I need to stay. I need Bavar. Much as I need oxygen. Much as I need water.
I need to stop the monsters.
‘So,’ she says with a deep breath. ‘So stay.’ She smiles. ‘Stay. Go to school. Come home to us. Can you do that, every day?’
I perch on the arm of the settee.
‘I have a friend. Sometimes I’ll go there. To see him.’
‘Him?’
‘He helps.’ I shrug.
‘How do you know him? From before?’
‘No. He’s at school. He’s . . . He doesn’t fit.’
‘Like you.’
She sees me. I nod. I can’t speak right now.
‘So. You have to tell me before you go out. And where you’re going. And what time you’ll be home. You’re thirteen, Angel. It’s young, even with everything you’ve been through. You are still young. And I can’t . . .’ She shakes her head. ‘It isn’t the same, I know. But I do care.’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’
She smiles. ‘I know. That bit wasn’t up to you.’
I don’t know how that makes me feel, so I just sit there for a while, watching the gold clock on the mantelpiece. It has little balls underneath that move constantly, rotating first one way then the other.
‘Go on, it’s bedtime,’ Mary says eventually, patting my knee before picking up the knitting again. ‘Try to get some sleep.’
‘OK.’
Mika winds his tail around my ankles as I go up the stairs, and I pick him up – mainly to stop him from tripping me, but also because I suddenly have a desperate need to hold on to something alive and warm.
‘Hey,’ I whisper, gathering him close. ‘How’re you doing?’
He makes a funny little chirruping noise and puts his chin on my shoulder, his whiskers prickling at my ear. When we get to the top of the stairs I put him down, and he stalks into my bedroom, curling up on the end of the bed.
‘Huh – and Pete says you’re feral.’ I smile, pulling the curtains and turning on the lamp. ‘I guess he got that wrong. Or maybe –’ I reach out and stroke him – ‘you were just waiting for the right person . . .’
She twinkles at me, all the way through school. Every classroom, every corner I turn, there she is, restless, almost humming with it.
‘Why are you so into this?’ I ask, while she steals all the extra little things Aoife put in my lunch, in case I wanted to share it with my new friend. There are cheese straws, weird prawn things, chocolate mints, and some kind of fruit that looks like a tiny yellow plum. ‘Why does it matter so much to you?’
‘Reasons,’ she says around a mouth full of chocolate, avoiding my eye. ‘I told you the other night. I’m not about to get into it all again now.’ She pulls a bag of crisps from her lunch and opens it out so that the silver foil is like a tray. ‘Help yourself. Salt and vinegar.’
‘They’re terrible!’ I gasp a second later, reaching for a cup of water. The table has six chairs around it, but we’re the only two here. The rest of the dining room buzzes with noise and activity, and there’s a little quiet space around us. ‘Are they really food?’
‘They’re an acquired taste.’ She sniffs, grabbing a handful. ‘Anyway, enough about food. You’re OK for me to come over later so we can look for the rift?’
‘Do you think it’s possible?’
‘All things are possible,’ she says, taking a cheese straw and waving it at me. ‘How can you of all people doubt that?’
‘Some things can’t be changed.’
She gives me a look, and for a second her eyes are full of shadows, but she forces them away with a breath and a toss of her hair. ‘And some things do change. Look. Grace is staring at you.’
‘So?’
‘So a week ago she wouldn’t even have known you were here. Stuff changes, Bavar. All the time. It has to.’ She breaks the cheese straw in two, hands me half. Her eyes are shining. ‘It just has to.’
Aoife is suspicious. She’s had us trapped in the kitchen for the last twenty minutes trying out her latest fudge brownies, making us talk about school and homework. To start with, Angel looked happy enough about it, trying to answer all the questions with her mouth full, but now she’s looking a bit shifty. Her eyes keep darting to the door, and her feet tap against the wooden rung of the chair like a drumbeat that won’t stop until it has all the answers. And Aoife doesn’t want to let us go. I don’t know how much she heard last night, whether she suspects what we’re up to, but I know she won’t like it. She says it isn’t possible to close the rift. I think she’s afraid that it might just make things worse.
Is that possible?
I try to imagine what a rift to another world could possibly look like. The sky glows amber when they attack, and I’ve always imagined it as a fiery abyss, but it could be anything. What kind of door could hide that sort of thing? I’ve racked my brain for clues, but I can’t find any, and thinking about it just makes me nervous. Sitting by fidgety Angel is making me nervous too.
‘Talking of homework,’ I say loudly, interrupting them and pushing my chair back with a screech. ‘We should make a start.’
Angel nods, grabbing another wedge of brownie as she stands up.
‘Why don’t you do it here?’ Aoife asks.
‘Oh. Because . . . we’re going to use the Computer.’
‘Ah, the Computer.’ She nods, and takes a copper pot from one of the hooks over the window. ‘Very well. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.’
‘What’s the Computer?’ Angel hisses as we head for the stairs.
‘It’s in my mother’s room,’ I say, ignoring the whisper of the ancestors as we get to the first landing. ‘She used it to invite people to the parties. It’s probably one of the first computers ever made, but it does have the Internet on it, so it’s a good excuse. Also, her room is in the old part of the house, and that’s a good place to start looking . . .’
Looking looking looking, echoes through the house. Uncle Sal pops out of his study. ‘Looking? What for?’ He lifts his glasses and rubs at his eyes. ‘Ah, Angel – I thought they were excited about something . . .’ He glowers up at the nearest portrait, of a thin girl with reddish hair and a wicked smile. She arches her curved brows at him, and he turns his back on her with a huff. ‘What’s going on, Bavar? What are you two looking for?’
‘Madness!’ bursts Angel. We both stare at her. ‘Madness, in Lord of the Flies. For English. We’re going to use the Computer!’
They have a Computer! With the Internet on it! They all say the words like they’re talking about aliens. Sal looks a bit dubious about our homework mission, but I’m not sure he really likes people very much, so after an awkward moment he lifts a hand and darts back into wherever he came from, closing the door firmly.
‘So,’ I say, turning to Bavar. ‘Where shall we start?’
My blood is pumping because we’re really doing this. I feel light as a bird, full of possibility, and then I look up and he’s all shadowy, looming over me like some sort of spectre.
‘What’s bugging you?’ I whisper, trying to hide a shudder.
‘Nothing.’
I fold my arms, tapping my foot. He beetles his eyebrows at me. He has amazing eyebrows, thick and curved.