Mythos (The Descendants, #1)

by Vrinda Pendred

  * * *

  Itzy ran out of breath and found herself wandering up a street she didn’t recognise. Who knew how far she’d run. One thing she was sure of was she was lost.

  She still carried the black satin bag she’d brought to the funeral. She rummaged through it now for her mobile and whipped it out. She pressed a button to make a maps app appear and waited for it to find her location. Apparently she was about half a mile from her house.

  Now that she knew how to get back, she felt less worried and decided to walk. It was a nice evening. In England, in July, the sun would hold its place in the sky until late, sometimes not receding until 11 at night. It was 8 now, so it was still bright out, though the sky had taken on a pinkish tint and a breeze was picking up. She had no jacket with her and her arms and legs were bare around her knee-length dress. She shivered each time the air struck her skin.

  Something brushed against her leg and made her jump. She looked down to find a rather elegant cat staring up at her with large golden eyes. She shivered again, this time because the cat looked like it knew who she was.

  But that was crazy.

  ‘Hey, puss,’ she said.

  She squatted on the pavement and reached out to pet the animal. It had a rich reddish-brown coat, soft but not too thick. Its body was long and slender, its neck tall and its ears sort of pointed. Its face was angular and exotic, not like any cat she’d ever seen before. She stroked the cat’s neck and brought up its name tag.

  ‘Eurydice,’ she read aloud.

  She shuddered. The name reminded her of her father’s books on mythology. It seemed she was never going to escape him.

  She pet Eurydice a little longer. Then her legs started to fall asleep and she stood up and resumed walking.

  Eurydice followed her.

  As an experiment, Itzy hurried her pace.

  Eurydice hurried up, too.

  This is insane, Itzy thought. I am not being followed by a cat.

  And she wasn’t - at least, not anymore, because Eurydice flew ahead and was now walking in front of her, leading her somewhere.

  No, no, that’s even crazier.

  But it felt true. Itzy followed the cat, wondering where it could possibly be taking her. Then she froze at the sound of a familiar voice. Two, in fact. It was uncanny, that she had been led here of all places. It set her heart racing. It was like someone was playing a painful joke on her.

  She ducked behind a tall chestnut tree before the two boys could see her. They were sitting on a short white wall that surrounded the front garden of a small sky blue mid-terrace house.

  ‘Stop it,’ Oz was saying.

  ‘Grumble, grumble,’ Seth replied. ‘Now watch this.’

  Itzy leaned sideways and peered around the tree. What she saw was impossible. More than impossible.

  Seth was drawing in the air. He had taken off his mourning suit and now wore a black short-sleeved t-shirt over dark jeans. His muscled arms moved gracefully through the breeze that rushed over them.

  His bright eyes were heavy with concentration, like a real painter - and then an apple dropped out of nothing and bounced off Oz’s head, making him jump.

  ‘Bloody hell, Seth,’ Oz said with a scowl. He rubbed his head. ‘What if the neighbours saw you?’

  ‘Huh,’ said Seth. ‘I wonder if that’s what they said to Isaac Newton when he discovered gravity.’

  He hopped off the wall and knelt over the pavement to pick up the apple where it had landed. He held it up for inspection. It was red and shiny, almost too perfect to be real. He dusted it off on his shirt and sank his teeth into it. He looked pleased with himself.

  ‘It’s really good. Want some?’ He extended it to his friend.

  Oz pushed Seth’s hand away. ‘No, I do not.’

  That was the moment Eurydice chose to bite Itzy behind the tree. She yelped in surprise and stumbled into view - then realised the boys were staring at her. Eurydice bounded over to Oz like he was an old friend.

  ‘Itzel,’ Oz made out, shock and dismay stamped on his face. He sounded like her mother, the way he used her full name. She hated it.

  Well, there was no point in hiding anymore. Itzy walked right up to them and glared at her brother.

  ‘Your stupid cat bit me.’

  Seth smirked at this and glanced down at Itzy’s ankle to see where she was touching the mark. She wasn’t sure how she felt about him eying her legs like that.

  ‘She’s not stupid,’ Oz said. ‘But if you say things like that, I’m not surprised she bit you. Anyway, why are you here?’

  ‘I got lost,’ Itzy blurted. She tried not to notice the way Seth was still looking at her. She suddenly felt the urge to check she was wearing clothes.

  ‘And wound up here?’ Oz said. ‘What are the chances of that?’

  Itzy threw her hands in the air in exasperation. ‘I had no idea you even lived in London. I thought you were in Kent. How was I supposed to know I’d run into you all the way in Ealing, of all places?’

  Oz’s face hadn’t lost that look of suspicion, but he said, ‘I’m nineteen. Thought it was time to move out. Seth was renting and needed a housemate, so…here I am.’ He gestured at the street.

  ‘Less than a mile away from me,’ Itzy informed him.

  Oz stared at her like she had dropped out of the sky, like Seth’s apple. And speaking of that -

  Itzy turned her focus on Seth. ‘How did you do that?’ she asked, startling him out of his examination of her.

