Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (13 page)

‘T
ell me about the latest animal crusade,’ Vandal said and Petra shook her head, hair falling across her glasses.

He was teasing her again, but she couldn’t help smiling. Her mouth actually hurt sometimes because she smiled so much. And why shouldn’t she? She was seeing Vandal every day, was almost his girlfriend. A fortnight ago she’d ached just to think about him. Now they were sitting together on his back stairs watching the sun go down. He was holding her hand and the ache was different, wild and fluttery, high up in her chest. Every night she dreamt about him kissing her, and every time the dream would end the same way. She’d get so excited her head would explode.

‘Magoria to Miss Mabindi,’ Vandal said softly, squeezing her fingers.

She looked down at his hand and her smile widened. She wished she had the courage to squeeze back, but she wasn’t game to initiate anything. It was cowardice, yet a part of her still hadn’t caught up to the fact that the gorgeous and fascinating Vandal McGuire was interested in her. Besides, he was doing so well on his own, she should go with the flow.

‘I’m here,’ she said and looked up. The fluttering sensation deepened. It was a surprise and a rush each time she saw him gazing deeply into her eyes, knowing he was watching her and listening to her — knowing he was going to kiss her one day. ‘And I’ve told you about the whales twice.’

‘So tell me about the dolphins,’ he said. ‘I love to hear you all passionate about animals.’

She nodded, unable to speak for a moment. The way he’d said
passionate.
She couldn’t stop looking at his lips. It was getting late, nearly dark. Maybe she should go before she made a fool of herself.

She stayed.

‘Okay. Well, the story is that the dolphins are disappearing too,’ she said, glancing away because she couldn’t concentrate when he was looking at her like that. ‘And it’s not Japanese fishermen. You know the oceanic water level is dropping. Scientists still aren’t sure why. They think it could be evaporation, but how dolphins, let alone whales could …’ She shook her head, lost in the problem now. ‘I’ve heard of it raining cats and dogs, but cetaceans?’

Petra knew the missing mammals weren’t hiding in the clouds, waiting to come down in the next shower, but they hadn’t turned up dead floating on the ocean surface either. They were simply
missing.
‘Do you think it’s an effect of the greenhouse gases?’ she asked.

‘I know what it is,’ he replied, mock solemn.

She smiled again. ‘Oh, do you?’ Then turned, and was surprised to find his expression serious. He hadn’t been mocking her. ‘What is it?’ she asked, then wished she hadn’t. Instinct told her Vandal was going to say something terrible, something she wouldn’t want to hear.

Petra had always felt more comfortable fantasising about his lips than she had thinking about how different he was, but his father was from another planet, you couldn’t get much more alien than that. When he’d first told her, she’d had nightmares about freaky things — Vandal taking off his shirt and laughing when she was horrified by the eye that stared out at her from the centre of his chest. Mega-creepy. She’d woken up in a cold sweat after that one and it had taken hours of reassuring herself that she’d seen him swimming heaps of times and
there was no eye in his chest
before she could relax around him again.

He was normal. Apart from the Guardian blood in his veins he was completely normal. He’d promised her that, and his powers were wonderful, but at the same time they scared her. Logically, anything that could do good, must also have the potential to do bad, and she didn’t like to think of Vandal doing bad things. So most of the time she pretended he was just like everyone else, a regular boy. Unfortunately, today looked like reality check day.

Vandal glanced over his shoulder, towards the house where they’d left his mother sitting quietly with her bottle of vodka, then he turned back to Petra. Even the cicadas were quiet. ‘It’s the Maelstrom,’ he said.

Petra didn’t have a clue. She nodded for him to go on.

‘It’s a … storm. A big storm.’

‘Does it have something to do with your powers?’ she asked, wondering why his voice sounded so empty, and why the mention of his differences made her chest feel empty too.

He shook his head. ‘Glimmer …’ he started, then stalled. He took back his hand and looked down into the darkening back yard, propping both elbows on his knees, his hands over his face. ‘God, this is harder than I thought it would be.’

Petra wanted to touch him then, to put her hand reassuringly on his shoulder, but the sizzle between them stopped her. It would look too intimate. At least to her. So she kept her hands in her lap. ‘Spit it out, McGuire,’ she said, knowing she had to be strong. What he was going to say was bad.

