I zipped up my coat and stepped outside. The morning was fresh and clear, and a thin mist was clinging to the fields. It smelled like winter. I would have taken the route across the field to school under normal circumstances. I would have enjoyed it. But Mum drove Ollie and me instead. She parked right up by the school gate, stopping on the zig-zag yellow lines you were supposed to leave clear. Mums, dads and kids watched as I levered myself out of the back seat and came into the playground. They approached in ones and twos. Some speaking to Mum first, some speaking directly to me. They smiled sympathetically, some hugged me, some wished me well and told me I was brave. Some said I was looking good. The local vicar, who had been talking to some of the other parents, came over and put a hand on my shoulder.

  'God bless you, Jacob. He'll give you strength.'

  He moved his hand to my head, left it there a moment, smiled warmly and departed.

  I watched him leave as I waited by the main entrance. Mum and Ollie waited with me. I was the focus of everyone's attention, more and more well-wishers drifting over. I smiled at them all, but I took to watching Ollie mostly. As he stood at the edge of the crowd, he made me think of a secret service operative: his eyes were always active but no one saw him, no one spoke to him or regarded him, no one really registered he was there, except Darren, Leon and Simon. They came across and stood with him until there was an opportunity to say hello to me too. We did nods and familiar handshakes, acknowledging the weirdness of the situation in order to forget about it as soon as possible, to get back to normal, to get back to how things should be.

  Even though the bell hadn't rung, a teacher opened the door and told me to come in. I accepted the offer if only to get away from the crowds. I sat at my desk, pulling out my books and pencil case, until a few minutes later the rest of the class filed in. I was pleased to see that people already had other concerns as they nattered about weekends, homework and video games.

  By lunch I was feeling tired. I could have gone home whenever I wanted, but I was determined to see the day through, even if it meant not coming back tomorrow.

  Ollie and Leon were on the same bench as me as we ate in the hall. I noticed again how tired Ollie looked. I wondered what was causing it. He must not be sleeping well, but I hadn't woken to find him on guard again since the first time. This didn't mean he wasn't doing it of course – I fell asleep so easily at the moment, I was always so tired. There must have been something stressing him. Was it just my illness? I scratched my head as I thought about the mission he had set me. Was I letting him down? Was I giving in to slumber too easily each night? Did I need to be braver? Stronger?

  'Oh, er...'

  Everyone on the bench was staring at me, each half-paralysed in their own unique sort of way. Some pointing but trying not to; some trying to talk but only getting unintelligible sounds out; some looking disgusted but trying to hide it. Ollie was one of the last to be caught up in the phenomenon, his tired face half-trying to suppress obvious concern.

  'I... er,' someone repeated. It was the kid next to me, Jonathan Black. He was looking around in a panicked way, searching for a teacher or a dinner lady to help him out, his face a mixture of worry and disgust.

  I looked back at Ollie. He was looking at me fearfully.

  'Miss, please, miss... I...' Jonathan called with his hand in the air. Mrs Rothery came across and Jonathan pointed at his food and looked at me worryingly. I looked at his plate and suddenly noticed for the first time what had everyone acting so strangely. A clump of short, mousey-brown hair was sitting in the middle of Jonathan's pudding.

  I raised my hand to my scalp and gently pulled at another section. It came away easily. I looked at Ollie. His face had dropped and, in his eyes, there was something new – like only in this moment had he truly realised my illness was real.

  * * *

  The clippers buzzed and vibrated like an angry hornet. Ollie watched from the kitchen table. The remainder of my hair fell in clumps to the tiled floor. I ran my hand over the stubble. There was something oddly satisfying about it. Without the current circumstances I may never have known it. That was some small positive for becoming the image everyone was waiting for. Dad held up a mirror for me. Staring back was a child with cancer. I couldn't pretend otherwise.

  'You look pretty dangerous,' Dad said. 'I wouldn't mess with you.'

