‘Does it make it better, to constantly scratch at it?’ he sighs, his bronze eyes shining. ‘You cannot change it, and neither can I. Here we are, you and I. Now, can we proceed? How will you fight the raksasa, Bavar? Show me!’
I stand, and the shadows swing as my head hits the chandelier. There’s that feeling inside, where the magic lies, where the fighter in me lives. I reach in and pull on that feeling, and that’s when the Bavar they all want comes out. I show him a few moves, feel the stretch in my limbs, and then I close my eyes and imagine I really was facing one of the raksasa, with its burning eyes and blood-red skin, its enormous batwings battering at the sky above, and suddenly Angel is there, and it all gets a bit confused in my head.
There’s a clatter, a muffled curse, and then a great crash.
‘There’s a bit of spirit!’ says Grandfather, face down on the hearth rug. ‘Bit of work needed at direction, unless –’ he grimaces as I pick him up – ‘unless that’s what you were intending?’
‘Uh, no,’ I say, putting him back on the pedestal. ‘Sorry.’
‘Good job I’m not made of CLAY,’ he rumbles. But he’s pleased. I can tell from the extra wrinkles around his eyes. He is pleased, and I am one step closer to being just what he wants me to be.
Even when I was small, I never really wanted any of this. My parents would talk to me about it, and their eyes would gleam, and their smiles would get sharp with a kind of hunger I never understood, and I think they thought it would be exciting. A fairy tale, and I was the hero. But it never felt like that. It felt like nightmares knocking at the windows. It felt like they weren’t my parents, when they fought. They were something else entirely, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way they shone with it, so I swore to myself I would never fight like that. I would find another way. But the thing inside is awake now, and it wants to reach out and send them fleeing, terrified, back to their own world. So tonight when the raksasa breaks free of the rift and screeches in the sky above the house, I head out on to the roof, just to see. Just to know for myself what it feels like to face one.
Wow, it’s cold. And I’m not afraid, but it’s creepy being out at night. It’s such a quiet town, seems like everyone’s in bed already. The streets are empty, dark but for the rounds of orange beneath the lamps, everything rimed in frost.
I look up at the moon, trapped behind shifting clouds.
It’s lonely.
I did have friends, before. I mean, not that many; I wasn’t exactly Miss Popular. But I had a couple. Liv was the one who tried the hardest afterwards. We used to spend evenings together when her mum was working, she’d come over and we’d do stuff, listen to music, paint our nails. Watch scary TV, when Mum was distracted with marking. She called a few times, when I was in the other place. But I wasn’t me then. I was deep down inside myself, hiding.
Couldn’t go back to that school. Skived a bit, refused to go to lessons.
So they moved me here, to the nearest town. New start.
Now here I am, chasing boys who smell of monsters.
‘That’s about right,’ I say out loud.
I wonder what Mum and Dad would make of it. I mean, they wouldn’t be big fans of me being out at night on my own, obviously, but I wonder what they’d think of Bavar. Dad would be all over him with curiosity, and Mum would like him, I think. She likes everyone. Even the ones a bit hard to like, she likes them especially.
Liked.
My nose starts to prickle.
But no. This is my adventure. This is me, getting the truth, and then it will all make sense, somehow. It will all be OK. That’s what they say, isn’t it, when they run out of words. ‘It will be OK.’
A shriek tears the world apart, and I stagger to the nearest lamp post and hang on, and for a second I’m caught, I’m stuck in that cupboard again, but I force myself to move. I stretch my legs like they’re spaghetti, I plough through the air, pushing against gravity, running up the road, running up the hill, and there’s the house, and every window blazing, and the sky above is boiling amber clouds and up on the roof the shape of a boy, and the enormous dark, winged shape of something from my nightmares.
And they’re fighting.
They’re fighting.
And I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything. I try to push myself forward – I want to climb the gate and climb the house, and get up there and FIGHT with him but my body isn’t listening, and then I realize the boy on the roof isn’t fighting, he’s just crouching there, defending himself as the monster attacks with claws and wings and that shriek that should wake the whole town. Over and over the creature darts at the huddled shape, its great jaws wide, serrated teeth catching that strange orange light, steam rolling off its sinewy bat-like body. Over and over, darting, and wheeling away again, its blood-red wings great booming sails that catch at the boy’s cloak, so that he is constantly shifting just to stay alive.
But he doesn’t fight.
Why doesn’t he fight?
‘Bavar!’
My voice is small, it’s a tiny embarrassing husk, there’s no way it can be heard above the flap of those monstrous wings, and the shriek of the monster-call.
But the boy-shape turns towards me, and thrusts out an arm as he does, and the monster is knocked away. It spins, howling, and heads for the burning sky, and Bavar watches it go, his fists clenched by his sides, and then he turns back to me and roars, lion-deep and angry as hell.
And, dagnamit, I run back down the hill and back to the nice house, my breath tearing in my chest, and I was right there, I even had the catapult, and everything, and I just ran away.
I can barely look at myself in the mirror, when dawn finally takes over the skies and it’s time to face another day. I swore I’d fight, the first chance I got, and I didn’t.
And neither did Bavar.
I open the bedroom door, mainly to get away from myself, and Mika’s there, black coat gleaming in the early morning sun.
‘Hi,’ I whisper, crouching down. ‘How are you?’
He butts his face up against my knee and starts to purr.
‘Life treating you well then,’ I say, running my hand over his back. He drops to the floor and shows me his belly, rubbing his head against the carpet. Black hair, vanilla carpet. ‘Naughty,’ I smile, reaching out and stroking him. He purrs. If only people were so simple. I mean, you’d think Bavar would want a friend. Stuck away in that massive house, hiding from monsters.
Why does he hide, anyway? He looks like he could hold his own, even against those things. I shudder, remembering the almost-human shape of the creature’s body, its enormous wings and that sulphurous smell that took me right back to that night. I’m not going to hide away though, not again. I’m going to get to the bottom of it all. I’m going to find out how Bavar is connected with what happened to my parents, and I’m going to fight. The catapult is a child’s toy, but I don’t care. I’ll fight with everything I have, if I get another chance. After I’ve got through the school day, that is.
‘Hey, Angel!’
I start, and turn to see Grace coming towards me, long hair swinging, bag flapping against her side.