The Talent

By Celine Yon

Flo has never left Fort Nelson, Canada, as her father dies tragically in a car accident she is faced with many revelations which takes her over to the south of France on a voyage of self discovery.

Flo is faced with many legends and creatures that she had not believed could exist and the realisation that all along she had been hidden away from her true purpose. From the snow covered Alaska to the warmth of Bordeaux, Flo is forced to trust her instincts to experience the true meaning of the spiritual world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477112861

Celine Yon

35, originally from France, now living in South Wales with her husband and three children. Graduated from University of West of England and taught at secondary level for four years in Somerset and relocated to South Wales six years ago. A strong desire to be an author since early teenager, mostly inspired by Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Like every morning just before dawn, the dream would come upon me. I awaited the dream. The dream had come to me since I was a child and I loved the dream.

I would feel completely safe. I was in a snow globe and the rest of the world with all its’ dangers were on the other side of the glass.

Within my globe I could live happily. I could enjoy each snowflake and never have to worry, but I knew that as soon as I realised I was back in the dream, however much I wanted to hang on in there, I would have to wake.

This time, it was our phone. I couldn’t physically hear it, as my room is situated in an annex of the house. It was one of those big, white houses, without a real personality to them, which were built only to last through the winter and not attract too many tourists.

My mother and sister were talking loudly. They were coming to give me some bad news.

My mother was in her late forties now, maternal, very kind and affectionate, and of course always reassuring, but not today. Today she was distraught, and I had to wake up from my bubble of safety to face the real world once again. I didn’t want to leave this perfect world; I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to carry on talking with my father who still had many things to tell me. But I was waking and he was fading.

My sister knocked on the door. She was also crying. I knew all this even before she came to the door. I knew he had gone, I had known since he was in my dream. He wanted to tell me that it was time to let go, to break the glass, to let the others in, that I couldn’t live like this any longer and should find the courage to be my real self.

I could see into Jude’s mind, as she had picked up the phone and spoken to the police. She was the one who had told our mother that he was gone. She also knew that I knew, that I had read it within her, and for once she was glad that there was a silent understanding between us.

That insight into the minds of the people close to me wasn’t always a blessing. But today would be different.

I opened the door and hugged Jude.

It’s Dad.

She didn’t need to say any more as I could see it all in her mind. The police had called. He had been on his way to work. A passer by noticed his car swerving. When the car stopped he wasn’t talking. A stroke. By the time Doctor Grant from across the road arrived, he had died.

My mother was already dressed so we could go to the hospital.

Jude stood there still in her pyjamas. I went over to my wardrobe and grabbed a couple of tops and leggings. No time for fashion today.

She was shocked and couldn’t speak. She was trying to remember his last words to her. When was the last time she’d hugged him.

I threw the clothes at her and we both dressed.

As we walked toward my mother I could see her face covered in silent tears.

I’ll drive.

Liard Street was only a few blocks away and I knew that my mother would not be able to drive.

At 15, my sister was still too young to drive but I had no doubt that when the time came she would be a very successful driver. She was my complete opposite. After sadly miscarrying a number of times my parents decided to adopt, and within a year Jude was with us. She was distantly related to us somehow, and with the loss of her parents, she came into the care of my family.

She was never made to feel the outsider, but we couldn’t have been more different. With her outgoing and friendly personality, she always had friends and boyfriends at the house. She was very pretty and to top it all was extremely kind and generous. She had a very positive effect on our family and we felt complete once she joined us.

But today, she was not wearing her usual smile for all occasions look. She was still unsure, still hoping that they had made a mistake.

I knew.

He was dead.

I remembered the dream. He had been on the other side of the glass. He had waved me to follow him; he had wanted me to know that I could be safe outside the globe.

I would miss him so much. He could see me. He always saw me the way the rest of the world couldn’t.

Jude brought with her the realisation that I wasn’t so visible after all.

She looked through the window of the car, I could see her tears. My mother was looking in her handbag for some tissues.

We parked and arrived at the reception. I held Jude’s hand and felt she was shaking. She was replaying her last minutes with dad in her head. The last time she had told him she loved him.

We were showed to a room across the corridor.

My mother went in.

My father was on the bed, still wearing his work clothes. His eyes were shut. She took his hand and kissed it.

Tears rolled down my face. Their love had been ripped in half. She looked up at us to come in.

She realized that I wasn’t going to join her. Jude went but I stayed at the door.

After a few minutes they both came out and my mother went to the Registrar’s private office.

I took Jude back to the car.

"Didn’t you want to say goodbye? she said quietly.

