Oksa Pollock: The Last Hope (15 page)

M
ARIE HAD JUMPED BACK FROM THE TABLE
, overturning her chair.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?” she yelled. “This isn’t funny. Do you see me laughing?”

Leomido smiled at her distantly, despite the growing feeling that this was just the start of their problems.

“Marie, would you come with me, please?” said Pavel despondently, his face deathly pale.

He took her firmly by the arm and drew her into the living room. Leomido and Abakum looked at Oksa gravely, their silence rebuking her more effectively than any tongue-lashing could have done.

“I’m… sorry…” she murmured, biting the inside of her lip and feeling a little ashamed.

“So are we, Oksa, so are we,” said Abakum, stressing the dual meaning of these words, which Oksa wasn’t sure how to interpret.

Looking dejected, Abakum got up from the table heavily and walked out of the kitchen, followed immediately by Leomido, leaving the girl alone with her responsibilities.

When Oksa went back up to her room, her parents were still talking it over in the living room, and the snatches of conversation which reached her ears did little to reassure her: the discussion was developing into a
heated argument. Oksa sat down in front of her computer and started writing an email:

Although she should perhaps have learnt her lesson from her last attempt at spying outside Dragomira’s door, she sat down on the floor in the corridor facing the living-room door. It was closed, but Oksa could hear perfectly what was being said inside because their voices were so loud.

“Our daughter is heir to the power of Edefia, she has the Mark…”

“Sure! And I’m Tinker Bell!” replied Marie with a hysterical cackle.

“Marie, why would I lie to you? I’m not capable of it. Oksa has powers, she already knows how to use some of them, but she has incredible potential! Our daughter is phenomenally strong, stronger than anyone I know.”

“Stop it! You’re driving me crazy with your insane stories, your
Edifia
, and everything.”

“Edefia.”

“And even if I did believe you, how come you’re only telling me this now? How long have we been married? I’ll tell you since you seem to be finding it hard to remember: EIGHTEEN YEARS!”

“Come with me,” her husband said with a deep sigh. “I want to show you something. We’re going up to see Dragomira, you’ll understand better.”

The door opened, but they were so wrapped up in their conversation that neither of them noticed Oksa sitting huddled miserably in a corner in the corridor, which only upset her more. Dragomira, who was waiting for them on the second-floor landing, ushered them inside. Oksa
followed
them upstairs and sat down on the top step. A few minutes later,
Marie gave a bloodcurdling scream. “
Oh dear! Mum must have seen the Lunatrix
,” thought Oksa. The conversation continued inside the
apartment
, sounding just as venomous as before.

“You’ve seen too many films, the lot of you! You need to stop this right now and come back down to earth.”

Oksa couldn’t help murmuring sadly, “But we are on Earth, Mum.”

The first thing Oksa noticed when she opened her eyes was that she was in her own bed. Virtually as soon as she woke up, all kinds of questions sprang to mind. Had she fallen asleep on Dragomira’s landing? Who’d carried her back to her room? How had things turned out between her parents? Had Pavel managed to explain everything to her mum? When she went down to the kitchen for breakfast, there was a much more important question she had to ask:

“Where’s Mum?” she asked, her voice faltering.

Everyone was there: her father, Dragomira—who’d finally left her apartment—Leomido and Abakum. Which made Marie’s absence even more noticeable.

“Your Mum has gone to visit her sister,” replied Pavel, his face haggard with tiredness and worry.

All four looked at her with a mixture of pity and severity.

“Is she angry with me?” she asked abruptly.

“No, it’s not you she’s angry with,” said her father, looking away and sliding a piece of paper folded in four towards her.

Oksa unfolded it and read:

“Oksa, what you did was serious,” continued Dragomira straight away. “It was a cruel thing to do to your mum and to all of us.”

“I know, Baba, I’m sorry!” cried Oksa, with tears in her eyes. “I’m such a moron, I’m sorry!”

“We know you’re sorry,” replied Leomido, sounding irritated. “But the harm has been done. Your mum has had a nasty shock. All this has hit her very hard.”

“It hit me very hard too,” retorted Oksa. “If you’d told us sooner, it might have been easier to deal with.”

Although the four of them flinched at this scathing remark, they didn’t answer back: there was more than a grain of truth in what Oksa had said.

“What was going through your mind? Why did you act like that?” asked Abakum, looking at Oksa with kindness, in marked contrast to the three other adults, who were still very tight-lipped.

Oksa hesitated before replying. She chewed a nail noisily with her head tilted to one side, then exploded:

“I find out some extraordinary things and then everyone goes AWOL and refuses to answer my questions! The house is like a graveyard, no one speaks to me, it’s like I’m landed with this
huge thing
which I have to deal with all on my own. On top of that, I can do loads of stuff I want to show you… but you couldn’t care less, you haven’t even asked to see what I can do! You don’t realize that ALL THIS IS CHANGING MY LIFE! No, you adults continue whispering in corners without sparing a thought for Mum or me. You have no idea how angry I was… it was taking up so much space inside, I couldn’t breathe. I could have smashed everything without moving from my chair, just by looking around. When Mum asked if you were hiding anything from her, I didn’t have the strength to stop it: it began all on its own, I couldn’t stop myself.”

