Everton Miles Is Stranger Than Me

by Philippa Dowding

  Your father fought bravely. He struggled against the Shade, but he could not fly hard and fast enough to save them both. Your father saved Mr. McGillies, then the Shade swept him away.

  I’ve wondered all my life exactly how my father died, and now I know. Who was the neighbour? Where did my father’s body go? How did it happen?

  I bow my head. A huge tear wells up and spills onto my cheek.

  Drip.

  I’m in my body now, fully frightened, fully awake, completely aware.

  Why is knowledge so painful? My father sacrificed himself to save Mr. McGillies? I open my mouth but nothing comes out, and I’m pretty sure that this is the very moment that my heart breaks. I feel it, a bursting and pulsing outward, the death of everything that I didn’t want to know.

  The birth of everything I now know forever.

  I can’t ever go back to not knowing the truth.

  More huge tears slowly roll down my cheeks.

  Abilith stands beside me, opening and closing his hands, as though he has no idea how to comfort me. Clearly he’s good at getting the truth out there but useless at mopping up the mess afterward. He doesn’t even try to comfort me but watches the sky over the water.

  He’s edgy, uneasy, and paces the beach in front of me.

  The sky changes from blue to a violent roiling black, with clouds billowing and spilling and swooping down toward us. It looks like a T. Bosch drawing, a dark, dangerous, terrifying sky come to life. Abilith tenses beside me and then shouts. He throws his arms above his head as though shielding us.

  NO!

  A brilliant light blinds me. I cover my face. Whatever force was keeping me calm and distant has vanished, and I’m fully aware of my terror. My hand reaches to my heart, and there’s my father’s golden feather. I clasp it with everything I have.

  A blast of wind tears the beach apart, and sand whips my skin and fills my nostrils so I can’t breathe. I cower beneath Abilith, who is no longer the harmless- looking man in a black T-shirt and jeans.

  He’s a ferocious, howling wind with a black body and feathers of fire on his shoulders. His golden eyes blaze, and he fills the air with shrieking that freezes my soul.

  White feathers charge out of the storm toward us. A blazing whiteness lands on the beach and runs headlong into Abilith. For a second, two whirling shapes, one white and one black, twist and form together. Swords clash in the darkness, again and again. More bright white figures arrive from the sky, and the air above me is filled with bodies colliding, fighting, slashing, forming, and unforming in black-and-white smoke.

  The lake, the sky, the trees, everything is gone, and it’s just me alone in the wilderness. Above are the battling creatures of light and dark, and I couldn’t tell you how long I huddle on the sand, listening to the shrieks and bellows and crash of swords above my head. I think time is irrelevant at this point, to be honest. Abilith shrieks once again, then everything is blackness and silence.

  Then … a Spirit Flyer forms above me.

  Gwendolyn Golden! Gwendolyn Golden!

  Something moves against my skin, but I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. The world has contracted and there is no colour, no sound, nothing at all.

  Then everything hurts, and the ground is beneath me. I open my eyes.

  You are safe, Gwendolyn Golden.

  The brilliant white Spirit Flyer lays me down gently at the edge of the dark cornfield.

  “Celestine. You saved me,” I whisper.

  Sleep now, little golden sister. I must help my brothers and sisters catch the Rogue.

  A flurry of white feathers vanishes in a stream of gold light above my head, and she’s gone.

  I turn my head to see Mr. McGillies’s bottle archway glitter and gleam with tea lights, his cabin in the distance. Two boys run toward me, and I hear them call my name.

  And then I faint, or maybe it’s dying?

  Twenty-Three

  Not dying. Not dead. In fact, quite alive.

  I open my eyes. Everton runs up, then Martin. For a moment no one moves, and we’re a weird tableau, three humans blinking at each other in the tea lights with the gentle ping-ping of bottles swaying in the garden.

  “Gwen! Are you okay?” Everton whispers. He looks so stricken that I pull myself together and stand up.

  “Yes, I think so.” I’m not, but I’m a good liar.

  “What was that thing?” Martin asks.

