AARON FELT IT for the first time, a pulsing at the back of his skull, firm pressure between his eyes. A throbbing ache behind his ear, low ringing. He’d made a call the night before, half believing nothing would come of it, only to wake up with sensation invading his head. An answer. There were others. He called again during breakfast, his mum fussing around as usual, and felt three stronger replies from three directions. The back of his skull, between his eyes, behind his right ear. He relaxed into the warm, steady pulsation, chewing until there was nothing left but lonely oat kernels, Mum going on about him doing the housework while she was at the hospital, Aaron ignoring every word.
He should have known what to expect before he got there, might have if he’d thought about it harder, but he’d been more concerned with his own nerves alongside the jarring pain of the too-bright, too-loud veneer of normality, a glistening, shifting bubble on all sides. The cheap glow of budget clothing stores. The counterfeit stall selling defrosted E-number cakes they claimed were organic and homemade. The row of fruit and veg stalls, the lightweight shack of the CD hut, its walls thin black material, rippling as the masses walked by. People, too many, too fast or slow, darting through gaps in the crowd or halting right in front of him until he swore and sped past the lurching granny sideways on, guilty for subscribing to group consensus. He hated the old center during the day.
It was almost a relief to swerve into the pissy-oasis of the car park entrance, a small enclave leading to oil-dark steps. He climbed past two olders, hunch necked, puffing a ripe blunt, smoke and urine filling his head, making Aaron cough, them stare. He trotted upward until he met swing doors, pushing into the expanse of the first floor. Breathed deep, tasting exhaust fumes, smog. Sighed. He wandered across concrete, taking the steep incline of driveways instead, up and up until he reached the sixth floor.
They stood by thin railings looking at the streets. The downturned meringue peaks of the bus station awning, the glass underground entrance and panoramic Westfield steps, the six times removed hum of the crowd. There were three, of course. Two girls, one boy. It took a moment before he clocked that he knew them. Not well, not to talk with, just from around. Live anywhere your whole life and you’re bound to see the same faces, Groundhog Day for real, only less dramatic, more tedious. Crossing the street to the corner store, standing in line for Maccy D’s, sitting rows from each other on the bus. Only one he’d ever wished he could talk to, or thought about longer than the time it took to walk by. But he knew all three as surely as the silent boasts of tags on street signs, or missing digital letters on the countdown. They all belonged to the bits, were all home.
The tall kid wore a school blazer, was lanky and broad with a face like a pinched raisin, the lopsided mini-Afro of a younger. The ’fro looked like a disabled black dorsal fin, making his screw face infantile: a man’s aggression beneath a toddler’s hairstyle. Aaron stifled a laugh. The girl was short and BRIT Award thin, a few years older than himself, blond hair tied back, falling to her waist, brown leather jacket with bare zips, sensible shirt, trousers, and flat shoes, the dark rings of a part-time weed smoker around her eyes. He’d seen her going in and out of the dentist’s opposite his GP’s surgery for long enough to assume she worked there. She was hard-faced and gaunt, smoking a withering fag, looking more like thirty than the early twenties she really was.
The other girl was a manifestation of dreams. Tall as Aaron, tight storm cloud jeans betraying a curve of hips, snug roll-necked gray top tucked in at the beltless waist, as gorgeous above as below. Aaron saved the best for last, after he’d taken in the rest—deep brown skin, unblinking eyes, lips maintaining a perpetual pout. The slim denim jacket, blue LDN fitted and rare matching Nikes that told the world she was not only down but prided herself on originality. Normally the type he sneered at inside his head knowing he felt unworthy, except she was here and that made her different from the others, a woman of substance rather than image.
All three lived within a square mile and passed each other randomly at least once a week, possibly more.
He approached, only really seeing her, heart leaping at the odds of her being one of them. The others lost clarity and focus, becoming peripheral. He was smiling, and she noticed, recognition curving her lips upward, Aaron drawn by the strength of a connection he’d not known existed until now. He almost reached out a hand toward her, managed to stop himself (too soon, way too soon) pushed his glasses up on his nose and widened his grin.
“Oh, hell nah, not him, too, are you lot bloody serious?”
Old Girl, expression wrinkled, shook her head with even more violence than her words, hair whipping her back and shoulders. Tall Kid spat laughter. Dream Girl’s smile didn’t exactly grow, but didn’t disappear. Damn it. Skinny bitch.
