26. A Message In Flame

Katie

From the moment Cook first turned that picture round I knew I was fucked. I'd been blind. I'd been stupid. My useless little brain had figured that if I ignored the problem for long enough it would some how go away. Every pathetic excuse I had paraded to myself came dancing back across my consciousness like the life visions of a dying man. None of them were good enough. I had fallen in love with someone, and I had blatantly lied to her for months. It was that fucking simple. I was a shit and she was going to leave me, and I couldn't see a way out of that.

Fucking Emily. She couldn't have fallen in love with some nice indie art princess who nobody had ever heard of? She couldn't have become a wanker when she started shagging the rich and famous, and forgotten about her family ties? No, she had to be a fucking Fitch, didn't she? And Fitches stick together. Fucking family Fitch, the name that was going to break my heart so badly I might never recover from it. And yet they would all be there to pick up the pieces. Just like they were there after Anna. Just like they were there after Paris. Just like they would be there for me again, even after the way I had treated them in the last month, only turning up for work when I had to and sulkily refusing any discussion on the subject of Le Coeur Explosif. Rob had tried to win me round, whilst Jenna had just sighed in disappointment. Emily, lovely Emily had tried to encourage me to do the right thing, and James, well James would just love me whatever I did. My family. My salvation and my downfall.

The room was silent, and four sets of eyes fell upon me. The first thing I felt was pain, like an actually physical pain. Like a crater was forming in the centre of my chest and I was losing physical substance from the inside out. At first it was selfish pain, pain at the thought of losing Effy. Pain for the emptiness of living without her. But then, as it inevitably does with her my focus turned itself inside out and I found myself thinking about her pain. How could I have done this to her? She had been nothing but beautiful to me, and this was how I repayed her? How could I have lied to her when she was so vulnerable, and how the fuck was she going to react? Fuck my pain, I deserved it, but if anything happened to Effy because of me, I don't know how I would live with that. And if she never wanted to see me again, how would I be able to help her?

It was a car crash moment, time slowing down so I had what seemed like forever to contemplate the worst case scenarios before the final impact. The inevitable impact. There was no running away from it any more, and I raised my head to face my destiny. Thomas looked confused, Freddie looked like he wanted to kill me, and Cook just looked like he was still thinking about my sister and Naomi Diamond. And Effy? Effy was smirking.

She was staring at me just like everyone else, her steely blue eyes deconstructing me where I stood. I felt completely naked under her gaze, but where I had expected to find censure and contempt, all I saw was curiosity and amusement. I could almost see her mind working as she stared at me in silence, recalibrating her opinion of me as I watched helplessly on. Nobody in the room said a word, all of us were barely breathing. As ever, we were waiting for Effy's lead. Four lives waiting on the balance of one spectacular blue-eyed girl.

"I wasn't looking," she said calmly, taking a step towards me. "But somehow you found me."

She stalked towards me like a predator, looking cool, collected and totally in control. And, though I was ashamed to be thinking of it at a time like this, rather hot. Her eyes were blazing now, slicing me apart and leaving me vulnerable, but not with hate. Was that? Was it? Love?

"I tried to hide from your love light," said Effy as she continued her approach until she was standing right in front of me.

"But like heaven above me," she said, raising her hand to cup my cheek. "The spy who loved me. Is keeping all my secrets safe tonight."

And then she kissed me. Her other hand came up to curve around the back of my head, and her lips caught mine with infinite tenderness, as Cook cottoned on and filled the room with a rousing chorus of 'Nobody Does It Better'.

And what a kiss. It was so innocent and full of hope, just like our very first kiss, before Freddie or my family had ever come between us. When we were just two girls being drawn together by an unknown force. It was as if she was taking us back there. Offering us a chance to start again? My eyes were stinging with the start of tears by the time she pulled away and I remembered there were other people in the room.

"You wouldn't betray me, would you Katie?" said Effy.

It was more of a statement than a question, addressed to me but loud enough for everyone else to hear.

"No," I babbled. "I couldn't. I told them I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do that to you, Eff…"

"So you admit you were spying on us," said Freddie smugly.

"I was supposed to yes, but…" I confessed.

"And was fucking her part of the deal?" he spat angrily.

"No," I cried in shock. "I never… oh fuck no. I just, I just couldn't… She's just so beautiful."

I felt the soft touch of Effy's hand on my arm, and my incoherent babbling dried up.