I did, I said.

We hugged.

I looked at the blue sky above us. The month of August, was always the best time of the year for her, but the worst month for me.

Peter’s car pulled into the car park.

Peter was our first cousin, my father was the youngest of 6, and his father the oldest. He was six years older than me, and had always looked out for me.

I adored him.

He knew.

Pretend I was the confident cousin, and for goodness sake keep my thoughts to myself!

At six foot one, dark hair, deep brown eyes and the most beautiful and comforting smile; he didn’t need much to make a statement.

He wore his usual denim trousers with a dark blue shirt, and black jacket which gave him an aura of authority. He was confident, maybe a little too confident. His father, unlike mine, had invested a great deal in him, and his University Degree had opened many career doors which I could not even imagine. Nevertheless, he was always on the other end of the phone when I needed to talk.

Like my father, he also could see into the real me.

He hugged Jude. She didn’t like him very much, so she made it quick and went to hide in the car in a very immature fashion.

Peter didn’t have to talk to me. We have had a silent connection for many years now and just by looking in my eyes he knew it all. The dream, then the phone call, the trip to the hospital and the visit.

He gently grabbed the back of my head and kissed the top of it. I hugged him for a minute and rested my head against his chest. The familiar scent of him calmed me down.

Are you going to be OK?

I guess.

What did he say to you? You know, in the dream?

He said that I could be just as safe outside the snow globe.

Peter knew about the snow globe and loved my dream descriptions.

Did he look scared?

No, just the same trusting and loving father he always had been. Oh, and there was a wolf too, but then the phone rang and I woke up.

A wolf?

I know. Confusing isn’t it?

My father has asked me to take your mother to the Solicitor. He is already there. He went there almost the minute she rang him.

That’s typical of your father, always looking after the possessions. I hope he will reconsider Jude’s place in our family; my father was fiercely opposed to her being left out of the will.

"Well, we’ll soon find out. You’d better take her home, she needs the support of you and your family even more now.

I know. Text me If you need me to pick her up later.

OK. See you in a bit.

He hugged me again. Secretly telling me he loved me. I told him I loved him too, glad our connection was invisible and that Jude saw nothing.

We drove in silence.

Peter texted me about four hours later.

Meeting at George’s. ASAP, Peter

George’s was a little restaurant where all of us would meet when a crisis arose, and today, as many a time in the past it was full of our relatives. At the end of the main dining hall, looking very dignified and wearing a smart yet terribly old fashion dress, sat Granny.

She was the matriarch of our family, and I enjoyed taking her shopping or to the cinema occasionally. Her white curly hair used to be a deep red, and beneath her gentle appearance she hid a very powerful talent.

Nan bent her head slightly towards me as if she was about to whisper a big secret in my ear.

I knew she had secrets. I hoped for months as a child that she would reveal them to me, but she always started and then stopped. Maybe today she would go further.

Flo, my special girl, the time has come for you to learn about your past.

My past?

Your father should have told you all this a long time ago, and now I will have to do it all. She said, with upset in her voice. She sounded as if he had failed me, and her. He had failed to educate me.

Nan, you can talk to me now, he’s gone and I have no one but you to tell me truth. I leant slightly towards her in a very affectionate way. I put my hand over hers. Under my finger tips I felt the old skin, thin and fragile, yet warm. Her voice was low and had no youth left in it. She took a deep breath in and started her tale. I just listened and decided that I should not interrupt her until she was finished. This was going to be my only chance to acknowledge some kind of past and an opportunity not to be taken lightly. She looked toward the window, where the summer air was fresh and the wind was waving the trees’ floating branches.

You see, my mother had me very young, she met your Great Grand Father at one of those dances they use to hold. She covered my hand with hers.

He must have been breathtaking because she fell for him at that moment and never loved anyone else for the rest of her life. They only kissed that night but she knew he was the one. She was 14 and very beautiful. She had long red hair, cascading down her back. The crowd was slowly dissipating and it was just Nan and me in our corner now. She carried on in the same monotone.

She didn’t see him for 2 years as he left on an expedition to the edge of the Arctic Circle with a team of explorers, and during that time her parents had promised her to a local man, whom she didn’t love but whom they knew would treat her right. A cloud covered the sun for an instant, drowning the room into an intimate darkness.

When my father came back to town and found out she had been almost married to someone else, he flew into a rage. He went to her parent’s house and without any warning took her away. She was overcome by the force of his love and left home with him, taking nothing. Nan looked down to her feet. Her shoes looked out of time, from another era. She carried on.

