In the attic

The fresh topic of discussion at school had moved from Miss Harris's bird's nest hair do to the cool new website that took photos of your street. All day kids were logging on, checking out the streets of Bickertown.
Tyler was desperate to check out his house, to show off his parent's palacial pad. But his pleas to the kids in the locker room to look at his laptop were drowned out by the guffaws coming from the crowd surrounding Gavin Baxter.
"It's Mickey Finn," said one kid. "On Morrison Street."
"Who's he snoggin'?" said another.
"I reckon it's Penny. She's the only girl I know that piles her hair on her head like a pineapple."
Tyler left the locker room during the chorus of snickers.
When he got home that afternoon the nagging curiosity of seeing his house online drew him to log onto his computer. He entered his address, clicked the mouse and up popped an image of the outside of his house. But the novelty of the innovation quickly wore off when, on closer inspection, he saw a face in the attic window that didn't belong to any of his family.

The face in the window

Bebe's only company was the face in her bedroom window. It was never there during the day, it only appeared at night. Wispy and faint and with pigtails like hers, it spoke to her, with a warm, strawberry smile. It told her tales of life on the high seas, made her laugh with jokes and entertained her with magic tricks. It sped up time, filling the lonely gaps in her solitary life whilst her mother cocooned her in the house.
"Protection from the wicked world," her mother said.
She was happy there, with all she knew, until one day her mother forgot to lock her bedroom door.
A gust of wind, that blew up from the floor below whistled down the corridor and clicked her bedroom door open.
Bebe was too curious to stay inside, yet apprehensive of what lay beyond her world.
She tiptoed to the door, not wanting to stir what lay on the other side and found herself in a long room with steps that led down. The room was lit with flickering lights on the wall and was as sparsely furnished as her plain room. There was only a table, a little way in front of her, and what looked like a window on the wall above it. But it was a strange window. It's frame was oval and rolled in gold.
And when she approached it the face in her window appeared before her.
"Emmy!" she said, delightedly at the smiling face staring back at her.
"You're looking at your reflection," snorted her mother, from the stairs.

Curiosity killed the cat

Janie Johns had always been far to nosy for her own good. When told not to do something, she always did the opposite, like the time Mickey Grayling in Year 1 told her about Mr Vincent's back garden cemetary-or what he believed was a cemetary. Janie just couldn't help herself. She had to take a look. She had to be the one to prove the rumours. True, or false, the outcome didn't matter.
That time she got away with it, but her luck was about to run out.
It had been a while since she visited her Great Aunt Violet. Janie didn't do relations, but as she was on her death bed Janie's mother dragged Janie along for her last visit.
While she was there she overheard her Great Aunt talking to her mother.
"There's something I need you to do, Flora," croaked Aunt Violet. "There's something in the attic I need you to get. I need you to destroy it. It's important."
Janie could tell Aunt Violet was anxious. Her desperate, spluttered speech, her deeply wrinkled frown. Whatever was up there Janie wanted to see it before her mother did.
She listened closer.
"Of course, Violet, anything," replied her mother.
"Jig Saw," were the last words Aunt Violet uttered before her last gasp of breath.
Janie ran upstairs, choosing to find what she shouldn't rather than console her whimpering mother.
She crept up the wooden ladder and flipped over the attic hatch.
There lying on the floor of the empty attic, bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun, streaming in through the window, was a flat box. Janie brushed the dust from the cover.
'Jig Saw', were the words fainted scribed on the box.
"Why was she so worked up about this?" Janie crowed as she prised off the lid. "It's just a box, full of bits of jigsaw."
Janie tipped them up onto the dusty attic floor, but as she tried to sort them out, flipping each one over to its picture side, she noticed that all the pieces were blank.
"That's weird," she said and tried to clip two together.
As the pieces interlocked part of a picture formed on the surface of both of them.
"Wow," Janie gasped. "It must be magic."
Eagerly, Janie put the pieces together, matching the shapes as best she could. As she did the picture took shape in front of her eyes.
She couldn't tell what it was a first as the colours were too muted-soft browns, tans, creams and oranges, blending in with each other. But working her way from the edge of the jigsaw inwards she noticed the picture forming was of an empty room. The lower half of a person was next to form-a person crouched with their back towards her. Above the person was a shiny object, curved and sharp, glinting in the sunlight.
As Janie's mother called to her from below Janie shakily placed the last two pieces of the jigsaw and realised to her horror, it was a picture of her in the attic.

The last message

Vicky lay awake in her bed, staring up at the velvet black sky through the crack in her curtains. She couldn't sleep. Her mind was replaying the day's event over and over again like a movie on loop.
The image of the deep ravine, her foot slipping off the edge, flashed across her mind's eye. "I can't believe she's gone," she muttered as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm sorry, Beth."
She reached her hand, bloody and grazed, across her duvet and plucked Jasper the bear from the within the pile of teddys on her bed. She stared at his threadbare face and deep into his scuffed, black, glassy eyes.
"I'm glad to be back, Jasper. I'll never leave you," she said and stuffed Jasper under her duvet, clamping it close to her chest.
As she snuggled under her duvet she spotted a fresh bunch of flowers on her bedside table and a message card resting against the vase.
The card read, "Best friends forever. I'll miss you loads. Love Beth."

Making hay

Tilly almost didn't recognise the withered, grey form that was her Grammy laying on the bed in the sitting room. The last time she saw her was two months ago. Grammy said she was going into hospital "for a little bit". But now Tilly was confused.
"Mum," Tilly whispered. "I thought people went into hospital to get better. Grammy doesn't look well at all."
When Tilly's mum didn't answer Tilly looked up at her. Her mum was biting her lower lip and her eyes were glazed and red.
"Just go and sit with Grammy, Tilly. She wants to talk to you," said her mum, resting her hand on Tilly's shoulder, gently ushering her over to her grandmother.
Tilly was reluctant at first. The woman in the bed wasn't the grammy she knew. For a start she was grey in colour, her cheeks were sunken and her skin was even more wrinkly than before. But more disturbing was Grammy's bald head and the blonde curly wig placed over a polystyrene head on the beside table. This wasn't the smiley, energetic Grammy she knew.
"Tilly," Grammy croaked from the bed. "Come over here, sweetheart."
Tilly crouched down beside her grandmother, trying to smile through the smell of stale sweat and disinfectant.
"Hi Grammy," Tilly said, reaching out her hand tentatively to her grandmother's.
"Your mother tells me you've been a good girl, since I last saw you."
Tilly mustered a sheepish smile. She knew that wasn't entirely true but realised it was a well-intentioned white lie.
"I'm glad. Because I have something for you," Grammy said reaching across to open the draw of her bedside table.
Tilly watched her grandmother's slender hand pull out a silver locket.
"This is for you," she said, dropping the locket into Tilly's hand. "This will give you all you need to see you through your life."
"What do you mean?" asked Tilly.
"There is nothing that can save me now," whispered her Grandmother. "So I'm passing my luck onto you. Do you know the myth that cats have nine lives?"
Tilly nodded.
"Well humans do as well. In fact with the right help humans can have any number of lives. I have lived many, over thousands of years. But I'm weary now. I see in you a lot of me when I was your age. Your strength, your courage, your wit," she said with a throaty chuckle. "I'm now passing that gift to you. Your essence will live on, from one body to another. You will live a thousand lives so make hay whilst the sun shines," she continued before taking a deep gasp, falling back against the pillow and closing her eyes.
Tilly stared down at the locket in her hand, unable to comprehend what her Grammy had just told her, and unaware of what was about to befall her.

Sleight of hand

Cally had always been repulsed by the withered hand her father kept in a glass box. It looked like a giant, wrinkled spider. She hated spiders.
"Why do you have to keep that thing?" she said, slumped over one of the tables in her father's pub, staring at it with a disapproving eye.
"Because it's part of the history of 'The Highwayman's Inn. It brings in visitors; and visitors mean money," her father huffed.
"I don't like it. It's creepy and just plain weird that people want to come here to see a severed hand," she retorted, turning to look through the window at the blizzard raging outside across the moorland.
"Not just any severed hand."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. It belonged to Red Crow, the notorious rogue gambler who had his hand chopped off for cheating the pub landlord out of five guineas," Cally recounted like a mantra.
No sooner had she said it there was a sudden smash behind the bar. Both her and her dad leapt back in fright.
"What was that?" Cally quivered.
"It was just a bottle," replied her dad. "It must have been unstable on the shelf."
Cally sat back on one of the wooden chairs, her heart thumping in her chest. She turned to look back at the thing in the glass case, only to find the door to the case open and the hand missing.

The phantom hand

A fleshy, pulsing, living hand
crept across the floor
and climbed up to a handle
to open the lounge door

Its goal? to find a body
to graft itself upon
longing to revive
a life that was long gone

It used its spindly fingers
to climb high up the stairs
hoping for an answer
to its nightly prayers