He ignored her, stopping before them, eyeing the younger two without saying anything. Actually he didn’t know what to say but an older cousin had told him silence often made him look confident if he pulled it off right.
“Are you shittin’ me? You lot seriously trying to say that’s him?”
They stared him out, daring him to say the real reason he came up to the sixth floor acting like he knew anything. Dream Girl seemed uncertain. Tall Kid’s swaying body, hard eyes, and clenched fists made him look as though he wanted an excuse to spark him, and would probably enjoy it.
“They’re not saying it’s me. I am, because it is. I called you. Last night I said I could feel you, all of you, and I meant it. Now I want to know why.”
He let that sink in, concentrating on the white trail scribbled across blue sky behind their heads, fading into wisps, then nothing but molecules, hearing low gasps, mutters, feeling the atmosphere change. Dream Girl and Tall Kid relaxed. Old Girl felt it, too, sucking hard enough on the fag to hollow her cheeks and make her eyes bulge, enhancing her death stare, which roamed in all directions until she threw the blazing stub at his feet, where it exploded into a bouncing trail of sparks. Aaron refused to move or acknowledge what she’d done. He stared into her eyes, waited.
“Have fun on yuh play date, then.”
And she was off, brushing his shoulder lightning fast, muttering curses all the way to the fire doors, which clapped sudden thunder after her. He scratched his head, turned to the others.
“What’s her problem?”
“She thought you’d be older.”
“How’d she know I’m not?”
Both smirked. He felt himself grow hot and tried to shake it off. Be cool. He had to be cool.
“She thought we’d all be.”
That was better. Tall Kid stepped forward, eclipsing Dream Girl with his broad body. Aaron could see her aura glowing on all sides. He imagined he could even feel her heat. Then the fist was high, up in his face.
“Limo,” Tall Kid said, less hard, practically smiling. Except he couldn’t quite do it, could only manage a sneer.
“Huh?”
“My name. Limo.”
“Oh, cool. I’m Aaron.”
They connected knuckles, Aaron wincing at the force of contact as always, teeth clenched trying to hide it. He never understood why they couldn’t just shake hands, or at least slap fingers.
“Christie.”
Damn, bruv. She was even hotter close up. Teardrop hazel eyes, long, dark lashes, brown skin underlit with red infusion, cute dimples on both cheeks. She smelt of something sweet, consistent. He smiled as much as he dared without foiling his cool, and didn’t know how to greet her, so he settled for doing nothing, disappointing himself. It speared him deep inside to think she might have felt the same way. He fought against his insecurities again.
“She’s not even that much older than us.”
All nodding, conceding defeat. Old Girl’s view had won, right or wrong. She’d left them feeling like the kids she claimed they were.
“So what now?” Christie said.
Aaron didn’t even have to think about it. He’d been doing enough last night, nursing that very topic like a sore muscle. His first troublesome thought was their obvious opening question.
“Show us.” He pointed at the railings. “Down there.”
They walked that way. Bodies bent, they looked at the streets below. The nearest were the hoards waiting by the lights for traffic to slow to a stop so they could cross. Christie went first, seeing as she’d asked. He tried not to snatch a peek at the blue jeans stretched taut against her bum and thighs, to keep his eyes on the roads, but it was tough.
“Which one?” Limo propped on his elbows, searching the crowds.
“Him,” she said. “Bald guy, blue suit.”
“Don’t point.” Aaron heard himself, bit his lip. Granddad.
“Sorry,” she said, lowering her hand, shooting him a look he felt, not saw. Not malice, regret. It made him like her just that little bit more. She understood he wasn’t being an arse, only cautious.
“Just so they don’t see us,” he told her, still feeling bad.
“Sure.”
“He’s crossing,” Limo warned, and then her attention was back. Her threaded eyebrows lowered.
“No he’s not,” she muttered.