  Seth pretended to be confused. ‘Do what?’

  Oz rolled his eyes at his friend. ‘The apple,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘She saw you. Just like I told you someone would.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Seth said in an exaggerated tone. He cocked his head to one side and a wisp of blond hair fell in his eyes. ‘Would you believe me if I said it was a magic trick?’

  Itzy shook her head. She didn’t believe him at all. Because - well -

  ‘I can do that, too,’ she blurted before she could stop herself.

  Oz narrowed his eyes at her in mistrust and said, ‘He didn’t do anything,’ at the same time that Seth said, ‘What can you do?’

  ‘Seth,’ Oz hissed at him.

  Seth shrugged right up to his ears and splayed his hands out, palm up, as if to say, What do you expect?

  ‘I - I can’t just do it,’ Itzy said, disappointed with herself. ‘I mean, I can’t make it happen on demand. Not like - you.’

  But Seth didn’t look disappointed at all. All he said was, ‘What do you mean you can’t make it happen?’ He sounded like he was holding something back - like there was something he knew but he was unsure if he should share it with her, yet.

  Itzy breathed in deeply. The only person she’d ever talked to about this before was Devon. As close as Itzy had been to Ash, she’d never been able to bring herself to share her secret with him.

  But how could she not now say it to someone who had just done something similar? Even if her brother was glaring at her like he was watching her every move, waiting for her to trip and fall over.

  ‘I can…I write,’ she said. She looked down at her hands with their misshapen fingernails. She wished they were longer, prettier, like Devon’s.

  ‘That’s it?’ Oz scoffed. His tone seemed to say, Why are we wasting our time with you? But she could feel Seth still watching her, waiting for her to impress them.

  ‘I write stories,’ Itzy said with more volume. She raised her head a little, though still unable to look her audience in the face. ‘And sometimes something comes over me - I don’t know what it is - and later, whatever I’ve written…I think it comes true.’

  She slowly lifted her gaze, waiting for their reaction. When she met the boys’ eyes, Oz’s face displayed disbelief, while Seth’s showed something that might have been…faith.

  Then Seth turned to Oz and said, ‘Well, she is your sister.’

 
‘Seth,’ Oz whispered, seething. ‘For once in your life, shut up.’

  Seth put up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Oz accused.

  He slipped off the wall and took a step forward. It made Itzy all too aware she was standing there in a black sleeveless dress with a skirt that just covered her knees, bare legs, and ugly trainers splattered in mud from the last time she’d gone for a run in the rain. She might have been seventeen, but she felt more like seven under her brother’s harsh glare.

  She struggled to find her voice. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Prove it,’ he said. He crossed his arms over his chest in challenge.

  ‘I told you. I can’t just do it. Not like - him.’ She gestured at Seth. ‘I don’t have control over it. And it doesn’t happen every time I write. Sometimes my stories are just stories. But then other times, it’s like I go into a sort of….’

  ‘Trance,’ Seth finished for her. Curiosity glowed in his pale eyes.

  Her own dark eyes flew to him in gratitude. ‘Yes. Yes, exactly. And then….’ She trailed off, unable to put the rest into words, but hoping they understood her meaning.

  Seth twisted his neck so his head was sideways and looked askance at his friend. ‘Oz.’

  Oz squeezed his eyes shut in irritation and turned for the house. ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘you want her as a pet, she’s all yours. But if I end up having to feed her, she’s out.’ Then he disappeared inside.

  Seth looked amused. In fact, Itzy found it hard to imagine there was much in the world that would get him down about life. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as a pensive expression overtook him. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels.

  Then he grinned at Itzy and said, ‘Mayan.’ When she didn’t reply, he clarified, ‘Your name. Itzel. Isn’t it Mayan?’

  She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, trying to cover them. Her bag slipped down her shoulder and she caught it before it could fall to the ground. She wondered how this boy knew the origin of her maddeningly esoteric name, but she didn’t want to seem too keen, so all she said was, ‘So?’

  Seth shrugged. ‘I just think it’s interesting. You know where my name’s from?’

  ‘The Bible?’

  He nodded, still grinning at her. ‘He was Adam and Eve’s third son, after Abel was killed.’

  Itzy had been thinking it was also the name of Osiris’ murderous brother in Egyptian mythology, but all she said was, ‘Actually, it’s Itzy. Itzel just sounds like…I dunno. I don’t really like it.’

  Seth’s grin widened, if that were at all possible. ‘Itzy,’ he repeated slowly, like he was savouring the way it sounded. ‘Cute,’ he declared. ‘You cold?’ he asked as she ran her hands quickly up and down her shoulders.

  ‘No,’ she lied.

  Seth laughed. ‘Come inside,’ he said. He nodded his head in the direction of their front door. ‘You’re not exactly dressed right.’

  Itzy glared at him. ‘I don’t like being laughed at.’

  Seth quickly composed himself. ‘Come inside,’ he said again, this time with forced seriousness.

