CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IV

Twenty-five years later ...

Amara had been left as a baby, wrapped in a thick tartan scarf, on the church doorstep she now stood under to escape from the rain. The limestone of the doorway arch she leant against was smooth and worn with age. Many feet had crossed this threshold, more than just the ones Amara had known in her twenty-five years of existence. The red wooden door she had knocked on had been in desperate need of a coat of paint since she could remember. In front of her, the stone-paved road sat at an intersection.

To her left, the street would take you along shop windows that sparkled with designer names above the door, and window displays that dripped with money and excess. On her right, across the road, was the cute bistro where she had just finished her shift for the day. In summer she served quaint wooden tables with red and white chequered tablecloths dotted around outside, but the drizzle and bite of winter wind had driven almost everyone insidetoday.

Amara watched the few remaining people on the street escape to shelter. The first, a Parisian woman whose accent coloured the air as she spoke violently fast French into a mobile phone, teetered in six-inch heels as she made her way into the bistro. As the woman walked through the doors to the bistro, an old couple passed her on their way out. The man, who was balding and whose jacket barely stretched over his belly to reach his waist, opened up an umbrella under the awning for his grey-haired love as they made their way across the street to a taxi. She wondered about the lives of the strangers she watched, their families, what their homes were like, as she always did when she was people watching.

Twenty-five years she had lived in Paris and though she loved it, it had never felt like home. Instead, her life felt like the crossroads in front of her. Colourful characters surrounded her, but her life felt empty. Everyone else seemed to have their own lives and here she was simply seeking shelter from the rain and cold. There had to be more to life, she reasoned with herself. It was a constant feeling that nagged at her. If she chose one path, she could end up with riches as if she walked down the left street or she could turn right and forever live a life of servitude, like her job at the bistro. She worried if she pulled at the wrong thread of life that it would all unravel and she’d end up back here. Not in a physical sense. She loved Paris. It was a bright jewel, truly the City of Lights. But her mind was a dark place, a decidedly unpleasant place to be. It kept warning her that time was running out and in the back of her mind, there was a voice constantly nagging at her to do something. She just couldn’t figure out what that somethingwas.

The door behind her opened.

“Come in, my child. Get out of the cold.” Father Michel spoke in fluid French as he ushered herin.

“Thank you, Father,” she replied in the same tongue.

Once inside she could see he was setting up for evening Mass and so she quickly got to work with the grape juice and crackers, though she still didn’t take off her red wool coat, as the church was draughty with its lofty windows and terrible insulation. For her troubles, she received a small smile that lit up the eyes of the man she had always considered her father, even though she had grown up at the orphanage across the river.

He had been the only constant in her life and had not aged in all the time she’d known him, not truly. His hands were still the same broad, dark tanned hands that had always held her as she cried, though now they had a few more liver spots. His stubble on a round face that spoke of a man who ate well was speckled with grey now, but only if she looked closely. His nose and brow were wide but his eyes were deep, a never-ending brown that could see into depths of her she wasn’t quite sure even she was ready to look atyet.

“Ah, my Amara. Always so dependable and reliable.”

The unexpected words, a balm for her earlier train of thought, caused a lump in her throat to rise and tears stung at her eyes. How could she even be thinking of leaving this man who had practically raised her when she was not his own? She desperately tried to blink away the tears as quickly as they had appeared but it was too late. As always, Father Michel missed nothing.

“What upsets you, mychild?”

Amara continued fiddling with the thumb-sized plastic cups, keeping her hands busy. But when Father Michel pressed a hand to her shoulder in a show of affection, the dam broke and the tears fell rapidly down golden skin that was dusted with freckles. Father Michel didn’t say anything as tears continued to pour down her cheeks until she impatiently wiped them away. Then he steered her towards the direction of a pew and had her sit, taking her hands in his.

“Come, tell me what troublesyou.”

Eventually, between gulped tears, while Father Michel patiently waited and continued to stroke her arm, Amara answered.

“I-I-I don’t think I’m supposed to be here anymore,” she said in awhisper.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I had a feeling this day would come. I just did not expect it sosoon.”

“You did?” Amara whispered without looking at him. She hadn’t realised that she had been seeking more than sanctuary and a familiar face when she knocked on the door after her shift. She had been seeking, as always, answers, in strong arms that could hold her when she felt like she was breaking.

