Mythos (The Descendants, #1)

by Vrinda Pendred

  * * *

  They both moved to sit on the bed, and then jumped up like they’d stepped on hot coals.

  ‘You,’ Ash said. He motioned to the bed.

  Without argument, Itzy sat down, wrinkling up the duvet. Ash went out of the room, down the hallway, to retrieve the computer desk chair. When he returned, he pushed the chair inside and shut his door. He sat down and waited for her to tell her story.

  So she did. She told him everything. Well, apart from the bit about being descended from aliens and having magic powers. She wasn’t too sure how he’d respond to that, and she still didn’t really believe Oz about it anyway. When she finished, Ash stared at her in amazement.

  He put his hands to his temples and shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Wait, wait. All of that happened…in a week?’

  She nodded and bit her lip.

  ‘Oh, Itz,’ he said. It was so sweet, it broke her heart that little bit more. ‘Itz,’ he said again.

  He stood and walked toward her, sitting down beside her, putting his arms around her, folding her against his chest. Oh God, how she’d missed this, how she wished they could go back to how they once were, how she could just -

  Devon.

  The name rang painfully in her head and she pulled away. He seemed to know what she was thinking and he drew back too.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Ash said. For a moment, she was unsure whether he was sorry for her or for what they had just almost shared. ‘I had no idea so much was going on with you.’

  Itzy wanted to cry. But no, she definitely didn’t want to cry in front of him. She’d done that too many times when they were together. ‘I don’t mind,’ he’d told her, but he never got it: she minded. She hated being the fragile one who wrecked everything.

  Even when she’d thrown the encyclopaedia, she’d seen it in his eyes: the sympathy. He would have done anything for her, and she couldn’t stand it. She knew what she’d do to him if it went on any longer. He was like the puppy on the Andrex ads, and she was Cruella Deville.

  ‘I just wish I’d been able to talk to him,’ she said. ‘Just once more. You know?’

  Of course Ash knew. His father had died when Ash was only six. He had vague memories of the man, but not a lot to hold onto.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t hung up on him when he rang,’ she blurted.

  ‘Itzy,’ Ash said gently. He moved an inch closer and placed one of his delicate hands on her shoulder. ‘You had no way of knowing he would do this.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Itzy admitted. ‘But that’s just the thing. You never know, do you? What’s going to happen, I mean. You can’t rely on anything.’

  Ash winced. ‘I hate to say it…but you sound a little like him.’

  Itzy let out a breath. ‘No, I don’t mean that. I just mean…you can’t waste time being angry at people, can you?’

  His eyes fell sadly. ‘No, you can’t. But at the same time…Itz, it was domestic violence. Your mother gave him chance after chance after chance. So did you, for that matter. And you’re not responsible for him, yeah? He was your father and you were the child. It was his job to look after you, not the other way round. I know you loved him, in spite of everything, and I know you and your mother wanted to help him…but there’s only so much you can do for a person before you have to protect yourself. You know?’ He nudged her for agreement.

  ‘I know. It’s just….’ She broke off there, frightened of what she was about to say. Was she really about to acknowledge even part of Oz and Seth’s crazy story?

  ‘Just what?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘Well. What if he couldn’t help it?’

  Ash squinted at her. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What if it was…some sort of disease,’ she said, pleased to have struck upon the right word.

  ‘It still doesn’t make it right,’ he told her. ‘If you’re sick, go see a doctor. Don’t beat up your wife and kid, you know?’

  Itzy pressed her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes until she saw stars. ‘I know, I know.’

  He drew her hands away so he could look at her face. He held her wrists and asked, ‘What are you going to do about your brother?’

  She felt her arms go limp in his grasp. She wanted to be with him more than anything in the world. Wasn’t there some way to fix things, to be better than she was? Or to make Ash less tolerant of her and not let her get away with so much?