  ‘But Oz -’

  ‘Forget Oz. He’ll get over it. Besides, you heard what he said. You’re my pet, now.’ The grin returned to his face. There was something naturally charming about him, but it was infused with an equally natural arrogance Itzy wasn’t yet sure if she liked.

  But she was curious. She had wondered about her brother for seven years. And not just for obvious reasons, but because of the stories she had inevitably written about Oz. She once had an idea that perhaps if she dreamt of him enough, or wrote about him enough times, he would leave her system. Maybe there was a way to escape the haunting he’d been doing without even being aware of it. But it had never happened.

  And now, after all those years, she found herself faced with the opportunity to enter his sphere of existence, at last.

  Besides, she’d just watched Seth conjure an apple out of thin air. How could she not follow him into the house?

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said. Then he took her hand and pulled her in.

  SEVEN

  Itzy didn’t know what she’d expected. Maybe she’d been tainted by all those American films that showed bachelor pads strewn with video game paraphernalia and comic books; or by the images she took from English programmes, where the men were slobs who spent all their time trying to find a way to get a woman to shag them - it was always shag in those sorts of shows. But Oz and Seth’s house was nothing like any of that. It was immaculate and adult. Everything was white and pristine, as if it hadn’t been lived in.

  The lounge was lined with bookshelves. Some of the titles jumped out at her, the ones with larger font heavily imprinted on oversized hardback spines. The Myths of the Andes. Primal Myths. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Gnostic Gospels. It was like travelling back in time. Itzy couldn’t help herself. She leapt to one of the shelves and fingered a book that stood out in particular. It was a collection of legends from the ancient Mayans.

  ‘This was his,’ Itzy whispered to no one in particular.

  Oz regarded her with practised boredom. ‘I have a lot of his things.’

  She looked up at him sharply. ‘Already? So soon?’ She spun around to take in the entirety of the library that surrounded their incongruous looking grey sofa and flat-screen television. ‘Are all of these his?’ When she looked back at her brother, she knew the answer. ‘How is that even physically possible? It’s only been a week.’

  Seth stepped into the room and cleared his throat. ‘I, er…I sort of….’

  His eyes flashed to Oz, as if for approval, but Oz registered no emotion. He stared at his sister like she was a rare animal he was contemplating shooting.

  Something clicked in Itzy’s head. ‘You brought them here,’ she said, looking at Seth. ‘Like the apple. But that’s…amazing.’

  Seth smiled widely and made a deep bow.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Oz muttered in disgust before going to the sofa and dropping himself on it. He stretched out his legs so there was no room for anyone to join him, and looked at the TV, even though it was off.

  Seth shook his head in disapproval. ‘Here,’ he said to Itzy, ‘come with me.’

  Before she had time to reflect on how strange this was, or how quickly things were moving, she was whisked up the broad staircase and into what she presumed was his bedroom.

  He shut the door behind her and turned to look at her. It felt like he was examining her, like a doctor who just knew there was something to diagnose. She wondered what his verdict might be.

  He strode over to a black chair tucked under a large mahogany desk that rested against a wall clothed in an enormous poster of M. C. Escher’s Angels and Demons. Seth sat down and spun the chair around to face her. His jeaned legs were crossed at the ankles and his arms over his chest, and he stared at her like an inquisitor. Even though he was seated and she stood above him, he still felt imposing. His presence filled the room and made her feel very small.

  ‘So tell me about these trances of yours,’ he said.

  Itzy’s mouth felt dry. She wanted a drink more than anything she’d ever wanted in her whole life. It was the way he looked at her: it sucked something out of her.

  Then he was on his feet and offering her the chair.

  ‘You look pale,’ he noted as she sat down.

  Except this didn’t fix anything, because now he was even more imposing, looking down at her. He seemed to sense this and he sat down on the carpet. His muscles flexed as he wrapped his arms around his knees. For a moment, Itzy had the time to reflect that Seth was a little bit gorgeous.

  ‘So,’ he reminded her, ‘the trances.’

  ‘Um….’ What a great beginning. She tried again. ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s like…I guess it’s like an out of body experience?’

&
nbsp; That was it, the words were coming now. They were taking shape in her mind, making sense at last.

  ‘I’ll be sitting there, just writing, right? Then something comes over me, without warning, and I’m no longer there. Except I am. I’m there, but I’m not there. Does that make any sense?’

  Seth’s expression was difficult to interpret. He said nothing, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘I’m in there somewhere, watching myself write. It’s like I’m watching a film. Then later, I come back. I just…wake up, I guess. And I think, what just happened? Where am I? And I look down at the paper and I’ve written something. Only I don’t remember writing it. And it doesn’t sound like my writing. It’s not words I use. Sometimes it’s not even words I know. But when I look them up in the dictionary, I find I’ve used them correctly.’

  ‘Does it scare you?’ Seth finally spoke.

  Itzy considered this. ‘It used to. I guess I’ve got used to it, now. Sort of.’

  ‘Sort of.’

  She wished his eyes wouldn’t bore into hers like that. Was he even aware he was doing it? ‘I’m not scared of the trances,’ she explained.

