I wait until I hear Pete get in, and then I call down to say goodnight, and I put some things in my rucksack: gloves, a cereal bar, some water. The catapult I made with Dad, when I was about seven. And then I sit on the bed, breathing through my fingers, and listen to the sounds of them using the bathroom, going to bed. It’s awful. They don’t do things the right way. The sounds aren’t quite as they should be; they’re too quiet, too measured. There are no heated discussions between them, no bickering about who should go back down because the kitchen light is still on. Just the muted sounds of people getting into bed, picking up a book.
I sit for longer, longer, longer than I think I possibly can, and then, when even the muted sounds are gone and all I can hear is the creak of radiators cooling, I creep down the stairs and out into the street.
It’s getting harder to ignore them, when they come through the rift and strike at the barrier, trying to get through to the world outside. The thing inside me wants to fight them. I have to remind myself that I want to hide, and keep the barrier intact. That’s all. The idea is that if I stay hidden, they won’t have anything to get hold of. No fear, no humanity, no smell of blood to tempt them further. They’ll come, and the barrier around the estate will hold, and they’ll go back again, thwarted.
Aoife wants me to fight. To show them what they should be afraid of, to send them fleeing with no doubt about who is in charge. She thinks I can be a master as Grandfather was, strong and wise. She never saw the way my parents fought them, beast against beast, tooth and claw, to the death. They were terrifying.
I never wanted to fight.
‘Fighting is in the spirit,’ Grandfather says, looming at me as I sit on the library floor, poring over his old diaries – what he calls Wisdom on the Art of the Master. Nothing ever got past him, in his day. He kept the barrier intact, fought every monster down, and somehow never let it change him. It all went wrong when he died. He says it was his fault, he didn’t teach Mum properly, and that’s why she neglected the barrier. She let the magic build inside her instead, used it just for the fight and the glory, and it corrupted her. So now he’s determined to get it right with me. ‘Your body was made to fight, Bavar, but it cannot do it alone. You need to put your spirit into it.’
‘I’m doing OK.’
‘Worlds were not saved by boys doing OK. Battles cannot be won without a little passion, a little pride, Bavar! You are the master of this house, connected to all of its magic! You cannot keep on hiding away like this, and now they have scented this girl they will be more bloodthirsty than ever. You must fight to turn them back, before they come in force!’
If he had hands, they would be gesticulating wildly. As it is he has to content himself with rocking on his pedestal for emphasis.
‘Do you wish they’d made more of you?’ I ask.
‘WHAT?’
I wonder if his ears are malformed. I’ve wondered it before – sometimes he shouts at random and it makes me jump. Actually, maybe that’s why he does it.
‘Arms. Legs. You could have done more,’ I say.
‘Arms and legs!’ he splutters. ‘It is not my job to have arms and legs! Not my job to do more, Bavar – it is yours! You have arms and legs, and what do you use them for? Writing, and walking to that school of yours.’
‘School’s OK.’
‘Why?’ He narrows his eyes.
I shrug. ‘I like geography.’
‘GEOGRAPHY! I’ll tell you about geography! If you want geography, there are atlases, globes.’ A large amber globe on the reading table starts to whirl, the silver lines of continents gleaming as it goes. ‘There are books,’ he barks, as they start to leap from the shelves, ‘all about the world. You do not need school for that!’
‘They’re all about two hundred years old!’ I shout, ducking as they thud to the floor all around me, pages speckled brown with age.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he simmers.
‘I’m living now. In the now, Grandfather.’
‘Well, and so you are. With Aoife and that little husband of hers. And this school, that they have insisted upon.’ He blows out his bronze cheeks. ‘Which is apparently now teaching you to be rather impertinent. Let us turn to the real things. This world that you’re living in – this now of yours – is all very well, but it won’t count for TOFFEE if you cannot protect it from the raksasa that crave its possession!’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
‘This is your job; this is what you are,’ he says, sighing at the familiar words. ‘The world is relying on you. Your PARENTS are relying on you . . .’
‘My parents!’ I burst. Like it means anything, like I owe them anything. I take a breath, as he stares at me. ‘We don’t even know they’re alive.’
‘We’d know,’ he says firmly. ‘We’d know if they were dead. They’re out there somewhere, fighting.’
It was all about the fight for them. The fight, and the parties afterwards. They enjoyed it too much, and others paid the price when the raksasa broke free. The death of innocents on their hands, they weren’t prepared for that. They were too slow – by the time they caught up with the escaped monster, the damage was already done. No magic could undo it. So they slayed the creature, flung their magic into the barrier, and then they left to fight on the other side of the world.
‘It’s no good,’ my mother said that day in a low whisper, her eyes on the ground, holding my father’s hand, knuckles white, ancient, misshapen bags at their feet, the engine of the car rumbling outside. The bright sun shining through the door, and the portraits all deathly silent, watching us fall apart. ‘We cannot change now, Bavar. We are fit for the fight, and nothing else.’ My father just stood there by her side, no words, only dark, glittering eyes full of torment. ‘Aoife was always wiser than me, she will care for you better, and we will find our fight somewhere else, somewhere remote, where humanity is not so close.’
I watched them leave. Watched the car wind through the streets of the town, getting smaller and smaller. Watched my whole life just drive away.
‘You don’t know they’re fighting,’ I say to Grandfather now, pushing it all away with an effort. ‘You don’t have any idea what they’re up to, do you?’ I look at him as I ask it, and for a second imagine that he does know, and he’s about to tell me that it’s all OK, and they’re different now, softer, like they were sometimes when I was small.