  “It’s a long story, Martin,” Everton says. “We’ll tell you, but go say goodnight to Mr. McGillies now. We have to take Gwen home.” Martin frowns and then reluctantly leaves us by the cabin door. Everton whirls on me.

  “Gwen, what happened?”

  I’m weary, and I feel sick. I lean against the cabin. I’ve never felt so tired in my life.

  “It was the Rogue. Abilith. The one from the legend.”

  “It was? Abilith? Really?”

  I nod, distant. “He took me to his world and showed me … I was there a long time.”

  Everton shakes his head. “No Gwen, you were gone a few seconds. The Rogue snatched you, I chased him into the cornfield, and then Celestine brought you back to the archway a few moments later. What did he show you?”

  “Nothing. I’ll tell you later. What do we tell Martin?”

  Martin appears at the cabin door and shuts it quietly. “Why don’t you tell me the truth?” he says. He sounds concerned but deadly serious. Everton and I exchange looks, but we can see we have to tell him. He clearly saw two Spirit Flyers, one light and one dark. What kind of a lie do you make up for something like that?

  The three of us head home along the dark road, and Everton tells Martin everything. I have to say for a non-Night Flyer, Martin takes the truth about Celestine and Abilith remarkably well. He’s not even that surprised to learn that Everton is a Night Flyer, too. He asks a lot of questions but seems to believe us. I don’t tell them what Abilith showed me, though, and Everton doesn’t ask again.

  I’m silent, weak, struggling to stay on my feet and keep up with them. I do, but only because Everton has a strong, steadying arm around me, holding me up the whole way home.

  Twenty-Four

  So begins my new life with too much knowledge.

  I get up every morning and do what’s expected of me. I go to school. I walk C2 home at the end of the day. I make them food, I do my homework, I walk my dog.

  But everything is changed. I keep seeing my father’s feet as they vanish into a dark cloud beside an old cabin.

  Other than Everton and Martin, no one knows about Abilith. Everton has asked a few times but has politely received the message that I don’t want to talk about it. Martin doesn’t mention it again. I don’t tell Jez, because she’s so far out of the loop now. Where would I start? I also don’t want Everton to tell Mrs. Forest what happened, and he’s good to his word and keeps it quiet. No one knows the Rogue showed me the truth about my dad. I’m all alone with that knowledge, and who would I tell, anyway?

  I carry the weight of it with me all the time.

  It’s a beautiful Saturday in October, one of those strange warm days that are still and clear. Cassie and I walk around town a little until I find myself in front of The Float Boat. The store is full of younger kids, and the noise and buzz of the place just doesn’t appeal to me. I watch Mr. and Mrs. Forest serve floats and fries to a whole new batch of little kids from this town. I used to be one of them.

  I head down the street, go around the corner, and bang into a lady. She drops her bag of groceries, and I stoop to help her pick them up.

  It’s Miss Moreau.

  “Hi, Gwendolyn!” she says nicely, and I help her stuff her oranges back into the bag. She asks me how school is going, and we chat until suddenly we’re at her front door.

  I tell her I liked the work she, Martin, and Everton did on Mr. McGillies’s
bottle garden.

  “The lights are nice, aren’t they? They were Martin’s idea. How is Mr. McGillies? Have you seen him?”

  “No. Well, yes, but not much. Just once lately.”

  Miss Moreau stands on the step of her house and smiles. “He’s a great guy. Mr. McGillies used to be my art teacher at the band council community centre when I was a kid. He was a sculptor. He won awards and travelled around the world doing art with underprivileged communities. But you probably know that. He showed me how to make glass bottle sculptures when I was young, so I’m glad I remembered how to do it in his own garden.”

  How did I not know that Mr. McGillies taught art to kids? Or that he was a world-travelling artist?

  I help Miss Moreau get her groceries into the house, but I turn down her offer of iced tea, using Cassie as my excuse.

  “I hope you come out for volleyball tryouts next week, Gwen, I think you’d be good on the team. Oh, and the bottle garden isn’t finished. You can help us any time for community service hours.”

