Lumen

9. Yay or Nay

“Excuse me? Helena, who told you to ask me about them?”

Mum looked confused; her narrow eyebrows were furrowed over her dark brown eyes. Her light, however, was displaying fear; at least it looked very similar to how I had felt during my conversation with Samuel.

“A man named Samuel, he was at the survey. He told me we were the same, the way we see things. He wanted me to join The Agency – said I had a lot of potential. Apparently someone should have told me about all this sooner and he told me to ask you about the Taylor family,” I said quietly. I could barely meet Mum’s eyes as I told her about what had happened.

There was a sharp intake of breath. I looked up from my lap. There was no guise of confusion, only shock; just as the blood had drained from her face so too had her usually warm glow from her body.

“Mum? What’s going on?”

“Wait here for a minute.”

Mum got up from beside me and slowly walked from the room. Whatever was going on had disorientated her. I sunk back into the sofa cushions, wishing already I hadn’t brought any of this up. Drawing my legs up, I pulled a blanket over myself. Despite the heating being on I suddenly felt cold. Sounds of rummaging reached my ears, Mum was racking through the boxes in the bottom of her wardrobe.

After a few moments she returned holding several photographs in her hands. She sat back down next to me and silently handed me them. The top one was of three children. I recognised myself in my favourite blue linen dungarees with the mandatory white socks with the lace ruff and dark blue, buckled shoes. My auburn hair was pulled into neat bunches that sat over my ears. Pip’s arms were draped over my shoulders, his head close to mine. He looked how I always remember him during our childhood summers; slightly too big shorts, bright t-shirt and sandals. Our chubby, freckled child faces were split in two with delighted smiles. We were bathed in bright summer sunlight; the kind which people associate with a real summer; with nostalgia. On the right hand side of the photo was another child. A boy I didn’t recognise.

He looked a few years older than us but he lacked that childish glee which should come with summer. It made him look like an adult stuck in a child’s body. The boy was small and slight with messy ash blonde hair. The bright sun bleached his skin so it was eerily pale but his eyes – his eyes made me shudder. They were framed by bruise like shadows; pinks and purples which should not have gracing the pale skin of one so young. Those eyes were large and solemn; a crystal clear blue, the same fleeting colour as an aquamarine sea when someone jumps in. I stared at the sad little boy for a moment before I realised I’d missed something in his appearance – the jagged golden ring of a Seer.

“That’s you, your brother and Sammie Taylor,” said Mum quietly; her voice was soft and full of emotion. I shot a look at her from the corner of my eye. She was staring at the photo and she looked so forlorn that I took her hand.

“I don’t understand.” I looked from the picture to my mum and back again.

Mum took the picture and balanced it on my knee to reveal the next one in the pile. It was of a grinning couple on their wedding day. They were radiant with sparkling blue eyes and rose flushed cheeks.

“That’s Robert and Elizabeth Taylor, Sammie’s parents,” said Mum, pointing to each subject in turn. “I met Lizzie at University; we shared a flat together before she and Rob got married. When Sammie was born they were over the moon, even if they hadn’t thought he would arrive so soon.”

She paused for a moment.

“There was never any doubt at all about Sammie being a Seer. Rob came from a long line of Seers and both Elizabeth’s parents were also Seers. According to Rob, seven generations of his family had married Seer to Seer. So when Samuel was born his father decided that he would be made aware of his abilities from a young age and be trained to join The Agency. Elizabeth was sceptical about the benefits this would bring her child and rightly so in my opinion. However, she agreed that it was necessary.

“The way Sammie was brought up meant that he didn’t have any friends. Elizabeth asked me with you and your brother when you were younger but he just couldn’t relate to you two at all. All he knew was his training so he would only ever watch you two play.”

I tried to absorb the barrage of information being flung at me.

“I-I don’t remember – none of this is familiar to me.”

Mum smiled sadly at me and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

“I’m not at all surprised about that Lena. When Samuel was nearly ten the Taylors moved to Switzerland so he could be trained in a specialised institution. From Lizzie’s letters it sounded like a world class establishment where he could train and still receive an education. Then, he took up his place at The Agency with his mother and father when he turned sixteen.”

“So, you knew about what I could do? What I can do,” I asked. If she had known then why had she dismissed it all those years ago?

“Yes, I did. It was confirmed to me when you were born,” she replied. “I didn’t say because I wanted you to have a normal life – a real childhood. Seeing how Samuel was scared me, he was practically an adult at seven. How could I live with myself if you were to grow up and have no friends – unable to relate to anyone? I didn’t want that life for you.”

Mum’s eyes pleaded with me to understand what she had done. I nodded; she had a point. I had had a normal childhood; I had come out with great friends, a job, a decent set of grades, a bright future. All in all, I was pretty lucky. Could I really blame her for keeping me in the dark about this life?

“Do you know what the jobs are? What I’d have to do?”

“No. Ask Samuel,” she said sharply.

“Oh … Okay,” I murmured, looking back down to my hands.

