iii.
Their next stop on Amaya’s plan was Tokyo in late March, 2006. Pixie cried about not wanting to go but stopped speaking entirely after Amaya said “Stop being pathetic.” It was a long trip of Amaya reading through documents about various islands while Pixie stared out the train window. When they were almost there, Amaya set down her notes and explained:
“Leon will be taking you to England. You will live with the Eastman family there, and learn from them.”
Pixie said, “Okay, Mama.”
“Stop calling me that in public, you’re not a child anymore.”
“Okay, Minathia.”
Amaya nodded. “Leon is a powerless half-breed but he is surprisingly decent. Be respectful but not subservient. You must never be subservient to anyone.”
Pixie frowned in confusion but once again said, “Okay, Minathia.”
Amaya continued, “And remember: you are not to pay attention to that boy who assists Leon. He is not worth talking to. At least Leon has jyju blood.”
“Okay, Minathia.”
Nodding in satisfaction, Amaya reopened her notes to a page about Canberra. Pixie rested his head against the window, closing his eyes.
They met Leon in a park named Ueno, at Shinobazu Pond. The vast pond was calm, excepting a few tourists in swan-shaped paddleboats. Around them, the cherry trees were in bloom. They arrived before Leon, which meant Amaya hovered, looking irritated. Pixie stood near her, staring at the trees.
Amaya said, “You may climb them if you can avoid human detection.”
Pixie thanked her and ran for the nearest cherry tree. He leapt for the lowest branch, hoisting himself up effortlessly. While cherry trees aren’t exactly notorious for sturdy branches, it held him, though each of Pixie’s movements led to a shower of pale pink petals. Pixie reached for the next, scaling higher and higher with ease, until the cherry blossoms concealed him. He leant back against the trunk, breathing in deeply, and closed his eyes.
Amaya watched him with a smirk. She was so busy smirking she didn’t notice Leon approach until he was beside her, bowing and speaking with equal eloquence: “My apologies for keeping you waiting, Minathia. Rumours of your punctuality have not been remotely exaggerated; I should have compensated.”
“Yes, you should’ve.” She turned to face him. “I have decided you are correct: Australia would be the most appropriate location. The size, location and climate are all appropriate, as is its potential for self-sustainability.”
Leon replied, “Fabulous choice, Minathia. I suspect the lack of international interest in Australia relative to other nations will become an important factor whilst we secure it.”
“That is hardly worth considering. Overpowering humans will be no real effort in the scheme of our past suffering,” Amaya replied. “And, really, how can the Australian government complain of stolen land? I think I shall enjoy the irony.”
Leon shifted uncomfortably, most likely pretending not to have white Australian heritage. He asked, “Where is Pixie?”
Amaya gestured to the tree across the way. She took a step closer and called his name. There was a shriek. Pixie fell. Suddenly, Nova appeared, effortlessly catching Pixie.
“Thank you,” Pixie gasped. “I forgot to do magic.”
Nova stared at him.
Pixie said, “Your hair is flat now?”
Nova set Pixie down, muttering, “Leon made me get it done.” He glared at the old man.
Pixie stared up at him, tilting his head to the side. “I don’t care what Minathia says, Nova. I wanna be friends.”
Nova muttered, “You weren’t meant to see me. Your mother’s about to shout at you for talking to me.”
Right on cue, Amaya stormed over, hissing, “Pixie! What have I told you about interacting with scum!”
“He’s not scum!”
Amaya grabbed his arm and dragged him away. Pixie looked back, struggling, but Nova had disappeared again.
Leon swooped in with a, “Terribly sorry about the help. He rarely oversteps his place anymore and is usually dreadfully helpful, yet sometimes he is plain dreadful.”
Pixie demanded, “Why are you so mean to Nova?”
“Enough, Pixie.”
Pixie bit his lip, staring angrily at the ground.
Amaya said, “You will be going with Leon now. Be good for him and the Eastman family.”
Pixie nodded.
“Stop sulking. Make me proud.”
“Yes, Minathia.”
Amaya shoved Pixie’s bag at Leon. She bent down, pulled a twig from his hair, and kissed him on the forehead. Pixie smiled. Amaya stood up straight, nodded at Leon.
“Minathia,” Leon said, bowing. “I will look after him with care.”
Amaya nodded again then walked away. She didn’t look back.
Once Amaya was out of sight, Leon said, “Nova.”
Nova appeared. “What?”
Leon passed Pixie’s bag over. “We’re leaving.”
