Mate revealed

'Us' and 'Them'

Ester’s music blared in her ears. Pillars of light weaved through the trees, running over Ester as she jogged passed. Her chest ached exquisitely. Her calves beginning to burn slightly.

It had been two days since the incident with Luca Borghese. Her mind had been unsettled, like a mosquito was set free in there, but she couldn’t find where. 

Doctor Collins words came back to her again from the following day:

“You did what?!” she asked incredulously. 

“I stitched him up” Collins jaw remained on the floor “What else could I do? The hospital was too far away and I’m a good nurse.”

“Why didn’t you call someone? Call Stevie?”

“It was fine, I had it under control” She frowned at her panicked expression.  This was the first time Doctor Collins’ carefully assembled mask had begun to slip. She was anything other than cool and collected, and Ester found it disconcerting. 

Collins placed her hand under Ester’s elbow and steered her into her office “Mr Borghese is not the sort of person I would want you stuck in a room with, alone” Collins firmly shut the door behind them. 

“Why?”

“They’re not… the sort of people who –“

“’’They’?” Ester quoted in disgust “Is this ‘Us and Them’ rhetoric, because if so, I should make you aware, I’m not a fan of discrimination.”

“Oh shush” Collins waved her hands as if Ester’s comments had been irritating gnats. “His, group, mob, whatever you want to call them, are not to be approached, understand Ester Crofts?”

The use of her full name made Ester stop. She heard her father’s voice reprimanding her in her head for a moment… Wait – mob? In Lightwood Lakes? Witches and the mob, co-existing in this quaint town was indigestible image. Ester pushed it away.

“Perhaps if you explained why I might understand your concern”

Doctor Collins deliberated for a moment, weighing up the pros and cons of telling Ester the truth, or what she knew of the truth. 

“I can’t Ester,” She signed, resigned, “What I can tell you is, and I apologise that it all sounds cloak and dagger, but is that they’re dangerous. Very dangerous. Promise me?”

Ester’s chest fluttered, the parental tone again that Collins had taken on made her feel unsealed. Adrift. 

“Promise what?”

“What you won’t approach them?” Her voice singed in frustration. “And if they approach you, ring Stevie immediately. That includes Caroline Thorn too”

Ester remembered the dark-haired woman, with bug eyed sunglasses. 

“Caroline Thorn?” Surprise coloured her words frail.

“Yes, the Thorn girls are part of that group. I remember when Caroline was in diapers and had a snotty nose, and now she-,“ The tumble of words stopped abruptly “Regardless, you need to stay away from them.”

“But I’ve got to take his stitches out, and I asked him to come back in a few days to let me see how they were healing.”

“Well if he does come, I can handle it, understood?” She waited for Ester to nod “Anyway, it’s unlikely he will come”

It was now Friday morning and Ester had not seen Luca Borghese, Sam or any others belonging to their ‘mob’ as Collins called it. 

Two days since she’d stitched him up.

Two days she’d slept poorly. 

Two nights where dreams, the few she did manage to have, were plagued with strange beasts and painful colours. 

This was the second morning Ester had gone for a run. The night before shedding from her as the sun rose. 

It had also been nights without any more sightings of wolf and Ester was beginning to feel bashful about the whole memory. 

How had she been so taken in by the scene? How could she have believed it had happened? With each new day squeezed between that evening and the present, she came to realise it was her mind again, part of her condition. 

She couldn’t tell Penny however, that was a imagining far too big for Penny to handle without demanding she come home. 

Then her thoughts turned to Caroline Thorn, and the ‘Thorn girls’ as Collins coined them. Just how many people were up there living in Darkthroat? And if they were a big commune, how could they sustain their unusual living conditions for so long? 

Doctor Collins’ comment about Caroline, and the fact that Luca Borghese came to the surgery confirms that they don’t have any medical staff ‘up there’, so surely it couldn’t be that big, could it?

Ester didn’t dissect her feelings towards Caroline, and why she felt a deepening jealously towards the woman. She knew that if she did look into those feelings any further, she would not like the root cause of those emotions. 

She ran on, her footfalls just audible over her music. The sun was gradually ascending into the roof of the sky, and Ester stopped for a moment to tilt face to greet it. Her breath smudged the air before her as her lungs demanded more oxygen.

She took out her headphones and listened to the wildlife. The birds battling for the loudest song, or the sound of running water nearby. 

Putting her earphones back in and returned to running. She’d found a path, albeit overgrown, from the back of her garden into the trees. Ester ran further than the day before, ignoring the cries of her muscles. This was an area where she could control her body, she could decide what she listened to and what she didn’t. 

She ran for around another 2 miles. She had been gradually running up hill, and now she’d reached a gentle ridge, the other side slowly fall away to a fast running liver. The surface rippled like a broken mirror. Up ahead the trees petered out, and Ester could see the view opened up. She walked to a handful of large stone boulders, climbed them, and was met with the rest of the world laying before her. The front of the boulders was a cliff face. 

Around her rose up mountains and larger ridges. The ground undulated, in some places delicately, in others severely. Ester thought it looked as though the bones of great giants had lain down, and slowly over time a blanket of green had disguised them.  

She felt so small. Birds circled below in the valley. Across, on the next elevation Ester could make of a clearing. A large stone house peered through at her. It looked old, older than the library in town. 

She took a quick picture of the view and send it to Penny.

