Free Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans: Book 4) by Megan Tayte Page A

It’s a good
plan.’
    ‘My feelings towards her – what do you mean?’
    ‘Well, you turned your back on her as the Mother.’
    ‘I already have a mother, remember, Jude? As for my feelings,
I don’t know what they are, to be honest. I don’t trust her, I’ll admit that.
But I’m not on some kind of anti-Evangeline crusade. After all, she may be…’
    ‘Your great-grandmother?’
    ‘Has she admitted that to you?’
    ‘No. I’ve told her nothing of what Sienna said in that
alley. I didn’t want to upset her.’
    ‘You wanted her to forgive you for leaving the island with
me. Has she?’
    ‘I think so, yes. Mainly, she’s just relieved that I came
back. And very sad that you didn’t.’
     ‘Well, you can’t please everyone.’
    ‘Scarlett.’ Jude leaned a little closer. ‘I think she’d like
to see you. Would you go back to the island? Talk to her?’
    ‘Has she asked for this? Are you her messenger today?’
    ‘No! She knows I’m here, and she’s glad I’m here, to guide
you. She doesn’t like to think of you alone, I think. But she hasn’t asked to
see you. Maybe she’s too proud. Or maybe she just thinks you want nothing to do
with her now.’
    I turned the idea over in my mind. Go back? Back to the
island that had been my prison for months, that represented being kept apart
from those I loved? And yet…
    I thought of the fields of wild grasses and flowers, and the
cherry blossom tree on the cliff, and the shell-strewn beach where we surfed,
and the quiet and the calm and the beauty. It was no use pretending that the
place meant nothing to me, that I hadn’t had good times there too. That I
didn’t miss it, just a little.
    And Estelle, my friend – I’d abandoned her in Cerulea
without so much as a goodbye. I could check on her, and her baby, April.
    And talking to Evangeline could help me learn more about my
grandfather. Had he been a Cerulean? If so, how had he come to be living in
Twycombe for all those years? And, most importantly, how had he made it work
living with my grandmother, a human?
    ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said finally.
    The smile that eased across Jude’s face told me he knew I
wanted to say yes, but he was sensible enough not to push. He simply nodded and
then stood. I followed suit, and together we gazed at the hospital.
    ‘Shall we?’ said Jude.
    I slipped my arm through his. ‘Lead the way to the nearest
minorly injured person,’ I told him.
     

9: ALL GREEK TO ME
     
    The certificate was printed on a sheet of thick yellow card.
Around the edges a border had been created out of brightly coloured clipart
images: bandage rolls and sticking plasters and pill bottles and spiky
comic-style ‘Kerpow!’ bubbles. In the centre, in a dramatic font, was typed:
    This is to certify that Scarlett Blake is officially
awesome, having healed:
    a broken arm, a broken ankle, a broken hip, a broken
nose, a broken rib, a backache, a headache, a toothache, a neck ache, a stomach
ache, a knee ache, a lacerated arm, a lacerated scalp, a grazed knee, a grazed
palm, an ear infection, a throat infection, a cough, a cold, a boil, a bunion,
a verruca and a varicose vein
    … and she is hereby granted the title – da, da, DA! –
Healer Extraordinaire!!!!!!
    At the bottom were scrawled three signatures: Luke , Cara and Si .
    I looked up from the certificate at the three grinning faces
around the patio table.
    ‘I made it!’ declared Cara. ‘To commemorate how much amazing stuff you’ve done already!’
    ‘Really, that’s sweet of you, but –’
    ‘No buts,’ broke in Luke, leaning over to kiss me on the
cheek. ‘This past fortnight, you’ve helped a lot of people, and that, as Cara
put it, is “officially awesome”.’
    I smiled and thanked them all, but was relieved when Si
steered the conversation onto how the cafe was coming along, leaving me to stare
out at the sea that beckoned invitingly beyond the cottage garden and drift in
thought.
    I was beginning to see why