Mindscape

by M. M. Vaughan

  For the boy who once told me he wished he had special powers.

  Thank you to all my amazing friends and family and the incredible team at Simon & Schuster. And a special mention to: Rūta Rimas (editor extraordinaire), Tina Wexler and Stephanie Thwaites (my wonderful agents), Paul Crichton & Siena Koncsol, Federico & Kathy Meira, Mary Jane Vaughan & Peter O’Regan, Jessie O’Regan, Andres Meira & Cinthya Chavez, Margaret Rosenheck, Candy Seagraves, Amanda Nixon, Laura McCuaig, Alex O’Brien and Joanna McCracken. Also: Lily & Chloe Reneau; Lucia Meira; Eli Seagraves; Lila, Elsie, Willoughby & Rufus Metternich; Oliver & Alexander Lawson; Katie, Aurora, Maya, Abby, Robin & Rosemary Lesinski; Sophie and Elliot Wright; Toby Johnson; Ben—who came to see me at Blue Willow Books in Houston on his 12th birthday—and Felix & Anya Donald. Finally, Mark and Emilia Johnson—my two favorite people in the world.

  • PROLOGUE •

  A storm was brewing over Darkwhisper Manor. The skies were a deep, dark gray, and the wind, increasingly angry, tore through the grounds of the estate, surrounding the imposing building with a low howling sound that shook the windows as if trying to find a way in.

  It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, but already lights were being switched on in homes across the country as families took shelter indoors from the bitter cold. And yet, although the house wasn’t empty, Darkwhisper Manor showed no signs of life from the outside—not a single light or flickering reflection of a roaring fire. Nobody would have guessed, had they managed to somehow overcome the practically impenetrable security of the manor, that inside, a pale twelve-year-old boy was living alone, grieving for his dead twin brother and his traitorous mother.

  • • •

  Unlike his identical twin, Ernest Genever had always been a sensitive boy. He had cared for injured animals, cried when his mother punished his brother (more so than when he was punished himself), and always sought to please the only two people he had ever really known, no matter how little he received in return. It was all the more surprising, therefore, that he had not shed a single tear since the moment he had finished digging his brother’s grave. In fact, in spite of only ten days having passed since his brother’s death and his mother’s arrest, Ernest was now barely recognizable, as if another being had entered his body. And, in a sense, that is exactly what had happened. The day Mortimer Genever was killed and Dulcia Genever had unknowingly revealed that her sons meant nothing to her was also the day the sweet and gentle Ernest Genever died.

  • • •

  Ernest sat at one end of the long, antique dining room table and looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of him. The howling from outside filled the large, dark-paneled room, but Ernest paid no attention. Instead, he slowly placed his hands palms down on either side of the page and turned his head toward the worn-down pencil lying next to it. In his mind, he focused on a single image, an image that had been burned deeply in his mind, and then, using his Ability—the mind powers that he had acquired only four months earlier—he watched as the pencil shook gently and then slowly lifted itself up vertically into the air. Ernest kept his mind focused as the pencil moved across and then lowered itself down on the paper. Keeping his hands facedown in front of him, he watched as his mind began to move the pencil across the page, gently, almost hesitantly at first, scratching faint lines across the white paper. Ernest furrowed his brow, and the pencil pressed down harder and began to move faster and faster until it was furiously filling the paper with deep black lines. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. The pencil rose off the page, hovered for a moment, and collapsed onto the table, lifeless once more. Ernest pushed his chair back and stood up slowly. It was only then that he looked down at the picture that his mind had created: a picture of his brother’s killer, a boy named Christopher Lane.

  Ernest leaned over, picked up the paper and a brass tack lying on the table, and walked over to the wall behind him. Holding the picture up against the only piece of the dark wood paneling still visible, he pushed the pin in and then stepped back. He turned slowly around, the anger rising up inside him as he stared at the drawings that now wallpapered the room, the drawings of the boy who had murdered his brother, and he realized he was ready: It was time for revenge.

