

### Song to Wake to

### By J. D. Field
Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 JD Field. Published by Round Hill.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher.

Cover design by Oliver Prentice: olly@ollydesigns.co.uk, Twitter @ollydesigns

# Preface

The woman watched them lay her love on a rough mattress beside the cave wall.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "How can you care for him like that?"

Her love turned his beautiful face. His eyes were closed and a purple bruise covered half of one cheek.

Nobody answered her. One by one the soldiers carried the other six heroes into the small cave and laid them on the floor.

"I said what are you doing?" Her voice was shrill. "They all need nursing."

The old man turned and glared at her. "They will recover here, perfectly. Come outside." He led her onto the hillside, then turned back to the soldiers. "Now fill it in."

The men took spades and dug at the heaps of loose rocks and earth above and to the sides of the cave. They flung the stones and soil into its entrance.

"No! He's not dead!" she screamed. "He'll wake up. He's so young, so strong, he'll recover."

The old man's face was long and sharp, like a line of teeth. His voice filled the air all around, though he barely moved his thin lips. "They will all wake up. But not in your lifetime."

"Don't take him from me!" She could taste the mud as if it was in her mouth. She vomited, staggered and slipped forward. "Let him out!"

"Hold her back," the old man snapped.

Two soldiers grabbed her arms. She pulled against them but they overpowered her. Tossing her head, she flicked her dark hair out of even darker eyes and looked into their faces. "You're hurting me." Tears spilled over her eyelids. "Imagine when he wakes up, trapped, in the dark. Imagine if that was you. Imagine the fear."

One of the young men bit his lip. The woman knew the power of her face, her black brows and lashes and her pale skin. "Please help me," she whispered. "I love him, oh I love him so."

"Don't listen to her." The old man spoke over his shoulder. He focused his deep-set eyes on the mound of earth in the cave mouth and waved his hand at it. Green tinged the soil, then covered it. Thick grass grew long and the mound itself swelled upwards. Small bushes appeared on it and grew sturdy.

She screamed again, but then the woman couldn't breathe. The hillside had closed over the cave mouth completely, as if it was never there. She felt as if she too had been folded into a bed of dark earth. Cold mud filled her eyes and mouth and all light had gone from the world.

# Chapter 1: Head in Hand

London slipped away like water running down a window. I put my feet up on the dashboard and watched it go. Heading west out of the city, gardens grew bigger, spaces between houses expanded, and glimpses of green appeared in the distance. When London disappeared completely I switched my eyes to my feet, clad in my favourite pale blue ballet slippers. I wiggled my toes inside them and admired my best cream linen trousers that today I had paired with a new, suitably countrified blue body-warmer. Today I was in transit. Tomorrow the body-warmer would be joined by sensible cords and wellington boots and Maddie the city girl would become Madeleine the country maid. I pictured myself going to the farm in the morning to get eggs and milk from the farmer. I would be brilliant at it. I needed to get a guidebook to flowers and birds and stuff.

I looked from my feet to Mum's face behind the steering wheel. She would have to be a country lady, but she didn't seem to mind. She pursed her lips in her usual driving concentration. I stared at her for three minutes and she didn't notice. Mum wasn't pretty, better described as beautiful, or even handsome. She had a strong-featured face with gigantic blue eyes and long wavy hair streaked with grey. Maybe a bit too long for her age. Sometimes I tried to suggest she could wear it shorter, or dye it, because she looked like an old hippy. "So what?" she always replied. "An old hippy is what I am."

My wavy hair and my build were the same as Mum's; I replicated her broad, swimmer's shoulders. My brown eyes and the colour of my hair, black as night, were the only souvenirs I had of my tall, dark and handsome father.

After five minutes she finally noticed me staring at her. "What?" Her eyes flicked sideways.

"Nothing. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. No, I'm good." She had both hands wrapped completely around the steering wheel and the tendons in her forearms stood out.

"I mean, I'm going to go to school. Do homework. Maybe get a Saturday job. All the same stuff as I would have been doing in London, but with extra cows and sheep all over the place, and a guide to trees in my handbag. You, though..."

A leather clad motorcyclist sped past us.

"Me though?"

"Well aren't you worried? You can tell me if you're worried, Mum. I think you should."

She glanced sideways again. The car rounded a hill and gave us a beautiful view across a great, hedgerow-seamed swathe of green countryside.

"I'm not worried, Maddie. I'm really not. I've always known this is what would happen. It's the family business. The same thing happened to Grandma."

"But she was never an HR manager in the city like you, Mum. She lived in the country all her life. You haven't lived out here since you were sixteen." I turned my shiny blue feet in, so they met at the toes. "Since you were the same age as I am now. If you want to talk to me about it, that's fine."

She smiled. "You really are very persistent. Okay, so I admit it's going to be odd. Life in Glastonbury is going to be a change. I haven't lived there for twenty-five years. But I've never lost touch."

"So what? I visited with you. Somerset is still a foreign country." I imagined this as a dramatic, handwritten phrase. Of course a teacher would underline it in red and write "Exaggeration!" in the margin; every teacher I ever had loved writing "Exaggeration!" on my school work.

"It's not a foreign country, Maddie, we visited every month." Mum pushed a thick strand of hair away from her forehead. "You'll understand in time, for us, for the Bride women, this is a natural thing to do. For me it feels absolutely right." She nodded to herself. "Besides, life in the city was just getting harder and harder. Everybody there was stressed, or aggressive, worried about the future. We've got away from that."

I shook my head. "Nope. Not me. I'm not a beekeeper, for crap's sake, Mum. I'll finish school there. Fair enough. Then I'm going back to the city to university and I'm never coming back." I could only be a country girl for so long. After two years I would morph into a student behind piles of dusty books, beside an intellectual boyfriend with glasses and a scarf.

Now hurt tinged her sideways glance.

"I mean, of course I'll come back. I'll come and visit all the time. Every month. Just like you visited Grandma. But that's it."

She didn't believe me, she felt she knew better, but she didn't say anything and I didn't push her. Holding back was how we managed to get along so well, the two of us, the Bride family. She clicked the indicator and we turned off the motorway, heading south towards Somerset. The road looked so familiar to me after visiting Grandma weekends, Christmas, July and August. Until I was four years old I thought that was why it was called Somerset, because we went there for the summer.

When I was little trips to Somerset were exciting. We set out early in the morning in a series of cute little cars, stopping for a picnic on the way. As I grew older the cars grew bigger, as Mum did better at work, but the trips annoyed me, distracting me from my friends and outings to the cinema. Weekends in the country saw the rare emergence of my sulky persona, punk Madeleine, who snapped at Mum and slammed doors.

For the last year the journey had been even grimmer. Mum drove in silence as Grandma got sicker and sicker. Then we had come down to arrange the funeral, and again to attend it. Now we were returning in the last executive car, a BMW estate, to take over Grandma's life where she had left off. Beckerly Honey, the family business and 17 Chalice Drive, a tiny, semi-detached house with an overgrown garden and unreliable plumbing.

The road sliced through a space in the final range of hills and the Somerset Levels spread themselves before us, flat as the surface of a pool in which no one swam. In the distance Glastonbury Tor rose like an arm pushed through the water, holding a small tower on its summit.

"Nearly there." Mum blinked hard three times and rubbed at her eyes.

"So Mum..." I tried to think of a subject of conversation to keep her awake. "What was it like when you were my age in Glastonbury?"

"Oh, it's much better now. I just used to swim, a lot, and pretend I didn't like the rich kids or the locals."

"You were a rebel?" I gaped at her in mock surprise.

"I suppose so. It annoyed me that everybody knew each other. Everybody knew us, especially. The Bride women. The fact that your grandfather was never anywhere to be seen always seemed to fascinate people and that drove me crazy." She indicated as she pulled around a motorcyclist stopped by the side of the road. "Everybody at Levels College was so rich and fancy, and we weren't. But it's not like that now." She added the last sentence very quickly. Levels College was the private school I would be starting at the next day, fourth of September.

"So that's why you went to London?"

"I think so. It seems so long ago now."

The road dropped onto the levels, long, flat and straight as a ruler, with a drainage canal gleaming beside it in the low September sun. By the time we got to the house on Chalice Drive all light had gone, gloom and autumn cold pervaded the cramped spaces under its low ceilings. I went from room to room turning on lights. It didn't take long. There were three rooms downstairs and three upstairs. My room looked over the four apple trees and long grass of the back garden and the Tor beyond.

I stacked my current favourite books on the shelf beside the bed. In the last year I had switched from fiction to biography. I didn't know why, but the lives of men like Caesar, Henry the Eighth, Napoleon and Winston Churchill all fascinated me, though next year, of course, I would switch to something else.

Above the bookshelf I stuck up that month's favourite poster, a print of the Maid of Shalott, and sat on my narrow bed to stare at it for a moment. The despair in her face made me feel better about living in a tiny house in a small country town and starting at an enormous private school with an absurd uniform. It lurked in my wardrobe, a grey jacket and skirt with a nasty blue shirt.

I read about the childhood of Nelson Mandela for an hour before turning out my light, then lay in bed trying to make out the face of the Maid of Shalott, through the darkness. The outskirts of Glastonbury were so very, very quiet after Hackney. There was nothing to distract me from my own thoughts. The pulse in my temple sounded loud as a drum and my eyelashes made a scratching noise against the coarse cotton of my pillow. What if nobody liked me? Or more probably, I didn't like anybody? What if everybody looked down on me for not buying my uniform from a designer label, and for staying in Britain all through the summer holidays? For never having been to a private school before.

I got up, went to the window and looked down on the street. At this time in Hackney the sidewalk outside the Turkish takeaway and the corner shop would be thronged with people, but Chalice Drive stood empty and silent. Then a streetlamp flickered, and a shape moved through the space where its light had been. As if from the corner of my eye I caught the curvy form of a woman carrying something. I peered at the sphere swinging from her right hand. Was it a handbag or something much more gruesome?

# Chapter 2: Levels

I pulled the curtains closer together, hiding everything save my eyes, and strained them at the fair-haired woman and the severed head or whatever it was she carried. The streetlight flashed on and the head turned into a motorbike helmet. A bird squawked and the woman slowed. She turned into an alleyway and disappeared. I stood at the window for five minutes more, but I had seen all the night life Chalice Drive offered.

Maybe music would help me sleep. I considered that month's favourites. Motorhead, Abba; Abba, Motorhead, before realising I didn't know where I had unpacked my earphones. Instead I opened my laptop and watched a series of cheesy old music videos. The last was the final scene of a movie from the seventies. I strained to recognise the handsome, strong-faced actor, wearing a white uniform and striding through a factory. I felt like had seen him before, but didn't know where. A lump swelled in my throat when he appeared behind the beautiful factory girl, tapped her on the shoulder, and swept her up into his arms. A power ballad soared and I considered how wonderful it must be to have a beautiful man just carry you out of nasty situations. I shook my head. I didn't need anybody to carry me anywhere, but still I resolved to watch the entire movie, and made a note of the title: 'An Officer and a Gentleman.'

At two o'clock in the morning it started raining, finally a noise I recognised. Raindrops on my window had always soothed me, and this was no exception. I fell asleep and dreamed of rain, falling and falling, until it filled a small, steely-looking lake.

Mum took me to Levels the next morning. The school rules stated that no make-up was allowed, but I wanted to give myself every possible advantage. In the car I brushed a touch of mascara over my lashes and smeared on some lip gloss. Mum raised an eyebrow.

"If anybody asks I'll say it's lip balm." I rubbed my lips together. "But they won't. They'll think the new girl just has a special glow."

I ran through my lines in my head. My role: Madeleine who doesn't stand out. Explanations of why I was there would be muted and the coolness of my life in London only hinted at. I intended to imply I could be an amazing swimmer without actually saying as much. Most of all I wanted to deflect and avoid questions. Questions were the enemy.

Surrounded by acres of playing fields, the school stood on a rise south of Glastonbury, just outside a small town called Street. The school office occupied a pale grey stone mansion that looked as if it could be five hundred years old. It probably was five hundred years old. Around it clustered buildings that housed the classrooms. Further away lay sports facilities, gymnasiums and swimming pools, and the boarding houses, seven of them, where the residential students lived.

Mum and I entered reception together. The secretary took my name, then ushered us to sit down in a waiting area beside her desk. I had a view down a long, stone flagged hallway. At the end a wooden door stood half open. The brass plate on the wood read 'Mr. Neil – Chairman' and through the gap I saw an enormous dark wood desk. On the wall over the desk hung a long, heavy looking sword. I shuddered. What kind of place had I come to?

A girl in a uniform like my own entered from a side corridor and the secretary beckoned me back to her counter. "Madeleine, this is Sarah. She's in your tutor group and she'll be helping you out today. Your tutor group is the class you meet with every morning for notices, your tutor represents you on the staff."

I smiled my best meeting-new-people smile. "Hi."

"Hi Madeleine. I'm pleased to meet you. Welcome to Levels College." Sarah had short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. "What's your sport?"

I paused for a moment. Getting to know you at Levels had a quite distinct form. "Um, I'm a swimmer, I suppose."

"Cool. I'm gymnastics." Sarah stood a head shorter than me with shoulders almost as broad as my own, freakishly wide swimmers shoulders. "You're in Logres house with me."

"I'm in what?"

She said it again, slower. "Logres. It's spelt like ogres. It's pronounced loggers, but with an 'R' after the log. Logres."

My voice rose a notch. "I'm not going to live here."

"It doesn't matter; everybody's assigned to a house. It's for administration and sports competitions and stuff."

I turned to Mum. "See you this evening." I flashed a wide smile, as much for Sarah's benefit as Mum's.

"Okay sweetheart." Mum examined me one last time. "Have fun."

Sarah led me along a path around a wide lawn to another stone building, not as old as the school office, but still graceful, with a gothic-arched porch. "Our tutor group is all students from Logres. We meet in the tutor room in the mornings for our tutor to check our names off on the register and give us information. Also, in inter-house sports you play for the Logres team and get points to see which house is the best."

"Ok." Thoughts of my old school in London flashed through my memory. Sports teams there had just been named Red, Yellow, Blue or Green.

My tutor room was large, though there were only sixteen of us in it. On the second floor of the building, it looked away from the centre of the school, across paddocks where horses grazed and barns, which I guessed housed more animals. The room hummed with foreign accents, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, American, and others I didn't recognise. I concentrated on moving smoothly to an empty desk, keeping my eyes steady and a confident little smile on my lips. Sarah made introductions. The four other girls smiled enthusiastically but the eyes of at least three of them lingered too long on my hair. I winced; I knew I should have straightened it. The boys puffed out their chests as they said their names. They would be easier allies. I concentrated on asking questions and sounding impressed. The more questions I asked, the fewer opportunities they would have to probe me with their own. I paused for breath.

"What about you?" A tall girl with a pinched, narrow face glanced at my shoes as she talked. "What do your parents do?"

The 'secrets alarm' rang in my head. "My Mum was born here, and my Grandma used to run a business near Glastonbury. We've..." I leaned on the word 'we', trying to make it sound like as many people as possible. "Come down here, since she died." I let my eyes glisten a little.

On cue one of the boys stepped in. "I'm really sorry, you-"

The classroom door opened and Mr. Vaughan, our tutor arrived. I sighed with relief, while maintaining my tight little smile.

A whirl of rules and administration followed. Explaining the details of the British 'A' Levels system of classes and exams to new foreign students took a while. They all seemed surprised that we got to choose just four or five subjects and ditch everything we didn't like. For me choosing had been a nightmare, I would have much preferred it if they just instructed us to study everything. After an hour and a half a bell rang. "Come on." Sarah stood up at the desk beside me. "Let's go and get something to eat."

She led me back outside and around another path to the dining hall in an airy modern building. Drink and snack machines lined one wall. "I'll get this."

"No, it's okay." I knew nothing about Sarah, but I guessed she was loaded. I didn't want her to think I couldn't afford to buy my own soda.

"Don't worry. You can get it for me next time." Sarah smiled. "But you're new, so I should."

"Okay. I was going to get a Diet Coke."

Sarah bought it for me, then we moved together to lean against floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over tiers of playing fields that fell away into the distance. I watched hordes of teenagers coming into the hall and shook my head. "There's so many."

"Yeah, and this is only the sixth form. You probably called it years twelve and thirteen in your old school. The American exchange students call the sixth form juniors and seniors. We're lumped together for all sorts of things, like break time, sports, parties. There's five hundred of us. Other years have their breaks at other times, or the younger ones use the Assembly Hall for breaks."

Groups of students sat around tables, mainly boys and a few older, glamorous looking girls. Younger looking students hung back against the walls like us, or bought their snacks and returned outside.

"So what's it like living here?" I asked.

"Oh, it's..." Sarah looked away from me.

I followed her eyes. Five boys had strolled through the dining hall entrance. A hush slowly spread through the room and heads turned toward them, or kids watched their progress from the corners of their eyes. The students all wore school uniform, four of them walked abreast in beautifully tailored suits, definitely not from the school shop where I got mine. All of them stood over six feet tall and moved with long, graceful strides. The fifth, slightly behind the end of the line, was even taller with shaggy blond hair and a jacket that looked too small for him.

"Who are they?"

The leading foursome scanned the room as they walked, raising their chins to acknowledge people. The fifth kept his eyes down.

"They're the polo team."

"The polo team? Levels has a polo team?"

"Ssh. They call themselves the Four Horsemen."

I snorted with laughter as they reached the snack machines. I bit my lip, sometimes I felt like being irreverent, sarcastic Madeleine, but today wasn't one of those times. The boy nearest me snapped his head around and stared into my face. He looked like a male model, with blazing blue eyes and perfect, chiseled features.

"That's Kieran Hechter. His father owns half of Somerset."

I smiled at him and Hechter stopped dead. Making no attempt to hide it he looked me up and down. Kind of freaked out I turned to Sarah. "Um, I guess that's cool and everything." I whispered. "But, can we go?"

"Okay."

We walked beside the wall as, unprompted, the group nearest the snack machines conceded their seats to the four – or five – horsemen. Who did they think they were?

Outside I looked at Sarah as we walked. "Calling themselves the four horsemen. What's that all about?"

"They're the year above us. Gennady Ivanovich, Rami Ahmed, Tiago Toscano and Kieran. I don't know who the fifth one is. He's new." She pointed at the building we walked past. It looked like a country hotel. "This is Orkney House. It's quite nice. But they're all in Camelot House, which is the best one. It's where all the champions are. Everybody wants to be in it. They're really cool, I think. Maybe quite cocky, but kind of amazing."

I suppressed another snort. Jerks like that were among my least favourite in the world. I shook my head. "I guess I'll have to see." I winced. Had I sounded rude? I didn't want to make enemies on my first day. "They all had really nice hair though." Really nice hair? I couldn't believe I was saying this. Way to backtrack Maddie. "Apart from the one with the shaved head." For God's sake. What had become of me?

Sarah pushed her lower lip to one side. "That's Gennady. He's Russian. A friend of mine once got invited to one of their parties. She said it was the best party she'd ever been to."

I doubted I would ever share Sarah's fixation with the private lives of the Levels A list, but it made her less likely to show any interest in my own background. As a guide she was unbeatable.

We passed another residential house, white painted with black beams. "Is this Camelot?"

"No. Camelot is nicer than this one. This is Gaul."

I bit my lip. The school was like living in the Middle Ages. "Okay. Interesting."

Sarah smiled and nodded. "It's really old. The houses are tradition. Everything is tradition here, you'll understand soon. I totally love it all."

She was like the complete Levels cheerleader. I doubted we would ever discuss the amazingness of Martin Luther King, but something about her bubbly enthusiasm warmed me to her. Back in our tutor room we spent the rest of the morning on an introduction to university applications and how we would be undergoing exams for what seemed like the whole of the next two years.

Lunch passed without any more encounters with the four horsemen and their hanger on. In the afternoon the year's lessons began with history. Using my neat little school map guidance I weaved amongst the stately school buildings to the humanities block, but I seemed to have come the longest way and everybody was there before me. I took one of two chairs at the last empty desk, then smiled to myself when Ms. Merrick, our teacher, announced that our first course would be Napoleonic France. She handed out textbooks doing a headcount as she went, then returned to the front of the class. "You should be twelve, there's one student missing, I-"

She broke off as the classroom door opened and a tall boy entered, the blond student who had accompanied the four horsemen that morning. I held my breath and looked straight ahead. I had accepted Sarah's explanation of how special he and his friends were, but it didn't mean I could smile sweetly through a double lesson sitting next to him. The red-haired girl in front of me had a different idea. She turned her whole body in her seat and stared open mouthed as he manoeuvred his rangy frame gracefully between desks. There were six empty chairs in the class. He chose the one beside me.

"Sorry I'm late," he mumbled. "I got lost."

I suppressed a smirk. The Four Horsemen couldn't be as special as they thought if they hung around with somebody so hopeless. His shaggy blonde hair hid his face, so I examined his hands. They curled on the desk like pieces of machinery, enormous and tanned. As he pulled a piece of paper from his bag I saw that the palms and fingers were oddly calloused, like the hands of an older, working man.

"Ok." Ms. Merrick smiled broadly at us. "This morning your tutor gave you all a printout of your classes. I'd be grateful if you could show them to me please. There are three history groups in your year and it's important that you're all in the right one.

I flushed. The printout contained too much dangerous information. I had hoped that nobody else would have to see it.

"Whilst I'm doing this, um, I'd like to introduce yourself to the student beside you and find out why they've chosen to study history."

I sighed. Not only was I sitting next to somebody who tagged along with boys thinking themselves kings of the school. I was going to have to ask him about it. "What's your name?"

"Sorry?" He turned to face me.

"I said..." The sharp retort dried in my throat. Looking at me was one of the most extraordinary faces I had ever seen. Deeply tanned, its symmetry was perfect, with a square jaw, wide mouth, thick brows and startling catlike eyes. Gazing down a straight, strong nose, he reminded me of a lion in a wildlife documentary, staring impassively across the savannah.

Ms. Merrick passed our desk and took our printouts. I glanced at her, trying to clear my head, before returning to my beautiful neighbour. I started again. "Um, I'm Madeleine Bride, I'm new. What's your name?"

"I'm called Eddy Moon. I'm new too." He flicked his golden eyes at me.

"I'm studying history because I'm interested in historical figures."

Pink overlaid Eddy Moon's tanned cheeks. It seemed he didn't know why he was studying history.

"You?" I prompted him.

He shifted and his jacket strained over the muscles of his arms and shoulders. For a sixteen year old he was surprisingly hefty. "Um, because, because..."

"Yes?"

"Because I think I should?"

"What?" I stared at him. It seemed he was a classic bimbo. Blonde, beautiful and stupid.

Ms. Merrick returned and placed our printouts back on the desk in front of us. "Thanks."

I looked at Eddy Moon's perfect, straight nose and his pronounced cheekbones as he scanned the papers.

"Sorry, um, Lady?"

I bit my lip. Distracted by the lion boy's beauty I forgot the embarrassing contents of my printout. "No! Please!" Feeling my face go crimson I snatched the paper from him and stuffed it into my bag. "I don't want to talk about it."

"What, are you..."

"Ok. Just so we get this over with." I dropped my voice to a whisper. "My grandmother was Countess Bride, now my mother is Countess Bride, and for some crazy, old fashioned reason this school thinks it's a big deal."

Eddy lowered his straight brows, making his golden eyes even more angular and leonine.

I scowled straight back at him. "If you mention it to anybody else I'll... Well I don't know what I'll do. But I'll do something." Underneath my embarrassment I was enjoying an excuse to punish Eddy for the way his friends had walked across the Dining Hall that morning, and for the way Kieran Hechter had looked at me. Eddy Moon shifted his seat away from me. He seemed genuinely discomfited by what I was telling him.

"Um..." He slid his own form across the desk with a work-leathered hand.

I breathed in, catching the slight scents of leather and cut grass. Of course the heart of the problem was my house. My house and my clothes and my haircut. Having a title would be bearable if my family wasn't so obviously down on its luck. If we lived in a huge mansion I wouldn't mind that Mum was Countess Bride. I didn't tell Eddy Moon this, though. I hoped to keep seventeen Chalice Drive a secret for as long as possible. Instead I shot him an evil look that made him drop his golden hair back across his face.

"Everybody calls me Madeleine Bride, including myself. But according to some forms and stuff I'm Lady Madeleine Bride. Don't ask me about it again."

Eddy did as I requested. For the rest of the lesson he sent neither a word nor a look my way. When I answered questions he kept his gaze on his textbook and when I looked across the room he moved back in his seat, out of my eye line. It was as if Eddy Moon wanted me to forget he existed.

# Chapter 3: The Four Horsemen

The next day I wandered around the Levels campus like a confused tourist at Windsor Castle, hoping for a glimpse of the Queen, but continually finding myself in the gift shop or the toilets. All day I kept looking over my shoulders for the loose-limbed silhouette of Eddy Moon, without knowing why. My map failed me completely. Somehow, when I should have been in Spanish, I ended up in the hallway of the Avalon residence. A maze of stables ensnared me on my way to English.

The one constant of the day was the red-haired girl who stared at Eddy in history. She was in both my art and physics groups. The first time we recognised each other across the room we smiled at one another. The second time she came and sat beside me. "You again!"

"I know. You're Pippa, right?"

She nodded. "And you're Madeleine." Her pale blue eyes examined me through thick glasses. "What's your sport?"

I chuckled. Already I was getting used to Levels, but still its central bizarreness struck me. "I'm a swimmer." I resisted asking the same question back, but it didn't stop Pippa.

"I'm a rider." She touched the tight braid she had made of her gleaming red hair. "Three day eventing."

"Right." I had no idea what she was talking about.

"I'm a bit bored of it, to be honest."

I raised my eyebrows. This wasn't the Levels way. "Really?"

She nodded. "I can't wait to stop it all. I would now, apart from the College would probably chuck me out. That's why I'm taking three such different subjects. So that when life no longer revolves around sports, I'll still have a wide set of options."

I nodded. Her selection showed much more sense than mine. Mum had advised me to focus on arts, or science, or humanities in my choice of three main subjects. I couldn't. I loved the ideas of myself as an artist and a scientist and a book-reading academic so much I hadn't been able to choose. So I went for all three at the same time.

Pippa's voice dropped to a murmur as the teacher came in. "Which house are you in?"

"Logres, but I'm not a boarder." I whispered back.

Her mouth drew down at the corners. "Oh shame."

I smiled at the implication that she would have liked to have spent more time with me in the evening and at weekends.

At lunch I wandered around school, telling myself I was looking for Sarah. As I went I debated what I should say to Eddy Moon if I bumped into him, switching between an urge to apologise and an impulse to tell him off again. What made him think it was acceptable to completely ignore the person sitting next to you? Apart from the person sitting next to you giving you exactly that idea herself.

There was no sign of the Four Horsemen either, so I headed to Logres. As a member of the house, their sixth form common room was my place to hang out in the school. I found Sarah on the sofa in front of the TV and sat next to her. "Hiya. What's going on?"

She looked at me out the corner of her eye. "Nothing. Usual. Trying to pretend I'm not hungry."

I didn't like to ask Sarah about the horsemen or Eddy, because she'd get the idea they interested me. I was curious about them, but not in the hormone fuelled way she would think. The mere idea of boys calling themselves the Four Horsemen was fascinating, in an obnoxious kind of way. I tried approaching the subject at an angle. "So. What's so amazing about Camelot?"

Sarah's face lit up. "You haven't been?"

I shook my head. "It is only my second day."

"Right. It's on the far side of the grounds. On the other side of the cricket pitch. It's basically a huge castle. They're having a party next Saturday, though. If you can get yourself an invitation you'll see it. It's the biggest party of the year."

"Are you going?"

"Are you kidding me? I think I would have mentioned it. Like, within three minutes of meeting you maximum. You know why none of the Camelot kids are around much this week? It's because they get so bugged by everybody hassling them for invitations. Last year this Italian Prince bought one for a thousand pounds. They didn't let him in and they chucked the kid who sold it him out of Camelot. He joined us in Logres, he's over there." She pointed at a stocky boy chatting with two friends in a corner. "He's a wrestler."

I wrinkled my mouth as if at a sour taste. "Really? That's um, surprising."

Sarah didn"t understand. "It's not. If I had a thousand pounds and someone to buy it from I'd pay for a ticket. The party is to choose the new head of house. They all sneak into the swimming pool for some kind of challenge, then go back to Camelot and stay up all night."

"Don't they get in trouble?"

She shrugged. "The housemaster knows it's happening, but the prefects are in charge."

"Prefects?" I thought prefects no longer existed. Older students with responsibilities and powers over other students. "Oh God. Are prefects allowed to, like, punish people?"

"Oh no. Not anymore. They just organise things and run each houses' sport teams."

The bell rang for the start of the afternoon's lessons. No sign of Eddy Moon then, or for the rest of the day. I caught a school bus after the last class, and at home I found Mum waiting in the kitchen with bread sliced and toaster primed. Though tempted, I decided not to say anything about Eddy Moon. There wasn't really anything to say.

"School's cool." I sat at the kitchen table spreading butter on toast. "I mean, it's completely like Hogwarts, crazy traditions and rules and weird names for everything. But I'll get used to it."

"And what are the other students like?" Sitting across the table from me, Mum cut her own toast in half.

"They seem okay. There's this one girl in three of my classes, Pippa. She seems nice. And Sarah's alright. I mean, she's always upbeat."

Mum nodded, chewing on her toast.

"What about you? How was your day?"

"I got you a present."

My eyes widened.

"It's kind of a back to school thing. Plus I know out in the countryside it's harder to be independent. You can't jump on and off the tube like you used to in London."

Now I narrowed my eyes. What was she talking about? "Have you got me a horse and cart?"

"Not quite. Follow me." She led me out the back door and around to the side of the house, where a gleaming black bicycle leaned against the wall.

I wasn't sure what to think. I'd ridden a bicycle sometimes when I was a kid, in the park, but not for years. Mum always thought London streets were too dangerous. "Um, Mum. Thanks, I think."

"Don't you like it?"

"Of course I like it. It's just, aren't you worried I might fall off it?"

"Well." Mum pursed her lips. "You can practice. Just here in Chalice Drive. It's safe."

I nodded firmly. "Of course. It's a shame Hurley's not here though. He could help."

Hurley was Grandma's foster son, about the closest I had to a cousin. Grandma adopted him when he was five years old. Hurley excelled at everything. That autumn he was at an exclusive American private school on a scholarship. He had taught me to ride a bike once before. I remembered him zooming around me on a BMX like a fearless little wasp while I wobbled along. I grasped the handlebars of the new bicycle. "But he's not here. So I'll have to do it myself."

I wheeled the bike down the path and onto the road. This was yet another reason to regret Hurley's absence. Since I learned we would be coming to live in Glastonbury I had wished dozens of times that he would be there.

I swung my leg over the saddle and pictured his smiling face. Hurley wore a permanent grin, nothing or nobody ever got him down. He would know how to respond to the Four Horsemen and the peculiar Eddy Moon.

Holding my breath, I pushed off and wobbled down Chalice Drive. With ten small, semi-detached houses on each side, the road didn't see a lot of traffic, and I would be safe exercising my bicycle skills.

Eddy Moon. He combined everything that was worst in boys. Being rich, and posh, and arrogant, and at the same time apparently stupid and unable to put one word in front of another.

Shakily I turned the bike at the end of the road. A little old lady emerged from a side alley, carrying a metal shopping basket. She waved.

"Evening," I said. "Um, good weather!"

Good weather? Why could I never think of anything sensible to say? I thought again of Hurley, who along with a perma-grin had a smart or funny comment about everything. Strangers loved Hurley. I bit my lip. It was probably better that Hurley was away, the Four Horsemen would have pulled him straight into their arrogant little gang. Apart from anything else Hurley rode horses as well as he rode bicycles. I circled my new bike in front of number 17. Mum's gleaming rich-person's BMW looked out of place next to the faded red brick and small windows of the little house. If Hurley lived with us the house would be impossibly crowded. He wasn't as big as Eddy Moon, but the house was really small.

I gripped the handlebars as hard as possible and concentrated on keeping a perfectly straight line, trying to push the image of Eddy Moon's big, calloused hands from my mind. Something squawked in the branches of a large tree in a front garden. Stopping I looked up at a large bird, like a gigantic crow, on a high branch. With its wings raised on either side it reminded me of a bat, or a gargoyle.

The little old lady stood beside me.

I smiled at her. "What is it?"

"Nasty thing." She shuddered. "Gives me the creeps." She hurried away, watched by the gleaming orange eyes of the black bird.

One last circuit, then I pulled back into our drive and leaned the bike against the side of the house.

In the kitchen I stood at the sink to wash my hands. Mum was back at the table, looking through financial reports.

"You still didn't tell me how your day was." I inclined my head towards the papers. "Interesting reading?"

"Not really. Grandma let the business get into quite a state. There were problems with the bees in the summer, and you know what the economy's like, people can barely afford bread, let alone organic honey to spread on it."

I twisted the cold tap back and forth. "Will it be okay?"

She put her head on one side. "I think so. I'll need to talk to the bank, and sharpen up the marketing, but it's going to be an interesting challenge." Her eyes dropped to the tap. "Let me do that." She came around the table to stand beside me. "What I'm looking forward to is being my own boss." She laid her hand on the tap, moving it imperceptibly. "I'll go to work when I want, and when I'm there I'll do exactly what I want." Pipes rumbled upstairs somewhere, and water poured into the sink.

"Mum! That's exactly what I did." I shoved my hands into the stream, in case it vanished as mysteriously as it arrived. "How did you do that? Grandma used to do that as well."

She smiled. "Just a knack. You'll learn it soon enough." She moved back toward the table. "Of course, the lease on the BMW will be up soon, and I'll probably have to get a van instead. If I brand it with a nice logo I can probably write off a lot of the cost as business losses so that..."

I stared at the water running over my hands. Mum would have us driving around in an old van with pictures of bees all over it. I shuddered. The sooner I started riding my bicycle everywhere, the better. Water blasted from the tap in a torrent, splashing over my school blouse. "Mum! Make it stop!" The water stopped of its own accord, pipes clanging in the distance. "Oh, never mind." I sighed.

Upstairs I sped through the bits of starter homework the teachers had given us. At eight o'clock the smell of Italian cooking infiltrated my room, so I descended the narrow stairs. A square dish of lasagne steamed in the centre of the kitchen table.

"Vegetarian?" I asked.

"Of course, dear."

I realised another advantage of life at Levels. Lunch there had been lavish and laden with meat. I would be able to get around the enforced vegetarianism of home.

I set the table, then sat down as Mum ladled lasagne onto our plates.

"So..." I chewed on a mouthful. "Have you heard of a family called Hechter? I ran into a boy called that this morning. They're apparently quite big around here."

"Mm." Mum nodded. "Colonel Hechter has a big farm near Wedmore. A huge place. He used to be a banker. I ran across him now and then in the city. But he quit the rat race ages ago, now he breeds shire horses. People pay to look around and get pulled in a big horse cart.

"Ah." I couldn't help smiling at a sudden flashback. When I was ten years old Grandma had taken me to the Shire Horse Centre. The scale of everything transfixed me. The width of the doors and the height of the fences, but most particularly the gigantic size of the horses. Their heads as long as I was tall, towering over me, shifting massive, feathery feet and huffing like steam trains.

Mum looked at me. "Grandma took you there once. You would have met his son. What's his name?" Her speech suddenly lost its rhythm.

"It's Kieran."

"There's another one."

"Really?" I took another mouthful of lasagne.

"A foster boy. I think his name's..." Again Mum's voice rose a tone. "His name's Eddy or something."

"Really?" I repeated, but this time with ten times as much interest. "Eddy is Kieran's brother?"

"Well kind of, the Hechters have been looking after him. I don't know what happened to his parents but..."

I swallowed the lasagne. "Do you know anything else about him?" I winced. I hadn't meant to sound interested in him. I wasn't really interested in him.

Mum narrowed her eyes at me. "Why?"

"No reason. I mean, he's in my history class."

"How's he getting on?"

I sat up straight. It seemed we shared an interest in young Mr. Moon. "Well. I don't know. He doesn't say much. He's a bit, you know, awkward."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I may have snapped at him."

"Madeleine, no."

"Well I was nervous, first day of school and everything."

"He hasn't had the easiest of times. I think it would be good if you could be nice to him, yes?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing happened, as such. But he's more or less an orphan, and I don't know if he and... Well never mind. Do you want some more salad?" She stood up and took some lettuce leaves from the colander. I narrowed my eyes at her back. There was a subtext here that I was missing somehow.

I couldn't get any more out of her, so I headed upstairs to finish off the short history question. 'Were there any early signs of Napoleon's greatness? What were they?'

Nothing obvious, was the easy answer. Napoleon wasn't even top of his class. I looked at the names emblazoning my shelf of biographies, neither were they. I flipped open my beloved Macbook and said a silent thank you to Steve Jobs, another great man. Maybe there was an example of Napoleon being inventive? I pulled his biography from the bookcase and flicked through it for five minutes, then grinned. Half an hour later, the Macbook displayed the story of how Napoleon took two years vacation at the start of his first job so he could fight a revolution, then came back and got promoted. He had his own idea of the possible. I edited it word by word, anxious to give a good impression for my first task.

Tired, I went to bed early then lay sleepless in the silence for what seemed like an age. For some reason the image running through my head, again and again, was of Eddy Moon rearranging his lanky frame, so that he could both sit next to me and keep his back to me. The grace with which he marshalled his long limbs was like a lion falling asleep in the shade.

The next morning I decided to give my bicycle its first try out. The route to the school wound gently downhill on the way out of Glastonbury, then flattened out onto long, straight roads as I headed across the levels. I hummed to myself. It was much easier than I'd imagined. Willow trees lined the drainage ditch beside the road and I startled an awkward heron from one of them.

Just as I began to think I might enjoy my new life in the countryside a cacophony of noise wobbled me almost into the ditch. Three enormous dogs leaped at the fence on the other side of the road, running to keep pace with my bike and barking and growling as they ran.

I yelled swearwords at them, got my head down and quickly left them behind. The adrenalin kick from my fear of the dogs meant I covered the second half of the journey twice as quickly as the first half and arrived at Levels after forty minutes. It was a good morning workout and I was sure my swim coach – who I was due to meet that afternoon – would approve.

First lesson was history. I hurried there and arrived in an empty classroom. After choosing the same place as before, I sat and stared at the door. One by one I counted the other students in, seven, eight, Pippa was ninth and came and sat next to me. Inside I cursed. Outside I smiled. "Hi Pippa. You okay? How did you get on with the Napoleon question?"

"Oh, fine I..." She stopped talking, her eyes fixed on the doorway.

The light in the room dimmed slightly. Eddy Moon filled the doorframe. From under his hair he glanced around the room and chose the opposite seat to my own. He sat down, pulled a textbook from his bag and read until Ms. Merrick arrived.

I glanced at him once a minute through the lesson. He never looked my way. Not once. From the moment he sat down I didn't get a single glance at the beautiful, leonine face. Then the lesson finished and he was gone.

"What's with him?" I hissed at Pippa. "Not very friendly is he?"

She stretched her mouth down at the corners. "I don't know. He looks like a complete scarecrow, though, eh?"

I shrugged. I didn't want to argue with her, but I wasn't going to pick on anybody else's school uniform. My own was dodgy enough. "Don't know. Maybe he's an inner beauty." To me his outer beauty was perfectly obvious.

She laughed and led the way to Spanish. As we went we talked about the Camelot party at the weekend. Pippa didn't have an invitation but was still hopeful. When I told her I didn't want one she didn't believe me.

After classes I hurried to the pool. Pools. Levels College boasted a pair of Olympic sized pools and nerves fluttered in my stomach as I got changed. I had only raced in Olympic pools, never trained in them. Fifty metres was a long way to churn up and down for two hours.

In my swimsuit I hurried out onto the poolside, eager to get into the water. The boys' changing room opened out beside the girls', and I emerged at the same time as four boys. I glanced at them, then felt my stomach flip over with embarrassment. I crossed my arms. After two days seeking them, I had run into the Four Horsemen. They fanned out across the poolside, making me tiptoe along the very brink to get around them.

"Hey," said Kieran Hechter.

I kept going, wishing I'd remembered to bring my towel out of the changing rooms.

"Hey," barked another voice. "He's talking to you."

I couldn't pretend I hadn't heard them. I turned slowly.

Tiago Toscano stood at the front of the little group. He inclined his head towards his friend. "Kieran was talking to you. Stop and listen." A lilting accent coloured his voice, but at the same time it sounded flat and commanding, as if talking to a servant. His athletic build was marred only by a long scar from the base of his throat, across his shoulder.

My breathing, shallow with embarrassment, switched to a gasp of fury. "I'm training. You can't tell me what to do."

"Actually we can tell you what to do." Shaven headed Gennady Ivanovich drawled over Toscano's shoulder. "Do you know who we are?" From his tone it was obvious he thought they were kings of the universe.

I looked from one member of the foursome to the next. I had been around swimmers all my life, so I was used to toned bodies and broad shoulders, but the Horsemen were something else. They looked like a group of sculptures in a Greek temple. Their biceps swelled in solid curves and the muscles of their chests and shoulders formed solid panels, like armour. All four had powerful looking legs curving into slim waists. Their tans ranged from deep gold to dark bronze, but all were marred with one or two heavy scars.

I took a breath. "No," I lied. "And I don't want to."

Rami Ahmed began in a deep, grating voice. "We're the-"

Kieran Hechter stopped him with a raised hand. "That's not the point." He pushed his glossy brown hair away from his forehead. Sinews flickered in his forearm, where he wore his scar, like a four horsemen membership badge. He bore another on his side, extending from his pronounced abs to his right nipple. "The point is, we're having a party and we'd like you to come."

# Chapter 4: Bend in the Road

I stared. The Camelot party. Four hot, practically naked, older boys stood on the side of a pool inviting me to the school's social event of the year. There was only one possible answer. "Thanks, but, you've got to be joking. Now I really have to go." I walked past them, feet slapping on the tiles, again conscious of my own near-nakedness.

That evening's training session was the best I'd ever had. I spent most of it in a slowly waning fury. The coach set me a series of more and more difficult drills, but they seemed to get faster and easier as I went. Established Levels swimmers were better and at first overtook me, churning the water. They tired earlier, however, and towards the end I was holding my own, feeling bizarrely as if I was swimming downhill.

