A breeze was about, sailing through the garden on its invisible wings of chill. Leaves rustled in the trees. The sky was growing darker and darker by the minute, like hot coals in a fire. From bright, hot red and orange flamed clouds to the burnt ash of night. The garden lost the haunting, windy atmosphere of twilight as it was enveloped in the peacefulness of dark. My parents would have called me inside by now – if I was at home. They thought I’d get sick in the cold. Nightfall grew earlier and earlier every night and the wind began to pick up as dusk approached. I didn’t mind. The trees welcomed me into their world. The grass bit into my feet with its cold, prickly teeth and the flowers’ stalks scratched my unprotected legs. Though annoying, this never worried me much. It was the darkness that I longed for. Even when the air around me spun wildly, slapping my thick tangle of hair into my face, I would smile. My surroundings became a dreamy blur of tall trees and high grasses with a big, black blanket wrapping around everything. The wind wheezed and sang eerie songs of tranquillity. I lay down on the prickly, green grass and looked up at a bed of brightly glowing stars and a dull crescent moon. Moments of such absolute peace and contentedness were far and few between. Nothing seemed normal, natural or serene any more... - Except nightfall. It ended the long, puzzling days and gave me hope. The stars up above wouldn’t last for ever. Some of them might not even have existed any more, for all I could tell. Perhaps they were just mere projections of light from a supernova that would take millions of light years to get here... That gave me hope, for if the stars would not be around forever, then the confusion I’d suffered day after day was surely finite too.
“Daphne?” I sat up quickly and shook the crispy leaves out of my tangle of hair.
“Daphne?”
“Yes!” I answered quickly, jumping up and running towards the source of the voice.
“Were you lying on the ground?” Don asked incredulously.
“Just trying to spot Venus,” I muttered unconvincingly. There was no point in trying to hide anything from Don really. To him I was as easy to see through as a sheet of tracing paper.
“Oh, really?” he said, half-heartedly playing along with my weak excuse.
“What do you want?” I snapped. Don laughed quietly and looked away for a second. I tried to follow his gaze, but it was getting far too dark to make out anything clearly.
“Do you want to get pneumonia?” he asked without looking at me.
“Sure I do, Don. That’s just what any normal person would want!” This time he wasn’t amused.
“Go inside, Daphne.” The sharpness in his voice could have cut me a slice of cake with ease.
“Fine,” I breathed. Feeling very angry, though I wasn’t quite sure why, I marched uphill and back into my cousin’s house. I had been staying with Aunt Ilsa and Don for the past four days and was due to stay with them for another month and a half, since my parents had gone on a business trip to South America. I was accustomed to them being away. They normally were, what with their love for adventure and travel. I was used to Don’s company. Ever since we were infants, our parents had been journeying the world and we always ended up staying with each other when this happened. Since neither of us had siblings of our own, we’d sort of adopted each other as brother and sister. Don was older than me, and though this was not by very much, he never let me forget it.
My bare feet plodded upstairs to Don’s room and then dragged their muddied soles across the mat in front of his door again and again. Don was behind me before I knew it, draping a jacket over my shoulders and telling me what an idiot I was. I was too cold and tired to argue. I made my way into the room, blinking my eyes countless times in an attempt to adjust to the brightness of the electric bulbs situated in the ceiling.
“Why do you do this, Daphne?” I blinked again and turned to find my cousin sitting on the top bunk bed and looking at me with true concern. I wished that I could tell him the real reason why I loved the night sky so much, but knew that I could not. So, forcing my dry, cracked lips into a smile, I said that I guessed I was just excited for the holidays.
Don frowned, “Well, you don’t want to be sick during the holidays, do you?”
I shook my head and rubbed my palms together thoughtfully as I edged towards the bottom bunk – my bed for the next month and a half.
“Tomorrow’s the last day of term,” I whispered, as I set about finding my pyjamas amongst the mountain of clothes at the foot of my bed. The last day of me being tired and my mind playing tricks on me, I added in my head.
The next day, I awoke feeling as though I’d taken a blow to the head. My forehead throbbed with pain and my eyes refused to open fully for several minutes, my shivering limbs clinging desperately to the duvet for warmth. Don was already up and about, slamming cupboard doors and tying his shoelaces with impressive agility. I moaned and forced myself up. My pyjama top was askew, baring my left shoulder to the bristling chill of the morning. Don eyed me curiously as I made my way to the tiny window in the corner of his room to close it.
