The Templar's Curse by Sarwat Chadda (classic books to read TXT) 📕

knowing if you’d be there tomorrow. It had been like that for so long now she’d just settled to living on her nerves, always on the edge.

Sunlight streamed through the open doors and Erin rubbed her bare arms in the cool breeze, and planting her feet smack down on the table as she complained about the paint job Ardhan had done on her toenails.

For a long time Billi forgot why she was here.

Is this how Erin held back the darkness? By squeezing every gram of joy from every moment? There was a mania to her happiness, as if she was afraid of where she might find herself if it stopped.

Evening came on before she knew it. A whole day had passed, just like that. Billi felt guilty. She’d stopped worrying. There was plenty to worry about, all the time. Ivan was gone. Her dad was out in Ireland, leaving Gwaine in charge. Idres still didn’t know how to swing a sword. There were monsters in the alleyways and dark doorways and under kids’ beds. You had to be on your guard, all the time.

They fell into their chores without discussion. Brigid and Phoebe headed off to the local shops to resupply, Erin went into the garden to dance in the setting sun. Billi joined Ardhan with the washing up.

Ardhan handed her the dish cloth. They gazed out the window facing the garden. “You put her in a good mood.”

Billi nodded. “There’s something about her, isn’t there?”

“More than you know,” said Ardhan.

“How long have you known her?”

“For as long as I can remember. Life would have turned out very different if she hadn’t been there.” Ardhan glanced at Billi. “You’re a strange one, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Erin collects misfits. No, that’s not fair. She attracts them. We go to her because she takes us as we are, not as we pretend to be. Are you what you say you are, Billi? Or are you like them? Just pretending?”

“I’m not your enemy, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You don’t know what it was like, being me,” said Ardhan. “I didn’t either. I was one thing, but I knew I should be something else. And kids pick up on weakness, don’t they? I had it for years, pretending to be the right type of boy, trying to do those ‘manly’ things, whatever they are. Getting bullied, beaten up for just wanting to be different. They want you on your knees. That’s what they want. They despise you and they don’t even know why. But Erin taught me never to stay down. No one messes with Erin FitzRoy.”

“I can see that.”

“She was my guardian angel back at primary school. I remember her dragging this kid, Julian, a boy who had to be twice her size and a good two or three years older, by his hair to force him to say sorry to me. He was bawling and screaming and he’d pissed his shorts, but the teachers pretended not to see. Erin was righteous. You don’t get much of that nowadays.” Ardhan laughed. “I ended up snogging Julian a few years later. Neither of us had any idea what we were doing but it felt right, y’know?”

“Erin’s a knight in shining armour. Helping the weak and the defenceless.” Billi understood that type of personality better than most.

“More than that. She makes you feel powerful. Like you can do anything because she’s got your back. The same for Brigid, the same for Phoebe. We’d do anything for Erin.”

“Brigid doesn’t look like she needs any ego-boosting from the likes of Erin. The world must be falling at her feet.”

“Then you don’t know how Brigid spent years fighting bulimia. I know it sounds like First World Problems but she was surviving on a slice of toast a day and vomiting up school dinners in the girls’ loo. Erin went from holding back her hair as she leant over the loo to having her get therapy and a life. The trouble with Brigid is she’s gone from victim to bully. She so despises what she was, that she was weak, she can’t stand to see weakness in others. But she’ll come round.”

“Because of Erin, eh?”

Ardhan nodded. “Erin’s fought our battles herself. That’s why she knows what it’s like. That’s why we’re so protective of her. You’re bad news, Billi. I can see it, so can the others. You don’t mean to be, but the two of you, someone’s going to end up in a bad place.”

“I’d never hurt Erin.”

“Then leave her, Billi. You’re stirring up old ghosts. Things that happened to her when she was little. Things to do with her dad. All those fancy fighting moves, those kicks and cartwheels she does, they won’t help her in the places her monsters dwell.” Ardhan tapped his forehead. “Deep in here. She’s taking pills to sleep, I mean horse-tranquilisers that knock her out for the whole night, and she’s started back on the trazodone. She used to take it when she had her bad, bad days. When she used to hear the voices.”

“Voices? What do you mean?”

“I think it happened after her father died. Things were bad at home already but his death, no kid gets over a parent dying. I don’t think there’s a greater pain in the world. My mum and dad, they don’t get me, but they try.”

“That’s love,” said Billi. “What else is a parent to do?”

“Yeah. As you get older you realise they’re making it up as they go along, just like everyone else. But Erin, she was eight when he killed himself. Her mum totally lost it. Smashed up all his things. I was there with Erin, watching. She was crying so hard, begging her mum to stop.”

“Smashed up what?” Billi asked.

Ardhan waved his hand. “Just a whole bunch of old clay tablets. Things he’d picked up during the war. I didn’t really get it back then. It was only later did I find out those tablets were, like, thousands of