  ‘But you’re scared of what happens next,’ Seth finished for her.

  She nodded.

  He pursed his lips together until they went white from the pressure. Then he jumped to his feet in a swift, fluid motion. ‘Right,’ he said, and clapped his hands together like he had a plan. ‘But you don’t know how to make it happen.’

  Itzy shook her head at him. Why was he so interested in her?

  ‘So you believe me?’ she said.

  He looked startled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘But why?’ she asked, thinking how Devon hadn’t believed it.

  The corners of Seth’s mouth curled up in amusement. ‘Because I used to have the same trances before I drew things out of the air.’

  Itzy couldn’t take her eyes off the strange boy - young man - whatever. She still couldn’t decide whether she liked him. But he was the first person to understand what she was going through. The first person in the whole world.

  After years of having only Devon, and then Ash, as her friend, while everyone else around her seemed to regard her like there was something about her that unnerved them, but they couldn’t quite put their finger on what it was - well, Seth’s brazen interest in her counted for something.

  She stood to face him. ‘I thought I was the only one, you know.’

  Seth smiled sadly at her. It was a strange look for him, almost humble but not quite. ‘I did too.’

  ‘Until today,’ she added. She saw something flicker in his glassy eyes and she backed away from him. ‘But not for you. You…there’s someone else.’

  Seth looked like he was waiting for her to fill in the gaps herself.

  ‘Oz,’ she guessed.

  And he repeated what he’d said to Oz earlier: ‘Well, you are his sister.’

  Itzy sat down in the chair again. Her feet went numb and soon it was like they weren’t there. She fumbled for the right question. There it was.

  ‘What can he do?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Seth said. He laughed and shook his head. ‘That’s his business, if he wants to show you. I’m not telling.’

  He went to his bed and sat down. His back was against the wall and his knees up, an arm on each and his legs slightly apart. The bed, like everything else in their house, was a little too perfect. Above it was another art print, this time a Dali painting of clocks dripping over a dreamlike desert.

  Itzy raked one of her hands through her black hair, accidentally coming away with a strand twisted around her fingers. She rubbed it into a ball and threw it on the floor in irritation. ‘How many of us are there?’ she asked.

  Seth cocked a finger at her like a gun going off. ‘Now that is the right question to ask.’

  ‘And are you going to answer it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Sure. The answer is: I don’t know. I think a lot, though I haven’t met many others. Yet.’

  Itzy’s heart stopped in her mouth. ‘A lot?’ she squeaked. ‘You mean it’s not just you and Oz?’

  Seth leaned forward, as if to get a closer look at her, even though they were several feet apart. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

  She blinked. ‘Know what?’

  Seth smirked at her, though it was mixed with something else. Pity, perhaps. Like the way he’d looked at her at the funeral.

  ‘I can’t believe no one ever told you,’ he said softly.

  Itzy could feel herself losing patience. And it wasn’t good when she lost patience. Ash had learned that the hard way.

  She breathed deeply and counted to five, before saying, ‘Would you just tell me what’s going on, already?’

  Seth sighed. ‘Alright. I guess someone has to. Your dad. Stephen.’

  ‘What about him?’ she demanded, struggling to keep back the emotions.

  ‘He was an alien.’

  Itzy recoiled as if she’d been slapped.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ she said. Her voice was cool and even, but the feeling bubbling through her veins was anything but.

  ‘Itz,’ he said, but she cut him off again.

  ‘And don’t call me that. You don’t know me. You’re not my friend. I doubt you even like me. So do not speak to me like you do.’

  ‘Itzel,’ he tried again, but it was too late, and she found she didn’t like him speaking her whole name, either.

  The rage boiled through her veins like hot oil, bursting into flames within her heart. She could hardly see Seth anymore. Her head pounded and the air filled with blinding stars. She blinked and blinked but couldn’t get rid of the points of light devouring her sight. At the edges, thin lines of black crept toward her, like arms reaching out to grab her.

  Then she was floating, up, up and away, like that old song Ash once told her he found hilarious. She felt herself receding, giving way to something else, something powerful that would not be repressed. It rose to the surface and took control. She could see it. It had found a pen, paper, and it was writing.

  It was a long time before she returned to her body. She was clutching the pen like a lifeline, her palm white, in need of blood. And she was shaking all over.

  She heard someone cry out. Someone male. Her brother.

  Seth was already hurrying out of the room and down the stairs. She heard him swear, and there were banging noises. What was going on?

  You mean: what have you done?

  She shook herself free of the thought and felt impelled toward the staircase, where her eyes were drawn to the lounge. Oz and Seth were dodging books that were flying off the shelves. It wasn’t like they were being thrown, but rather like they were bats blindly darting around.

  Seth shouted, ‘Make it stop!’

  Itzy stared wonderingly before she realised he was looking right at her. He meant her.

  ‘Stop it!’ he ordered again.

  ‘I - I can’t!’ she answered him.

  ‘Oh, for f -’

  His words were cut off by a bound copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh slamming into his face. He grabbed at it angrily and hurled it onto the floor. Then his hands danced through the air like an orchestra conductor, and every book immediately returned to its shelf. The sudden stillness was shocking.

