by Derek Landy
“So … so why didn’t you do that?”
Never frowned. “Because I was sleeping.”
“But why didn’t you—?”
“Because I was sleeping,” Never repeated. “I love my sleep, Omen. It’s one of the eight things that I do best. You can’t expect me to not sleep because of homework. We all have our limits, the lines in the sand we do not cross. That is mine.”
Omen nodded. “It’s a great honour just to be around you sometimes.”
Mr Chou walked in and closed the door.
“Can I copy off you?” Never whispered.
“Oh,” Omen whispered back, “sorry, no. I didn’t do the homework, either.”
“Why the hell not?”
Omen shrugged. “I was thinking about other things.”
Never glared.
“Right then,” said Mr Chou, “let’s start off with last night’s prep. Who can give me the answer to the first question? Never?”
Never sagged.
Razzia was bent over the sink in the Ladies, doing her make-up, because that was practically the only room in the whole of Coldheart Prison where the light was good enough, and Abyssinia was in there with her, the two of them just spending time together, not bothering to talk, just two Sheilas hanging out, enjoying the silence, alone with their thoughts, and then Abyssinia said, “I don’t know if I do.”
Razzia stopped applying her mascara, and frowned. Had Abyssinia been speaking this whole time? Had Razzia been answering? Was this another one of those conversations she forgot she was having halfway through?
Strewth, as her dear old dad used to say. Her dear old dad used to say a lot of things, though. Her dear old dad could talk the hind legs off a kangaroo.
Was that a saying? Was that a popular phrase, back in Australia? She couldn’t remember. Her past got so hazy sometimes. She wasn’t even sure if she had a dear old dad, at least one that she’d known. She had a vague image of a nasty man, quick with his fists, but she didn’t like that image, so it went away, and was replaced by Alf Stewart, the cranky but lovable old guy from Home and Away, the greatest television show ever made. Yep, a much better dad to have, she reckoned. Maybe. She hadn’t seen that show in years. Did they still make it?
Oh, bloody hell. Abyssinia was still talking. Now Razzia had completely lost track of what was going on. The only thing she knew for sure was that her mascara wasn’t all done, so she went back to applying it.
Knowing Abyssinia, she was probably talking about her long-lost-now-recently-recovered son, Caisson. She was always talking about him. Razzia got it. She totally understood. Caisson was family, after all. Nothing more important than family.
And it was nice seeing Abyssinia so happy. Those first few weeks, when Caisson didn’t do a whole lot more than have bad dreams while sedated, were the happiest she’d ever seen Abyssinia. She was so proud of her son for sticking it out, for surviving all that pain.
It had reinvigorated her, too, having her son around. Suddenly her attention was back on the plan, because the plan secured Caisson’s legacy. That focus had slipped a little, but now it was back on track. In less than two weeks, it would all kick off.
Razzia couldn’t wait. She hadn’t killed anyone in ages.
But, now that Caisson was up and about, it had quickly become clear to anyone paying attention that he was a weird one.
That wasn’t easy for Razzia to admit. She’d always seen herself as the weird one in Abyssinia’s little group of misfits, so to voluntarily hand over the title to a newcomer – even if he was the long-lost son of the boss – just felt wrong.
But there was no denying it: Caisson was an oddball.
She couldn’t blame him, of course. He’d been tortured pretty much non-stop for ninety years. That would lead anyone to hop on an imaginary plane and take a sojourn from reality. His flesh was scarred, his silver hair – so like his mother’s – grew only in clumps from a damaged scalp, and his eyes always seemed to be focused on something not quite in front of him, and not quite in the distance.
The fact was, though, he could have been a lot worse. According to Caisson, this was all down to his jailer, Serafina. She knew that if he retreated deep enough into his mind there wouldn’t be much point in torturing his body. So, every few weeks Caisson would be given the chance to recover, to get strong … and then it would happen all over again.