  Because what had frightened Itzy most about her relationship with Ash was that she could easily imagine him turning into Myra, and Itzy into Stephen, and there was just no way she could allow that to happen.

  ‘What can I do about him?’ she asked.

  Ash placed her hands in her lap and released her. ‘Look, you can’t talk to your dad again. We know that.’ She nodded grimly. ‘But Oz is still here.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she insisted with a shake of her head. Her black hair dusted the sides of her face. ‘He doesn’t want to know me.’

  ‘Did he say that?’

  Itzy glanced at the door evasively and shifted in place. ‘Nooo.’

  ‘Sooo?’ he teased. His caramel eyes sparkled. ‘He probably just needs time. Wouldn’t you? But…it won’t happen unless you try.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ she moaned. She flopped backward on the bed and her hair splayed around her head like a puddle of ink. ‘What do I have to offer anyone? Why would he want to know me? I’m a mess.’

  Ash leaned over her and frowned. ‘You’re not a mess,’ he said. ‘And I can’t think of a single reason why anyone wouldn’t want to know you.’

  This is it, she thought as she looked up at him. All she had to do was reach up and put her arms around his neck, pull him down, and they’d be right back to where they had been six months before.

  A phone rang. The ring tone was some indie rock song Itzy didn’t know. She hadn’t even known Ash liked that sort of music.

  But she knew someone who did.

  ‘It’s Devon,’ Ash announced. He pushed off the bed and dug his phone out of his jeans pocket. He put the phone to his ear. ‘Hey, Dev. Uh-huh. She’s over here. I know.’

  He turned around and opened the door, heading out into the hallway for some privacy. He’d never had to hide from Itzy before. Not when he’d been hers.

  It was all too much. She just didn’t belong anywhere. It was almost as if she were an….

  She groaned. ‘No, don’t say you feel like an alien,’ she scolded herself.

  She heaved herself off Ashley’s bed and onto her feet. She heard him whispering down the hall, probably in the little alcove where they kept the family computer. She shouldn’t have come. This wasn’t her world anymore, and she had no one to blame but herself, because she was the reason why Ash was even with Devon.

  When Itzy had stopped returning his phone calls, he fell apart. Eventually, he turned to the one person who knew Itzy best: Devon.

  Devon had been wary of it at first. She’d never known Ash in any personal way. So she told Itzy it had come as a surprise when he began sharing with her the layers underneath - layers he hadn’t even shared with Itzy, despite how much she used to beg him to open up to her more.

  Perhaps they had always been meant to come together, and Itzy had just been a detour, the obstacle that needed to be overcome in order to get Ash to the person he could truly be himself with.

  Itzy had a habit of analysing her friends as if they were characters in one of the books she read.

  Now she crept down the stairs, hoping no one would notice her leaving.

  Mrs Morgan caught her. ‘Going?’

  Itzy nodded sheepishly. ‘Just…tell Ash I said thanks, yeah?’

  His mother regarded Itzy in a pitiful sort of way. ‘I heard about your father,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Itzy nodded. ‘Uh-huh. Anyway…goodbye.’

  Then she pivoted on her heels and left Ash
to talk to his girlfriend.

  NINE

  When Itzy got home, she found she’d been right: her mother was passed out on the sofa. Itzy opened a wooden box that lay at the end of the sofa and pulled out a woven woolly throw patterned to look like daisy chains. Myra’s mother had made it, before she died. Itzy tossed it over her mother’s body and straightened it so it fit around her shoulders. Itzy had been doing things like that for years. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like the child in their relationship.

  Itzy pulled off her trainers and left them by the front door before heading up the stairs. At the top, on the right, was her room.

  When she opened the door, the first thing her eyes found was the wardrobe. Her childhood hiding place. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was cheap and old and could probably do with replacing. But for some reason, she felt like it meant something, now. Like there was something she should know.

  ‘I’m going mad,’ she muttered.

