Authors: Melody John
David.
Tariq.
Liam.
‘Morning, Lizzie,’ Paula said.
‘Hi,’ I replied, pulling out the chair next to her. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘I am very well,’ she said. Paula was an older woman, studying as a mature student. I wasn’t quite sure how old she was, maybe in her early thirties, but she was nice. A bit grave, and very very polite. In our early conversations she’d looked so startled whenever I said something sarcastic that I didn’t have the heart to be snarky around her now. She was wearing earrings that looked like they were made from sky blue pearls.
‘I love your earrings,’ I said. ‘They’re so pretty.’
‘Oh, oh, thank you.’ She fluttered and patted her neck. She had soft brown hair, cut in a short wavy bob, and her eyes were large and blue, like a doll’s. When she smiled, it was shy but warm. ‘I, um, I like yours as well.’
My earrings were ancient novelty ones from Claire’s, little red and green zippers. I knew she didn’t really like them—I think a lot of my style choices rather bewildered her—but I appreciated her saying it anyway. ‘Thank you. But yours are far prettier. Where did get them?’
‘Oh, they’re my mother’s,’ Paula said. She pulled one out of her ear and rested it on her palm so I could see it properly. ‘She went to Morocco for a holiday, and there was a trader there selling them. She bought two pairs, a pink pair and a blue pair, and she gave me the blue pair.’
‘They match your eyes,’ I said.
Paula smiled shyly and clipped the earring back in. We sat in silence for a moment, then she ventured a question over whether I’d seen the latest episode of the
Bake-Off
. I replied that I hadn’t, and she filled me in on all the latest details and developments.
‘I always feel so inadequate watching it though,’ she said ruefully. ‘I can’t even make a Victoria sponge. My boyfriend’s the one who always does the cooking. He’s so good at it.’
‘Like, cakes and stuff?’
‘Not just cakes, everything. He does this recipe with sour cream and Swiss cheese and chicken, and oh, it just melts in your mouth. I should bring in some of his cooking sometime and share with the class.’
‘The chicken?’ I asked, grinning.
Paula looked gently surprised. ‘No, I was thinking more along the lines of cookies or a cake.’
I chuckled. ‘Yeah, that would be good. Maybe that would entice more people to show up for class.’
We looked around the room, which held a grand total of five other people. Three girls talking and giggling together, a girl sitting by herself and ignoring everyone else, and a guy reading
Testament of Youth
. The first class of the year had had at least twenty students, but the numbers had dwindled and dwindled over the weeks until now it was a miracle if ten people showed up.
I sighed. ‘You know, before I came to uni, I kind of thought it would be like a book club. Everyone super into reading, everyone really wanting to learn.’
Paula laughed quietly. ‘No, that’s not quite accurate.’
‘I don’t understand, though. Why shell out all that money on a degree that you’re not going to enjoy?’
‘Things are different. Everyone goes to university now. It’s just like another step after Sixth Form.’
‘Well I wish it wasn’t,’ I grumbled. I eyed the giggling trio of girls. ‘I know it sounds snobby to say that. Like I should adjust my monocle and snort about letting the riffraff in.’
Paula looked at me with her wide eyes. ‘Do you think that?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, feeling startled and a little hurt. ‘I was just joking.’
‘Oh,’ she said. She smiled. ‘Sorry. I thought it would have been a bit odd if you did.’
The door opened. I looked around, expecting the tutor, but it was another student.
‘Oh, he’s new,’ Paula murmured by my ear. ‘I haven’t seen him before. Is he a transfer?’
But her voice was fading away into an indistinct buzz. My hands felt suddenly freezing cold. My heart was suddenly going at a million miles an hour. I couldn’t breathe.
The new student halted in the doorway, scanning the room and all the empty seats. His eyes flicked over Paula and me, then to the trio of girls, who were looking at him with bright, eager eyes. He hitched his bag up higher on his shoulder.
His shoulder.
His shoulder.
Behind his shoulders, tucked in close, was a pair of wings.
He passed by us, and I flinched away from him, banging my elbow on the desk. He didn’t look round, didn’t acknowledge us, but went and sat down next to the guy who was reading
Testament of Youth
.