  “Thanks, but I’m a bit busy right now.” I have zero interest in volleyball, plus I’m terrible at it, which she’ll find out soon enough. And as for working in the bottle garden? I’m done with being swept into the air by legendary creatures. I’ll find something else to do for community hours, thanks.

  I say goodbye and walk away from Miss Moreau. There really are two of me.

  One who knows the truth about my father.

  And one who has to live in the world with everyone else.

  Twenty-Five

  Weeks float by like leaves on a stream.

  Daily routine is good, and going to classes and walking through the halls keeps my feet on the ground. Whenever I see Everton, he stops to chat, but only if Shelley isn’t with him. If she is, they walk past. I keep starting conversations with Jez and then stopping.

  I haven’t flown since the night at Mr. McGillies’s cabin, and Everton hasn’t dropped by to tempt me. I guess we’re both too scared.

  In the past few weeks, Martin and I have gotten closer. He chats with me whenever we’re alone in the halls, and we get along fine in science class. He walks home sometimes with Jez, C2, and me after school. Christopher likes Martin and tells him jokes. The two of them laugh all the way home, and I can’t help thinking what a nice boy Martin is to hang out with my little brother and pretend he’s funny. It’s sweet to watch.

  I fail my first science test. Mr. Tupperman returns our papers, and mine has no mark on it, just a note in red pen: Gwendolyn, please see me after class. Martin sees the note on my paper but politely looks away.

  After class I go up to Mr. Tupperman.

  “Gwendolyn, did you study for this test?” He raises an eyebrow and waits.

  “I’ll do better next time, sir, I promise.”

  “Okay, if you need extra help, you should let me know,” he says kindly.

  “I’ll help Gwendolyn study, Mr. Tupperman,” Martin says. I forgot he was there.

  “You’re still interested in tutoring, Martin?”

  Martin nods.

  “What do you think, Gwendolyn?”

  I don’t say no, so it’s settled. Martin scribbles his number on a piece of paper and hands it to me. “Call me,” he says and rushes away, and I get the feeling he’s been dying to tutor me all along.

  Too bad he can’t help me in gym.

  In gym, we’ve done a few weeks of field hockey, then badminton, then basketball, and now we’ve moved on to volleyball. I’m permanently black and blue, since Shelley is constantly kicking or slashing at me. I spend most of my time in gym class trying to avoid her. I can’t help but notice that after that day with the oranges on the sidewalk, Miss Moreau hasn’t breathed another word to me about joining the volleyball team. I can hardly blame her.

  I’m terrible at volleyball.

  I’m so bad that after a few gym classes, everyone stops making eye contact with me, even Jez. By the third volleyball class, I hear everyone take in a little breath whenever the ball comes to me. Everyone watches me miss the ball, again, and again, and again. And again. Eventually they just give up hope. I haven’t touched the volleyball once, which is weird because I’m one of the tallest kids in the class, but whenever I go one way, the ball goes the other. There’s some force in me that repels the ball.

  It snows this morning on the way to school, not unusual for mid-November. I refuse to wear my winter boots, and I slip and slide on the icy sidewalks all the way. At the gates to school, I go down hard and bang my knee on the frozen ground. There’s a tiny rip across the knee of my favourite jeans and the beginnings of a small bruise underneath. In gym class I do a little limp, hoping it’ll land me on the bench with an ice pack for an hour.

  But Miss Moreau won’t let me sit out. I have to play volleyball. I rotate off the bench and into the first position and stare right into the piggy black eyes of Shelley Norman facing me across the net. The other girls are all nervous. They can maybe sense what’s going to happen.

  The ball gets served. I jump up, arms out ...

  … and I don’t miss. This is the day that my body decides to finally get volleyball. I actually touch the ball. But I don’t just touch it — I smash it. And I don’t just smash it to the floor for a point, but I accidentally smash it full force into Shelley Norman’s face. Believe me, no one is more shocked than me. There’s blood everywhere, spurting out of Shelley’s nose and mouth, and she stares at me for a second. For one quiet moment everyone holds their breath … then Shelley flings herself under the net.

  She’s going to kill me.

