Mythos (The Descendants, #1)

by Vrinda Pendred

  * * *

  Eurydice curled up on one of the bookshelves in the lounge and watched as Seth leaned in toward a large sheet of paper tacked onto a tall easel. He held an actual paintbrush, because he was painting an actual picture, not just something drawn in the air.

  It wasn’t something he’d done in months, because he had a habit of painting strange things - either something akin to auras (as Oz called them), splashes of colour intertwining with each other and creating inadvertent symbolism, or portraits.

  It was the portraits he was most anxious about, and he hadn’t done one of them since the day he discovered his powers in his A-Level Art class.

  But he was doing one now. It was a girl with skin the colour of a sandy beach and hair like tar. Her eyes were midnight peering out of a face of sunlight. The expression she wore was…well, hard to describe.

  Seth had started the portrait as a way of protecting Itzy. He hadn’t managed to shake his unease at the thought of her being alone with Aidan, no matter what she and Oz thought of the plan. Everything in Seth’s body told him it was the beginning of something big.

  Even if Aidan turned out not to be the serial killer Seth had allowed himself to imagine he was, he would still be the catalyst for whatever would come next. And whatever that might transpire to be, Seth didn’t think any of them were prepared for it.

  So he’d pulled the easel out of its home in a storage room tucked away at the back of their kitchen and he’d retrieved his art supplies, and there he was.

  The trouble with painting, Seth decided, was the pictures never quite came out the way he’d visualised them in his head. In an absurd way, it was easier to draw things into existence than it was to steady his hands and meticulously put down on paper the images swirling around in his mind. Sometimes there were things in there that simply did not translate. He supposed it was probably the same for Itzy and her writing.

  And also like Itzy, Seth wasn’t always convinced it was him doing the painting. Now, for instance, he seriously doubted it, because the Itzy who looked out at him from her paper prison wore an expression he hadn’t intended to give her. It wasn’t bad; it was even painted well. But she looked so…enraptured, he supposed was the word for it. There was a story that went behind that face, and Seth knew exactly what it was.

  It was a love story.

  But more than that, it was passionate. She looked like she’d just experienced something that had set her heart on fire and every inch of her body trembling. She looked like her head had been filled with images that would have made Seth blush to paint.

  Most of all, she didn’t look like she was looking at him, but at someone else in the room. It was uncanny, like an inverse Mona Lisa: wherever he walked around the portrait, her gaze seemed to be somewhere else.

  Why do I matter so much to you? she had asked. And Seth had been unable to answer her. Because it would have sounded mad to have told her the truth: that he’d watched her from across the room, at the funeral, and noticed the way she’d hung back out of everyone’s way, as if she’d been a gate-crasher rather than the daughter of the deceased; and he found it endearing the way she kept nervously pushing her hair behind her ears; and he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to have that long hair fall all over his face.

  It would have sounded mad to have told her that he’d felt himself drawn to her, as if he’d known her before; that he was hit with the impression that everything he might ever say to her, she already knew it without him having to speak; or that he thought her name suited her very well, because every time he was with her, he swore he could see a faint rainbow of colour glowing around her, like one of the auras he painted.

  Why do I matter so much to you?

  Because even Oz - who Seth knew had not been looking forward to seeing his sister at the funeral - had fallen so easily under Itzy’s spell once he met her. Because Seth hadn’t felt in control of himself when he stole her phone; something had driven him to do it. A voice in his head had shouted at him that he must force himself into her life, and he hadn’t known why, but the voice was so loud, he had to obey.

  And because she had mastered her powers almost overnight. And when she’d made him kiss her, it had felt like she was slipping into his head as it touched hers and reaching in to tear out his own desire; she’d given him what he wanted, more than made him do what she wanted. And it wasn’t merely that there had been a kiss; it was the sort of kiss it was. It had felt like she’d taken part of his soul along with his breath, and it had frightened him that she could see into him so deeply.

  He wasn’t sure why, but most of all, more than anything he wanted from her, he wanted to do something for her. He wished he could see into her heart and divine what it was she most wanted, and be the one to give it to her. He wanted to be the one to take away all her pain and help her see she was more than she thought she was. He wished he could wipe his arms through the air and erase all the hurt inside her, all the memories that had scarred her.

  See? How could he have told her that? After all, she’d been right. They had known each other for a matter of weeks. You didn’t feel that way about someone you barely knew.

  It was a moot point, anyway, because looking at the painting, Seth knew he would not be the one to do all he wished he could do for Itzy.

  But more than that, he had a terrible feeling he knew who would.

  This hadn’t been one of his magic paintings. Not like he was used to, anyway. It was more like a vision into something he could not prevent, and it filled him with unbearable sorrow.

