No one answered when Daniel rang the doorbell. He could hear the gentle thump of music inside and the murmur of voices, like the sea in his ears. He rolled a rhombus of stone with the toe of his trainer, wondering whether to leave. And then a sash window lifted on the first floor of the house and Bennett stuck out his head and smiled, waving him round the back, the music rolling out into the night air.
‘The back gate’s open!’ he shouted down, and before Daniel could give a reply he was gone.
The kitchen was full of warm bodies and smoke and conversation so earnest that nobody really noticed Daniel. He slipped through the noise like a ghost as people parted for him and then closed ranks again without quite seeming to know why as they went on talking and laughing.
The kitchen island was sticky and covered with green bottles of beer like stalagmites sprouted out of the wood. Swollen cigarette butts were floating inside some of them like the ends of fingers snipped off. Daniel picked up a giant pretzel from a bowl full of them and bit into it and suddenly felt like a five-year-old as the crumbs sprayed everywhere and he tried to catch them with his hand.
He thought he heard someone laughing as he brushed them off his chest and he remembered what was written about him on the toilet wall at school.
When a hand squeezed his shoulder, he knew it belonged to Bennett so he didn’t say anything and just looked up and smiled as the pretzel churned into a dry, doughy ball in his mouth.
Bennett’s eyes were browner than normal. And the flecks in them seemed to be on fire. Daniel wondered what he had been taking as he swallowed hard to clear the pretzel.
‘More people came than my brother thought,’ said Bennett and he swigged from his bottle, his lips popping off the rim and the beer washing like surf against the glass. ‘I’m glad you made it. I thought maybe your aunt might not let you come. Did you talk to her?’
‘No. She wasn’t in. But I thought about what you said. I left her a note.’
‘A note! What did it say?’
‘Nothing.’ Daniel was already regretting mentioning it. When Bennett smiled, it was too big. His eyes seemed to pop. He reached for a beer and hoiked off the cap and handed it to Daniel, the brown rim still smoking.
‘Where’s your mum?’ asked Daniel.
‘She took “little sister” away for some horsey thing.’
‘Point-to-point?’
‘What?’
‘Right.’ And Daniel just nodded and looked away.
‘So? This note?’
‘I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Tell me about it now.’
‘It’s not really the time.’
‘Sure it is.’
‘There’s too many people.’
‘Well, let’s go somewhere else.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Daniel took a big swig of beer and then another when he saw Bennett still staring. ‘It’s a party. I probably just need to relax.’ He clinked his bottle against Bennett’s and it made an awkward off-key sound as Bennett swayed and his bottle moved with him. ‘You said there might be something going on tonight that could help.’
Bennett brightened. ‘Absolutely. There’s a girl you need to meet. A friend of my brother’s. She was in charge of stuff at his last party. I’ve already told her about you.’
Her name was Amanda. Her black bob had an edge as sharp as the blade of a kitchen knife. She was way older than Daniel. Early twenties. It was as though she was made from a different sort of material from him. Her dress was black and clung to her like it had been painted on. Her plastic see-through shoes were strappy and sunset-coloured with laces that wound round her shins almost to her knees.
‘Bennett’s a dick when he’s drunk,’ said Daniel after he had left them and they had smiled and said hello and listened to the conversations around them for long enough to make the silence between them uncomfortably loud.
Amanda laughed. ‘I don’t really know him so I’ll take your word for it. He’s very fond of you though. Told me all about your troubles. About your accident and your dad.’
Daniel nodded. ‘Life hasn’t been great lately.’ He figured that would be the end of the conversation. But, instead of wandering off or looking round the room for somebody more interesting to talk to, she cocked her head to one side.
‘Bennett said you’ve been doing some weird stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like psychic stuff.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘He said I should ask you about it. I’m into that kind of thing.’ She tapped her nails against the wine glass she was holding and Daniel noticed they were as black as space.
‘I think Bennett’s making stuff up to make me sound more interesting than I am.’
But Amanda didn’t smile.
‘I get a feeling about people, you know. I can’t get a read on you though. Like you’re hiding something.’ She reached out a hand and then stopped. ‘Can I?’
Before Daniel could reply, Amanda had placed her hand on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Daniel checked to see if anyone was watching, but no one was. The beer made everything warm around the edges. He felt Amanda squeeze harder and then she opened her eyes and shook her head.
