Everton Miles Is Stranger Than Me

by Philippa Dowding

  I shouldn’t be here. But here I am.

  Martin and I walk along the dark road to Mr. McGillies’s cabin.

  It’s a gorgeous night. The stars blaze in the clear black sky. The corn waves gently in the breeze and sets up a constant rustle and chatter. Harvest is coming. I’ve called Celestine in my head a few times and even whispered her name out loud when Martin was too far away to hear. So far she hasn’t announced her arrival, but maybe she wouldn’t. I’ve never called her before, so I have no idea. I might see a golden shimmer at the corner of my eye now and then, but I could be imagining it.

  I can tell Martin wants to hold my hand, but I keep mine firmly in my pocket. I don’t need any sweaty hand-holding right now, not so soon after the sweetness of all those apologies. Besides, now we’ve cleared the air between us, I feel like a little kid again and close to Martin in a way that has nothing to do with holding hands.

  This is the night of amazing things: sincere apologies that make up for a lot of sadness. Plus, I’m about to find out about why Martin is with Mr. McGillies. There’s the Rogue, of course. And the small problem of Mr. McGillies being my Watcher, but it’s not something I absolutely have to share. I’m still not completely ready to discuss the whole Night Flyer thing with Martin.

  We see the light shining in Mr. McGillies’s cabin down the lane, and Martin stops. His eyes brighten. “Can you show me?” He puts his arms out at his sides, like a bird.

  I look around, put my faith in Celestine, then take a little run down the lane and lift into the air, light as a feather. For once I manage a graceful take-off. Martin laughs and watches. I buzz over his head, and he jumps to swat my foot. We both laugh, and I buzz him a few more times while he takes more playful swipes at my feet. I get a little giddy and decide to show off. I zoom really high, really fast, but not so high that he can’t see me. He’s below me, a little dot on the road just past my left toe, waving. I hear him laugh. Far below me, the light in Mr. McGillies’s cabin shines, and I smell wood smoke from the chimney.

  Then the Rogue walks out of the corn.

  He stands behind Martin in the laneway, so Martin doesn’t see him.

  Martin raises his hand in a wave, and the feathered man copies him and raises his hand, too. His eyes are golden, his wings outspread, his darkness complete.

  I try to scream, to tell Martin to run, but no words come out. Then the Rogue puts his head back in a silent, mocking laugh, and I hear the corn whisper my name.

  Gwendolyn….

  Twenty-One

  I land with a thud and grab Martin’s hand.

  “RUN!”

  And we do. I look over my shoulder once, but there’s no feathered man. There’s nothing but laneway and tall corn … but then for a second a shimmer of white light hovers over the road then disappears.

  Or maybe not. I’m too scared to look again.

  We tear toward the cabin then slump against the wall, breathless.

  “You still can’t outrun me!” Martin thought this was a game? He thought I was kidding? I try to catch my breath, and my heart pounds. The cabin door opens, and a familiar head pops out.

  It’s Everton.

  He smiles and says, “Hi Martin, hi Gwen! I wondered when you’d get here! Mr. McGillies is having his dinner.”

  My mouth falls open, and for a second I am completely unglued. Did time shift? Did I get lost in some weird fantasy? From behind Martin’s back, I point down the road and mouth, “The FEATHERED MAN! THE ROGUE!” but Everton turns his back on me before he can notice.

  Then I want to scream, Everton, what are you doing here?

  My next thought stops me cold. If Shelley Norman is in there with Mr. McGillies, I’m leaving right now, Rogue or no Rogue! But Everton ignores me and talks to Martin like he’s known him forever.

  “He really likes the soup you made, Martin,” Everton says. We all step into the cabin, and Mr. McGillies is sitting on the couch, alone. He smiles and waves at me. No Shelley Norman.

  “Hi, missy!” He eats soup off a tray on his knees. He’s a shadow of himself, small and thin, and I’m hit by guilt. Why haven’t I come to see him? I’m terrible to my Watcher. I say hello, but I keep my distance.

