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

‘Mum?’ Itzy called as she stepped inside. She slipped off her pumps and made her way into the mouth of the house.

‘Up here!’ Myra returned. She sounded like she was struggling to get out the words.

Itzy followed the sound up the stairs and into her mother’s bedroom, where she found Myra on the floor with her body twisted into the yogic cobra pose. She wore navy blue leggings and a matching tank top. This was one of the many things new about Myra. Now, it seemed, she exercised.

Itzy flopped down on her mother’s bed. The duvet wrinkled under her weight. It was the bright blue of a clear sky, and her hair spilling over it looked like crows flying overhead. She splayed her arms across the soft fabric and sighed.

‘Did you have a good time with Devon?’ her mother asked from the floor, her voice still strained from the position she was in.

Itzy rolled over so she was lying on her stomach and looked sideways at her mother. ‘Yes.’ She didn’t trust herself to say anything more. She didn’t want to add to the lies.

Itzy watched her mother remould herself into shape after shape after shape. She was so beautiful. She tried to imagine what her mother had looked like before she married Itzy’s father. She’d seen photographs, kept in a dusty plastic box in the loft, but none of them matched the woman stretching on the floor. She supposed experience shaped appearance, and there was no true way to compare the two Myras; they were different people. It would take time to get to know this new mother.

After a while, Itzy got up and headed into her own room. She switched on the coloured fairy lights and stopped in front of a board made of cork that hung over her writing desk. She’d covered it with photographs: there were pictures of her and Devon with their cheeks pressed together and mouths drawn in grins so strong they crinkled up their eyes; there was one of Devon and Ash cuddled together on the edge of a fountain in Trafalgar Square, immediately followed by all three of them sitting on one of the stone lions, taken by an eccentric Australian tourist who had helped Itzy up onto the lion, without warning.

Now, she decided it needed something more.

She closed her eyes and conjured up memories, describing them in her head as if narrating them in a story. When she opened her eyes again, new photographs had materialised on the board.

There was a picture of Seth and Oz laughing at something; and one of Seth with his hands raised in the air, ready to draw something into existence; a series of pictures of Itzy and Oz on the drive to the crop pattern, making the most ridiculous faces they could think up, their matching hair and eyes leaping from the images; and finally, there was a photograph of Itzy and Aidan. She stood in front of him, Aidan’s arms wrapped around her middle and his chin resting on one of her shoulders. Her head was tilted, touching his, and they wore matching smiles.

That was better, she decided.

She ignored the darkness sparking off her body and changed into her bathrobe, a pink fuzzy thing Devon had bought her for Christmas one year for a laugh, because Itzel Loveguard had never done pink and fuzzy. She opened her door and went down the hall to have a shower. The water was hot and gorgeous. She dragged her fingernails through her hair as she washed it, relishing the scratching sensation.

Once dressed, she sat on her bed and checked her phone for messages. First there was one from Oz, telling her off for not texting to let him know she was okay. She quickly sent him an apology.

Then there was an email from her aunt Gwen. It read:

Dear Itzy

How are you?? I’ve been worried about you. Strange things have been happening here, and I’ve heard rumours. Some of my friends are Descendants, and they

have children. Their children have developed…abilities. One of them is a girl around your age, named Paige. She was a normal girl, for sixteen years. Then one day…Itzy, this is going to sound mad, but you have to believe me, because I watched her do it myself. She just closed her eyes and then I was blinking, wondering where she’d gone. She can disappear.

And there’s another, named Xavier, who can stay underwater like a fish. We were at one of the Lakes. He was under for twenty minutes and never once came up for air. His parents were hysterical. They thought he’d died. Then he popped back up, and he looked fine. He told us he could do it whenever he wanted, but our shouting made him scared. Made him scared! Then he went back in for more, and we had no choice but to trust he would be okay.

Xavier and Paige aren’t related, but they seemed to develop their abilities around the same time. It left me wondering who else I knew could…do things.

I know this isn’t something we’ve ever spoken about, but I think I need to bring it up now. I’m sure you know what it is. Have you been writing??

I don’t want to frighten you, and I’m not going to judge you, but I have to know what’s happening, because I have a very bad feeling about all this. Magic powers are exciting if you’re a kid, but I’ve been around long enough to know this isn’t natural. This is something new, and it couldn’t have come about on its own. Something must have triggered it. I’ve heard all the stories about it being 2012 that caused it. But why? There has to be something more.

So I guess…just stay in touch, please. Don’t keep me in the dark. If there’s something you want to tell me…please just do so.

I love you.

Gwen

Itzy’s eyes dashed left and right, left and right, as she read this message. It was true she’d never discussed her abilities with Gwen. Her father hadn’t known, either. At least, she didn’t think he had. Though sometimes, she wondered if perhaps he’d suspected something. Maybe when she’d made him leave.

