Angel and Bavar

by Amy Wilson

  “And you were there? Mom said . . .”

  “Your mom says a lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  I look sideways at her. I can’t tell whether she’s trying to be friendly or collecting gossip.

  “So were you . . . there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. That must have been . . .” She looks up as we reach the school gates. A tall blond girl is waiting and looks at us with a puzzled expression, raising an eyebrow at her. “Well,” says Grace, “I just thought I’d say hi. See you in there.” She runs off to join the other girl, and I follow them at a distance, my eyes out for Bavar. I had this whole speech ready, about not roaring at friends, and how we can fight those creatures together. But he doesn’t come into school at all, and that’s far worse than anything Grace could ever say or do.

  Bavar

  I’ve never skipped a day of school before, not since Sal suggested I start there last year. Eva was a bit skeptical, and Grandfather was horrified, but they always avoid Grandfather anyway, so they just ignored his shouting, and I covered him with the tablecloth to keep him quiet. Eva went ahead and enrolled me, and after a while it didn’t seem so strange. After a while it seemed like about the only thing that really made sense. It was a good place to be, away from the monsters and the madness of this house.

  Now it’s different. Angel saw me, and now she’s seen the raksasa too. She stood there and shouted my name, and the creature smelled her blood, and I panicked and hit out, to stop it hurling itself at the barrier, to stop it getting to her. My fist against its warm skin, and magic leapt between us, and it wheeled away instantly. I won. But now there will be more. Now they have smelled human blood, now they have felt my power, sensed my fear.

  Eva made what she calls my favorite supper when I got in last night, because she was proud of me. She doesn’t understand why I don’t want to fight.

  “It’s what generations of our family have done,” she said, flitting around the kitchen as I sat at the table and thought of those amber eyes, the red of its skin, the sail-like wings that make a sound I can’t describe. “They have fought to protect this town—to protect the world! Your parents would be proud, Bavar. And I mean that in a good way. They weren’t all bad.” She set a platter before me, its ivy pattern completely obliterated by the huge, bloody steak she had barely cooked, a sprig of green on top. My stomach rolled.

  “I know you have doubts,” she said, pouring boiling water into a huge brown teapot as Uncle Sal came in. “But you can do this, Bavar. You can do whatever you set your mind to, and you can do it all in your own way. That’s what going to school is all about. Remember? So that you would know humanity, as well as all of this. It will all be OK.”

  Sal sat across from me. His pale eyes were steady behind his glasses. “One step at a time, Bavar, that’s all you can do.” He frowned at my plate. “Goodness. There’s half a cow there!”

  “It’s good for him,” Eva said. “Nourishing.”

  I pushed it away. “No, thank you.”

  She tutted and sat next to me, pouring the tea. “We’re with you, Bavar. Maybe not out there—but in here, we are all with you.”

  There was a deafening roar as the portraits through the house responded to her. Cheers of “Bavar!” and “Our boy!” And Eva smiled, and Uncle Sal buttered a piece of toast with his usual precision, and they meant well. They always mean well. But I sent the creature back with a strike of my hand, and so there will be more.

  Eva doesn’t know quite what to say to me now. She can tell something’s wrong, and she knows I’ll talk only when I’m ready, so she’s been baking all day, and not a bit of it looks like it’d be actually edible.

  “Why did you say she was a catalyst?” I ask her, sitting at the kitchen table and picking crumbs off a blackened piece of something or other.

  She gives me a long look. “Because she shifted something in you. You’re connected, somehow.”

  “I don’t see how we can be. Neither does Grand-father.”

  She bristles at the mention of him. “Well, perhaps he doesn’t. But I’m fairly sure you know what I’m talking about, Bavar. Nothing has been the same since the day she started at your school, has it? That day you came back all hassled because she saw you just as you really are, you’d grown an inch! She did that. And she made you strike out last night, didn’t she? Made you go out there in the first place, probably . . .”

