One
Her heels click on the station forecourt like staccato drum-beats and there is the taste of flight on her tongue. Free, she is free. They have flown away like birds on the wing from a gilded, pain-filled cage, and how giddy it makes her.
Her daughter's feet scuff tiredly alongside her. "Are we almost there yet, Mummy?"
"Yes, Sylvie," Kitty Vincent – no, Trevelyan now – says. "Almost there. Can you spot a taxi for me?"
"Where are we going?"
"Our new home, remember? I told you all about it. It's our adventure."
Sylvie perks up at this, and Kitty takes her warm, sticky hand. The anonymity of the rush-hour crowd is beautiful – here, they are just mother and daughter, arriving in Glasgow for a reason no-one needs to know. People push past, running for trains that light up orange on the displays, trains north, south, east, west, trains everywhere, coming and going. She's always thought stations are junctions to a different life, and how right she is.
"Look, there's a taxi," Sylvie points, and they begin to run towards it before some other newly-arrived visitor snags it away from them, laughing as they bump into other people. This is what life should be like, Kitty decides. This is what life will be like from now on, no rules, no walking on cracking eggshells, no watching every step she takes to make sure the ground will not crumble into an abyss if she looks away. It's wonderful.
The sullen taxi-driver loads their one suitcase into the boot of the car. "Where to?" he mutters. The seats smell of cigarette smoke.
"Norfolk Street, Gorbals," Kitty replies. "Put your seatbelt on, Sylvie."
The taxi pulls out into a lane of traffic snarled like a spider's web, and, once free of the station, shoots off down the grey Glaswegian street.
This is where it begins.
He is woken by the dripping of rain from the eaves and a bird singing painfully outside his window. Eight o'clock. His shift begins at ten. There's no point trying to entice Morpheus back, so he pushes himself upright, his joints cracking like an old man's, rubbing sticky sleep from his eyes.
The kitchen floor is cold against his bare feet, and he tries to be as quiet as possible as he makes toast and finds a clean shirt. The slightest touch of sound will jolt Miles awake, and Thomas doesn't particularly want to be the subject of his friend's morning mood today.
Nine o'clock, time to get to work. He makes sure he's got everything he needs, and tip-toes out of the flat, shutting the door carefully behind him and turning, his car-keys jingling like bells.
There are footsteps, on the stairs, and thena womancomes into view and the breath escapes his lungs in a whoosh of wind.
There are raindrops tangled in her hair like diamonds, and a little girl clutching her hand.
Sometimes, when you see someone for the first time, when your eyes touch theirs, stories unfold below the colour, histories and love-stories, war-stories and fairy-stories all laying themselves bare for you. But other-times, you are met with closed shutters and a haughty, defiant glance, daring you to dig their secrets out of them, piece by piece.
He steps aside, and she passes, the little girl looking over her shoulder at him. And then she opens the flat next door with a key from her pocket and slams it shut behind her, leaving unanswered questions tugging at his mind like twisting ropes.
Shaking his head, he makes his way down the stairs. Patients to see, people to talk to. He's got no time for things like this.
"Can I have this room?" Sylvie bounces on the big bed, up and down like a little jack-in-the-box, all the tiredness evaporated by the heat of her excitement.
"If you like," Kitty puts their bag onto the desk, looking around her. The landlady said that it was furnished, everything provided and it's a relief. She wouldn't want to have to buy new furniture on their first day here.
"Can we share it?"
Kitty smiles indulgently. "Yes, why not? Are you going to explore whilst I unpack?"
Sylvie slides off the big bed and into a giggling heap on the floor. Kitty opens their small carry-on, thinking about the man they saw on the stairs – a fellow resident of this block, perhaps, or a visitor – she can't stop thinking about how blue his eyes were, like the sky just before night falls. It crackles across her brain like electricity and she came here to escape. Not to think about the first handsome man she saw – God knows she's seen enough handsome men in her life and they are all, without exception, assholes.
"Go on." She swats at her daughter with a pair of jeans, and Sylvie disappears through the door.
She finishes un-packing to the soundtrack of Sylvie running through the flat, opening and slamming cupboards in the kitchen. Then there is silence, before the inevitable, "Mummy, I'm hungry! When are we having breakfast?"
"Soon, darling," Kitty calls, shutting the door of the wardrobe and sitting down on the bed for a second, suddenly drained. Now that they're here, she doesn't know quite what to do. She supposes she'll have to enrol Sylvie in a school somewhere, and find herself a job, though she hasn't even the first idea of how to go about it. She certainly can't go back to modelling, even if she wanted to.