Cracked and dirty
finger nails
grabbing at
the staircase rails

Scratching varnish
from the wood
scuttling
as fast as it could

At a doorway
hand stopped dead
breathing sounds
came from a bed

But as it crept
into the room
it roused the person
from its tomb

Sleepy eyes
so wide and clear
makes the hand
now disappear

Blessings or curses

Jamie jammed on the brakes of his mother's car as he turned into Lakeview Road. He wasn't quick enough. The tyres hit a patch of black ice. They juddered beneath him and then set the car into a freestyle glide. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't regain control. 'Turn into the slide' was what he'd been told to do if he ever skidded, but the words were lost on him now. They never even entered his head. His mind was blank, his body tense with fear. He gripped at the steering wheel, his knuckles white, as the screams of his younger brother pierced the chill of the evening. The car spun round, crashed through a wooden fence and rolled down, down into the icy lake below. That was all he remembered.
When he awoke he was lying down. All around him was misty white. Was he in heaven?
He looked down and saw his arms bandaged, his body hooked up to bleeping and blinking machines by a criss cross of tubes and wires. Had he been abducted by aliens? Was he being tested on? Was he dreaming?
A woman in dressed in white, with a white cap on her head suddenly appeared at his feet. She examined a clipboard, then looked across the bed at Jamie. She smiled warmly, comfortingly. "Wakey, wakey," she said.
Before Jamie had a chance to reply an image flashed through his mind. It was an image of a blonde woman, with a tattoo of a crab on her wrist. She was stepping into the path of an oncoming bus. Jamie jerked in his bed so severely he almost wrenched the drip from his arm.
The woman ran round the bed and placed her hands reassuringly on his shoulder. "You okay there," she said
"I think so," Jamie mumbled, slumping back against his bed, not feeling at all sure what he'd just seen. Was it a memory?
The woman reached down and took Jamie's wrist between her fingers, obviously feeling for his pulse. Jamie peered down the length of his arm, watching her and noticed, to his horror an outline drawing etched into her skin. It was a crab.
Jamie stared at her wrist, wide-eyed.
"You have a strong pulse," said the woman. "You're going to be just fine."
Jamie looked away. He tried to focus his mind on something other than the disturbing vision in his head, but ended up focusing on an equally disturbing question.
"My brother? Is he here? Is he okay?"
The woman didn't reply at first. She fiddled with Jamie's drip, reassuring herself it was fixed securely to his arm.
"Do you know anything? Please tell me," he asked again trying to make eye contact with her but she refused to look at him.
"You need to get some rest. I'll make sure Doctor Prinse stops by on his rounds."
Her reticence was a sign of hopelessness. Protection from the truth. The truth being that his brother didn't survive the crash.
As the woman walked away from his bed a lone tear escaped Jamie's eye and dripped passed his ear and onto the pillow. He was numb. He glanced up at the heart monitor beside his bed and watched it beep. Willing it to slow down and stop. Willing himself to die before he had to embrace the pain of what happened.
"You're not goin' anywhere yet," said a voice beside him.
Jamie glanced over toward the best next to his. An elderly man with thin wisps of white hair was resting on the edge of his bed, looking directly at Jamie.
An image flashed, once more, through Jamie's minds eye. The elderly man was lying in a bed surrounded by lots of photographs; photographs hanging on the wall, photographs propped up on the beside cabinet, photographs from an album strewn across the bed sheets. His eyes were open, his mouth was open, but there was no breath, no life.
Jamie shook the vision from his head.
"You're a young sort. Strong an' that," said the old man. "Better than me. My heart'll give out soon enough. That's for sure. But I suppose you know that."
Jamie frowned. "What do you mean?"
The man stared back at him. His eyes were steely and hard, as though they were looking not just at Jamie but inside him too. A wry smile drew on his face before he turned and climbed back into his bed.
"Blessings or curses, ma lad, blessings or curses," he said.
What was he talking about? Blessings or curses? Jamie didn't know. As he pondered the words, lying back in his bed and staring up at the polystyrene tiled ceiling, he felt his eyes get heavy. His body slumped, his muscles relaxed and gradually, gradually the lids closed over his eyes like a black cloak.
When he awoke the ward was dark. The lights were out and the curtains drawn. Through the silence he could hear sobbing coming from outside the ward.
"You awake lad," said the old man next to him.
Jamie looked over. The man was sat up in his bed, looking over at Jamie.
"Yeah," said Jamie. "Is someone crying?"
The old man flicked his head, motioning for Jamie to look toward the ward door. On the other side were a couple of nurses. One was consoling the other with an arm around the other's shoulder.
"A nurse was killed, couple of hours ago when she left the 'ospital. But yer know that don't yer?"
"What do you mean? How would I know?"
"You know 'ow she died, don't yer. Or do I need to tell yer."
Jamie turned away from the old man and stared down at the white sheets of his bed.
"What did you mean when you said blessings or curses?"
"You came back from dead. I over'eard the doctors talkin' about yer."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Everythin' ma lad, everythin'. You survived. Yer brother didn't. Some people say that sometimes, sometimes them that survive an accident, disaster, whatever you want to call it, come back from dead with either a gift or a curse. The question is which one?"
Jamie leaned over the edge of his bed, closer to the old man. "I saw her death, in my head. I saw it as though I was standing right in front of her," he whispered.
"I know, lad."
"How do I know if it's a blessing or a curse then, these visions?"
The old man's expression turned serious, stern. His eyes widened and his mouth drooped. "Where you in the visions, lad? Did you 'elp?"
Jamie shook his head. He never saw himself in either the vision of the nurse or the old man. He was always looking at it through his eyes.
"Then there's yer answer," the old man said before lying back down and turning his back to Jamie. "God be with yer, lad."

Mr Cropley's jars

The moment his parents' car entered the grounds of Brooks High School for Boys, Jacob Martin sensed there was something peculiar about the place.
It was classically spooky looking; a lone mansion with turrets and ramparts and aged ivy snaking up its sandstone exterior, all surrounded by acres of trees and open grounds.
"You'll get a good education here," said his father.
"I'll get murdered here, more like," Jacob mumbled as he stared out of the window.
"Oh Jacob, don't be unreasonable," snipped his mother from the passenger seat. "Your father has paid through the nose to get you into this school."
"It's the best in the country, Jacob," his dad said as he parked the car on the driveway in front of the school. "Regularly tops all the league tables. So use your time wisely. Who knows. In ten years time you may end up running some multinational corporation. You could earn millions,"
Jacob wasn't in the least bit interested in getting rich. Fun was all he wanted, although he knew that was the real reason his father was transferring him to another school. It had nothing to do with improving grades or providing a 'better quality of education'. It was his last prank with the water balloons that sealed the deal. With a resigned sigh he clicked open the car door and stepped onto the gravel drive just as the heavy wooden front door of Brooks High creaked open.
"Look's like we're getting a personal welcome," said his dad.
"I should think so too," tutted his mother as she smoothed down her hair and straightened her suit.
Jacob stared at the entrance and waited. An eternity seemed to tick by before anyone appeared. His mother grew so impatient she began walking toward the door when out stepped a solitary figure dressed in a kilt and green tweed jacket.
"Welcome, welcome," said the man as he stepped down on to the gravel and approached Jacob and his parents.
He was incredibly tall. Even taller than his father, and was very lean. He looked like a bean pole, with black, slicked back hair.
"Welcome to Brooks." he said with a beaming smile on his face. "I'm Mr Cropley, Nathan Cropley. I'm the Headmaster here at this magnificent school," he added with outstretched arms.
Jacob's father shook hands with Mr Cropley and introduced himself, his wife and Jacob.
"Ah, you're Brooks's newest addition," Mr Cropley said, taking Jacob's hand in his and eyeing Jacob up from head to foot. "Yes, yes. Perfect. You have a strong spirit. I reckon you'll do well here. You can count on that Mr and Mrs Martin."
Jacob's father pulled Jacob's trunk out from the back of his car and placed it on the gravel.
"We can take that inside," Mr Cropley said before turning toward the door and calling out. "Cases, please."
In an instant two boys , immaculately dressed in blue trousers, a blazer, a white shirt and striped tie scuttled outside, grabbed the handles either side of the case and carried it inside.
"We won't keep you any longer," Mr Cropley said to Jacob's parents. "I'm sure you're very busy people. It was pleasant to meet you and do call anytime if you wish to receive an update on young Jacob's progress."
Before Jacob's mother was even able to plant a goodbye kiss on Jacob's forehead, Jacob was whisked away by the headmaster and led into the lobby of the mansion.
Inside it looked just as Jacob predicted. Lots of dark wood panelling on the walls, a wide sweeping staircase in front of him and enormous portraits hanging on the wall of men with long curly white hair, wearing old fashioned clothing. The two pupils that brought Jacob's trunk inside were standing, rigidly, like soldiers on parade, either side of it.
"That'll be all," Mr Cropley said, dismissing them with a flick of his hand.
Obediently they nodded and walked in silence, side by side, toward a door to the right, from which more pupils emerged. They marched across the hallway, in front of Jacob, in pairs. Not a word left their lips. They didn't even acknowledge that Jacob was there.
Jacob had a sinking feeling that he was going to find it hard to make just one friend here, let alone many.
"Come this way, Jacob," said Mr Cropley, guiding him up the grand staircase. "Your room is ready for you. I've taken the liberty of giving you a single room, just until you've acclimated to the school. Then you can move into the dorms with the other boys."
Mr Cropley showed Jacob an empty room at the top of the stairs. It was sparsely furnished with a desk, chair, wardrobe and single bed. The walls were bare and grey and the carpet a flecked brown colour. It wasn't the most inspiring of spaces.
"Make yourself comfortable, Jacob. I'll have the boys bring your trunk upstairs shortly. After that I'd like to see you in my room. You'll be briefed on your timetable and the rules and regulations of my school."
With that Mr Cropley pulled the door to and left Jacob alone.
One thing Jacob hated was rules; they were restrictive, like having his hand bound with invisible rope. He ground his teeth in frustration at that fact that his father had sent him off to a prison. If he had any notion Brooks would be like this he'd sooner have run away than get in the car.
The more he thought about it the more it became apparent in his mind that escape was his only option. He didn't want to end up like those kids: automatons, rigid robots, a fragment of themselves.
He jumped up and grabbed the handle of the door just as it swung inwards, almost knocking him off his feet. There standing in the doorway were two pupils. Their uniforms neat, their hand neatly combed back in almost exactly the same style as Mr Cropley's. They were clutching Jacob's trunk.
"Your belongings," one of them said.
"I wouldn't worry about that," said Jacob. "I'm not staying."
"Why?" said the other.
"Why? Because you're all carbon copies of your headmaster," said Jacob.
"You cannot leave. It is forbidden."
"Not for me it isn't," Jacob said. He barged past the two pupils and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. But when he reached the bottom he saw Mr Cropley standing in his way, in front of the main door.
"Going somewhere, Jacob?" Mr Cropley asked.
"Fresh air," Jacob replied, hurriedly. "It's...stuffy...in my room. I get chest problems, if the air's stale."
The corner of Mr Cropley's mouth curled into an amused smile. "You're tenacious. I'll give you that. But I'm afraid the door is locked now. I think you'd best come with me."
Jacob felt Mr Cropley firmly grip the top of his arm and he was led across the hallway and down a corridor toward an open door at the end.
"Step into my office," he said as he pushed Jacob inside the dimly lit room.
At one end was a large, heavy wooden desk, inlaid with red leather. Behind it were bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling, packed with glass jars that contained swirling silvery clouds.
"Take a seat, Jacob," said Mr Cropley as he turned the key in the lock and then pocketed the key.
Realising he had no choice, Jacob jerked the chair away from the desk and thumped himself down on it.
"What do you want from me?" Jacob snapped.
"What makes you think I want something?" Mr Cropley asked.
"Why else am I here? Why else won't you let me leave unless I have something you want."
Mr Cropley sat on his leather chair and rocked back and forth. "Intuitive as well as tenacious," he said tapping the tips of his fingers together, as though deep in thought. "Interesting."
"What's interesting?"
"I like a challenge, Jacob. How about you? Yes, I think you do too. I think you're the kind that doesn't take the easy option. I expect that's why you came here."
"I'm here because my father won't let me be who I want to be. He won't let me be myself."
"And who would that be then?"
"A free spirit. To do what I please. Say what I want."
"You don't believe in rules then?"
"No," snapped Jacob. "Rules are for fools."
"I'm afraid I don't share the same opinion, Jacob."
"That doesn't surprise me."
Mr Cropley swung his chair round and admired his jars.
"Do you know what's in these jars, Jacob?"
Jacob regarded them with as much contempt as he felt for Mr Cropley. "Nuh," he said.
Mr Cropley looked back at Jacob with narrowed, calculating eyes. "They contain the essence of each and every student in this school. No good can come of unruly behaviour or lack of direction. By removing their personality they become clean slates that I can rewrite, fresh lumps of clay that I can mould. I control everyone of them."
Jacob jumped up and backed away from his desk.
"You're mad!" he cried.
"I'm not mad. I'm shrewd. I'm sculpting the cream of the crop. The ones that will rise to the surface and shine professionally and financially amongst a sea of dross, which is what you will be without my help."
"You're turning those kids into machines so they can make money for you."
"You sound surprised."
"You'll never get away with it. I'll escape and tell everyone what you're doing."
Mr Cropley pulled open a draw in his desk and reached a hand inside. Jacob watched with anticipation. His heart was thumping in his chest. From within the draw Mr Cropley pulled out a large syringe.
"Resistence is futile, Jacob," Mr Cropley said as he stepped out from behind his desk and walked towards Jacob.