"Do you love me, Katie?" she asked me softly.

"Oh God yes," I replied, emotion gushing out of me like a river breaking its banks.

"Then It doesn't matter," she smiled.

"What?" I said, unable to believe she was taking this so calmly.

"It doesn't matter how you got here," replied Effy. "Only that here is where you want to be."

"You're not angry with me?" I said incredulously.

"You went against your family's wishes because you fell in love with me," she smiled. "I think it's kind of romantic."

"So you're just going to forgive her?" said Freddie, watching his chance for revenge crumble in the face of Effy's generosity.

"Yes I am," she said, in a voice that would brook no argument, but Freddie tried anyway.

"But what if she runs back to Daddy?" he said.

"Then I'll just have to keep her prisoner," she smirked.

"But she lied to you," he insisted. "She lied to all of us."

"Oh Freddie," she smiled benevolently. "Don't you know I have a thing about bad girls?"

And with that she took my hand and walked us out of the room, casually swiping the offending newspaper out of Cook's back pocket as she went. I don't think I made a breath all the way back to our room, still convinced that Effy's calm exterior was nothing but a front. As soon as she shut the door behind us I went the other way, my breathing quickening to the point of hyperventilation. Again, it was Effy's serenity that cut through my fear.

"Don't panic," she said, pulling me closer and holding me shaking in her arms. "There's not going to be any drama."

"I'm so sorry," I told her, but she hushed me with another kiss.

At first I was hesitant, there was no way I deserved this beautiful creature's kiss. But this was Effy, yeah? I defy anyone to deny her for long. I began to let her in, and I felt her hands slip down and curve around my arse, pulling me closer to her until our bodies were touching all the way down. My mind might have been raging with guilt and fear, but my body had its own ideas. It was just like the first time again, such gorgeously intimate snogging shuddering its way through my senses. I felt a pressure against my body and realized she was pushing me back towards the bed. I didn't resist her, but I began to feel uneasy. And when she pushed me onto my back on the mattress and started to climb on top of me, the feeling grew. She moved her kisses to my neck and slid her thigh between my legs. I felt my pussy getting wet, but I wasn't happy going down this road.

"Effy no," I protested. "We shouldn't do this. We need to talk."

"You're right," she said, sitting up immediately.

I instantly missed her touch, but I was glad she was willing to stop. She got up off the bed and went over to her backpack. After rummaging for a minute, she turned back towards me with a grin so evil it made Voldemort look like a tree hugging pacifist. I didn't notice what she had in her hands until she had pushed me back down to the bed. She took one of my arms and started tying it to the headboard with one of the bits of blue polypropylene rope we used for stuff on site.

"What are you doing, Eff?" I asked her nervously.

"Keeping you prisoner," she grinned.

I didn't resist when she took my other arm and did the same thing. Okay, so it looked like a whole 'talking' thing was off the agenda. I wasn't too happy about it, but who was I to dictate what Effy needed? Maybe it was me who needed to talk to assuage my guilt. Maybe what Effy needed right now was to feel in control.

"You know if we're going to do this, shouldn't we be using silk scarves or fur lined handcuffs?" I said, feeling the pinch of the nylon rope against my skin.

"I ain't no princess, honey," replied Effy. "With me what you see is what you get."

It was delivered without malice, but she was certainly making a point. She finished her knot work, and sat back until she was straddling me, looking me up and down. It was a ridiculously sexy situation and I could feel a buzz begin to build inside my pussy, but I couldn't quite read the look in Effy's eyes. I let her watch me in silence. I wasn't going to push it. I had to work to Effy's agenda now.

"You lied to me," she said suddenly.

So we were going to talk, but it was going to be on her terms. Fair enough, I owed her that.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Why?" she asked.

Again I was surprised by her tone. It was much more inquisitive than accusatory.

"Effy, I'm so sorry…" I began, but she put a finger up to my lips to quiet me.

"Not after an apology," she said. "I want an explanation."

"After Paris, I couldn't get a job in fashion," I said. "So I came back to work for my dad at Fitchtastic Fireworks. We had been doing the Mayfest gig years, and so when you guys got it instead he was really pissed off. No, it was more than that, he was worried, but he seemed to bounce between supreme arrogance and fear. He would never admit it, but when we saw your work at Mayfest, he knew you were a real threat to us."

