Julia had asked about Oscar. And asked about him, and asked about him and asked about him until Miranda could no longer bear it.
No Julia, I barely know him, no it’s not like that.
And that storm- that majestic storm- had made the news. In a summer of perfect cloudless days with pleasantly cool breezes, that storm was something entirely other.
It had built up out of nothing over half a day, they’d said, with nothing to herald its coming. It had knocked out the power grid of most of North and Central London. It had caused, in this summer of drought warnings and hosepipe bans, flooding in several places- even around the corner from Miranda’s house. It had done in one day what it would usually take a week of prolonged rain to do.
Miranda knew it had been the storm. In looking back on it, something about its majesty had been unreal. Otherworldly. But she couldn’t pinpoint just what about the storm it had been, nor could she understand why it had only affected Oscar and herself.
-
Oscar, for his part, avoided all mention of the storm.
Well, he tried to. The task actually proved quite difficult: it was all his friends talked about for a while.
A few of them had purposefully gone out in it: taken their skateboards, taken their bikes and cruised the empty streets with the water pounding down relentlessly on them.
One of them had slipped off his board on the Broadway: the slickness of the water on his skin and the pavement, and the momentum he had gathered combined, making him skid for ‘like, ten meters, dude, I swear!’ He had the scrapes, cuts, extensive bruising all along one side and broken arm to prove it, but like Joe had said, he could have just as easily gotten that from falling down his stairs.
Oscar’s avoidance of the subject didn’t escape his friend’s notice. Neither did his constant preoccupation. But nothing could draw the cause out of him.
He wanted to call Miranda, to talk to her. He’d composed and discarded myriad text messages to her, asking her if she could remember anything else, if she had any theories as to what had happened and why he couldn’t remember, if she wanted to meet up for lunch.
The last he barely realised what he was doing. He’d managed to stop himself from sending it at the very last minute.
He had decided – and it had taken a fair amount of deciding, based on only a very hazy recollection of her face- that Miranda was beautiful, in her own way. And, yes, the thought of the storm brought about thoughts of her like turning on a tap. He couldn’t get on a 221 without thinking about abused lips and how much he wanted to soothe them with his own, and so much more.
But this desire to see and find out more about her and the bizarre experience they shared was combated by his usual reluctance to face the unknown and the inexplicable head on, as well as the little niggling sensation that she didn’t really want to be contacted by him.
And so he chose to pretend that none of it ever happened instead.
Miranda didn’t realise she was staring at the boy until he smiled at her.
She started, smiled back briefly before looking back down at her book.
She was lying down on the grass in the park by her house, trying to read up on English folklore. She’d done quite well for abut twenty minutes, but the heat of the day distracted her, and she found herself staring off into the middle-distance instead.
It wasn’t that the book she was reading wasn’t interesting, because it was. But lying in the sun always put her at ease, and on such hot, cloudless days when the sun bounced of the pages of her book and dazzled her, she found it much more pleasant to focus on the tingling feeling of tanning skin instead.
“Hey.”
The voice at er side startled her out of another daydream. It was the boy from before.
“Um, hi,” she replied, sitting up and closing her book, her finger marking her page. Lying down with him so close to made her uncomfortable.
“I’m Jordan,” the boy said, the smile on his face matching the day in its brilliance.
Miranda didn’t know what to say to that she certainly didn’t want to give her name- and so she gave a tight smile by way of response.
Jordan’s smile only grew.”Shy? That’s okay. I guess it’s strange, me coming up to you so suddenly,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “To be honest, I don’t really know why I did it. I mean, obviously, you’re a pretty girl, and you have a nice smile and you’re on your own but I wouldn’t normally come and talk to you. I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” he asked. Miranda allowed a small nod to escape her. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. She wasn’t really sure that it was, but the boy seemed harmless enough.
“So… will you tell me your name?” he asked, after another half a minute of silence.
“Umm,” Miranda looked down at her feet, shook her head. “No. Probably not.”
Jordan smiled and leant closer, apparently to look at her book but Miranda couldn’t tell whether or not that was just a guise.
“I understand: you’re scared. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” Jordan continued, the smile still firmly fixed to his face.
Miranda wanted to say that she hadn’t been scared until he’d said that but… well, now she was too scared.
“I just want to play a little. No sport.”
Sport.
Sport.
Miranda’s eyes widened considerably, and the brilliant glint in Jordan’s turned- if not wicked, then certainly mischievous.
“Oh, you only just realised! I thought you knew already- most people who can just see me like that know what I am. It’s the ears,” and as he said this, his features began to change. “Gives me away.”
And yes- now his ears were looking decidedly… pointy.
“You’re an elf,” Miranda murmured, more to herself than to him. Saying it aloud only made it more surreal.
Jordan- if that was really his name- grinned even wider (and now instead of even white squares Miranda could see a row of wicked, carnivorous points).