  She shut the door behind her and threw herself on the bed, her bag in her lap. She fished around inside it for her phone, but couldn’t find it. She groaned and pulled herself up, heading back out to find the portable landline phone.

  It turned out to be in her mother’s room down the hall, sitting on top of a mirrored jewellery box. She punched her own number into the phone and waited to hear it ring somewhere in her room. Except instead of that, a male voice answered.

  ‘Itzy’s phone, how may I help you?’

  She frowned. ‘Seth?’

  ‘Itzy!’ he said. He sounded genuinely pleased. ‘Finally, it’s you! Someone named Devon has been trying to reach you, by the way.’

  ‘Er, thanks.’ Itzy headed back to her room and shut the door. She lay back down on her bed. ‘Sorry I left my phone there.’

  ‘You didn’t. I nicked it.’

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard that right. ‘You what?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you again,’ he explained.

  ‘So you stole my phone.’

  ‘Mm-hm.’

  ‘You could’ve just asked for my number and rung me yourself,’ she pointed out. She twirled a piece of her long hair around her finger.

  ‘Boring,’ Seth said.

  Itzy let out an exasperated noise. ‘So why did you want to speak to me?’

  ‘What would you say if I told you it always gets me hot and bothered when girls telekinetically throw books at me?’

  ‘I’d say you’re mad, but I already figured that out,’ she told him as she tugged harder on her hair.

  ‘That’s what you think of me?’ He sounded bemused by the description. ‘So what can I do to get you to change your mind?’

  ‘About you being mad? I don’t know. Maybe don’t nick my phone?’

  He laughed on the other end.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she said.

  ‘I know. But that just makes it funnier.’

  Itzy groaned. ‘Is there a point to this conversation? When can I get my phone back? I need to ring Devon.’

  ‘Is that who came with you to the funeral, today?’ he asked.

  God, was that only today? So much had happened, it felt like it had been at least a month. ‘Yes,’ she said wearily. ‘Now when can I get my phone back?’

  ‘Right now, if you want.’

  Itzy narrowed her eyes. ‘Really? How?’

  Seth’s voice brightened. ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I persuaded Devon to give me your address so I could return your phone. I’m outside your house now.’

  Her body rocketed up in shock. ‘What?’

  She heard a noise at her window. Sticks were being thrown at it.

  Down the phone, Seth said, ‘So, are you going to invite me in?’

  She got up and stared out the window. She could see him standing on the grass, his blond hair glowing in the moonlight. ‘Are you a vampire?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘I already told you: I’m an alien.’

  Itzy shook her head. ‘I have to be mad….’

  ‘But...? I can hear a but.’

  She chewed on her lower lip. ‘I’ll be down in a sec.’

  She clicked off the phone and tossed it on her bed. Her first thought was, How do I look? Her next thought was, Why do I care?

  Then she hurried down the stairs, hoping her mother wouldn’t wake up and hear what was going on. She doubted Myra would approve, no matter what condition she was in.

  When she opened the door, Seth stood on the doorstep waiting. He looked for all the world like an overgrown boy scout come to sell her chocolate biscuits. She couldn’t help comparing him to Ash. They were nothing alike. Where Ash was dark, Seth was light. Where Ash was solemn, Seth was excitable. Where Ash was gentle and sincere, Seth was playful and arrogant. Ash never seemed to believe in his own beauty, but Seth seemed painfully aware he was something special - and if you didn’t agree with that, well, he’d find some way to convince you.

  He wore a brown leather jacket over his t-shirt. He strode into the house as if he’d been there a thousand times and took off the jacket, throwing it over a hook on the wall by the front door. Then he handed a dark bundle to Itzy. ‘I wanted to return your clothes,’ he said a little too loudly. A wicked spark danced in his eyes.

  Itzy scowled and yanked her black dress from his hands. She had wondered what had happened to it earlier.

  ‘Shh,’ she scolded. She nodded her head in the direction of the lounge.

