Tiffany laughed. “If you think they’re impressed with Tristan, you have to listen to what they’re saying about you, then. Walking through fire isn’t nearly as fantastic as making that wall of fire in the first place, girlfriend.” She snapped her fingers, all sassy. “I wish I’d been there to see it. They think it was the hottest thing you’ve ever done, pun intended.”
I chuckled at her. “That’s probably Seth’s talk. He thinks it’s the coolest thing to have two best friends with supernatural powers. But real life doesn’t work the way it does in the comics he reads all the time, you know.”
“It’s not only Seth. Harry was really psyched about your last adventure, too. He said he ran through the woods fleeing from angry wasps, jumped off cliffs, swam in a lake full of deadly crocs, fought against weird shadows . . . Did you guys really do all that?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Yeah . . . but it wasn’t quite so much fun when it was happening, though. It was pretty scary, actually. Harry might make it sound like it was cool, but it was really dangerous. So don’t mind the boys and their excitement, Tiff. I’m doing this to keep us all safe, trust me.”
“I know.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “And how about those League folks? No sign of them?”
“No. I think Simon and Craig have been true to their word and haven’t told on me. Let’s hope they keep it that way.”
“Good, good.” She nodded, resting back on the couch. “If anyone ever comes to bother you, though, you let me know. My family knows people who know people who are very efficient at making troubling people go away . . .” And she made a hand gesture of a knife slicing across her neck.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Tiffany! Are you serious?”
She glanced at me. “I’m joking, silly!” she said, with a playful smile. “But they really do go away for good . . .” she muttered under her breath.
I chuckled at her over-protectiveness. Tiffany was as fierce as I was when it came to protecting friends. “Thanks, Tiff, but that won’t be necessary. For now, it seems we’re off the hook. I just need to keep it on the down-low, stay normal, and we should be fine.”
“All right, then.”
“It was really nice of Craig to cover my tracks at the camp. I think he may have risked a lot doing that. I wonder what this Top League might do to him if they ever find out he’s been lying to them . . .”
“It’s cool that he got to tell you all those things about your dad, too, huh?” she risked saying, knowing what a touchy subject this was with me.
“Yeah . . .” I fidgeted, toying with the cupcake wrapping. “Do you know that since recovering my memories, a lot of things that I didn’t even realize I had been repressing have started to come back to me? Like, memories of my dad when I was very little. I’ve started to remember them now . . .”
“Really? That’s really cool, Joey! What have you remembered?”
“I’ve remembered that he played the guitar to calm me down, and that he used to sing to help me go to sleep. That’s why music moves me so much . . . he played to make me happy. I’ve loved music since I was a baby, because of Dad. I learned it from him.”
“That’s so lovely . . . All I learned from mine was merciless tactics and business strategies to crush the competition . . . oh, and Monopoly! It’s all we played as I grew up. God, how I hated that bloody board game,” she reminisced. “What else did you remember, Joe?”
“It’s mostly fragmented memories of his face, his voice . . .” My throat constricted when I thought of his voice. It was my most treasured memory. Sometimes, if I closed my eyes and concentrated hard enough, I could hear him singing, as if he was in another room, far away . . . “Let’s stop talking about him or I’m going to start crying,” I said in a shaky voice, and gave her a faltering smile.
“Yeah, okay. Sorry.” She dabbed at her own eyes, getting emotional seeing me emotional.
“The important thing is that I know about my father’s past now, and have learned how important it is that I keep away from magic. No one will ever know about what I can do. We covered all tracks at the camp and left no clues . . . No one will ever know,” I repeated reassuringly. “From now on, I will focus only on my music, my friends, Mom and Tristan. I really think we can live a normal life, Tiff. You’ll see, everything is going to be fine.”
“Well, let’s drink a toast to that, then!”
She raised her glass to meet mine, and together we cheered a happy new magic-free life.
Epilogue
A Glimpse Ahead
An old man stared at the view through a big glass window, but his eyes were glazed over as his mind wandered elsewhere, in a time long gone and a place far away from the two-storey mansion where he now spent most of his days.
