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Chapter 1

Richard

The rush—that’s what he would call it. The rush of incandescent energy into the core of his being, that tangible yet undefinable place so central to who he was.

He was standing at the crest of a gargantuan mountain, the world crouched beneath his feet. Everest? Energy spiralled out of his core through his arms and into his hands, which tingled as if he were holding crystalline globes of energy. Their weight, their power overwhelmed him.

He opened his arms like a cross, allowing energy to stream off his body into the night sky like an inverted aurora borealis. It felt like . . . lightning? He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and opened his mouth in exhilaration; he wanted to scream to set free such prodigious power.

If I could just reach up, I could touch . . .

Anything was possible.

Someone was speaking to him. He opened his eyes.

He was back in his bedroom, staring up at a stain next to the sleek light fixture where he had flattened a huge moth during the summer. It was imprisoned by pale lines creeping across the ceil- ing; the morning light had found the tiniest weakness in the black wall of the curtains and was pushing into the room as far as it dared.

Just a dream.

‘We are the Light,’ a voice whispered into his ear. ‘Join us.’

He sat up with a start. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

It was just the voices of his dream continuing as he woke, but they were fading, fading. Such madness in my sleep, such serenity in reality. How often it is the other way around. He took a deep breath, relieved to be back to normality. Whatever that was.

‘Time to get up, son.’ Dad’s disembodied head appeared from around the door. ‘Big day today.’

Richard gathered himself into the present and reluctantly swung his feet out of bed.

We are the Light.

He glanced back towards the bed. ‘Um, Dad?’

No answer. He must already be downstairs.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt just to take a look. He got down on his knees and peered under the bed.

‘What’re you doing, you tart?’ James towered in the doorway. He was four years older and a full two feet taller than his brother.

Richard thought quickly, then produced a mischievous grin. ‘Looking for monsters, of course. Why? What did you think I was doing?’

If he knew what I really was looking for, it would feed his comedic ‘genius’ for a lifetime.

‘You’re weird, you are,’ he retorted. ‘A word of advice—tone that down for your first day. Better get a move on.’

Phew, got away with it—just.

He thought about it over and over in the shower. He’d dreamed about the rush twice in the past week alone, leaving him tousled but energized the next morning. But the voice was new, and he wasn’t certain it was a welcome addition. We are the Light. Was that a ‘what’ or a ‘who’? He wrung his hands, twisting his skin painfully, as the idea strengthened like the morning light outside.

Back in his room, he faced his new uniform, a black blazer and trousers with a white shirt, crisp as a newly painted wall—thank God James had learned the dark art of ironing from Mum. The blazer had a badge on it with some innocuous Latin phrase underneath. He fumbled with the black-and-white tie. The knot reminded him of that terrible feeling he always got in his stomach when he worried about what lay ahead. Today, it was new teachers, new subjects, new everything. He had the hopeless sense that the world was changing and there was nothing he could do but put his head down and be a good little lamb.

He looked in the mirror at the lopsided tie. It would have to do. Will everyone hate me? Or worse, will they think I’m a nerd?

And girls—he’d never gone to school with girls before. The truth he’d never told his parents was that this was the main reason he’d picked this school over the others—well, that and the fact that James went there too. Somehow, just knowing his brother was nearby soothed him like a cool drink on a summer’s day.

Too bad summer was over.

‘Come on, tart, get it together,’ James shouted as he rushed past on the way to breakfast.

Richard groaned, but knew he couldn’t put the day off any longer. Again, his stomach churned. Why did people always use the word ‘butterflies’ when ‘knot’ was so much closer to the truth?

‘Morning, son.’

Dad was already sitting at the glass-topped table in the centre of the kitchen, deep in his morning routine of reading the Financial Times and drinking his first brew of the day. As usual, he wore a blue pinstriped suit with a white shirt and patterned tie. The air was pungent with the greasy, sweet-and-sour smell of bacon, eggs, and coffee.

Richard came around the table and dropped his things at the foot of his chair.

Ah yes, Dad and his pinstriped suits. He’s so proud of them—has them tailor-made at Savile Row. He does look good in them, though. I overheard a couple of the mothers saying so at sports day, just after Mum—

‘Don’t you look smart. Now, come here and let me help you with that tie.’ Dad stood up and reached towards the bedraggled snake around Richard’s neck. In a clatter of pottery and glass, his coffee cup lurched over the edge of the table.

