Guardian of the Dead (11 page)

Demetrius opened his mouth, caught my eye, and abandoned whatever he'd been about to say. He straightend his spine and nodded.

‘Is there a problem?' Iris asked, popping up behind me.

‘No problem,' I said, wishing I'd had a mirror so I could reproduce whatever expression had made Demetrius shut it. It could come in handy in all sorts of situations. ‘We'll run this one more time and then I think it'll be good to go.'

The boys behaved perfectly, and Iris assured me that I'd only have to come to the next rehearsal, when they were doing a full run with set and props. I was almost sorry. Annoying actors and rude prima donnas aside, working on the play had been fun. It felt good to
do
something.

‘But of course you should come see it for free,' she said. ‘Come on opening and closing night and stick around! Those are the best parties.'

‘I haven't been to a party for a while,' I said, trying to work out how long a while. Before the diagnosis? No, surely not, that was over eighteen months ago. ‘That'd be great.'

Iris gave me the brightest of her many bright smiles, and turned back to the action on stage.

I had to wait for Kevin, so I wandered backstage again. I explained to the short, sturdy stage manager that the chances of my climbing up rickety scaffolding to help her erect lights were exactly nil, evaded Carla's attempt to enlist me in the ranks of her sewing assistants, and escaped to sit on the stairs outside before anyone else could ask me to do anything.

I took a deep breath of frozen air, which burned all the way down, and huddled into my coat.

‘Pandora! I've been looking for you!' curly-haired Blake said from the door. He descended to sit on the step behind me and I twisted to keep him in view, flattered at the spark in his eyes. ‘What do you think of the set?'

The backdrop had been painted with a wide frame that I guessed was meant to represent a doorway, pointed at the top. Half of it was in a style influenced by M
ori art, curling koru and triangles and squat figures in red, white, and black. The other half resembled an old-fashioned European-style villa, with cream-coloured wooden posts and some clumsy fretwork under the eaves. The space through the doorway was filled with a wild tangle of badly traced native forest. I wasn't really crazy about Iris's weird New Zealand-centred vision for the play, and I thought that even the forty-foot rule couldn't make the backdrop look anything more than amateur work.

But Blake had paint all over his hands. Clearly honesty wasn't called for.

‘It's very symbolic,' I said.

He laughed. ‘You think it's crap.'

‘No, no! It's just not exactly my style.'

‘We could discuss your style,' he said. ‘After rehearsal. Over coffee.'

I blinked at him. ‘Uh . . . would that be okay with Carrie?'

‘Sure,' he said easily. ‘I can make new friends, can't I?'

‘Oh,' I stammered. ‘I would love to. But I can't tonight.'

He tilted his head at me, then nodded.

‘I'm not brushing you off. I really can't; I have an essay due tomorrow and I haven't started it yet.'

‘Ah,' he said. ‘Another time?'

‘Yes, please,' I said, like a polite kid to a friend's mother. New friends, of course, I told myself, even if Blake's interest didn't seem merely friendly. This was university – we could be adults.

‘We're up, Blake,' Carrie said loudly from the doorway, and I leaned back, feeling my cheeks heat. She wasn't glaring – her face was carefully blank – but I got the impression that she wasn't happy.

Blake looked mildly exasperated, then shrugged.

‘Tomorrow, then,' he said and got up.

I concentrated on tying my hair back, taking much longer than necessary. The padded door swished shut.

I took a deep breath of frigid air and stood up, preparing to go back in, when a gangly, flame-haired figure appeared on the path from the bridge over the creek.

My skin tingled. I hesitated, wondering whether to play it cool and pretend I hadn't seen him, but by then Mark was at the foot of the steps, looking up at me.

‘Hey, Spencer,' he said. ‘What are you doing out here by yourself?' His voice was light and friendly, but he was not smiling.

I pointed at the noisy theatre. ‘I'm not exactly alone.'

‘Still,' he said.

‘You're not one of those guys who thinks a girl needs an escort everywhere she goes, are you?' I asked. ‘Little bit sexist, Nolan.'

His feathery eyebrows knit together and then smoothly relaxed. ‘Got me there,' he said, and sat down, uninvited, at the bottom of the steps.

I was still standing, but there wasn't any question of going back inside now. I took a few steps down and sat behind him, politely tucking in my knees. ‘What about you? What are you doing here?'

He waved at the university buildings across the creek. ‘Oh . . . studying. For the
Odyssey
essay.'

I made a face. ‘Yeah, I haven't started it yet. La Gribaldi's gonna kick my ass.' Something was tugging at the corner of my mind, demanding attention, making me vaguely uneasy. This was how yesterday's conversation on the bus had started. But there was nothing about that conversation that could make me feel like this – we'd talked about procrastination and comics and it had gone really,
really
well.

‘What?' I said, suddenly aware he'd asked me something.

Mark smiled and repeated: ‘So you're a theatre girl?'