“You do realise that it’s nearly six-thirty and you’re still in your pyjamas, don’t you?” he said by way of greeting.
“Nice to see you too,” I muttered darkly. Don laughed and bounded out of his bedroom to give me some privacy in which I could dress. I walked towards the chest of drawers that had been pronounced my own for the next little while and tugged at the handle of a drawer meekly. My fingers felt like icicles, and were much too weak to open the drawer without a good fight taking place first. Finally, I managed to open the drawer enough to extract some garments, and breathing heavily from the effort, I began to change out of my nightwear. The morning was hazy. I wandered around from class to class at school, as though my feet were moving of their own accord. I remembered some people whispering about the length of my school skirt – it was the same skirt I’d had since joining the school the previous year and it has to be said that I had shot up quite considerably since then. Laura was asking about Don or Donald as she called him. I remember making some nonsensical reply to her questions and then telling her a joke that I’d never heard in my life. Despite my absurd behaviour, the pretty auburn-haired girl smiled and laughed and treated me the same way that she always did. The school day ended at twelve o’clock since it was the end of term.
“Can you believe we’ve just finished our first term as Grade 9s?!” Laura squealed excitedly as we emptied our lockers out after the long and energy-draining end-of-term assembly.
“I guess so,” I yawned distractedly. A lone moth was flying around the bare bulb hanging from the centre of the locker room’s ceiling and it seemed to change colours after every revolution. It went from white to black to green to purple to orange... I looked away worriedly, clamping a cool hand to my pounding temples.
“Daphne?” Laura asked. I looked up to see her leaning against the wall and eyeballing me with a look of apprehension settling in the pools of brown that surrounded her large pupils.
“Headache,” I said, trying to make light of the matter. I stood up and pulled a single strap of my pack over my shoulder.
“Come on. Kiara’s probably already here and she said she’d take us out for hot chocolate before we have to pick up Don.”
“Awesome,” Laura said, beaming.
“And you’re sure there’s no chance I can come and watch his soccer match tomorrow?”
“You wouldn’t want to,” I promised her.
“Oh, that’s not true!” she insisted.
“Laura,” I said seriously.
“You’re not coming to watch him play tomorrow.”
“Oh, alright!” she said.
“But next time...”
I began to laugh and made my way out of the locker room, pulling Laura along behind me.
“Next time, you’ll actually talk to him, and then I might consider bringing you along to a soccer match,” I finished for her, and Laura’s face was flushed with the colour.
Kiara’s buggy was snailing down the packed driveway towards us, when we reached the parking lot. Laura looked left and I looked right, and then we ran towards the car. Laura’s long, golden-red hair flew out behind her like the sails of a great boat. For a moment I thought I saw another figure sitting in the buggy beside my au pair. - One with silk-soft skin and hair that seemed even fierier than Laura’s. I could have sworn I saw two piercingly white eyes staring at me, but a second later the figure had disappeared altogether. I shook my head and breathed in deeply. There was no one else in the car.
“Hello, girls,” Kiara said as we sat down in the back of her buggy.
“Hey, Kiara,” Laura beamed.
“Hi,” I said, trying to smile and push all thoughts of the strange figure with the frosty eyes out of my mind.
“How was the last day?” Kiara asked. Laura looked at me with questioning eyes as though she expected me to tell her what her opinion of the day was. Surely she’s noticed how strangely I’ve been acting lately! Why doesn’t she say anything?!?!
“Fine thanks,” I said quietly.
“How’s it at WITS?”
“Super!” Kiara grinned. Then with a more solemn expression on her face, she turned her head to look at me and say, “Are you feeling any better, Daphne?” I shrugged.
“Daph’s had an awful headache all day!” Laura gasped. Oh... So she did notice.
“Oh, dear. Well, we’ll have to pop into Clicks and get you some Disprin then,” the skinny university student said cheerily.
Fifteen minutes later we were at the shops. Laura and I headed for Clicks, while Kiara went to collect her post from the post office. After purchasing some Disprin, Laura and I were on our way to a café to get some hot chocolate.
“Hey, Long-legs,” a familiar voice called out. I turned around to see three of Don’s friends behind me.