The whole thing was just so delightfully sadistic. Razzia hoped one day to meet Serafina. She’d been hitched to that Mevolent fella from ages ago, the one who’d caused all that bother with the war and all. Razzia reckoned she could learn a thing or two from someone like that.
Abyssinia sighed. “What do you think?”
Razzia blinked at her in the mirror. Abyssinia clearly wasn’t asking about her hair, because it was the same as it always was – long and silver. The red bodysuit, maybe? Abyssinia’s recently regrown body was still pretty new, and the suit did a lot to keep it maintained, but she’d been wearing variations of it for months and so Razzia didn’t think she had chosen now to ask how she looked.
Must be Caisson again.
“Well,” Razzia said, “the real question here, Abyssinia, is what do you think?”
Abyssinia exhaled. “I think we press ahead.”
“Yeah,” said Razzia. “Me too.”
“This is what we’ve been working towards, and I shouldn’t let new developments derail us from our goals. I’ve been promising you a new world for years, and I’m not going to abandon you, not when the end is finally in sight.”
“Good to hear.”
“But I just don’t know what to do about the Darkly thing.”
Razzia did her best to look concerned. She did this by pursing her lips and frowning at the ground. She didn’t see what the problem was. The Darkly Prophecy foretold a battle between the King of the Darklands and the Chosen One, Auger Darkly, when the boy was seventeen years old. That was still something like two years away. Plenty of time to kill the Darkly kid before he could kill Caisson. It all seemed simple enough to Razzia.
Abyssinia, like most people, had a tendency to overthink things.
“Prophecies are dodgy,” Razzia said, applying a bit of Redrum lipstick. “If a prophecy foretells what happens in the future, if nothing changes from this point onwards, then all you have to do to avert that prophecy is not do what you otherwise would have done. Bam. On the other hand, how can you be certain that what you don’t do is in fact what leads to the prophecy being fulfilled? Fair dinkum, it’s a complicated business, but, like most complicated businesses, it’s also deceptively simple.”
Abyssinia frowned. “I don’t think that’s entirely true, though.”
“What do I know?” Razzia asked, shrugging. With the back of her hand, she smudged the lipstick to one side, then down to her chin. Perfect. “I’m nuts.”
Valkyrie let herself into her parents’ house, went straight to the kitchen and found her mother reading at the table.
“Oh, good God!” Melissa Edgley said, jerking upright.
Valkyrie laughed. “Sorry. Thought you’d heard me.”
Melissa got up, hugged her. “You don’t make a sound when you walk. I suppose that’s all your ninja training.”
“I don’t have ninja training.”
“Sorry,” her mum said. “Your secret ninja training.”
Valkyrie grinned, and eyed the notebook on the table. “What are you reading that has you so engrossed?”
“This,” said Melissa, “is your great-grandfather’s diary. One of several, in fact. Your dad found them in the attic, packed away with a load of junk.”
“Ah, diaries,” said Valkyrie. “The selfies of days gone by. What are they like?”
“They’re beautiful, actually. Beautiful handwriting and beautiful writing.”
“So that’s where Gordon got his talent from.”
“Well, he didn’t lick it off a stone.” Melissa hesitated, then looked up. “Your dad’s in the other room. He’s, uh �
�� not in the best of moods.”
“What’s wrong?”
Melissa waved the diary. “He’s flicked through a few of these. Your great-granddad was a firm believer in the legend that the Edgleys are descended from the Ancient Ones.”
“The Last of the Ancients,” Valkyrie corrected. “But why does that make him grumpy? He knows it’s all true now.”
“And that,” her mother said, “is the problem.”
Valkyrie took a moment. “Ah,” she said. “Maybe I should talk to him.”
“That might help.”
Valkyrie walked into the living room. Desmond was sitting in his usual chair. The cricket was on.
“Hello, Father,” she said.
“Hello, Daughter,” he responded, not taking his eyes off the screen.