They started walking to the train station. Nova leant down towards Pixie and whispered, “You’re all right. For a jyji princess.”
Pixie smiled.
Leon looked back at Nova and tutted, “What makes you think you have the right to speak to our princess so casually, boy?”
Nova immediately recoiled. He stood up straight, looking away from Pixie.
Pixie angrily said, “Don’t call him ‘boy’.”
Leon bowed his head graciously. “Ah, my apologies, Princess.”
And that was how Princess Pixie got his first taste of power. He used it to sit next to Nova on the train to the airport, then on the plane to England. By the time they arrived at the Eastman house in Notting Hill, Nova was smiling slightly every time he looked at Pixie.
When they reached crowds, Pixie clung tightly to Nova’s hand. He didn’t let go until they were standing outside the ridiculous multi-million pound Eastman house.[1] Leon eyed them with disdain before knocking on the door. A tall blonde woman (who was so extremely pale white it made her red-iris eyes terrifying) answered, her own look of disdain quickly falling when she saw Pixie and Nova.
“Izbuja,” Leon greeted. “I trust you received word I would be coming?”
Izbuja replied, “That’s why I didn’t immediately tell you to bugger off.”
Leon gave a strained laugh. “This is the Minathia’s child. Doesn’t he look remarkably like Tiffany?”
Izbuja shrugged. “Not especially. He looks more like Amaya.” She crouched down to Pixie’s level. “I’m not sure what Leon told you, but you’ll be staying with me. I’ll look after you. You can call me Iz, okay?”
Pixie nodded.
Izbuja softly said, “You too, Nova.”
Eyes widening, Nova nodded.
Izbuja stood up. “I’ll take them to get settled.”
Leon said, “Nova is not staying.”
Izbuja glared. “Pixie is clearly attached to him. It’d be better to not ruin that. I won’t tell the Minathia, and it would be in your best interest not to tell her either. Because Nova is staying.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Leon drawled, “either way I will be back to teach them. As Minathia ordered.”
“As we agreed,” Izbuja said. “Did you want to speak to Dan?”
“No. I’ll be back for the children tomorrow.”
Izbuja sweetly replied, “Take your time.”
She led Pixie and Nova inside before Leon could speak again, slamming the door shut.
“Well,” she breathed, “you must have questions.”
Pixie looked carefully around the sparsely decorated hallway, eyes following the overly polished floorboards to the stairs. Nova stared directly at Izbuja, frowning suspiciously.
Izbuja said, “You can ask, Nova.”
“Why did you make Leon leave me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Izbuja replied. “I’m sorry it took us so long to get you away from him. I wish it’d been more the result of planning than luck but, there you go.”
“What are you going to make me do?”
Pixie looked at Nova in surprise.
“Nothing,” Izbuja replied. “Well. I suppose I’d prefer you at least pretend to get along with my children, but I won’t make you do anything.”
Nova flatly said, “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to for it to be true.”
Pixie tugged at Izbuja’s trouser leg and asked, “When’s my mother coming?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Izbuja smiled at them. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”
She led them up the stairs to the first floor. Loud grunge music was playing, and a guitar struggling to keep up with it.
“Sorry about the music,” Izbuja said, “my son is going through a phase.” She gestured down to the end of the corridor as she said this, then turned around. “My husband and I are up the stairs, we’re in the room at the end. There’s a bathroom opposite if the others are taken. But you’ll be on this floor with my children.”
She led them down the left side of the corridor, stopping at the first door on the right and knocking. It opened immediately, and threw me for a six. The ten-year-old girl who leant out, wearing a school uniform and very unflattering twin plaits, couldn’t be anything but my employer in younger mortal form.
“This is Carmen,” Izbuja said, “Carmen, this is Princess Pixie and Nova.”
Carmen replied, “I figured.” She looked at Pixie. “Am I supposed to call you ‘princess’ every time I talk to you?”
“You don’t have to.”
Carmen looked at Nova next, matching his suspicion perfectly. “And what’ve you got that’s made my uncle so interested, huh?”
Nova shrugged.
“I heard he bought you from the Jalanis, and they can’t even raise their own kids. Look at Eleos. So why did they take you in? Is it your looks?”
Izbuja sternly said, “That’s enough, Carmen.”
“Sorry Mum. Just curious.”
“Curiosity is no excuse for talking to someone like that,” Izbuja said, “and it isn’t me you should apologise to.”
Carmen looked back at Nova. “Sorry Nova. Just tell me to shut up if you want, okay?”