When we finished, though, I felt just as exhausted as they must have been. Washing my hair, my arms trembled from shoulders to fingertips and I had to drop them to my side and rest before I rinsed off the conditioner. With weary legs the ride home took much longer. I hummed as I pedalled along the very straight road. I should have accepted the invitation, of course. It would have been an enormous leap up the Levels social ladder. It was just the way the boys presented it, like it was the best invitation anyone had ever given me. They didn't know me. They didn't know what parties I had been invited to. Their assumption that I would be all over them had summoned punk Madeleine. How dare they?

I ignored the barking dogs. Would Kieran tell people I had turned him down? Probably not, it would be embarrassing. Would Eddy Moon hear about it? What would he think? Was he going to the party? He seemed in the orbit of the Four Horsemen, but not like them, making it hard to judge.

I arrived home to a completely new kind of Friday night. I watched soap operas and game shows with Mum, then went to bed early. The next day promised one of the biggest horrors of my new routine. Saturday school. Maybe this was how private schools succeeded. They made students work three times as hard as at other schools.

In the morning I hauled myself out of my narrow bed, its saggy old mattress almost folding in half as I sat on one edge. I needed to persuade Mum an IKEA trip was a priority. I opened the curtains and narrowed my eyes. Down the road, in the top of a tall tree, I recognised the silhouette of the weird, crow-like bird. An icy shiver swept down my spine. Holding its wings out on each side, the bird reminded me of a demon on the front of a heavy metal band tour t-shirt. Two years before I had decided heavy metal was my favourite thing in the world. I got bored after a year, but my love for Motorhead remained. I started the playlist on my Mac and yelled along to the 'Ace of Spades' as I got ready.

"It's raining," Mum said when I arrived in the kitchen. "I'll take you to school."

I thought for a moment. Oddly I had been looking forward to the bike ride. "No it's okay. I'll wear a raincoat." I tied my hair back into a neat braid, like one of the horse riding girls, and set out. The rain was deceptive, though. It looked heavy in the distance, and seemed to dimple puddles in the gutter, but my rain coat stayed almost dry. Halfway to school I smiled. Good thing we hadn't come by car.

Descending to the last junction before the road levelled out, I almost ran into the back of a long traffic jam. At the head of the line I found a small van with "University of Bath Archaeology Department" written across its side. Two young men in luminous vests unloaded digging equipment and protective barriers. I nodded at them as I wheeled my bike around the holdup, then remounted and whizzed on to school.

Lessons finished at lunchtime, followed by an hour of swimming. A monster IKEA trip and a marathon of assembling our purchases occupied the rest of the weekend. By Sunday evening, though cool, pale furniture filled my bedroom I was absolutely sick of instruction sheets and nuts and bolts. Sighing, I dropped to my bedroom floor, leaned against my new ice blue bed cover, and rubbed the velvety softness of the brushed cotton between my finger and thumb. When he returned Hurley wouldn't recognise the place. A thud and a volley of swearing erupted from Mum's room. I stood up "Mum? Are you okay?"

In her room, Mum sat in the middle of a circle of small wooden panels. Red faced, she looked up at me. "Maddie, I think there's something wrong with the destructions."

"Ha! Instructions you mean."

"Same difference. Can you make supper for us? I want to get the better of this."

In the kitchen I sighed, remembering long London weekends full of fun. I had never had such a boring time that I actually looked forward to going back to school. I went to bed early and dreamed of the swimming pool and its water pushing me along like a river.

In the morning the bike ride was less fun. My backside ached from the week before, and mist held the night's chill across the levels. I managed to zone out, though, and so the three dogs barking behind the gate again made me jump. "Shut up!" I yelled at them, which only served to amplify their fury. They leaped at the fence as if to knock it down.

"Hi!" Sarah hugged me when I arrived in the tutor room.

"Hey." Though surprised, I hugged her back.

She sat me down. "So how was your weekend? Did you go out?"

I stared at her. "Um, I didn't really do anything."

She leaned back. "Really, why?"

"Well, I couldn't be bothered really. I don't know many people." By which I meant absolutely nobody.

She shook her head. "But you should do something. I mean, you can. I had to stay here. We watched a DVD in Lyonesse."

"I'm sorry for being so boring. Next week I'll try harder, I promise."

She shuffled closer. "If you need help, like, thinking of something fun to do, I'll help. We could go shopping in Bath, or Taunton. Maybe to the cinema." She looked at the ceiling. "Of course, if we came back late I'd probably have to stay at yours, if your parents wouldn't mind."

I winced. Mum wouldn't mind, but still it was never going to happen. If chatterbox Sarah learned my whole house could fit in one of my classmate's horseboxes the rest of the school would know in hours. More importantly how was I going to get away with not correcting her use of 'parents'?

"Oh!" A thought flashed into my mind. "I got invited to the Camelot party, well kind of."

Her mouth and eyes transformed into three perfect circles of astonishment. "No! Can I see it? Show it me, show it me."

"I haven't got it. I mean, I didn't want it."

She grabbed my wrist. "You're joking? They invited you and you turned them down? What are you doing instead?" She let go of my wrist and pointed at me. "Oh my God, you were tricking me before. You've got amazing stuff to do. Are you going to London? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you going back to London to see your boyfriend? It's so unfair!"

I laughed. "Calm down Sarah, it's okay. I don't have a boyfriend." I couldn't tell her how much the Four Horsemen had annoyed me, she thought they were amazing. Instead I imagined myself to be self-contained and private. "It's just, I'm not really into parties and, I won't know anybody there." The idea of this Madeleine appealed to me. Serious, thoughtful, happy with her own company, she sent emails to friends in foreign countries and kept a diary. "Where's a good place to buy a diary?"

"What? What's that got to do with it?"

Mr. Vaughan arrived and Sarah gave me one last, frowning look before turning away. Mr Vaughan droned through the register and I quickly stopped thinking about the Four Horsemen. Instead, the long-legged, broad-shouldered shape of Eddy Moon filled my mind. Maybe he wasn't the same as his arrogant foster-brother. Mum said he had a hard time, and the too-small clothes and hedge-trimmer haircut seemed to attest to that. Diary-writing Madeleine wouldn't write him off. She would have been much more thoughtful and understanding. In fact, she probably wouldn't have snapped at him in the first place. And if she did snap at him she would do the right thing.

In the afternoon I headed towards history early, but stopped in the courtyard in front of the humanities block and dug my phone from my bag. I pretended to be sending a text while watching the pathways in both directions. Pippa and a couple of other classmates walked past.

"Hi guys." I smiled. "There in a minute. Tell Ms. Merrick I'm on my way."

They nodded and turned into the entrance. A minute later, I recognised the tall form that appeared through the doorway of the science block. I concentrated on my phone, estimated when he would be within range, and put it away. I hadn't accounted for his long legs, and when I looked up he was right beside me. His tawny eyes scanned my face.

I took a shaky breath. "Oh, hi Eddy."

He swept past me without saying anything.

I had to trot to keep up with him. "I said, 'Hi Eddy.'" Still nothing. I persevered. "I wanted to say, I know I may have seemed rude the first lesson, and I'm sorry."

He took the steps two or three at a time, speeding away from me. His cheap-looking trousers exposed three inches of sock with each stride.

"I'm sorry. I mean, you might not think it's a big deal, but put yourself in my place, when it's..."

He disappeared into the classroom. How dare he? I apologised, not once, but twice, and he ignored me. He and his obnoxious brother were as bad as one another. Diary writing Madeleine was an idiot. I stormed into the classroom after him and slumped into my seat next to Pippa.

"Hi." She smiled at me. "Good weekend?"

"Don't ask," I huffed and threw my bag on the floor.

Ms. Merrick handed back our essays. "Nicely done, Madeleine," she said, as she hurried past our desk. "Eddy," she said, on the other side of the room. "This is exceptional work. I'm really very impressed by your creativity and your research. Your approach to the nature of leadership is original, and excellent."

Pippa and I gawped. I dropped my forehead to the desktop.

"Einstein in tramp's clothing," Pippa whispered.

I stomped from lesson to lesson for the rest of the day, then stormed through swim training. Again the swim coach called me aside at the end.

"That was really strong, Bride. You've already caught up."

I smiled, my first of the day. Swimming was feeling easier and easier. Instead of being an obstacle the water seemed to get out of my way. The one thing I had been sure I would hate about going to Levels turned out to be the thing I liked the most. Maybe I would be Madeleine the jock. I had to choose a football team to follow.

Cycling home, my mood continued to lift. The evening light shone low over the levels, turning lines of water to gold. At the weekend I would shop for sneakers. I hummed to myself as I approached the only bend, just before the slope to Glastonbury began. I rounded the turn, stopped humming and swerved my bike into the hedge. A black sports car barrelled down the wrong side of the narrow road, heading straight for me.

Broken twigs scratched my legs and my heart pounded as I turned to stare after the departing car. To my surprise it screeched to a halt, then reversed back to me. It moved very quickly indeed, and when it reached me I recognised it as an Aston Martin Vantage, Hurley's favourite car.

A tall man in a black suit got out of the car and walked toward me. The swagger, the dark good looks, and the gleaming curly hair. Tiago Toscano.

"Hey, new girl. You want a ride?"

"Want a ride? Want a ride? You almost killed me, you idiot."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I get the car on these straight roads, I can't resist putting my foot down." He glanced at the road before hitting me with his smouldering dark eyes. "So new girl."

"My name's Madeleine!"

"I'm sorry Madeleine." He looked me up and down, one side of his mouth lifted in a cocky smile. "Madeleine. Kieran invited you to a party." He stepped closer and interest shone in his black eyes. "Maybe you were in a bad mood. Maybe now you reconsider?"

"You think now the timing might be better?" I shook my head.

Tiago Toscano ran his tongue along his perfect teeth. "Mad-ah-leine." Though he was an idiot, my name in his accent sounded impossibly sexy. "Everybody likes our party. Is very special party."

I tilted my head to one side. I did like parties. Had always liked them. Maybe I had been a bit rash in turning down the first invitation of my Levels career. After all, being thoughtful and retiring had got me absolutely nowhere with Eddy. Diary writing Madeleine was a bust. Maybe I should be frivolous. I knew I had the dress for it, and how many times in my life would I be asked to a party by somebody as good looking as Tiago Toscano?

I clicked my fingers. I could have my cake and eat it. Go to the party, and get back at them for being so rude on the poolside. "I might go. I might. But I still don't want to go with Kieran. I'm sorry, he's your friend." I would go to the party on my terms, even if I made the terms up as I went along.

Toscano nodded and leaned elegantly against the gleaming wing of the Aston Martin. "So?"

"But if you invited me, that would be different."

"Ah." He raised his eyebrows. It was possible the Four Horsemen had some kind of 'all's fair in love and war' clause guiding their dealings with girls, but I doubted it. I also doubted they were the types to step aside in favour of a companion in arms. I was right. "Okay. I invite you. I send you an invitation to Logres." Again the gleaming dark eyes assessed me slowly. "I pick you up from there. Wear something..."

"I know."

"Good. You want a ride?"

"What would I do with my bike?"

He shrugged and directed his eyes toward the hedge. I supposed that if you drove an Aston Martin Vantage, leaving a bicycle by the side of the road was not a big deal.

I shook my head. "I can't do that."

He placed a hand on the door handle, then turned back. "What's your number?"

I told him as I got back on my bike. Raising a hand I placed a foot on a pedal. "I'll see you tomorrow." I pushed off and accelerated away without looking back. Forgetting my scratches, I began humming again and even managed a cheery smile for the snarling, snapping dogs.

The next day Tiago sent me seven text messages. Three of them came during the history lesson, when I sat trying not to look at Eddy Moon, across the room. In contrast, he seemed to have no trouble completely avoiding looking at me.

The last one came in the evening, as I shopped for groceries with Mum. It asked me not to talk to anybody about our date, as he hadn't told Kieran yet. I smirked as I wrote: 'Ok. Hope I won't 4get, v. big news U C.'

Mum noticed my smile. "Funny message Maddie?"

"Just silly really." I took the shopping list from her hand. "If we get eggs I'll make an omelette for dinner one evening."

The next morning Tiago sent me eight text messages. I ignored them all, except the one asking me to meet him in the car park. I found him there in his favourite pose, leaning against his car.

"Hi." I flashed him a plastic smile.

"Bom dia, Mad-a-lena."

I gulped. He had an astonishing way of saying my name.

He ran a finger along the gleaming paintwork. "You remember my car."

"Uh-huh." He was still an idiot.

"You want come for a ride?"

"I've got an art lesson."

He shrugged. "So?"

I bit my lip. Sitting in the passenger seat of the Aston Martin would be like being in a Bond film. I shook my head. In a Bond film, but besides the villain's stupid henchman. "Um, is Eddy Moon a friend of yours?" What was I saying? Eddy had treated me like crap, but here I was, still trying to find out his back story.

Tiago made a face, as if sipping corked champagne. "Him? No. He's like Kieran's servant or something."

"Kieran's servant?"

"He smells bad. I don't think he wears cologne. Not even deodorant."

I stared at him, remembering Eddy's smell, of cut grass and leather.

"Oh." Tiago raised a finger. "What cologne do you like? I get it, I wear it Saturday."

I bit back a snort of derision. "Really? No it's okay. I, um, trust your expertise." Being frivolous was more of a struggle than I had imagined.

I met Pippa just before lunch and we queued up together in the dining hall. She wore cream jodhpurs and riding boots. I gestured at her legs. "Nice look. Special for lunchtime?"

She giggled and nudged me. "Shut up Maddie. No, I've got riding practice next and getting all the stuff ready takes so long it's only worth it if I get ready before lunch."

I nodded. "The things you do for the good of Levels College, eh? Oh God, what shall I have?"

Lunch was a choice of beef bourguignon, Chinese chicken, salmon pasta and a couple of vegetarian options. After the greasy repetition of school food in London I was still getting used to the Levels luxury.

"Go for the salmon."

I chose the beef and we sat together, as near to a corner as possible.

I loaded meat onto my fork. "So how's the riding going?"

Pippa wrinkled her nose. "The horse people are like a whole world within Levels. They speak their own language, have completely different obsessions."

I pointed my fork at her. "Wear different clothes."

"Right. But even within that world, there are like different countries. There are the jumpers, like me."

"Bold and brave."

"Something like that. Then there's the dressage-"

"Which is?"

"Getting your horse to walk sideways and spin in circles and stuff." Pippa checked her watch as she stuffed food into her mouth. "Those riders are, if you ask me, mental. Then there's the polo players."

"The Four Horsemen."

She rolled her eyes. "Do you know they've got four horses each? Four amazing horses of their own, each?"

I shook my head.

"Because of polo they're all obsessed with strength training." She shoved another forkful of food into her mouth and chewed frantically. "They work out all the time."

I remembered how they looked on the side of the pool. I believed her.

"Right." She clattered her fork down on her plate. "Really sorry sweetie, but I've got to go. Seriously, sometimes I think the instructor would like to whip me, as well as the horses."

"No worries. See you later. I'll clear your plate away."

"Oh thanks Maddie, you're the best." She jogged away through the hall.

After school I had my own sporting speciality, which was going far better than Pippa's. Madeleine the jock skimmed through the water. The rhythms of my strokes felt as steady as a clock, and I relaxed into the repetition until it felt meditative, almost soothing. Standing on the poolside, wrapped in a towel, I flushed when coach gave me a double thumbs up.

"Great work Bride. Seems like you're getting a taste for our water."

"Thanks coach."

"Seriously, if you keep this up you'll be in the team a lot sooner than we hoped."

I hummed as I cycled home, planning how I would make Mum an especially delicious omelette. There was no reason why omelettes should be seen as dull food. I was sure I could make an interesting omelette. I waved at the angry dogs behind their fence. They barked back at me, keeping pace through the garden they lived in. At the far end they reached the gate and as usual, hurled themselves against it.

As I passed it the gate opened.

The three dogs tumbled out onto the road. I stood up, leaning on the bicycle's pedals as hard as I could and watching them over my shoulder. They righted themselves from a tangled heap. After sniffing around for a couple of seconds, first one, then the others, set off after me. As fast as I went, they caught me up. They bayed and I shouted for help. Just as I reached the turn where I had my encounter with Tiago Toscano, the leading hound caught me. It snapped at my ankle. I screamed and jerked the handlebars, sending the bike skidding into the hedge and myself falling off the side.

Growling, the three dogs advanced. I scrabbled up the bank on my bottom, looking down at them and holding my bike between us as a flimsy defence. What was it about this bend? "Help!" What I wouldn't give for Tiago Toscano to be testing the handling of his sports car now. "Get away."

The dogs seemed surprised in the change in circumstances. Barking at me through a fence was one thing, cornering me on the road, three hundred yards from home, was something else. They growled, but also glanced back at the gate they had broken through.

The largest, a slavering black beast with the square head of a bulldog, lunged at me. I kicked out, he snarled. The other two gained confidence.

"Help!" How I hated the countryside and its emptiness. "Help!"

I began to cry. Two of the dogs pounced at once and I slipped a little, down the bank towards them. "Help!" I sobbed and vomit pushed at my throat.

A deep shout rang from the field behind me. "Get off her!" The world went dark. A shadow arched across the sun. As I gasped I had a sudden, pungent lungful of stables and a massive shape soared over me, like a jumbo jet landing. A gigantic chestnut horse clattered onto the road beyond the dogs. They crouched, growling, turning away from me to face the horse.

I recognised the enormous creature as a Shire horse, with feathery fringes of white hair around its hooves. From high up on its broad back, Eddy Moon shouted at the dogs again. "Get away!" His blond hair blew back from his face as he urged his steed forward.

# Chapter 5: Sea Raven

The chestnut horse's eyes rolled and its enormous hooves rang on the country road. It passed between the dogs and turned next to me as I sprawled against the hedge.

Eddy bent from the saddle. "Come closer!" he commanded.

I did as he said. He leaned nearer, grabbed me under my arms and with incredible strength lifted me into the saddle in front of him.

I slumped backwards against his chest, wide and solid. "Oh thank you. Eddy." He smelled of cut grass. My head spun as if I was about to faint.

"Sit up straight!" He pushed the reins into my hands and scissoring his legs behind him, Eddy jumped down from the horse. He stood in the road, wearing faded jeans, battered riding boots and an old white shirt, worn to threads and pills at the collar. Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the shirt exposed the golden skin of his thick wrists and forearms.

Growling, the dogs circled him. The big black one sprang forward and Eddy twisted sideways. Faster than I could see, he caught its collar as it leaped past him. The dog hung in the air for a moment before dropping to the ground. It growled, teetering on its hind legs and suspended from its collar, held in Eddy's huge right hand. Muscles stood out from his tanned forearm. With his left hand he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free, then looped it through the dog's collar and back into the buckle.

The horse stamped and sidled. Eddy looked up. "Steady Boxer!" His eyes met mine. "Pull back hard on the reins. He's so strong that otherwise he won't know you're there."

I hauled on the reins and the horse stilled. Its neck, thick as a tree trunk, arched as it eyed the two, loose dogs.

"Come here!" Eddy commanded them. They growled. He advanced on the pair of dogs, hauling the black one after him. They snapped at him. Again he moved fast as light. Darting forward he grabbed the second dog by the scruff of the neck and lifted it off the ground. He laced the belt through a second collar and dropped the dog to the road. The two dogs were squashed together at the neck and whimpered.

"Shut up!" Eddy snapped. "I'm taking you home." He turned to me. "Do you want to wait here, while I take the dogs? I know old Naylor, the farmer. I'll tell him his gate needs fixing."

I blinked, trying to reconcile this commanding, capable figure with my quiet, aloof classmate. "Um, what about the horse?"

"He knows the gate's broken too, but he's not so good at expressing himself."

"Eddy!"

"He might decide he wants to come with me, of course. But I don't think he likes the dogs." He raised his voice. "Boxer! Go and stand on the verge."

I swayed from side to side as Boxer did as he was told. Sitting in his saddle was like lurching around on the seat of a rowboat in the middle of a storm at sea. He stepped onto the grass, and lowered his head to snack on it. Eddy jogged down the road with two of the dogs stumbling beside him and the third trailing behind. With his free hand he hauled up his sagging jeans, missing a belt. I put my hand to my throat. I had always thought London included in its sprawling, sparkling metropolis everything a girl could need. I had been wrong.

He laced his belt into his jeans as he came back. I looked down at him. "Eddy, I don't know what to say. I should do something to repay you."

"No need." His voice had lost the snap of command, but it still carried deep and clear. "Just looking out for a damsel in distress." He held up his hands and I placed mine into them. It felt like leaning my palms onto the branch of a tree, hard and strong. I pulled one leg over Boxer's rump, then Eddy swung me down.

I gazed into his beautiful, leonine features. "But seriously..." For a moment I was even prepared to risk the secrets of Chalice Drive. "Do you want a cup of tea, or something? Um, my Mum's got cakes."

He smiled and looked at his watch. "No, I can't. I've got stuff to do. Boxer should be home for his supper in, like, five minutes ago."

My Mum's got cakes? Was I eight years old? "Okay." I stroked Boxer on his silky nose. "This is an astonishing horse." The lowest point in his curving back was higher than the top of my head. "How tall is he?"

"Nineteen hands, six feet at the shoulder."

"Thanks Boxer."

Eddy sprang back into the saddle. "You'll be okay on your bike?"

"Um." I struggled to adjust, as the scene faded to normality. "I'll be fine. See you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yep."

"Maybe we could..."

The clatter of Boxers hooves drowned me out, then he and Eddy were gone. I stared down the road. "And why don't you talk to me in school? What's going on with you?"

I pedalled the rest of the way home trying to make sense of Eddy Moon. I had never seen or heard him and Boxer on that road or in the adjoining fields. What was he doing there?

The next day I waited for him outside the history classroom. He never appeared. I spent the lesson and the evening at home remembering how he looked facing the dogs in the road. How it felt when he lifted me onto the horse. My hands in his when he swung me down. I stared out the window and the weird bird in the tree squawked at me, but all I saw was the confidence and courage in Eddy Moon's beautiful face.

The day after I looked for him everywhere. Where did he hide? I roamed the corridors, peering through the doors of empty classrooms. A couple of times I asked people. "Have you seen Eddy Moon? A new boy."

Nobody knew who he was.

I lurked in the car park and looked through gym windows. Apart from history, I didn't know what courses he had chosen, and as I stomped along a path between two rugby pitches I wondered if history could be his only class.

"Maddie!"

I turned at the call. Pippa hurried along the path toward me, her riding helmet in one hand. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing. Just, getting some fresh air."

She hooked her arm into mine. "Really? Are you okay?"

"I"m fine. Where are you off to?"

She waved her helmet towards the barn ahead of us. "Stables. I've got a quick training session. More so the horse doesn't forget who I am than for anything else."

"Can I watch?"

She screwed up her face. "Do you really want to?"

"Nothing else to do."

"Ok."

We walked into the barn side by side, until I stopped dead.

Pippa looked back at me. "What?"

At the far end of the barn Eddy Moon swept the floor. He wore overalls but his school collar and tie showed at his throat. I should have known. Horses.

"What's he doing here?"

"Oh him. He's here quite a lot, break time and lunch and stuff. Bit weird, if you ask me."

I narrowed my eyes. "Really?" Why hadn't she told me? "Where are you going to be doing your riding?"

"The south ring. Just through there." She pointed at a side door.

"Ok. I'll be there in a minute."

She shrugged. "All right."

I couldn't help calling out as I hurried between the stalls. "Eddy!"

He looked up, then his eyes flickered around the building. I could have sworn he was looking for a way out.

"Eddy, I haven't seen you since, since, you know. Is everything okay?"

He looked down at his heavy knuckles around the broom handle. His tawny hair slid forward and hid his face. "Course. Everything's normal. Sorry Madeleine I gotta..." He half turned.

"You didn't go to history."

"Yeah. Um..." His cheeks flushed pink. "Did I miss anything?"

I had spent the whole lesson thinking about the broad golden space at his collarbone where his white shirt opened a button lower than was seemly. "Can't remember. What are you doing?"

"Helping out and now..." He stepped away.

I followed him. "Why?"

Finally I got my reward. He pushed his hair out of his face and his luminous beauty shone down on me. "I like it here. You know. I don't know many kids at the school, but I like horses, so..."

"How's Boxer?" I screwed my eyes shut for a moment, unable to believe I had asked such a stupid question.

Eddy grinned. His shoulders - which I realised he had been hunching slightly - relaxed. "He's fine. Supper was a bit late, which annoyed him, but he took it out on his mates, not me. So that's alright."

"Cool." This was how to talk to Eddy Moon. "I love Boxer."

His smile widened, giving his face a new, younger look. "Did you tell your parents about what happened?"

I shook my head.

He moved the broom slightly, shifting wisps of straw. "Why?"

"There's only my Mum and me." My mouth dropped open. I couldn't believe what I had just said. Exposing the smallness and narrowness of my tiny family always terrified me. I didn't know why. "I don't want to worry her."

He nodded. "Fair enough. Are you a swimmer?"

I winced at the apparent randomness of the question. Those damn shoulders of mine giving me away again. "Yep. You?"

"Can't swim for toffee."

"What about you? Did you tell your parents about the dogs?" I wondered if he was going to join me in the honesty game.

"I've only got a foster father. I call him my uncle. I told him Naylor's dogs got out."

"But not about me?" I widened my eyes at him.

Eddy began sweeping more seriously, and his hair hid his face again. Damn it. Talking to him was like trying to coax a baby animal to eat from your hand.

"Yeah, that makes sense." I tried to wipe all flirtation from my face and voice. "It wasn't a big thing anyway."

He nodded. A gust of wind rattled the barn's tin roof, like applause.

"Oh God." I searched for a change of subject. "The weather's getting worse." I moved towards the big doorway and looked out across the fields. "Did you know that when I was a kid I thought Somerset was called Somerset because we used to come here in the summer holidays?"

Eddy laughed and took a couple of strides after me. I sighed with relief.

"You were almost right," he said. "The name came thousands of years ago, before Somerset was drained. Through the winter high tides and rain flooded all the land below sea level, so the county became just a scattering of islands. In the summer, though, the water retreated and it became a land of orchards and fish-filled lakes. People poured in, taking advantage of its riches and beauty until autumn forced them back in the face of the sea."

"Wow." I stared at him. "I know you kicked ass at that Napoleon essay, but I didn't realise you were such a history expert."

He waved a hand towards the green-spread landscape. "I love it here. I think it's the most beautiful place in the world."

I considered smart retorts. How would he know? Where had he been? I bit them back. "Hey, look at that bird!" A black creature, like the demon-winged crow that haunted Chalice Close, perched in a tree above a hockey pitch. "What is it?"

Eddy frowned. "It's a, a what do you call it? A sea raven." He looked at his watch. "I have to get changed."

"You have a lesson now?"

He nodded. "Politics."

"Politics? What? Why..."

He bit his lip. "I'm sorry. I really have to go."

"Ok. Um, see you later."

Outside rain fell, and I hurried through it, skipping every third stride. I was in such a good mood that I didn't even seem to get wet. In physics I tried to look apologetic while I grovelled to Pippa for not watching her, but struggled to keep a huge grin off my face.

The next day I went back to the barn at morning break. No sign of Eddy. I thought again of the shy baby animal, so went back to the Logres common room to gossip with Sarah about the Camelot party. Though sometimes when I talked to her it was like watching myself from outside my body, like a robot on autopilot, still I kind of liked it. Talking to Sarah resembled listening to cheesy pop music.

I left Eddy until the afternoon break of the next day, then went to find him in the barn. He sat in a small side room, rubbing oil into a saddle.

"Hi," I said. "Have you seen Pippa?" I doubted he would have, as she was in her study doing English homework.

He shook his head. "No, sorry."

"Did you say hi to Boxer for me?"

He smiled. "Actually, yes I did."

I blushed. Oh my God. He talked to his horse about me. I wasn't sure what that meant. I would have to analyse it, but I was fairly certain it was good news. I moved onto my next trick, which I was particularly proud of. "Um, I was going to ask Pippa to look at my history. The reasons for the English Civil War. I don't suppose, as she's not here, that you would?"

Eddy put down his oily rag and used another one to wipe his big hands. "Sure."

"How come you're so good at history?" I fumbled in my bag for my essay. "You read about it outside of class? Or talk about it?"

"I'm interested, I suppose. And yeah, my foster father always talks about it. At dinner and stuff. He drums it into us."

I handed him my essay. "You and Kieran?"

His head dropped and the beautiful face disappeared. I bit my lip, then gabbled as he read. "My Mum's not so big on history. She's into psychology and stuff. I guess. I mean, maybe my father was a history nut. I don't know." My face burned. I couldn't believe the information that poured out of my mouth when I was alone with Eddy Moon.

He looked up. "You never met your father?"

"Nope. He was American. Him and Mum split up before she knew she was pregnant and he disappeared. She could never find him." I held my breath. What would he say?

Eddy nodded and looked back at my essay.

I picked at a fingernail. The room smelled of leather and horses. Eddy seemed to be getting to the end of my work.

He handed it back to me. "It's really good. I mean, I focused more on the individuals and less on social trends, but that's just my way of doing it."

I nodded. "Um, you don't think it's bad that..."

He looked at me expectantly.

"That I don't know my father?"

He smiled. "I thought you were going to ask about your spelling or something. Of course not. Everybody's life is different. Do you think it's bad that you don't know your father?"

"Well, I know he was from New York and his name was Jared Kennedy. Though actually Mum thinks either of those two facts may just have been part of the truth. Maybe he was Turkish, or Italian, Greek or Persian."

"See, I think that's actually cool."

I nodded. "It might be. I went through phases of lying in bed and saying his name to myself. I decided tons of times to track him down when I was old enough. Most of the time, though, I thought it would be too much trouble. Mum's enough for me."

I couldn't stop myself. I was telling him my secrets to try and enforce closeness. With each word I knew I made myself more vulnerable, but there was nothing I could do. I tried for balance. "What about you?"

"Well. It sounds like your Mum's great, so yeah." He picked up the oily rag and returned to the saddle.

"No..." There was no point. I held up the essay. "Thanks for looking at this."

"No problem."

I gave him another day's peace. Our conversation had given me plenty to mull over, even though Eddy hadn't really contributed to it. Still, he hadn't run out for the barn, screaming, and that had to be a good thing.

On Friday, when I returned to the barn I couldn't find him. Saturday morning school whizzed past with no opportunity for an Eddy hunt and I spent the afternoon alternating between trying to do homework and fretting about the party.

Mum dropped me off at Logres at ten past nine. I wore the one good dress in my closet. In a way I was disappointed I had to use up its gunpowder so quickly. Calvin Klein, black, with spaghetti straps, it minimised the resemblance between my shoulders and a man's. Standing beside the car I draped a glossy, dark chocolate shawl around my arms and across my back. Once everybody at Levels had seen the dress I would have to get another. Not the worst kind of outcome.

In the darkness the roads and paths of Levels were punctuated by beautiful, wrought iron street lamps, and lights shone down the stone faces of boarding houses and school offices. The campus looked more like a genteel county town than a school.

Sarah was waiting for me in the common room. "Oh my God Maddie you look amazing!"

"Thank you."

"When's he coming? I can't believe you've got a date with one of the Four Horsemen."

I winced, wishing she wouldn't keep using the name of their stupid little club, while I worked so hard to keep it out of my mind. "He should have been here ten minutes ago."

Sarah put her head on one side. "He is Brazilian though."

"Fair point."

"And completely gorgeous."

I summoned frivolous Madeleine, but the best she could manage was, "Well, I guess..."

"Oh what are you going to-"

The front doorbell rang and Sarah clapped her hand to her mouth. "Oh that's him! Do you want me to answer it? I'll answer it."

"Um, okay."

She bustled away, pausing by the mirror to check her hair. I heard the murmur of voices, then she was back, and flustered. "Maddie, oh, he's wearing the most amazing suit he looks..."

I walked past her. A porch with a pointed, Gothic arch protected the front door of Logres, used by visitors. Stone benches lined the wall on each side. Tiago Toscano sat on the left-hand bench, his legs stretched out in front of him. Beyond him, through the archway the lawn and sky were velvety with evening. He held a bunch of red and white roses across his lap. "Madeleine, you look beautiful." He rose to his feet. "I have for you some flowers. Come to the party with me."

# Chapter 6: The Challenge

Though I thought him a bit of an idiot Tiago really drew my eyes. In evening dress, with a black bow tie, he looked like he had walked out of a cologne commercial.

I took his arm. Another couple dressed for the party crossed the lawn in front of us. We paused a moment, then followed. Inside my head was like a see-saw. I couldn't decide whether I was the frivolous Bond girl, partying because I was good at it, or the Bond villainess chuckling under her breath, with a little dagger strapped to her thigh. The confusion almost made me dizzy and so, eyes down, I watched my black high-heeled shoes progress delicately along the path. When I decided to be a party princess I hadn't considered the shoes princesses had to wear.

I looked up at Tiago. "So tell me about this party. What's it all for?"

He slowed and looked down at me. "You don't know? Really?"

Sarah had told me, but I didn't pay attention, something that happened quite often when she talked to me. I shook my head.

"It's to choose the head of Camelot. Other houses, the house parents choose the head."

"What are the house parents?"

"They used to call them the house master and mistress, they're the teachers who live in the house and are in charge of us. Usually they also choose the head of house, but Camelot is different. The students choose."

"Really?" I feigned interest in more Levels madness. "How? Do they vote?"

"No!" He laughed. "We have the challenge. I can't believe you don't know."

"What challenge?"

"You know the sword in Mr. Neil's office?" Tiago led the way along the wide path beside the cricket pitch.

I nodded. "Yeah. Why does the chairman of governors have a sword on his wall? I wondered about that."

"It's the symbol of the school. Anyway, the outgoing Head of Camelot has to sneak in to Mr. Neil's office and take the sword. Then he-"

"He? Why not she?"

Tiago snorted. "She? That's funny. He takes the sword to the Olympic pool and throws it into the water. The first boy to get it is the new head."

"Okay, fair enough. I can see why no girls would want a part in playing silly games like that."

"Silly game? It's amazing!"

"You're not joining in are you?"

"Of course I am. We all are." The turrets of Camelot loomed ahead. "That's why we were at the pool the other day, training." Rough, grey stone composed the front wall of the house. Asymmetric, higher in some parts than others, and bulging outwards at the foot of a tower, it really did look like a castle.

"Oh God." I shook my head. Why had Mum enrolled me in such a lunatic asylum? She must have known how I would feel about all the weirdness.

"We're here." Tiago stood aside and put a hand to the small of my back as he ushered me through the great double doors. A throng of students in evening dress filled the hallway. "I'm sorry, we're only allowed soft drinks, what would you like?"

"That's fine. Um, just water." I began to calculate how I would avoid looking like a loser, standing by myself in the hall. What did party Madeleine do in these situations? My phone rang. Perfect. Something to do. I stepped back outside to answer it. Sarah sounded breathless with excitement. "Maddie, Maddie, I don't know what to do, what should I say?"

"I don't know. About what?"

"There's this guy at Logres, come to talk to you. He says it's important. The tall new guy with the weird haircut."

My heart flipped over. The magnificent Eddy Moon. What was he up to? "Put him on."

"Hi, Maddie, I'm really sorry for bothering you." In contrast with Sarah, Eddy's voice sounded low and measured. "Just, I thought I should tell you, Kieran knows you're going to the party with Tiago Toscano and he's furious. He's going to have a go at you there."

I bit my lip. I had avoided the idea of Eddy knowing I'd be at a party with boys. I didn't want him to have that image. "Don't worry about it Eddy. It's nothing. Um, I'm not even exactly going with Tiago."

"Really? Good."

He sounded pleased. I smiled.

"But, anyway, Kieran's still like, steaming. He can be, you know."

"I'll be fine."

"You don't know Kieran, Madeleine."

Eddy's chivalry, coming and going, could be quite annoying. "I'm a big girl Eddy, thanks for the warning." I ended the call and tapped my phone against my teeth. What would party Madeleine do in a situation like this? Probably she would quite enjoy it, but it made me uneasy. I turned towards the door just as the crowd inside began leaving.

"What's going on?" I asked the first couple to pass me.

"The challenge! It's now."

Tiago hurried out a moment later. He passed me a bottle of water. "Here."

"How are we getting in to the pool? Isn't it all locked up?"

"I don't know. They've got keys to the side door. We sneak in. I think they bribe security."

I stopped dead. "Students bribe the security guards so they can sneak into the swimming pool with a massive sword?"

He shrugged. "Welcome to Levels."

We parted at the swimming pool entrance. Tiago headed away to the changing rooms and I climbed up into the stand with the rest of the audience. The atmosphere unsettled me. I knew the pool so well, but I had never seen it from the tiered seating, or glimmering and glowing under artificial light. My nose recognised the smell of the chlorine, though, nothing could change that.

A tall boy appeared at the end of the pool and ascended the steps to the five metre diving board.

The girl next to me glanced in my direction with wide eyes. When I didn't respond she leaned closer. "That's Ken Guthrie," she whispered. "He was last year's head of Camelot. He's on a gap year, travelling around the world before he starts uni."

"My lords, ladies and gentlemen." Guthrie raised a hand. "Welcome to the challenge. May I remind you to please, keep your voices down. The less attention we attract, the better." He bent and lifted a metre-long sword from the platform beside him. "Behold the Levels symbolic sword, bearing the names..." he turned it in his hands. "Of fifty six head masters. Bless them." He hefted the sword for a moment, then tossed it in a long glittering arc out across the water. It splashed into the surface and sank to the bottom in a moment. He watched it go, then turned back to us. "Now behold the participants in the challenge."

I gaped as a line of boys in swimming trunks filed from the changing rooms and around the pool. Fifteen on each long side, clustered close to the halfway point, staring at the water. I realised that the shallow sight lines from where they stood made the sword practically invisible. Tiago and Kieran claimed the centre of the group on one side of the pool, Gennady Ivanovich and Rami Ahmed faced them on the other side.

In the row in front of me a boy with his arm in a sling turned to his companions. "They draw lots for who gets the middle spot."

One of his neighbours pointed. "Look! What's he doing?"

A recognisable shape emerged from the boys changing room. Tall, broad-shouldered, golden-haired, but bizarrely dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie, beside all the boys in their swimming shorts. Eddy.

My heart sank for him. He stood out more than I had in my wildest nightmares. Giggles and snickers rippled up and down the lines of spectators. Somebody brayed like a donkey and people burst into laughter.

Eddy had to be looking for me. Peering blindly into the darkness of the stand, he moved to the end of the line. He couldn't see me; I waited for him to turn away. Why wouldn't he go?

Ken Guthrie spun a whistle on a short cord. "Unconventional costume."

Everybody laughed. I put my hands over my face. He hadn't been invited to the party, his horrid brother hadn't told him about the challenge. Poor Eddy didn't understand what was going on, but he didn't care. He thought I needed help. My heart flipped over with delight, the beautiful, brawny boy was prepared to get dressed up and gatecrash a party just to rescue me. Though my heart flipped, my stomach twisted. His role as laughing stock would last far beyond the night, I was sure.

Guthrie raised the whistle to his mouth. The sword glinted under three metres of water, then disappeared as somebody turned out the pool lights. What was Eddy going to do?

The whistle shrilled, thirty taut bodies arced over the water. Eddy stood alone for a moment, then somebody snaked from the shadows and shoved him. Fully clothed, Eddy dropped into the water.

"No!" I yelled. "You..."

Eddy hadn't turned back to the edge, for some reason he took a stroke following the others toward the centre of the pool. He was confused, he would look even more of an idiot blundering around in the middle of the pool when whoever found the sword was holding it on the side. I willed him forward, willed him to make at least a competitive showing. I focused on the line between his dark suited form and the spot where I knew the sword was. A couple of other boys had neared it, but returned to the surface, out of breath.

If only the water could feel like a slope to Eddy, as it did to me. If only it could push him along like a river, as it had in my dreams.

Away from the side he disappeared. In the stand we peered at the swirling water in the centre of the pool. Wet heads gleamed, breath puffed. An unseen blow sounded and a muffled. "Do that again and..."

Another fist thumped, answered by a shout of protest.

"Look!" shouted somebody in the audience, repeated by others, pointing. A swimming shape appeared at the edge beneath the diving board. It lurched awkwardly, one armed, the other holding a long heavy object, dragging the swimmer down to one side.

There was a cheer from the audience, and a clang as the winner dropped the sword onto the poolside. He hung in the water a moment longer, wriggling out of the jacket that had slipped down his back, hampering his movements. His arms free, Eddy Moon planted his hands on the poolside and vaulted out of the water. The lights blazed on and all the heads above the pool turned towards him.

His black trousers stuck to his legs and gleamed in the light. One hand held the hilt of the sword and the other slicked back his dripping, golden hair. His white dress shirt clung to his chest and shoulders and as he moved his arms the long curves of his muscles were as clear and defined as if he had been naked. Eddy Moon, triumphant.

# Chapter 7: The Council

A couple of people started clapping. Ken Guthrie raised a hand. "No applause."

One by one gleaming bodies hauled themselves from the pool. They stood on the side and the lights flicked on. The water shone like an enormous rectangle of planed sky and cast odd shadows up the muscled torsos of the boys.

Guthrie turned to Eddy. "New boy? I don't believe we've met."

"He can't, Guthrie." The complaining voice was a low snarl. "You can't." The Four Horsemen had gathered together on the far side of the pool. Kieran Hechter stood at the front of the group. He jabbed a finger at Eddy. "You're not in your final year, you're not in the upper sixth. You're only sixteen. You can't be head of anything."

Guthrie raised his eyebrows. "You're not final year?"

Eddy spoke for the first time, his eyes lowered. "I've just started. I'm lower sixth. I didn't mean to go in the water, I didn't mean to try and get the sword. I don't know what happened."

"Didn't mean to?" somebody whispered. "Imagine what would have happened if he meant to."

A massively built boy, with the chest and neck of a bull, shouldered a couple of others aside. "The head of Camelot can't be a sixteen-year-old. I was just behind him."

"Who's that?" I hissed at the boy with his arm in a sling.

"That's John Owen. He's captain of the rugby team, and head of Orkney."

"Why's he want to be head of Camelot if he's head of Orkney?"

"Everybody wants to be head of Camelot. He'd change houses and somebody else would take over there."

I examined Ken Guthrie's face. He bit his lip. "I think," he began.

"Throw it back in," said Kieran Hechter.

"Do it again."

"No little kids."

I frowned. Eddy might be younger than them, but he wasn't little.

"Bloody Camelot," muttered somebody sitting behind me. "For once things don't go their way." He raised his voice. "No! The sword was recovered, let the result stand."

