Chapter 25

If Jack had been wanting to sleep that night, he would have been hard pressed to do so. The twin room he shared with KC in cabin 3, next door to where Ebony still lay, watched over by Celia and Amber, was close enough to the double room inhabited by Alice to hear every one of her resounding snores. To make matters worse, KC seemed to have decided that, since sleep was impossible for both of them, he would take the opportunity to recount to Jack every one of his fiancé's perfections.

"She is an angel!" KC exclaimed quietly. "Why she loves me, I have no idea, but she does! I am the luckiest man alive!"

"Yeah," Jack yawned, "you said."

"I've learned so much from her, like you wouldn't believe!" KC continued, oblivious. "I mean, I'm nowhere near as good as her, but I know a bit about healing, I can read the stars, the seasons, the landscape. She even taught me the language of flowers! Me! I can send a message now for the first time in forever, and all because of her!"

"The language of what?" Jack's brow wrinkled. He hadn't planned on sleeping, but he was tired and KC's babbling was starting to make less and less sense.

"The language of flowers," KC answered enthusiastically. "Every flower means something. And not just the flowers, either: different parts of them sometimes, and the way they're given to you, all mean different things. I don't know all of them, heck I barely know half of them, but I know enough to use them to send messages. Especially messages to Celia."

"Let me guess," groaned Jack, "this flower language thing: it was invented as a way to send secret messages to your girlfriend without her parents knowing?"

"Exactly!" KC grinned. "It was invented by the Victorias or something. Whoever they were, their parents must have been really strict if they had to go to that length to get a message from their boyfriends." A frown became apparent in KC's voice. "And they must have had really weird parents to call them the same name..."

"Victorians," Jack sighed wearily.

"What?"

"Victorians, KC, with an N at the end. Not Victori-ahs, Victori-anns. Subjects of Queen Victoria in England. Late nineteenth, early twentieth century. Other side of the world. Some really bizarre ideas and some of the greatest inventors in history!"

KC was silent for a while. Jack preyed he had taken the hint.

"Greatest inventors in history huh?" KC piped up eventually.

"Yes," Jack replied tersely.

"Guess that explains why you've heard of them!"

XXXX

Ebony's mind was a blur. On the one hand she was still hurting. Jack's disappearing act and subsequent return had been like so many knives straight to her heart. On the other hand, she found it was impossible to stay mad at Jack. Not because she loved him, or at least, not just because she loved him, but because he was right. Granted, he could have handled the whole disappearing part a bit better, but everything he'd said to her was true. Ellie had been a huge part of his life. She had been his reason for living at times, and at least the main, if not the only, reason for his fighting so hard to always find his way back to the Mall. He had to draw a line under that before he could move on. Ebony got that. She also understood, and respected, his honesty. No matter how much it hurt to hear right now, it would have hurt her even more, and completely destroyed her trust in him, if he told her what she wanted to hear now, because she was ill, then took it back later.

This way, at least, if he ever did tell her he felt the same way, she would know he meant it.

Ebony pushed herself up into a sitting position. It was almost completely dark in the room, but she could tell by the sound of Celia's even, steady breathing that the healer was asleep. Ebony had been sleeping long enough; she was nowhere near tired now. Sliding her legs round and off the bed, she let her feet fall gently onto the cold wooden floor. The simple shift nightdress she was wearing did little to keep out the night time chill, so she carefully removed a blanket from her bed and wrapped it round her. Following the sliver of starlight sliding across the floor, she crept across to the door and out of the room, trailing her fingertips along the wall of the pitch dark corridor and heading for the faint brightness that signified the central living areas.

After the darkness of the corridor, the open plan living, dining and kitchen area was comparatively bright with it's curtains wide open on either side of the cabin. As she made her way into the kitchen area, she could hear the sounds of night creatures creeping in through an open window: scuffles, scrapes, chitterings and a weird noise like somebody dragging a stick along wooden railings. Ebony poured some water from a bottle to a glass and drank deeply, finishing the glass in one draught and setting it down on the counter. She moved into the living area and curled up on the sofa. There was no way of knowing what time it was: she had no watch and she'd never been good at reading the night sky. No doubt Amber or Trudy could take one look out of the window and tell her not only what the hour was, but the minute too and even how long until sunrise. Ebony shrugged and pulled the blanket closer round her, closing her eyes and listeining to the sounds of her new home.

Just as she was starting to pick out individual sounds among the nocturnal chorus, a closer, more human, sound broke in on her thoughts. Ebony's eyes snapped open, her body returning to a familiar frozen readiness, listening and watching for the slightest sound or movement. The footsteps were from behind her. They were slow and careful, but steady and direct. Not wanting to risk a sudden movement, Ebony held her position and waited. Gradually a tall figure came into view. Jay. Ebony's brow creased as she considered what she knew of the cabin's occupants. Surely everyone was stationed on the other side of the central area except her? Jay and Amber had the double room, with baby Bray in a makeshift bassinet. Trudy and Brady were in the twin room opposite the double. That left the two single rooms on Ebony's side of the cabin: the one she was in and an empty one.

Ebony shook her head, cursing herself for a fool. Of course: the bathroom was on the same side as the single rooms. That would be where Jay was coming from. She had almost made up her mind to turn and head back to her room when a second set of footsteps made her freeze again. This set were lighter and were coming from the same direction as Jay's had. Perhaps Celia had heard Jay pass and had got up to see what the noise was.