Jacob ran toward the door. Frantically he turned the knob , hoping he'd be able to break the lock but it wouldn't budge. Behind, he could hear Mr Cropley creeping toward him. Then felt a cold hand on his shoulder and something sharp stick in his throat. His muscles suddenly relaxed, his mind fogged and then he fell against the door. There was no escaping Nathan Cropley.

Collecting the dead

The smog filled streets of old London were thick with merciless thieves, pick-pocketing from dawn to dusk, but their victims weren't just the living, the dead were plundered too.
"Where dare's a will, dare's a way, Willie," said Charlie Stubbs. He thumped his tankard on a table in the Dog and Duck pub and leaned forward and scratched his chin. "Dat's my motto. Dem richies are brimmin' wiv gold and little treasures. An I'm 'avin some."
"'But Charlie, what if we get caught?" whispered Willie.
"Caught?" said Charlie. "'Ow many people, d'you fink are wondrin' about in da middle of da night, in a cemetry?"
Willie shrugged his shoulders. Charlie clipped him round the ear with his flattened palm.
"Nun, stoopid."
Charlie took another swig of his beer. "Nah listen up. Dem tombs are tough. Old Bludger told me da doors are made of iron. So we'll need a crowbar.You got one?"
Willie thought for a moment. "I fink so. I'll 'ave to 'ave a look."
"Well, get to it," Charlie said before downing his beer. "I'll meet ya at da gate, da chapel gate."

As the tinny chime of Big Ben rang twelve times through the 'pea-soup' air Willie Edwards stomped up the cobbled street to the chapel gate entrance of Marsden Cemetary. Charlie was already there rubbing his arms to stave off the cold.
"Where you bin?" spat Charlie.
"Sorry, Charlie. Couldn't find a crowbar," said Willie.
"You ain't got one?"
"I 'ave now. 'ad to borrow one from Georgie."
"Da Blackie?"
Willie nodded.
Charlie stepped closer to Willie, his eyes narrowed and serious. "You didn't tell 'im 'bout wot ya wanted it for, did ya?"
Willie hurriedly shook his head. "No Charlie, cause not."
"Right den," said Charlie. "Dat's alright den."
Charlie marched past Willie and grabbed hold of the high fence that skirted the cemetary. He hauled himself up, got a foot hold between the fence post and leapt down on the other side, landing heavily amongst the roots of a thick trailing ivy. Willie followed.
"So who are we lookin' for den, Charlie?"
Charlie climbed over a felled tree and entered a high stone gothic arch, with smooth stone columns either side.
"Joseph Franks. He was a tradesman, in gold and silva. Sold stuff to da Indies and de Americas. Right ol' richie he was. Prime for da pickin'."
Charlie marched through the darkened archway and up a avenue of tombs enclosed overhead by the boughs of tall cedars. Willie tried to stay silent while Charlie checked the names above each tomb but his curiosity got the better of him.
"Wot's da picture on da doors mean, Charlie? Da upside down torch?" he asked.
"S'posed to mean deaf. The extinguishment of life. De end, in uva words," Charlie said as he stopped outside the last tomb in the avenue. He studied the carved names, carefully running his fingers over the stone. "Dis is the one," he snickered.
"It is just 'im in dare den?" asked Willie.
"Don't be stoopid. Dare's 'bout twelve folk in 'ere. Two 'undred and sixty guineas day cost, accordin' to old Bludger."
"Two 'undred," Willie gasped.
"Yeah, nah 'urry up an give me da crowbar."
Willie reached inside his tattered coat and pulled out a long black metal bar and handed it to Charlie.
Charlie wedged the bar between the door and the door frame and pushed his weight against it. He heaved and heaved and gradually the door inched open. When it cleared from the frame enough to get a grip of the door Charlie dropped the bar and clasped his hands round the door. "Give me a 'and, will ya?" he said as he placed a foot against the stone front of the tomb, for leverage, and pulled.
Willie grabbed it and pulled and the door creaked open. A puff of musty air escaped and made Willie cough.
"Dat's the stench of deaf for ya," said Charlie with a wry smile.
"It's 'orrible," said Willie, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Ah quit ya whingin' an' come on inside," Charlie said and squeezed through into the tomb.
Inside Willie saw the shelves either side upon which laid wooden coffins. Some were already showing signs of age; their brass fixings tarnished and the wood damp and mouldy.
"Which one is it, Charlie?"
"Dunno," Charlie replied.
"We'll just have to open 'em all and take whatever's in 'em."
"But, dare's bodies and stuff," said Willie, timorously. "Dey'll be all decomposed an' rotten an' 'oribble."
"Oh don't be such a jelly legs, 'an help me wiv dis one," Charlie said as he pulled out the end of the coffin on the lower shelf.
Willie grabbed the other end and helped Charlie rest the coffin on the stone floor.
"Now what?" asked Willie.
Charlie ignored him and used the crowbar to prise the lid off the coffin. "Almost dare, almost off," said Charlie as the last nail popped from the coffin. "We're 'bout ta become richies ourselves now."
As Willie helped Charlie lift the lid off the coffin the black suited man laid inside suddenly sat bolt upright and gasped, as though struggling for air.
Willie screamed and bolted out through the door, hotfooted by Charlie who called after him.
"Never again, Charlie. I ain't comin' 'ere ever again. He can keep 'is gold it's 'is," said Willie.
That was the last time Willie, and Charlie, ever went graverobbing.

Sersi's cookies

Sersi was a reluctant witch. She wanted nothing to do with magic. She had no wand, no broomstick, no grimoire into which to write her spells or potion recipes, and even refused to acknowledge the family black cat, Helios.
It wasn't a dislike of magic that made her feel that way, she just didn't believe in it. However, Sersi had been born into a long lineage of white witches. Her mother, Selene, was the local coven's High Priestess, and her sister Hekate, was well on the way to following in her mother's footsteps. Escape was futile.
Sersi's attitude was the source of many arguments that created an ever widening rift between her and her practising mother and sister, but Sersi was as staunch in her belief as her mother was in hers. Neither side were willing to accept the other's point of view, or make concessions. But Sersi was far from happy. Her school life was as tumultuous as her home life. The pupils generally considered she was a bit weird. They weren't to blame for thinking that as Sersi knew herself it was all her own doing. She was the one who avoided everyone, she was the one that decided she didn't want or need friends, she was the one that showed no interest in sports or boys or shopping or music or any of the school clubs. All she was interested in was writing. She wrote night and day: in the school yard, in class, in her bedroom, on the bus, anywhere and everywhere. But as she got older the solitude became tiresome and she longed for friends. She tried on numerous occasions to strike up a conversation with some of the girls in her class but as she approached them she found she had nothing to say. Her aloofness just added weight to the nickname the pupils had given her: 'psycho'. Part of Sersi though blamed her mother, her family for the distance between her and the rest of the kids at school. She was sure they knew her family were witches, and although her kind were no longer burned at the stake for their activities she knew the mere mention of the word 'witch' sent shivers down the backs of ordinary folk.
The feeling of helplessness and hopelessness led Sersi to do something she never thought she'd do.
On the night before the school dance Sersi crept into her sister's bedroom, stole her grimoire, mixed up a popularity potion her sister had been experimenting with and poured it onto the batch of cookies she made.
The next night she got dressed up in her navy blue dress with the small red flowers on it-her favourite-and strolled down to the school hall with her batch of poisoned cookies . Fearing that nobody would eat them if they knew she had baked them, Sersi conveniently forgot to put her name on the box, she just left them on the table of other donated offerings and waited. As the night wore on and dances were danced and games were played Sersi approached the food table and noticed that all of her cookies had been eaten. It didn't take long for the effects of her potion to work, but not in the way Sersi expected. All she wanted was for someone to talk to her but instead she found she was suddenly surrounded by kids all vying for her attention. Some were commenting on how nice she looked tonight, how interesting they thought she was, how pretty her eyes were, and asking her all sorts of questions like which movies she'd seen recently or which boy she fancied in Maths class. It was all a bit overwhelming. Sersi felt like she couldn't breathe as she was hemmed in on all sides by intoxicated kids. But as she pushed her way through the crowd they followed her. Sersi, in a bid to escape, ran down the linoleum hallways with boys and girls of all ages chasing her like blood crazed zombies, and cursed herself for going against her principles and tinkering with sorcery. Although it did prove one thing, that magic does indeed work, that didn't excuse, in her eyes, the fact that she gave into weakness. She rounded a corner and tucked herself away between two vending machines and held her breath as the throng passed her by. As the last one disappeared into the school quadrangle Sersi breathed a sigh of relief. But she wasn't alone. A lone boy was sat directly opposite her on one of the benches. Sersi made to escape but he held out a hand as though to calm her.
"Your Sersi, aren't you?"
Sersi held her breath and said not a word.
"Have you eaten one of those chocolate chip cookies?" she asked.
"No. I'm allergic to chocolate, and most other food stuffs," he said awkwardly. "I've seen you round school before. I...wanted to speak to you but you always seemed like you were deep in thought and stuff."
Sersi gave him a weak smile, unsure what to say or do. "I suppose I probably was."
"I'm Mike," he said. "Mike Reynolds. I'm in your English class."
Sersi nodded unsure whether his attention was genuine or not, especially given nobody had ever approached her before.
"You look very pretty tonight," he said as he looked down at his feet. "I wanted to say it before but, well, you know."
Sersi sensed he was just as apprehensive as she was about making connections with people and although he did appear a little awkward she was comforted by it. He was the mirror image of her. In that moment she realised that she didn't need potions or spells to make people like her, all she needed was a little confidence and patience.
Feeling invigorated she stood tall, smoothed down her dress and her hair and calmly said to Mike, "Fancy a dance!"

