The Storm

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  But the burning boy just would not die.

  She reached out with her not-hands, squeezing the boy’s head. His fire blazed where she touched him, crackling and spitting. It was like a second skin, armoured. She couldn’t get through it. But every doll could be broken. She swung him to the side, smashing him against a floating island of rock, breaking it into splinters.

  Please, I’m not who you think I am, the boy screamed inside her head, his voice the buzzing of a bluebottle, so annoying. Why wouldn’t he just stop? She pulled him back towards her, holding him there, studying the molten glow of his eyes. He held out a hand to her. I didn’t hurt him, it wasn’t me.

  Maybe he wouldn’t die because he was telling the truth. Could she break him if he was innocent? But Schiller had been innocent, and he had been broken. Everything was so confusing. She pictured her brother, his beautiful face, so like her own and yet so different. His blond hair, those big, round, blue eyes. The wings of fire that had stretched from his back.

  Wait, that couldn’t be right, could it? Her brother wasn’t the boy with wings.

  She reached up with her hand, the one that had always been hers, feeling the hole in her head, the ache that pulsed there. How had she got it? Who had done this to her? She had a memory of a blazing figure, an angel with wings, burning through her head with just a thought. The thing before her, the snivelling wreck, was nothing like that.

  What was she doing?

  Her last reserves of strength drained away. It was too much. All she wanted was to be with Schiller, back in the library at home, in the big bay window seat, drenched in sun, breathing in the heavy, dusty air. They’d always been safe there, safe from outsiders, safe from their mother, safe from the men. That was their space, it always would be.

  Schiller, she said. She loosened the grip of her mind, the boy there already half forgotten as he spun away. I’m coming, she said. Wait for me.

  She didn’t know where to go, but surely if she just relaxed then she’d get there. She folded in her wings, feeling the current of air wrap a cold hand around her, pulling her along. Isn’t this what happened when you died? A tunnel? A light at the end? There was nothing at the end of this one, nothing she could see anyway, but she could sense death there, as real and as certain as anything she’d felt in her life.

  Help me! It was the burning boy again, floating alongside her, scrabbling at the air. She ignored him, smiling as she floated gently down the stream, towards the end of it all, towards her brother, into the arms of death.

  Let it have her. She was done.

  Daisy

  The Thermosphere, 4.07 p.m.

  Daisy let loose another shot from the cannon of her mouth, a missile fuelled by the emotions inside her. It needled into the man in the storm’s face, erupting in the smoky flesh. There was almost nothing left of him now, just that gaping mouth, a hole in space that kept turning, gulping down everything it could.

  Cal was inside there somewhere. Brick and Rilke too. They were all still alive, she knew that much, but she couldn’t tell whether they were winning or not. Silent explosions threw out webs of light that ebbed into the darkness, and tongues of fire were poking through the skin of cloud.

  She stared down, at the blue bowl of her planet. It had always seemed so big, vast, such a long way to go to get anywhere. Now, though, she could stretch out her arms and hold it between them. It looked so fragile.

  You can’t have it! she screamed, turning back, opening her mouth and uttering another cry, one made up of rage. It erupted inside the storm, echoed by another three or four blasts from its throat. Cal. There was no sign of Howie but she could hear him shouting. Adam was close, a speck of light hanging below her. She almost called out to him, to ask if he was okay, before remembering that he couldn’t answer her.

  No, not couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  She paused, closing her mouth, remembering the day that Adam had arrived at Fursville. They’d been sitting around the table, trying to make sense of what was going on, just a few days – a few million years – ago. It had been Brick, that was it, going thump-thump, thump-thump, scaring the boy. And Adam had screamed, the sound of it tearing across the table, smashing glass, blowing out the candlelight. Fear had done that to him, the cry of his unhatched angel. The only sound he’d made in all the time they’d known him.

  Adam! she called out, diving down to him. He looked so scared, his legs curled up to his chest, his face tucked into his folded arms. He reminded her of a little tortoise, but with a shell made from fire. Only his glowing wings were outstretched, holding him in orbit. They were huge and bright.

