Darkhaven

Cecelia became more and more insistent about a study date. I’d stalled her so far with my maths tutor excuse, mortifying as it was, although it was not as humiliating as the fact that she wasn’t surprised.

‘Well, good. I’m glad you’re taking this seriously now,’ she said as we spent a Monday lunchtime in the library. I had to make it up to her for skipping our old after-school routine, but despite being behind on homework and English reading, I wasn’t really studying. It was nice to just have half an hour to chill out.

‘What are you, my mother?’ I teased, lowering the library’s copy of A Tale of Two Cities and flicking the pages of her human biology book over to annoy her. She snapped a ruler in between the pages, too late to save her place. Zenna pored listlessly over some maths. Even in a non-ATAR program, there was no escape from maths. But she seemed to be doing better now, and Alex had not expressed any further concerns.

‘Can we go outside?’ she asked, staring out the window. ‘The sun’s out.’

‘It is nice,’ I agreed, following her gaze to a free bench gleaming in the wintry sunlight. I’d spent most of the last week indoors, even for Liam’s sessions, because of the rain.

‘For July, at least,’ Zenna said, with a soft sigh.

Cecelia slammed her pencil onto the desk to pick up an eraser. ‘It’s not July, it’s August!’ she snapped.

Zenna cringed. ‘All right, keep your freckles on. It’s only the first of August.’

Cecelia scribbled furiously in the margin of her notes page. ‘First of August! It’s six weeks until mock exams, and some of us need to study! I guess it’s okay for those who don’t have to work because they aren’t even doing exams.’ She got all of this out without even looking up, pen still scratching over her page. The minuscule sound wasn’t enough to fill the silence that expanded over the table.

Zenna stuffed her working-out pages into her book and slammed it shut. ‘Fine. I guess it’s okay for those who think they’re better than everyone else just because they’re going for an ATAR of a hundred-and-fucking-one.’ She stood up stiffly, pushed her chair in and turned to leave. I stared at the first page of A Tale of Two Cities. Age of foolishness indeed.

‘You can’t get a hundred and one, it’s 99.95,’ Cecelia said. I wilted inside. I knew she hadn’t meant to sound condescending, but it was like she couldn’t help herself. Zenna turned around and swiped Cecelia’s pencil case onto the floor, its contents spilling across the carpet.

‘I hope you fucking fail,’ Zenna snarled. She started out tough, but her voice cracked at the end. She spun around and ran out of the library, shouldering past the elderly librarian, who called pointlessly after her.

I bent down and collected Cecelia’s pencil case, stuffing the stationery back in. I straightened to find her still writing, but with tears running down her face. A fat drop fell onto the paper and smudged the ink.

‘Dammit!’

‘Let’s pack up, Ceel.’ I placed a hand on her arm.

She jerked away. ‘No! I need to get this chapter revision finished.’

‘We can do it later. I’ll come over…’ I began, unsure how I could possibly finish that sentence. Alex had claimed me for this afternoon; we were going to look at cars.

Cecelia did it for me. ‘When, Gabby? When was the last time you were free to come over?’

‘I’m sorry! It’s just Dad has me doing these tutoring sessions, and –’

‘And what? It would be inappropriate for me to sit at the same table? Something is going on, because you’re not at the library most days! And you don’t even care about university.’ She was crying openly now, cheeks shining with tears. But she kept writing.

I sat back. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’ My voice was small. ‘What can I do?’

Cecelia swiped at her face with her jumper sleeve and picked up a different coloured pen.

‘Just go. I’m going to keep working.’

‘Cecelia, I –’

‘I don’t want to hear it. Please go.’

I wandered out of the library, completely forgetting to check out Dickens until the machine blared at me and the librarian tottered out, roast-irresponsible-students mode engaged. I apologised vaguely and handed the book back to her, definitely not in the mood to read it now. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my last class – a double period of Economics, a subject I’d long ago lost interest in – that I realised what had happened. I’d walked right through an alarm ringing in my ears and not freaked out. I grinned to myself and was caught completely unawares when Mr Digby-Williscroft asked me a question, then requested that I share my personal joke when I couldn’t tell him what the day’s class was even about.

