Witchblood (21 page)

         I started searching the room, but glancing around, I knew nothing was different. I’d find nothing here. I knew, because it was exactly as I’d left it a month ago when I’d last been home for a visit - or more like a house clean. With my dad being an alcoholic, he was barely able to look after himself, never mind the house. So every couple of weeks I’d been coming home to clean and tidy for him, and do some washing - another reason I could never have left Manchester.

         In the three weeks that I’d been dead, my father had obviously done nothing other than drink and watch TV, because nothing was out of place. Only the waste paper basket, which was kept on the floor by the sofa, stood out. During Christmas, Luke and I had filled it with brightly-coloured chocolate wrappers, but it was now overflowing with beer bottles, and more alarmingly, three full–size, empty whisky bottles. Oh Dad! I sighed and sat down heavily on the sofa, the weight of his loss pressing down and beginning to smother me. I bent my head and covered my face, feeling a single tear slowly trace a line down my cheek.

         The door opened quickly, and a second later there was a slight pressure next to me on the sofa as Daniel sat down, his strong arms around my shoulders, drawing me to him. I looked up through blurry eyes and took in his beautiful face, full of compassion and tenderness, not something you’d ever expect to see in the face of a vampire.

         ‘I shouldn’t have left you Jess. I’m sorry,’ he said.

         ‘No Daniel, it’s me who’s sorry. If I’d stopped to think for one moment, I’d have known you would never have taken my ring. It was stupid and hurtful. I’m sorry, I really am,’ I said quietly, resting my head against his rock-like shoulder. ‘Have you found anything?’ I asked.

         ‘No, not yet, but I was just about to go up into the attic, if you want to come with me?’ he asked. ‘I take it there’s nothing here?’

         ‘No. I tidy, er...tidied this room for dad and nothing has changed except the bin full of bottles,’ I said.

         ‘Come on,’ he said nodding, and led me from the room.

         Just as we started up the stairs, a whoop sounded from the upstairs bedroom.

         ‘I’ve got it. I’ve got the birth certificate,’ Eva shouted to us.

         Daniel, who was one step up from me, turned back and glanced at me quickly. My face was frozen with trepidation.

         ‘Come on,’ she added, as we bolted up the stairs two at a time.

         A couple of seconds later I was facing Eva, as she passed me the brown envelope. I sat on the bed, holding the paper in my hands, wondering how it was going to change my life. Was I right? Was this the key to my strange newfound abilities? All manner of questions flew through my head as I opened the envelope and with trembling fingers pulled out the inconspicuous looking piece of paper. The details washed over me like icy water as I read:

         Name of child – Jessica Angel James;

Angel,
I didn’t even know I had a middle name!

         Sex – Female

         Place of birth – Manchester

         Date of Birth - 20 April 1993

         Name of father – William Alexander James

         Name of Mother – Laurie Lynn James

Oh My God! What the? I stared and stared at those three words. It couldn’t be true. It should say Karen James. My mother’s name was Karen.

         Eva sat beside me on the bed, and she and Daniel gazed at me with concern.

         ‘You were right, I have a different mother,’ I said trying to contain the swirling emotions. ‘Did you read this before you called us?’ I asked.

         ‘I wouldn’t have known what it was without opening it,’ she said nodding. ‘I’m sorry if it’s a shock, but at least we can appease Sebastian, and give him another little project to work on.’

         This was
my
life she was dismissing with her flippant little quips. I wanted to punch her and run from the room, from my past, from my life. Everything had changed, my whole past had changed. My father had lied to me my whole life, my mum was not my mother, and it was all Eva’s fault! She had to push and push, and push until she ruined everything! I felt myself tense as if preparing for a fight.

         ‘Eva, leave us alone a minute,’ Daniel said sharply, cutting into the vortex of my thoughts with an icy blast.

         I was surprised at the tone in which he spoke to Eva and wondered if he’d get away with it. However she must have picked up on the urgency as she merely flicked her eyes from his to mine, then back again before getting up from the bed and quietly leaving the room, closing the door behind her.

         Daniel turned me slightly so that I faced him and spoke softly.

         ‘She
is
still your mother you know. Nothing can change that. She loved you and looked after you. She’ll always be your mother. A piece of paper cannot change that.’ My eyes blurred as his words sank in and I nodded thankfully. ‘It just means your genetic heritage is different, and hopefully we can find out where your new abilities come from,’ he added thoughtfully, as I nodded again, still unable to talk.

         ‘Now, if you think you can carry on for a bit, I have a feeling there is more to find.  I don’t know about you, but to me, Laurie Lynn doesn’t sound like a British name, especially a nineteen sixties British name!’ he said smiling at me.

         ‘No! It’s SO not British. It’s more like ‘Laahrie Lynn,’ I said in an American drawl, somehow managing to push my tumult of emotions away again and smile through the tears.

         ‘Right! Just what I was thinking. So if she was American she must have been married to your father, because she has his name, James. We need to find out her maiden name and what happened to her. Have you ever heard your dad mention a woman named Laurie?’ He asked.

         ‘No, never.’ I closed my eyes and screwed them up in the hopes that I’d remember something, but nothing came. I shook my head.

         ‘OK, well now we need their marriage certificate to trace her identity; and I think the loft is the best place to look.’ I nodded again. I just couldn’t think of anything sensible to say, as my mind was a blank.

