by Karen Healey
Iris was edging behind her, in the doorway to the hall. Three-inch heels or not, she looked ready to leap forward and wrap her manicured hands around Reka’s elegant neck.
Reka must have felt the hatred aimed at the back of her skull. She shifted to keep us both in view. ‘Did Mark bother to tell you why I need Kevin?’
‘You want kids. You incredible bitch.’ The tap was still gushing. Was he trying to find an appropriate glass for his lady love, or was he getting his head clear? I edged closer to the kitchen door.
Reka sniffed and uncrossed her legs. ‘I could be doing a great deal more than taking one man for a short time. Really, you girls have no idea how much I love your grubby little species.’
My lip curled. ‘We’re a hobby.’
‘Don’t trust Mark too much, Eleanor. He’s got his own goals.’ Abruptly, her eyes blanked out to that solid green. ‘Oh, I’m tired of both of you. Eleanor Spencer, you are a lumbering waste of half a talent, and as for you, Iris Tsang, you simpering, useless—’
Her words brought pain, a stinging impact that scalded my skin. I saw Iris pale and stagger against the doorframe, but Reka’s eyes were trained on me, and her sheer presence pinned me against the wall. My skin felt as if it were being peeled away to expose the quivering flesh beneath.
The doorbell rang.
‘Speaking of useless,’ she said lightly and rose in a rustle of skirts. ‘ ’Twere good he were spoken with; for he may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. Let him come in.’
Mark didn’t wait for anyone to answer the bell. He came down the hall at a dead run and caught Iris under the elbow before she toppled. Her face was drawn tight with pain, but she steadied herself against the doorframe.
He yelled something in the heavy syllables of ancient Rome, and the scalding sensation vanished. I sagged against the wall.
‘I really should have taken Latin,’ I said, and was surprised to hear my voice come out so evenly. Mark released Iris’s arm and stepped slightly in front of her to stare at his mother. I didn’t need to ask to see that something had gone wrong; his earlier confidence had vanished into a look of tight strain.
Iris slipped off her shoes and planted her tiny hose-clad feet on the floor with all the deliberation of a sumo wrestler.
‘Kevin,’ Reka said. ‘Come here.’
The tap shut off. The air was suddenly dead with the absence of rushing water.
Kevin walked through the kitchen door like a toy soldier. I planted myself in front of him. ‘Stop,’ I said firmly, and braced.
He tried to walk through me, but I strained my full weight against him, my hands solid at his hips, and he didn’t have the momentum to push through. Behind me Iris squeaked with outrage, and something went flying past my ear, accompanied by Reka’s surprised exclamation.
It was a shoe. Not a bad weapon, really; the chunky heel might have done some serious damage if it had actually hit her. Instead it scattered cards as it skidded across the coffee table and came to rest against the bowl of peanuts in the centre.
‘Kevin!’ Iris cried with real anguish.
Kevin stopped straining against me, and his face flashed with lucidity. I put my hand up to his eyes. ‘Stop,’ I said again.
‘Oh, sit down then,’ Reka said as if it was a minor irritant, but I caught the strain wavering under her voice. It cheered me, even as Kevin blanked out again and walked mechanically to the couch. This much opposition wasn’t in her battle plan.
Over Kevin’s shoulder, the kowhai tree in the backyard was an inky outline scrawled against the dimming sky. I stared uncertainly. Was that water condensing outside, or just an illusion of the dirty glass?
Whether she was also aware of the coming night or not, Reka showed no qualms when I turned around. Iris was holding her other shoe and squinting speculatively.
‘Let him go,’ Mark suggested. ‘Give up your claim. Before I make you.’
Reka sat down and crossed her ankles, still managing to suggest she was the tallest person in the room. ‘That would be very stupid. And even more stupid for you to make me. Don’t you care for your people?’
He flinched. ‘Which people? You made sure I wasn’t either.’
Reka slammed her hands against the coffee table and we all jumped at the sound. ‘You foolish child! You did that yourself! And now they will come for you!’ Her voice came a little undone on the last words, and I realised that she was genuinely scared for him. But of what?