So much for intuition.

***

I was still feeling buoyed by my success over the alarm the next afternoon. Donovan was less thrilled about my breakthrough.

‘So whenever you’ve had a fight with a friend, you’ll be good for the next hour?’ She seemed, if possible, even crabbier than usual.

I was undaunted, even having the audacity to shrug. ‘Maybe two,’ I joked. Donovan glared at me. I’d always thought I had a pretty strong glare, but I was no match for her.

She picked up her jacket. ‘We’re going out today.’

Better than staying in her office all afternoon. ‘Where?’

‘You’ll see.’

Donovan drove the same way she walked around: maniacally, and with no consideration for the things or people around her. I clung to the armrest, wishing I could take more time to appreciate her Nissan GT-R, and grateful I’d never had to ride on the back of her motorcycle.

We pulled up in a lonely little car park next to a tall mesh fence. At the end of the car park was a steel gate and a little gatehouse. A truck rumbled towards it. I got out of the car and jumped as a loud crash echoed around my ears.

‘What is this place?’

‘A quarry.’ Donovan rummaged around in the boot and pulled out a shoebox. ‘You’ll be a seven, right?’ She ripped open the box and tossed a pair of sneakers to me. They still had scrunched paper packing in the toes. I had never replaced the pair that got destroyed in the lightning strike. I gave her a disgruntled look.

‘You can’t run in those.’ She flapped a hand at my heeled boots.

‘We’re running?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do I have to?’

’”Do I have to?“′ she mimicked.

I grimaced at the childish tone – and more so at the fact that it was accurate.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Genetic advancement isn’t free licence to be a sloth. If you want the perks, you have to work at it. Put them on.’ She started stretching while I fiddled with the laces.

‘And hurry up. We haven’t got all day.’

I’d barely got my feet in them when she took off, loping effortlessly on her long legs. Within seconds, I was puffing and panting as I shuffled along behind her. We ran around the perimeter of the quarry, which would have been bad enough without heavy machinery roaring and clattering. The bare stone faces were perfect surfaces for sound to echo and amplify, bouncing around in my skull like it too was a stone quarry. I might have tried to strangle the blonde woman striding along in front of me, if I could have caught up.

At what I hoped was past the halfway mark – the GT-R was well out of sight, and it felt like we’d been running for hours, even the machinery sounds had faded to nothing – Donovan looked at her watch and stopped. I pulled up several metres away and leaned against the wire fence, trying to not fall over in the dirt.

BOOM.

I gasped out the tiny breath of air I’d caught as I crumpled to the ground. It was like the Shack on the first day. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, and within moments, I couldn’t see either as everything around me dissolved into crushing blackness. More explosions fired from the quarry. I curled into a ball, unsure if I was screaming or if that was just more noise in my head.

Something slapped me across the face. The stinging broke through the blackness, and I opened my eyes to find Donovan standing over me, barely breaking a sweat, with a vicious gleam in her eyes.

‘How’s that breakthrough going now?’ Her voice was laced with malice. I wondered if it would be better or worse for me if I slapped her back. I couldn’t have summoned the strength anyway. She stepped away.

‘What was that?’ I asked. I hated the weakness in my voice. I hated that Donovan had put it there.

‘Drilling and blasting.’

‘Nobody would be ready for that.’

Donovan’s face was hard. ‘Get up.’

‘Why do you want me to fail?’ I’d meant the question to be rhetoric and under my breath, but it came out somewhat louder than that, and whiny. Donovan heard. I cringed inwardly.

She didn’t even look at me. ‘I don’t.’ Without any further elaboration, she took off again, jogging easily along the fence line. Since the alternative was lying out in the bush until someone or something found me, probably shattered into a million mental pieces by more blasting, I clambered to my wobbly feet and stumbled after her.

***

I spent three-quarters of the drive back to West Beach imagining all the sharp, witty things I might say to Donovan’s face if I could somehow turn my wrath into actual courage. Stephen cast me worried glances but said nothing. I sighed and pushed the thoughts out of my head. It would all be so much easier to handle if I could talk about it with Cecelia. Or, at this point, if we were talking at all. I needed time to patch things up with her. I twisted to face Stephen. ‘Can I have tomorrow off?’