‘Oh, no. No way. I'm a tae kwon do girl. They needed someone to choreograph the fights, and I guess I was the only sucker to say yes.'

‘Whoa, martial arts?'

‘Yeah. I'm a black belt, first
dan
.'

‘I knew it,' he said. ‘You really are a superhero.'

I grinned. ‘It's not that impressive. But I like teaching. I used to assist Master Rosenberg-Katz at home.'

He tucked his hair behind his ears. Something silver gleamed on his bony wrist, catching my eye, but he tugged the coat sleeve back down.

‘Tae kwon do,' I said, and stopped. Did I really want to start talking about this?

Mark's eyes opened wide, inviting.

‘Well, the thing is,' I said, hugging my knees, ‘my mum had cancer last year.'

‘Oh,' he said, looking blank. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘She's fine now,' I said hastily. ‘Or, you know, she's in remission, you can never be
sure
, but for a while it looked as if she wasn't going to be fine at all. The mastectomy surgery was really painful and the chemo took a lot out of her and – anyway, it was all pretty bad. And I sort of stopped. I didn't – I had friends, and a guy who was sort of my boyfriend, but I didn't really go out much because Mum needed help and stuff had to get done and after a while I stopped going out at all. The only thing I really did – outside school – was tae kwon do. My dad started going back to church, and he wanted me to come with him, but I couldn't do that. I didn't have any faith in it. I didn't—' I stuttered to a halt, suddenly realising that I was painting an entirely accurate picture of myself as a pathetic no-mates who'd lost her boyfriend and her entire social life.

But Mark didn't seem to notice that I was confessing to being a loser. ‘So you're an atheist?'

This was a much better direction for the conversation.

‘I'm agnostic, I guess. I'd believe if I had proof.'

‘Some people find faith comforting,' he said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. ‘I know. It must be nice for them.'

‘You don't believe in anything out of the ordinary? Ghosts?'

I began to shake my head, then hesitated. ‘Well, I've never seen any. My grandmother said she saw ghosts all the time when she was a girl, but then she got married and had my dad, and they stopped showing themselves to her. But she believed in God too, so, I don't know.'

‘What would you do?' he asked. ‘If you found out the Greek gods or fauns or harpies or dryads were real?'

I laughed. ‘Stay the hell out of their way, jeez. You know the stories. Nothing good ever happens to humans who get mixed up in that stuff.'

‘That's sensible,' he noted, the corner of his mouth twisting. ‘Anyway, sorry, go on. I didn't mean to start an interrogation.'

I hesitated, but he nodded encouragingly. ‘Well, actually, it's kind of related. Master Rosenberg-Katz – she's amazing, she's a fourth
dan
– could see that I wasn't doing well, so she invited me to assist with teaching, and she'd talk to me after classes about
eum-yang
.'

‘Yin-yang?'

‘That's the Chinese; this is Korean. Same concept. It's all about finding balance, physically and mentally. It really helped, last year.' I shrugged, trying not to feel embarrassed at spilling my guts so very thoroughly. ‘So I guess I have faith in that; in trying to be balanced, even though I'm not very good at it. And trying to pass it on.' I gestured at the theatre. ‘Even through something like this.'

Mark had twisted on his step so that his body was angled toward me, elegant shoulders leaning in. ‘That sounds really good,' he said. It was an ordinary enough thing to say, but his voice was soft, and a little wistful, and sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the weather. ‘Listen, Spencer—'

The door banged open and I jumped, filled with instant hatred for whoever had interrupted this moment. So much for balance.

‘Oops,' Iris said, and grimaced apologetically. ‘So! We're closing up now.'

‘Right,' I said, getting to my feet. Of course Kevin was right behind her, giving me incredibly subtle eyebrow-raising, twisty-mouthed, aha-I-see-you-there-with-your-eternal-crush faces. Of
course
he was.

And right behind him was Reka. She stopped, staring down at Mark, and though I took a step down, he refused to take the hint and move. We were all lined up on the steps, like that bit in
The Sound of Music
where the kids sing the goodnight song, except this was not cute and funny, but cold and weird. There was a prickly sensation in the air.

Reka's eyes went from Mark's face to mine and back again, absolutely blank. Then she smiled; not the beautiful one she reserved for Kevin, but something small and sharp and not very nice.

‘How's it going, Nolan?' Kevin said.

‘Hi,' Mark said, eyes narrowing. He nodded slightly. ‘Okay. I'll see you later.'

He didn't look at anyone in particular when he said it, but I decided that he was talking to me. I'd said things I'd said to no one but Kevin and my big sister, so he'd
better
have been talking to me.

‘Good night,' I said, and he got up and walked away.

In the car park, Reka cozied up to Kevin again as Iris locked the doors. She spoke quietly to him with her hand on his arm, the fog drifting around her stockinged legs like a caress. Didn't she have any pride? I leaned against Theodore's front passenger door, and sent Kevin glowering looks. Not that he noticed.