Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3) Read Online Free

– four of them, it turned out – and from each
Cerulean the same word: ‘Welcome.’ I was shown to a table on which lay a big
white cake with writing iced on in thick blue swirls, Welcome home, Scarlett ,
and urged to make the first cut. Then a glass of orange juice was pressed into
my hand and, a little while later, a plateful of cake. People flocked around
me, and Jude stood back, a step behind me, to let them get at this new
curiosity.
    ‘Lovely to meet you, Scarlett,’ said a man.
    ‘We’ve been so looking forward to your arrival,’ said
another.
    ‘An honour.’
    ‘At last.’
    ‘Enchanté.’
    ‘Wonderful.’
    ‘Been a long time.’
    ‘Such green eyes, just like –’
    ‘Hey, Nathaniel. Where’s Evangeline?’ interrupted Jude, and
the man who was speaking – grey hair, bulbous nose, Santa-esque beard – smiled
widely.
    ‘In the Birth Place,’ he said.
    ‘It’s time? Already?’
    ‘It began with the sunrise…’
    A quiet voice beside me drew my attention.
    ‘Hello, Scarlett.’
    I turned to see a tall muddy-haired guy blinking down at me
through thick black-rimmed glasses.
    ‘I’m Michael,’ he said. ‘How are you doing? Wishing you
could be out on a board right now, free and flying?’
    ‘Something like that.’ I managed a smile.
    ‘Must be a bit daunting, all this,’ he said in a
conspiratorial whisper. ‘All part of the warm Cerulea welcome extended to a new
female.’
    It seemed an odd comment – why specify the gender of the
newcomer? And something in the way he said the word ‘female’ unsettled me. I
was about to ask him what he meant when I felt Jude’s hand on my arm and he
announced loudly to the room, ‘Thank you, everyone.’
    He looked at me expectantly, and I added, ‘Oh yes. Thank you
for… this.’
    Apparently, this was our farewell, because he put an arm
around my shoulders and led me through the throngs. I smiled automatically at
each smiling face as I passed, although my cheeks ached with the effort.
    Outside, in the hallway, he led me swiftly across the lounge
to the staircase, and up. I had the vague impression of seascape paintings on
the wall. A wide corridor leading along. A solid wooden door. A bedroom, large
and warm. But it took all my focus just to hold the bits of myself together as
I walked – for I could feel it coming, a great unravelling: unstoppable. I was
determined. I was on fire. I would get my answers, and then…
    But when it came to it, when he sat me down on a wide sofa
before the window with a view down to the sea, when he settled down next to me
and wrapped his arms around himself in a defensive, miserable gesture I’d never
seen in him before, then I found myself frozen.
    ‘Scarlett?’
    I stared at him.
    ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know.’
    All I could think was how blind I’d been – had chosen to be. I’d come here with him willingly, and yet in all the months I’d known
him not once had I properly questioned him about this place. Where it was. What
it was like. What being a Cerulean meant. I’d buried myself in living, being
with Luke and Cara and Mum, leaving death, and what came after it, a mere
shadow to be held at bay. There had been some vague idea, of course. Another
realm: a world that was separate, removed, unimaginably different – magical,
even. Now, though, I saw how laughable my hazy imagining had been.
    ‘Ask me,’ he said gently.
    ‘I don’t know where to start.’
    ‘Start anywhere.’
    ‘I’m frightened.’
    ‘I know.’ From the way he said it, I thought perhaps he
wanted to add, ‘Me too.’
    It was just what I needed: to know that we were the same in
that moment, Jude and I: both on the cusp of something big, something altering.
    And so I opened my mouth, and I asked.
    And he answered.
    And I asked.
    And he answered.
    As conversations went, it was chaotic – no logical sequence,
no flow; repetitious, circling, confusing. It went on and on, our dance with
the past and the present, the lies