The rest of us sit on the grass and watch her display. Allie leans against my arm, wrapped up in two of my hoodies. She spent most of the day sleeping to make up for yesterday’s overexertion. She still looks pale and tired, but her temperature has gone down and she’s less breathless than she was last night. It feels like a lucky escape.
Still levitating above us, Teacake starts to pose: she clasps her hands and bends her knee in prayer, a perfect imitation of the images in Rani’s art books. Dad laughs and shakes his head like he still can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. I don’t know if he’s fully forgiven me for lying to him about Teacake for so long. That might take a while. But hopefully this – this breathtaking sight that so few other people will ever get to see with their own eyes – hopefully this makes up for it.
As Teacake makes a smooth landing just beside the flowerbed, we all burst into applause. She beams and quotes three lines of a Dylan Thomas poem – there was a special on Radio 4 this afternoon. Rani tugs on Calum’s sleeve to watch the video.
‘How much do you think we could sell this for, Dad?’ she asks. ‘I heard the guy who filmed the first Fall is a millionaire now.’
‘You’d have to prove it’s genuine,’ Dad says. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much fake footage is out there.’
‘We’ll have one of Teacake’s feathers,’ Calum says. ‘That has to count for something, right?’
While we’re talking, Teacake turns to Allie and drops to her knees. She spins around, facing away from her, and bends her head towards the ground. Like an eagle soaring above the plains, her wings open wide.
Allie’s eyes light up. ‘Oh my god. Teacake!’
The blood drains from Dad’s face, but Allie’s already climbing on to Teacake’s back. Rani helps her sling her legs over Teacake’s hips, and then Allie loops her arms around Teacake’s neck. Calum abandons his camera and hurries towards her.
‘Al, wait! I don’t know if this is a good idea,’ he says. ‘Last thing I need is for you to break your neck.’
Allie gives a dry laugh. ‘Oh, yeah, that would really suck for you.’ She rests her chin on the curve of Teacake’s spine. ‘Come on, California. You can’t seriously ask me to miss this.’
Calum runs his hand through his hair and sighs. I can practically see all the terrible ways this could end flicking through his eyes. After a minute, he throws his hands up.
‘All right, fine. Just don’t tell Mum, OK? And don’t go too high, Teacake!’
Teacake quotes an M&S advert in response, which we take to mean agreement. She takes a short run-up, her legs buckling ever so slightly under the extra weight of Allie, and suddenly she’s in the air. Allie lets out a laugh that sounds a little like a scream as they swerve past the house, spinning over the lawn.
‘Oh my god! This is amazing!’
Calum picks up his camera and sprints after her, trying his best to hold it steady. After a minute, though, his steps begin to slow. He stops by the little brook on the edge of the garden and just watches, with his own eyes, as Teacake carries his sister into the air.
They move through the trees, birds flocking out of the branches. For a few seconds, they slip out of sight, leaving us in silence but for the hush of the breeze. Just at the point where I’m starting to worry, the leaves of two birch trees rustle and Teacake shoots towards us, looping around Dad and landing smoothly at the edge of the pond.
We all burst into applause. Allie slides down, slightly shaky on her feet, but beaming. She throws her arms around Teacake, who pats Allie’s head with a bemused expression, then stretches her hand out to Rani. Allie pushes her forward.
‘Go on, Ran, it’s the best!’
Dad’s eyes just about pop out of his head. After much cajoling, he eventually lets Teacake take my sister on a gentle trip over the lawn. As we watch them, Allie slides her hand into mine. We drift towards the other end of the garden and sit on the grass, sheltered beneath the drooping branches of the willow tree.
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask for the twentieth time that day. ‘What did your mum say when you called?’
If my fretting bugs her, she doesn’t show it. ‘I’m fine. She gave me the Muhammad Ali of bollockings – I’m lucky she and my dad both have work this week, or they’d have driven up here to deliver it in person. I suppose I deserve it, though. Believe it or not, I was pretty strict about taking my meds and doing my treatments until you showed up.’
My mouth drops open. ‘I never said you shouldn’t—’
‘I’m not blaming you!’ she laughs. ‘I just mean, you coming to Edinburgh, bringing us to Teacake . . .it changed everything.’
‘So you’re saying it was fate?’ I grin. ‘That’s not very atheist of you.’
She bumps her shoulder into mine. ‘Unlike other people, I never claimed to have the answers. But, no, I don’t think it was fate. I still don’t believe in any of that.’
I tilt my head in the direction of Teacake, who is now struggling to lift a far-too-heavy Calum into the air. ‘Even after hanging out with an angel for the past few weeks?’
‘My gran used to say that God has His plan, and that everything, no matter how horrible, is part of that.’ She runs her hands through the flowers, brushing the edges of the yellow and purple petals. ‘Personally, I think it’s random. Chaotic, even. But I don’t think that makes it less valuable. If anything, I think it makes it more incredible – the fact that we’re here at all, just the happy result of some gas and dust and gravity.’
My gaze drifts back to Teacake. Her feathers catch the light, glinting blue-black-pink, like oil on water. I don’t know if I agree with her, but in a way Allie’s right: there’s so much magic around us, such breathtaking beauty, that it doesn’t really matter where it came from.
‘Did you talk to Leah?’ Allie asks.
I nod. ‘She called me on her way to Edinburgh. She and her dad are going to try to get her mum back, and then they want to go down south, or maybe even to France . . . somewhere the Standing Fallen can’t follow them.’
I’m silent for a moment, remembering our conversation. ‘Say goodbye to Teacake for me,’ Leah had said, half shouting over the hum of traffic. There was a pause, filled only by the sound of the cars zipping past. For a second, I thought she might have been about to say something – any of the things I’d wanted to hear for so long. But she didn’t, and in that instant I realized it honestly didn’t matter any more.
‘Thanks, Jaya. Really,’ she’d said instead. ‘You saved us both.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Allie asks. She’s gone still. When I look at her face I realize she’s anxious, waiting to hear what I have to say about Leah.
But there’s nothing to say. The person Leah was before the Standing Fallen is gone, just like person I was before the accident is gone. The people we were together have changed too. I know that a few months away from the cult will help Leah find her way back to herself, and that there’ll come a time when I can talk about Mum without my throat closing up. But whatever was between us is over, and it’s better that way.
I run the tip of my finger over the rose on Allie’s wrist. My eyes skip from her freckles to her eyelashes to the tiny diamonds in her earlobes, before slipping down to her lips.
‘I was just . . .’I swallow. ‘I was thinking it’s pretty ridiculous that we’ve rescued a Being, saved a girl from a bunch of abusive fanatics and possibly helped bring down an international cult together, but we haven’t even kissed yet.’
A slow smile spreads over her face. ‘You’re right. That is ridiculous.’
‘Well, then.’
‘Well.’
It doesn’t matter that she has to leave in a few days. It doesn’t matter that we live hundreds of miles apart. I put my hands on her face, and I finally kiss her. In those seconds, all that exists is Allie, her lips, her hair and her hands – and the shadows sliding across our skin as Teacake floats above us, inching ever closer towards home.