10.
The days, weeks and months that followed passed quietly by. Alex managed to find a routine in the strange terrain of his ancestors and slowly he too settled into a rhythm with the land. He watched the sunsets and the day breaks with a new wonder that had been lost in the modern world, and felt his own body change and react to the seasons.
It was only once summer had almost passed that he awoke one morning with a start. He had dreamt that a small black bird was trapped in their room and in its panic had flown into the walls. Crashing its tiny frame again and again against the unforgiving stonework, blood and feathers smeared across the surface until the tiny creature finally fell lifeless onto the floor. Alex had gone over to pick up the poor dead thing but as he approached he had seen the tiny beadlike eye open and look at him before flying into his face like a great black claw to peck at his eyes. He had awoken at that moment, his heart racing and a bead of sweat running from his forehead.
Andrea murmured quietly but slept on as Alex silently moved from the bed and over to the window. Something was not right; he could sense it. The summer was just starting to lose her fade and the late August roses looked blousy and out of place in the still of the morning; an old face not looking so bright in the cold light of day. The sea looked cold and glassy and an eastern wind was starting to rob the trees of their leaves.
He could hear the wind whistling under the eaves and down the chimney and out through the fireplace. It seemed to be whispering to him, warning him.
Alex would have laughed at all of these things back in the modern world, but here he was surrounded by superstition and folklore. The people on the Island lived out their lives in the shadows of such omens and visions - daily phenomena that he hardly noticed in the city. Back home there had been too much pollution in the air; not by poisons and toxins but by the unnatural sounds and waves; the radio and television waves, mobile phone signals and microwaves and goodness knows what else to distort the mind and prevent the truth from being heard. There the gentle sounds of nature and the pulsating of the universe were blocked. Here, in this quite place, he could hear it all.
Yet now the sounds seemed to disturb him, upset his newly found equilibrium; what could they mean?
As he gazed across the vista he thought he saw a figure walking next to the Abbey. Perhaps it was Geraldine, come to give him more words of wisdom?
Without hesitation he quickly pulled on his clothing, and with a quick glance at his sleeping wife, headed outside.
The wind had whipped up more than he had first imagined and he pulled the collar of his cloak more firmly around his neck as he crossed over the track and headed for the Abbey, austere and grey in the morning light.
The figure had vanished and he supposed he would find her inside like before and hastened through the entrance.
All was dark inside; the light had not quite filtered through the magnificent leaded windows to the east and he stood in the shadows and quietly called out her name.
“Geraldine. Geraldine, are you there?”
At first there was no sound, only the wind winding around the main tower and a shuffling in the roof space; bats probably, or small birds nesting. He shivered at the thought of his dream and walked slowly forward as he called out her name over and over again.
He looked around at the sound of a door closing behind him and could make out a figure wrapped in a dark cloak, standing in the shadows. It made no move and slowly he made his way towards where it stood.
“Geraldine?”
At the sound of the name a white hand reached out of the cloak and pulled back the hood. It was not his beloved grandmother.
The face was the most striking he had ever seen. He hesitated to call it beautiful for there was something remotely evil in its perfection. It was the eyes that captured him the most, the emerald green, cat-like slits that widened as they took in the man that stood before them. The full and sensuous lips smiled at him and parted slightly to reveal a set of perfect white teeth, like a set of pearls gleaming in the shadows.
Alex shivered, there was something of the animal about her and he could feel his hackles rise.
“Alexhander, my dear brother, it is so good to see you again.” her deep and throaty voice purred across to him.
Opening his mouth, he tried to protest that he was not her brother and that he had never seen her before, but he stopped before he could finish as a myriad of different memories flooded his mind until his head was full of her.
“Helena!”
The unfamiliar voice tripped off his tongue, as if he had always known it to be so.
Holding out her slender hand, her eyes twinkled back at him.
“Dear brother, I thought you didn’t recognize me for a moment? Perhaps it is the shadows. But come out into the light, the sun is rising and has started to shine through the great eastern window. Look!”
His eyes moved to the window as the first rays of sun started to illuminate the multi-colored glass, bringing to life the Saints and angels depicted there.
Helena stepped forward, raising her arms as if to welcome the new day.