“Hey, Roberto,” I addressed the tanned boy who’d spoken. Roberto had taken to calling me Long-legs ever since we first met, a few months previously. That day my legs looked extra long, as my school skirt was a lot shorter than it aught to have been. I was a full year younger than Roberto, but had grown so much since my time in Grade 8 that I was now no more than two centimetres shorter than him – very tall for a girl of fifteen.
“Oh, don’t we get a greeting then, Fauls?” one of the other boys joked.
“And whose your friend?” the other asked inquisitively.
“Well, you didn’t exactly greet me. Jamie, Laura, Roberto, Newspaper,” I said, pointing to each person as I mentioned them.
“Newspaper?” Laura asked with a laugh.
“My nickname,” Newspaper explained proudly.
“It’s cause everybody thinks I’m so clever that I have all the facts of a newspaper inside my head, and I am just as well known and loved as a newspaper – with so many interesting stories to tell,” he beamed.
“Oh, please!” I laughed.
“More like: he’s as dull and repetitive and filled with useless information as a newspaper,” Jamie grinned. His blue eyes sparkled when he saw Laura’s reaction – a fit of giggles and a sweet smile. Jamie, Newspaper (his name was really Hector) and Roberto invited themselves to join us for hot chocolate in a way that only they could disguise as polite. Newspaper made lots of really stupid jokes that nobody laughed at, while blonde-haired Jamie teased him and asked Laura lots of questions. I sipped my hot chocolate and listened intently to the others’ conversation until I caught Roberto looking at me.
“What?” I asked. Whoops! That sounded kind of rude. Hope he’s not offended. Oh, wait... He’s laughing.
“You’re always in your own world, Long-legs,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, well it’s the only place where I can escape you people and you’re ridiculous sense of humour,” I smirked.
“Are we really that bad?” he asked innocently. I burst out laughing. Jamie, who was sitting to my right, turned to look at me and see what was so funny. Roberto smiled but didn’t say a word. Laura looked at me imploringly, from her seat opposite Jamie. I smiled. Holidays! Time to laugh and forget those stupid hallucinations, I thought contentedly. Newspaper slurped loudly out of his cup of coffee and everyone’s attention turned towards him.
“Where are your manners, Newspaper? Setting such a terrible example for these young ladies here,” Jamie said in a tone of mock-disapproval. Laura laughed.
“You coming to the game tomorrow?” Roberto asked, turning my attention back to his bronzed face and dark, narrow eyes.
“Of course. What choice do I have?” I replied glumly.
“You make it sound so terrible,” he chortled.
“That’s because it is,” I said simply. Before he had time to disagree, Kiara burst through the thicket of people in the café yelling, “Daphne! Laura! We’re late!”
I groaned. Newspaper looked ‘round and then said jokingly, “Does this mean we have to pay the bill?”
I slapped two R20 notes down on the table and Laura and I got up quickly. Newspaper smiled at me, “I was just kidding, Fauls. It really doesn’t matter.”
“Come, Laura,” I said, ignoring the scrawny fifteen-year-old boy’s comment.
“Bye,” Laura addressed the table. “It was nice to meet you.”
“See you,” Jamie replied. Newspaper echoed him, and Roberto raised his hand – the same movement that drivers make when they’re thanking other drivers for letting them into another lane in a road.
“Hey, Fauls! Aren’t you gonna say goodbye?” Newspaper yelled as we turned and made our way towards Kiara.
“Bye!” I replied without turning around.
We picked up Don from school – he’d stayed late for a final meeting with the school computer gaming team – and then dropped Laura off at her house. She spent the whole drive home staring at Don as though he were an incredible sculpture made by Michelangelo, and made both me and my cousin feel very awkward.
Back at Aunt Ilsa’s house, I ran myself a hot bath and sank into it feeling a great sense of release... At least that was until I opened my eyes and my moment of tranquillity was ended by the abrupt arrival of an uninvited visitor. Gliding on the currents of the wind, the visitor entered through the window and somehow found itself entangled between the fingers of my outstretched hand. It was a letter folded into the form of a paper aeroplane. I opened it slowly to read, my voice caught in my throat. The last time someone had written me a letter disguised as a paper aeroplane it had been from Jacqueline – a girl that I was beginning to believe to have been no more than an optical illusion or a dream. This letter had been written on soggy newspaper though, and was not written with a pen but with letters cut out of a magazine. It read:
Daphne,
I know that you know that she is real. I know that you are scared of her. I know that you don’t want to admit that she’s been following you for over a year now and always in the most unlikely of places. I know that you can see things that others cannot; experience and remember things that others forgot. I am willing to help you if you will help me. I’ll see you at Donald’s soccer match tomorrow.