“And how do you feel now?” asked Abakum very gently.

“Now? You really want me to tell you how I feel?”

“Yes,” replied Abakum simply.

“Well, see the rain falling outside?”

They all turned to look at the window. Heavy rain was pelting on the square. At the same time, the windows rattled at a clap of thunder.

“I feel like the weather today: I feel like I’m drowning in tears,” said Oksa, her voice trembling. “I feel miserable. Miserable and furious. I’m so furious I could explode.”

The four adults glanced at each other uncomfortably. They all knew that Oksa’s fragile state of mind was directly caused by their detachment and lack of consideration. And they appeared to be deeply sorry for it. They only had to look at her to see how she was struggling to control her feelings in her over-emotional state and there wasn’t anything they could do to make her feel better. The harm had been done, as Leomido had said. Oksa’s face was drawn and frighteningly pale. Her eyes were brimming with tears and she’d bitten all her nails down to the quick. Her father and loved ones suddenly realized that she’d been showing clear signs of depression for days now in the form of violent mood swings—veering from laughter to tears and from wild enthusiasm to black despair. But they were most surprised at her rage—a terrible seething rage which was completely out of character for Oksa. Pavel went over to his daughter, knelt down in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“We’re sorry,” he told her as gently as he could. “But please, don’t be angry. You’re right, we have ignored your questions, but we’ll explain what you need to know in good time. It’s still too soon…”

“TOO SOON!” exclaimed Oksa, beside herself with rage again. “But you’ve already told me too much! You have no right to leave me standing here on my own as though it’s all beyond me!”

With these words, she leapt to her feet in a fury and, with her fists on the table, glared at them with blazing eyes. Their silence and lack of reaction made her blood boil and she felt rage coursing through her veins and making her head spin. She’d had this feeling before when confronting the Neanderthal in the boys’ toilet and during that terrible storm a few days after school started. She looked down, trying to calm herself. No use. Alarmed, she saw the bowl of hot chocolate in front of her take off
from the table and hurl itself against the wall, splattering Dragomira on its way. The bowl shattered on impact, leaving a brown trail of chocolaty milk down the wall.

“NOW LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!” yelled Oksa.

She whirled round and bolted out of the kitchen, her heart beating frantically as the mounting pressure became unbearable. Her father rushed after her, catching up with her in the hall, where a large mirror was about to suffer the same fate as the bowl.

“Have you decided to break everything in this house?” hissed Pavel angrily, grabbing her arm.

“Leave me alone, Dad. All of you just leave me alone!” shouted Oksa, struggling desperately to extricate herself from her father’s vice-like grip.

She managed to pull free so suddenly that she lost her balance and fell over, which made her even angrier.

“Now look here,” thundered her father, “you have to calm down and listen to me! We are
all
going through a very difficult time and we’re
all
struggling to understand things. What’s happening is very complicated for us
all
and you’d better believe it. So please don’t make things worse.”

“Too complicated to speak to a kid, is that what you mean? Then you should never have told me everything you did. Everything that has happened to Mum is your fault! I HATE YOU!”

Oksa was screaming at the top of her voice. She was so angry she couldn’t breathe and she was shaking from head to foot. Leomido and Abakum were watching her sorrowfully from the kitchen, distraught at her anguish. Dragomira had shut her eyes and was standing there rigid, her face ashen. Pavel held out his hand to Oksa to help her up. She ignored it, stood up and charged up to her room, doing her utmost not to burst out sobbing. After furiously sticking her no-entry sign on the door, she threw herself onto her bed, her emotions in turmoil.

She couldn’t help jumping when she saw the Lunatrix in front of her. The small creature was waiting quietly near her bed, his arms hanging limply either side of his podgy body.

“Fear must be dismissed from your mind, granddaughter of my Gracious,” he said in a shrill voice. “The domestic staff of my Gracious did not premeditate to cause alarm.”

Oksa sat up, unable to tear her eyes away from the creature.

“I… I’m not afraid,” she stammered, “I’m just surprised. Er… can I help you?”

The Lunatrix shook his head so wildly that Oksa was impressed.

“The Lunatrix of my Gracious has received words in his ear which have been exchanged by the guests of this dwelling… the granddaughter of my Gracious has experienced the combustion of her heart, which was crammed with rage. This made a flood of magic and none of the Runaways have been able to build dams to contain the energy produced by this anger.”

“I really messed up, didn’t I?”

“Mistakes are filled with humanity and the granddaughter of my Gracious now possesses the knowledge that she harbours parts of great variety within her heart. So she must conduct her life henceforth with this compositeness of Outside and Inside. The mistake cannot be put right but she must still encounter acceptance: the granddaughter of my Gracious no longer has the ignorance of new-born babes, she has entered the vigorous age of adolescence where acts come into contact with the payment of their price.”