  Oz smoothed out his black hair and glared at his friend. ‘I told you not to bring her in.’

  Seth rolled his eyes. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said. He straightened his t-shirt back over his jeans, and then returned his attention to Itzy. He was already grinning again. ‘I guess we’ve figured out what causes the trances.’

  She hurtled down the stairs and surveyed the room. It was amazing, the way everything was back in its place, as if she’d done nothing. Seth must have been responsible for how perfect everything in the house looked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying not to meet her brother’s angry stare. He made her
feel small too, but in a different way. At least Seth didn’t leave her feeling like he disapproved of her entire existence.

  Oz returned to his place on the sofa and glared at them both. But he surprised her by asking, ‘What set her off?’

  Seth shot him a smile, like he was about to share an inside joke. ‘I told her your dad was an alien.’

  Oz sighed. ‘Seth, really. You couldn’t think of any other way to say it?’ Then something occurred to him and he looked at Itzy. ‘Wait. You mean you didn’t know?’

  Itzy nearly doubled over herself. ‘That he was an alien?’ she repeated, her anger resurfacing.

  ‘Whoa, whoa,’ said Seth.

  He stepped front of her and placed a hand on each of her bare shoulders. She shrugged him off and he stepped back, that stupid grin planted on his face.

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’ he asked. It was a dare.

  ‘Did you think that was fun?’ she spluttered, unable to believe him.

  To her amazement, Oz laughed. ‘Seth is damaged goods,’ he said. ‘He gets off on danger.’

  It did him good, laughing. It softened all his features and reminded Itzy of Loving Stephen. The little girl in her wanted to cry for it. Oz sat up and motioned to the sofa. A resigned invitation. She took him up on his offer and sat down, feeling deeply uncomfortable.

  ‘Saying he was an alien isn’t exactly accurate,’ Oz told her.

  Seth took up residence on the floor in front of them, knees up and legs slightly apart the way he’d been on the bed. ‘It’s not exactly a lie, either,’ he commented.

  ‘Cheers for that helpful input,’ said Oz. ‘Anyway. If you don’t already know this stuff, it’s going to sound mad, but you need to keep an open mind.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘An open mind. It’s open. I’m ready.’

  Oz looked doubtful, but he told his story nonetheless. ‘Thousands of years ago, a race of aliens visited Earth.’

  Seth gave them both a look like, See? but Oz ignored him.

  ‘They met the early humans and taught them things. They gave them the Wisdom. They helped them build things no one had ever dreamt of before and changed the whole of society, influenced whole religions. It was only a matter of time before some of them fell in love with the humans, and they mated.’

  Seth sniggered at the choice of word, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘And what?’ said Itzy, hardly able to believe she was actually having this conversation. ‘Created some sort of alien-human hybrid super-race?’

  Seth laughed. ‘She sums it up well.’

  Oz glared at him. ‘I guess you could put it that way,’ he acknowledged to his sister. ‘The point is, they’ve been around for millennia. My dad - our dad,’ he amended with heavy reluctance, ‘was one of the Descendants. And that means….’

  ‘So are we,’ Itzy finished.

  He nodded.

  She tried to process what he had just told her, but all it did was make her laugh. It was a loud, cackling sort of laugh she imagined a witch might make. It was embarrassing.

  Not as embarrassing as these shoes, she thought again. She wished she could write herself into some other clothing.

  As if reading her mind, Seth dashed his hands through the air and she found herself wearing jeans and a blood-red tank top. She still wore the trainers, but they were clean.

  She gave him a guarded look. ‘Ta…but couldn’t you have given me some sleeves?’

  He shrugged his muscled shoulders. ‘I like your arms.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Oz brought them back to the previous conversation. ‘Look, we’re not making it up. It’s why you can do what you can do.’

  What you can do, he said. He spoke with such ease and calm, it was shocking to see just how normal this discussion was for him.

  ‘Could our father do anything…special?’ she asked.

  Oz shook his head, making his dark hair touch his eyes. ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘We think this is a new thing,’ Seth explained from the floor. ‘Like maybe it’s only younger people who can do these things.’

  ‘Do you know why?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ they both said.

  Itzy slumped back on the sofa so her lower back rested on the cushioned arm. Her head hurt. ‘Does Gwen know?’ She felt ill at the thought that everyone had been sharing a secret, some private joke that didn’t include her.

  Oz gave her a quizzical look. ‘Does she know…?’ Then he got it. ‘Oh. Right. Yes, she knows about our lineage.’

  Lineage. It sounded like such a strange word to say like that, like it was normal and held meaning for them. It was a word she associated with royalty. But she was just Itzy.

  Seth held out a glass of water for her. ‘Did you conjure that up, too?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, his face serious. ‘I ran the tap.’

  What a daze she must have been. She hadn’t noticed him leave the room.

  She took the glass and drank the liquid, gratefully savouring the way it coated her throat and filled her stomach. What time was it? How long had it been since she’d eaten? What was her mother doing? Was she worried? Or was she passed out on the sofa, unable to worry about a thing?