Vusi
Shocked, I reread the letter again and again. This can’t be true. It can’t, it can’t! I didn’t know who Vusi was or what he could possibly want with me or know about me, or how the letter had gotten to me. All I knew was that I really did not want to attend my cousin’s soccer match in the freezing cold the next day, even if Roberto was going to be there. I argued with Aunt Ilsa about it all night, but she wouldn’t give in. I did not tell her about Vusi’s message; how could I? I tried to tell Don but when I looked for the letter it had vanished, and he told me to stop messing with him. I called Laura, but couldn’t find the words to explain my delusions of late and by the time I had explained my full account up to two weeks ago she’d told me repeatedly to join a creative writing class and to hang up ‘cause her battery was about to die. I tried to tell Kiara. She was training to be a psychologist, so maybe she and her thick, battered books could help me.
“Daphne, I don’t mean to sound rude, but your stories are wasting my time,” the lanky, stir-fry loving woman said to me eventually. I felt like screaming, but didn’t want her to think that there was something medically wrong with me. I must be going insane now. Surely this is insanity!
Finally, I decided to sneak out of the house and go for a walk – just to clear my head and think things through logically. I dressed warmly: in my thickest pair of jeans, a blue polar-neck, a wind-breaker, a beanie, with thick socks under my takkies and a woollen scarf wrapped around my neck. Then I was off down the street with the frozen appendages that were my fingers caged in the snug front pockets of my wind-breaker.
“Chilly, isn’t it?” a voice asked. I looked around cautiously.
“Here I am,” the voice said, and I screamed when I found that the source was a short boy who walked beside me.
“Sorry,” I murmured, trying to calm myself. “I didn’t see you.”
“It’s OK,” the boy said, his dark lips moving slowly. I examined him quickly – Nearly bald with chocolate-brown skin and wide, dark eyes that looked sad and weary. He was about five centimetres shorter than me and looked about a year, maybe two, younger.
“Daphne.” My name came out as no more than a hoarse whisper from his mouth.
“H-how do you know my name?” I asked, my voice squeaking nervously.
“I am Vusi,” he said simply. I bit my lip. No. No. Vusi is a figment of my imagination. This isn’t really happening.
“Oh, I am very real,” he assured me, as though he had read my thoughts.
“And so is Jacqui.”
“What do you want?” I trembled.
“I know you have seen her and dealt with her as best as you could... Miss Fauls – Daphne, you must understand that she is not human, and she is certainly not good. You’re the only one who can see her, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“And nobody believes you when you speak of her?”
“No.”
“You have the sight – a sight that’s been lost for centuries. All human beings used to have the sight, but now you are the only human being that possesses it.”
“What is this ‘sight’ that you speak of?” I asked, frightened but curious all the same.
“It is the ability to see things as they truly are. Have you ever wondered if there was any other form of life out there in the universe?”
“Of course.”
“Well, here we are. You have proof that there is.”
I didn’t understand Vusi’s words one bit. He started talking about Jacqueline again, started saying that she was not of the earth and that he needed me to find her. I felt like I was trapped in a fog of mystery... Until the three choices came. Then I had to think and I had to choose quickly. Just as no star in the universe’s life is infinite, my confusion could not and would not be infinite and neither would my suffering at the hands of Jacqueline, the girl I’d thought to be an apparition. Vusi gave me three choices and I sensed Jacqui watching me as I chose.
1. I could join Vusi and work with him in his endeavour to stop Jacqueline.
2. I could find others like her.
3. I could go on with my life and let the horror unfold and envelope my entire world without me having any say in it.
It felt like choosing my destiny. Perhaps it was choosing my destiny... All I know is that the following day, as I sat watching my cousin and his friends playing their soccer match, I could feel the weight of my decision encircling me and I could hear Vusi’s voice ringing in my ears. Had I made the right choice? Was this all real? Was I a lunatic? Something told me that that could not be the case. It all really happened and Vusi really did exist.
Staring up the sky and the great gaseous globe that we called our sun, I thought of all the galaxies out there and all the infinite amounts of stars. So, all stars must die at some point. New stars would then be born: hot and small. Surely then, the death of one problem was bound to lead to the birth of another...
(3759 Words)
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