  He put an arm around me, gave me a squeeze then began putting the clippers away.

  'Sure you don't want the same?' he said to Ollie. 'You could be brothers in arms. A pair of soldiers.'

  Ollie shook his head.

  Dad left and Ollie came over and held out a choice of hats. A woolly one in his left hand and a baseball cap in his right. Both belonged to him. The woolly one had a load of differently coloured stripes and a little bobble on top. I'd always liked it. I chose it and put it on.

  'You can't tell,' Ollie said, looking at my hair line. 'Not with the hat on.'

  I picked up the mirror and looked. He was right, you couldn't. I looked normal again.

  'You've not been doing what you said you would,' Ollie said firmly.

  I looked at him with concern. It's difficult when people present your failings directly to you.

  'I am.'

  'No, you're not. I know you're not.'

  He looked serious and strung out. Did he really know or was he pretending? How could he know? Was this just because of my hair?

  'It's difficult.'

  'I'm not saying it isn't. But you've got to do it. This isn't a joke.'

  He looked thin, thinner than normal. I had sympathy for him, more than for myself, which was strange considering the circumstances.

  'It's hard. Harder than I thought,' I said. 'Maybe I could change. Do like the kid with the spaceships did. Try that instead. That could be easier. Let's do the Golden Cupboard again. Recalibrate.'

  Starting again was seeming like a better and better idea as the days and nights went on.

  'No, you're not giving up on this, you've got to finish what you've started. Understand? I'm serious. You don't just give up when it gets hard. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That's the point. That's why it matters. If you don't succeed at this, you won't succeed at anything. Understand? This is your life. This is important.'

  I studied his eyes. They were sunken and he had purplish bags.

  'Are you OK? You look terrible.'

  'Look who's talking,' he replied.

  It should have been a joke, but somehow it didn't quite come out that way. It came out as serious and dour. Not like Ollie at all.

  'You should get some sleep,' I said, hoping it would sound light-hearted.

  'I know,' Ollie replied seriously and went to put his other hat away.

  I had been reading for an hour when he came to bed. I watched him climb wearily under the covers and roll over to face the wall. It was nice to have Ollie show this much care for me, to show his concern. But when I thought about it, it was obvious he would. He didn't want to lose his brother. It was a heavy weight for him as well. I vowed to finish my task tonight, to become braver, more determined. To succeed in the task he had set me. Not just for me, but for him. I put my book aside, turned off the lights and prepared for battle.

  I woke the next morning unsure of when I had fallen asleep. I couldn't be certain if I had managed to do anything at all. I was annoyed at myself. The problem was the fatigue. The all-encompassing fatigue. The fatigue of the illness and the fatigue of the treatment. It drained me of fight and pulled me into slumber before I knew it. I had fully intended to follow through with Ollie's task, this was not in doubt, and I had visions in my head of something, but what they were I didn't know. At some point, my conscious mind had let go, sleep had taken me, and my visualisations had become mixed up with my dreams. I could not say when. I could not say what was what. All I had were images and sequences, half-remembered moments for which I could not be certain of the source.

  There was an old room full of machines, I remember that, untouched and covered in dust, and a corridor – it had a slight curvature to it and kept bending out of sight. There were grey walls and something prowling after me, hunched but always catching, gaining, just around the bend, always getting closer. I remember looking back and seeing what I thought was a human hand or a foot, or a claw, I couldn't be sure, but I remembered that part vividly. Then it was me in pursuit, unable to catch the thing just around the corner, unable to reach my goal. I picked up the pace, the sickly-grey walls moved past faster and faster, the scraping sound getting faster and faster, but still it was just out of sight, and still I didn't know what it was. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my arm and I was in another room. The spaces not fitting together in a way that made sense. There was a shadow, but I turned and it was gone. Another door opened and I saw the landing. I rushed out to it, and suddenly there was nothing behind me. The doorway was gone, the room was gone, it was just me and the landing as it should be, and I wondered if it ever happened, but then I remember looking at the bedroom door and feeling an energy. The air was electric; I could feel something inside, the huge monstrous thing that had slowly dragged itself across the room. I didn't know how I knew it was in there, but I knew, and I didn't dare go any further.