  TWENTY

  Aidan was already waiting for her when Itzy arrived at the South Bank. His arms were bent at the elbows and lay flat on the edge of the white bridge, gazing out over the water of the Thames, its murky surface almost reflecting the cityscape that bordered the river on both sides.

  Itzy took one last glance down at her own outfit, relieved she’d not come too casual.

  On the other hand, did that mean this was a date? It was the first time she’d agreed to go out with someone since Ash, and that was two-and-a-half years ago. She’d been fourteen, then. This was totally different.

  She cleared her throat and tapped him on the shoulder. Aidan turned in irritation, but all his features softened when he saw her. She could feel him taking her in, appraising her, the way he’d done in the cornfield. Again, she wasn’t sure how to respond to it.

  When she met his eyes, their stone colour took on a new light and seemed to be telling her something, though she couldn’t think what. She would have been embarrassed to admit that all thought had left her mind as soon as he looked at her, and she found it impossible to look away from him.

  ‘Ya look beautiful,’ Aidan finally spoke.

  She got the impression that wasn’t what he really wanted to tell her, but she didn’t know what else might be playing in his head. She noticed his voice was rich with sincerity, and heavy with something that might have been reluctant desire, but she wasn’t sure.

  He stepped away from the bridge so they were closer. He looked like he wanted to touch her, but didn’t trust himself.

  ‘Thank you,’ Itzy said, her heart pounding at the compliment. ‘Um…where are we going?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ he apologised. ‘Just pizza. Would that be alright with ye?’

  Pizza, Itzy thought, was more than okay. It would make the evening that little bit more normal and uneventful. She needed that.

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said.

  They walked down the bridge, expertly dodging the throngs of people walking in the opposite direction. At one point, the wind blew a scent of the coming autumn over them, and then it was gone, the warmth of summer returning as the sun made a cameo appearance through the grey that had settled over London.

  When they reached the restaurant, Aidan opened the door for her. She stepped through, shivering in the sudden air conditioning. She reached in the black sat
in bag hanging over her shoulder and dug out a thin shawl, which she threw over her shoulders.

  They were directed to a small table in an intimate corner at the back of the restaurant, several feet from other customers, although it was already packed in there. When they were handed their menus and left to their own devices, Itzy found herself staring at the words on the glossy list as if they were written in a language she didn’t understand. She couldn’t concentrate. Too many ideas swam in her head. She worried one of her special mental literary works might strike without her control, and who knew what might happen?

  ‘How bout ye?’ Aidan asked her gently.

  Startled out of her reverie, she looked up from the menu and met his eyes. Again, she felt herself sink in them, unable to turn away. His gaze seemed to drill into her, excavating her thoughts.

  ‘Sorry?’ she said, unsure she understood his meaning.

  Aidan smiled and translated for her carefully. ‘How are ye? Are ye alright?’

  ‘Oh. I - I’m fine,’ she made out. ‘Just…maybe a little preoccupied.’

  His grey eyes studied her. ‘And what with?’

  Itzy looked at him blankly, horrified to find she’d already forgotten what she’d just said to him.

  Much to her relief, Aidan carried on speaking. ‘I can’t say I’m used to girls having other things on their minds, when they’re around me.’

  Was he serious? She thought perhaps he was, except his mouth stretched across his face into a reluctant smile, and then he laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m only geggin’. But really -’ he leaned in toward her ‘- what have ye on yer mind?’

  You, she wanted to say. What are you about? And why were you in my dreams?

  But that sounded paranoid and hysterical, so instead she said, ‘Why did you ask me to meet you?’

  ‘Ah.’ He sat back. ‘Have ye my jumper with ye?’

  ‘For what it’s worth, yes.’ She fished in her bag and brought it out for him. ‘You’ll never be able to wear it, again.’

  Aidan took it and ran his fingers over the series of tears that marred its surface, this way and that. ‘Ya have to believe I didn’t mean for that to happen to ye,’ he said, his eyes on the cloth. He sounded desperate for her to trust him on that point. He lifted his eyes to hers again. ‘I would never do that to ye, I wouldn’t.’

  She didn’t know why, but she did believe him. Except….

  ‘Why do you say that like I mean something to you, when you don’t even know me?’ she asked, feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. This could have been a conversation with Seth.

  Aidan smiled and considered how to answer her. ‘I spent a wee bit of time with yer da, at the end,’ he finally revealed.

  Itzy’s heart leapt and she whispered, ‘Wha - ?’

  He nodded, his fingers absently rubbing the cloth of his ruined jumper. ‘I ran into him at that same crop pattern. He…sensed what I could do.’

  Without further preamble, Itzy watched as the fabric of the jumper melted under Aidan’s caresses. The edges of the tears stretched out to each other until they had melded together. Then they solidified, becoming cotton once more. When he was finished, the jumper looked new. He handed it to her to examine.