The question must have shown on my face, because Mark glanced at me and said something in fast Mori.
Iris coughed. ‘It isn’t the right place to speak about this,’ she translated. I gave Mark a hard stare.
Reka smirked at her son. ‘Yours to explain to your accomplices,’ she said. ‘Since you will not accept my help.’
‘Your help comes at a price.’
‘So does everything, Mark.’ She thrust her hand out at Kevin, voice softening. ‘Look at him. He could be so strong.’
Mark didn’t take his eyes off Reka’s face, but as soon as she said it, I saw that she was right. Kevin’s face was still eerily pleasant and blank, but the potential for power hummed in his bones like a giant cat purring in sleep. The right stimulus might wake him.
Tendrils of mist brushed against the window.
Reka’s voice went on, smooth and calm. ‘I wouldn’t harm him. And you could have brothers and sisters. A family.’
‘Shut up!’ he shouted.
Her mouth hardened. ‘I must have him, Mark.’
His face settled into that stark, potent stillness and he began a low chant in another language. It wasn’t Latin; that was about all I could tell. Iris tensed beside him. I half-stepped back, clearing room for an axe kick. If I hit with enough force, I’d break her neck. The thought clenched in my belly like a fist, but my balance was steady.
Reka flicked a glance over my shoulder at the gathering mists, then gasped as Mark’s chant increased in volume.
‘Your foreign power won’t save you,’ she said, placing a hand on the coffee table for support. Her pale fingers gleamed against the glass. ‘They’ll come for you. You lost what you were born with. You don’t count to them. So they’ll take your foreign power and your eyes and your life. If you don’t want to die, you’ll need my help then.’
‘No,’ he said brutally. ‘I don’t want anything you have to offer.’
Her eyes glinted with something that might have been grief, and then she moved, dolphin quick. Snatching up Iris’s shoe, she hurled it with a breathy command – Iris squeaked – Mark shouted – and the living room window exploded outward into splinters of glass.
The mist rolled in. Long-nailed hands lengthening into the claws of legend, stone-hard eyes gleaming in her beautiful face, Reka came for Kevin.
But I was ready, turning to drop over him even as my vision blanked in the thick white air. I landed hard, with his knee slamming into my thigh and my chest awkward against his shoulder, but I landed in time. A clawed hand brushed my back, groping for a hold. I grabbed it and twisted as hard as I could. No finesse, no technique; but something broke with a wet-sounding crunch.
She snarled and tugged free, landing her slippered foot in my back. It knocked the breath out of me and hurt like hell, but I craned my chin over the top of Kevin’s unmoving head and held on.
Mark was shouting again, more syllables I couldn’t make into words. The smell of something burning, thick and sweet, hung in the air.
Reka screamed like a hawk and raked the nails of her good hand down my back. I kicked back, and her shriek cut off with a gasp as I hit something soft. I felt the wet flow of blood over my skin before I felt the pain, and then it was worse than almost anything; worse than breaking three toes with a bad front kick; worse than dislocating my shoulder in a tournament; worse than blistering sunburn after a ski trip. Only the migraine Mark had inflicted had hurt more. I hissed, because I didn’t have the air to scream, and huddled tighter around Kevin.
&
nbsp; Mark shouted the same phrase three times, his voice increasing in volume.
‘Have him, then!’ Reka cried, as if the words had been torn out of her, and vanished, and the mist with her.
My eyes stung in the sudden light as I straightened and turned. Mark was sagging against the doorframe, looking like he’d run a marathon and lost. Iris was standing beside him, staring at me in horror.
‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘Ellie, your back.’
I twisted to see over my shoulder, the pain of the movement forcing air out through gritted teeth. The back of my blazer was shredded, stuck to my back with my own blood. I couldn’t see the extent of the damage, but I was sure I didn’t want to.
‘Who—’ Kevin said, and we all shifted to stare at him. ‘Ellie! What’s happened to the window?’
TOGETHER ALONE
IRIS CROUCHED BY KEVIN. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked urgently. ‘How many fingers am I holding up? What day is it?’
I left her to it and stepped toward Mark. ‘Reka was scared for you.’
