Freya Somerville was twenty-three, but she may as well have been thirty. She was neither tall nor short, but she was slim—no, not attractively slim, but slim like a yellowing reed, left to dry in a desolate hinterland farm. Her thinning grey-brown hair was tied in a simple ponytail, suited for her work, but not for much else. Her cheeks were hollow—no, not hollow like the cheeks of sweet-faced actresses that send teenage boys into many a daydream—but like a corpse that the undertaker forgot to inter. She smoked too much, and ate too little. Her habitual nocturnalism had carved perpetual purple bags beneath her eyes. She wished she could sleep during the day—but she worked at an orphanage. She wished she could stop working at an orphanage, but how could she? The only source of stability in her life was her work.

These are the thoughts Freya had, as she, ugly and solitary like a shy, deformed animal, swung back and forth on the swing in the playground of Wool's Orphanage. It was two in the morning, and between her dry, coarse lips was a hastily rolled cigarette.

She used to like children, truly. She first started as an assistant carer when she was eighteen. Back then, she had a boyfriend, Lucas, but she wouldn't know for two years that he routinely cheated on her with a smarter, prettier girl from the very onset of their engagement. Back then, her dad was still alive, even if his lungs had already begun their irrevocable desiccation to death. Five years later, she became the stand-in matron of Wool's Orphanage. Ms. Braggs resigned a year ago, and as all the other assistant carers wanted to progress in life, Freya volunteered to take the ship's wheel. Had she known that she would become the matron of Wool's Orphanage five years ago—tantamount to being the mother oh-so-many poor, unloved children—she would have thought it a great honour, a moral endowment. But it became nothing more than a burden, a weight that endlessly tugged at the rim of her dress and her perpetually sleepy eyes. She still felt obliged to help the orphans, yes, but obligation was the only thing that spurred her to wake up every morning. She neither loved nor hated them. They were walking, talking, crying folders of paperwork. Nothing more, nothing less.

Self-pity means nothing, Freya recalled Lucas' words. Even if her ex was a worthless asshole, he still told her truths she needed to know, occasionally. Self-pity is just self-preoccupation. It's just pride, in a different form.

Whatever. She knew there were plenty in the world who had it worse than her. No matter what she did, no matter if she applied her best efforts, some of the very orphans currently sleeping under the roof of Wool's Orphanage were doomed to become drug addicts, prostitutes, and violent criminals. They deserved the world's pity more than she did—for there was nothing short of magic that would be able to save them. She stamped out her cigarette, and retired to bed.

. . .

. . .

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gargary."

The detective, a brooding, serious-faced middle aged man armoured in a grey winter coat, extended his strong, vascular hand. John Gargary took it.

"You too, detective Hathaway —"

"Finlay. I insist you call me Finlay," detective Hathaway offered a smile. "Now, John — may I call you John?"

"'Course, Finlay."

"Well John, old mate," detective Hathaway began slowly, as though John, a dumb carpenter, would fail to understand him otherwise, "I want you to understand that we do not suspect you. My boss doesn't suspect you, nor does my department, and nor do I — it is merely protocol that obliges me to call upon you."

"Yes, yes," John said cautiously.

"My instincts," Hathaway continued, his sharp blue eyes discerning John's discomfort, "tell me that you are completely innocent. Yet, perhaps there is something you know — some wayside bit of information that might aid my investigation. As I understand, you were dating Freya Somerville for some time… weeks, no, months — months before her disappearance?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say datin'... it was complicated — and, detective — I mean Finlay, Freya was a bit queer, you see, so not exactly datin' —"

"Queer in what sense, John?"

"Ah darn it, detective, I'll jus' tell yeh everythin'," John cleared his throat. "How about that? I'll tell yeh everythin', from the beginnin'."

"Perfect — the story of Freya Somerville, I'll be glad to hear it."

"You remember that orphanage in Liverpool? The one where they'd arrested a nun 'cause a boy died an' all?"

"St. Clements', was it not?"

"That's right. Clements'," John nodded. "Well, you know how they found wot really happened an' all —"

"Mould poisoning, mildew in the wood," Hathaway clarified. "The nun was acquitted, and rightfully so."