He frowned.

‘Please? She’s getting suspicious and she knows I haven’t been at the library.’ I gave him a pleading look, sensing that it would work on him.

‘Okay, one afternoon. Only because Liam says you’re doing well.’ Stephen finished with a hint of pride in his voice.

I grinned. ‘I knew you’d say yes.’

‘I see. Do you know what my condition is?’

Oh no. ‘Not Saturday.’

‘Yes, Saturday. But it’s not with Liam. It’s with me. If you want to make it through the Taskforce expedition, we still have more to do.’

I was curious, but Alex was waiting on the other side of the school. I’d find out on Saturday.

***

After school on Wednesday, I sent Cecelia a message suggesting that she meet me in the library. We hadn’t spoken since the fight on Monday. She came to class right as the bell rang, sat at the front of the room without a glance in my direction and left as soon as we were dismissed. Bereft, I dragged myself through lessons in a miserable haze and spent lunchtimes sulking in the media lab with Zenna, who didn’t want to hear about Cecelia and was barely talking to me herself.

Cecelia replied. Don’t you have a tutoring session?

I sighed and messaged back. I cancelled it. You’re more important.

Nothing.

I went to the library anyway, figuring she might be there and if not I could actually use the time to catch up on school work. With my improved memory, I was having no trouble maintaining pass grades in my homework without studying, but I knew I should lift my game if I wanted a shot at university.

Apparently every Year 12 had the same idea, because there were no free tables in the common area. Nor was there any sign of Cecelia. I circled around, surreptitiously checking to see if anyone had started packing up their books, and saw a familiar head of scruffy, black hair. He sat alone at a corner table, reading, tapping his fingers on the table to some imagined beat. I dumped my backpack into the chair next to him.

‘Hello, Gabby,’ he said, flashing a dazzling smile. He was wearing his sunglasses again. My twin reflections scowled back at me.

‘Keraun,’ I said, sitting opposite him and pulling books out of my bag. ‘What are you doing here?’

His cheeky grin didn’t slip. ’What are you doing here?′

‘This is my school. I study here.’ I maintained a dignified poise and flipped my Mathematics Applications book open to my homework bookmark – Chapter 7. The class was up to 22. Whoops.

He gazed at me intently. ′I hoped I might run into you. Your friend was here earlier.′

‘How do you know my friends? Actually, don’t bother, I don’t want to know about spooky god things.’ Not true, but I was in a churlish mood.

‘It’s not spooky. This was the only table not full, so I asked to share it. I glanced at the person’s phone and saw the messages with your name at the top.’

He sounded earnest. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. ‘How is that not spooky?’

‘Anybody could have read them. The phone was just sitting there.’

‘Fine, not spooky. Creepy.’

He cast his hidden gaze down. ‘Yeah, I guess. Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise to me. It’s Cecelia’s privacy you’ve invaded.’ I went back to my homework, trying to find a fresh piece of paper.

‘She typed a reply before deleting it. Do you want to know what it said?’

I looked up. He was being serious. ‘She’ll tell me when she’s ready.’

‘You are an admirably patient person. She’s lucky to have you for a friend.’

I shrugged. ‘I’m lucky to have her. She’s under a lot of pressure at the moment, but we’ll be okay.’

‘It’s nice. Your friendship.’

I closed my maths book with a snap. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get any work done.

He grinned, victorious. ‘Shall we get out of here?’

I smiled in spite of my annoyance. Maths could wait. ‘Sure.’

We wandered out of the library and into the mild winter sun. I fell into step beside Keraun as he headed for the car park. Once we were away from people, he took off his sunglasses. It was nice to feel the sun on my face; as much as I hated the relentless heat of summer, I still enjoyed the warmth. Spring was my favourite season. It suddenly occurred to me that the weather today may not have been an accident. I eyed Keraun suspiciously. He met my gaze and arched an eyebrow. ‘What?’