  Mr. McGillies eats Martin’s soup while Martin flits around the kitchen getting us tea. When he’s out of earshot, I round on Everton.

  “I just saw the Rogue!” I hiss quietly. “And what are you doing here?” Everton is astonished and blinks at me with huge eyes.

  “You did? Are you sure? Is Celestine out there?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. I didn’t stick around to check!” We’re clearly whispering about something urgent, and we jump apart because Martin enters the room with a tinkling tea tray.

  “You two know each other?” he says, handing out tea. Everton shrugs.

  “We have some old friends in common. I was just telling her I’m helping you with the gardening project. Didn’t you see the posters at school, Gwendolyn? Didn’t Miss Moreau talk to you?”

  “No, I didn’t see the posters. No, Miss Moreau didn’t talk to me.”

  Martin puts down his teacup. I can see he’s wondering how I could possibly have old friends in common with the new boy in town, but he’s polite. Instead he says, “We’re almost finished the garden. Do you want to see?”

  Garden? Gardening project? What are they talking about? I exchange a look with Everton, but what are we going to say? We can hardly not go out to see whatever it is that has them both here.

  We leave Mr. McGillies with his soup, and Everton and I follow Martin to the back of Mr. McGillies’s cabin. We’re both nervous as Martin talks away.

  “We worked really hard on it. It’s taken since the start of school.”

  We round the cabin and stop dead. I can see strange shapes looming in the yard and hear a gentle chiming. Martin plugs in a big outdoor cable, and a thousand tiny white lights spring to life. I gasp: a glass garden leaps out of the darkness. Trees, bushes, tables, chairs, and benches glisten and shine in the dark, lit up and sparkling. Everything is entirely made of glass.

  Martin and Everton have created a garden paradise of glass bottles. It looks like fairyland.

  A perfect archway of bottles frames the field. A wheel-barrow, rakes, and shovels lean up against the cabin.

  “How did you do all this?” I ask. Martin looks ridiculously proud.

  “Everton was a big help. Miss Moreau supervised and got volunteers and tools together, and we get community hours for the work. A lot of kids helped out this week.”

  “Shelley Norman helped all last weekend,” Everton says evenly, looking at me. I close my eyes for a second.

  “And Jeffrey Parks was here, too, and a big kid named Sebastian and a few others. Mr. Forest came and helped us make a table and benches out of the bottles.” I walk over to the nearest glass bench and look at it, unsure. Martin nods. “Sit down, it’s comfortable.”

  I sit. The bottles point into the soil, half dug into the ground. Then the next few layers of bottles are on top of that, tightly wired together. There’s a smooth board across the last row of bottles for a bench. The table is entirely made of bottles with gaps where the bottles don’t touch. Everton says, “We aren’t quite finished. The table top is still to come.”

  I walk over to one of the sparkling glass bushes lit with tea lights. The bottles rattle and chime gently with the wind. It’s magical.

  The mountain of bottles I saw with Everton that first night is gone. “You used all Mr. McGillies’s bottles? He had thousands.”

  “Over five thousand, actually. We used about half of them in the garden, and the rest we put in Everton’s brother’s truck and drove to the recycling centre while Mr. McGillies wasn’t looking,” Martin says. “But he wasn’t too upset. He got about one hundred and fifty dollars for the glass and donated it to the men’s homeless shelter. He has some f
riends there.” I walk over to the glass archway, which is cleverly pieced together in an interlocking pattern. I look out into the dark fields.

  “Why? Why did you do all this for Mr. McGillies?”

  Martin clears his throat, but Everton speaks first. “He’s sick, Gwen.”

  Martin nods. “Really sick.”

  Part of me knew what they were going to say. My Watcher hasn’t been watching me lately. I’ve been watching him. I scan the lovely bottle garden, listen to the sweet bell sound of the swaying bottles, watch the sparkling glass.

  Of course Mr. McGillies is sick. I knew that somehow. Which is why I’ve avoided him. Which is why he hasn’t been rattling around town except on the first day of school. I realize with a lurch that maybe he was looking for me that day to tell me.

  My Watcher is deathly ill.

