Misty Falls

For my editor at OUP, Jasmine Richards.
Without your enthusiasm for the Benedict boys, they would never have been published.

‘On the Misty scale of disasters, one to ten, where would you put it?’ Summer asked me.

I stared miserably at my two best friends as they clustered together on the screen of the laptop. Summer looked sympathetic, Angel amused.

‘It’s an eleven,’ I admitted.

‘Surely not?’ Summer twirled a lock of dark hair, dusting her cheek absent-mindedly as she reviewed my record. ‘Misty, it can’t be as bad as the time you told Jenny Watson that she was a lying cow with all the character appeal of a cow pat.’

‘And Misty was righteous to do so,’ said Angel firmly. ‘Jenny had split you up from Tom, Summer, so you had to agree with her.’ While giving the impression of being a fairylike waif, Angel had a surprisingly husky voice. It had shocked me when we met at our first savant summer camp together three years ago but, fortunately, she had forgiven me for declaring that before everyone and gone on to become a loyal friend.

Summer kept to her plan of making light of my most recent mishap. Being sweet-natured, she always wanted everyone to feel better, which had made me even angrier that Jenny had picked on her. ‘OK, I agree that Jenny Watson is a no-good boyfriend-stealer but most of us don’t say this in front of an audience including her very influential school governor of a father at Speech Day. That has to be worse: Misty had to transfer to another school.’

‘I didn’t like that one anyway,’ I muttered. ‘They should have known better than to put me in front of a microphone.’ Jenny and her friends had mocked me unrelentingly after that incident and I was more than happy to leave.

‘So what could be worse than the Jenny Watson Misty moment?’

Time to confess. ‘Remember I told you I thought Sean in Year 13 was
so
hot?’

Angel bent closer to the screen. ‘We saw the prom photos and we agree. But you said you weren’t going to do anything. It’s not as if he’s a savant like you so he can’t be “the one”,’ she made quotation marks in the air, ‘and you said he was way out of your league in any case.’

I propped my forehead on my finger and thumb, elbow resting on the dressing table. ‘I know, I know. The ones I like always are out of my league.’

‘Don’t run yourself down, Misty. They would be lucky to be your boyfriend.’

I love my friends. ‘Thanks, Angel.’

‘So what happened?’ prompted Summer.

I sighed. I had to force myself to say the words aloud. ‘I went up to him yesterday to wish him a good summer—you know, that kind of thing.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And it just popped out.’

‘What popped out?’ Angel had a cheeky twinkle to her eye as her gaze dropped to my shirt.

‘Nothing like that. No wardrobe malfunctions. Geez, remind me why I’m your friend again?’

‘Because you think I’m great.’

Summer elbowed her to let me finish. ‘Go on. You need to tell us so you can get past it.’

‘OK, OK. I intended to say—coolly—“Hey, Sean, have a great holiday,” but out came “You have the most gorgeous bum”.’

Summer clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘You didn’t!’

‘I’m afraid I did.’

‘And what did he say?’ asked Angel.

‘He said: “Thank you for sharing that with me”, laughed and went off to tell his mates.’

‘The rat.’ Angel was trying not to smirk. She really didn’t understand what it was like to live with my gift.

‘I spent the rest of the day having boys come up to me to ask if I thought their bums were attractive too.’

Angel dipped off the screen. She was probably rolling around on the floor in a fit of giggles.

‘You poor thing,’ said Summer. At least one of my friends knew how to react appropriately to social death.

‘I can’t face them again. I’ll have to move schools.’

Summer sighed. ‘Misty, you can’t do that. You’ve been to three schools in the last five years already because you were bullied for being different. You’ve got to stick it out for Sixth Form. And just think, you’ve the whole of the summer for them to forget about it. They won’t remember in September.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course, I’m sure.’ There was a faint tingle of a lie to her words as if she wasn’t entirely convinced but I let it pass. ‘Sean will have left, won’t he, as he’s done his A-levels, so you won’t have to see him or most of his friends.’

I brightened up at that thought. ‘You’re right. I’m getting panicked about nothing.’

‘You’ll be in South Africa for a month so you’ll have time to forget about it too. When you get back for camp, we can talk more.’

‘Thanks, Summer. You can tell Angel to stop laughing now.’

Angel came back on screen. ‘I wasn’t laughing.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘You can’t get away with lying to me.’

‘Sorry. I feel your pain.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘And Sean does have a gorgeous bum.’

I smiled as I ended the call. ‘Ain’t that the truth, girl.’