  Seth noticed the way the blanket on the sofa rose and fell, and he hooked a finger in that direction. ‘Your mum?’ he guessed.

  No point in denying it. ‘She fell asleep on the sofa,’ Itzy said. She hoped he wouldn’t detect the lie in her voice.

  Mercifully, all he said was, ‘Uh-huh. So let’s go.’

  He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs, as if it were his house and not hers. She shook herself free of his grasp and pushed her way in front of him, trying to regain control of the situation.

  When they were in her room, she closed the door and put a finger to her lips to remind him again that they should be quiet.

  ‘I was kind of hoping you’d be the screaming type,’ he said with that grin plastered across his face.

  ‘One more comment like that and I’m throwing you out the window,’ she warned him.

  That made him smile more. Itzy tossed her mourning dress in her wardrobe and then watched as Seth took in her room with the appraising look of an art collector. The fairy lights were switched on and the room shifted from a wash of pink, to blue, to green, to white, and back again. His blond hair changed colours with the room.

  ‘It’s busy,’ he decided. ‘No wonder you can’t concentrate.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ she snapped. ‘Really?’

  He let his roving eyes land on hers. ‘I want to help you.’

  Despite herself, Itzy’s heart quickened. ‘You mean, help me learn to control my - my - ?’ She didn’t know what to call it.

  His mouth curved up on one side. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘Why couldn’t that wait until the morning?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Seth said. ‘Look, I made a mistake with the apple. It was a good mistake, as it turns out, because it got us here. Otherwise, who knows what you might do, running round with that kind of power and not knowing what it is.’ He shuddered like the thought disturbed him. ‘But Oz has a point. These things probably need to be done in the dark so no one can see them.’

  ‘Why can’t anyone see them?’ Itzy wondered.

  He shot her a look like she shouldn’t have to ask such a question. ‘You’re shaken up enough, and you actually have the power. Imagine how one of your friends would react.’

  ‘I’ve told Devon.’

  Seth leaned back in the desk chair he had commandeered. ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Well….’

  ‘She didn’t believe you.’

>   ‘Not as such….’

  Seth shook his head. ‘Sit down,’ he told her. He picked up the notebook and pen she’d left on the desk that morning and he handed them to her. ‘Take these and go over there.’ He waved his hand in the air twice, in a sort of run along now, child motion.

  Practically sulking, Itzy took the items and sat on the bed. ‘Do we really have to do this now? I’m so tired, my head might roll off.’

  Seth looked amused at this idea. ‘Good thing I’m here to catch it, then. Now make as if you’re going to write.’

  ‘Fine,’ she grumbled. She took the lid off the pen and let her hand hover over the paper. She felt like she was posing for a stationery advert.

  Seth leaned forward in the chair, his elbows balancing on his knees and his hands balled up inside each other. ‘So. Lesson one. The trouble is you don’t know what to do with your anger. When you feel like you’re burning up inside, you just let it explode. The trick is to learn to centre yourself, and own that anger. Sit down on the floor,’ he instructed.

  Itzy sighed. ‘But you just told me to sit here and pretend I was going to write something.’

  ‘Change of plan.’

  He waved her down from the bed and onto the floor. He joined her there, glancing briefly at her choice of rug. He crossed his legs like a yogi and placed his hands, palm up, on his knees. Itzy copied him, but she didn’t look nearly as graceful.

  ‘How can you balance like that?’ she demanded.

  He closed his eyes. ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘Own that anger.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said with a huffy sigh. She closed her own eyes and fell into a sea of black, painted with red squiggly stars.

  ‘Now think of something that really irritates you,’ he said.

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘You don’t find me nearly as irritating as you’d like me to believe,’ he said without opening his eyes. ‘I’m talking about real anger. Rage.’

  ‘Rage. Right.’

  She tried to summon up the angry thoughts. This was the easy part. It was getting those thoughts to stop that was hard.

