by Stuart Atkinson
by Stuart Atkinson
Late Sunday night, with just a few precious hours of her holiday remaining, Fee finally gave up trying to find out which eclipse was shown on The Picture.
She switched off the computer with a deflated sigh, and dragged her way over to the window, angrily pushing the curtains apart to let her gaze out over the city. It had rained heavily all day, soaking the streets, the parks, the buildings, everything, and as she stood there at the window, gazing out at Edinburgh’s distorted image through the rain-streaked glass, she wanted to cry. But she couldn’t let herself.
Not yet, anyway.
She had been so sure! Seeing the solar eclipse photo in the exhibition had finally made her remember what she’d been thinking about in the Gardens a day earlier, before the cannon made her jump half out of her skin - seeing the Sun turned to a crescent last August! She’d run home like a thing posessed, totally convinced that finally, finally she had the key to the whole thing, that after just a few minutes of playing around with her “Sky” and “Planetarium” programs she would have worked out an exact date, and that that in turn would allow her to calculate just when, and where, a Fall might have taken place. For the very first time she had been sure that soon it would all make sense.
But three days later she was no nearer an answer. It made no sense at all.
It was probably her own fault, she sniffed, for thinking that everything would just keep falling into place as it had been doing. Looking back she could see that everything had been too easy, far too convenient; almost as if unseen forces were guiding her, wanted her to figure it out.
Well, if they had been, they’d abandoned her now.
She leaned forwards, resting her cheek against the cold window frame as she went back over the events of her lost weekend. Who would have thought there would have been so many solar eclipses visible from the UK in the past? Every book, every magazine and newspaper article she’d read about them had insisted solar eclipses were very rare, yet her astronomy programs had calculated hundreds of them had been visible from England since medieval times, hundreds!
She’d gone right back to the 3rd century, but it was useless, totally useless. There were just too many eclipses which might have been the inspiration for The Picture, and slowly, but surely, she felt the door which she’d convinced herself she’d heard opening closing again, until eventually it slammed shut in her face. Trapping several of her fingers for good measure.
And now, just to pour salt on the bleeding stumps, she had to face the fact that when she went to sleep her holiday would be over. Tomorrow she’d have to go back to school. Then, with homework, study asignments and reports to work on when she got home every night, she would have little time for Gallowdale. If any.
“Great,” she sighed, listening to the rain falling outside, “just great...”
She heard a quiet knock from behind her. “Can I come in?” her father asked hesitantly from the doorway. She nodded, and he walked in, a cup of hot... something balanced in his hand.
“Thought this might help you sleep,” he said, setting it down on the low table beside her bed. She looked at it, then looked away again, returning her attention to the rain-soaked streets. “You’re welcome, no problem!” he said brightly, walking towards her.
“Lousy night,” he commented, peering through the window. “If it’s still raining in the morning I’ll drive you - “
“I’ll be okay,” she said distantly, “it’s just water.”
“We’ll see,” he said, not wanting to push her. She’d seemed distracted and impatient all weekend. At first he’d put it down to simple backto-school blues, but undetected peeks around her door, which had revealed her working feverishly on the computer, had convinced him otherwise.
Careful not to let her see what he was doing, he quickly scanned the room, his gaze drawn yet again to the collection of papers, charts and drawings stuck to the wall behind her computer. He was convinced that whatever was preying on her mind involved the things on the wall, but didn’t know what it was. Several times over the weekend he’d been tempted to sneak into her room for a closer look, to try and find out for himself, but every time had decided against it. It wasn’t right. He’d promised her he would never go into her room without being invited in, and he didn’t want to break that promise.
Besides, he was sure she’d tell him what she was doing...
Eventually...
But still. She looked so sad, so lost, it was breaking him in two. He couldn’t just say nothing.
“Look, Fee,” he began, unable to hold his tongue any longer, “I know this is none of my business - “
“But...” she said, completing the sentence for him without looking away from the window.
“... but I want to help, with whatever it is that’s bothering you, I mean,” he continued awkwardly.
“It’s nothing,” she huffed impatiently, still not looking at him.
“No, it’s Something,” he countered, ignoring her brittle tone, “and whatever it is it’s driving you crazy... well, crazier than you already are.”
She couldn’t stop herself smiling at that. He knew just how to get to her.
“Really, it’s nothing,” she insisted, relaxing a little and feeling guilty she’d snapped at him. He’d only been trying to help. It wasn’t his fault he’d got an idiot for a daughter.
“Okay, if you say so,” he said, holding up his hands. “But... well, hypothetically speaking, of course... if you were working on something, something you wanted to keep secret, you would tell me, I mean, eventually, when the time was... right... yeah?”
She looked across at him, saw his light-hearted expression contrasted with the deep concern in his eyes, and melted.
“Dad,” she said, deadly serious as she took his hand, “if I was... which, mind, I’m not,” she added quickly, smiling as he nodded in understanding, “the only person I’d tell would be my best friend...” His face fell. “That’s you, you idiot..!” she laughed, and he smiled with relief.
“Okay, good enough for me,” he said, drawing a line under the exchange, “now, time you were in bed.” Still holding her hand he started to lead her away from the window, but she resisted.
