Red Gold - 7. Chapter 7 - Consequences

Somehow her feet found their own way and, eventually she found herself outside the house she had left only a few hours before, too afraid to knock the door. At this stage she was still more afraid of Cai’s reaction to what she had done than of any other consequence as she did not really believe that there would be any. After all, what’s in a name?

After hovering for a time, watching shadows move behind the curtain in the big bay window she got up the courage to knock. There was no answer. Almost hearing the whispered conversation that she was sure must be going on inside Gabrielle knocked again, more loudly, in a frenzy of impatience.

The door was wrenched open and Gabrielle found herself face to face with someone who could only have been Leelany. She was very like Cai, just as tall with the same slanting green eyes and red gold hair, except that hers was bound into two thick plaits which hung on either side of a face which was somewhat older and more feminine but nothing like as open and innocent.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Where’s Cai? I have to speak to Cai?”

“What the hell…?” Before she knew what was happening Gabrielle had been yanked into the hallway and Leelany was peering past her into the street, searching the shadows intently. Then the door was slammed and the angriest woman she had ever met spun to face her, practically spitting in her face. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Speaking his name in the street. Anyone could have heard you.”

“Leelany, please. Where’s Cai? I think I have done something bad.”

“What? What have you done?”

“Where’s Cai?”

“What’s going on?” Hearing raised voices Cai emerged from the living room. He was carrying a mug of coffee and had no shoes on.

“Cai, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean… I mean I did but I didn’t think…. it’s not like I’m used to it and she asked and it was so noisy and then it all went quiet and I shouted it and…. and there was a bird…and...”

She stuttered to a halt in the face of Cai’s blank stare and Leelany’s angry and aggressive stance.

“What are you talking about?”

“What have you done?”

“I… I… er…”

Suddenly she was frightened. Leelany was so intense and was radiating anger and accusation, Cai was smiling but somewhat uncertainly and she didn’t know how to tell them. She could imagine how angry Leelany would be and Cai would defend her but he would be hurt and she cringed at the very thought of that look in his eyes.

Cai reached out with the hand that was not holding the mug and took her hand, drawing her into the living room.

“Come in and sit down. Then you can tell us what happened. Leelany, go get Sou Shan a coffee, you’re making her nervous.”

“Tell me first. What have you done?”

“I…”

Before she could speak… something happened. It was nothing she could ever have described, just a change between the way things were before and the way they were after. She could see that Leelany had sensed it too, and Cai… Cai had frozen and was staring into the distance, seeming to be listening intently.

“What’s that? Can you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned slowly, listening intently, his eyes flicking around the room, seeing somewhere else. “like… like... birds.”

“Birds? Cai, what are you talking about. There are no birds in here.”

“No, far away. Birds, lots of birds, hundreds of birds.” His voice was strange and Gabrielle began to feel freaked out by his eyes.

“Cai?” Gabrielle took at step towards him but he did not seem to be aware that she was there, turning away from her.

“Far away… So far away. Falling birds. Fa…falling.”

Both Gabrielle and Leelany were alarmed now. Gabrielle turned to Cai and Leelany turned on Gabrielle.

“What have you done? Tell me! What have you done?”

And then everything went strange. There was a sound like the flapping of many pairs of small wings and a momentary sense of pressure turning space and time to glass which abruptly shattered and rained down in tinkling shards each one calling in an endless echo ‘Ca ca ca ca el el el el’

While the echoes were still falling around them Gabrielle, frozen in the instant and unable to move saw the mug fall from Cai’s hand and watched it’s achingly slow descent towards the carpet, droplets of coffee like black diamonds flying outwards into the fracturing air, hard as crystal.

She heard Leelany scream, the sound shattered and sharp as glass but forming into a word that was at the same time incomprehensible and familiar and the broken, jerking movement of time began to flow again very slowly at first but speeding up. She saw Cai turn to her, his eyes wide, his hand reaching out towards her. His lips moved and seconds later the sound reached her… “Gabrielle… what… have you… done?” and then he was falling, away from her.

In the instant that he hit the floor there was a jerk something like when a train comes to a stop at a station and space and time returned to normal.

When Gabrielle would have run to Cai, Leelany grabbed her and held her in a vicelike grip. “Tell me.”