  She swallowed the last drip of water and cradled the empty glass in her lap. ‘There was a note,’ she said. ‘When he…died. He wrote something. A message.’

  Oz’s brow went up. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been told something. ‘What did it say?’ he asked, for the first time genuinely interested in her.

  And Itzy told him. ‘“Don’t let them get my children.”’

  Oz’s mouth fell open. Then it shut. Then Seth asked, ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Seth,’ Oz spoke with tremendous patience, ‘it’s obvious she doesn’t know.’ He let his gaze wander back to his sister. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  There was an unexpected softness in his voice. It made her sad, like perhaps in another lifetime they could have meant something to each other.

  ‘I really don’t,’ she said just as softly.

  There was a long silence, and then Seth jumped to his feet. ‘I just remembered I have to do something,’ he announced in such an obvious way, it made Itzy blush with embarrassment. But really, she was touched he was trying to give her and Oz time alone.

  Oz rolled his eyes at his friend, but said nothing as Seth waved at them both and left the room.

  When he’d gone, Oz turned back to Itzy and said, ‘You still don’t believe us, do you?’ He absently rubbed his thumb and his middle finger together, a nervous habit he must have picked up from their father. Itzy wondered if he even realised he did that.

  ‘Would you?’ she countered.

  He tilted his head in consideration. ‘I guess not.’

  ‘When did you…?’ She was going to say find out, except that involved acknowledging he was telling the truth.

  ‘When I was twelve,’ Oz told her. He flopped backward on the sofa so they were facing, his legs out slightly and their feet almost touching.

  ‘You mean, when he…?’

  Oz chuckled at her. ‘You’re not a very good speaker, are you?’

  Itzy had nothing to say to that, because it was true. She was a decent writer, but when it came to speaking aloud, she froze up. The words got jumbled in her head and either came out in the wrong order, or they refused to come out at all.

  ‘Anyway, yes,’ said Oz. ‘It was when he came to live with us.’

  ‘Does Evelyn know?’

  He shook his head. ‘Our dad liked his secrets.’

  She snorted. ‘Tell me about it.’

  When she next spoke, she chose her words with care. Oz was starting to open up to her, and she didn’t want to move too quickly, for fear he might shut down again.

  ‘Did you know who he was? I mean…I guess you wouldn’t have. You were just a baby when…weren’t you?’
/>   Oz pushed his fingers through his black hair. When he put his hands back down on his thighs, she noticed his nails were just as ragged as hers.

  ‘No, I knew,’ he admitted. ‘He sometimes came to visit us, usually on my birthday. He’d bring me presents. Then I wouldn’t see him again for the rest of the year.’

  Itzy felt knocked back by this revelation. How long had her father been leading two lives? Had all of her life been a lie, then?

  ‘I can’t imagine….’

  He almost smiled at her. ‘Care to finish a sentence, for a change?’ Itzy rolled her eyes at him, the way a little sister probably should do with her big brother. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘things were different, when he lived with us. Though, if I’m honest, I don’t remember it clearly. I guess I blocked some things out.’

  ‘You would,’ Itzy said. ‘I’ve done it too. There are a lot of…blank spots where I know things have happened, but my mind just won’t let me remember.’

  Oz held her eyes thoughtfully. She wondered what was going on in his head, whether he was realising they were similar, after all, and perhaps he should give her a chance to show she was worth his time.

  Then he said, ‘The first time he told me what we are…I didn’t believe it either.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He looked puzzled by it himself. ‘It just felt right, for some reason. Like I’d always known it, deep down, but I’d forgotten.’

  Itzy blinked.

  ‘Believe me, I know how it sounds,’ he assured her. Then the corners of his mouth sagged. ‘You should go home. Your mum’s probably worried about you.’

  It was so strange, hearing him say your mum, knowing she wasn’t his mother too, and yet he was her brother.

  ‘I very much doubt that,’ Itzy said with a deep sigh. ‘She’s probably unconscious on the floor, about now.’

  Oz lifted one of his dark brows. ‘Why don’t you sound worried about that?’

  ‘Years of experience,’ she said wryly.

  Oz seemed about to quiz her further, but changed his mind. ‘Seth!’ he called up the stairs. ‘Come say goodbye.’

  The door opened and Seth appeared. ‘Oh, right,’ he muttered, scurrying down the stairs. When he got closer, he told Itzy, ‘I expect I’ll see you again.’

  She didn’t know if he would or not. She hardly knew what to make of everything. So she gave him a small smile and shrugged.

  Oz headed out the front door, but Seth seemed to want to say something more and stayed put.

  ‘You were wrong, you know,’ he told her. When Itzy looked puzzled, he explained, ‘When you said I didn’t like you. It’s not true.’ To her horror, he looked about to hug her.

  This was the strangest day of her life.

  ‘You coming?’ Oz interrupted from the doorway.

  Itzy turned and saw him twirling a key ring around his forefinger. ‘You’re driving me home?’

