Abigail
Abigail recognised Kalvin from half a block away. He had grown out his hair and traded his school uniform for a pair of black jeans and a hoodie, but he carried himself the same. She waved, surprised at how pleased she was to see him again.
"Hey," he said and drew her into a hug. "What happened to your face? Ouch."
"Thought I'd go for a surf; it didn't work out. Elias says there's no serious damage.' Abigail shrugged, trying to appear casual. At least Kalvin couldn't see the bruises hidden under her scarf.
"Elias says?"
"He's studying medicine now. First semester of his fourth year, but he acts like he's a resident already."
"Doctor Elias Fitzpatrick? Who would've thought it."
Abigail suddenly realised Kalvin hadn't seen her brother in half a decade. Elias had gone through a year-long bender midway through high school. Under-age drinking had been accepted and almost expected at their school, but Elias' behaviour had gone well past the usual gamut of drunken stupidity and had raised eyebrows even among the jaded studentry.
By the time Year 12 rolled around, Elias had gotten that out of his system. Kalvin, however, had transferred from their nondescript public school to a top-tier private school on an offer of a generous scholarship. After that, Abigail and Kalvin saw each other only at swim meets and that hadn't lasted much longer.
"Mum packed some food. Are you hungry?" Kalvin asked.
"When've I ever said no to free food? Especially when it's from your mum."
Abigail and Kalvin climbed onto the wall that bounded the beach. As it was near winter there were no lifeguards on duty. The surf club stood quiet, the faded Australian flag on the roof listless. Later, there would be the after-work joggers and dog-walkers crowding the footpath, but at the moment it was quiet and they could enjoy the rumble of rolling waves.
"Wish I could spend every day out here," Abigail said.
"Would be nice." Kalvin pulled out two plastic boxes packed to the brim with fried rice and grilled chicken breast. "So how are you doing? Seriously, I can't even imagine —"
"Don't imagine anything. Give your mum and dad and your brother a hug when you get home, for me and for yourself," Abigail replied. "My parents had their problems. I wasn't entirely surprised mum would choose to end it. But what she did to my dad? I've no idea where to start to get my head around that."
"Did she behave differently in the days before?" Kalvin's tone was cautious and he seemed to be scrutinising Abigail's face as if trying to puzzle out where her limits lay.
The fried rice was still hot and tasted just as good as Abigail remembered. She shovelled a large forkful into her mouth and made a show of thoroughly chewing. An extra ten seconds before she needed to respond was an extra ten seconds nevertheless.
"That's the worst of it probably. There weren't warning signs or at least I didn't see any, even in hindsight," she sighed.
"It's not your fault, Abby."
She knew that. Her mother had been mentally ill for as long as Abigail remembered and her father had been an alcoholic incapable of staying sober for more than two weeks. They were victims of their illness. Or, perhaps, they had somehow gotten caught up in Najran's plans. Still, to hear someone say she wasn't responsible was comforting.
"What about you? Still swimming?" she asked.
The question was a diversion. Even with his clothes on, Abigail could make out the toned lines of his body. His shoulders had broadened, which was part maturity, part hours spent in training. And with them sitting side-by-side as they were, she could smell his hair. I could never quite wash out the smell of chlorine either.
"Yep, still swimming," Kalvin said. "You should get back into it too; you were so good."
On the sand below them, a teenage girl shouted at two boys dressed in board shorts and Star Wars-themed rashies. Abigail doubted she was their mother. It wasn't that she was too young, her awkwardness with the third child, a red-headed toddler, betrayed her. Aware that she had to focus on the squirming, sobbing toddler, the boys answered her shouts with giggles and ran towards the water.
"That last season suggests otherwise," Abigail replied.
Kalvin followed the line of Abigail's gaze to the two boys, who now made a game of jumping over the incoming waves. He set down his half-eaten meal.
Never taking his eyes off the boys, he said, "Doesn't matter, we all have bad seasons. And besides, you were barely ever at training back then, that was a pretty big handicap."
"Not all of us are destined to be Ian Thorpe."
