by D. J. McCune
Adam pretended to clutch his chest. ‘Only when I’m with you!’
Melissa shrieked and pushed him away. ‘Ew! You’re going to make me throw up in a minute. That is sooooo cheesy!’
Adam grinned. ‘Sorry. Do you want to go over to the fair? They have one of those upside-down things if you really want to throw up.’ He stood up and took her hand, pulling her to her feet, delighted to have changed the subject. They rolled up the towel and Adam slung it over one shoulder, trying to be gallant. As they wandered towards the sound of music the path grew busy with people of all ages. Some of them were eating ice creams; others were clutching stuffed toys won at stalls. There was a buzz of happiness in the air.
Somehow the happy atmosphere made it harder to bear it when his doom sense flared.
Chapter 2
dam’s stomach was his usual early warning sign but this time the pain lodged at the side of his neck. It was intense and burning, radiating down through his chest. He grabbed the sore spot and groaned.
Melissa stopped and looked at him, alarmed. ‘Are you OK?’
Adam nodded but it took a moment before he could make his mouth work. ‘I’m OK. Just pulled a muscle.’ His jaw felt numb, like it wasn’t working properly. What the hell was he going to do?
Like all Lumen, Adam had a death sense – a feeling that told him when someone had died so he could go and guide their soul into their Light. However, Adam had another ability, one that was rare even by Luman standards. He was a Seer – a Luman who could sometimes feel deaths before they actually happened. He had spent most of his life blocking his premonitions, trying to keep his ability secret from his family (who thought he had lost his ability as he grew up). Usually he kept his doom sense at bay but just occasionally it forced its way through – and sometimes it was because the victim was close by.
For a while Adam had tried to use this ability for good. He had deliberately tuned into his doom sense and gone to save the people who should have died. This was totally against Luman law and Adam had almost been caught a few months earlier, risking not only his own life but his father’s too. Since then he had forced himself to tune out his premonitions and leave the victims to their intended Fate.
But it was much easier to ignore someone who was going to die far away from you. Judging by the strength of his doom sense the next victim was close by. Maybe he or she was actually here in the park.
Melissa was still watching him, concerned. ‘Do you want me to get someone?’
Adam shook his head. ‘No!’ He drew in a deep breath and counted to five, the way he did when he was in the Hinterland. As he breathed out the pain receded and he could begin to think clearly again. ‘Sorry. I’m OK. I must have just moved my neck funny.’
He took Melissa’s hand and set off along the path, weaving in and out of the crowd, half pulling her behind him. After a minute she pulled her hand away. ‘Slow down! What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing! I just need to … see something. I’ll meet you in a minute.’ Before she could protest Adam jogged off, running along the grass to avoid getting stuck. His heart was hammering in his chest, adrenalin making him feel sick. The path ahead was jammed and he had to slow down and wait to pass between two high hedges, emerging into the open space by the funfair.
Ahead of him the park was packed. Immediately around him were dozens of colourful stalls, selling sweets and candyfloss and tempting people to have a go at shooting ducks or catching plastic fish in a whirlpool. Beyond the stalls garish machinery rose up into the air, lights flashing everywhere. The people on board screamed joyfully, as they were whirled around and flung upside down.
His first thought was that maybe something dramatic was going to happen – a rollercoaster carriage plunging off the track or someone falling from their safety harness. But when no mental image appeared he frowned and began to push through the crowd, ignoring a few pointed complaints, totally focused on finding the next victim.
As he passed the first row of stalls the pain in his neck returned with a vengeance. He clapped a hand on it, trying to massage it away, but if anything it was growing stronger until he could barely breathe. Desperately, he searched the crowd, knowing that the only way to make it ease was to see what his doom sense wanted him to see.
He was into the second row of stalls, stretching up on tiptoe as the pain intensified again. He retched in the back of his throat and spun, feeling dizzy from all the quick, painful breaths. He was going to faint. He could feel it. There was a pulsing light and then blackness behind his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to fall. He was going to die.