She closed the message on her phone. She wasn’t ready to get into it, even with Gwen. It was the first time she’d ever deliberately ignored her aunt.

There was also a message from Aidan:

Definitely easier to sleep when you’re here.

* * *

Later that evening, the doorbell rang. A moment later, she heard her mother call up the stairs, ‘Itzy! You have company!’

‘Just a minute!’ she called back.

Almost unthinkingly, she used her magic to switch out of pyjamas and into normal clothes. When she came to the door, she found Seth waiting for her.

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Hey,’ she said back. She was surprised to see him there, after how awkward things had been. She leaned against the doorframe and waited for him to speak.

‘You busy?’ he asked.

Itzy shrugged. ‘What did you have in mind?’

He gazed down at his shoes and shuffled his feet. ‘I thought maybe we could go for another walk.’

Itzy considered this. After what had happened between them, she wasn’t sure she should. On the other hand, she really did care about him; she wanted to be his friend. Maybe the best thing was to talk.

So she nodded and said, ‘Bear with me, I’ll tell my mum.’

She turned back into the house and went upstairs, where her mother sat in bed reading a book. It looked like a crime thriller, and she was a little over halfway through it. From the look on her face, Itzy guessed someone had just died.

Itzy knocked gently on Myra’s partly open door before stepping into the room. Her mother tore her eyes away from the book and said, ‘Let me guess: you’re going out.’

Itzy gave a helpless smile. ‘Yeah. Um...is that alright?’

Myra rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘Just be home by midnight,’ she said, and she returned to her book.

‘Will do.’

Itzy went back downstairs, grabbed her mac and met Seth outside. Without discussion, he started walking and she kept in step beside him. She tugged her mac around her more tightly against the brief chill that shot through the night air. Seth shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, half-hidden by his bright blue shirt, which matched his eyes.

‘Your mum said you were at Devon’s,’ he said.

‘Mm,’ said Itzy noncommittally.

‘So I rang Devon,’ he continued, ‘but she’s a very bad liar. She didn’t tell me, but I’m guessing you were with Aidan.’

‘Have you been spying on me?’ Itzy wondered.

He shot her a worried look. ‘No. I was just…I wanted to talk to you, but I couldn’t find you.’ His jaw set and he added, ‘I didn’t think you were the type of girl who lied to her mother to spend the night with….’

Itzy tried to centre herself before she said something she regretted. The truth was: he was hitting her right where it hurt, purposely or not.

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s any of your business…but I feel quite guilty about lying to her. Not just about last night, but about everything.’

His expression softened. ‘What do you mean?’

Itzy frowned and thought of the right way to explain. ‘The other day, Devon and I were at Ash’s house. Sometimes we get together for film marathons. So we watched one called King Dinosaur, and it was just terrible. They were meant to be on another planet, but it looked like a park in England or somewhere – and they were far too excited over a lemur. Then there were lots of close-ups of lizards and somehow that was meant to be scary. So the Earthlings dropped an atom bomb on them – while standing about ten feet away, I might add. Lots of stock footage of mushroom clouds.’ She made a ka-blam! noise and drew her arms in a big circle to demonstrate.

‘That sounds pretty bad,’ Seth agreed.

‘Right? But it gets worse. You know what I was thinking through it?’

‘A lot of the dinosaurs were actually birds?’ Seth guessed.

Itzy shook her head with a smile. ‘No, more abstract. I kept wondering if that’s how humans would react if they knew what we really are. Like, if they knew we’re aliens, if we could prove it to them – what would they do? Would it be like X-Men?’

Seth stared absently into the sky as he thought about this. ‘I hate to say it, but…yeah, it probably would be like that. Not with everyone,’ he amended. ‘There would always be people like Ash and Devon. But there would also always be people who refused to understand.’

The way he said this made Itzy wonder if he had first-hand experience with this, but he didn’t look open to discussing it.

‘Do you think my mother would get it?’ Itzy asked.

Seth regarded her. ‘That’s what this is about? Are you thinking to tell her?’

Itzy shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It bothers me that I’m keeping this huge secret from her. It makes me feel like I’m in collusion with my father. I don’t want to be like him, you know?’

Seth nodded. ‘So tell her.’

‘But what if she rejects me? What if she thinks I’m a freak? Or what if she doesn’t believe me and takes me to a doctor?’

She hoped Seth would have one of his cheerful witty responses to this, something that would make her roll her eyes and forget this was serious and she actually had to deal with it. But he merely nodded again, his manner grave.

‘I guess there’s no easy answer to that,’ he said. ‘Unless….’

