Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Chapter Seventy-two
Chapter Seventy-three
Chapter Seventy-four
Chapter Seventy-five
Chapter Seventy-six
Chapter Seventy-seven
Chapter Seventy-eight
Chapter Seventy-nine
Chapter Eighty
Part Four
Chapter Eighty-one
Chapter Eighty-two
Chapter Eighty-three
Chapter Eighty-four
Chapter Eighty-five
Chapter Eighty-six
Chapter Eighty-seven
Chapter Eighty-eight
Chapter Eighty-nine
Chapter Ninety
Chapter Ninety-one
Chapter Ninety-two
Chapter Ninety-three
Chapter Ninety-four
Chapter Ninety-five
Chapter Ninety-six
Chapter Ninety-seven
Chapter Ninety-eight
Chapter Ninety-nine
Chapter One Hundred
Chapter One Hundred and One
Chapter One Hundred and Two
Chapter One Hundred and Three
Chapter One Hundred and Four
Chapter One Hundred and Five
Author’s Note
Books by Ross Welford
About the Publisher
Would you like to live forever? I am afraid I cannot recommend it. I am used to it now, and I do understand how special it is. Only I want to stop now. I want to grow up like you.
This is my story. My name is Alve Einarsson. I am a thousand years old. More, actually.
Are we friends? In that case, just call me Alfie. Alfie Monk.
South Shields, AD 1014
We sat on the low cliff, Mam and I, overlooking the river mouth, and watched the smoke from our village over on the other side pluming into the sky and mixing with the clouds.
Everyone calls the river the Tyne. Back then, we pronounced it ‘Teen’, but it was just our word for river.
As we sat, and Mam wept and cursed with fury, we heard screams from across the water. The smell of smoke from the burning wooden fort on the clifftop drifted towards us. People – our neighbours mostly – huddled on the opposite bank, but Dag the ferryman was not going to go back for them. Not now: he would be killed too. He had run away from us, stammering apologies, as soon as his raft had touched the shore.
Above the people cowering on the bank, the men who had come in boats appeared. They paused – arrogantly, fearlessly – then walked over to their prey, swords and axes at the ready. I saw some people entering the water to try to escape. They would not get far: a smaller boat waited mid-river to intercept them.
I lowered my head and buried it in Mam’s shawl, but she pulled it away and wiped her eyes. Her voice trembled with rage.
‘Sey, Alve. Sey!’ That is how we spoke then. ‘Old Norse’ it is called now, or a dialect of it. We didn’t call it anything. She meant, ‘Look! Look at what they are doing to us, those men who have come from the north in their boats.’
But I could not. Getting up, I walked in a kind of daze for some distance, but I could still hear the murder, still smell the smoke. I felt wretched for being alive. Behind me, Mam pulled the little wooden cart that was loaded with whatever stuff we’d managed to fit onto Dag’s, river ferry.
My cat Biffa walked beside us, darting into the grass on the side of the path in pursuit of a mouse or a grasshopper. Normally this made me smile, but I felt as empty as if I had been cut open.
A mile or two on, Mam and I found a cave in a deep, sheltered bay. The sun was strong enough to use the old fire-glass that had belonged to Da: a curved, polished crystal that focused the sunlight into a thin beam that would start a fire. I was scared the raiders would come after us, but Mam said they would not, and she was right. We had escaped.
Three days later, we saw their boats heading out to sea again and I made the biggest mistake of my life. A mistake that I waited a thousand years to put right.
If you want to ask me, ‘Why did you do it?’, go ahead: I do not mind. I have asked myself that many, many times. I still do not know the whole answer.
All I can say is that I was young, and very, very scared. I wanted to do something – anything – that would make me feel stronger, better able to help Mam, better able to protect us both.
And so I became a Neverdead, like Mam.
It began long ago, and when I say long ago I mean ages, literally. This is what happened.
My father had owned five of the small glass balls that were called livperler.
Life-pearls.
They were the most valuable things we possessed. Mam said that they might be the most valuable things in the world, ever.
People had killed to obtain them; Da had died trying to keep them. And so we told no one that we had them.
Now there were three left. One for Mam,