  Oz lifted his shoulders like he didn’t want this to be a big deal. She looked back at Seth and gave him a shy wave, which he acknowledged with a nod. Then she followed her brother out of the house and noticed a black Ferrari sitting outside.

  ‘Get in,’ Oz instructed.

  ‘That wasn’t here before,’ Itzy stated the obvious. And then, ‘Seth.’

  ‘The one and only.’ Oz opened the door and climbed in. He leaned over the seats to push open the door on the other side of the car and looked out at her.

  Itzy climbed into the car beside him. ‘This is really weird. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Why is it weird?’ he asked as he put the key in the ignition and started the engine. ‘Put on your seatbelt.’

  She did just that. ‘I thought you hated me.’

  He sighed as the car started rolling down the road. ‘I don’t hate you. I just don’t know you. At all. I didn’t even know I had a sister until I was twelve.’

  ‘And you resented me for having our father when you didn’t,’ she supposed. He didn’t deny it. ‘And tonight? Why are you suddenly being nice to me?’

  Oz was silent for a long, long time, his gaze fixed firmly on the road, which had finally fallen prey to darkness. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said at last. ‘We’re not friends.’

  Her blood ran cold at his words. ‘We’re not?’

  He laughed.

  He laughed at her.

  ‘Didn’t you just hear me? I don’t even know you. How can I be friends with a stranger?’

  ‘Stop the car,’ Itzy whispered.

  He whipped his head sideways to look at her, even while driving. ‘What?’

  ‘I said stop the car.’ She put out her hand to grab his arm. The jagged edges of her nails dug into his skin.

  He winced and shook himself free, but he put the break on. ‘You have to get control of that anger. We both had it, too. It’s part of what we are. But you can learn to control it.’

  That was good to know. In fact, it was the first really good thing she’d heard all day. But she still felt lightheaded and like she wanted to run away.

  She pushed her way out of the car and slammed the door behind her. A small part of her hoped Oz would call after her, try to make her get back in, be reasonable. But instead, he did a u-turn and drove back to his house, leaving her standing in the blacked-out street.

  What had happened?

  She took a breath and tried to get her bearings. With horror, she realised she knew this neighbourhood. In fact, she knew the street like the back of her own hand.

  And more than that, she knew the boy pushing the recycling bins to the front of the garden, just metres away from her.

  Just when she thought her night couldn’t get any worse, Oz had dropped her off in front of Ashley Morgan’s house.

  EIGHT

  ‘Itzy?’ Ash said as he dumped a big blue plastic box on the pavement. He dusted his hands on his jeans and strode over to her. Even after all those months, she still thought he was the most handsome creature she had ever beheld.

  She remembered the first time she’d seen him, two years ago. He had just moved from Ruislip to Ealing, and he’d burst into the classroom like a bright star come to illuminate her life. He’d sat across the room from her, with five other people between them, but it had been like they weren’t even there.

  And as Itzy stared and stared and brazenly stared at him, he felt her eyes on him and turned to meet them. They stared at each other, across the sea of desks and other students who no longer seemed real to her. Then she realised the other students were glancing at each other, shocked that someone had finally managed to draw Itzel Loveguard out of her self-imposed bubble of isolation.

  She’d fancied people before, but they were usually fictitious characters in the books she read. Ash was the first real boy she’d ever lost her heart to.

  After class, it was Ash who had initiated things. He had a radiant smile that spoke to her heart in a way no one ever had, and she thought, This must be what love feels like. It was beautiful in how different it was from the mandatory love she felt for her mother or the memory of her father. It was even different from what she felt for Gwen. It was closest to her feelings for Devon, but there was something more. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was waking up from a dream and she had a new hunger for reality, if this was what it had to offer her, after all.

  They became immediately inseparable, which was strange, because in a way, they had nothing in common. Ash was into awful low-budget films he referred to as kitsch. His parents were originally from Trinidad, and he had a passion for soca music and 1970s funk classics. He was an adept swimmer with an unfortunate obsession with snooker, and he had more patience than anyone Itzy had ever known - even more than Devon.

  Itzy, on the other hand, had never been athletic in any way and had a terror of playing anything competitive or exposing her body, even if only in a swimming costume. She lacked the natural confidence and
smoothness Ash possessed. She filled her head with eighteenth and nineteenth century classic literature that was always ultimately soap opera littered with things like prostitution, consumption and suicide, and she listened to music that could have been described as poetry over soft rhythms. Usually, it was moody and ambient and demanded to be played under low lighting, late at night, and there was an expectation that one might cry to it. In short, Ash was sunshine, while Itzy was moonlight.

  But they learned they shared one very significant similarity: they both had absent fathers. Itzy’s had walked out, but Ash’s was dead. Which lent him another dimension, an underlying sadness Itzy felt drawn to. She loved that he could be so alive and happy despite his difficulties. In a way, she supposed he inspired her.

  The only trouble was Ash had spent so much time looking after his mother, it seemed the only way he knew how to relate to the female of the species was by taking care of them. He was unable to treat Itzy as anything other than a delicate flower on the verge of being crushed, and it grew stifling.