Unsettled, Nova said, “Okay…”
Carmen smiled at Pixie. “You’re not upset though, are you?”
Pixie shook his head.
Carmen’s smile widened. “Well, you know where to find me if you need anything and don’t want to bother Mum or Dad.” She shut the door.
Izbuja continued leading them down the corridor, swinging open the next door, next to Carmen’s room. “This is one of the spare rooms,” she said, “one of you can take it if you’d like. I’ll let you decide.”
Nova asked, “You’ve giving us separate rooms?”
“Well, we have the space,” Izbuja replied. “It’s not a problem, is it?”
She turned around and led them down the opposite end of the corridor. The music got louder the closer they got to a door at the end with ‘KEEP OUT’ spray-painted on it. Izbuja knocked loudly.
“WHAT!”
“Come out.”
The music stopped. The door burst open, and a sneering thirteen-year-old who’d been let loose in too many goth-cum-punk clothing stores leant against the doorframe. The guitar hanging around his shoulders smacked against it. He swore, tossing back his (wannabe grunge) lanky blond hair and demanded, “What.”
Izbuja said, “I think your playing would improve much faster if you’d stop trying to play along with recordings.”
“Jesus bloody Christ, it’s not my fault you don’t understand art, Mum.”
Izbuja bit her lip to keep from laughing. She cleared her throat loudly and gestured to Pixie (who was hiding behind her) and Nova (who was hovering close to Pixie while glaring at the latest perceived threat). “This is Princess Pixie and Nova. I told you they would be coming, remember?”
“I told you I didn’t care.”
Izbuja said, “This is my son Mathis. He’s going through such a phase.”
“A phase of discovering my true identity, yeah!”
“Of course, dear. I’m very proud of your decision to explore music as an art form.”
Mathis pulled a face. “Gross, Mum, I told you to like, not do that.”
Izbuja said, “Your uncle will be back tomorrow to tutor Pixie and Nova. It would be good if you went too.”
Mathis rolled his eyes. He leant around his mother, snorted disinterestedly at Pixie, before looking up at Nova. His jaw dropped.
Nova growled, “What.”
Mathis breathlessly replied, “Sorry, I’ve never seen anybody so beautiful before, babe.” Being a ‘cosmopolitan’ trilingual youth, Mathis said ‘babe’ very deeply in English.
Nova stared in disbelief. “Did you just called me a baby? A beautiful baby? What’s your problem?”
Mathis replied, “Your mind-numbing beauty.”
Izbuja said, “That’s enough. You should do your homework.”
Nova said, “Or at least stop embarrassing yourself.”
“I’d embarrass myself to the sun and back fifty times for a face like yours, Novie.”
Pixie tugged at Nova’s hand. “Why does he want to steal your face?”
Nova laughed.
Mathis grumbled and slid back into his room, loudly shutting the door.
“He grows on you,” Izbuja said. “The room opposite is the bathroom. And this room next to it is another spare.”
Pixie looked up at Nova. “You pick first.”
Nova looked back at Pixie, clearly thinking ‘this child is too pure to be exposed to whatever the hell that Mathis guy is’. “I’ll take this one, then.”
Izbuja asked, “Did you have anything at Leon’s place that you wanted to get?”
“No.”
Izbuja narrowed her eyes and asked, “You did have stuff though, right?”
“Just clothes.”
“Then we’ll take you to buy new ones,” she said, “and don’t worry, we obviously have the money to spare.”
Nova muttered, “I wasn’t worried.”
Izbuja smiled at Pixie. “If you want, I can help you unpack?”
“Okay!”
When they were in his new room, Izbuja asked Pixie about his life in Japan while putting his clothes in a chest of drawers. Most of her questions were about if he went to school, if he wanted to, how much time he’d spent around Leon, what he liked to do, what he liked to eat, the usual. Pixie answered happily.
Later Izbuja asked Nova the same kind of questions and got very little until she asked, “Do you know anything about what Leon’s planning?”
Nova replied, “He wants a siren and a dainisa-only continent.”
“A siren?”
Nova nodded. “Ares is one.”
“You’re sure?”
Nova nodded again. “Leon is, too. Guess he doesn’t know Ares was kidnapped two years ago. And Ophelia. The Jalanis don’t want people knowing that part.”
“How strange.”
“I don’t know anything else,” Nova said. “I can’t use magic very well around Leon so I can’t spy on him.”
