Authors: K.C. Finn
Tags: #young adult, #historical, #wwii, #historical romance, #ww2, #ya, #europe, #telepathic, #clean teen publishing, #kc finn
The Mind's Eye (21 page)
“
Mam’s in control of him really,” I replied, grinning from my
chair and holding my crutches, impatient to get up and get started,
“She’ll talk him round.”
“
And who’s going to talk your brother round?” Henri asked,
scratching his smoothly shaved chin.
mighty frown. “He’ll just have to grow up,” I huffed, though I
wasn’t sure I was patient enough for that. It was like Leigh had
taken all of Mum and Dad’s protective instincts in over the years
and now they’d all spilled out in one monstrous mood swing, one
that was threatening to totally ruin my summer.
Henri broke
my thoughts by taking away my crutches. I looked up at him with a
frown as he threw them on the sofa.
“
You’re not going to use them to dance,” he insisted, “You’ll
stab me in the toe.”
“
Then what will I lean on?” I asked, a smile creeping into the
corner of my mouth.
over my chair, his chin almost touching my shoulder, and wrapped
his long arms around my waist, lifting me to my feet with ease. I
gripped his shoulders hard as he let me take some of my own weight
onto my legs. When we were settled I was looking up a little into
his face, but he wasn’t quite as tall as he always seemed when I
was sitting down so low. If I had the strength to be on my
tip-toes, we could have been nose to nose. I made a mental note to
work on that sometime.
“
Keep your strongest hand on my shoulder and give me the other
to hold,” he said, his rich voice so perfectly quiet. Even though
there was always a ridiculous din from the kitchen and Blod’s radio
upstairs, I felt like every sound in Ty Gwyn melted off into
silence when he spoke.
was told, wobbling slightly when he made the transition to only
having one arm around my waist. I had to lean on him an awful lot
to stay standing, but the strain was well worth it when I found him
smiling proudly at me. I caught myself staring into his deep
chocolately eyes and tore my gaze away with a grin.
“
Aren’t we supposed to move?” I asked.
“
Oh, um, yes,” he mumbled, adjusting his warm hand at my waist
and pulling me a little closer, “All right. How about you step
forward with the left foot and I’ll step back?”
in. I was about fifty times slower than his counting, but we
managed it all the same.
“
And now you bring your feet together again.”
somewhat easier, but I could feel Henri half lifting me off the
ground to help.
“
Now we step to the right side, and feet together.”
into his strong shoulder muscles to keep steady, feeling my face
flush pink from more than just the physical strain. His nose bumped
my temple as I stumbled; I could feel him grinning against the side
of my face.
“
Okay, this is the hard part. Now you step back with the left,
but twist your body to face the left too.”
sweet scent on his breath like he’d pinched one of Mam’s cakes that
were meant for after dinner. I had hardly registered what he said
before we started to move, and as I tried to twist my body my knee
went to jelly and I started to fall backwards. I felt my eyes shoot
wide open in shock, but it was only a moment before Henri wrapped
both his arms around me and pulled me upright. I let out a few
sharp breaths, my face pressed down against his chest as my legs
shook on their own. As we waited for them to calm down I felt one
of Henri’s smooth hands stroking the back of my shoulders, which
made them feel weak all over again.
“
Do you need to sit and rest?” Henri asked, his jaw moving
against my hair.
from his chest, shaking my head. I felt terribly weak and shaken in
all sorts of ways, but there was no way I was ready for him to let
me go. I couldn’t think of anything worse in that moment than
having to leave his warm arms, the way he scooped me up and held
me, like I could almost be a normal girl that could stand on her
own. I made to speak, but my breath caught in my throat when I
realised Henri was leaning his head down, bringing me closer to his
smooth lips and his cheeky grin. I felt like my heart had stopped,
like everything on the planet had stopped. There was no war, no
families torn apart, no lack of food or nice clothes, no planes
shooting bullets into the sky. There was just us and this moment,
everything I could ever have wanted.
“
Ooooh!”
had barely grazed mine before he pulled his head away sharply. I
craned my neck in fury to see Ness Fach in the doorway, waving
Dolly excitedly. She pointed at us with a huge grin full of tiny
teeth, then ran off at an inhuman pace.
“
Mam! Maaaaaaaaaam!”
me up quickly and put me in my chair.
“
I’ll go catch her,” he promised, kissing my forehead before
he took off after the little tell-tale.
sitting alone with a thump in my chest so fierce I was sure my
heart would just give up the ghost at any moment, but also smiling
so much that I was sure it’d make my face ache for a week.
***
Henri had
only just managed to stop Ness Fach from spilling the beans about
our almost-kiss to Mam, but he hadn’t got to her before she reached
Leighton, which sent my little brother to an all new level of
annoying. For the rest of the time between then and the summer
dance, any time we practised a few steps Leighton was there
watching Henri like a mangy guard dog, fangs out and ready to
attack. Having him there did actually make me concentrate less on
Henri and more on learning to dance, but I would much rather have
sent Leighton away if I thought he wouldn’t go straight to Mam and
tell on us at once.
“
The dance will be the place,” Henri whispered to me once
whilst we practised, “Whenever you get tired, we can find a nice
place outside to sit alone.”
“
You know I get tired an awful lot, don’t you?” I giggled into
his ear.
“
I thought you were supposed to be watching your feet?”