  Shelley Norman lands on me, and I go down hard on my sore knee. I gasp and throw my arms up in defense, but my reflex move catches Shelley on the chin, and she looks shocked for a second then swats me. I catch it on the shoulder as I roll away.

  Shelley’s hot breath hits my face with a little daub of spit. She wants me dead. This is nothing like wearing her clay-covered smock in art class. This is war. I struggle to push her off, but she’s bigger than I am by a lot. She slaps me across the face. Slap, slap.

  There’s a lot of screaming, legs and arms flailing. I hear a familiar voice shriek a terrible curse, and the room falls quiet.

  It’s me cursing.

  It probably all takes ten seconds before Miss Moreau wades in and tears Shelley off me. Jez takes my hand and says urgently, “Come on, Gwen, stop!” There’s blood all over Shelley’s face, and I’m covered in it too, although I’m not sure if it’s her blood or mine.

  We both stagger to our feet and gasp for air like prizefighters. Then the gym doors open with a bang, and Mr. Skinty walks in, accompanied by two scared-looking girls from our class. Apart from heavy breathing from Shelley and me, the place is dead quiet.

  “Miss Golden, Miss Norman, come with me please.”

  Without a word, Jez takes me by the arm, and Miss Moreau takes Shelley, and we march through the halls to the principal’s office. Class is in, so no one is in the halls, except of course the one person who will get the most out of seeing us bloodied and beaten. Everton is out of class with a hall pass and watches us both walk by. I don’t make eye contact. My face is stormy, not to mention bloody.

  Shelley does, though, and snarls at him, “Your girlfriend is a wimp, Miles.” He doesn’t say anything, at least not that I can hear.

  This strikes me as interesting, though. Why would Shelley think I’m his girlfriend?

  We get to the principal’s office and sink into the deep leather chairs that my brother and sister sat in a few months ago. Miss Moreau sits on one side with Shelley and Jez with me on the other.

  Miss Moreau looks very concerned. Jez, too. Shelley doesn’t say anything or look at me. She’s got a tissue wadded against her cheek, a twin to the one I have wadded against my ear, which has a gash from one of Shelley’s rings.

  Mr. Skinty says, “Two-w
eek suspension,” and Jez says she thinks my mom is at work. I go to the washroom with Jez, who helps me clean up. She fusses and clucks, and we don’t speak. Then I wait with Miss Moreau at the front door until my mother arrives in her old car a little while later. We drive away, and I see Shelley Norman walking home alone.

  She still has the tissue wadded against her cheek, and it’s covered in blood. I stopped bleeding some time ago.

  Twenty-Six

  Suspended. I’m suspended. It’s a little like floating.

  The first day I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling. My mother is surprisingly calm about the whole thing, disappointed but not terribly angry. She says something like, “You do have a bad temper, Gwendolyn. I’m not delighted about this, of course, just don’t let it happen again.” And that’s pretty much the extent of my punishment from her.

  The first day, Jez comes by to talk after school, but I’m really not in the mood. She babbles on for a while. She says everyone is worried about me, but I seriously doubt that’s true. I listen to her drone on about some guy in her math class who asked her out.

  “You should go,” I say.

  She wrinkles her nose. “He’s short.”

  “So? Is he nice?”

  Jez considers this. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Just go on a date with him, Jez. Who cares if he’s short? Just look perfect and go on a STUPID DATE!”

  This is harsh even for me, and Jez says, “Jeesh, Gwen, calm down. I’ll … I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.” Then she takes her coat and leaves.

  She comes the next day, and the next. She tells me about Chas, and she even brings me a little sculpture of a bird she made. It’s pretty and I stick it in my window. I could talk to Jez. I should talk to Jez. But I don’t.

  I’m allowed out to get C2 after school every day, except the days that they have therapy then Mom picks them up. I lie around and watch TV, but there’s nothing remotely interesting on in the daytime. I haven’t read much since I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, since nothing else will ever be as good. And I don’t intend to touch Your First Flight: A Night Flyer’s Handbook (The Complete & Unabridged Version, Newly Updated!) ever again.