Effy's eyes filled with a sudden sadness that it broke my heart to see.

"So that whole night at the Old Library?" she said. "That was just a

setup?"

"No," I insisted. "I didn't know who you were that night other than the beautiful girl I saw in Paris. That night was so beautiful, even after you told me about Freddie. I loved just being with you. You made me feel, I don't know you just made me feel right. Like all the ridiculous petty things of the world had no hold on me any more."

"I know," said Effy softly. "I think I could have run to the ends of the earth with you that night. Tell me it was real."

"It was real," I said. "It still is. I never wanted to get into this ridiculous spying nonsense. I only did it to shut my dad up."

"You're very good at it," said Effy. "You might want to consider a career change."

"I didn't mean it to drag on this long babes," I insisted. "It was a total shock when I first saw you at the barn. But it felt like what you said, that I was meant to find you. I just wanted to hang out with you, but having spun Freddie all of that Katie Ford bullshit, I thought you wouldn't want to be friends with me if you knew who I was."

"Friends," chuckled Effy. "It seems like such a ridiculous concept now."

"I tried," I said, with a gesture that would have been a shrug if I wasn't tied to the bed. "I thought I was big enough just to love you as you were. Turns out I was a little more greedy than that."

"Did you betray me, Katie?" asked Effy.

"No," I said forcefully. "I couldn't do it. I was in love with you. I fed my dad a load of nonsense he could have discovered for himself if he could be bothered to go online"

"Why didn't you just tell him about me?"

"Tell him what, Eff?" I said. "That he should be fucking scared? That you are a genius? That you were better than him and I loved you for it? You don't know my parents, Effy. For the Fitches, family is everything, and I was choosing you over them. Not just you, but Le Coeur itself. I loved working with you and the boys. I wasn't happy working in the family business, but you reignited my love of pyro."

"I used to think you were so cool," said Effy, shaking her head. "The way you took to it, the way you handled the pyro, the way nothing ever fazed you. I thought you were some kind of pyro goddess, and that's why you were my soulmate."

"I'm still that girl, Eff," I said earnestly. "But it was my family that made me that way. I've been around pyro since I could walk. When we used to fire shows with portfires and nail boards."

Something dark flared in Effy's eyes as I awaited her verdict.

"That," she said. "Is fucking hot."

She made love to me then. Gently, exquisitely and at great length. I was totally hers. Not that I could do anything about it physically obviously, but I let my emotions go too. As her skilful tongue did unspeakably beautiful things to my flesh, the unspoken generosity of her love bathed my spirit in light. It was shattering to be with her like this, with all my lies behind me. It felt like she was destroying me and remaking me with her touch, and I cried and whimpered her name like an invocation to the gods. It was incredibly emotional, and when her sweet mouth eventually brought me to my climax, I was crying openly. Crying with relief that she wasn't going to give up on me. That even after all the bullshit I had to put her through, she still believed in me. That love really does conquer fucking all. She untied my hands and kissed away my tears. She pulled me to her and held me, stroking my hair until I fell asleep in her arms. There was no future I could imagine for myself that didn't have Effy in it. She had been right about the soulmates thing, and I would give anything in the world to be with her, even if it meant war with my family. She was perfect.

I woke up with a start the next morning and instantly knew I was in an empty bed. My hands reached out automatically to the cold side of the sheets, as if I could magic her into existence. When that didn't work I span round in the bed to try and find her, but the first thing I saw was the window. Just like in France, scrawled across it lipstick in Effy's familiar handwriting was a message that cooled my nervous fire.

"Je t'aime Katie Ford."

But then the Ford had been crossed out and replaced by Fitch.

I felt the tears begin to well up again at the use of my real name. Much has been made of Effy's effortless physical beauty, but every bit as much of her is her effortless spiritual beauty. Even when she struggles in her own life, she never stops being the one we all look to, the one who has the gift to bring us all to life. I felt the tension from months of living a double life fall away from me. For all that I complain about them, I'm still a Fitch through and through, and it was good to have my identity back. And finally to share it with the woman that I love.

"You know if you're going to get that anxious every time you wake up without me, we really need to talk again about you moving in," Effy's voice cut through my reverie.

I looked round again and there she was sitting cross-legged in an armchair. She was fully dressed, and it was clear she had been watching me.

"I'm glad you're awake," she said. "You looked way too cute to disturb, but I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye."