  I looked over at Ollie's bed. It was empty. What did any of this mean? These things I saw. Did it really have anything to do with my illness? Was I really helping myself with all this? Was it a mistake? I looked at the Golden Cupboard on the desk; the door had popped open again during the night. I got up and shut it.

  I had to think rationally. I couldn't lose that. Whatever happened, I had to use my reason.

  I came into the kitchen. Ollie was sipping tea at the table, hunched around it with the sleeves of his large sweatshirt covering his hands.

  'Ollie, get Jacob a plate and a bowl,' Mum said from the hob without looking at him. She talked to him a lot like this these days, treating him as my personal assistant. Before, I would have found it funny, but now I wasn't so sure. 'You hungry this morning?' she said to me. 'Take a seat and I'll fix you whatever you like. Ollie, are there eggs?'

  I sat as Ollie grabbed a plate and a bowl from the cupboard and cutlery from the drawer, then went to the fridge, grabbed an egg box and put it beside Mum on the counter. She didn't thank him. He returned to his previous position without looking at me, his face hovered over the steam swirling from his tea.

  There was something changing in this house. Something didn't feel right. But how much of it was because of me?

  * * *

  I took a lawn chair and moved under a group of trees at the far corner of the garden, sitting with my back to the wood. The lawn hadn't been mowed yet this year; the grass was long enough to hide last year's fallen leaves still rotting into the soil. The trees were mostly bare, but you could detect the first scent of new growth in the air – spring was not far off. Nature would soon wake.

  The house was over at an angle; I could just see the entrance to the cellar through the kitchen window. Along from me, to the right of the house, was Dad's shed. I wrapped my large jacket around me a little tighter and leaned back into the chair. When I thought about it, what was Dad's shed other than a field lab? Why else would he spend so much time away from us all? In studying the house, perhaps I could learn something from his approach. I needed perspective. And you don't look at an experiment from inside out. If I was to complete Ollie's task, I had to use method and reason.

  The sun dipped below the horizon. Twilight was setting in. I saw Mum come into the kitchen and flick on the light. She flicked it off when she left. In the minutes that had passed, the transition into twilight was enough that there was no longer any detail to be seen inside – the windows of the house were now dark, reflecting the sky.

  I had brought tools with me for my observations. I had taken mum's phone from the kitchen. It was easy to unlock, I'd seen her do the 'z' swipe across the touchscreen a hundred times, but even if I hadn't, the trail of finger oil revealed the pattern. I used the home key to bring up a shortcut to the apps that were currently open. Flicking through to the camera I was briefly taken aback by a picture of the private parts of a man in the holder image. It disappeared quickly, as soon as the camera opened up, but I was still put out by it. I didn't like it at all. The private parts looked nothing like mine, it was all dark and hairy. I tried to clear it from my mind.

  I dimmed the screen and formed a sort of hood around it with a scarf so that I wasn't too illuminated in the gathering dark. There was no night-vision capability on the camera, but as long as there was some light to go by, you could adjust the levels to brighten a darkened image. I looked up into the tree above me to see what detail I could pick out with the brightness all the way up. It wasn't ideal, but there were individual branches and some bark pattern visible. A squirrel shot across the screen, and when I moved to follow it, I saw a bat briefly dart close to the branches against the darkening sky, chasing the insects brought out by night fall.

  I pointed the camera at the windows of the house, moving along slowly, one by one, until I heard a strange low sound coming from the small cellar window, down amongst the bushes and ivy, an area deep in shadow even in daytime. I moved the camera over and studied the image closely. I held the phone steady, trying to pick out any movement, looking for the source of the sound, but I couldn't make out any detail, the shadow was too dark.

