Chapter Fourteen The Old Book

A few days later, there’s a butterfly-light knock on the door. When I open it the boy and his dad are here, the boy holding a plate of little sticky cakes. He smiles at me, and I can feel my fire in him.

Mahmoud smiles too, a warm crescent moon. ‘Hi, Babs.’

‘Hello.’ I put out my hand. I realise I did this last time we met. ‘Thanks for bringing him over.’

‘Not a problem.’

‘Did you want to come in? You can meet my mum.’

I show him to the kitchen where Mum is sitting, reading. ‘Mum, this is the boy’s dad, Mahmoud. Mahmoud, this is Wendy.’

She gets up and also shakes his hand. It feels too formal, but I don’t know what else to do – we don’t meet new people often.

‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘we have stuff to do so we’ll be in my room.’

I’ve already got a pot of tea ready to go, and I laid out a picnic set on my bedroom floor. We wanted an outdoor picnic, but it’s too windy. And with the curtains open and my big windows, it’s almost like we’re outside.

‘My dad helped me make them; they’re called basbousa,’ the boy says as he sits down and takes the cling wrap off the cakes. ‘I wanted to bring something.’

‘They look delicious.’

‘Can you do magic, Babs?’ the boy asks as he checks out my room. I’ve got some dried herbs in the window, a few crystals lying around, and a big cloth of The Moon tarot card on my wall.

‘Kinda,’ I say. ‘Not like Mum or Iris. It . . . scares me a little.’ I’ve never told anyone this before. ‘I don’t want to accidentally curse someone.’

‘I don’t know if you could do that,’ the boy says. He pauses. ‘Not by accident.’

‘Maybe.’

We sip our tea. It’s nice, being still with him. He’s so quiet. Maybe he is made of space. There’s no sound in space. Or I guess there might be, but we just can’t hear it because there’s no air. I don’t know how it all works.

There’s a knock on my door. ‘Yes?’

Mahmoud sticks his head in. ‘Bye, Habibi, I’ll pick you up later.’

The boy gets up to hug his dad, then Iris appears in the hallway behind them. ‘Hey!’ they say, and they plonk their bag on the floor. ‘I’ve got the book I showed you and your mum a while ago, Babs.’

Mahmoud heads off, and the boy sits back down.

We’re both quiet as we watch Iris take out the book. It’s huge, yellowed with age, and has an embossed gold mushroom on the cover. They put it down in front of them and start flicking through the pages.

‘Wow,’ I say. Something in the air is different – my ears pop. That didn’t happen last time.

‘Saltkin reckons it’s really special.’ Then they take a deep breath. ‘Okay, so. Even for me this is a little weird. When I found this book, all the pages were blank. You remember, Babs? You saw them.’ I nod. ‘A few days ago I started to like, hum, because when I found the book it was humming, so I thought maybe it liked it? And then some pages weren’t blank anymore.’ They stop on a page with writing and pictures in black ink. ‘So I drew the sigil on my leg.’ They lift their starry-patterned skirt just high enough to show us.

‘Oh my god, is that scarring?’ I ask.

‘Nah, it just like, appeared,’ they say, pulling their skirt back down. ‘And then like, this wave of protection washed over me.’

‘That’s so cool,’ the boy says. He flicks through the book a couple of times. Every other page remains blank. ‘Maybe we can try a spell to reveal more pages?’

I nod. ‘There must be something.’

‘I reckon we give it a go,’ Iris says. ‘What do we need?’

‘Candles, for a start,’ I say. ‘Maybe some herbs. And I’ll get one of Mum’s books.’ I hurry off to the kitchen and grab the things I need, shove them into a reusable shopping bag.

When I come back, the boy is leaning over the book. ‘Maybe this can tell me how to find my name,’ he says.

‘I dunno if you should listen to a book about that,’ Iris says.

‘It’d be easier.’

‘Maybe, I don’t know, I think you’ll find it soon,’ they tell him. ‘And you’ll know when you do.’