  “She was nothing to do with it!” I burst.

  Eva raises her eyebrows and turns back to her baking. I take a deep breath and try to wind myself back in. It’s harder than usual. Everything is, since Angel came. And I know that makes Eva right, but I don’t really feel like saying that.

  “I’m sorry,” I say eventually. “About missing school. I’ll go back, after the weekend.”

  “It’s all right,” she says after a while, sifting flour into an enormous bowl. The low winter sun shines through the kitchen window and catches all the copper pots hanging up above the counters. “You have enough to deal with. I know the nights are getting harder. One day off school.” She raises her shoulders. “I called them, told them you had a bug.” She looks up then with a funny little smile. “You do have a bug, don’t you?”

  I don’t know whether she means the raksasa or Angel. Or both. I shrug, and watch as she cracks eggs into the bowl, flinging the empty shells into the sink.

  Angel saw me, up on the roof. She saw the raksasa, saw me strike out against it. And I don’t know how to face her after that, catalyst or not.

  Angel

  There’s always some fairly intense training involved in fighting supernatural creatures, I’ve seen it on TV. There are usually punching bags, and some running in the rain with music. I look at myself in the mirror—I don’t look like one of those girls. I look a bit scrawny, and my hair is sort of floating around my shoulders in a frizzy static mist. But anyway. I’ve thought about it long and hard, since I saw Bavar up on the roof with that monster, and I figure this is what I’m here for. This is why I ended up with Mary and Pete, in this town. It was some kind of meant-to-be thing. I always told myself I would have fought them, if I could, and now here they are. So I’m going to help him, whether he likes it or not, and it starts today.

  Actually, it was supposed to start first thing, in that predawn murky light, but I accidentally slept in, and then Mary cooked bacon and eggs, so now it’s nearly dusk, but that’s fine. Today is still the day. I put my headphones on, and my sneakers, and tuck the catapult into my pocket, and I don’t really have running gear, but I’ve got leggings and a hoodie so I hope that’ll do.

  “Going out?” asks Mary, coming out of the sitting room as I get downstairs.

  “For a run,” I say. “Is that OK?”

  “It’s fine,” she says with a smile. “Actually, hang on . . .” She goes to the kitchen and starts rummaging in a cupboard. I’m a bit surprised by the rummaging, to be honest—everything always looks so neat and tidy here. Anyway, she comes back eventually with a water bottle that has a hole in the middle. “I bought it a few years ago.” She blushes. “I thought I’d take up running.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “Don’t have the right sort of knees, apparently.” She shakes her head and thrusts the bottle at me. “Go steady out there. Looks like rain to me.”

  “I don’t mind that,” I say, opening the front door. “Might be out for a while; going to pop in on a friend.”

  “Oh yes?”

  I know she wants more, but I have no idea where I’d start, so I just pretend I didn’t hear her and get out of there.

  “Don’t be late!” she calls out after me.

  It starts to rain just as I get to the top of the road. I put my music on and head past the old, crumble-down church and up the hill, and for a while it’s feeling pretty good, and I could almost be one of those girls in the movies, but the closer I get to Bavar’s house, the wilder the weather gets, and black birds tumble in the sky over my head, shouting a
s they wheel about one another, and it all gets a bit spooky. I try to make myself head up the slope, but the house looms over me and it’s not yellow in this murk, it’s just a dingy shadow on top of the hill. When I look up I can see the ghosts of Bavar and the monster, from the other night. He’s big enough to fight the nightmares. I wish I’d been that big.

  I wish I hadn’t hidden in the cupboard. More than anything.

  Anything.

  I stop, winded, and put my hands on my knees, looking up at the house, the backs of my eyes throbbing. Breathe. I can’t change that now; all I can do is keep going. Keep breathing, keep moving, keep fighting. I have to know how it’s all connected, who Bavar really is, and why the monsters are here. Why did they come to our house that night? Why my parents? Was it because of Dad, and his work? Did he find the monsters, the ones that are here with Bavar? Did he somehow lead them back to our house? It’s been there for a while now, that little niggle. Ever since I first saw Bavar, it’s been getting stronger. What if it was Dad’s fault somehow? What will I do then?