Eddy peered towards us. I knew that in the darkness our faces would only be a smudge of pale blurs.

Guthrie raised his hand. "We will go back to Camelot, I call a Council."

"A what?" I leaned closer to the boy with the broken arm.

"A Council. The heads of the seven houses will meet and decide what to do."

In the audience we got to our feet and shuffled to the exit. I watched the swimmers, some of them shivering as they returned to the changing rooms. Eddy trailed after them, his jacket in one hand, the sword in the other. Again my heart went out to him.

Back in Camelot we filed into the common room. Its high, stone edged, ceiling and Gothic-arched windows resembled a church more than a school building. At one end, on a small stage, a DJ began playing dance music. Coloured lights flashed across the white-painted walls and three girls started dancing. I summoned party Madeleine again, fixing my face in a light-hearted half smile. After leaning against a wall for a moment I looked at my phone, then walked purposefully through the room, trying to give myself an extra bit of sway in my high heels. I crossed the hallway, endeavouring to repeat the air of having somewhere very exciting to go, and ducked into the bathroom.

Re-emerging I slinked confidently through the crowd, fixing my half smile on no one in particular. Behind party Madeleine's mask I was becoming desperate. I had to talk to somebody, anybody, but there was nobody I recognised. I wanted to leave, but I had to stay and see what happened to Eddy. Maybe he would speak to me.

I leaned against the wall again, trying to make party Madeleine so frivolous that she thought this occasion quite tame. In my head I counted backwards from a hundred. If nothing happened before I got to zero I would have to move off again, though I had no idea where.

The three girls were still dancing. I recognised their moves, born not from a love of music, but from a love of their new dresses and how they thought they looked in them. They didn't look bad, in a slutty backing-dancer kind of way and half the boys in the room were watching them out the corner of their eyes.

"Cornwall girls love themselves," muttered a voice somewhere high to my right.

I looked up. An incredibly tall girl leaned against the wall next to me. She wrinkled her nose. "You know they practice dancing like that in front of mirrors? They learn it from videos."

"Really?" I smiled broadly, not party Madeleine as much as massive relief that somebody was talking to me.

"I'm Karen. High jumper.' Her voice had a warm Caribbean twang. "You're Madeleine Bride."

I nodded. How did she know? I thought I had managed to sneak around Levels in the shadows. I didn't want people to know about me, but couldn't ask how she had heard of me, because then it would seem like a big deal. I didn't want anything to seem like it was a big deal.

"The head of Cornwall is the worst of the lot. Yuki Morisoto. She's probably in the council now trying to pick up Ken Guthrie or one of the others. Or both at the same time." With the tips of her long fingers Karen fluffed her already perfect-looking afro.

"Girls are head of houses?" Tiago had given me a different impression.

She frowned down at me. "Of course. Cornwall, Avalon and Lyonesse have all got girl heads. Giselle Bettencourt is the head of Lyonesse, my house." Karen's eyes shone. "She's completely amazing. Not like that Yuki."

I nodded. "How long will the Council be?" I meant how long would it be until I saw Eddy?

Karen shrugged. "Who cares? Stupid Camelot, lording it around over the rest of us. You know half the people here are pleased it's gotten complicated."

"Um, well." My brain whirred as I tried to think of something uncontroversial to say. The door slammed open and the dancers stopped. The Four Horsemen, all changed back into sleek evening dress, strode into the room. I pressed myself back against the wall.

"Where are the Council? What did they say?" barked Gennady Ivanovich, without greetings or small talk.

One of the Cornwall girls sloped one leg forward and propped her hand on her hip, like a model at the end of the runway. "They're in the games room. No decision yet."

I shrank against the wall, trying to hide behind Karen.

"We should go and talk to them." Kieran Hechter threw a sports bag against a wall. "We have a right to speak."

"No you don't," chimed in the boy with the broken arm. "It's heads of houses only."

Hechter's cheeks reddened and his eyes flashed as he pointed a finger at the slightly built boy. "I didn't ask you, Correa. You'll shut up, unless you want your other arm broken for you."

I winced; here was another reason to dislike him. Beside me Karen hissed a little gasp. I heard Hechter had a temper, but not that he was a bully. Good thing party Madeleine chose Tiago over him.

The Cornwall girl ran a palm over her sleek, red dress and stepped closer to Ivanovich. "They'll be finished soon. We were dancing, maybe you want to-"

"Ha!" He dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "Ask me again when I take the sword from the pool and I am head of Camelot."

Rami Ahmed stared at him for a moment, then turned to the girl. "What he means," each word deep and slow, "is when I take the sword he will dance with you. I say is okay."

The girl looked from one of the Horsemen to the next. "Um, whatever."

It seemed like there was enough trouble amongst the four of them, to make them forget all about me. Kieran Hechter's eyes glanced across my face without recognition. I guessed he was looking for Eddy. If I hadn't been trying to keep a low profile I would have bustled around the party doing the same.

Tiago pushed past him. "Come on, let's get something to eat. I'm starving."

Hechter shot a venomous look at the boy with the broken arm, followed Tiago three strides towards the kitchen, then stopped dead.

A big wooden door at the far side of the hall creaked open. Ken Guthrie stood in the doorway. "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"The winner. The suit guy."

Hechter stepped forward, his eyes flashing again. "NOT the winner."

"Kieran." Guthrie raised a hand in warning. "Where is he?"

A boy at the back of the group that had just returned from the pool raised his hand. "He's still outside. I'll go get him."

Rami Ahmed pointed a finger at Guthrie. "You can't make him head of Camelot. I can't be told what to do by a sixteen-year-old who smells of horse dung."

Guthrie held his gaze for a moment, before looking back towards the front door. "Whatever the Council has decided, Rami, the Council decided. You'll have to live with it, no can or can't."

The crowd of boys in evening dress parted. Eddy Moon appeared between them. The Cornwall girls giggled. Boys snickered as he passed.

"No way!" Tiago scowled as Eddy moved into open space at the front of the group. He had clearly dressed himself from the swimming pool lost property box and stood resplendent in a mismatched pair of sneakers, grass stained rugby shorts - way too small for him and clinging to the tops of his thighs - and a brown, sagging, woollen tank top with a hole in it. To me it made the beautiful proportions of his big, powerful frame even more apparent. The other partygoers disagreed.

"Freak," came a comment from the crowd.

"Wierdo." Another.

"Peasant."

"You smell."

My knees quivered and I felt like crying. My heart went out to him, poor Eddy was going to be the complete laughing stock of the whole snobby, superficial Levels campus. Cheeks crimson, he held the sword out to Guthrie. "It's okay. If you want to do it again. I don't mind."

Six more students filed through the games room door and formed a line behind Guthrie. Three boys and three girls, the heads of houses. I recognised Hari Kumar, the head of Logres, my house.

"Keep it." Guthrie smiled. "You earned it." He ushered him forward. "My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new head of Camelot House. Eddy Moon."

"No!"

"What?" the Four Horsemen shouted.

More yells of protest issued from the crowd of competitors behind them, but they were laced with cheers and shouts of approval. Somebody snickered. Kieran Hechter and Rami Ahmed stepped towards Correa, the boy with the broken arm. Ahmed grabbed him by the throat.

"Hey!" Guthrie shouted. "This is a celebration!"

Owen, the burly rugby player, stepped forward and glared at them.

They let Correa go and he slowly folded to the floor.

Tiago jabbed a finger at the heads. "There's going to be trouble. This isn't over." He turned, and the other horsemen strode out after him.

Eddy's hair had dried in a fluffy cloud. He looked back at Ken Guthrie for guidance.

"Well done sir." Guthrie put a hand on the shoulder of the ridiculous tank top. "Let's get you some sensible clothes, and talk about what your next steps are."

"Second-hand shop," someone muttered.

"...at least something clean."

My gaze snapped from one insult to the other. Why were they so horrible about him? Why didn't they see the towering beauty that I saw?

He and the heads went back into the games room. Beside me Karen stared at the last to go, a beautiful girl with golden hair in an elaborate braid and a big crooked smile. I guessed her to be the fabled Giselle Bettencourt. When she disappeared Karen sighed and shook her head. "They're up to something."

"Who are?"

"The heads. They wouldn't have voted for that nutter in the fancy dress if there wasn't something in it for them."

"Nutter?" I had an urge to snap at her, but at the same time I didn't want to cause any kind of controversy. "He's not a-"

"Can you imagine what Hechter and the others are going to do? He's going to have a nightmare. And he looks a bit simple."

I gritted my teeth, sadness tugged at my heart but anger reddened my cheeks. I bit back a retort. Eddy was already the butt of everybody's jokes; I didn't need to join him. I vowed to change people's minds, in time, but getting angry now wouldn't help either of us. "Karen, it was really nice to meet you."

She opened her eyes wide. "You can't go now. The party's only starting. I have to introduce you to Giselle."

"I'd love to meet her. Next time. Okay?"

I left Camelot just in time to hear the revving of a powerful engine, then the scream of tortured tires. One or other of the Horsemen's supercars bearing them away to lick their wounds somewhere. I called Mum to come and pick me up.

In Chalice Drive I slammed the car door and was answered by a flapping of wings from a tree above. Too irritated to sleep, I stalked around my room then flipped open my Mac, looked up 'Sea Raven' on Wikipedia, and was rewarded with a picture of an ugly, spiky fish. I added 'bird' to the search terms and this time was greeted with a portrait of my gargoyle neighbour. Apparently called a 'cormorant' it hadn't been known as sea raven since the sixteenth century. Eventually I fell asleep trying to work out if using such an old fashioned name meant Eddy was super smart, or just super wrong.

Sunday slipped by in a syrupy blur of sleep. I wanted Monday to arrive, so I could see how Eddy was doing. I found myself thinking up retorts to stupid comments like Karen's.

In the morning I arrived at school early, but Sarah was in the tutor room waiting for me.

"Oh my God!" She jumped to her feet, ran forward and hugged me before I even had a chance to put my bag down. "I'm so sorry. You must be so upset."

"Well..."

"Tiago and the others storming out of the party and leaving you there. It must have been terrible."

"Right. That... yes."

"Tell me everything that happened. Tell me about the new head of Camelot. Is he really a homeless? Hari says Camelot are finished and it's open season on the House cup this year."

"A homeless!" I glared at her. "For craps sake Sarah, of course he's not. He's in my history class."

The rest of the day passed in a repeating cycle of me defending and explaining Eddy Moon, while he himself was nowhere to be seen. For the whole of the afternoon I looked forward to escaping in the swimming pool. Back in the water I absolutely killed my training, finished every drill ahead of the other girls, and showered with a smile. My arms weren't even tired. Madeleine the jock seemed much more successful than Madeleine the party girl.

Heading home, I cycled slowly, running the day's events through my mind. Levels got weirder and weirder, but at the same time I became more and more sucked into its odd traditions and obsessions. I turned onto the long road past Naylor's farm, and held my breath. As I neared the frail gate I heard a familiar clatter on the road behind me. I looked back. Appearing around the bend I recognised the gigantic form of Boxer with Eddy on his back. I slowed, while the horse accelerated into a deafening trot.

"Hi Eddy," I said when they came alongside. "Hi Boxer. What are you doing here?" I gulped.

High above me, Eddy's luminous beauty shone down like the sun. "I was taking the big boy out for a bit of exercise. Thought we'd just see you past old Naylor's."

"Thanks Eddy, that's really kind. I mean I'm sure I'd be okay, but it's nice of you."

The big black dog barked once. Eddy pointed a warning finger at him. He whined and lay down.

"How do you do that?"

"Knack."

Questions swarmed like bees at the back of my throat, I tried introducing the subject gently. "No, the dog must be able to sense your new importance."

"Ha. Not really."

"How's being important going for you?"

"Jeez, Maddie. It's a nightmare."

The front wheel of my bike wobbled as I looked up at him. "Really?"

"Kieran wouldn't speak to me all weekend. He spent it all with the horsemen. I couldn't face school today."

"Well, he's going to be annoyed, but he'll get over it."

"I don't think so. I think they're planning something."

"Really?" A huge flock of starlings wheeled across the pale, autumn sky. "Eddy, I don't want to intrude, but why are you bothered? I mean, let somebody else be head of house. If you really want to, you can do it next year."

Boxer lurched sideways as Eddy turned to me, pulling on the reins, his face blazing with purpose. I had a sense of why the guard dog had quailed before him. The grim set of his beautiful features and fierce golden eyes was like a portrait of ferocious will. "I didn't mean to, but I won the contest. I should be head of Camelot. It's supposed to happen."

I concentrated on the road ahead, a bit embarrassed by the intensity of emotion he'd revealed to me. Ahead of us the archaeologists had put a small awning over their dig. I tried to take the conversation to more trivial territory. "Have you seen this? I wonder what they're up to?"

"There used to be a chapel there." Boxer slowed a little as Eddy pulled back on the reins. "I think there's still a big tomb where they're digging. A foreigner."

"Really? That's kind of cool."

The great blurred mass of starlings whirred closer.

"Reckon you should be okay from here."

"Oh, it'll be fine. Like I said, thanks."

"I'll see you tomorrow in history."

I didn't know what to say. Eddy had never committed himself to a future encounter between us. He and Boxer crossed the road towards a gate in the hedge.

"Bye!" I called over my shoulder, as he leaned from the saddle to open the gate. "Have a good..." I bit my lip. "Homework."

Unable to believe what I had said, I leaned onto the pedals and accelerated away. Have a good homework? What an idiot. What was it about Eddy Moon that made me talk nonsense?

That evening I began my Art coursework by turning to a fresh page in my sketchpad and writing the date on the top of it. Then I stared at the blank sheet, replaying the will power that shone from Eddy's face, and wondering what Kieran Hechter and the Four Horsemen were plotting.

By the time I went to bed I had a plot of my own. Eddy Moon thought he was all by himself. He wasn't. I was on his team and if I could I was going to help him out.

# Chapter 8: Stable hand

The next morning I woke smiling. Eddy had told me he would see me at school. We had plans, actual real plans, to see each other. I dressed with special care, not just because, for once I was certain of meeting Eddy, but because my plot to aid him depended on me looking nice. I straightened my hair, painted my nails with clear polish and wore my favourite perfume.

During morning break I headed straight for Camelot, checking out the cafeteria and car park on the way.

If you belonged to a house, or if you were invited, then according to Level's ritual, you could use the back door. If you weren't, you had to ring the bell at the front. The duty prefect would sign you in. As all four of the Horsemen were prefects I reckoned there was a good chance one of them would be on duty. I guessed they would prefer to take their turn at break time, leaving weekends and evenings free for horse riding, weightlifting, and driving cars too fast along country roads.

I was in luck. A younger boy answered the door, looked me up and down, then yelled "Kieran, it's a girl!" I winced at the display of half chewed cookie in his open mouth.

I smiled at him. "My name's Madeleine."

He blushed and swallowed the biscuit noisily.

Kieran Hechter appeared in the hallway behind him. "It's you."

I lowered my lashes. Time for Madeleine the femme fatale. "I came to apologise."

"Really?" He narrowed his eyes. The boy who answered the door sniffed and Kieran started. "Peebles! What are you still here for?"

"I thought..." the boy looked at me as he spoke to Kieran.

"Shut up. Go away."

I wrapped the end of a strand of hair around a shining fingernail. "I meant to apologise on Saturday, but then there was everything, you know, about the challenge."

Kieran frowned. "Okay. Come in. Do you want a cup of tea?"

"I'd love one."

I followed him into the Camelot common room, which looked completely different from the night of the party. The mixing decks and lights had gone, replaced by bean bags, sofas and a large cork board covered in rotas and notices. I perched on the edge of a sofa and waited for him to come back. In his absence I relaxed a notch. Being a femme fatale was hard work, jocks actually had a much easier time, when they weren't exercising they could lounge around however they liked. Femme fatales worked around the clock.

Examining the cork board, I learned that Camelot was run with military precision. Each year had a different bed time, and 'lights out time' for the week and Saturday night. There were ten prefects, and from the notices they seemed to spend all their time waking younger kids up, telling them to go to bed, and keeping an eye on them while they did their homework. I was surprised to feel a tiny spark of sympathy for them.

Kieran returned carrying a stained and mottled mug of tea. Clearly not everything at Camelot was fancy, and boys there had no more interest in washing up than boys anywhere else.

"You don't want sugar do you?" More statement than question. He sat beside me on the sofa and ran his fingers through hair that looked like he'd just stepped out of a salon. One strand curved over his forehead, and I had a strong feeling that was the desired effect.

I sipped deeply and burned the roof of my mouth. "Mmm." I darted the tip of my tongue at my lip. "Lovely. So did you sort everything out on Saturday?"

Kieran scowled. "It's still as it is. That sprout Eddy is head of Camelot. He shouldn't even be in the flippin' school."

I blew on the surface of my tea. "Really?"

"It's only because Mr. Neil, the chairman, is his guardian."

"I thought Eddy was your brother."

"No!" Kieran's face darkened. "We just look after him. Old Neil asked my parents. Don't know why he couldn't do it himself. Too busy doing crosswords."

"Crosswords?"

"Yeah, Mr Neil's a crossword obsessive, like twenty-four seven. Quite weird really. Not as weird as what's happened now though." Kieran grimaced. "Eddy weirdo Moon my head of house. For the time being."

I opened my eyes wide. "For the time being? Surely now he's there, that's it."

"Not necessarily."

I allowed myself a little frown. "I'm surprised. Nobody else has said anything about him not being head of Camelot for the whole year." Tilting my head to one side I felt my sleek, straightened hair slide across the back of my neck. "Are you sure?"

Kieran's eyes darted to the tiny gleaming stud in my earlobe. "Of course I'm sure."

"But, but, I don't understand." I touched a finger to my lips for a moment, feeling like an idiot, but sure I had seen the gesture work for a girl in a movie I had seen.

Kieran rolled a shoulder. "Look. If a head of house breaks the rules, somehow, or slips up, they're out. In other houses the housemaster would choose a replacement. Here the students would. We'd do the contest again."

"And you would win?" I sipped tea, looking at him over the rim of the mug.

"I might. But one of the horsemen would definitely. We're the best athletes in the school."

"Oh yes." I nodded enthusiastically. "But will he slip up? I mean Eddy Moon doesn't seem like a rule breaker."

"Oh trust me, honest Eddy would never break the rules or do anything bad on purpose."

I gave him a small, encouraging smile. "So..."

He looked at his watch. "Break's almost over. I really should do the rounds. Make sure none of the little monkeys are smoking out the window or hiding under their beds."

I laughed. A ridiculous light, tinkling laugh. "How funny. Anyway, what I meant to say was there's a little get together at Logres on Saturday. If you and the others aren't busy, I'd really like it if you could come."

Kieran stood up. "In Logres? We don't usually go to parties in other houses."

"Well, Tiago's probably going to come."

His chiselled jaw tensed. "He is? In that case I'm in. We'll all come."

"Great! We'll see you then." I gave him a sideways look as I turned away. "If not before."

As soon as the door closed behind me I hauled my phone from my pocket. "Please answer Tiago, please answer Tiago. Oh hi Tiago how are you?"

He needed less persuasion than Kieran to attend Saturday's party, but if I was going to get the complete picture of what the Four Horsemen were up to I needed to speak to him sooner than that. "That's great Tiago." I added a slight purr to my voice. "Everybody will be so pleased, and Tiago?"

"Yes."

"You know you asked me if I want to ride in your car..."

Again Tiago agreed quickly to my suggestion. Ten minutes later I met him in the car park. He opened the door of the Vantage for me and I lowered myself into the luxurious embrace of the passenger seat. He got in, revved the engine for a second, then spun the car in a loud, tight circle around the parked cars.

"I've only got five minutes," I warned. The acceleration pushed me back against the seat, which seemed to sculpt itself around me. "Hey, Kieran told me about your plan to replay the Camelot challenge. I think it's excellent." I lowered my lashes. "Was it your idea?"

Tiago answered without looking sideways. "No, really it was Gennady." His whole body focused on the steering wheel and the road ahead. "The hackers are in Moscow, his contacts."

I suppressed a smirk. Tiago was so much easier to crack then Kieran it was ridiculous. The car raced through lanes towards Sherborne, like my mind through the possible inferences of what Tiago had said. "Really?" I turned my body towards him. "Kieran said that he was doing it all."

"It all?" Tiago scowled. "No. He's going to get the photographs, but Gennady's associates will do the shopping and post them."

"I'm sure you're doing something important."

"Well yes." Like the athlete he was, Tiago drove with his whole body. Only his voice was aimed in my direction. "I've got the photos of, you know, parties and girls, and people smo..." The car slowed. "Of course, the photos aren't me. In Rio, in the summer, many people, crazy stuff happens."

"Oh yeah." I grinned. He was a terrible liar. "Of course, absolutely. I understand." I looked at the clock, centred in a dashboard like a work of art. "Hey Tiago, your car is awesome, but I have to get back to my lesson."

Tiago used the excuse to pull a handbrake turn. Back at the school I hurried around looking for Eddy. I had to tell him the Four Horsemen's plot. This time, when I asked people if they had seen him, they knew who he was. "Who? The tramp who's head of Camelot?"

"The smelly guy?"

As before, though, nobody could tell me where he was.

In Logres at lunchtime Hari Kumar called a house meeting. He sat on a table beside the television in the common room. "Okay, everybody. In two weeks the autumn round of inter-house competitions starts. The big ones are rugby and basketball, senior and junior knock-out contests. There's also indoor sports. Sarah has very nicely agreed to lead our gymnastics team, and Boris is in charge of the wrestlers and the martial arts."

The wrestler who Sarah pointed out on my first day raised a stubby fingered hand. Next to me, Sarah beamed.

"Well done," I whispered.

Hari continued. "Finally there are all the equestrianism events. Usually we wouldn't organise ourselves in the horse stuff. We don't have enough horses, for one. Last year myself and a couple of others represented Logres and had some fun, but that was it. The situation at Camelot, though, means that this year we'll try and put a team together, and so I'd like to talk to anybody who thinks they could get a result in any of the riding events. The big one is the modern pentathlon, in two weeks, which has treble points for anybody who places."

I leaned closer to Sarah. "What's he mean?"

"Haven't you heard?" Her eyes shone. "There's a revolution at Camelot. The tramp tried to organise the teams and they all refused to do anything he asked."

I shook my head. The sooner I could tell Eddy what the Four Horsemen had in mind, the better. "That's terrible."

She shrugged. "I don't know what he expected. The head of Camelot is an important job. They can't just have anybody doing it."

Hari Kumar paused and looked at Sarah. They had been in Logres together for years, so he must have been used to her inability to keep quiet. "In case you didn't know, Modern Pentathlon is riding, fencing, shooting, swimming and running. If you can do at least three of those things, talk to me. It might be worth considering."

Sarah nudged me again. "You can swim."

"Well yeah," I whispered. "But that's all. No way can I do the rest of it."

Hari again fixed Sarah with a level gaze. "I'll post forms for all the different events by the fireplace. If you're interested write your name up. If you're not sure, talk to me, Sarah, or Boris."

Sarah raised her eyebrows at me.

"No Sarah." I giggled. "I'm sure I'm not going to do the modern flippin' pentathlon."

Fifteen minutes later I sat in history, looking at the door. The rest of the class stared with me when Eddy finally strode in. For the first time I noticed the worn patches on the toes of his shoes. Somebody muttered as he slid between the desks. A couple of kids laughed.

"Now then," said Ms. Merrick. "Settle down."

That lesson we read and talked about parallels between the French Revolution and the English Civil War. Sometimes I read, occasionally I listened. Most of the time I looked at the sunburned back of Eddy's neck and waited for him to turn around and give me a glance. He didn't. The lesson finished and he was first out the door. I hurried after him.

"Eddy!"

He didn't look around.

"Eddy!" I trotted after him.

Bag over his shoulder and free hand swinging, he disappeared around a corner.

I caught up to him and grabbed his arm "Eddy! What's wrong?"

He pulled his arm away. "Leave me alone."

I ran around him to his other side. My voice quavered. "I don't understand."

He focused on me. His eyes blazed with the same certainty I had seen the day before. "I knew you were trouble. I knew I shouldn't become close to you. I was right."

"But..." I blinked. Tears threatened the backs of my eyes.

"You're just like everybody else, kissing up to my foster brother and his cronies."

"No Eddy, you don't-"

"Do you know how Kieran treats me? To him I'm just a stable hand. I wear his old clothes and I do his homework for him. I was handed over to his parents when I was two years old. He's never wanted me there."

Sobs gathered in my throat. I choked them back, but they made speech impossible. Eddy had given me a glimpse of the strains of his life, which I knew must be compounded by his terrible situation in the school.

He raised his arms slightly on each side, turning his palms towards me. "When we met I knew I should steer clear of you. We can't be friends. Ever."

My mouth drooped open and I stared at him.

He scowled at me. "Nothing to say? Right. See you later then." He turned and strode away.

I dropped my bag to the floor and felt like crouching beside it. How had everything gone so wrong? Why was he instinctively against me, right from the moment we first met? My mind scattered this way and that, trying to work out what was wrong with me, what I had done wrong.

Pippa came up behind me. "Are you okay?"

I brushed at my hair with my hand, then flashed her a plastic smile. "I'm fine." My voice didn't sound plastic, though. It trilled, brittle as porcelain.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Just, deciding about, whether to go swimming or not."

She smiled. "You getting tired with the old sports or death thing too? Didn't take you long."

I shrugged, actually I wasn't tired of it. A swim was exactly what I needed. "Maybe. But I think I'll go this time."

In the pool I knifed through the water for two hours. I led the Levels team swimmers from the wall and stayed in front.

"Bride." Coach beckoned. "That's it. You're on the team. Three weeks. Southern schools group. Put it in your diary."

"Thanks Coach."

The good news made the bike ride home less painful. All I had to do was to explain to Eddy why I had been talking to Kieran and Tiago. He would understand. The problem was I had to do it quickly. I didn't know when the Four Horsemen were going to strike, but they would do it soon.

At the crossroads the archaeologists had their van back in the road and the rear doors open. One of the archaeologists was stacking tools inside. A car curved around it, on my side of the road, and so I braked beside the van. The archaeologist turned and gave me an apologetic grin. "Really sorry, we try to get packed up as quickly as we can, but it always seems as soon as we start all the traffic comes."

"Never mind." I waved a hand. "Who's the foreigner in the tomb?"

He ran his hand over his light beard. "What tomb?"

"I thought you were digging up a tomb."

He shook his head. "No, we're just doing the obligatory land survey. We're checking there's nothing historic buried here before they widen the road."

I flushed. "Sorry, somebody said... Anyway, thanks."

The traffic on the other side of the van had cleared, and I cycled quickly away. I needed to find out if Eddy was on Facebook. I pedaled faster.

# Chapter 9: The Seven Sleepers

Mum sat at our new, IKEA kitchen table. "Hello love. I've got crumpets."

I clenched my fists. The simple affection in her voice brought tears to my eyes. "Thanks."

Ideally I would have taken the crumpets upstairs and done my research in private. That wasn't how Mum and I worked, though, so I fetched my laptop from my room, set it up on the kitchen table and headed straight for Facebook.

He was there, name blazoned across the top of his page. 'Eddy Doforni Moon.'

"Doforni?" I said out loud.

"What dear?"

I took a bite of crumpet. "Nothing." The page had only just been created, but already all four of the horsemen were Eddy's friends. I narrowed my eyes. The photo album was empty, but I figured it wouldn't be for long.

The next day there was a combined history and geography trip to Sedgemore, where a key battle had taken place in the Civil War and where there was also, apparently, something very interesting about the drainage system. The first time I remembered the trip was when I saw the buses waiting in the car park. Cursing my forgetfulness, I ran to the cafeteria to get something to eat on the journey.

I stood in the coach aisle and surveyed the faces looking back at me. Sarah smiled from three rows away. Further back Pippa inclined her head towards the empty space beside her. Beyond her, in the seat next to the toilet, Eddy Moon sat alone, looking out the window. His long legs and quick walk would be no good to him there.

"Hi Sarah," I said as I passed her. "Hi Pippa, sorry, I'm going to sit further back."

I didn't ask Eddy if the seat was free. I just smiled brightly and sat in it. "Morning Edward."

"My name's Eddy," he muttered. "I was christened Eddy. I told you we can't be friends."

I tried to pretend I hadn't heard his rejection, though it bruised me like a blow. "Ah, that's right. "Eddy Doforni Moon."

The coach rumbled out of the car park. In the spaces between the seats, over their tops, and along the side, next to the window, inquisitive eyes peered at us. I knew that everybody in the coach would be whispering about us. What was I doing sitting next to the weirdo, the tramp, the stable boy, Eddy Moon?

Eddy focused his tawny eyes on me. "How do you know my middle name?"

I tried not to stare. The sleepy lion expression on his golden face seemed to paralyse my lungs. I forced the words out. "It's on your Facebook page."

"I don't have a Facebook page."

"I didn't think so."

Eddy sat at my mercy, trapped between me and the window. "What do you mean?"

I pressed a palm against the rough, carpet-like covering of the seat in front and explained: How Moscow contacts of the Four Horsemen had set up his Facebook page. How the Moscow computer whizz kids planned to blend photos provided by Kieran and Tiago into scandalous pictures. How scandalous pictures would be deemed unfitting of the head of Camelot and the challenge would be re-run to make one of the Four Horsemen the winner. And finally how I had contacted Facebook, complaining of the illegitimacy of Eddy's Facebook page, and had the page frozen.

He shook his head. "You're astonishing."

My heart flipped over. I blinked. "The page is suspended, but I don't think that'll stop them for long. When we get back to school you've got to tell the headmistress, you don't have to name names, just make it clear the page is nothing to do with you. Then if they go ahead you'll be insured."

Fading autumn countryside slid past the enormous coach window. I watched a motorcyclist overtake us at speed before continuing. "And probably the best idea would be to set up your own, alternative page. You can point at that as proof it's not you. Make one without that mental middle name of yours." I froze, mouth open. Why couldn't I have stopped while I was still being smart? Why did I have to ramble on into rudeness? Underneath all my helpfulness I hid the scratchy, little grudge of annoyance at how he had treated me the day before.

Eddy's flaming eyes, though, didn't get hotter than lukewarm. I guessed he was still dwelling on what I had told him. He shook his head. "Yeah, Doforni. It doesn't even mean anything."

"Then why is it your name?" I studied him as I talked, trying to see a physical sign that I had been forgiven. He didn't make it easy, he seemed to have a control over his face that I could only dream of.

"I don't know. Mr. Neil gave it me." He rearranged his long legs, squashing them together and turning them toward the window.

I sensed his anxiety at talking about personal issues, so I directed conversation back toward the mundane. "How tall are you Eddy?"

"I'm six-four, but I'm not going to grow much further. I'll stop at six-six."

I chuckled. "You never know."

Again certainty formed his features into a beautiful mask, like the face of a Renaissance statue. "I know."

"How can... Oh never mind. Tell me about Mr. Neil." I held my breath, waiting for Eddy's familiar reticence to return.

He shrugged. "There's not much to tell, really. He's quite old now. He's rich. He doesn't do much apart from travel and look after school stuff. He's the chairman of governors."

I nodded.

Eddy's eyes scanned the view out the window. Was it more interesting than me, or was he avoiding looking at me because it would be somehow too intense? I feared the former.

"He's really clever, he used to do the crossword for The Sunday Times."

"Used to?"

"He's away somewhere. Travelling. I haven't seen him for more than a year." A shadow flickered across Eddy's face. He glanced at the window. "Look, we're nearly there."

"Right." Urgency tensed my whole body. "Um, Eddy. What you said about never being friends, I mean, you were angry, right?"

He gave me a steady, appraising look. "I suppose. Yeah, we can be friends. But..." He shifted his legs, ready to stand. "We can't be anything else though."

My jaw dropped. I stared at him. How could he tell what I had been thinking? I turned crimson. I had been rejected before a hint of anything had happened. That had to be a record. Forcing out a strangled laugh I frowned at him, as if to say 'What an absurd idea,' then squeaked "Yeah, so?" like a stroppy nine-year-old.

The bus rumbled into a gravelled parking lot and I turned away. Yeah so? Madeleine the conversationalist needed some serious remedial help. I was barely Madeleine the speaker of English. Standing up, I shuffled down the aisle of the bus and realised why I wasn't super upset.

I didn't believe him.

If he could change his mind about being friends, then he could change his mind about being more than friends. These things weren't definite. I could convince him, given time. He had said I was astonishing after all.

I clambered down the bus steps and the chill autumn air stung my cheeks. More of a worry was why he made his rulings. What was wrong with me? Again I turned my focus inward. Was it my appearance? Was I too serious? Maybe I had been too nosy. My skin prickled with fear. If Eddy didn't like girls to be pro-active, or take an interest, then I was screwed.

I followed the group across the parking lot, thinking about the time Eddy rescued me from the dogs. He had been warm and kind and I had just been myself. I hadn't changed, so maybe it was him.

At the visitor centre we were met by a very excitable guide, who took us around the most important sites of the battlefield. We gathered beside a tiny stone memorial to the men who died in the last ever battle on British soil and listened to a grim list of how men drowned in ditches, were shot in fields, or hung from gallows by the roadside. A cold wind swept over the flattened grass, and it wasn't hard to hear on it the echoes of death cries and shouts of pain and triumph. The guide showed us a ditch and told us to imagine attacking a man with a gun on the other side of it, then led us along a path to a small hill where we could get a view of the area.

Eddy strode off at the front of the group, talking to the teachers and Pippa was grabbed by a group of girls from Cornwall House, doubtless asking her about me and Eddy. I hung back, waiting for her to get annoyed and snap at them. Eddy towered over the teachers, and I watched him walk beside them. Would he turn back and look at me?

"Hey stranger."

I looked up.

Karen put her arm over my shoulder. "I haven't seen you since the Camelot party."

"Hey Karen." I smiled.

She fell into step beside me. "Though it's probably my fault. We Lyonesse girls keep ourselves to ourselves, everybody says it. I know we shouldn't. It's a bad habit of ours."

I raised my eyebrows. Nobody had said it to me, but besides Sarah I was incredibly badly wired for Levels gossip.

"Don't you just love it here?" Karen took my arm. "This is kind of why I chose Levels College."

I frowned and looked around. "What, the Battle of Sedgemoor?"

"No, doofus, all the King Arthur stuff."

"What King Arthur stuff?"

"Oh come on girl, what are you talking about? I sat in my sweaty little school library in Jamaica reading all about the adventures of Arthur and his knights. Reading and longing to be a part of them, and you were right here and didn't even care?"

"Well I suppose..." I skipped a stride to keep up with her long legs. As we gained height the patchwork grid of flat meadows and water-filled ditches expanded below us.

Karen's eyes sparkled. "At Levels they used names from the legends for the houses, Camelot and Avalon, and the others. And the school symbol?"

"A sword."

"And as for the whole challenge thing, obviously whoever invented it read about the Knights of the Round Table almost as much as little Jamaican me."

"Remind me."

"In the story there's a sword in a stone, and whoever pulls it out is going to be the king. At school, whoever gets the sword out the pool is head of Camelot."

"I see." I nodded slowly.

"But this is my favourite bit of the Arthurian legend. Over there..." She pointed to a low, tree-crested hill in the distance, "...is where they think maybe Arthur fought his last battle and here..." she stamped one foot on the packed earth of the path. "Has got the legend of the Seven Sleepers."

I shook my head as I spoke. "Seven Sleepers?"

She stopped dead and stared at me. "No? Really? No."

I raised my empty hands, as if to show her I had nothing. "Yeah. Sorry."

"This is Windmill Hill, down there is Westonzoyland, where the pub is called "The Seven Sleepers", after the legend of the seven men that are supposed to be asleep under the hill."

I looked at the low hump of grey-brown grass and balding, stunted trees ahead of us. "Really, under here?"

"Yeah, it's supposed to be King Arthur and six of his best knights, waiting for the call when the world really needs them to wake up and rescue us all from doomsday."

"Doomsday!"

"I'll take you to the pub one day. Fourteen years ago there was a landslide and somebody found a big old gong in a little cave somewhere on the side of the hill. How cool is that?"

"Really? Like a dinner gong?"

Yeah, big metal one. They banged it, but historians said it was a hoax, the gong was modern, so now they've got it in the pub."

"Awesome!"

One of the fabled Lyonesse girls caught us up with something incredibly important to tell Karen.

I joined Sarah at the crest of the hill. "Hey Sarah, did you know about the Seven Sleepers?"

She narrowed her eyes. "The pub? Of course. Last year I had a boyfriend who had a car and we came here." She looked at her nails. "Well he wasn't exactly my boyfriend." She bit at her thumbnail. "But he did have a car."

I smiled. "You know why it's called The Seven Sleepers, though?"

"Oh yeah, it's like, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are waiting in a cave to come and rescue us."

"Do you think it's true?"

Sarah frowned at me. "What? Anyway, what I meant was, his dad let him drive his car. But it was a really nice one."

I giggled.

"Anyway. On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you about our party at the weekend?"

I grimaced. I had forgotten all about it. It seemed an age since I invited the Four Horsemen to the Logres social. Now I'd secured the information I needed from them, the party itself was really unappealing. Party Madeleine annoyed and exhausted me. "Oh, Sarah, I meant to tell you about that. I'm really sorry, I forgot, I'm supposed to go and see a friend of mine in Bath this weekend."

She opened her mouth in mock horror. "No!"

Guilt made me bite my lip. Had I disappointed her?

"You poor thing." Sarah put her hand on my arm.

I smiled. She felt bad for me, missing out on the party. Sarah would have hundreds of friends there, everyone of whom she had known longer than me. She didn't need to worry about company.

"Yeah. I'm such an idiot, but you'll have a brilliant time."

She shrugged. "Duh! Of course." Then her face fell. "Hey, you haven't invited that tall guy. The..." I could see her brain searching for a polite term. "The interesting one, have you?"

Anger fizzed at the back of my throat. I wouldn't be able to deal with Sarah's snobby fluttering without snapping at her. "Sorry!" I raised my hand, dug my phone from my bag, and turning my back on her, pretended to answer it.

The first groups of kids began trailing back down the hill. I followed, looking around, wondering where the entrance to the mysterious cave could be. The hill crouched low, but some of its faces sloped steeply. Tufted with brambles, they could easily hide the entrance to a chamber. I shivered, and looked along the path. At the front of the school group, easily looking over the heads of the others, Eddy stared back at me. For a moment I felt the golden heat of his gaze, then he turned away. There had been a strange intensity in his eyes, but I couldn't read it. Why was he looking at me? Was he thinking about how we could be friends but nothing more? Did he wish it could be different?

Back in the car park I climbed onto the bus for the ride home. This time Pippa kept her eyes on the window as I walked along the aisle.

I smiled at her. "Hi, um, is this seat free?"

She glanced at me. "I suppose."

I sat next to her. "Really sorry about earlier.' Filled with students, the bus became warm and humid. I took off my jacket. "I had to speak to Eddy."

She couldn't maintain her mask of indifference any longer. "Well I saw. I mean, everybody saw. What were you doing sitting next to him?"

What could I say? I was obsessed with his face, with his body, with his infuriating reticence. No. "We're both, you know..." I hooked the first two fingers of each hand into quotation marks. "New kids on the levels. He's struggling with the whole Head of Camelot thing, as well as everything else."

The wind on the hill had made a complete mess of my hair. I pulled my ponytail free, then gathered all the loose strands and looped my hair band around them. After skating my fingers over the nape of my neck to check for any stray wisps I folded the ponytail and looped the hair band around it again. My shoulders prickled and I looked behind me.

Eddy Moon's eyes had been fixed on the back of my neck. He looked away, muscles flickering in his tight jaw. I flushed.

"Hmm." Pippa narrowed her eyes. "Everybody was staring at you, you must have noticed. He's not very popular."

"I know, but I don't see why." My voice rose. I hauled my bag onto my lap. "What's he done to them?"

"I don't know, I mean, you have to admit, he is a bit weird."

I hugged my bag and stared at her. "Come on Pippa, not you as well? Just 'cos he's a bit shy, and doesn't wear Armani, everybody's on his case."

She pushed out her lower lip. "I guess. Ok. If you're so determined, get him to sit with us at break, or something. I'll talk to him, see if I can find the..." Her quote fingers mirrored mine. "The real Eddy Moon."

Good luck, I felt like saying, and if you do find him, make sure you introduce me.

My notepad and pen slipped from the side pocket of my bag and I picked them up. Without thinking I began doodling inside the back cover. 'Eddy Doforni Moon, eddydofornimoon.' I sighed. 'ed, dy, do, for, ni, mo, on.' I narrowed my eyes at the letters, as if they were a signpost in a foreign language.

"Oh my God!" Pippa shouted laughter and grabbed the notepad out of my hand. "We're both new kids! You liar!"

"Shh!" I hissed, looking back down the coach, to see if anybody was paying us attention. "Give it back."

"I can't believe it." Pippa's face sparkled with mirth. "You fancy him! You really fancy Eddy Moon!"

I grabbed the notebook from her hand. "Shut up Pippa. Obviously I don't fancy him. He's just interesting, is all. Different. I like his name." I babbled, hoping somehow that if I could stop her from saying I fancied Eddy, I would also stop her from thinking it. "He sounds like somebody out of a soap opera."

She pursed her lips and examined my face. "You nut."

"Whatever. Anyway. Are you going straight to lunch from the bus?"

"I guess." She nodded. "Then riding."

"When are you competing?" I laboured to change the subject. "Did I tell you coach has put me in the swim team for southern schools next week?"

We spent the last part of the journey talking about our coaches, then our teachers, and I ran off the bus ahead of her, avoiding any chance of her putting me in the same frame as Eddy.

That afternoon's lessons were tricky, Physics and Art both took a step up from the gentle introduction we had been receiving. Only when I was on my bike and on my way home did I have a chance to think about Eddy. I pictured his enormous hands, palm up on his thighs as he talked. Passing Naylor's farm, I swerved around patches of mud on the road. I imagined the work Eddy had to do on the Hechters' farm to get his hands as leathery and hard as they were. Ahead of me one of the archaeologists stood beside their little tent. As soon as he saw me he stepped forward, waving his hand.

"Hey, hey, excuse me."

I braked. "Yeah?"

"Really sorry for stopping you like this." He adjusted his glasses. "Yesterday you said something about the tomb of a foreigner."

"Mm-hmm, sorry about that."

"No, no, it's fascinating. I mean, where did you hear that?"

I sat back down on the bike saddle. I didn't know why, but my instinct was to protect Eddy Moon. "I can't remember. It was ages ago, sorry. Why?"