  She took it as if in a dream. What he’d done was somehow different to Seth and Oz’s powers. There was none of the performance drama that Seth employed, but equally none of the hesitation Oz displayed.

  Aidan answered the question on her lips before she could utter it. ‘I can manipulate the elements. Change the composition of things, I can.’ He shrugged as if it were no big deal. ‘Sometimes -’ he gestured to the jumper ‘- it’s even useful, like. And sometimes -’ he extended his fingers in the direction of her arms ‘- it’s fun.’

  All at once, a tingling sensation rolled up her arms. Goosebumps rose on her skin. It felt like he had touched her, though he was across the table. And it was a good touch, the kind that sent a message of longing into her brain.

  ‘Stop,’ Itzy whispered. It came out as a plea. The tingling vanished and she was physically back to her usual self. But inside, she hadn’t recovered.

  ‘Yer caul,’ he remembered. With a blink, the air grew warmer.

  She removed her shawl, revealing the skin of her forearms and feeling distressingly exposed before him. ‘Ta,’ she said, her voice full of wonder. She set the jumper on the table between them. ‘Is that why you don’t have any scars?’

  Aidan blinked, not catching her allusion. Then his fingers flew to his cheek and he smiled. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Useful, like.’ He nodded in her direction. ‘I notice yer looking a little perfect, yerself.’

  Itzy put up her hand as if to move her hair out of her face, an automatic motion, and then remembered it was pulled back and she didn’t need to do that. She put her arm back down and said, ‘Seth - my brother’s friend - he can sort of draw things. He fixed things after….’ She shrugged, letting him fill in the blanks.

  Again, Aidan smiled at her. ‘Good. I was worried about ye when we left.’

  Itzy blushed. She hated it, so she tried to veer the conversation back to more neutral ground. ‘So my father knew about what you could do, then?’

  ‘Aye. Fascinated by it, he was. Asked me when it had struck.’

  ‘And you told him -’

  ‘Round the end of 2011, it was.’

  ‘And he was interested because of the prophecy,’ she guessed.

  Aidan gave her an appreciative look. ‘Yer not as ignorant as I expected.’

  ‘Why thanks,’ she said dryly.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that to be insulting. I just got the impression Stephen hadn’t told ye much.’

  It gave Itzy pause to hear this boy say her father’s name like that. There was something so personal about it.

  ‘So,’ she prodded him, ‘did you ever speak again, after that?’

  Aidan nodded. ‘He wanted me to stay in touch. We met regularly, like, and spoke nearly every day.’

  ‘For how long?’ she asked breathlessly.

  ‘Only a month,’ he told her. ‘One day, he stopped ringing, and I grew worried. So I thought to ring him. I reckon it must have been his wife who answered. She told me he had…he had passed.’

  Itzy appreciated his sensitivity on the subject, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. ‘And invited you to the funeral?’ she said, shaking away the mixed emotions surging through her.

  ‘No. I had to do some digging to find out about that. That’s why I was only there for the service. I made an appearance, and then left quickly, like. I suppose I just had to be sure he was really dead. I couldn’t believe it.’

  His voice registered some feeling she couldn’t identify. Was it regret? Grief? Had Aidan cared about her father, after just a month?

  ‘Did you….’ Her voice dropped, and then she found it again. ‘Did you see me there?’

  He shook his head. ‘There must have been over a hundred people attended that funeral. For the life of me, I can’t work out how yer friend recollected me.’

  ‘What did he speak to you about?’ Itzy wondered. ‘My father, I mean.’

  ‘This and that,’ Aidan said. ‘Ancient malarkey and the like. But mostly, the Wisdom.’

  Itzy felt her heart in her mouth, now. ‘I keep hearing that word, but…what is it?’

  Aidan’s eyes shone under the restaurant lights. ‘Shur no one really knows,’ he told her.

  ‘You have a theory, though.’

  He opened his mouth to speak, but the waiter returned at that point, to ask if they were ready to order. Itzy realised she hadn’t looked at the menu and had no idea what she wanted, so she went with a generic margherita and a Sprite. Aidan, his eyes frozen on hers, said he would have the same, and they returned their menus to the waiter, anxious for him to leave them alone.

  Now it was Itzy who leaned forward, and Aidan responded in k
ind. Their heads inclined toward each other in conspiracy and they held their conversation in a near-whisper.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘and remember this is just what I think - I think the Wisdom is knowledge of the Creator.’

  Itzy’s eyes shimmered in the low lighting of the restaurant. ‘You mean God?’

  ‘Whatever ye want to call Him.’ Aidan waved his hand in the air like it was all the same to him. ‘But I mean, knowledge of how to reach God, what His true form is, the point of life, like. That sort of thing.’