Paula’s hand on my arm sent my heart almost bursting out of my ears. ‘Lizzie? Are you all right?’
‘Yeah,’ I croaked. ‘Yeah.’
‘You’re awfully pale,’ she said, looking at me in concern. ‘Are you sure? Do you feel sick?’
The new student slid his bag down onto the desk and began looking inside. He pulled out a laptop and a power cord. He reached down and plugged in the laptop charger to the socket in the wall.
But his wings.
His wings were tidily clamped onto his back, folded up between his shoulder blades. They weren’t dark. They weren’t black like midnight.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Liam.
His wings were brown, light brown, with reddish, cinnamon-coloured freckles. They were smooth, tawny, a russet foxy brown. The colour of autumn leaves.
Wings.
No, breathe, don’t panic, it’s not Liam, it’s not Liam, it’s not Liam, it’s not Liam, it’s not Liam—
‘Right,’ the tutor said, throwing open the door and bustling in. ‘Sorry I’m late. I see our numbers are depleted still further, but no matter, we can make do. So if you’ll all sit up and take notice, today we’re thinking about hamartia and tragedy.’
I shoved back my chair and swept everything into my bag.
‘Lizzie?’ the tutor enquired.
‘Sorry,’ I croaked. ‘I’m not well. I’ve got to go.’
He frowned. ‘Well, if you must. Check online for the notes, and make sure you—’
‘Yes, yes, I will.’ I almost fell over my chair.
Everyone was looking at me. The new student. The new student was looking at me. I met his eyes, couldn’t stop my gaze flicking over his shoulder, and darted away. ‘Bye,’ I mumbled to Paula, ‘Sorry,’ to the tutor, and half-ran out of the room to the bathroom.
I locked myself in one of the toilet cubicles and sat on the seat, my arms wrapped around myself, trying not to fall apart. Breathe, I had to breathe, I had to breathe.
The paper dispenser on the wall vibrated, and the paper started to spool out onto the floor. The bin rattled, the lid flipping up and down.
I squeezed my eyes tight shut. I drew my feet up onto the seat and dug my forehead into my knees. My breath whistled in and out, and there was a ringing in my ears.
It’s not Liam, I chanted to myself. It’s not Liam. It’s not Liam. ‘It’s not Liam!’
‘Um, are you all right in there?’ The person in the next stall sounded wary.
‘Yeah,’ I managed. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ I clamped down tightly onto my power, and managed to force things to a standstill. The bin stopped rattling, and the paper gave a final twitch and then stopped, the roller squeaking a little.
‘Has the, uh, paper run out?’
‘No, no, sorry, just… I’m fine.’
Doubtful silence.
‘Thank you,’ I added.
‘Okay.’ The toilet flushed and gurgled. I heard them leave the stall and wash their hands. I held my breath until they left the bathroom. Then I sat upright and remembered my eyeliner. I took my compact mirror out of my bag and examined my makeup, and fussing over touching up my waterline somehow made my hands stop shaking.
The bin and paper dispenser. I hadn’t had an episode like that in months and months. I shifted away from them, and rested my hot forehead on the opposite wall. It was cool, blessedly cool, and I felt a small shiver run down my back. God. What was I going to do?
He had wings. The new student had wings. That meant he was a sylph. An air elemental. Just like (
don’t think it
) just like Liam.
No. Just because he was a sylph didn’t mean that he was like Liam. I didn’t know that at all, didn’t know anything about him. It was kind of racist to think that way. But if he was a sylph, it meant he had power, like Liam had. The mesmer, the power to control and manipulate people’s minds.
I shuddered, and felt ready to burst into tears. The bin lid flapped, and I struggled to control myself. Okay, this had happened, but I had to think. I had to think.
The new student. He couldn’t hurt me as long as I didn’t get close to him. Liam had needed eye and skin contact to work his mesmer, so I should be safe from this new guy so long as I didn’t get close to him. Maybe I could switch classes so I wouldn’t even have to be in this class with him. There was another class, wasn’t there? Even if there wasn’t, so long as I just stayed away from him, I would be safe.