"Because look at this." He beckoned.

I leaned the bike against a tree and followed him. Under the awning a square pit gaped, jagged rocks projected around its edge like grey teeth. On the floor of the pit lay a rectangular stone, the size of a single bed.

"What's that?"

"It's only a tomb." The archaeologist removed his glasses and scrubbed at them with his cuff. You were right." His voice rose higher. "And see the cross on the top?"

I peered downward. Carved lines marked the centre of the box. I would have hesitated to call them a cross.

"It's Byzantine!"

"No, really?"

He nodded so eagerly that his spectacles slipped down his nose. "It's a foreigner, exactly as you said. And to have a tomb made for him in the manner of his home, he must have been somebody important, wealthy."

"Cool." I tried to make out the branched cross on the tomb lid. "Are you going to open it?"

He nodded. "We'll record everything as it is at the moment, then open it before we lift the coffin out. Otherwise the contents will all shift around. We'll have to get a crane. That thing..." He jerked his head at the black sarcophagus. "Must literally weigh a ton. At least."

"Awesome." I climbed back on my bike. "I'll come back tomorrow and see how you get on."

I pedaled away, mind whirring ten times as fast as my feet. How did Eddy know?

# Chapter 10: Night Rider

My friend in Bath existed. I had only invented our meeting that weekend. As soon as I got home I checked with Mum that it would be okay, then called her. Amina had lived in the flat upstairs from Mum and me in Hackney. Though she was two years older, we had walked to school together and hung out sometimes. Now she was in her first year at Bath University. Though my trip to see her had popped into my mind like an escape hatch from the Logres party, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a great idea. I sighed with anticipation at the idea of talking to somebody who didn't go to Levels, who didn't know Eddy Moon or the Four Horsemen. Somebody, however, who did know I came from a family of beekeepers and lived in a house itself barely bigger than a bee hive. Who knew, and couldn't care less.

In history the next day Eddy came in late, as usual, but this time he flicked his head up as he came through the doorway and gave me a blast of his golden beauty. I stopped breathing. He half raised a hand in recognition. I gulped.

Pippa nudged me. "Did he just wave at you?"

"No." I shook my head.

"He did. So when are you going to invite me to lunch with him?"

I bit my lip. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know where he has his lunch. Actually, I don't know if he has lunch at all."

Pippa turned her head close to mine. "Maddie, he must have lunch, you can't be that big without eating lunch. I swear he's actually got bigger since the start of term."

I narrowed my eyes. She was probably right. Eddy seemed to have even more mass to his shoulders and chest than when I had first seen him.

After class I caught Eddy at the door. This time he didn't run away, and we walked along the flag-stoned path together.

I smiled up at him. "What are you doing for lunch?"

"I bring sandwiches."

"Really? How do you keep yourself going on sandwiches?"

He shrugged. "I make a lot, like half a loaf."

"Half a loaf! And you make them yourself. That must be hard work."

"I haven't got time for the cafeteria, I train every lunchtime."

I resisted the urge to reach up and brush his hair away from his face, so I could see him properly. "Training for what?"

"Fencing. Sword fighting. I'm competing in the modern pentathlon."

"The modern what?"

"In the house cup next month. Nobody else in Camelot will do it, so I'm going to learn, and compete myself." He slowed. "I'm sorry Maddie, I really haven't got time." For a moment his face looked a lot older, as if was struggling with weighty, adult problems.

"Ok." I shrugged as he wheeled away. What didn't he have time for?

I headed to lunch by myself. At least he was still speaking to me.

For the rest of the week I took what I could get of Eddy Moon. Three minute conversations going to and from history, and ten minutes Friday morning, sitting in the saddle room at the barn, when he told me his plan to ignore the resistance of his Camelot house mates and represent them in virtually all the sports himself.

"I don't know Eddy," I said. "I'm sure it's possible, but you'll exhaust yourself."

"I won't." Again the golden mask of certainty stared down at me. "Do you have a better idea?"

"No, I..."

He scowled, an unusual expression for him. "Anyway Maddie, I'm really grateful for your help with Facebook and all that, but I don't think it's right you should be using all your free time trailing round school after me." His face stayed hard and masklike.

"What?" My hands began to shake. Why had I told him I doubted him? I knew he hated people questioning his belief in himself.

"I don't think it's a good idea for us to be close."

I struggled to breathe. "I don't understand. Why?"

"Because I'm not supposed to be."

"What do you mean, not supposed to?" I fought to inject fizz into the conversation, to counteract the clogging weight of his seriousness. "Are you saying you're supposed to have an arranged marriage or something? Oh God, we're not cousins are we?"

"I'm not joking Maddie."

"So what's the problem? I helped you with the Facebook thing. We chat."

"And you flirted with Tiago and Kieran. Do you believe in fate?"

I leaned back from him. I felt my insides shrink a little with disappointment. How could somebody who looked so extraordinary, who from time to time reminded me of Superman, say something so banal? "Seriously Eddy, come on."

"I don't mean it like that. Not you and me."

I bit my lip. "Oh."

"So you don't believe in fate?"

"Nope." I clamped my lips together. "You've got your will, and your talents, and luck. That's it."

He shook his head. "You're wrong."

I squinted at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. "So you're saying we shouldn't spend time together because of fate?"

He nodded. "I'm really sorry."

Suddenly I was annoyed. His stubbornness infuriated me, in part because it seemed so nonsensical, but also because deep down, I still didn't believe him. We would see each other. Maybe not next week, but his silly mood wouldn't, couldn't last forever. I stood up. "Okay. Have it your way. Bye." I stalked out of the saddle room.

"Maddie, I didn"t mean..."

I kept going, already thinking how I would describe this conversation to Amina. By Saturday I had run my lines through my head so many times I practically knew them by heart. I caught a train from Weston station and managed to snag a seat at a table, next to a window. I pulled my latest biography from my bag, Suleiman the Magnificent, and plugged my phone into my ears, letting "Death or Glory" batter at my ear drums. After three pages I put my book aside and stared out the window at the brown autumn countryside, playing my personal highlights reel of times and places I'd seen Eddy.

I rummaged in my bag, found a notepad and pen and began my favourite doodle, including the weird middle name, Doforni. I wondered why the mysterious Mr. Neil had given it to Eddy. Where did he get it from?

I decorated the name with scrolls and ivy leaves. Maybe Eddy's guardian had made the name up himself. In which case, why make up a name like Doforni? Did anybody ever choose children's names at random? I doubted it.

Eddy's guardian was a crossword master, which meant he was an expert at anagrams

I wrote 'Doforni' in the notepad, then again, but broke it up into syllables. 'Do for ni.' Do and for were really words, but who or what was ni? Maybe it stood for something? N. I. was Northern Ireland but I doubted it meant that.

Maybe both short words were acronyms? D.O. for N.I.?

I stared at the page a little longer, rocking my head slightly to the heavy metal ringing in my ears. The train pulled into Temple Meads, the big Bristol station, and I read three more pages about the irresistible rise of Suleiman. I looked out the window again. Eddy should have a name like "the Magnificent." With his big frame, his lion-like beauty, his intelligence, his will-power and good nature, he really was magnificent. I couldn't wait to tell Amina about him.

I flicked back to the notepad with his name on. Eddy Moon, D.O. for N.I. Decorating the words with flowers and flying swallows I substituted the letters in Eddy's name. D and O for N and I. 'Endy Mion'. I narrowed my eyes. Had I seen the name before? Did it mean something?

The conductor appeared and distracted me. Almost half the people in my carriage didn't have tickets and when he challenged them they started to yell at him about expensive they were. One young woman started to cry and I gritted my teeth. I was sure she didn't want me to intervene, and besides there was nothing I could do, so I stared out the window. The train sped across the fields between Bristol and Bath, crossing the river Avon then pulling into Bath Spa station at the foot of the beautiful, cream coloured city.

Amina ran along the platform and wrapped me in a hug. "Oh my God it's so good to see you!"

I pressed my face into the familiar silky texture of her head-scarf. "You too Mina. Oh I've missed you. I've just realised, there's nobody at my new school as nice as you. Nobody."

She pulled away and looked into my eyes. "Well that's very sweet, but I don't believe you. What about the boy? Eddy?"

"Well..." I grinned. "That's different."

She took my arm and led me down the platform. "And now you're going to tell me all about it."

We spent the afternoon wandering from shoe store to cafe, with stops at bookshops and perfume counters. I had only been to Bath once before, and I loved it. Every one of the graceful streets and crescents had been built from the same, butter coloured stone. The Georgian terraced houses stood tall and elegant in their simplicity.

This time, though, an edge of tension marred the city's beauty. Beggars leaned against ancient walls and yelled for help. Passing a big theme pub we saw two police cars pull up, and the policemen jump on a scrum of brawling youths.

I winced and looked at Mina.

"I know." She sighed. "Lots of people have lost their jobs, there's more trouble. We're not supposed to walk around the town centre late at night."

In the evening we went to a pizza restaurant and gossiped about the girls Amina shared her student residence with. Conversation trailed off, and Eddy Moon drifted into my mind.

"Hey! Hello, where did you go?" Amina raised her hands over the pizzas, newly arrived. "You were staring into space."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Mina. It's just, it's been such a lovely week. After we made up, we saw each other every day."

"You miss him."

I nodded. "It's crazy. I know. I shouldn't, especially as he just decided we shouldn't see each other, but honestly, I don't believe it. Next week, we'll see each other just as much."

Mina nodded. "He'll change his mind." That afternoon she had heard my replay of every conversation we ever had, and my description of everything he ever did. She was an expert. "Just like he did after the Facebook thing."

"I hope so Mina, he's so, so..."

She cut a wedge of pizza. "I know. You said, he's magnificent."

I giggled, took a bite of my meat feast, then dug my notepad from my bag.

"Hey Mina, you're smart. Does the word..." I chewed. "Endy, mean anything to you?"

She shook her head.

I tilted the notepad toward her. "Endy, or Mion?"

"Well not, Endy, or Mion, no. But if you say Endymion, then yes."

"Really? What is it?"

Mina told me all about Endymion and I listened in a daze. It took me twice as long as usual to eat a medium pizza, then twice as long again to eat a fudge brownie. My mind whirred and I lost all sense of time, until Mina clinked her spoon into her sundae dish and looked at her watch.

"When's your train?"

"It's at..." I dug through my pockets for the timetable. "It's at... Oh no! It's gone!" I stared at her with my mouth open. "What shall I do?"

"Don't worry. There might be a bus somewhere. Maybe to Bristol, then you can get the local train from there."

We paid the bill, then trotted through the cobbled lanes to the bus station. Amina kept us to the centre of the pedestrian sections, giving groups of revellers a wide berth, still I heard a shouted insult aimed at the colour of her skin. She flinched, but didn't look back. We arrived three minutes before the departure of a bus to Wells, twenty minutes from Glastonbury.

"I'll call Mum to pick me up from Wells bus station." I hugged Amina. "Thanks so much, I've had an amazing day. Just what I needed."

She hugged me back. "Good. It was great to see you. Take care, yeah?"

"You too." I thought of the streets we had just walked down. "You get a bus from here to where you live, right?"

She nodded. "Of course."

As the bus was the last one it wound through a hundred, tiny villages between Bath and Wells. I called Mum and told her that as the bus would be so late I'd get a taxi from Wells, rather than make her drive around the country lanes in the middle of the night.

"Ok, sweetheart," she said. "But just to be sure I'll call the cab. Buzz me when you're ten minutes from Wells."

The bus rattled and bumped and the passengers slowly dwindled, until there were only three of us left on the final run in to the city. A taxi waited at the bus station, I skipped down the bus steps towards the large, dark car and opened the back door. "My Mum called you, right?"

"That's right, Miss," the driver said in a guttural accent.

I sighed as I flopped onto the back seat. At last I was nearly home.

The driver's huge, humped shoulders rose over the back of his seat and his flat cap brushed the ceiling. He swung the big old car carefully between the high hedges of the country lanes. Its powerful headlights turned the bare branches of trees into neon lace. Passing a field gate the car jolted over a pothole and suddenly started to rattle. The driver slowed, but the rattling worsened.

"Sorry miss," he rumbled. "I just gotta check see."

My stomach twitched with unease. "Um, okay."

He stopped the car, opened his door, and made the whole car creak with relief as he got out. In front of the car he shielded his eyes against the headlights with a square hand. Coarse black hair grew on its back and on the backs of his fingers. I shuddered.

He popped the hood and I heard bangs and clangs from the engine. He got back into the driver's seat, turned the key, and a loud bang issued from the front of the car. He shouted loud, foreign words which I guessed were not polite.

"Miss, you gotta get out."

Panic flamed in my stomach and my skin prickled. I dialed Mum's number.

"Who you callin?"

I didn't answer.

"You make complain on me?"

No signal. It figured. We were in the middle of nowhere. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes.

"Get outta the car miss!"

"No." My voice sounded high and weak. Then absurdly I squeaked "Eddy, help."

"What for you want help?" The driver opened a rear door and grabbed at me with a massive paw. His hand grazed my hair as I scooted across the back seat and out the opposite door. I looked at him across the roof of his car. He had an enormous, square head, with a heavy, stubbled jaw and a misshapen nose. Not much else was visible. The stretch of lane in front of the car shone in the powerful headlights, but around the sides and back of the car deep shadows and the velvety country night made everything very scary indeed.

"What for you run away?" The driver jabbed a stubby finger at me. "You want something for you need the help, I give you. You want?"

He took a stride towards the back of the car, so I stepped towards the front. I couldn't go much further and he knew it. In the headlights I would be dazzled, lit up like a Christmas tree, but unable to see him.

He took another heavy stride. I stepped away, then broke into a run. I didn't look back, until I heard the car start and roar after me. The car had never broken down at all. I tried to focus on how fit I was, how easily I swam and cycled, but fear clouded my thoughts like ink dropped into water. My legs laboured, and slowed, each stride rubbery and stilted. The car was a second away when I reached a gate on my left hand side. I grabbed the top bar and jumped, but my legs gave way and I crumpled onto the road. The car stopped. I pulled at the gate, trying to haul myself upright. My bladder pulsed and for a moment I felt as if I had no control over it.

A car door slammed and footsteps sounded on the road.

"What you doin' there?" the driver barked. "Get off the road."

My heart pounded so fast that the beats were indistinguishable; they became a single continuous noise, like a creak. I tried to get a foot underneath myself, to lever myself upright, but my shoes just scraped at the loose road surface.

The driver stepped forward, both stubby fingered hands outstretched. Was he going to grab me by the hair? And then what was he going to do?

I sobbed. Tears poured down my face and my legs felt as if they were paralysed. Silhouetted by the car headlights, the driver was a bearlike shape of menace and fear.

He took another step forward.

My heart screamed in my chest, and then, over it, I heard another, slower beat.

The driver hesitated. His head turned from side to side. The beat sounded definite now. A dull pulse, getting louder.

Instinct made me shuffle out of the gateway, small stones on the road cut into my hands. I fell into the ditch beside it, smelling of stale water and dirt.

Twisting my head to one side I watched the driver step backwards, away from the gate as the drumming became insistent, throbbing. When he realised what was happening, he managed one stride towards his car before the gate exploded from its posts. Boxer's gigantic hooves rang against its metal bars like swords on a shield and it crashed onto the road surface. The car headlights lit the horse up like a bronze statue as he reared over the fallen gate. Staggering away from him, the taxi driver fell against the hedge on the opposite side of the road.

High atop Boxer, Eddy Moon sat half in shadow. "Maddie!" His hair whirled as his head snapped from side to side.

I struggled to gather enough breath to speak. "I'm here." My voice sounded frail. I raised a hand and Boxer saw me, wheeling and lowering his head.

"Oh Maddie!" Eddy tumbled down his horse's side and bent over me in the ditch. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Can I move you?"

"I'm fine."

He crouched and slid one hand under my back, lifting me slightly. Pushing another hand into the space he created, he lifted me into his arms and stood. Off the ground, out of the damp, away from the base scents of dirt and broken grass, I pressed my face against Eddy's chest and gasped at the now familiar scents of hay and leather.

Boxer's hooves clattered and I looked up. The driver sidled against the hedge while Boxer menaced him with a heavy swinging head.

"I don't want to put you down," Eddy murmured. "But I ought to break him in half."

"Don't put me down."

"Okay." Eddy straightened his head. "Boxer, let him go."

Boxer backed away and the driver trotted to the open door of his car, got in and slammed it. Boxer kicked it once, almost folding the door in two, before the taxi screeched into reverse.

"He'll have Boxer's calling card as a souvenir, at least."

The car sped away into the night, until all I could hear was the slow, strong beat of Eddy Moon's heart.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I pushed my face into the hollow at the base of his throat. "Don't be sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. I'm really going to have put you down for a moment. I forgot about the gate. Will you be okay on Boxer?"

"Of course."

"I'll give you a leg up. Put your left foot into my hand, straighten your left leg, and swing your right one over his back."

I didn't stop to consider how this was going to be possible. Eddy manoeuvred me so I was sitting in his right hand with my feet in his left. Then, simply, he pushed me upwards. It was smooth and quick as riding a lift, but just before I settled into the saddle he held my entire weight in one hand, above his head.

I looked down at him. "You're not normal are you?" Not normal! How could I say something so stupid?

He smiled and gave me a wry look, then his face disappeared behind his hair as he bent to the steel gate. Taking a wide grip he straightened, holding its ten foot span in front of him, and walked back towards the field entrance. He leaned the gate against the post, then jolted. Something caught his eye in the ditch where I had been. He bent over and picked up my cell-phone.

"Thanks Eddy," I breathed.

Using both hands, he straightened the pegs the gate swung from. "Boxer did a good job on these." He hung the gate on its post then turned to his horse. "Come on old son, time to take the lady home."

Swaying from side to side, Boxer carried me into the field. Eddy closed the gate behind us, then put his hand on Boxer's neck. "Can you shuffle back onto his rump? Sorry, I need to sit in front of you. We'll go across the fields. It's quicker and there's less chance of running into any more trouble."

I did as Eddy asked. He bent his knees and dived over Boxer's back. Taking hold of the reins he folded one leg under him, then straightened it on the other side of the horse. Comfortably astride Boxer, he reached one hand behind him. I took it and held my breath as he pulled me against his back. "Hold on tight."

I didn't need to be told twice. I pressed my cheek against his shoulder blades and wrapped my arms around his stomach. Under my hands his abdominals were as hard and defined as if they had been carved from oak.

Boxer set off at a steady trot and Eddy pressed my phone into my hand. "Call your Mum. Say you ran into a school friend who's bringing you home."

I did as he said.

"Are you okay?" Mum asked.

"Actually..." I smiled. "Yes, I'm fantastic." I squeezed my phone into a pocket. All the information I had about Eddy and about the Seven Sleepers seemed stacked up into a stairway of proof. My euphoria gave me the confidence to test it. If Eddy needed a push to give me some real answers, then push I would. I took a deep breath. "So, are you going to give me any explanation?"

"Of what?" I heard the smile in Eddy's voice.

"Of how you came to be riding bareback through the fields exactly when and where I needed you."

"Funny that, eh?"

"It's part of a pattern I'm starting to notice."

Boxer cantered smoothly along a hedge line and through a gap into the next field. Leafless trees framed the glossy night sky. The air washed cold against my cheek, but Eddy's back felt as warm as a radiator.

I changed tack. "Are you a heavy sleeper?"

"Oh yeah."

"How heavy?"

"The heaviest."

"What's the latest you've slept in?"

"You've got no idea."

I smiled to myself. I thought I did. "Hey, so I've got some exciting news for you. I've worked out what your middle name means, in fact, what your whole name means."

He shifted in front of me. "Really, what?"

I explained that 'Doforni' could be read as an instruction for the rearrangement of the letters in his first and last names. If he exchanged the D and the O in his name for an N and an I, then he got "Endymion." I told him Endymion was a shepherd in Greek mythology who was enchanted into eternal sleep. "So why would your mysterious guardian give you a name like that?"

Eddy leaned forward over Boxer's neck. The lights of Glastonbury shimmered in front of us.

I didn't have long. "And how did you know there was a foreign knight in the tomb? And why do you call cormorants, 'sea ravens'?" I took a deep breath. "Maybe it's got something to do with the gong that was found under Windmill Hill, and banged fourteen years ago. Fourteen years ago, when you were two years old, and Mr. Neil asked the Hechters to foster you."

Eddy slapped Boxer on the neck, and the gigantic horse shifted from a canter into a gallop. "Hold tight!"

Boxer shortened his stride, bouncing me on his rump, then gathered himself and leapt. For a moment we soared, Eddy and I, high above the starlit hill. Then Boxer cleared the fence and with a quadruple clash his massive metal shoes hit the road. There was no more talk until we slowed at the entrance to Chalice Drive.

"How do you know where I live?"

"The same way I know when you're in trouble." Eddy swung a leg over Boxer's neck and slid to the ground. "I won't take Boxer down to your house. He'll only attract attention."

I held my breath.

Eddy raised his arms to me. "The same way I know I'll stop growing at six-foot-six. The same way I can lift a five bar gate by myself."

I placed my hands in his and gasped at the reawakened memory of the strength and security of his grip.

"As you said, I'm not normal."

I swung one leg over Boxer's rump and Eddy lowered me to the ground.

"I'll wait here." He held onto my hands. "Turn your bedroom light on and off three times when you get in. That way I'll know you're safe."

I didn't move. "So it's true. The story of the Seven Sleepers is true and you're it."

Eddy said nothing. He straightened his head and let go of my hands. A streetlamp cast a slanting light across his beautiful, noble features. He nodded once. "I slept. For hundreds of years I slept. And when I woke I was a baby, and all my life before like the half-remembered dream of children."

I bit my lip. I believed him. I knew it was nonsensical, against all reason and scientifically impossible, but his story seemed to fit like a key, into a lock in my mind that I didn't even know was there.

"Nobody else knows. Who can understand?" In a now familiar gesture Eddy dipped his head, and his golden hair slid over his magnificent face. "It's the hardest and strangest way to live your life."

My hands twitched to touch him. My arms ached to wrap themselves around him. I knew. I would understand.

He looked at me again. "Now go. Your mother will be waiting."

# Chapter 11: First to Wake

I walked down Chalice Drive in a daze. The old lady with the empty shopping basket stood outside the third house along. "Are you alright, dear? You look awfully pale."

"I'm fine." Somehow, though, I had acquired a limp.

Mum stood in the front window. I wanted to tell her about everything that happened; when I thought about the taxi driver, tears pressed at the back of my eyes and I knew that pouring the story out to her would make me feel better. She would give me a hug, then alternate between shouting about the horrible man and stroking my hand telling me how everything had turned out alright. If I told her, though, she would never let me go anywhere again. Not being allowed to meet Eddy, presuming he wanted to meet me, would be unbearable. I held my head up, took deep breaths, and made for the back door.

"Hi Mum!" I called.

She appeared in the doorway from the front room. "Hello sweetheart. Oh what happened?"

"Um." I glanced around the kitchen. "Have we got any..." My mind tested distractions that might work, like trying to fit jigsaw puzzle pieces into a hole. "Icepacks?"

"I think so. Or some frozen peas, for sure." She opened the freezer door. "Oh Maddie have you hurt yourself?"

I sat down. "I think I twisted my ankle." While Mum fussed over my injury I would be able to tell my story to the walls, and not have to look her in the face.

"You poor thing. So what happened? Why are you late?"

"I don't know what happened to the taxi you booked." This was probably true. I couldn't believe that Mum would choose a taxi company employing anybody as dodgy as the big, hairy driver. Probably he didn't work for anybody at all, just drove around on Saturday nights, seeing what poor unfortunates he came across. "I waited around for a bit, then I bumped into this guy from school."

"What was he doing in Wells?" Mum crouched in front of me and eased my shoe off.

"I guess he knew I would be there."

Mum looked up at me for a moment. "Had you been texting him?"

"No!" I overdid my outrage, to make her think that possibly I had been in touch with him and was being secretive. Better she thought I was stretching the truth, than she started to wonder about whatever peculiar sixth sense he had for my safety.

"Who is he?"

"Mum!"

"Well, is he a nice boy?"

"Of course."

"And he has his own transport?"

I smiled with relief at the word 'transport,' letting me avoid a lie. "I guess, though it might belong to his parents."

"Well I suppose that's alright, then." She stroked my ankle. "How's that feel?"

"It feels great." I eased to my feet and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. "Mum, I'm really sleepy. It's been a long day."

"But Maddie, you haven't told me about Amina. And what did you buy?"

I stopped in the doorway. My shopping bags and purse!

"What?" Mum stepped forward, her eyes scanning my face.

"I left them. I left them in the..." I held onto the door frame with one hand. "I left my bags in the car. I guess I'll get them on Monday."

I limped upstairs as fast as I could, staggered into my room and pressed madly at the light switch. Eddy was out of sight at the end of the road, but I presumed he was still there. I stared out the window and across the road the cormorant flapped its wings. The tree it slept in every night seemed to have died. I shuddered. What was it doing there?

After pulling the curtains I got ready for bed, then tugged my blue covers up around my knees and flipped open my laptop. Amina wasn't online.

I closed the computer again and lay staring at the wall. Over and over I replayed the day's events. Amina's information about Endymion. The building realisations of what Eddy must be. I shook when I remembered the taxi driver, but the shaking stopped when I remembered how I felt in Eddy's arms.

And Eddy. What was he? Was he a ghost?

I opened the computer again and read the history of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I tried to calculate which of the knights he might be. Couragous, hot-headed Gawain. Lancelot the toughest, bravest and sleaziest. Tristan the romantic. Galahad the pure and innocent. I read the information about Galahad again and then lay back. Maybe he was Galahad, the knight who discovered the grail.

I turned out the light and lay in the darkness. How had it happened? What did somebody do to make him sleep for so long? How did it work? How must it feel? And how had he gone into the cave under the hill a grown man and come out a small boy?

And Mr. Neil, the mysterious Mr. Neil. What was his role?

I asked myself questions over and over, until the curtains began to pale over the window. Getting up, I drew them back. Chalice Drive lay silent, still sleeping on Sunday morning. Dew covered the parked cars.

More than wanting to see Eddy, I needed to see him. Waiting until school on Monday wasn't an option. But how? Calling would work. The Hechters' number wouldn't be difficult to find. The Shire Horse Centre had to be listed. Alternatively Tiago might even give me the number.

It was feasible. I could phone Eddy and ask him to meet me in Glastonbury somewhere. But I wouldn't. It would be too weird. After the last conversation we had, at school, it was possible he would say no, and I couldn't bear that. So I took a long, long shower, then went to the newsagents on the main road to get a newspaper for Mum.

"Mornin' love." The newsagent pointed at the picture on the front page, of a politician who had misbehaved. "What's the world comin' to, eh?"

I blinked. "Um, I don't know."

"They're all at it, aren't they?" He took my coins and stowed them in his register. "Oh well. You can tell he's not from round here, can't you?"

I nodded, though I wasn't sure Glastonbury's inhabitants were more moral than people anywhere else.

To accompany the newspaper I cooked Mum breakfast, made a pot of coffee and set everything on the kitchen table.

"Oh Maddie, what's this for?" She raised her hands on either side of her plate, as if she had conjured its contents by magic.

"No reason. I woke up early. Coach says we have to make sure we consume plenty of protein. So I thought, scrambled eggs."

"Right." She nodded. "Are you feeling okay? You look a bit..."

"I had a long shower. Used a new facial scrub."

"Right." She unfolded the newspaper to its full extent and scanned the front page. "Oh dear. Global warming. Wars here there and everywhere."

Nodding, I buttered my toast. "The newsagent said as much. Though apparently everything would be better if more of the people in charge came from around here."

Mum chuckled. "Of course."

I checked the clock. Nine o'clock. Early for a Sunday morning, but with all the stable work he must have to do, Eddy might be up. I checked my phone. I had battery, signal, the ringer was on full volume; everything ready for if he called.

Mum looked up from the newspaper. "Are you okay, love?"

"Yeah. You know. I've got ants in my pants."

"Go for a bike ride."

I tilted my head to one side. "Um. Nah. Bike riding's for going to school."

"A walk?"

"Walking around here? Really? No. And my ankle's still sore. I'll just do homework. Read books."

I went upstairs and arranged my school books in my desk cubby hole, then checked my phone. My biography shelves niggled at the corner of my eyes. I reordered them into subjects' second names, then birthdates. In the end I found that death dates gave the most aesthetically pleasing line of spines. I ran my finger along them, then checked my phone again. I should have been able to add a "Life of Gorbachev" from Bath, but the thug of a taxi driver had it. Maybe it would do him some good, expand his world view. I doubted it.

After checking my phone again I started my physics homework. It took three times as long as it should have done, what with time spent looking out my window and examining my phone.

I rearranged my clothes in my new IKEA closet. The beginning of November was a week away and I figured all pale and light clothes could be moved to the back, warm winter stuff to the front.

At eleven thirty-two my phone rang. I leapt from the closet to my desk and went over on my twisted ankle. The number was local, a landline. It had to be him. I perched sensibly, professionally, on the edge of my desk chair, and answered.

"Um. Hello."

"Hi Maddie, how are you feeling?" His voice was deep and steady.

I wrapped my free arm around my stomach, to keep myself from disintegrating into a heap on the floor. The sound of his voice made me shiver, as if I was sitting in a roller coaster, rumbling towards the first drop.

"I'm." My own voice squeaked like a cartoon mouse. I took a deep breath, trying to force my lungs into more than fluttering gasps. My lips felt like they had been folded out of cardboard.

"Maddie?"

"I've got a funny uncle."

Silence.

Oh my God. My stomach pushed at my throat. I looked at the wastepaper bin. Maybe I was going to be sick. "I mean ankle. My ankle is twisted."

"I'm sorry." He chuckled. "Still, better than a twisted uncle, eh?"

"Yeah." I couldn't muster a giggle. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. Listen, I tracked down the cab driver this morning."

"No!"

"It wasn't hard, what with Boxer's fingerprints all over his car."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing, really, in the end. I'm sorry. He didn't seem to know what had happened. I think he's sick. He's definitely worried. He gave me your purse, and all your shopping."

"You're kidding." I moved my free hand to grip the edge of my chair.

"No, so..." For the first time his voice lost its firmness. "Do you want me to bring it to school tomorrow, or shall we meet up somewhere today?"

"Oh, I don't know." I bit my lip. Of course I knew, but I didn't want to appear to be stumbling over myself to spend time with him. "Probably, you don't want to be carrying bags from girls' clothes shops around school with you?"

"To be honest, with my status, I don't think it could make much difference."

My heart sank, but all I could say in argument was, "no surely not?" I crunched my eyes closed and pressed on. "Anyway, I actually need one of the things today..."

"Okay. So, in Glastonbury somewhere?"

Eddy was fantastic at taking charge when he was rescuing me from snarling dogs, or malevolent taxi drivers, but it seemed that arranging a cup of coffee presented more of a challenge. I wracked my brain. Health food stores combined with cafes and hippy little coffee shops filled Glastonbury, but I couldn't remember the names of any of them. "Um, Starbucks?" I scowled at my reflection in the window. Could I be less imaginative?

"Ok. Fine." Eddy switched back to certainty. "Three o'clock?"

"Cool. I'll see you then."

My hero! Not only was I going to see Eddy again, I was going to get back all the stuff I thought I had lost for good. I checked the clock again. Three hours and fifteen minutes to get ready. In front of my closet I eyed the neatly ordered autumn and winter clothes, then piece by piece I hauled them off their hangers, examined them in front of the mirror, and threw them onto my bed.

I showered, dried and straightened my hair, took another shower, and got dressed eleven times. Too nervous to eat lunch I set off for Starbucks just after two o'clock, but when I arrived there Eddy was already waiting outside.

"Hi." My mind raced, trying to work out how I should approach him on a non-school, non-being rescued occasion. More than anything I wanted to stand on tiptoe and kiss him.

"Hi. I didn't check your handbag, but I think it's all fine." He held out three shopping bags and my purse. "Here."

"Thanks."

"Let's go inside."

"Right." I followed him, feeling like crying. I had a more personal conversation with the guy in the newsagents.

Eddy ordered me a chocolate milk-shake and an iced-tea for himself. I chose us a table next to the window.

He sat down opposite me. "So that was all pretty strange, last night. How do you feel about it?"

I flipped a hand. "I know I should be weirded out, but I don't think I am."

"Really? Great."

"Yeah." I sipped from my shake. "I've just got, like, tons of questions."

"Ok."

"So first, which one are you? Lancelot, Gawain, one of the others?"

He frowned and sat back. "Me? No, of course not. I was first to wake."

"So what does that mean?" As I spoke I knew what it meant. I remembered how he dragged the sword from the water and won the leadership of Camelot.

"I'm not one of them. I'm the first. I was the king."

# Chapter 12: Fate

Eddy's beautiful face, the strong certain lines of his jaw and brows, and the coppery fire in his eyes all convinced me that he was telling me the truth. I glanced around Starbucks, checking if anybody could hear us.

"You were the..." I breathed. "The King. King Arthur?" The title sounded odd used in relation to somebody I knew, like doctor, teacher, taxi driver... king. It made a crazy kind of sense, though. All the times I had thought Eddy regal or commanding, were explained by this.

He tilted his head to one side. "I don't think I was called that, that exactly."

I took a black drinking straw from the table between us and ran it between my fingers as if it was a magic wand. "What do you mean?"

He opened his hands. The palms and undersides of his fingers shone slightly, like leather work gloves. "The language was different. We talked, differently."

"Can't you remember?"

He shook his head. "It was so long ago. It's like trying to remember a dream. It fades in and out. Mainly I just have moments of déjà-vu. You know, feelings, images."

I folded the drinking straw, turning the smooth tube into a sharp point. What he said seemed weirdly believable. "Like you knew there was a foreigner in the tomb."

Eddy nodded. "That's right."

I shivered. "Who put you in the cave?"

"A man, my counsellor. In the stories he's called Merlin."

I held my breath, thinking about my next question. Eddy had been open, to this point, but maybe I was going to push him too far and he would shut down again. "How did he do it?"

Eddy glanced out the window, his brow furrowed in thought. The coffee shop looked onto the junction of Magdalene Road and the High Street, called Market Place. In the middle of the crossroads stood the pale stone spire of the Market Cross, like a Gothic piece of a church, dropped there by accident. Eddy examined the scenery for a moment. "I don't know. In those days people believed his father wasn't human. They said he was descended from a creature, a creature of darkness, something born to torment us."

I folded the drinking straw again, making a figure four. "A demon."

Eddy nodded.

My head spun. The story had taken a turn that I really didn't like. If demons were real, then the world was a completely different place to the one I believed in. I dropped the straw and gripped the table edge for a minute. "He couldn't be."

"I don't think so either."

I sighed.

"He was able to do things with his mind. To change the way things look." His eyes followed a truck outside as it pulled up, bearing a small crane on its bed. Two men in reflective vests jumped out of the cab. "There was a thing we found, as well. My men looked for it for years. One of them, a young one, discovered it."

"The grail?" I paused in my straw-sculpture. "Really? It's a real thing?" Now my mouth dropped open. I thought of films and books I had seen and read about the Holy Grail, the cup that held Christ's blood and then was hidden away, keeping its amazing powers safe. It really existed somewhere? Dan Brown was completely off base?

"I don't know what it was, but he found it, and there was definitely power in it. Merlin used it to make us sleep, without aging."

I stabbed a toothpick into the straw. "Not only did you not age, you got younger." I crunched my eyes shut for a moment. This was possibly the weirdest part of the whole story. Though I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to science lessons I knew such a thing was against the rules of everything real. There was no way of checking, I couldn't ask teachers, I couldn't Google it. All I had was what Eddy said, and believing it or not. "How was that possible?"

Eddy turned his hands palm up. "I really don't know. But it happened."

Even Eddy himself was less than helpful. I pressed on, not wanting to waste his mood of openness. "What was that like?"

He smiled. "Again, I don't know. I was asleep."

"You didn't wake up?"

"Not once."

I impaled another loop of straw on the toothpick. "And when you came out you were two years old."

He nodded. "Can you believe they're putting up the Christmas lights already?" Out in the road the men attached a huge spool of cable to the crane and lifted it towards a streetlight.

"Who banged the gong?"

"That..." Eddy pointed a finger. "Is a really interesting question. Nobody knows."

"Merlin put you in the cave to wake up when the world needed you."

Eddy nodded.

I caught my breath, trying to imagine the simplicity and scale of the idea. Every time I thought about my life as an adult I wanted something different. I was like a kid driving a bumper car, careening madly in one direction after another and never actually going anywhere. In contrast, Eddy had one purpose. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to make the world a better place.

"So why does the world need you?"

"I don't know. I'm waiting to find out, and preparing myself the best I can."

I needed contact with reality, all the crazy, grand ideas spinning in the air between us made me light headed. I ran my fingers over the smooth wood grain of the table top, catching grains of sugar spilled by whoever sat there before. I wiped my hands on a serviette.

"And what about the others in the cave?"

"I don't know. They will come when they are needed. Maybe I'll call them."

I admired my straw and toothpick sculpture, a tightly coiled spiral. "You don't think it might be a mistake?"

"What do you mean?"

"That somebody banged that gong who shouldn't have. They didn't bang it right, and only woke up you without the others."

Eddy shook his head emphatically. "Nope." He shuffled in his seat. "No. Definitely not." He looked at his watch. "I'm sorry, Maddie, but I have to go. There's a colt that I'm harness breaking."

"Alright." I threaded my napkin through the centre of the straw sculpture and stood up.

"Maddie..." His voice chided slightly.

"What?"

He nodded at the sculpture.

"Cool isn't it?"

"Um, aren't you going to put it in the trash?"

"What?" Suddenly I felt like I was in a coffee shop with Mum. "Oh alright," I huffed. "I thought somebody might like it."

In the street the mini-crane had moved to a third lamp post and two strands of lights already hung over the road.

I watched my feet for a moment, then looked up at Eddy. "Why, when we first met, were you so weird to me?"

"It's complicated, Maddie."

"So? Maybe you could try explaining it. I think I've been very understanding so far."

"Well..."

I turned aside and looked in the window of a mobile phone shop. "Wait. I've just had an idea." Eddy's habit of rescuing me from peril deserved a reward. And just as much as he had earned a present, I wanted a way to get hold of him. I bought him a slightly retro, blocky Nokia, thinking that the size of his fingers would make using anything daintier, or a touch screen, very difficult indeed.

Outside the store I extended my arm straight out, the small bag holding the phone swinging from my hand.

Eddy frowned. "What's that?"

"A present, for you." I didn't say that I anticipated getting as much benefit from it as he would.

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

I waved the bag at him. "Take it, for crying out loud."

"But why? Nobody..." He opened it. "A telephone, for me? I don't know what to say. You... How can you..."

The enormity of his gratitude was embarrassing. "It's nothing." I shrugged, then automatically tilted my face up, for him to kiss my cheek as Amina, or my London friends would have.

He turned away, walking down the street while tearing at the box. I stared after him. Was there something wrong with me? Or did he just not know what you were supposed to do when a girl you were friends with gave you a gift?

I trotted after him. "So, when we first met, why were you so distant? Why wouldn't you talk to me?"

He cradled the phone in one enormous palm. "Um, I didn't think you wanted to talk to me. Then, when you did, I didn't think it was a good idea."

We walked through Bove Town. Low terraced houses pressed their faces right onto the sidewalk. Eddy shifted sideways, onto the road. Even though he was slim he took up twice as much space as me, and there wasn't room for us to walk side by side.

I couldn't help glancing through windows at families watching Sunday afternoon television. An old man caught me looking and stared back accusingly through thick-rimmed glasses. I jolted and turned to Eddy. "And that was linked to what you said about fate, about believing in fate? Do you still think we shouldn't spend time together?"

"Now that you know what you know, that would be silly. I think we can be..." He put the phone into his pocket. "Good friends for one another."

I nodded. I had still given him no sign that I wanted things to be any other way, but this mirrored his warning on the school bus. I chose my words carefully. "And you can be sure that's what's going to happen?"

He looked at me for a long beat. "It's different for me. I've already been who I am, once. And I've been woken up for a purpose. It all means that things are only going to go a certain way, and I think it involves you exactly as a friend. Exactly, precisely a friend."

I stared, wanting to shout and rage at him, but also desperately trying to keep my eyes from glistening with tears. "Um, but you can't be sure, can you?" I cast around for something to throw into the discussion. "What about that Mr. Neil? He seems to be a big expert on everything. What does he say?"

"I would ask him. I really would." Eddy's golden eyes widened with feeling. "But I can't. He's not here."

"Well that's not much good." I smiled, trying to lighten the tone. "And what's he doing with all this Mr. Neil business? Why doesn't he have a first name?"

One corner of Eddy's mouth lifted in the beginning of a smile.

"What?"

He raised his eyebrows.

What had I missed? Mr. Neil, the old crossword master, governor of Levels, and guardian of Eddy Moon. Mr. Neil the player-around with anagrams. I separated the letters of his name, rearranged them, then slapped myself on the forehead.

Eddy nodded.

"Merlin? Oh. My. God."

He stopped at the entrance to Chalice Drive, beside Boxer's hoof prints in the verge. "Right. Here we are. I'll head off."

I gawped. How could he drop something like that into conversation, and then just leave?

"I'll see you tomorrow, though."

I nodded. "Okay. Cool."

"And Maddie, I'm serious about what I said earlier, about us being friends. Ask your Mum. Tell your Mum that we've had coffee, see what she says."

"But..."

He turned, and with a few of his incredibly long strides he rounded the first house and disappeared. My Mum? What could she possibly have to say about an afternoon with Eddy?

At home I breezed in through the back door. "Hi Mum!" I yelled, dumping my shopping bags on the kitchen floor.

She appeared in her usual spot in the sitting room doorway. "Hello sweetheart. Oh look! What's all this?" She bent over the first bag, from Benetton.

"It's my stuff from Bath. Eddy brought it for me."

She froze, still bent over, but completely ignoring the clothes. "Really?" Her voice was high and strained. "That's nice of him." She stood. "He's a good friend to you?"

"Mm hmm."

"Good, it's nice you've got a friend, who's a boy." Each time she said the word friend it grated slightly, like chalk on a blackboard. "He's..."

"Yeah?"

"When you first met him and I said be kind to him, I didn't mean..."

I narrowed my eyes.

"You think you want to...?" Strain pulled the skin tight over Mum's cheekbones.

