Page 24

“Psst.” It was Clemmie, that unfailing disturber of Sera’s peace. Sticking her head out of the open skylight, she said, ominously, “There’s trouble afoot.”

“Is it your fault?”

“Honestly, I’m shocked that it isn’t,” Clemmie replied, sounding a little put out that a disaster might have occurred without her consent. “Look, Theo will be back from school any minute. I sped ahead to give you advance warning that he’s upset.”

“What? Why?” Sera felt a sharp spike in the ever-present worry for Theo that always lived in the back of her mind. “Why do you even know this?”

“I felt a smidge of guilt for taking Theo to Northumberland,” Clemmie replied, which was quite possibly the most shocking thing Sera had heard all year. “I’ve been selflessly making up for it by keeping an eye on him when he bikes to and from school.”

Sera had mixed feelings. “Following him around is a bit creepy, don’t you think?”

“I asked his permission first,” Clemmie said indignantly, and actually, that might have been the most shocking thing Sera had heard all year.

Moments after Sera got downstairs, Theo came in.

His usual smile was absent and his face was stony, like he was trying to hide whatever he was feeling.

Instead of his usual hug and insistence that he would die if he didn’t eat at least eighteen snacks immediately , he refused to look Sera in the eye and went upstairs without a word.

She followed him. She stood outside his closed bedroom door and said, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk,” came the angry reply. “Leave me alone.”

Sera was, momentarily, at a loss. This wasn’t like him at all. Should she call his parents? Should she handle this on her own?

There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she went with: “You can have an hour and then I’ll be back to make sure you’re okay. I’d really like it if you told me what’s bothering you, but you don’t have to.”

She went next door to her own bedroom, where she looked for useful things to do, none of which, somehow, involved putting away the pile of clean clothes that had been sitting in a basket beside her old armchair for over a week.

Twenty minutes later, she heard the unmistakable sound of Theo’s door opening and staying open. It was an invitation. Sera accepted it at once.

He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, picking at a hole in his sock. She could tell he’d been crying, which made her want to simultaneously cuddle him and cast a spell that would make whoever had done this to him step on Lego at least twice a day for the rest of their lives.

She settled for half of that. She sat beside him and pulled him close. It took him a moment or two to speak. “We did family trees in school today.”

Sera’s heart sank. “Oh.”

“There’s three of us in my class who don’t live with our parents,” Theo explained.

“We didn’t have to say why, but the others decided to.

Because they have nothing to hide. Because they have reasons that make sense.

Because I’m the only one with parents who are scared of me.

I know I shouldn’t be sad about it, because Alex’s mum and dad are dead and mine are alive, but… ”

“Stop that,” said Sera. “It’s not a competition.

Alex gets to have their feelings about the shitty thing that happened to them, and you get to have your feelings about the shitty thing that happened to you .

And it is shitty, Theo. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t.

Your parents do love you, but they haven’t tried to understand you, and yeah, that sucks.

You’re allowed to be sad about it. You’re allowed to be angry about it. If it helps, break something!”

Theo let out a wet sort of laugh, scrubbing a hand across his nose. “I can’t break stuff!”

“Why not? Between you, me, and Luke, I’m sure one of us can fix it.”

Theo pressed in closer, smelling of that distinctive boy combination of soap, sweat, and birds’ nests. She felt each of his breaths go in and out, listened to them grow slower and calmer. After a few minutes, he said, “I am angry.”

“You have every right to be.” She kissed his head. “Look, I know the last time the subject of your parents came up, you didn’t want to talk to me about it, but do you maybe want to talk to someone else? A professional, I mean?”

“I don’t know.” He thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. Not yet. Maybe later on?”

“I think the waiting list for children’s mental health services is pretty long, so it might be a good idea for me to ask the GP to put your name down now. If you still don’t feel ready when a space opens up, we can just cancel and let the next person have your spot.”

“That sounds okay to me.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever talked to someone?” Theo asked curiously.

She nodded. “Years ago. You know that big dent in the door of the cupboard where we keep the broom? I put that there. I kicked the door really hard. Broke two of my toes.”

Theo’s eyes had gone very round. “Why?”

“My feelings got too big,” Sera said simply.

It wasn’t an easy thing to talk about, but he deserved a real answer.

“Years of small things and big things just added up, and one day, it was like I couldn’t really feel anything except the big, dark space where everything I was missing was supposed to be.

I couldn’t deal with it on my own, so eventually, I asked for help. ”

Theo took this in quietly, and seemed to turn it over and over in his mind a few times before saying, “I’ve never seen that version of you. Around the house, I mean. Whenever the house shows me memories of you, you’re always around my age.”

“The house knows it’s not supposed to show anyone that particular ghost, not even me.”

“How come you always call them ghosts? Aren’t they just you?”

Sera shrugged. “They don’t feel like me. They feel like ghosts. Haunting me. Reminding me of all the things I used to be that are long gone now.”

Theo nodded, opened his mouth to say something, and yawned instead, like all the feelings that had rushed through him over the day had exhausted him. Sera could very much relate.

She hesitated before asking her next question. “Do you want to go back to live in Reykjavík with your mum and dad? There’s no wrong answer here. Whatever you want is fine.”

“I miss them sometimes, but I don’t want to go back. I like being here.” His voice grew very small. “Are you tired of having me around?”

“Absolutely, definitely not,” said Sera emphatically.

At that precise moment, Matilda’s voice reverberated across the house: “SEHHH-RAAA! THERE ARE TWO PEOPLE WITH A VERY CUTE TODDLER WHO NEED A ROOM FOR TONIGHT! AND I’VE LOST MY LEFT SHOE!”

Theo started to laugh. Sera sighed. “Believe me, Theo, the more family I acquire, the better you look by comparison.”