"Yeh, an' they passed a law 'cos of that," John continued. "The Health and Safety Department made it so every orphanage was to get checked up on, have any old wood replaced an' all that. An' I'm a carpenter, detective — that's how I met Freya. She was the boss of Wool's Orphanage, an' I was 'ere to replace some really old floorboards — they were plain timber, sir, no, not engineered timber — plain timber. Aye. If you ask me, those old floorboards 'ave probably seen 'em bombs of the Nazi pilots, back in the day."

The detective snorted. He was human, after all.

"The old boards were easy enough to remove, but what's interestin' is wot I found under one of 'em, detective," said John, who then rubbed his forehead in anticipation of what he was about to disclose. "An old black book. An' I mean real old, detective — perhaps 'cos of the dust, but it looked like somethin' from a museum. Must'a belonged to one of the orphans of old, so I gave it to Freya."

"What's so interesting about this black book then, John?"

"Well, it was blank," said John. "Right as I gave it to Freya, she thanked me, an' promptly opened to look in it — her curiosity got the better of her. Nothin' in it, not a word. 'Course, that's not why it's interestin'. 'Ere's what's interestin'. I did say Freya was a queer lass — but let me tell you, however queer Freya might be, she weren't as queer as that old book 'o hers. That's important, detective, you keep note of that, aye? Very important. What I mean to say is, the book made Freya more queer — it wasn't Freya who made the book queer."

"When we were datin', as you put it, detective, I saw wot the book did to her in real time. I'd asked her out for lunch the day after I fixed her floorboards — an' she did come, an' we had a good ol' time, we even saw a movie, The Color Purple — it made her cry, you know? She'd always been a bit sad, she told me, but she was happy to be with me an' all that. And I was happy to be with her, 'course. An' it was like this for two weeks. We'd always be mighty glad to see each other. An' then, suddenly, she wasn't so glad anymore.

It wasn't the ending of a honeymoon, detective. One day she was all happy an' glad to be with me, an' the next day, it was as though she wasn't there. An' I get that, maybe somethin' happened in her family that I don't know about, maybe it's the curse of womanhood — the monthly one, I mean — but the thing is, the next day after that day, and the next day after that, and after that… she was just more an' more bizarre. It was like she was only seein' me 'cos she felt like she had to, like seein' the doctor, you know? She'd gone really quiet, and I'd become really concerned, so one day, I got angry, an' I'm not sorry that I got angry, detective, even if it were unreasonable, cause if I weren't angry, I'd not have known, an' so I asked her straight, when we were havin' lunch at the orphanage — what are yeh hidin' from me?

And would ya guess what? She shouted at me, an' told me to leave. Didn't think she had it in her to be so angry. I went home, but got really concerned once more, an' decided ter go back. An orphan girl opened the door for me. Sweet little thing, Hermione, her name is — an' she knew I was Freya's friend, 'cos I'd come before. Anyway, I went to Freya's office, an' I heard the noise of writin' — I mean that of a pen against paper. I didn't knock, detective, my curiosity got the better a' me. Instead, I squatted down, an' looked through the peephole, an' saw madness.

You'd think she was a crazy mum lookin' down at her dead baby, thinkin' it was still alive, though in her heart of hearts she knew it was dead. But there weren't any baby, alive or dead, only the goddamned old black book. She was writin' into it, full well pouring her heart out with madness in her eyes, like Keats or Elton John. An' here's where I make a blunder, detective — I knocked the door, an' when she answered me, I demanded she tell me what in the hell was goin' on! I insulted the cursed book specifically. But my anger was nothin' compared with the anger she hit me back with.

She went completely mental, detective. Said the book understood her in a way that I never did and never could, said the book cared about her and said no one else did, and said I was evil for tryin' to take the book away from her. Now, detective, I hope y'won't judge me poorly for what I did next, but put yerself in my shoes, an' think, what would you have done? Mind, I almost loved this woman — to see her driven mad by a bloody book out of all things would not do. I ran at her and tried to wrest the book out o' her hands, but she screamed, then ran past me, an' down the stairs, an' when I tried ter chase her, she was nowhere to be found. She left with the bloody book. An' that's that. Haven't seen her since — an' neither has anyone, I suppose."