And then, as his knees gave way, he saw the van just a few metres from him. A man in a striped apron was smiling and handing out ice creams. Adam’s eyes ran dully over the queue and locked on a man near the front. A man who was standing with a woman and two small boys, waiting patiently for ice cream. And as Adam watched he saw it – saw it unfold right in front of his eyes, a glimpse of a very near future.
The man holding the ice creams, giving them out, then collapsing. The ice cream lying on the ground beside him and the wasp crawling onto it – the same wasp which had just stung the man, triggering a fatal allergic shock.
The pressure lifted from Adam almost immediately. The premonition had passed; he had seen what his doom sense wanted him to see. The world came back into focus. Adam was on his knees on the ground. Two women stopped beside him, one of them clasping his shoulder. ‘Are you all right, love?’
Adam nodded. ‘Yeah. Thanks. I just tripped.’ His voice sounded weak but he cleared his throat and tried to sound convincing. ‘Really, I’m fine. But thanks.’
He watched the women walk away, then turned back to the ice-cream van, his stomach knotting with anxiety. The man was still at the front of the queue, tickling the smaller of the two boys and laughing. The older child was whining and the woman spoke to him sharply. They were just a normal family having a nice day out but everything was about to go wrong.
Adam could stop the awful thing that was about to happen – but he couldn’t move. He didn’t dare to move. Because all he had ever meant to do was save people so they could enjoy their physical life a little bit longer. That was how it had all started. So what if it was cheating the Fates out of a soul? There were plenty more to choose from.
Except the Fates hadn’t seen it that way, especially the thread-cutter. In his mind’s eye Adam could still see Morta, the last thread-cutter, beautiful and blazing with anger as she had pointed the Mortal Knife at the Kingdom of Britain and threatened everyone he loved. Messing with the Fates didn’t end well – especially when they were being helped by a Luman with a grudge against the Mortsons.
Adam had been trying to save lives but more people had died than he could ever have imagined. The guilt of that would stay with him forever. He had learned his lesson. His own actions might seem small but they had consequences beyond anything he could ever have imagined. It was too great a risk intervening. It was too risky breaking Luman law – not just for his own sake but for the sake of everyone he cared about.
The man was at the front of the queue now, taking ice-cream orders from his family. He looked cheerful, laughing and joking with the ice-cream man, who was grinning back. He didn’t have any idea that he was about to die. There would be no time for him to kiss his wife or hug his sons or say goodbye to his physical life. And Adam was going to stand here and let it happen.
Except suddenly Adam found his feet moving. His brain caught up a second after his legs. Don’t be stupid! Of course you can save him! You can just get into the queue and pretend it was luck! No one needs to know you’re a Seer! How could anyone ever prove that you knew what was going to happen? You’re just a responsible citizen in the right place at the right time, brushing a wasp away from a man in a queue, just like you’d want someone to do for you!
The man was holding four cones between his cupped hands. He was bending down to hand a strawberry cone to the younger boy, who was dancing ab
out delightedly. The wasp was hovering behind the woman, buzzing against her blonde hair. The man was handing her a chocolate cone and giving the older boy a vanilla ice cream. The wasp moved from the woman’s hair to the man’s shoulder. It was crawling up his T-shirt and he was blissfully unaware, licking round his cone as pink ice cream melted along the edges.
Adam pushed into the crowd, almost knocking one of the children over. He took a deep breath, raised his hand and swiped the wasp downwards, away from the man’s neck. It was a direct hit and the wasp fell to the ground stunned. Adam promptly stood on it.
The man turned round startled. He glared at Adam and was just about to say something when an elderly woman piped up from behind, ‘Oh, well done, dear!’ Adam and the man turned in unison. She was beaming at Adam. ‘This young man just saved you from that nasty brute!’ She pointed at the ground and the man followed her finger. ‘Flaming wasps! They’re terrible this time of year. Vicious things, I do hate them!’