Mum’s hands appeared on top of mine before one cocked my chin round to face her. She was so warm, a comfort in my confusion.

“Lena,” her voice was clam; her mouth softly forming my childhood name and allowing it to flow from her lips to envelope me the safety of her love. “Whatever you choose, I will support you. I wanted you to grow up having options and not to be imprisoned by decisions your father and I made for you. This is a time of transition for you and it would appear that a new path has presented itself. Whether you take it is up to you and not me.”

A hot rush flooded over my cheekbones as my eyes welled up. My throat’s drawstrings were pulled tight, catching the unwilling breath I tried to drag into my lungs. My mother’s love overwhelmed me as the realisation I would have to fly from this nest hit home. Like wax from a candle my tears overflowed the edge and slid hotly down my face, carving salty trails in their wake.

I collapsed in on myself and fell into her waiting arms. My ear instinctively found her steady heartbeat and I listened as she rocked me. Even when the world demanded I be an adult I knew there would always be a place where I could be a child and I found it in that moment.

“Th-Thank-you, Mum,” I sniffed, “For everything.”

“Shush now sweetheart,” she breathed, kissing the top of my head. “It’s my job.”
________________________________________

“Shona, why not?

“No, Greg, I’m not going into it again. I’ve given enough reason. Do you – Lena! What’s wrong sweetheart?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Why can’t you sleep? Are the monsters still there?”

“Uh-huh. What’s wrong Mummy?”

“Nothing my darling. How about I read you a story, hmm? Would you like that?

“Oh, yes! Yes please!”

“Shona, we aren’t done.”
________________________________________

“I want you to work in pairs and research your given poem before presenting it to the class,” explained Mrs Gillespie. She spoke clearly, looking at each of us in the eye. “You’ll get the rest of today and tomorrow in class with the first presentation on Monday. Helena and Alex you’ll do Holy Sonnet VI which means you’ll be first so I expect you to be fully prepared.

I took the offered sheets on the sonnet, glancing over them quickly as Mrs Gillespie handed out the rest of the poems around the grouped together tables. She was adamant that this setting would prepare us for university tutorials and as there were so few of us taking Advanced English it made sense. It suited me; the relaxed atmosphere meant we could chat our way through work.

We worked for the rest of the period on our poems. I liked Alex; we’d gone to primary school together and had been really close but had drifted apart and back again during high school. He had now grown out of the surly ‘emo’ stage that so many of our year had entertained for a while; he’d ditched the piercings and eyeliner in favour of a flyaway Tintin-esque quiff which suited him just as well. It also meant you could talk to him eye to eye instead of searching behind a heavy black fringe. He had, however, kept his penchant for skinny trousers which I, and the rest of the female population of the school, were thankful for.

“So where do you want to start?” he asked, gazing at the papers Mrs Gillespie had handed us.

“Well,” I mused, “We can start with a general over view before delving deeper? Sound okay?”

He shrugged but nodded which I took as a “yes”.

The poem itself was not difficult to decipher after a moment of focussed though. We had all become so well versed in the workings of a John Donne poem that it didn’t take us long to find many points to talk about.

“See here.” Alex gestured to the end half of the poem. “It’s like he fears God. By putting himself in the mindset of a dying man, he sees how heavily weighed down his soul is by his sins. Did you study Faustus?” – I shook my head – “Well, at the end Faustus feels can’t get up to God and heaven, because of his deal and sins weigh him down and so he is turned away by a wrathful God. It’s similar here. He’s begging forgiveness so he is light enough to reach Heaven but also so he can be admitted too.”

I bobbed my head, tapping my bottom lip with my pen as I looked over what he was saying.

“So he’s concerned about the state of his soul?”

“Seems like it to me.”

It was the first time I’d seen Donne writing about the soul concerning God. Previously it had been about a beloved. Although, it was possible to argue God had replaced the beloved: how else did young men profess their love in days of yore but with a Sonnet? Same song; different hymn sheet as it were.

As I worked it slowly dawned on me that it must be possible for me to see the condition of a person’s soul. How I had gone nearly eighteen years and not realised that is beyond me even still but the realisation came as quite a shock to me. It was possible for me to assess how a ‘good’ a person was.

“Helena?” I started. I had completely zoned out of everything.

“Yeah?”

“Are you busy Saturday? We could put together our presentation then if you like?” asked Alex, his green eyes glittering with mirth at my daydreaming.

Saturday, that was when Samuel wanted me to go to The Agency building. With my sudden epiphany and the conversation with my mum still whirling around my head my curiosity about my ability had been piqued further so any doubt about my decision had disappeared.

“It’s a Mummy-Daughter bonding day on Saturday. We’re going shopping in Edinburgh and I don’t think we’ll be back till evening time. Unless you want to come over once I’m home?” I told him. There was a part of my brain, a very influential part, which was telling me not to say anything about my real plans.

“Yeah, Saturday night works fine for me,” he said, smiling.

I returned his smile and began packing away my work. There was no going back now. I would have to go to The Agency.