The Child Eater

by Rachel Pollack

Genres: Fantasy; YA Wizards & Witches

Synopsis

An ancient evil is on the rise. Children are disappearing. Only two boys, from different worlds, can stop it. On Earth, The Wisdom family has always striven to be more normal than normal. But Simon Wisdom, the youngest child, is far from ordinary: he can see the souls of the dead. And now the ghosts of children are begging him to help them. Something is coming, something far, far worse than death . . . In a far-away land of magic and legends, Matyas is determined to drag himself up from the gutter, become a wizard and learn to fly. But he, too, can hear the children crying. Two vastly different worlds. One ancient evil. The child eater is coming . . . 'An intricately imagined Tarot-themed fantasy' - Guardian *THIS EDITION CONTAINS BONUS MATERIAL*

Release date: June 30, 2014

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Print pages: 333

Sample

Once, long long ago, when there were still wise women and powerful men who knew things now forgotten, there lived, in a faraway land, a boy called Matyas. His mother must have chosen the name because his father appeared to dislike it. Sometimes, if Matyas’ mind drifted from his chores, his father would slap him and call him ‘pious Matyas’, and tell him, ‘You’re not living in some church, boy. You work or you don’t eat.’

Matyas lived and worked in his parents’ inn, the Hungry Squirrel, a small, dismal wood building on a dismal road that ran from the sea to the capital. Most of the inn’s business came from travellers on their way from the port to the city, or the other way around. Sometimes, with the wealthier ones in their private carriages, Matyas saw the faces screw up in distaste, and then they would sigh, knowing they had no choice. Matyas always wanted to hit them, though if he was honest he wouldn’t want to stay at the inn himself, but would have tried to travel non-stop to the sea.

Matyas had never seen the sea. He and his best friend, a girl named Royja, used to talk about it. They would sit on low stones in the dust behind the inn and imagine water. Vast stretches of water, so huge that great boats larger than the Hungry Squirrel would bounce and pitch across it for days, for weeks, and never see the dull dirt of land. They talked of women with fishtails and the heads of birds, who sang to sailors and drove them mad. And angels, or maybe demons, that rode on great fish that could swallow men whole, with room inside for the men to build homes, and fires to keep themselves warm.

When they tired of talking about the sea they imagined the cities they might visit if they could ever cross the water. Cities where the animals had taken over and now the people had to beg for bones at the feet of long tables where dogs lay on silk pillows. Cities where the buildings sang strange songs all night long and everyone had to go deep underground to be able to sleep. Cities where golden heads on silver poles lined the streets and would tell you anything you wanted to know. Cities where the children had killed all the adults and used the blood for magic spells that forced angels to give them whatever they wanted.

Royja was not just Matyas’ best friend, she was his only friend. The daughter of the blacksmith who worked at the inn and lived in a one-room dirt-walled building behind it, she and Matyas had known each other all their lives. Royja was skinny and wore clothes that were old and too big for her, and she was always dirty, her face, arms and legs streaked with mud and grease. Much like Matyas himself. Once, a rich family had stayed at the inn, and when Matyas and Royja saw their milk-skinned plump little girl they had no idea what she was, possibly some animal fallen from Heaven that the lord and lady had dressed up as a miniature person.

Matyas cleaned the guests’ rooms and carried firewood and swept the floors and brought the guests his father’s watery beer and his mother’s stringy food. He hated every moment. He was too good for this, too clever and talented. Sometimes he dreamed of himself as a great man, dressed in silk and gold and standing in a tower while, down below, the ordinary people would look up in fear and helplessness. Then morning would come and his father would kick him awake to begin his duties.

Matyas was gangly, with deep eyes and long lashes, and shiny black hair that always seemed to get in his face. He survived his work by mentally changing whatever he could. If he spilled food he imagined the stain as a treasure map. If some monk or educated traveller left behind a scrap of paper, he pretended it contained the secrets of kings, or even better, a magic spell to carry him and Royja away from the inn to a place with gardens and fountains and high towers. Since he couldn’t read, it was easy to pretend.

At night, after his chores had finally ended and he was so tired he knew he should just fall on his sleeping pallet by the stove, Matyas instead would wander the dusty hills and scrub flats and pretend he was on a sacred quest. Sometimes he took Royja with him; more often he went on his own. He knew he would never find anything, for who would bring a holy relic to such a place, let alone leave it there? Matyas simply could not stand the thought that he might live his entire life like his father, with no world beyond the streaked walls of the inn.