  But even after all their months apart - after Itzy had tried and tried to be ‘just friends’ and finally walked away for good, because Ash had been incapable of making such a transition in their relationship - she still found it hard not to stare at him. He was so beautiful, it hurt to look at him.

  He had dark skin, the colour of chocolate, and eyes a slightly lighter shade of brown. They were permanently wide and hopeful, full of all the optimism she had never had. He wasn’t muscled like Seth, but he had definition. His face was heart-shaped, his chin strong. She couldn’t help recalling how it had felt to be held in those arms, or kissed by those lips.

  ‘Hiya,’ she said. She lifted her arm in a little wave and tried not to show how much she was trembling. Which was ridiculous. This wasn’t how people reacted when they were moving on from their exes.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘And who was that in the flash car?’ He whistled at the thought of it, and Itzy smiled. Ash loved Top Gear.

  ‘My brother,’ she told him.

  Ash’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’

  She let out a breath. ‘I know, right?’

  He ran his hands over his head. The dark curly hair had been cut close, drawing out his forehead. Itzy used to like running her own hands over it, and wished she could do it now.

  ‘That’s intense, Itz,’ he finally said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Wanna come inside?’

  The way he said it sounded like if she turned him down, he’d be disappointed, yet he hoped she would do it anyway. It had been so long since they had really spoken. She wondered if they could even do it anymore, or if they would both slip right back into some old routine of how things used to be.

  She wasn’t sure if that would be good or bad, because on the one hand, she was scared of what might happen. She didn’t want to betray Devon. But on the other hand, Itzy and Ash had always been very good friends, above all else, and she missed that like she would have missed an amputated arm.

  Perhaps in their time apart, he had changed. Perhaps this was their chance to find their way back to normal.

  So she said, ‘Yes. Please.’

  Itzy followed him into the familiar house where she used to sneak up to his room when his mother was out and kiss him until they both thought their lips might fall off. Tonight, his mother was home, and she shot her a suspicious look when she saw her. Her expression read, After everything you did, you’re back?

  ‘Hullo, Mrs Morgan,’ Itzy greeted her. She gave a slight wave before clasping her hands in front of her for lack of anything better to do with them. She felt awkward in her own skin and didn’t know how to stand.

  ‘Hello, Itzel,’ she acknowledged her formally. Then she looked away and pretended to be engrossed in something on the television, even though it was only an advert for washing powder. And Mrs Morgan hated cleaning.

  Soundlessly, Itzy followed Ash up the stairs to his room - ‘the place where the magic happens,’ he’d once joked, even though nothing close to the euphemistic magic had ever occurred between them.

  Her head was flooded with memories - of the beginning - of all those sweet moments when he was her Ash - and finally, of how it had all ended.

  She had thrown an oversized hardback encyclopaedia at him. She remembered it had read Aa-An on the spine, but she couldn’t remember why she’d thrown it.

  He’d been so surprised, his reaction to the pain had been delayed. The next day, there was a deep red mark on his temple and she found she could no longer look at him without wishing she were someone else, anyone at all but Itzel Loveguard.

  That was when she decided it had to end. It’s not you, it’s me, she’d almost told him, before she realised that as true as that was, it sounded cliché and false. So she had simply told him, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

  They had been standing under a tree; she could still see it in her head. It was January, and it was bitterly cold. Ash had worn a long wool double-breasted trench coat the colour of his name. A red and yellow striped knitted scarf encircled his throat and he had a black knitted hat on his almost-shaved head. She’d been wearing her usual jeans and trainers, with a plain jumper, covered by her own black coat, shapeless around her lack of figure.

  When he spoke, the frost followed his words, trailing in the air like smoke. ‘Do what?’ he asked.

  There had been desperation in his voice, when she thought there should have been impatience. She wished he would argue with her, would criticise her, would tell her how ridiculous she was being. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he sounded like he genuinely wondered what he’d done wrong, and how he might be able to fix things between them.

  Itzy had never been the sort of girl boys wanted to date. Her face had a perpetually haunted look to it, as if she’d seen horrors she dared not reveal to them, and that was just too much emotional baggage for them to volunteer to take on. But not Ashley Morgan. He seemed to thrive on emotional baggage. And she couldn’t take it, anymore.

  ‘Ash,’ she said, her impatience clear in her voice, ‘We just don’t work. I don’t think we ever have. Can you really tell me you’re happy with me?’

  And Ash looked deeply into her eyes and said, ‘But I love you.’

  For him, that had been enough. But not for her.

  ‘That’s not the same as happiness,’ she’d told him. ‘As much as I wish you could…you can’t change my mind on this.’

  Then she’d walked away, leaving him standing bewildered under the tree. Its branches were stripped of leaves from the cold, making him look like he was standing under a skeleton.

  When she got back home, she thought she would cry. But she didn’t. Because, alarmingly, she realised it was the first time she’d been able to breathe easily in a long, long time.

  That was when she’d learned sometimes you didn’t know just how bad things were until they were over.