I looked away, feeling silly. ‘Nothing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘What, you can’t just pluck it straight out of my head? Some god you are.’

He chuckled. ‘I’m the god of weather. I’m not an all-seeing, all-hearing, omnipresent being.’

‘I thought it was god of lightning.’

‘Lightning sounds cooler, right?’ He gave me a cocky grin. ’Technically, god of weather. But I’m pretty new to the team, and most of it was set up before I got here. I tweaked the systems a bit so it pretty much does its own thing. I kept the lightning though, ‘cause that’s the fun part.’

He made some corny shooting motions with his hands, and I half-expected sparks to emanate from his fingers. Before he could request another admission of my foolish thoughts, I asked my own question. ‘These systems, do they create lightning themselves?’

‘Yeah. I just add my own when I feel like it.’

We arrived at his car, today a bulbous, two-door thing that had to be from at least the 1970s.

I smirked. ‘So you’re basically the horse and cart of meteorology. As in, totally obsolete. Like this car.’

He slid into the driver’s seat, pouting. ‘I thought old cars were cool.’

‘Outdated,’ I continued as I climbed into the passenger’s side and fiddled with the analogue radio. It didn’t work. ‘Defunct.’

‘Okay, okay, I got it the first time.’

Something occurred to me. I stopped playing with the radio.

He sensed my tension. ‘What is it?’

I stared at the air vents – just a fan, no chance of climate control – wondering how to ask.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he navigated out of the busy car park, shooting me an imploring glance. ‘Please?’

‘How often does lightning happen without your direct control?’

‘I have taken the blame for a few errant bolts. In a thunderstorm, it’s usually a bit of both. Why?’

‘Did … did you … when I was … ’

A laugh burst out of him. My face burned.

‘Did I deliberately strike you? It’s okay to ask.’

Instead of turning onto the road that wound along the beach, he pulled over onto a grassy verge next to a park, his face suddenly serious.

‘No, I didn’t strike you. Well, not directly. But I was being foolish, and what was supposed to be some innocent intra-cloud activity high in the storm cloud met with a negative streamer coming from you. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it was my fault. So I followed you, after. I wasn’t sure what any of the people pursuing you were going to do, but I was ready to get you out if it became apparent that you were in danger. Although that’s difficult with moving vehicles, even for me, so I wasn’t much help.’ He paused to take a breath. ‘Since then, I’ve been trying to find an excuse to talk to you. To apologise.’

My stomach did a strange sort of sliding down into my boots, landing in a puddle of disappointment. I had kind of hoped – without even realising – that he just wanted to hang out, for no reason. I mentally slapped myself and straightened my shoulders. That line of thinking was only going to lead to trouble. I watched a couple of kids playing on the swings in the park.

‘Well…’ I began, looking across to him, but I was stopped by his eyes. They were a bright, burning yellow, the colour pervading his entire eyeball and blurring out his eyelashes with the glow.

‘Gabrielle Adele Whitehall, I’m deeply sorry for hurting you, and causing you all this trouble.’

I couldn’t remember how to think. His eyes slowly faded back to their light brown, human form.

‘That’s a very formal apology,’ I whispered. His face was just a foot away from mine.

‘A god can only do it one way, and only when we mean it.’ His voice was soft. I straightened and stared out the window again. The kids had disappeared.

‘Thank you. Your eyes … how do they do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Glow.′

He shrugged. ‘Just a god thing, I guess. Subtle magic.’

I wanted to turn him upside down and shake him until all the answers to everything fell out, but I tamped down the urge to pelt him with questions. ‘Can we do something?’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Well, I can’t go home yet, Alex thinks I’m studying.’

‘Oh, right.’ There was a hint of disappointment in his voice. Perhaps I imagined it. He pulled back onto the road and drove us to the coast, parking at a quiet stretch of beach. Although the sun was out, a biting wind was coming off the ocean and hitting me through Keraun’s open window. The sea was a deep, bluish grey with little white caps dotted over it. Keraun reached for his door handle. ‘Coming?’

‘Out there? You must be joking. There will be sand blowing about everywhere.’

His eyes flashed yellow again. ‘Come and see.’