  An image of her father rose in her mind’s eye. It was Hateful Stephen, this time. It was a memory from when she was perhaps five years old, when she’d been drawn out of the safety of her room, into the hallway and downstairs by the sound of shrill screams. She’d been met with the sight of her mother backed behind their dining table and her father on the other side, leering at her with a knife. He was shouting obscenities at Myra - but not really. He never looked right at them when he got that way. Instead, he looked at a place just above or to the sides of their heads, like he was seeing something no one else could and it made him so angry he could bring down the world.

  The really scary part was that her own anger at him suddenly dissipated, melting into a different scene. Now she was looking at herself. This was Hateful Itzy. She was hurling the book at her boyfriend - except he was no longer her boyfriend, and maybe he would never even be a friend. She had ruined the one good thing she ever had.

  It wasn’t her father. It wasn’t her alcoholic mother. It was her. Itzel Loveguard. She had done it. And she hated herself for it.

  The anger boiled in her veins, rising up her throat and tearing out in the semblance of a scream.

  Then Seth was there. His hands wrapped tightly around her wrists as he pushed her backward onto the floor. It was the second time a boy had found his way on top of her that night, but like before, she knew this wasn’t going to lead anywhere.

  He stared down at her. It was a cold, hard stare, but something about it was calming, like it was just intense enough to drown out the background noise of her own head and change the pictures in there.

  Light danced around his head, like an aura, marked with thin tendrils of black that stretched across her vision. Her ragged breathing slowed and she felt herself slip into the trance.

  Then she was pulled up so she was sitting again and something was thrust into her hands. She knew what it was: the notebook - the pen.

  She grabbed at them just as she took a backseat in her own head.

  Or…no. She wasn’t in the backseat, this time. It was more like sitting on the passenger side. Okay, so she wasn’t driving yet, but this was something. This was better.

  She could actually feel herself writing, now, whereas all the other times she had composed one of her magic stories (there was no other way to think of them, she decided), it had been like a dream. Now, there was some connection that hadn’t previously been present.

  She held onto the idea long and hard, sinking into the feeling of the pen, its nib dashing the paper this way and that, in long loops and jerky lines. It felt smooth under the pressure of her hand.

  When she was done, she fell limp and Seth caught her just before she could hit her head on the floor. He rubbed her forehead with his palm until her eyelids fluttered open.

  She was surprised to see the arrogance she’d thought was his permanent expression had been wiped off his face. He looked at her differently, now. Perhaps with a sort of awe, like what he’d just witnessed had moved him somehow.

  ‘What happened?’ Itzy asked. ‘And why are you holding me?’ She jumped away from him.

  Seth scratched his temple, still regarding her with that awed expression. ‘That was a good start,’ he told her, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was withholding something from her. ‘You didn’t lose control. That’s good.’

  ‘You mean I didn’t throw a library at you,’ she said dryly.

  He grinned. ‘That too.’ Then a weird moaning sound rose up from behind him. ‘What the -’ he said, turning to look.

  Parson Brown was a teddy bear Stephen had given to Itzy for her sixth birthday. She had named him after a line in her favourite Christmas song, Winter Wonderland. He was brown, so as far as she’d been concerned, the name made sense.

  She hadn’t let the bear out of her sight a single night in eleven years. He travelled with her everywhere. When they went on a family holiday to France, Parson Brown came with them. She slept on him on the plane, using him like a pillow. He later went to Mallorca, Ibiza, Barcelona, Rome, Inverness, you name it. She’d shared so many nights with that bear, it had turned into a habit she couldn’t kick.

  Now, Parson Brown’s eyes had lit up bright yellow. His mouth, normally sewn shut, pulled open and a voice said, ‘Who dares disturb my ward?’

  Seth blinked, his body still twisted around to see. The muscles in his arms twitched in the moonlight beaming down through the window. His skin looked like it was covered in silver.

  ‘Your ward?’ he repeated.

  ‘Itzy,’ the bear clarified.

