They Who from the Heavens Came (The Wisdom, #1)

When Itzy got home, her mother was still unconscious on the sofa. Itzy sighed in defeat. She opened a wooden box that lay at the end of the sofa and pulled out a woven woolly throw patterned to look like daisy chains. Myra’s mother had made it, before she’d died. Itzy tossed it over her mother’s body and fitted around her shoulders. Itzy had been doing things like that for years. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like the child in their relationship.

Itzy pulled off her trainers and left them by the front door before heading up the stairs. When she went in her room, the first thing her eyes found was the wardrobe. There was nothing spectacular about it. It was cheap and old and could probably do with replacing. But for some reason, she felt like it meant something, now. Like there was something she should know.

And was it her imagination, or were there dark lines weaving a border around the wardrobe?

‘I’m going mad,’ she muttered.

She flicked on the fairy lights and threw herself on the bed, her bag in her lap. She fished around inside it for her phone, but couldn’t find it. She groaned and got up to search for the portable landline phone.

It turned out to be in her mother’s room down the hall, sitting on top of a mirrored jewellery box. She punched her own number into the phone and waited to hear it ring somewhere in her room. Instead, a male voice answered.

‘Itzy’s phone, how may I help you?’

She frowned. ‘Seth?’

‘Itzy!’ He sounded pleased. ‘Finally, it’s you! Someone named Devon has been trying to reach you, by the way.’

‘Er, thanks.’ Itzy headed back to her room and shut the door. She lay back down on her bed. ‘Sorry I left my phone there.’

‘You didn’t. I nicked it.’

She wasn’t sure she’d heard that right. ‘You what?’

‘I wanted to talk to you again,’ he explained.

‘So you stole my phone?’

‘Mm-hm.’

‘You could’ve just asked for my number and rung me yourself,’ she pointed out. She twirled a piece of her long hair around her finger.

‘Boring,’ Seth said.

Itzy made an exasperated noise. ‘So why did you want to speak to me?’

‘What would you say if I told you it always gets me hot and bothered when girls telekinetically throw books at me?’

Itzy groaned and tugged harder on her hair. ‘Is there a point to this conversation? When can I get my phone back? I need to ring Devon.’

‘Is that who came with you to the funeral, today?’ he asked.

Was that only today? So much had happened, it felt like it had been at least a month.

‘Yes,’ she said wearily. ‘Now when can I get my phone back?’

‘Right now, if you want.’

Itzy narrowed her eyes. ‘Really? How?’

Seth’s voice brightened. ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m outside your house now.’

Her body rocketed up in shock. ‘What?’

She heard a noise at her window. Sticks were being thrown at it.

Down the phone, Seth said, ‘So, are you going to invite me in?’

She got up and stared out the window. She could see him standing on the grass. His blond hair glowed in the moonlight. ‘Are you a vampire?’ she asked.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘I already told you: I’m an alien.’

Itzy shook her head. ‘I have to be mad….’

‘But...? I can hear a but.’

She chewed on her lower lip. ‘I’ll be down in a sec.’

She clicked off the phone and tossed it on her bed. Her first thought was, How do I look? Her next thought was, Why do I care?

Then she hurried down the stairs, hoping her mother wouldn’t wake up and hear what was going on. She doubted Myra would approve, no matter what condition she was in.

When she opened the door, Seth was waiting on the doorstep. He wore a brown leather jacket over his t-shirt. He strode into the house as if he’d been there a thousand times and threw his jacket over a hook by the front door. Then he handed a dark bundle to Itzy.

‘I wanted to return your clothes,’ he said a little too loudly. A wicked spark danced in his eyes.

Itzy scowled and yanked her black dress from his hands. She had wondered what had happened to it earlier.

‘Shh,’ she scolded. She nodded her head in the direction of the lounge.

Seth noticed the way the blanket on the sofa rose and fell, and he hooked a finger in that direction. ‘Your mum?’ he guessed.

‘She fell asleep on the sofa,’ Itzy euphemised.