He pulled back, hair falling over his face. ‘That’s not my problem.’
‘What “they” was she talking about?’ I persisted. ‘They’ll take your eyes?’ A nasty suspicion was forming. ‘Mark! Does this have something to do with the Eye–slasher?’ ‘What the hell is going on?’ Kevin roared, attempting to get up. Iris sprawled half into his lap and made a small pained sound. Kevin patted her arm absently and jerked his chin at Mark. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I think Reka drugged you!’ Iris said, and peered into his face. ‘Your pupils are dilated!’
They weren’t, but Kevin was diverted from rage into bewilderment.
‘I feel weird,’ he admitted, and rubbed at his forehead. Mark was staring intently at him, fingers moving over the key charm on his bracelet.
‘Maybe you should rest?’ I suggested. The pain in my back flared into agony as Kevin slung one arm around my waist, but he noticed neither my flinch nor the blood staining his green sleeve as I helped him into the bedroom and onto Iris’s bed. Unlike the rumpled sheets of a normal person, it was neatly made, with crisp white linens and a pretty flowered throw.
‘Did something happen?’ Kevin asked muzzily. ‘Something happened.’
I knelt to tug off his shoes and settled the throw over him. ‘You should sleep. You’ll feel better if you don’t try to think about it.’
He struggled onto one elbow. ‘Ellie? Tell me.’
I hesitated in the doorway, no longer able to avoid his eyes. They were full of confusion, and pain, and trust that I wouldn’t leave him in the dark.
‘Sleep well,’ I said, and switched off the light.
Iris was all spiky angles when I came back, thin elbows thrusting aggressively out from the fists on her tilted hips. She was still holding her other shoe. Mark was slumped against the back of the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose.
‘We should get going,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a ride.’
‘Is it safe to leave him?’ I asked.
‘It’s fine,’ Mark said. ‘I made Reka give him up. Once done, it’s done. She can’t claim him again.’
I frowned. ‘Iris, you’re staying, right?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to know about the patupaiarehe.’
I deflected Mark’s sharp look with an outstretched palm; directed him back to her.
‘Oh, come on,’ she said irritably. ‘I’m a Drama and Mori major. I read books.’
‘Books,’ Mark said, raising an eyebrow at me.
I gave him the finger. He ignored me and stared out of the broken window.
‘Mark,’ I said, softer. ‘I need to know. I’m stumbling around blind.’
‘And she promised she’d tell me everything,’ Iris put in.
Green eyes bored into mine. ‘You said that if you found out this stuff was real, you’d try to stay the hell out of it.’
‘That was before I knew I was already in it,’ I said. Whatever was going on, even knowing that Reka’s irritating hints were designed to make me drag it out of him couldn’t stop me. This did have something to do with the Eyeslasher. ‘It’s too late. You can’t stop now.’ I’d meant it for me, but Iris nodded, folding her arms again.
Under our twin stares, Mark sagged. Then he tilted his bruised face to me. ‘Just out of interest, Spencer, if I don’t tell you everything you want to know, will you beat it out of me?’
I jerked back. ‘No.’
‘But I might,’ Iris said thoughtfully. ‘I’ve still got another shoe.’
Mark raked his hair out of his face, and looked into the middle distance. ‘Okay. Come with me.’
Before we left, I inspected my back in the bathroom. Reka’s claws had cut right through my blazer and blouse so that they hung awkwardly off my shoulders. Iris gave me a big T-shirt that she probably slept in, and I grabbed Kevin’s jacket. My bra was also ruined, only hanging on by a few threads, and I took it off, glad for the first time that my breasts hadn’t increased much with the rest of me. The cuts were shallow, but long, and naturally, they hurt more the moment I saw them: five angry streaks, curving from under my right shoulder blade to above my left hip. I awkwardly squeezed anti-bacterial lotion into the wounds and hissed, bracing over the sink with locked arms, trembling until the burning stopped.
It would have been easier with help. But I didn’t trust Mark at my back right then, and I didn’t want either him or Iris to see me half-naked.