"Thorpe is ancient news anyway. Anybody who is anybody knows Kalvin Tran is the next superstar. Or so my mother says."
Abigail grinned. "I'm looking forward to seeing your face plastered on the side of every bus come next Olympics."
Kalvin gave her a playful shove in lieu of a reply. But when Abigail thought about it, the idea didn't seem that far-fetched. Kalvin's acne had cleared up without leaving a single scar and his longer hair framed his face well. His Chinese heritage would be a marketing boon too; he would be a sure hit with Australia's ever-growing Asian community.
"Are you going to the Olympics?" she asked.
Kalvin cocked his head. At eight, they had all been going to the Olympics. Later, when they started high school and began to understand the brutal reality of their odds, no one brought up the subject anymore. It was as taboo as acknowledging that sometimes synchronised swimming could look impressive.
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"Come on, be honest," Abigail pressed.
"Too early to tell," Kalvin said with a mild blush. "The focus right now is on the Commonwealths."
The water was now above the knees of the taller boy, but they didn't seem to realise they were playing in increasingly deeper water. The girl who was supposed to be watching them remained focused on the youngest child. There was a rip just a few metres away — inevitable when small, unsupervised children were about. Abigail glanced around and spotted a group of retirees with surfboards conversing by the surf club. If things went badly, one of them should be able to paddle out and grab the boys.
"You'll make it, I'm sure of it," said Abigail. She scooped up the last of her rice and chicken. "Thank your mum for me, that was delicious."
Kalvin nodded and offered Abigail their dessert — a box of white grapes and sliced strawberries. "Listen, did your mum keep a diary?"
"Think so. Her shrink wanted her to write one. Why?"
"Maybe there's something in there that explains what happened." Kalvin played with the two grapes in his hand. "Or better yet, why don't you talk to the psychologist?"
"Aren't they bound by patient confidentiality or something?"
"I don't know. But it's worth asking, isn't it?"
Abigail looked down at her hands, which were covered in scratches and scabbed over where she had tried to tear off the hangnails. It sounded like a good idea, but what if she didn't want to know what had happened? The diary could be full of things Abigail didn't want to see. And what would she do if there really was nothing to find? Perhaps some questions were better left unasked. Maybe? Possibly? Abigail picked at a scab on her left thumb.
"I'll come with you if you like," Kalvin said. "I'll drive. And I can —"
Kalvin threw off his hoodie, then jumped off the wall onto the sand and sprinted towards the water.
While the bigger boy was still happily jumping over the waves rolling into shore, the smaller one was metres further into the water and each wild flap of his hands seemed to carry him further away from the sand. Kalvin waded out to the boy. Once he had a firm grasp on him, Kalvin began moving parallel to the beach until they were out of the rip and only then did he head back towards the shore.
They were back on the beach by the time the teenager looking after the two boys realised something had gone amiss. She screamed something Abigail couldn't make out, then lifted the toddler into her arms and rushed towards Kalvin and the smaller boy.
"Harrison!" she yelled.
The bigger boy must have realised her exasperation had become outright panic. Immediately, he ran over to the rest of his party. Abigail was too far away to make out what was said, but body-language was telling. The two boys cowered under the girl's wrath as she wildly gesticulated towards the water and then to Kalvin. Then, with a few soft words from Kalvin, tension evaporated from the girl's shoulders.
Kalvin rustled the smaller boy's still-dripping hair, then walked away.
The wall was too high for him to climb back up, so he had to detour via the stairs to find his way back to where he and Abigail had been seated. Giving Abigail a lopsided smile, he pulled off his shirt and wrung it out over the parapet.
"It's a good thing I've got a spare set of clothes in my swim bag." Kalvin ran his hand over his hair, trying to squeeze out as much water as he could. "This is why people should get decent babysitters instead of dumping them on any relative that happens to be in the room. Now they'll need to take the kid to get checked for water in his lungs and he'll probably get a phobia."
"That was brilliant," Abigail said.
"Nah, the rip was nothing nasty. Not for an adult anyway."