“Isn’t it supreme my brother? Can you not feel the energy? The power of the universe - and soon it will be ours to command.”
She laughed, with a voice like the sound of rain as she danced and twirled in the aisle.
“I thought you were dead.”
The memory of Alexhander’s hands around her throat surfaced to his mind and he could almost feel her last dying gasps between his fingers.
The dancing and the laughter stopped.
Without the smile her face looked cruel, the lack of warmth making the beautiful face almost mask-like.
She walked up close, her face inches away from her brother’s, her voice now rasping as she almost spat out the words.
“Did you really think that you could kill me my brother, after all that you have witnessed here? You for one should know better. Like you, I have my saviors, my ghosts from the future you might say. As you see, I did not die dear brother, quite the opposite. Although I can still feel your fingers tight upon my throat.”
Her eyes flared with anger at the memory before she took control of her emotions once again and the green orbs narrowed into slits.
“Of course I forgive you dear Alexhander. You were under the spell of that simple bitch Andra and were doing your best to protect her. But now I am back brother, and I am stronger and more powerful than you will ever know. Come and join me and we can reign supreme, as was foretold. We are only fulfilling our destiny after all.”
Alex thought back to the words of Andrea and Geraldine. There had been an ancient prophecy about two siblings that would save the world, but she was wrong, it was not Alexhander and Helena that the prophesies had foretold. It was his own child, and the one yet to be born.
He looked over at her. The woman was mad, that much was obvious, but he was wary of her and did not trust her.
“Andrea is my wife Helena, and I will do my best for her and Elizabeth.”
Helena looked back almost in disgust.
“Ah the child yes, I had almost forgotten her. But do not worry about them Alexhander, they are nothing to us. Our bond is stronger than any other. Here, hold my hand and feel the power within.”
Not wanting to antagonize the strange woman, he held out his hand to pacify her. Her grip was almost electric and as soon as his skin touched hers, he felt a giant wave of energy run through him, just as if he had received a massive electrical shock.
All he could see was Helena, her face and her eyes, until he was lost in their depths. He could see the universe spinning around him, the nebulas and asteroids spinning past as he raced through space and time.
Her mouth was upon his and he could not resist. It was not the soft and yielding lips of Andrea but the urgent and passionate violence that was Helena.
He tried to resist but could not stop himself, tried to fill his mind with the face of Andrea, the only woman he had ever loved as he tried to block out the face of Helena. Images flooded back from another time. He saw Alexhander and Andra making love for the very first time. The desire in his loins rose up through his body and his skin tingled to her touch. Opening his eyes it was now her face he saw; beautiful and bright before him, Andra and Andrea, and he thought his heart would burst.
His fingers were in her hair and kissing her neck, the old familiar smell of lavender and rosemary deep within his nostrils as he breathed her in. Her breasts were firm yet soft beneath his grip as he squeezed and grabbed at the flesh; leaving behind a red trail across the pure, white skin. She moaned gently and it spurred him on as he tugged at the cloak and gown until she lay naked before him. He had never wanted her so much and his passion was all consuming and he just wanted to push himself into her until they were as one.
Her fingers found the bare skin on his back and he could feel the nails dig into his flesh. It was a new sensation, he had never known Andrea so passionate, so intense and it made him long for her, made him harder as he pushed her to the cold floor. It did not seem to matter, the two were engulfed in the heat of passion and he felt her hand upon his breeches, finding the opening and the slender hand finding his cock. He came to life in her hand, thrusting against her fingers as they spread across his girth.
Soon he was free from clothing, unfettered, and all he could feel was the sensation in his cock, the urge to be inside her and shoot the heat from his loins into her depths. Andrea threw back her head as he entered her; gasping as his size pushed against her. She was wet and tight and lifting her buttocks with his hands he drove his cock deep inside her fleshy mound. She cried out with pain but he was like a wild animal and could not stop until he was spent. The fever rose within him until he could hold back no longer and with one final thrust poured his hot and sticky soul deep inside of her. For a moment he opened his eyes and thought he saw Helena’s face and not Andrea’s, but his eyes were heavy and they closed before he had time to think. The next time he opened them he lay cold, alone and naked on the Abbey floor.