‘The world is going to end,’ he said. ‘Most people will die.’

Petra frowned. ‘My grandma has been telling me that since I was five. It’s in the Book of Revelation.’

‘Not some time in the future. Now. Soon.’

She looked out at the overgrown vegetable patch and the tired rope swing drifting in the breeze. It was so ordinary. Too ordinary a place to be hearing things like this. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said.

He was silent and Petra knew she should probably apologise. She’d virtually called him a liar. But she couldn’t. If she said sorry it would mean she believed him. And she didn’t want to do that. Not now. Not ever.

‘I hate having to tell you this, Petra,’ he said. ‘But I can’t be the only one any more. It’s too big a burden. Mum won’t talk …’

Petra hated his mother then. She should stop drinking and look after her son. Listen to him. Because Petra didn’t want to right now. Only, she knew she would. She had to know.

‘How soon?’ she asked.

‘Months. Maybe years if we’re lucky,’ he said softly.

‘But not a decade?’

‘No.’

‘Not long enough for my mum to be a grandma.’ Petra looked up at the sky and saw the evening star, felt a lump in her throat. ‘She’ll be sad about that.’

He turned back to her. ‘You believe me,’ he said.

Petra shrugged. ‘If I believe the other things — the powers — I have to believe that. And you fixed my arm. So it must be true.’

‘It is,’ Vandal said. ‘And it makes me wonder if I should go. To Ennae.’

Petra felt sick every time he mentioned the
otherworld
where his father and sister had disappeared to. It was too incredible to imagine it existed, let alone that she might lose Vandal there. But he wasn’t a liar. So she had to stop pretending these scary things weren’t happening. ‘Do you even know what would happen if you managed to get there?’ she asked. ‘Maybe the food would make you sick. And how would anyone understand you?’

‘The Sacred Pool,’ he said. ‘The portal you go through. Apparently it alters your body and your mind. That’s why my dad could understand my mum when he got here, and why the food didn’t make him sick, although he could never bring himself to eat meat.’

Petra frowned the question.

‘No animals or insects on Ennae,’ Vandal explained. ‘He thought killing animals for food was barbaric.’

‘No wonder he had trouble fitting in here.’ A vegetarian in the middle of cattle country. ‘So you won’t get sick if you go?’

‘Maybe for a couple of hours. Then I’d be fine,’ he said. ‘But there’s this time issue.’

Petra wanted to close her ears and make it all go away, but instead she nodded for him to go on.

‘Ennae moves five times more slowly than we do. Here it’s been three months since Dad left, but on Ennae less than twenty days have passed.’

Petra took a moment to grasp that. ‘If you go, I’ll grow old while you stay young.’

‘You won’t get the chance to grow old,’ he said gently.

Petra nodded, her emotions battered. ‘The big storm.’

‘Maelstrom.’

‘Right.’ It sounded so biblical.

‘Glimmer is going to control it. She’s The Catalyst and she has powers …’ He shrugged. ‘More than me.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ Anything else she should know? ‘I always thought she was … odd.’ Actually, odd was a polite description. Creepy might he better. Glimmer had been clever and beautiful and talented at
everything
in school, but her manner had been so impersonal Petra had often wondered if she was taking the mickey.

The complete opposite of Vandal. Not only because she was blonde and pale in contrast to his olive skin and black hair. Glimmer had always been enveloped in the sort of calm serenity Petra only ever dreamt of. Nothing had flustered her. Ever. Vandal, of course, who Petra considered to be much more sensitive, had been constantly reacting to provocation from those around him. She’d ached for him sometimes and had wished he had some of his sister’s tranquillity. Now that she knew they were both aliens, albeit that Vandal was only half an alien, it made more sense.

‘So this storm she’s controlling,’ Petra asked, ‘will she stop people dying? Will she stop the end of the world?’

He shook his head. ‘Our planet’s toast. Can’t stop that,’ he said. ‘But some of us are definitely supposed to live. She’s supposed to make a new world out of the ruins.’ He paused to frown. ‘Assuming she doesn’t stuff it up.’

‘Can she do it alone?’ Petra asked. ‘Or does she need help?’ No reply was forthcoming so Petra added, ‘I know you didn’t get on with her, but —’

‘I hate her,’ he said, and there was awkward silence for a couple of seconds. ‘I know you don’t want me to, but I can’t help it. I’ve always hated her.’