  ‘And my father was trying to find that,’ she said. ‘He wanted answers to the mysteries of the universe.’

  It made sense. After all, wasn’t that what he had devoted his life to finding? All his archaeological exploration had been focused on the Ancients, on their mysteries, their philosophy. The Word of God hadn’t been transcribed in thousands of years. It didn’t matter which country you looked at, the holy books were out of date by millennia. If one believed they were true, it seemed God’s secrets were not for the modern generation, and to unravel them, one had to look into the past.

  Now was the time for Itzy to play her trump card. ‘But you’re trying to find it, too.’

  Aidan’s gaze grew suspicious, before morphing into one of surrender. He laughed and sat back in his chair, breaking the spell they had been under. She sat back too, wondering what was so funny about what she’d said.

  The waiter chose that moment to deliver their drinks. Itzy gulped half of hers down, while Aidan hardly noticed his. They both pushed them to the side of the table and watched each other. It gave her a chance to notice the way his hair brought out the colour of his eyes. He could have made a career out of those eyes.

  ‘Yer right,’ he admitted. ‘I’m trying to find it, too.’

  ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why does it mean so much to you?’

  Aidan licked his lips and reached for his drink. He took a long, slow sip of it, before putting it aside again.

  ‘I don’t usually share anything personal with people,’ he said, his words coming out at a languorous pace. ‘And I don’t know ye,’ he noted, like he was trying to remind himself of that fact. ‘So I don’t know why I’m going to tell ye this - but I am.’

  He shook his head at himself and leaned forward again, though not too close. She remained in her place, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘I was adopted,’ he explained. ‘I know everyone has their sob story about how they never felt like they fit in, blah blah. But I really haven’t. I look nothing like either of my parents, for one thing. They’re both blond and bright-eyed, like. My da is a rich businessman and my ma is a stay-at-home mum who still manages to be out of the house most of the time and left a lot of the childcare to an au pair. I have no siblings. They didn’t want any other children. I don’t even know why they wanted me.’

  Itzy’s eyes widened. Not so much at his story, but at the matter-of-fact way he told it. As if he’d almost grown used to things no one should ever grow used to. She could relate.

  Before she could comment, he continued. ‘They told me I was adopted when I was five, and I wasn’t upset. Aye, maybe I should have been, but even then, I thought, This explains a lot. Because I’d never felt part of the family, like. So it was a relief to know I wasn’t, because it meant somewhere out there -’ he pointed his finger in the general direction of the outside world, beyond the restaurant ‘- was someone I belonged with.’

  His eyes lingered on her, like he expected her to understand. And she did.

  She felt like she should say something to urge him along. ‘Do you know who your real parents are?’

  He shook his head. Wisps of his hair fell softly against his forehead. ‘Any time I’ve ever asked my adoptive parents, they’ve dodged the question. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out. I may as well have dropped out of the sky, like.’

  His eyes grew hard, but there was a vulnerability behind them that was endearing.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘one day, I got particularly angry at them for something - I can’t remember what, now, and it’s no matter. The point is: I made it rain, like. And I knew it was me who’d done it. I could feel it. And the angrier I got inside, the more the rain fell. Then a lightning bolt struck our back garden, just inches from my da. And he stared at me like he knew it was me, too.’

  Itzy tried to imagine her mother seeing what she could do. ‘How did your father take it?’ she wondered.

  ‘He was terrified of me.’

  Itzy winced, but Aidan didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘My ma was worse,’ he said. ‘She’d always been distant, but now she kept well away.’

  Aidan pressed his eyes shut and a strange look passed over his features. Itzy recognised it at once, because she’d perfected it herself. He was fighting against an emotion before it could burst out of him like the lightning he’d nearly struck his father with.

  His intensity might have frightened another girl. But Itzy found it oddly flattering that this boy felt easy enough with her to share his weakness with her.

  When he’d centred himself, he opened his eyes and said, ‘I experimented with my abilities, but I managed to confine it to night hours when they wouldn’t know what I was doing. It took a long time, like, but eventually I learned how to get it under control. It helped that I was interested in philosophy, meditation, that sort of thing. Aye, I always have been. History, archaeology…you name it.’

  He took a breath. ‘So I dug around, did some research, like. Then, about a year ago, I came across the Crop Circle Connector. Most of them are just interested in the subject. Some are a wee bit cracked in the head, so they are. But some…are Descendants. And they told me things. Mad things, aye, but for the first time in my life, I felt like I might be getting some answers.’ His eyes glittered at the thought.

  ‘Answers,’ Itzy echoed. ‘It didn’t raise yet more questions?’

  Aidan grinned, and Itzy felt ridiculously pleased to have been the cause of his positive shift in mood. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But it was a little like being diagnosed with a disease. It doesn’t cure anything - but at least ye know what’s wrong.’

