Chapter 1
It was the first day of his summer break. Tom stepped out through the front door of his house, intending to head for his local park. As he closed the door and turned, he spotted the small red car parked on his driveway. He took another three steps towards it before he noticed her.
Her head was slumped on the steering wheel, her eyes were closed and her arms dangled by her side. She looked to be asleep, or dead. He briefly wondered why he thought the latter before he felt a sudden surge of familiarity.
He knew her.
Tom walked down the concrete slabs that cut across his front lawn and peered inside the car. There was very little of her face to be seen. Half of it was pressed against the steering wheel and the other was partially covered in her long red hair.
Who was she? How did he know her?
He felt an impulsive urge to knock on her car window, to wake her up, to ask her. He even raised his hand to do so when she stirred. And then he realised that he was standing over a car, staring in at a sleeping person. It didn’t matter that he thought he knew her. It was still weird. And she was about to wake up and catch him in his moment of oddness.
Tom took a step back and briskly walked past the car and down the road, purposefully avoiding looking back. He was going to the park, that was what he was going to do. Not stare at a sleeping woman. That was weird and creepy.
And he might be a little weird by some definition, but he certainly wasn’t creepy.
Once at the park, Tom plonked himself down on a bench. Before him, a group of children ran around kicking a ball. He had shared classes with a few and knew most of their names, but he doubted they knew his.
Tom was a bit of a loner.
He wasn’t really sure why. Aside from the hunchback, the puffy cheeks, the loud huffing and puffing after a sprint or a short walk, he was a fairly normal thirteen-year-old boy.
Oh, and he could move things without touching them. He imagined that to be sort of unique. It wasn’t something he bragged about. He had seen one too many movies to know it was best not to.
He had told his sister though. He had to tell someone. He needed to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. And the best way to do that was by showing someone, and having them say it was so.
As Tom watched the children play their game of football, his thoughts drifted towards the red car parked in his driveway and the woman sleeping in it. He wondered why he thought he knew her. He barely saw any of her face. If someone asked him to describe her now, the only thing he could say was that she had long red hair.
There was another person sitting on the bench, and a while passed before he noticed. She was in her early twenties, had long red hair, red lips and red eyes. She sat next to him and stared at him brashly.
It was her, the sleeping woman from the car.
Why she was here? Had she caught him peeping in her car and followed him to the park? What did she want? Why did he still think he knew her?
“Hello,” Tom said cautiously.
She didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she stared him up and down before her lips pursed. “What are you doing here?”
He was sitting on the bench, but that much was obvious, so Tom said, “Watching them play football.” He supposed he had been doing that, before his mind had wandered off.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What?” she asked confusedly. “How did you get here?”
Here? Did she mean the park? “...I walked?”
“You walked-” she stopped disbelievingly. “What do you mean you walked?” she demanded. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
Tom shook his head quickly a few times. He wasn’t trying to be funny. He really had walked to the park. He could remember it quite clearly. It hadn’t happened very long ago.
“Is this some sort of test?”
A while passed before he realised she was waiting for an answer. Tom shrugged. He didn’t know if it was a test. He didn’t know what she was talking about either, but he stared at her, much like she stared at him – brashly.
She was quite striking to look at. He had never seen red eyes before, not red like this – fiery and powerful. And oddly, it wasn’t a scary look.
He still felt like he knew her. Her face, her body, her everything was so familiar. There was almost a glow about her. He felt this sudden urge to touch, to feel. He shuddered at the thought and looked away. Touching a stranger was worse than watching them whilst they slept.
And then the oddest thing happened.
The woman reached forward and touched him. It was more of a poke really, first on the stomach, then his chest, and then his cheeks, left and right. She then held his right hand, lifted it up and let it go.
Tom let his hand drop before he tucked it away by his side. He slowly shuffled away from her until he came to the end of the bench. He held onto the armrest and worriedly stared back at her as she muttered to herself. He was beginning to think she might be crazy. Sure, he had thought of touching her too, but he hadn’t, and that was the big difference.
It was a shame, he thought as he watched her lips move as she continued to mutter to herself. That feeling of familiarity hadn’t left him. He still felt like he knew her.
“Oh grow up,” the woman said as she noticed he had moved away from her. “This is stupid,” she added sullenly before sighing. “Fine, if this is what they want...”
The woman smiled and moved towards him. Tom’s first thought was to shift away further, but he was already at the end of the bench. Before the thought of standing up and running away entered his mind, she held her hand out for him to shake.
“Hello,” she smiled, “I’m Cindy.”
It was a friendly gesture, and a sudden departure from her previous demeanour. He wondered if she was bipolar. Should he shake her hand? What if he did it wrong? Would she become angry again? But if he didn’t shake it, she would most certainly be offended...
Tom reached out and tentatively took her hand, deciding it best to try not to offend her. “Thomas Skinner,” he said, and then wondered why he had used his full name.
They sat quietly after that. Cindy was still smiling, though she no longer looked his way. They both stared ahead at the children running around kicking the ball.
“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” she said after a while.
Tom turned to look at her. She had just made a comment about the weather. He wondered if she shouldn’t have started with that – before she poked him and all. He still felt like he knew her, and she had been outside his house.
And now she was here. He had to know. She was still smiling. This was a good time as any to ask. He took a deep breath. “Are you following me?”
It wasn’t the question that was supposed to come out of his mouth. He wondered what was wrong with his tongue.
Cindy chuckled. “Am I following you...” she repeated, mulling the sentence over. She turned to look at him, the smile still on her face but a curious look in her eyes. “Now why would I do that?”
“I saw you outside my house.”
“Yes, you did,” Cindy nodded. “And then you ran off,” she grinned.
Tom didn’t remember running. He had walked quickly. And she hadn’t answered the question. “You are following me,” he said. “Why?”
“I was looking for something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” Cindy looked away, towards the running children. “Something different...” she said absently.
Tom was different. But only one other person knew that, and that person was Emily, his sister. Even his parents didn’t know. He hadn’t felt ready to tell them yet. And here was Cindy, a complete stranger, and part of him wanted to tell her.
He still thought she might be crazy, but he felt like he could trust her. He wondered why. He was sure he didn’t know her now, even though she still seemed so familiar...
“I might be different.”
“You might be a little too different,” Cindy muttered.
“Huh?”
Cindy smiled at him innocently. “Nothing.”
Tom stared into her large red eyes, a little unnerved. He had heard her. He was a little too different, she had said. He was about to ask her what she meant, but Cindy broke eye contact as she turned suddenly to face the running children.
They sat silently and he was glad for it. If they had spoken for much longer, Tom knew he would have told her. A stranger he had just met, and he was ready to tell her his biggest secret. Surely something was quite wrong with him.
A while passed before Cindy stood up. “Well, it was... interesting, odd, weird meeting you.”
It was all of that because you were all of those, Tom thought. He watched her as she walked away, and for the first time he noticed the long black piece of cloth that draped down her shoulder. Was she wearing a cloak?
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