Under the high sun, his shadow was pure light. He was the magnifying glass, focusing the heat onto pinpoints of ground that simmered and caught behind him. The same pure light was coming from where Henry stood, billowing out into the morning in clouds of dazzle and luminous smoke. Novo picked me up suddenly and swung me around so the rest of the garden was a blur of color. He was a disco ball on the ceiling, setting off quick bouncing sparks of fire all around us. When he put me down, the light pouring from Henry’s window began to splutter and fade, faintly at first and then with gathering speed. I could still see the bright thread, but the thick clouds were diffusing into the sky, a paintbrush dipped in water.

I pictured the Henry I’d met, stuck in those rooms with that dodgy bird and that rank soup and that rickety old laptop, pretending to travel. How could an old man like that have such an impact on this boy?

Novo was still looking up at him.

“What are you thinking?” I said.

“I’m wondering what I can do. I’m hoping he’s all right.”

“He never leaves the house,” I said. “I mean, never.”

“No. He can’t.”

“Oh, you knew that already?”

He smiled. “I’m not even sure.”

All the people in the garden, helping themselves to things, and not one of them looked up and saw the thread of light, those brilliant, fading clouds. Not one of them noticed the tiny fires that peppered the lawn. It’s staggering, the things we miss when we’re not searching for them, but facing the wrong direction, looking down.

“Am I the only one who can see this?” I said, and Novo looked at me then, his arms still round my waist.

“Yes, Jude,” he said. “You are the only one.”

He moved and his shadow moved and the tiny fires followed. They burned a hole in one of Mrs. Midler’s evening dresses. They ate through someone’s raincoat, the plastic blistering and puckering in the heat.

“You’re setting fire to everything,” I said. “Look.”

“Am I?” he said.

The garden began to empty around us, people drifting away with their new junk, the party suddenly over. Upstairs, Henry’s window rattled shut.

Novo said, “I’d like to check on him. Let’s go back inside,” and the glow in him faded too. All the fires went out at once and his shadow went back to what it should have been, same as everyone else’s, just an absence of light.

FOURTEEN