Darkness. There was nothing but darkness, until a strange white glow appeared in the north, shedding light on the devastation that lay all around. The ground was thick with bodies of the fallen, ruins of a once mighty city. Carrion crows swooped and shrieked overhead, and in the distance came a strange high-pitched keening…

Blinking away the sweat that ran into her eyes, Brooke clutched at the fence, holding herself upright as her knees sagged.

It was noon over the village of Gerning. The midday sun was high and bright; the field Brooke stood in was peaceful, the gentle breeze whistled through the long grass at her feet. The basket of logs she had been carrying lay fallen and scattered on the ground.

Trembling, she stooped to gather the wood, and hoisted it onto her back. Brooke made her way slightly unsteadily towards the tiny tumbledown cottage before her.

Her grandmother looked up as she entered.

“Brooke?” she demanded; blind eyes searching the doorway.

“It’s me,” Brooke answered in her soft voice, trying not to let on to the fact she was shaking.

“Hmm.” The old woman turned back to the mirror she always sat in front of. Ever since the death of Brooke’s father when she was ten, the old woman had been spending more and more time looking in the mirror. She never told Brooke what she Saw in there, and Brooke did not ask. She had no desire to know. Some things were better left unknown, and it did no good to –

As the vision overtook her again, Brooke let out a cry and sank to the floor. The room around her dissolved and became a vortex of whirling shapes and sounds, incomprehensible, dangerous.

“Brooke.”

Panting, Brooke looked up into the gnarled face of the old woman, her sight clearing. The white eyes stared at her intently.

“What did you See?”

“N-nothing,” stammered Brooke, “I-I d-don’t know…”

Her grandmother shook her roughly. “Don’t lie to me girl. Tell me what you Saw.”

Brooke breathed in sharply. “Darkness. F-fire. Death.”

The old woman cocked her head as if listening intently to something else in the room. “And?”

“And?” Brooke shook her head. “And…” She paused. “A light. Always to the North. Always the same. A white light.”

Releasing her granddaughter, the old woman stepped back and sank into her chair, closing her eyes.

“So,” she said, “It begins.”

“Grandma?” Brooke whispered, “W-what’s happening to me? W-why do I k-keep seeing these things? I don’t…I don’t understand.”

Her grandmother bowed her head. “Tell me child. What day is it today?”

Brooke frowned. “Day? Why it’s…” She looked startled. “It’s my birthday.”

She had forgotten. And why bother remembering? Ever since her father had died, Brooke had no wish to celebrate this day.

“How old are you, child?”

“Eighteen.”

Her grandmother looked up at her with those unseeing and yet somehow penetrating eyes. “Then today is the day you come into your inheritance.”

Brooke opened her mouth to ask what that might be, when she was interrupted by an almighty pounding at the front door that made her jump.

As if she had been expecting it, however, the old woman stood up with a orchestra of creaking bones. “Ah, they are late.”

*****

A large crowd had gathered round the old blacksmith’s house. Simon stood on tiptoes, craning his neck to see.

He nudged the villager standing next to him. “What’s going on?”

The man shrugged. “The people from the asylum. Finally taking the mad old coot away I guess.”

A wave of fascinated horror washed over Simon. Ever since the death of the village blacksmith, his mother and his daughter had lived there in increasing solitude, shunning the rest of the villagers. There had always been suspicions that the old woman was a witch with uncanny power, able to see into the future. Or else she was just mad. In her younger days she had charged people for telling their fortune. Nowadays people left well alone.

The girl was another matter entirely. When they had been younger, Simon vaguely remembered her as one who always stood on the edge of their boisterous games; quietly taking the merciless bullying the other children inflicted on her. A wave of shame washed over him as he remembered how he had sometimes joined in, goaded on by the fear of becoming a social outcast himself. He had always been small and skinny, his lean face with its sullen brown eyes and dull brown hair making him liable to fade into the background. He had a burning desire to be accepted, to be one of the gang, and had managed this by fitting in as carefully as he could. If that meant someone else had to suffer for it, then so be it.

