The Light of Oriah : Burning Jungle - Part One Read Online Free PDF

she was
standing before me, cornering me between the wall and the banister.
Instinctively, she stepped back, opening up the space and adopting
a less threatening stance. I wondered if it was her fear of
frightening me, or in fact, what she had seen in the eyes of an
imprisoned young M é lange that had driven her to back
off.
    “ And I spent so long cooking your dinner,”
she said wistfully, gesturing sadly towards the kitchen, the smell
of burning pasta lingering in the air. She seemed calmer now,
resigned after her chance to vent her
frustrations.
    “ I'm sorry, it won't happen again,” I
promised, realising that I would have to be a bit more considerate
of her human sensitivities from now on. “So, what did you cook?” I
asked with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.
    “ Oh it's ruined now, and stone cold!” she
complained, shaking her head forlornly.
    “ Well let's see, you never know – it might
be salvageable,” I offered, hoping to restore the peace, despite
the fact that the thought of food right now wasn't very appealing
to me. I still had a ball of tension creating havoc in my stomach.
She looked at me for a long moment, before sighing and stomping off
into the kitchen.
    Thirty minutes later, my stomach heavy with cold lasagne, I
found myself lying in the hard single guest bed unable to sleep, as
I stared up at the thick white artex of my bedroom ceiling. The
anger had subsided slightly, only to be replaced with an
overwhelming wave of loss. For the first since my parents had been
killed, I had let myself hope, let myself feel something other than
the all consuming pain which had held me so firmly under its wing.
Sebastian – God I hated thinking his name! – had pulled me out of the darkness
and somehow made me feel whole again for a short time. I couldn't
understand why I had experienced such intense feelings for him so
suddenly. Picturing that moment when I first saw him, it had been
as if the earth had stopped right then, just for a second. When I
looked at him I felt as if I knew him, like he was always mine but
I just hadn’t known it. I buried my face in my pillow, pulling my
knees in tight to my chest.
    I thought now about the words he had spoken so clearly, I had
been unable to focus on them at the time, so shocked that he would
speak so freely about my mother, her death. And now the despair I
had felt before, was doubled, tripled even, the pain of losing this
boy that I never really had a claim to anyway, was affecting me
much more than I wanted to admit. It was ridiculous, I didn’t know
him, he didn’t know me. I didn’t need this pain. I pushed my face
deeper into the pillow, determined to clear my mind of these
tortuous thoughts. Slowing my breathing I repeated over and over in
my mind forget him, forget him, forget
him, until eventually my thoughts
stilled and everything went black.
    ***
    I woke early, the sun not yet fully above the horizon, unable
to sleep any longer, not that I needed it really, three or four
hours was usually more than enough to keep me going. Hearing the
sound of Ivy snoring gently down the hall, I smiled, presuming that
she would be out for a while longer after her late night. I felt
more positive today. In learning about the existence of the other
M é langes, I had
been given the push I had been waiting for.
    “ Children of Venus,” I reminded myself
under my breath, I would have to start getting used to saying that,
the last thing I wanted was to accidentally insult someone by using
the wrong term. Now I just needed to figure out where to begin my
search. I couldn’t bring myself to believe he – I wouldn't think his name again – had been lying about
them too, I needed this shred of hope to grasp onto too much to be
able to let it go. I dressed quickly before heading quietly
downstairs.
    I looked apprehensively at the dusty computer standing in the
corner of the living room, debating whether to turn it on. Back in
the Congo my parents had miraculously