Sky Song

Sky Song #2

Ioh…

Jacob shot upright looking wildly around. He was still alone in the bedroom. The sound of Ellen arguing with her mum echoed up the stairs.  Feeling sick, he staggered over to the window overlooking the forlorn garden and opened it wide.  Sticking his head out he gulped in the fresh air, scanning the street and surrounding gardens as far as he dared to lean out. 

A creaking door made Jacob spin round and almost lose his balance.

Ellen surveyed him with concern.  ‘Are you alright?  You’ve been weird all day.’  She held out an earthenware mug. 

Jacob struggled to regulate his breathing as he closed the window.  His face was burning, he was shaken, but also painfully conscious of the fact that he looked like an idiot.  He sat on the bed and gratefully took the mug.  It was empty and he looked up at Ellen with a silent question.

‘I found this…’  Nestled in the crook of her arm she had a bottle of coconut liquor.  She grinned.  ‘It’s horrible stuff, but it’ll be a laugh!’

If Jacob’s mum could have seen him right then she would have been horrified.  The idea was enough to make him grin and hold out his cup. Ellen poured a generous slug and he sipped it, his face contorting into an involuntary look of disgust.  But the warm numbness of alcohol had an immediate effect.  He took another sip, then another, until he had drained the cup and leaned back in dizzy contentment against the headboard.  The fear that had seemed so real to him moments earlier quickly evaporated into a tipsy memory. Ellen sat next to him, sipping her own. Jacob looked at her.  Snub nose, green eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across perfect cheeks, hair like black satin: all the parts that made the whole seemed to appear to him in separate snapshots.  His stomach was filled with thousands of wriggling, gnawing maggots, nibbling in tiny bites. He listened to songs about love all the time and it always sounded incredible, life affirming, magical.  Was this what it actually felt like, this sweaty, stomach churning sickness? He forced himself to think of something else.

‘What did Luca do this time?’

Ellen shrugged carelessly. ‘No idea.  He just text me, though.  He says he’s finished with Dulson and he’s on his way.’ 

Suddenly, Jacob didn’t want to stay.  ‘I feel a bit sick.  I think I’ll go home…’

‘Oh God, sorry, it’s this…’ She shook her mug. 

‘No – honestly, it’s fine.  I’ve been feeling weird all day.’  The words he wanted to say fought their way up into his throat, but he swallowed them back. 

Feeling dazed, Jacob made his way slowly home in the balmy evening air.  The streets were filled with the shrieking and laughter of children at play.  Music pulsing from a stationary car with its doors open and a knot of older kids gathered round it made his head hurt.  His thoughts were pulled in every direction, stretched to breaking point. Somewhere on the journey he retched and couldn’t stop himself vomiting into a storm drain.  Hurriedly wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Jacob glanced around, his face growing hot as he spied an old lady at the upstairs window of a house watching him.  The sickly-sweet smell of second-hand alcohol clung to his clothes but his head felt clearer now. 

He continued home as if walking in somebody else’s body. Something was pushing its way to the front of Jacob’s awareness, some foreboding, a warning, but he couldn’t focus on it.  The now familiar feeling of icy cold dread squeezed his senses sending shudders through him.  His legs felt brittle as matchwood.  He watched for something, he didn’t know what, as he walked the streets, homing in on every hidden corner.  He didn’t see anyone, he just felt someone.  The feeling became stronger with every step; an irrational fear that gripped him as he drew nearer to home. 

Uncle Dan’s van was in the driveway and a police car was parked on the kerb nearby.  Jacob’s step quickened; instinctively he knew something was very wrong.  There was no sign of his dad’s silver Mondeo.  His hand shook as he twisted the key in the lock of his front door.  Dusty sunlight showed the motes suspended in the air and the low murmur of subdued conversation carried along the hall as he stepped in.  In the sitting room he found Uncle Dan perched uncomfortably on the sofa cradling a mug of tea in his hand.  A policeman stood at the fireplace speaking into a crackling radio and a WPC sat on one of the armchairs completing some paperwork.  As Jacob stood in the doorway Uncle Dan and the WPC rose tensely to greet him. The male police officer beckoned Jacob in, still talking into his radio, and then left the room to continue his conversation.

‘Uncle Dan... Where’s Mum?’ Jacob’s eyes flicked with trepidation between the two that remained.

His uncle was six-feet-four, a human haystack with a booming voice, but somehow he looked very small at that moment.  ‘Jacob…’ he gulped, ‘Oh God, Jake… I called Luca and he said you had just left Ellen’s and -’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s been an accident.’

‘Accident?’ Jacob felt the room begin to tip. He was afraid his legs would buckle and gripped the side of a chair for support.

‘Your mum called your dad out of work and he rushed out saying there was something wrong at home, something to do with you and - ’

‘Me?  There’s nothing wrong with me,’ Jacob interrupted.

‘But he never came back.  The police called the office an hour ago and I came straight here - ’

‘For God’s sake, Uncle Dan, just tell me what’s happened!’  Jacob slumped down onto the chair he had been holding and grabbed at his hair, dreading to hear what he already knew.

His uncle almost whispered in a trembling voice that seemed far too small to belong to his gargantuan frame. ‘It’s possible...’  He couldn’t finish the sentence and looked pathetically to the WPC for help.

‘We haven’t found them yet…’ she cut in, speaking in a steady professional tone.

Jacob couldn’t hear any more for the buzzing that filled his head.