Authors: Melody John
I almost managed to forget about Dmitri. He was there, but only on the outskirts of the group. David tried to include him in the conversation, but it was difficult, as he clearly hadn’t seen any of the films or shows that we were talking about. As time went on, and as I grew more comfortable and relaxed, I almost began to feel a little sorry for him.
After a while, Jamie stumbled back and tried to grab the jug, which had since been refilled. David let him have it, but Jamie just stared into its depths with one eye open, then shoved it back at me. I caught it awkwardly, almost splashing it over the side.
‘Don’t get wet,’ Jamie leered at me, then collapsed back into the crowds.
My heart was beating a little too fast, but I felt better than I would have expected. Not as fragile, or as though I were about to burst into tears. And I managed to smile as I gave the jug to Laura.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘God, Jamie’s such a tool.’
‘He told me I should buy every girl a drink in the first week,’ Dmitri said. ‘That way they’d be more open to hook-ups.’
Laura wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, clearly you didn’t take his advice, because where’s my drink? And Lizzie’s?’
I smiled a little nervously, but Dmitri grinned. ‘I found it funny, though. He didn’t tell me what to do if I wanted to hook up with a guy.’
A guy? Wait, what?
‘Oh,’ Laura said. ‘So you’re…’
‘Gay,’ he supplied. ‘Oh yes. Quite madly.’ He grinned again.
I felt as though an enormous weight had lifted from my shoulders. I felt dizzied with relief. He was gay. Dmitri was gay. He wasn’t going to bewitch me or manipulate me like Liam had. He was gay, so beautifully, blessedly gay.
‘Though please,’ Dmitri said, breaking into my crazy inner dance of relief, ‘don’t try and set me up with your darling little gay friend at home. I’ve been there, and I’ve also been the darling little gay friend.’
David laughed. ‘I was actually going to ask if you’d checked out the LGBT society.’
‘Not yet.’ Dmitri shrugged. ‘I’ve heard mixed things about uni societies like that.’
‘My friend, Kim,’ I said, marvelling how my voice managed to sound so calm, ‘she’s bi, and she loves her LGBT society. Apparently her Student Union are really hands-on and supportive.’
‘Oh, really? Cool.’
I managed to make eye contact with him—not for long, just for a second. Just because he was gay didn’t mean that he wouldn’t use his mesmer for other things. But I smiled as I looked away, and he gave a quick smile back.
‘So do you go there a lot?’ he asked David.
Another thought struck me, and I felt a weird giddy feeling of wild laughter bubbling up inside me. Yes, why was David going to the LGBT society?
But David grinned and said, ‘Is that a polite way of asking? Lol. I’m bisexual, if you were wondering. I go there a fair bit, but there’s not really a whole lot on. The president keeps on talking about giving talks and maybe marches or something, but we never do any of it. Mostly the meetings are just people milling about and talking. Though there’s two asexuals, and they always bring a lot of cake. I don’t know, I think it’s a joke because of something or other, asexual pride. But the cake’s always great.’
‘Worth going just for that, then,’ I said, again marvelling at how calm I could sound when inside I was dancing around and around in circles like Julie Andrews in the opening credits of
The Sound of Music
…
David laughed, and Laura pushed my straw over to me, and I drank deeply of the purple drink and felt as though I might burst with all the emotions that were swirling around inside me.
I half-expected to wake up hungover the next morning, but I don’t think the purple drink had enough alcohol in it for any really detrimental effects. I didn’t have class until the afternoon, so I pottered down to the kitchen in my pyjamas at about half past ten. I didn’t expect to see any of the others, but Dmitri and David were both there. Dmitri was frying some stuff in a pan, and he and David were laughing about something.
‘Hey, Lizzie!’ David called as I came in. ‘Do you want some eggs?’
‘Um.’ I glanced fleetingly at Dmitri.
He nodded. ‘Sure, do you want some?’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ David said, grinning. ‘Volunteering eggs that aren’t mine to give.’