Mercifully, all Seth said was, ‘Uh-huh. So let’s go.’

He took her hand and pulled her up the stairs, as if it were his house and not hers. She shook herself free of his grasp and pushed her way in front of him, trying to regain control of the situation. When they were in her room, she closed the door and put a finger to her lips to remind him they should be quiet.

‘I was kind of hoping you’d be the screaming type,’ he said with that grin plastered across his face.

‘One more comment like that and I’m throwing you out the window,’ she warned.

That made him smile more. Itzy tossed her mourning dress in her wardrobe, while Seth took in her room with the appraising look of an art collector. Under the fairy lights, the room shifted from a wash of pink, to blue, to green, to white, and back again. His blond hair changed colours with the room.

‘It’s busy,’ he decided. ‘No wonder you can’t concentrate.’

‘Why are you here?’ she snapped. ‘Really?’

He sat at her desk and let his roving eyes land on hers. ‘I want to help you.’

Despite herself, Itzy’s heart quickened. ‘You mean, help me learn to control my – my – ?’ She didn’t know what to call it.

His mouth curved up on one side. ‘Yeah.’

‘Why couldn’t that wait until the morning?’

‘Are you kidding? Look, I made a mistake with the apple. It was a good mistake, as it turns out, because it got us here. Otherwise, who knows what you might do, running round with that kind of power and not knowing what it is.’ He shuddered like the thought disturbed him. ‘But Oz has a point. These things probably need to be done in the dark so no one can see them.’

‘Why can’t anyone see them?’ Itzy wondered.

He shot her a look like she shouldn’t have to ask such a question. ‘You’re shaken up enough, and you actually have the power. Imagine how one of your friends would react.’

‘I’ve already told my friends.’

Seth leaned back in the desk chair he had commandeered. ‘And what did they say?’

‘Well….’

‘They didn’t believe you.’

‘Not as such….’

Seth shook his head. ‘Sit with me,’ he instructed. He moved to the floor, glancing briefly at her choice in rug, and waited for her to join him.

Practically sulking, Itzy sat across from him. ‘Do we really have to do this now? I’m so tired, my head might roll off.’

Seth looked amused at this idea. ‘Good thing I’m here to catch it, then. Now, first things first. We’ve established you don’t need an actual pen and paper to write things into reality. Right? So what happened, in that head of yours, today?’

‘I saw the words in my head,’ she told him.

Seth nodded. ‘That’s dangerous, don’t you think? I mean, if you don’t know what to do with your anger. From what I’ve seen, when you feel like you’re burning up inside, you just let it explode. The trick is to learn to centre yourself and own that anger.’

He crossed his legs like a yogi and placed his hands, palm up, on his knees. Itzy copied him, but she didn’t feel nearly as graceful.

‘Close your eyes,’ he said.

She sighed and did as she was told. She fell into a sea of black, painted with red squiggly stars.

‘Now think of something that really irritates you,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about real anger. Rage.’

‘Rage. Right.’

An image rose in her mind’s eye. It was her earliest memory, of being three and shutting herself in her wardrobe to hide from the screaming outside her room. It was the day she’d decided she had two fathers – one Loving and one Hateful. Later, he’d come looking for her. He’d opened the wardrobe door, a look of terror on his face, and she’d been unsure which father it was.

The memory dissipated, melting into a different scene. Now she was looking at herself. This was Hateful Itzy. She was hurling the book at Ash. She couldn’t remember what she’d been so angry about, but she would never forget the look on his face when the corner of the spine had struck his forehead and left a small cut. He’d forgiven her, the way he always did. But she hadn’t forgiven herself.

It wasn’t her father. It wasn’t her alcoholic mother. It was her. Itzel Loveguard. She had done it. She hated herself for what she could become. The anger boiled in her veins, rose up her throat and tore out in the semblance of a scream.

Then Seth was there. His hands wrapped tightly around her wrists as he pushed her backward onto the floor. He stared down at her. It was a cold, hard stare, but something about it was calming, like it was just intense enough to drown out the background noise of her own head and change the pictures in there.