“I… my friend. I was telling my friend about him, about Cai… and I… I said his name… only… only it was loud and I was shouting and then it all went quiet and it sounded so loud and… and I think there was someone listening and when I went to look there was… there was a bird… a headless bird.” she stuttered to a stop terrified by the look in Leelany’s eyes. For a moment she thought that she was going to hit her. Instead she shook her violently.

“You fool. Do you have any idea what you have done?”

“No. I don’t. I knew you would be angry with me. I know you have a thing about names but… but I mean… I mean it’s only a name, it’s…not…as…if… as if anything bad is going to happen… Is it?”

“Nothing bad? You think that nothing bad will happen? What do you call this?” she flung Gabrielle to the floor next to her brother. “Do you think that THIS is bad?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what THIS is.”

“Shall I tell you what this is? THIS is why I came here in the first place. THIS is what I always knew you would do. THIS is betrayal Sou Shan. THIS is what YOU have done. You have delivered Ca’el into the hands of our enemies and I have no idea if I can save him.” Whirling she flung open the cabinet with the smoked glass doors and took out two curved swords and a bow with a quiver of arrows then headed for the door.

“Wait! Where are you going? Please, tell me what to do. Tell me what’s happening.”

“Tell you what’s happening? You betrayed my brother Sou Shan. You gave the enemy his name and now he has him in his power. If I am lucky I MIGHT be able to find where he is entering this world and shut him off before he can do any real harm. He will need time to build up to it. When did this happen?”

“Not long. I came straight here.”

“Stay with him.”

“But…”

“YOU did this, YOU. This is YOUR fault, what YOU have done. Stay with him!”

And then she was gone and Gabrielle had never felt so alone.

“Cai?”

She had thought that he would have been unconscious but he wasn’t. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling with an intense expression. They were greener than she had ever seen them before, catching the tints from all that was around them in the room. He was not seeing the room, but something else, something far away and, whatever it was he didn’t like it because the expressions that flickered over his face ranged from fear to horror to pain and he seemed to be trying to turn his head away only to have it continually jerked back.

Grunting with the effort, he was clearly struggling with whatever was happening to him. Whatever it was, it was building; the effort becoming greater and the emotions more intense. It was as though he were watching something on a screen that was causing him more and more distress to see.

Not knowing what else to do Gabrielle sat close to him stroking his hair and his face talking to him, trying to reassure him, apologising over and over again for what she had done. And then, when she thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, abruptly they did.

With the same sense of pressure freezing time and space everything around them seemed to very quickly contract and then expand rupturing so that it seemed that time and space from somewhere else was rushing in to the tear. Gabrielle was thrown backwards tumbling over and over until she was brought up short by the table leg. She heard Cai scream and, by the time she got to her feet it was all over and the rushing feeling reversed as her own space re sealed itself.

It seemed as though Cai, too had been thrown about by the flow of whatever it was as he was now lying with his back to her, thrown against the chair. Somehow unsteady on her feet Gabrielle took the half dozen steps across the room and knelt again, at his side.

“Cai?”

With her hand on his shoulder she pulled him towards her and he slipped onto his back. This time his eyes were closed and his face bleached of colour. Gabrielle, horrified, found her eyes drawn downwards to where a dark red stain was spreading across the pale linen of his shirt.

She threw herself backwards and sat hugging her knees, rocking backwards and forwards, her mind unable to comprehend what was happening.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no. What have I done? What have I done?”

Cai moaned and turned towards her, pressing his hand over the wound on his chest. It was as though the action was a key, releasing her from the cage of fear into which she had placed herself and she shot forwards onto her knees grabbing his hand.

“Cai, Cai, thank God. I thought… I though you were… Cai?”

He groaned and curled into the pain, gripping her hand. She stroked his hair as he was wracked by a fit of coughing that brought blood to his lips. Panicking Gabrielle did what she had been conditioned to do all her life and, reaching for her mobile phone she called for help.

It seemed like an age that she knelt there, on the floor in the strange green light, holding his hand, stroking his hair and waiting. The coughing got worse as his breathing got more laboured and she knew what it meant but she was helpless. All she could do was wait and hope that help came in time.

Finally sirens sounded and grew louder until they screamed into silence and the room was filled with flashing light. Fortunately Leelany had left the front door open when she left because Gabrielle could not have moved of her own volition if her own life had depended on it. When the paramedics entered she looked up, her eyes and mind dulled. For a time it did not even register that they were speaking to her, asking what had happened. How could she tell them what had happened: she didn’t know?