She hung onto this word. ‘Unless…?’

He shrugged at her. ‘Well, I was just thinking…why don’t you write her another story?’

They shared a meaningful look. The wind blew again, wrapping Itzy’s hair around her face. Seth removed one of his hands from his pocket and made to move her hair aside, and then stopped mid-motion. He looked startled at his own behaviour, and then quickly returned his hand to his pocket.

Itzy hurriedly pushed her hair behind her ears, hoping to skip swiftly over what hadn’t just happened. ‘You mean, a story where she finds out and she still loves me.’ It wasn’t a question.

Once more, Seth nodded, though his gaze was now back on the night sky. He seemed either unable or unwilling to meet her eyes.

‘It’s a good idea,’ Itzy told him. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. I’m starting to get the hang of this having powers thing, but sometimes I forget just how much I can do.’

‘Don’t do that,’ he said gently. ‘It would be like forgetting you’re incredible.’

Itzy froze. Seth walked three steps before he realised Itzy was no longer beside him, and he backtracked to face her.

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Did I say something wrong?’

Itzy chewed her lip. ‘I don’t know. I just…are we going to talk about what happened?’

His body hunched under the weight of the complications that rose up like a brick wall between them. ‘That’s why I wanted to see you, tonight.’ He sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, his voice a little too controlled, ‘I really am sorry for what I did. I was way out of line. I shouldn’t have gone about it the way I did, and if you don’t feel the same way...it’s not your fault. I know that now.’

He said these last words so softly and so sadly, Itzy wished there were something she could do for him, that there were some way to give him what he wanted. But she couldn’t choose whom she loved.

‘Whose fault is it?’ she asked.

‘No one’s,’ Seth said immediately. ‘But for a while, I thought it was his.’

Itzy tried not to notice the way Seth seemed unable to say Aidan’s name. ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry too.’

Seth blinked at her in surprise. ‘For what?’

‘For leading you on. I didn’t mean to, and I didn’t realise I was doing it at the time, but looking back on it…yeah, I kind of did. But it was because at the time, I thought I did feel something. You’re lovely, you know. And you’re gorgeous.’ She stepped forward and nudged him with her shoulder, to try to draw a smile out of him.

Seth grinned wryly and said, ‘But it wasn’t enough.’

No, it wasn’t.

‘I don’t know what it was with Aidan,’ Itzy told him. ‘Something just clicked when I met him, like I’d been waiting for him. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this….’

She kicked her heel against the ground, feeling overwhelmingly stupid. All she wanted was to make it better between her and Seth, but she only seemed to be making things worse.

Seth shook his head. ‘Hey, no. I mean, I can’t say it’s my favourite topic of conversation, but…well, I’m glad you’re happy. That’s what’s important, right?’

She glanced up at him under her eyelashes and saw he was being sincere. Some day, when things changed and she no longer had to worry about Seth getting the wrong impression from her, she would have to tell him how much she cared about him in return.

Seth’s blue eyes squinted a little in lazy thought and he asked, ‘Do you think if there were no Aidan, maybe it could’ve been you and me?’

Itzy smiled sadly. ‘I can’t answer that. Because there is Aidan, and…maybe this sounds mad, but I think there always would have been Aidan.’

‘Yeah,’ Seth said, the fight finally gone from him. ‘I figured you’d say something like that.’

They resumed walking. After a moment, Itzy said, ‘So last night was crazy, right? What we did?’

‘You mean breaking and entering, or raising the dead?’

‘Both. But mainly, raising the dead. It made me think of my father.’

He tilted his head in question. ‘You want to bring him back?’

Itzy shook her head in vehement disgust. ‘No! God, no. Just…he’s as dead as that mummy, and….’ She didn’t know where to take that thought.

So Seth changed the subject. He turned to face her, so he was walking backwards, and said, ‘Why don’t we go somewhere?’

The cheer had returned to his voice. Itzy realised it was something he could turn on and off at will, which meant she wasn’t certain what he felt underneath. After his previous sullenness, his sudden excitement was a little sad.

‘Again?’ she said.

‘Yeah. Where have you always wanted to go?’ Seth asked.

Itzy considered his question. ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights.’ She didn't expect him to be able to deliver this. Surely there was a limit to what he could do.

‘Excellent,’ he said. That familiar grin returned to his face.

She watched his hands whirl through the air in a frenzy of fingers. It looked like he was flattening and smoothing something only he could see. Then he painted stripes on the invisible oxygen. Finally, he pinched the air and released it quickly, like a magician striking his wand.

The street around them rippled and popped, replaced with a landscape of ice. The sky was darker than she'd ever seen it, and the stars leapt out at them against the velvety background. Itzy shivered before she found herself dressed in a heavy snowsuit, her hair pulled under a thick furry hat. A scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face and she had snowshoes on her feet. Seth was dressed similarly.