  Itzy chewed her lip. ‘Is that how you think of it? As something wrong with you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. That’s the whole point. Ya asked me why it means so much to me to find the Wisdom. Well, I’ve spent my whole life searching for the source of my existence. If I can find the Wisdom…maybe I’ll learn why I’m here at all.’

  He fell suddenly silent, his eyes searching hers for a reaction. For once, Itzy felt she might be the one who was unreadable. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t sure what she was feeling, herself.

  Itzy cleared her throat. ‘Thank you for sharing that,’ she said, aware of how lame it sounded. ‘I mean…I don’t know what to say. Except….’

  ‘Except?’ He hung onto her words, the trace of a smile playing on his lips.

  ‘Except, I know what it’s like to feel disconnected from your parents,’ she found herself telling him. His moment of transparency had left her feeling she should return the gesture, and this was her way of doing it. ‘I don’t know what you thought of my father when you spoke to him, but whatever he seemed like, that was only half the picture.’

  ‘That’s usually the case,’ Aidan said softly.

  His sympathy seemed genuine. In fact, it seemed like empathy. She realised every part of her was screaming out to share herself with this boy. She wanted to tell him every secret thought she’d ever had, show him every pain she’d ever felt, and have him melt it all away the way he had the cold in the room and the gashes in the jumper and in his face. She wondered if he could transmute sorrow into something brilliant and beautiful meant to be held in the light and admired.

  She thought maybe he could.

  ‘My father…,’ she said, ‘…he wasn’t much of a father to me. Well, half the time he was. But
the other half…I don’t know what he was. I’d say he turned into a stranger, except it’s not true, you know? That other side of him became familiar, as much as I wish it hadn’t. So….’ She let her words linger and gain poignancy. ‘I wished him away.’

  Aidan’s eyes took on a new light, as recognition struck him. ‘Ya do have a power,’ he whispered. Her head moved slowly up and down in assent. ‘Then…what would it be?’

  She took a breath before confessing her secret. ‘I’m a writer.’

  She didn’t have to say anymore; the expression he wore told her he understood everything. ‘Ya wrote something,’ he said, jumping on the implications of her words, ‘and it came true, like. Ya got rid of yer own da.’

  Itzy immediately grew defensive. ‘It wasn’t like that. You don’t know what he became. He used to do things to us, especially my mother. He would beat her and throw things at her and hurl her into the walls or the furniture. He turned into a monster no one could reason with. And the saddest part of all was after it was over, he wouldn’t remember what he’d done. You could tell he’d somehow managed to block it all out.’

  At first, Aidan seemed overwhelmed by her speech. Itzy couldn’t be sure, but she thought he looked conflicted, like her portrayal of her father didn’t gel with the image he had of the man and he didn’t want to believe her.

  Then Aidan reached across the table and took her hand in his. His fingers were strong and masculine, not slender like Seth’s or delicate like Ashley’s. She found herself wondering what it would feel like to have them on her face, or perhaps at her lips.

  ‘I’m not judging ye,’ he assured her, his voice low. ‘I was just surprised, like.’

  She mouthed oh, but said nothing. She was too aware that he still hadn’t let go of her, too aware of the heat radiating from his fingertips as they pressed her hand in reassurance.

  ‘Does yer ma know?’ he asked. ‘What ye did, I mean.’

  Itzy shook her head. The thin sliver of ponytail swished side to side at the back of her head. ‘I don’t think so. How would she ever guess such a thing?’

  Aidan searched her eyes for something, found it and said, ‘Ya feel guilty about making him leave.’

  ‘No,’ she protested. ‘Why would I? I - I did the right thing. We couldn’t go on living that way anymore. He would have killed her - I couldn’t sleep or concentrate in school because I was so worried all the time over what might be happening while I wasn’t there to keep an eye on things. I was just a little girl, Aidan.’

  It was the first time since they’d met that she’d said his name. It came out more familiar than either of them expected it to, as if they had known each other for years. She thought she caught a spark glinting in his eyes when he heard her speak those fateful syllables.

  ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing when it happened. I couldn’t control it, then.’

  ‘Aye,’ he agreed, unthinkingly rubbing the knuckles of her hand with his fingers. A dizzying rush surged up her arms like cold water. ‘It wasn’t yer fault at all. I know that. But I don’t think you really do. Not deep down, like.’

  Was that true? She felt so confused. She’d never felt so stripped back and exposed before someone. Even when she was with Ash, he never pried. He always waited for her to speak, when she was ready. So did Seth, for that matter.

  But Aidan didn’t wait. He saw something and pounced on it, regardless of how much it hurt. But she didn’t think he meant it to be cruel. In fact, he didn’t seem able to help it.