Light danced around his head, like an aura, marked with thin tendrils of black. Her ragged breathing slowed and she felt herself slip into the trance.

Then she saw them: the words dancing in her mind’s eye as she took a backseat in her own head.

Or…no. She wasn’t in the backseat, this time. It was more like sitting on the passenger side. Okay, so she wasn’t driving yet, but this was something. This was better. She could actually feel herself writing, whereas all the other times she had composed one of her magic stories it had been like a dream. Now, there was some connection that hadn’t previously been present.

She held onto the idea long and hard, sinking into loops and lines of the letters that formed in her mind. Soon, she added the last full stop, and the paragraph glowed with finality against a backdrop of hypnotising grey.

She fell back into her body and lay limp on the floor. Seth rubbed her forehead with his palm until her eyelids fluttered open. His expression was one of awe, like what he’d just witnessed had moved him somehow.

Itzy pulled away and sat up.

Seth scratched his temple. ‘That was a good start,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t lose control. That’s good.’ The words were cool, but his voice was shaky.

‘You mean I didn’t throw a library at you,’ she said dryly.

He recovered himself a little and grinned. ‘That too.’ Then a weird moaning sound rose up from behind him. He followed the source of the noise. ‘What the –’ he said.

Parson Brown was a nut-brown teddy bear Stephen had given Itzy for her sixth birthday. She had named him after a line in her favourite Christmas song, Winter Wonderland. She hadn’t let the bear out of her sight a single night in eleven years, and even at seventeen she couldn’t get to sleep without him.

Now, Parson Brown’s eyes had lit up bright yellow. His mouth, normally sewn shut, pulled open and a voice said, ‘Who dares disturb my ward?’

Seth blinked. The muscles in his arms twitched in the moonlight beaming through the window. His skin looked like it was covered in silver.

‘Your ward?’ he repeated.

‘Itzy,’ the bear clarified.

‘Ohhh,’ said Seth. He laughed. Then he laughed louder. ‘Oh, I – I – I see,’ he spluttered through laughs.

He looked at Itzy, who gaped in surprise. Seeing her set him off even more, until he was doubled over on the floor, clutching his stomach. Tears streamed out of his eyes from laughing so hard.

‘Oh God,’ he squealed, ‘that is – the funniest –’ The rest was lost in laughter.

Itzy crossed her arms in annoyance. ‘I don’t see what’s so funny.’

He laughed even more when he heard that. He pointed his finger at her, and then put his hand on his stomach again to hold it as it ached.

The bear watched her with its glowing eyes. ‘My ward,’ it addressed her, ‘do you want me to kill him?’

That stopped the laughter. Seth pulled himself up in a flash and scooted back beside Itzy.

She dropped her arms in surprise. ‘I’m sorry?’

In response, two small blades shot out of the bear’s paws, positioned to fire. A spark flew in the air and the first blade dashed across the room.

Seth dodged, and the blade lodged itself in the wardrobe behind him. Seth and Itzy turned their heads in unison to look at the damage.

‘Okay,’ he said to the bear. ‘This isn’t funny anymore.’

The bear prepared to launch the second blade, but Seth was already drawing furiously in the air. He looked like he was sketching a building of some kind.

He was. No sooner had the second spark flown than a grey stone-looking structure appeared around the bear. A tiny window revealed its glowing eyes. The weight of the structure knocked the bear backward, leaving it dazed on Itzy’s flower-patterned pillow.

Itzy scrambled to her feet and hovered over the imprisoned bear. He seemed to be struggling. The miniature jail bounced and jittered across the pillow. It hit the end of the bed and toppled onto the floor with a small crash.

Seth came up behind her and leaned his arm on her bare shoulder. ‘Blimey, Itzy, what kind of warped mind comes up with a killer teddy bear?’

Itzy shrugged him off. ‘Why didn’t you just make him a normal toy again? Why put him in a jail?’