  • CHAPTER ONE •

  Wednesday, January 2

  Christopher Lane stood on the sidewalk outside his house, his bags at his feet, and waited for the car that would take him back to school. He was half an hour early but was eager to get away, exhausted by the silence and tension in his house. It had been a difficult few days. His mother had not once celebrated Christmas with him in the seven years that had passed since his father’s death, and so, as usual, there had been no gifts exchanged, his efforts for their Christmas meal had gone unmentioned, and he had watched the New Year’s celebrations on the television by himself while his mother slept upstairs. This year, however, he had had even more to contend with—not the least of which was that he had barely slept the entire time, his mind plagued by the memory of the boy he had killed. Chris had always managed to cope on his own, but for the first time in years, he had needed his mother. And she had let him down.

  So much had changed since his twelfth birthday: His scholarship at Myers Holt Academy, the exclusive government school that he had enrolled at only a few months earlier, had included the payment of bills and renovations to his house. Everything possible had been offered to his mother to help her, and Chris had expected that for his mother, as much as for himself, this marked a new beginning. Instead, she had ignored it all, choosing to remain locked in self-pity. It was a decision that Chris could not begin to understand. He missed his father every day, but if he, at twelve years old, could understand that life had to go on, then surely so should his mother.

  He had watched her over the last few days, staring blankly at the television, looking up only to bark orders in his direction, and any sympathy that he had previously felt completely disappeared. That morning, he had packed his bags with the clothes that his new school had bought for him and a photograph of his father and left without bothering to wake his mother up. He doubted that, even if she noticed he had left, she would care. Chris resolved to think no more of it until he returned home—which, assuming he was allowed to remain at school on their free weekends, would not be until the Easter holidays in three months’ time.

  • • •

  “Oi—you, Twist!”

  Chris jerked his head round at the sound of the familiar voice. Kevin Blunt, his old nemesis, who had made his life a living nightmare at his old school, was walking quickly toward him, his gang following behind. For a split second, Chris felt himself tense up, before suddenly remembering what he was now capable of. He stood straight and watched the boys approach.

  “Whatcha doing?” asked Kevin, looking down at the bags by Chris’s feet. “Your mum thrown you out?”

  Arch, Kevin’s gormless sidekick, and the other boys laughed.

  “I’m going back to school,” said Chris.

  “Oh, yeah, didn’t you get into that special school?” asked Kevin.

  “That’s right,” said Chris.

  “What is it, a school for poor thieves who can’t take a beating?”

  “Something like that,” said Chris, refusing to let Kevin rile him.

  Kevin, on the other hand, grew increasingly agitated by Chris’s calmness.

  “Hope you’ve learned something, then, ’cause I reckon I owe you a beating,” said Kevin. He walked up to Chris and looked him square in the eyes.

  “I don’t think you want to do that, Kevin,” said Chris, looking around to make sure the coast was clear.

  “Oh, yeah, and why’s that?”

  “Because last time you threatened me with a beating, you ended up sitting in a tray of custard.”

&nb
sp; Arch and the other boys laughed. Kevin’s face turned red.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  The boys all stopped laughing immediately. “Uh, nothing,” they all mumbled, looking down at their shoes.

  “Good. You got lucky last time, Twist,” said Kevin, turning back to face Chris.

  “I can do it again, Kevin, so back off,” said Chris, surprised at the confidence he had now that he knew about his Ability, the powers that all twelve-year-olds had for one year only. Lucky for Chris, this was a well-kept secret—one that Kevin, although twelve himself, was completely in the dark about.

  Kevin frowned but didn’t respond. His eyes went down to the bag at Chris’s feet. Chris could tell Kevin was unnerved by his confidence.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Just clothes.”

  Kevin bent down.

  “Don’t touch it,” said Chris, but it was too late. Kevin had already unzipped the bag.