“You shouldn’t have to spy on him at all,” Izbuja said. “What is your power, anyway?”
Nova looked away and mumbled, “Invisibility.”
“That’s quite impressive,” Izbuja said. “I’m pyrokinetic[2] and not from a jyju family, so you can imagine what they think of me.”
“I guess.”
Izbuja said, “I know you’ve had a rough time. I want to make sure you can feel safe here.”
“Sure. Okay.”
Izbuja smiled. “All I can do is prove it to you, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
As forewarned, Leon came for them the next day. Izbuja stayed in the same room as them the entire time, justifying: “You can’t use magic, can you, Leon? Not even with a Gem?[3] So all they can learn from you is theory. So it would pay for you to have an actual magic user nearby. Or are you not really trying to help the princess?”
These royal dicks are so good at talking each other into corners.
Leon turned up every day to lecture about magic while Pixie looked bored. Nova was always in the corner, glaring at Leon, often with Carmen by his side. Sometimes Leon would bring other jyji children with him — usually, Nicholas Rivera or the much-mocked Eleos Jalanis. Whenever this happened, Mathis sat in too, as a much more active party than Carmen. He always slotted himself in between the jyji guest and Nova, offering droll remarks about their relative lack of magic.
“I mean,” Mathis would often say, “what kind of jyji can compete with this? I don’t mean his face, either, though that’s a power in its own right. You could only dream of having as much control, poise and sexy as Nova.”
Eleos usually replied with something along the lines of, “Yeah, well, at least I have class!”
Nicholas tended to go for something more like, “Perhaps if it weren’t so easy for a pretty face to reduce you to a drooling bag of unfortunate hormones I would be more impressed.”
Nova looked eternally unimpressed whenever Mathis was around, but the tension in his shoulders always lifted slightly when he saw Izbuja subtly keeping Pixie away from the other jyji. Mathis started attending even when Leon wasn’t dragging other jyji children around, saying “I need to master my new power” to Leon while whispering to his mother, “I don’t like how he looked at the five-year-old. He’s a creep.”
But as Carmen and Mathis attended a nearby private school there was only so much they could do. Leon was all too fast to tell Pixie, “They have been heavily influenced by the human environment, though as a Catholic school it is at least spiritually sound.”
Pixie didn’t know what a Catholic was, but he’d figured out Leon wasn’t the one to ask about anything. After Leon left, he’d run all his questions by Izbuja, listening as Carmen, Mathis and Nova threw in their opinions too. Sometimes Mathis would repeat Pixie’s questions at night, when his father Daniel was home, for a long-winded and pretentious answer Pixie had no interest in but Mathis himself would listen enwrapped to.
A few weeks into this pattern, Leon casually informed Izbuja as he packed up to leave, “The Riveras are moving to Australia soon.”
“Really,” Izbuja said. “The Garforte already did that, didn’t they? And the Garcia?”
Leon replied, “It appears the Minathia is trying to keep the relevant parts of the jyju closer together. Australia is the neutral ground she’s chosen.”
“I thought Switzerland was traditional.”
“Daniel may have disgraced the family when he married you, but our father has been considering choosing him as the next head of the Eastman,” Leon said. “You can thank Mathis for that.”
“Mathis wouldn’t want to be thanked for that.”
Leon’s lip curled. “He is a peculiar child. Nonetheless, it’s worth considering following suit.”
Izbuja raised her eyebrows. “Moving to Australia because the Minathia is having yet another existential crisis? I don’t think so.”
“I’m only warning you.” Leon’s eyes flickered to Pixie. He smirked, looked back at Izbuja and said, “Even the Yamaguchi are moving.”
Izbuja picked up Leon’s bag. “Let me help you get out of my house.” She roughly grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Pixie. Leon brushed Izbuja off and walked from the room.
As soon as the door closed behind the adults, Nova and Mathis turned to Pixie. Pixie was staring at the door, eyes wide.
Nova crouched by his side, softly saying, “Pixie…”
“What’s Australia?” Pixie asked. “Is it a place?”
Mathis explained, “It’s a big country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”
Pixie said, “But I want to go home. I came here to make Mama happy but then I was going to go home. To Yamakita. Because Gran doesn’t want me so I had to leave Kyoto.” He started crying. In Japanese, he said, “Everybody looks weird. Everybody acts weird. I don’t understand it. I want to go home.”
Nova pulled him into a tight hug. “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Pixie cried louder.
Mathis crouched down too, hesitantly patting the back of Pixie’s head. In clumsy Japanese he said, “This place, also, home, can be.”