"Goodbye? What? Where are you going?" I burbled.

"To site," said Effy calmly. "Kinda have a show to rig."

"Fuck, is it that time already?" I said, glancing around for clothing. "Just give me a couple of minutes and I'll come with you."

"You're not coming," she said, abandoning the armchair and coming to sit beside me. "You're barred from site."

"But I thought you believed me," I said in dismay.

"I do," she said, reaching out to touch my face.

"Then why don't you trust me?" I complained.

"It's not me," she said, holding up her phone to show me what looked like a succession of ranty text messages from Freddie. "I had to give him that one, and besides, he's still furious. I don't think having the two of you on the same site would be a good idea."

"But what am I going to do?" I pouted.

"Go and see your family," said Effy, kissing me on the forehead. "Tell them I thought they were good, and that I wish them bonne chance"

"Do you think they can beat us?" I asked, before realising my unconscious choice of allegiance.

"No," grinned Effy cheekily. "But what would it matter if they did? Either way, someone you love would win."

She kissed me on the lips and headed for the door. Just before she left, she turned back to me.

"It's going to be fine, Katie," she promised me. "I'll find a way to make it all work out."

I fell back to sleep for a couple of hours, the exhaustion from these last few weeks of stress taking it's toll. I took a long shower, letting the powerful jets of the hot water wash away the remnants of my sins. I decided to take Effy up on her advice. I might not quite be up to facing Rob and Jenna yet, but there was one member of my family with whom I'd always feel at home.

My heart lifted when I first saw that familiar face, so similar and yet so different to my own. There is an instant comfort in connecting with my other half and it made me realise how much I missed her. Skype could only get us so far, and when she stood up to embrace me, I ran into her arms. I think we must have hugged for a full five minutes before either of us spoke, not caring about anyone else in the pub.

"Missed each other then?" came the sarcastic voice of Naomi Diamond, who had clearly grown bored of waiting for the end of the embrace.

Of course she was there, reminding me that Emily wasn't truly mine any more. But for the goofy grin that had been plastered across my sister's face for nigh on a year now, I could forgive her for it. Naomi was dressed down in a scruffy T-shirt and jeans, a beanie pulled down over her peroxide hair, and a ridiculous pair of fake glasses to try and disguise her famous blue eyes. It didn't really work, she still looked devastating, and clearly wasn't fooling the young boy who was shuffling nervously towards her.

"Excuse me, are you Naomi Diamond?' he asked her.

"No," she said flatly, and went back to playing with her phone.

"You really look like her," he said.

"Who is she?" she shrugged with a bored look that would have rivaled one of Effy's.

"You're kidding," said the boy in surprise. "She's like a well famous supermodel."

"Well that's not me," said Naomi. "My name is Karen. I work in a bank."

I watched Emily trying not to laugh at her girlfriend's attempt to conceal her identity. After all my angst about the lies I had told to protect myself, it amused me to see Naomi doing it so casually. It seemed we all played games with who we were one way or another.

"Karen honey, would you like a drink?" said Emily, playing along with the game.

"Sure," said Naomi, watching her arse as she walked away.

"So do you live around here then?" asked the persistent young man. "Would you like to go out for a drink sometime?"

"Nah mate," laughed Naomi. "Got a girlfriend. Totally loved up. She's my one and only."

"Oh," said the boy, his shoulders sagging in disappointment. "She's a lucky girl."

"Damn right," agreed Naomi. "She's got a girlfriend who looks like a supermodel."

I snorted with laughter at Naomi's affrontery. I was glad that Emily had found her. They were a good match.

"So what's the news, big sis?" said Emily, returning with our drinks.

"Effy knows who I am," I blurted.

"Oh so you finally grew a pair and told her?" said Ems.

"Not exactly," I admitted. "I was exposed. Freddie found a picture of you two in the paper and worked it out."

"Oh God, are you okay?" asked Emily in sudden concern. "What happened?"

"Nothing," I said. "She didn't bat an eyelid. Said as long as I loved her she didn't really care."

"Seriously?" said Ems wide-eyed.

"No drama," added Naomi. "That's impressive."

"I have got to fucking meet this girl," said Emily. "She sounds fucking cool. What does she look like?"

I got out my phone and started looking for a picture.

"Well you would have seen her in Paris if your face hadn't been superglued to Naomi Diamond's mouth," I teased.

