A Note From Your Author

It's great to get this thing started. It's been a while in the planning and I really should be writing other stuff, but I guess this thing wants to be written. Anyway, enjoy, and I hope that while writing from the perspective of a thirteen-year-old boy I don't sound too much like a sixteen-year-old girl.

~ Madeleine

Loss hollows you out, digs through you and leaves you bleeding. It's up to you what you fill yourself back up with.

When someone dies, you know. You can tell, someone you don't really know turning up on your doorstep, your mother's face falling, even if you can't hear.

At first, my sister doesn't understand. My mother sits her down and I leave the room, because I can't bear watching her try and convince my mother that it's not true, it's not, it just isn't possible. Truth is, I'm the same, really, all the same stuff going through my head, I just don't sit there sobbing.

I probably would have when I was her age.

She's just a baby really, only nine, and I've always been the one looking after her. When she was little, I fed her and changed her more often than my mother did, because half the time she was working and my dad never did it. Then it was tying her hair in plaits, taking her to school in the morning, helping her with homework.

Without my dad's wages propping us up, it's looking like I'm gonna have to get a job. Even with my tesserae, we're not gonna get by.

I think that's why I ran away, just hid in my room – I don't want to face up to the fact that this was actually happening, that my dad was gone, that we were going to have to deal with the aftermath.

I sit there, on my bed, swinging my scuffed shoes back and forth, just waiting. I stared around, at my tiny box of a room. I suppose I'm better off than Hillie, who sleeps on a mattress in the living room, although she's got the heater in there with her, whereas my room is an icecube in winter. As the oldest, I got this room, while my parents have the largest one, and Gram the one next to mine. We've gotten more and more crammed in over the last few years. My mother always jokes about it. "Those damned kids, take up more and more space every year. Wish they'd stop, that way I'd never have to buy new clothes. Now, Teo, help me with the soup."

She's like that most of the time. Her mother, Gram, says she was a real sweetheart as a girl, the type who wears ribbons and pigtails and the like. I guess that's what life does to you. Sands you down till it's all gone and you're just like everyone else – impervious and drab and trying to get by.

Thing is, that girl with the ribbons in her pigtails, who skips even when it's raining, who cries if she treads on a bug, that's Hillie. I dread the day Hillie turns into one of them. I'm probably already lost, but if I can get a job and make sure Hillie's okay, then maybe she'll be alright.

I can hear mum coming up the stairs – the way they creak under her weight is different to Gram or Hillie or dad.

"Teo, you in there?" she asks, knocking.

"Yeah," I mutter.

She opens the door. "Come help with dinner. I've had the pot on since this morning, got plenty of stew, so I figured I'd let Archie and Karter have some too."

I'm a little shocked by how abrupt she is. She's not wasting time crying, just getting on with the necessities. I get that.

Archie and Karter are, respectively, one of dad's buddies from his shift and his supervisor. The former is a tall, scarred guy with close-cropped dark hair. The latter is older, greying but usually cheerful. As I go downstairs, though, I notice that he's uncharacteristically grim. Factory accidents are more common than most people would like, but when they happen, it's like a cloud rolls in. Everyone feels it.

I pass Archie and Karter, who're sitting, a little awkwardly, sitting on the sofa, and Karter gives me a concerned look.

"You alright, kiddo?"

I frown. "I think so."

He nods. "That's good. Just keep moving."

I'm wondering what he means when my mother hands me two bowls of stew. The smell reminds me how hungry I am – the tasteless mush they feed us in the cafeteria does little to fill you up. I take the bowls out to the workers, who both accept gratefully. They both have that look to them, the one people get when they've lived their lives hungry. Even though they both have stable enough jobs, they still have that nervousness to them, always grateful for a hot meal, especially if it's free.

I eat my own meal in silence, occasionally looking over at Hillie, who hasn't touched a thing. Her eyes are red from crying, but she's silent now, staring blankly at a point somewhere on the wall. Somehow that scares me more.

After Archie and Karter have left, and I've polished off my stew, Hillie is still sitting there. After a while, she gets up, silent as a ghost, and leaves the kitchen.

I figure this is the end of the evening, pretty much, so I leave the table as well, go upstairs and change. I strip out of my school clothes, into an old, scruffy shirt, and pull on some shorts. I'm about to flick the light off when I hear my mum opening the front door.

That's a bit odd. Could be more visitors, come to comfort my mother, but Archie was his only friend at work, and no one else will know yet. So it must be something else.

I realise my mum will know I'm still awake if the light's on, so I click it off and listen.

There are two guys, at least, from the sound of it, but I can't tell what they're saying. I open to door a crack, and it gets a little clearer.

I recognise one of the voices, but placing it is just out of reach. I've heard it before, somewhere, I just can't decide –

Lewis Armaugh.

That's where I've heard it. He's one of those guys you see hanging around in places your mother told you not to go. In the little nooks and crannies of the district that the Peacekeepers don't know about. He's tied up with the gangs and now he's turned up in my house, the very day my dad dies.

My father was in with the gangs.