7

“Lily, is that you? You’ve got to help me. You won’t believe what’s happening.”

“Maisie?”

The sound of my sister’s voice on the end of the telephone line is all echoey and strange.

“Lily, where are you?” I sob, trying hard to stop myself from losing it completely. “When I woke up there was nobody here. Mum, Dad, you – you’d all left me behind and I don’t know what’s going on any more.”

On the other end of the line I hear Lily whisper a word that would get her in so much trouble with Mum.

“Things are getting really weird here, Lily. Everything’s gone. The world outside’s just disappeared and all that’s left is this darkness. And I think it’s coming to get me.” Tears stream down my face as the words rush out of me in a torrent. “I don’t even know what’s real any more. I’m trapped in this nightmare and I don’t know how to get out.”

“Maisie.” Lily’s voice sounds even further away now, a distorting crackle on the line making me strain to catch what she’s saying. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to put things ri—”

A high-pitched electronic whine cuts her words off mid-sentence, the screeching sound so painful I have to pull the phone away from my ear. Then this electronic whine is cut off too. Quickly, I put the phone back to my ear.

“Lily, are you still there?”

There’s no reply. Not even a dial tone. Just an empty silence that stretches on forever.

I can’t stop myself from sobbing as I press redial.

Please, Lily, come back.

But the line stays dead, not even the sound of an automated voice this time.

With a frustrated howl I slam the phone back into its base, the impact causing the figurine on the edge of the table to teeter and fall. Realising my mistake I lunge forward to try and catch the blue-glass cat, its tear-shaped tail pointing upwards as it tumbles through space. But I’m too late, the figurine smashing into pieces as it hits the wooden floor.

I stare at the broken statue, tears still running down my face.

This was Mum’s favourite. Dad bought it for her from a flea market when they first got married. She says this is what made her start collecting her little glass cats.

And now it’s smashed to bits.

I’m in so much trouble.

Then I laugh. It’s only a hollow laugh, but the way I’m feeling right now, any kind of laugh seems like a miracle.

With everything that’s happening, breaking Mum’s favourite figurine is the least of my worries.

On the polished floorboards the broken pieces of glass still seem to be moving, a trembling motion that makes me think for a second that the whole house is shaking. But as I look around, everything else in the room is completely still. It’s just these broken pieces of blue glass that can’t seem to stop shivering.

With a frightened fascination I watch as the shattered fragments slowly start to piece themselves back together, the chips and shards of glass scattering in reverse as the broken figurine takes shape again.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing as the blue-glass cat jumps into the air, rising as swiftly as it fell and landing with a teeter on the table. For a second, it trembles, then stops, the feline figurine miraculously restored.

With a shaking hand I reach out to touch the cat. Its blue-glass tail feels smooth to the touch, not a single flaw or crack to be seen. Moments ago this was smashed to pieces on the floor and now it’s perfect again.

I don’t understand what’s happening. First those black blobs erasing the kitchen and now this blue-glass cat turning back time. My house has turned into a palace of impossibility.

Then I remember the time when me and Lily tried to make Mum a birthday cake. It was in the Christmas holidays last year. Mum’s birthday is on the twenty-eighth of December, slap bang between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Mum always says this is the worst time ever to have a birthday, but it does make it cheaper to buy her a present in the Boxing Day sales.

Anyway, Dad had made sure Mum was safely out of the way and Lily and I were busy baking in the kitchen. I say we were busy baking, but all we’d done so far was pull almost every ingredient out of the cupboards while we argued about what kind of cake we were going to make. In the end we’d agreed on a chocolate cake and Lily had started mixing the butter and sugar in a bowl.

I was supposed to be beating the eggs, but I hadn’t even got them out of the fridge. I’d got distracted by this book Mrs Bradbury had given me for Christmas. It was called A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. With a title like that, I’d thought it was going to be some completely boring book about the history of clocks, but it was actually all about the Big Bang, black holes and how the universe works. It was the best book I’d ever read.

I was leaning against the fridge with my head stuck in Chapter Seven, reading about entropy and the arrow of time when the sound of Lily’s voice pulled me out of its pages.

“Maisie!”

I looked up to see Lily standing by the mixing bowl with a scowl on her face.

“What?”

“The eggs,” she said with a theatrical sigh.

She sounded really annoyed at me already and we’d only just started making the cake. Dad had said it would be nice for us to do something together for Mum, but I didn’t think it was going to be much fun if Lily was just going to order me around.

Reaching inside the fridge, I pulled out a box of eggs. My brain was still buzzing with the part of the book I’d just been reading and, as I looked at the eggbox, an idea jumped into my head. A way I could finally make Lily understand just how totally amazing science is. Opening the box I took out an egg, but as Lily held out her hand for it, I asked her a question instead.

“What’s this egg made of?”

Lily looked at me like I was stupid.

“It’s an egg, Maisie. It’s made out of egg.”

I shook my head

“No, you don’t understand,” I said, ignoring the look of irritation on Lily’s face. “It’s made out of atoms. Everything’s made out of atoms. But in this egg all the atoms are arranged in a particular way.”

Then I dropped the egg.

Lily gasped in shock as it smashed on the floor.

“Maisie!”

