Mythos (The Descendants, #1)

by Vrinda Pendred

  * * *

  Throughout the film, Devon leaned her head on Ash’s shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and they slipped into that special privacy shared between couples. Itzy sat on the other side of Devon, munching noisily on buttered popcorn and mentally critiquing the bad acting on the oversized screen.

  Afterward, they went to a café to have cheap lunch. Itzy smiled at her friends, revelling in the fact that she finally felt able to watch them together, without feeling jealous.

  ‘That was terrible,’ Devon proclaimed. She nudged her boyfriend and added, ‘Even for you.’

  Ash looked offended. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  Itzy laughed. ‘She has a point. You have awful taste in films.’ She waggled her fork in his direction.

  ‘But you have to admit they’re funny,’ he said. His eyes flitted from each girl to the other.

  Devon rolled her peridot eyes at him. ‘Uh-huh,’ she said as she ravaged a handful of chips sitting on her plate, smothered in far too much ketchup.

  Itzy pulled her phone from her bag for perhaps the hundredth time in the last hour.

  ‘Who are you expecting to ring you?’ asked Ash.

  Itzy flushed. ‘Aidan.’

  Ash immediately grew tense, while Devon’s eyes flew wide with excitement. ‘Have you been speaking to him?’ she pounced for the gossip.

  Itzy smiled a stupid girlish smile, as if she were fifteen and not seventeen, nearly eighteen. All she could do was nod.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ Devon reached over and swatted the back of her hand. ‘What happened?’

  Itzy couldn’t hold it in anymore. ‘I snuck out with him last night and we went driving,’ she confessed. It reminded her that she was tired, and she yawned. ‘I’ve had about four hours’ sleep,’ she added.

  Ash’s mouth dropped open. He knew her too well, and she knew that he knew that she wasn’t the sort of girl who drove around all night with strange boys.

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ he questioned, sounding more like a father than Stephen ever had.

  Devon hit him playfully on the shoulder. ‘Stop it, you. Itzy’s sensible. She wouldn’t throw herself into something dangerous.’

  Itzy wasn’t sure her friend should have that faith in her. She certainly didn’t feel sensible. Then again, that was precisely what made her feel so alive that day.

  ‘I knew there was something different about you today,’ Devon remarked.

  Itzy wrinkled her forehead. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh come on.’ She shot her a knowing look. ‘For one thing, there’s your clothes. I can’t believe you actually chose to dress like that without me having to force you into it. Last night must have been good.’ Devon punctuated her words with a wink.

  Itzy picked up a napkin from the table and threw it at her friend. ‘Nothing happened,’ she said. ‘Well, sort of.’

  Ash scowled deeply at this, while Devon clapped her hands together like an excitable little girl. ‘So has he been in touch since?’ she asked. She glanced at Itzy’s phone, which now rested on the table before her.

  ‘Once. When I got home. Nothing since then, no,’ she said glumly.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Devon quickly assured her. ‘He’s probably just busy with something. He’ll ring later, yeah?’ Then she lowered her voice as if there might be spies listening to them, and asked, ‘Does Seth know?’

  ‘Ugh,’ Itzy grunted. She looked at her own plate of chips and realised she’d lost her appetite. She pushed it aside and sat back in the cheap aluminium chair she was sitting on, which wobbled every time she breathed. ‘I don’t think he’ll be speaking to me again anytime soon.’

  Devon frowned. ‘Why not? Did something happen with him?’

  ‘Kind of. At least, he tried to make something happen. I stopped it.’

  She dared to check their reactions and found Ash was looking at her, again, as if he’d never known her before. And he hadn’t - not the person she seemed to have become. It was amazing what finding out you had super powers did for your confidence.

  Devon was more adaptable than her boyfriend. ‘Oh, Itz,’ she said. ‘Was he really upset?’

  Itzy nodded.

  ‘But why?’ Ash grew defensive of her. ‘It’s not your fault you don’t fancy him.’

  ‘Mm-hm,’ Devon concurred, nodding vigorously. It made her ginger curls bounce around her face.