  She was stunned to realise that all the time she’d thought Ash had shown understanding, he hadn’t. He had simply been comforting her, supporting her. Aidan was trying to understand.

  And she wanted to help him to do it.

  ‘I guess,’ she said in a small voice, ‘I’ve always felt bad about what the divorce did to my mum. She never recovered. She started drinking away the thoughts, then drinking herself to sleep, and now it’s rare to see her sober. It’s been seven years,’ she noted through gritted teeth. ‘But it’s never got any better.’

  The waiter returned then, severing their arms by laying their pizzas on the table. They both looked at the food as if they had forgotten they were in a restaurant.

  When they were alone again, Itzy cut up her pizza and took a bite. She made a face. ‘It’s a bit dry.’

  Aidan grinned at her and blinked. ‘Try it now,’ he said.

  She did, and found it had moistened; the sauce had thickened. ‘Ta,’ she said, realising what he’d done.

  ‘I told ye. Sometimes it’s useful, like.’

  She laughed loudly at this. It was a relief to find something light-hearted about the evening. She pointed her fork at him. ‘I love it. Using magical powers to make pizza taste better.’

  ‘There are worse causes,’ he said, before laughing himself.

  It was a musical laugh, which surprised her. It wasn’t what she’d expected after listening to him speak so breathily. Something inside her unlocked when she heard it and she felt herself unravel.

  ‘You should laugh more,’ Itzy told him. ‘You could do with being less serious.’

  Aidan lifted an eyebrow at her. ‘Would ye be telling me to relax?’

  ‘I guess I am,’ she said through a smile. ‘Come on, what do you like to do for fun?’

  ‘Driving,’ he said immediately.

  ‘For fun?’

  Aidan nodded with vigour. ‘Aye, there’s nothing like it. Do ye know how?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s the best thing I ever learned to do,’ he said.

  ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I love reading,’ he told her. ‘Ya know, archaeology, history. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She took a bite of her pizza and waited for him to keep going.

  He dangled his fork in the air as he considered her question. ‘I told ye I practise meditation. Oh, and tai chi. Aye, I do that, too,’ he rattled off like he was composing his own personals ad. ‘And I love music. Especially when driving.’ His eyes seemed to wink at her and she smiled at him.

  Itzy cut up another piece of pizza and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Do you ever do anything with other people?’ she wondered.

  Aidan opened his mouth to contradict her, and then he laughed, shaking his head. ‘Not really. I’ve always been a bit homely, me.’

  Itzy laughed in return. ‘You are anything but homely.’

  ‘Oh? How would ye describe me, then?’

  She thought she ought to feel shy about this, but she didn’t. ‘Probably a little dangerous,’ she told him.

  She checked his reaction to this. He impassively ate his pizza, waiting for her to add to the list of adjectives.

  ‘But that’s just on the surface, isn’t it? I think there’s a lot of intensity in there -’ she pointed at his chest with her fork ‘- but also a lot of gentleness. I think you’re hard for most people to get to know, but when they do…it’s probably worth it.’

  He swallowed a mouthful of pizza and regarded her.

  ‘You look disappointed,’ she noted.

  ‘I was expecting ye to say I was gorgeous,’ he teased.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, right. Well, I thought you wanted to hear something you didn’t already know.’

  Was this really her? Was she really acting this way? She hadn’t even flirted this much when she was with Ash.

  But everything with Aidan just felt so easy.

  Before she knew what she was doing, she said, ‘So go on, me next. How would you describe me?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said without thinking.

  She wondered if he caught the way she gasped when he said it, the second time in an hour. If so, he didn’t show it. He just kept talking.

  ‘And intelligent. And I think there must be a lot going on in that head of yers, but ye keep most of it to yerself, in
side, like. I think yer a more interesting person than ye let people think.’

  Itzy couldn’t help herself. Her eyes danced with emotion, and her voice dropped as she asked, ‘What are you doing after this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘that I know of.’ His tone changed, but she couldn’t work out what it meant.

  ‘You wanna do something after this?’ she asked. She was shaking. She wasn’t sure if it was at the thought that might turn her down, or that he might say yes.

  She may as well face it: she was already fantasising about having him pressed close to her in a dark room, dancing maybe, his arms around her, his hands in her hair, his face edging toward hers. She’d never felt this way before, and definitely not so swiftly after meeting someone. For months she had thought no one could ever replace Ash. And she supposed no one could. But this was new - not a replacement, just something else. Something bigger.

  Maybe something better.

  To her great disappointment, Aidan didn’t appear to share her fantasy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, drawing back. His whole persona seemed to have changed; Aidan Carnegie was closed for business. He quickly gobbled up a whole slice of pizza and then washed it down with Sprite.

  ‘No,’ Itzy said, hoping she didn’t sound as deflated as she felt. ‘I’m sorry. I…I misjudged things.’

