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At the gate, Ophelia paused and looked in cautiously to see if Kate was around.

“She’s looking for someone she doesn’t want to run into,” Sera said. “Kate Brooks.”

“Oh, the girl Philip mentioned yesterday?” Read the rest of this entry »

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“The park’s been vandalised,” Cass said the next morning as they prepared for school. “See, I’m right about it being dangerous.”

“What happened?” Ophelia suspected that she knew. It must be the aftermath of the fight – it’d left quite a mess after all. Read the rest of this entry »

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A few streets away, Kate Stevens sat on a bench in her garden and contemplated revenge and how to get it when Ophelia had some sort of superpower. If only someone else had seen it, she could have reported the girl as potentially emerging. If she could get anyone to listen to her she still could, except the fact only she’d seen it would get her the same problem and she didn’t need that. No one needed that. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Call me Sera,” she said absently, clearly mulling over what had been said. “Mum was clearly on something when she named me.”

“Very well, Sera,” Silver said.

“So you must have slipped into the area where normal people can’t see you, as well,” Sera said. “That’s why it didn’t attract attention.”

Ophelia nodded. That much was obvious. She turned back to Silvie. “But what was that thing?” Read the rest of this entry »

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“You’re late!” Ophelia’s mother had her hands on her hips when she met them at the door. “You’d better have an explanation for this or you’re grounded.”

“Fifteen minutes isn’t late, mum. Fifteen minutes is delayed – especially given your impossible schedule for getting back by bus.”

“It is late! The bus leaves school at twenty five to four and reaches the nearest bus stop at ten to four. It’s a fifteen minute walk from the stop-” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Urgh!” She collapsed to her knees, only now aware of how exhausted she felt and of a dark guilty depression forming on her gut. She swallowed, trying to push it aside, but it remained nagging at the edges of her consciousness. It took her a moment to realise that tears were trickling down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away and looked up at the fireball, trying to think of something coherent to say. All that came out was a second “urgh!” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Really?” Ophelia heard herself say as she sidestepped the attack. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to kill me.” She clutched the crystal even harder. “I need a weapon.”

It warmed and a glowing blade made of the same red light as that which surrounded her appeared in front of her. She braced for a heavy weight as she grabbed it, then staggered at its unexpected lightness. She covered her need to recover by glaring at her assailant. “They aren’t yours,” she said as she dodged another dive. Read the rest of this entry »

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“That was a really weird day,” Ophelia said as they walked back through the park. She paused as she spotted the boy she’d seen the creature attach itself to earlier walking ahead of them. The creature was still coiled around him. “Oh it’s that boy.”

“Eh? What boy?” Sera asked. Read the rest of this entry »

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They weren’t surprised to learn that there was an emergency assembly before afternoon classes. What they didn’t expect was for the headmaster, who looked grey and whose left cheek and eye had developed a visible tic, to launch into a nearly incoherent diatribe about the evils of drugs.

“Drugs?” Sera growled. “Mike doesn’t do drugs.” From the cries of protest from the friends of the other sick boys they felt equally offended by the insinuation that the illness was self-inflicted. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Thanks!” Kira slid into a spare seat. “It’s really brave of you to take on Bradley this way. She doesn’t like me.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not-” Ophelia began even though she knew Kira was right.

“She doesn’t.” Kira laughed brittlely. “She’s angry because her boyfriend thinks I’m hotter than she is.”

“You mean Lee? He’s not her boyfriend, except in her head,” Sera said. “He can’t stand her.” Read the rest of this entry »