The vampire's costume

It was a convincing costume that Sylvia Leibovitz's brother bought, so much so that it made her jealous; she wished she'd gotten hers from Harper's Costumery too instead of cutting two eye holes into an old white sheet.
"So how much did that cape cost, Samuel?" Sylvia asked her brother.
"That's for me to know," Samuel replied as he swung the black velvet cloak over his shoulders and slid the row of false pointed teeth into his mouth. "But it was a good deal. The owner was desperate to get rid of it."
"Why?"
"I dunno. What difference does it make?"
"None, I suppose," said Sylvia as she slipped her holey sheet over her head and followed him out of the house.
It was a particularly cold night. An ill wind blew from the west, fluttering Sylvia's costume, and a full moon cast an eerie silver glow over every house, tree and bush in the village. But in spite of the conditions Sylvia and Samuel had their most successful night of guising ever.
"It was my vampire costume that did it," said Samuel, grinning with smugness. He held his cloak just beneath his eyes and flickered his eyebrows. "I'm going to wear this all the time. In fact I'm going to sleep in it."
As he dashed upstairs to his room, with his cloak tail flapping behind him, a chill ran down Sylvia's back. Something was amiss. Was Samuel gliding above the stairs, carried along by the wings of his cloak?
She shook her head, convinced it was an illusion, a trick of the eye. She was tired.
The next day at breakfast her mother's face was ashen. "Something terrible has happened," she said as she gingerly lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table. Sylvia leaned over toward her mother, curious but at the same time chilled by her mother's demeanour. "Mrs Tindle's daughter, Lucia, was attacked last night, whilst she slept. She was bitten on her neck."
"Is she okay?" Sylvia asked.
Her mother gave a hesitant nod. "I think so. It's early days. She's very weak apparently. They reckon it was their dog."
Sylvia looked across the table to her brother who was busily pouring cereal into a bowl. "Did you just hear what mum said?" she said.
"Yeah, so what," he replied. "She was a snob anyway. She never liked me so why should I be concerned about her."
"That's a really mean thing to say."
Samuel shrugged his shoulders and struggled to hold back the heavy folds of his black velvet cloak as it slid down his arm and into his bowl.
"Hadn't you better take that off now, Samuel," said his mother. "It's not halloween anymore you know."
"I know," Samuel grunted. "I like wearing it."
"I hate it," bristled Sylvia. "It makes you look mean."
Samuel grinned slyly at her, as though he was hiding a dark secret.
That night Sylvia was awoken by a clattering sound coming from Samuel's room. She sat bolt upright in her bed listening to it for a moment or two before summoning the courage to investigate. With her dressing gown wrapped round her shoulders to keep the night chill off, she crept across the landing and cracked open his bedroom door.
"Samuel," Sylvia whispered. "Are you awake?"
She opened the door fully and peered into the room. His window was wide open, the wooden shutters flapping in the night breeze, and his bed was empty, the covers pulled to one side.
"Samuel, where are you?" she asked as she scoured the room for her brother, looking in the wardrobe, under the bed and in the large toy chest. There was no sign of him. It was as though he'd just floated out of the window.
The next morning as Sylvia munched through her breakfast, her mind plagued by questions over Samuel's bizarre disappearance, Samuel appeared in the doorway to the kitchen wearing his vampire cloak and a pair of sunglasses. She wanted to challenge him there and then but didn't want to worry her mother.
"Samuel, that thing's going to start to smell if you keep wearing it," Sylvia's mother said. "And you can take those glasses off whilst you're at the table too."
"Hell will freeze over when I stop wearing it," Samuel said as he slumped down on one chair and rested his feet on another.
"Samuel, I'll have less talk like that, thank you," his mother bristled.
"So...ere...did you sleep well last night, Samuel?" asked Sylvia.
"Like a baby," he said as he devoured a rasher of raw bacon.
"You woke me up. Your window was open. The shutters were banging," said Sylvia.
Samuel's eyes widened, his brow knitted and he leaned closer toward her.
Sylvia swallowed the lump of terror that was rising in her throat, threatening to choke the life from her. She knew she was treading on very shaky ground as Samuel was clearly alert to her prying into his affairs.
"And?" he said slowly, steadily.
"And, nothing," she replied. "I...I just thought I'd mention it."
Samuel sat back and rocked his chair.
Sylvia had never been terrified of her older brother before, but now, as he sat grinning at her from the edge of the kitchen table it was all she could do to avert his gaze.
She never went to school that morning. Instead, she took a detour to Harper's Costumery, curious to know about the provenance of the cloak. The idea that it was responsible for the change in her brother's behaviour fluttered through her mind. She laughed it off. 'That would be impossible,' she thought.
Harper's Costumery was a little, unassuming shop on the corner of a side street in the middle of town, rarely passed by any shoppers. It was a little worn and unloved on the outside with peeling paint and dirty windows but promised, on a sign outside, to be able to procure any costume required.
Sylvia cautiously clicked open the door to the chime of a bell above her head. Inside the shop was dark and dingy, much like the outside of the shop, and was cluttered with all manner of costumes for every ocassion and from every period: jester costumes, victorian and tudor gowns, top hats, powder wigs, shiny black boots and the remnants of halloween costumes that an elderly gentleman was busily folding up into leather chests.
"Can I help you, young lady?" he said as he shuffled toward her, his wisps of grey, straggly hair hanging limply over each ear.
"I don't really know," replied Sylvia.
"Well, if you're in here you're obviously looking for a costume. Perhaps if you told me the theme or occasion I could advise you."
"I don't actually want a costume. I want to know about one."
The man tilted his head at her. "I don't follow you, my dear."
"You sold a halloween costume to a boy recently."
"I've sold many costumes. Can you describe which one?"
Sylvia ran her fingers across a rack of glittering Elizabethan gowns, admiring them, before snapping back her attention. "It was a cape. A black cape with a red lining and a stand up collar."
"Ah, the nosferatu," the old man said. "Yes, I remember it. A young boy bought it, I recall."
Sylvia was about to say it was her brother, but decided to hold back that information, at least for the moment.
"Where did it come from? The cape I mean."
The old man rubbed his stubbly chin. "Oh, well now, there's a question," he said before reaching behind his counter and pulling out a large rusted tin. He lifted the lid and rifled through the papers inside it. "I usually keep all my paperwork in this here tin. I don't do well with newfangled computers. It's all to easy to loose the information they contain, as I've seen recently in the news. No, its paper all the way for me. I suppose I'm just too old. Ah, here it is. I bought it from a Mrs Jane Leibovitz."
"Liebovitz!" Sylvia shrieked. Her heart started racing, her muscles clenched and her blood chilled. "That's my...mighty unusual for one person to sell you something."
"Not really. I get donations of costumes all the time. You'd be surprised what people are prepared to part with. But I do now remember this one. Yes," he said. "The lady was most insistant that it was sold to a very particular boy only. No other. I thought it strange at the time but she was insistant and very sure that the boy would procure it."
"And he did?" asked Sylvia, desperately trying to remain composed amidst the tornado of confusion that whirled around her.
"Oh, yes. Not a day after Mrs Leibovitz gave it to me. To be perfectly honest with you I was glad to be rid of it. There was something distinctly amiss about that garment. Much history is soaked in that fabric. I'm sure of it."
That name felt distant to her now, as though it was no longer connected to her. She couldn't understand what it all meant. Why did mum want him to buy that cape? Why didn't she just give it to him?
Sylvia spent the afternoon in the school library, huddled in a dark corner hoping the teachers wouldn't find her skipping classes.She pulled as many books on the occult as the library stocked and piled them up around her. She scanned the indexes of each book for anything relating to, dare she admit it to herself, vampires. She'd weighed up the evidence-the floating up the stairs, the missing brother in the middle of the night, the open windows, the bitten girl-and it was all too coincidental. After what felt like hours of reading she happened on a passage on pure vampires.

Pure vampires. Pure vampires are at the head of the vampirus bloodline. They are not created by bite but by the blood of the Dracule. Legend has it that when Dracula began to be pursued in the middle ages by peasants looking to extinguish the deathly curse that hung over their villages he soaked his cloak in his own blood, his pure vampire blood, as a means of preserving it and as a way to start the pure bloodline should he be destroyed. The cloak became a legend and after hundreds of years had passed it passed into myth. No-one has ever seen the cloak of the undead. But legend tells that the wearing of it will start a new bloodline, a pure vampire bloodline that is impervious to all known methods of extermination-silver, stake or garlic. However the cloak cannot simply be passed from one to another. The cloak must be procured. It is the right of passage to becoming a pure vampirus. Procurement is seen to be in honour of the Dracule, and an acceptance of his gift.

