Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  In fact, the only sign that a live human being might inhabit the room was a poster on the back of the bedroom door. It was a black and white photograph of Jack White from the White Stripes. Someone had printed out the words What would Jack White do? and glued them over Jack’s head.

  Overwhelmed with curiosity, I was about to see whether I could squeeze myself through any of the cracks in the wardrobe when there was a knock at Brody’s bedroom door.

  ‘You can come in,’ Brody called.

  I withdrew to the balcony as a tall, twenty-something guy with long lanky hair, square glasses and wide cheeks entered the room as far as the threshold, keeping his hand on the doorknob.

  ‘How’s the tea?’ asked the guy.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Brody, raising his mug. ‘Thanks.’

  He bounced expectantly in the doorway. ‘Just going to the servo to get some more milk. You need anything?’

  Brody shook his head.

  ‘Anything at all?’ asked the guy.

  ‘Got all I need. Thanks, Al.’

  Al dawdled in the doorway for a couple of seconds. He smiled like a teacher would to a favourite but difficult pupil, and closed the door behind him as he left.

  Brody turned around, sipped his tea and let out a deep and weary sigh. I wanted to hold him right there, nestle his face into my shoulder and tell him everything was going to be all right.

  As my tendrils of mist extended towards his body, Brody set his cup at his feet and dropped his head towards the balcony railing.

  He said something into his hands.

  It couldn’t hear what it was, but it was enough.

  44

  I knew that I mustn’t touch him, but as soon as I heard his voice I stretched, coiled and flattened myself to get as close to his skin as possible. Whether he could feel me I didn’t know at first, but as I enveloped him – first like an immersing cloud, then like a thermal sleeping bag, then, increasingly, like a wetsuit – I noticed, first, droplets of condensation and, then, silver crackles of energy expanding across his skin like spider-web tattoos whenever I caught myself on a single one of his body hairs, or when a loose cell of mist strayed over his stomach.

  This energy, I realised, was the mysterious coating that was activating catastrophic forces whenever he touched me. I wondered again whether my new knowledge could remove it. Pressing myself as close to his body as I could, I spread the strange, separated cells of my eyes across his chest to examine what the dark magic coating was.

  My eyes were forced into such a ridiculous magnification that I was scared I would push my vision too hard and my eyeballs would re-form and pop out of the mist, lodging in Brody’s chest. As it was, I saw something close up that strained my eyes painfully at the same time it reminded me of the familiar hexagonal links in the silver chain around my neck. I could see on Brody, now that I was looking for it, the patterns not just of spider-web tattoos, but an entire multi-strand fabric woven out of dark energy.

  Brody rose on his arms and stared into the darkness in front of him, his hair in his eyes.

  My brain knew how to unpick a bind; my energy supplies were running low, but I focused my Will towards a patch on his back. The interwoven strands of electricity crackled and rippled between his body and the world.

  The song I hummed radiated soft heat towards the electric fabric. Brody’s back broke from condensation into sweat, but after minutes I couldn’t see any change in the magic coating. A very close look revealed a faint gold tinge to the area I’d just tried to magically scorch. The gold faded as I watched silver threads buckle and reweave like animated worms, healing the breach like a sentient force.

  What crackled on Brody’s flesh, I saw now, was not one single layer of energy. It was hundreds, perhaps thousands. Knitted together, indissoluble.

  What had he done to warrant such saturation in bad feeling?

  There were no clues in his room.

  Brody whispered something else I couldn’t hear to the darkness, and I hoped it was my name.

  My energy was failing. I ballooned myself across his bent back like a silk parachute. He shivered, rubbed his back with his hand and laughed – a gentle happy laugh.

  What had he done to warrant such saturation in bad feeling?

  I was lying across his back. Now my energy was waning rapidly. My hands imagined touching the ridges of his spine with human fingers. I could feel my atoms longing to return to human form so I could touch him properly. I wanted to be next to him, be around him, rub my face in his hair and feel his sweat on my own skin. I saw the ball of my wrist form out of mist, then a small toe.

  Give in to it, my body urged.

  Brody sighed.