  She pulled him close with her mind then wrapped her arms around him. The space between them crackled and sputtered, an invisible force trying to separate them; it was like trying to keep a float underwater, but she held on.

  I know you’re scared, she said. It’s just me, Adam, it’s Daisy. Look at me.

  He tilted his head up, those big, burning eyes never blinking. Daisy smiled at him, aching with the effort of holding him close. She wouldn’t let go.

  I know this is all crazy. But trust me. I’ll look after you, Adam, always. I promise. Is that okay?

  He nodded. Daisy glanced over her shoulder, seeing something forming in the chaos of the storm.

  I know it’s scary, but it’s okay to be afraid. We all are. Me, Cal, the new boy, we’re all frightened. I think we’re meant to be.

  He frowned up at her, his own face like a ghost’s beneath the skin of fire.

  It’s like . . . She struggled, trying to think of the right words. Like you know when something really bad happens and you just want to scream? But you don’t, because you don’t want to get told off. Do you know what I mean? Did your mum and dad ever tell you off for shouting and screaming?

  He nodded, and she could see a picture there, beamed from his head into hers, a tiny house, packed with junk – not a scrap of floor visible beneath the mess. A living room, full of nasty cigarette smoke and the smell of wine – but not the nice wine her mum and dad sometimes bought, this was something stronger and older. A bedroom, too, full of broken toys. There was no noise allowed here, she understood, even though the television was blaring from the other room, even though she could feel a hunger in her belly that wasn’t really hers, even though she was cold and tired. To make a noise in here would bring him in, a man she couldn’t see but who smelled just as old and rotten as the house. Better to stay quiet, to hold it in, to never cry.

  Oh Adam, she said. Were they really like that, your mum and dad? Were they really so horrid?

  He squirmed away, as though embarrassed, but she held on to him, even though it felt as if the space between them was about to explode. Another memory – Adam crying in the dark after a nightmare, a figure slamming open the bedroom door, storming across the room, lashing out so hard that there were stars. She felt the pain as if it was her own, the blood in her mouth, the anger too. She felt the turmoil in her tummy.

  He hit you? she said, incredulous. She had to shut it out, it was so awful. She felt Adam do the same, stuff it deep down where it couldn’t hurt him.

  No, she said. Don’t run away from it. Use it. All that stuff down there, you need to get it out. It’s like the bad bit in a peach, the rotten bit. If you cut it out it’s fine, but if you leave it there too long it poisons the whole thing. She shook her head, trying to think of a better way of putting it. You need to think about it all, all the anger and sadness and fear. Let it out, Adam, please. Just scream and scream and scream.

  Adam’s mouth opened and she could almost feel it bubbling up inside him, so many years of sadness and silence, a dam about to break.

  That’s it! she said. I knew you could do it, I knew it.

  It was so nearly there, so nearly out of him.

  Adam’s eyes widened, his face screwing into a mask of horror. Daisy looked up, seeing it too late, a guillotine of smoke that dropped right towards her. She reached out before she even knew what she was doing, op
ening the door in the world, pushing Adam through it.

  You can do this, Adam, I love you.

  The air between them exploded like a bomb as they parted, an inferno of white light that sent her spinning out into space.

  Cal

  The Thermosphere, 4.13 p.m.

  Just like that she was gone.

  Cal twisted around, looking back through the churning smoke. One minute Daisy had been there, the next she’d been wrapped in darkness, ripped away. He searched for her in his head but he couldn’t tell if it was her voice he heard or just the echo of it.

  Daisy? he called out. No reply. He beat his wings, pulling against the current, thrashing his way out of the storm. The air beside him erupted into ash, a figure appearing there. Adam flinched when he saw Cal, his wings spasming as he tried to control them.

