Milieu Dawn
Milieu Dawn
Malcolm Franks
Milieu Publishing
Copyright ©Malcolm Franks
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9566944-1-6
Other titles by this author
The Milieu Principle
Table of Contents
Chapter 1- Not the Same
Chapter 2-New Feeling for an Old Friend
Chapter 3-Different
Chapter 4-A Series of Unfortunate Events
Chapter 5-Rescue
Chapter 6-Night Callers
Chapter 7-Chase
Chapter 8-The Diary
Chapter 9-Yes, Mother
Chapter 10-Gratia Fuchs
Chapter 11-Sam and Genevieve
Chapter 12-A Fool Rushes In
Chapter 13-Hameln (Ham)
Chapter 14-Rapprochement
Chapter 15-Cogolin (Cog)
Chapter 16-Pamplona (Pam)
Chapter 17-Bull Run
Chapter 18 -Reliving The Past
Chapter 19 -The China Key
Chapter 20-Stopover
Chapter 21-Into the Belly of the Dragon
Chapter 22-Which Plan is this?
Chapter 23-Heat
Chapter 24-Silent Exit
Chapter 25-Path of Reflection
Chapter 26-Old Times
Chapter 27-The Steel Trap
Chapter 28-An Air of Understanding
Chapter 29-Shockwave
Chapter 30-Lake Dancing
Chapter 31-Betrayed
Chapter 32-A Britta Good Fortune
Chapter 33-Broken
Chapter 34-A Spirit Flies
Chapter35-Running
Chapter 36-Appointment with Darkness
Chapter 37-Two Faces of Evil
Chapter 38-Surrender
Chapter 39-Walk in the Forest
Chapter 40-The Gift
Chapter One
Not the Same
One small step was all it took to plunge him into silence. Save for the crunch of the gravel underneath his feet it could have been an entirely different world. Even the groundkeeper, some yards in the distance, wasn’t making any noise. Matt had been visiting this place for months and never felt comfortable. He always considered cemeteries to be the eeriest of places. The moment your foot touched the soil of these secluded spaces normal life simply evaporated, the area cocooned by a kind of invisible shield of hidden death.
The early summer sun beat mercilessly upon his back as he approached the stones of his friends. Though strong enough to stir the rims of his short sleeved shirt, the breeze did little else to help dissipate the discomfiting heat. He felt sure the edges of the flower petals were already beginning to wilt under the glare of suffocating heat.
Reaching the adjoining plots he bent and placed a bouquet at each of the two graves, before stepping back with his arms crossed. He always did this, as though this would somehow shield his body from the lurking presence of darkness.
“Hi, guys. How’s life in the spirit world today?”
He waited patiently for the response he knew could never arrive. The dead can’t talk.
“No, it’s not a regular visiting day. I came because I need to talk to you about something, Jack. It’s been on my mind for a while and I should have mentioned it before but, you know what living people are like, afraid to say exactly what’s on their mind in case they upset someone.”
“What’s on yur mind, lad?” Jack would have said in his own imitable style. “Business too much to handle is it?”
“No, no,” he disagreed. “That side of things is going great, better than expected. So well in fact a little bird tells me one of our competitors wants to buy us out. They can’t compete with the prices we charge.”
Matt smiled at the imaginary response.
“Yeah, I thought that would appeal to your sense of karma, the little guy taking on the big boys and winning. Doubt I’d ever manage to get the smile off your face if you were here.”
He gazed at the headstone to the right and sighed, reluctant to say what was on his mind.
“I guess I should spit it out,” he whispered. “Please don’t be angry, Jack, but I’m thinking about moving on.”
His face contorted as if violently rebuked.
“I know, I know. You left your estate to provide me with this fantastic, once in a lifetime, opportunity and it sounds as though I’m being ungrateful ...”
Explain yourself, Jack would have said.
“So what’s wrong? I adore this place and I’m doing what I enjoy most in life, flying. The business is going great and I’m comfortably placed with no money worries ...”
He took a deep breath and decided to go for it.
“Coming back to live in Victoria was supposed to be easy. Somehow, things aren’t the same. I have tried, Jack. Without you and Holly down here it’s lonely. The people are polite enough but I know they still have doubts. I can see it in their eyes. Donna and the team are okay, but as employees you’d expect them to be.”
A bead of water started to fall away from an eye. He could feel it rolling gently down his cheek, making its way down to his chin. He considered wiping it away. Instead he allowed the involuntary action to run its course.
Throughout the preceding months he hadn’t grieved over the treasured lives that had been lost. Matt never cried. His father refused to allow him to show emotion when mother died; insisting crying was for girls. When Dad died soon after Matt was beyond tears. He’d maybe come close a couple of times. Somehow he’d never quite managed it.
Perhaps the moment had arrived. Having never previously cried before Matt wasn’t quite sure what to physically expect from his body. It didn’t appear to want to break out into loud uncontrollable sobbing, or make him shudder with such might to force him onto his knees in submission.
No, the sadness just sort of oozed quietly from his eye in a restrained and subdued manner. Perhaps this was normal, he thought, the way everybody else mourned. Then again, maybe he was different to other people. Maybe it wasn’t even a real tear but a bead of perspiration.
He looked up into the bright blue sky as if the souls of his friends had changed position, from underneath the ground to the heavens above. He exhaled sadly and returned his gaze to the earth, to the carved names on the stones.
“It doesn’t feel like this is home anymore. And I don’t know what to do for the best. I need a vision, Jack. Some kind of sign to show me the way, point me in the right direction so I don’t end up making the wrong call.”
He stood quietly in the forlorn hope of a magical, mystical response. It never came. He shook his head.
“I won’t leave without saying goodbye. I promise.”
As he turned and readied to leave he couldn’t resist a final, parting shot.
“Any sort of sign would have done, you know.”
He couldn’t quite describe the sound. A heavy squelch was the best that sprang to mind. He certainly felt the impact on his shoulder. Reaching for the foreign substance his fingers touched something warm and gooey attached to his shirt. He lifted part of the mass away for closer inspection, recognising the alien grunge to be bird shit.
“Very funny, Jack.”
The grave and surrounding area had been overrun by ugly weeds and tallish grass, in contrast to everything else. The inscription on the stone was all too familiar. It saddened him to realise the occupant had had no visitors since being laid to rest, evidenced by the lack of maintenance.
He had little ground for complaint, having studiously avoided the same piece of ground each time he came here. Now it was almost camouflaged from open sight. He looked around and caught sight of the groundkeeper, busying nearby with the tidying of a pathway, and walked across to the man’s hunched figure.
“Can I borrow these?” he asked.
The man shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that was unusual for this part of the world.
It only took a few minutes to trim the grass and weeds and then rake the clippings into a mound. Wiping the sweat from his brow he felt a living presence join him.
“Did you know her?” the groundkeeper asked.
“Only briefly,” he said.
The man leant forward and peered at the inscription on the stone.
“Sandra Hayes. There’s not many round here with that family name.”
“I knew her as Grace,” he mumbled. The man didn’t seem to hear his reply.
“What a shame, only thirty one years. No age at all,” said his municipal companion. “You have to be really unlucky to die so young these days. I wonder what took her away.”
“Poor choice of friends, I suspect,” he whispered.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said. “Look, I’ll give you a hundred dollars a month to personally maintain this grave properly.”
The man screwed his face up in surprise, and then nodded.
“You must have been close to her.”
Matt had already walked away.
Chapter Two
New Feeling for an Old Friend