One night he and Royja stayed out late, sitting together against a dead tree that caught the moonlight in its spiderweb branches. This time, instead of journeys on boats as big as palaces, Royja imagined they might find a cave in the earth, with tunnels that would open out to strange woods and palaces, and purple rivers, and trees like white ghosts, and a bright red rock as big as a village, and giant rabbits that carried human passengers in soft pouches in their bellies.

After a time Matyas fell silent and left Royja to do all the talking. She hardly noticed, waving her soot-stained arms as she described cities where every person had one leg and one arm and no face, or rivers where the dead swam back to the shores of the living. Matyas thought of that strange tower he saw in his dreams, how sometimes he was inside it but more often it stood so far away he could only see the shape and not any part of it. Now and then he would glimpse a small wrinkled face, high up in a window, see it for just a moment, the way a moth flits before your eyes so quickly you can hardly make it out.

When Royja paused, Matyas yawned and said how late it was – look, the Moon had set, and dawn was only a few hours away – and they’d better get some sleep before their chores began. At the smithy door they stood and faced each other with a few muttered phrases until at last Matyas took hold of her fingertips and kissed her, very slightly. She blushed and dashed inside.

Matyas yawned again and strolled to the kitchen door, only to slip around the side of the inn when he was sure Royja wasn’t watching. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to know, he just … he just wanted to see, and not talk. He had the strange sensation that there was something important he needed to discover, or do, and if he didn’t find it now he would miss his chance, and all the rest of his life would be wrong in some deep way he would never understand.

He walked across scrubland, through mud hollows, over miserable parched hills. He didn’t know how late it was – he thought the sky had begun to lighten, but dawn was still a good way off – but finally it seemed his journey came to an end before a tangled stand of blackened trees. He and Royja had seen this place before but never entered it. It wasn’t that big, he could probably walk around it in less than an hour, but something about it kept people away, even repelled them. Matyas had once seen a woodcutter walk past it on his search for trees to chop and cure for the market. Rather than take his axe from his back and get to work, the man had made a fist, pointed his little finger at the dense trees, muttered something and hurried away. Matyas knew that gesture – he’d seen his mother do it after certain guests had left the inn. It was what you did to blunt a curse.

Matyas stood outside the woods and tried to stare within. A curse meant magic. If only he could see the centre. For a moment he thought he saw light, or fire, flash inside, but it was so quick he wondered if he’d fallen asleep for an instant and dreamed it. It was very late, and he was very tired.

Tiny lights darted around him. This was certainly no dream but neither was it a torch. It was more like fireflies, except they didn’t flicker. Matyas watched them, and as he watched they began to buzz, and in that buzz he thought he could hear a faint hum of voices, or maybe one voice formed from all of them together. ‘Matyas, Matyas,’ it said.

What? He swatted at them, angry that he’d let himself think a swarm of bugs could say his name. They moved around him easily. ‘Matyas, Matyas, Master Matyas!’

‘Master?’ he said out loud. ‘What do you mean? Master of what?’ Nothing more came. The air went dark again, as if they’d never been there at all.

Stupid, Matyas scolded himself. Think some bugs could talk to him, say his name, call him master. He should have stayed home on his pallet, slept so he could do his chores and escape his father’s stick across his back.

He didn’t think he would make it back before the inn woke up and got to work but somehow he did. He even managed to lie down on his wooden pallet in the corner of the kitchen and pull his old torn sheet around him so he could pretend he was asleep when his father came to prod him awake.

To his great surprise he fell asleep – couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to – and soon a dream engulfed him. He faced the woods again, all the trees pressed tightly together like some sleeping beast with a thousand claws that might reach out and slash him. For a moment he was conscious that he was dreaming, and wondered if in fact he was awake and still at the woods, and the return home had been the dream. But then the woods parted, and a dark path opened before him, and he forgot anything else existed.