I put her out of her misery. "It's alright Mum. We're just good friends." I grabbed the shopping bags from the floor and headed for the stairs. I had lied. I shouldn't have, but only because it was clearly such a big deal to Mum. Why did she care that I was in love with Eddy Moon?

# Chapter 13: The Lady and the Lake

At school the next day, Eddy Moon was all I could think about. I knew he was at Levels somewhere and I wanted to be beside him. Lessons demanded otherwise, however, and all morning I spent in a diluted, faded kind of world, knowing that with Eddy everything would be rich and golden. He thought I couldn't be his girlfriend but I didn't believe him. So many things had happened that I thought impossible; the two of us being together was insignificant in comparison.

At lunch I ran to meet him in the fencing studio. The space was tall and narrow, only lit by small windows squashed beneath the ceiling. It should have seemed gloomy, but Eddy was there, and to me he filled the whole room with light.

Eddy gestured toward his coach, standing opposite him. I had barely even noticed he was there. "Mr. Deforge, this is Madeleine Bride."

I winced. I wanted Eddy to myself. I wanted to talk to him about what he was, what he had to do. Ideas fizzed through my mind.

The instructor wore a helmet with a mask and his features were indistinguishable behind the face sized oval of dark mesh. He tweaked the base of the mask in greeting and turned back to Eddy. "Now Moon. Today the last of the parrying moves. Neuvieme, to protect the rear." Turning, he invited Eddy to cut at his back, pushing Eddy's blade away with a sweep of his own sword. "Now you."

Eddy turned his own back. Deforge ran at him and Eddy parried him so forcefully that the instructor staggered a stride sideways.

After five minutes Eddy removed his helmet and mask. I almost drooled as I received my first glimpse of his face that day. Sweat stuck his hair to his head, accentuating the strength and beauty of his features as well as the breadth of his shoulders.

Mr. Deforge dropped his hands to his hips. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Deforge. I've finished learning fencing."

"But you've only been studying a week. You have so much potential to..."

"Thank you Mr. Deforge, I'm grateful for all your help, I really am. But I don't have time to focus on it properly." Eddy pulled off a heavy gauntlet and held out his hand for the instructor to shake.

He stepped towards me. "Maddie, I'll just get changed. Five minutes."

"I'll go outside."

I found a bench against the side of the studio. It started to rain, but I pressed myself back against the wall, under the eaves and stayed dry.

Eddy emerged. "Hey, you're still here!" He held his new phone in one hand. "I thought you would have sent me a short message service telling me where you had gone."

I giggled. "Everybody says text, silly. I'm fine. Dry as a bone."

He examined me, then nodded. "Yes you are."

"Come with me?" Jumping to my feet I took his arm.

"Where?" Eddy looked at his watch. "I was going to do some pistol shooting. It's the other part of the modern pentathlon that I've never done before."

"Ah, the modern pentathlon." I remembered the meeting in Logres, trying to drum up competitors for the inter-house competition. "But I want to make it easier. Come to the library. Ten minutes, I promise." I smiled at him as persuasively as I could. "It's for your own good."

"Um..." He scuffed his feet. "I don't usually go to the library. There's always a lot of people in there."

I dragged at his forearm. "That's something we've got to get you over. How can you help save the world if you don't like crowds?"

He gritted his teeth. "Okay. Ten minutes."

I led him along the flagged path to the library. "One quick question, first. Merlin is still alive now, how does he do that? Did he sleep as well?"

Eddy shook his head. "He did something to himself; he took some power from the grail. I don't know how it worked, but he gets older, then reinvents himself as a young man. He's done it more than twenty times."

Trying to process the story, I stared at the library. It occupied a building that had once been the school auditorium and boasted a high domed ceiling and elegant, arched doorways and windows. We entered through the main doors and I guided Eddy between study desks to stairs leading to the mezzanine, which held the computers.

Over a hundred students sat at desks, stood at the counter, or looked at the shelves. One by one, as we passed through the library, their heads turned. They were like moored boats, all pushed in one direction by the current.

Beside me Eddy dropped his head, letting his hair slide around his face.

"Look back at them, Eddy," I murmured. "Smile. They'll look away."

He did as I suggested. I knew the grace of his stride and the easy swing of his arms would quickly suggest confidence. Upstairs I found a free computer and sat Eddy down.

"Um, I'm not very good with computers."

"Well you need to get good. Put the headphones on, go to YouTube and search for Martin Luther King speech."

The fingers of Eddy's right hand almost covered the mouse, while those of his left jabbed at the keys.

"You're left handed?"

"What? No. I can use either."

Watching, I realised he actually moved the mouse at the same time as he typed. There was no reason why Eddy shouldn't be formidable at using computers, just as he seemed to be formidable at every other physical task he attempted.

"Okay. Now listen to the clip of the speech, and make notes of what you think makes it brilliant, what makes it persuasive." I pulled a notepad and pen from my bag and handed them to him.

When the MLK speech finished, I directed him to one from Ronald Reagan, then an after dinner speech by Phil Jackson, coach of the LA Lakers and Chicago Bulls basketball teams. Eddy wrote steadily as I watched the blurry figures speaking in silence. He filled three, four, five pages with quick, squared handwriting.

The Jackson speech ended and I eased the headphones from Eddy's ears. My hands quivered slightly from the proximity to him, and the urge to run my finger tips down the bronze skin at the side of his neck

He wrote another line of notes on my pad. Considering the size of his hands he moved the pen with enormous delicacy and speed.

"Um..." I closed the YouTube page. "You don't wonder why I'm asking you to do this stuff?"

Eddy shook his head. "Nope. Not really."

"The point is, to be a leader; you have to use words like one. All the great leaders can speak well. They persuade people to agree with them. Even if they don't have it as a natural skill, they learn it. Churchill used to stand in front of a mirror and practice for hours."

Eddy stood up and pushed the chair under the desk. "How come you're such an expert on all this stuff?"

"I don't know." I flushed. "For the last year or so I've been really interested in the stories of leaders, and you know, guys they call 'Great Men'."

"Very handy for me."

"Stop it. Come on. You need to work out what you're going to say at the Camelot House meeting."

"What meeting?"

"The meeting you're going to call, to fix the situation there."

"They won't come."

"You have to find a way to make them. Think of it like a test. This is a step in your journey to who you're going to be. It's practice. You have to persuade a hundred and twenty students to come and listen to you, then persuade them of your point of view."

"What point of view?"

"Eddy, come on, think about it. Representing Camelot in all the sports competitions, and winning as many of them as you can, is certainly impressive."

He nodded.

"And I don't doubt that you'll succeed massively, within the constraints of time, and not having a team."

He held up three big fingers. "The modern pentathlon is triple points, and it's the one everybody cares about."

"I know, I know, but that's still not the way of legendary leaders is it? The way of most success is to change everybody's minds. To get them to work with you, to get yourself a team back again. Honestly, if you can't do that, then how are you going to do whatever else it is you've got coming?"

He nodded. He looked so earnest and focused that my breath caught in my throat. I wanted nothing more in the world, at that moment, than to touch his skin, to place my palm on his cheek. Muscles jumped between his jaw and his cheekbone and I sensed he felt the same. Standing in the centre of the library, beneath its high dome, electricity seemed to arc and sizzle between us.

"Okay." He turned back to the door. "I'll go and put the speech together. I'll talk to them at the end of school."

"I've got swim practice. Send me a short message service and tell me how you got on. I wish I could come."

When I finished swimming I hurried to the locker room and checked my phone. A message from Eddy. My heart, which I had just slowed with 800 metres of cooling down, sped up to fifty-metre-sprint speed.

"Meeting went fine. Everybody on board. Even 4H! Watch out for the house trophy. Camelot is coming." I scrolled down, but that was it. Seventeen words. I may have showed him the way to talking like a statesman, but I guessed it didn't mean that he would suddenly become a chatterbox.

At home I found Mum cleaning the oven.

"Hi Mum!"

"Madeleine, I've been thinking. It's about time you pulled your weight around here a bit more."

"Okay." It was going to be one of those evenings.

"The vacuum cleaner's in the cupboard. You can do upstairs, then there's a lot of ironing to do. I don't think it's fair that I do it all when you go through five changes of clothes in a single weekend."

"Lovely to see you too, Mum." I smiled at her over my shoulder. "I won't ask about your day."

"There's no need for you to be cheeky, either."

"Yes Countess." I wrangled the vacuum and its seemingly endless cord from the cupboard. My phone beeped. Text message. I dropped the vacuum cleaner and cable on the floor and skipped across the room to my bag.

"Maddie!"

I flipped my hand "One minute Mum!"

The message was from Eddy. I blushed and grinned. He thanked me for my help, and suggested meeting later. He would tell me how he'd won Camelot over.

"Who is it?"

Too fluttery and distracted to think straight, I answered her. "It's Eddy, sorry, Mum, I'll do the chores tomorrow. I need to go out this evening."

"With Eddy? Why?" She stood very straight, square on to me. Her hair hung loose around her broad shoulders. I was struck by how formidable she must seem to strangers.

I quailed. "He wants to meet, to talk, I want..."

"Is it a date?"

I didn't know. I hoped so. "Maybe..."

"No, Maddie. No."

I opened my hands, for mercy, for understanding. "What?"

"You can't be with him. Speak to him, be his friend, of course. But nothing more. I forbid it."

I stared at her. "You forbid it?" Mum had never used a phrase like that with me before. Not once.

She bit her lip and glanced at her fingernails. Her tone calmed. "I forbid it."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you. You'll find out yourself."

"Even if I do all the ironing and all the vacuuming first?"

"Oh Maddie, it's not about the ironing and vacuuming."

"But he'll think I'm super rude, Mum. And you said he's had a hard time and you're absolutely right. Why should I go round now making his life even harder?"

She smoothed her hair. I saw the doubt in her eyes.

"Look, Mum, this is really embarrassing, but nothing's happened between us. Honestly. How about if I just meet him this evening and, you know, explain how things are going to be. It's the least I can do really."

"Honestly? You don't mind?"

I did mind. I minded so much I didn't believe anything could stand in the way of me meeting the boy I wanted to see. Mum could forbid it all she liked. I wouldn't take any notice. She wasn't going to stop me from seeing Eddy Moon. I equivocated. "I'll see what he says."

"Okay."

"So I can see him?"

Mum nodded. "And don't worry about the vacuuming. Just iron the clothes you need for the next couple of days. I'm sorry for shouting at you."

I headed to my room to change out of my school uniform. After three minutes Mum called from the bottom of the stairs.

"Maddie! Ask him if he wants to have fish and chips or something with you. I was going to get you to do the shopping as well, so you might as well have supper out. I'll give you the money."

"Okay Mum." I smiled to myself. Mum could be in a bad mood more often, if her contrition was always this generous.

I called him. "Hey Eddy, Mum says I should invite you to fish and chips."

"Really? Fantastic." Once and future king he may have been, but when offered fish and chips Eddy Moon was just like any other sixteen-year-old boy.

We met at the glass front of Kevin's Kebab Kingdom on Magdalene Street. Eddy jerked his chin at the illuminated menu above the counter inside. "They don't do fish and chips."

"Lovely to see you too." What was it about people greeting me with complaints that evening?

We bought kebabs and French fries and took them to the foot of the Market Cross, where the wide pedestal made a fine seat.

As I ate I told Eddy, matter of factly, what Mum had said. "Why would she say that?" I asked. "Do you really know? What did she mean?"

He picked at his fries. "She said it because even before you knew my story, you were involved in it. In fact, before we even met you were involved in it."

I frowned. "What are you on about?"

"It's what I meant when I was talking about fate. You already have a role in my story, in the story of the sleeper, but it's not the..." He lowered his eyes. "The girlfriend's role." He looked back at me, his face locked into a frown. The tension in his gaze reminded me of when I accompanied a friend to a tattoo parlour. She had stared at me while the tattooist drilled into her back, and her eyes glowed with the private fight against pain and cutting.

I frowned at his pause and his tone. "How can I already have a role?"

"It's about who you are, and your ancestry. Your mother has a role as well. Maybe an even more important one than you."

I stood up, anger blossomed in my chest, like a jagged, iron flower. "My Mum! What are you on about? What's she got to do with it?"

"When I was king, there were women who gave great support to my household, and to myself. They assisted Merlin, they healed the sick, they took care of my sword. They were a family, mothers and daughters, and they had abilities."

"Magic?"

Eddy winced. "I'm still not sure how to explain the things that happened then, but, they could do things, yes."

"So?"

"Well, the family survived, it continued and it's here now, and you and your Mum are it."

I pushed my kebab away from me, along the step of the Market Cross. "What?"

"You know yourself how long your title goes back Maddie. I realised it the first time I saw your name, written on that form in history."

I remembered his shock and awkwardness, which I thought were a response to my own defensiveness.

"Your Mum is Countess Bride. She's descended from the first Lady Brides, who were also known as the Lady of the Lake. Like them, she has an affinity with water. You must have seen it. You have it yourself."

I grimaced. "I'm sorry Eddy, I don't want to be horrible, but you've gone completely mental. I'm Maddie Bride, from London. I like reading and heavy metal music. I am not, I repeat, I am not, any flipping Lady of the Lake." I crumpled up my kebab wrapper and dropped it on the sidewalk beside the Market Cross.

Eddy picked it up. "You shouldn't litter."

I knew I shouldn't drop litter, but that wasn't the point. The point was his absurd claim that my mother, my grandmother and I were all descended from the Lady of the Lake. That somehow 'Lady of the Lake' was a kind of inherited title, which ruled me out of any closeness with him except for the most platonic sort. Closeness that I craved all the time, except for when he was talking absolute nonsense. "You're not going to argue with me?"

He shrugged. "What's the point? I know the way things are. Your mother knows the way things are. It's like trying to persuade people the world is round. Incidentally, learning the world is round is one of my first memories. Kieran told me when I was three years old. I had nightmares about falling off it for a month."

"Take this seriously," I snapped. He was trying to distract me.

He switched his full seriousness onto my face. Certainty blazed in his tawny eyes. "I do take it seriously. It's as serious as gravity, night and day. It's my world. It's actually you who's not taking it seriously. You're the unbeliever."

I stepped away. For a second I saw the two of us beside the Market Cross from high above, as if we were bystanders in Google Earth. Here was a boy who believed he was King Arthur, who had convinced me he was the king, finally awake after a thousand year sleep. And now he was telling me I was the Lady of the Lake and I had a problem with it. If I didn't believe it, then I had to question whether Eddy was one of the Seven Sleepers. And if I questioned that, then I had to accept the possibility that Eddy had serious mental problems. How could I be in love with a lunatic? I bit my lip and turned away.

"Madeleine?" There was a vibration of unease in the deep, confident voice. "Madeleine, what are you thinking?"

I kept my eyes down. "I don't know." I kicked at a cigarette end, pushing it around the sidewalk with the toe of my shoe. I thought of all the times I'd decided to be a different kind of person, to be an athlete, a party girl, or an academic. All the times I'd lurched from one identity to another, never knowing which one fit. Now Eddy was offering me one off the peg. Certainty, identity, and a place in a story would be mine. The problem was that it was all too weird, and worse than that, it wasn't the one I wanted. I looked inside myself. I didn't want to be the adviser, the healer. I wanted to be the Queen. I looked up at the Market Cross. "Eddy, I have to go home."

"I'll see you tomorrow?" The note of unease sharpened in his voice.

"I guess."

I turned away, heading down the High Street towards Bove Town.

"Maddie, wait!" Eddy called after me. "You never get wet in the rain!"

The walk through Bove Town felt very different to the day before, when Eddy had been beside me, striding along the road. The terraced houses had their curtains drawn against the night. I jammed my hands into my pockets. Walking away from Eddy I felt the threads that bound me to him stretching. They pulled at me, cutting and burning, but they held tight. Mum had chopped at them with her rulings. Now Eddy himself hacked at them with his absurd reliance on fate. All I knew was that I loved him, and the two people I cared about most in the world were trying to make that wrong. The night cold wrapped itself around me, seeming to reach to my heart and I shivered from head to toe. What was I going to do? Beside walk around sobbing?

In Chalice Drive a middle aged woman was taking rubbish from a metal shopping basket and putting it into a bin. "Good evening dear. You alright?"

I didn't look at her. "I'm fine."

At home I found Mum sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. "So? What did he say?"

I didn't want to tell her. If I told her and she agreed, if she knew what Eddy had said, then that would be it. It would all be true and I was a witch.

"Nothing." I kept walking.

"Maddie, wait. I would have told you. It's just; I remember when Grandma told me. I thought I was going crazy."

"You are crazy," I said over my shoulder. "I'm going to bed." Halfway up the stairs my trudge burst into a mad scramble. At the top I threw myself into the bathroom and flipped the toilet cover just in time to empty my kebab into it.

I wiped my mouth and sobbed.

"I felt exactly the same, Maddie. It's okay." Mum's voice came from the bathroom doorway.

"It's not okay," I snarled. "You're crazy. Leave me alone."

"But..."

"Go away!"

When I was sure she had gone I got up, brushed my teeth and went to bed. I tried my left side, then my right, then back to my right again.

Mum moved about for half an hour, then the stairs creaked as she came back upstairs. "Goodnight Maddie," she said to my bedroom door.

The street light outside cast the shadows of a tree's bare branches across my curtains. I decided I was too cold, and fetched a blanket. After half an hour of writhing around underneath it I was too hot, and tossed the blanket on the floor. I turned on the light, downloaded the pod-cast of a radio programme about Richard the Lionheart and went back to bed. The pod-cast finished and I realised I hadn't heard any of it. I played it three more times then threw my I-Pod across the room.

On the landing something scuffled and shuffled. I sat up in bed. The image of the cormorant in the dead tree flashed across my mind. The noise outside turned into a creak. Multiple creaks. Footsteps.

"Mum?"

"Maddie, can I come in?"

I sighed. "Oh, alright."

She peered around the edge of the door for a moment, before opening it completely. "I can't sleep."

I rolled over, toward the wall. "Join the club."

"Maddie, there's something I want you to see."

"I'm not interested." I curled myself into a tight little ball.

"Look, it's only three am, you've got five hours of dark still. What are you going to do? Come with me. We'll go on a little expedition. I want to show you something."

I uncurled a notch. "What?"

"You'll see."

Mum still knew how to play me, just as she did when I was four years old. I added a note of whine to my voice. "But what kind of a thing is it?"

"You'll see when we get there. Come on, put a hoody on."

"Oh Mum, bloody hell." But I sat up, scratched my head, and threw my legs over the side of the bed.

"Good!" I heard the smile in her voice. "I'll be in the kitchen. I'll make us travel mugs of tea." Even when Mum was trying to persuade me that life was completely weird she was still so predictable.

Three minutes later I took my travel mug from the kitchen counter and followed Mum out to the car. She drove with care and precision along the narrow country lanes.

"Wait." I sipped from my tea. "I know this road. Are we going to the hives?"

"Maybe."

"But Mum, that's not exciting. I've been there, like a million times."

"You haven't seen it like I'm going to show it you tonight."

I huffed and stared out the window at the dark windows of the cottages and farmhouses we passed. I hadn't visited the hives since our first week in Glastonbury. Something about them bugged me. In part I didn't think they were a proper occupation for my mother, but more than that, they reminded me of Grandma. She had always been the beekeeper. To see Mum filling her role emphasised the fact that Grandma had gone.

We pulled into the gateway and Mum got out and unlocked the gate. She sighed when she sat back in the car. "You know the old Bride House is over there?" She pointed to a clump of trees on a rise away to the west.

"Yes Mum." I moaned. "You've only told me like a hundred times. The ancestral home of the Marquess of Beckerley, and Beckerley is an old word for beekeepers, and it's the name of the title, and not the same as our surname which is Bride, which is after Bride's Hill, where the house is, blah, blah, blah, yawn." I gabbled without breathing and the last words, with almost no air behind them, were little more than whispers.

Mum pulled the car up alongside the hut that served as an office and store for the beekeeping operation.

"Here we are. Now get out."

I crunched my eyes closed in a long blink. "Mum, I swear, you really are losing your mind."

"Maddie, you've come this far, you might as well."

"All..." I pushed the passenger door open so hard it bounced back at me. "Right!"

"Careful dear. Now follow me."

She walked between two long lines of silent hives. The bees were sleeping, hibernating until the spring time, when they would come back to life. A bit like a certain blond giant I knew. Or possibly like him, if he wasn't a lunatic.

We stopped beside the last line of hives.

"You know the story of Excalibur?"

In the distance a dog barked.

I shivered. "Yeah, the sword in the stone. The boy Arthur pulled it out, and proved he was the king."

"No dear. That was a trick of Merlin's. A common or garden sword. A soldier's sword. It broke, or something. That's when we stepped in."

"We?"

"The Lady of the Lake. The Ladies had been keeping a sword, a magic sword for him. When he needed it he came here, and got it from the lake."

The ground fell away in front of us, to a line of bushes and a drainage ditch at the edge of the property. "There's no lake Mum."

"There used to be a lake here. They drained it three hundred years ago. But, before that, before Arthur died, or..."

"Don't, Mum. You're making it bad enough already."

"Anyway, the last thing Arthur did was to have the sword returned to us, returned to the lake." She waved a hand grandly towards the hollow, its fence and molehills.

"Mum, there's no lake. I told you."

"Not now, but Arthur has returned, he needs his sword, so the lake will return as well."

"Oh. My. God." I dropped to a crouch, head in hands. Through gaps between my fingers I watched Mum step forward. She half raised both arms, holding them in front of her waist. Crooking her fingers slightly she made a slow-motion, beckoning roll of her hands.

"See." Her voice was monotone, as if she was speaking through clenched teeth.

"What? There's nothing there."

"Look." Again she sounded muted, breathless.

I looked down the slope towards the drainage ditch. I saw a glimmer of movement around it. Glass stems bobbed and darkness expanded. "Mum, there's nothing there. Can we go home."

"No." Her voice cracked. "I'm going to prove it to you." Her fists clenched and her knuckles shone white in the moonlight.

At the bottom of the fence posts I caught a flash of silver, glinting slices of the moon refracted.

"Mum, there's nothing there." I turned away. "Can we go home now?" Scuffing my feet I trudged between the hives.

"No!" Mum's voice was ragged.

I turned back.

"Mum?"

She swiped at the air in front of her. "Get away!"

I stepped towards her. "Mum?"

Her eyes stretched wide. "Mother?"

I jolted at the oddness of her saying her own name back to me. "What do you mean, Mum?"

"Mother, you have to help me. I don't know what's wrong. I need the sword, but..."

Nausea twisted my stomach. "Mum, Mum, it's me Madeleine."

"Oh." Her face crumpled into confusion. "I thought..."

"Can we go home?" I took her arm and led her back to the car. My mind whirled. What had happened to her? And was I to blame? I had seen something happening in the meadow, but I denied it. Had she strained herself trying to prove herself right?

# Chapter 14: The Tournament

Three days later I sat next to Sarah in the Logres common room. She put her hand on my knee. "I don't want to be mean Maddie, but you look terrible."

Pale winter light filed low and weak across the levels and in through the tall, slender common room windows. The smell of toast and the sound of rap music drifted down from the rooms above and from time to time a younger student on their way to breakfast looked at me curiously. I knew the paper whiteness of my face made the dark circles around my eyes especially noticeable.

"It's okay. I saw myself in the mirror."

"I can't believe you came in so early. It's the first time you've ever been in school fat breakfast time, and it's after you've been sick."

I ran a hand over my wet hair. "I'm better now." I had only told Sarah about being sick the night we went to the hives, but not the midnight expedition, or the sleeplessness. "That was three days ago."

"Yeah, but you haven't been eating, have you?"

I shrugged. I hadn't been hungry.

"Swimming at six o'clock in the morning." Sarah shook her head. "You're so committed. It's amazing."

"I don't know. I just couldn't sleep." I hadn't been able to sleep all week. That morning desperation had driven me out of the house. "It has made me a bit hungry, though. Maybe today I'll have breakfast."

Sarah stood up. "Come with me to the cafeteria." She pulled me to my feet.

The paths between the school buildings seemed different at that time in the morning. Everybody was sleepy, quiet. Uniforms were neat and tidy and hair was wet, or brushed.

In the cafeteria resident students sat at the long tables. Without any of the day scholars and with everybody else drowsy and muted, the cafeteria seemed half empty. I got a sense of a separate, private Levels world for residents.

At the counter the delicious smell of bacon kicked my stomach into gear, for the first time in what felt like forever. We piled eggs, bacon, sausage and toast onto our plates and sat down. All Sarah wanted to talk about was the extraordinary events in Camelot, how Eddy had worked to turn the mood of the house around.

"And apparently he called a meeting and-"

"Sorry, Sarah, do they have ketchup?"

In a state of exhaustion, changing the subject was hard, but I'd rather do that than listen to stories about Eddy. Again and again I sidetracked Sarah with questions about haircuts and magazines, until, buttering her last piece of toast, Sarah frowned at me. "But I don't understand why you're not interested in Camelot. Aren't you and Eddy Moon...?"

"What?"

"Well people say you may be, you know..."

Sarah's predilection for talking around her point could be super annoying. I shook my head curtly. "We're not going out, Sarah. If we were, don't you think he would have told me what happened?"

"Hmm." She tilted her head to one side, then nodded sadly. "Also, Hari's really down. He thought this was our big chance to beat Camelot in the House Tournament. But now it sounds like they're going to be better than ever."

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't considered how helping Eddy was doing my own house disfavour. "You don't know that, it's only talk, at the moment." I pushed my chair back and stood up. "Come on, we've got registration."

On the way to our tutor room I took my phone from my bag. "You go on, Sarah. I just want to make a quick call."

I stepped sideways to stand against a wall and dialed my home number. "Mum?"

"Oh hi Maddie, how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Mum. But what about you?" I remembered three nights before, sitting beside Mum in the car, making her drink tea from her travel mug and waiting until her head seemed clear enough to drive.

"Me? Well I'm a bit sleepy, but, you left so early."

I nodded. "I thought a swim would clear my head, make me feel better." Now that Mum seemed to have forgotten how she weirded me out I was again annoyed with her. "I have to go now Mum. Registration. See you later."

At lunchtime I went back to the Logres common room. I had absolutely no interest in wandering around school trying to find Eddy Moon. I sat next to Sarah, but she wouldn't stop talking about him, so I went to the library. Entering the building, though, I couldn't help remembering the electricity that had sparked between us when I took him there. I gave up and found an empty classroom to try and do some homework in. I felt so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, and my head whirled with what I had come so close to, then lost, so instead of working I sat and stared at the wall.

The only time, all week, that I had a moment of peace, was in the pool. The rhythm of my strokes and the silence of having my head immersed in the water were almost meditative. Their effect was ruined the next day when Coach pulled me over to the side. "Bride, you're doing well. I've got high hopes for you in the Southern Schools." He threw me a towel. "We haven't competed strongly in the girls section for a couple of years. But there's some stuff I want you to sharpen up."

He went on to break down my technique, which was apparently horrible, and tell me a dozen things I had to do better. For that training session, and all the next week, swimming became more a labour than an escape. I knew the coaches at Levels – and there were over a hundred – worked under massive pressure, but this was the first time I had the pressure passed on to me.

Eddy texted me most days, but I didn't reply. There was no point. I sat in my room and glowered through the window at the cormorant in its barren tree. I remembered the hope and excitement for my life at Levels that I felt the day I went to meet Amina. How had I let that happen? How had I let my guard down? I should have held on to the idea that school would be a struggle; that I should keep myself apart and secure. But no. I had opened myself up and got burned.

Mum seemed returned to normal, though sleepy. Each evening when I got home I waited for her to say something about a non-existent lake, or the fact that she was the Lady of the Lake. The only direct question she ever asked was about Eddy. "Have you seen Eddy Moon."

"No Mum," was my usual answer.

To which she gave a relieved smile.

Sometimes I said, "Yes I saw him in history."

When I did, her face immediately tightened. "What did he say?"

"Nothing, we didn't talk."

This was the truth. Eddy appeared in the classroom with his graceful, space consuming stride and I ignored him. I still thought him utterly beautiful, he still commanded my attention like a fire, but I turned my head away. He didn't try to break my silence.

"What's with you two?" Pippa murmured.

"Nothing." I kept my eyes on my text book.

"But..."

"Nothing, Pippa."

I avoided her at lunchtimes, not wanting to have to answer questions about Eddy. I felt like such an idiot for telling people he wasn't odd, when the truth was that either he was crazy, or worse, we were both weird.

In break times I retreated to the Logres common room. Sarah's attentions had moved on from Eddy. She switched between whatever magazine she was reading, and the preparations for the House Tournament. She was confident about her own role in the gymnastics, but the modern pentathlon obsessed her. Somehow she had become fixated on the attempts of Hari Kumar and John Owen, the head of Orkney.

"Hari's such a good runner and rider, but John, he's fantastic at swimming and fencing, and I don't know. I just don't know."

I could have pointed out to Sarah that what she was really deliberating over was which of the two she liked the most, but I couldn't be bothered. My own attention was increasingly focused on the Southern Schools competition. It seemed the one aspect of my life I had some control over, and success became more and more important. I had failed at everything else, I had to be good at something.

The equestrian competitions took place the next Saturday afternoon, but it was more or less compulsory for students to attend. First up was the horse riding component of the modern pentathlon. I sat beside Sarah, both of us wrapped in heavy coats against the winter chill. The riders had to criss-cross the ring along an assigned route, jumping twelve obstacles on their way.

"It's not fair," I complained. "It all depends on how much money the boys have got, and how good their horses are."

"No, Maddie." She shook her head. "The names of all the horses go into a hat, and the riders draw one of them. Most of the horses are from the Levels stables."

With the rest of the Logres contingent I yelled in support of Hari Kumar. Supporting my house in sports competitions was another simple, straightforward thing to do – and to feel. If I shouted loud enough I couldn't hear my thoughts.

Hari looked incredibly dapper in breeches and a beautifully cut riding jacket, and he guided his compact brown mare with style and expertise. His time was excellent, and none of the other houses came close. John Owen rode a heavy, snorting black horse, and suffered a series of time penalties for hitting the top of most of the jumps.

"Poor John," Sarah sighed. "He didn't get one of the best horses."

I didn't have the energy to argue, but it seemed to me that Owen communicated his aggression to his horse, making it anxious. I didn't care, I had never liked him, and wasn't bothered that he sat at the bottom of the rankings.

Each house contributed one or two riders to the modern pentathlon, apart from Avalon and Lyonesse, which had none. Camelot, however, had five. The Four Horsemen rode out one after the other, each of them eliciting loud cheers from the crowd. Though obviously expert riders, none of them were brilliant over the jumps, and they filled in the spaces behind Hari.

Beside me Sarah glowed with pride. "Hari's so good, Maddie, it's amazing."

I repressed a smirk, then a desire to get up and leave the stand as I recognised the final Camelot rider. Of course. Eddy Moon.

"Apparently there was a problem, because he was drawn to ride on a horse that they said was too small. He would hurt it. Can you imagine? Apparently he weighs more than two hundred and twenty pounds."

Memories flooded back, and I squeezed one eye shut, then the other. I knew how massive he was, I knew the kind of horse that carried Eddy comfortably.

Eddy cantered into the ring, riding a rangy white gelding. He paused at the starting point for a while, his head low on the horse's neck.

"What's he doing?" Sarah grabbed my arm. "Is he talking to it?"

I shifted in my seat. I didn't want to think about Eddy, let alone tell Sarah how I had witnessed his ability to communicate with horses. Instead I just watched. He wore an old- fashioned black jacket that strained across his shoulders and riding britches that did nothing to disguise the curves of his thighs.

Then he and his horse started riding. Though I wasn't a horse riding expert, I could see that Eddy and his horse moved like one being. They sailed through the course as if the jumps were hardly there, and he eclipsed Hari's time by five seconds.

Sarah glared at me.

"What?" I said. I don't care."

We stayed beside the arena to watch the other equestrian events. I clapped Pippa quietly as she won her class by a mile, then headed to the pool with everybody else, for the second part of the pentathlon.

The competitors were drawn in two heats, according to their times. John Owen and the Four Horsemen were in the first, and Owen emerged from the changing rooms, snarling at the others.

"What's with him?" somebody asked.

"He hates Camelot," was the flat explanation. "Even more, now that somebody blamed the Orkney lot for the whole Facebook thing."

"What Facebook thing?"

Sarah frowned at me. "You must have heard. It was the evening Eddy Moon made that speech."

I shook my head. I had shut down every attempt to tell me the story of Eddy's big night.

She leaned closer and began explaining what happened. Her style was fractured and disrupted by irrelevancies, so it took me a while to piece the story together.

Apparently Eddy had called a house meeting, then spread the rumour that he would be announcing his resignation as well as how his successor would be decided. His arrival at the Camelot common room was ten minutes late, by which point every Camelot student was jammed into it. He had plugged a computer into the big TV, and told them he had terrible news, he had discovered a plot against Camelot. Students from another house had set up a fake Facebook account in his name and were planning to use it to discredit him, and the whole of Camelot, and get them barred from competition for a whole year.

Despite myself, I smiled. Eddy's tactical brain was even sharper than I'd hoped. "So that's why John Owen is furious."

"It's part of it. Oh, look. Here he comes now."

The head of Orkney swaggered along the poolside, leading the competitors to the blocks for the first heat. The race was two hundred metres freestyle and my coach was officiating. I recognised none of the racers from team training, and felt oddly glad. I associated myself with the other swimmers, and I was pleased none of them were participating in this most Levels-ish kind of silliness.

I had to admire John Owen's swimming, though. From the gun he battled the water as if it was his personal enemy. He charged up and down the four lengths and won by a couple of seconds over Rami Ahmed, with Kieran and the others close behind.

Eddy and Hari were in the second group. I forced my mind into dispassionate mode as they walked onto the poolside. Around me people gasped.

"He looks like a wrestler," said one.

"Can't believe he's only sixteen," said another.

John Owen was stocky and powerful, but Eddy looked like something else. I realised that I had never seen him in swimming trunks, and as hard as I resisted, I couldn't stop myself from staring.

The breath left my body. He dwarfed the other boys, in height, but also in the extraordinary width of his shoulders. The myth of Atlas flashed through my mind, the giant who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Those were the kind of shoulders Eddy displayed, massive and rounded at the top of V-shaped torso. His chest and arms bulged, completely ripped without a hint of fat, and his gigantic wrists and elbows betrayed the massive bone structure underneath. I turned my head away. The sight of so much of his golden skin brought home how much I had lost.

At the gun I forced my gaze back to the water. I remembered the last time I had watched him in the water, and willed him on. This time I observed the race without passion. The weight of Eddy's skeleton dragged him down, and he had to expend as much energy keeping afloat as moving forward. Hari won and Eddy came last, by a second. After two events John Owen, Hari, Rami and Kieran held the top spots. Eddy's success in the horse riding and been completely discounted by his appalling swimming.

Next up was fencing, in the gym. Pippa squeezed into the seat next to me. "Hey Maddie, you here to cheer on hunky boy?"

I glowered at her.

"Sorry, I meant Hari, of course. Have to tell you though, Eddy's riding was astonishing. I've been in the team for three years, and I wish I had half the gift he has."

I shrugged. What did I care? In the fencing every boy competed against each of the others in turn. All they needed was one hit, then they won and the bout stopped. No hits and they were both losers. One boy held one of the four fencing strips for five bouts, before they switched. The first few bouts were cautious, and most of the pairings both lost points.

Then a figure appeared who I instantly recognised through his fencing kit and dark mask. The blocky build and short legs of John Owen, who quickly overpowered every one of his opponents. He was replaced by the second recognisable figure, the towering Eddy Moon, who dealt with his opponents even more swiftly than Owen, twice flipping the loser's sword clean out of his hand.

An illuminated board above the fighters listed their scores. We watched as John Owen, and Eddy chalked up win after win, while Hari, Rami and Gennady Ivanovich hovered around the middle and the rest lost most of their bouts.

Pippa sighed. "It's amazing really, it only seems like yesterday that Camelot hated Eddy, and nobody would do anything for him. Now look at them!"

Curiosity sparked at the back of my mind, and couldn't stop myself from turning to her. "Yeah, I only heard part of the story. How did he do it?"

Pippa retold Sarah's explanation of how Eddy used the Four Horsemen's nasty Facebook plan against them, to bring Camelot together, embattled. He built the story gradually, weaving into it constantly how much he cared about Camelot, and how he was going to work to keep it the number one house at Levels.

"One of the students there told me that he sounded like a politician, but in a good way. He sounded like the kind of politician you would completely vote for, because you thought he could change the world."

I flushed with pride, then shook my head. It was irrelevant. Either I was a witch, or he was crazy, and whichever, he didn't want anything to do with me.

A loud cheer drew my attention back to the fencing. The audience had worked out what the big fight would be. Owen and Eddy were facing one another. The rugby player launched himself forward, hurling an onslaught of blows against Eddy, who parried and sidestepped them all. The big clock ticked past forty seconds, Owen stepped back to catch his breath, then barrelled forward again. Eddy slipped to one side, Owen went past him, then turned like a cat to stab at Eddy's back. Unsighted, Eddy swept his sword behind him, caught his aggressors blade and pushed it high and to the side. He swivelled and pressed the point of his sabre into John Owen's chest. He won, and Camelot roared. Down the stands I recognised Sarah's voice. "John's not as bad as people make out, he just..."

The board showed that after three events John Owen was still in first place, with Hari in second,

Pippa took my arm and led me out onto the edge of the Levels grounds, where the last two events, the three-thousand-metre run and the pistol shooting, would take place.

"I know you hate him, or whatever," she said, as we walked. "But he's doing extraordinarily well, don't you think?"

"I suppose."

We sat in the stands beside a rugby pitch and watched the competitors shoot their first set of targets, using laser pistols. As soon as they finished they ran out of the arena, following a cross country track across empty horse pastures and through the Levels 'nature reserve'. High in the stands we could watch their progress, and my strength of purpose in not caring about Eddy weakened further still, infuriating me. If he wanted nothing to do with me, why should I care whether he won or lost?

After the first cross country lap Kieran Hechter was quickest to return, closely followed by a lean boy from Gaul, and then John Owen. Where was Eddy? I scowled at my weakness and tried to admire the speed with which John Owen fired out his five shots. Eddy ran up to the shooting station just as John Owen and Kieran left. What had he been doing? Why did he take so long? He fired his shots with care, and left at the same time as a couple of boys who came in after him.

John Owen arrived first for the final shooting session, but his barrel chest was heaving with the effort. He wasn't built for cross country running. Kieran, Gennady and Eddy were close on his heels.

With bated breath we watched the runners head downhill from the rugby pitch and loop around a clump of trees. Kieran caught John Owen and was passing him when the head of Orkney lurched sideways and sent him flying. Eddy was close behind and slowed, grabbing Kieran by the shoulders and setting him on his feet.

Pippa pointed her finger. "See, it's stuff like that, that makes him so successful as head of Camelot. I've never heard of anybody being cheered like Camelot cheer him."

I bit my lip. "Like Camelot cheered him when?"

"When he made his big speech."

I turned back to the action, but Pippa could read my body language, and she must have known I would listen.

Apparently Eddy's voice got louder and louder as he built up the story of what he had done, and what he was going to do. He laced circles of phrasing into his speech, so students knew the climax of a sentence and shouted it out for him. And when he told them that Camelot could join him in putting out the best team for the House Trophy ever the whole house jumped to their feet shouting yes, and hurrah, and Eddy's name, over and over again.

"So," Pippa concluded. "That's why I'm sorry I ever thought he was weird, or whatever. Now I completely want him to win. Look!" She pointed at the runners, who had definitely slowed. John Owen opened up another lead, but Eddy, Kieran, and then Gennady tracked him close behind. The burly rugby player swerved back and forth across the narrow trail, trying to cut out their overtaking lines, and they hung back.

Halfway around the circuit it was Eddy who made the move, seizing a position beside Owen. The two of them ran shoulder to shoulder, John Owen barging at Eddy and pulling on his arm at corners. Eddy stayed on his feet, though, and was right beside Owen as they headed toward the finish line in the stadium. He ran to the right in a wide loop, making it look like he was going to take a much longer route than he needed to.

"What's he doing?" I hissed at Pippa.

She grinned at me. "What do you care?"

Looking over his shoulder, Owen tracked Eddy's path to the right, making sure he stayed in front of him, to block him off. The space on his left opened wider and wider, and just before they turned into the rugby field, Gennady and Kieran burst through it, quickly opening up a gap between themselves and the puffing head of Orkney. Gennady won, followed by Kieran, then Eddy and John Owen in a dead heat.

In the stands the Camelot students erupted. A score board showed that Gennady had won the pentathlon, with Kieran in second, Eddy in third and John Owen in fourth. The Four Horsemen all gathered around Eddy. He had sacrificed his own run to give them a chance, they hugged him, high-fived him, and slapped him on the back. The head of Camelot had come into his own.

I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. I wouldn't get any thanks for it, not that I wanted them.

Pippa turned to me. "Aren't you going to say something?"

I shook my head. "I have to get back."

I went to Logres to get my school bag and wait for Mum to come and pick me up. Slumping in front of the TV I tried not to think about the crowd that had gathered around Eddy, or how he had looked on the poolside.

The front doorbell rang, and a moment later the junior responsible for answering it trotted into the common room and looked around for a moment, before whispering into my ear. "Madeleine, it's Eddy Moon, he wants to talk to you!"

I scowled. "So? Tell him I'm not here."

# Chapter 15: Lessons

Standing in the Logres common room doorway, the junior in charge of answering the front door stared at me. "But you're here." She didn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to speak to the magnificent Eddy Moon.

"I know, but look, I'm not in the mood. Tell him I'm not here, please." I gave her an encouraging smile.

She left, but in less than a minute she was back. "I'm sorry Maddie, he knows you're here."

"Oh for God's sake, you told him?"

She shrugged. "He asked me, and I didn't know, I felt..."

I sighed. She was probably only thirteen. There was no way she could lie to Eddy, if he gave her the full regal treatment. "It's okay."

"Maddie, he said to tell you it's his birthday." Her eyes opened wide, I could tell Eddy had got her completely awestruck.

"Really? Oh no."

I bet that she could remember every birthday she ever had. For me to sit there and ignore Eddy's birthday request would rank me alongside murderers and cannibals. I had no way out. I stood up. "Alright."

Her face lit up. "Oh good!"

I went out to the porch. "Hello." I looked over Eddy's shoulder, at the trees growing beside the path. I knew the effect his face could have on me. "Is it really your birthday?"

"Of course. Well, Mr. Neil said it was."