He was not proud of himself, but something about Brooke did inspire others to treat her like an outcast. It was not just her mother’s strange disappearance when she was still a baby, her father’s sudden death, or her grandmother’s rumoured madness – the truth was Brooke herself was just plain weird.

As if on cue with his own thoughts, Brooke emerged from the house. At over six-foot she towered over most of the men in the crowd. She wore a man’s white shirt and her patched brown skirt was too short, revealing her enormous scuffed boots. In the bright sunshine, her white blonde hair gleamed, framing a large featured, square jawed face. Her normally rosy cheeks burnt red in her otherwise pale face, and her blue eyes darted uncertainly round at the crowd. She looked terrified.

Wearing a long black cape despite the heat of the day, a weasel-like man stepped forward, clutching a piece of paper. “Miss Smith?”

Brooke nodded, wrapping her arms round herself defensively.

“We are here from Chairnin Asylum. We have come for your grandmother.” He gestured at the large men who flanked him, and at the horse drawn cart behind them. The crowd murmured appreciatively.

Brooke stared at them, eyes as wide as a rabbit’s. She jumped as a shape moved behind her in the house.

Mirroring her, Simon started as someone touched him on the shoulder. He turned to see Leah Yuler standing behind him.

“Simon,” she said softly, “What’s happening?”

Quickly he filled her in, ignoring the quickening of his heartbeat at the proximity he was standing to her. Simon’s crush on Leah had hit him swift and hard the moment he had laid eyes on her. She and her family were new to Gerning, having moved there a year previously from the city. Her father had been a minor nobleman until some scandal had caused him to lose his title and his money. The new family had been regarded with some mistrust at first, but their gentle manners had won the villagers over quickly enough.

The youngest daughter of the Yuler family; Leah had won many admirers amongst the youths of the village. She was outstandingly pretty, intelligent and kind-hearted, and had fitted in with ease to the knot of teenagers that frequented the village square.

Brushing back her thick dark hair with a small hand, Leah’s vivid green eyes were appalled as she stood on tiptoe to watch the scene in front of them unfold.

Turning back to the drama himself, Simon saw that the old woman had hobbled out of the house, but Brooke refused to let her past. The girl stood, shielding the old woman from the men who approached cautiously.

Simon understood why they were uncertain – Brooke was easily the same height as the tallest of them, very broad shouldered and strong looking. However, the little Simon actually knew about her was enough to be sure she was extremely timid and had never been in a fight in her life.

“Come now,” said the official, “Let’s not have a struggle. You are eighteen today Miss Smith am I correct?”

A flicker of surprise flitted over Brooke’s face as she once again nodded.

“Our records state then that since you no longer require a guardian by law, we are freely able to section your grandmother according to Act Fifty Three, paragraph eight-three-one. Now, be a helpful lass and let her past. We don’t want to be having to take you as well now do we?”

Brooke went pale, and staggered as if he had struck her, but a cracked voice issued out from behind her back.

“All right, all right, don’t get you’re knickers in a twist! I’m coming!” The old woman tapped her granddaughter’s leg with her walking stick. “Be a good girl now and let me through Brooke.”

“W-what?” Brooke spoke for the first time, in a surprisingly soft voice for one so large. She stepped back from her grandmother, looking as if she had never seen the old woman before.

Simon saw the woman grab her granddaughter’s arm, pulling her down so she could whisper in her ear. Brooke shook her head violently at whatever was said to her, but her grandmother seemed adamant. She walked away from Brooke and held her arm out to one of the burly asylum workers, who looked stunned that the woman was coming without a fight.

There was going to be a fight from Brooke however. The girl was now totally white faced and tried to grab hold of her grandmother as she was lead towards the cart.
One of the asylum men held her back.

“Grandma, no! NO!”