She sat on the couch. “Enjoying this, are you?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Who’s playing?”
Desmond nodded at the TV. “They are.”
“Good game?”
“Not sure.”
“Who’s winning?”
“Don’t know.”
“What are the rules?”
“No idea.”
“I didn’t know you even liked cricket.”
He sat up straighter. “This is cricket?”
She settled back. “Mum told me about the diaries.”
Desmond muted the TV. “My granddad had the best stories,” he said. “The three of us would sit round his armchair and he’d just … I don’t know. Regale us, I suppose. Regale us with family legends about magic men and women, doing all these crazy things, all because we were descended from the Last of the Ancients. But my father, well … he’d grown up with those stories and he was sick of them. He suffered from a, I suppose you’d call it a deficit of imagination. And he used to ridicule the old man, every chance he got. In front of us. I didn’t like that.”
“Right,” said Valkyrie.
“And Fergus followed suit. Turned his back on granddad and his stories. He’d always needed our father’s approval more than Gordon or me, so siding with him against what they both saw as nonsense and fairy stories was one way of building a bond Fergus felt he was missing. I wonder what he’d say now if we told him the truth. I don’t think I could do that to him.”
Valkyrie didn’t say anything to that. It wasn’t her place.
“Me, I loved the stories,” Desmond continued. “They meant something. They meant there was more to life than what I could see around me. They meant I could be more than what I was. Because of my granddad, I wasn’t restricted like my friends were. I had, I suppose, a purpose, if I wanted to seize it.”
“So you believed him,” said Valkyrie.
“I did,” Desmond said. “For a few years. When I was a kid. But I got to age ten, I think, and my dad sat me down and told me there were no such things as wizards and monsters. How wrong he was, eh?” Desmond smiled. “Gordon was the troublesome one. Always had been. Even his name rankled our dad. Fergus and I had good strong Irish names – but Gordon … ha. My mother insisted on naming him after the doctor who delivered him. It was her first pregnancy and there were complications, but that doctor worked a miracle, and the future best-selling author came into the world and brightened it with every moment he was here. Our granddad passed all those stories, all that wonder, down to Gordon, and he just absorbed it. He believed, like I did, but unlike me he never allowed our father to trample that belief. That’s what he had that I didn’t, I suppose. A strength.” Desmond shifted in his chair. “All those stories, they’re in the diaries. You should read them.”
“I will,” said Valkyrie.
Desmond took in a breath. It was shaky. He expelled it slowly, and looked at her. “I’m glad we know about the magic,” he said. “It’s terrifying, knowing that you’re out there, endangering your life, and it makes the world a scarier place, but I’m glad nonetheless. I wish I’d kept believing when I was younger, I really do. Still, I’m thankful Gordon did. Our granddad needed someone to believe him.”
Valkyrie didn’t know what to say, so she got up and hugged her dad. He hugged her back, and then shrugged himself out of his bad mood and turned off the TV.
“Cricket is a silly game,” he said, “and none of it makes any sense. Where’s your mum?”
“Kitchen,” she said, and followed him out.
“Are you in a better mood?” Melissa asked when they walked in.
“I am,” Desmond responded, kissing the top of her head. “Sorry for snapping at you earlier.”
She looked up, surprised. “You snapped at me?”
“Didn’t I?”
“When?”
“Earlier.”
“I don’t recall that.”
“Well, maybe I didn’t snap, as such, but I was curt, and for that you have my most sincere—”
“When were you curt?”
He frowned at her. “Earlier,” he said again. “When we were talking. About the diaries. I was curt when we were talking about the diaries. You didn’t notice?”
“I noticed you being a little grumpy.”
He looked offended. “That wasn’t me being grumpy. That was me being curt. That was my inner darkness shining through. Weren’t you scared by the glimpse of the monster lurking beneath the surface?”
“Not … really.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, dear, you’re just too cuddly to be scary.”