  ‘I know it’s not my fault,’ Itzy said, ‘but that doesn’t change that I’ve hurt him. It’s going to take some time for things to go back to the way they were, is all.’

  ‘But they will,’ Ash said, ‘eventually.’

  They shared a moment in which they both understood what the other was thinking: that Itzy and Ash had managed to return to some semblance of normality, so it was possible with Seth too. She hoped so.

  ‘So,’ Ash changed the subject, ‘any more news on the alien front?’

  Itzy rolled her eyes at the idea. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say it like that. It makes it sound so….’

  ‘Ridiculous?’ he supplied.

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah. But it’s not, alright?’

  He put up his hands in surrender. ‘I know. It’s just hard to talk about it in a way that sounds serious. But I know this is real for you, and I really do want to know: any news?’

  Itzy thought about what she’d read in her father’s journal. ‘Oz thinks our dad managed to contact the Ancients.’

  Devon arched one of her eyebrows. ‘Is that bad?’

  Itzy shrugged. ‘We don’t really know anything about the Ancients. It’s all just a lot of legend. They came down from the stars to populate the Earth. Some mated with the humans and created a super-race. The others were disgusted with it and left, taking the Wisdom with them and leaving us here in ignorance, blah blah. That’s how the story goes.’

  ‘But…,’ Ash urged her along.

  Itzy sighed. ‘But I read this journal my father kept before he died. The night he killed himself, he said the Wisdom was here on Earth. It was all a mistake. And now he’d called the Ancients to return and they would do whatever it took to get to the Wisdom.’

  Ash let out a breath. ‘That’s some heavy stuff,’ he remarked.

  ‘That’s not all,’ Itzy said. ‘Earlier in the journal, he said he thought losing the Wisdom was what was causing the split personalities - the mood swings. He said it was killing us.’

  ‘But he was trying to find it again,’ said Devon.

  Itzy nodded, her eyes wet. ‘I think he was trying to cure himself, so he wouldn’t be able to hurt us anymore.’

  The tragedy of it hit them all like a gunshot, bolting them to their chairs. How could she go on blaming her father when he had struggled so hard to save himself? In the end, she supposed it had just been too much for him; his dark half had won out, against his wishes. At last, she felt she understood what had truly killed her father.

  ‘Oh, Itzy,’ Devon let out. She reached her hand across the table and took hold of Itzy’s fingers. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Itzy nodded briefly and sniffed, anxious to change the subject so she could recover from the sorrow threatening to devour her.

  Devon seemed to sense this - she always knew what Itzy needed.

  ‘The Wisdom,’ Devon returned to more practical matters. ‘I still don’t understand what that means. I know you told me that theory Aidan has, but it still leaves unanswered questions. For instance -’ She raised her hand and ticked off her points on her fingers. ‘How can some kind of knowledge of God be stored somewhere on Earth? If it’s not a thing, how does that work?’

  When Itzy answered, it was in a low, troubled voice. ‘My dad wrote that there was one person on Earth who carried the Wisdom. A child.’

  Devon scrunched up her nose. ‘Like a little kid?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Ash, interpreting the expression on Itzy’s face. �
��To Stephen, we would’ve all been children.’

  All at once, it hit her. She didn’t now why she hadn’t seen it before.

  ‘Aidan,’ Itzy whispered, her eyes seeing something that wasn’t there. Then she shook herself out of the daze and looked at them both in alarm. ‘It’s Aidan. My dad knew him, in the last month of his life. He knew what Aidan was capable of. Oh my God.’ She threw her hand to her mouth. ‘All this time…Aidan has the Wisdom. And I don’t think he even knows it.’

  ‘There’s some irony in there, right?’ Ash tried to lighten the mood. Devon ineffectually hit his shoulder again.

  ‘Itz,’ she said, ‘don’t get carried away. You don’t know that for sure. It’s just a theory.’

  ‘Right,’ Itzy agreed, ‘but it fits, doesn’t it? I mean, it makes sense.’

  Fear washed over her - not for herself, but for him.

  ‘I have to warn him,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t know - and my father - he said there would be danger. The Ancients - I don’t know what they’ll do, but - I have to warn him.’