“Don’t worry,” I quickly said, looking down at the yolky mess. Broken shards of eggshell were now scattered across the floor. “I’ll clean it up. But take a look at the egg, Lily. What’s it made of now?”

Lily sighed, just like she always does whenever I try and get her interested in science.

“Atoms,” she said, her voice a dull monotone. “It’s still made out of atoms.”

“Exactly,” I replied, feeling excited that Lily understood. “It’s made of exactly the same atoms as before, but they’re arranged differently now.”

“Yeah,” Lily said. “It’s broken and now you’re going to have to clean it up.”

“I know,” I said. “But there were so many different ways in which the egg could break. When the egg was whole, its atoms were arranged in a highly organised way, but now they’re just disorganised and random. The entropy of the egg has increased.”

Lily frowned as she stared at the eggy mess that was splattered on the floor. “What’s entropy?”

“Entropy is how random and disordered something is,” I said excitedly. “In the universe, entropy is always increasing. Eggs break, glasses smash, stars burn themselves out. We never see the broken bits of eggshell stick themselves together again to form a perfect egg. There’s nothing in the laws of science to say this can’t happen, but the chances that each atom could arrange itself in the exact same position as before are so infinitesimally small, you’d probably have to wait until the universe ends before you saw this happen.”

I stood there grinning as I waited for Lily to realise how amazing this is, but my sister just shook her head.

“The universe is going to end before we finish making this cake if you keep on dropping the eggs. Stop messing about, Maisie, and clean up this mess.”

Sitting on the sofa in the empty living room, Lily’s words echo in my mind. I stare at the blue-glass figurine, the crystal cat now restored to perfection.

The universe must have ended.

That’s why I’m on my own.

An unstoppable wave of anger and rage rises up inside me. I won’t let this happen. I want the universe back in the right place. I want a world that obeys the rules.

I want my family back.

With a flailing hand, I sweep the cat off the table.

The figurine falls, tumbling through the air until it hits the floor and smashes into pieces again. This time, I don’t give it a second chance. Picking up the remote control from the sofa I bring it down on the broken pieces of glass again and again and again. I feel my fingers cut as I pound the splintered shards into dust, the sharp stabs of pain proving to me that this is real, even though I don’t want it to be.

The remote control finally slips from my hand, my anger leaving me breathless as I stare down at the shattered figurine. You can’t even tell it was a cat any more; the blue splinters of glass are scattered like fractals across the floor.

I want Mum to run into the room right now to see what I’ve done – to shout at me, to scream at me. I wouldn’t even care if she hit me for smashing up her crystal cat. I just want to see her again.

Still sobbing, I climb slowly to my feet, but then through my tears I see my very worst fear.

The TV screen is still blank, but this blackness now looks much darker than before – the same darkness that I first saw when I opened the front door. And it’s getting bigger.

I back away, the broken glass crunching beneath my bare feet but I don’t even feel it as I stare spellbound at the screen.

Our TV has only got a 32-inch display – Lily’s always moaning at Mum and Dad to get a bigger one – but this growing rectangle of darkness must be at least twice that size now. It’s as though the living-room wall is turning into an indoor cinema screen and it’s showing the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

The bookcase in the corner, the pictures on the mantelpiece, even the mantelpiece itself – everything is being erased by this absolute blackness. And then it starts moving towards me.

It’s difficult to tell this at first. The creeping darkness is almost two-dimensional as the walls start to slowly fold in on themselves. I stare at this impossibility, an abyss now gaping on every side of me. I’m trapped – just like the photons of light lost in the Vantablack. And as the darkness reaches out I know that if it touches me, I’ll be lost too.

Spinning around, I see the only sliver of reality that’s left – the door that leads to the hall. Desperately I lunge towards it, barging the door open with a bang as I skid out into the hallway. My bare feet slip on the polished floorboards as I scramble forward, trying to put as much space as possible between myself and this onrushing tide of emptiness as it washes reality away.

As I reach the bottom of the stairs I glance towards the front door, praying that it stays shut. In the tinted-glass arch at the top each segment of glass is now stained black. It’s almost like the house doesn’t have to pretend any more. There’s no way I can stop it. The outside is coming in.

I scramble up the stairs, the darkness now lapping at my heels. My heart is pounding in my chest, every snatched breath a desperate prayer that I’ll make it to the top. There’s nowhere else left to go.

I’m almost there, the top of the stairs a single step away. I can see that the bathroom door is open, the polished white tiles inside a stark contrast to the absolute blackness that’s behind me.

I can’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder, just to make sure that I’m safe. And that’s when I slip, the trailing hem of my dressing gown snagging on the broken carpet runner that Mum’s been nagging Dad to get fixed.

I hit the landing with a thump. Winded, I glance back to see flecks of black foam only a few centimetres away. The stairs are gone – all that’s left is an empty void that stretches on forever.

I don’t even have time to get to my feet.

Lunging forward, I scramble across the landing, feeling the cold shock of the porcelain tiles beneath my hands and feet as I reach the bathroom. The infinite darkness surges behind me, erasing the space where I was only seconds before. I kick out with my last ounce of strength, my foot connecting to slam the bathroom door shut as I collapse sobbing on the floor.