  What happened? Cal said. The answer was in the little boy’s face as he stared out into oblivion. She was gone. The rage inside Cal was white hot, a supernova that burned in his core. He looked up at the storm, the man who sat fat in his bed of cloud, who gorged on the world. She was just a girl! You bastard, she was just a girl! The grief was too much, like it was burning him out from the inside.

  He looked at Adam, saw his eyes narrow with the same outrage. The little boy didn’t know how to handle it, the fear, the anger.

  But his angel did. Cal could almost see the emotion there, past the transparent haze of his skin. It was like nothing else in the world, no atoms spinning in their orbits, no electrical sparks, just a ball of light, brighter than the sun, rising up the boy’s throat.

  Do it, Cal said. Please.

  Adam opened his mouth and screamed Daisy’s name.

  It cut its way free from him like a flame thrower blasting out with a jet-engine roar and bright enough that it leached all the colour from the world. The shockwave hit Cal like a hammer, sending him reeling. He spread his wings, seeing the boy’s fire punch into the storm, slicing its way across the face of the beast. It seemed to go on forever. He could have no air left in his lungs, but still he screamed, an inferno that set the sky alight.

  Cal felt the cogs of his mind slip at the sight of it, the impossibility of it. It was too much. The angel inside him seemed to feed on the frenzy of his emotion, drawing it from his soul, pulling it up his throat. Cal choked on it, gagging as every single bad thing in his life was suddenly regurgitated. He thought of Daisy, always smiling, always brave, always ready to hug him with those stick-thin arms. Never again, though. She was gone.

  He howled at the storm, spewing out an inferno of light and flame, purging himself. The air shook with the power of it, the world beneath him groaning as the physics it rested upon began to fracture. Their voices blazed relentlessly – their fury without end, without mercy.

  Their fire was stripping the clouds away from the storm, revealing the pale ribbons of stretched flesh beneath. The engine of its mouth was stalling, spinning then stopping, spinning then stopping. Darkness washed from it, as though it was vomiting out the emptiness behind the universe.

  Still Cal screamed, even though he felt as if he was drowning, even though his brain pleaded with him to stop. He didn’t think he could even if he wanted to. He felt like a ghost, like he no longer belonged inside the flesh and bone of his body. If he died now it wouldn’t matter, because his angel was here. It had slipped on his skin like an anorak. It had found a way to make itself real.

  That thought was terrifying, and his fear was just more fuel for the fire. It flared out between his lips and he screamed and screamed and screamed.

  Daisy

  Space, 4.19 p.m.

  This was her grave, and it was boundless.

  The fist of smoke wrapped itself around her, the same way it had done back in the pit. Only this time it didn’t pull her towards the man in the storm, it thumped her outwards, hurling her away from him, from the planet, from her friends. The coil of liquid night ate into her, spreading across her mouth and her face, smothering her, blinding her. Her angel was working at full strength, fighting it. But it couldn’t last for much longer. She could feel its pain in every cell, its exhaustion. They would die together, in the cold, dark void of space.

  No, it was too horrible. She didn’t want it all to end here, where there was no sunshine and no birds and no flowers. How would she find her mum and dad? She cried out, her voice muffled by the cushion of smoke against her face. She ripped at it with her fingers, tearing at the shroud, peeling it back in time to see a huge silver medallion in the sky ahead. It took her panicked mind a moment to understand that it was the moon, and a heartbeat later she hit it, punching through white rock. She detonated out again in a shower of debris, still not slowing. She felt like a fish, hooked by a dark barb, being reeled out of the ocean.

  It was getting colder, and something was happening to her head – her vision flickering. The smoke wrapped itself around her and it was as if death already had her, everything so dark, so quiet, apart from the thrashing hum of her angel’s heart. It was eating into her, dissolving her. When she tore at it again there was no sign of the earth, no sign of anything other than the stars.

  No! she screamed. This time she thought she heard a reply, somewhere deep down inside her. It was a voice she knew, but she had to wait for it to come again before she believed it. Mum? Is that you?