  I swirled around him. I wanted to kiss him with human lips, even if I was suspended in midair. I floated towards his face. A rematerialised lock of my hair fell softly on his shoulder.

  As soon as Brody’s head flicked towards his shoulder to look at the ghostly remnant of hair that had fallen there, it flicked up again as a giant crow let out a harrowing Caaaaaah! and its black silhouette flashed in front of the moon.

  It flapped its wings and Brody’s hands flew to shield his eyes. Izek howled and flew straight through me. A dark pain pierced my half-cloud chest as I reeled into the space beyond the balcony.

  The shock, the exhaustion was overwhelming. Izek vaulted into the sky, but my cells completely reknitted into human form and I fell from the air like a dropped sandbag.

  45

  I landed in a shadow and felt my flesh wounds reopen. Panicking, I managed to twist my neck towards Brody’s balcony; I was terrified that he’d seen what had just happened. When I registered that Brody was now sliding shut his glass door, my head tipped back with only a little relief as I felt the full, painful impact of the fall.

  I thought I’d smacked my head on something – it was struck with a shocking pain. I blinked. What felt like a white-hot metal rod burned behind my left eye, then my right eye, again and again. This was separate to the fall – the pain stabbed so violently, I thought blood must be foaming out of my eyes and mouth.

  Each poker wound seemed to rip a white space out of my vision. There were thirty when the pain stopped and the sharp, stabbing intensity was replaced with a throbbing ache. Through the cloud of skull-skewering pain, I felt the white spaces were travelling towards me. Some were in groups, some alone. Some near, some far away.

  A small hand touched my shoulder.

  ‘We told you to stay away from him!’ Ashley scolded in a whisper. ‘What were you think—? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Thirty points of light are coming,’ I stammered.

  Ashley softened her grip and stroked my shoulder. ‘Do you see something?’ she asked in a calm, adult voice.

  ‘White lights …’ I said, brightness blistering under my eyelids.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘A Circle … everywhere …’ I was growing weaker by the second. I heard Izek flutter into human form but I couldn’t see him.

  ‘Did she hit her head?’ he asked Ashley.

  ‘She’s having a vision. Something dangerous. Tell Izek how many,’ she said, nursing my head in her hands.

  ‘Thirty.’

  Izek gasped. ‘How far away?’

  My brain whirred, using its new knowledge to measure the distance between the white lights and myself. ‘Five days, some sooner,’ I said. My throat crackled. I yearned for water. Suddenly, the white lights faded, like lights being switched off.

  Ashley was stroking my hair, and my head was nestled in her lap. Darkness rose up around me and I realised I was going to pass out. ‘What are they?’ I managed.

  ‘Finders,’ said Ashley.

  And then I was gone.

  46

  My nose was against something flat and cold. So was the side of my forehead. I opened my eyes, expecting to see darkness, but there was light above my face. Managing to tilt back my head, I realised there was sunlight above me, and a white windowsill.

  I wa
s in my bed, jammed against the wall under the open window. I was half-wrapped in my duvet, and I still had on my clothes from last night.

  How Ashley and Izek had moved me from Brody’s, I didn’t know. I unfurled myself from the covers and clumsily swung out of bed – every part of me hurt. The tomato-shape stain on my jeans was definitely blood, and the bend of my knees to get me onto my feet reopened the wound that had caused it. I took a deep breath and tried to imagine a healing spell, but everything I knew needed lavender, candles, amethysts or hematite stones to work – force of Will would just send me back into unconsciousness. Mum, no doubt, had these magical tools stashed somewhere in the house, but I didn’t have the energy to hunt for them.

  It was going to be a very bad day.

  ‘Soph!’ Dad called through my closed bedroom door. ‘Get up or you’ll miss the bus!’

  I was in agony as I lumbered with an armful of clean clothes to the shower. Once in it, the healing effect of the hot water on my skin was only minimal. Blue crust, a residue from the mysterious ointment of last night, fell from my arms into the drain like dried fish scales. A hip, my hands, elbows and knees were all covered in grey-purple bruises, grazes or cuts. It even hurt to towel myself dry.