I winced at the mention of his name. "So, um, happy birthday I guess."

"Thanks Maddie."

"So is that why you came? To tell me it's your birthday? I'm sorry, I didn't get you anything."

"No Maddie, you don't have to. I came to say thank you for all the stuff that you've already given me. Everything at Camelot is going so well, because of you."

I couldn't help myself; I flushed with pride and glanced up at his face. There it was, the serious, beautiful majesty that I loved so. I gulped. "You're welcome, I suppose."

"And how about you? How are you getting on?"

"I'm alright." I sighed. "Actually no. I'm in the Southern Schools in two weeks, and it's stressing me out and I'm confused. Who's mental? Are you mental?" I pointed at him. "Or you and my Mum both?" I turned my other hand palm up. "Or maybe you're both sane and it's me that's a loony." I held my breath. Are you mental? Nice.

He grinned, a big toothy grin. "Pretty crazy, I know how it must seem. So that's what I came to say. Can we put all that stuff on hold? Can we go back to how we were before?" He raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide. "Honestly, I really appreciated your help with the speechmaking stuff. It was absolutely brilliant. How smart you are."

Eddy was playing me, but still I flushed. "I heard you won them all over. Well done."

"No, I couldn't have done it without you. It was as much you as me."

"So what are you saying? We hang out, no more talk of me being Lady of whatever and..."

"And we just see what happens. How does that sound?"

I nodded. It wasn't my best option. My best option involved touching my fingertips to the back of his big, golden skinned hand. Touching his hand and then...

"Maddie? Do you think it will be alright?"

I started. "Um, yeah. For now it'll be okay."

"Really?" Again he hit me with his beautiful, happy grin. "That's great." His arms moved outwards at his sides. For a moment I thought he was going to hug me, and my heart drummed in my chest. I hadn't touched him since our moonlit ride across the fields.

Eddy clapped his hands together.

I sighed.

"So? What should we do? What should I do?" He looked at me expectantly. After the help I gave him with his public speaking, it seemed Eddy saw me as some kind of oracle.

"Well. I guess..." I sat down on one of the stone porch benches, and Eddy elegantly folded himself onto the one facing me. "So, Mr. Neil. He set up this school. He set it up for you?"

"For me?"

"For you and the others, the wakers. This place was put together to be your training ground."

"You think so?"

I nodded. "I'm pretty sure. Why else would he start a school? A school like this? Why didn't you come here earlier?"

"I didn't want to. I refused."

"You refused!" I stared at him.

"Kieran didn't want me to come, and so I tried to get my own back by saying, you know, I didn't care, I didn't want to come anyway."

I sighed. "You poor thing. Anyway, you're here now. And I think, the thing is, to take as much advantage of it as you can. You know how important contacts are later on in life. Here at Levels you have the chance to make hundreds of really good contacts. You're surrounded by people whose families are important, and who are going to be important themselves when they're older. For example, what does Tiago Toscano's family do?"

"His mother is Brazilian ambassador to China."

"Exactly. My point exactly. What about, what about, Gennady?"

"Ivanovich? His father's like, the second richest man in Russia. He owns half the aluminium in the world."

I nodded. "Everybody says Brazil is going to be one of the most important countries in the world soon. And I saw this TV programme about resources. The conflicts of the future are going to be about resources. Do you read the Economist?"

"No."

"You should start. And, and..." Ideas swirled in my head. The concept of Eddy as the once and future king, with the mission to save mankind, was intoxicating. It was a gigantic train rumbling past, while I tried to jump onboard. "With all these different nationalities here, you should learn languages. If you're going to stop, like fighting and stuff, it'll be huge if you can talk to people in their mother tongue."

"I can speak French."

"That's not really what I meant. I'm fairly certain Levels does GCSE Chinese and Arabic. You need to start off with those two."

Eddy grimaced. "Really? That might not be easy."

I frowned. "Come on, smart boy like you, you'll manage."

He nodded, then smiled. "Fair point."

"Right." I stood up. "Let's get started now. Let's see if we can get you enrolled on those language programmes." I led the way to the school office.

The next day Eddy had his first Chinese lesson, the day after he began studying Arabic, and after two weeks he stunned Rami Ahmed by asking him about the rugby team in his mother tongue.

What with his extra studying, I saw Eddy less and less, but I wasn't left sitting around fretting about it, as my own schedule became steadily more packed. With the Southern Schools swim meet fast approaching coach had me training six days a week, either before or after school.

History lessons were one of the few occasions we could be guaranteed one another's company. Though I still sat next to Pippa, she packed up quickly at the end of the lesson and trotted out the room with the other students, leaving Eddy and I slowly squeezing textbooks into our bags.

Eddy looked up from his back pack, flashing his sculptured beauty across the classroom at me. His tan had faded, making his eyes even more extraordinary. "Good lesson."

I gulped. "Mm-hmm. But I've been thinking. Maybe you should drop history."

"Really? But I thought, you know, studying the great men of the past..."

"I know. But I think you've got the principles." I zipped up my pencil case. "You can get most of it just by reading at home." I realised I was cutting one of our only ties, but the realisation was overruled by my weird drive to help him out. "And I'm still studying it. I'll tell you what happens."

He nodded and did up the buckles on his bag. "So what do you think I should do instead?"

I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder. "Economics. Come on, let's go and talk to the office about it."

Eddy sighed. "They'll be sick of me, always changing my mind."

I snorted. "What? Your guardian practically owns the school. Work it."

He lingered in the doorway behind me.

I looked back. "What?"

"I don't know." He ran his finger under the number on the door. "I'll miss this place. It's where we met."

With a hand on the cool, stone wall, I stopped. "I know."

"I've never felt like I did when I sat next to you."

I stared at him. Not once had Eddy ever given me any indication of this. "What do you mean?"

"At my other school I never really spoke to girls, but when I saw you there, with the empty chair next to you, I couldn't stop myself." He descended two steps towards me. "I remember your perfume, and the way you tucked your hair behind your ear. How huge and dark your eyes were when you looked at me. I had to focus so intensely to stop my hands from shaking."

In the gloomy stairwell Eddy seemed to be floating above me, gigantic and ethereal.

"Really? I had no idea." I swallowed, trying not to think about my racing pulse. "Do you still like my perfume?"

He flapped his hands in front of him. "Come on Maddie, I've got Chinese in ten minutes."

I stepped sideways down the stairs. "So what happened?"

"I stopped thinking about it. When I knew we couldn't... You know. I stopped."

"And it's that simple for you?"

"More or less. Come on."

He was unbelievable. Just when I thought I had a handle on Eddy Moon he said something like that and stunned me. "Okay," I whispered, and descended the stairs.

Out in the courtyard I looked at my feet as I spoke. "Actually Eddy, I forgot. I've got extra long swim practice, starting now. You'll be okay at the school office?" I needed to escape him, to breathe. His presence over-powered me.

"Oh, alright. Thanks anyway. The competition is the day after tomorrow, right?"

The swimmers had been given Saturday off school, we were travelling by coach to an aquatics centre on the south coast somewhere.

"Mm-hm."

"Well, if I don't see you before, good luck. Short message service me how you're getting on."

"Thanks. Okay." I hurried away from him, found a bench under a tree, and slumped onto it. How could he feel that way about me and say nothing? How could he feel that way about me and subdue it? Pretend it wasn't there? I raked my nails along the rough grain of the wooden seat. What was going to become of us?

For the first time in my life I welcomed the building anxiety caused by the threat of a sporting competition. I imagined standing on the poolside, waiting for the gun, and the nerves fluttering in my stomach. The sweaty palms and the cold embrace of the water felt as real in my imagination as if they were actually happening two days early. The stress was unpleasant, but still better than fretting over me and Eddy, what I wanted to happen, what he wanted to happen. Worse still, Eddy and me and whatever stupid idea of fate he had that meant we were frozen in a weird, bloodless waltz of good advice and gratitude.

On Saturday I dragged myself out of bed at five and fumbled through dressing in the night chill. I woke Mum up, and she drove me to school to get on the bus at seven. I was representing the school in the two hundred metres freestyle, and the two hundred and four hundred metres breaststroke. In the morning I won all my heats, in the afternoon I won the semi-finals. The last one, the long breaststroke, I won by ten metres and when I got out of the pool a cluster of coaches stood under the clock, muttering to one another and looking at me from the corners of their eyes.

I wrapped my towel around myself and joined the rest of the Level's swim team, on a row of plastic chairs along the tiled poolside.

Rami Ahmed nodded at me. "Well done Madeleine."

"Um, thanks Rami."

"You're practically a lock for first place, nobody else is coming close to your times."

"You're not doing badly yourself."

Rami grimaced. He represented Level's in the freestyle and backstroke sprints. Though his swimming style was quite beautiful and he barely made a splash as he slid through the water, he wasn't built for swimming. His heavy arms and shoulders dragged and weighed him down. "I'll place, hopefully, top three." His voice dropped to a rumble. "Now if this was polo, on the other hand..."

"All the horses would be wet," somebody added from the back row.

Rami's eyes narrowed for a moment. I could tell he didn't like being taken lightly, but then he smiled. "And we'd need some extra large swimming costumes."

The coaches fed us from cool boxes filled with sandwiches and fruit and then we prepared for the finals in the evening. Rami swam in his sprint and came second. He bounced out of the water with a huge grin.

I won the two hundred freestyle, but in the two hundred breast stroke my concentration wavered and a girl from a big London school caught me at the line.

I waited for the four hundred metre breaststroke final wearing a Levels towel and a frown. I knew I should have won the shorter race; I had it in my pocket but got complacent.

When the time came for the four hundred metres I flew into the pool and skimmed the first four lengths as quickly as I could. Turning into the fifth I saw that my closest challenger was half a length away. Careful not to relent I kept my focus, and willed myself into the feeling that I was swimming downhill. I finished a full length ahead of second place and in a record time for the Southern Schools competition.

Again the team congratulated me, but as I stood in their midst I saw surprised looks flickering across the features of those facing me. I turned to meet three coaches from other schools bearing down on us.

"So what's the trick?" the first asked.

A second jabbed his finger at me. "Where did you get this swim suit?"

The third reached out and plucked at the shoulder strap. "What's it made from?"

Rami shouldered his way to the front of the Levels team. "Get your hands off her."

I stared at the coaches. "It's a perfectly normal swimsuit. Nike."

My own coach bustled over. "What's going on here?"

The others turned to him. "You know something's not right. She hasn't got the build or the stroke for the kind of times she's swimming."

Coach's face reddened. "What do you mean? Do you have a complaint?"

"We will do as soon as we know what's going on."

"There's nothing going on. Leave her alone."

The three coaches backed away. Just as he turned to go, the last of them pointed at my stomach. "How do you explain that, then?"

"What?" I looked down at my swimsuit.

The coach scowled. "It's completely dry."

He stomped away down the poolside, while I examined my swimsuit. He was right. A wide circle of fabric over my belly was pale and bone dry, save for a line of water beginning to run across it from above.

My teammates and coach stared for a moment, before I crossed my arms over it. "It's just quick drying," I mumbled, cheeks crimson. I hurried to my chair, where my towel waited for me, and wrapped myself in it. I slumped into the chair, sunk in thought. The coaches were right, there was a trick, but it had nothing to do with my swimsuit. Since September my swimming had got stronger and stronger and easier and easier, with no justifiable reason, beyond my constant sensation that the water itself was pushing me along. I had gone from an also ran in a school where nobody swam particularly well, to the best girl at my distance in the Southern Schools.

Morning after morning I cycled to school in the rain, and barely got wet.

I swam eight hundred metres, completely immersed in the water, and stayed partly dry. Something like a switch turned in my mind. Resisting had been hard work. It was much easier to accept that Eddy's and Mum's Lady of the Lake theory might be true. Looking up at the clock on the wall, I planned what I would do when I got home.

With impatience I applauded Levels swimmers through the final five races of the day, then changed hurriedly and stood by the side of the bus waiting for my team to join me. When the door finally opened Rami Ahmed and his friends from the rugby team got on first and headed down the aisle to the back seat. When I filed on the boys called out my name "Madeleine Bride and her magic swimsuit, come and sit with us."

I pretended not to hear them and sat near the front, IPod plugged in. At Levels Mum leaned against her car, parked by the side of the road, and waved when I got off the bus.

"Hello love, how did you get on?"

"Oh, three wins one second place."

"No? Really! Oh well done, how did-"

"Mum, can we go home please."

In the car I tapped my fingers on my thighs, and when we got to Chalice Drive I ran into the kitchen. From under the sink I took a wrench and attacked the cold tap.

"Maddie, what on earth are you doing?"

I gritted my teeth as the wrench slipped. "Nothing Mum."

"Well it hardly looks like nothing."

"Just wait a minute. I need to try something."

The tap handle suddenly came free and clattered into the sink. No water gushed from the hole in the pipe. I dropped the wrench on top of it. Holding my breath I held my hand over the hole in the pipe where the tap had been. Slowly I rippled my fingers, as if I was turning an invisible tap. Nothing happened. I sighed. Then, upstairs somewhere, something gurgled. I heard a familiar whispering in the pipes and water trickled from the tap opening.

"Oh. My. God." I twitched my fingers and the water stopped, wiggled them again and it flowed. I turned to Mum. "Is there any point in us having taps at all?"

# Chapter 16: In Harness

I leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Mum pick the tap handle out of the sink. I knew I should have been shaken, completely wierded out by the way I made the water stop and start. Instead I felt a kind of drop in pressure. I was relieved at finally admitting to myself that the story was true, at accepting who I really was.

The old fashioned cross of brass knobs on the top of the handle glinted in the kitchen light. "Your Grandma had the taps for visitors. Of course she never knew if they worked or not. They rusted solid once. The vicar came round and was absolutely astonished. He said they must have been like it for years."

"Do you have to wave your hands over it?"

"With something like the tap? No. Watch." Mum turned her back on me. Water began pouring from the tap and the sink filled up. I peered at it. The plug wasn't in.

"Mum, stop it!" Water held above an open plughole pushed my new acceptance of our situation a little too far. "It's too weird."

"You'll get used to it." She turned back to me, the water stopped running and drained through the plug hole.

I narrowed my eyes at the tap and without saying anything, I commanded the water to come. Nothing happened. "I don't understand."

"It's not the tap, sweetheart, the tap won't do anything for you. You have to feel where the water is, in the pipes."

I reached out with my mind, thinking about the walls of the kitchen and the space beyond them. Immediately I sensed the water, long and slender in a pipe just above the floor. I beckoned to it and it came, sliding like a snake along and up and down through the tap.

"Well done darling." Mum put an arm around my shoulders. "That took me months to understand."

"Let's have a cup of tea." I put the kettle under the pouring tap and filled it up. I stopped the water and ushered it back along the pipe to its ground level resting place. "Can we heat it up?"

Mum laughed. "No, that's not part of it."

I thought of my physics lessons. "Are you sure?" When water heated its molecules became agitated. If I could move water in pipes and drops, then surely I could move it as molecules. I would have to investigate it further. In the meantime I turned on the kettle and sat at the kitchen table. "So let's have it Mum. The title of Countess of Beckerley, the oldest title in the country to be handed down through the female line as well as the male, whatever, blah, blah. We were called Lady Bride because we were King Arthur's Lady of the Lake?"

Mum sat opposite me and fiddled with the small vase in the centre of the table. "That's the origin of the title, yes. It predates the Norman conquest."

"And do we have a choice?"

Mum's eyes widened. "I never thought about it like that."

"Well I have."

"I don't think so." She twisted her hair into a rope. "I mean, does Eddy have a choice?"

"Good question."

"I didn't mean it as a question." She smiled thinly. "I meant it as an example of somebody who doesn't have a choice. Queen Elizabeth didn't have a choice. Mr. Neil doesn't have a choice."

I got up and poured the tea. "That's another bad example Mum, Mr. Neil seems to be choosing at the moment not to bother very much at all with Eddy or any of the rest of it." I handed Mum her tea and sat back down. "And assuming I accepted this role..."

"Assuming you..." She stared at me.

"Yes." My voice was clipped. "Let's make that assumption. For the time being. What does it entail?"

"Well, for all the others, your ancestors, not much. Knowing where the sword was. Staying in the area. Helping Mr. Neil, or whatever he was called at the time. If he needed help."

"But now?"

"For your grandmother, and now for you and I, it is to be adviser and support to the king."

"Eddy knew Grandma?"

"Quite well. Though he didn't know who she was."

I made a mental note to ask him about that first chance I got. "What else?"

"Well, he will need the sword, and we will have to retrieve it from the vanished waters."

The word 'sword' made me jolt upright in my seat. "I've already helped him."

"I'm sure you have. You bought him a phone, you said."

"No, not that. The Camelot challenge. He's a bad swimmer. He fell in the pool, and he was the first to the sword. At the time I thought I was just wishing that he would succeed, but actually I was making him succeed. I opened up the water for him. I made it push him along." Closing my eyes for a second, I relived the sensations of that night on the poolside. How I had turned the water into a conveyor belt for Eddy.

"Oh Maddie, well done, that's fantastic." Mum covered one of my hands with hers.

I pulled out from under her grasp. "That's not necessarily the start of anything. Don't go leaping to conclusions. I didn't know what was involved, or even what I was really doing."

"Oh." Her mouth drooped at the corners.

"Anything else?"

Her face flickered, then she shook her head briefly.

"No? Really Mum? What is it you aren't telling me?"

"There might be an enemy. Mr. Neil could never tell. An old malignancy, surviving from when the King was awake before."

I widened my eyes at her. "I knew it. That doesn't sound very nice at all."

"It's not sure. Mr. Neil was never sure."

"Well that's a lot of help now, isn't it? What with him nowhere to be found and everything?" I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. "God, Mum. It's really late. No wonder I'm so tired."

She stared out the window.

"Mum?"

Silence.

"Mum! I'm going to bed."

She turned to me, her eyes oddly glazed. "Don't forget to bolt the door Mother, there's something scary out there."

I moved from side to side in her eye line, trying to jolt her out of whatever daydream she was in. "Mum! It's me, Madeleine!"

Mum blinked and started. "What? Oh sorry dear, I thought..."

"I think you're just as tired as I am." I narrowed my eyes. It seemed she wasn't completely recovered from her episode at the hives. "Come on. Bed time."

A thousand ideas of the Lady of the Lake and what it meant to be her whirled through my mind. My anxiety had lessened though; being in a tricky situation was easier than trying to pretend the situation didn't exist.

In an attempt to let the fizzing in my brain work itself through, I turned on my computer and had a look around iTunes. Noticing a title at random I had a stroke of inspiration and smiled to myself. In a few minutes I had put together a selection of songs and saved them onto a memory stick.

When I finally went to bed I slept as soundly as if someone had put a spell on me. That week had been so disrupted, and with so much swimming that I was exhausted.

In the morning the first thing I did on waking was to call Eddy. "I've been thinking about the, you know, thing."

"The Lady?"

"Yeah, that. I want to talk to you about it."

"At school tomorrow?"

"If I wanted to talk to you tomorrow, why would I be calling you on Sunday morning?"

"I'm really busy, Maddie."

"Oh for goodness sake Eddy." I had lost most of my old reticence with him. "I'll come over to the Shire Horse Centre. I've been meaning to bring Boxer a token of my appreciation."

I persuaded Mum to drive me to the Hechters after lunch. We stopped at a corner shop on the way and bought the giant Shire horse a bag of South African apples. Newspapers in the stands outside blared headlines of the latest mass-shooting, a lunatic trying to send the world a message by killing people. I shuddered.

Mum stopped the car at the front gate of the Shire Horse Centre.

I turned to her, looking for the odd, blank look that flashed across her eyes the night before. "Thanks Mum. Are you sure you won't come in?"

She pursed her lips. "I'd better not."

I didn't have time to find out why that was the case, and even if I did I doubted Mum would tell me anything. "I'll make my own way home, okay?"

I told the volunteer in the ticket booth that I had come to visit Eddy and her eyes widened in surprise. "Um, he'll be doing the cart tour." She looked at her watch. "Starting in five minutes. In the main yard. There are signs."

I hurried along wide sanded paths, then paused beside a stable block. A long inquisitive nose twitched at me from a half door, while its neighbour presented me with a six-foot-high horsey bottom. I addressed the face. "Do either of you know where Mr. Moon is? No? Thank you for your help."

Turning a corner into the main yard I saw Eddy backing a tall, stocky horse up to a cart. I paused beside the wall, checking my ponytail with one hand. Eddy wore a worn, checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his wide, tanned forearms. I stared at him for a moment, soaking in his beauty, and the grace of his movement.

He looked up, saw me, and a massive, delighted grin burst onto his face. A second later a serious frown chased it away, but I hadn't imagined it. He had been happy I was there.

"Hello." I held out the bag of apples. "I brought these for Boxer."

He grinned again. "He'll be very pleased." As he talked he continued working, buckling and clipping straps and harnesses and talking to the horse calmly as he went. The horse shifted her feet and raised one to balance it on the edge of the hoof.

"Will you be bringing Boxer out to pull this?"

"No. He's too big. They have to be matched. Actually, this is his Mum. Judy."

I stepped forward and stroked her silky nose. "Hello Judy, I'm very glad to meet you. You should be very proud of your son you know, a very helpful handsome chap." I pulled an apple from the bag. "Here, I'm sure he wouldn't mind you having one of these."

Judy picked the apple delicately from my hand with big, flapping, velvety lips.

"So anyway." I turned to Eddy. "I concede. You and my Mum are right. There's something weird going on. She and I have some kind of ancestral power."

He ran a hand down Judy's flank. "Good."

"And I got you a birthday present." I pulled the memory stick from my pocket. "This is for you." I dropped it into his hand, where it looked tiny and out of place.

"What is it?"

"Some music, put it on your phone."

"Thanks Maddie, that's brilliant."

"But whether you're right or not doesn't make things any easier. I'm not sure if I want to be the Lady of the Lake."

His eyes widened. "Not sure if you want it? Come with me. I have to get the second horse."

I walked beside him towards a long stable block. One after another horses whinnied loudly at him. He waved and greeted them all by name, before opening one of the stable doors and leading out a shining, jet-black horse. "This is Ebony. Not very bright, I'm afraid. Perfect for pulling carts."

I giggled. "So rude!"

"Don't worry, she doesn't understand a word." He turned his voice to a coo. "Do you, you pretty old dunce?"

Ebony pricked up her ears and dropped her nose to nuzzle Eddy's shoulder. He looked at me as he led her out of the stable. "Whether you want to be who you are, or not, you can't stop it."

"Yeah, but I don't need to act on it." I talked to him around Ebony's neck. "I might go and live somewhere else. I might not take any notice."

"I don't think you can. Look at your interest in historic leaders." Ebony crossed onto cobbles and Eddy raised his voice to be heard over the clatter of her hooves. "How useful that has been. It all fits together."

I bit my lip. He was right. I helped him win the Camelot challenge before I knew any of our history. "That side of it fits, yeah. But you must allow some element of choice. Are you going to do everything the exact same way again?" I thought of the legendary love triangle formed from King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Queen Guinevere. "Is your best friend going to have an affair with your wife, and you end up warring against each other?"

He winced. "No of course. I've learnt. I've got a second chance; I'm going to do better."

I jabbed a finger at him. "There! So you're not going to do everything the same."

He nodded. We came level with the cart and Eddy backed Ebony up to the shafts.

"You agree. So if that's okay, maybe it's okay to..."

Eddy lifted the enormous harness out of the bed of the cart. He raised an eyebrow at me. "Yes?"

"Maybe it's okay to give me a hug when you feel like it, when I give you an ace present? Instead of just walking off down the High Street."

He buckled the harness around the horse's neck, then looked at me over the curve in her back. "But Maddie, that's the point. I can't hug you, because that would drive me crazy. It would be like teasing myself." He dropped his hands from the horse and his eyes blazed.

My pulse accelerated. Acknowledgement of how he felt about me filled me with joy, even though it was part of him explaining why we couldn't be together.

Muscles jumped in the side of Eddy's jaw. He looked at me for a second, then back to the horse. His throat pulsed. "I would be teasing myself because somewhere out there is my queen. It's not you, and I'm already confused about you, and hugging you would just make things worse when the queen comes. Because she will."

I stamped my foot. It was so stupid. "You have to have free will in this!"

He ran the harness lines back to the seat of the cart. "I had free will once. I used it all up."

Tears prickled in my eyes. "But I didn't! It's not fair. What about my free will? You're taking it away from me."

My phone rang. I blanked the call. It started ringing again. I answered. "Hi Mum, I was just..."

"Maddie, you have to come. There's a creature outside. I've pulled all the curtains, but it's still out there. It can see me."

"Mum, what kind of creature?"

"It's dark, why's it so dark Mother?" Again my skin crawled when she used her own name back to me. "I can feel it coming nearer, Mum make it stop."

# Chapter 17: The Storm Breaks

Eddy stood beside the pair of Shire horses in front of the cart with one arm wrapped around Judy's brown and white nose.

"Eddy I have to go home."

"What's wrong?"

A file of black birds flapped overhead. I remembered the black cormorant in the tree outside our house, and shivered. "I don't know. Mum's... She's upset."

He looked at his watch. "I have to do the cart tour of the farm in like, three minutes. That'll take fifteen minutes. Can you wait that long?"

"How will you get me home?"

Eddy looked at me blankly. "Well, Boxer, I suppose."

"We don't have time. Can't somebody drive me?"

"Kieran's not here."

I sighed with relief. Though in desperate need, I really didn't want to sit in the front of a car with Kieran Hechter.

Eddy grimaced. "I'll ask the Colonel. It won't be easy, but if I tell him it's really important..."

"The Colonel?"

"Kieran's father. Um, hold the reins." He handed me the lead ropes of the two gigantic horses. If they decided to go somewhere I had absolutely no chance of stopping them, but I didn't make a fuss about it, Eddy had to know that as well as I did. Or better.

"Okay, ladies," I said to the horses. "You'll just stand here nicely with me."

Ebony bobbed her head as Eddy jogged towards a manor house at the edge of the farm complex. I planned where I would ask Mr. Hechter to stop and drop me off, so he wouldn't have a chance to work out how small and crumby my home was. Two minutes later a gleaming navy blue Range Rover pulled up behind the cart. The passenger door opened and Eddy jumped out. "Here you go."

"It's okay; I'll go in the back. You can stay in the front."

"No, I'm staying." He took the bridles from me. "I've got to do the cart tour."

"What?" My stomach jolted with unease. A car ride with Kieran's dad?

"Go on, get in. I told him it was really urgent. I'll see you tomorrow. Send me a short message service and tell me everything's okay."

I dragged my feet over to the car. A handsome forty-something man with thinning, swept back brown hair and intense dark eyes sat in the driving seat. He waved a hand. "Hi, I'm Paul Hechter. Jump in."

I kept my eyes on the yard, then the road, as I buckled up.

"Glastonbury right?" Mr. Hechter said.

"Um yeah, it's near Bove Town, the Bove Town side of-"

"I know it. I knew your grandmother. Wonderful woman."

I stared at him. It seemed everybody knew who Grandmother was. "Really, I didn't-"

"Please accept my condolences for your loss."

I had been prepared to dislike Mr. Hechter, to treat him with businesslike disdain for how bad Eddy's life with him had been. His courtesy disconcerted me. "Um, thank you."

He steered with swift jerks. "Used to buy her honey. Great on toast, and for sickly foals. Put it in the milk."

I blinked, struggling to adjust to his machine-gun way of talking.

"You're a friend of Eddy's?"

"Well, I guess, we were in history class together, but of course now he's dropping..." I stopped; maybe Eddy hadn't told him he had dropped history.

"He said. Economics. Bright boy Eddy. Don't know what Neil would say. But it's fine by me."

We made the last turn onto the Glastonbury road. I turned to Hechter. "I've heard so much about Mr. Neil. When do you think he'll be back?"

Hechter smiled. "Who can tell? He's got some girlfriend somewhere."

"Really? I didn't know."

"Neil's always got a girlfriend somewhere. I don't what his magic trick is. Here we are." He turned the Range Rover into Chalice Drive. I winced, though I supposed that if he had always known where I lived, him coming there now didn't make a lot of difference.

He stopped outside number seventeen and as I pushed at the car door he slowed me with the sincerity of his tone. "Good to meet you Madeleine. Hope your Mum's feeling better. Sorry you had to leave so quickly. Come back to visit. We're having a party tomorrow for Kieran's eighteenth. Are you coming?"

Kieran's party had been mentioned with awe at school. A party on a Monday night was unprecedented, but like the Four Horsemen, the Hechters seemed to do exactly as they pleased.

"Um, I don't think so."

"Never mind. Come back some other time. Have a ride on the cart. Meet Kieran."

I thanked him as I backed away from the car. I noted the way his eyes shone when he said 'Kieran', but didn't dwell on the contrast with the offhand way he mentioned Eddy's name. My thoughts were focused on my mother. Turning, I peered at the windows of the house. All the curtains were pulled. I ran along the drive and in the kitchen door. "Mum!"

Silence.

"Mum!"

"Maddie." Her voice, faint and weak, issued from her bedroom. I closed my eyes, for a moment; at least she was aware of the distinction between her daughter and her mother. Then I ran up the stairs.

"Mum!" I burst into her bedroom.

She lay on her bed, facing the door, eyes half closed.

"Mum, what's wrong?"

"I'm okay, Maddie. I just had a bit of headache, that's all. I needed to get out of the light."

I peered at her face. Shadows ringed her eyes, but nothing seemed terribly wrong. "Mum!"

I had left Eddy when I might have been able to change his mind. He hadn't even played the music I gave him. I had left Eddy when he was being all manly and powerful, striding about in work boots, golden eyes flashing. What a waste. I shook my head in an attempt to rid myself of the image. "Well... I'm here now. You just have a rest. I'll be downstairs."

As I closed the door a bird call sounded from the garden and though I knew it wasn't the cormorant my back stiffened with anger. No good could come of having such a malevolent looking creature hanging around the house. I ran down the stairs and into the garden, grabbing the broom from beside the back door. In the road I stood under the dead tree and brandished my weapon at the cormorant, standing on its bough with its wings half spread.

"Get away!"

The bird croaked at me and shuffled along its perch.

"Go on!" I scooped a handful of gravel from the gutter and hurled it up into the tree. The tiny stones rattled against twigs and with heavy wing beats the greasy looking bird flapped into the sky. I waved the broom in triumph. "That's right!" Then I looked up and down the Drive, hoping nobody had seen me.

In the house I looked in on Mum every half an hour and spent the rest of the evening doing history homework. I took extra care over the notes now, knowing I was going to pass on all the information to Eddy.

At ten o'clock my scalp prickled and I got up and looked out the window. The dead tree stood empty. The old woman with the empty shopping basket stood on the sidewalk underneath it. She didn't seem to be going or coming, just standing. I looked a bit harder. Behind her glasses her eyes might have been trained on our house.

A mumble from Mum's room rose to a cry. I jumped away from the window and ran to her bedside. She had turned onto her back and had her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

"Mum?"

Her face stretched into a taut mask. "The desert, don't fall into the desert."

"What Mum?"

She sat up in bed and her eyes raked the room. "Oh catch me, catch me Mother."

"Mum, it's me, Maddie."

She got out of bed and pushed me aside. "Get away from me. Where's mother? I have to tell her something."

At the bedroom doorway she paused. "What is this? This isn't London. Where are we?"

I stood behind her, racking my brain. Should I phone for an ambulance, or a doctor? I didn't know the local doctor; we'd had no reason to meet him yet.

"Get me a boat, get me a fleet of swans. I have to go to the Bride House."

Swans? My pulse quickened with fear. I didn't know what to do. Whenever I didn't know what to do I would ask Mum for help, but how could I when she was the question? I blinked tears out of my eyes and put my hand on her shoulder. "Mum I-"

"I'm not talking to you!" She spun and scratched my hand from her shoulder. "What are you doing here?" Spittle gathered in the corners of her mouth. "I want my mother. She's gone away somewhere and there's a beast...." Her voice rose to a shriek. "There's a beast out there!"

I shrank away from her, staring. Vomit surged in my throat and stung my mouth. I was in the middle of a horror film and my strength evaporated, dropping me to my knees.

She flung one hand towards my room, and the road beyond. With the other she pulled at her hair. "There's a beast in here."

Tears flooded down my cheeks. What should I do? If I called an ambulance they would take her away and they might never bring her back. And what would happen to me? Sixteen years old, no relatives, not even any close family friends, barring a few old acquaintances of Mum's in London.

Taking Mum's hand I loosened it from her hair. She shoved me away and descended the stairs.

I trailed after her. If I had to go to London when would I see Eddy? The idea of being away from him was unbearable. The sight of Mum in torment was worse. What was wrong with me? Mum suffered and all I could think about was the boy I fancied.

Eddy.

I decided to try something, something that seemed to have worked in the past. "Help," I whispered. "Eddy, please help."

Eddy would know what to do. Because, apart from anything else, this had to be somehow connected to him. I feared that what the world would see in my mother as madness was actually linked to facts. The facts of my family and Eddy's past. She would expose it and it would be heard as insane rambling, when it probably had some truth in it.

Mum reached the back door. She held a hand out towards the handle, then pulled it back as if she had been shocked.

I went down the stairs. "It's okay Mum, there was a bird. I chased it away. I chased away the sea raven."

For the first time since she had woken she seemed to really see me. Her face crumpled. "You chased it away?" She folded to the floor. "No!"

A momentary blaze of light filled the room, then thunder boomed overhead and rain began to drum against the window.

Mum lay motionless. Stroking her arm, I said her name. She didn't respond. I put my hand to her throat, she was breathing, but seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. I pulled her onto the carpet in the next room and slid a cushion under her head. A blanket draped the couch and I tugged it down to cover her. How long would it take Eddy to get to me? How would he manage, in the rain?

I sat at the kitchen table in the darkness. For a reason I couldn't explain I felt caution at turning on the light. Instead I ran water from the hot and cold tap. I filled the sink, without a plug, holding the water in place under my instruction. I opened the plug and as the water spiralled out of the sink I whipped the spiral faster, until it formed a ferocious mini whirlpool, lining the sides of the sink but leaving its bottom almost bare. Proving my power was an attempt to make myself feel better, and it almost succeeded.

"Hmm." I spoke to myself. "Maybe it's possible to..." I filled the sink again, and used my mental connection with the water to wind its surface into a whirlpool. It formed a saucer shape, and I pulled on the edges, raising them into a translucent wall, growing from the shimmering water. I stopped the whirlpool, then pulled the water into a spout in the centre of the sink, a silver column that I twisted like candy.

Above the rain I heard the familiar drum of hooves. He came so quickly! The water sculpture collapse into the sink as I jumped to my feet. I pulled the back door open and Eddy burst through it.

He wore a long coat, soaked through. His hair was stuck to the sides of his face and lay in dark tendrils on the back of his neck.

As I pulled his coat from his shoulders my fingertips felt the heat of his skin through his flimsy t-shirt. He shuddered under my touch and stepped away. "What's wrong?"

"Why didn't you wear something waterproof?"

"It's only really raining here, Chalice Drive. It's bizarre."

I showed him where Mum lay on the floor, and told him – as well as I could remember – what she had said.

Eddy paled.

"What is it?"

"It's an, an old enemy of mine. Somebody, something, from before I slept."

"That old? Are there many?"

"Merlin believed that he was the only one surviving from that time. I always thought that he might be balanced by one wishing me harm."

"Mum said there might be." I brightened. "Wait, could it be a bird, or take the shape of a bird?" I explained how the Drive had been haunted by the cormorant, and I had chased it away.

Eddy's face, already pale, drew tight over its bones. For a moment his beauty disappeared and his face resembled a skull. "You chased the cormorant away?"

"Well yes. I didn't like it. It was creepy."

"Oh Maddie!"

I flinched.

For the first time I saw the impact Eddy's majesty and blazing eyes could have if he was angry. His face became a war mask.

I shrank away. "What?"

"The sea raven is your bird, yours and the ladies. It watches over rivers and lakes, and over you. It's ancient. It has a place on the tree of life and I think, before she died, your grandmother may have set this one to watch over you."

"It's magic?"

He winced at the word 'magic.' "No, not of itself, but it represents something, natural and true, that can resist malevolence."

I slumped to the floor beside Mum and put my head in my hands. "You're right. I chased the bird away, then the woman was standing right outside my house."

"Who?"

I described the woman with the empty shopping basket. The same one I had spoken to as she walked up and down the road, but this time she had been staring at the house. "She always seemed nice, you know. A bit nosy, but a harmless old woman."

"Ha!" Eddy's laugh was bleak and mirthless. "Harmless as a nuclear missile is harmless. It's her. I knew all along she had lived. Mr. Neil, damn him..." Eddy waved his hand, as if dismissing old, private arguments. "Never mind. You have to get away from here."

"What? No. Who is she?"

"She's, she's..." Eddy bit his lip. "I don't know exactly what she is, but she is the equivalent of Merlin in power and age. She's ambitious, she feels wronged and she's vengeful. She wants to harm me and all around me."

"Is she, whatever her name is, Morgan?"

"In the stories she's called Morgan le Fay. Yes." He took a deep breath and looked around him. "But we haven't got time for this. The rain will have driven her away. That much water she will find unpleasant. It dilutes her efforts, but she'll come back and she'll reach into your mother's mind again."

"Oh my God! Is that what she's doing?"

Part of me was relieved. Mum didn't have Alzheimer's.

"Yeah, and she's only just started. Once she's got her hooks in, even if the bird comes back, she'll still be able to tighten her hold. That's why you have to get out of Glastonbury."

"Get out of Glastonbury? Where could we go?"

He shrugged. "You must still have friends in London. Somewhere busy with lots of people. It would take her a long time to find you there. It would give me a chance to track down Mr. Neil."

The thought of leaving Eddy made my stomach twist in anxiety. "Isn't there another way? There must be another way."

His right hand hovered at his side and his fist opened and closed. "Maybe. Maybe there's something that will put her off for a while. Make her rethink. But I'll need your help." He looked at me in question.

"Of course. Whatever it takes."

He reached out and took my hand in his. I shivered and my head swam. "Can you give me my sword? I need Excalibur."

# Chapter 18: The Water's Grasp

I tried to concentrate on Eddy's request, but my whole body focused on the warmth that surrounded my hand, as it lay in his. I glanced down at my mother, lying beside us on the carpet. Beneath the blanket she looked peaceful, as if she was enjoying a deserved nap. She had said she was going to bring the sword out of the dead lake, somehow, but she had been unable to. How could I do what she couldn't? I looked up at Eddy and tried to assess how he felt, holding my hand. He had his face under complete control, though, and I could read nothing in it.

I bit my lip. "I'll try."

"Good." He snapped into commander-in-chief mode and let my hand fall. "We need to take your mother with us, it's the only way we can make sure she's okay. Boxer could carry the three of us, of course, but it wouldn't be comfortable for your Mum. We should take your car. Can you drive?"

I shook my head.

"I've driven a tractor, I'm sure I'll learn."

"But you've not got a license. It's against the law."

Eddy raised his eyebrows slightly, giving me a magnificent look that said. 'I am the King.'

"Right. Okay. Um, shall I make some travel mugs?" Oh my God. Put me in a crisis and I was still capable of saying the stupidest things. "Of course not, no time for tea or coffee. Let's go."

I took the car keys from their hook on the kitchen wall. Eddy bent and lifted Mum as if she weighed no more than the cushion she rested her head on. Every time he exhibited it, I was astonished by Eddy's enormous strength.

I opened the door to let him out, then closed and locked it behind us, though I guessed that one small Yale lock wouldn't stop Morgan le Fay if she really wanted to get in. Rain still poured out of the sky, but now that I knew I was doing it, I kept myself completely dry. I diverted raindrops around me as if I stood beneath a small breeze that blew outwards.

We settled Mum in the back seat of the car, then Eddy jogged away to the back garden. I got into the passenger seat of the car and for the first time I remembered Boxer. The gigantic horse had been standing in our back garden all this time!

Eddy returned and jumped into the driver's seat. "He'll wait here for me to come back. He's alright."

"Poor thing."

"Anyway," Eddy held out his hand and I dropped the key into it. He scanned the dashboard and stuck it into the ignition. The engine hummed to life and he glanced down at his feet among the pedals. "Let's see." He folded the gearstick in his enormous fist, twitched it forward, and the car jerked backwards along the driveway. "Sorry about that."

On the road he turned the car tightly in reverse, then stopped and drove it slowly down Chalice Drive. I held my breath. What if somebody saw us? What if – heaven forbid – the police stopped us? Would they accuse Eddy of stealing Mum's car?

Eddy scanned the dashboard for a split-second, then flipped an indicator and turned left onto the main road. "See." He grinned. "Easy."

There were no limits to the boy's talents, it seemed. I directed him to the hives, then got out and unlocked the gate. Eddy parked the car next to the hut and I kissed Mum on the cheek. "Wish me luck," I whispered.

Walking between the hives I trembled, remembering how the effort of summoning the water had affected Mum. I halted at the last hive, on the top of the slight rise. "Okay. This is where Mum stood."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No, I don't think so. Just stand next to me, and be ready to catch me, or talk me back to being normal if I seem to go a bit mental."

"I'm sure you won't."

I tried not to think about it, but still my stomach twisted with fear. Was this my last moment of sanity? Would I remember whatever happened next?

"Well, I hope not..." I took one last look at Eddy's face, soaking at all in. "You'll take care of Mum if some thing happens?"

"Of course Madeleine. But you'll be fine. He touched a hand to my cheek. I shivered and held my breath. Beneath the familiar electricity of his touch I felt strength and confidence flowing through me.

"Right. Let's do this." I raised my hands as I had seen Mum raise hers, and let my mind scan the countryside for water. There was a jagged trickle in the ditch, but at the end of the field the ditch ran out into a much wider drainage canal. That was where Mum had sought the water, I was sure.

Somewhere, on the edge of my perception the canal ran into the river, but I focused on the nearest section. Embracing it with my thoughts, I stopped it from flowing away from me. It grew fractionally as water flowed into it, and I skimmed the build up towards me. I pulled the trickle of water into the little drainage ditch in front of us, and felt it swell.

Encouraged I fastened on an entire section of the canal and urged it towards me. I gritted my teeth at the effort.

The flow into the crease at the bottom of the rise built to a steady pour.

"It's working," Eddy whispered beside me. "There's water around the fence posts."

