Page 52 of Out of the Blue
‘We can’t go back to Edinburgh either,’ Allie says. ‘Someone could have seen Teacake on the roof of the power station, or one of the Standing Fallen members might tell their superiors. It’d be all over the internet in five minutes.’
I think for a moment. ‘How about my house? It’s pretty remote, and our garden is lined with trees – you can’t see in much. We can drop you off at your dad’s,’ I add, looking at Leah. She nods, her eyes glossy.
‘Won’t that take, like, four hours?’ Allie rubs her eyes with one hand. ‘Honestly, Jaya, I’m knackered. There’s no way I can drive that long. You don’t have a licence, do you?’
I shake my head. ‘I won’t be seventeen until October.’
‘I do,’ Leah says. ‘I don’t have it with me, though . . . and I’m pretty sure my insurance has run out.’
I give a dry laugh. ‘If we get pulled over, that’s really the last of our worries.’
Allie’s phone rings – it’s been buzzing nonstop for ages. I see Calum’s name flash on to the screen. Allie pauses, chewing on her lip, then sighs and swipes the call away.
‘Let’s do it,’ she says. ‘I’ve got enough pills on me for a few days. We’ll have to stop for about a gallon of coffee en route, mind.’
I climb into the passenger seat as she types the address into her GPS, selecting a route off the A9 so we can avoid most of the CCTV and speed cameras. We set off, driving through villages and clusters of houses, past fields of sleepy animals, and through quiet woodlands dappled with moonlight. Allie puts the radio on, filling our sleepy silence with meandering chatter about theGreat British Bake Offand a competition to win a holiday to Tenerife.
As the nerves fade, sleep slowly takes over.We did it, I think, as my eyes droop. We got her back.
Another miracle, after all.
Leah’s house looks lonely when we drop her off. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning, the deepest point of the summer night; all the lights are off, and the gate to the drive is closed. For a second I think of Peter Pan returning home from Neverland to find his parents have forgotten about him. Only Leah’s the opposite of the Lost Boys – if anything, she’s done too much growing up.
She sits in the driver’s seat for a moment, clutching her seatbelt and staring at the unlit windows. ‘I don’t know what to tell my dad,’ she says. ‘What if he’s angry that I left Mum behind?’
‘Are you joking? After everything you’ve been through, there’s no way he’ll blame you for this.’ I give her a little nudge forward. ‘Go on. Just tell him the truth.’
Leah nods, her eyes red and watery. We might have got her away from the Standing Fallen, but a 150-mile car ride hasn’t magically returned her to the funny, mouthy, slightly cocky girl I knew a few months ago. Then again, maybe she was always full of these insecurities. Maybe the Standing Fallen just stripped away her means of hiding them.
‘OK. I’m ready.’
She takes a deep breath and looks down at Teacake, who’s tucked up asleep on the floor. Even after spending four hours in a cramped car together, Leah’s eyes still fill with amazement when she looks at her, at the huge, shimmering wings wrapped like blankets around her body.
‘Tell her good luck from me,’ she says, nodding at Allie. She turns to me last. ‘Thanks, Jaya. I really am sorry.’
We watch from the car as she opens the gate and walks up the front steps. An upstairs light comes on, and a minute later, the door opens. The Standing Fallen have changed Mr Maclennan too: he looks older than I remember, all sharp lines and streaks of grey. It takes him a beat to recognize the pale, gaunt girl standing in front of him, but then he lets out a sob and throws his arms around her. They’re still there, slowly swaying in the glow of the streetlight, when Allie climbs into the driver’s seat and drives off.
Ten minutes later, as we pull up to my own front door, a lump forms in my throat. The house looks smaller than I remember. The red door I’ve walked through so many times is unfamiliar; the garden wilder in the darkness. I wish I had someone to welcome me home like Leah did. Even if it was Dad. He’s called me thirty times in the past few hours, and Rani another twenty. I’ve texted them to say I’m fine, but can’t bring myself to phone them back. I’ve got no idea what I’ll say when I do.
Allie switches off the engine and slumps over the steering wheel. ‘Remind me to never, ever do that again.’
I get out of the passenger seat and open the back door. ‘We’re here, Tea.’ I give her shoulder a gentle shake. She wakes with a start, mumbling a few lines of a car insurance advert and rubbing her eyes, and follows me out of the car.
Her fatigue evaporates the moment her feet touch the ground.
The first thing she does is take a breath. I’d forgotten how different the air feels here, much softer and cleaner than in the city. She inhales and exhales, her shoulders rising with each slow breath, then tilts her head back to look at the stars. I wonder what she sees there: if the constellations spell out ancient stories, like the tales of gods and beasts told from China to Egypt, India to Greece, or if they’re simply a map home.
The tips of her wings begin to twitch. ‘We’re here, Tea,’ she mimics. ‘Call in now for your chance to enjoy ten days of sand, sea and sun.’
I nudge her forward. ‘Go. You’ve got this.’
Out here, with only the garden’s shadows and the sky’s inky blue as a backdrop, her wings look larger and grander than ever. The fibres of her feathers glitter in the starlight: countless shimmering pinks, now mixed with mallard blue and goldfinch yellow. She sprints over the gravel – if the stones hurt her feet, she doesn’t show it – leaps over the pond, and rises above the house, looping around the chimney like a curl of smoke.
Allie climbs out from the driver’s seat, her yawn freezing into a gape as she watches Teacake glide over the treetops. ‘What if somebody sees?’
I shake my head. There are a few houses over the hill, but our neighbours are either old or couples with little kids: it’s unlikely anyone will be awake to spot her at this time of night. Even if they did, I don’t think either of us could deny Teacake this.
We don’t rush her, either. We lie on the grass, slipping in and out of sleep, as Teacake rises and dips across the sky, sometimes staying airborne for almost twenty minutes at a time. By the time she’s tired herself out, it’s past four and there’s a hint of orange on the horizon. I find the spare set of keys hidden under the clay hedgehog in the flowerbed and unlock the door. Teacake’s face crumples when she realizes we’re asking her to go inside again, but she follows us up the front steps.