  ‘Your mum called,’ Dad said through the bathroom wall. ‘There’s no news about your nan, I’m afraid.’ When I emerged, dressed, from the bathroom, Dad just stared at me. I had a jumper over my uniform and was grateful that my school trousers hid the rest of my injuries from last night.

  ‘Slept badly,’ I explained, not looking at him.

  I ate a bowl of cereal so slowly that Dad watched me over his newspaper with concern.

  ‘I’m going to drive you in,’ he said, folding the paper on the table.

  I half-managed a thankful smile, and understood – with every painful throb – the kind of world that Dad had tried to save me from.

  47

  I expected to see Nikki chomping a burger at her regular post by the school gate, but she wasn’t there when Dad pulled up outside the school. I was barely out of the car when I heard the bell and shuffled as fast as my bruised body would allow me to get to my rollcall on time. Juniors were climbing over the desks as I walked through the classroom door and a blonde-haired teacher was barking at them. The sound of voices and elbows on tables banged at my head like a hammer and it was all I could do to not summon a spell to burn everyone to death. I looked for somewhere to sit. The back of the classroom was where all the seniors were.

  Brody sat in a corner with his arms folded tight, his eyes fixed blankly on the tabletop in front of him. I chose to ignore him. Joel Morland beckoned me towards an empty chair with a friendly gesture, but I just smiled and headed towards the instantly recognisable blonde heads of Belinda and Kylie. Not catching the bus with Michelle and missing Nikki at the gate were socially careless actions on a Monday morning; ignoring the girls from my group in this situation was plain dangerous.

  As I approached, Belinda slid herself from a chair on Kylie’s right to one on her left. I was aching so much that I only mumbled ‘Thanks’ before taking a seat. In the corner of my eye I saw Joel Morland shoot me a quizzical look. I made a friendly smile again, and tried to find a comfortable way to sit in my plastic chair as the deep voice of Mr Tripp crackled over the PA system. While the class went quiet and Mr Tripp talked about sport scores from last week, I made an effort to turn my head towards Kylie and ask her how her weekend was.

  Kylie wasn’t looking at me – she was talking to Belinda, but from the expression on Belinda’s face, I knew that something was very wrong.

  ‘Hey,’ I said softly, touching Kylie on the arm to get her attention. ‘How was your—’

  Kylie’s head swivelled in my direction and, despite the pain in my bones, I stiffened in shock. Mr Tripp talked on about school citizenship programmes and two red-rimmed eyes goggled at me from Kylie’s head. Her usually immaculate surfer-girl hair was so full of static that strands of it were sticking up out of her head. The look on her face was that of a starving lizard.

  Kylie leaned over and whispered into my ear. ‘Belinda says I’m having a bad hair day. I think I’m just … hungry.’

  ‘Maybe you should get something from the canteen before Maths,’ I said, trying to deflect a condemnatory look from the blonde teacher at her desk.

  ‘They don’t sell what I want at the canteen,’ she purred. ‘Can you smell it?’

  Now Belinda leaned forward. ‘I think she’s on drugs,’ she hissed at me.

  I guessed it was something far worse. Displaced, agitated electricity was giving Kylie a sharp white glow.

  ‘Can you smell it?’ Kylie repeated.

  I heard Izek’s voice in my mind: An open Circle’s like an open wound … You may have the instinct to ground, but your friends do not.

  Kylie wasn’t looking at me. I followed her eyes across the room and saw that she was staring hungrily at the sullen face of Brody Meine.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ rumbled Belinda at Kylie, trying not to move her mouth.

  Kylie snorted air. ‘I never noticed until now. It’s like he’s covered in honey. Thick honey,’ Kylie said, licking her top lip with her tongue. ‘Rich and delicious.’

  She smiled at me and it was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen.

  48

  Brody, despite having sat at the back of the class all rollcall, managed to be the first person out of the room when the bell rang. For his sake, I was glad. Kylie lunged in her chair as he left and both Belinda and I, on instinct, pulled at her shoulders to keep her from running after him. As my hand made contact with her, I could feel energy vibrating through the sleeve of her school shirt. Strands of hair swirled above her head.