I sighed with relief. I felt under strain, but nothing that I couldn't handle. It was as if I was setting out on a hard swim, working at speed, but still with a good distance to travel. Water in the drainage canal surged into the space I had created and I took hold of that as well, hauling it towards me. Into the small pool I created the flow from the canal turned into a flood. I risked shifting from my water eye to my actual sight.

I gasped.

Black and glistening water lapped halfway up the fence posts, far higher than Mum had managed. Still, though, there was work to be done if I was to create a lake of any note. I reached further afield and fastened upon the river in the distance. It had energy and flow of its own, so it didn't take too much effort on my part to divert the liquid and pull it towards me. Impatient I grabbed at it, hurrying the river along the canal. In the distance I felt a rowboat, bobbing on the end of a fragile line. Suddenly filled with ambition I pushed water under the boat, rocking it and shoving at it until suddenly it broke free. I shaped water into a cradle under its hull and skimmed it from the river into the canal and towards us.

I felt the weight of Eddy's hand on my shoulder. "Oh well done Maddie, that's fantastic."

I looked again, and gasped. The night landscape before me was completely transformed. Instead of scrubby grass falling to a ditch, and fence, and then rising away to fallow winter meadow, I stood on the bank of a large pond. The fence had completely disappeared. The pool crept towards our feet, its surface choppy and swirling as water poured in at one end.

"You've done it," Eddy said. "Now all we need is my sword."

I faltered. I hadn't thought as far ahead as the sword. I had only seen Mum gather the water.

"I don't know..."

"Use the water in the lake." Eddy's hand dropped to the small of my back and he urged me forward. "It will be like an extension of yourself."

I stepped toward the water, crouched, and dipped my fingers into it. I felt the great mass of water. It whirled and shifted, but it was empty save for silt and leaves. No sword. I shook my head.

Eddy moved his hand to my shoulder. "Are you okay Maddie? It's not hurting you is it?"

"No. It's just difficult."

He shifted his grip on my shoulder, warm and comforting. "Try the bottom."

I scanned the shape of the ditch and meadow under the body of water. Ragged grass and humps and lumps of soil. The fence posts. Molehills. Still nothing. I grasped the depths of the pool with my mind and pressed them into the ground. I pushed tendrils of water seeping, searching into the soil. Stones and tree roots. A sudden surge as water flooded down an abandoned rabbit hole. Nothing. Deeper into the ground and then... Something. A smooth shape, a cylinder. I levered water towards it, all around it, testing it. A long, hard, heavy shape, longer than my arm and narrow.

I sighed with relief. I had it.

I forced water into cracks and gaps in the soil around the sword, until I turned it all into glutinous mud. Soupier and soupier, it became more water than mud.

"It's there," I gasped. "But I don't know what to do with it. It won't float."

We both stood ankle deep in water now. The lake was as wide as a soccer pitch and Eddy stepped into it up to his knees, as if he could catch sight of his sword. "It's been done before. It has to be possible. Your mother thought she could do it. I believe in you, you can do it too."

The sword lay in water now, entirely free of the ground, but deep below the surface of the lake. The moon broke away from clouds and I stared at the silvery liquid, trying to calculate where the sword lay hidden. The row boat bobbed into view and floated gently towards us.

"Flood water lifts cars, it smashes up bridges. It has the power to move metal. You just need to work it."

"Ok." Floodwater, I thought, surging. I seized a portion of the lake water and compressed it, as if squeezing it between my cupped hands. When I released it, the pressurized section leapt forward, its leading edge harder than the rest of the depths. I tried again, pressurising more water, and tighter. As I released it I aimed the surge at the sword, and the weapon moved. It bobbed away from the speed of the heavy water. Before it had time to sink back down, I pushed it again, and again. The fourth time I managed the underwater surge into a steady, controlled motion, shaping it into a bed beneath the sword. I carried it, lifted it.

"Maddie!" Eddy's voice sounded tight with emotion. "There it is. You've done it!"

He stepped into the water, then lurched sideways as something shifted underfoot.

"Stop a minute." I raised one hand, as if telling the sword to wait. With the other I beckoned at the boat. It slid smoothly towards us.

"This is going to be easier than in the swimming pool. Good job."

I smirked. "If there was any chance of getting you back in your lost property costume, then I might think twice about it."

The boat rocked as Eddy climbed in. He looked at me expectantly, as I screwed one eye shut. Holding the sword on the water's surface, while slipping the boat towards it, was a new kind of multi-tasking. I took a couple of deep breaths, then got the boat moving again. When it had a bit of momentum I shifted concentration to the sword. As my mind adjusted to the effort and sensations of manipulating the water it became easier. I remembered a pre-Raphaelite painting I had seen somewhere of the King and Excalibur. Gathering the hard surface of water I had formed under the sword I compressed it into a smaller and smaller point on which the middle of the sword rested. Streams of water ran from the scabbard and dripped from its end as it rose from the surface. When the sword rested on a foot high column of water I turned my attention to its appearance. A shaft of moonlight made it into silver filigree and lace, and I let its surface hang slightly, like the folds of a silken sleeve. As the boat bearing Eddy neared it I rolled the water into five smooth tubes, wrapping them around the scabbard like fingers and thumb.

The arm lifted further from the water and Eddy looked back at me. "Madeleine, this is amazing. It's the hand of the lady through the surface of the lake."

"Concentrate on the sword," I warned.

Clouds cleared the moon completely. The entire surface of the lake turned to silver with stripes of black in the wake of the rowboat. Eddy leaned across its prow, his hair hung over his face, and moonlight bleached it to the colour of ivory. He stretched out an arm towards the pale hand protruding from the water's surface. Gleaming drops ran down its silken sleeve and Eddy gently lifted Excalibur from the grasp of lake. The water melted away and he sat up straight, then stood as I began pulling the boat towards me.

"Careful." I stepped back.

"I trust you." He only had eyes for the sword as he slid it gently from the scabbard. Moonlight flickered down its blade. A thousand years in the mud and it looked as good as new.

"Right." He jumped over the prow of the boat into foot-deep water and set spray splashing toward me.

"Careful." I winced, hearing myself sound just like my grandmother.

"Maddie, this is completely amazing." He grabbed me around the shoulders, squashing the air out of my lungs. For a split second I leaned against him, enough to feel one beat of his heart, before he stepped away again. "You've done so well. I'm so proud of you." Eddy's voice fizzed with excitement.

I gulped, understanding how armies and countries could follow somebody like this. "Really? I'm pretty amazed myself but..."

"Let's get your mother back." He swished Excalibur through the air. "Come on."

"Care... Okay."

I reached my mind out to the dam I had woven from the canal water. Gently I let it melt and fold over from the top. A surge of water across the meadows could do all sorts of damage. The canal had to return gradually to the way it lay before I messed with it.

Mum seemed to be sleeping soundly in the back seat of the car. Eddy drove us quickly and carefully back to Chalice Drive. It was like he had been driving for years.

Outside the house I managed to wake Mum up, then led her inside, upstairs and to bed. Downstairs I saw Eddy through the kitchen window, talking to his enormous chestnut horse in the back garden.

I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, then, outside, I stroked Boxer's nose. "Hey big fella. You know how much I'm in your debt, again."

"Hey." Eddy raised an eyebrow.

"And yours of course." I touched a hand to his chest. "Big fella..."

Surprise flickered across his face. I gulped, waiting for his inevitable step away.

He stayed where he was and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Good."

"I was going to give him this." I held out the apple. "But you can have it if you want."

"I'm not sure." His chest rose as he took a deep breath. "You think this deserves a hug?"

My own inhalation caught in my throat. Unable to speak, barely able to think about anything other than the anticipation of Eddy's embrace, I quivered and locked my gaze on his face.

Eddy stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me. I tilted my face up to him. My pulse raced and I inhaled his smell of cut grass and leather. Closing my eyes I felt his warm breath on my face. I parted my lips and tried to stop my knees from buckling.

He dropped his lips to mine. My mind wiped clear. All my self, all my mind, all my body focused on the connection between his lips and mine. His mouth stirred against me. Gently then harder. My knees gave way and his right hand caught me in the small of my back.

Eddy moved his face away a fraction. "I'm a bit embarrassed," he murmured. "In front of Boxer."

I examined his face. Once again he gave nothing away, but his kiss had told me enough.

"Okay." I took his hand and led him into the kitchen. Everything I wanted, everything I dreamed of, was coming true in an instant. I felt I had become who I was supposed to be, and this was my reward. There would be no more wondering about what Madeleine was really like.

I closed the kitchen door. Eddy stood against the wall, on the opposite side of the room. His eyes shone as his gaze looped over my face, and I pursued him. I needed to connect my lips to his again, to feel right, to feel complete. I placed a hand either side of his ribcage, impossibly wide, and felt his heart drumming beneath my fingers. He was too tall for me to kiss him without him bending, so I stood on tiptoes and lifted my face as close to his as I could, holding my breath. Again I felt his generous lips on mine. I opened my mouth and pressed my body against his spare muscular frame. His tongue tilted over the inside of my lips.

He broke away.

"What?" I kept my eyes closed.

"I heard something." He lifted his head, far above mine.

"It's nothing, or, Boxer."

"No." With one hand on my waist he moved into the middle of the room. "Something at the front of the house."

I followed him into the doorway to the front room and screamed. The old woman with the empty shopping basket stood in our front garden, her face pressed to the window. She heaved the basket at the glass and it shattered in pieces. The outside became inside, inside was outside, and we were defenceless.

# Chapter 19: Spying on the King

Eddy yanked me behind him and stepped forward into the front room. "Get away!"

I peered around his chest. Framed by the jagged shards of the broken window, the old woman raised the silver framed shopping basket. It darkened, its angles smoothed and the spaces in the frame filled in with black metal. The basket became a motorbike helmet.

I gasped as the woman's skin tightened over her face, like creased paper being snapped flat. Age disappeared from her features and her clothes closed and darkened around her, becoming the black leathers of the young woman I had seen before on Chalice Drive.

"She's been here all the time," I hissed.

Eddy half turned and with one hand hurled me towards the back of the house. I thudded into a wall and pain shot through my shoulder.

He leapt after me. "Sorry." A second long stride took him into the kitchen.

I slumped against the wall, staring at the blonde woman just beyond the front of the house. Without gathering herself she sprang over the window ledge, seeming to jump with her whole body upright, as if somebody had hoisted her on a rope. In the air the helmet transformed again, twisting into a short matt-black sword.

Her boots crunched on the broken glass strewn across the living-room carpet. She pointed the sword at me. Rather than hearing them I felt her words, as if white hot irons were branding them into my mind. "Grandmother, mother, daughter. You all will fall."

I screamed and clutched at my head.

Then a clear chime rang through the air, soothing my mind. Eddy stepped between the woman and me. The sound came from the unsheathing of Excalibur. Light danced along its blade and the woman stepped back.

"You didn't know I had my sword again." His voice growled low and mocking. "You remember how it cuts?"

This time the woman's hiss was audible. "You're still young."

She jumped forward, and Excalibur met her sword with a bang. The violence of the strike threw her against the wall, and Eddy advanced, towering over her. She jumped to her feet, he jabbed Excalibur at her and she sprang backwards through the window.

"You can't protect them always."

The sword inflated into a motorbike helmet. She raised it at us, as if in warning, then melted away into the night.

Eddy knelt beside me. "Are you okay?"

I rubbed at my shoulder. "I'll be alright. You were amazing."

He shrugged. "She didn't expect me to be here, and especially not with my sword. She knows she couldn't defeat me by herself without getting badly hurt."

"Okay." I straightened. "I need to sort out the window."

Footsteps sounded from upstairs.

"Mum?"

"Maddie." Though weak, her voice had lost some of its early strangeness.

I scrambled to my feet, moved to the bottom of the stairs and flipped on the light. I called upwards. "Mum, how are you feeling?"

"I heard noises. What's going on?"

I climbed half way up the stairs by the time she appeared at their top. Though her voice made her sound as if she was back to normal, her eyes still seemed oddly glazed.

"Wait there Mum."

She looked straight ahead, at the sloping ceiling above the stairs. "Where are you?"

What was wrong with her? Did she not know where she was, or could she not see?

She stepped towards the stairs. "Maddie?"

"Mum! Stop!"

Too late. She took another step and fell straight down the stairs into me. Together we tumbled down the dozen steps to the floor. As I landed on top of Mum I felt the revolting click of a bone breaking beneath me.

Again, Eddy crouched over me. "What's going on?"

Mum moaned in pain. Her arm was jammed under me, angled against the bottom step. I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could.

"Mum, can you see?"

In answer she looked straight at me. "Of course I can. My eyes are fine. But I've broken my bloody arm."

"Oh my God." I began to cry. The issues and problems facing me seemed like an enormous, impossible obstacle. Kissing Eddy felt like a hundred years before.

"Hey." With a big, leathery thumb, Eddy wiped the tears from my cheeks. "It'll be alright."

Mum scowled. "Well I don't see how, if you two are just going to moon over each other, pardon the pun. I don't know if you heard me, but my arm is broken and it really, really hurts."

I narrowed my eyes. I'd always thought of Mum as quite tough, but joking with a broken arm was exceptional. Maybe her mental confusion had partly numbed her to the pain.

"Okay." Eddy stepped back, his voice calm and purposeful. "Maddie, you call an ambulance. I'll call a glazer for the window. There should be somebody with twenty-four hour service."

"Can't you drive her?"

He shook his head. "Too much chance of somebody catching me in town, or outside the hospital. Besides, I need to get Boxer home. I'll stay here until the window's done."

We stepped away from each other and pulled our phones from our pockets. The ambulance would be fifteen minutes, the glazier an hour.

Eddy looked into Mum's eyes. "I don't know if she's got concussion, but from her reactions they're going to think she has. They'll keep her in for observation."

My heart sank. "What will I do?"

"You can't be here by yourself at night." He bit his lip. "You should really think about what I said earlier."

"About what?"

"Going to London." His face blazed with persuasion and willpower. "You have to. There's no other choice."

I took a deep breath. Vomit rose in my throat. We had kissed, he had protected me. I couldn't go to London without Eddy. I belonged with him there, on the levels. "I could, I could stay with you and Boxer?"

"Stay with me and the Hechters?" Eddy screwed up his nose. "How would that work?"

I nodded helplessly. "You could stay here."

He shook his head. "No chance. Do you know people you could stay with?"

I nodded. "Friends of my Mum. My God-parents. I stayed with them when she went away on business, before."

"What kind of house?"

"They're on the tenth floor of a block in Dalston."

He pressed his lips together. "Concierge? On a busy road?"

I nodded yes to both.

"Okay. Pack a bag for a couple of days."

Bowing my head in defeat I trudged up the stairs, while Eddy began to pick up fragments of glass from the front room.

The ambulance took Mum and me to accident and emergency in Weston Super Mare. The paramedics gave her a painkiller, but she seemed quite frightened, so I sat beside her and held her hand.

Eddy had been right about the hospital wanting to keep her in, so I did as he asked. After a night sitting in a chair beside Mum I called the Lidens, in London, explained what had happened, and asked if I could stay for a few days. In a second phone call I told school what was happening, saying that Mum would confirm when she was well enough. I used Mum's card to take two hundred pounds from an ATM, kissed her goodbye, and walked to the station. Leaving her broke my heart, but there was something about Eddy's certainty that made him impossible to resist. I had to believe that she would be safe in the hospital.

When I was little, visiting Weston with Grandma had been one of the high points of trips to Somerset. It boasted a grand, white painted pier standing on tall iron legs above a beach that went on forever. A promenade, lined with cafes and tourist shops, faced the sea.

I could taste the candyfloss and smell the chips frying. In the early winter morning it stretched grey and bleak. Rows of terraced houses descending gradually to the sea. Everything seemed damp and over salted, like soggy fish and chip wrappings at the bottom of a trash can.

I pushed my hands deep into my pockets, hunched my shoulders against the cold, and hurried to the train station. The intercity from Devon swept through Weston on its way to Bristol and then London. Commuters crowded the station platform, long and curved, reminding me of the bay at the foot of the town. They filled every bench and seat, so I leaned against a wall and tried not to cry.

Thankfully I managed to get a seat on the train and was so tired that I fell asleep almost instantly and didn't wake until we were whizzing through the countryside south of Marlborough. After that I just sat and stared blankly out the window, thinking about Eddy and how this was what he wanted me to do, therefore it had to be for the best.

Arriving back in London cheered me up a bit. It was still my favourite place in the world. From Paddington station I slipped straight down into the Underground, along the familiar tiled tunnels among the same bustling crowds.

The Lidens' block stood a short walk from Dalston station. I breathed deep when I emerged onto the street. This was the London I remembered, everything gleaming with rain. Random posters in a thousand different languages emblazoned pay phones and shabby convenience stores.

At the apartment block the concierge buzzed me up and when I got out of the lift, Dora Liden was standing in their apartment doorway. In the clean, pastel colours of the hallway, her red and gold, Indian looking dress was a blaze of warmth and colour.

"Oh you poor thing, and your poor mother." She held out her arms and wrapped me in a hug.

"Hi Dora."

"Come in, come in."

She stood to one side and ushered me into the apartment, where I found Tom, her husband, standing in the middle of their sitting room, smoking a cigarette. He stared at me for a moment, as if he'd forgotten I was coming, then scowled at his cigarette. "Dreadful thing!" He marched across the room and stubbed it out in a plant pot. "Hello darling Maddie." He wrapped me in a warm, smoky hug.

"Sit down, sit down." Dora retrieved the cigarette end from the plant pot and put it in an ashtray. "What will you have? Something to drink, something to eat? I could make you a sandwich, or there's soup, and some salad from lunch, and fresh bread, or..."

I held up a hand. "Dora, Dora, a sandwich would be lovely." I had forgotten about the Lidens' legendary hospitality.

She bustled away and Tom stood over me, one hand deep in a pocket and the other pulling at his scruffy, grey beard. "So, Maddie, you brave thing, coming all this way. How's your wonderful mother? You did give her our love?"

"I did. Her arm's going to be okay, but they think she banged her head, or something. She gets confused."

"Oh goodness." He lowered his brows. "That must be very worrying for you."

I nodded, realising how little sympathy I had received recently. "It is Tom, exactly." I looked at my phone. "Actually, I should call her, to tell her I'm here, I got here safely."

I stood up and moved away to their big French windows, opening onto a wooden balcony, half glassed-in against the London chill. The view south was spectacular, with the tall, luminous office buildings of the city of London in the far distance.

Mum picked up her phone straight away. "Hello sweetheart, how are you? Where are you?"

I told her where I was and that everything was okay. She sounded relieved.

"And you, Mum, how are you?"

"I'm feeling better love. My arm aches, and it'll be in plaster for a few weeks. It's going to take me a while to get over what that creature's been up to, messing with my head."

I bit my lip. She knew what had been happening to her, which was a big step forward.

She continued. "Eddy told me all about it."

"Eddy did?"

"He came and visited me right after they set my arm. He's a lovely boy Madeleine."

My heart jumped with love, and I grinned stupidly at the London skyline. Eddy had gone to visit Mum in Weston hospital. How many boys would do that?

I couldn't keep the smile from my voice. "You really think that? He is, isn't he?"

We talked through Mum's treatment a little longer. She sounded very positive about staying in the hospital and we agreed that keeping away from Chalice Drive was the best option for both of us for a few days at least.

Dora reappeared behind me, carrying a plate loaded with an overflowing, crusty baguette and a mound of fresh looking salad.

"Dora!" I sat down at their little dining table, realising I was absolutely starving. "Thank you so much. This looks amazing."

After I had eaten Dora showed me to their spare room, which doubled as a study for both of them. Thousands of books lined its walls. As I walked to and fro, stowing my few belongings in a little chest of drawers, I ran my fingers along the ridged rows of uneven book spines. Their familiarity, normality, comforted me.

"Maddie," Dora called from the hallway. "Would you like me to run you a bath? You almost done?"

"Oh yes." There was no chance of a meditative swim, but a hot bath was a close second best.

The Lidens' bathroom was beautiful, lined with antique blue and white tiles, and boasted an old fashioned white bath on legs. Steam rose enticingly from the water as I quickly stripped off and clambered in.

Oh. Bliss. The warmth enveloped me and slowly melted the aches and tightness from my limbs, back and shoulders. I hadn't realised how cold I had been, deep inside, under my skin. Idly I let my mind explore the water, feeling the smooth, hard contours of the bath, all around.

The hot tap dripped and I plugged it with my big toe. Water built up against my skin and I sent my mind through it, flying down the pipes that seamed the apartment block and out underneath the city. How far could I go? How powerful was this sense of mine?

Eddy. I thought about Eddy, wanted Eddy, formed my thoughts into an Eddy shaped question arrowing west through the water. Through reservoirs and canals, pumping stations and pipes the little fish of my mind swam faster than sound or electric current.

Up a pipe, around squared corners and into the light. Not touch, not feeling the shape beneath the water, but seeing. I gasped at the awareness I was actually able to see through water that I touched. A crazy, bent image, like the reflection in a spoon, expanded in my mind's eye, then erupted into blurs and disappeared. Again it appeared, growing larger and larger, a fish eye view of another bathroom, somewhere, before streaking away and vanishing.

It appeared a third time, and I looked at it more carefully. My mind's eye hung high above a bath, much like the one I lay in. The image grew bigger, before the bath and its plughole suddenly rocketed towards me. I had a view through drips falling from a shower head.

The bathroom I looked at was big and old fashioned. Prints of horses hung on white-washed walls. The bleached, worn pine door swung open and a tall, blond, man stumbled in. He turned towards me.

Eddy. At home.

I winced, ready to pull my toe from the tap. Much as I loved him, I had no interest in seeing Eddy doing anything private, or toilet related.

I needn't have worried about his privacy. He wasn't alone. A girl with long dark hair burst into the bathroom after him. I frowned, trying to see her face. She only had eyes for Eddy, though, looking up at him as he backed away from her, and away from my viewpoint. He stopped when his shoulders made contact with the whitewashed wall, but she kept on going. I gasped as she reached one hand up to the nape of his neck, then shouted out loud as he let her pull his head down to hers, to meet her face in a long, passionate kiss.

# Chapter 20: The Freak in the Mirror

Even though I lay in the warm embrace of the Lidens' bath my whole body suddenly felt freezing cold. I didn't want to see any more, but I couldn't bear to stop looking. The girl had both hands in Eddy's hair, while he rested one of his on her shoulder and with the other held the small of her back. They had to be at Kieran's party, but what was he doing? The strange expression on his face, his glazed eyes, and the slight unevenness of his movements suggested he might be drunk, but still, how had I misjudged him so badly? I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, but I kept my toe in the tap and my mind's eye focused on the staccato, coming-and-going image.

Eddy bent his knees to get his face nearer to the girl's, then slipped sideways, jerking his mouth away from hers. Scarlet lipstick smeared his face.

She moved her hands from his hair and turned him by his shoulders, so that he could sit on the edge of the bath. Following him, she sat on his knee, and I got my first good view of her face.

I sighed with relief. The girl was me. I wasn't watching something that was actually happening now, but something produced by my own imagination. I frowned. Kissing a drunk Eddy in his bathroom wasn't my dream scenario. Maybe I was watching the future, not ideal, but actual.

I gasped as I watched myself grab Eddy's t-shirt and pull it over his head. The spare muscles of his back, broad as the bathroom door, were breathtaking, but I couldn't imagine myself being so forward. Maybe I was going to change?

Then I took off my own lacy vest. My mind's eye flickered in surprise. What the hell was I doing taking my top off in some random bathroom? That wasn't a wish of mine, or a plan, or anything I could imagine happening anytime ever. What was happening? What was I seeing? Exhausted by the confusing images I opened my eyes and let my toe fall from the hot tap. The bathwater was starting to cool and it could do with a bit of warming up. I narrowed my eyes at the faucet, but no water came. This wasn't like our house in Chalice Drive, where the taps were just for decoration. When these taps were turned off, they were really off, blocking the water's flow. I decided not to bother, got out of the bath and wrapped myself in the warm, white robe Dora had hung on the back of the bathroom door for me.

After seeing Eddy like that, my urge to speak to him felt stronger than ever. I hurried to my room, lay across the big double bed and dialed his number.

No response.

I peered at my phone. Why wasn't he answering? I couldn't imagine him taking part in Kieran's eighteenth birthday party, but maybe he couldn't avoid it. He did live in the same house, after all.

I puzzled over how I should address him in an SMS. I'd never used any kind of cute name with him before, and it felt weird to start now. I kept it simple. "Hey, thanks 4 visitin mum. U ok? Hows the party? X."

I changed into my pajamas and crawled under the covers. At first the freaky vision I had just had flickered back and forth through my mind. Mum's grasp on reality had become shaky, what if the same thing was happening to me? After a while, though, weariness overwhelmed me. The thought of not having to wake up for school in the morning was amazing and I drifted to sleep with images of myself and Eddy tearing off our shirts and throwing them on the ground.

I woke at the exact same time as if it had been a school day and scowled at my phone when I read its little clock. I cheered up at the sight of a message and opened it excitedly, thinking it must be from Eddy.

It was from Sarah. "U R so rock and roll! Hope the trip went ok! xxx"

I frowned. How was I rock and roll? I replied that the trip was fine, then emerged from the guestroom, peering around the door, worried about getting in the Lidens' way. Dora and Tom were in a completely different mode of operation from the night before. They bustled to and fro, passing each other cups of coffee and clean socks. Dora worked in a publishing house, while Tom taught at a university.

I perched on the edge of a stool in the kitchen, feeling a bit useless and embarrassed by my lack of purpose. "What shall I do?"

"Maddie..." Tom lowered one hand from knotting his tie and pointed a finger at me. "You should do absolutely nothing. Heaven knows last night you looked like you needed to rest for a month. How much would I love a chance to do nothing?"

"You?" Dora smirked at him as she passed by. She seemed to be stowing half the contents of the apartment in her cavernous handbag. "What about the chance to do nothing you seize firmly every weekend and most evenings?"

"What?" He stared at her over the top of his glasses. "I never stop."

I chuckled at their pantomime. In five more minutes, it was over, they had gone, and I wandered between the rooms of an empty apartment. How would I spend the day? Returning to bed felt like an appealing option, but if I was going to miss school I should probably do something constructive and I had my art supplies in my bag.

I made myself a mug of tea and sat on the balcony before the spreading, muddy expanse of winter London. I smiled. This was a sketch I would enjoy. I made the first, light line of the horizon and my phone announced the arrival of an SMS.

Eddy. "What do you mean, how was the party?"

I scrunched up my nose. The question seemed perfectly clear to me. I rephrased it. "Well, did u have a good time?"

I waited, staring at my phone, but there was no answer. I sighed. He was on his way to school, so he probably couldn't reply straight away. I began sketching in leafless trees in the foreground. The hum and clatter of north London floated up to me from the streets far below. I sipped my tea and smiled. I realised that I felt safe for what seemed like the first time in forever.

My phone rang and I jumped.

"Maddie. She's looking for me." Mum's voice creaked, high and strained.

Anxiety tightened my face and my stomach churned. "Mum, what is it, who?" I knew who she meant, but hoped for a moment that I may be mistaken.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "That Morgan."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know where I am, Maddie. I'm in bed and my arm hurts."

I gulped, desperate to calm her down. I should never have come to London. What was I thinking leaving Mum all by herself? "Mum, look around, are you in the hospital?"

She paused. "Yes. I think so. Yes, oh she won't find me here Maddie, but she's looking for me. I feel her mind flashing across mine, like a light house."

"Mum, there's nobody who can hear you is there? I mean, you know you need to be careful?" All we needed now was for Mum to be sectioned or something for being crazy.

"No. There's a woman in a... A nurse. But she's busy." Mum's voice had changed already. Her tone sounded steadier, more even. "Morgan's looking for me and she's, you know, strutting. She wants us to know how she's succeeded in something. She's pleased with herself."

I couldn't guess what that might mean. Maybe Eddy would know.

"Listen, Mum, I was thinking about coming back. I could stay in Weston, maybe."

"No, Maddie. You're definitely in the best place. You're..." Her voice brightened further. "You're with Dora and Tom. Oh how are they? Please give them my love and tell them how grateful I am."

The exchange became much more like the standard kind of conversation I had with Mum, and I settled back into my seat with its view over the city. Eventually she put the phone down and an idea that had been niggling at the back of my mind suddenly jumped front and centre.

I walked through into the Lidens' stylish stainless steel and marble kitchen and began running the tap into their big, gleaming sink. Maybe the visions I saw through the water were unreal or fantasies, but they were so captivating I couldn't resist looking again.

Though I could manipulate water from a distance, I had to be in contact with the liquid to see through it. I placed my hand under the water, then chased my mind up its flow, I followed the same path as the night before, but much faster. As my senses filtered towards Glastonbury I gave them a new target. I held before them the images of the women with shopping baskets and motorbike helmets I had seen at various times in Chalice Drive.

I stood there for twenty minutes, my water sense circling and weaving into and out of Glastonbury, towards Weston and the hospital and to the shores of the sea. At the sea itself I was halted. The water there felt different, thick, almost as heavy as soil. I could do nothing with it. I retreated, circled south of Glastonbury, and there suddenly, I felt a shiver of recognition. My mind's eye burst from a tap, into a bathroom again, but this time much less glamorous than the one where I had imagined Eddy and myself.

A woman stood a foot away from the basin where the water ran. Her eyes fixed on something above it, out of my sight. She must have been looking at herself in a mirror. I recognised her as the motorcycling blonde whose helmet had morphed into a light-swallowing sword.

Morgan.

My hand twitched away from the water, but I forced it back.

She smiled at herself and seemed pleased with her appearance. Turning to one side she pulled up her black vest top and admired her board-flat stomach. My own stomach was pretty sharp, but hers was truly impressive.

Then, as I watched, something really weird happened. Her stomach expanded. Not as if she was pushing it out, but as if it was growing. The abs disappeared, replaced by the slight curve of a newly pregnant belly.

With my free hand I grabbed hard at the edge of the sink.

The belly expanded further and she ran a hand over it.

I gasped, my eyes drawn back to her face, which transformed to that of the old woman with the shopping basket, folding and wrinkling. The belly stayed pregnant, but the skin turned papery looking and sagged. I retched and stared at the seventy year old woman with the wrinkly, pregnant belly. I'd never seen anything so gross. Then she winked at her reflection and morphed back into the young woman again.

I pulled my hand out of the water and stepped away from the sink. What did it mean? I shook my head, trying to rid it of the horribly weird image of the pregnant old woman.

My phone rang and I jogged out onto the balcony where I left it.

Eddy's name flashed on the screen.

"Hi, um..." Again I didn't know what to call him. I really wanted to be affectionate, but in my head all the affectionate names sounded horribly cheesy or awkward. "Mr. Moon," I finished, lamely.

"Hey Maddie." For once his voice didn't ring with deep confidence. It was half a beat behind and a tone flat.

"So how are you?" I tried to compensate with extra brightness.

"I'm feeling a bit rough."

"Oh really?" I honeyed my voice with sympathy. "Oh you poor thing. Did you have too much to drink?"

"You know I did. God. I feel terrible."

A tinny little alarm began sounding in my head. "Why Eddy? What's wrong?"

He paused. "You know, I can't believe how fresh you sound, it's as if..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"So what's wrong?"

He halted again. "Maddie, I feel really bad about what happened last night. I don't think I should have done that."

"Done what?"

For a third time Eddy left a massive pause. "What do you mean, done what? I don't understand. Can't you remember? Or are you messing with me?"

I scrunched my eyes closed, trying to make sense of Eddy's rambling. "I'm sorry Eddy. I don't know what you're on about. What are you trying to say?"

He took a deep breath. "Maddie, you and me. I don't think we should have done what we did last night. I don't think we should have had sex."

# Chapter 21: The Scene of the Crime

I took my phone from my ear. What was happening? Was I going mad? Where was I? Was I in London at all?

I stared into the distance, trying to make out the dirty grey line of the Thames. I could discern nothing to make me question my own sanity, so what was going on? Had Morgan got to Eddy's mind as well as my mother's? I narrowed my eyes, Eddy had expressed no fear of that himself and I had assumed he had a different category of mental strength to Mum. But maybe we had both underestimated Morgan.

Eddy's voice squeaked from the phone. I put it back to my ear. "Eddy, there's something seriously wrong here. I think your mind is being played with. I think she got to you as well."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." I slowed my voice down, as if speaking to a child. "I mean, I'm in London and I never left. You imagined it."

Yet again a long pause. "You didn't come back late last night, then get on the first train this morning?"

I frowned. "God, no. That would be exhausting."

"Well, yeah. That's what I thought, but..." His voice warmed with relief. "So we really didn't do it? I must have been even drunker than I thought. I could have sworn..."

"Eddy," I interrupted him with a sudden brainwave. "Maybe, maybe somebody spiked your drink. That could make you have weird dreams."

"You're right. The Orkney Lot. John Owen was talking about how Camelot are cheats and I shouldn't be the head. Maybe they wanted to get me in trouble. They could say I was on drugs or something."

"There you are." My vision of him and me in the bathroom made sense now. I must have somehow connected to his fantasy, or whatever it was. "So, you dreamed, or hallucinated about me?" A smile lurked around my lips and coloured my voice.

"Yeah, I guess." He still sounded doubtful. "I'm glad we've got that sorted though. I'm at school, would it be okay if I phoned you back later?"

"Alright, and Eddy, be careful. There might still be some of whatever drug it was in your system. Don't..." I tried to think of appropriate advice. "Don't go near busy roads."

A smiled warmed his voice. "Okay Maddie. Bye."

I shut my phone off and grinned as I put it down. Okay, somebody had tried to drug him, but still, he had hallucinated about me. That had to mean he really liked me.

I picked the sketch pad up and moved on to the nearer, old fashioned tower blocks. A clock chimed somewhere and I considered making another cup of tea.

In the kitchen I realised what had been causing my restlessness and went back to retrieve my phone. I reread Sarah's message: "U R so rock and roll! Hope the trip went ok! xxx"

Rock and roll. What could I have done that was rock and roll? I decided to speak to Sarah, and planned my wording carefully, so it could be interpreted a few ways, without me sounding like a crazy person.

"Hey Sarah."

"Oh Hi Maddie, oh how are you, you poor thing? You must be so tired. I'm sorry I've really got no time to talk, I should be in maths like five minutes ago."

"Okay, I was just going to ask about last night..."

"Of course, wasn't the party amazing?"

"Well I suppose..."

"What do you mean you suppose? I thought you were having a brilliant time. You seemed to be. You said you didn't like parties, you little liar. You're a party animal I should have known. What time did you stay till, in the end? Did you sleep at all anywhere?"

I crunched my eyes tightly shut, trying to work out what had happened. The hallucination theory was obviously off. Impossible to think Eddy and Sarah both had their drinks spiked and both dreamed they had seen me at the party.

"Maddie? Are you still there?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, sorry Sarah, I just realised I got to go. See you soon yeah?"

"Oh my gosh, yes, and when you do you're going to tell me all about-"

I cut her off. For somebody with no time to talk she had a lot to say.

I didn't want to think about what had happened at the Hechters' mansion the night before. I blocked it out of my mind. I knew that if I thought about it I would just curl up in a ball on the floor and cry and puke until Dora and Tom came home. And I couldn't imagine anything they could do to make me stop.

So I got dressed, packed my bag, wrote them a hurried note and left their apartment. I had to get back to Somerset. Everything going on there was too weird and dangerous, and I had to be near enough to help Mum if she needed it. Eddy seemed so capable and in charge, but now I realised he was way out of his depth. I couldn't trust him to look after himself, let alone Mum.

The tube rumbled through north London and I watched the other passengers out of the corner of my eye. I remembered when I used to ride the tube all the time and I was just like them. A perfectly normal girl, with perfectly normal problems. I should never have left London. Now I was a crazy lady of a non-existent lake and a thousand year old witch was sending my mother insane and doing heaven knows what to the boy I loved. I blinked and blocked my mind to the thought.

Standing on the bustling concourse of Paddington Station I called Eddy and told him I was coming back. As I knew he would, he tried to persuade me not to return, but I stayed clipped and certain in my determination.

The train to the West Country had just arrived from Bristol, and under my seat I found a copy of the Western Daily Press. I concentrated hard on every detail of its small town news, reading about Christmas dinners, late night shopping, and the competition for most imaginative seasonal window display. I focused on the stories of ordinary people, with normal lives. Half way through the newspaper I found an article that made me pause and narrow my eyes. I read it twice, then sat back and looked out the window.

The archaeologists digging up the tomb of the Byzantine knight had reported a theft from their excavation. In the morning, two days previously, they had arrived at their site to continue cataloguing the contents of the great stone coffin, only to find it completely empty. They had already removed some small pieces of gold and silver jewellery and a tarnished sword. All that remained was armour and the skeleton inside it, but both had gone. The archaeologists were helping police with their enquiries, but suspected a professional theft commissioned by a collector somewhere.

I shivered, and hoped I didn't know better.

In Weston Eddy met me at the station. "Maddie." He half raised his arms, as if to give me a hug, but I shot him down with a glare. "Um, are you okay?"

"To be honest Eddy, no."

"What's wrong?"

I half turned away from him. "Eddy, we need to go somewhere and talk."

"What about?"

"You'll see."

I led him down an avenue of guest houses and old people's homes, and we stopped at the first cafe we came to: 'The Coffee Pot.'

Inside, the smell of grease and instant coffee assailed my nostrils. A warm fug filled the cafe and steamed up the windows. We sat down beside a wall paneled with wood effect plastic and ordered tea.

"So." Eddy had had time to prepare his face. He had a politician's uncanny ability to present surface calm and confidence. "What is it?" He spread his ravaged hands.

"Eddy. Something horrible has happened. I've learned how to use water to see other places, where water is. I can use water networks like, like closed circuit TV." My gaze roamed the table surface as I spoke. "I saw what happened in your bathroom last night. I thought it was my imagination, but somebody looking like me was really at the party. Sarah spoke to her."

"Morgan." All colour left Eddy's face. "She made herself look like you." Muscles jumped in his jaw and for a moment I again saw the expression of a much older man. "Oh heaven help us now, because no one else can." His voice knotted harshly and seemed edged with grief.

"What do you mean?" My anger and sadness at him, and how that creature had beaten me to his youth and intimacy, everything seemed overshadowed by his mountainous emotion.

He jabbed a finger at me. "All your laughing at fate. Your grand boasts about free will, and talent. This is what I get. This, all over again."

My jaw dropped. "Again?"

Eddy sneered at me. "Off course again. I thought you had read your myths and legends? The first time this happened I was older. But it went down more or less the same. She seduces me into starting off a process that's going to lead to my downfall." He stood up and his frail chair clattered to the floor. "One thing will be different this time. This time I won't make the same mistake. I won't let the boy live. There's not going to be a second Mordred to ruin me."

I dug my nails into the palms of my hands to try and keep myself from fainting. "You're going to kill your own child?"

# Chapter 22: The Robbed Grave

I threw a five pound note on the cafe table and followed Eddy to the door. The idea that he would even consider killing a child made my stomach turn. "I don't believe you. You couldn't do something like that."

He turned to me. "Maddie, you've got no idea what I can do." His eyes flared like burning holes in his paper white face. "I'm sure you can guess, though, what I've done."

My knees buckled and I leaned against the outside of the cafe window. "Have you, have you killed people?"

He shrugged. "Of course I have."

I shuddered as I tried to make my image of Eddy, and the love for him it had caused, fit with these new sides of his personality. "But it's a baby." I gasped. "I mean, no its not, it's not even born yet."

"You saw her. You know she's pregnant. It's been a few hours and it already shows, doesn't it?"

I grimaced, remembering the pregnant woman admiring herself in the mirror. "She looks, like four months or something."

"The baby will be born tomorrow. Where was she?"

I hesitated, looking from one side of the road to the other, then darting my eyes up at gulls screaming past.

"What? No." Eddy jabbed a finger at me. "I know what you're thinking. Maybe you should protect her, or the baby? Are you serious? Maddie, more or less, she raped me."

I looked at my shoes. The words he chose were like knives and clubs, dangerous and worrying.

"Maddie, I know it's not the conventional definition. I'm big and strong, she's a small, slim, woman, but she tricked me. She probably didn't drug me, but she may as well. She raped me."

I didn't want to tell him Morgan's location, but his face was urgent and tight with an expression I had never seen on it. Fear. I coughed and tilted my head to one side. "She looked like she was in a hotel bathroom. A cheap hotel. A motel or a guest house maybe."

"Oh man." Eddy pressed his hand against his forehead. "Look around you. How many cheap hotels or guesthouses are there?"

I shrugged at him sympathetically. Inside, though, I felt only relief. He wouldn't get a chance to do anything horrible. "Okay. Um, now I really have to go and check on Mum." I tried to pretend our conversation about killing hadn't happened. "Are you coming, or...?"

He shook his head. "I have to find her."

There was no way he could. "You've got your phone, yeah? When I'm finished with Mum I'm going to school."

"To school?"

"I don't know why we didn't think of it before. I'll stay in Logres till Mum gets out of hospital."

"Okay. I'll go with you, make sure you're okay. Meet me at the bus stop by the supermarket in, how long? Three hours?"

"Okay." Hurrying away to the hospital, I focused on the thought of seeing Mum soon, and on the dead leaves and empty crisp packets pushed along the gutter by the wind from the sea. Anything to block out the thought of what had happened to Eddy, and what he might do next. What he might be doing while I sat in the hospital ward.

When I arrived at Mum's bedside her wide eyes made my throat tighten, but she smiled when she saw me, and as I sat there, holding her hand, she became more and more like her old self. She scolded me for leaving London, but she understood why I had done it. I stayed for tea, then went back into the centre of Weston to meet Eddy.

I stared apprehensively at his silhouette as he approached, but his arms hung empty. No baby lay in them.

"So?" I walked towards him. "Any luck?"

He leaned against the bus shelter. "Nope. I've been to every crumby bed and breakfast in this whole town. Nothing."

"Oh dear." I suppressed a smile of relief. "How did you do it?"

"I just said I was looking for my sister, she was pregnant and I had some important test results from the hospital."

"Ooh." I shook my head. "You little liar, you."

"Anyway." He shrugged. "How's your Mum? I hope you gave her my best wishes."

"She's alright and-"

He turned away, pointing across the supermarket parking lot. "I know that car."

I sighed. "Really, I'm sure that-"

Eddy grabbed my hand. "Come on."

I had to run fast, jerking and bobbing, to keep up with his elegant lope. We arrived beside a battered Land Rover at the same time as an elderly man carrying bags of shopping.

"Afternoon Mr. Naylor." Despite all the strain he was under, Eddy managed to sound commanding and confident.