The two boys, likely now cognisant of the trouble their disobedience had nearly caused, were now attempting to fold away the beach towel the girl had laid out on the sand. To anyone who hadn't witnessed Kalvin's actions would never guess how narrowly that group had just come to disaster. Abigail glanced over to the surfers by the clubhouse, who were still lost in their conversation. They seemed to have missed the entire incident.
Abigail shook her head. "You're a bloody hero. How are you so calm about this?"
"If I wasn't here, you would've done it," Kalvin replied. "Would you mind if we head back to my car? I could use a towel and dry pants."
"Of course," Abigail said quickly.
I wouldn't have. I might've called someone over, but... I'm not that kind of person.
It'd be cool if I was.
----------------------------------------
When Abigail returned home, she was surprised to find the house silent. Elias had said he had a work shift that evening, but she hadn't anticipated he would leave for the call centre so early. On her way through, she snuck a peek into Elias' bedroom. Ramiel lay prone on the bed and, as far as she could tell, simply stared up at the ceiling.
She left him to his thoughts and made her way to the back half of the house, then stopped by a closed door opposite her own. Since they came back to the house Abigail and Elias had been pretending this door didn't exist. Kalvin was right, however, Abigail needed to understand what had happened. If she didn't the mystery of it would gnaw at her for the rest of her life.
It felt odd to simply turn the doorknob. If the door to this room was closed, Abigail knew better than to walk in without knocking. But there was no point to knocking now, was there? She pushed the door open and gasped.
A cleaning crew had come through. Abigail had a vague memory of Elias researching and organising some company that specialised in crime-scene clean-ups. They had done a thorough job. There was no trace of blood to be found. No furniture either. Square metres worth of carpet had been cut out and even some of the floorboards from under the carpet were missing.
Trembling, Abigail stepped between the missing patches of carpet. Her mother had kept her diary in the bottom drawer of her bedside table, which was no longer in the room. Did the police take the furniture because it was evidence or did the cleaners dispose of it because the wood was spattered with blood? And now that she had thought it through, she had been an idiot for thinking the diary would still be there for her to find. The police were sure to have taken it the moment they spotted it.
Abigail ran her hand along the door of the built-in wardrobe. There were three layers of oil paint on top of the wood, the blood must have washed right off. Or maybe it just looked like it and if Abigail were to use the right light, she would see the blood stains in their full glory.
"Abigail?" said Ramiel, nudging the door to the bedroom a little wider. He frowned. "Is this where your parents died?"
"What are you doing out of bed?"
"I cannot lie in that bed all night and all day."
Abigail slid the door of the built-in open and smelled the stale air. Her mother's clothes were still there — old, long out of fashion work-suits and her favourite dresses hung up as neatly as if they were on sale. All she had to do was to open the other end of the wardrobe and she would find her father's shirts, trousers and ties. Perhaps there would be a bottle stashed in there too.
"Where are they now?" she asked. "You've talked about Heaven before and if there are demons, then there is a Hell. So how does that work? Is it like in the Bible? If you are sinner you burn for all eternity, is that it?"
Ramiel swayed a little, but caught himself before he careened into the wall. He mumbled something under his breath, then answered, "It is unlikely your parents' souls are in Hell. Reapers, like Najran once was, are charged with guiding souls to Heaven. Sometimes demons attack a reaper and steal souls, but no souls are predestined for Hell."
That's good to know, I guess.
"Is Heaven nice?" Abigail asked.
"It is not as it once was," Ramiel replied. "But mortals would not notice that."
Abigail nodded, although she didn't quite understand what Ramiel meant. She shut the wardrobe and leant against it.
"Is there any way you can tell if any demons or Najran have been here? If my parents were attacked and it's not what the police said it was, they would have taken my parents' souls, wouldn't they?"
"You ask a lot of questions."
Abigail snorted, then winced as pain shot through her swollen face. "You hardly say a word more than you have to. We have to pry everything out of you."
"There are methods one could try, however, I am not capable of that at the present," Ramiel replied. "I am sorry."