I know how to cry. I know how to be small. I know how to curl myself up on the inside so none of me shows, and nothing can hurt. Being in this house is like the opposite of that. It’s dark, and the air sparks, like danger might be just around the corner. But it’s so alive, it’s like sunshine in my veins, like magic spinning through the air, fine as dust, and I’m breathing it in and there’s something growing from the inside, something I didn’t know I had any more.
I can see from the look in Bavar’s eyes that he wishes I wasn’t here. I guess maybe I’d feel like that too, if I was him. The woman walks ahead of us, her feet quick and light, and I linger at the doorway next to him. The hallway is vast, tiled in black and white, and a grand staircase sweeps up into the gloom. Chandeliers swing at regular intervals, but they seem to create shade as much as light, and then there are the portraits. Dozens, hundreds of them – all different sizes and shapes, and all of them, all of them looking at me.
They were shouting, a moment ago – I’m sure I didn’t imagine it. They were shouting, cheering, as we came in.
Did I imagine it?
The woman stops and turns.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, her voice bright and a little breathless as she rushes back to me. Her hands are warm on mine, her smile lights up her narrow, pale face. ‘We haven’t met. I’ve heard of you, but perhaps Bavar hasn’t told you of me, or of the house . . .’ She gives a couple of the portraits a stern glance. There’s a weird, stretched silence in the air, as if something’s about to explode. ‘I’m Aoife, Bavar’s aunt. I’m sure you know, of course you’ve seen . . . this is a rather unusual place. The ancestors are all rather keen to meet you . . .’
I smile back at her, but I think I may have broken Bavar and I didn’t think, I didn’t realize it would be so hard for him. Aoife frowns, going to him as he feels his way along the wall, and I don’t know what to do. I want to tell him it’s OK, but I don’t think it is OK – not for him. I pushed him to fight, and now his face is all shadows.
‘Your first fight,’ Aoife says, putting her thin arm around him. ‘You did so well. You’ll be fine, my love; it’s just a shock to the system . . . Come, both of you. Hot tea, and a bit of toast. You’ll be fine. This is good. It is a good day –’ she looks back at me, her eyes shining – ‘and we are very pleased to have you here, Angel.’
‘ANGEL!’
The silence breaks, the house shudders around us and they call my name, from every wall, and every darkened crevice.
‘ANGEL IS HERE!!’
Aoife cajoles me along, one arm still around Bavar, through wood-panelled corridors lit with little tasselled wall-lamps. The carpet is a maze of green and gold beneath my feet, and the portraits sing loudly of brave heroes and angels and monsters in the sky. It’s kind of a relief when Aoife leads us into an enormous kitchen, bright and warm and silent – completely devoid of portraits. She notices me looking.
‘I can’t be having the ancestors in here,’ she says. ‘This is where I come to have a break from it all!’ Bavar slides on to one of the chairs, looking exhausted, and Aoife indicates for me to sit next to him. The chairs were clearly made for giants like Bavar, and so is the table. I feel like a little kid again, my feet swinging above the floor.
‘Are you OK?’ I whisper to Bavar, watching Aoife fill the vast copper kettle, and saw great slices of bread from a loaf on the side. His eyes follow her as she moves about.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Bavar . . .’
He looks at me. His eyes are bloodshot.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and my voice wobbles. ‘I really, honestly meant to help you. I was picturing you here, all alone, hiding from them, and I know how that feels and I didn’t want you to feel like . . . like you didn’t have help . . .’
‘So you helped.’
I bite my lip. ‘Yeah. I didn’t realize what it would be like for you. I didn’t mean to make it worse.’
He told me, didn’t he? He told me there was a better way; he didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to be a monster, past caring. Is that what he thinks he is now?
The toaster pops, making us both jump. Aoife reaches into a rack for plates, and starts clattering things down on the table. I wince for him, as he puts his head in his hands.
‘What do we do now?’ I ask.
‘Now?’ He lifts his head, stares at me. ‘I don’t know what happens now. I’ve never killed before. What does happen, after you kill a thing?’
‘You’re still you!’ I protest. ‘You still care, don’t you? You did all that because you cared, and you haven’t suddenly grown horns, or anything! You were just . . .’
‘Just what?’ he demands. ‘Just fighting? Just killing?’
‘You didn’t kill the raksasa,’ says Aoife, coming back to the table with a steaming brown teapot. ‘You merely sent it back to its own world; their bodies are only loosely connected with their spirits. It would take a lot more than that to kill one on the spot. You’re not there yet, Bavar!’ Her face softens as she sees the impact of her words on him. ‘All you have done is send it back, where it can do no harm to anybody. One day, in your mastery, you will be able to deliver the world of them entirely, but that will only be when you are at your full strength.’
He melts back into the chair, hands falling to his sides, and I’m so relieved that I can’t think of anything to say.
‘They’re called raksasa?’ I ask eventually.
‘It means monster in Indonesian,’ Aoife says. ‘Now, enough. Here is toast.’ She passes me a plate and a knife. There’s a dish of pale butter, and the toast is hot and truly about the size of a regular doorstep, so I dig in, but Bavar ignores it all.
‘I need to close the rift,’ he says, after a while.
‘You can’t,’ Aoife says, shaking her head as she pours the tea.
‘I don’t want to do this every day. I need to close it. Grandfather says there’s a way—’
‘No,’ she cuts him off. ‘You’re not making sense. You are what you are; this place is what it is. Not all things can be changed – some of them we must just adapt to.’
‘But I’m not my mother, or my father. And you said if I went to school, I could be different.’