Sylvia was shaking so much she could barely turn the page let alone close the book. The realisation that her mother was a pure vampire was too incredible to contemplate, and the fact that she willingly dragged her only son into her coven made her blood popple. How long would it be before her mother turned her into a pure vampire too. A family of pureblood vampires. Was that what she wanted?
She had to get away before she succumb to her mother's grotesque plan. She ran all the way from the library to her house, packed a bag, grabbed her purse and ran. She had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do. All she knew was that she had to get away. She had to save herself from her fate. Gasping for breath she stopped at a bus stop, sat on the bench and waited for the next bus. She didn't care where it took her, as long as it was far enough away from her mother. All her talk and sorrowful words about the girl being attacked and loose commands for Samuel to stop wearing his cloak were all a sham. A design to divert attention and suspicion. She knew that now. But her mother would not get her wish. Sylvia would not succumb.
A bus pulled into the curbside, sploshing through muddy puddle. She climbed aboard and threw some coins on the counter, so racked with fear, shame, anger and confusion she failed to notice who was driving the bus.
"Thank you, darling," the driver said.
The voice felt like a dagger piercing Sylvia's heart. Sylvia looked up and straight into the fiendish twinkle of her mother's eyes.
"This is for you. Thank you for your patronage," her mother said gleefully before handing the familiar black velvet cloak to Sylvia.

The shaman's curse

Lily couldn't believe it when her brother, Wiley, brought home a replica model of their village, Gatesby, from the jumble sale.
"Wha'dya buy that thing for?" she asked, screwing her face up with disbelief that he had spent his pocket money on something she considered completely pointless and grossly filthy.
"I think it's cool," replied Wiley. "Look, it even has the Old Manor house on it, in the woods."
Lily frowned at him. "That just goes to show how old that thing is. The Old Manor house was torn down a decade ago," she said staring at the solitary matchbox sized house nestled amongst cotton-topped trees of Wiley's village. "Who sold that to you anyway?"
"I dunno," said Wiley as he carried the three foot square board up the stairs to his room. "Some old woman."
"Her name's Mrs Wright, Wiley, not 'some old woman'," bellowed Lily's mum from the front door as she struggled to carrying in an old Singer sewing machine that she had bought.
"Who's Mrs Wright?" asked Lily.
"She used to be the Housekeeper of the Manor before Lord Seldhurst died," she said. "I think she lives in Greenbow now."
Lily looked at her mother struggling beneath the weight of the machine and the three bags looped over her arms. She thought about helping but was suddenly curious about Wiley's purchase. She'd heard about Lord Seldhurst and his Manor. Rumour had it the house was torn down because it was haunted, not because, as reported in the papers, it was condemned by Structural Engineers who claimed it was better to knock it down than let it fall down. Could it be that Wiley had, in his possession, a piece of the Old Manor?
She took the stairs two by two and poked her head round the door of Wiley's room.
Wiley was already playing with it. He'd dug out a few miniature cars and was busily driving them up and down the streets of the village, pretending he was various residents.
Getting a better look at the model village, Lily noticed it was remarkably up-to-date: the school even had its new extension by the technical studies block. 'Mrs Wright must have added to it,' Lily thought. 'I wonder why she wanted to get rid of it?'

In the days that followed Lily noticed Wiley was becoming more and more engrossed with his model village. He spent most of his time in his room, crafting make believe stories about the residents and acting them out with plastic soldiers. At first Lily found it entertaining and was impressed with Wiley's vivid imagination, especially given he'd previously spent most of his time playing games on his X-Station, but one day was chilled when an argument Wiley had imagined between two of his school friends over a remote control car actually happened.
It was freakish but Lily brushed it off as mere coincidence. 'Perhaps Wiley's heard them bickering before,' she thought.
But the next day Wiley made another startling prediction. Lily overheard him in his bedroom playing with the model and shouting that the school gym was flooding and to call the fire brigade. Sure enough, when Lily got to school she saw a crowd of people outside the gym block and numerous teachers dragging out bits of gym equipment-mats, balls, the pommel horse, bean bags-all sodden.
"What's going on?" she asked a lanky fifth year.
"Someone left the tap running in the toilets," he grunted. "Whole block's flooded."
Lily felt the blood drain from her face and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. For the rest of the day she couldn't concentrate on her classes or even her friends.
"What's up with you today?" they asked her.
"Nothing, I'm fine," she said knowing full well that she wasn't. She was numb with confusion. 'How could it be? How could he have known?' she thought.
When she got home she challenged Wiley about it, but Wiley was more angry that she had been eavesdropping on his playtime than alarmed about his prediction.
"Just butt out of my room," he snapped. "This is my toy, not yours. I paid for it fair and square and you're not allowed anywhere near it."
But Lily was too intrigued to let the matter drop. Every day Wiley had a fresh and imaginative story that miraculously came true. At first they were relatively harmless but gradually became more sinister. Wiley predicted that Marcus Finchley would be expelled for painting the school walls with graffiti, he predicted that Deakins General Store was going to be robbed and he predicted the three car pile up outside the village.
Despite Lily's endeavours to distract Wiley from his new toy so as to stop his macabre premonitions Wiley pointedly refused and even threatened to punch Lily if she dared to even speak of his toy.
It was the final straw for Lily. She caught the number fifty bus that took her straight to Greenbow village and found that Mrs Wright was living in a small cottage on the outskirts. It was a dilapidated, semi-detached bungalow with a warped green door and a tiled roof that was sunken in the middle, as though something heavy had been resting on it.
Before Lily had even raised a hand to knock on the door it creaked open. Standing in the hallway was a tall, grey-haired old woman.
"I had a feeling someone would come calling on me," the woman said. "Though I didn't expect it to be you. "
"You were expecting my brother then?"
"He was the one that bought the model, yes?"
Lily nodded.
"You better come in," the woman said and waddled down the hallway and into a small sitting room.
Tentatively Lily followed her, feeling so apprehensive her stomach was tied in a knot.
"Why were you expecting my brother?" Lily asked as she sat on a threadbare armchair that the woman offered her.
"I was half expecting him," the woman clarified, "and half hoping I wouldn't see him."
"Why?"
The woman eyed Lily up and down. "You know about the model. Don't you? What it does?"
"Vaguely," Lily replied. "It seems to have some sort of control over Wiley."
"Predictions? Premonitions?" the woman asked.
Lily nodded, not wanting to give too much away about her own situation, preferring to make the woman tell her what she needed to know.
"I should have burned it while I had the chance," the woman said as she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her chin.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I foolishly thought the curse was a myth. I knew Lord Seldhurst was into allsorts of occult things. Divination, sorcery, clairvoyance. He was fascinated by it all. He paid for mediums, shamans, occultists, you name it, to come to the Manor. He was convinced that there was a spirit residing in the house. One of them suggested he make a model of the village to vanquish the malevolent presence. But when he did his paranoia got worse. He said he kept seeing things in his mind. It drove him made. When he died I was responsible for clearing out the Manor. Most of his belongings went to auction to pay off his debts but I kept a few things, including the model because I liked it."
"If you liked it why did you sell it?"
The woman was hesitant to answer. "It started to make me feel uneasy. That's all," she said.
Lily sensed she was holding something back. "You felt it too didn't you. You started seeing things. That's why you got rid of it. But rather than burn it you thought you'd make a few quid," Lily spat. She was so angry she could feel the heat rise from her feet through her body.
"I never intended for anyone to be hurt by it," said Mrs Wright in a pitiful voice.
"But they have," said Lily. "My brother is making all sorts of horrid predictions and who knows where its going to end or how. He's got no idea what it means. He's too young to understand and moreover they're making him possessive and aggressive and he's never been like that with me."
"You can end it all you know," explained Mrs Wright, seemingly trying to offer a solution.
"How?"
"Burn it. Burn it to the ground before more damage is done. That's the only way you can end it."

Lily left the old woman in a fit of rage. She was grateful of the tip but far too annoyed that the woman's selfishness had meant her brother was being influenced by the product of a madman. When she got home she heard Wiley playing with his model.
"Fire, fire," she heard him say. "Call the fire brigade. It's on fire."
Lily felt an icy chill run across her. 'What was on fire?' she thought. Desperate to know what his latest prediction was she burst into his bedroom. Wiley had a lit candle resting on the model by the School.
"Get away from it, Wiley. Get away from the model now. It's cursed. It's making you sick."
"No. You get away," he said and lunged for her, pushing her into the door.
Lily couldn't believe how much strength he had in him. She reached out for him but he stumbled back and knocked the model off its table sending it crashing to the floor. The candle tipped over too and ignited the dry paper miniature houses and trees.
"No, my model, my village," Wiley cried. "You've ruined it."
"What's going to go on fire, Wiley?" cried Lily as the model smouldered. "You have to tell me."
"My village, my toy, that's what's on fire."
"No before. When you were playing you said 'fire, fire, call the fire brigade.' What did you mean? What was going to go on fire?"
Wiley ran to the bathroom and came back with a filled jug of water. He tossed it on the burning model but it was too late. It was mostly destroyed. Deflated, Wiley knelt down beside his beloved toy and wept.
"Wiley tell me, please," pleaded Lily. "What's on fire?"
As tears poured down Wiley's cheeks he muttered the words. "The school."
Lily tore out of the house as fast as she could but the plumes of smoke rising into the aquamarine blue sky was the harbinger of doom that Lily didn't want to see. As she rounded the corner of the park and turned into School Road she could see the flames licking the sky. She was too late. All she could hope for was that nobody was hurt.
As she stood, breathless and distraught that she didn't act quickly enough to stop the carnage she hoped that her and Wiley's nightmare would now be over: now that the model was destroyed.

Unearthing Harry Sands

Holly powered her mother's Vauxhall Astra up the M6, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, her right foot maintaining a steady 65 mph. Her mother was sure to have reported it missing by now and Holly couldn't afford to be caught. She had to get across the border.
As she passed the turn off to Blackpool and the traffic started to thin out she relaxed her grip and sat back, deep into the bucket seats. She took a deep breath and glanced over to the passenger seat. It was littered with newspaper cuttings, print outs, an Ordnance Survey Landranger map number thirty-three and, sheathed in a clear plastic folder, a photocopy of an advert with a poem scrawled across it.
"Mum will understand. I'm sure," Holly said to herself. "I know she doesn't believe me but if there's a chance, even a slim one I know Aunt Morag will be grateful."
Her crossing into Cumbria was welcomed with leaden skies and heavy rain. Almost an omen, she thought. She checked the fuel gauge. Almost empty.
When she reached Carlisle she pulled into a service station, filled the tank up and plucked two ten pound notes from the wad in her purse.
'Gonna have to pull double shifts now to make my savings up again,' she thought.
After she paid up she drove into the almost empty car behind the garage and parked by a deserted burger van. It looked as lonely as her.
"Why is it just me on this crusade?" she said, thumping the dashboard with her fist. "Why does nobody over the age of nineteen believe anything anyone under the age of twenty has to say?"
She snatched up the sheathed advert and read over the poem once more.