"Oh but what a mouth," countered Ems, flashing me a look of pure filth.

"She likes my mouth," smirked Naomi.

"I like all of you, baby," said Ems, eyefucking the blonde enthusiastically.

I had to stop them before this descended any further. Today was supposed to be about me.

"This is Effy," I said, holding up my phone towards them.

It was one of my favourite pictures of her. Her red firing suit was down and tied around her waist, and she was wearing a skimpy purple vest top. Her helmet was perched visor up on the back of her head. She had an attractive smudge of black powder on her left cheek and a bunch of five inch shells dangling in her hand. Everytime I looked at it, it gave me shivers of a delicious cocktail of love and lust.

"Fuck," said Emily, her eyes flaring in undisguised appreciation.

"Fuck me, she's gorgeous," said Naomi.

A guilty look flashed between them that quite clearly said 'if I wasn't with you then I totally would.'

"Nice work, Katie Fitch," said Naomi. "I used to think you were mad to turn down Anna, but I get it now."

She took the phone out of my hand for a closer look.

"So is this what you wear to do pyro?" she asked, looking at Ems. "You know if you ever fancied revisiting your roots, I would fully support you."

Emily arched her eyebrow at her lover.

"It's like that is it?" she smirked. "Katie, have you got your gear with you? I might have to borrow it later."

I was still trying to shake the image of those two playing pyro sex dress-up, when an unexpected voice cut into my consciousness.

"Emily, Naomi," said Jenna. "There you are."

"What the fuck are they doing here?" I hissed crossly at Emily.

"We were meeting them here for Sunday lunch," she said apologetically. "You didn't think the Fitch family dinner stops just cause we're in another town, do you?"

"Hey bitches," said James enthusiastically, plonking himself between Emily and Naomi, and indulging in a quick perv on the blonde, for which Emily smacked him around the head.

"Oh Katie," said my mother. "I didn't expect to see you here. Shouldn't you be off with that girl plotting against your family?"

"Mum," said Emily harshly.

"Don't Jenna love," warned Rob, but Mum completely ignored them.

"Well why are you here?" she said accusingly.

"I'm banned from their site," I said plainly. I had been lying for too long. "They found out I was a Fitch."

"Oh well good," said Jenna. "Then maybe we can put all this nonsense behind us, and you can come back home."

"I'm still in love with Effy, Mum," I said. "This thing's not going to go away."

"How can you be in love with someone who is trying to destroy us?" seethed Jenna.

"She's not trying to destroy anything," I argued. "She's just doing something that she loves. The only fucking issue here is that she is so fucking good at it. She deserves to be a star."

And then it hit me. The solution to the whole bloody mess.

"Times are tight, Katie," said my dad. "You need to be with us, not against us."

"But I can sort this," I said. "I can make sure Le Coeur Explosif are not competing for the same gigs as you."

"How?" asked Dad.

"I go and work for them full time," I said.

"And how exactly is going to help us?" scoffed Jenna. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

"But it will," I insisted. "Effy shouldn't be doing blasters at family fun days and councill gigs. She should be doing rock gigs, fashion parties, art stuff. I know that world, and I'm pretty good at schmoozing it. If I can leapfrog them so that we are working in different markets, then the problem disappears."

"Why can't you get us a rock gigs and fashion parties?" asked James.

"Get real," said Emily.

"You seen her work, right?" I asked Dad. "You know what I'm saying is true."

"I suppose," said Rob grudgingly.

"Look," I said to Mum. "Come and watch her display with me tonight, then you'll see what I mean. JJ might be brilliant, but their styles are totally different."

"We'll see," said Jenna suspiciously, and an uneasy silence descended on the table.

"Well I don't know about anybody else," said Emily, cheerfully shattering the mood, "But I'm bloody starving."

Dinner went quite well after that. You can always rely on a clan of Fitches to get quite excitable about food that isn't created by our mother. Naomi zeroed in on Jenna, enchanting her with tales from the fashion world, and when I caught her winking at me, I knew it was a deliberate ploy. I was grateful to her for that, but it made me a little sad as I wondered if Jenna would ever accept Effy the way she had taken to Naomi. But the more food and drink we consumed, the more we all relaxed, and Jenna and I fell into an uneasy ceasefire for the sake of everyone else.

I spent the afternoon with Emily and Naomi back at their hotel room, watching stupid shit on YouTube whilst they quizzed me relentlessly about Effy.

