Part 1: Setting the Pieces

Chapter 1 – The Pawns

It was a cold night.

Fisher slowly shut the back door behind him, careful not to wake up the children. It clicked quietly, and he released his pressure on the handle.

Staring up at the sky, he took a sip from the cup of tea in his hands, letting the warm liquid flow down his throat and throughout his veins, before lowering the cup onto the table beside him.

The garden wasn't as big as he would've liked – the back wall was only eight feet or so from the house, but even in that small space, he had managed to almost completely fill it with weeds and toys and tools and old lawn furniture. Every bank holiday, or strike, or sick day he always vowed to sort it out, give it a good clean and spruce the whole place up. The first time he had said that, Jenny was pregnant with their first child.

Their third was now entering primary school.

Bitterly, he sat down on the chair accompanying the table. The cheap plastic creaked under the pressure, threatening to snap and send him flying to the floor. But fortunately, it managed to survive.

Jenny and he both had jobs six months ago. Nothing fancy – she was a cleaner at the local high school and he was a shelf-stacker at the supermarket in town centre. Together, they'd put together the money every month for the mortgage, food and anything else they needed, and a good bit on the side for a rainy day or creature comforts.

That was six months ago.

It had started small. They'd barely noticed it, especially for the first few weeks. The odd dropped glass, or tripping up as she was getting ready, or muscle cramps every now and then. They'd brushed it off – the glass had just been washed; her foot had caught on her tights; she'd just slept funny.

Then it got worse.

One Monday, just in the middle of lunchtime, Jenny had been in the canteen at the high school. After a year 11 shoved a year 8 and sent a pot of spaghetti flying, a large red stain had been left across the floors. Jenny had been tasked with cleaning it up.

She had been mopping the floor, gradually wearing against the crimson mark. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Her grasp slipped for a second, and the mop shoved forward, skittering across the floor. A year 10 had caught his foot on the mop, and went flying through the air.

One broken nose later, Jenny was unceremoniously fired from her position.

That night, there had been tears, hugging and much comforting from both parts. By the time they went to sleep, they had both decided that Jenny would soon find a new job, and they'd be back on track soon enough. They went to sleep smiling with the scant relief offered to them.

Fisher had woken up screaming.

It was early in the morning, no later than three. At first, he'd thought it had been the fire alarm going off, or a nitro-crazed motorcyclist passing the house.

But next to him, only a few inches away, was Jenny, thrashing in her bed, sheer panic in her eyes.

The doctor told him that there was nothing they could do. A slow, dwindling death that would take it's time to come, and that the months she had left wouldn't be pleasant. Motor Neuron Disease. She couldn't work, and the kit she needed cost an arm and a leg.

The money, like Jenny, dwindled away bit by bit, until there was next to nothing left. Fisher had worked as much as he could, desperate to soak up whatever remnants of cash he could muster to help the family. But there was only so long he could work for, so much he go without seeing his family. Without seeing Jenny.

The store's manager was retiring, and the position was open. It would be a higher wage, of course, but with it, more time with his family. More time for Jenny.

Fisher scoffed to himself. He knew his luck. He knew it would happen. Mark Templar, a 19-year-old aspiring director had gotten the job.

He hadn't just wanted that job. He'd needed it. And now it was gone. If he could have one wish, that's what he'd want.

Realising, Fisher scoffed to himself. If he had one wish, he'd ask to be promoted to manager at the shop. He'd been offered a mile and asked for an inch.

By this point, the tea had gone stone cold. Without thinking about it, Fisher grabbed the mug and tossed the contents across the brown grass, shaking any pesky drops out.

Before he went back inside, he stared up at the inky black sky above him. One or two faint stars had managed to break past the light pollution and smile at him. When he was a child, he'd enjoyed star-watching for a few months, learning and recognising the constellations – Orion, Scorpius, the Big Dipper. This day and age, most people hear 'Big Dipper' and think straight of the rollercoaster.

However, there was a new star. Bright green, and only for a second. At first, he thought it was a plane passing by, but after that second, it wasn't seen again.

Gently, Naomi padded out onto the balcony, her mind engrossed in the sheet of paper in front of her. She'd been dreading the letter for weeks, ever since she'd first made contact with the agent.

The balcony was hanging outside of an apartment – not a flat, but an apartment, as she constantly found herself parroting to everyone she knew. It wasn't quite the penthouse, but only a few floors down from it.