He never got to see what lay in the woods, for the dream shifted and he was standing in the snow, barefoot, his clothes torn, his hair long and filthy. All around him lay small pieces of paper, about the size of Royja’s hands, with bright pictures on them, each one different. He found himself staring at one in particular, an image of what looked like a rich young man in green and gold clothes, dancing on a hilltop. Only there was something wrong with it. He bent down to look closer and discovered the face was missing – it looked like someone had slashed it out with a knife. Matyas gave a cry and jumped back.

He was walking down a magnificent hallway, the sort of room he and Royja had talked about so many times. The floor was a swirl of red and black stone, the walls a paler red lit by globes that gave off a cold, steady light. The walls rose so high, three times the height of Royja’s father, that Matyas had trouble making out the ceiling, but it appeared to be a painting of some kind. There were angels, and bodies lying on the ground, and children with their arms crossed in front of their faces, as if to protect themselves. When he realised some of the angels were bent over to drink blood from the dead bodies, and the others were slashing at the children with sharp wings, he snapped his gaze away and focused on the room in front of him.

A stone door stood open at the end of the hall. Matyas hesitated, almost turned and ran away, but could not make himself leave. He heard a faint voice, a child, he thought, no words, just a cry or a moan. He stopped outside the door. There was someone inside, a tall man wearing a jacket and trousers fashioned in a simple but elegant style that Matyas had never seen before. He stood next to a stone table and was doing something to a round object that lay on a silver tray.

A head. The round thing was a human head, a boy, his was the voice Matyas had heard. The man was cutting it, he had a stone knife, black and shiny stone, very very old, and he was making tiny cuts all along the face. The boy’s eyes flickered, saw Matyas. ‘Help me,’ he whispered. ‘Master, help me.’

Matyas shook his head from side to side. I can’t, I can’t, he wanted to say but he was too frightened to speak. And then the man turned and saw him, and straightened up, and with the knife held loosely in his hand he smiled, his face gaunt, his teeth bright, and he said, as if to an old friend, ‘Ah. It’s you.’

Matyas screamed. He screamed so loud he woke himself up, and then a moment later his father’s hand smashed into his face. ‘Stupid boy,’ his father whispered. ‘You wake up the guests, I’ll make you sorry.’

*

A few days after Matyas’ dream, a strange man came to the Hungry Squirrel. Dinner had already been served when a soft knock sounded on the ash door that had been old – and dirty – when Matyas’ grandfather was a child. Matyas looked at his father, who rolled his eyes and said, ‘Well, open it. And try not to scare them away.’ Matyas opened the door and there stood a short and stocky man, well fed, wearing a long brown robe like a hermit’s, but softer, richer, with gold threads worked into the weave. His red-grey hair flowed out from under a white cap without a brim, while a red beard spread around his face and neck like an upside-down halo. He carried a staff that looked too thin for walking. Maybe it was meant to impress people, for he’d set a red stone into the top of it. The stone glowed with a faint light that dulled to darkness even as Matyas looked at it. On a strap across his chest the man carried a leather pouch with an eagle’s head stitched into the flap. It must have contained all his travel needs for Matyas could see no luggage or bags in the dirt around the man’s feet.

Nor did he see a wagon, or a horse. It was Tuesday, not one of the days when the coach came through, and if the man had not brought his own transport he must have walked. But from where? The nearest way-stop was a good three days on foot, and if he came from either the seaport or the capital, it would have taken even a young walker, with good supplies, over a week.

‘I would like a room,’ the man said. ‘A private room, or as private as possible.’

Matyas just stood there and stared for so long that his father shoved him aside. ‘Please, sir,’ his father said to the man. ‘Come in. Ignore the boy, he’s …’ He wobbled his head side to side to indicate a simpleton. ‘We have a fine room for you. The best you’ll find between the sea and the capital.’ He bowed his head a moment, then said, ‘Please, Master. Welcome.’

Matyas stared. Maybe his father was right about him, for all he could do was stand there, with his mouth open like a fish. He did notice, however, that the few guests who sat in the tavern room did exactly the opposite, averting their eyes. And when the man passed Matyas’ mother on his way to the stairs, she crossed her arms over her chest and held on to her shoulders, as if to protect herself.

As soon as Matyas’ father had taken the man upstairs, Matyas rushed over to his mother. ‘Who is that?’ he said. ‘Why did Father call him Master?’

His mother rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see? The man’s a wizard.’

‘A wizard,’ Matyas whispered. Then out loud, ‘Is that what Master means? A wizard?’