The flight to Cape Town climbed towards the top of the display screen. Boarding gate was now listed. I had already said goodbye to my parents and my three sisters and two brothers a few minutes earlier—the little ones were too much of a handful to wait until I went through to departures. My Aunt Crystal had stayed with me to check I made the plane.

‘You’d best go through.’ Crystal bent down and kissed my cheek, her mop of curly dark-blonde hair tickling my face as it swung to envelop me. ‘Give my love to Opal, Milo, and the little ones, won’t you?’

‘Will do.’

Crystal squeezed my hands. ‘I’m so envious, Misty. You’ll be there to see Uriel track down his woman.’

I squeezed hers back. ‘It’ll be epic.’ I couldn’t wait to get away and put the embarrassing last few days at school behind me. We looked over to the two brothers, Uriel Benedict, my fellow traveller, and his younger brother, Xav, Crystal’s fiancé. They were standing close together, Xav displaying none of his usual teasing as he murmured encouragement. As two insanely good-looking guys, they attracted more than their fair share of admiring glances from the girls queuing at the check-in desks. It had to be a relief for my amazing aunt that she matched Xav in the looks department, with her catwalk height and unusual features, dark brows and film-star mouth.

Crystal shook her head, an amused glint in her eyes. ‘Why do they both act as if Uriel is going off to war?’

She was right: Uriel was running his hands through his golden-brown hair in a nervous gesture I’d not seen before as he was usually so calm and self-contained. Blessed with classic bone structure, he reminded me of St Michael, the warrior angel as depicted in a stained-glass window I’d seen in Italy, all competence and athletic goodness, dispatching dragons with one hand and justice with the other. He wasn’t quite as tall as Xav but almost, so the pair of them stood out a head above the milling crowds pushing trolleys around the brotherly pep-talk on the concourse of Terminal Five.

‘They’re too macho to admit it, but it looks like Uriel is terrified and Xav is worried for him.’

Crystal laughed. ‘You’re right. Poor little scaredy big guys.’

‘Have to say, it’s a big deal heading off to meet your future partner. You did tell him enough to take him to her door?’

Putting her arm around my shoulder, Crystal steered me towards the security check. ‘As much as I could without holding his hand all the way to the first face-to-face. My gift tells me she’s in Cape Town. I can’t get too exact from such a distance but I see white buildings—crowds of people. Opal is fairly sure that means one of the hospitals and she even has a shrewd idea which of the savants in that part of town might be the match. She’s arranging a get-together so they can meet.’

I hadn’t realized that preparations were so far advanced. ‘Is she tipping off her target?’

‘No, just in case she raises hopes that then get dashed. If she’s wrong, I’ll fly out next month and see if I can get a closer bead on Uri’s girl.’

Of course, Crystal would come to the rescue if necessary. She would do anything for family and now Xav’s six brothers were all included in the term. Crystal was only a couple of years older than me, making her more like a sister than an aunt, but she took her responsibilities seriously. My mum, Crystal’s oldest sister, always said the baby in the family had been given the heaviest burden with her gift.

I brushed her arm. ‘But you can’t fly out for every soulfinder you locate or it would break the bank.’ That was also something my mum said. Crystal had been busy since her gift was discovered in the autumn, helping family and friends find their savant counterpart. It was not a simple process: she could give a direction and a sense of place but people had the annoying habit of hiding out in big cities full of potential matches or they moved about, following a pattern that made perfect sense to them, no doubt, but to a soulseeker like Crystal was infuriating.

‘You sound just like Topaz.’ Crystal frowned slightly, thinking hard. ‘I wish I could afford it but I don’t believe it’ll be necessary this time. The direction I’ve sensed has stayed pointing to South Africa. Uri would’ve gone sooner if he hadn’t been locked into a work commitment but luckily she stayed put.’

I wondered what could be more important to Uriel than meeting his soulfinder but with a gap of twelve years between him and me it didn’t seem my place to ask. I was still at school and he already had a doctorate from Denver University in the United States.

‘It’s a total bummer,’ admitted Crystal, ‘that I can’t now go with him as Xav and I have to be in the US next week so we can hunt for a place to live in New York. He has to start at uni soon.’ She pulled a face. ‘And we’re saving up to help Victor and Will. I’ve got a feeling Victor’s one is going to be a really expensive hunt.’ She looked a little harassed for a moment, lining up all the tasks she had to do before the beginning of the university year. Then her face cleared. ‘So it’s down to you, Misty, to look after my brother-in-law-to-be.’

I was thrilled she thought me up to the job. She was one of the few in my family who didn’t treat me like a screw-up. Mum and Dad had spent much of the last decade clearing up the messes I made at home and school with my blunt talk; it was a pleasant change to be trusted. ‘No pressure then.’