Sylvie appears in the doorway. "Come on!"
Kitty pulls a smile from somewhere inside herself, standing up and taking her coat. "I'm coming."
When he gets back from his shift tired and grumpy from a day of arguing with one of the more senior surgeons, Miles is in the kitchen and the smell of burning fills the air like a thick, smothering smog. At a raised eyebrow, Miles shrugs. "We have new neighbours. I wanted to bake something to welcome them to Norfolk Street and well…"
"So I can see," Thomas says irritably, throwing his briefcase onto the table and sinking into a chair. "Let's hope they like burnt offerings, then."
Miles prods at the blackened mass on the baking tray cautiously, as though it will suddenly grow fangs and bite him. "Should we just buy something from the corner shop?"
"You can, if you want."
"Was Yelland getting at you again today?"
Thomas starts at the question, shaking his head at Miles' uncanny ability to discern what is bothering him. "What do you think?"
"Just report the bastard, and then you won't have to put up with him all the time. Look, this is hopeless. I'm going to the corner shop to get some biscuits or something. Do you need anything? More cigarettes? A bottle to drown away your sorrows?"
"I'm okay."
"Are you sure…"
"Miles," Thomas gives him a look, pinching the bridge of his nose where a headache is starting to throb. "Kindly, bugger off. I'll salvage the mess here."
"Okay," Miles nods, and then he's gone and the door is shutting behind him. Thomas groans and slowly lowers his head to the table. Damn Yelland, damn Miles' appalling attempt at cooking…damn life.
At about seven, there is a knock on the door. Kitty's heart immediately lurches in her chest as though it is running from pursuing hands, and her hands ball into fists. It can't be Elliott – no, he can't have found them yet! He's overseas, in America, and they stole away like thieves in the night for a reason…if he's found them…
"Mummy, can I answer the door?"
"No, Sylvie, let me do it," she says, trying to slow her breathing. A fork lies on the table from she and Sylvie's dinner – a take-out affair from the Spice Garden by the river – and she stuffs it into the cuff of her jumper, rising from the sofa. Sylvie stands in the hallway in her pyjamas, hopping from foot to foot.
A fork is no protection, but she'll use anything to keep her beloved daughter safe.
She pads carefully up to the door, putting the chain on and opening it just a crack so that the fluorescent lamp blinds into her eyes. Two figures are silhouetted there. One is holding something.
"What do you want?" she demands, hostile as though they've come with spears and swords at the ready, a marauding army here to steal Sylvie away from her…
"We're your neighbours," the shorter of the figures says, holding out the something like a peace offering. "We just came to say hello."
She blinks and unlatches the chain very slowly. They make no move for the door, and that gives her the confidence to pull it wider so that she can see them properly, her eyes darting to the second, mutinously silent person.
Shit. It's the man from this morning, the one whose glance burned into her chest and left her so breathless, so helpless, like a fish tossed from cool water to parched land…
"Mummy, who is it?" Sylvie is hopping impatiently behind her, and Kitty sighs, opening the door even further.
"It's our neighbours, Sylvie," she says. "Do you want to come and say hello?"
Sylvie nods, and Kitty turns back to the people in the hall, standing across the doorway so they don't get any impressions that she's acting out of anything but politeness. "I'm Kitty," she says, shortly. "This is my daughter, Sylvie."
"Hello, Sylvie," the shorter man says. "I'm Miles, and this is Thomas. We've just brought you this." He pushes a wrapped package into Kitty's hands. "If you need any company, then we're just next door."
Discomfort at the flirtatious edge to his tone roils in Kitty's stomach like a sick bug, and she nods briskly. "Thank you very much. I've got to get Sylvie to bed – goodnight."
She barely hears the murmured goodnights before she slams and bolts the door, her legs trembling. The package in her hand is sticky against her sweating palms.
"Mummy?"
"Go and brush your teeth, little monkey," she says, and Sylvie disappears into the small bathroom.
It's the first time in as long as she can remember that anyone's ever been so nice, and it's terrifying.
A/N Important! Well, hello again, people. It's lovely to see you all back - welcome to the first chapter of 'The Siren's Call.' This is my Modern AU, and I hope you like it. On a side note, I am away - with no access to my computer - until next Wednesday, so you can count this as a little teaser to whet your appetite for the rest of the story. As ever, reviews make the sun shine, so click that little button! I'd love to hear from you! N xxx