"Very well, John," Hathaway said, as though he were a teacher congratulation a fifth grader's particularly insightful answer to a difficult question. "Save for one detail — the little girl who opened the door the last time you visited Freya — Hailey?"

"Hermione," John corrected.

"Hermione — you said she opened the door for you?"

"That she did."

"But we've consulted the staff of the orphanage, or what remains of them," Hathaway seriously intoned, "and discovered that all doors are double-locked, per protocol, meaning that you cannot open any of them without a key from either side, least of all late at night — and it was late at night when you last visited Freya, was it not, John?"

"Indeed it was, detective," John scratched his head. "S'pose someone must've left the door unlocked, then."

"I have reason to doubt that the staff of an orphanage would be so careless as to leave their doors unlocked at night," Hathaway declared. "Are you certain Freya didn't come downstairs to attend to you herself?"

"No, I'm sure Hermione opened the door for me," said John, insulted. "Either little Hermione picked the door with magic, or Freya, mental an' careless as she was at the time, left if unlocked. Pretty obvious if you ask me, detective."

"Very well then, John," said Hathaway, unconvinced. "Thank you for your time — I may call you sometime this week to go over what you've just shared with me."

"All good, detective. See you, then."

Hathaway stood and departed, and as he did, John beheld the table behind him, which possessed a solitary occupant, a most striking teenage boy. He was quite tall, and exceedingly pale—it was as though his skin refused to acknowledge the existence of the sun. His face was handsome enough to instil envy in most men and desire in every woman; the hair on his head and his eyebrows were thick, and his eyes were deep-set—and all these features, hair, eyebrows, and eyes, were all jet-black and intense, like coals in a fire pit. Most startlingly, coupled with John's previous observations, was that he looked very young. Indeed, he was a mere teenager, no older than eighteen. Yet, as he sat as upright as a statue, his perfectly ironed double-breasted suit—which looked like something John's grandpa would have worn to a funeral, thirty years ago—gleamed under the sun. The coffee on his table was untouched, but no steam blew from it—it had gone cold. John felt his stomach turn; he was beholding a man out of place, out of time, yet completely confident and determined in his bearing. He supposed he must have been an actor, in his costume.

. . .

. . .

Hermione laid in her bed, tightly clutching Bernard, her one-eyed teddy bear.

My bed is like a little boat;

Nurse helps me in when I embark;

She girds me in my sailor's coat

And starts me in the dark.

At night, I go on board and say

Good-night to all my friends on shore;

I shut my eyes and sail away

And see and hear no more.

She idly hummed as she imagined herself a sailor, in a big blue coat, waving goodbye at Bernard as he, now as tall as a man and dressed in a splendid white suit, waved back from the shore. She imagined the waves crashing against her ship, and the grey fins of dolphins and the blue fins of sharks jutting from the blue skin of the sea. She imagined her crewmates; Ms. Somerville to steer the wheel, John Gargary to manage the deck; herself to cook the meals. Then, she thought about Ms. Somerville, who had taught her this very poem. The other carers said she had gone on a holiday, but Hermione wasn't stupid; she'd not only heard the rumours, but read the newspapers as well—Ms. Somerville was missing.

And people, Hermione thought, don't go missing for no reason. Someone very bad had done something to Ms. Somerville. At first, the idea made Hermione scared. Gooseflesh enveloped her skin, and she turned wide awake, blinking rapidly at the blank black of the ceiling. Then, she became very sad. Ms. Somerville didn't deserve to get hurt—what kind of person, or monster, would hurt the unhurried, sleepy nurse of a dozen parentless children?

Suddenly, a loud noise—footsteps! Powerful, grown-up footsteps! In her dorm! Hermione jolted up in her bed. She beheld an apparition from the world of nightmares; before her, stood a shadow—but it wasn't the shadow of a man, but rather a man made of the substance of a shadow. And he was standing! Hermione tried to scream, but the shadow, with a careless swoop of his arm, somehow caused every lamp and light in the dorm to turn on. Hermione winced at the onslaught of brightness.

