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

Aidan was already waiting for her when Itzy arrived at the South Bank. His arms were bent at the elbows and lay flat on the edge of the white bridge. He gazed out over the water of the Thames, its murky surface deflecting the cityscape that bordered the river on both sides. He wore a long-sleeved royal blue button-down shirt, which hung smoothly over near-black jeans. Itzy was relieved she’d not come too casual.

She cleared her throat and tapped him on the shoulder. All his features softened when he saw her. She could feel him taking her in, appraising her, the way he’d done in the cornfield. When she met his eyes, their stone colour took on a new light and seemed to be telling her something, though she couldn’t think what. All thought left her mind as soon as he looked at her, and she found it impossible to look away from him.

‘Ya look beautiful,’ Aidan finally spoke.

She got the impression that wasn’t what he really wanted to tell her, but she didn’t know what else might be playing in his head. He stepped away from the bridge so they were closer. He looked like he wanted to touch her, but didn’t trust himself.

‘Thank you,’ Itzy said, her heart pounding at the compliment. ‘You clean up well, yourself.’

He smiled. ‘I don’t normally dress like I did in the field. That’s just my way of…disappearing.’

There was no way he could ever disappear, with eyes like those, Itzy thought – but she chose not to voice this.

They started down the bridge, expertly dodging the throngs of people walking in the opposite direction. At one point, the wind blew a scent of the coming autumn over them, and then it was gone, the warmth of summer returning as the sun made a cameo appearance through the grey that had settled over London.

When they reached the restaurant, Aidan opened the door for her. She stepped through, shivering in the sudden air conditioning. She reached into her black satin bag and dug out a thin shawl, which she threw over her shoulders.

The restaurant was packed, and they were directed to a small table in an intimate corner at the back. When they were left to their own devices, Itzy found herself staring at the words on the glossy menu as if they were written in cuneiform. She couldn’t concentrate. Too many ideas swam in her head. She worried one of her special mental literary works might strike without her control.

‘How bout ye?’ Aidan asked her gently.

Startled out of her reverie, she looked up from the menu and met his eyes. Again, she felt herself sink in them, unable to turn away. His gaze seemed to drill into her, excavating her thoughts.

‘Sorry?’ she said, unsure she understood his meaning.

Aidan smiled and translated for her carefully. ‘How are ye? Are ye alright?’

‘Oh. I – I’m fine,’ she made out. ‘Just…maybe a little preoccupied.’

His grey eyes studied her. ‘With what?’

You, she wanted to say. What are you about? And why were you in my dreams?

But that sounded paranoid and hysterical, so she said, ‘Why did you ask me to meet you?’

‘Ah.’ He sat back. ‘Have ye my jumper with ye?’

‘For what it’s worth, yes.’ She fished in her bag and brought it out for him. ‘It’s ruined.’ She’d thought to ask Seth to repair it, but doubted that would have gone down well.

Aidan took it and ran his fingers over the series of tears that marred its surface. ‘Ya have to believe I didn’t mean for that to happen to ye,’ he said, his eyes on the cloth. He sounded desperate for her to trust him on that point. He lifted his eyes to hers again. ‘I would never do that to ye, I wouldn’t.’

She didn’t know why, but she did believe him. Except….

‘Why do you say that like I mean something to you, when you don’t even know me?’ she asked, feeling an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. This could have been a conversation with Seth.

Aidan smiled and considered how to answer her. ‘I spent a wee bit of time with yer da, at the end,’ he finally revealed.

Itzy’s heart leapt and she whispered, ‘Wha – ?’

He nodded, his fingers absently rubbing the cloth of his ruined jumper. ‘I ran into him at that same crop pattern. He…sensed what I could do.’

Itzy watched the fabric of the jumper melt under Aidan’s caresses. The edges of the tears stretched out to each other until they had melded together. Then they solidified, becoming cotton once more. When he was finished, the jumper looked new. He handed it to her to examine.