Ester:   Happy Friday Penny. Missing you. Chat tonight? Xx

Checking her watch, she made her way back. She showered, dressed and was on her bike with time to spare. 

As Ester opened the surgery door, she stopped dead. At her desk, in her seat was a woman probably a similar age to her.

Ester frowned.

The woman had hair the colour of fire, long tendrils fanned out on her shoulders. She stopped Ester hovering in the doorway.

“You must be Ester” She grinned and came around to shake her hand.

“Patricia?” 

“That’s me!”

“Nice to finally meet you!” Ester looked around for Doctor Collins “So this must mean…?”

“Oh, there you are Ester.” Doctor Collins appeared from behind Ester “You can use the spare consulting room as your office now. I’ve asked Patricia to come back” Her eyes were on a list in her hand.

“So – does this mean that… that you’re-“

“Yes, you’ve passed your probation period” Collins looked up from her paper, Ester’s face erupted in a smile, “But – I’m still watching you,” Ester nodded solemnly, hiding her grin. “I’ve given you the morning off from patients to tidy up the second consultants room, it hasn’t been used for a number of months. I’ve told Patricia to start booking patients in for you around 1pm, ok?”

Ester had never been in the second consulting room, and it was apparent from the musky smell that no one had been in there for quite some time either. It took a few hours for Ester to air it, dust and clean down all of the surfaces. 

Her morning moved slowly as she got the room up to scratch. Her thoughts delved into the creases of her mind. What if Luca and his ‘mob’ were some sort of satanic worshippers? That would link to the belief in witchcraft, and give reason for others to fear them, regardless of whether witchcraft was actually real or not. But again, that idea just didn’t stick. 

He dressed smartly, drove an expensive care. Perhaps he really was a mobster of some sort, maybe a part of a drugs cartel?  But why would he be living in the countryside? Surely, he would need to be in the city? Or was he laying low?

Ester snickered, realising her imagination had run away from her again. 

Patricia lightly knocked on the open door. She leant against the threshold.

“Hey Ester, do you know where the new patient forms are?”

Ester thought Patricia had a kind face, doughy. Her eyes were huge hazel orbs. “Oh of course, I popped them in the spare cabinet. Sorry, must be really annoying having everything moved around”

“Oh not at all” She smiled, waving her hand “In fact, it’s a lot neater than it’s been in the past, let me tell you”

Ester ran her hand through her hair “So, I’m not the first to be trialled?”

Patricia snorted “God no! That’s how she treats everyone at first. Not many actually get hired like you just did!”

“Well I don’t think I’m out of the woods yet!”

“You’ll be fine” she whispered, “I heard you stitched up Mr Borghese too!”

“Yeah, he wasn’t as frightening as everyone is making out”

“No” She looked out the window for a moment, getting tangled in her own thoughts. The sun was beginning to retreat behind layers of grey.

“No?” Ester put down the cleaning spray in her hand and sat herself on the bench “You don’t think he’s as bad as all that?”

She screwed up her face “Hard to tell. I don’t think the worry is unfounded… but” She looked around the Waiting Room. Only Mrs Winters sat there, a crossword on her lap.

“But, I think he’s had it rough” Her voice a murmur.

“What makes you think that?”

“I went to high school with them”

“Them?”

“Yeah. Luca was in my year, his younger brother was a couple years below”

“He had a brother?” Why was that such a revelation to her? Why did it matter? But for some reason it, it did matter. She gobbled up morsels of gossip about him whereever she could get it.

“Yep, Seb. They were pretty normal kids back then. I mean, obviously, inhumanly beautiful. But aside from the looks, they were pretty normal; both in all the sports teams, went to parties, went to dances. The usual stuff.“ Patricia began, “But they weren’t ever interested in becoming the ‘popular kids’ if you know what I mean, they could’ve I’m sure. Darcy Hammers wasdyingto date Luca” She rolled her eyes, “but they just didn’t seem fussed about all that.”

Ester sensed there was a climax to her story coming, “And then what happened?”

“Well,” She murmured slowly “No one’s sure, all they know is his younger brother, Seb, went missing. Luca completely withdrew.”

“Is that when he moved to Darkthroat?”

“Oh, no. They’d always lived up there. But he just stopped giving a crap. He rarely turned up to school. Stopped socialising outside of the Darkthroat community. Stopped playing football, that was a big one, he was their best player – along with Seb.”

“Poor guy” Ester murmured.

 “What was weird though, as soon as he started to change, the other Darkthroaters followed suit, we saw them less and less in town. Things felt more… hostile between the Darkthroaters and the Lightwood locals”   

“Was there, is there, a lot of them?”

“A couple families, you’ve got the Borgheses, the Blacks, the Thorns, the Allaways, ummm, the Aeronwyns maybe? A tonne of others I can’t recall now.” 

“Patricia?” Mrs Winter’s brittle voice called from the other room, fracturing the air of secrecy Patricia’s words had created.

She jumped straight, and gave Ester a comical expression “’Gotta go!”

Ester’s mind continued it jaunt down Imagination Row after that. Consumed with thoughts of Luca and his stitches. Luca and his brother. Luca and Caroline. 

The rest of the afternoon flew passed, Ester was finally unleashed on the public of Lightwood. 

As she finished up her with last client of the day, Ester had made her mind up about one thing: 

Tomorrow, she was going to Darkthroat.