The intercom buzzed, forcing him to pull away from the past and focus on the present matters at hand.
“Yes?” His voice was cold and collected, as usual.
Very few were capable of making him lose his temper, and he was proud to boast of his unrelenting self-restraint. But despite his cold demeanor, everybody knew about the destructive fury the old man concealed beneath that cool façade. If you were wise, you’d do anything not to be on the receiving end of his wrath.
He enjoyed seeing the fear in people’s eyes as much as he enjoyed basking in the blind allegiance engendered by that fear.
“He has arrived, sir,” the voice on the line promptly reported. The guard at the front iron gates had been instructed to call him the second the car passed by him, and so he’d dutifully called as ordered.
The old man put the phone back without replying. Now he had enough time to rein in his excitement and collect his thoughts, so when his nephew entered his office, he would seem in control, as he should always appear to be.
He tapped his gold pen impatiently on the carved mahogany table as he waited, but stopped immediately when he heard the knock on the door. Controlled people don’t tap pens impatiently on their tables, after all.
“Come in,” he ordered calmly.
He was pleased to see the boy had come straight to him – as instructed – and hadn’t wandered around the mansion, wasting his time. The boy was already late as it was, and he pursed his lips to let that fact be very clear to the dark-haired youngster fretting quietly in the doorway.
“I’m very sorry about the delay, Uncle. I came back as soon as I had all the information you needed. Our informant was an hour late, you see. He said he had trouble getting out of his meeting with the headmaster.”
“I hope he had interesting things to share to compensate for the time he’s kept us waiting,” the old man grumbled, irritated. He did not like to be kept waiting. It showed lack of respect, and he didn’t appreciate being disrespected at all.
“He apologized profusely, sir. It wasn’t his fault: the meeting took longer than he’d expected, and when it was over he had to linger behind at the compounds for a while so they wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“So what is the news, boy? What did he have to say? Spit it out.” He let his cool façade slip for a moment, but quickly recomposed himself. “I have a lot of important things to take care of, here. Let’s not waste more of my precious time.”
“Yes, Uncle, of course. The informant told me all about the infiltrator’s report on the Annual Gathering investigation . . .” The boy hesitated because he knew the news he had to share wasn’t the best.
“Did he tell you who they sent to investigate?”
“I believe it was a Craig Simms who was sent, sir.”
“Simms? Isn’t he the one with the mind powers?”
“I believe he is, sir.”
“And what did Craig Simms have to say?”
The boy shifted on the spot, knowing full well that his uncle was not going to like hearing what was coming next. “Well . . . it seems there’s been a problem of miscommunication, sir. The person attending the Gathering was a Joey Gray, sir. A girl.”
“A girl?” The old man
asked, surprised.
“She’s a girl, not a boy. It’s not his son, sir. Sorry.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, sir. They have gathered a lot of testimonials from people attending the Gathering, to confirm the report. They all claim the same thing: Joey Gray is a girl, sir.”
“And what did the informant say about all the strange rumors coming from this camp?”
“It seems they were all about this other kid, the youngest son of the Blaines. He was the one causing a stir in the grid. Apparently, he’s started to develop abilities as well, like his older brother, Cillian Blaine. They are having trouble recruiting the boy, though. His mother is reluctant to release him into their hold. That was the major point discussed at their meeting.”
“So this Joey girl had nothing to do with anything?”
“No, sir. The Blaine kid was present during all episodes. The girl was there for one, but at another there were some boys involved, and in another a Filipino girl, I think. Blaine is the only common factor in all occurrences.”
“What is the boy capable of doing?” he asked curiously. It was always better to be up to date and prepared for the future. Information was the highest form of power in these modern times.
“He can make his fears become real.”
“Hmph. What good can that do?” he grumbled in disappointment. “What a waste of ability.”
He tapped the gold pen on the table, mulling over the information he’d just received. “What else?”