The green man was flashing; beside him yellow digital numbers fell from 10. Blue Suit stopped in the middle of the crossing, head pivoting. A small kid bumped him, looked up in shock, and went around, dragged by the hand and momentum of a woman who was probably his mother. The surge of pedestrians flowed around Blue Suit like a river around a stone, slowing to a trickle until he was alone. The green man disappeared. The count reached zero. Blue Suit remained in the center of the crossing. Limo sniggered, covering his lips. The red man returned and a BMW revved, leaping forward. Blue Suit looked perplexed but stayed where he was. Horns beeped. Drivers got out of cars. It was all getting too much when Blue Suit did a strange robotic turn and went back to the mall side of the road where he’d started. A driver made to follow—red in the face, trackie bottoms, and XXL T-shirt. Christie grunted surprise, leant forward. The driver walked back to his car just as purposefully as he’d left, got inside, and roared away. Blue Suit blinked into the faces of his fellow commuters as if they could tell him what had gone wrong. Christie backed away from the railings.
“Classic,” Limo said, slapping brick with an open palm.
“Well done,” Aaron said, meaning it. She gave a teeny smile, something less focused in her eyes. This time he tried to avoid them.
“My turn,” the Kid said, a little too eager for Aaron’s liking. He watched him, not the road.
Hunched like a cat, the Kid’s chin rested on the cradle made by his folded arms slowly licking his lips. When he saw what he wanted he rose, stiffening. “This’ll be bare joke,” he grunted through half-closed lips, nearly too low to hear. Aaron saw pure concentration, more focus than Christie.
“Don’t do that,” he heard her say. “Don’t.” Then she turned away from the street below. Aaron, alerted, slipped into the space next to Limo.
A gathering of boys about the Kid’s age. Blazers and thick school jumpers, pointing. Work commuters passing, heads turned as if to view an accident, still walking toward the crossing, shaking their heads. A woman, megaphone in one hand, Bible in the other, placard at her feet—JESUS SAVES—calling God’s vengeance, pointing at the homeless man with his arms and legs wrapped around a lamppost, hips moving, slow grinding, rubbing against hard, grubby metal. Peals of laughter reached them. Aaron gritted his teeth, said nothing. When the British Transport Police approached the homeless guy, Limo let him go, bringing him back to face heavy hands on his shoulder, protesting as he was led toward a waiting patrol car.
Limo slapped brick even harder, creating solitary, one-handed applause. Aaron looked back at Christie. She was frowning at her box-fresh trainers, arms wrapped around her own body.
“That’s not funny,” he told him.
“Is to me.” Limo towered over Aaron, concrete hard again. “Each to his own, innit?”
Aaron tried a look that said he was beneath some schoolkid’s Grime-based posturing, turning back to the railings.
“Fair enough,” he said beneath his breath, tuning out Limo’s rigid face and grubby blazer.
The air filled with perfume. Christie had come closer, but he focused on the streets and another homeless dude. This one was sitting by a wall just beyond the totem pole of train station signage, a series of varied transport symbols stacked on top of each other. Behind the dude, who stared into space oblivious to the hoards tramping by him, stood a quartet of bright ATMs.
“Him,” Aaron said, tilting his head. He heard their complaints, felt them jostle him on both sides, trying to see past the disgusting Day of the Triffids sculptures the council put up during the Olympics—to hide the old center from the world, many had said. Probably to hide the people too. Now the shimmering yellow and green petals worked in reverse, blocking Westfield and all routes out of Stratford. He silenced the thought. Concentrating, he found his target.
She was a young businesswoman who might have been going home after a long day in the office. Brunette, legs tanned, suit well fitted. Tall and broad-shouldered, possibly Eastern European, but that was just a guess. He made her type in more cash than she needed without a receipt. When the wad spat from the machine he made her take it quick, walk three steps, and drop it into homeless dude’s lap, gasps of shock exploding like cloudburst from spectators, then had her sprint toward the bus station as a 25 rounded the corner, pulling up at stop B. Knowing what was good for him, homeless dude shot to his feet as if the ground were electrified. He gathered his dog, loose change, and blanket, shuffling off before any spectators fully reacted to his luck, disappearing into the backdrop of commuters. Unable to find him, Aaron let the woman go, turning his back on her wheeling on the spot, heels tap-dancing against the pavement.
“Sick!” Christie came closer still, deliciously embracing him, even kissing his cheek. Aaron blushed, shivering at the warmth. “Proper sick! I love it!”
“No problem,” he said, trying to stare out Limo, who wouldn’t allow it. The Kid was vex, no doubt. His bottom lip stuck out, his eyes tracked tarmac. His arms hung, huge fists useless by his side.
“So what, you lot on a link ting now?”
She let him go. Immediately, Aaron missed her. They stood apart, looking as guilty as people who had actually done something wrong.