I would be safe.
I stayed in the toilet for longer than I realised, and was startled half to death when the bathroom door suddenly burst open and a stampede of students poured in. I waited until they had gone, listening in a detached way to their talk of lecture notes, how their tutor was really mean and totally had it in for them, what they were planning to do after classes were over.
Then I opened the stall door and crept out. My face looked pale and strange in the bathroom mirror, washed out and heavy under the harsh, unkind fluorescent lighting. I dabbed water on my forehead, then ran my hands under the cold tap until they hurt. Then I pressed my chilled hands to my cheeks and stared at myself in the mirror.
I would be safe. I wasn’t the same girl who’d been used and deceived before. I was stronger now, and I knew what I was doing. Kind of. Sort of. Sometimes. No, in this case I did know what I was doing. And that was what would keep me safe.
And I would be safe, no matter what.
I was terrified for the rest of the day that I would bump into the new student. Every corner I turned was a nightmare, and, as I avoided looking at people, I kept on bumping into everyone. I could see it all playing out in my head like a terrible horror movie: I would turn a corner and bump into someone, I would look up instinctively and lock eyes with the new student, and then—
But I managed to make it through the rest of the day all in one piece. I saw Paula from a distance, but hastily ducked into the canteen to avoid talking to her. I didn’t want to try and explain myself, because what could I say? ‘Yeah, I ducked out of class because the new student freaked me out because he’s a sylph just like the boy who broke my heart two years ago’?
Yeah, that would go down very well.
By the end of the day I felt worn to a frazzle, like a cloth fraying and unravelling. When I got back to my room, I went straight into the shower and turned the water up high. After being pounded by the almost-boiling water pressure, I got dressed in my pyjamas and found a packet of chocolate biscuits in my cupboard in the kitchen and took them back into my room. I got into bed and ate biscuits and tried to calm myself by re-watching old episodes of
Agent Carter
.
It helped. A little.
But my mind kept on going back to the bin, and the dispenser vomiting out toilet paper. That was me; I’d done that. It had been the first time in so long that I’d even thought about my power. When I’d first discovered that I could move objects with my mind, I’d been torn between freaking out at the weirdness and freaking out at the coolness of it all. I mean,
telekinesis
,
levitation
. It was like I was one of the freaking
X-Men
.
But that had been at the beginning, before Liam had really sunk his claws in. After he’d left, been dragged back by his uncle to wherever it was he came from, I’d attempted to use my power again, tried to shake off the associations and just use it for its own sake.
Telekinesis
.
But it hadn’t been as easy as that. Every time I’d attempted to use it, to practise and grow more powerful and more adept, all the memories had come rushing back. Liam on the bench near the park, his face so close to mine. He’d taught me how to use my new power, and that was the day that I’d finally managed it and had levitated my key ring. That had also been the day when we’d kissed for the first time.
The very memory of that day sent a tangled ball of black feelings rocketing around inside me. I crunched determinedly on a biscuit, and tried to shove down the feelings of betrayal and misery and self-loathing that rose up whenever I thought of Liam.
But I’d been so happy that day—at least I’d thought I had. It was all manipulation, Liam getting inside my head and mesmerising me so I thought that I liked him. That I
loved
him.
I swiped angrily at a tear that threatened to roll down my cheek. God, this was so stupid! It had been two years ago, two freaking years of jumping and hiding and pretending that I’d never want to like any guy ever again. There had been other guys, some of the other boys at college had been nice, and I’d even been asked out a few times. And David, here at uni. God, I just wanted to be free to like David. Not even
like
like him—I just wanted to be able to be his friend without this feeling of impending doom looming over my head. It was always there, a constant warning, that feeling that if I ever let my guard down around any guy I liked even slightly and platonically he would use that against me.
I knew it wasn’t fair to David, and it wasn’t right to think that way. But the feelings still remained, and I couldn’t shake them. They were driving me mad. It wasn’t fair to David, but it wasn’t fair to me either! It wasn’t fair!
