Something was reaching out from the old toy robot he carried in his pocket. He felt it moving along the edge of his thoughts. He tried to turn away, but it came flooding fast, eerie, then familiar, wonderful. He wanted to surrender to it. He tried not to.

The sounds around him faded, replaced by a hissing on the air. The room was flickering. Things slowed. The glimmering light was vast now, golden white tinged blue, moving through him. Him moving through it. His mind cleared, expanded.

A tiny noise annoyed him from far below. He turned his head and saw himself sitting down there beyond the vibrating light, beside the shouting woman, and began to piece together the command to shut her up. A distant part of his mind was pleading to stop, not now, not here, not them, but it was very weak. He looked at the old woman and formed the words.

But there was something else . . . A hand on his arm.

He could stop that, too. He could remember the words that would make them all stop, send them into the corners. But there was still something else. . . .

Lost inside his own skull, battered by thoughts from elsewhere, Alex fought to focus on the hand on his arm. He struggled against the tide of light, using the touch on his arm as an anchor, dragging himself toward it. It was David’s father. He was saying something. What was he saying? A word. A name . . .

“Alex,” David’s dad repeated. He made a wincing nod toward the commotion at the head of the table. “You all right? Think maybe we should make ourselves scarce.”

The terrible sensation was gone as instantly as slamming a door. Alex felt his mind rushing back into the here and now. It was as if he had been holding his breath under raging water and had forgotten until almost too late, then come bursting up. His legs felt weak as he stood.

Alex, David, and David’s dad huddled in the hallway, listening to the impassioned cries from the kitchen. David shuffled his feet, a little embarrassed. He caught Alex’s eye and mouthed a slow, silent Wow. Alex hoped his own trembling wasn’t obvious. The force had ripped through him from nowhere, unbidden. He’d barely managed to control it. A memory of the sensation still fizzed in his limbs.

Gradually, the noises beyond the wall quietened. David’s sisters emerged, frowned oddly at Alex, and went upstairs. A minute later, David’s mother stepped out, holding a small plastic bag. At her nod, David’s dad slipped back into the room behind her, cheerily announcing it was time for rum. She pulled the door closed softly at her back.

“Sorry, Alex.” She gave a quick smile.

“What happened to her, Mum?” David said.