‘Of course. Be careful, Matyas. If you make him angry, he’ll turn all our food into stone and our wine into blood. And he’ll turn you into a toad.’ Matyas shuddered, and yet he could not take his eyes off the staircase long after the wizard, the Master, had gone to his room. So softly no one would hear, he whispered to himself, ‘Matyas, Matyas, Master Matyas.’

After he finished his chores, Matyas went behind the inn to meet Royja, as he did almost every night. She was there, of course, and as soon as he saw her he told her that a wizard had come to the inn.

‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘Jonana came to tell my father.’ Jonana worked in the kitchen with Matyas’ mother, and liked to visit the blacksmith whenever she could get away.

‘Did he ask you to stable his horse?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, as if Matyas might not have heard her. They decided to look for any signs of how the wizard might have arrived. Near the inn, stopping some twenty yards away, they found the tracks of some large animal, a big dog, or maybe even a wolf. Royja said, ‘That’s how he travels. He uses his wizard magic to summon some giant wolf to carry him. Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful?’ Her face got that funny look that came over her sometimes, like she’d jumped into a dream with her eyes open.

‘Or maybe he becomes a wolf himself,’ Matyas said. ‘He turns into a wolf so he can run very fast, and hunt if he gets hungry, and then when he gets close to where he wants to go he makes himself a Master – a man – again. So no one will notice.’

Royja clapped her hands, softly to make sure no one heard and came out to yell at them. ‘Oh, I like that,’ she said. ‘That’s even better.’

Matyas thought suddenly, She doesn’t understand. She’d never understand. It was all just stories to her. But if you could turn yourself into a wolf – or a boy into a toad – maybe you could become a bird. Then he could escape.

‘Do you want to walk around?’ Royja asked. That was what they called their explorations and their imagined adventures.

‘I don’t think so. My father might need some help. With the wizard.’

Royja looked so disappointed he almost changed his mind. But all she said was, ‘All right,’ and then ran back to the smithy.

It was late in the evening before Matyas got a chance to go upstairs. His father poured a glass of thick blackberry wine – ‘Our own special drink,’ he would tell their guests, though Matyas noticed most took only a few sips – and ordered Matyas to, ‘Leave this outside the door. You can knock but very quietly. Never wake a sleeping wizard.’ His father laughed, as if he’d made some joke.

Matyas went up the stairs so fast his father yelled at him not to spill the wine, but as he approached the room he slowed down. What if the Master was sleeping, and Matyas couldn’t see him? What if he was awake, and Matyas could? As he neared the door he saw it was slightly open, enough that a crack of light shone from inside. Had he made the jewel on his staff glow? But when Matyas pushed himself to open the door just a little bit further, he discovered that the great wizard had simply lit the oil lamp, like anyone else. Matyas peered inside.

The room was fancier than the others, or at least it tried to be. The bed, and the table, were larger, the table legs carved, the bed a four-poster with a drooping canopy. The single chair was also larger than usual, with a high back and arms that ended in lion heads. There was even an oval rug on the unpolished wood floor. But it was all rough, the weave in the rug too loose, the chisel strokes on the wood too obvious.

The wizard did not appear to care about these lacks any more than Matyas did. He had laid his staff on the bed, cast his cap on the table – he was mostly bald on top, with little tufts of white hair among the red – and now he sat in the chair, leafing through some loose sheets of paper, a whole stack of them. The pages, which contained pictures rather than words, reminded Matyas of something but he could not remember what. From a dream, he thought vaguely.

‘It’s no good,’ the Master said as he looked at one small sheet after another. ‘It doesn’t fit, there’s always something missing.’

Suddenly he stopped. With both hands holding the papers as if they were birds that might fly away, he turned his head from side to side, even sniffed the air. Then, so fast there was no time for Matyas to set down the wine and run, the wizard jumped up, strode to the door and grabbed Matyas by the wrist, so painfully the boy had to bite his lip not to cry out. The wizard pulled Matyas into the room and slammed the door.

‘Please,’ Matyas said, ‘don’t turn me into a toad! I just wanted to look.’

‘Shut up,’ the Master told him. He had dropped Matyas’ wrist and set the pictures down on the table, and now he appeared to be examining the air around the frightened boy. Despite his fear, Matyas also looked around. He saw that the lights had come back. Without thinking, he batted at them with his hands, to no effect.

