Between Scylla and Charybdis

Over her mobile, Caila peered at her husband. After a stroll around Hever Castle’s 38-acre lake, enjoying the unseasonable warmth, they’d spread out a blanket on the picnic lawn beside the outer moat. The Boston Ivy which scaled the castle’s façade, concealing arrow slits, providing shelter for blackbirds, robins and collared doves, flaunted snippets of its autumnal, fiery crimson brilliance.

     “Drum’s planning a Wag the Dog,” she said.

     “What dog?” Chris, Caila’s husband of thirty years, eyed her dumbfoundedly.

     “Wag the Dog… You know, a diversion, military, to distract from damaging issues – in politics. They made a film about it.”

     “And the president of the United States wants to…” Chris skimmed the article. “Er, the Wormhole Express isn’t exactly a broadsheet.”

     “No, but it’s fun, and Men in Black read the tabloids.” Mathematician, Caila, was a dedicated follower of science – with or without fiction.

     “Rrright…” Chris pushed himself up from the picnic blanket. “Sausage roll?”

     “And mochas— Ouch!” Caila winced, glaring at her bandaged right hand.

     “Minor injuries unit, instead?”

     “No thanks.” Yesterday’s blistering disagreement with the oven had occurred after minor injuries hours. This morning, despite it hurting like hell, Caila had convinced her fussing husband to wait and see.

     As he crossed the picnic lawn and the gritty path between the information booth and souvenir shop, a flash of grey caught Caila’s eye. Ghost, her imaginary childhood friend – name unknown because he didn’t speak, moniker reflecting his diaphanous, silver-grey cloud-like cloak – had stuck for life. He sensed when she was ill, injured or sad. Or perhaps, feeling out of sorts triggered her imagination.

     Ghost kneeled behind her, touched her shoulders, and a gentle warmth flowed through Caila’s body. Her mind filled with images, single frames, too short to register. It lasted seconds, minutes, she couldn’t tell. Then Ghost stood beside her, six-foot-tall, while a crow cawed in the birch’s canopy overhead.

     Erit Sapiens. Meaningless words weaved through her mind.

     Part of a sentence – demise of your planet.

     “Darling.”

     “Shi…take.”

     “That’d be nice, with garlic butter.” Chris laughed at his wife’s take on cursing.

     “Sorry, I was miles away.” Beside Caila, Ghost vanished.

That evening in the kitchen, after their Hever-books-coffee-curtains-supermarket schedule, had turned into: Hever-books-coffee-books-tea-mad dash around the supermarket, Chris offered to rebandage Caila’s hand.

     “My hand?” Caila balled her hand into a fist, stretched it back out again. “It’s fine,” she shrugged. The bandages were a bit grimy, but otherwise… She picked at the curled-up edge of the tape.

     “I’ll do it.” Chris fetched the first aid kit and meticulously lined up gauze, tape and scissors beside the sink. Peeling back the tape, he said, “Tell me if it hurts.”

     When he lifted the smudged gauze, Caila giggled. A surgeon performing open heart surgery couldn’t be more meticu—

     “What?”

     Chris’s expression morphed from sweet spousal concern to wide-eyed shock. His jaw dropped.

     “What is it? Let me see.” Caila pulled her hand out of Chris’s.

     “Eh…?” she gasped.

     “Guess, I don’t have an excuse for not doing the dishes then?” Caila eyed yesterday’s caked-on pasta carnage in the sink.

     “This is ridiculous,” Chris said, her recovery seemingly causing him more distress than her injury twenty-four hours ago, when he’d suggested a trip to A&E in Pembury in lieu of Edenbridge’s closed minor injuries centre. “That was fire-engine red and blisters this big.” Chris held his fingers an exaggerated two inches apart.

     “Perhaps it wasn’t that bad.” Caila grimaced, stroking the flawless skin of the offending appendage. She hated being made a fuss of. Even from Chris she accepted fussiness only in small doses. “We’ll Google it: ‘My hand got better after I burned it a bit.’”

     “A bit much. And it healed within a day. Completely.”

Five hours later, after chili con carne (extra chillies for Caila) and a bottle of red, Caila retrieved ‘Gifts of the Crow’ – one seventh of their bookstore crawl yield – from the bedroom floor. It’d slipped from her hands as she dozed off.

     “Night, darling,” she whispered, snuggling up to Chris, who was out for the count. But as she switched off the bedside light, the room lit up a warm shade of honey ochre and eyeing her silently, Ghost floated to the foot of their bed.