I tried to remember where I had heard the name before.

"Oh, afternoon young Eddy."

Naylor gave me a nod. I responded with a tight, half smile. It was Naylor's dogs that chased me down the road two months before.

"So, Mr. Naylor, I was wondering if you were heading back our way. Maybe you could give Maddie and me a lift?"

Naylor looked at me again. "Well, got a lot of shoppin'." He stepped in front of the bags. "Been gettin, um, dog food an' that." His West Country accent stretched his words long and flat.

"It's alright, she doesn't take up much room."

He shifted his jaw from side to side as he sucked on his teeth. "Well, I suppose."

"Thanks a million. Let me help you with those."

"No, no, no." Naylor hastily grabbed all the bags himself and crammed them into the back of his car. A large tin rolled from one of them and Eddy leaned down to pick it up. His face tightened as he did so, and he tilted the tin towards me. I read the label, 'Infant Milk Formula,' and frowned.

"Come on Maddie." Eddy's voice stayed smooth and warm. "You get in the other side."

Naylor drove slowly down the long slope from the coast onto the levels. In the back I stared at the nape of Eddy's neck, my mind a confused, tired blank.

Naylor stopped on the Levels main drive and Eddy jumped out to open the back door of the car. He leaned in and helped me out with one hand, but with the other he swiftly pulled at the tops of the shopping bags, peering at whatever was inside.

"Eddy," I grumbled as I clambered along the seat. "What are you...?"

"Never mind. Thanks Mr. Naylor. Much appreciated." Eddy slammed the back door shut, tapped on the roof, then turned to me. "Come on."

We went to Logres first. Mum had called the school and explained my predicament, and the matron, Sally, had sorted me out with a bed in Sarah's room. My new roommate was waiting for me in the common room.

"Oh my God, Maddie, this is so cool! Let's get up early in the morning and do each other's hair. Come and choose which one of my school skirts you want to borrow tomorrow."

"Hi Sarah." Eddy gave her a very direct gaze from his golden eyes.

"Oh." She flushed. Though Sarah had expressed all sorts of unpleasant opinions of Eddy, this was the first time I'd seen her speak to him. "Hello. You, you..."

"It's alright Sarah, you get Madeleine settled in. It's really kind of you. I'll wait here and take her over to Camelot."

I frowned at him and he snapped a hot look at me. I bit my lip and followed Sarah up the stairs.

Five minutes later I stood in front of him. "Right, your majesty, that's all done. Now any chance you're going to explain any of your ordering and commanding?"

"I'm going to take you over to Camelot, then I'm going to pay Naylor a visit."

I followed him away from the Logres door. "Why?"

"Those bags were full of baby food and diapers. His wife's sixty years old. There's something going on."

"Really? You think he may have the baby? But you said it would be born tomorrow." My heart sank. I had hoped that when he failed to find Morgan in Weston Eddy would give up his search. I should have known better.

Eddy shrugged. "I might have been wrong. I'm not sure. But whenever it's born she won't want to raise it herself. On the other hand, I don't know why she would choose an old farming couple. I have to check though."

"Okay." His pessimism was reassuring. "Why should I go to Camelot?"

"If I'm not here I need somebody else to look after you. The four horsemen will do it."

"Them? But..."

"They're brave and strong. What more can you need?"

I wrinkled my nose. Just because the four horsemen now accepted Eddy as their leader, didn't mean that I accepted they weren't snobby idiots.

We strode quickly along the path to Camelot. Eddy led the way around the side of the castle and in the back door, through the kitchen. Younger kids were buzzing around making toast and pot noodles. As Eddy strode in they stopped what they were doing.

"Hiya Eddy."

"Hello Eddy."

"Alright Eddy?"

He nodded and smiled, tapping a couple of boys on the back as he swept me through, towards the common room. I stared. What had happened to the gawky new boy I used to know?

The Four Horsemen stood together in the middle of the room.

"Hey Eddy." Tiago stepped forward. "I got your text." His eyes switched to me. "Hello Mah-da-leina."

Eddy nodded. "Good."

Gennady narrowed his eyes. "What's the problem? You say there's a problem."

"It's probably nothing." Eddy motioned at them all to sit down. "It's just, maybe Maddie's got a stalker. Somebody was hanging around her house, and around her Mum."

"Really?" Kieran raised an eyebrow. "What kind of person?"

"Not sure." Eddy moved towards the door. "Might be a woman, or a kid."

"A kid? That's weird."

"I know. I'll be back in a couple of hours. Stay in the house, yeah?"

I nodded, and he was gone. I trailed after him and stood in the castle doorway, watching his broad-shouldered torso fading in and out between the old fashioned street lamps.

"So." I looked from one boy to the next. The situation was very weird. I didn't believe I would be any safer in Camelot than Logres. "What shall we do then?"

Rami smiled. "I was going to make us some protein shakes. Would you like one?"

"I guess."

"Chocolate or vanilla?"

"Chocolate."

A group of younger kids clattered down the stairs. Tiago switched on the TV and turned to me. "It's Simpsons time. You like The Simpsons?"

"Of course. Everybody likes The Simpsons."

More kids tumbled through the door from the kitchen as the familiar theme tune started up. They sprawled on the couches, on the floor in front of them, and some of them perched on the backs, sharing plates of buttered toast.

I was surprised to see Rami Ahmed drop a cushion from behind his back to the floor in front of his shins, so Peebles – the junior who answered the door - could lean against him.

Tiago and Gennady huddled together, talking, and a small girl scowled at them. "Quiet! It's starting!"

I winced, waiting for one of them to snap at her. Instead Gennady put a finger to his lips and flashed a mock glare at Tiago, who held up one hand in apology.

I found an old classroom chair under a table and pulled it to the edge of the hubbub. I had thought of Camelot as an austere, arrogant kind of boarding house, but like this it seemed cosy, familial. I smiled.

I watched two episodes of The Simpsons back to back, while sipping from a chocolate protein shake. At first my mind skittered around the issues and stresses of the last three days. Morgan, Mum's illness, the broken window, London, the vision of Eddy's seduction, the prospect of Morgan's baby being born freakishly early, and Eddy's horrible plans for it. After a while the warmth of the common room and shouts of laughter lifted my mood. There probably wasn't a baby, and if there was Eddy wouldn't find it. Even if he did find it he wouldn't be able to harm it. I didn't believe him capable of something so dark and horrible.

When the second episode finished a small freckled boy produced a DVD of an old season of The Simpsons and offered to choose the funniest show for us.

He was true to his word, and I laughed so loudly that Tiago turned and looked at me. Not wanting to attract any attention to myself, and knowing that my face must be super red and shiny, I stood up and moved to the wall, rummaging through my bag for a hair brush.

The window behind me erupted in splinters of glass. For a split second I saw the shocked faces of all the children turned towards me, then two iron arms catapulted me into the night.

# Chapter 23: Armour

My stomach rose to my throat, stifling my scream, as I rocketed high into the night. The two iron arms locked around my chest and midriff didn't shift; they were like the protective harness on a rollercoaster ride. Hard metal pressed against my back and my legs swung free. I looped back to earth ten feet away from Camelot, and two legs beneath me cushioned the landing, then instantly sprang forward. I lost consciousness.

The fog in my mind lifted slowly.

I rose and fell.

Was I riding Boxer across the countryside? No chestnut back beneath me though. Instead two armoured legs flashed over the fields in gigantic strides.

The memory of being snatched from the Camelot common room surged back into my mind. Freezing wind whipped my tears around the sides of my face and I screamed again. I jerked and bucked, but the iron arms had me imprisoned, like being held by a machine. A tall, broad, armoured man carried me with the kind of ease I had only felt once before, in the strength of Eddy Moon. The running was incredibly smooth, as if the legs were on springs.

I craned my neck upwards and saw a metal helmet above me, with slits in it for eye-holes.

I screamed again, the effort sawing at my throat. We were crossing empty countryside. Nobody heard.

As I paused for breath I caught the roar of car engines. Looking to my left I saw headlights slicing along a country lane. Tires screeched as a sports car followed a big four-by-four around a tight bend. The Four Horsemen were pursuing us.

The lights of a village approached quickly, and the knight altered his line slightly to avoid it. He leapt a hedge and entered what I realised was a park. Cropped grass stretched in a large rectangle, bordered by the road. The horsemen's cars howled into sight, driving at twice our speed.

The armoured helmet turned to the right, watching Kieran's Range Rover Sport bump up the kerb and fly across the grass. It tore up a long curve of turf as it screeched to a halt. The doors opened before it stopped moving and Kieran and Gennady jumped out.

We didn't slow. My heart sank. My kidnapper would just keep running. Maybe he could jump right over them both. We neared at breathtaking speed.

Kieran darted back towards the car, leaving Gennady by himself. My heart sank further. Three strides away, Kieran threw something from the car to Gennady, who caught it one handed, then jumped straight upwards as we soared past him.

I sobbed, then caught my breath as we hit the ground. The legs jerked, and looking down I saw the long leather straps that entangled them. Gennady had lassoed the armoured feet in a length of horse bridle. Still holding me, the entire suit of armour toppled to the grass. Kieran and Gennady leapt onto us, grabbing at the arms that confined me.

"Get off her!" Kieran pressed his face to the armour mask.

I screamed again. "Help me, Kieran! Please help me!"

As I thrashed from side to side I saw Tiago and Rami run from the Aston Martin. Tiago wielded a baseball bat. "Madeleine, are you okay?" His voice was loud and urgent.

"My ribs hurt."

The metal legs scrabbled at the ground but couldn't get purchase. Tiago smashed at them with the baseball bat, but the only effect seemed to be a loud clang, as if the suit was completely empty. Even in my terror I wondered how we would explain all this to the four of them.

If I ever escaped.

Kieran bashed at the monster's head. Gennady and Rami heaved on the arms around my chest, then tumbled across the grass as one arm abruptly loosened. The other tightened around me, to compensate, and the suit of armour levered itself upright, then to its feet and began marching away.

A clang sounded from where Tiago must have hit it in the back with the bat. Another clang and the arm whipped around, caught the bat, and hurled it into the distance. We gathered speed.

"Don't let him get away."

I heard a grunt and the machine toppled forward, catching itself with its free hand. It bounced upright and we turned. Kieran clambered to his feet. He must have rugby-tackled the thing. As he straightened an iron gauntlet smashed into the side of his head. He dropped to the grass.

The machine turned away.

Gennady and Rami stood in its path. "Stop! We'll take you down."

The armour legs strode forward. Gennady stepped towards us. With an enormous stride the machine got within reach of him, grabbed his shoulder and threw him sideways. He hit the ground with a thud.

We walked on, almost at the edge of the park. Again the legs staggered, one of them slipping out to the side.

Panting, Tiago held the length of bridle, the other end looped around a metal foot. We dropped forward, the machine catching itself and pushing itself upright before marching on. The bridle stayed around the ankle, and Tiago was pulled along behind us. Nothing could halt the iron creature.

We reached the hedge bordering the park and pushed straight through it, into meadowland beyond.

The machine's stride lengthened and we accelerated again. I sobbed. The suit of armour must be bearing me away to Morgan le Fay. There could be no other explanation. I shuddered at the thought of what she might do to me.

We reached another hedge and this time leapt across it. Across a field we pushed through a small wood, and into another meadow. By the time they got back to their cars the Four Horsemen would have no idea where we were.

I heard tires screaming again. Had I underestimated them? The tires sounded in a lane ahead of us, but the iron legs didn't alter their course. There was a screech of brakes, and headlights lit up the road, now only twenty metres away.

The strides lengthened further. It felt as if the machine was gathering itself to cross the road, the car, and the hedges on each side in a single leap. I screamed for the millionth time. A car door opened and I heard the bang of somebody jumping onto a car hood. A male figure stood on the roof, directly in front of us. Whoever it was would just get battered aside with iron force.

At the same moment the suit of armour leapt, and the boy on the top of the car drew a sword. I recognised the grace with which the massive frame dropped into a crouch.

Eddy.

# Chapter 24: Rugby

Carrying me, the suit of armour soared over the first hedge. Eddy straightened, slightly to the left of our path. His sword flickered as it swung. I felt the jolt and heard a harsh clang, and then we landed in the meadow beyond the second hedge.

Immediately I could tell there was a problem. The armour hit the ground at an angle, then limped heavily. One of the metal-plated feet had gone, amputated by Excalibur, and my kidnapper couldn't keep to a straight line.

We stumbled across the field for a few seconds before Eddy stood in front of us, panting a little. "Stop!" he commanded.

The armour marched toward him.

"It can't." I sobbed as I spoke. "There's nobody inside it."

One iron gauntlet came free of me and extended toward Eddy. Metal screeched as he cut it off at the elbow.

The suit of armour slowed now, and Eddy kept pace with it. "Madeleine, I don't want to hurt you."

"I don't care. Chop it to pieces."

"Pull your legs up."

I did as Eddy asked, and he cut through the thing's good leg at the knee. We toppled sideways. The legs worked rhythmically, but could get no purchase. Eddy bent and pulled at the arm holding me. He dropped his sword and wrenched at it with both hands. Veins stood out on his forehead as his enormous strength managed to do what the other boys could not, and loosen the arm. I wriggled from underneath it and fell into his embrace, sobbing uncontrollably. Eddy stroked my hair and whispered into my ear. "It's okay, it's okay. I wouldn't let anything happen to you."

Besides us the suit of armour clanked and I gasped. "Eddy, please can you do something about it. Finish it."

The thing jerked obscenely, propelling itself towards me on its one arm and its three quarters of a leg. Eddy picked up Excalibur and stood over it for a second, before slicing off the helmet, and then the good arm. Forgetting his sword he stepped onto the torso, pushing it down to the ground, then jumped on it.

"What is it?"

He pushed hair back from his face. "You know what it is. It's a thing of hers. She's animated old, old iron." Raising his sword again he stabbed it hard into the back plate of the armour. Metal on metal screeched, then the armour faded to rust red and shrank, worn and aged at the edges.

"I feel bad for those archaeologists."

Eddy shrugged. "I'll try and think of something else for them to find." The gleaming sword hung in his right hand. He placed his left hand on my waist. "I'm so happy you're okay."

My heart fluttered in my chest. "All thanks to you."

His face maintained its impassive expression, but his eyes shone. "When I knew something had happened to you I realised that I..."

"You what?" I moved towards him.

"It's difficult Maddie, I'm trying to work a lot of things out but I feel..."

I couldn't tell if he pulled me, or if I stepped back into his embrace, but in a moment I was pressed against the solid warmth of his body. His arms circled my back.

"I don't know if what I feel is right or wrong, but you deserve honesty."

Maybe it was shock, but I felt more alive that moment than ever before. I floated in a space of winter stars above the dark meadow. "Eddy." I had to tell him. To not tell him would be pretending to be somebody I wasn't. "I love you."

For once emotion shone through the responsibility and seriousness on his face. "I love you too Maddie, but-"

Car engines roared in the distance, getting closer. The Four Horsemen.

He shook his head. "I'll tell you later. We need to call the school, or somebody, tell them you're okay. They'll probably have called the police."

I did as he said, telling the Camelot house tutor that the armoured man had run away into the countryside. In the darkness I flushed at the lie. When I turned the phone off Eddy lightly clasped my shoulder in on hand. "Well done. That must have been tricky."

I smiled.

He stepped away. "Now come back to the car. Your Mum will be getting worried."

I stared at him. "You've brought Mum?"

He replied over his shoulder. "I had to. I've got the child. Somebody had to look after it."

Hurrying after him I tried to process what was going on. In the front seat of the car Mum sat with a tiny baby in her arms. Eddy's child, born hours after it was conceived. I shuddered.

"Hello Maddie." Her voice sounded oddly bright and brittle. "Is everything alright now?"

"Everything's fine. How are you?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm thinking about the baby."

Mum turned the bundle towards me. Dark eyes glittered in assessment. A baby face twitched, I expected a baby smile, or a baby yawn. Instead the baby scowled at me, showing a mouth full of teeth.

I jumped backwards. "That can't be normal." I turned to Eddy. "How did you get it?"

"The Naylors didn't need much persuasion. They didn't really understand why they had it. I think Morgan kind of entranced them, somehow. They were pretty freaked out when it started teething."

"What are you going to do?"

Eddy got into the driver's seat. "It'll spend the night at your house, then we'll decide what to do in the morning."

"At home?" I got into the back seat. "What about Morgan?"

He spun the wheel expertly, as if he had been driving for years. "She'll be exhausted, after hastening her pregnancy like that, giving birth, and driving that suit of armour around the countryside. Besides, you have an old friend back. Look."

As we crested a slight rise the car headlights shone into the sky and caught the slow flapping wings of a large, black bird.

"The cormorant! What happened?"

"I don't know. I think you're just lucky. It was nearby and sensed your panic."

I switched my focus to the other seat. "And you Mum, are you okay? How's your arm?"

"Oh that? Ha ha!" Her laughter was high and strained. "I forgot about it."

"And what are we going to do about the baby?" I stopped there, not wanting to go on and voice the horrible question hanging over us. Will we have to kill it?

"We'll decide in the morning."

I looked from Eddy to the child in Mum's arms. I couldn't tell how he felt about it, but he had to feel something. Unnatural, freakish as it was, the baby was still tiny, defenceless, and his own flesh and blood.

"But Eddy." I couldn't restrain myself. "It's yours, your son."

Eddy snorted. "Only slightly. She can manipulate things like that. It'll have the bare minimum of my characteristics, and only the practical ones." We stopped at a junction. "You know how sharks are born killers? They don't decide, or learn, nobody influences them. They hunt because they're made for it. Some sharks even kill and eat their siblings when they're still in their mother's womb."

I shuddered. "So?"

"So this thing..." He inclined his head at the bundle in Mum's arms. "Is exactly like that. It's like it's been programmed, look." He raised his hand from the gearstick and extended a finger towards the baby. When it was within reach a small hand shot from the shawl, grabbed Eddy's finger, and hauled itself upwards.

"What? So it's strong. I bet you were a strong baby."

The baby got its face to Eddy's finger, then lurched forward and sank its teeth into his flesh.

He hissed. "Countess Bride, can you get it off me?"

Mum tugged at the infant, but it wouldn't move. A strange, high-pitched snarling came from the small clenched jaw.

"I need to change gears." Eddy glanced sideways. "Please try harder."

Mum took Eddy's hand in one of hers, and pressed the baby downward away from it with the other. "Eddy, this has to be really hurting."

I heard a pop as Eddy's finger slipped free of the child's teeth. Blood lined the deep indents in his flesh and ringed the baby's mouth. It licked its lips with a weirdly long tongue.

A freezing chill swept over me. "I see what you mean."

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

At home Mum pulled a drawer from her chest and settled the baby in it on her bedroom floor. I gave Eddy a blanket and showed him to the sofa in the front room.

In my own room, in my pyjamas, I was powerfully aware of his presence downstairs. I could imagine the length of his sleeping body, filling the sofa completely. I rolled over twice, thinking that sleep would never come, so strong was my awareness of his proximity. I was exhausted, though, and the next thing I knew, it was dawn, and I woke to the slow building novelty of his presence in the morning.

I crept down the stairs and peered around the corner. He slept with one arm flung over his head. The blanket had slipped and his broad chest was bare in the dawn light. His beautiful face turned to the ceiling, tense and serious. I hovered in the doorway. Should I wake him? How?

He answered the question for me. His eyes snapped open and he twisted into a sitting position. "Madeleine." His voice was sharp. "What's wrong? How's your mother? And the baby?"

"Um..." I blinked, flustered, then turned back to the stairs. Of course I should have thought of her first, instead of Eddy Moon in his underwear on my couch. Mum was in bed, but the baby had gone. I glanced around the room, wondering if it was already able to crawl. In my imagination it became a scuttling little creature with sharp, pearly teeth. I shivered. "Mum?"

She didn't move.

"Mum!" My voice rose. I hurried to her bedside. Her face was gaunt and white. "What happened to the baby?"

Her eyes opened a crack. I gasped.

"Maddie," she whispered. "It's in a safe place. Don't worry." Her eyes closed again.

I took her cold hand, between both of mine. "Where Mum? What did you do?"

She didn't answer. Her breathing was shallow, but steady. I turned to Eddy. "We need to get her back to the hospital. She's not well, not yet."

The ambulance came in ten minutes, and I spent the rest of the day in hospital with her. I sat beside her bed in the ward, watching her slip in and out of consciousness and wondering whether I could ask her about the baby again.

I didn't have an opportunity, and in part I was glad. A horrible decision had been avoided, and I didn't want to know the way out Mum had found.

She woke in the evening, but was still very weak and her grasp on reality flickered. That night I stayed with Sarah in Logres, before visiting Mum again in the morning. She was brighter, but still called me Mother a couple of times. That afternoon I returned to class with huge relief, glad to be back to one aspect of ordinary life.

Normality disappeared for an hour after school, though, when the police visited. I made up as little as possible about my armoured attacker, only saying that I had thought somebody was following me. I said I never saw his face, which was true, and that he disappeared in the darkness, which was also kind of true. The school arranged extra security, the police told me to contact them if I remembered anything else, and then I went to Logres, where Sarah coddled me for the evening.

The following day Mum seemed stronger still, and doctors said she would probably only need a couple more nights in hospital before she recovered from her 'concussion.' I asked her again about the baby, but she didn't remember what she had done with it. I knew Mum, though, and couldn't believe - however disconnected she was from reality - she could have done it any harm.

The next day, Saturday, saw the final sporting competition of the autumn term. The rugby final, Orkney against Camelot. My school in London hadn't played much rugby, and so I sat in the stadium with Sarah, asking her questions.

"What's that for?" I pointed as two groups of players formed tight lines, bent at the waist, and surged against one another. Eddy heaved at the back of the Camelot pack.

"That's the scrum. Those players are the forwards, they push one another, trying to get the ball. When they get it they pass it across the field and try to run it to the other end."

"Okay. The Four Horsemen will do the running?" I pointed at Gennady, Kieran, Rami and Tiago, who formed a loose line across the field.

"Well they will, but only if John Owen and the Orkney Lot let them."

John Owen, the head of Orkney, was the best rugby player in the school. He already had a professional contract for when he graduated in the summer.

The scrum heaved and pushed, then fragmented and John Owen emerged from it, carrying the ball. Kieran, then Rami leapt at him, but he handed them off. The Camelot team zeroed in on him, leaving wide spaces in the rest of the field, so that when Owen passed the ball, two light, quick members of his term were able to run through the gaps and score.

I hissed with disappointment.

Sarah patted my knee sympathetically. "See, that's the Camelot problem. He's so strong, and quick that they need three or four players to tackle him, then that leaves other players free."

"Eddy's strong and quick too." To me the pale winter sun seemed to focus on Eddy, like the crowd focused on John Owen. Golden, magnificent, he ran across the pitch patting team mates on the back, then gathering the Four Horsemen around him for a hurried discussion. My heart swelled with pride.

"Eddy is strong and quick," Sarah agreed. "But he never played rugby before this term."

"Doesn't matter," I grumbled. "He'll learn."

I watched him stand towards the back of his team, bulging arms folded across his chest. I could practically hear his mind whirring at light speed, assessing this new experience, working out how he could succeed. As I looked on my own mind whirred along a different path. Life had settled down a little \- though it would never be the same as before we met – and I had more time to think about Eddy.

Eddy, and the way he had kissed me. The feeling of flight he gave me when he said he loved me. The sound of the words in his deep, warm voice. I could tell from the way he looked at me that he thought about it too. For tiny moments his eyes showed his indecision. Eddy was accustomed to battle, and I knew he was fighting his feelings for me. Unlike the rugby, this was a struggle I hoped he would lose.

Orkney scored twice, gaining seven points each time, before Eddy proved me right for believing in him. The referee called a scrum, and Eddy pushed at the back of it. Again John Owen bulled forward, drawing Camelot players toward him, until he flipped the ball away into open space. Eddy had seen the pass coming, though, and was on the boy who caught it before he had taken three strides. He lifted him into the air and took the ball from him, before stepping around him and beginning his own run. Powerful and effortless he blazed the length of the field without a single Orkney player coming close.

John Owen screamed in fury. At half time he bellowed at his team and his anger could be heard across the field. The second half continued as the first had finished. Eddy scored again, then Gennady ripped the ball from a scrum and his three friends passed it between one another before Rami ran it over the end line. Camelot were in front. Mr. Duke, the head rugby coach stood at the half way line, watching with his chin in his hand. This had to be interesting for him, watching Levels boys play without his direction, deciding their tactics for themselves.

Orkney mounted a final attack, their superior mass and experience rumbling them through the Camelot defense. If they scored the match would be theirs, with seconds left to play. Six feet from the line John Owen received the ball, but Eddy faced him, caught him, and tossed the ox-like rugby captain onto his back. Snatching the ball from his grasp Eddy accelerated down the pitch. In a flat out sprint nobody came close to him, his powerful muscles pumped his long limbs like lightning. Camelot scored again.

At the final whistle I ran onto the field and waited for Eddy to escape the hugs and congratulations of his team mates.

"Well done Eddy, oh well done." In an effort to restrain myself I clasped my hands behind my back and stood on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek. "Eww! You're all sweaty."

"Sorry Maddie." He grinned down at me and my heart skipped a beat. Light hearted like this, his generous features were even more beautiful.

He slung a heavy arm over my shoulder and I put mine across the small of his back. Ignoring his perspiration I leaned against him, the heat of his body blazing through my winter coat. We walked toward the pavilion together, Eddy asked me about this or that bit of the match and I told him how exciting it had all been.

"Anyway..." He slowed when we reached the path, the studs on his boots clattering on its hard surface. "Enough rugby." He took my hand between his finger and thumb and my heart flipped over. "I didn't thank you for the music you gave me. Kieran helped me transfer it over to my phone."

"Really? And you liked it?"

"I think its brilliant." He began humming the first lines of 'Love Me Tender'. I warmed with even more love for him, something I hadn't thought possible. Eddy Moon wasn't good at everything. He couldn't sing. I smiled at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Why did you get me Elvis, though? I don't understand. Not very up to date."

"More up to date than you, though." I smirked at him. "However, you've got something in common, apart from being old. A little phrase."

"What is it?"

My lashes lowered. "Not telling. You'll have to find out." I sighed. "Wouldn't it be nice if it was always like this? No worrying about Merlin, or Morgan, or a demonic little baby hidden away somewhere."

"The baby's growing fast, but still he won't be dangerous for a long time." Eddy tilted his head to one side. "Or maybe ever. Maybe your Mum found a way to neutralise him."

I shrugged. It seemed Eddy had come to terms with the way Mum took charge of the baby's future. Possibly he was even relieved. I examined his face, but he gave nothing away. "And as for Morgan, she won't be able to hurt us for a while. She's exhausted somewhere, and you've got the cormorant watching over you again. There's time to get your Mum back to health and work out how to stay safe." His voice warmed. "Seriously. It's me Morgan really hates."

"She didn't kidnap you though."

Eddy nodded. "Good point, but she only attacked you to get at me."

"Why though?" I raised my tone slightly. "Why has she been so intent, for so long?"

"It's jealousy." Eddy's voice darkened slightly. "Kind of a family thing."

"A family thing?" I pulled my arm free and stopped walking. "What do you mean?"

Eddy turned to face me. "A family thing. Morgan le Fay is..."

Mr. Duke appeared beside us. "Great game Moon. I had no idea you were a rugby player."

"Thanks, sir." Eddy bobbed his head. "Oh Mr. Duke, quick question, you like Elvis don't you?"

Mr. Duke frowned slightly, a half smile on his lips. "Well I do, but-"

"Did he have a catchphrase, or a nickname or something?"

"Catchphrase? No, not so much a nickname. More a title."

"What was it?"

Mr. Duke grinned, beginning to turn away. "They called him 'The King'. I'll see you later."

An enormous smile spread across Eddy's features. "You're so cool!" An odd noise issued from his throat. I shivered with pleasure when I realized it was a horribly mangled, Eddy Moon version of 'It's Now or Never.' His voice dropped to a murmur as his face dipped towards me.

I felt his breath on my skin and closed my eyes in anticipation, then half-opened them. "What was the thing about Morgan le Fay?"

Eddy paused his slow descent towards me. "Well I suppose, if you wanted one, an interpretation in the modern age might be to call Morgan my, um..." He bit his lip. "My kind of half sister."

# Epilogue

A silver-grey BMW slowed in a country lane, then stopped beside a farm gate. The engine died and the headlights blinked off. A tall woman with broad shoulders and long, grey-streaked hair got out of the driver's seat and moved around to the back door. She bent, then stood. Her left arm in a sling, the woman carefully held a baby wrapped in a shawl.

The woman closed the car doors, then opened the gate and made her way along the side of the field. Her steps seemed unsteady, and her progress was slow.

In time she reached the top of the small hill and sat down on the withered, winter grass. Placing the baby on the ground beside her, she pressed a hand to the soil and murmured. The baby turned its head and looked at her, curling its lip to reveal shining white teeth.

After a minute the woman lifted her hand. It glistened with water, as did the ground it had touched. Water pooled among the grass stems, then trickled down the hillside. A small spring had been born and it ran down the steep face of the hill in a narrow stream.

Where it ran it seemed to erode the ground. It cut a notch in the grass, revealing dark soil. The water sank into the space, deepening it further. The woman sat motionless, her eyes closed and both hands pressed flat to the earth. After an hour the cleft in the ground was six feet high and two feet across. Crumbs of soil and drops of water fell through it, into a space below the ground. The opening in the hillside grew into a gap the size of a narrow doorway and the woman took up the baby and stood.

Pale dawn light shone into the cavern. Small, low ceilinged, it held seven rough mattresses. Sleeping youths occupied five of them and two lay empty. The woman stepped into the cave and placed the baby onto one of the vacant berths. As it touched the blanket its eyes closed and its head lolled in sleep.

The woman stepped back out onto the hillside. The water stopped running and instantly the hillside, earth, roots and withered grass grew back over the opening. In three minutes it had disappeared and the woman returned to her car. She drove away from Windmill Hill, leaving its surface exactly as she found it.

THE END

# Note from jdfield

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed 'Song to Wake to'. The second book in the Levels series 'Rock Anthem' tells more of the story of Eddy and Madeleine and introduces more characters from Arthurian legend. 'Lullaby of Lies,' the third book, brings Maddie and Eddy's trilogy to an end, but also a new beginning. 'Reason to be Shy,' tells more Levels adventures. The fourth and fifth books set in their world will be released in 2013.

A second series, called 'The Water Book' is also available, and I've included the first chapter below.

Please check  http://jdfield.blogspot.com/p/quaravan-quartet-and-lost-ocean.html for links to all other works. Like <http://www.facebook.com/jdfieldstories> for more news. From time to time I will release 'deleted scenes' for free. If you would like to receive these, and news of other freebies, leave contact details here: <http://eepurl.com/oSQ8j>

I would love to know what you think about what you have read so far. Please email me at jdfield@jdfield.com, or tweet @jdfieldstories. If you have any questions -at all - about the characters, the story, its inspiration, or what's going to happen next, again, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you for reading.

Jdfield

# THE WATER BOOK

# Chapter 1 I Become Myself as I was at First

The two geeks led Fitch along the corridors of the university, swiping passes over a security scanner and passing admin offices and seminar rooms. Their matching cargo shorts flopped around their skinny legs and their sandals flapped on the tiled floor. Fitch stuttered his lope so he didn't run into the back of them. He had grown a foot in the eighteen months since he turned fourteen and he didn't know how his own body worked.

The three of them descended stairs until Fitch guessed they were a couple of floors underground. A dingy corridor with flickering strip lights led into a lab area, where the air smelled like sea water and fish. Through half open doors, ranks of aquariums glittered like crystal balls. The corridors narrowed and at another security check a guard with a camera photographed Fitch's irises.

They climbed more stairs then turned into a small lab, crowded with computers, sensors, readers, papers, and half a bicycle. Fitch scowled. "What a mess," he said, feeling better about his own shabby awkwardness. He caught sight of his reflection in the glass of an aquarium. His wrists flapped like the joints of an out-of-control crane, so Fitch tugged at the sleeves of his ratty sweatshirt, trying to cover them. His sweater was way too small, though, and he stopped tugging when he felt a seam tear at his shoulder.

"You're looking in the wrong direction," Geek One replied. "Turn around."

Fitch half lowered his eyelids, preparing himself to look totally unimpressed, then failed completely. A metre-square glass tank grabbed his attention from the middle of the room. In it, the size of a microwave oven and festooned with wires, was a brain.

"What in hell's name is that?" Fitch recognised the intricate ball of raw sausage links as a brain. What he didn't understand was how it could be so big, matching his torso from waist to shoulders.

Geek One smiled. "That's the biggest brain ever seen. On earth."

Geek Two rubbed at his beard. "Probably among the biggest brains ever existing."

Fitch put a hand to the cold glass and gasped. "It's an alien brain?"

"Nope."

"What is it? Who is it?"

###

Call me Emperor Batman of Byzantium, Prince Harry Potter, Martin Luther King of the World.

I decided to be born.

I heard my family telling stories of the world, blue and vast. So, like a bungee jumper from the bottom of the bounce, I jumped from my Mum. "Hello everything!"

Mum held me to the edge of the world and I gulped from it. Beyond the edge, the void stretched bright and cold and I laughed at it. I floated around Mum, then fed from her until she twitched away.

"Hey!" I thumped her in the side.

My cousin Murtaugh startled, watching me from behind the shelter of his mother's body. Aunt Oprah turned one deep-set eye on me. "Well then, so strong."

"So bold," rumbled Aunt Marge.

"Peesht!" I jerked my chin at them. "Who are you to tell me who I am?"

"Well, we're your family."

"And now we're keeping you safe."

They circled Mum and me, listening out for the packs that hunted the fatty tastiness of our babies, all bacon rinds and butter. I slipped away from Mum into the coolness of the twilight, but she pushed me away from the darkness, back to the edge that filled one entire side of the world with light. I laughed at it, then at Aunt Oprah as I fed from her.

"Mercutio!" Mum slid against me. "Be careful. There are hunters, out there. You must stay with the family. We'll look after you."

"I'll run away." I chuckled. "I'll hide."

Mum painted me a picture of big, sleek animals. "They're too quick. There's nowhere to hide, save beside your family."

I laughed, then, and through the days and months that followed. The Shire was poor, and the adults foraged most of the time, taking it in turns. Before leaving, the foraging party gulped great drafts from the edge and I skittered around them. When they departed I stayed in the glow of the edge with the other four kids and our babysitters. We fed from them, drank from the edge, and chased each other through our small circle of the world.

I scrapped with one-year-old Max, my twin in size, though six months older. I shoved him backwards.

"Mercutio, don't," he whimpered. "What have I done?"

He hadn't done anything, but he annoyed me. I flicked and picked at him until he ran. Bored, I followed.

Hermione, my half-sister, brushed my side. "Leave him alone." She showed me images of toothy ghosts waiting for him in the twilight. "He's your cousin." She slid against me, calming. "You don't want him to get hurt and it's your fault."

I turned on Murtaugh instead. "You shouldn't be feeding from the mothers! You're too big." At seven years old he was twice my size. "You're a lazy lump."

Murtaugh shouted and rushed, but I turned my smaller body tightly and bounced away towards the dark. From the edge Grandma Hilary called us back and Murtaugh disappeared. My habit, though, was to push at rules to see how far they'd bend. I reckoned I'd only do as Grandma said if I thought it was a good idea so I kept going. Starlight closed in and the world cooled and tightened a little harder. I had never been this far from the edge and the need to drink pulled at my lungs.

I heard adults returning from the darkness. "Mercutio!" Mum called from the distance. "What're you doing here?"

I turned and zoomed away from her voice, towards the light. When Mum arrived I was gulping from the edge. Grandma Hilary noticed I was back and spanked me, sending me spinning.

I bared my gums. "What?"

"The packs are never far off." She turned her long, lichen-mottled flank to me. "Look here." Grandma Hilary stretched half as long again as Mum. Curving seams furrowed her sides. "Hunting teeth made these."

"You should fight 'em," I yelled.

"Ah well, I fought," she said. "But they, well, they were many. I had a son. I fought and fought but I couldn't save him. They rode on his back and weighed him down." Grandma Hilary's voice faded. "I pushed them off, they slammed him. They wouldn't let him drink and he fell out of the world."

"I wouldn't give up! I'd kick 'em and bite 'em."

Around us my family's chatter built. They showed each other a cluster of torpedo-shaped beasts that swooped and looped but always arrowed toward us. Grandma Hilary turned to listen, then swung back to me. "Brave are you? And how old?"

"I'm six months, but bigger than-"

"Whatever. We'll see what you're made of."

"What's happening?" I asked.

"Well then." She fixed me with a gleaming, deep set eye. "A hunting pack is coming."

###

Fitch scrolled up two pages to the line "a hunting pack is coming." He stared at the computer screen and shook his head. "A hunting pack?" Stabbing one forefinger at the delete key he erased the words.

Fitch searched his imagination for a feeling like that of little Mercutio listening to his grandmother. After a moment he typed "a wolf pack is coming," then leaned back in the rickety office chair and rubbed his eyes. He felt like throwing the computer screen through the window.

"What a load of bollocks," he said, then glanced around, checking to see if anybody heard him. Papers, books, files and half eaten tacos covered the four desks behind him, but the geeks were probably waiting at the door. Anna had given them strict instructions not to interrupt him while he transcribed the brain waves. The silence soothed him after an hour of someone else's thoughts playing through his head.

He pressed print and sighed as he lifted the transmitter cap from his scalp. A spider's web of slender wires studded with hundreds of tiny contact points, it squeezed a little, like wearing a too-tight swim hat. Beside the computer a second screen showed the brain waves it played. Paused now, they froze in a spray of coloured arcs. Fitch noted the point he had reached, A7sector/sector98.6.yt, in case they wanted him to transcribe more. He shook his head at his optimism. The Geeks were annoying but leaving them would be a loss.

Standing up, he banged his knee on the side of the desk and swore. The printer whirred and pushed four pages of typescript into a half eaten sandwich in the tray. Why did the geeks have to be so messy? Fitch's stomach lurched with hunger as he caught a whiff of garlic sausage from the sandwich. He considered taking a quick bite. Better not. It could have been there days.

As he stepped around a chair he knocked his head on a projecting shelf. The door flew open.

"What's wrong?" Anna stepped into the room, her blonde hair swinging beneath her ears as she looked around.

"Nothing." Fitch rubbed at his shaved head. "Done it." He held the four pages towards her. "It's rubbish but you promised me two months work and you've got to pay me whatever, so it's not my problem."

Anna dropped into the nearest office chair, excitement showing pink in her tanned cheeks. Fitch tried to prop himself casually on a desk edge, but the patches on the knees of his jeans seemed to blare, like badly tuned instruments.

Anna flicked through the papers and Fitch gritted his teeth. In his mind he had already spent the money she said she would pay him for a summer of transcribing brainwaves. He had portioned it out to the last cent. Clothes that fit him. A computer to write his own stories on. Bus fares and sandwich money that would allow him to escape his foster family. Books, trips to the movies where he could sit alone, unbothered, distracted under the screen. All his imaginary treasures had disappeared as he typed out nonsense. "The edge," he muttered to himself. "The darkness?"

Anna looked up at him. "It's brilliant, fantastic, fantastic." She jumped to her feet, and wrapped both slim arms around him in a tight hug.

Fitch went rigid. "What are you doing?" Since his mother died he had encouraged hugs from nobody.

She stepped away and frowned. "I am very pleased with the work you have done. It is a successful job and so I have shown my appreciation for you and your work by giving you a warm hug."

"You what?" Fitch shook his head at her emotionless description. "You're so weird."

"Hey!" A voice came from the doorway. The other two geeks crowded through it.

"You're not at school. We don't talk like that here." Geek One pulled at his beard.

"You think so." Fitch glared at him. "Well she should tell me the truth."

"Who, Anna?" Geek Two adjusted his spectacles. "Anna can only tell you the truth."

Geek One nodded. "What did she say?"

Fitch nodded towards the papers that Anna was rereading, completely ignoring their discussion.

"She said it's brilliant. But it's a load of old bollocks. He thinks he's Martin Luther King AND the emperor of Byzantium AND Batman."

"MLK I get." Geek One turned to Geek Two.

"What's Byzantium?"

"Byzantium!" Fitch snorted. "Was the Eastern Roman empire, but-"

Anna stood up. "Fitch. You are confused about the desired outcome of your work. This is making you nervous and, and, hostile."

"See, stop talking so weird."

Anna flinched.

"Fitch!" snapped Geek One.

Fitch shook his head. "Sorry." He tried to placate them by being enthusiastic. "Can I see it again? Will you tell me where the brain is from?"

"Have you time?" Anna looked from one geek to the other.

"I suppose." Geek One swapped papers with Geek Two. "Come on." He jerked his head at Fitch without looking up from the sheet he held.

This time Anna led the way to the lab, along the long corridors and through the security checks. She dressed like she was going out on a boat, deck shoes, shorts and tank top and talked over her shoulder as she walked. "The brainwaves, patterned into emotions and impressions, that we played you. Was it like listening, or, or feeling?"

Fitch thought for a moment. "It's like seeing."

"Good. We told you the patterns were collected from an inactive brain. We generated them by stimulating the brain with standard electronic prompts."

Geek One, who might have been the computer expert, nodded rapidly. "Electronic prompts, that mimic the brainwave activity of questions."

"You're scooping memories from a madman's brain in a jar, is what you mean," Fitch said.

Anna nodded. "Might be mad, yes, but man, no."

The Geeks snickered, then quietened as they turned into the Marine Neuro-science Laboratory.

Fitch looked at the brain in the tank. "Wait..." he struggled to remember the brain question from a game show he once saw. "The biggest brain in the world. Is it an elephant?"

"Nope."

Fitch rubbed his thumb across his knuckles. He didn't want to ask them what it was. "It must be a whale. A blue whale?"

"Closer, but still no."

Behind the geek a photo on the wall depicted a massive, square-headed whale with dark, wrinkled skin and small flippers. The vertical front to its head - like the front of a truck - reminded Fitch of Monstro, the whale in the Disney Pinocchio movie. A head like that had to hold a huge brain. "Ha!" he said. "A sperm whale!"

He looked back to brain as a shaft of light sneaked between the blinds in the small window. It hit the tank and splintered at the strange prismatic qualities of whatever gel the brain rested in. A complete spectrum of light scattered through the tank, bathing little Mercutio's beachball-sized brain in all the colours of the rainbow.