‘You won’t catch them,’ the wizard said.

Matyas dropped his arms, shrugged. ‘They’re just insects,’ he said.

The Master set his stack of pictures on the table and sat down heavily on the carved chair. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they are not insects. How long have they been coming round you?’

Matyas shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘A few days.’

‘Those lights are called the Splendour. Have you ever heard that term?’ Matyas shook his head. ‘No,’ the Master said, ‘of course not. “Splendour” is a collective title, like flock of sheep, or murder of crows.’ Matyas had no idea what the wizard was talking about. ‘The full expression is “Splendour of Spirits”.’

‘Spirits?’ Matyas repeated, and looked again at the lights. ‘You mean like ghosts?’

‘No, no. Ghosts are simply leftover images of confused people. They’re not even actual remains, just … congealed imagos that think they are trapped souls. The Splendour are third-order powers. They touch the world only at rare moments.’

‘And that’s these little lights?’

‘Oh no. The lights are simply markers. Tracks, really, the way prints in the dirt may show you a great lion has passed. If you could truly see them they would fill this room, this house. They would block out the night.’

Matyas looked all about the room, up at the ceiling. He asked, ‘Can you see them? Truly, like you said?’

‘No. No one I know has ever seen them in their true form. Well, perhaps one. But if so, she has never mentioned it, at least not to me.’

She? Matyas thought. Were there girl wizards?

The Master went on, ‘The fact is, I have not seen even the tracks for some time. There are men who have studied, fasted, even cut themselves, for years just to invite the Splendour – those insects as you called them – to reveal themselves. I know of a man who drove himself over decades to amass a fortune only so he could give it away in one night, as a gesture to prove himself worthy. And you, an ignorant, filthy—’

‘Did it work?’

Startled out of his speech, the Master said, ‘Did what work?’

‘The fortune. Giving it away. Did the lights – the Splendour – show themselves to him?’

The Master laughed. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure. That is a very old story, and it only ever describes the effort, not the result. Perhaps the tellers thought the outcome, either way, would not be a benefit. Isn’t that interesting?’

Matyas didn’t think so. ‘Can you fly?’ he asked.

‘What? Of course not. No one can fly.’

Matyas felt stupid and hoped his face didn’t show it. Why did he ask that? He said, ‘There’s wine. It’s our best. My father sent me to give it to you.’

The Master smiled. ‘Well, if it’s your best, I can hardly refuse.’ Matyas stepped into the hall and brought in the glass. The wizard sighed and said, ‘So they’re gone.’

Matyas looked all around and saw that the lights had vanished. Anger flashed through him, as if they’d insulted him by leaving. Then he thought maybe he should run back into the hall, in case they’d followed him there and didn’t return to the room when he brought in the wine. But he was afraid the wizard might slam the door. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘No doubt. I am sorry, too.’

Matyas set the wine down near the stack of pictures. ‘What are these?’ he asked.

The wizard hesitated before he said, ‘They’re called Tarot cards.’

Matyas thought of the card games some of the travellers played in the inn, but these looked much fancier, more like paintings. He thought about the word. ‘Ta-row?’

A small smile, as if Matyas had performed some trick just by saying the word. ‘Their full name is the Tarot of Eternity. Supposedly, if you held the originals in your hands you could change the very structure of the world.’

‘What do you mean?’

The smile again. ‘Have you ever thought about the fact that the Sun comes up every morning, and that spring always follows winter?’

Matyas shrugged. ‘I guess.’

‘What if it didn’t? What if the Sun, or the seasons, just did, oh, whatever they wanted?’

Matyas frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

The wizard shrugged. ‘No, I suppose not. It doesn’t matter.’

Matyas reached out his hand. ‘Can I—?’

‘No!’ the Master said, then, ‘I’m sorry. What little power it holds works best when only one person touches it.’

‘But you said you could change the world.’