I smiled. ‘Yeah, sure.’ I found a plate, and then poured myself a glass of orange juice from the fridge. I watched Dmitri from the corner of my eye, but he was concentrating entirely on the eggs. I shook myself; I had proof that he wouldn’t try to mesmer me. I was safe. I didn’t have to worry about this anymore.
But still I couldn’t help but be wary around him. I’d softened a little towards him last night, but that had been last night. Now, in the cold light of morning, watching him stand over the oven and flip eggs, watching his wings neatly folded up between his shoulders, and watching David talk to him with absolutely no idea of what he was—now I found a bit of that old paranoia creeping back.
Well, I reasoned with myself, obviously it wasn’t going to go away overnight. I’d been living with this feeling, with this fear, for two years. It wasn’t going to get washed away or reversed just because we’d shared a jug of purple whatever.
‘What was that purple stuff last night?’ I asked, mostly to distract myself from my own thoughts.
‘Purple stuff?’
‘You mean the drink,’ Dmitri said. He took the pan off the heat and divided up the eggs between our three plates. ‘Purple Rain, I think, someone said.’
‘Oh,’ I said, and laughed a bit. ‘Like the song.’
‘The song?’ he repeated blankly.
‘Yeah, you know.’ David grinned at me. ‘
Never meant to cause you any sorrow, never meant to cause you any pain
…’
‘
I only wanted one time to see you laughing
…’ I grinned back, and we sang together. ‘
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain. Puuuurple rain, puuuurrrple rain
…’
Dmitri frowned a little. ‘Purple rain. Is that a reference to something?’
‘Drugs, probably,’ I said.
‘Probably definitely drugs,’ David agreed. ‘Everything’s always to do with drugs.’
‘Is it?’ Dmitri looked mystified. ‘Right. Well. I’ll try and remember that.’
I laughed, and dug into my eggs. They were really nice—not too dry, and flavoured with something I couldn’t quite place.
‘These eggs are awesome, man,’ David said.
‘Marjoram,’ Dmitri said. ‘The secret weapon to cooking.’
‘Oh, is that so.’ David grinned at him. Dmitri grinned back. For a moment, it was just them staring at each other.
I looked at David, and then at Dmitri. David’s eyes were—no, they weren’t, it was a trick of the light. And Dmitri—
Dmitri’s eyes were wide, and shining hazel, the green flecks seeming to dance and swirl. He reached out and lightly touched David’s hand. Then he looked away.
David seemed to snap back into himself, smiling rather shyly, and grabbed another forkful of eggs. He looked over at me. ‘Can’t you finish yours?’
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I mean, yes—I mean—’ I felt a bit sick. My heart was thundering in my ears, and my wrists and knees felt weak and soft. ‘Sorry, it’s not—they’re really nice. Just a bit much.’
David happily scraped my eggs onto his plate. ‘Awesome sauce.’
I looked up and found that Dmitri was staring at me rather oddly. He frowned. I dropped my fork and mumbled, ‘Sorry, got to…’ and dashed out of the kitchen.
*
It didn’t mean anything, I tried to convince myself on my way to class. Dmitri hadn’t done anything, and David hadn’t appeared changed in any way. He barely touched David’s hand, and then he’d taken it away again almost immediately. And he’d looked… not sorry, exactly, but…
Part of me was still overwhelmingly, cringingly grateful that if Dmitri were using his mesmer, at least it was on someone else and not me. But then I mentally shook myself. All the agony and heartbreak that I’d gone through. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone; it would be horrible for something like that to happen to David.
But what should I do?
I could warn David and tell Dmitri to back off. But telling David would involve a lot of ‘
Yeah, so there are weird creatures that are kind of like Angel in
X-Men
, except not really like in
X-Men
, and I’m kind of also like something out of
X-Men
, except not really, and…
’
And if I talked to Dmitri, that would show him that I knew what he was and what he could do. He might be angry. He might be scared. He might… He might do anything. He could do anything, and I might not even realise that he was doing it. That was what made the whole mesmer thing so awful, so terrifying. He could bewitch me into thinking I was suicidal, and I would kill myself if he made me think I wanted to.