  Ash stood and came around to her side of the table, placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her. He knelt on the ground beside her and met her eyes.

  ‘Slow down,’ he said. ‘Take a breath. Take five, even. Come on, with me. In -’ they both inhaled deeply ‘- and out.’ They exhaled, and she let herself be guided through four more breaths like that. When they were finished, he lifted the phone off the table and handed it to her. ‘Now go ahead and ring him. Calmly.’

  She took the phone in her shaking hands and nodded at him. ‘Right. Calmly.’

  ‘Calmly,’ he repeated.

  He stood and walked back to his original seat, and he and Devon watched as Itzy rang Aidan’s number.

  ‘Hiya,’ she said. ‘It’s me. Um…Itzy. Please ring me when you get this. It’s important,’ she added, before chewing her lip and ending the call.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ Devon tried to placate her.

  ‘I’m not,’ Itzy said. ‘I’m sorry - it was lovely meeting up with you both, and I hope we can do it again soon. But I should go. I need to keep trying until I get hold of him, and I think I need to speak to Oz about this.’

  Her friends nodded, their eyes round with concern.

  Aidan.

  Her heart pounded. Was he okay? Had the Ancients already got to him? Would she know if they had? If they were coming from space, did that mean they had a ship? Wouldn’t someone notice it breaking into the Earth’s atmosphere?

  When did these questions start sounding normal to her?

  Her friends rose to hug her goodbye. Devon clung to her the longest, clutching her tightly and whispering in her ear, ‘He’ll be fine. I know he will.’

  Itzy pulled away before she could start to cry. She wished she felt as sure of Aidan’s safety as Devon did.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Seth’s hands jumped, making strange things appear from the air that he didn’t mean to draw. He wanted coffee, for instance, but he wound up with a banana instead. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to mix the two up.

  He would have to do this the old-fashioned way.

  He stalked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. He pulled a mug from the cupboard and scooped Nescafe into it, the over-sweet smell waking up his nose in an unpleasant way. But he needed it.

  He added a second scoop.

  There was a soft mewl from the floor. Seth looked down and saw Eurydice. She rubbed against his leg, begging for food. Of course: he hadn’t given her breakfast, yet.

  He flashed his hands and came up with a bowl of clams. One of them snapped on his finger and made him yelp. He erased the clams with another twist of his wrist. Then he shut his eyes and concentrated as hard as he could, finally producing cat food. He set it on the floor for Eurydice to eat. She crouched down before it, her head bobbing up and down in the bowl with gratitude, when Seth’s phone rang.

  He removed it from his pocket and winced when he saw who it was. With a heavy heart, he answered.

  ‘Hiya, Itzy,’ he said, hoping he sounded more collected than he was.

  ‘Seth, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to talk about us right now,’ she plunged ahead. ‘Do you know where Oz is? I’ve been trying to reach him for an hour.’

  Surprised, Seth scratched his head with his free hand. This wasn’t how he expected their next conversation to go. ‘I got a message from him a while ago saying he was going to the British Museum. Why?’

  ‘And he hasn’t come back?’

  Seth frowned. ‘No.’ He glanced at his wristwatch and noted how late it was. The museum would be closed, by now. ‘I expect he got side-tracked with something,’ he said.

  Itzy’s disagreement was palpable. ‘I’m worried about him. And…and I’m worried about Aidan.’

  That name, so small and insignificant in itself, dropped like an anvil between them.

  Determined to be mature about this, Seth cleared his throat and asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘I think he’s in trouble,’ she said, piercing him with every word. There was a pause in which she seemed to consider what she’d just said. She sighed and added, ‘I know I’ve given you no reason to care what happens to him, but…I don’t think this is just about him. This is about all of us. And I’m worried maybe Oz has got caught up in it too. I…I need your help.’ She sounded heartbreakingly desperate.

  Seth shook his head. She obviously had no idea what he was willing to do for her - even if it meant helping someone who had become his rival overnight.

  But instead of admitting this to her, all he said was, ‘Tell me what you need me to do.’