It was a stylish blend of brown and white, with individual steel doors leading to the other rooms; wardrobe, study, spare rooms. In the corner of the main room was the kitchen, currently holding an upturned glass mug of decaffeinated mocha. It might not be good for the stomach, but it helped Naomi get to sleep.

Careful not to let the howling night air carry away the precious letter, her fingers clamped onto either side, as she scanned down it, pouring over every letter.

Dear Ms Redfern, it had read. Thank you for your submission. However-

She stopped reading. It was a 'no'. Nothing good ever comes after 'However'.

Angry tears started to prick her eyes. That was her last hope. There were only so many agents in the country that would take on an unsolicited writer, and that was the last one. As more and more of them declined, many words of comfort were flung in her direction.

Dozens of agents turned down JK Rowling.

There's always someone else.

You'll get them next time.

Only now, there wouldn't be a next time. This was the last one.

She'd spent hours at a time cooped up in her room, hunched over her computer, always typing, revising, editing, planning, drafting. The time passed quickly – she'd go into her room just after dinner at 6, then glance at the clock and find it to be 4 in the morning. Many times, she wouldn't even sleep, going straight through to morning.

They hadn't even read past the first chapter. It all been for nothing.

The tears were now starting to flow, brimming from her eyes and tracing their way down her cheek. In frustration, Naomi folded the letter back into its original form, before tearing it into shreds, and letting the wind carry them into oblivion.

The ivory tatters floated through the air, before fading into specks and then into nothingness.

The writing had been an escape for Naomi, something her father's reputation couldn't carry her through. If she used a pen-name, then she was just someone ordinary, earning something based on their abilities, their skill. Not their surname.

That is, of course, until every agent in the country who had even the slightest chance of accepting you stamped your letter with the word 'NO'.

Gingerly, she peered down, at the streets below her. Even at this time of night, cars were whizzing up and down, the streetlights sending an orange haze up at her. A swarm of people, all speeding through life, oblivious of anyone stood in front, behind or to the side. How many of them were like her – struggling against the grain, trying to make it further than they secretly knew was possible, than they knew they wanted?

Her reverie was interrupted as a plane went overheard, a couple hundred metres above her. The apartment was on the main flight path to Heathrow – a fact which was probably the only downside to the location. So every now and then, they'd get a Boeing 747 giving its mighty roar as it passed by.

Instinctively, she craned her neck up to glare at the abomination in the sky. It had already passed, however, leaving a trail of white behind it.

Her eye flicked to the right, as someone flashed before her. A sudden moment of green, a mere pinprick in the night sky. Was it a star? She'd never seen a green star before – then again, thanks to the urban abode, she hadn't seen many stars at all.

It didn't matter. She wasn't going to earn anything moping about on the balcony, dreaming up stars. She brushed her hands of any shards of the paper, then returned to the warm apartment.

Eric shifted in his seat, in a futile bid to get comfortable. Unfortunately, the person next to him noticed, and simply glared in response.

He'd been sat on the plane for 3 hours by this point, ever since the airport in France. He'd just attended a conference with the French foreign secretary, and was hoping to get home just in time to say goodnight to his children and catch some sleep himself.

However, the flight had been delayed at every possible interval – first, the pilot had gone missing before the flight, which cost them half an hour whilst he was found. Secondly, they had met turbulence coming over the channel, and added another half an hour to the flight time whilst they manoeuvred around it; finally, due to a computer malfunction, they couldn't land at Gatwick and had been forced to relocate to Heathrow.

As a result, he was in a very bad mood.

As a child, back in the days before the politics and meetings and planning and subterfuge, he had a relatively simple upbringing. His mother and father worked 9 to 5, then came home for 6, every weekday. On the weekends, they'd visit his grandparents, a couple of miles out of the city. The pair, a quaint set of individuals, loved to fill his head with nonsense of superstition, fairies and goblins. One story that always rang in his mind was of a shooting star, and if you were to wish upon it, then your wish would true.

Nonsense, of course, but enjoyable nonsense.

Every night, he'd put himself to sleep dreaming of what would happen if his wish ever did come true – the fame, the fortune, the glory. But, as time and entropy will do to anything, his dreams started to erode, from the childish dwellings on fantasy to the cold wave of exhaustion at the end of a busy day.

Within a decade, he stopped having dreams, and just appreciated the black monotony that provided leave from the hectic noise of his life.