They ran away to the edge of the lake where the hunters had a lodge that during the winter months was a beacon of warmth and a refuge for lost trappers. They conceived me then. She adored him and nothing could destroy their love. He could not get enough of her and as she grew bigger with child his love for her filled them both. The world did not exist behind the wooden walls of the cabin.

I wondered if she meant the same place I had imagined as a child.

He would hunt and gather firewood; she would stay inside, keep warm and welcome him every night, loving and adoring, passionate to her last breath. The winter came and the snow only brought them closer together. She only knew him now, and nothing else mattered. Her hand tightened around mine.

Just before Christmas, a hunter had got lost in a snow storm and found the cabin. He entered and with one shot robbed and killed my father. My mother, about to give birth to me, ran away towards the town, almost dying in the process, but safely reaching her parent’s house just in time to collapse. Her parents had no choice but to accept her back into the family with sadness.

I let out an encouraging gasp.

"She gave birth to me on Christmas day and her adoring eyes passed on the passion she had had for my father. She wouldn’t let anyone near me and it took almost a year before she agreed to leave her parent’s house again. She agreed to honour her previous engagement to my Step Father. I took his name and she had my brothers, all 5 of them within 10 years.

She respected my Step Dad and would have never told me about it if it hadn’t been for the talent I was now showing."

Talent?

I could read minds. I could convince people to do things my way, I could feel what was to happen and tell the sex of babies before they were born. She was scared of them and told me it was all a gift from my father, a gift he had received from his long trip up north. She said only true love and extreme feeling would unleash my real talent inside.

Did you ever?, I wanted her to tell me more.

I was a very loving child, and loved my mother very much, but her sadness had never truly left her, and even to the day she died she felt the grief for her first lost love. She had wanted to die the day she lost him but knew she had to pass on the gift and her nurturing would somehow help me understand it. Nan was now ever slower in her story telling, every breath she took seemed harder.

She died when I was 20 and made me promise that the talent I had would be kept secret. I met your grandfather the day of the funeral. He was one of those aborigines’ descendants, a good mix of white blood and name so he would not at first glance be easily recognised as one of them. He looked into my eyes from the terrace of the cemetery and when I met his dark brown eyes, I knew he was the one. I wondered if my dark eyes were an inheritance from him.

Yes Flo, you do have his eyes, but let me finish.

Please do.

Of course in those days, you couldn’t just go out with a boy without being introduced formally, and he had to court me properly. My Step Father liked him, and we were pleased that he had seen the true love I had found.

I rested my head onto the back on the chair.

We married the following summer. His dark eyes were so deep that my entire soul was shaken. I wanted him; I wanted him and couldn’t wait until we were to be alone, completely alone for the first time. Nan, blushed. It was the first time I had seem her emotional.

Uncle Michael interrupted Granny’s monologue.

Telling our little Florence the old stories?

Michael, I don’t need to be here really today and I don’t think I can face all these people speaking all at once. Would it be OK for Flo to take me home?

We need her to sign a few things later… .

Nonsense, this can wait. Tell her Mother to sign in her name and let her take me home.

Mother, most of the family are here, and they expect to see you…

Well they have now, I want to go home. Flo is taking me to the cabin.

Are you sure mother?

I am now, and don’t keep on.

I didn’t dare look up; I felt embarrassment for Uncle Michael. Never in a million years would I have talked to him in that tone, but he didn’t question it. He signalled at Peter to come over and asked him for his keys. Peter looked at me, and then at his father, in disbelief.

He loved his car almost as much as the attention he got from driving it.

Nevertheless, he handed me the keys, and I could not read anything from his expression. Not an image, not a word, not anything at all. His eyes seemed clouded and unresponsive as if he was just some other cousin who hardly knew me. He seemed almost hypnotised by the words of his father. An invisible bubble had been created around him.

I took the keys. Granny grabbed my arm and we left George’s.

Where to now Nan?

The cabin.

Alaska Highway?

Yes, and when we get closer to the lake I will show you the way.

Parker Lake?

Yes. Now drive love, it’s a bit of a way I want to be home before dark.

Door shut, engine started. The wonderful smell of the leather upholstery and the power and perfection of the machine at my command… I couldn’t help a smile of anticipation and excitement. I thought to myself that with Granny I did not have to be the boring old me. I did not have to pretend that I cared about the entire world, that I was sad that my Mother was always ill, that I was upset at my Dad’s death. No, no more pretence. Granny was taking me into her own world and I never felt safer.

I just realised that Parker Lake was only around 15 minutes away so we should be there well before sunset.