“No.”
“It ain’ even about that. Aaron done a good thing. Why you goin’ on weird?”
“Yeah, carry on.” Limo honestly looked hurt, as though Aaron’s actions were an affront to his moral center, an act that had to be purged in some way, perhaps by the undertaking of more evil. “I see how this’ll run. You lot are on some couples vibe, an’ three ain’ magic. Catch you later, yeah?”
And he was gone too, arms swinging, leg limping, fire-exit doors flapping until they closed. The silence afterward was awkward, dense, Aaron unsure what he should do next. He didn’t want to say it but the urge was sweet, compelling enough to take the risk.
“He’s not wrong, though, is he?”
He turned to face her, seeing that bright, beautiful smile. Christie sized him up as though he’d pleased her.
“No, he’s not,” she said, and took Aaron by the arm, leading him toward the swing doors.
They went back to his, seeing as Aaron’s mum was mopping floors and sterilizing hospital surfaces until late that night. He tried not to think about it, the hard work she was forced into just so he could have a painless education. Her only reward a future that saw him comfortable, a good job, wife, house, two good, beautiful kids. Aaron dismissed those vague, misty images with more purpose. Too far, too distant. When he asked Christie where she lived, she pursed her lips, head twisting to follow the exhale of a passing bus, breathed, “Not far.” Aaron smiled. He got it. Enough said by her hand in his, the slip of her arm between his inner bicep and ribs. What more did he want?
They didn’t even run to catch the 25, just let it idle to allow people on, an old Asian lady struggling on the upward step like a toddler. When they finally got aboard and tapped Oysters, the driver snapped alert, looking from Christie to Aaron as though they were mythical, like he already knew their secret. Aaron bowed his head, hid his grin. He walked her to the raised seats in the back, radiator hot, thrumming. Christie rested her head on his shoulder. It was all he could do not to look each and every passenger in the eye, to ensure that they took note. This was him. With her.
His room was dark and tidy, which always made Aaron wonder why his mother caused such a fuss about housework. He made sure the place looked like his personal space, even cooking on occasion. He was responsible. He owed Mum that much. Christie slow spun, taking in posters, his pinboard, the jammed bookcase and full shelves, his tiny writing desk beneath the window, his DVDs. He sat on the bed, swallowing nerves. When she’d made the whole 360, bending to inspect book covers and cut out newspaper clippings closer, her neat eyebrows were arched in surprise.
“You march?” she said, pointing at the largest poster. A red star superimposed with black letters: LBR—and underneath that, an explanation: London Black Revolutionaries.
“Yeah, course. Not every one,” he said, blushing, chin touching collarbone. “But sometimes. You?”
“Yeah, course.”
He tried not to show his pleasure. “I didn’t think you’d be political.”
She shrugged, walking over. When she sat, springs gasped and the mattress indented, taking Aaron with it. He moved toward the wall.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a bit old.”
“Don’t be.”
She took his hand. She was staring in a way that made him feel weird, intense and unblinking, but she was so beautiful he felt himself doing the same.
“Which way you voting?”
“Huh?”
She peered at the poster and he shivered.
“Remain.”
“Course.”
“Course.”
She kept peering downward, running her hand across his. He wanted to close his eyes—her touch made him sleepy—but was worried that might say more about him than he wanted her to know. He tried to sit up straight. She was the first girl he’d had up to his room in four years.
“This is nuts.” Half laughing, coughing to hide it. “We only just met.”
She slid soft fingers along his bare arm, focused on what she was doing. Her lips shone, parted. She leant forward until she’d pushed beneath his T-shirt, reached his shoulder.
“Uh-huh,” she said. Perfume clouded him. Their lips met.
Nothing but sensation. No sound, no feeling, not even thought. Everything happening on the inside, like closing his eyes in a dark room only to see the delicate, butterfly swirl of phosphenes. Something composed of nothing. Like falling, a feather, not rock. Like nothing to push against and nothing to hold, a lightness he’d always felt inhabited his body were it not for bones and liquid and muscle and soft tissue. Were it not for himself. He might have smiled, tried to, but as the feeling glowed and expanded there wasn’t the familiar stretch, the noise of separation, a touch of hard teeth against soft lips. Everything had flattened, merged, spread like clay. There was no way to tell what belonged to him, or anything else. There wasn’t anything else. Only touch.
