‘Maybe she’s trying to climb higher,’ Calum says. ‘Like how some churches have steeples to bring people close to God.’
I remember the way she piled chairs on top of the table yesterday, and her trying to climb on top of them. Maybe Calum’s right, in a way. Maybe she is trying to get home.
Allie snorts in response. ‘Aye, right. She wants to get back for a barbecue with Jesus and Marilyn Monroe.’
‘She might!’ Calum says. ‘Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to get baptized or start going to church or whatever – but, come on. There are angels falling from the sky. That has to mean something.’
‘Not necessarily, Calamitous,’ Allie says. ‘My faith is in science. It’s only a matter of time before they work out where they’re coming from and why this is happening.’
Calum flicks the edges of the da Vinci book. ‘Allie, are you actually saying that you’re sitting in the same room as an angel and you haven’t even considered that there might be a god, or an afterlife?’
‘Look, I’m not saying I’m right. I don’t think I have all the answers to the meaning of life; I’m not that bigheaded,’ she says, grinning. ‘But, no, the Falls haven’t convinced me that there’s more than this, and I think it’s because I don’t need to be convinced. If this world is all there is, I’m fine with that.’
They look at each other. Something passes between them, but it’s just a flash of something too fast for me follow.
‘Anyway, maybe you’ll learn to speak English, Teacake,’ Allie says. ‘Then you can tell us yourself.’
We glance over at her as she slides off the table, her wings sloping towards the floor like two shimmering veils, and kneels beside Calum. Fumbling with the corners a little, she begins to look through the illustrations in the da Vinci book: a crossbow, a tank, his famous flight machine. I try to read her expression as she turns the pages. There’s no sign of recognition, but there’s also no obvious confusion, no real surprise.
‘What about you, Jaya?’ Calum asks me. ‘Where do you think the Beings are coming from?’
I take a long sip of tea. After eight months, I still have no idea how to answer that.
In the weeks after the Falls began, particularly after my run-in with Elsie Jackson, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Mum’s death was connected to the Beings’ arrival. It felt like a sign – though of what, I couldn’t say. For the first time, I wished I’d been brought up with a religion to lead me to one conclusion or another. Maybe it could have been the ship to steer me through the storm.
Though he’d always been an atheist, Dad bought a ton of books on religion as part of his research: Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism . . . every major religion, plus a few others that I’d never even heard of. One rainy afternoon, while Rani was at a dance class and he’d fallen asleep on the sofa, I found myself flicking through his books on Hinduism, looking for stories about angels like the ones crashing down to earth.
I couldn’t find them. They don’t exist in Hinduism, at least not the same way they do in Judaism or Islam or Christianity. The Bhagavad Gita talks about spiritual beings that act in angelic ways, but they’re mostly said to appear in human form – some have a negative influence, and others work to help people achieve greater levels of enlightenment. Guardian angels, perhaps, but not the winged beings that were falling from the sky.
I liked reading about it. Regardless of what Mum did or didn’t believe, it was part of her – and my – culture, our history. It made me feel closer to her, somehow. But it didn’t bring me any clear-cut answers. I knew that the timing of the Falls and Mum’s death was just a coincidence. Thousands of people around the world died in the days leading up to the first Fall; it couldn’t be connected to all of them.
Sometimes, though, I still find myself wondering.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe we’ll get an answer, or maybe we won’t . . . Either way, right now I just want to focus on getting Teacake back to wherever she came from.’
To my surprise, a rare smile flickers across Teacake’s face. Her wings rustle; it sounds like the song of waves on sand. And though I might not be sure if I believe in any gods, I find myself praying that Allie’s plan works.
TWELVE
When dinner-time comes around, we reluctantly say goodbye. Allie and Calum have had three missed calls each from their mum, and there’s nothing much in the flat for me to eat. Before we leave, we pull the mattress and duvet from Shona’s bed and lay them on top of the dining table. If Teacake’s going to insist on sleeping up there, we can at least try to make her as comfortable as possible.
‘So, see you around ten,’ Allie tells me, as she slides her feet back into her trainers. We’ve made plans to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens tomorrow to start our feather search. We tried to explain this to Teacake, pointing out illustrations in Allie’s books. She seemed slightly more interested in those than she was in the da Vinci drawings – she stroked the inked birds with her finger, leaned in to sniff the pages – but there was no recognition. Nothing that reminded her of home, as far as I could tell.
I stay with her a little longer after the twins have gone. I set out a dinner of biscuits for her on the coffee table, then turn the radio until I find a song she seems to like. I’m starting to get to know her tastes a little now. Her sweet tooth extends to music as well as food: she likes bubble-gum pop, things with high-pitched vocals or fluttery percussion.
‘I guess you must have music where you come from,’ I say as she nods along to the radio. The few words I’ve heard her speak have sounded so much like singing that it’s the one thing about her world that I feel fairly sure of.
She wrinkles her nose and sighs in reply, making a sound like long grass rustling in the wind. Though she’s much calmer around me now, I can tell that being trapped in Shona’s apartment is starting to get to her. She’s clearly not used to lazing around eating biscuits and listening to music all day – her arms and legs look too strong for that, and her good wing rarely stops twitching. Whatever’s going on in her world, she’s clearly anxious to get back to it.
At eight o’clock, my stomach starts to rumble and I reluctantly get up to leave. Teacake flutters her wings goodbye, making the tips brush against my forearm. I leave the flat with the same slightly disorientated feeling you get when someone wakes you up mid-dream. It’s strange: the closer I get to her, the more unreal she seems.
Rani runs into the hallway as I walk back to the flat. ‘Where have you been all day?’ she asks, not bothering to swallow her mouthful of soggy cereal. ‘Did you not get my text?’
I haven’t even looked at my phone. That’s a first.
‘Just out,’ I say, shrugging my jacket off. ‘I met some people. I’ve been hanging out with them a bit.’
Her eyes light up. ‘Can I come with you tomorrow? Dad’s going to Perth to work on the formula with some other Wingdings. They’ll be doing maths stuff all day. It’ll be so boring.’
‘No!’ My voice comes out sharper than I intend. Rani blinks, surprised. ‘I mean, doesn’t he need your help? You’re good at maths. You got full marks on that trigonometry test a few weeks ago, didn’t you?’
She gives me a withering look. ‘Don’t patronize me, Jaya. Dad’s not drawing triangles. This is, like, proper serious algebra. Probably Higher level or something.’
I try not to laugh. She looks so young, with her Adventure Time pyjamas and her long hair in messy self-made plaits. I forget she’s only eleven sometimes. Her part-time job as a theological researcher has made her seem years older. She wipes the milk from her lips and gives me a pleading look.
‘Please can we do something tomorrow? How about the dungeons? It’s just down the road.’