It was the sudden lapse in bird song that made Eutopia look up from the TV she had been staring at blankly. She had been channel hopping and at some point settled on a travel programme where a leggy blond was singing the praises of a number of Los Angeles beaches as she pranced about in a white bikini. Eutopia had turned the sound right down to avoid the woman’s incessant babbling about Point Dume State Beach, but she had found the gentle lapping waves of the sparkling sea as it foamed over the silky sand soothing enough to distract her for a while. Whilst she was watching the hypnotic push and pull of the water it meant she didn’t have to think about much. Jinn had sat with her for a little while and made an effort to engage her in conversation but Eutopia’s mind was full with too much already. Eventually, he had discreetly left her to it. She hadn’t noticed that the August sun had been inching further and further away until the birds that had been tweeting outside finally stopped. Azure twilight lay thick beyond the green drapes at the windows, the lounge deep in shadows that danced with each flicker of the bright images on the TV screen. She got up and crossed the room to switch on the light but her finger paused over the wall switch that would illuminate the ostentatious chandelier suspended from the plaster rose in the middle of the ceiling. What the hell was she doing sitting here? Although she had to admit she had never been in a situation quite this bad, she knew exactly how she should be dealing with it.
Standing on the threshold of the wide French doors that let out from the kitchen into the garden beyond a short time later, her backpack on her shoulders and her phone in her jeans pocket, she felt like an eleven year old child again. Her heart beat hard and fast in her chest as she snuck a glance behind her before slipping out into the night and pulling the door closed behind her. As soon as the thought had come to her Eutopia had hurried upstairs to pack her few things into her bag; deciding to leave through the back of the house rather than the front, afraid that the crunch of the gravelled drive might alert Jinn to her departure. Jinn’s bedroom door was closed when she had returned upstairs to her room and Eutopia had not seen him as she skulked through the half-lit house. In a way she was grateful as the very thought of trying to say goodbye to him and apologise for the mess she had led him into made her feel awkward. The man was a complete and utter mystery to her despite the enforced camaraderie of their situation. Those feline-like eyes of his that watched her so carefully, such a deep blue they appeared to glow indigo, sent little waves of electricity prickling along her skin. His impossibly perfect features, framed gloriously by his short dark hair had made her question reality more than once as she found herself trying to catch a glimmer of sunlight reflecting off his skin in rainbow sparkles now and then. She knew she probably shouldn’t have watched those vampire films that had been so hyped up over the past few years or so, they’d clearly addled her concept of reality when it came to men… Before leaving Eutopia had debated the idea of leaving him a note, but what would she say? Besides, she found her childlike scrawl embarrassing, he probably wouldn’t have been able to make sense of it and by the time she had managed to finish writing it he might have been stood reading over her shoulder. Writing had never been a strong point of hers. Nor had reading for that matter since her education had been so inconsistent with all the running away she’d been preoccupied with. Eutopia had never really got on with school; especially not after she’d gone to live with her foster parents. She found it hard to relate to the other children as a swirling green mist of jealousy always came down around her whenever she saw the mothers waiting for her classmates at the end of the day. Though Gillian was attentive in her vacant sort of way, she just wasn’t the same as Eutopia’s own mother.
The clear white light of the full moon lit her way now as she tramped across the neatly clipped lawn that seemed to stretch out for miles. A large cluster of trees, an orchard perhaps, stationed behind a low grey wall, stood to the left of the winding paved path that she avoided for no other reason than the fact she liked how the grass felt under her feet. She paused for a moment, admiring the expanse of Jinn’s land. It was huge. There wasn’t a wall or a fence at all that she could see around the perimeter, nothing to pen her in. The grandiose house, a hulking, silvered illusion in the moonlight, sat dark and still behind her as she walked. Eutopia had no idea what lay beyond the back of the house other than the gently sloping grass that she could see but she was about to find out as she set off purposefully, trying to ignore the darkness that crept closer each time the moon was swallowed up by a scudding cloud.
CZYTASZ
Eutopia (First version)
Fantasy'You knew, all this time, you knew and you never told me.' 'Yes,' he bowed his dark head, black hair dishevelled as it fell into his eyes that were beginning to shed their own tears. 'I wanted to protect you. I thought if you never knew then this co...