No, don’t think that. After all, it hadn’t taken one hundred per cent last time. I had some immunity from the mesmer because of my power, and I thought I’d read something somewhere about how even hypnosis can only go so far—you can’t hypnotise someone to death because the survival instinct is so strong. Or was that in an episode of
Doctor Who
? Anyway, the point was that even though he couldn’t bewitch me into death, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t bewitch me into doing or feeling something else. He might do as Liam had done, and bewitch me into thinking that I loved him. That I adored him. That I would do anything he asked, and do or be whatever it took to be with him.
I felt very cold, and there was a lump growing in my throat. I swallowed fiercely. No. I would not cry, and I would not give up.
But I had to do something. All this that I was feeling, this weight of misery and taint that I’d been carrying around with me—that could end up happening to David as well, if Dmitri did have evil intentions towards him. And I couldn’t let that happen. David was such a sweet guy; he was so genuinely nice. He always said ‘hi’ to me, even when I’d been scared and shy and refused to even make eye contact with him. He’d helped me with my drying up—and it wasn’t even just me that he was nice to. Even though I’d been trying so hard not to notice him, I couldn’t help but see when he emptied the bins even when it wasn’t his turn, when he bought extra bottles of milk and juice and put them in other people’s fridges when they were running low. He was the kind of person who would give you their last Malteser and not even do it grudgingly, but do it happily and willingly because they knew it would make you happy.
God. It terrified me, but I knew what I had to do. I would have to stand up and talk to Dmitri.
As part of our next Dickens class, the tutor arranged a visit to a gallery in the city. There was a new exhibition open there, and the gallery had borrowed a load of paintings from the National Gallery and the Tate Britain to make it ‘the biggest artistic event of the year’. Apparently.
‘Now make sure you have a look at the Augustus Egg sequence,’ the tutor said as we bowled in through the gallery doors. ‘It ties in very nicely with what we’ve been talking about recently with gender roles and hypocrisy.’
The gallery lobby was very bright, with smooth white walls and shiny grey floors. The gift shop was a busy little nook on the right, and to the left, a shiny staircase led up to the first floor. We went up the stairs, and through a clear door into the main room. The light was dimmer here, and the walls were painted dark green; there were a few low couches of dark brown leather, and it smelled strongly of paint and oil and preservatives.
For some reason, Tariq had decided to attend this class, and he nudged the person next to him, and pointed, grinning, at a picture of a half-naked woman with a snake pressed against her breasts.
I scowled and moved away from him and the rest of the group.
‘Pay close attention to the details,’ the tutor was saying, waving his arms like an orchestra conductor. ‘There are always lots of clues happening in the backgrounds…’
The group began to break up into twos and threes as people paired up and found corners to gather in.
I walked farther down the room, my combat boots clomping far too loudly on the shiny floor, and stopped in front of a picture of two children in a garden. There were surrounded by flowers, and they both held glowing orange lanterns, kind of like the ones in
Tangled
. The colours and light were amazing; it was so vivid, I felt as though I could reach out and touch the canvas and feel the actual textures, the silkiness of the petals and the softness of the girls’ white dresses, the crinkled paper shell of the lanterns. I looked even closer, noticing the detail of the flowers in the long dark grass, the mottled peach and orange light on the girls’ faces. It made me feel dizzy, almost as though I were about to fall asleep.
‘Bit sentimental.’ Dmitri’s voice at my side sent my heart flying up into my throat. I spun around and jerked away from him. He backed away a few steps, holding up his hands. ‘Woah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Sorry,’ I gasped, my heart pounding. ‘Sorry. Just—you’re so quiet.’
He cocked his head to one side. The dim light shone on his sandy-brown hair. ‘I’m not really, though. That’s not what it is.’
I looked away. Oh god. He knew. He already knew. This was it.
