Aoife meets us as we get to the bottom of the stairs, looking us up and down. ‘Bavar, how are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says, brushing her away.
‘It was nice of Angel to come by,’ she says. ‘You need a friend, Bavar.’ She turns to me. ‘Will you be back?’
‘I could pop in after school tomorrow,’ I say. ‘We can finish that homework . . .’
‘OK,’ Bavar mumbles.
‘Will you be at school?’
‘Probably,’ he says.
‘Maybe it would do you good,’ I say. And I do mean it. But also, I don’t want him lingering around here all day, getting bored, thinking about secret doorways and rifts. He might do it without me. And obviously that would probably be a really good idea, because he’s the one who has the magic, but I think I need it as much as he does. Maybe even more.
‘I’ll be there,’ he says, staring at me as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
It’s kind of creepy, walking down the path to the gate. The sky is quiet now; the air freezing. When I look back, the house is ablaze against the murk of dusk, lights shining from every window. You’d never know what went on here last night. You’d never even suspect. And it’s funny. I came looking for answers, and I even got some, but that’s not the thing that stays in my mind, as I go through the gate and down the hill. The raksasa are important, and finding the rift is important, what happened to Mum and Dad . . . that never leaves me. But right now, the thing that stays closest is the way he trusted me, when he was lying there all poisoned.
That, and the way his ancestors shouted my name. Never going to forget a whole house of portraits calling out at you like that, are you?
That hope she has, it shines so bright. She smiles, and it feels like the only thing that’s real. She sees me. So she’s different. And despite all the seeing, and the horror of it all, she’s still here. She’s more determined than ever. That means something. But what? She said something important, while we sat out here, and the creature’s body loomed over everything. Something that explained the darkness in her eyes, the way she’s drawn to it all like a magnet.
Why can’t I remember?
She gives a little wave as the gates swing open for her, and I catch that gleam in her eye, and so I know. We’re doing this. We’re looking for the rift, so that we can close it. I always thought I was the only one linked to it all, and now she’s here, for whatever reason, and she’s on a mission. She said she wasn’t going anywhere while all this is going on, and so it almost felt true when Aoife said she was a friend. But when the mission is done, she’ll go back to her own house, and this place will feel bigger, darker than ever.
And I’ll be alone again.
Aoife is waiting for me when I close the front door. She’s standing by the stairs, looking like she wants to talk, but my head is full of too many things, and none of them make sense, so I dodge her, escaping into the drawing room and finding myself before the mirror. Warped old glass in a pitted, age-darkened silver frame, stretching from the heavy stone mantelpiece nearly to the ceiling.
But that’s not what catches my eye.
There, in the mirror. For an instant, the nearly-me, the could-be-me, straight and tall and just like any old boy with gnarly hair. But even as I look, he is surrounded by the shadows of everything I have tried so hard not to be: the monsters of my parents, and of every ancestor before them, gathered thickly around me, their faces glowing with pride as they reach out to me.
‘I don’t want to be like this. Like you,’ I whisper, as the image shifts and my sharpened teeth glint in the mirror.
‘But you are,’ they say. ‘You already are. You always have been. Our Bavar!’
‘Your monster.’ I close my eyes, and that’s almost worse, because now I can feel them, their energy hot in the air around me, the hot iron tang of their blood.
‘What is a monster?’ My mother’s sibilant voice right next to my ear, her breath making my shoulders flinch. ‘Something different? Something out of place? Many monsters in the world wearing their differences on the inside, dangerous people. You are the gatekeeper. You will protect these ordinary people from evils they have not dared to dream of.’
‘Evils like you . . .’
‘Sometimes it corrupts.’ She shrugs. ‘Sometimes in order to fight the worst, we have to understand them.’
‘I don’t want that.’
I don’t want Angel to see me like that.
‘Then don’t do it. Stay true to yourself. Be better than me. Look at me, Bavar.’
I look up, and in the mirror it’s just me and her. She barely reaches my shoulder. When did that happen? When did she get so small? She smiles, revealing her own pointed teeth.
‘You are my boy. My Bavar. You can do this. Do it your way, but do it. There are worse things in the world than anything you can ever become. And if you do not become what you should, then those things will win . . .’
I don’t tell her about our plan. I’m pretty sure she’d just tell me it’s impossible to close it, and I don’t want her doubt to join my own. I need to believe in it, like Angel does. My mother hisses as I turn away, and I close my mind to her.
There was a time she wasn’t like that. A time when she was softer, warmer, when she laughed, and held me. It’s hard to hold on to those memories when I’m surrounded by the evidence of what they have all become, in this house. After a time, it does corrupt. That part that was human becomes something else. Something hard and bitter. Something dark. Features shift, bodies stretch, and hearts harden.
Now something else has changed. Angel has been here, and she’s changed everything. The raksasa strikes its claws against the barrier that night, howling to be released into the world, and my ancestors roar. They want me to fight like I did last night, but I don’t. I won’t. I pull the curtains around my bed, and hold on tight for tomorrow.
Home. Not home. Mary is still up. She’s doing some sort of knitting with her fingers beneath a single lit lamp. Like a scene’s been set: Angel’s Comeuppance.
‘You don’t want to be here,’ she says.
I look around, my stomach tight. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this house, the sounds and the smells so different from what I had before. I know it’s not a bad place. I know they’re kind, and I should be grateful.
‘Not really.’
A twist of her mouth; a nimble dance of fingers.
‘What shall we do?’
She’s asking me. She’s serious. Her brown eyes flicker, and she sets the knitting aside.
‘We wanted to help, Angel.’
My name rings and doesn’t sound right in this vanilla house, with the tribal masks that they probably got from a cheap furniture shop. We had stuff from real places – Morocco, Italy, places we’d been. It’s in storage now. I flinch away but she stares at me, determined.
‘We don’t want to make it worse for you. Is it worse, being here?’ Her voice falters. She clears her throat. ‘If you’d like us to contact them, make other arrangements . . .’
‘No!’