The boy fidgeted on the spot again. He hadn’t been invited to sit, so he remained standing in the middle of the room, looking uncomfortably at his uncle on the other side of the huge antique desk. “Hmm, that’s it, Uncle. There’s nothing more to say. The informant said they were very disappointed to hear Craig’s report too, sir. They had high hopes that this time it could be a real lead to Jonathan.”
“The blame’s on them. They trained Jonathan well . . . too well,” he muttered in a grim tone, looking out of the window. “It’s been twenty-one years without a clue. He surely must have had someone helping him cover his tracks during all this time. Jonathan was never good at being cautious.”
“I’ve heard the stories,” the boy said.
“Hmm, yes. Especially with his ability, he was bound to lose control . . . I thought that, sooner or later, we would hear about something, surely . . .”
“Maybe he decided to stop using it. That way none of you could track him down.”
“Maybe,” the old man murmured. “But I doubt it. Jonathan was also never good at self-restraint. I find it hard to believe he’d be able to contain himself all this time.”
He stared at his laptop screen, deep in thought. He made sure that he mastered all new technology, determined not to be like his old friends, who refused to adapt and learn new things. The world belonged to the ones who knew how to adapt.
You stopped moving with the times, you ended up being engulfed by the world.
You stopped learning, you lost the game.
“There’s something we’re missing here . . .” He rubbed his chin and tapped a finger on the table. “Old Violet wouldn’t just take this Gray girl under her wing for nothing . . . that’s not like her. The old hag has never had interest in anyone before. And the Harkers wouldn’t make an exception and take on a tutorship for just anyone, either. There’s certainly something about this girl we’re not seeing.”
“It doesn’t even matter, Uncle. She’s not a boy; she can’t be related to Jonathan. You know that. She has nothing unique or special about her. Craig confirmed this to everyone in that meeting room. She’s just a dumb, poser girl, in a stupid goth band, is all.”
“She’s in a band?” he asked with a frown.
“Yeah, it’s called . . . What was it again? Some Peter Pan bullshit thing,” the boy muttered, feeling cross. He wanted to leave, already. He was getting tired of standing there, and tired of talking all day long. He wanted to get out of that office and go relax with his friends. His uncle’s persistence on this subject was starting to get on his nerves, because the point they were discussing was moot: she was a girl and therefore could not be related to the Grays. It was stupid to waste time digging things up about her. He wasn’t suicidal enough to tell that to the old man’s face, though.
His uncle watched him sulk for a while, before finally allowing him to go. “If there’s nothing else you have to tell me, you may leave. I have a lot of work to do, here.” He dismissed his nephew with a wave of his hand, and the boy left as quickly as possible.
“Let me see . . .” He then turned his attention back to the laptop in front of him, and typed a few words into a search engine. The search for “Joe Gray” and “Peter Pan” yielded a lot of links related to a current rock band named The Lost Boys, and he clicked on the first image link in the list.
He crossed his fingers under his chin and looked at the downloaded picture for a long time, as he tried to calm his thoughts and return to a level, controlled state of mind.
The photo of five boys and one girl, who was in the middle of the group, was open in his browser, taunting him. He did not care for the boys. They were mere background to him, unimportant scenery. But the girl . . .
She had inky black hair and dark eyes, as she should. All Grays were famous for that particular genetic trait, even though his own hair had long since gained a grizzled hue, due to his old age. She was very pretty, too. And she looked very determined and, he even dared say, fierce, in this particular photo.
He knew that look all too well, because he had seen it countless times, in his own son’s face.
She was the spitting image of Jonathan Gray: a younger, female version of him, staring back at him through the laptop screen.
“Well, hello, there, Joe Gray,” the old man said triumphantly, unable to hide a smile. “It looks like you are not a false lead, after all.”
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted inwriting by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781448176588
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © Lilian Carmine, 2015
Lilian Carmine has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in 2015 by Ebury Press
www.eburypublishing.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 9780091953430
Lost and Found Page 26