  “What?! Where did you get these from?” asked Kevin, pulling out a pair of designer sneakers that had been bought for him by the teachers at his new school after he had run away from home carrying nothing.

  “They were a present,” said Chris, grabbing them out of Kevin’s hands.

  “Yeah, right. Still robbing, then,” said Kevin, pulling out some more clothes from Chris’s bag.

  Chris looked down at Kevin, and he clenched his jaw in anger. He breathed in deeply, reminding himself that the use of the Ability without the permission of his school was strictly banned.

  Kevin, taking advantage of Chris’s silence, continued to rummage through the bag.

  “Get your hands off my stuff!” said Chris.

  “What’s this?” asked Kevin, pulling out the photograph of Chris’s father in his military uniform. Kevin smiled. If there was one thing he knew, it was that the surest way to rile Chris was to mention his family.

  “Don’t touch that!” said Chris.

  “If he was anything like you,” said Kevin, looking at the picture with a smirk, “he probably died trying to run away. The world’s a better place with one less coward from the Lane family.”

  “He was a hero—not that you’d know anything about what that means,” said Chris, leaning forward to grab the picture.

  Kevin snatched it away and held it up over his head. For a moment, Chris and Kevin stared at each other, and then, before Chris had a chance to react, Kevin opened his hand and the picture fell to the ground, the glass shattering all around their feet.

  In that instant, Chris forgot all about the rules of Myers Holt and the consequences of using his Ability out in the open. He looked up at Kevin, and his mind went blank.

  Arch and the rest of the gang, who had been laughing up until that point, turned silent as they watched Kevin begin to shake.

  “Uh . . . what’s happening?” asked Kevin, suddenly looking very frightened. “Why am I—”

  Before Kevin had a chance to finish the sentence, he flew straight up into the air, as if he were a rocket launched full throttle into space.

  “Help me!” he screamed, but his friends didn’t react—they stayed rooted to the spot in shock as they watched Kevin flying up past the lampposts.

  “Nobody insults my dad,” said Chris, never taking his eyes off Kevin, who was now a small figure way up past the rooftops.

  And then, when he’d reached the point where he was barely visible anymore, Kevin stopped rising. For a moment, there was total silence as everybody watched Kevin, too high to be heard, flail about uselessly.

  Chris furrowed his brow and placed the image of Kevin being thrown about in the air into his mind. As soon as he had done so, Kevin immediately began to move again, this time looping the loop over and over again.

  “AaaaAAARRGHHaaaaargh . . .” Kevin’s screams increased in volume as he neared the ground, upside down, and faded out again as he was lifted up into the skies once more. Chris was about to throw Kevin into another loop when a booming shout interrupted him.

  “Christopher!”

  Chris jerked his head round, and immediately his focus was broken. There, to his horror, he saw the two figures of John and Ron, the security guards from Myers Holt Academy, standing by a long black car with darkened windows. The car doors were still open from where they had jumped out.

  Chris hesitated and then opened his mouth to try to explain what had happened, but a loud screeching sound interrupted him.

  “mmmmmUUUUUMMMMYYYY!”

  Chris looked up and saw Kevin freefalling back to Earth, his voice now loud and clear. John took three enormous strides forward, put his bulging arms out, and caught a whimpering Kevin with a soft thud. John leaned forward, then placed Kevin gently on his feet, his legs still trembling so hard that he fell backward into Arch, who put his arms out to hold him steady.

  “What did you do?” blubbered Kevin, tears pouring down his face. “What was that?”

  Chris was about to respond when Ron, wearing his trademark sunglasses and black suit, stepped forward and grabbed Kevin by the scruff of his neck. Although half the size of the gigantic John, Ron nevertheless cut a very intimidating figure when angry.

  “Now you listen here, and the rest of you too. You saw nothing. You heard nothing. In fact, if anybody asks, you’re going to tell them you had a nice day at the park. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” whispered Kevin.