She took it as if in a dream. What he’d done was somehow different from Seth and Oz’s powers. There was none of the performance drama that Seth employed, but equally none of Oz’s hesitation. It had been seamless magic, so subtle that she hadn’t realised he was doing it.

Aidan answered the question on her lips before she could utter it. ‘I can manipulate the elements. Change the composition of things, I can.’ He shrugged as if it were no big deal. ‘Sometimes –’ he gestured to the jumper ‘– it’s even useful, like. And sometimes –’ he extended his fingers in the direction of her arms ‘– it’s fun.’

All at once, a tingling sensation rolled up her arms. Goosebumps rose on her skin. It felt like he had touched her, though he was across the table. It was a good touch, the kind that sent a message of longing into her brain.

‘Stop,’ Itzy whispered. It came out as a plea. The tingling vanished and she was physically back to her usual self. But inside, she hadn’t recovered.

‘Yer caul,’ he remembered. With a blink, the air grew warmer.

She removed her shawl, revealing the skin of her forearms and feeling distressingly exposed before him. ‘Ta,’ she said, her voice full of wonder. She set the jumper on the table between them. ‘Is that why you don’t have any scars?’

Aidan blinked, not catching her allusion. Then his fingers flew to his cheek and he smiled. ‘See? Useful.’ He nodded in her direction. ‘I notice yer looking a little perfect, yerself.’

Itzy put up her hand to move her hair out of her face, an automatic motion, and then remembered it was pulled back and she didn’t need to do that. She put her arm back down and said, ‘Seth – my brother’s friend – he can sort of draw things. He fixed things after….’ She shrugged, letting him fill in the blanks.

Again, Aidan smiled at her. ‘Good. I was worried about ye when we left.’

Itzy blushed. She hated it, so she tried to veer the conversation back to more neutral ground. ‘So my father knew what you could do?’

‘Aye. Fascinated by it, he was. Asked me when it had struck.’

‘And you told him –’

‘Round the end of 2011, it was.’

‘And he was interested because of the prophecy,’ she guessed.

Aidan gave her an appreciative look. ‘Yer not as ignorant as I expected.’

‘Why, thanks,’ she said dryly.

‘Sorry. I just got the impression Stephen hadn’t told ye much.’

It gave Itzy pause to hear this boy say her father’s name like that. There was something so personal about it.

‘So,’ she prodded, ‘did you ever speak again, after that?’

Aidan nodded. ‘We met regularly, like, and spoke every day.’

‘For how long?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘Less than a month,’ he told her. ‘One day, I didn’t hear from him and I grew worried. A week went by, and still no contact, so I thought to ring him. I reckon it must have been his wife who answered. She told me he had…he had passed.’

Itzy appreciated his sensitivity on the subject, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. ‘And invited you to the funeral?’ she said, shaking away her mixed emotions.

‘No. I had to do some digging to find out about that. That’s why I was only there for the service. I made an appearance, and then left quickly. I suppose I just had to be sure he was really dead. I couldn’t believe it.’

His voice registered some feeling she couldn’t identify. Was it regret? Grief? Had Aidan cared about her father, after a handful of weeks?

‘What did he speak to you about?’ Itzy wondered.

‘This and that. Ancient malarkey and the like. But mostly, the Wisdom.’

Itzy felt her heart in her mouth. ‘I keep hearing that word, but…what is it?’

Aidan’s eyes shone under the restaurant lights. ‘Shur no one really knows,’ he told her.

‘You have a theory, though.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but the waiter returned at that point, to ask if they were ready to order. Itzy realised she hadn’t looked at the menu and had no idea what she wanted, so she went with a generic margarita and a lemonade. Aidan, his eyes frozen on hers, said he would have the same, and they returned their menus to the waiter, anxious for him to leave them alone.

Now it was Itzy who leaned forward, and Aidan responded in kind. Their heads inclined toward each other in conspiracy and they held their conversation in a near-whisper.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘and remember this is just what I think – I think the Wisdom is knowledge of the Creator.’

Itzy’s eyes shimmered in the low lighting of the restaurant. ‘You mean God?’