‘Yes, yes, the original. If I, if anyone, could ever hold that one—’ He shook his head. ‘This – this is a copy of a copy of a copy. The true Tarot of Eternity has been lost for many hundreds of years. Maybe not lost so much as hidden. To protect us from seeing too much.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Matyas tried to see the top picture without being too obvious. It showed a rich young man in green and gold clothes, dancing on a mountaintop, or maybe it was the edge of a cliff. His head was tilted back and he looked up at the sky, as if he didn’t realise he was about to fall off. His arms were out, so maybe he thought he could fly. As Matyas looked at the picture something twisted inside him, some fearful memory he could not quite bring to the surface. He asked, ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘Wrong?’

‘Doesn’t he know he could hurt himself?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he’s running away and it doesn’t matter what happens to him.’

‘Running away from what?’ Matyas asked, but the wizard didn’t answer.

Matyas wished he could toss the picture aside to see what lay beneath it, and the one beneath that. Instead, he said, ‘What good are they? If they’re just copies of copies.’

‘They can reveal certain things. In a limited way. But mostly they represent hope.’

‘Hope of what?’

‘Hope that the true Tarot will return to the world.’ The wizard closed his eyes for a moment, as if reciting a prayer. ‘It is said, “Whosoever touches the Tarot of Eternity, he shall be healed of all his crimes.” ’

‘That’s crazy,’ Matyas said. ‘How can you be healed of a crime?’ The Master said nothing. ‘I’m going to be a wizard. A Master.’ The old man laughed. Angry, Matyas said, ‘The lights – that Splendour – they told me.’

‘Really?’ Still smiling, the Master took out a rolled-up piece of parchment from his pouch, along with a small tube made of gold. There was a gold cap covering half the tube, and when the man removed it Matyas saw that the tube came to a sharp point, like a quill. Without dipping it into any ink he inscribed some signs on the parchment, then held up the sheet in front of Matyas. ‘What does this say?’ he asked.

Matyas wanted to hit him. ‘I don’t know.’

‘It says, “Those who seek wizardry might learn to read before they enter the Academy.”’

Matyas’ hands clenched into fists, but before he could do or say anything the Master leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes. ‘I’m tired now,’ he said. ‘You should go. In the morning I will tell your father of the fine service you gave me.’

Matyas was about to protest when the wizard waved a hand at him and he found himself heading for the door. At the threshold he turned and asked, ‘Can you really do that? Turn people into toads?’

The Master pointed a finger at him. No lightning or dark cloud emerged, but Matyas’ body tightened, his throat became thick, his legs hard. He looked down at his arms. They were turning green. ‘Stop that,’ he managed to say. ‘Please.’ The wizard lowered his arm, and Matyas fell back against the door frame. A moment later he ran downstairs so fast he almost fell over his feet.

The next morning the Master left early, before anyone had woken. By the time Matyas came to the door with a plate of rolls and a pot of tea there was no sign of the man other than a small bag of silver coins. Matyas stared at the coins a long time, then finally grabbed three and hid them in his shoes. He brought the rest to his father.

Once upon a time, in a town that came in fourteenth in a list of the ‘Fifteen Most Liveable Cities’, there lived a man named Jack Wisdom. The name was unfortunate, because neither he nor his family were especially wise. Some unknown ancestor, they joked, must have done something smart, and now all they could do was try to survive having such a difficult name. ‘We have to be more normal than normal,’ his father used to say, almost like a family slogan. Jack would roll his eyes when his father said that, annoyed for no reason he could understand.

Once, when he was a boy in English class, Jack doodled a family coat of arms, with lots of crossed swords and elegant swirls, and a flowering tree. He’d seen this sort of thing in a book once, and now as he looked at it he thought it was pretty good. But then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he wrote across the top of the tree ‘More Normal Than Normal’. Jack stared at it, then crumpled the paper and stuck it in his backpack.

Jack had not always lived in the fourteenth most liveable city. He’d only moved there as a grown-up. Jack the boy lived in a housing development outside a town known only for a cough-drop factory and a halfway decent high school basketball team. Jack didn’t play basketball. He didn’t play any sport, really, though he liked to run and thought of trying out for track. But it was the running itself he liked, not having to make a competition out of it. Jack was never competitive, maybe because he had no brothers or sisters.

Young Jack was thin and tall, with dark brown hair that would have been curly if he let it grow. He had bony shoulders and long skinny arms and large hands and feet. It was hard to buy clothes for him, his mother complained: either they were too big or the sleeves were too short. Jack hoped he didn’t look weird.

Young Jack liked to play in the woods at the edge of the development. He would wand