‘Mm.’

I place the candles equal distance around the book so they make a circle. I touch their wicks and they spring to life with my own butter-yellow light.

‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ the boy whispers.

‘She’s made of fire,’ Iris tells him.

‘Right,’ he says, then we all burst into laughter because everything seems so ridiculous.

‘Okay, okay.’ I open the book. ‘We gotta like, cleanse ourselves or whatever. I know a little about this.’ I grab the glass of water on my bedside table and dip my fingers in, spreading it over my hands. ‘That’ll do, you both do the same. Now, uh, it says to use blood but I don’t really want to? So I got some basil – I feel like it’s the meatiest herb.’

The boy snorts, but he takes some.

‘We’re supposed to put everything in a bowl but like, this’ll be fine.’ I grab the saucer from my cup and place it in front of the book. I light the basil and blow it out, smoke that smells like pizza twisting around the room. I let the ashes crumble in my hands and put them on the saucer. I tell the others to do the same. Iris adds the smoky quartz from their pocket to the pile.

Nothing happens for a bit, then the candles blow out all at once. I shriek, Iris grips their knees and digs in their nails, the boy makes himself smaller.

The book flies open to a place somewhere near the front, a double-spread of spidery writing. I don’t think it’s in English, but Iris is leaning in, muttering what it says.

The room goes totally dark.

‘Iris,’ I say, but I don’t think they can hear me. They’re perfectly still, radiating energy. It rustles against my skin, through my hair.

Slowly, pieces fade in: a tree, grass, birdsong, river sounds. We’re in the realm, I’m almost sure.

Iris finishes reading and looks up. ‘What?’

‘You were reading under your breath,’ the boy says. ‘You’ve taken us somewhere.’

‘We’re in the realm,’ I say.

Iris stands up, holding out their hands. They can feel it too, the land humming.

‘Do you reckon it’s safe to walk around?’ the boy asks.

‘I’ll check.’ Iris takes a deep breath and steps off the picnic blanket. They gasp. ‘It’s so much. Like I’m being recharged. I think it’s okay.’

When I step onto the grass, I don’t feel any different than I do standing at home. But the air feels familiar.

‘Have you been here before?’ I ask.

‘Don’t know. Maybe it’s near the birthday party clearing? The plants seem to think so.’

‘You can talk to plants?’ the boy says curiously.

‘Oh, yes. Um. I was born from a seed. I don’t mean like sperm, I mean like, a seed in the ground.’

‘Oh.’ He nods. ‘Righto. I was born the regular way, I guess. Don’t know if I’m made of anything except flesh and bone.’

‘You’ll figure it out,’ I say. ‘We can help you, if you need.’

He just nods, solemn.

There’s a path through the trees, so we take it. Iris keeps the book clutched to their chest. A stream flows next to us with a low, shimmering fog lying on top of the water. I’ve never seen anything like it, in all my trips to the realm.

The breeze smells like something I recognise, but I can’t decipher what. It’s confusing, I’m not sure where it comes from.

Everything around us is humming with life. I can see the flames coming off me, showing what I’m made of. I spread my arms out, soaking up the sun.

The forest opens up for us. The tree ferns get taller, the tree trunks get wider, the flowers get bigger. There’s moss over everything, flowers of every colour.

Again it’s like I’m floating in space, I can’t feel anything. ‘Oh.’

‘What?’ Iris asks.

‘Is it the flowers?’ the boy asks, pointing to the ones I’m looking at, dark purple.

Iris bends closer to have a look. The petals end in a fire-red. They shine in a way that reminds me of the moon roses, but like a dark sun.

‘Yeah.’ I try to focus on my body, how I exist in it. With it. I am my body. ‘Yeah, it’s the flowers.’ The flames on my arms are so small now I can barely see them.

‘What are they? What’s wrong?’ Iris asks.

I start to tremble. I am my body. I am my body. My feet slip on the Earth, like she could just release me into space if she wanted. I am my body.