“I am frighteningly cuddly,” he admitted. “But I’m sure I was dark, too, once upon a time.”
“You were pretty dark that day you threw that guy through a window,” Valkyrie said.
“That’s what I’m thinking of,” said Desmond, clicking his fingers. “I knew I’d done something cool.”
“My cool dad,” Valkyrie said wistfully. “So are you going to read the diaries?”
“I am,” he replied. “I will. I owe it to my granddad. It might even give me an insight into what you get up to, saving the world every single day.”
“I don’t save the world every single day,” Valkyrie responded. “I take time off. I go for walks. I go to the gym. I train.”
“Wait now,” said her mum. “Where’s the part in that schedule where you have fun?”
“I have loads of fun.”
“Do you have any friends? Do you go to the cinema? Go out for dinner? What about boys?”
Valkyrie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
Her dad narrowed his eyes. “You’re hesitating. Why are you hesitating? It’s because we’re not going to approve, isn’t it? What is he? Is he a werewolf? Is he a mummy?”
“Dad …”
“Is he a cannibal?”
“God, no. Why would I go out with a cannibal?”
“Love is blind, Stephanie. If you love someone, that means you’re willing to overlook flaws in their character, like cannibalism and being too pretty. Your mother possesses one of those flaws. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one.”
“Such a charmer,” said Melissa.
“I’m not dating a cannibal,” Valkyrie said.
“Are you dating someone?” her mum asked.
Valkyrie nodded.
“And? When are we going to meet him?”
It was on the tip of her tongue. It’s not a him. So easy. Such an easy sentence to say. All she had to do was open her mouth and say it.
But she took too long, and now her dad was nudging her mother’s shoulder. “It’s your fault,” he said. “She won’t bring him home to meet us because she’s afraid you’ll embarrass her. This is always a problem when you have one really cool parent and one lame parent.”
Melissa shook her head. “I preferred you when you were grumpy.”
“I wasn’t grumpy, I was dark.”
“I’m going to say hi to Alice,” Valkyrie said, turning on her heel.
“We’re not finished with this boyfriend stuff!” her mum called out after her.
Valkyrie retreated, away from
the possibility of disappointing her parents. Even though she knew they’d understand. They were liberal, progressive people, after all. They’d handled the truth about magic without unduly freaking out – she was sure they’d have no problem with the whole girlfriend situation.
But, even so, it made her tummy flip as she climbed the stairs.
Her sister’s door was open. Alice sat in the corner of the room, peering into the hamster cage.
“Hey, you,” Valkyrie said.
“Stephanie!” Alice cried, scrambling up and launching herself forward.
Valkyrie laughed and caught her and hugged her. “Hey, gorgeous girl.”
“Are you staying for dinner?” Alice asked, face buried in Valkyrie’s hip.
“I can’t,” Valkyrie said, prising her off. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“With Skulduggery?”
“Yep. But I couldn’t pass without calling in to say hi to the best little sister in the world.”
“Do you want to see me dancing?”
“I’d love to, but I don’t really have time. Did you learn any more moves?”
“Yeah, a few,” Alice said. “Do you want to see them?”
“Tomorrow or the next day,” said Valkyrie. “And bad dreams?”
Alice laughed. “You always ask me that!”
“I know I do. I’m interested.”
“I never have bad dreams.”
“Not even about the horrible man?”
“Ew,” said Alice, making a face. “No. I don’t think about him. He was smelly. I still haven’t told Mum or Dad about him. It’s still our little secret.”
Valkyrie forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said, feeling the guilt start to weigh down on her. She quickly walked over to the hamster cage, eager for a change of subject. “So how’s SpongeBob?”
Alice laughed. “That’s not his name.”
“Is it not? Are you sure?”
“It’s Starlight.”
“Starlight the hamster … yes, I think I remember something about that. Where is he? Is he hiding?”
“There he is,” said Alice, pointing at a lump of fur in the corner of the cage.