‘Ta,’ she said, her voice muffled through the scarf.

They were on a hilltop, overlooking a valley in Finland or somewhere like that. It looked like the Christmas advert for Coca-Cola. Tiny houses dotted the ground, half a mile below them. Where they were, it was silent. Seth’s fantasies never contained other people, she noticed. She wondered if that was on purpose or just part of the magic.

‘Now just wait,’ he told her.

A wave of light dove from the sky, bending in the atmosphere and washing the white ice with green. It blurred with static and easily shifted to pink. Then there were multiple lines dancing through the air. The tendrils of colour reached for the snowy carpeting. Even though there was no sound, Itzy could imagine those colours singing to them, like mournful whales. It was so heavenly, it almost hurt to watch.

‘I just realised why you have those fairy lights in your room,’ Seth said.

Itzy laughed silently within her snowsuit. She knew the scene wasn’t real. She knew it came from Seth’s wondrous mind, from his memories of what the Northern Lights looked like on television documentaries, and that the real aurora borealis was something else. But it felt so real. The majesty of it made her feel like crying.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ Itzy whispered, never taking her eyes off the ballet of colours. ‘What you can do…it’s a miracle. You know that, right?’

‘You can perform miracles, too,’ Seth told her. ‘Look at your mother.’

He had a point.

‘Who gave us these powers?’ Itzy wondered. ‘Where did they come from? And why?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Seth said.

‘The 2012 thing, I know. But that’s a weak explanation.’ She couldn’t help thinking of Gwen’s email. ‘I mean, why 2012? What’s done this to us? And how many more of us are there? What can they all do?’

‘I know others,’ Seth said.

Itzy was surprised. ‘Really? Who?’

‘Someone I grew up with.’ He gave a slight shrug that suggested this person didn’t mean much to him anymore. ‘A sort of friend named Mark. He’s the son of one of my parents’ friends. He can melt ice, so I guess I won’t be taking him here. I don’t know if he can do much else, though, so I don’t know how useful that is. It’s a bit like Oz’s power. What’s the point of that, unless you want to make a zombie film? Ooh,’ he said, more to himself than to her. ‘That could be interesting.’

After he’d thought it through more vividly, he shuddered and said, ‘On second thought, that would be disgusting.’

Itzy ignored this digression and said, ‘Huh.’

‘What?’

She shrugged as best she could under the layers of the snowsuit. ‘I guess I hadn’t imagined you with other friends.’

Seth laughed. The sound bounced off the ice and found its way into Itzy’s chest. ‘Do you think I spend all my time waiting around for you?’ he asked. He sounded amused by the idea.

‘No,’ Itzy said, horrified, and a little embarrassed. In a way, perhaps she had been thinking that. ‘It’s just...sometimes it’s incredible how quickly everything has changed. I forget how much I still don’t know about you.’

‘And how much I don’t know about you,’ Seth noted.

She hadn’t considered that. Perhaps it was egotistical of her, but she’d forgotten that to others, she looked just as they did to her: she was a curiosity, someone to learn about and break into.

She let out a heavy breath, and thick frost billowed from her nose. ‘I could probably stay here looking at this all night,’ she said.

‘I could make that happen.’

Itzy smiled at him, knowing this was true. But she also sensed the edge in his voice and knew what it meant. Perhaps he hadn’t quite lost the fight, after all.

Which was why she said, ‘I will have to go home soon.’

He held her eyes, turning something over in his mind. ‘Because you think we need to return to reality, in the end,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘What’s wrong with living in a fantasy, if it makes you happy?’

Itzy thought of what Aidan had said about his situation, and told Seth, ‘It can’t make you happy forever. It’s fun for a while, and then you realise you have nothing to do with yourself. You need some goals in life, to give you purpose. Besides, if we lived in a dream all the time, it would start to feel like reality. It would lose its magic. Then where could we escape to?’

Seth looked like he wanted to argue with this, but he shook his head and laughed. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Just tell me when you’re ready to go.’

* * *

After they built a lopsided snowman and posed for cheesy pictures with it that Itzy planned on printing from her camera phone and tacking onto the cork board in her room, Seth erased the snow scene and walked her the rest of the way to her house. He stood before her at the doorstep, reluctant to let her go.

‘We’re still friends, aren’t we?’ he asked.

Itzy smiled. ‘Oh, Seth. After all we’ve been through, already? Of course we are.’

He looked relieved.

‘Well...be seeing you, then,’ he said. He leaned in toward her like he meant to kiss her cheek, but then thought better of it and dropped back.

Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

He didn’t look back at her.