The wind had stopped. It was still cold, but I had my school jacket on and without the breeze, I was quite cosy.

‘How does anyone predict the weather with you doing things like that?’ I asked as I hopped onto the raised footpath. He jumped up next to me, his cheeky grin lighting up his face even more than his gilded eyes. I tore my gaze away, breathing in the familiar salty air as we walked.

‘I don’t do it very often. But there are some disappointed windsurfers further up the beach.’

‘Dad would be mad,’ I said without thinking. A disconcerting mixture of anger and pity curled around my heart. I hadn’t forgiven him, but I missed him. ‘How does it work?’ I asked. ‘Your weather control thing?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if you pretty much let it do its own thing, how do you know? If there’s a thunderstorm or something?’

‘I’m aware.’

‘You might need to explain that.’

He huffed, but his eyes danced. ‘It’s difficult, explaining to someone without it. I’m aware of all the world’s weather, all the time. I can tune in and out for more specific details. And I can still make it do what I want, like an override, although I can’t do much without upsetting all the programs. A slight wind change is easy enough. Stopping a flood or reversing years of drought – things like that don’t work.’ A hint of regret crept into his voice.

‘So you just go around striking things with lightning.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah. It’s really the only thing I can go nuts with, without ruining the weather systems. I have to keep my hand in it somehow.’

‘By smiting people.’ I meant it as a joke, but his face crumpled in horror. ‘Sorry!’ I said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

He chuckled darkly. ‘I don’t kill people. You humans have more control than you know. You decided way back that a lightning strike could be deadly. I don’t control that. Although, neither do you now, because it’s been happening like that for so long that it’s sort of what happens.’

’”Sort of what happens?” An all-powerful god and all you can come up with is “sort of what happens”?′

He laughed again. ‘I never said I was all powerful. It’s like part of the fabric now. The fabric of humanness.’

I scoffed. ‘That’s actually worse. But what you’re saying is … humans subconsciously decide how they work with the world, and how things affect them, and then reinforce those ideas into patterns that become belief, and then independent truth?’

He frowned. ‘That’s a way better way to say it. Why couldn’t I say that?’

I elbowed him playfully. ‘Well, you can’t help it if you’re not a genetically enhanced human with advancing intuition.’

He elbowed me back. ‘That’s where it all starts.’

‘Where what starts?’ I felt like I’d never run out of questions.

‘Magic. Intuition is key to subtle magic. That’s the magic that creates worlds. We can interact with it, but there’s a greater force than us at work. Energetic magic is different, that’s a memory thing that you can study, more tangible. It’s a bit strange that you don’t have it, actually.’

A breeze lifted my hair, but Keraun’s eyes hadn’t changed. Maybe it was just his weather systems reasserting themselves. He gazed out over the horizon. ‘We should turn back. I can’t keep the wind down all afternoon.’

We turned around and walked in companionable silence while I let the idea of different types of magic sink into my brain. There wasn’t much traffic, and I enjoyed the relative quiet, listening to the complex tumbling of sea water onto the sand below.

‘You should call your friend tonight.’ Keraun broke into my peaceful zone as we climbed into the godawful car.

‘Cecelia?’

He nodded.

I stared across the tumultuous, wind-tossed water as we drove away. ‘What did she think of you?’

‘She hasn’t met me.’

‘But you said you were reading her text – oh. You were invisible, or whatever it is gods do.’

He chuckled. ‘I asked if I could sit with her, and she moved a stack of books aside without taking her eyes off her reading. She didn’t look at me once.’

‘That sounds like Cecelia. So you’re not an apparition?’

‘We’re all apparitions, in a way.’

‘But are you, like, real?’ I playfully punched his arm.

‘Hey.’ He punched me back lightly. ‘I’m not a total fabrication. This is sort of my default form. It would take a lot of effort to change it.’

‘But do you have an actual body?’ My skin fizzed under my jacket where his fingers had brushed it.

‘Yes and no. Not as you’d understand it, I suppose. But then, neither do you. Our bodies are just constructs that allow us to interact with the world. Which is also a construct.’

‘Now you’re talking about spirituality.’