Iris puts an arm around me, but I can barely feel them. I know I’m crying, but I can’t feel it.

‘Babs,’ the boy says, and he puts his arms around my waist, pressing himself into me. ‘It’s okay, we’re here.’

I can’t feel anything.

Iris gasps. They let go of me and stare around. ‘The trees aren’t happy.’

I can’t move, and Iris is so quiet I don’t know if the boy heard them. I notice they have a new sigil burned onto their arm from the transport spell.

‘The trees aren’t happy, something’s wrong,’ they say, louder.

‘Why?’ the boy asks, letting me go to look at Iris.

Iris shakes their head. ‘They won’t, maybe can’t, answer me? It’s something cold?’

‘Cold?’ The warmth returns, filling me up.

‘It was cold that day, between the rocks,’ the boy says.

‘Exactly.’ I spread my feet a little, feel the way Earth now locks me to her. ‘We have to get out of here.’

And then, behind Iris, it’s clear to me. I gasp.

It’s not something I can see, really, but I can feel the vacuum, the cold, the wrongness. The forest is silent.

‘What is it?’ the boy asks.

‘Cold fae,’ I say. ‘Run!’

Iris starts to, but the boy doesn’t move. They grab his hand, and we’re crashing through the trees. We don’t follow the path, just keep running. The cold presence is close behind us – I can feel it in my feet whenever they touch the ground.

‘Those flowers,’ I yell to the others, not even sure if they can hear me over us crashing through the forest. ‘I remember seeing them when I was with the witch.’

‘What?!’ Iris yells back.

‘Does that mean she’s nearby?’ the boy says.

I can’t reply to that; the thought of the witch being close is too much.

We stop when we come to the stream we were walking beside before, surreal and magical. I don’t think we should touch the water – the fog looks like . . . I don’t know.

‘Can we cross it?’ the boy says.

‘No,’ Iris and I say at the same time with the same panic.

A shiver runs up my spine and I cry out. ‘They’re close,’ I say, feeling the tug of their vacuum.

‘Are these the same things as before the birthday party?’ the boy asks.

‘Yes,’ I say, shivering. Are these figures somehow with the witch? Does she control them?

‘We have to get out of here,’ I say. I feel like I’m being poisoned, the tendrils of cold sweeping up my legs, into my veins, my heart. ‘Come on.’

A cold hand clamps down on my shoulder. I scream. This spooks the boy even more and he shoots off, me and Iris just managing to keep up with him.

‘Can you use the book?’ I ask Iris as we run. ‘To get us out?’

‘I don’t know if the same spell will work,’ they say. ‘We don’t have all the other stuff.’

‘We can’t run forever,’ I reply. ‘Maybe having the sigil on your body will help?’

‘Please, Iris, there’s gotta be something you can do,’ the boy says.

We’re slowing down, we can’t run much further. The boy is holding a stitch in his side, Iris is red in the face. ‘The basket?’ they ask.

‘Forget it,’ I say, waving a hand. ‘We just have to leave.’

‘Okay.’ Iris drops to their knees, their skin splitting. Bright blood blooms. The boy cries out and kneels beside them. I do the same.

Iris lies the book flat on the ground on the right page. They use the blood from their knees to trace the sigil onto the paper. ‘Hold me!’ they yell out, and me and the boy each grip an arm. The sigil fades into the page.

We’re back in my room.

We look at each other. We’re covered in little cuts from running through the trees, and breathing too heavy, too red in the face.

‘I’m sorry, Babs,’ Iris says.

I close the book. ‘I’ll get the Dettol; we should make sure our cuts don’t get infected. Your knees especially.’

Before either of them can reply, I get up and go to the bathroom. I lock the door and sit on the cold tiles, my back against the cupboard.

The witch. Vada said she was far away, but we were so close. I shiver, try to remember I am my body, we’re in the world together.

I take the bandaids and Dettol back to my room, where Iris and the boy clean my cuts, bandage me up.