“Come on now, that didn’t even work when you were six,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled her after him. “The hot milk I made will help you sleep - “
“Ooh, hot milk,” she said in a mock baby voice as she climbed into bed. “Will you sing me a lullaby too, daddy?”
“Cute, very cute,” he grinned, “but resistance is futile...” He let her get comfortable beneath the quilt and then handed her the cup. She took it, blew on the contents, and took a sip. It tasted wonderful. Not that she would ever tell him that, of course.
He started to go, but something stopped him. Fee saw a strange expression pas briefly over his face, clouding his eyes, and knew there was something he had to get out.
“I know you’re disappointed, Fee,” he began, “it’s a shame we have to go back to real life,” he said, hovering uneasily beside her, “but I’m not your mother, I can’t afford to - “
So that was it. Again. “Oh, no... no!” she said quickly, reaching for his hand again, “don’t say that! That’s not what’s wrong at all... no dad, really...” Was that what he’d been thinking? That she was disappointed in him for having to bring her back? “I promise you, okay? That’s not why I’m so... well, so...” She didn’t know what to say. If she told him anything he’d want to know everything, and it was still too soon. She had to be sure. “Well, that’s just not it, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, but the expression on his face told her he was far from convinced. Soon, she promised him silently, searching for understanding in his eyes, I’ll tell you soon.
“Oh,” he said, “I almost forgot! Back in a minute...” and then he was gone, leaving her on her own with just the cup of milk for company. She peered through the open door, caught a glimpse of him ratching around in one of his drawers, searching for something. What was he doing?
When he came back he was carrying a small box, no bigger than a matchbox. It was wrapped - badly - in silver paper, and a small red ribbon bow was perched uneasily on the top. She knew it had probably taken him an hour to get it looking that good.
“What is it..?” she asked, setting the cup aside and shuffling backwards until she was sitting in a more upright position.
He offered it to her, his hands shaking slightly. “Well, I think you’d have to open it to find that out...” he laughed nervously, adding “I know it’s a mess, but - “
“Oh no, no, you did a... great job,” she reassured him, then laughed. He joined in. They both knew she was lying through her back teeth. “I don’t know what to say...”
“What you say will probably depend on whether you like it or not,” he said, “so open it, please? The tension is killing me..!”
Carefully she started to pick at the the paper, making an effort to at least make it appear she valued the wrapping, but the paper and ribbon soon fell apart, revealing the blue box within. She eased the lid off and peered inside.
“Oh dad,” she whispered, lifting the pendant out, “it’s beautiful...!”
Hanging from the end of the long, fine silver chain, was a dragon. It was beautiful, a perfectly-sculpted, silver Chinese dragon, complete with huge fangs, wide eyes and a long, serpent-like tail, and as it span at the end of the chain it flashed and sparkled, reflecting the light from her bedside lamp.
“I bought it in the museum shop, in Adelaide,” he told her as she examined it, “while you were at the market that day, remember?” She nodded, remembering. They were happy memories, and always would be. “Actually, Ben helped me pick it out,” he confessed, “I wanted to get you a great white shark’s tooth, but, well, I’d already shown him your photo and he said I should get you this instead... he said it would look better on you.”
He took the pendant off her and, after lifting her long hair out of the way, fastened the chain behind her neck. Fee looked down at the dragon, a contented smile on her face. She loved it already.
“Looks like Ben was right...” her father said happily.
Oh yes, he was. “But... why?” Fee asked, puzzled.
“Do I need a reason?” he asked.
“No, not really... but, well, you had already given me that money to buy something with - “
“Yes,” he interrupted, “and I knew you’d use it to buy me a present with, and that’s just what you did... those little treasures you left on my desk...” Fee glanced over his shoulder, to where the Carb and the polished agate slice were standing on his desk, side by side, inseperable. Three days after returning home he still hadn’t asked her the story behind the meteorite, and she doubted he ever would. “So... I got you that,” he concluded, looking at the pendant.
“It’s beautiful dad, thank you,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tight. He hugged back, then pulled away.
“Right, sleep,” he told her, firmly, dabbing at his eyes. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Getting up off the bed he flicked the end of her nose with his finger, then headed for the door. He looked back, once, just once, smiled at her, then turned the light off.
They didn’t need to say anything else to each other. Their eyes said it all.
As she heard her father walking downstairs, Fee reached for the pendant hanging around her neck and held it up above her head. On the ceiling, just as they had done since she was a baby, dozens of luminous stars shone with a pale, lime-green light, and as she held up the pendant against them she could just make out the silhouette of the dragon’s lithe, undulating body.
“You’re a sign,” she smiled in the darkness, “you have to be.” A sign that she shouldn’t give up. The eclipse had proved to be a red herring, had cost her precious time, but now she knew what she had to do. It was there, right before her eyes.
The dragon was the key to the mystery, not the eclipse, she could see that now. Uncover the story behind the dragon, and everything else would fall into place.
Tucking the pendant away inside her pajamas Fee snuggled back down under the covers, wriggling down until she was cocooned, just the way she liked it.
“You won’t beat me,” she said sleepily, taunting her sketch of The Picture, tacked-up on the wall across the room, “your time’s running out, you’ll see...”
Then the patter of the rain began to lull her to sleep, and soon she drifted away.
© Stuart Atkinson 2003