One of the two paramedics, a woman was tugging at her, pulling her to her feet, asking if she was hurt. Was she hurt? No, of course not, she shook her head.

“No, no not me, not me…” She tried to turn to Cai but the woman was drawing her out into the hall. For a moment she almost tried to fight her but fortunately common sense began to filter back into her numb mind. She knew that this was a desperate situation, she didn’t want to make it worse, so she followed meekly, pulling herself together. “I’m sorry… I…”

“It’s alright, sweetheart. You’ve had a terrible shock. What’s your name?”

“Gabrielle.”

“Is this your house Gabrielle?”

“No, not mine, his.”

“Alright, good. What’s his name?”

This time she didn’t hesitate, she was not about to make the same mistake again. “Daniel. His name’s Daniel.”

“Gabrielle, can you wait here, just for a moment. I’ll be right back, okay.” Numbly she nodded, her mind already racing, constructing a story, praying that Leelany would return and take control but at the same time hoping that she wouldn’t. How would they explain the knives and the bow?

The woman returned. “What happened here Gabrielle?”

“I don’t know. I was in the sitting room drinking coffee. He only went to the shop. I heard him coming back. He came in and… and I saw… he was bleeding and I didn’t know what to do. I dropped the cup and then he fell and I… I just phoned. I didn’t know what else to do… I didn’t do anything. Should I have?”

“You did fine Gabrielle. Don’t worry about that. You did fine. Did he say anything about what happened to him?”

“No… he didn’t say anything, nothing at all. Please… please… is he going to be alright? Please…”

“Steady, Gabrielle. I can’t tell you that sweetheart. I haven’t seen to him. But I can tell you that my colleague is the best at what he does. If anyone can help your boyfriend he can.”

The man called “Angela, I need you here,” and the woman pressed Gabrielle down onto the stairs.

“Stay here, alright? The very best way that you can help Daniel is to keep out of our way. You have to trust us.”

“Yes.”

Angela disappeared into the sitting room. A few moments later she re emerged and went out of the front door returning after a time with a bag and a handful of worrying looking medical…’things’. She smiled encouragingly at Gabrielle as she passed.

After what seemed like a very long time Angela came out to Gabrielle who leaped to her feet instantly. Angela smiled in an encouraging way.

“We’ve stabilised him and are going to take him to the hospital now, would you like to come?”

“Yes, yes of course I would. I wouldn’t… I can’t… Yes, yes I do… want to come.”

“Take it easy, okay.”

“Is he going to be alright?”

“I think so, Gabrielle. It was a nasty wound, someone was going for the heart but fortunately seems to have missed. Your boy seems like a fighter and I’ve seen people survive worse.”

“And die from less?”

“As I said, he seems like a fighter. He’s alive, he’s stable, we’ve made a good start.”

Gabrielle nodded. “Thank you.”

With a last encouraging smile Angela disappeared outside and returned with the stretcher. When she first saw him, strapped to the stretcher, his arms pierced with IV tubes, not even breathing for himself she almost panicked. The first thing that came to mind was ‘What the hell have I done?’ and it had nothing to do with giving out his name. This would have horrified him if he had been conscious to experience it. This would have been worse than the injury. Where was Leelany? She should be here. She should be telling her what to do. But Leelany wasn’t there and there was nothing that Gabrielle could do now but follow.

Fortunately for her, Gabrielle did not see the slim shadow slip into to the garden as the ambulance pulled away. She did not see the expression on the face that stared after it into the night. She did not hear the whispered words, bitter in their helpless fury “That’s the second time, Gabrielle, the second time you betrayed him. I was right. I was always right and I wish I had been wrong.”

All the way to the hospital Gabrielle held on to Cai’s hand as tightly as she possibly could, as though by doing so she could hold him there, stop him slipping away. She watched his face but there was no flicker of life and she began to wonder whether this might be a good thing. Did it make him safe, being this far away from himself, so far from awareness and life? Was he beyond the one who could harm him or was he even more vulnerable to him?

“I’m so sorry Cai,” she whispered. “I should have listened to you. I should have taken note and paid attention to what you were trying to tell me. I… I wish that Leelany were here, she would know what to do. Have I done the right thing? Have I?” But he didn’t answer.