Nova looked at Mathis in surprise. Pixie pulled away enough to look at him too, and said, “Your Japanese sucks.”
Still in Japanese, Mathis replied, “I know.” He switched to Dainisan to say, “If it’ll make you happier here, I’ll actually put some effort in to study Japanese seriously?”
Pixie nodded.
“Then I’ll do it. I hate music anyway, they’re making me learn fuckin’ flute, should be easy to swap classes,” Mathis said. “And now that we know you’re unhappy we can do something about it. Right, Nova?”
“Yeah,” Nova said quickly. “We’ll help you out.”
“Whenever you need it,” Mathis added. He wiped the tear trails from Pixie’s cheeks. “So, little princess, what do you need?”
Pixie replied, “A proper family who won’t send me away or hate me.” Very quietly he added, “Like humans get to have.”
“Dainisan families can be good too, my family’s great,” Mathis replied. “My dad’s not around much, sure, but he’s cool. He can do almost anything with computers, TVs, that kinda stuff. When he started going away more he made Carmen and me these rings.” He showed them the steel ring on his thumb. “It’s got his magic. See? Some parents love their kids enough to share their magic.”
Pixie asked, “Would my mother do that?”
Nova muttered, “Nice gloat.”
Mathis quickly said, “Maybe when you’re older. But why wait for a family? You’re here, we’re here, let’s become siblings. Carmen’ll tell you otherwise because she’s stupid but I’m actually the world’s best big brother. So I’ll be your big brother too from now.”
Pixie flushed happily and mumbled ‘big brother’ in Japanese. He looked up at Nova and asked, “Will you, also…?”
“There’s probably laws against that.”
Mathis said, “To hell with the jyju.”
Nova smiled. He squeezed Pixie tightly. “Yeah, Pixie, if you want me to.”
Pixie nodded.
Mathis stretched out on the floor. “So, Pixie, tell me all about what you liked in Japan. And I’ll tell you if there’s anything in London like that. You lot shouldn’t be locked up in here all the time anyway, you’ll get sick.”
Right off the bat, Pixie said, “I liked my toys best.”
Mathis laughed. “What were your favourites?”
“Tigers,” Pixie replied. “Gran got me lots of tigers ’cos half my name meant tiger.”
Mathis jumped to his feet. “Gimme a minute, won’t you?” He ran from the room.
Nova admitted, “He’s not as bad as I thought.”
Pixie said, “Don’t make my new brother sound bad!”
Nova bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Sorry.”
Mathis burst back in, carrying an orange bath towel, a black felt marker and a sewing kit. “We don’t have any tigers but I’ve been learning sewing in human school.” He sat down and started drawing a pattern on the towel. “Go on, Pixie, keep telling me your favourite things about Japan.”
Pixie did so, talking about the cherry blossoms, his favourite foods, the secret human friends he had, the parks, the shades of green in the forests around Yamakita he hadn’t been able to see in any other part of the world. It was pretty inane stuff, but Mathis kept asking questions as he sewed the towel into a clumsy tiger that looked more like a teddy bear, excepting the cat-like ears and long lumpy tail. Around the time Pixie was out of things to talk about (and uncomfortably asking Nova what he’d liked about ‘wherever he’d lived’), Mathis finished the tiger.
“Here,” he said, holding it out to Pixie. “It’s crappy, but…”
Pixie hugged it tightly. “It’s my favourite ever. ’Cos you made it.”
Mathis actually started crying a little. He pulled Pixie into a hug and cried, “You’re too cute to be my little brother! It’s killing my soft grunge image!”
Pixie laughed.
*
Four days later, Rabanu Surléa destroyed George Street. The response was loud and immediate. Daniel Eastman suddenly decided he had to go over to Canberra, accompanied by Leon. In the now destroyed footage of the Prime Minister declaring a national state of emergency, you can see them in the background; Daniel eerily blank-faced, and Leon smirking.
[1] Unsurprisingly, it was white.
[2] Common dainisa have a tendency to describe their powers in the pattern of Latin Word + kinesis/kinetic for some reason. I think it’s to do with that Stephen King book Firestarter. It’s definitely nothing to do with the linguistic roots of anything.
[3] The jyju have this creepy habit of soaking gemstones in their own blood. Apparently this gives the gem their magic, thus anybody who wears the gem can use that magic, regardless of their usual power. I think it’s just a desperate attempt to be edgy.
Silent Trilogy 