         ‘Look, don’t worry, I’ll go up there. I think it’s all a bit much for you. Why don’t you go back down to the lounge? Take this bag and get any odd things you want to keep. You won’t be able to come back Jessica,’ he said softly, handing me a scrunched up supermarket bag he had in his back pocket. ‘So it won’t matter if you just take a few small things, and a couple of photos out of the albums. You could have taken them when you went to university, so it won’t look out of place.’

         He led me out of Dad’s room, after I’d quickly grabbed the small photo frame from the bedside table of Mum, Dad and me on holiday in Greece when I was ten. I stalled outside my bedroom, wondering whether to go in or not. I badly wanted to and knew there’d be loads of stuff I’d want, but I hung back, knowing the trauma it would cause to my extremely fragile emotions. As I dithered, the door burst open and Eva came out, a cardboard box in her arms. I looked at her, shocked, but she smiled warmly at me, my earlier misdemeanour forgotten.

         ‘Jess, I thought it might make things worse if you went in there, so I went to see if I could find anything, and I found this.’ She jiggled the rather heavy-looking box in her arms effortlessly. It had ‘Jessie’ written on the side in my dad’s handwriting. ‘It’s all the stuff he brought home from your university flat. I guessed that would probably be the stuff you’d want anyway, so I’ll put it in the car and you can look through it later,’ she said. I smiled at her, thankful that she’d done the hardest task for me.

         ‘Eva? You haven’t edited it, have you? I mean removed anything you think I might find too upsetting?’ I asked, smiling and raising an eyebrow.

         ‘No, I wouldn’t dare! After all I wouldn’t want you to punch me, would I?’ she said grinning. Ooops! How did she know about that? Honestly couldn’t a girl have any privacy? Before I could stammer out a reply she’d gone, whisking away the box, down the stairs and out of the front door.

         Whilst this exchange had been going on, Daniel had been pulling the loft ladder out and had disappeared up it, into the attic. I heard him pulling a box along the floor above me and his feet appeared through the hole, quickly followed by the rest of him, carrying a large cardboard box.

         ‘Apart from the Christmas decorations right at the entrance hole, and a box of children’s toys, this was the only other box up there.As it was hidden in the far corner of the attic, I’m pretty sure this is what we are looking for,’ he said.

         I stepped towards him, drawn by the secrets the box may hold. It looked old, that’s for sure, and it was taped up securely, but it had nothing written on it.

         ‘We’re not opening it now, Jess,’ he said. He seemed to know instinctively not to call me Jessie in my dad’s house. It just wouldn’t feel right.

         ‘Come on, let’s find you some photos,’ he added, walking past me with the mysterious box, and down the stairs.

         He handed the box to Eva, who in turn took it out to the car to put with the other one, and then he steered me back into the living room.

         ‘Daniel, I was wondering, do you think I could take both of the full albums? I mean, apart from dad and me we had no other close family. His parents are both dead and after my mum died we didn’t see her family again. They live down south somewhere,’ I shrugged, and carried on. ‘The only person I know of who might come and sort out our things is dad’s older sister, my Auntie Joan, but she lives up in Newcastle and I haven’t seen her in about five years. She, and no-one else for that matter, would be concerned if the family albums disappeared. No-one would look for them, and if they did it’s plausible that in his grief he threw them away. Please Daniel, it’s all I have left of my family,’ I said, feeling my throat constricting and my eyes blur with more tears.

         Daniel stood quietly, watching me thoughtfully, before taking two quick steps over to the bookcase and swiftly lifting the albums down. He shuffled the remaining books along the shelf to fill in the gaps and giving me a quick smile, inclined his head to the doorway.

         ‘Let’s get out of here and get you home.’ I smiled at him, relieved I didn’t have to start going through them to choose the photos I liked best, and instead held my arms out for them.

         ‘Not today, you’re not ready. Don’t worry. I’ll keep them safe for you,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Come on,’ and he left me standing in the middle of the room, alone.

         ‘Daniel?’ I called him back and he popped his head back round the door.

         ‘Yes?’

         ‘You go. I’ll be with you in two minutes, I promise. I just want to say goodbye,’ I said, hoping he would understand.

         He nodded and disappeared again, calling to Eva as he went. A second later I heard muted whispers and then the front door closed quietly.

         Alone in my house, it suddenly felt cold and still. I looked around, but after seeing the bottle-laden waste bin once more, I realised this was not the place where I could find my dad. I went back upstairs to his room and sat on his side of the bed. There was a half-full glass of water still sitting by the bed, along with his reading glasses and a packet of paracetamol.

         Looking around I picked up his pillow, inhaling deeply. Instantly, I was thrown back into the swirling pot of my memories, so I closed my eyes to stop the tears welling and lay down, curling up on his duvet, my head on his pillow. ‘Oh Dad, I wish I’d seen you one last time,’ I whispered.

         Knowing I didn’t have long, I slowly uncurled and lay back, looking up at the faded ceiling.

         ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Dad? Why did you hide her from me? It wouldn’t have mattered. I’ll always love mum. I wish you’d told me.’ I sighed again, wishing I could hear an answer, but all was silent. I had to go. They wouldn’t wait long; it wouldn’t be safe.