• • •
He was on the bed, head fuzzy, ceiling spinning. A quick check; he was fully clothed. Another; Christie was gone. He sat up, palms flat against the mattress, checking every dark space and crevice as if the ability to shrink had been added to her powers. He squinted his desk from a formless blob back to its original shape. Found his glasses splayed on the bed, put them on. An open book facedown by the empty chair. He checked the spine: Other Britain, Other British. No sign of Christie.
There was nothing left but to put out a call. He did so tentatively, a little scared of what he might learn. When the pressure returned between his eyes, a soft migraine, he closed his eyes, lying back. Allowed a smile to touch his lips. He curled on the bed, sensation pulsing at his forehead, and that’s how his mother found him when she opened the bedroom door just before two a.m. Sleeping fully clothed, a pillow clutched to infinity beneath his nose, still smiling.
He put out a call at breakfast before his morning classes and heard nothing. That didn’t faze him. He wolfed down bran flakes and left the house before his mum woke for her customary coffee and low-energy grumbles. He sailed through his lectures with an enthusiasm that made staff and students alike look twice, wondering if he was the same person they’d seen for almost a full term. In the afternoon, when he powered from the building with secondary-school energy, his classes done for the day, a trail of smiles, head nods, and raised fists bubbled and frothed in his wake.
She leant against the lamppost directly outside his college. Short denim skirt, tights and Timbs, slim tank top, and bright furred gilet. Hair pulled back and gleaming, frost chip eyes and high cheekbones. Nearly every guy who passed her turned to get a better look, and those who didn’t stiffened, walking self-consciously, swag depleted. Christie seemed lost in another world until she saw Aaron and stood to attention, overjoyed at something as mundane as the mere sight of him. Damn. She even had a lollipop, ruby gleaming, which she gave a final lick, crunched into shards and pulled from her lips, dropping the white stick behind her, grinning.
“Hi,” she sang, embracing him. A collective gasp rode the air. Her perfume, a tang of something sensual, something her. Crunching, the scent of flavored sugar on her breath. The dark of his closed eyes felt good, like the night before. He wallowed.
“How you doing?” he said, letting go to look at her. Damn.
“Good.” She was jittery, blushing. “Thought we could do something. At the polling station? You voted?”
“I haven’t.”
She sent a quick image across real time vision. He watched, sightless, nodding. Pretty good idea.
“We can hang out after if you like.” Head ducked toward dark pavement, giving him the zigzag line of her center parting. “Maybe go to Nando’s? My treat?”
Aaron was in love.
The polling station wasn’t far, an old church he’d ignored most of his life, signs outside stating its new, temporary persona. A tall woman with thin lips, cornrows, and a council ID hanging from a poppy-red ribbon smoked and shivered against the damp wall, eyes distant. Christie waited not far from the woman while Aaron made his mark and slid his vote into the ballot box, joining her after. They leant against open church doors, playing sullen-eyed teenagers, nothing more on their minds than the time on their hands. They didn’t have to do much. Just a simple look in the direction of anyone who passed, a gentle probe inside their heads, a nosey around. If the person was voting their way they left them be. If they were going against their interests, or unsure, a suggestion was planted. Often, when that happened, the person would jerk, frown as if they’d forgotten something, and continue on, a little more determination in their step than before.
The Tall Woman went inside after fifteen minutes. When she came back an hour and a half later to see Christie and Aaron still there and a number of people halt, jerk, and look puzzled, she turned toward the teenagers, uncertain suspicion in her eyes.
Aaron didn’t see her until Christie nudged him twice. He watched the Tall Woman for a long while, pushed out a command. She jerked, too, harder than the others, all scrutiny blinded. Opening her cigarette box, she fumbled one to her lips and began to smoke hard, nonstop. Finished it and started another. And another. When they left the polling station around ten p.m., she was smoking cigarette butts she found on the grass, one after the next. Her colleagues beside her trying to pull at her arms while the woman elbowed them away, kept searching.