  I put the thought to the back of my mind and stare up at the leaden sky, picture those great monsters circling the house. There must be a reason they come here—a reason Bavar was out on that roof. But he’s not exactly forthcoming with stuff, so maybe I’ll have to find out for myself. I stand there for a moment, looking from the house to the woodland that stretches out for miles behind it, and an idea comes to me. Instead of ringing that ridiculous doorbell, I’ll just run through the woodland. I might stumble upon something, some old structure with strange symbols, maybe an ancient gardener who knows the family secrets. Or I could just find the back door and sneak in by myself.

  The wind howls and leaves spill like confetti from the branches of the trees as I climb over a stout iron gate and trip through low branches, trying to find a path. Brambles catch at my clothes, and tangled roots stretch across the ground. It gets darker as I go, and there are shuffling, creeping noises that make my ears ring. I turn, but I can’t see the way back. These woods are alive in a way that’s not like any other wood I’ve been in. From every angle it feels like eyes are watching, creatures hiding. I push my way through the trees, faster and faster, until finally they open out into a damp, cold clearing.

  I have no idea where I am, or where I’m heading. A little shiver winds up my spine, and my breath steams out in front of me. “Which way now?” I ask in a whisper, turning and turning, hoping something will become familiar. As though in response, the air lights up with pale green sparks; fireflies, perhaps, that dance all around me and make the shadows retreat. I step forward as they dart ahead, and the trees make an archway over a narrow path. I hold my breath and tread as quietly as I can, and after a while the living things begin to show themselves: a rabbit, shuffling through the undergrowth; a white-tailed deer, making me jump as it leaps across the path; and then a pheasant, which waddles in front of me, feathers glowing green-white in the light of the fireflies. The dancing lights spin in the air in front of me, always just out of reach, and then the path opens out, and down a steep bank I pick my way over the roots of the trees and down, down to a cemetery, where a familiar figure crouches, his back turned to me.

  “Bavar?” I whisper. He jumps up, the fireflies scatter, and now it’s only the light of the moon, casting him all in silver.

  Bavar

  Nobody comes here.

  Nobody ever comes here, and yet here she is. The fireflies scatter over our heads and a million points of light shine down on her, and I am sure there has never been another like her here in these woods, where all things are dark and hiding in the deep.

  “Angel?”

  “I came for a run,” she says, pushing her hair back, looking around her with wild eyes. “And I thought I’d see the woods, and then the fireflies led me here. What is this place, Bavar?”

  “It’s the cemetery,” I say. “That’s all.”

  “It’s creepy!”

  I look back at it as she steps farther in, and I suppose maybe it is creepy, if you don’t know it. But I grew up coming here, where it’s quiet and everything rests, and I climbed the old yew trees that tangle overhead, and counted stars, and looked out over the town, watched the lights go out as night grew deeper. It always felt good here.

  “It’s not so bad,” I say. “But you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Ah,” she says, walking around me, peering down at the ancient gravestones. “But I should. Because the fireflies brought me here.”

  “They’re not known for their intelligence,” I say.

  She looks at me and shakes her head. “It’s nature, Bavar. Nature brought me here. And I’m not going anywhere—not until I understand everything.”

  I lean back against the crumbling stone wall and sigh. I guess I should have expected this. After the other night, she was bound to have questions. She always seems to have questions. I just don’t know if I have the answers she wants. Either way, we’re going to be here for a while.

  I watch her wander through the cemetery, and I know there’s a reason she’s here, beyond idle curiosity. That thing I catch in the corners of her eyes sometimes, that searching thing that has secrets, and knows about darkness nearly as much as I do. It needs something. So, I remind myself, this is not friendship. But it’s closer than I’ve ever been before, and it’s not terrible to be here with her.