If red but not found most certainly de parted
You'll find I'm third in line on the shore
Dressed in white, trimmed with these trees,
Nine plus or more

Silver's unsettled
Stolen kisses, no more
I bow in shackles

"You certainly were brave, cousin, to write it in code so he wouldn't understand," she said. "Sadly its pretty safe for me to say that you have 'de parted'. But not forever. I promise."
She started the car and turned the fan heater on trying not to dwell on what befell the cousin she never met. But as she reached for the road map to assess her route one of the newspaper cuttings slid off the passenger seat into the foot well. Holly reached down to pick it up but was unable to stop her eyes from catching the headline.
'Local Fifteen-year-old missing after party.'
Holly sighed and ran a finger over the date of the article. 'November 8, 1984.' She could hardly believe it all happened so long ago.
'Local schoolgirl, Harriet Sands, went missing on Monday November 5th. She was last spotted at approximately 11.30pm, standing at a bus stop on Fenchurch Street, by a couple walking their dog. Ms Sands had been at a party with friends who reported the missing girl left early to return home. She is described as intelligent and lively with shoulder length blonde hair, approximately five foot three inches in height and wearing a denim skirt, pink blouse and pink shoes. If anyone has any information in connection to her disappearance please contact Chester police on 456 2309.'
"Third in line on the shore," Holly mumbled. "Harry Sands."
Holly placed the article on the seat and then folded up the map. "If I could just get passed Glasgow by nightfall. I could find a service station and sleep on the backseat, " she said.
She rejoined the motorway and fiddled with the tuner on the radio. All she seemed to be able to find, apart from boring debates on speed cameras and the economy, was thrash metal. She left it tuned to the brain pounding beat of MetalPetals. She felt it matched her mood.
By the time she cut through central Glasgow, cursing the fact that the motorway scythed the city in half resulting in endless traffic jams, she finally reached the A82 and a quiet service station just outside Dumbarton. She parked up, finding a suitable spot shaded by a line of trucks that presumably pulled in for the same reason she did, and climbed onto the backseat.
As she snuggled up under a blanket she grabbed her papers and Harry's poem from the front seat.
"Dressed in white and trimmed with these trees. These trees," she muttered and scanned the advert the poem was written on. It was an advert for a holiday home in Sandaig. Harry's words were written on blank area of the advert that was the skyline above a hillock of trees. In front of the trees was a shale shore with a couple of old fisherman cottages. "He, they, whoever, took you to Sandaig forest. But what does dressed in white mean. You were wearing eighties denim and pink. And what does the rest of it mean," she said. "Okay nine plus or more. That's gotta be the length of time it took to leave Chester and get to Sandaig. I've already done five hours. Four plus to go, which means you must have been awake the entire time."
Holly shivered at the thought. Eight hours of not knowing your fate. How could anyone bear that?
She placed the pages on the mat and curled up to sleep.
Hours later there was a rapping sound at her window. It gave her such a fright she jerked awake. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it at the back of her throat and when her eyes acclimated to the light and who was peering through the window she gasped. It was the police.
Holly wound down the passenger window.
"Hello, Officer," she mumbled.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just catching forty winks," she said, noticing his eyes were surveying the inside of her car.
"Is this yur car?"
"Erm. No. It's my mum's I'm just borrowing it to visit a friend," she said hesitantly, praying he would believe her.
"D'ya have yur licence or some form of ID?"
"Yeah, of course," Holly replied as she scrambled through her bag and thrust her licence at him.
As the policeman peered at it all Holly could think was 'so close. I'm so close. Please let me go.'
He handed her licence back to her. "I wudnae recommend sleepin' in your car. Next time you're up here book intae a bed and breakfast. It's no safe. Alright?"
Holly nodded and when he left and got into his squad car she sat back and let out a long, gasp of a breath.
After a quick wash at the services Holly checked her map. "Straight up the A82, then left onto the A87 at Shielbridge."
It was just after noon when she passed the picturesque town of Eileanreach, five miles from Sandaig, and found herself on the deserted, bleak A82. She trundled past banks of trees on either side of the road wondering if they were the forest she had driven over four hundred miles and nine hours for. Her body twitched with a mixture of nervous excitement and apprehension. 'Will I find anything or nothing?' she thought.
Ahead she spotted a farmer herding sheep and as she neared she slowed and wound down her window.
"Can you tell me where Sandaig forest is, please?"
"'Bout two miles down on the right. There's a sign post," the farmer muttered beneath his bushy moustache before turning attention back to his flock.

As the bare wooden sign with white lettering that read 'Sandaig Forest' came into view Holly began to shake. There was no turning back now. The pathway into the forest was a dirt track that was slightly overgrown indicating not much traffic every went down it. 'No wonder he or they brought you here,' Holly thought.
Cautiously Holly turned onto the track and followed it as it wound through the mature coniferous wood. On a more inauspicious day she would love to walk through these woods and marvel at the majestic pines but her mind wasn't on sightseeing. She kept her focus on the road ahead instead. She had no idea what she was looking for but rather hoped that something would fatefully draw her attention.
When the road ended she found herself parked in front of a crumbling white house.
"Could this be it?" Holly said. "Dressed in white!"
Every nerve and fibre in Holly's body was screaming at her to stop. To go back. She was terrified of what she might find in that house, but her heart was in control.
"This was my cousin. My defenceless cousin," she said and stepped out of the car.
Outside the air was warm and the sun was shining through the tops of the conifers. 'A good omen,' she thought.
She crept up to the wooden door hanging off its hinges and pulled it open. Inside it was dark and damp. A strong musty smell of damp wood and earth mixed with charcoal hung in the air like a shroud. She took a left and stepped into a room with a wooden floor and a window that looked out toward the islands in the distance. Such a beautiful location, tinged with horror. In the middle of the room the floorboards had been lifted and Holly could see a fast flowing stream running beneath the house.
"No wonder nobody lives here. This place is probably condemned," she said as she looked up at the beams of sunlight streaming through the gaps in the roof. They shone down on something that glinted faintly on the floor.
Holly bent down and noticed a delicate bracelet, a little tarnished but otherwise in good condition, beside a broken chair. But when she picked the bracelet up her eyes were drawn to something else behind it. Something that filled her body with gut twisting terror-a coil of rusted chains bolted to the stone wall.
"I bow in shackles," Holly cried. She shivered violently and tried to swallow the lump in her throat but it was too big. Tears poured down her face as she reached for the chains. "What happened, Harry?"
No sooner had she said it a black crow landed on the stone frame of the window. It took one look at Holly, squawked and then flew off toward the shore. Holly watched as it landed on a large grey driftwood log beside a rise in the grass banking that didn't look natural.
Holly dashed outside and bounded over rocks, streams and mounds of mossy grass. Upon reaching it she knelt down and started to claw at the grass, slicing back the layers of time until she felt something smooth that rustled between her fingers. She leapt back.
'Plastic bag,' she thought.
Her heart thumped in her chest so fierce she could hear her blood pumping in her ears. She knew what she had to do but part of her didn't want to do it. Part of her wished she was back at home, on the sofa watching TV and not knelt down in a desolate place in a different country on her own searching for what she knew would just be bones. She reached out to tear the bag.
"Holly!" a voice screamed.
Holly spun round and saw three policemen and her mother standing by the crumbling white house. A heavy wave of relief swept over her that made her feel so weak and lightheaded she almost fainted.
"Mum," Holly cried and stumbled towards the open arms of her mother. "I've found her. I've found Harry. I've found her."
Holly threw her arms round her mother, desperate to feel the warmth and comfort of someone she loved, desperate to feel alive and reconnected to the world again.
"I thought I'd lost you too," said her mother, tearfully.
"Never. I just wish I knew who did this to her?" she said as she watched the three policemen make there way towards the remains of Harry Sands. One of them took off his helmet to reveal a shock of white blonde hair that glinted like silver in the sunlight.
Holly froze. "Silver," she gasped. "Silver."
"What's wrong, Holly?" asked her mother.
"Harry's diary. Silver. Silver hair. Silver Penny. David Penny. He's the one who killed her," Holly blurted.
"Holly you're not making any sense."
Holly delved into her bag and pulled out the wad of news clippings and frantically riffled through them.
"The newspaper report a two weeks after her disappearance. It mentions entries in Harry's diary. Here," she said holding it up to her mother. "It says her diary mentioned a person Harry had a bit of a crush on but Harry didn't call him by his real name in her diary. No girl would. She called him SP. The police couldn't work out what that meant. But look at the photo beside the report. It's of Harry and her friends. She has her arm around someone called David Penny. But look at his hair. It's bright white. Like Silver," Holly gusted with excitement as she rustled in her bag for the sheathed copy of the note Harry left. "And look at this. This was her message in a bottle, which I reckon she threw into the stream that runs under the house, it says 'Silver's unsettled. Stolen kisses, no more.' Silver Penny. SP"
Holly's mother took Holly's head into her hands and kissed her forehead. "Well, give this to the police. Let them take it from here. They'll get him. You'll see," she said as Holly watched a tear trickled down her mother's cheek. Her mother brushed the hair from Holly's forehead. "Your Aunt Morag will be very proud."

The last pawn

As the school coach trundled down the gravel driveway to Karmac Manor Maggie leaned forward in her seat, trying to get a view of the house through the trees.
"This place is a bit creepy," said Liam and shuffled about in the seat beside her. "The trees are half dead."
"Liam, you think jelly babies are creepy," she mocked. "It means nothing."
"They are. Especially when you bite their heads off."
Maggie shook her head in disbelief at how easy it was to scare him.
"Why do we need to visit this place anyway?" he asked.
Maggie leaned back and huffed as she had to explain the finer points of the school trip to him yet again. "'cos his Manor is only open once a year to visitors. God alone knows why. Something to do with money, I suspect. And the school is giving us the chance to 'feel' history."
"Who is he again?"
Maggie cuffed Liam round the head. "Does nothing stick in there?" she admonished. "He's Britain's most famous Chess Grandmaster. The only British Grandmaster."
"But the guy's dead. He ain't so famous now, is he?"
Maggie gritted her teeth and held back the urge to punch him on the nose. How could he be so mellow and uninterested in her hero. Albert Karmac was the reason she learnt to play Chess. Visiting his home, the place where he strategised his games, was akin to the early Christians making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was more than important.

