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Chapters (62)
  1. Title
  2. Copyright
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Book
  6. Dedication
  7. Your Worst Nightmare
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. The Answer to All Your Prayers
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. THIRTEEN
  22. FOURTEEN
  23. FIFTEEN
  24. SIXTEEN
  25. SEVENTEEN
  26. EIGHTEEN
  27. NINETEEN
  28. TWENTY
  29. TWENTY-ONE
  30. TWENTY-TWO
  31. TWENTY-THREE
  32. TWENTY-FOUR
  33. TWENTY-FIVE
  34. TWENTY-SIX
  35. TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. TWENTY-NINE
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. Somebody Else’s Child
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. FORTY
  50. FORTY-ONE
  51. FORTY-TWO
  52. FORTY-THREE
  53. FORTY-FOUR
  54. FORTY-FIVE
  55. FORTY-SIX
  56. FORTY-SEVEN
  57. FORTY-EIGHT
  58. FORTY-NINE
  59. Sunlight on Water
  60. July
  61. September
  62. Acknowledgements

Leaning on the sill of his bedroom window, Evan watches the Freelander drive slowly up the track, rocking as the tyres find the potholes. He’s been alone for several hours, but alone is what he prefers to be, though some company is becoming tolerable to him now. He’s OK with Grandma and Grandpa in their slow, bumbling ways, he can spend time with his dad, and his mum’s all right if she isn’t being over-attentively fussy. He remembers his mum before – pretty, super-efficient Mum when she was always so busy she barely had time for him, but that was then. He hasn’t seen that mum in a long time. Mum now is nervous, anxious and worried about him, even though she doesn’t say so. She’s always giving him things he hasn’t asked for – crisps, chocolate, cans of pop, new stuff to wear. Evan’s happy to eat the crisps and chocolate and drink the pop, but he doesn’t care what he wears. It’s luxury just to have clothes that are clean and his size and his own, the same way it’s luxury to be able to get clean, to have a bath or shower when he likes, with hot water and shower gel or Grandpa’s old-fashioned soap, and towels to dry himself with that smell of fresh air from the washing-line. When he was . . .

He stops the thoughts of then, there, that place using a trick he’s invented to shut them down. Closing his eyes, he empties his head of everything but a staircase, a silver spiral fantasy of a staircase leading upwards, like one you might find in one of those computer games like Elvenar or World of Warcraft, a stairway between worlds. And in his mind he slowly climbs, counting the steps as he goes up, up, up towards blue sky where birds are flying, plump Disney cartoon bluebirds which smile and chirp as they fly around him, and land, in his mind, on his shoulders and his head. When he reaches the high top of the staircase there’s a stone platform surrounded by a wall overgrown with ivy, a sky-borne platform like the turret of a fairytale castle, and that’s where Evan stops and counts the birds. It’s like the way Mum used to tell him to count sheep when he couldn’t sleep, and he’d picture fluffy lambs jumping in a field. Now he counts bluebirds until the fear has diminished, and he feels it’s safe to open his eyes.