Chapter 1
Only when the tip of the knife started to shave against the white of his eye like a scalpel about to pierce a boil, did I realise that I was the one holding it.
Or, rather, controlling it.
The three of us stared mesmerised as the knife hung there in the jagged space between us. The boy, whose arms were locked around me, and against whose eye the blade was now pressing, let go of me, his arms dropping like a puppet’s whose strings had been cut.
And then I felt it. The weight of the knife in my mind. And the blade clattered to the pavement.
I couldn't take my eyes off it, just lying there, like a prop someone had arranged in front of me.
The scramble of metal hitting brick made me raise my head. Both boys were back on their bikes, kicking at the pedals, trying to get a grip on the narrow pavement. They collided as they tore off down the street but kept their balance, bikes weaving down the centre of the road, before disappearing around the nearest corner.
I was on my knees. The thrum of traffic from the main road thirty feet or so away cut into me, interrupting the sound of someone nearby choking on barbed wire. I spun my head left to right to see where the noise was coming from, then realised it was coming from me. I bit down on my lip to stop it, then stood up slowly.
A jolt of pain in my right leg snapped me back into the present. I looked around uncertainly, trying to place myself. It took a while before I realised I was standing on the corner of my street. My tights were ripped and laddered where the front wheel and handlebars of one of the bikes had smashed into me. A tinny noise escaped from the headphones dangling around my neck, and my right hand was still clutching tightly at the school bag they had tried to snatch.
Maria wasn't there when I got home and neither was my dad. He wouldn't be back for another week or so. The house was as echoey andcold as an empty fridge. I put the chain on the door and leant against it, taking a deep breath. Then I hobbled to the downstairs bathroom, lifted the toilet lid and threw up until all there was nothing left but stringy green bile. My hands were shaking so hard they were blurring against the white of the porcelain. I sat back against the wall, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to steady my breathing.
I couldn't use it again – whatever kind of freaky mind power it was - that much was clear. But I had had no intention of using it in the first place - it had just happened, unconscious as breathing. Except breathing had never led to nearly blinding a person, I didn’t think. I was out of control. Dangerously out of control. With just a flicker of thought, without moving an inch, I could have squeezed that blade through the white of that boy’s eye as easily as slicing through a soft boiled egg. A wave of bile swung up my throat again. I ground my teeth and swallowed it down.
Up until this moment this psychic weird moving things without actually touching them ability, had been a secret. Something I'd wrapped up and bound tightly to me like a deformed extra limb – a sixth finger; a third arm. Not something I particularly felt like showing off. Yet now two complete strangers knew about it, one of whom I’d almost blinded.
I sat there in the humming dark, waiting for the knock on the door from the police or the men in white coats. Maybe I would just go with them. Clearly I was too dangerous to be walking the streets of south London. Possibly I was unhinged. Definitely I wasn't normal.
I waited and waited, shivering on the floor, but the knock didn't come.
Eventually, I unclasped my hands from around my legs and stood up, resolved. I had to regain control. I wouldn't use it again, ever. As in, never.