‘Ever since we first met, you’ve been a bit… weird. Like you don’t like me. I thought you kind of thawed a bit when we went to the club that time, but then the day afterwards you suddenly became all skittish again.’
What should I say? Oh god. I hadn’t planned for this, hadn’t rehearsed any of the things I should have prepared to say. He was waiting for me to answer. ‘Um,’ I finally said. ‘Yeah. I—you—’
I know what you are
.
Oh god, no, I was not going to quote
Twilight
for this.
‘You’re a sylph,’ I blurted out.
I expected him to look shocked or hurt or angry. Like Liam had. But Dmitri merely raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Ah.’
‘You
are
,’ I said.
‘Well, yes, I know I am,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit hard to miss. I assume you can see…’ He unfurled his wings from his back and extended them over his head. They were so huge; I’d forgotten just how huge their wings were. I could see their shadow on the wall next to us, could feel the draft as he raised them up. He smiled slightly at my expression, and folded them again onto his back. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘The mesmer.’ I’d meant it to sound firm and commanding, but it came out as almost a whisper.
‘What about it?’
‘You’ve got one, haven’t you. You’ve all got one.’
‘Well, yeah. It comes with the package.’
I knew I needed to stand tall, look him in the eye and speak my piece. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t do that. But David. For David’s sake. I took a deep breath, and fixed my gaze on the end of Dmitri’s nose. ‘The mesmer doesn’t work on me as well as it does on regular humans. So if I find out that you’ve been using your mesmer on anyone here, anyone in class or anyone back at the dorms, I’ll—’ Goddammit, I’d what? What could I possibly do to stop him? ‘I’ll use my power, and I’ll stop you.’
‘Your power?’ He frowned. ‘What do you mean? How do you have a power? What is it?’
I tried to force confidence into my voice. ‘It’ll be enough to stop you. I’ve met your kind before, and I know what you’re capable of, so you’d better believe me when I say I know how to stop you, and what your weaknesses are.’
There was a pause. I felt him studying me, felt him staring at me. I didn’t make eye contact, but transferred my gaze to a spot just above his left shoulder. I could see the rest of the group at the other end of the room, and the tutor waving his arms and bouncing from student to student. His voice floated back towards us: ‘…And if you look here, you can see the letter—the mark of her shame!—and think also about the context of that, what the letter would symbolise, not just as a letter, but also as a technological advance! 1840, Rowland Hill, the penny black, it’s all here!’
Then Dmitri gave half a smile. ‘Of course I’m not going to use my mesmer on anyone. It’s forbidden. It’s one of the oldest laws.’
‘Doesn’t mean that you’re not going to break it.’
‘True. Very well, then, I promise, hand on heart, that I’m not going to use my mesmer on anyone at all.’ He shrugged a little. ‘It’s not like I need to, either. I’m enjoying it here. I’m making friends. I like it.’
I wanted to press it, wanted to insist
And you’ll leave David alone?
But that would be going too far. He’d want to know why I was so fussed about David’s welfare, and then it would get awkward, and I didn’t feel I could even answer that adequately. So I said, ‘Okay. But don’t sneak up on me.’
He grinned. ‘I won’t. I didn’t actually mean to. You were just really, really into that painting.’
I looked at it again. It was so peaceful, but at the same time it felt like it was brimming full of energy. The colours, the lights, the textures. It was unreal. Static and in perpetual motion. Rich, bright and vibrant, but still caught in stasis. ‘It’s lovely,’ I said.
‘Eh,’ Dmitri said. ‘It’s a bit too soppy for my tastes.’ He grinned at me again, and then went past me to the other side of the room. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, standing in front of a painting showing a blindfolded girl playing a harp on a rock.
I turned back to my painting. I wished I could rest my head against the canvas and close my eyes and just let the colours wrap themselves around me. I didn’t do that. Obviously.
But at the end of the trip, I bought a print of that painting in the gift shop, and when I got back to the dorms, I pinned it to my bedroom wall. The colours made the whole tiny cubicle feel bright and exciting, and a little more like my own.