  He smiled at her, and she felt warm all over. ‘Ya didn’t,’ he told her. ‘It’s just…I already have someone.’

  All at once, the air went out of her. She had been a balloon escaping its tethers and soaring into the sky. Now, someone stuck a pin in the balloon and watched sadistically as it plummeted into unfamiliar landscape.

  ‘This wasn’t a date,’ she said in a flat voice.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ he said. ‘In fact….’

  He dropped his fork and raked his fingers through his brown hair. Only it wasn’t just brown to her anymore. Now it was the colour of the bark on the horse chestnut trees that lined her street, rich with undertones she hadn’t noticed the first time she saw him outside of her dreams; it was beautiful. Such was the nature of infatuation, a state she was dangerously close to walking into.

  Then he let the penny drop. ‘I only asked ye to meet me here because I thought maybe ye’d know something about the Wisdom. Maybe ye were playing dumb and yer da had told ye things he never told me, or…yer brother?’

  So that was what it came down to. He had been using her.

  But that was okay because -

  ‘I was only using you, too,’ she said, stunning him. ‘Oz said I should see what you knew, find out why you made the crop circles.’

  Aidan’s eyes flared wide. ‘Ya figured that out?’ A memory flashed across his face. ‘The Energy Sensor. Yer da had one of those, he did. That’s how he worked it out, too.’

  She jumped on the information. ‘He knew? But his journal - he said it was a message from the Ancients.’

  ‘Aye, he thought that, at first,’ he told her. ‘That’s why he went there. Then he met me, and…ya know the rest.’ He sounded like he was bored with the subject. In fact, he sounded bored with everything.

  ‘But how did you make the patterns?’ Itzy wondered. ‘The crops - they didn’t even look damaged.’

  Aidan chewed his lower lip. ‘I really am sorry Verdi got so carried away with ye,’ he said, confusing her. ‘It wasn’t my idea, like. I saw the Sensor in yer brother’s hand. I heard the way yous were talking. I thought you’d defend yerself. I couldn’t believe ye didn’t have any powers. Then I saw yer face when the corn grabbed ye, and I realised ye had no idea what to do. I tried to make him stop, I did, but Verdi’s biggest problem is he never listens. I promise I hadn’t planned to hurt ye.’

  She could tell he meant this. She could only guess who Verdi was, but the most important thing was it had never been Aidan who meant to harm her. And Itzy realised that in his own way, Aidan had answered her question.

  He leaned back in his chair. It made a soft creaking sound. ‘So we were both playing a little game with each other, then,’ he summed up the evening.

  Except he was wrong. Because that was how it had started, yes, but that wasn’t what it had become. It had all changed - at least, for her, it had. Had it changed for him?

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, finally. ‘Like I said, I have Melody. And this has been…interesting.’

  That wasn’t how Itzy would have described it. Despite the tough voice Aidan used, he seemed to have shrunk. He wasn’t the confident boy she’d first met, at all. He’d bared his secrets to her and was now reacting to what he thought was betrayal, forgetting he had betrayed her too.

  ‘Aidan,’ she tried, but when she saw his eyes, they were stony and expressionless.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said in the calmest voice he could manage. ‘Let’s just eat and go, alright? We got what we came here for.’

  She winced as though she’d been slapped. ‘Okay,’ she said, struggling to control the emotion bubbling up inside her. When she looked back at the pizza, she found she’d lost her appetite, but she forced herself to finish as much as she could so her behaviour didn’t fall under analysis. Aidan sped through the rest of the meal, eager to leave.

  When the bill came, he paid for both of them without a word. They left the restaurant more like strangers than when they had first gone in. Had that really only been an hour ago? It felt like a hundred years had passed in that private corner.

  ‘G’bye,’ he said without ceremony.

  ‘Bye,’ she echoed.

  Then he was power-walking up the South Bank, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and disappearing in the crowd.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The irony was that Melody’s speaking voice was anything but melodious. In fact, it was slightly nasal, and when Aidan returned home that evening, it took on a screechy tone that reminded him of an angry grandmother. It wasn’t sexy.

  She’d brushed out her hair. Without all the product, it lay flat over her head, and he had time to reflect that he preferred it that way. He wished she would stop trying to make herself look like something else and start being Melody.

  When they first met, he had loved the spirit with which she had confessed the secret of her power. He knew she didn’t think it had affected him, but it had. Because that had been the first moment he felt like he belonged somewhere. At last, he had found a connection to another human being.

  Unfortunately, their relationship had always worked better at a distance. It was easy to imagine you were in love with someone when you didn’t have to see them every day and witness all their annoying habits. Living with someone was hard work, and more and more he was unsure if he’d made the right decision in coming down to stay with Melody.