They bought a whole lemon and herb chicken and double large fries to share, taking it to the shopping center where they found a place to sit huddled by closed Holland & Barrett doors. Around them, the swish and clatter of roller skates and skateboards, white noise beneath Grime pumped by youngers outside Costa watching their mates with grim, negligent pride. Others with their backs pressed against JD Sports glass, or sat on benches lacing up, speeching fresh-faced teenage girls or staring into space, meditating on their next move, carnal or athletic. Afropunks, mostly, hair mixtures of blues, reds, oranges, and a rainbow of chemically enhanced colors, shaved close or flowering in full bloom, beaded, loxxed, weaved. Straight-haired blondes and brunettes styled much the same, long hair tied thin to avoid accidents. A trio of girls in Khimars, skates rattling trains, rolling west, all laughter and shouts and streaming dark material until they went unseen, trailing ghosts of echoes. Ripped and rolled-up jeans, exposing bare knees and glistening ankles, polished Doc Martens and fresh Timbs. A reflected haze of bodies on floor tiles, colored wheels pulsing like distant landing lights. Some spun on the spot, ballerina slow, trapped in worlds belonging to them alone. Others leapt for harsh ceiling lights, wheels erupting noisy landings, wobbling but upright, expressions betraying they expected no different.
In their midst, pedestrians crossed from one side of Stratford to the other. Late-night students, red-eyed workers, young lovers, families pushing bully buggies, their walking children finding a grip wherever they could. Silver-screen aficionados, shambling drug addicts and their alcoholic cousins, pensioners bored to blindness with dull four walls. Skaters wheeling through everybody, unseeing, perhaps uncaring. A handful of high-vis security guards stood to one side, serene as though dreaming white light and ambience. Homeless men and women set up for the night, laying sleeping bags flat, clutching steaming teas. The cinema-sized flat-screen above the West Mall showed boy bands and London Met ads on continuous rotation.
Christie motioned at the Nando’s bag. He tipped it toward her and she burrowed for fries, stuffing a handful into her mouth. Raised voices barked loud. Stiffened people, looking. There, just beside the lime-green lettering of Osbon Pharmacy, they saw him.
“Christie . . .”
They got to their feet.
“It’s him, right?”
Craning to see, one hand on his arm. “Yep.”
“We better go over, in case.”
She seemed reluctant, yet moved with him to the central area where Limo, even taller in huge black skates, loomed over a broad man much older than himself. The man had lank black hair plastered to his head, a dusty red hoodie, and a rolled up Metro in his fist. Both shouted at each other, Limo pointing in his face, the man gesticulating with his paper. Aaron couldn’t make out what was going on, caught between the thin girlfriend trying to pull the broad man away and Limo’s friends tugging in the opposite direction, the Kid shrugging them off, shouting, “I didn’t touch you, though,” louder each time.
In one swift moment the broad man’s face changed. Eyes narrowed, his face seeped red until he was spitting, “Who the fuck d’you think you are, eh? Eh? Wait until mornin’, you’ll see, you lot’ll be sent back where you come from pronto, d’you hear me? This is my country. My country.”
Maybe he didn’t really mean it. Maybe it was only a counteraction to what the Kid was saying, brought on by the vote and the intensity of the argument, but Limo stopped shouting as though he’d been slapped. His expression lost all animation, blanking until he regarded the man with no more interest than a frayed bootlace.
Christie tensed, Aaron felt it. The broad man turned on a scuffed heel, brushing past his confused girlfriend, walking toward the marigold Amazon lockers on the northern end of the mall. He stopped and smashed his head against the metal, again and again, the sound of it like someone beating a tin drum. People screamed. Security guards ran over, trying to grab his arms, one pushed away by the man, falling and skidding across the polished floor on his arse. He got up and tried again with more of his mates and they were all pushed back even harder. The metal lockers banged, rocking steady time, growing dented, smeared red. Limo’s friends backed away, their expressions pale and sick.
And the Kid stood there, focused on the man butting the lockers, a sneering half smile twitching at his lips.
Aaron stepped forward, not even thinking until he felt a hand on his forearm. Christie shook her head, eyes holding his. He frowned Why not? and she shook her head even harder. A surge of anger swelled in his chest. Why not? When he turned back, Limo had seen him, his smile broader, eyes dilated, the whites seemingly larger. He winked at Aaron and let the man fall, unconscious. The watching people gasped, rushing to his side. The man’s girlfriend had long fainted, but no one noticed her. Limo spun on the spot, skating away with long, graceful strides, the lights in his boots blinking. Aaron watched the glittering red, blue, and white. His body grew light, and the spiral ascent opened in his head. The shopping center faded, returned, faded, and returned. Prickles of rage burned his eyes.
