulled out a white handkerchief. He gently wiped away my tears.
“You belong at home with your mother and nanny. She’ll be here any
minute now to take you home.”

Panic fluttered in my
chest. He was right. I could already sense her getting closer. I
grabbed his arm, the waves of anguish cresting.

“
Please. I’ll be sad if
you don’t take me with you.”

He smiled a weary smile
that told of unrelenting sorrow. “You won’t remember me,
Dallas.”

He bent and kissed me on
the forehead.

I was alone.

I looked around me for the
teenager in the green shorts who had been standing behind me only
moments ago. Not only was she gone, I was now by the fountain. I
looked about me, that anxiety about to overwhelm me again when I
heard someone scream out my name.

I turned to the sound of
the voice and saw Alessandra running through the throngs of people
toward me. Her perfect black eyeliner now ran in jagged tracks down
blotchy, red cheeks, the black and red making her face look even
paler by comparison. Her hair stuck out at crazy angles as if she
had grabbed fistfuls of it while in a frenzy. She reached me and
pulled me to her. She held me tight for what seemed to be the
longest time before she pulled away to peer at me. Her eyes flashed
with anger even as they filled with tears.

“
You are a naughty,
naughty girl. Do you know that?
Mama
mia
! Why did I ever agree to be your
nanny?”

She pulled me into a tight
hug once more.

Filled with a sadness that
seemed as deep as the widest chasm, one I could not even understand
or explain, I could only cry silently into her shoulder.

After a few moments she
was able to let me go. She smiled through her tears and pulled out
a grubby tissue.

“
You silly girl. Look at
you.” She wiped at my face. “Next time, you listen to me, okay? Now
let me buy you this ice cream and we can go home.”

At the mention of ice
cream, the sadness rose to an agonising peak and I was overwhelmed
by a feeling of debilitating loss, but I did not know why. At the
fresh onslaught of tears, Alessandra picked me up, stroking my
hair.

“
Okay, I’ll take you
straight home,” she said.

She carried me home,
holding onto me tightly the entire way.

My mother was waiting for
us when we returned. She’d had to leave an important family meeting
at my grandmother’s when she received a call from the bank about
what had taken place there. Alessandra was sacked. I was too
miserable to pay attention, the tears that streamed down my face
continuing long into the evening and even as sleep stole over me
that night.

I awoke the following
morning to my sixth sense tingling. I peered sleepily around the
spacious, sugary pink bedroom at the white shelving units heaving
with toys—dolls, teddy bears and assorted pink hat boxes filled
with more toys. I sat up when my gaze fell on a pretty pink dress
with ruffles along its edges hanging by the window. I got out of
bed and reached for it, knowing instinctively that it came from a
little shop in London, just like another blue and yellow dress I
had found by the window a few months ago.

I could not understand why
the sight of the dress made hot, thick tears well up and roll down
my cheeks, or why the churning misery that had been with me since
the trip to the park intensified. But it did, and once the dam of
tears burst forth, it was difficult to contain.

It was how my mother found
me a short time later, sitting on my bed clutching the pink dress,
engulfed in tears.

She came to an abrupt stop
in the doorway. Her large brown eyes, ringed in red, had dark
circles beneath them. Her hair, which was usually pulled back into
a neat bun, hung in stringy, uncombed tendrils around her
shoulders. She squeezed her eyes shut, the same way she did
whenever I threw a tantrum. A shuddery sigh escaped her. She turned
and left the room without another glance at me.