  It wasn’t. How could it be? It was just a piece of her brain trying to keep her calm. She didn’t care. It was so nice to see them, her mum and her dad, in the stuttering light of her imagination. Pain clawed up her back as the smoke continued to burrow into her, her fire ebbing. Once it was gone she would have no more defence against the storm. At least it would be quick.

  She closed her eyes. Her parents were there, and she smiled at them. It felt like so long. She took herself to them, back to the day they’d had the picnic in the garden. Her mum had been too weak to go any distance but she’d made it outside with their help, lying on the blanket in the shade of the next-door neighbour’s trees. One of Mrs Baird’s cats had tried to run off with her dad’s lunch while he was in the kitchen making tea. Daisy had chased it halfway back to the fence, picking up the chicken drumstick from the flowerbed and dusting it off.

  ‘He’ll never notice,’ she’d told her mum. He’d come back and taken a bite out of it, and she and her mum had rolled around on the floor like monkeys, giggling so hard she hadn’t been able to breathe – especially when he’d pulled a clump of cat hair from between his teeth.

  Daisy laughed now. The hum of her angel heart grew louder and she could feel the sudden roar of her fire as it flared up.

  It’s laughing too, she realised. The sensation of it was like nothing she had ever felt, like her whole body was made of sound. Even though she was surely too far away to find her way back, even though the smoke meant to bury her in the endless nothing of the universe, she was smiling.

  What else was there? The time they’d gone to a salmon farm in Scotland, and her dad had tried to ride the aerial slide over the lake. He’d sat on the wrong bit and ended up waist deep in water – even though he’d spent the whole day telling her not to get wet. They’d had to send out a little boat to rescue him. She giggled, her tummy aching, the fire blazing as though she’d turned a gas hob to its highest setting.

  She didn’t understand where they came from, these memories, but her head was suddenly full of them, each one brighter than the last. Her angel was like a child hearing music for the first time, blazing inside and out. Its own laughter pulsed from every pore, so alien and yet utterly familiar too. It was a not-sound in her skull, a chime like bells. It chiselled against the smoke like a physical thing, splitting it, casting off squirming ribbons of night.

  You’re pathetic! she said, talking to the man in the storm, to the beast who raged in the sky so far behind her. It could eat all it wanted but it could never win, not really. How could it ever triumph when there was laughter in the world? I’m not scared of you, you’re a joke, a big fat stupid joke!

 
Her laughter – her angel’s laughter – exploded against the smoke, breaking it into wisps. Beyond them was an expanse of stars so immense that she couldn’t take it all in. It was as if she hung in the centre of a vast, hollow planet whose crust was speckled with diamonds. There were millions of them, billions, all different colours, all so far away. She spun, mesmerised, terrified, thinking Which one is mine? Oh God which one is it? Even with her angel’s eyes the stars all looked the same. She could fly to any one of them with just a thought, but it would take her the rest of time to find her way home. She was going to die out here, but she didn’t have to die alone.

  She folded her wings around herself, letting the memories pour through her like daylight. The angel lapped them up, feeding on them, growing stronger, its fire so bright that she felt that she had to take a step back in her own head. It wanted more, she understood.

  She thought back, searching for them. The time Chloe’s chair broke beneath her in English one day and she’d pretty much rolled right out of the door. Daisy had almost weed herself through laughing so much.

  Despite the fear, Daisy laughed, her angel laughed, the sound of it blasting away the last of the smoke. This time, even the vacuum of space permitted it, the sound echoing in her ears. It had never heard laughter. All the way out here there was only absence. There had only ever been absence, infinite and unbearable. This place, the emptiness between the stars, was what he liked, the man in the storm. He wanted to wipe everything else away so this would be all that was left.

  Well she wouldn’t let him, she wouldn’t. She would fill it all up with laughter.

  Fursville this time, riding the horses of the carousel with Adam and Jade. Then playing tag, chasing each other over the sun-drenched ground, Brick’s gangly legs slipping on the gravel, his giggles high-pitched and surprising. The Fury hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered. Right then, in spite of everything, she’d been happy.