"So when am I getting to meet this wonder girl?" insisted Emily, bouncing up and down like an excitable puppy, whilst Naomi looked coolly on with the special gleam in her eyes that only ever shone when she was gazing at Emily. Which to be fair was pretty much most of the time.

"Well tonight, I guess," I answered. "At the judging ceremony."

"That should be eventful," quipped Naomi.

"Yeah, how exactly were you planning on being there without revealing your secret identity?" asked Ems.

"You know I don't even really know," I admitted. "I was getting into some serious denial. I'm just glad it's all out in the open now, even if it does lead to some kind of fistfight."

"So if it came to it, who would you choose?" asked Emily.

"Jesus Em, you can't ask me that," I said in horror. "What would you do if it was Naomi?"

Emily looked across at her girlfriend and smiled a warm little crooked smile.

"I'd fight for her," she said.

And I had no doubt that she would.

"I don't want to fight," I sighed. 'I'm tired of it. I just want everything to be alright. Effy said she'd make everything alright."

"And you believe her?" asked Emily.

"Yeah," I replied. "She's clever."

Nevertheless, my sense of trepidation increased as we rejoined my parents and stood waiting on the harbourside for the evening's displays to begin. Effy was going on last so I had to sit through two displays that were of no consequence before the moment of truth. She always joked that I always got more nervous on her behalf than she ever did, and right now I was petrified. Had everything gone alright? Had they be able to rig in time without me? Was Freddie giving her a hard time? What was going on with the rest of the boys? But my ceaseless whirlwind of questions dried up as soon as a strange noise began to emit from the PA speakers. Finally the moment of truth.

At first it just sounded like an anouncement and the tuning of instruments, but then ever so subtly, some synthesiser sounds began to creep across the mix. I knew what was going on, but all around me, I could hear the beginnings of confused mutterings amongst the audience. There was music, but there were no fireworks. There were two small outbuildings on either side of Effy's pitch on the docks and about thirty seconds in on a bass note, a single flare kicked into life on either one of them. I could hear the chatter of the people around me, wondering if had something gone wrong. Then in the purple light of each flare a single figure appeared to climb over the edge of the roof. The audience were intrigued, were these guys coming to fix the problem? I knew it was Cook and Thomas, and as they began to move in a simple slow choreography, the excited chatter grew louder. Effy was using the techniques of immersive theatre in a firework display, nobody knew what was going to happen next, but she had dragged her audience into her scenario and all of them were riveted to her stage. Beautiful real strings started to play across the synths, and the audience cheered when an array of sparks appeared to erupt from the boys' heads. They continued their slow dance, leading with their heads so their flames moved with them, and I could feel the sense of anticipation rising. At the start of the next phrase, the boys flung their arms out wide and more sparks appeared to erupt from their fingers. It was a complete contrast to the gaudy overblown beginnings of the other shows but it was completely fascinating.

On the next beat the boys raised their arms above their heads and a single tower of white fire erupted skywards in the centre of the site. But instead of a single flash and burn, Effy kept pouring more pyro into it keeping the vertical energy reaching for the sky. During the rest of the intro, four more of these incredible towers appeared over the rest of the site, building up the energy. It looked like something from a sci-fi movie.

"That's insane," said my Dad.

"That is fucking gorgeous," said Emily.

A group of drunken lads behind us started whooping and cheering, as the build went on and on with the same purity of intention. Effy was making love to us slowly, teasing us into a heightened state before she unleashed herself. I had been sad to be kicked off the site, but to see it like this amongst the people had it's own rewards. It was a full two and a half minutes into the track before a techno beat kicked in, and the sky erupted into life above the towers, purples and golds layering in violent bursts and the crowd went fucking wild.

The towers finally died, but as the beat took over the ground crackled into life as Effy punctuated the aerial display with activity. The strings swelled into life again as a beautiful melody played over the beats, and the sky was filled with cascading sequences of colour from reds to golds to blues to silvers that grew in intensity as the strings pulled at our hearts.

"She can't keep this up," said JJ. "It's impossible, there's too much material, those towers alone…."