  It’s even a little bit nice, for now.

  Angel

  It’s kind of beautiful here, if you can call a cemetery beautiful. The woodlands stretch above us, and below is the town, lights burning in the windows. The house rises up on our right, on its own steep hill, all in darkness beneath the moon and the silver rain. My chest is tight from the running, and full of the wonder of it all. Bavar perches on the wall, watching me, apparently in no hurry to speak. He’s different here; that sense of magic around him is quieter, more gentle. He’s so in tune with the place, so much a part of it. It lives, it breathes with him.

  “So you have your own private cemetery,” I start, moving between the headstones. They’re all of the same dark stone, in varying stages of decay. Soft green moss grows on some of them, lichen clinging to the lettering. I try not to look too closely—I don’t want him to think I’m being morbid—but I can’t help noticing that most of these people weren’t very old when they died. “Is it just for your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you look after the plants?” There are little pots of heathers and herbs, some of them with little white star-flowers that seem to glow against the darkness. “What’s this one?”

  “Night-blooming jasmine.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  He shrugs. “Be trouble if I let it all get run down.”

  “Trouble? From who?”

  “Them, of course,” he says, his eyes flicking to the stones.

  “Who?”

  “We should go,” Bavar says, ignoring my question while I shake off the shiver that’s sitting on my shoulders. Does he mean there are ghosts here? His dead ancestors’ spirits, demanding flowers? “Come on. It’s not safe here.”

  “Why not? What’s here?”

  He sighs. “Nothing’s here. I mean you need to get off the estate, before it gets any later.”

  “But why?” I press, following him as he heads into the darkness of the trees. “Bavar, slow down—just tell me what’s going on here. What is this place? What are you?”

  “What am I?” He stops and turns, and the sky seems to darken around us as we stand there, halfway up the hill. His hair is wilder than ever, standing out around his head in wiry coils. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Oops.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I say, standing tall, about halfway up to his knees. “I just . . . I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that you were anything. I just need to know, about the monsters.”

  “Why?”

  “I know they’re real,” I whisper. And I can’t look him in the eye when I say it, because I spent months trying not
to believe in all this. I fought every day just to believe in myself when everybody else told me I was wrong. And I wasn’t wrong. Bavar takes a step away from me.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw things, a while ago. And I saw you the other night, up on the roof. I saw you there, and you can’t tell me that’s not real, Bavar. You can’t tell me I didn’t see that, because I know I did, and I’ve had enough of pretending. I just need to know!”

  He shakes his head. “You don’t need to know. You have no idea what you’re trying to get into. You shouldn’t even be here. You should be down there, in your nice safe little house, watching TV.”

  My nice safe little house?

  Breathe.

  “You should stop acting like you’re the only kid in the world who ever had to go through difficult stuff!” I burst. “You have no idea about me, or what I’m capable of. You’re just stuck up here in your mansion on top of the hill and you think you know it all and you think your life is oh so difficult and it’s just not, because you’re seven feet tall and you could probably do anything, if you wanted to. So why don’t you? Why don’t you let people see you? Why do you spend all your time hiding—why don’t you just fight?”

  He stares at me a long time, while I try to stop the tears that want to come bursting out. It’s raining hard now, and I didn’t mean to lose it like that. I don’t remember the last time I shouted at anyone.

  “I don’t want to fight,” he says eventually in a quiet voice. “Everybody wants me to fight, and they all say the same thing. That I was built to fight.” He looks down at himself and then looks back at me, his eyes fierce. “But I wasn’t. And I won’t.”

  It gets darker, as I follow him through the tangled branches of the trees. The tall, narrow trunks glisten black in the dusk, rain streaming over everything. Bavar moves pretty stealthily, especially for someone of his size, and I slide around behind him, scrambling over the twisted roots that hide beneath a sodden layer of autumn leaves.