He'd sleep especially well tonight. After the day he'd had, he wasn't particularly bothered about waking up in the morning. Or ever.

After months upon months of planning, his party had been hedging their bets on this conference – gaining the support and therefore votes they needed, showing political opponents for their truths, getting the experience most cynics derisively criticised their lack of.

But it had all gone wrong, thanks to a single slip-up. Upon meeting the French foreign secretary, Eric's translator had slipped up for a second, stumbling over the 'voir' in 'Ravi de vous voir'. After that, the rest of the conference regarded his opinion less and less, until it was outright ignored by the end of the first day.

Eric had dropped a few hints about this to his fellow members that evening, quietly requesting that his stance be taken more seriously. They'd laughed at it in return.

Shortly after, the event was spread like butter across social media, and his party was in the gutter. He could barely stand attending the second day of the conference.

And thus, the kingdom was lost, all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

He had boarded the plane in silence, despite the various people badgering him with questions, desperate for his opinion on the matter. But as it happened, 'no comment' can only go so far.

To his fortune, he had a seat next to the window, with a particularly uninterested passenger to his left, so he could manage the flight in peace. Uninterested until Eric shuffled about in his seat, naturally.

Eric found himself staring out of the window, trying to cut himself off from the hundreds of prying eyes surrounding him. The night sky wasn't that interesting, really – the same orange glow every city flashed at planes, no matter where you were in the world.

Only there was something new. A green glint.

Eric watched it, as it flashed in the sky. When it vanished, he craned his head around, looking for a possible source behind him – a watch, phone, something like that. Nothing to be found. Curious, he turned back to the window.

But the only thing he was met with was his own perplexed reflection, gazing at itself.

Jacob staggered through the street, his arms swinging from side to side like a rather bizarre interpretation of a gorilla. In fact, his mental state rather resembled one as well, at this exact moment.

As his left arm swayed like a drunken sailor, the glass bottle nestled in it slipped from his grasp and flew to the brick floor below.

The smashing alerting him to the sight, as he stopped his strut and glanced at the ground. Awkwardly, he fumbled with the remains, desperate to salvage the bottle and more importantly, the drink inside it, but it was no good. It had broken into three large chunks, and the liquid had flowed out and into the gutter by now.

Part of him was half-tempted to drop to all-fours and suck at it, but the dominant half of his mind resisted. Instead, he decided to continue his journey home – or wherever he happened to be wandering towards at the moment.

Suddenly, he stopped, his arms flailing in the air and his feet slipping on the wet pavement beneath him. At the last second, his hands grabbed hold of a wall beside him, and he steadied himself. However, the motion had set it off – he hunched over, and emptied his stomach onto the street before him.

A few minutes later, he cradled his burning throat, breathing ragged breaths and sweating, despite the icy air. This was the ninth night in a row he'd ended up like this – stumbling through the streets, shooting his liver and throats to bits, making a fool of himself. Everyone who knew his name and his face tutted at the news of his antics the next morning, scolding his foolishness. You could get yourself killed, they'd warn him over his breakfast of aspirin and tap water.

But that was the appeal. The chance that, in his drunken state, he could finally push the wrong bouncer too far, or take the wrong shortcut home, and that would be it. He'd black out in a pub in Peckham, and wake up in a hospital in Chiswick. And every time the nurse's face came into focus, the blinding light of the ER flooding his eyes, he damned himself, for failing another night.

Maybe this would be the night. The night he would free himself from this mortal coil, from this purgatory of suffering.

That's when he collapsed.

His feet, straining under the effort, gave way, and he fell backwards, landing on his back and cracking his head on the pavement. Nothing fatal, he was sure, but he'd have a bump in the morning.

As he stared at the sky, rambling internally about self-pity and despair, a green light flashed in his eyes. It didn't even register at first; just another stitch in his drunken tapestry. But then the figure appeared, just to his right.

Jacob twisted his head around, trying to catch a glimpse. It was tall and thin, with dozens of appendages connected to its body – some clicking and scuttling in the air, some tapping and tracing the ground. A trio of red orbs darted about within its bulbous, translucent belly, fixated on Jacob all the while.

Slowly, it approached him, the orbs concentrating on the pitiful individual before it. They began to glow brighter, every shade of crimson, scarlet, cerise and ruby. And Jacob began to scream.

No more than ten seconds later, the smashed bottle was all that remained of him.