Christie saw his anger; he knew that. She grasped him by the shoulders and led him away from the people and the fallen man. He let her walk him outside, into the cold night, toward the bus stop, where she pushed him aboard the first 86 to pull up, guiding him to the upper deck. She sat him in the space behind the stairs by the window and leant against him so he could feel her warmth. Aaron saw dull lights, slow-walking people. He felt so tired. He wasn’t even sure what was wrong; all his energy had left him. Somewhere farther along the main road she hauled him down the stairs and onto the pavement, crossing roads until they came to another stop. They climbed aboard the next bus. She sat him down, putting her arms around him to quiet his shivering. He had a vague sense of where he was. He gave up learning more, or perhaps lost interest. His body felt loose and floppy, no bones.
He blanked out completely after that. When awareness came back they were entering a house—hers, he guessed. A featureless hallway with one framed picture; an aerial shot of a beach, an orange and red outlined word in a corner: Bantayan. He had a vague memory of two people: a snub-nosed man in a blue-checked lumberjack shirt, red-eyed, tiny brown marks dead center on his lips, sucking on the tiniest roll-up Aaron had ever seen; and a plump woman, lively in a fading way, wearing a little blue apron and regarding him as if his presence was of little importance. There were names, a round of nods before lengthy silence, yet Aaron didn’t understand the words. He was tugged upstairs before he had time to ask if they were her parents. He might have even said it, but he didn’t remember Christie answering, or being sure whether he’d actually voiced the question. The next thing he knew a door was closing. He sat on a sagging single bed mattress pretty much like his own.
The room was dark, very warm. That strange redolence in the air like nothing he’d known, pleasant and enveloping. Like the undercurrent Christie brought whenever she was near him, yet stronger, richer, headier. He tried to see the walls and objects in the room to get a better picture of who she was, but struggled to find anything to hold on to, just vague black forms and a light from the hallway that disappeared when Christie shut the door. He thought she’d flick the switch, waited forever for the click, the quick ache at the back of his eyes, a sudden reimagining of the formerly blank space. He felt a dip, then solid warmth beside him.
“We gonna sit in the dark, then?” His tongue felt thick. He could barely free the words. She snuggled next to him, hair tickling his ear. It bothered him that he couldn’t move. Speaking felt uncomfortable.
“I always wanted to go to the Philippines.”
She giggled, kissing him beneath his ear. He closed his eyes.
“You’re Filipino, right?” Mumbling, barely able to free the words.
She did it again, a trail leading to his lips, turning his chin and kissing him fully. Everything inside him relaxed.
He was there again, floating in darkness he remembered, and this time it was better because of anticipation. When the freefalling came he let himself stretch and surge, be carried wherever the flow took him. This time he went deeper, a sensation like rich, soft liquid removing every physical sense of who he was until he was enveloped by it and he moved without will. He heard a low creak, similar to crickets only it sounded synthetic. Then something else came, hotter, a little searing. Later he would think it was like steaming water being poured into a cooling bath, followed by the rapid awareness it wasn’t that at all, more like hot water being poured inside himself from the top of his head to his toes. Except there was no head, no toes, and the water was scalding, painful, and he tried to open his voiceless, mouthless lips to scream only to find it was impossible; he had to wait until the pain faded into the dark of the room.
The bed. The dark. Nothing further. He tried to crawl, to find something solid he recognized by touch. When his fingers brushed objects, there were only corners and right angles, rectangles and squares, flat surfaces nothing like household items, or an object someone owned. Even the bed, when he went back, had no legs, just a smooth, cool material akin to plaster reaching from the mattress to the floor. He frowned. Crawled to the bedroom door. Fright built inside him as he imagined there might not be a handle, he might be trapped, until he eventually found it, opened, could stand.
The passage wreathed in shadows. A blurred arc of light below was enough to see down the stairs. He stepped quietly, trying not to make any noise in case Christie’s parents were sleeping. Perhaps she was watching TV or crashed out on the sofa. If the last were true, he’d leave and call in the morning. The television, a sudden loudness, something about the vote that caught his attention; he tried to descend fast without making a sound. At the living room door he stopped, peeking around the frame, self-conscious. He didn’t know these people, barely knew Christie. White light flooded the room. Something odd was going on with the sofa, but he ignored that because Farage filled the screen, baring teeth amidst flashing lights and bouts of applause, saying it was Independence Day for England, and he listened, feeling that falling sensation again, only quicker and inside his own body, solid, rooted, causing him to slump against the doorframe.
