He’d cross the old-fashioned way. His lungs filled, one pace, two – and Ned let his muscles throw him across the gap. The timing was perfect.
The corners of his mouth turned towards a smile as his foot made contact with the next rooftop. And then it happened – the temperature around him plummeted, the tiles beneath his feet suddenly turning to ice.
“Urgh!”
His feet skidded along the now-frozen rooftop and his belly hit the tiles hard; he was starting to slide. “Breathe,” he whispered, and a year and a half of physical and mental training took over. Ned’s eyes closed and his hands shot out beside him. As his body flew over the edge of the roof he grabbed at the gutter, his hand like a steel vice. But there was give, too much give.
“Plastic,” he groaned.
The gutter tore from the wall and a second later he was two floors below with the wind knocked out of him and frost-covered garden grass beneath his back.
“Oww,” he managed.
Using the ice had been clever, but the man in the shadows had not finished. There was a loud voom, and from somewhere in the darkness a ball of fire raced towards Ned. He rolled and the flames changed, sputtering into raindrops before they could singe the grass below. The family at number 42 were too engrossed with the news on their television to notice the scene beyond their sliding patio doors. Ned caught a glimpse of the rolling headline.
ANOTHER KIDNAPPING REPORTED. POLICE SAY—
But he needed to focus.
Ned could think of a dozen ways to escape. An impenetrable shield of rock or iron could be yanked up from the lawn. He could disassemble the atoms of every wooden fence and brick wall between where he now stood and the safety of his home. But Ned wasn’t allowed to think for himself – rules were rules and he would have to find a quieter way. A way of escaping without his neighbours knowing he’d been there, and more importantly without them learning what Ned could do.
A smoke screen – straight out of the Engineer’s manual and, as such, allowed. Begrudgingly he thought about wood, he thought about it in every detail, the grain, the texture, the smell, till he could see the atoms in his mind’s eye. And then he speeded them up, faster and faster, heating them all the time, till the ring on his finger crackled with life and the air in the garden folded in on itself. But the Engine on his finger responded violently this time, Amplifying his frustration to make a cloud of burning black smoke, too much for his needs, and in seconds he could barely see in front of his nose, let alone breathe.
Ned’s eyes stung and he ran to where he hoped the garden fence was, before stumbling headfirst into a rosebush.
“Ow!”
The mistake had cost him, as two feet padded across the lawn, closing the gap between Ned and his assailant. He fumbled frantically on, his hands and feet found a wall, and he was over and gaining ground in a moment, the cloud of noxious smoke now blissfully behind him.
Another wall, this time lined with high fencing, another family glued to their screens. Ned wished he could be more like them, seeing the world through the safety of a telly. But the man behind him would never let go, never let him forget who he was, who he had been behind the Veil. One more wall and he was home, one more and the chase would come to an end. He made ready to leap when he saw it forming in front of him: a complex array of iron spikes, sharp and cruel, growing out of the bricks and mortar.
The work was unmistakable: only a true master could have crafted them with such precise and intricate detail.
A voice in the darkness called out to him. A voice that had watched his every move.
“What is the family motto?”
“Look before you leap,” said Ned wearily.
“And I’m glad you did, son, the guard-spikes would have been sore as hell, and your mum’s fed up with having to mend your clothes.”
“It’s not great for me, either, Dad,” said Ned. “She’s rubbish with a sewing machine.”
“Good session, though,” said Ned’s dad. “You’re improving all the time. You really slowed me down with that smoke.”
“Not enough.”
“No,” said his dad. “But you’ll get there. It’s just a matter of time.”
Ned thought of the nights stretching ahead of him, nights of training, of climbing and jumping and falling, when everyone else was watching TV.
“Great,” he mumbled.
“Yes, son?”
“Our bet; last one home has to eat seconds, right?”
“Right – so?”
“You’re still on this side of the wall, aren’t you?”
If his dad had spoken, Ned would have sensed the alarm in his voice. Actually eating Olivia Armstrong’s cooking was a fate that neither of them relished, but “seconds” were out of the question. The guard-spikes at the top of their garden wall turned to mist and were carried harmlessly away by the wind.
Ned’s dad nearly always won their bouts of training. But then his dad set the rules. Even so, there were some things Terrence Armstrong couldn’t control – Ned was younger and faster, and over the wall whilst his dad was still scrambling to find a foothold.
He landed on the other side as quietly as a cat. But even as he righted himself, he sensed that something was wrong, just before the shadow beside him moved. “How?” he mouthed, as a foot connected with his chest and he flew, arms flailing, into the family’s plastic wheelie bins.
“What is the family motto?” asked a grinning Olivia Armstrong.
“How about, ‘Social Services are going to take your son away for his own protection’,” said Ned grumpily.
“I love you too, dear,” replied his mother, before kissing him on the cheek. “And I heard every word about the sewing and the wager.”
Ned and his dad entered their home like two naughty schoolboys. It was their family’s inner sanctum and a picture postcard of pre-Christmas excitement. Presents sat lovingly wrapped under the tree, home-made decorations covered the walls and if there was hanging space, there was mistletoe. His mum even had a constant supply of Christmas carols murmuring from the radio in the kitchen. It was a cosy contrast to the bachelor lives the two Armstrong men had lived before Ned’s mum had been returned to them. Olivia Armstrong had worked tirelessly to make up for lost time and lost Christmases. Twelve years’ worth.
Ned had always wanted a “normal” life, and though they were all trying, there was one rather unavoidable issue. The Armstrongs, despite outward appearances, were not even remotely normal.
And therein lay the problem. Ned had exactly what he’d always wanted right in front of him, but, as wonderful as it was, deep down inside he knew it was a lie. Ned had seen the magic of another world and, once seen, it could never be forgotten. The more they pushed him to blend in with his old world, to go unseen, to go unnoticed – the more he realised that he couldn’t.
“You know he made me fall off a roof?” said Ned, who’d taken his throbbing back to the comfort of their sofa.