The man’s eyes were wide. He turned to Adam and nodded. ‘Thanks, mate. Bloody wasps. I’m allergic to the buggers. I have to carry an adrenalin pen.’ He fumbled in his pocket with his free hand, then frowned and handed his ice cream to his wife, searching the other pocket.
His wife looked furious. ‘Have you forgotten your Epipen again? How on earth can you forget it at a place like this when you know it’ll be swarming with wasps? What would you have done if it had stung you?’
‘Oh, give over, it wouldn’t have stung me,’ the man said but he looked worried. ‘We’re going home now anyway.’ He nodded at Adam again and said, ‘Cheers.’
‘No problem,’ Adam said.
‘Would you like an ice cream, dear?’ The old lady was still beaming at him.
Adam tried to smile but his heart was still thumping. He’d saved the man. Job done. Time to get out of there. ‘No thanks.’
He slipped out of the queue. Now he had to find Melissa. She was going to be so annoyed. How was he going to explain his sudden disappearance? He stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the heads of the throng but there were just too many people packing into the hot, airless space between the stalls. Great. She could be anywhere – and the longer he was away the more annoyed she was going to be.
He swept his eyes over the crowd again and they snagged on a figure in the shadow of a stall selling toy weapons. The man was tall and very still. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and the hood was up, even on this hot day. Adam felt a strange prickle down his spine. There was something familiar about the man but his face was hidden.
Adam hesitated, unsure whether to go towards the man or whether to run away – but the man made the decision for him. In the time it took Adam to think the man turned away and disappeared.
It took several minutes to find Melissa and when Adam finally stumbled upon her she was every bit as annoyed as he’d predicted. She was perched on the edge of a fountain, letting the spray mist over her. Adam couldn’t help smiling when he saw her. The mist was catching the sunlight and turning into rainbows all around her, making her look like a fairy.
She was frowning. ‘Where did you go? I was looking everywhere for you!’
Adam took her hand appeasingly. ‘Sorry. I just thought it would be nice to go and win you one of those things from the stalls. I wanted to surprise you.’ She was staring pointedly at his empty hands so he babbled, ‘It was too busy. I couldn’t get to the stalls but we could go over now?’
Melissa sighed and checked the time on her phone. ‘No, it’s OK. To be honest, I better go home. Mum will wake up soon. She usually has a nap in the afternoon and then we have some tea. And I want to call in to Alter-Eden to see if I can get some extra shifts.’
Adam nodded. Melissa had been working in Alter-Eden for a couple of years. It wasn’t his kind of place at all – it was full of vintage and alternative clothing – but Melissa loved it. Plus, now that her mum was so ill, she was the one who was helping to pay the bills. He thought about the money lying in his bank account and cringed inwardly. He would have given her money in a heartbeat but two things stopped him. First of all, she wouldn’t take it. He had tried to give her some money before, when her mum first got her diagnosis, but Melissa had refused.
Worse than that, she had asked him questions about how he could afford to hand over a month’s rent to a girl he barely knew. When he explained that his parents would never know, she had looked tense. ‘Your parents must be loaded if you can give away that much money without them even noticing.’ Things had been awkward for several days afterwards and now they never mentioned money at all. He knew they were from different worlds. It didn’t matter that his family had made that money a long time ago. He could never explain how they had done it.
They walked through the park towards the exit and the bus stops beyond. Melissa said almost casually, ‘You won’t believe who I saw in the park? Michael Bulber was there with his mates.’
Adam groaned inwardly. Michael ‘the Beast’ Bulber was the official bully of Bonehill Charitable School. His father was Mr Bulber the head teacher, known as The Bulb by his pupils because of his squat build and shiny, bald dome. The Bulb was a former professional wrestler who had been forced to leave the sport after allegedly paralysing an opponent in a dirty fight. He had passed on his vicious nature to his son, who was just about to go into the upper sixth. The Beast was generally a democratic tyrant – he dished out terror on an equal opportunities basis – but having dated Melissa briefly he held a special hatred in his heart for Adam.
‘Did he say anything?’