  He was especially unhappy with the Verdi situation. In living with his girlfriend, he had gained a brother-in-law, and Verdi wasn’t someone he would have chosen to include in his family. Verdi was useful, yes. His ability to manipulate plants meant he could bend back the crops without breaking them.

  But he was also impossible to control and was constantly crashing at Melody’s flat after yet another fight with their father. He was a spoilt rich teenager with entitlement issues and a bad temper. Like his sister, he’d never worked out how to merge his two halves.

  Now Verdi sat in their lounge, playing on the XBOX, as usual, and shouting obscenities at virtual players as they shot him down. Meanwhile, Melody was having one of her rants. She had them a lot, lately. Aidan thought if someone decided to move in with you, you’d feel less insecure and jealous. But it didn’t seem to work that way, in practice. And it wasn’t just since this Itzel Loveguard thing; Melody had been hysterical and possessive almost the day he’d stepped over the threshold of her flat.

  ‘I knew there was more to it,’ she was now crying - actually crying. She did that a lot, too. Aidan used to feel inclined to comfort her when she got in these states. Now it just i
rritated him. That was how he was starting to think of their life together: in terms of then and now.

  ‘What d’ye mean?’ he said, his tone exasperated.

  She sniffed. ‘I knew you felt something for her. You don’t want me anymore, do you?’

  Aidan closed his eyes and counted to five before reopening them and saying, in a bland voice, ‘Of course I do.’

  Did he?

  Melody laughed darkly. ‘You’re such a liar. You always have been.’

  He narrowed his pewter eyes at her. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Saying you love me,’ she scoffed. ‘I should have known you were only using me.’

  ‘Using ye for what, exactly?’ he demanded.

  She shot him a hostile look that read, you know. Except he didn’t. But he also didn’t feel particularly desperate to find out.

  ‘I’m taking myself to bed,’ he announced, an edge creeping into his voice. When she started following him, he said, ‘No. Not tonight. Just…give me space.’ He had said that almost every night for the last three weeks.

  Melody sank back as if he had struck her. Then her tears flowed faster. She groped for the wall, in a fit of drama. It used to do something to him, seeing her like that. But not now. Now he just felt tired. Tired of her, tired of Verdi, tired of everything.

  Aidan went into their shared bedroom and shut the door. Not for the first time, he wished they had installed a lock on it. He used to wish it so Verdi would stop walking in on them when they were together. Now he wanted to keep Melody from coming into her own room.

  See? Then and now.

  And that was all it had ever really been, he realised. Her room. Her flat. He was helping her pay for things with money from the trust fund his adoptive parents had set up for him as a baby, but it was still her home, not his. She had chosen it before he ever came to London.

  Everything about it smacked of Melody - the deep pink curtains on the bedroom window, the matching duvet, the stuffed elephant on her side of the bed; the salt and pepper shakers in the kitchen in the shapes of cartoon characters that were nostalgic of a childhood he had never shared; the flower-patterned sofa in the lounge; the plant pots in the window - none of it was him.

  He dropped onto the bed and folded his arms behind his head. He found himself wondering what Itzy’s room might look like. He couldn’t picture it being as girly, though she didn’t strike him as a tomboy either. There was just…more to her.

  He felt awful about the way he had ended things between them. He wished he could have said what he’d really been feeling. In his head, he said it to her now:

  Ya surprised me. I didn’t expect to find myself looking at ye this way. I don’t want to say no to ye. I just can’t do that to Melody. And I can’t do that to you. I can’t be that fella.

  Because he’d never been unfaithful to anyone, even in thought. He’d watched his father do it to the only mother Aidan had ever known. That was one of the things that made Aidan glad they weren’t his real parents, because he hated the thought of being the product of such a man.

  Aidan had little experience with girls. His private school back home had been an all boys’ school. Melody was the first girl he’d ever been allowed to look at that way. Perhaps that was why he had convinced himself it was love; he simply hadn’t known any better. He hadn’t so much as looked at another girl the way he looked at his girl.

  Until now.

  That was the worst part: not being able to tell Melody she was right.

  Of course, that wasn’t the only secret he was keeping. The reason he’d given Melody for wanting to meet Itzy had been an excuse. And he’d lied to Itzy when he said he only asked to see her to find out information. It wasn’t premeditated; the falsehood had flown out of him when she told him why she was there. He’d felt hurt and defensive. How could he have told her the truth then?

  He drew his mobile out of his pocket and opened Itzy’s Facebook page. The profile picture showed her pulling a face at the camera. Even then, he had to admit Stephen had been right: she was beautiful.

  He sighed and tossed his phone aside.

  ‘Help me, Stephen,’ he whispered to the memory of a man he’d only known briefly, and yet somehow he had become integral to Aidan’s life. ‘Ya said I’d find her, and ye were right. So what am I meant to do now?’