‘It was more entertaining.’

‘It’s weird.’

Seth snorted. ‘Weirder than a killer teddy bear?’ He folded his left arm around his waist and used it as a shelf on which to lean his right elbow; his fist propped up his chin. ‘So you’ve taken the first step and got control of the anger.’

‘This time, anyway,’ Itzy said, exhausted.

He went on like he’d not heard her, and started pacing up and down her rug. ‘Now we need to get you to control your writing.’ He stopped mid-pace and grinned at her. ‘After all, it could be killer teddies today, and World War Three tomorrow.’

Itzy swatted the jumping teddy bear jail aside and slumped onto her bed. The bear squeaked in surprise. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

Seth pinched his fingers together like one might in a game of Charades and said, ‘A little.’

‘I don’t know why you’re trying so hard, here. I’m nothing special. I’m not like you.’

He lifted one of his eyebrows. ‘You think I’m special?’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘You have a gift. Me? I have a curse.’

‘No no no no no.’ He sat next to her on the bed, so close their legs touched. ‘You are gifted,’ he told her. ‘In fact, you might be the most gifted of us all.’ He wasn’t joking anymore. She could see that on his face.

Itzy shifted on the bed. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘I said you might be. Can you give me that, at least?’

She sighed. ‘Fine. And you care because…?’

For a moment, there was a look in those bright eyes of his that suggested he might be about to tell her something wonderful, something beautifully sincere – something poetic, about longing and fate and –

But he didn’t.

‘I discovered you,’ Seth said as he hopped to his feet. ‘You heard your brother: you’re my pet, now. Now get up and let’s work on lesson two.’

* * *

Later, Itzy dreamt she was walking barefoot along a riverbank surrounded by fields. The grass was cool beneath her feet. The rest of the world had disappeared, leaving her alone with its midnight majesty. She wore a long gauzy nightdress that fell to her ankles and swelled around her with the wind, which tossed her black hair around and made her look like a celestial fairy.

A dark figure sat at the edge of the water. She could tell from the build that it was a boy, but she could make out nothing more. She walked silently toward him.

Her fingers dipped into one of his intangible black shoulders, and he turned. He was all shadow, featureless, aside from his steely grey eyes, which leapt out like wolves.

The same eyes she kept seeing lately, in her trances.

They were tormented eyes, eyes that had known great emptiness and lacked self-knowledge. They seemed to search her face for something they had wanted all their life but could not name.

She felt herself sink into them, like this was where she was always meant to be, bathing in the dark figure’s gaze. Her heart throbbed for him.

‘They’re coming for us,’ she heard herself say.

‘No,’ the figure said, ‘they’re coming for it.’

His grey eyes flashed and their light flickered on the water beside them. The river took that light and warped it, extended it, until it streaked across the silvery surface.

The figure put out his shadowy hand. She took it without consideration. This time, it felt solid; her hand didn’t slip through it but grasped it. She thought if only she could stay there long enough, she would see the boy behind the shadows. Her heart cried out for that boy, without knowing why.

The river had turned to ice, and they stepped gingerly onto it. Her feet had gained a smoothness that could skate easily on the frozen water. Together, they glided in swift, gentle movements, the shadow’s arms pulling her in, enveloping her in black.

She still wasn’t afraid. She wanted the darkness. It was beautiful and comforting, like the answer to a prayer.

‘Don’t let them get my children,’ she quoted, just before the scene filled with ink.

Everything was black, and the shadow was gone. It was just her, watching as there was an explosion and stars tumbled out, scattering across the sky in which she floated.

And in one small corner of space, the darkness bent and wobbled, as if something were trying to crack through the fabric of the universe and make itself known.

Then she woke breathless. A thin layer of sweat coated her neck and shoulders.

What had it meant?

She lay back, closed her eyes and counted backward from twenty.

It didn’t help, so she tried again, this time from fifty.

Then she thought of the shadow, and his grey eyes, and calm overwhelmed her.