As his eyes adjusted, the sofa became a shape he knew better. Three strange, writhing masses in a row. Not matter, not as he knew it, these were spheres of persistent energy, patterns shifting and swelling on each surface like plasma on the photosphere of a star, waves rippling, tendrils emerging, testing the air every so often before receding into the central mass. Even worse, discarded flesh lay in a draped pile beneath the rounded balls of energy like snakeskin. When he dared to take a step closer he saw fanned hair and glimpses of clothes flopping from sofa cushions onto the carpet, realizing the husks were the shed carcasses of them—Christie and each of her parents, the skins creased and partly inside out, veined and pale.
The spheres eased into deeper colors, darkening. Somehow they rotated. The closest ball to Aaron reached out a slow, probing tendril. It curled like smoke, stretching toward him.
He ran. Out of the door and into the street, down the empty, orange-lit road. He sprinted across roads, feet slapping pavements wet with morning dew, night buses bathing him in stark light. He didn’t stop and didn’t pay any mind. There was no point. They knew where he lived. They also knew where he was right now. He and the creatures were forever linked. He’d thought he was smart, the leader, the one who’d called them all, when really, from the start, it was her.
He collapsed against a lamppost, slid to its concrete root, and when he could stand again he walked. His lungs burned, his legs weak. The streets were shimmering lake water. The high road stretched into the distance.
There was nothing else to do but go home, let himself in, and wait. Aaron shivered at the thought of his mother asleep in her room, snoring loud enough to be heard downstairs. He walked, alert to every sound, craning frightened looks over his shoulder whenever he heard a noise. No one was ever there.
In the kitchen he poured cold water and sat at the table, the silence a solid force. The walls ticked and the sporadic creak of floorboards made Aaron wonder if they could teleport. No matter. Not now. There was nowhere he couldn’t be found. After an hour he heard shuffling at the back door. A hazy shape formed in frosted glass, blurred as their true form. A series of soft taps against wood. One, two three. He got to his feet. His hands shook as he unlocked the back door.
She looked the same. Just as beautiful, not frightening, or perhaps there was something in her eyes. Not shy, downcast, only steady appraisal. That was it. She studied him without pause, without feeling.
“Sorry you had to see us.”
He lowered his head, not wanting to remember his panic, heart thudding like pounding escape in his chest.
“We were going to tell you. You woke sooner than we planned. I knew you were strong from the start.”
Aaron looked at the ground. On another road, not far away, a car changed gears, engine fading.
“So what now?”
“You come with us. We’d prefer by choice.”
He released a sigh, his swirling breath.
“Okay. Okay.”
She said nothing, did nothing, not even nod. Just stepped back to let him pass.
They took the bus. It was dawn, a trickle of commuters seeping through glass station doors and past the shuddering arms of barriers. On the tube, Christie sat next to him, back stiff, face blank. They did not touch or talk. He kept his chin tucked into his chest. She was like a carving or, better yet, a mannequin, more anatomically correct, more real. He looked from the corner of his eye to see if she’d react to anything, but she sat motionless, life bled. It was eerie. He wondered if the other commuters noticed. They seemed buried in their papers, and he didn’t want to risk a better look in case she suspected he was up to something, trying to communicate what they were doing, that he wasn’t going along.
At Westminster she stood and he followed. Up escalators, out through barriers, into the streets and the morning crowd. The sun cracked the sky pale orange and red. The clouds were dark-bellied, gloomy. They walked along Whitehall at a rapid pace, Aaron treading fast to keep up, but she kept on and didn’t look at him once. Halfway down the long, wide road, they stopped outside black gates. Two policemen stood on either side eyeing them. A sign above their heads said what he’d feared: Downing Street.
“Here?” He stood directly in front of her, a vague challenge, trying to see beyond those deepwater eyes. “Seriously?”
She turned toward him, her unfeeling expression fathomless. It scared him. He backed away.
“Okay. Okay.”
Someone brushed his shoulder. He started, turned. Limo and Old Girl. Their faces blank, unseeing. Other young people were at their side, equally blind and entranced. They pushed forward, Aaron following. They walked up to the barrier, all of them, and the policemen guarding the street stepped aside, opened the gate, let them enter.