  ‘I mean it,’ Kylie said in a voice both dark and dreamy at the same time. Belinda kept clinging to her arm as everyone else left the room. Only when it was almost empty did Belinda let Kylie rise to her feet. ‘I wonder,’ Kylie said, ‘if his skin tastes like honey ice-cream …’

  Belinda turned to me, Kylie’s elbow pinched in her hand. ‘You’ve got Maths together now and you’d better keep her out of trouble,’ she said, yanking my arm through Kylie’s and bustling us towards the door. ‘I don’t know what you guys took on Friday night but I’m really glad I wasn’t there.’

  ‘We just ate cupcakes,’ I said.

  Belinda stared at me with derision. ‘Yeah. That’s why she’s panting like a dog on heat, you look like you’ve been beaten up and Michelle has blood under her fingernails.’

  ‘Michelle has what?’

  She didn’t answer. As we turned the corner into the hall, she pushed Kylie at me.

  ‘You’re such good friends with everyone, time to take over,’ Belinda said, and turned on her heel. ‘Just remember – Kylie lands in the shit and I’ll hold you responsible.’ Then she marched away.

  Kylie took a couple of disoriented steps. I gently tried to guide her in the direction of the Maths room. ‘He’s downstairs!’ she said to me as we moved, holding her hands above the corridor carpet like a water diviner. ‘I’m so hungry!’

  49

  Kylie and I got to Maths but only after Kylie had babbled the entire way. Her hair was so wild I pulled a hairband out of my bag and tried to smooth it into a ponytail. As I touched her hair, I got an electric shock.

  Joel Morland was standing outside the Maths room when we got there. ‘Are you guys okay?’ he asked, staring at my arm hooked around Kylie’s.

  Kylie’s eyes rolled. ‘I don’t want to be here,’ she said to me.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ I said to Joel. ‘Bit of a crazy weekend.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ he said, eyeing Kylie. ‘You need some help?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ I said.

  I walked Kylie into the room and sat her next to Fran, who startled in her seat.

  ‘God, you look worse than you did yesterday,’ she said to Kylie.

  ‘Frannie, do you think Brody smells like ice-cream?’ Kylie responde
d as I shovelled her into her chair. ‘I noticed in rollcall this morning, there’s something on him, you know? Something …’

  Fran looked at me in helpless frustration.

  ‘Was she like this yesterday?’ I asked her.

  ‘She was just out of it and tired – not completely mental,’ Fran said. ‘I thought you guys were having a quiet Friday night. Did you take something?’

  ‘No, no, no!’ I said, trying to ignore Kylie, who was rubbing her hands on her face.

  ‘What should we do?’ said Fran. ‘Get her out of class? Get her taken home?’

  I shook my head, but I didn’t have an answer. I knew a spell to tighten an energy field and I thought that might rein her in, but if Michelle and Nikki were roaming the corridors of Yarrindi High in a similar state, I didn’t want to exhaust myself before assessing the full situation. What we really had to do was close the Circle and get Kylie and the others to ground. Until that happened, it would be a bad idea to let Kylie too far out of my sight. Thirty Finders travelling towards Yarrindi would sniff out this craziness from miles away.

  I needed Ashley Ventwood’s advice. If I could get through the next forty minutes I’d see her in Modern.

  ‘I want to find Brody,’ said Kylie as Mr Gazzara entered the room.

  Mr Gazzara stopped before he reached his desk. ‘Something wrong, girls?’ he asked, staring at Kylie over his glasses.

  ‘Kylie was in a car accident this morning,’ piped Joel Morland, ‘she’s just a bit shaken up.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Mr Gazzara said. ‘If she needs the nurse—’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Fran said with a fake smile. Mr Gazzara hesitated, but moved to his desk.

  Joel turned around and winked at me.

  Kylie said something in Fran’s ear.

  ‘We’ll see him at recess,’ Fran said to Kylie, but looking at me.

  50

  Mr Gazzara kept looking up; each time he did, Fran or I flurried the pages of our – completely unread – Maths textbooks and took turns pretending we were helping Kylie with an equation or comparing notes. We did this so many times over the next thirty minutes that I was left in no doubt that Mr Gazzara knew perfectly well there was something wrong, but until someone else admitted it, he wouldn’t do anything.