Neither of them spoke for a long time, but James was expecting something to happen at any moment. There were heartbeats in his wrists. His skin was paper-thin. So when his stepfather stood up suddenly, scraping back the chair, and walked towards him, James was ready. But, instead of cowering or moving away, he stood tall, looking straight up into his stepfather’s eyes, just as Webster had told him to do.
‘I forgive you,’ he said quietly.
‘You’ve got that the wrong way round,’ growled the man and slapped the table top beside him.
James wobbled. He swallowed down the ringing in his ears. And he kept standing tall, remembering the instructions Webster had whispered before leaving him surrounded by the people at the fair, with their murmurs and their gasps, as they had crowded him like cattle. He heard those last three words again.
Don’t be scared.
‘I forgive you for everything you’ve done.’
His stepfather’s head jerked to the right as if he had been slapped across the jaw.
‘What did you say?’
‘For everything you’ve done and what you’re doing now.’
The man curled his fingers into a fist and raised it.
Don’t be scared.
‘I forgive you for what happened to Mum,’ said James, choking on his tears. ‘I forgive you. I do. And I’m sorry too, for everything I’ve ever said.’
His stepfather’s fist trembled as if some great force was attempting to break it apart. Looking down at the boy, he tried to say something, but the words caught in his chest and all he set loose was a whimper.
James’s eyes seemed to swallow him whole.
Don’t be scared.
‘I forgive you,’ whispered James again. And each word was made of steel. And his stepfather shrank beneath their weight as though unable to bear them, his knees buckling, his shoulders hunching, and his arms tucking in and folding across his chest.
He whispered something and James bent closer to hear. And, when the man repeated it and reached out and held his hand, James nodded gently and whispered something back.
He stood awkwardly over the sobbing man, recalling what the vicar had told him and Webster in the church that day.
The best and the simplest way to defeat dark and evil things is through love.
And he glanced up, out of the window, remembering the first time he had met Webster, and saw the house still there, sitting like a boulder on the hill.
And then he had to look away.
James walked up the hill towards the house. It was nothing more than a grey stone lump of a building with a rotten roof, and crumbling walls, and ceilings fogged with cobwebs. But he wanted to be alone there, with his dreams and ideas, which he knew were chalked up on the black painted wall in the biggest of the bedrooms.
As he began remembering everything he had ever written there, he drew out the newspaper cutting, which no one had been allowed to take from him, and his hand shook as he stared at the picture of himself. And then he tore the cutting into strips and threw them away into the wind. He wondered if anyone else might be watching. And he smiled in case they were and they were smiling too.
When he reached the rotten back door, which had once been white and full of glass, he dragged it open and ran straight through the kitchen, then up the wooden staircase, and arrived breathless on the landing. He waited as he caught his breath, remembering the first time he had seen Webster sitting on the old sofa, looking at the wall, and then he tried hard to think of all the good things that had happened after that.
His heart prickled as he walked into the bedroom and saw the empty seat and the dent in the cushions, so he looked away, staring up at the writing on the wall.
Something caught his eye immediately, written in a different hand in the bottom left-hand corner.
Your mum’ll be proud of you whatever you do . . .
. . . and so will I.
James read it over and over until he heard Webster speaking the words, as if the man was close by in a place the boy couldn’t see. And then he took a tissue from his pocket and ran it up and down the wall, erasing everything he had ever written there, leaving only the words that Webster had written.
Chalk dust swirled. It made him cough and his eyes itch. And he walked to the big bay windows, and prised one open and breathed in the warm, clean air.
As he looked out, he noticed for the very first time that the trees, which had grown up in the fields and the hedges in the distance, had done so without the hand of man. And, as he looked down on to the grass verges on either side of the lane, looping down around the hill, he knew the plants there would die and then grow up again according to a story far older than anything imagined and written down in books.
Turning back to look at the wall, he stopped when he noticed a single flower growing by his foot, snaking up out of a spot where the floorboards met the wall. He knelt down in front of it, wondering how long ago the seed must have snagged and taken root.
The red oval petals were arranged perfectly in a ring, each one overlapping the other, radiating from a pimpled yellow centre crusted with pollen.
Its fine white hairs prickled his fingers as he grasped the slim green stem.
Staring into the delicate face of the flower, his hand began to shake as he sensed a whole host of mysteries contained there that he could never hope to understand. Letting go, he closed his eyes and was amazed at what he discovered as he stared into the dark inside him. For it was full of the same mysteries too.
And James could not remember a time when he had ever noticed such a thing before.
Acknowledgments
Writing this book has taught me that an author does not create a novel alone and I would like to thank everybody who has helped me along the way.
In particular I would like to thank Clare George for all her guidance as well as Ahmad Abu-el-ata, Marilyn Denbigh, Bella Honess Roe, Joe Marriott, Felicity Notley, Stephanie Smith, Shelley Instone, Emma Timpany and Olly Wicken who provided me with their valuable thoughts and comments.
This book would not have been possible without Madeleine Milburn, who works so hard, believing in the words I write and encouraging others to believe in them too.
I am indebted to my editor, Jane Griffiths, for all her patience and input and to all at Simon & Schuster, especially Ingrid Selberg, Kat McKenna, Laura Hough, Elisa Offord and to Paul Coomey for all his hard work creating the cover.
In addition I must say thank you to all those who have supported me during the writing of this book - The Queen Street Writers, Telltales, Dave Couch, Angus and Hester Macdonald, Nick Roe, Priscilla Short and Matt Wheeler.
Thank you too to my Aunt and Uncle and of course to my Mum and my two sisters whose love has been so important.
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