Even as Ebony heard the thought run through her head she knew it was wrong. She remained frozen on the sofa, out of the eyeline of anyone coming from that corridor unless they specifically turned to look for her, and waited. Even though she knew, she waited, hoping she was wrong. She wouldn't be though. Celia wouldn't have wakened to the sound of footsteps in the hall, on the other side of a closed door, if Ebony getting out of bed in the same room hadn't woken her. Amber would simply have moved Bray's bassinet into Trudy's room for the night if she wanted to be alone with Jay. That only left one person.

As Trudy's shadowy form passed through the open area, Ebony watched her pause once, as if listening, then move on. Ebony glared daggers at the dark rectangle of the corridor Jay and then Trudy had disappeared into. Was that why Jack had been so keen to keep his hiding place under the bed a secret? And from Trudy especially? Something must have happened in that room before she, Ebony, had woken up. And he, Jack, knew about it! Mr Honesty knew!

Ebony let out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding and shook her head. He might want space to think, but now there was a totally different conversation she and Jack needed to have!

XXXX

When Celia awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of Amber bringing in a tray with three mugs of steaming nettle tea. She looked over to her charge to find her sleeping soundly, then took a mug from the tray and sat down. Amber placed Ebony's mug by the side of her bed and took her own to a chair by Celia.

"Should she be sleeping this much?" Amber whispered to the young healer.

"She hasn't slept all night," Celia replied quietly. "She was up at least once that I know of. She only woke me when she returned to the room, though, so I have no idea how long she was up for."

"Alice was telling me about the last time she went quiet," Amber wrapped her hands around the sides of the mug to ward off the morning chill. "It was a long time ago, and when I wasn't around. Apparently she just completely retreated from everyone."

"I thought you was one of the first Mall Rats?" Celia frowned. "That's what KC told me."

"Oh, I was," Amber nodded hurriedly, "but I left for a while. It was a very... I mean I was going through..." Amber sighed. "I ran away," she confessed, "because I believed something bad about somebody I cared about, when I really should have known better."

"Ah," Celia breathed. "Eagle Mountain. Of course, I remember now."

Amber frowned and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "KC really has been telling you a lot!"

"We wanted to know everything about one another," the younger woman smiled gently. "Besides, his stories are much more interesting than mine."

Amber regarded her for another long moment, then decided to ask: "You're together?"

Celia nodded. "Engaged, actually, as of yesterday. He left a message for me before he left to shadow Luke, and I sent him a reply message when I got here."

"Message? KC?" Amber's brow rose. "Are we talking about the same guy? The KC I knew couldn't read or write!"

"Not all messages have to be written," Celia smiled. "I found out that KC couldn't read not long after we met. We've been using plants to send messages ever since. It was a way for him to communicate. Teaching him the language brought us together."

"Language?" Amber's tone still rang with disbelief. "I know a lot about plants, but I've never heard of a language of them!"

"It's old. It goes back to the Victorians," Celia smiled again. "My grandmother taught me most of it; the rest I researched and found out for myself. I liked the idea that lovers could send such complicated messages in the form of a simple bouquet. I've added to it too, with native plants. Simple things that might be useful in everyday life, rather than romantically. It helps us send signals around the village without relying on somebody being there who can read. It's almost second nature to the children. For some of them, it's the only form of message they're ever known."

"And KC used it to propose?"

"It's perfect really, when you think of it," said Celia. "It's the reason we had the chance to fall in love, after all."

"True," Amber admitted. "Although where KC would get flowers at this time of year..."

"Ah, now you'd be surprised at what we have growing in the village," Celia grinned. "That's something I cannot share with you now though, not without our leader's permission. It's true that he couldn't find everything, though, so some parts of the bouquet were drawn on scraps of paper."

"How many flowers does it take to say 'marry me'?" Ambers eyebrows rose again.

"Actually, only one, but I've never known KC to keep things simple when it comes to words, so he used seven."

"Seven!"

Celia nodded. "I found them placed, in order, from my bedroom to the kitchen in my home. The first was a peach: that means my charms and qualities are unequalled. Then peach blossom: that means he is my 'captive'. Then cedar leaf: he lives for me. Then a red tulip: he loves me. Then shepherd's purse: I offer you my all. Then a sprig of American linden and a drawing of a four-leaved clover together. The linden means matrimony and the clover, when it's four-leaved anyway, means 'be mine'."

Amber had listened, open mouthed, to Celia's description. It was apparent, from the glow on her face, that she had been aching to tell someone, and the flamboyance of the message, and its delivery, certainly sounded like KC, but to Amber he was still the annoying little boy with no interest whatsoever in girls and romance. The idea that he was now getting married brought home to her just how long it had been since he had disappeared. So much had happened to them all over the years that the time seemed to have flown past.

"I'm boring you," Celia shook her head self-consiously. "You were telling me about Ebony: the last time this happened."

"Not at all!" Amber said quickly. "I just can't believe KC's getting married!"

Turning back round to look at Ebony as she still slept on the bed, Amber took a sip of her tea and continued.

"Like I said: I wasn't around at the time. From what I understand though, there wasn't a miscarriage or anything physical like that. She'd been kidnapped and locked up in a warehouse, in the pitch dark. When she was brought back, she stayed in her room, not eating, not talking to anyone, for ages. When she did eventually surface, there was an anger inside her like nothing they had seen before. Apparently she was pretty much fueled by revenge. It explains a lot of what happened after that, especially between us, but she's dealt with all that now. I'd hate to be the person who makes her angry this time round.