Fyrefall (Phoebe and the Wanderers, Book 1)

1 - The boy in the lake

He kissed me.

Back-to-front as it may seem, that is really where this all began.

There’s never anyone else at the lake. Ever. I was alone in that sheltered hollow in the woods when he appeared, with not a twig-snap or crunch of gravel to warn of his approach.

He had light brown skin, and darker brown hair that fell in loose curls to the collar of his white shirt. His lips were plump and sulky, his nose long and straight. And I’d never seen him before in my life.

My throat screwed tight. I scrambled to my feet and reared back, ready to run.

“Phoebe,” he said.

And I said, “Yes,” when I should have screamed the whole forest down, turned on my heel and fled.

He hesitated for a second, ducked his head and pressed his lips to mine. And my heart, which was already racing from the shock of his appearance, clocked the kind of speed known only to astronauts during launch.

I should have hit him. I should have pulled away. I’ve done the self-protection course at school: I should have scratched and wriggled free and kicked him where it really hurts. But, it was like he breathed into every cell in my body, triggering some sort of thermonuclear chain reaction just beneath my skin.

Had I been wearing jewellery, it probably would have melted.

When he drew back, I could barely inhale, let alone speak. All I could do was stare into his eyes. They were dark and shone like tree sap weathered for an age by the sun. I just turned sixteen and he didn’t seem much older, but those eyes looked like they’d been here forever.

And, yes, it was a good kiss, but, no, I’m not a complete nitwit — I knew I should do something to lodge a protest. I leaned back and tried to ball my hand into a fist. My fingers decided not to play along.

“What was that for?” I said, as I tried to shake some blood back into my tingling limbs.

“To help you find me.” A smile spread from his lips, as if they had seen something amusing and were passing the message to the rest of his face. There was a chip in one of his front teeth — and that one small flaw made me feel a little less afraid.

He held out something, a parcel of some sort, and said, “Look after this for me, Phoebe.” I took the parcel. He turned and walked down the bank into the lake, wading deeper and deeper, until the water closed over his head and he was gone.

I scrambled to my feet and watched for him to come up. A minute passed. Maybe two. I did that funny side-to-side twist that people do when they’re not sure whether to run and get help, or wade in and be the help themselves. In the end I did neither. I’m no good at thinking on my feet. In the event of an emergency, I’m a designated spectator.

The boy had gone into the water, of that much I was certain. Waves rippled out from the place where he had vanished and the ducks were complaining loudly about the invasion of their pond. But, there was something so purposeful about the way he’d walked that I found it hard to believe he’d drowned.

Which meant he must have simply disappeared.

Which meant that I now, apparently, was believing in magic.

I shivered. That kiss must have really scrambled my brain.

A duck hopped out of the water with a disgruntled quack. “You still here?” it seemed to say. I glanced down at the bundle in my hands. It was a pile of raggedy-edged paper, tied together with string. With trembling fingers I worked the knots loose and flicked through the first few pages.

The paper was thick and rough to the touch, covered in a scratchy scrawl that I could barely read and lots of crossings out. The first page went something like,

PROLOGUE

Corus.

Two housholds Frends both alike in dignitie (In faire Verona where we lay our Scene) From  civill broyles auncient grudge, break to new mutinie, where civill warre blovd makes civill hands uncleane: From forth the fatall loynes of these two foes, A pair of ill-fated starre-crost Lovers tooketake their life:

“Romeo and Juliet,” I murmured.  I recognised it because I’d been forced to read it for English Lit — not because I have a passion for really old and long-winded stories. That would be Dad’s department. He’s a history professor — which gave me an idea.

Twenty minutes later, I jogged up our front path. Ours is the last on Sycamore Row, a tiny end terrace ringed with tangled rose bushes that haven’t been tended to since before I was born. I shoved my key into the lock, stumbled inside and poked my head around the door to the front room. Dad calls it the library — it’s meant to be a dining room, but we don’t really eat meals. Dad lives on books. I prefer two-minute noodles.

Just as I expected, Dad was there at his desk. He worked there as often as he could get away from his office at the University, where colleagues — and, heaven forbid, students — might interrupt his genius scribblings.

“Dad,” I said, “I’ve got something to show y…”

Dad raised his hand, but not as a greeting. “I’ve got to finish this paper before dinner,” he said.

I glanced at the wall clock. It was seven twenty-three. “You’ve already missed dinner.”

“Hang on Phoebe,” he said. His nose remained firmly buried in his book.

I was about to object, to tell him it was really important. But the whole hang-on-Phoebe thing really ticks me off. That’s all I ever hear from Dad. If hanging-on was an Olympic event, I’d be a gold medallist. I know he’s disappointed that his dazzling intellect has skipped a generation, but it wouldn’t kill him to look at me once in a while.

I went up to my bedroom, the smallest room in the house, tucked under the eaves, with a dormer window at either end. The last rays of evening sun were licking their way down the faded old wallpaper as I pressed my belly to the bare boards and peered under the iron-frame bed.

I thought my notes on Romeo and Juliet were filed under there somewhere. But an extensive rummage uncovered three empty crisp packets, an extended family of dust bunnies, and no notes. Maybe I’d left them at school.

I reversed out from under the bed and fired up my little old laptop — a hand-me-down from Dad’s office. Once it had creaked to life, I did a search for Romeo and Juliet. I found a few references to an obscure mediaeval folk story. And there was no mention of a William Shakespeare at all.

I tried to swallow, but there was a lump in my throat. I closed up the laptop and drifted across to the window. It almost dark, but I was too wired to sleep. I looked out into the back garden and murmured, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though, Romeo?”

There was a faint thud in the garden. My spine went stiff. “Is someone there?” I called.

Nothing. I was probably just jittery.

I turned from the window and pulled on my pyjamas. I slid the manuscript under my pillow and tucked myself under the duvet. Going to bed was not exactly a proactive approach, I know, but I’m the sort of person who prefers to cope with a crisis by taking a nap.

Questions stress me out, even basic ones like do you want your sandwiches in triangles or squares? And that night my brain was bursting with higher-order dilemmas like, had someone erased the internet? And who was that boy at the lake? And why did he kiss me? And was he ever going to do it again?

I’d left the window open and in the distance I could hear a siren wailing. From the house next-door, normally so quiet, came the snarl and screech of an angry row. The whole world seemed restless.

That night, the dreams began.