Kevin was hidden in Iris’s bed, a big snoring lump. I tiptoed in and dropped a kiss on his forehead. It hurt to close the door on him, and even more to hear the front-door lock snap as I tugged it shut behind me and went to join the others in the car.
Iris had left me the front passenger seat of Mark’s shabby Toyota, and spent most of the ride staring out the back window, lips shaping silent arguments. I sat forward so my back didn’t rest against the seat, and tried to stop flicking glances at Mark. He drove pretty well for someone I was almost certain didn’t have a real licence, staring at the road with a furrowed intensity.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘The Gardens,’ he said tersely.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll find out when we get there.’ He relaxed a little, and noticed me noticing. ‘I was checking on Dad.’ He lifted his left hand from the wheel and held it out for me. The furry white tuft was hair, not wool. ‘He’s preaching.’
‘Neat trick,’ I said, instead of Should you be doing that while you drive?
‘What else can you do?’ Iris asked. ‘Since you can’t do what Reka does.’
Mark must have filled her in on some of his history while I was doctoring my back. That made sense. It was stupid to feel jealous about it.
He pulled into the car park before he answered, and sat there for a minute with the engine running, his fingers turning over his charms. ‘I can do lots of things. Suppress memories. Tangle your feet into falling. Make lightning in my hands and send it to kill you.’
Iris made a noise that wasn’t quite a gasp. I didn’t say anything, but I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because he twisted in his seat and gave me the full impact of his green stare. ‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ he said quietly. ‘But I could. Ellie, after this, you won’t be able to go back. You’ll never be normal again. Are you sure?’
He meant it. I stared into the misty car park and thought about the electric thrill that had gone down me the moment I made contact with his charm bracelet, the determination with which I’d clung to the memory of his bewitching me, fighting to make my pathetic scrap of paper a talisman for my memory. I thought about Reka’s song in the night, and the pain burning down my back, and the risk Kevin had run, all-unknowing. I thought about Mark, strong enough to make a life for himself and keep Reka away. And I thought about the mask on my desk, warm and welcoming and perfect.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Iris.
Mark sighed and pushed his door op
en. ‘Your choice,’ he said, and I couldn’t tell whether he thought it was the wrong one.
The Botanic Gardens closed at sunset every night. We walked up to the gates just as a security guard was rattling the locked gate. Mark turned smoothly to pace beside the fence, and we walked on in silence until the blue-striped Armourguard car purred past us.
Climbing over the gates wasn’t fun. My school skirt was wide enough to not restrict my movement, but my back screamed as I lifted my arms, and howled as I automatically bent to take the landing with my knees. Iris climbed surprisingly well, though she insisted I check for people watching before she hiked her pencil skirt up to her hips. She’d changed to silky black ballet-style slippers, which were only slightly more practical than her heels, but matched her skirt and little handbag perfectly. She didn’t need to instruct Mark to keep his eyes closed – he had hoisted his lanky body over with ease and was leaning against the fence of the Peacock Fountain, staring into the water. The fountain was a Victorian ironwork monstrosity with hideous iron animals gape-mouthed all over it, and it was much improved by the mist’s partial concealment.
‘They rebuilt this,’ he said when we joined him. ‘It was on a little island in the river, but the island sank under the weight, and it rusted.’
I wondered if the designers had wanted the horrible thing to crumble quickly. Otherwise, putting cast iron in a river that flooded regularly seemed to lack a certain amount of foresight.
Mark led us further into the park, toward the river. The trees lining the pale gravel path were mostly non-natives, oak and pine thrusting massively out of the earth. I shuddered, remembering Reka’s sung invitation to vegetable life.
Mark reached out without looking at me and caught my uninjured shoulder. I couldn’t decide on a reaction before he squeezed gently and withdrew. After a few minutes we came to the grassy riverbank and squelched our way down.
Mark was staring at the river, twisting his charm bracelet over his wrist link by link. ‘Sit down.’
I gave up my school skirt for dead and sank onto the bank beside him. Iris eyed the muddy grass for a moment longer, then sat, crossing her ankles. We looked expectantly at Mark at the same time, and I felt a reluctant liking for her. Really, she was being much better about this than anyone had a right to expect.