Petra nodded. ‘Sometimes I feel like I hate my cousins,’ she said, wishing yet again that she had a brother or sister to be close to, ‘but if one of them needed me, I’d be there for them.’

‘The Mabindi code,’ Vandal said with a wry smile.

‘Damn right,’ she said. ‘My dad would beat my backside if I didn’t. We’re family. Like you and Glimmer.’

‘She’s not my stepsister. Not blood related at all,’ Vandal argued, but Petra was already shaking her head.

‘It’s not blood, it’s family. I want you to love her, to help her, like your mother wants you to.’ Petra had no right to tell Vandal to do anything, but she felt passionate about this. If he couldn’t feel the same way, maybe he wasn’t the person she believed he was. A tiny empty space opened up inside her at this thought.

Vandal’s eyes were distant. ‘She’s never needed my help.’

‘She’s never tried to control a Maelstrom before,’ Petra countered, looking up to the sky, trying to imagine powers that could control the weather.

‘It will be hard enough to get there and find my dad.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘But if you think I should help her —’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Petra said impulsively, and didn’t feel the rush of terror she might have expected. Obviously her fear of losing Vandal was greater than her fear of the unknown.

She saw his head tilt towards her but she kept her attention on the sky.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I’ve saved your life twice,’ she said, forcing herself to smile. ‘I’m your good luck charm.’

‘Petra.’

This was the moment. She heard it in his voice. Petra swallowed down nervous excitement, and despite all her practice she completely forgot to lick her lips as she turned towards him. He took off her glasses, slowly, carefully, and put them on the step above. Petra started to tremble.

‘I want to fix your eyes today,’ he said, gazing deeply into them.

Petra was so caught up in the moment, his words didn’t register immediately. Then, ‘My eyes.’ Disappointment swirled with the built-up excitement, high in her chest. What about her lips? Why couldn’t he —?

Petra didn’t let herself think. Instead she snatched two handfuls of shirt and pulled him down to meet her upturned face. Their lips bumped awkwardly but he didn’t pull back, and though it hadn’t been his idea, Vandal quickly took control of the kiss, his hands rising to hold her shoulders, as if he was scared she’d think better of the idea and run off. His mouth moved against hers and his tongue brushed the outside of her lips.

Petra felt as if her heart would beat out of her chest, but her body was filled with a strange melting limpness that made her sigh into him, letting go of his shirt, her fingers opening to spread across his chest. It was like hot chocolate in winter and a scary roller-coaster ride mixed into one, and she just breathed through it, feeling the incredible sensations reach down from her lips to wake every part of her tingling body.

At last, reluctantly, he pulled away from her and Petra felt as though she was opening her eyes on a new night. The air around her sparkled with clarity and the freshness of the coming winter. She felt as though she was seeing through the pores of her skin.

Vandal was looking at her intently, his dimples trying to show. She smiled at him and managed to say, ‘Wow. I can’t believe I did that.’

He nodded. Relieved? ‘Wow in triplicate,’ he agreed, his gaze dropping to her lips again.

The kiss had made Petra bold. She raised her hand and touched his hair, knowing she could now, and it was just as silky as she’d imagined: smooth, cool. He was growing it so he’d look like his father when he arrived in Ennae, so he wouldn’t stand out. It brushed his shoulders and she let her hand do the same, her fingers landing on the firm curve that led down to his biceps. Even through his T-shirt she could feel the hard muscles. The fluttering in her chest swirled and moved deeper into her body, lower, and she felt a moment’s panic. She let his arm go and put both hands in her lap, astonished at herself that she’d had the courage to touch him so boldly. But that kiss had changed things. He was no longer an untouchable god. He was now officially her boyfriend.

‘Petra.’

Or was he? Something hesitant in his voice? She couldn’t look.

‘About that kiss …’

‘It was wonderful,’ she said quickly, knowing no one could take that away from her — her first kiss, and it had been everything she’d ever dreamt of. Well, except that her head hadn’t exploded. But that was a good thing.

‘It was better than wonderful,’ he said, then hesitated. ‘I just don’t want …’ he trailed off, but before Petra could begin to worry that he was dumping her, he blurted, ‘I still want us to be friends.’