‘Isn’t that all there is?’ He flashed a smug grin. I gave up. My brain couldn’t process any more otherworldly ideas today. Keraun pulled up outside Alex’s apartment block.

‘Well, thanks for the lift.’

‘You’re welcome.’

The silence stretched out. I was about to ask if I we could meet again, but somehow I suspected it was up to me. Probably a choice better made with a level head, after a good night’s sleep. I got out of the car.

A hint of a smile played over his lips. Sometimes it seemed like he could read minds, despite what he said. Yet if he could do that, he would have plucked out the big question that I wanted to ask but felt too foolish to. ‘See you then,’ I said.

‘See you.’ He drove away in a cloud of black smoke.

***

‘Hello!’ I called as I chucked my school bag down next to the kitchen counter.

Alex appeared from the hallway. ‘Gabby. I was just about to come and pick you up.’

‘Sorry, I meant to send you a text. Nancy dropped me home.’ I found a fresh carton of milk in the fridge and went hunting in the pantry for Milo. It was easy to find among the neatly stacked boxes of raw nuts and goji berries. I snuck a teaspoonful of it before I emerged from the pantry.

‘Good study session?’

‘Mmhmm,’ I replied through the dry Milo. I swallowed. ‘Yeah, pretty good.’

‘You must be getting on top of things, with all this extra work.’ Alex padded over to the fridge in his socks and pulled out a kombucha.

I nodded, trying to conceal the guilt bubbling up. ‘I think so.’ Even with an enhanced memory, I wasn’t going to pass if I didn’t read my textbooks in the first place, and I wasn’t sure how to explain the very average results I was going to get after all this supposed study. Exam nerves, perhaps. Or I could see if Keraun would bribe somebody. If I saw him again. ‘I still feel like it won’t be enough.’

Alex pulled me into a hug. ‘You’ll be great.’

I hugged him back. ‘Thanks, Alex.’

‘I was thinking pumpkin soup for dinner.’

‘Sounds good.’

After dinner, complemented by a pretty good organic spelt sourdough, I stole away to my room, shut the door and called Cecelia. She answered after several rings.

‘Hey, Gabby. What’s up?’

‘Just ringing to see how you’re going. And to say I’m sorry.’

‘Oh my god, I’m sorry too. I should never have snapped at you like that. It wasn’t fair.’

Waves of relief washed over me. ‘Yeah, well, you’re under a lot of pressure. I shouldn’t have pressed the point. I mean, I don’t really remember what it was, but I’m sorry just the same.’ It was always like this. We’d fight, but we always made up.

Cecelia giggled on the other end of the phone. ‘Yeah, I’m not sure either. Something about … oh, I don’t even know.’ She was quiet for a moment. Years of companionship had taught me when to give Cecelia room to find the words she wanted; I was the one who blurted out whatever was on my mind.

‘Have you spoken to Zenna?’ she asked.

‘No. I’ve been kinda busy.’

‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’re hiding something from me. Wait. Is it a boy?’

My jaw dropped in indignation. ‘Definitely not!’

‘Well, something has gotten to you. I’ll give you until after exams, and then you’re coming clean, okay?’

‘I don’t know, Ceel. That sounds like I have to make a major admission.’ I tried to keep my tone light.

‘Best friends since forever, remember? We’re better when we share our secrets.’

‘I know.’ I sighed. ‘I wish I could tell you.’

Her intake of breath hissed though the phone. ‘So there is something! You have to tell me, Gabby.’

‘Not now. After exams,’ I said, gritting my teeth as I promised something I couldn’t give.

‘I’ll hold you to that, you know.’

Oh, I knew. I pleaded exhaustion and got off the phone before I could make any more impossible promises. I brushed my teeth, changed into my pineapple-print pyjamas and crawled into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Something was nagging at me. After an hour of fruitless puzzling, I drifted off.

I jolted awake at two a.m. The nagging thought was Keraun. He’d made it sound like striking me had been an accident, like I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his interest in me had arisen from that. But I’d met him before my Event. He’d been in Mr Cantwell’s office earlier in the day.

It was a long time before I could get back to sleep.