The biscuits turned soggy in my mouth, and I realised that I was crushing the packet in my fist, breaking the biscuits into crumbs. I carefully put the packet down on the bed. This wasn’t helping. Wallowing it in wasn’t helping. I needed to think, I needed to plan, I needed to analyse.
The new guy, the student. God, I didn’t even know his name. No, focus—if he was a new transfer, I didn’t know how many of my classes he might be in. He was in at least one for sure, so he might be in at least half. I’d just have to ride out the rest of the week and see.
That was all I could do. I couldn’t march up to him and scream, ‘I know what you are, I know what your kind are capable of, stay the hell away from me.’
Was I being horribly prejudiced by thinking that? It was like with those really radical political parties, thinking that the Bulgarians next door are all going to be illegal immigrants, and the black kids round the block will totally stab you if you throw them any shade. Nothing to do with actually getting to know them as people, just making snap judgements based on race and appearance.
That was exactly what I doing, oh my god. I felt like shouting in frustration. No, come on,
think
.
Wait and see. Wait and see how he acts around people, if he seems like he’s mesmerising or manipulating anyone. Stay well away from him so I don’t get sucked in either.
It could work. So long as I could stay away from him, I should be safe. No eye contact, no skin contact. Like a restraining order, no closer than ten feet at any given time.
I could do this.
I wouldn’t freak out. I could do this.
I took a deep breath and released it. Okay. And the first step on the road to not freaking out was to ensure that I didn’t have another meltdown. Which meant that I would have to start practising my power again. If I could get that under control and make it respond to my will and not my emotions, I wouldn’t accidentally start levitating random objects whenever I got upset.
I could do this. It was necessary, and it would keep me safe, and…
I could do this.
Slowly, I extended my hand in the same kind of Magneto-esque gesture that had seemed appropriate before. I looked at the Funko Pop! figures on the windowsill and focused on Loki, who was at the far right. I took a deep breath and concentrated. I felt the power gather in my palm and in my chest, a hot tingling that felt both attractive and repugnant. Liam’s face flashed into my mind, but I fought past it.
Loki wobbled, the horns on his helmet bobbing back and forth. I tightened my focus, staring at the green and gold details on his body, at his wide black eyes. Slowly, he rose into the air.
Liam’s face. How dark his eyes had been, how close his face. I hadn’t been able to look away. His face. His eyes. His hands. I’d been obsessed, consumed.
Loki dipped in the air, and I gasped with effort.
Liam so close to me on the bench. So close. I’d been able to see myself reflected in his eyes. Myself. Like a tiny mirror. His eyes. And I’d grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close and—
Loki dropped out of the air and crashed onto the windowsill. He bounced off onto the floor, taking Nick Fury, Crowley, Animal, Beetlejuice and the Predator with him.
All the breath whooshed out of my lungs. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and I scrubbed my face with my hands. My heart was drumming in my ears, and for a few moments I just sat there with my head in my hands, every part of my body feeling stretched and drained like an over-twanged elastic band. And I could see Liam’s face so clearly in my mind, floating in front of my eyes as though he were right here, right next to me.
I raised my head and stared with blurry eyes at the window. My heart was beginning to calm down, but I felt a little sick, and very trembly. But it was a start, right? I slid out of bed to tidy up the mess, but my knees gave out under me, and I had to clutch at the chest of drawers to avoid face-planting into the carpet. Everything went dark for a second, and I heard a loud ringing like bells.
Golly. Okay. I was hopelessly out of practise. Baby steps. I hauled myself up again, and wobbled to the window. I pressed my forehead against the class, feeling the sweat there cool against the glass. Slowly, slowly, I began to feel a little better, and after a few moments longer, I managed to bend down and pick up the figures lying scattered on the floor. I examined Loki carefully, but he didn’t seem to be hurt from his fall. I placed him back with others and rearranged them into order.
It was early, but I felt so weird and exhausted and drained that all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for a hundred years. I tottered back to bed, and shut down my laptop. There were biscuit crumbs on the bottom sheet, and I swept them onto the floor. I didn’t even brush my teeth, but just crashed onto the pillow and was asleep in seconds.