“But… but this is my world!” Miranda exclaimed, and she looked around frantically, just to make sure that she was right- she was: in front of her, London extended over the horizon; behind her, the palace glittered and shone, looking only a little derelict in the cleansing sunshine. “What are you doing in my world?”
“I’m visiting, of course! It’s so boring to stay in one place all of the time, don’t you think?”
Miranda shook her head vigorously, in a futile bid to order her thoughts. “But… but… how? How did you get here? And where is your world anyway? And how can I see you? Can other people see you?”
Jordan laughed. It was the first time Miranda had heard an elf’s laugh, and just like that, she was enchanted. His laugh held sunshine, and the smell of fresh hay and tiny silver bells fluttering in the breeze and she never, ever wanted it to stop.
“I’ll answer your questions and more, if you consent to play with me a little.”
Miranda was so close to saying yes. Why wouldn’t she? She’d forgotten all about his pointed teeth and thoroughly dubious assertion that he wouldn’t hurt her. All that was running through her mind was that laugh.
Oh, to hear that laugh again…
“You should go. Marlene is coming, and you know how she loathes you.
The cold, hard voice broke Marlene out of her reverie. Points and promises and sport came back to her in a flash, and she shook her head again.
Before them stood the pointed boy from a week ago, Karrow.
Jordan’s attention immediately removed itself from Miranda. “Ye gods that human of yours ruins everything,” he spat, directing the comment at Karrow.
Karrow, in return, aimed a kick at Jordan’s gut. “’tch’dachri,” he said as his foot connected with Jordan’s flesh. At least that’s what it sounded like to Miranda. The word- or words- made no sense to her, but none of what was happening did, so she decided not to let that bother her.
Karrow’s foot was drawn back once again, and released once again, too quickly for Miranda to see where it landed.
She would have protested at the violence, but she was stopped by the voice at the back of her mind telling her that Jordan probably deserved a good kicking anyway.
Besides, he wasn’t so hurt that he couldn’t throw one last sly smile at Miranda before abruptly disappearing.
“Umm, thanks,” Miranda begun, but Karrow wasn’t listening.
“So weak,” he muttered, “I can’t see why he’d have any interest in something as soft and as helpless as you. You wouldn’t even last a week.”
“Karrow, are you just going to stand here all day and abuse this girl?”
Karrow swung round to the voice, which came from an indistinguishable patch of air somewhere behind him. “I’m not abusing her, I’m just wondering. How can a species so vulnerable turn out a specimen as strong and as beautiful as you?”
“Flattering me will not make up for calling me a specimen,” the air said, shifting and pulling itself into the shape of Karrow’s Princess.
“A fine specimen,” Karrow said, half joking.
“Maybe it’s time you left. Otherwise I’ll be tempted to use this human’s present on you,” and as she said the words, she lazily swung a pendant around, causing Karrow to hiss and back away.
“I wonder sometimes why I love you, he said as he began to fade away.
“I wonder sometimes why I let you,” the Princess replied, throwing the pendant at Miranda, who didn’t manage to catch it. “If they bother you, threaten to hit them with that. They should back off,” she said, beginning to fade away too.
“Wait- what is it? What does it do?”
“Iron,” the Princess said. Then, her voice more imagined than heard:
“Burns them.”
“Who,” Morgan asked, holding the ringing phone in his hand, “is ‘Miranda Storm Five Pounds’?”
Morgan was Oscar’s best and most annoying friend.
“Miranda?” Oscar asked, too eager for Morgan to believe the ‘oh, she’s just some girl,’ he tacked on at the end.
“Just some girl? Oh, then you wouldn’t mind me doing this-” Morgan tapped the green button and said theatrically: “Oh, Miranda, hello-” making the ‘o’s stretch on almost indefinitely.
“Give it back, you prick!” Oscar whisper-shouted, making a grab for the phone. Morgan neatly dodged, and a scuffle ensued of which neither boy came out victor. Instead, the phone slipped from Morgan’s grip and fell apart on the floor.
“Thanks a lot, you dick,” Oscar muttered as he slotted the battery back into the crappy phone.
“Anything for a friend,” Morgan replied, standing up and making his way into the kitchen to get a drink.
He waited impatiently as his phone turned back on and remembered how to be at least a little bit functional.
To him, it felt like forever but it was over soon enough, and within minutes he was listening to his phone ring as he waited for Miranda to pick up.
“He,” he said, as soon as she answered, “sorry about that. My friend was just… messing about.”
Urm, yeah. That’s okay, I guess,” she said in reply.
“So. What did you want to talk about?” he asked, when she said nothing.
“Oh,” another pause, “Well,” another. “I saw them again.”
Finally.
Oscar told himself off for being disappointed. Of course the reason she would call him would be the one that had stopped him from calling her.
“Oh, really? Um… where? And how?”