"When the bus pulls up can I ask that you disembark in an orderly fashion. No pushing or shoving, please," said the tailored form of Miss Mackay at the front of the bus.
"No chance of that," Liam muttered under his breath. "Who's gonna rush to see a load of dusty furniture?"
Maggie gave him a swift jab to the ribs. "Keep it button you, or I'll give you another one."
Liam frowned at her and rubbed his side."It's just as well we're friends you know, or I'd..."
"Or you'd what?" said Maggie with a sly grin and marched down the aisle of the bus and out into the chill of the Autumn air.
The gravel was strewn with dry, crunchy leaves that had blown across the sprawling grounds of Karmac's old manor. Maggie gawped at the Manor itself. It was a stunning Georgian building, with regimented paned windows, tall stone columns outside the entrance and thick, green ivy that trailed over the East wing.
"What I wouldn't give to live in a place like this," she muttered to herself.
When everyone had disembarked the heavy wooden entrance door to the Manor creaked open and out shuffled a frail petite woman with her gray hair tied back into a bun. But more remarkable was her costume. She wore a long-sleeved black dress that was nipped in at the waist and which flared out at the skirt in great folds of fabric.
"They certainly get into the groove, don't they?" said Liam.
Maggie couldn't argue with that.
The lady introduced herself as the tour guide and asked that out of respect for the former resident everyone keep to the tour route and not touch anything. Those words like a red rag to a bull for Maggie.
"Why do they always have to say that?" she spat. "Do they think we're all delinquents?"
Liam shrugged his shoulders and followed the rest of the class as they trudged behind the paper-thin lady.
Maggie tailed at the back. 'Out of sight out of mind' she thought.
As the class wound through the house with its long dark hallways and high ceilinged rooms Maggie listened to the elderly lady talk about Albert Karmac's life. As somewhat of an expert on him herself, Maggie felt she probably could have run the tour as none of what the lady said was news to her. There was only one thing about his life she didn't know.
"How did he die, exactly?" Maggie chirped up.
The class all turned and stared at her. The woman, it seemed, was considering both her answer and Maggie as although she was a good fifteen feet from where Maggie was standing she could tell the woman was eyeing her up.
"He died of an illness. It was brief and incurable," she said curtly before walking off to continue her tour through the dining room.
"Did he die here?" Maggie asked. She took the hint that the matter of Albert's death wasn't up for discussion but she didn't want to let it drop. She wanted answers.
Again the woman sized up Maggie. "Yes. He died in his bed. At the age of 42. Does that satisfy you?"
"His death or your answer?" asked Maggie flippantly.
The woman didn't grace Maggie's question with a response and continued her tour.
"I think you really cheesed her off you know?" sniggered Liam.
"She asked for it. I only asked a simple question."
As the party passed through what the woman called Albert's public reception room, Maggie lost interest in anything the woman had to say so she decided to take in the sights of the room herself, without being directed as to what to look at. The walls were cluttered with portraits of all sizes of people painted on heavy canvas and framed with ornate gilded wood. Maggie had no idea who those people were. Probably relatives, or friends she thought. But one smaller painting drew her attention. It was tucked away in the far corner of the room. The subject was an elderly woman in a black dress with grey hair tied in a bun. She was sat on a stone plinth outside the Manor. A chill ran across Maggie's back as the woman looked remarkably like the woman giving them the tour. Maggie shook the feeling from her. It couldn't possibly be the same woman. The woman in the picture would have to be at least two hundred years old by now.
"Psst, Maggie," whispered Liam from the top of the room as he waved his hands at Maggie. "Come on."
Maggie trotted after Liam and followed the group down a winding stone staircase that the old woman said led to the kitchens where Albert's favourite rabbit stew was cooked. At the bottom of the stairs Maggie spotted a couple of fake dead rabbits hanging from the wall of the kitchen for effect. It made her cringe and when she recoiled she noticed a small sign on a door to the left.
'RESTRICTED AREA'
Maggie couldn't resist. The idea that all sorts of objects relating to her hero that weren't on public display being hidden behind that door was too alluring to ignore. She had to open it before the curiosity brought her out into a rash.
As discreetly as she could she shuffled toward the door, inching ever closer. When she reached a hand across to turn the handle she looked back towards the old woman. She was talking about random kitchen stuff that had no bearing on Albert's life whatsoever but her eyes were fixed on Maggie. Maggie's heart leapt into her mouth but despite the fact that she was almost inside the 'restricted area' the old woman made no move to stop her. She never even stuttered through her monologue.
"Maggie, no," whispered Liam.
Maggie winked at him, slipped into the darkness and shut the door quietly behind her.
It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the low light, but gradually she could make out she was standing in a damp, grotty stone corridor. A steep set of steps in the shape of a horseshoe led down into the bowels of the Manor. Maggie's heart thumped with excitement; excitement that she was flouting the rules and satisfying her craving for facts. What was down there? She wondered.
Her disappointment couldn't have been more obvious when she reached the bottom and found nothing but a wine cellar. No boxes of treasures. No important records. No pictures. Nothing. But as she kicked an empty bottle across the gritty stone floor where it smashed against the wall something firm thumped down onto her shoulders and gripped them tight. It caught her by such surprise she didn't have enough time to scream before she was pulled back down a corridor. With her heart pounding and her head dizzy from the rush of adrenalin, she tried to grab hold of the wall and pull herself back but the force was too strong. Her fingers dragged along the walls as she scrambled to return to the cellar, breaking all her nails but she was dragged further and further away. Too terrified to turn to see what had hold of her she closed her eyes and let go of the wall. All that ran through her mind was Liam's last word. 'No'. Fate was now in control.
When she opened them she was curled up on the floor in a brightly lit room. Timorously Maggie looked around her, desperately hoping her capture was no longer around. All she could see though was a large chequerboard floor and not a stick of furniture.
"Welcome," said a booming voice.
"Who are you?" Maggie gasped.
"I am who you came here for."
"I don't understand. I came here on a tour. I'm not here to see anybody," she said.
"You were searching for something though, were you not?"
"Just information. More information."
"About me, yes?"
"I don't know. I don't know who you are."
"Perhaps it would be better if I showed you."
Maggie scrambled back on her hands and knees and cowered against the wall. She pulled the neck of her jumper up to her face, just high enough so her eyes could peak over and scan the room for the owner of the voice.
In the far corner a mist appeared out of nowhere and gradually took the form of a middle-aged man, solid and real-looking in every way. Maggie could see the resemblance to her hero but he was no longer the rotund, jolly character she'd come to know. He was grey, haggered, thin and gaunt.
"Now do you know me?" it asked.
"Karmac?" Maggie mumbled. "Albert Karmac? But you're dead."
Albert's eyes glinted in the light. "I know. Fascinating isn't it?"
Maggie swallowed the lump of terror rising in her throat. "But how? Are you a ghost?"
"More like a living ghost. Not quite dead but not quite alive either," it said with a malevolent chuckle.
"But the old woman upstairs said you died in your bed."
"Ah, my doting mother," said Albert as he strolled across the room towards her. "Devoted in spite of me."
The realisation that what Maggie saw upstairs in the reception room came screaming back to her. "She's the woman in the portrait, in your reception room?"
Albert nodded.
"But she must be like two hundred years old?"
"Two hundred and eleven, to be precise."
Maggie pulled her knees up to her chest, shrinking back as Albert advanced.
"I...I don't understand," she said.
"We are wraiths. Half dead, half alive. Bound to this place,like tethered animals for all eternity."
"Why?" Maggie asked, wanting but at the same time not wanting to know the answer.
"Punishment. Why else?" he sneered.
"Punishment for what?"
"For cheating," Albert roared.
Maggie realised she had pushed her curiosity too far as Albert stormed round the room, thrashing his arms about. She wanted to know how he cheated but was too afraid to ask.
"My mother was the chess genius. But women weren't allowed to play. They were barred. So she had me play in her stead. She used to signal manoeuvres to me with her fingers and hands. It was foolproof until some diligent spectator cottoned on to our deception," he shouted. "He blackmailed my mother and I for all I had. And when I became sick he could no longer pay my debts to him he cursed me for eternity."
For the first time since she was dragged into his lair, she felt angry. Angry that all the time she devoted to worshipping his talent was wasted.
"I was your fan," she said. "You were the reason I learned to play. I was so inspired by you but all along you were a cheat. A phony."
"Hollow, pointless victories in comparison to my work, now," said Albert. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. "You are what I've been waiting for."
His words were so icy Maggie felt her entire body freeze. And as he swept back giving Maggie full view of the empty room, he clicked his fingers. Maggie watched in disbelief as the checker squares opened up and from beneath the floor emerged life-like statues of crowned kings and queens and black knights and black rooks and mitred bishops. They all wore stunned expressions, as though frozen where they stood.
"For the last one hundred years I have been collecting these pieces. Souls that have wandered, mostly voluntarily, into my home. They have fed my passion, my love and now my work is almost complete," he said grinning at Maggie. "You are my last pawn. The one who will take up that vacant position on the board," he added pointing to the open spot in front of the queen.
"No, never!" Maggie screamed. She turned and began scratching at the wall, frantically searching for an exit. She pushed and rammed her shoulder against the stone, feeling it crack and splinter from the impact. She cried out in pain and clutched her arm. Her heart was pounding, her skin soaked with sweat. Breathless she staggered round the room as Albert Karmac followed her with a gleeful grin and wide eyes.
"It is too late, my dear," he hissed. "Your curiosity has gotten the better of you."
Maggie fell to her knees and pleaded for her life. "I didn't mean to come in. I didn't mean to open that door. I only wanted to learn more about you."
Albert bore down on her, his arms outstretched, ready to grab her.
"And you will my dear, for you are mine now, for all eternity. The last pawn."

A slice of Sky

My name is Kerry Henderson. I'm seventeen years old, and yesterday my best friend killed himself. Nobody in the town understood how such a strong, confident, gifted and personable rugby player leapt so far off the rails. Nobody saw the signs. I did, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was in fear of my own life.