“You are always so shocked that others know you. Yet you wear your heart so openly on your sleeve,” he admonished as he stroked said sleeve and cradled her to him. Amara scowled against his chest even though he couldn’t see, for she did not like to openly admit to anything so vulnerable.

Yet tears welled up in her eyes again when he said, “I would not begrudge you a life of adventure to stay and keep an old man like me company. You are reliable and dependable because you are Amara, not because of what you do or do not do. Can you not seethat?”

She shook her head, and dark curls that were usually tied up in a bun escaped and buzzed around her forehead like bees. Father Michel sighed and leaned back in the pew.

“Did you know, when you were around five you escaped the clutches of your latest foster mother? May she rest in peace. She came looking for you here that day, convinced you’d come to see me. Together we found you at a bakery a kilometre from your home. When we found you, you told me you were chasing the smell ofheaven.”

“I don’t remember that.” Amarahiccupped.

“I don’t suppose you do. You were very young. My point being, child, you are as reliable as you are wild and as dependable as you are independent. They are both two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without theother.”

Amara thought about that for a moment before Father Michel continued. “But above all, you have always been an explorer.”

“The explorers you told me about in stories always come across monsters though. What if leaving is a terrible idea? Why aren’t you talking me out of it?” she demanded, almost desperately.

Father Michelsmiled.

“We humans are funny creatures. We still believe the Devil and his monsters cause bad things to happen tous.”

“Don’t they?” Anotherhiccup.

“Do you not listen to any of my sermons, child?” He admonished Amara with a smile. She pulled back and made a face at him before he dragged her back in for another hug. In truth she was an avid note-taker in the sermons. Her devotion to something other had never been in question, not since Father Michel had knownher.

“The way I see it, the Devil and his demons have a bad reputation. After all, he was the fallen angel of God, the favourite. What if between the two of them they agreed that the Devil would be sent down to Earth to do the dirty work? What if the dirty work is a way to turn us closer to God? Besides, there can be no light without dark. What a thankless task he has. What grace it must take to do the dirty, unappreciated work that could actually help us.” Father Michel paused. “If only we didn’t use demons or monsters ascrutches.”

Amara bit her full lower lip. She knew what he was getting at, but still …

“I’mscared.”

“I know, child. That’s a good thing. It will keep yousafe.”

“I thought you just said monsters weren’t bad things?” Sheteased.

“That doesn’t mean I want to see you hurt.” He squeezed hertighter.

Eventually she said, “You’re not mad at me for wanting to leave?”

“How can I be mad at a part of you Ilove?”

A brief silence fell between them, heavy with the weight of memories, until Father Michel spoke once again.

“Where will you go?”

“Scotland,” Amara said immediately, with such confidence and clarity that she suddenly realised this was what she had been mulling over in agony all this time. Not where she would go but what she would leave behind.

“You still believe that the tartan you were wrapped in as a babe has something to do with your birth parents? A message of somekind?”

“I don’t know.” Amara shrugged, though that was a lie to herself more than anyone else. It was why she kept the tartan in question always neatly folded at the bottom edge of her bed. The tug in her gut when she saw it every morning was a visceral thing, the thread of life that pulled at her.

At that moment, the winds began to whistle through the church melodically. They felt like a siren call to Amara that she couldn’t begin to put into words. All she knew was that she wanted to chase the wind’s tail until she arrived at the destination she was, for want of better words, destined for.

“It would seem as if the winds are calling you,” Father Michel said, a twinkle in his eye. Amara sat up and peeked at him from behind long eyelashes and eyed him warily. Occasionally, she was convinced he could actually read her mind. Hechortled.

“Ah, you are an open bookchild.”

She nudged him playfully with her shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her again until she leant in fully for a cuddle. His torso was squishy, but his arm around her was firm ... as if there was strength of steel beneath the soft layer of fat he held. The rough material of his jumper scratched at her cheeks but she didn’t mind. Always, this man had been her solid, dependable rock.

“When will yougo?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she whispered. “Soon I think, but I’ll come back.” Though they both knew she wouldn’t know when, and he could likely be dust on the wind, Father Michel smiled and agreed.

“I’ll see you when you’reback.”

“And I’ll write toyou.”

“I shall await stories of your adventures with eager anticipation.” A muzzled kiss pressed to herforehead.

“I don’t know exactly where I’ll endup.”

“Do any ofus?”

Finally Amara said, “I’m still scared, Father.”

“Ah.” His grip tightened on her shoulder fiercely. “We’re all a little scared, child, but the best adventures come with a littlerisk.”