Lost Souls

46

The morning came around far too quickly for Katie. She spent what remained of the night snuggled tightly against Christopher’s warm chest. Loud voices coming from the kitchen cut deeply into her nerve endings, and started a drummer beating relentlessly inside her head.

    Katie groaned, and tried to get even closer to Christopher, who was still sleeping deeply. Her idea for a blissful recovery was short lived.

    “Katie. Christopher. Your breakfast is on the table,” her mother’s voice boomed happily.

    Katie smiled despite herself. Her mother was probably at her happiest when she was either cooking, working in the garden, or looking after someone else. The difficult times they were all living through had given her the chance to unwind a bit by feeding the gang, and making sure everyone was doing okay. It was, Katie believed, what was keeping her mother so calm.

    “Be there in a sec,” Katie yelled back, immediately regretting the loudness of her voice as her words ricocheted around her head, causing her to screw her eyes tightly shut. “Clever!” she muttered, as the pain battered her senses.

    Christopher stirred beside her. His eyelids opened slowly, and he rubbed his face hard as he tried to wake up fully. “Morning,” he whispered in Katie’s ear as he planted a light kiss on her forehead.

    “Hmm,” Katie responded, as the pain in her head eased slightly.

    Christopher caught her unhappy tone, and held her away from him slightly so that he could look at her properly. “You okay,” he asked worriedly.

    “Got a bit of a bad head, that’s all. Mum’s got us breakfast already. It’s on the table.”

    “Wow! I love your mum,” Christopher applauded delightedly.

    “You look like a sea lion waiting on fish.”

    “A happy sea lion. Wonder if it’s kippers?” Christopher teased.

    Katie playfully punched his shoulder. “Go tell mum I’ll be there in a minute. I want to go wash my face first.”

    “Madam,” Christopher laughed, as he stood and bowed gracefully, before running from the room to avoid the cushion flying at his head.

    Alone, Katie massaged her temples. Now she was more alert, she felt slightly better. She’d swallow a painkiller before she ventured through to face her family and friends.

    The upstairs of the house felt a lot colder than the downstairs. Katie wondered if her father had altered the radiators as he hated to be too warm while he slept. Katie smiled as she remembered him moaning constantly in their old home about how if the bedrooms were too hot he’d wake in the morning with a splitting headache and his nose full of snot.

    She splashed icy water over her face and shuddered as it bit into her skin. Dragging a brush through her hair, while she cleaned her teeth, quickened her time in the bathroom. The last thing she did before leaving, was to pop two pills for her headache, even though it was retreating back to whatever part of her brain the sick drum soloist hid until the next time his itchy fingers wanted to beat out the next heavy handed beat.  

    When Katie finally made it downstairs to the kitchen, everyone else was tucking into a huge plateful of bacon rolls, and drinking from mugs of steaming hot chocolate. Katie’s nose was bombarded with delicious aroma’s, and her stomach growled for her to get stuck in before her siblings cleared the plate.

    Amber had tomato sauce dribbling down her chin. Alex had his favourite French mustard spread thickly over his bacon, and he was grinning happily as he seemingly tried to push more than half a roll into his mouth at once.