The scream let out by Brooke tore at Simon’s heart, and beside him Leah gave a little gasp of distress. However, the old woman did not look back as she was helped into the cart. The door slammed shut behind her, and the man holding Brooke let her go.

Leah clutched at Simon as Brooke ran up to the now locked door of the cart and started pounding on it. Even Simon had to turn away from the pitiful sight of the large girl running down the road after the cart as it pulled away. She tripped at the end of the road and stayed where she fell on the ground, unmoving.

The crowd, satisfied that there were to be no more dramatics, started to disperse, muttering to itself.

Feeling slightly sick, Simon made to go home himself, when Leah grabbed him tightly.

“Where are you going? We can’t just leave her there like that!”

“But,” he stopped and look uncertainly at the crumpled heap in the distance that
was Brooke. “What can we do?”

Leah scowled determinedly. She took hold of his hand. “Come on!”

Despite the bad situation, Simon could not help feeling slightly gleeful that Leah had singled him, him, out of all the others in the crowd to help her on her mission of mercy. Her hand felt very warm in his, and he had to resist the urge to squeeze it tightly.

They broke into a trot until they reached the girl lying on the road. Brooke was sprawled in the dirt, her cheek resting against the rough track scored by countless cart wheels. Her pale face was now scarlet, tears streaming out of her tightly shut eyes, her body shaking with the force of her crying.

“Oh Brooke, honey,” murmured Leah, crouching down. She dug a handkerchief out of her pocket; wiped the sodden face and running nose. Leaning over, Leah pulled Brooke’s skirt back down over her legs, concealing the ripped stockings and grazed knees.

“We…maybe we should get her back inside,” said Simon awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Brooke?” whispered Leah, leaning down, “Do you think you can stand up?”

But Brooke simply turned her head away, the volume of her crying increasing.
Simon gave a sigh and walked round to Brooke’s other side. He bent over, picked up her arm and slung it over his shoulder.

“You’ll have to take the other side,” he said to Leah, “I can’t manage her on my own.”

He half expected Leah to protest, to claim that she couldn’t possibly, she wasn’t strong enough, they would have to call one of the village men.

Instead she nodded grimly at him, a determined look on her face he had never seen before. She picked up Brooke’s other arm, put it over her own shoulder, and together they heaved the big girl to her feet.

Whatever feelings he’d had for Leah before, intensified tenfold. It was not easy for the two of them to manoeuvre someone nearly a foot taller than either of them who seemed to be unable, or unwilling, to help them by taking weight on her own legs. But Leah said not a word of complaint as they puffed and struggled their way down the road back to Brooke’s house.

As they neared the front door, which was still wide open, Simon was struck by how bony Brooke was. The girl looked large, but beneath her clothes she was all hard angles and ribs.

Someone needs a good meal inside them, he thought as they half carried, half dragged Brooke into her house, Still I’m not complaining, this would be impossible if she was fat!

He looked round as they entered the house. It was tiny, one floor only, with one room that served as living room and kitchen. A screen wall had been set up at one end, hiding two small beds, Simon guessed. However despite the obvious poverty and worn down furniture, it was spotlessly clean.

They sat Brooke down on a hard chair at the rough but meticulously scrubbed table. A soon as they let go of her, she slumped forward with her head on the table, still crying hard.

“Phew!” panted Leah, wiping the fine sheen of sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. She looked round at the surroundings, and then back at Simon, her face stricken.

He grimaced his agreement. His own family were not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but his house looked like a palace in comparison.

“Now what?” he asked.

Leah scratched her head and wandered over to the kitchen part of the room. Poking around the scant cupboards she located three cracked, mismatched mugs and a teapot. Further investigation brought forth a small tin of tea and a pail of milk.

“Can you get a fire going Si?”

He blinked at her. No one ever called him Si. It was never anything more familiar than Simon. Feeling absurdly pleased with himself, Simon nodded and walked over to the tiny fireplace and started stoking it.