  “Good. Now tell me, what did you do today?”

  “We went to the park,” said Kevin, his bottom lip wobbling.

  “And what did you do there?”

  “We . . . um . . . played soccer?”

  “Good,” said Ron. “Now, before you boys run home crying, I think there’s something you need to know. Unfortunately for you all, you are looking at two of the government’s top agents, which basically means we know everything. Isn’t that right, John?”

  “That’s right, Ron,” said John, his arms folded across his enormous frame.

  “You can’t so much as sneeze without us finding out about it,” continued Ron, “so, if we hear that one of you has breathed a word of what happened today, there will be consequences, and believe me, with the connections we have, the police won’t be coming to your rescue. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Kevin, nodding his head vigorously, still sniffling.

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now get out of here.”

  The boys all looked up at Ron—their eyes wide and teary, their bodies shaking with fear.

  “Scram!” shouted Ron, and without giving Chris another look, Kevin turned and ran off, the other boys following quickly behind him.

  “Come on, Christopher, let’s get this mess sorted out,” said John, stooping to pick up Chris’s bag.

  Chris knelt down and started to pick up the clothes and shoes scattered about the pavement. “I’m going to be in so much trouble, aren’t I?”

  “Only if your teachers find out about it. We’re not planning on telling anybody, are we, Ron?”

  “I didn’t see anything at all, John, did you?” said Ron, picking up the shards of glass and placing them in a nearby bin.

  “Not a thing, Ron,” said John, picking up the photograph of Chris’s father. “Bit of an accident here, though, but it’s nothing that Maura won’t be able to sort out. I’m sure she has a spare frame you could put this into.”

  “Thank you,” said Chris. “I didn’t think . . . It’s just that . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain anything, son. We saw what that boy did as we drove up. I’d have done exactly the same if I’d been in your position.”

  Chris smiled, grateful to be back around people who genuinely cared for him. He put the last of his clothes back in the bag and zipped it up.

  “Right, then, let’s forget all of this and get you to school. Your friends are waiting for you.”

  • CHAPTER TWO •

  Without the usual morning school traffic, the streets of London were qu
iet and the journey to Myers Holt Academy took only ten minutes. Chris had been away for only a few days, but it had felt like a lifetime, and though he knew he shouldn’t be, he was surprised to see that his school looked just as it had at the end of last term. The building was just as tall and imposing as all the other buildings on Montague Street, and nothing about it suggested the secrets it held within. As Chris stepped out of the car he thanked John and Ron. Then, his bag slung over his shoulder, he made his way to the top of the steps.

  The door began to open before he had a chance to ring the doorbell.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Christopher Lane!” Maura, the school’s housekeeper, opened the door wide, and before Chris had a chance to say hello, he was swept up in a big, warm hug.

  “Ah, look at you, pet, you must have grown a foot since I last saw you.”

  “It’s only been a few days, Maura,” said Chris, smiling and slightly embarrassed as Maura ruffled his hair.

  “A few days is long enough—I’ve missed you all. Philip is downstairs—the rest will be along in just a moment, I’m sure. Now tell me, did you have a nice Christmas? Did you eat enough?”

  Chris opened his mouth to answer, but Maura was already walking ahead of him down the bare corridor, jabbering away.

  “There’s a late breakfast waiting for you downstairs, and fresh sheets on the beds. Do you need me to do any laundry for you?”

  “No, thanks, I washed everything yesterday,” said Chris, stepping into the small kitchen behind Maura. He closed the door and looked over at the dirty, cluttered counter.

  “Can I?” asked Chris, nodding his head in the direction of the kettle.

  “May I,” said Maura, correcting him. “And yes, course you may, love.” She squeezed herself against the wall to let Chris through.

  Chris reached over and pressed his thumb onto the kettle’s switch.

  Maura smiled back at Chris as the room began to shake. Chris put an arm out to steady himself as the room dropped, beginning a thirty-second descent.