Then she dropped her face into her hands and rested her elbows on the table with despair.
At Sibyl’s words and her contradictory actions, Marian was genuinely confused. “Then, what’s the problem?”
Sibyl spoke to the table, “It’s temporary. I don’t want to like it. I know he’s going to go away.”
“He doesn’t have to go away.”
“Oh yes he does.” This was said with a finality that was absolute and completely conflicting.
Although Sibyl was making no sense, Marian felt her spirits plummet.
“Are there times when he’s cruel to you?” Marian asked gently.
Colin Morgan was, Marian knew, a somewhat difficult man.
This, for some reason, made Sibyl laugh, bitterly. A sound like that coming from a woman like Sibyl grated on the nerves, it was borderline obscene.
She lifted her head and her expression looked defeated. “Every second he’s with me, even though it’s unintentional. He doesn’t mean it, doesn’t even know it, I just feel it. And I did it to myself.”
This really didn’t make any sense.
“Sibyl, just tell me what’s troubling you. Maybe I can help,” Marian urged.
Sibyl stared at her for a moment and Marian felt hope that she would further confide in her. She had promised Colin not to tell Sibyl about Royce and Beatrice but she could help here.
Then Sibyl gave her a sad smile and said, “I don’t think you’d understand and if I told you, you would likely not want to have breakfast with me again.”
Marian covered the woman’s hand with her own. “I’m not sure you understand either, dear. And nothing you could tell me would make me feel the slightest bit different about you. I think you’re terrific”
Finally, Marian made Sibyl smile. It was not her usual dazzling smile, it was tremulous, but it was something.
“I think you’re terrific too,” Sibyl whispered but shared no more.
Some time later, after Marian left Sibyl’s cottage (it was now, firmly entrenched in Marian’s mind, as Sibyl’s cottage and she felt sure that Granny Esmeralda would approve of that), she went to her magic room to check her fermenting potions. Several of them she was likely going to have to use after all.
The only good thing that came of her visit with Sibyl was that obviously the girl had magic of her own. This could be most helpful. The fact that she was feeling memories from her past soul was a good sign.
And Marian still held hope that the feeling behind most of Sibyl’s words (even though the words themselves were rather dire) meant that whatever I -was that was standing between the two young lovers was an obstacle that could still be climbed.
“We go together like ramma, lamma, lamma, da dingity, ding dee dong.”
Sibyl was sitting in the Community Hall with Jem watching her girlie quartet sing a song from Grease while Jemma sewed a poodle onto a child’s full, felt skirt.
“The choreography is fantastic, Jem,” Sibyl whispered as we watched. The girls, it seemed, were having a blast and they looked great.
“What?” Annie shouted, sitting beside her. “What’s happening now?”
“They’re dancing and singing, Annie,” Sibyl raised her voice so Annie could hear her.
Kyle and Tina, Sibyl, Jemma and a couple of the other volunteers had a rota to go once a week to tidy Annie’s house, fill her fridge and spend some time with her. That afternoon was Jemma’s afternoon but it was also Talent Show practice. Annie decided to wait it out, far better sitting in the Hall with kids rushing around and music blaring than sit at home in virtual silence and complete blindness.
“Wearing poodle skirts!” Annie shouted and Sibyl smiled.
“Black ones, with white poodles that have pink bows,” Jemma yelled.
“I used to have one of those,” Annie informed them of something that might, or might not (as Annie told tales) be true and neither Sibyl nor Jem responded.
“Chang, chang, changity chang cha bop…” the girls sang as Annie, Jemma and Sibyl lapsed into silence and Sibyl lapsed into reflection.
Colin’s three day trip turned into a five day trip. He’d called and told her he wouldn’t be home until, at least, Friday.
Today.
She found she missed him, even though she knew that was wrong so she tried not to think about it… and failed.
The good thing was that he couldn’t claim back this time and she desperately needed it to get her head straight.
Her time with him had been good, sometimes (she hated to admit it, but it was true) wonderful, and always she’d forget who she was to him.
Then he’d do something unintentional to remind her.
Mostly, he would order her about which, she thought, considering the frequency he did it, could be a part of his nature but she wasn’t in the place to test it.
For instance, once, after a long day in her Summer House Girlie Laboratory, she had put her hair up to get its heavy weight off her scalp. She’d forgotten it was up when she walked into the front room from the kitchen after he’d used his key to enter the front door. Mallory was all over him but the minute he turned his attention to her, his eyes shifted to her hair. He didn’t say a word but she lifted her hands up to tear the clip out immediately.
It was times like those, although infrequent, but always painful, she knew exactly what she was.
“How is your new young man?” Annie shouted, taking Sibyl out of her thoughts and she saw Jemma’s eyes shift to her.
No one knew about the arrangement but she had told Jemma, Kyle and Tina about Colin. She had to, in case he called her away or she couldn’t get to work for some reason. Jemma knew something was wrong but, in pure Jem Style, she didn’t push it. If Sibyl wanted to tell her then Sibyl would choose the time.
But of course, news this meaty ran like wildfire through The Community Centre and all of its patrons were agog. Not once in over a year had Sibyl had a boyfriend.
“He’s been away,” Sibyl shouted back.
“When’re we going to meet the lad?” Annie yelled.
The idea of Colin being addressed as a “lad” made Sibyl burst out laughing. The idea of him confronting all the oldies at the Pensioner’s Club nearly made her double up with laughter. He’d scare the pants off them; they’d have to have a row of ambulances available to whisk the oldies directly to hospital, all of them suffering from a rash of strokes and heart attacks.
After she stopped laughing, she yelled back, “He’s a very busy man, Annie. I don’t know.”
“Miss Sibyl, your phone’s ringing,” Ben, one of the boys who was practising a somewhat alarming rendition of a rap song (although neither she, nor Jemma, really understood the words so they couldn’t judge) in her office, stood by her and held out her mobile phone.
She saw who it was on the display, quickly got up and, as she flipped it open, ran into the Day Centre without looking back and, once there, slid the doors closed behind her.
“Hello?” she greeted.
“Sibyl,” Colin returned tersely.
It was Colin and, with that one word, she knew he was angry.
“Colin.”
“Where the fuck are you?”
Sibyl was struck dumb at his tone and his question.
He had no idea she worked at the Community Centre.
Indeed, in all their time together, he knew nothing personal about her except from what he could tell through observation and from the photographs scattered about her house.
And Sibyl did everything she could to keep it this way. If she let him in, she knew somewhere deep inside of her, she wouldn’t want to let him go. Even with what she was to him, there was no denying the otherworldly strength of her attraction to him or that bizarre connection she felt between them. She knew this and she hated it just as much as felt strangely safe in knowing it.