Leighton demanded irately from his perch at the door.
morning of the dance came around I was surprised to find Henri and
Idrys joining us for breakfast. Henri arrived with a suspicious
looking parcel under his arm which he took and put in another room
before he joined us at the table. Afterwards he asked me to come
and talk to him alone, taking the handles of my chair with an
audibly deep breath. Leighton protested heavily, but Idrys insisted
on taking him outside to calm down and get some air. To my surprise
Henri wheeled me into my bedroom where the parcel, wrapped in brown
paper, was waiting on my mattress. He passed it to me eagerly,
sitting down on the corner of my bed with a glint in his eye.
I must have
had the stupidest grin all over my face whilst I was opening the
paper, but it was nothing compared to the Blod-like squeal of
delight I gave when I finally found what was inside it. A dress. A
beautiful new dress, navy with white polka dots. I spread it out
over my knees to see the wide, flowy skirt part, perfect for
dancing. It had a bright white ribbon around it to bring in the
waist.
“
I hope it’s all right,” Henri said quietly, “I didn’t have
your measurements.”
set in slowly. My mouth fell open at him for a few seconds.
“
You made this?” I asked. “For me?”
“
Idrys thinks it very strange that I can tailor for men and
women, but Mr Hoffman always liked us to do things that way.” There
was a sad drop in his tone for just a moment when he mentioned his
old employer. “If the waist is too big you can pull it in there.”
He pointed at the ribbon as I nodded.
“
What was it, before it was a dress?” I queried, inspecting
the polka dots again.
“
A tablecloth belonging to Mam’s mother,” he explained, now
grinning as widely as me, “I did ask her permission, of
course.”
“
I love it,” I said brightly, “Oh I love it so much. It’s
wonderful.”
desperately to leap out of my chair and hug him, but all I could do
was reach for his hand and give it a big squeeze. He took the dress
from my lap and laid it out on the bed for me to admire. I’d be
wearing it soon, in just a few hours’ time, dancing with Henri and
sneaking off somewhere to finally claim that very first kiss that
we’d been waiting for. The most perfect of all days had just
begun.
As I started
to speak again a terrifying cry shocked us both. A high pitched,
screaming sob, like someone had just been stabbed, followed by a
low, animal sort of wailing. It was how I used to cry when I first
had the pain all over my body, but somehow this cry was much
deeper, much worse. It sounded like someone was dying. My heart
started to race as Henri grabbed my chair and we careered out of
the bedroom, racing through the black and white hall to reach the
source of the cry in the kitchen.
Mam was on
the floor with her head in her hands. Her usually rosy face was
bright crimson, flushed all too bright. Her calloused hands shook
as she covered her eyes, sobbing and wailing. Blod stood beside her
with a letter in her hands, her pale Celtic face now white and
lifeless as though her soul had just upped and left her body. She
raised a hand to her mouth in slow motion, looking at me with a
terrifying emptiness in her crystal blue eyes. Her lips moved but
no words came out, the only sound was her mother sobbing
uncontrollably beside her in a heap.
The kitchen
door burst open as Idrys came marching in; he too had been alerted
by Mam’s wild cries. Leighton was behind him looking younger than
I’d ever seen him, his face white and full of terror as his eyes
took in the sight of Mam and Blod in their tableau of shock. Idrys
was demanding an answer from the pair of them as to the distress,
but all Blod could do was give him the letter from her trembling
hand. She turned away slowly in her ghostly fashion, facing the
wall, shaking her head of blonde curls. Mam slowly retreated into
silence; it shook me to my core to see such a strong, proud woman
curled on the floor like a frightened animal, shuddering with a
river of silent tears streaking down her face.
“
What is it?” I said fearfully, looking up at Idrys as he
studied the letter.
semblance of joy in the old famer’s face was gone. He looked grey
and bleak; his usually sparkling eyes were empty when they found my
gaze. He let the letter flutter slowly to the floor, clearing his
throat.
“
Clive’s dead.”
another huge shriek at hearing the words out loud. Suddenly I
didn’t feel like dancing ever again.
had come from Thomas, who was a ground mechanic now stationed in
Portsmouth. Clive and Ieuan were on a plane together that went out
to battle the Luftwaffe, but it had been shot down over the English
Channel in the early hours of yesterday morning. Boats supporting
the battle in the air had pulled Clive’s body from the wreckage,
only to find that he had taken almost the full blast of the attack.
He’d died on impact, before the plane even started to go down. Most
of the other men had been pulled from the sea, just barely alive,
and taken to hospital, but worse news still awaited the Price
family. Two crewmen had not been recovered at all, and Ieuan was
one of them.
For once
Leighton didn’t complain when Henri wrapped his arms around me, in
fact when I sat down later on the sofa with my head on Henri’s
chest, my brother curled up in front of our feet like a kitten. I
stroked his sun-bleached hair as he shuddered out tiny tears. For
my own part the tears wouldn’t come, it was like my eyes were too
shocked by it all to realise they were supposed to be crying. Henri
sat in a thoughtful silence for the whole afternoon, only speaking
when I asked him things; I rather thought he’d seen enough death on
his way to me, perhaps he hadn’t imagined that the reaper’s cold
shadow could reach us in the sunny mountains of Bryn Eira
Bach.
Idrys made
the decision that he and Henri would abandon the cottage over the
pasture for now and come and stay at Ty Gwyn to care for Mam. I
couldn’t even bring myself to be happy that Henri and I would be
under one roof when I thought about Mam and Blod and the hell they
were going through. For the first day in all the months I’d lived
in the farm house, Blod’s radio was silent. Fourteen hours passed
between the arrival of the post and me settling into bed for the
night, yet I was sure that I could still hear Mam crying through
the ceiling above my head. I wondered how there was any water left
in her body at all.