‘Whatever ye want to call Him.’ Aidan waved his hand in the air like it was all the same to him. ‘But I mean knowledge of how to reach God, what His true form is, the point of life, like. That sort of thing.’

‘And my father was trying to find that,’ she said. ‘He wanted answers to the mysteries of the universe.’

It made sense. After all, wasn’t that what he’d devoted his life to finding? All his archaeological exploration had been focused on the Ancients, on their mysteries, their philosophy. The Word of God hadn’t been transcribed in thousands of years. It didn’t matter which country you looked at, the holy books were out of date by millennia. If one believed they were true, it seemed God’s secrets were not for the modern generation, and to unravel them, one had to look to the past.

Now was the time for Itzy to play her trump card. ‘But you’re trying to find it, too.’

Aidan’s gaze grew suspicious, before morphing into one of surrender. He laughed and sat back in his chair, breaking the spell they had been under.

The waiter chose that moment to deliver their drinks. Itzy gulped half of hers down, while Aidan hardly noticed his. They both pushed them to the side of the table and watched each other. It gave her a chance to notice the way his hair brought out the colour of his eyes. He could have made a career out of those eyes, though he appeared unaware of their effect.

‘Yer right,’ he admitted. ‘I’m trying to find it, too.’

Itzy lapsed into thought. ‘That’s why you made the crop circles,’ she said, at last.

Aidan’s eyes flared wide. ‘Ya figured that out?’ A memory flashed across his face. ‘The Energy Sensor. Yer da had one of those, he did. That’s how he worked it out, too.’

She jumped on the information. ‘He knew? But his journal – he said it was a message from the Ancients.’

‘Aye, he thought that, at first,’ he told her. ‘That’s why he went there. Then he met me, and…ya know the rest.’

‘But how did you make the patterns?’ she wondered. ‘The crops – they didn’t even look damaged.’

Aidan chewed his lower lip. ‘The boy with me? That’s Verdi. My ex-girlfriend’s brother. I guess ye could say he has a bit of a green thumb, and…he got carried away. I’m sorry,’ he said. His eyes grew sad.

‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why does finding the Wisdom mean so much to you?’

Aidan licked his lips and reached for his drink. He took a long, slow sip of it, before putting it aside again.

He words came out at a languorous pace. ‘I don’t usually share anything personal with people. And I don’t know ye,’ he noted, like he was trying to remind himself of that fact. ‘So I don’t know why I’m going to tell ye this – but I am.’

He shook his head and leaned forward again, though not too close. She remained in her place, waiting for him to speak.

‘I was adopted,’ he explained. ‘I know everyone has their sob story about how they’ve never felt like they fit in...but I really haven’t. I look nothing like either of my parents, for one thing. They’re both blond and bright-eyed, like. My da is a rich businessman and my ma is a stay-at-home mum who still manages to be out of the house most of the time and left a lot of the childcare to an au pair. I have no siblings. They didn’t want more children. I don’t even know why they wanted me.’

Itzy’s eyes widened, not so much at his story, but at the matter-of-fact way he told it – as if he’d almost grown used to things no one should ever grow used to. She could relate.

He continued. ‘They told me I was adopted when I was five, and I wasn’t upset. Aye, maybe I should have been, but even then, I thought, This explains a lot. Because I’d never felt part of the family, like. So it was a relief to know I wasn’t. It meant somewhere out there –’ he pointed his finger in the general direction of the outside world, beyond the restaurant ‘– was someone I belonged with.’

His eyes lingered on her, like he expected her to understand. And she did.

She felt like she should say something to urge him along. ‘Do you know who your real parents are?’

He shook his head. Wisps of his hair fell softly against his forehead. ‘Any time I’ve ever asked my adoptive parents, they’ve dodged the question. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out. I may as well have dropped out of the sky, like.’

His eyes grew hard, but there was a vulnerability behind them that was endearing.

‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘one day, I got particularly angry at them for something – I can’t remember what, now, and it’s no matter. The point is: I made it rain. And I knew it was me who’d done it. I could feel it. And the angrier I got inside, the more the rain fell. Then a lightning bolt struck our back garden, just inches from my da, and he stared at me like he knew it was me, too.’

Itzy tried to imagine her mother seeing what she could do. ‘How did your father take it?’ she wondered.

‘He was terrified of me.’

Itzy winced.

‘My ma was worse,’ he said. ‘She’d always been distant, but after that, she kept well away.’

Aidan pressed his eyes shut and a strange look passed over his features. Itzy recognised it at once, because she’d perfected it herself. He was fighting against an emotion before it could burst out of him like the lightning he’d nearly struck his father with. His intensity might have frightened another girl, but Itzy found it oddly flattering that this boy felt easy enough with her to share his weakness with her.

When he’d centred himself, he opened his eyes and said, ‘I experimented with my abilities, but I managed to confine it to night hours when they wouldn’t know what I was doing. It took a long time, like, but eventually I learned how to get it under control. It helped that I was interested in philosophy, meditation, that sort of thing. Aye, I always have been. History, archaeology, ye name it.’

He took a breath. ‘So I dug around, did some research, like. Then, about a year ago, I came across the Crop Circle Connector. Most of them are just interested in the subject. Some are a wee bit cracked in the head, they are. But some…are Descendants. And they told me things. Mad things, aye, but for the first time in my life, I felt I might be getting some answers.’ His eyes glittered at the thought.

‘Answers,’ Itzy echoed. ‘It didn’t raise yet more questions?’

Aidan grinned, and Itzy felt ridiculously pleased to have been the cause of his positive shift in mood. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But it was a little like being diagnosed with a disease. It doesn’t cure anything – but at least ye know what’s wrong.’

Itzy chewed her lip. ‘Is that how you think of it? As something wrong with you?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. That’s the whole point. Ya asked me why it means so much to me to find the Wisdom. Well, I’ve spent my whole life searching for the source of my existence. If I can find the Wisdom…maybe I’ll learn why I’m here at all.’

He fell silent, his eyes searching hers for a reaction. For once, Itzy felt she might be the one who was unreadable. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t sure what she was feeling, herself.

Itzy cleared her throat. ‘Thank you for sharing that,’ she said, aware how lame it sounded. ‘I mean…I don’t know what to say. Except….’

‘Except?’ He hung onto her words. The trace of a smile played on his lips.

‘Except, I know what it’s like to feel disconnected from your parents,’ she found herself telling him. His moment of transparency had left her feeling she should return the gesture. ‘I don’t know what you thought of my father when you spoke to him, but whatever he seemed like, that was only half the picture.’

‘That’s usually the case,’ Aidan said softly.

His sympathy seemed genuine – like empathy. It made her want to tell him every secret thought she’d ever had, show him every pain she’d ever felt, and have him melt it all away the way he had the cold in the room and the gashes in the jumper and in his face. She wondered if he could transmute sorrow into something brilliant and beautiful meant to be held in the light and admired.

She thought maybe he could.

‘My father…,’ she said, ‘…he wasn’t much of a father to me. Well, half the time he was. But the other half…I don’t know what he was. I’d say he turned into a stranger, except it’s not true. That other side of him became familiar, as much as I wish it hadn’t. So….’ She let her words linger and gain poignancy. ‘I wished him away.’

Aidan’s eyes took on a new light, as recognition struck him. ‘Ya do have power,’ he whispered. Her head moved slowly up and down in assent. ‘Then…what would it be?’

She took a breath before confessing her secret. ‘I’m a writer.’ She didn’t have to say anything more; the expression he wore told her he understood everything.

He jumped on the implications of her words. ‘Ya wrote something,’ he said, ‘and it came true, like. Ya got rid of yer own da.’

Itzy immediately grew defensive. ‘It wasn’t like that. You don’t know what he became. He used to do things to us – especially my mother. He would beat her and throw things at her and hurl her into the walls or the furniture. He turned into a monster no one could reason with. The saddest part was after it was over, he wouldn’t remember what he’d done. You could tell he’d somehow managed to block it all out.’