But his words died away as the big beats slipped into a breakdown, and the music slid seamlessly into a slow piece with piano and horns. Red blinker flares began to flash from the front of the dock, sending their shimmering reflections skidding out across the water. A plaintive woman's voice began to sing. It was a song by a Northumbrian folk band, and completely against the run of what you would expect for a pyro gig, slow, emotional and haunting. But Effy illuminated it with sculptural effects both ground based and aerial, bringing out the emotion in the music.

I went out with a famous bass player once. He turned out a bit of a plonker, but I was reminded of him then because of something he once said. He said the true art of bass playing was as much about what you left out as what you put in. That the silences were just as important as the notes. The other designers were trying to be guitarists, impressing us with their flash techniques, but Effy was a bassist holding us steady. She was the one who was going to make us dance. As the evocative strains of the music filled the air around us Effy, delighted our eyes with arches of comets, flashes of single shot chases, intriguing bursts of long hang aerial which drifted earthwards to the sounds of the french horn. I looked over to JJ, and could see the confused frown on his face as he struggled to understand it. He didn't know why it worked, but the rapt attention on all the other surrounding faces told us that it was working like a dream. Each burst of colour was connected by a corresponding darkness, as if she was showing us that not everything could be light all the time. Emily was right, it was fucking gorgeous. Effy was breaking all the rules, but she was getting away with it. If I really was writing that fucking thesis I could have dedicated a whole chapter to this one display.

But just as we were drifting into dreamland, a fast sequenced bass sneaked in under the track heralding the arrival of the next piece of music. The crowd cheered as the boys appeared on the buldings again, and they appeared to trigger sequences of pyro right next to them, erupting on powerful synth chords and voices chanting 'Outsider'. It was a rabble rousing build, and when a fierce loud, guitar and trumpet driven chorus kicked in, and the sky bust open with gold the crowd were right with them. It was an old track by an anarchist band and its simple celebratory joy was Effy's grandstand finale, but with a cheeky political edge as the chorus screamed 'There are millions think just like me.' It was the same fucking thing as the last time I had been in one of her crowds back at Mayfest. People stopped being passive spectators and started jumping around and screaming along. It was exhilarating, and I was beaming with fucking pride. There was no way she wouldn't win this now.

But as the track entered a vocal break down something unusual happened, something I wasn't expecting. The words repeated over and over 'I'm not alone. You're not alone', and there was a fizzing of fuses in the central part of the dock. It was a sound that I knew, a collection of detonators designed to ignite a fire sculpture, but as far as I knew we hadn't planned any fire sculptures. The music began to build again as the flames took hold, but it was still too early to say what the image would be. Another chorus hit, and the sky went mental again, the concussion from the blast waves rattling round the harbour. The audience were right there with her, but I was still too intrigued by the fire sculpture to pay much notice. The flames leapt up, obscuring the image and I waited impatiently for them to die down. It wasn't until the next breakdown that I started to make out a message in words. The chorus hit again and Effy's spectacular finale had the crowd in fits of delight, but I barely noticed it as I finally registered what was written there. The simple message eclipsing the reckless grandeur above it. It was in French, and I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. I needed backup. I tugged on Naomi's sleeve.

"Does that say what I think it says?" I asked her, dragging her attention down from the sky.

"Oh fuck," she said in astonishment, following my outstretched arm. "That is fucking hardcore."

"Well?" I demanded, the butterflies starting a revolution in my belly.

"Yeah," said Naomi, her eyes ablaze. "It says what you think it says."

The track collapsed into outro beats, and two massive eight inch shells burst over us, until all we were left with was a burning message written in flame.

EPOUSE MOI

KATIE FITCH

Even though the display was over the music continued, morphing into Jackie Wilson's Higher and Higher.

"What the fuck?" I said in the middle of the cheering crowd. That wasn't supposed to happen either.

"That," said Naomi Diamond. "Was one hell one a proposal."

Just as she said it, the song hit its chorus and I heard the crack of shells being launched. I looked skywards just in time to see five heart shaped shells bursting over the harbour.

"Proposal?" came Jenna's voice over the noise of the crowd, but I was in shock as more emotion than I could handle exploded in my body. I looked back down to find every member of my family plus an internationally famous supermodel staring at me wide-eyed.

"I have to go," I said, and turned on my heels and ran.

.

.

.

Et voila. If anyone's interested the tracks for the show are as follows

Finished Symphony – Hybrid

Starless – The Unthanks

Outsider – Chumbawamba

(You're love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher – Jackie Wilson

Love, peace and pleasure…

Hypes xx