  Then …

  Gwendolyn …

  The Rogue appears outside the bottle archway. For a second all three of us are completely still, and the only movement is the gentle shushing of the stalks behind dark feathers. Then the Rogue strides toward me and sweeps me up into the dark sky.

  The last thing I hear is Everton scream. Or maybe it’s Martin.

  It’s also entirely possible that the scream comes from me.

  Twenty-Two

  I’m lying on a beach beside a lake.

  Leafy trees sway in a gentle breeze. I sit up and try to focus. A figure walks toward me across the beach sand and small pebbles. For a moment I see a dark, feathered creature, then a man stops in front of me. I’m afraid to look up.

  Gwendolyn Golden, I’m pleased to finally meet you.

  He has a very deep voice. He squats down in front of me, and there’s really nothing I can do except look at him. I’m not in my body. I’m somewhere over the lake, watching myself talk to a creature on a beach.

  The Rogue.

  There are no deep, golden eyes now. His eyes are just clear and green. No black feathers either, just a black T-shirt and jeans on a human body. A nice face looks back at me. He looks a bit like Mr. Tupperman, to be honest. The only thing a little odd about him is a too-sweet smell and his bare feet, which are perfectly white, like marble. The whole place is too sweet-smelling, though, like it’s masking something.

  Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Abilith.

  He raises his eyebrows and offers his hand to help me stand. I don’t take it, but I do stand up and brush the sand off my jeans.

  “You’re a Rogue Spirit Flyer. From the Night Flyer’s Handbook. From the legend of Abilith and Mirandel.”

  Part of me is saying, Gwendolyn, run! But a bigger part of me is asleep somehow, as though I’m merely a spectator. My body is just sleepwalking through whatever is going on here. It’s the strangest sensation.

  Yes. I’m Abilith of the legend. I’m surprised you’ve heard of me. You must be doing your reading.

  He chuckles, and it’s a deep, soothing sound.

  You have nothing to fear, Gwendolyn. You are safe.

  There’s not much I can do if I’m not, a snappy part of me thinks. The real Gwendolyn is still in there somewhere — that’s good to know.

  “Where are we?” I ask. I look out over the beautiful lake, the lovely blue summer sky, toward the green and gently waving trees. It’s pretty, but there’s something a little off about it. The air is too sweet, the trees are too green, the sky too perfectly blue and mirrored too exactly in the calm water.

  This is my place. My shore. My home. You’re safe here, although we may not have much time.

  He brushes his hand through his black hair. It’s a simple enough movement, but it’s mesmerizing. It’s like watching a gorgeous animal perfectly at ease with itself, rippling with life and terror. A tiger maybe. A leopard. A shark.

  Shall we walk?

  We walk along the sand. My feet are bare, too, for some reason, and the sand is warm between my toes. It’s the only sensation I can feel, since everything from my feet up is still fast asleep or unconscious.

  Would you like to know why I brought you here?

  “Yes.”

  Forget whatever you have heard. No doubt you’ve read that I’m a terrible creature, fallen, a thing to shun and fear. I’m not. And that whole myth about me not liking groups of people is not true. I just choose not to disrupt. I’m thoughtful that way most of the time. I’m different, yes, I’m not like my brothers and sisters the Spirit Flyers, yes, but I’ve never hurt anyone.

  “What about Mirandel? You stole her, and she vanished forever.” I’m starting to feel oddly misplaced, like part of me is missing. I notice my teeth are chattering softly, but I’m not cold. I’m not anything.

  Abilith stoops to pick up a stick on the beach, and with one simple, elegant swing of his arm, he sends it soaring over the water. It lands with a shimmery scattering of water-filled sunlight and a gentle, distant splash.

  Mirandel. The lovely girl. Oh, that she could have lived forever. She was part mortal, Gwendolyn, and lived a mortal’s short existence. She’s been gone a long time, too long, forever, it seems. But I didn’t steal her or keep her here against her will.

  “Is that why I’m here? Because you miss Mirandel?”

  He looks at me, surprised.