At first, Aidan seemed overwhelmed by her speech. Itzy couldn’t be sure, but she thought he looked conflicted, like her portrayal of her father didn’t gel with the image he had of the man and he didn’t want to believe her.

Then Aidan reached across the table and took her hand in his. His fingers were strong and masculine, not slender like Seth’s. She found herself wondering what it would feel like to have them on her face, or perhaps at her lips.

‘I’m not judging ye,’ he assured her, his voice low. ‘I was just surprised, like.’

She mouthed oh, but said nothing. She was too aware of the heat radiating from his fingertips as they pressed her hand in reassurance.

‘Does yer ma know?’ he asked. ‘What ye did, I mean.’

Itzy shook her head. The thin sliver of ponytail swished side to side at the back of her head. ‘I don’t think so. How would she guess such a thing?’

Aidan searched her eyes for something, found it and said, ‘Ya feel guilty about making him leave.’

‘No,’ she protested. ‘Why would I? I – I did the right thing. We couldn’t go on living that way. He would have killed her. I couldn’t sleep or concentrate in school because I was so worried all the time over what might be happening while I wasn’t there to keep an eye on things. I was just a little girl, Aidan.’

It was the first time since they’d met that she’d said his name. It came out more familiar than either of them expected it to, as if they had known each other for years. She thought she caught a spark in his eyes when he heard her speak those fateful syllables.

‘Besides,’ she added, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing when it happened. I couldn’t control it, then.’

‘Aye,’ he agreed. He unthinkingly rubbed the knuckles of her hand with his fingers. A dizzying rush surged up her arms like cold water. ‘It wasn’t yer fault at all. I know that. But I don’t think you really do. Not deep down, like.’

Was that true? She felt confused. She’d never felt so stripped back and exposed before someone. Her friends never pried. They always waited for her to speak, when she was ready. So did Seth and Oz, for that matter.

But Aidan didn’t wait. He saw something and pounced on it. He seemed unable to help it. She was stunned to realise that all the time she’d thought the people around her had shown understanding, they hadn’t. They had comforted and supported her, yes – but there were limits. Aidan was trying to understand.

And she wanted to help him to do it.

‘I guess,’ she said in a small voice, ‘I’ve always felt bad about what the divorce did to my mum. She never recovered. She started drinking away the thoughts, then drinking herself to sleep, and for seven years it was rare to see her sober.’

Again, Aidan read between her words. ‘Was rare?’

She threw him a sheepish look. ‘I haven’t told anyone this, yet, but…I wrote a story a couple nights ago and…I fixed her.’

His eyes grew large.

‘I know,’ she said, now grinning. ‘I’m sorta scared when I come home, it’ll have reverted to the way it was…but before I came to meet you, things were…good.’

‘Good?’ He sounded as excited as if it were his own mother.

Itzy’s grin widened until it hurt. ‘Indescribable,’ she amended.

‘That’s some power,’ Aidan commented.

Itzy furrowed her brows. ‘I know. I never knew I could do something like that. I used to think I was cursed to make bad things happen.’

He pressed her hand and shook his head. ‘Not if ye choose to do good.’

They held each other’s eyes until the waiter returned. They were forced to separate their hands when the pizzas were laid on the table. They both looked at the food as if they had forgotten they were in a restaurant.

When they were alone again, Itzy cut up her pizza and took a bite. She made a face. ‘It’s a bit dry.’

Aidan grinned at her and blinked. ‘Try it now,’ he said.

She did, and found the sauce had thickened. ‘Ta,’ she said.

‘I told ye. Sometimes it’s useful, like.’

She laughed loudly. It was a relief to find something light-hearted about the evening. She pointed her fork at him. ‘I love it. Using magical powers to make pizza taste better.’

‘There are worse causes,’ he said, before laughing himself.

It was a musical laugh, which surprised her. It wasn’t what she’d expected after listening to him speak so breathily. Something inside her unlocked when she heard it.

‘You should laugh more,’ Itzy told him.