Melissa shook her head. ‘He didn’t see me. I think he’s finally given up on me anyway. He had some new girlfriend at Easter. She was Italian. Bella somebody.’
Adam bit his lip to stop himself sniggering. ‘Oh yeah, I heard about that.’
They had reached Adam’s bus stop. He kissed Melissa briefly. ‘Do you want me to walk round to the shop with you?’
‘No it’s OK. I won’t be there long. But are you around tomorrow night?’
Adam shook his head. ‘I’m away this weekend.’
‘Let me guess. It’s a family thing.’
Adam shrugged. ‘Kind of. I just have a really big family.’
Melissa looked at him seriously. ‘You always say it like that’s bad but you’re lucky. You’re really lucky.’
‘I guess.’
‘I wish I had a big family. It would make things … easier. With the way Mum is. People could help out.’
Adam wanted to say something heroic, like Everything will be OK or I’ll help you! But what was the point? It would be a lie. His good feelings turned down a notch. Instead, he took her hand and squeezed it and kissed her again as hard as he could.
He watched her walk away, wishing they could go home together.
The bus was stifling and crowded until it got closer to Adam’s area. It dropped him off further from his house than his usual bus did but he didn’t mind. It was still hot and summery and the air smelled like flowers and barbecue smoke. Adam sighed. Just once he would have loved to go home and find his father turning burgers and sausages on an outdoor grill but his mother would never allow it. Women weren’t allowed to guide souls but they were expected to cook, clean and run a perfect household. In spite of the hot weather Elise would be immaculately dressed and serving something complicated for dinner.
Still, as he turned into his street Adam grinned. An unlikely figure was jogging towards him, wearing a lime green vest and very tight running shorts. Her black hair was pushed back from her shiny forehead by a purple headband and she had gigantic silver headphones clamped over her ears. She reached the electronic gate at the same time as Adam and folded in half, gasping for breath and checking a timer. ‘This heat is killing me. Open the gate, will you? My hands are too sweaty.’
Adam grinned and placed his palm on the electronic scanner pad. It recognised his palm print and the high iron gates slid open without a sound. He waved at the gap. ‘After you.’
&
nbsp; Auntie Jo straightened up and groaned. ‘I swear all this healthy living will be the end of me.’ She hobbled into the garden.
Adam followed her, still smiling. Of all the many changes in his life over the last six months, the strangest thing of all had been Auntie Jo’s metamorphosis. Back in March she had been the same Auntie Jo he had known all his life: a whiskey-swigging, toast-munching, horror film fanatic. But after a particularly difficult period for the Mortsons, Auntie Jo’s drinking had begun to spiral out of control.
Nathanial had promised Adam that he would intervene. Adam had no idea what his father had said or done but Auntie Jo had begun something of a transformation. She had ditched the whiskey for a start, followed soon after by her equally addictive toast habit. She ate three meals a day and had a solitary slice of toast at bedtime. But after a few weeks she had taken things further. Adam arrived home from school to find that Auntie Jo was out walking. Over time the walking became faster walking and finally running.
Now a considerably smaller Auntie Jo spent her afternoons pounding the pavements while Adam was at school. Elise had never made any comment but Adam knew that his father was relieved. Aron kept threatening to take their aunt along to the gym with him although Adam thought that might be a step too far.
‘So where have you been this afternoon?’ They had reached the end of the long gravel drive and paused in front of the grey stone house with its graceful, leaded windows. Auntie Jo stood beside one of the yew trees, doing a series of complicated stretches.
Adam shugged. ‘Just out.’
Auntie Jo raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you start with the “just out” business! It’s bad enough that I never get a straight answer out of Luc without you getting evasive too.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Although he still isn’t out and about the way he used to be.’
Adam’s mood nose-dived further. Luc had been through a lot, not that he could remember. Adam was partly to blame for his brother’s ordeal but there was no way he could confess to anyone, least of all Luc. ‘He’s fine. He’s been out loads more the last couple of weeks.’