  ‘Ohhh,’ said Seth. He laughed. Then he laughed louder. ‘Oh, I - I - I see,’ he spluttered through laughs.

  He turned back around to face Itzy, who gaped at the scene in surprise. Seeing her just seemed to set him off even more, until he was doubled over on the floor, clutching his stomach, tears streaming out of his eyes from laughing so hard.

  ‘Oh God,’ he squealed, ‘that is - the funniest -’ The rest was lost in laughter.

  ‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ Itzy said. Annoyance washed over her.

  He laughed even more when he heard that. He pointed his finger at her, to make it obvious he was laughing at her, and then put his hand on his stomach again to hold it as it ached.

  The bear watched her with its glowing eyes. ‘My ward,’ it addressed her, ‘do you want me to kill him?’

  That stopped the laughter. Seth pulled himself up in a flash and scooted back beside Itzy, staring at the bear with her.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said in surprise.

  In response, two small blades shot out of the bear’s paws, positioned to fire. A spark flew in the air and the first blade dashed across the room.

  Seth dodged instinctively and the blade lodged itself in the wardrobe behind him. Seth and Itzy tu
rned their heads in unison to look at the damage.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, turning back to the bear, ‘this isn’t funny anymore.’

  The bear prepared to launch the second blade, but Seth was already drawing furiously in the air. He looked like he was sketching a building of some kind.

  He was. No sooner had the second spark flown than a grey stone-looking structure appeared around the bear, a tiny window revealing its glowing eyes.

  The weight of the structure knocked the bear backward, leaving it lying dazed on Itzy’s pillow, patterned in flowers. Itzy scrambled to her feet and hovered over the imprisoned bear. He seemed to be struggling. The miniature jail bounced and jittered across the pillow. It hit the end of the bed and toppled onto the floor with a small crash.

  Seth came up behind her and leaned his arm on her bare shoulder. ‘Blimey, Itzy, what kind of warped mind comes up with a killer teddy bear?’

  Itzy shrugged his arm off and turned to face him. ‘Why didn’t you just make him a normal toy again? Why put him in a jail?’

  ‘It was more entertaining,’ he said.

  ‘It’s weird.’

  Seth emitted a noise that might have been a snort. He was clearly amused. ‘Weirder than a killer teddy bear?’ Without waiting for her to reply, he folded his left arm around his waist and used it as a shelf on which to lean his right elbow, his fist propping up his chin. ‘So you’ve taken the first step and got control of the anger.’

  ‘This time, anyway,’ Itzy said, exhausted.

  He went on like he’d not heard her, and started pacing up and down her rug. ‘Now we need to get you to control your writing.’ He stopped mid-pace and grinned at her. ‘After all, it could be killer teddies today, and World War Three tomorrow.’

  Itzy swatted the jumping teddy bear jail aside and slumped onto her bed. The bear squeaked in surprise. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  Seth pinched his fingers together like one might in a game of Charades and said, ‘A little.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re trying so hard, here,’ she said. ‘I’m nothing special. I’m not like you.’

  He lifted one of his eyebrows. ‘You think I’m special?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she told him, avoiding his searching eyes. ‘You have a gift. Me? I have a curse.’

  ‘No no no no no.’ He came over to her on the bed. He sat very close to her, so their legs touched. For once, she didn’t move away. She wondered why that was. ‘You are gifted,’ he told her. He wasn’t joking anymore. She could see that on his face. ‘In fact, you might be the most gifted of us all.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘I said you might be. Can you give me that, at least?’

  She sighed. ‘Fine. And you care because…?’

  For a moment, there was a look in those bright eyes of his that suggested he might be about to tell her something wonderful, something beautifully sincere - something poetic, about longing and fate and -

  But he didn’t.

  ‘I discovered you,’ Seth said as he hopped to his feet. ‘You heard your brother: you’re my pet now. Now get up and let’s work on lesson two.’