Aidan lifted an eyebrow at her. ‘Would ye be telling me to relax?’

‘I guess I am,’ she said through a smile. ‘Come on, what do you like to do for fun?’

‘Driving,’ he said immediately.

‘For fun?’

Aidan nodded with vigour. ‘Aye, there’s nothing like it. D’ye know how?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s the best thing I ever learned to do,’ he said.

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Anything else?’

‘I love reading,’ he told her. ‘Ya know, archaeology, history. That sort of thing.’

‘Uh-huh.’ She took a bite of her pizza and waited for him to keep going.

He dangled his fork in the air as he considered her question. ‘I told ye I practise meditation. Oh, and tai chi. Aye, I do that, too,’ he rattled off like he was composing his own personals ad. ‘And I love music – especially when driving.’ His winked at her, and she smiled.

Itzy cut up another piece of pizza and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Do you ever do anything with other people?’ she wondered.

Aidan opened his mouth to contradict her, and then he laughed, shaking his head. ‘Not really. I’ve always been a bit homely, me.’

Itzy laughed in return. ‘You are anything but homely.’

‘Oh? How would ye describe me, then?’

A week ago, she would have felt shy about answering – but not tonight. ‘Probably a little dangerous,’ she told him. She thought about it more. ‘But that’s just on the surface, isn’t it? I think there’s a lot of intensity in there –’ she pointed at his chest with her fork ‘– but also a lot of gentleness. I think you’re hard for most people to get to know, but when they do…it’s probably worth it.’

He swallowed a mouthful of pizza and regarded her.

‘You look disappointed,’ she noted.

‘I was expecting ye to say I was gorgeous,’ he teased.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, right. Well, I thought you wanted to hear something you didn’t already know.’

Was this really her? Was she really acting this way?

But everything with Aidan just felt so easy.

Before she knew what she was doing, she said, ‘So go on, me next. How would you describe me?’

‘Beautiful,’ he said without thinking. ‘And intelligent. And I think there must be a lot going on in that head of yers, but ye keep most of it to yerself, inside, like. I think yer a more interesting person than ye let people think.’

Itzy’s eyes danced with emotion. She didn’t know what had come over her, but she was already fantasising about having him pressed close to her in a dark room, dancing maybe, his arms around her, his hands in her hair, his face edging toward hers. She’d never felt this way before, and definitely not so swiftly after meeting someone.

Aidan suddenly looked nervous. He quickly gobbled up a whole slice of pizza and then washed it down with his drink. Then he dropped his fork and raked his fingers through his brown hair. Only it wasn’t just brown to her anymore. Now it was the colour of the bark on the horse chestnut trees that lined her street, rich with undertones she hadn’t noticed the first time she saw him outside of her dreams; it was beautiful. Such was the nature of infatuation, a state she was dangerously close to walking into.

The bill came then, and Aidan paid for both of them. Itzy protested, but he wouldn’t hear it. When they finally left, it felt like a hundred years had passed in that private corner. It was hard to believe they had been strangers not two hours ago.

* * *

They made their way down the South Bank together and headed for the nearest tube station. In the process of making small talk and exchanging phone numbers, they had been astonished to discover they lived not far from each other. Itzy thought she heard Aidan mutter something about fate.

As they rocketed through the Underground, Aidan asked, ‘Why’d ye agree to meet me, tonight? After everything that happened….’

Itzy swallowed, wondering how much she should say. She couldn’t ignore how many people were packed in around them on the train. She didn’t want them to hear their conversation, so she leaned close to Aidan, so close she could feel his breath on her neck, and said, ‘I’m not sure how to say this without it sounding mad, but, er…I think I dreamt about you before we met.’

He drew back just enough to stare at her.

She exhaled noisily. ‘I told you it was mad. Maybe I’m wrong. I –’

‘I believe ye,’ he said. He reached for her, fingered the end of her hair, and ran his eyes all over her. ‘I just wonder what it means.’

She met his eyes and smiled with relief. ‘That makes two of us,’ she whispered.