‘Damn!’
‘What?’
‘I must have drunk too much.’ Her laugh was harsh and sparkling, like a frost. She raked a set of fingers through her hair and it fell back into place exactly like a curtain. ‘You’re staying for a while, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good.’
And then she turned round and left him standing on his own as she pushed a path between the crowd in the room.
Daniel kept looking for her from time to time, intrigued by whatever she had in mind, and by what Bennett had mentioned had happened at the last party. But he gave up believing she might come back after he had drunk another beer. Someone offered him a puff on a joint because he was standing in a ring and he took a sweet lungful and held it as long as he could, then breathed out through his nostrils like a dragon and handed it on.
When someone asked about his dad, he just shrugged and said it would all be fine. It wasn’t his voice, but he was happy to let someone else inside him do the talking for a change and he watched the joint go round and licked his lips as it came close again.
A hand slipped into his.
The cold fingers shocked him.
When he looked up, Amanda was already turning round and pulling him away from the others. The soles of his feet were like suckers for a moment as he opened his mouth and then closed it, and then he peeled them up off the floor and went with her, walking in the wake of her perfume. Faces swam as he passed them and he thought he heard someone shouting his name, but the voice seemed to come from nowhere.
She led him upstairs into a master bedroom where other people sitting on the floor looked up as if they’d been waiting for him.
Bennett was sitting on the bed, grinning, toasting him with a half-empty bottle of vodka. The arm holding him up was wobbly and drunk, the elbow clicking out every now and then as if he was on a waterbed, threatening to make him collapse. Amanda shut the door. Daniel nodded at Bennett’s brother who was sitting in the corner with a pretty-looking woman, not paying much attention to anyone else.
‘Let’s get this PK party started,’ announced Amanda.
As Daniel looked around, he realized that everyone else had a piece of cutlery beside them. Spoons. Forks. Knives. The light flared in spots, catching the different metal stems as people picked them up.
Amanda handed him a fork, folding his fingers round the elegant silver handle. He held on tight because a thought was blipping in his head, telling him he would fall over otherwise. He knew it was the joint. The smoke he had inhaled earlier still seemed to be inside him, wafting round his head and making him unsteady.
‘We all need to make an emotional peak,’ said Amanda. ‘That’s how it happens.’
‘What?’ Daniel found himself asking.
‘The freaky stuff!’ shouted Bennett’s brother. Bennett cheered and swigged from his bottle of vodka, then passed it to the girl next to him on the bed.
‘Psychokinetic events for those of you who haven’t done this before,’ said Amanda and she smiled at Daniel. ‘People got together for parties in the eighties to prove that we all have psychic energy. They called them PK parties and did all this whacked-out stuff, bending spoons, metal objects. All with the power of the mind.’
‘So that means we all have psychic energy,’ said Bennett and Daniel could see he was speaking directly to him. ‘We’re all the same. Some people just tap into it better than others.’
‘Precisely.’ Amanda held out the spoon in her hand and stared at it. ‘All of us have to be focused on making something happen. Anyone who doesn’t want to be here, who doesn’t believe that anything out of what we call the ordinary is possible, should leave.’
Everyone looked at everyone else, daring them to get up and go. Bennett was grinning, his lips loaded with a comment for anyone who might leave, but no one seemed to want to. Not even Daniel. He gripped the fork harder.
‘Everyone’s got to think positively,’ said Amanda. ‘We don’t want negative energy. It’s not about bending the spoon or the fork in your hand, it’s about harnessing the energy inside you and seeing what it can do. It’s called a kindergarten experience. If the metal bends, it’s just a way of showing you how powerful your mind really is.’
When the giggling died away, the thump of the music downstairs seemed to hit Daniel harder in the soles of his feet. He was the only one standing up. He licked his lips and remembered what Amanda had said, that no one should be negative. So he closed his eyes to try and concentrate, and saw Amanda’s face in the dark of him, smiling at how hard he was trying. He knew he was smiling too, a goofy one, because he wanted Amanda to like him, so he tried being as positive as he could.
He heard a gasp somewhere outside of him and it broke his eyelids open. He saw a girl sitting on the floor with a spoon in her outstretched hand, the bowl starting to soften as if someone was pushing it inside out.
Amanda was beaming. ‘Everyone keep positive. Shout. Holler. Make some noise!’