In my local park. Well, sort of. I was just reading and this new one- he said his name was Jordan- came up to me and… and then the king guy came and literally kicked the crap out of him. And then the princess came and gave me this necklace to protect myself with. She said it burns them.”
Oscar listened to the narrative in silence. Halfway through, Morgan came back n with a drink in hand and about half a cake that he’d procured from God knows where, and sat on the sofa, staring intently at him.
“Oh. She seems- from what you told me- to like them. Why would she give you that?”
“Because they’re dangerous, Oscar. What happened to you that Saturday- that weird obsession thing- it happened to me. He just laughed and I… I don’t know. I would have done anything he asked.”
That didn’t sit well with Oscar. “Anything?”
“Anything. If the Prince hadn’t shown up when he had-” she cut herself off abruptly, and that was more than Oscar needed to know.
“Oh,” he said. Then: “Shit.”
“Yes,” Miranda replied solemnly.
Oscar became slowly aware of Morgan looking askance at him, and realised it was time to cut the conversation short. “Look, Miranda, we should probably talk about this later.”
She scoffed. “This is important! You need to face what happened before it decided to face you,” she began, angry and- Oscar relished this bit- concerned.
“Yes, I know that. I’m just a little busy right now. Like I said, my friend is here. I’ll call you later or, better yet, we can meet tomorrow. Then we can talk about this and I can give you back that fiver. Okay?”
Miranda sighed, “Okay. Sorry for snapping. I’m just a little on edge right now,” a sigh. “Well, I guess I’ll speak to later. Bye.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Oscar hung up, looked up, saw Morgan looking at him with that face on, and sighed.
It would be a long evening.
It took all of half an hour to get Morgan to shut up with the questions, and another hour and a half before he could get him to stop trying to casually bring Miranda into the conversation. It was eight when he finally got Morgan to leave.
He found himself getting suddenly nervous as he waited for Miranda to pick up the phone, and gave himself such a stern talking to that he didn’t hear her say hello until she repeated herself.
“Oscar, hello.”
“Oh, hi. Sorry, I… hi.”
Miranda laughed, and Oscar took that to mean she was feeling at least a little better.
“So. You saw them today, yeah?”
“Yeah. Three of them.”
“What… what did they want?” he asked hesitantly.
Miranda took a long time answering, and Oscar imagined she was picking her words, chewing on the lips.
“Well, the boy- the new one, that is- saw me looking at him in the park… and then Karrow came, and sent him away, and the girl came to give me a pendant. And then she left.”
Oscar didn’t feel much elucidated. He wondered if it was because of what he was asking about, or who he was asking.
“So the necklace,” he said finally, deciding that his was the most important thing. “Did the… Princess... say how it worked?”
“No. She just said- well, it’s not really a weapon, as such. It’s just- It’s iron. She said that iron burns them. And the prince was pretty afraid when she threatened him with it, so I take it she wasn’t taking the mick.”
“Wait- what? She threatened the Prince with it? I thought she liked him!”
“He called her a specimen, which she didn’t take too well. But they don’t seem- well, they’re quite violent, I think. Their whole… species? Race? I don’t know, but I think they’re very violent. When I- sorry, we first saw her, the Princess was all cut and bruised. And they talk about sport a lot. I don’t really know what they mean by that, but it doesn’t exactly sound very ‘cricket’, so I take it it’s not a good thing,” Miranda said bitterly.
Oscar was going to say something, thinking she’d finished, but she hadn’t.
“And today, the other boy, Jordan said…”
Suddenly she was on edge again: Oscar could hear it even through her silence. That’s what convinced him they were dangerous.
“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to,” he said gently.
She laughed. “I don’t know why I’m so bothered by this. No. I do. It’s because I’m so weak. He said he just wanted to play. No sport. And- when I was still myself, I didn’t really believe him, but he laughed and asked me if I would play with him, and I… I was going to say yes. It was his laugh. I just… I wanted to hear it again. It was so beautiful; I would have given my life for it.”
Oscar didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“I wanted to tell you to warn you, but I don’t know what I can say. I can’t even do that. I didn’t realise he was one of them until he mentioned sport. I couldn’t even see how pointed his ears and teeth were. All I can tell you is that you’ll need iron with you. But- sorry. I’m useless.”
“No, you’re not. Thank you for telling me that. Really, thank you. I’ll know to be on my guard from now.”
A silence stretched, and it took a long time to become awkward.
“We should meet tomorrow, still,” Oscar said finally. “You can show me that pendant of yours- and I still owe you that fiver.”
“Really,” Miranda protested, “it’s fine. It’s nothing.”
“I insist. I hate owing money. Say we meet in North Finchley tomorrow at twelve. That’s middle ground, right?”
“Well… yes, but-”
Oscar cut her off. “Good. Then I’ll see you there. Goodnight Miranda!” and before she could protest or respond, he had hung up.
