He glanced at the road signs that headed the
motorway. At some point, they had
stopped indicating all the quaint little English town names like Bottom Flash
and Sheepy Parva, and now they simply read THE SOUTH. He had started at the manor house he had
grown up in, in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, and was now somewhere between
Birmingham and Coventry. Tomorrow night,
he would reach London ,
his destination.
For hours, his phone had beeped wildly for attention,
and in the end he had switched it off.
There were only two people who could be ringing him. One was the man he was supposed to call his
father. The boy had listened to the first
few voicemails with guarded amusement.
Of course, the only thing his father was worried about was the car – not
the boy. The car was a 1973 convertible
Jaguar E-Type in hunter green and mint condition, which had cost about €20,000
to buy and then countless thousands more to maintain over the years. It had hardly been driven, but rather sat in
the double-garage at the back of their disconcertingly oversized house. The boy had always thought it was a travesty
not to take such a beautiful creature out more.
The boy, on the other hand, was a menace, in his
father’s eyes. He could do things, as he’d overheard it being
described to his mother. He was dangerous. He had made a lightning bolt appear, for goodness’ sake, like he was Thor
himself. If he could do that, what more
was he capable of? It didn’t matter that
he had a spotless record before. It
didn’t matter that he spent all his time alone with his nose in his books,
while the other boys at the public school were occupied in rebelling against
the parents they would ultimately come to emulate. If anything, that just made him more dangerous,
because after all, it was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for. No, his father didn’t want him back – just
the car. The car had never hurt anyone,
even accidentally. And it had been in
the family for longer.
The other person ringing him over and over and over
again was Melody. When will you be here? she kept asking, like an impatient child in
the backseat. It was driving him
mad. They had been ‘together’ almost a
year, now, but always at a distance. She
had never had any real claims on his time before, and now that he was about to
live with her, she was already showing signs of change. She had lost her easy charm and begun
sounding needy in a way that didn’t bode well, and it made him a little
sad. But it didn’t matter, because as much
as he had told her he was coming to London to be with her – and as much as he
had told himself that was why he had
suddenly thrown away his cushy life, packed up his favourite books and a few
changes of clothes and stolen the car – he knew it wasn’t true.
He was going to London
because of the black pulse.
His whole life, he had felt like he had been trying
to find something. For a long time, he
told himself it was because he was adopted.
He thought maybe he was trying to find love, bearing in mind that all he
had ever received from the people who had taken him in as a baby was detached
affection that smacked of obligation.
That and driving lessons. He
begrudgingly had to thank them for getting him his licence.
Then one night, he had a dream that made him break
out in a sweat upon waking. In the
dream, he had been drawn to a pulsing light.
It was black and throbbing and he knew by instinct that it held
fantastic power. But most of all, he
couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful it was.
He wanted it more than anything he had ever wanted in his life – more
than his real parents, more than Melody, more than the feeling he had when he
was driving free down that motorway in the peace of night. But he woke up just before he could touch it,
and it left him feeling dissatisfied and desperate. It was more than desire; he needed the dark light.
The dream followed him into the next night, and the
next, and every night thereafter, never letting him go. Suddenly, he was breaking every rule he had
ever set himself and becoming something he was not: a thief. He stole into the garage and slipped into the
car so easily, it was like it had been waiting for him to take it away. In fact, everything about his escape had been
easy, like he had been wrapped in a protective bubble by whatever it was that
wanted him to go.
South, it
kept speaking to him in the night. And
finally, London
Whatever it was he was searching for, that was where
he would find it.
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