Bennett was staring at the spoon and then his eyes flickered to Daniel and he nodded and then he whooped. Other people in the room started making noises too. Daniel whooped as well. He shouted, feeling invigorated by the energy in the room. He opened himself up and the energy centred itself in his chest where it sat, warm and golden. As he looked around, he watched things starting to happen . . .
. . . a boy was sat against the wall with a spoon, its bowl crimped . . .
. . . on the bed, Bennett was crushing his fork into a tiny ball . . .
. . . some girl yelled as she tied a knot in the floppy stem of her spoon.
Everyone was shouting, like some ancient sect in a glorious act of worship. Somebody pointed and Daniel saw that the fork in his hand was droopy like a parched flower. He smiled at the apparent magic of it all. He wished he could bottle whatever was in this room and take it to his father and administer it to him like a medicine.
He reached out to Amanda and drew her close.
‘Tell everyone to think about my dad,’ he whispered. ‘Please. Let’s see if they can help him too. He’s very ill. I need their help.’
Amanda nodded and announced it to the room, pointing at Daniel as she spoke. ‘This is Daniel. He’s had a terrible time. Some of you might have heard about it. His dad’s very ill. In a coma. If we try and visualize him, maybe we can help him. Do something good and bend more than just spoons and forks.’
Bennett cheered and so did his brother. Others applauded.
When Daniel felt the energy building in the room again he opened himself up to it as much as he could and he felt a surge through his body. It was so strong and sudden it made him gasp and arch his back. The noise in the bedroom became mangled and distorted. There was no golden warmth in his chest, but an immediate burning sensation. He heard a ticking sound in his head.
He started shouting at people to stop, but everyone was looking up and grinning and nodding as his voice came out distorted, in a long, low moan.
‘Concentrate!’ shouted Amanda. ‘No sceptics. We all have to believe and help Daniel’s dad.’ She started chanting Daniel’s name and other people joined in.
The panic in Daniel’s chest was something distinct now, like fingers scrabbling to get at his heart, scraping through the skin and grating at the ribs. The ticking in his head was louder than he remembered it being when Lawson had tried to take the fit too far. Daniel was scared. He knew what was going to happen even before it did.
Suddenly, the ticking stopped and he was full of something pure and cold.
He heard a snap like someone stepping on a twig, so loud he thought something had broken inside him until he saw a girl sitting on the floor, screaming and holding her broken forearm to her chest.
Other arms started snapping too. Like someone had thrown firecrackers into the room. All the shouting and noise gave way to screams and crying.
Amanda was moaning, her arms held aloft, moving them around like two flippers as she looked at the faces staring back. The broken tips of the bones in her right forearm had penetrated the skin. Her other forearm was lumpen below the elbow, swollen and misshapen where the bone was broken.
Daniel leant back against the wall. The pain in his chest was gone, but there was an empty, sore feeling. He took a sip from someone’s bottle of beer and rinsed his mouth around to try and flush out the bad taste in his mouth.
Bennett was white-faced. He was glancing over at Daniel as he and his older brother ushered people out of the room.
Daniel heard clicking sounds as someone took a photo on their phone.
Bennett’s brother crouched beside Amanda, speaking to her, stroking her hair, and Daniel realized there must be something between them. And he felt a fool for some reason he could not pin down.
And then Bennett’s brother was standing up and holding Daniel tight by the arm.
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t—’
‘Look what you did to her, you freak!’ Flecks of spit flew off his lips as Bennett tried to drag his brother away. ‘If your dad dies then I reckon you deserve it.’
Daniel ripped his arm free and pounded down the stairs as he heard Bennett calling after him.
Once he was outside, he walked quickly away from the house, gulping in the night air to cool him down. He passed a fence overgrown with clematis, the yellow flowers like a collection of tiny, faded stars. He stopped to breathe their perfume and tried to let it wash away what had just happened. But Daniel’s mind was sharp and quick now as the night air nipped at his neck. It began to play tricks, telling him people had known what he’d done. He heard the click of a camera phone and saw a picture of him shouting as everyone stared back. He heard Bennett’s brother again: ‘. . . you freak.’
Daniel sat down on the low wall bordering a garden with the dark against his back and the street lights throwing down an orange haze. He thought long and hard about Amanda and the others, telling himself over and over again that he couldn’t have known what would happen. That he had not done anything on purpose.