  You do look remarkably like her. And you’re a strong spirit like she was, that I can see. But I’d never keep you here against your will, Gwendolyn Golden. You do HAVE free will, you know, regardless of what others may tell you. All this nonsense about handbooks and making a choice about your future, you don’t have to do any of it. All you really have to do is fly, if that is your wish.

  I look into his odd green eyes. They aren’t human eyes, of course, but they’re a very clever copy. We stare at each other. There’s something wrong with Abilith’s pupils. They keep rapidly changing size, big, little, big, little. It’s like watching his heartbeat, if he has one.

  “Can you please hurry up and get to why I’m here?”

  Yes, of course, my apologies. If you know who I am, then you know that I’m a Spirit Flyer, or once was. I have their skill, their vision, I’m like them in every way except one: they have cast me out. Don’t ask why. I may tell you one day, just not today.

  I was. I was about to ask him why. A school of fish swims below the surface of the lake, churning the water with their tails, silver bellies flashing toward the sun. A fish leaps out of the water and snaps a dragonfly from the air. I gasp. For a second, the fish sheds sun-spangled water with the dragonfly struggling and flickering in its jaw. Then the pair sink with a loud splash below the water.

  Abilith doesn’t seem to notice.

  “You still haven’t told me why I’m here. You’re keeping me against my will.”

  You are free to go at any time, Gwendolyn. And no doubt my clumsy sister Celestine will arrive at any moment to claim you anyway. She is very easy to deceive, I’m afraid, and not very bright. But know this: I’ve brought you here to tell you the truth about someone you have lost. There are others who want to keep the truth from you, but I see no reason to hide it. They say they are protecting you, but I say you need to know. Do you want to know?

  I look into the odd green eyes.

  I know the truth about your father, Gwendolyn. About the night he died. Do you want to know the truth, too?

  A flash of anger spears me, and I wake up. He wants to tell me about my father? He doesn’t get to mention my father.

  “Whatever you have to tell me is probably lies. And you’re the last, well, not person, but creature I guess, who I want to talk to about anything, especially not my father. Take me back. Now.”

  There’s a dull thumping in my ears. Is that my heartbeat now? I’m glad it’s still there, pumping away. Good to be reminded that I still have a body.

  Despite my protest, Abilith speaks again.

  You should know, Gwendolyn. You deserve to kn
ow. It is your story. No one can withhold your story. Here is the truth. Your father died saving someone you know. He went out into the storm to check on a neighbour, so the story goes. Do you ever wonder which neighbour? Are you not curious?

  Miserable me, miserable fatherless daughter, miserable one who has always, always wondered that very thing. Oh, miserable head that nods ever so slightly and miserable lips that part to whisper, “Yes!”

  In the next instant, a cloud shimmers above the lake and bursts into an image of a dark night and a terrible storm.

  My father stands in the middle of a laneway beside a cornfield. He covers his eyes as rain slicks his hair to his head. He leans into the fierce wind, calling a name into the storm. I can hear his voice, but not the words. His raincoat whips wildly behind him in the darkness, and he reaches a hand toward a cabin in the distance with a light on.

  My father stands in the exact spot beside the cornfield that I have visited all summer.

  It’s the spot where I watch the light in Mr. McGillies’s window every night. My father calls into the storm again and again, and this time I hear him: McGovern McGillies! McGovern McGillies!

  Then my father finds the frightened old man cowering beside the road, and he helps Mr. McGillies get up. The two men struggle toward the cabin in the howling rain. Then …

  … oh, miserable me who has to see what happens next. But I cannot look away.

  A dark cloud descends on them both, blotting out the cornfield. They disappear. I want to scream, but I can’t. Nothing comes out.

  Mr. McGillies falls to the muddy road, out of the cloud, and claws his way into the cabin. My father’s feet vanish as he’s swept up into the black, black heart of the storm. I’ve seen this cloud before. T. Bosch saw it, too.

  Abilith says it for me with a whisper. The Shade found them, Gwendolyn.

  He says this so gently, so sweetly. His green eyes look almost compassionate, weirdly pulsing and almost believably filled with sadness.