Richard whipped out his hand and caught the falling cup like a toad whipping its tongue to catch a fly. Not one drop spilled.

Dad gaped. ‘Good catch.’

‘Wow, how the f—’

He caught himself almost immediately, but Dad was already instinctively glancing at the door as if at a ghost. Richard knew what he was looking for—or who. He’d seen Dad doing this a few times ever since Mum had left. Ever since she’d abandoned them. Mum hated swearing. She would’ve been standing there with her ‘telling off’ face, her eyebrows raised in a V like a cartoon witch.

Dad’s face took on a familiar sad look. ‘Sad’ wasn’t really the word for it; ‘lugubrious,’ a word he’d discovered recently in an old novel of Mum’s, was a much better fit. That’s what angered him the most about her leaving, watching Dad’s normal level of almost childlike enthusiasm fade to a shadow of its former brilliance.

Richard set the coffee cup in the centre of the table and shifted uncomfortably.

What did we do that drove you away, Mum? Was it that time I broke the glass in the conservatory window? Because I was sick all over your favourite rug? Why couldn’t you even have said goodbye? You could’ve at least told us why—why you hated us.

Dad was looking at him again, his eyes glinting in the kitchen spotlights. ‘Impressive. Since when have you been able to do that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind. You saved my favourite mug—and more importantly, my coffee. You’re Daddy’s little hero today.’

He choked back the tears and tried to swallow the snooker ball in his throat.

‘Ooh, Daddy’s little hero,’ called James from the doorway.

‘I’m not a hero. Don’t call me that.’

Dad stood up and wrapped one arm around Richard. His messy hair added even more height from Richard’s puny thirteen-year-old perspective. ‘Don’t be like that, James. You know you’re my little hero too.’

James stuck out his tongue. ‘Take that! I’m a hero too.’

Dad gulped the remainder of his coffee. ‘Right, boys. It’s time for me to go and sell some hedges.’

Richard groaned. I guess he still thinks it’s funny that I used to believe he actually sold hedges. I wonder how he came to own a hedge fund, anyway?

‘See you tonight,’ Dad called as he disappeared.

Richard moved glumly over to the table, where Dad had left the usual ingredients so he could make sandwiches for lunch. They all had to pull together now that they were only three. It seemed strange now that Mum had once done all the household chores. According to the local girls, that was an antiquated way to live, but Mum had seemed to enjoy it. She’d seen it as her place to look after the home. Out of Mum and Dad, Richard wondered who had the better deal, if either.

But doing the family chores had grown on him, and he now found them therapeutic. He finished the two sets of sandwiches with ham and cheese. Pickle on the inside to ensure bread integrity, as he put it. He pictured himself in a sandwich-making world championship where such things mattered. The commentators would scrutinize his knife skills and bread-arranging technique, giving him marks for speed and style.

‘Come on then, Hero,’ urged James. ‘We’d better get going.’

‘Stop calling me that. I’m not a hero.’

‘Whatever . . . Hero.’

Apparently, there was nothing he could do. The name had stuck.

James stopped at the hallway mirror and brushed his hair, perfecting his suave, side-parted look.

‘Let’s go,’ Richard said with a groan.

James spun around and presented himself theatrically. ‘Gotta look good for the ladies, bruv. And you’re gonna need to look cooler than that. Wait there.’

He ran upstairs, where Richard heard him rattling around in the bathroom.

‘Right, bruv, let’s try this.’ He teased a ball of hair wax through Richard’s thick black hair, just like his, to make it stand slightly on end. ‘There you go. Perfect. They’re gonna love you.’

They picked up their bags, slung them over their shoulders, and headed out of the door. They walked in silence for a few minutes.

‘First day at Wellesworth College, eh? You excited?’

‘Yeah. Kind of nervous, though.’

‘Don’t worry, bruv, it’ll be fine. And anyway, I’m always there if you need me.’

James was an old hand at the quintessentially English private school. He only had one more year to go after this one.

Richard eyed his brother without trying to appear too interested. Was he as cocky when he first started? Was he ever like me? He reached up and carefully plucked a strand of waxed hair out of his eyes.

‘Thanks, James.’