Connor Willis was fifteen years old when he was injured in a serious house fire. It killed his sister and father and left his mother so disfigured and distraught she abandoned Connor. Nobody ever heard from her again. Connor had seventy percent third degree burns over his body and was kept in an isolated chamber in the Victoria Hospital to minimise infections getting into his open wounds. I was only able to visit him a few times but to be honest it could have been anyone lying in that bed. He was wrapped from head to toe in bandages. If it wasn't for his piercing blue eyes poking through I'd have never known it was him. He was always sedated, because of the pain he was in, so I never spoke to him until he finally got out of the hospital. That was a year after the accident.

Because I wasn't family I was never told the details of his treatment but the Aunt that cared for him said the doctors had found a suitable and compatible donor for skin graft treatment. She said that he didn't have enough of his own healthy skin to cover his wounds. As far as the doctors were concerned the treatment was a complete success. The skin took to Connor well, although the doctors said that he would never look like he did before the accident. I accepted that. I was just glad he was alive.

When I saw Connor for the first time it wasn't his appearance that worried me, it was whether he'd recognise me or not. I turned up at his Aunt's house unannounced. I hadn't planned to. I was going to let Connor get settled back to normal life before I descended on him, but I was desperate to see him, to hear him talk again. I felt like a part of my life had been on hold the whole time he was in hospital. His Aunt was a little reluctant to let me in but Connor insisted it was okay. When I walked into the sitting room he greeted me as he always did with a hug, but instantly I knew something was different. His hug was nothing more than cursory. Cold. I knew Connor. We'd been friends since we were toddlers. I knew him better I think than he knew himself. He was always the warmest of my friends. I put it down to the fact that he'd been through a terrible ordeal and so wasn't quite back to normal. So I sat on the couch and caught him up with all the gossip in the town, like who was hooking up with whom-I included the teachers in that as they all seemed to be at it as well. He laughed but as I continued talking his attention seemed to drift. He'd nod his head as though he was listening but I knew he wasn't. A couple of times I caught him looking out of the window. I didn't know what drew his focus.

I didn't know, when I left Connor's house, that his recovery wasn't going to be pleasant. The weight and strength he lost during his hospitalisation never returned. Before the accident he was always the athletic type. Rugby was 'his' game as he called it. He was passionate about it to the point where he coached younger kids to play. It gave him purpose in life. But he'd lost all interest in it. They say after a traumatic experience you're never quite the same person. For Connor it wasn't that he was never quite the same, he was completely different. He'd become lazy, slobbish, unwashed. He'd gotten into a couple of fights at school and his studies began to suffer as he failed test after test. I did what I could to help him improve his grades. I even sat with him once to help him write his English essay. When he gave up on it and slumped down on the crumpled sheets of his bed I pulled his laptop towards me and finished it for him. It was never my intention to pry, but something within me was curious to see what he'd been looking at on the web. I felt so disconnected, so distant from this new Connor I was desperate to know if a sliver of the old Connor still existed, if he still had his whimsical passion for pointless road signs (I remember him showing me a photo of one that read 'This sign is not in use'. I almost broke a hip laughing at that one. He laughed with me and before long we were rolling on the floor in uncontrollable fits of giggles). But when I flicked through his laptop I was horrified by the links on his favourites to crimes, criminals, murders, weaponry, even hardcore sex. When I challenged him about it he became defensive and angry. He leapt off the bed, grabbed me by my shirt and shoved me against the wall.
"Butt out of my business," he roared.
In all the time we'd known each other we never had a cross word. We disagreed plenty of times but it never came to the point of verbal or physical abuse. I will put my hand on my heart and say that in that moment I was scared to my core. Every bone and fibre in my body trembled and all I could think about was getting out. I packed my bag and left him to finish his paper himself.
The next day at registration he was all apologetic and promised it wouldn't happen again. I told him we needed to talk.
That lunch we sat down by the old oak in the park.
"What's going on Connor?" I asked softly, not wanting to rile him.
It seemed to take forever for him to answer. He kept staring at the ground, fiddling with a blade of dry grass.
"I don't feel like I know you anymore," I said.
He glanced across at me. His eyes were swollen and heavy. He wanted to cry but didn't seem able.
"I don't know me either," he said. "It's like there's something inside me. Something evil, crawling around, consuming me from the inside out. I can feel it. I'm...I'm loosing control."
"Well, I can't disagree with you on that score. The question is how do we put this right?"
"People, doctors, medics, keep telling me that I'm traumatised. That its the accident that's altered me. "
"That's inevitable Connor. Even I accepted you'd be a little different."
"That's just it," he said. "A little different. Not a lot different. I feel like another person."
Suddenly I felt a breakthrough. He'd admitted the extent of his change. That was surely a good thing.
"I'm ashamed of it," he said, his chin slumping against his chest.
I rested my arm delicately across his shoulders. "It's not your fault. You didn't start that fire."
"That's not what I mean," he said, shying away from me. "I...I did something. Horrible."
"Connor you don't have a horrible bone in your body. Whatever it was it couldn't be that bad."
"I killed a cat!" he spat.
The revelation rocked me but I knew I had to remain calm, not because I was afraid of being hurt myself, I was afraid of loosing the connection I had finally managed to make with Connor.
"Why?"
Connor shrugged his shoulders. "It annoyed me. It kept meowing at the patio doors. So I let it in. And," Connor shuddered as he continued, seemingly horrified himself by his actions, "strangled it."
I was horrified and upset myself, especially for Mrs Higgins, the cat's owner. Mogsy was all she had.
"That's not all," Connor said.
I braced myself for another revelation, another confession of abuse.
"While I was at the doctor's surgery, having my monthly check up I swiped a bunch of hypodermic needles. I took them down to the river and threw them at the rats, like they were darts."
"We need to get you some help, Connor. I mean psychological help," I said, rubbing his arm to reassure him I was on his side.
"It was the doctors that made me this way, Kerry. I'm not trusting them to do anything."
"What are you talking about? If it wasn't for the doctors you wouldn't be here. You'd be dead."
"I'd rather be dead than...than this. Than be this thing."
"You're not a thing, you're my friend."
"I'm loosing the fight, Kerry and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it."
At this point I was getting confused by what he was saying. It was like we were both having two completely different conversations. "What do you mean, loosing the fight? Loosing the fight against who?"
"Him," Connor spat with disgust. "The one who made me who I am."
"Connor, I'm confused. You're not making any sense."
"Sky Keppler," he said. The name vomitted from his mouth like poisoned food.
"Who's that?"
"The man who donated my skin," said Connor.
The name rolled in my head trying to find the hole in my brain in which to connect with the rest of the useless knowledge that floated around in there.
"Why do I recognise that?"
"He was in prison for murdering school kids around Birmingham," Connor said.
He pulled the sleeves of his shirt up over his elbows and began feverishly scratching his skin, like he was trying to tear it off.
"He's consumed my body, Kerry, and he wants my mind next. He's already in there. I can feel it. He's a poison that coursing through me, infecting everything."
"That can't be right. That's science fiction stuff, Connor," I said.
"You don't believe me," he roared. "I knew I couldn't trust you."
He leapt up on to his feet and glowered down at me. His eyes were burning with rage, his fists were clenched ready to deliver a blow and the wafer-thin skin on his face was taught like stretched cellophane.
I could see the struggle in his eyes. His body was ready for a fight but his eyes were pleading for peace. I wanted to cry; not for me but for him.
He ran off across the park.
I tore after him but lost him through the trees. I searched for him all day and in a last attempt to find him I decided to go down to the rugby clubhouse. The place he spent most of his life.
The lights weren't on but I figured even Connor wouldn't have put them on if he didn't want to be found. I skulked round the building, peering into the windows, looking for any signs of a forced entry. Then I heard muffled cries. Not the cries of a man.
"Why have you bought me here, Connor?" snuffled a young boy. "Are we playing rugby in the dark?"
"Quit your whinging!" Connor snapped.
He was in there. My heart dropped into my feet. I had no idea what he was going to do. In the fragile state he was in he could do anything. He'd already come close to smacking me twice and I'm sure it was only the history we had together that stayed his hand. How would he fair with a child he had very little connection with? I daren't think. A wave of nausea swept across me.
"What do you need a knife for?" cried the boy.
Hearing that sent me into a blind panic. I had to get in. I had to save the boy and try and save Connor, if that was at all possible. I found myself now actually believing what Connor had told me about Sky Keppler. It was the only explanation.
Without hesitation I scrambled around for something I could use as a weapon and happened upon a heavy branch that had snapped from a tree. I pulled of the leaves and twigs and gingerly approached the door. Connor must have had a key as the door was unlocked. As quietly as I could, I unlocked it and crept inside. I had no idea what the layout of the building was and so had to feel my way around, down and round the corridors until I could hear Connor's deep voice penetrating the walls. The boy he held was now terrified and began to scream for help.
"Shut up you whiny little brat," yelled Connor.
There was then a thud that sounded like something falling, followed by screams of pain from the boy.
My hand curled round the handle of the locker room door, my sweaty palms struggling to grip it, and opened it. I was so scared my heart was thumping in my chest.
I dropped the branch realising that any weapon would be useless to me. I had to use my wits instead.
"Connor," I called out. "Are you here?"
"Get away, bitch," Connor yelled.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I'm here to help you."
"No chance of that now. I've got what I want. I'm free again."
"You're not Sky Keppler, Connor. You're name is Connor Willis. You're seventeen years old and you're my best friend."
Connor grabbed his head with both hands and shook it. "No, no, no," he yelled.
"You live with your Aunt Flora. You love rugby and play golf really, really badly. You love to laugh and you love to make people laugh with you."
Connor smacked back against the wall and slumped down on the floor. While he was distracted I grabbed the little boy and told him to run home.
When the boy disappeared through the door I approached Connor. He thrust the blade of his knife toward me to keep me at bay.
"He's mine," he shouted.
"No he's not Sky, he's mine. He's my friend."
"Kerry!" Connor cried.
"I'm here, Connor. It's me," I said, tears streaming down my face.
"I want peace," he pleaded, then his face contorted. "No, no, freedom."
Connor lifted the knife up, the blade glinted in the streetlight. Before I could stop him he plunged the knife into his throat.
"No!" I yelled. "Connor!"
Blood poured from the wound in his neck, staining his rugby and forming a syrupy pool on the locker room floor. But his life hadn't yet ebbed. I knelt down beside him and looked into his eyes. It was him. Connor. Pure Connor in those piercing blue eyes. In that last moment I saw the friend I knew two years ago. Then his eyes closed. Forever.