Standing before Hermione's bed was a teenage boy. He wore a black suit and, in one hand, held a perfectly straight, beautifully designed... stick? His skin was as pale as the moon, and his severe face was proportioned very nicely; with a few black curls drooping over his right eye but not quite blocking it, he looked like someone brought to life out of an old painting. Nonetheless, Hermione was very scared, and recoiled to the back of her bed, wrapping her arms around her knees to defend herself in a little ball.

"Hermione," the boy said gently. "There's no need to be afraid."

How you know my name? The walking-shadow-become-boy-from-a-painting came closer to Hermione. She buried her face in her arms so she wouldn't see him—but suddenly, his long, strong finger came under her chin, and slowly beckoned her to raise her face.

He sat on her bed, and began to speak, in an eerily calm voice, as though nothing extraordinary had just happened.

"My name is Tom. When I was a child, I, too, was a prisoner of this miserable place. I see you're still afraid of me. Good, good girl — but while fear may be more prudent than rashness, it can also strangle the shoots of action. There is no need to fear me."

"It is them you ought to fear," Tom swept his arm across the room, gesturing at all the other sleeping girls, and Hermione suddenly realised it was very strange that they remained asleep, when all the lights of the room were on, and Tom was chattering on so loudly. "For you and I, Hermione — we are of one nature, a superior nature — and they, they are utterly inferior to us, in the way that reeds are lesser than flowers."

Now, Hermione was as puzzled as she was fearful; what did she have in common with this tall boy out of a painting, that she didn't with fellow orphan girls?

"You make things happen, Hermione," Tom said assuredly, as though he read her mind. "Special things. Things that other girls can't even imagine doing, can you not?"

Slowly, Hermione nodded her little head. There was much that she could do, that none of the other girls could—and she had to hide her ability to make things happen, or else she would scare everyone else. She was a living, walking secret. Strangely, and perhaps stupidly, she her heart warmed to the strange boy—he was the first person to who she had confessed her strange quality.

"We are one and the same, Hermione," Tom continued. "It is magic that flows through our veins. Picture a flowing river beneath the radiant sun, on a fair spring day. The river is our blood, and the gleaming, sun-touched surface of the water, our magic. Those without magic, that is to say, everyone else in this miserable place, and the vast majority of the dreary, crawling creatures we call peopleon the face of this blue Earth, live low, miserable lives, in the lightless cavern of the mundane."

"It is an unspeakable crime, that the brightest of our kind — you, Hermione, and myself, when I was your age — are forced to dwell among cattle," said Tom, cold and menacing. There was genuine anger on his face, and he made no effort to hide it. "Enough talk — I will give you a taste of real magic."

Tom stood back up, and, flicking the stick in his hand, as though to strike an invisible doorbell, magically yanked Bernard from Hermione's grasp, to suspend him midair. With another stroke of his stick, Bernard's right eye produced another eye from itself, like a marble producing another marble out of itself, and attached itself into the empty socket of his left eye.

Now, for the first time since Hermione was four, Bernard had two eyes again. Tom healed him, like Jesus healing the blind man. But that wasn't all.

Tom then twisted his stick in a complex motion, and a faintly glowing green-gold-blue mist shot from the tip of his stick, squarely into Bernard's brown chest. When Bernard fell back into Hermione's arms, he turned alive. His body felt much softer, furrier—and he reeled in his arms and legs like a baby in its mother's embrace. He rubbed his small, teddy head against Hermione's chest. Somehow, it wasn't that strange—she had always known that Bernard was alive. Now, she had proof.

Incredulous, Hermione looked at Tom, and then back at Bernard, and then back at Tom once more.

"He's — he's alive!" Hermione sputtered, "thank you! Thank you!"

"That is the least that magic can do," Tom dipped his head. "Come with me, and I shall show you the glory of your birthright. I will teach you everything that has been denied to you."

Tom extended his hand. His fingers, though long, veiny and ghostly pale, appeared as inviting to Hermione as a glowing campfire would to a lost, shivering wayfarer. Thus, with nothing but Bernard the cuddly bear and her grey pyjamas, Hermione followed Tom into the dark of the night, eager to embark to her new home.