2

September held the object in her hand. It looked like a pebble but she was sure it was not simply a piece of rock, more like a chunk of smoky glass. It was oval, about four centimetres long, a centimetre less in width and its thickness varying like a lens. It could have been a pendant, she thought, but there were no marks of a clasp. She put it down on her dressing table-cum-desk and finished getting ready for bed. Standing in her sleep-shirt and knickers she picked the object up again. It felt smooth and cool, like glass, except that it was opaque. Well, that was the odd thing. The surface seemed clear but the interior was cloudy. She thought it was quite pretty.

She looked out of the window in front of her. The sky was black and there were no clouds to reflect the city lights. The Moon had risen above the rooftops, casting its silver-blue radiance over the gardens below. A few stars out-shone the streetlights. September lifted the glass pebble and stared into it. It caught the moon beams and seemed to sparkle for a moment. The cloudiness seemed to move like mists swirling away on a cold morning.

“Are you ready for bed, Ember?” The call came up the stairs and September immediately felt her hairs rise on her neck and her cheeks flush. Why did Mother still treat her like a child, checking that she was settling down? In another two weeks she would be sixteen. Surely she could decide when it was time to go to bed. The feeling quickly passed. She’d grown up with Mother’s attention. She seemed to fuss over September more than over her sisters and brother, but perhaps that was just because she was the youngest. The bedtime call was one of Mother’s little rituals. Mother liked ritual and orderliness; that was why she still went to chapel every week. The rest of the family copied Dad’s atheistic laziness on Sundays.

“Yes, Mum,” she replied.

She dropped the pebble into her pencil case and climbed onto the top bunk. During term time she had the choice of beds but in college vacations, Julie exerted her rightful choice as the next older sister. School had only just begun again after the summer holiday but Julie was away with her friends. September pulled the duvet up round her neck and waited for the inevitable tap on the door. It came moments later, followed by the door opening and a head appearing in the gap. None of her teachers or friends ever failed to recognise September’s mother. Both of them had white hair that looked almost blue in some lights. September now had hers cut short but Mother’s flowed in waves to her shoulders. Their faces too were similarly round, with pink cheeks, short up-turned nose and wide pale blue eyes, and both had the same build, short with broad hips and a tendency to plumpness.

Mother smiled at her.

“Everything done, love?”

September sighed; another of Mother’s rituals. Homework and getting qualifications was a top priority.

“Yes, Mum.”

“No problems today?” She didn’t say more, didn’t need to. They both knew that hardly a day went by without a bit of name-calling or worse. There was always a knot of fear in September’s chest when she was out of the house, a nervous apprehension of what other girls and boys may do or say when they saw her. Snowy! Fatty! Or they ridiculed her stupid name. Teachers were hardly better, always assuming she was an idiot as she blushed and stumbled over answers. But today had been bearable and she was trying to be grown up and not run to Mother every time something went wrong.

“No, it was alright.”

“Well, sleep well darling,” Mother paused looking out of the window, “Do you want the curtains drawn?”

“No thanks. It’s a full Moon and I love the moonlight in my room.”

“Ah, yes, the Moon.” Mother seemed wistful for a moment but then recovered, “Shall I turn your light off, love?” There was a lamp on the desk beside the bed but the switch for the main light was by the door.

“Yes, please.”

“’Night, love. God bless.” The head withdrew and the light went off as the door was pulled closed.

“Night, Mum.” September rested her head on her pillow, and lay in the dark absentmindedly rubbing the slightly raised birth mark on her right hip while listening as the steps padded along the landing. There was the muffled sound of another exchange at Gus’ door but Mother had been persuaded not to burst in on her son as he prepared for bed. Heaven knows what went on in a teenage boy’s bedroom. He might have been two years older than September but maturity didn’t correlate with years. Then there was the sound of Mum and Dad’s bedroom door closing. Her other three sisters lived in their own homes.

September slipped from under the duvet and gently lowered herself from the bunk. She picked the pebble from her pencil case and caressed it in her hand. She had found it while rummaging for a paper clip in a drawer in the living room. It seemed more like the stone had found her because she had never seen it before and she must have looked in that same drawer hundreds of times. It was so distinctive it would have caught her attention if it had been anywhere in the house. Resting on her hand, just visible in the pale moonlight, it still looked dull and opaque.

She glanced out of the window. The Moon looked so big against the roofs, much bigger than it usually looked when it was higher in the sky. The stars around it had been rendered invisible by the greater light, but now the whole sky elsewhere was filled with starlight. She lifted the pebble up and lined it up with her eye and the Moon. The cloud seemed to swirl as before but this time the mists started to clear. They formed a whirlpool that spun and faded as if falling down a plughole. September stared in wonder. What strange trick of the light was this? The glass cleared and just for a moment she saw an image of the Moon surrounded by brilliant stars clearer than seen through the window.

The light came like a breaking wave, silver-blue like the moon and starlight but much brighter. It burst through the stone like a tsunami through a port-hole, forcing September to turn her head, squint and hold her hand up to shield her eyes. The surf of light broke over her; a deluge of blue-white luminosity engulfed her and she was immersed in dancing beams and droplets of light. The room disappeared in the dazzling illumination. September staggered; her sense of balance shaken. Up and down lost meaning. Her head spun. She reached out to steady herself on the desk but her hand found nothing. She fell to her knees.