It’s kind of true: Grace and her little gang seem to be pretty set against me, but there are a couple of kids who I sit by in lessons who don’t actually lean away from me now. They smile, say hi. Doesn’t get much further than that, but I reckon that might be partly down to me. Sometimes it’s hard to open up.
‘Where is Bavar these days?’
‘Holed up at home,’ I say, my eyes flicking to the house once more. ‘He’s having issues.’
‘Are you missing him?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘They’re an odd family, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah.’
Understatement. I look at her out of the corner of my eye, trying to work out how much she knows.
‘All families are odd,’ she adds, shaking her head at my expression. ‘I’m not about to say you shouldn’t be friends; I’m glad you have each other. Just be careful. If he has things going on, you can’t necessarily change them for him. All you can do is be you.’
I hunker down into my coat and march on with her, and I can’t help but notice, when my eyes stray to the house again, that the sky overhead is flickering, amber strands cutting through the clouds. They come more now, almost as if they sense he’s ready for them. He’ll be out there fighting soon. The urge to go and join him is strong, but I know he won’t let me. I’ll only make it worse. So I head on into the school, Mary beside me, and when I hear that familiar shriek I ignore it, just like everybody else does.
Though I could swear it’s louder this time.
Its amber eyes glow with rage and the need for blood, its claws rip at the stone driveway, and I need to strike. I need to do it; the world needs me to do it. But it’s been an intense week, and I’m just about done in. Every night I have to fight harder to get to the same place, to beat them off before they can escape the estate, and every day I sleep, exhausted, and dream of Angel being pulled into the rift. My parents hold me back as I try to reach her, and then the words of the spell seem to unravel before my eyes as I wake.
‘Get BACK,’ I shout now, as the creature rears its head with a scream. I rush at it, and it retreats, but then another is swooping down to join it and together they circle me, striking with their long tails, snapping with jaws as large as I am tall. I mutter the words that Grandfather taught me, but panic makes me tongue-tied and the spell rings hollow in my ears. I’ve never faced two of them together before and I’m unprepared. When I reach out for one of them, the other swipes at me from behind, sending me flying to the steps of the house.
‘BAVAR!’ scream the ancestors through the open door. ‘GET UP!’
I scramble to my feet, chanting the words once more, waiting for the power to flood through me, waiting for the magic to be with me, but my mind is fractured, full of doubt, and the tatters of that spell wind through my words, and the raksasa can smell it. They screech, and I chase after them, my feet pounding, my heart racing, and I manage to catch one of them by the tail. It curls around to face me, snapping at the air with vicious teeth, snarling, and I reach out, striking at its neck just as the other charges full pelt towards the gate.
‘No!’
The gate is torn from its hinges, and the barrier breaks with a sharp smack that takes my breath away. The creature I managed to restrain is quiet now, its essence returned to the world it came from, but the escaped raksasa takes to the skies with a victory cry.
Hot-blooded and slavering with the need for food, it’s heading straight for the town.
‘BAVAR!’ screams the house behind me. ‘BAVAR, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’
I roar as I tear through the remains of the gate, running as fast as I can down the hill. The town unfolds before me as I go, streets full of houses, where families are settling down for the night. Lights dance in the windows, and high up above them a shadow wheels in the sky, its form obliterating the stars.
It’s hovering, I realize. I look closer. Right above the school. It’s night, so the school should be empty, except it’s not. Golden squares glow, and the floodlights in the field have been turned on.
It’s parents’ evening.
We never go. I didn’t even think twice about it, but now I remember. Parents’ evening. Angel will be there. Her foster mother will be there. My heart lurches as I pick up my speed, hurling myself down the hill.
What have I done?
Tables stand like little booths in the main hall, teachers talking to kids and parents, and it’s super-crowded, so we can hardly move. We stand at the back of the line to see Miss Pick, my maths teacher, and Mary starts chatting with another parent. She’s so easy with people. She just looks at them and smiles, and they smile back. It never fails. I wonder if it’d work so well with me. I catch sight of Grace across the room and give it a try. I’m not sure it’s a very good smile, but definitely my lips are doing the right sort of shape. Grace frowns at me. Oh well. At least I tried.
I’m wondering who to try with next when a shadow flickers in the corner of my eye, outside the window, something huge. Something that screams darkness and wrongness. I shrink back as a screech rises over the murmur of voices. Mary carries on talking. Nobody heard it.
There’s a bang at the window, people turn and stare for a second, but they don’t seem to see the thick shadow that stalks outside; they turn away again, back to the patient queues and the teachers. I remember the first time I heard that noise. I remember how quickly it changed from something that couldn’t be possible to something that changed my life forever. Glass creaks as the creature strikes again, and the lights in the hall flicker. Everything stops, and for a split second it’s like everybody really sees it.
Shock wires through the room, faces blanche, the air rushes with a collective intake of breath, as claws screech against the window. An inhuman scream sends a shudder down my spine, makes the foundations of the school rock. There’s a whimper, against the silence in the room, and then the raksasa whirls away again, gathering pace for its next hit. The lights stabilize and the queues move forward, as if nothing happened. But Mary is frowning.
‘What was that?’ she asks in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘Did you feel that, Angel?’
She sees things. More clearly than others. My heart lurches, panic rushes through me like electricity, and for a horrible moment I wonder if I’m going to be sick. The raksasa will come back any second, and Mary will be one of the first, because she’ll run towards it. She’ll see it before the others, and I know she won’t just stand there while people are attacked. But I’m not letting that happen. I’m not hiding in the cupboard this time. Or in the school hall.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I tell her. ‘Need the loo.’