  After a few seconds a small grey shape became visible at the bottom of the screen. It was moving slowly, heading towards me in the grass. As it got closer I could see ears, paws and a head. It had some sort of stilted hopping motion. It was either a hare or a rabbit. When it got close enough I could see it was a rabbit, an adult, moving slowly towards me. It got closer and closer, but it didn't veer from its course. It seemed oblivious to my presence. I lowered the camera, my eyes seeing just well enough in the dark.

  The rabbit looked injured and as it hopped level, I saw that its back left leg and half of its rear was completely ripped off. There was nothing except a raw, red opening, with blood sticking to the surrounding fur. The rabbit hopped on silently and blank-eyed in its lob-sided way. I raised the camera and flipped the viewer to 'selfie' mode so I could look behind me without turning and making any noise. The rabbit hopped on into the woods, slowly and unevenly. I looked up from the camera. A fox appeared in front of me. It came to a stop only meters away, surprised to find me in its path. It seemed curious, sniffing the air. I couldn't see any blood around its mouth. It thought for a moment then trotted straight past, following the rabbit into the wood.

  Just then I began to pick up a kind of electricity in the air; the stillness around me felt alive. It took me a moment to realise that there was a dark shadow expanding from near the cellar window. It was hard to see, black on black, but I was sure there was something there, the night air crackling with electricity like it had on the landing and in the cellar; humming, twisting, and growing form. My heart began to beat faster. I raised the camera, pushing up the brightness and zooming in, trying to see some detail in the dark, but there was nothing extra I could see. Suddenly I heard the cat screeching and hissing and thrashing like it was in a fight, and then I saw a flash of white shoot across the lawn and into the woods to my left. I felt my heart racing as I held my breath and dizziness started to come over me.

  The shadow began to move, gliding towards the woods in the direction the cat had run. I began to feel sick, and as I did, the shadow turned its head towards me. There was a flash of pus-white eyes and I had to stop myself from calling out. The shadow moved slowly on until its dark form became the same darkness as the woods.

  For a while I sat totally still. I could not say for how long, I could not say how much time had passed, but it was now almost fully dark. My breaths sounded loud and heavy every time I remembered to take one. I wanted to go inside, yet at the same time it was the last place I wanted to be. My mind and heart raced. What had I just seen? How could it be real? Had Dad ever seen anything like this? If he was out here all the time, he must have. But then, that was impossible. He would have said something. Was this just my symptoms getting worse, like I'd been told they would? Was it in my head? Was I losing my mind?

  I felt sick. I raised the camera, flipping to selfie mode to see what I looked like, to check I was there, that this wasn't some terrible dream. My heart stopped. Just a few meters behind me, Dad was stood stock still. He had no top on, his bare chest white in the moonlight. It was covered with smears of dirt, and his hair was scruffy and ruffled. He stared straight ahead with glassy eyes, right past me, looking directly at the house like he didn't see me at all, like he didn't know I was there. I was about to call to him when his face started to screw up like he was in pain. A low wail began to come from deep in his throat, like a sickly cry of distress, and his hands bunched up into tight fists. He bent a little at the knees as his fist shook, but all the time he stared straight past me. I dared not move; I didn't know what was happening. After a moment he hit himself once with force in the side of the head and turned back towards the woods, slowly wandering off into the darkness, his white torso looking like it was floating as it disappeared. After he'd gone from sight, I could still hear his feet in the leaves for a while longer, breaking the occasional twig, but eventually those sounds faded too.

  Again, I didn't move for some time. My body taking time to settle. My mind taking time to calculate. I had always been aware that with Dad, something was wrong. His eyes had never been right. But I didn't know what I had witnessed tonight. All I knew was that I didn't want to ask Dad about any of it. Reason and logic had no place at this house anymore, and it scared me.

  * * *

  'Ollie!' Mum called out, laying out food on the table.

  'I can help,' Rebecca offered.

  'No, dear, you two take a seat. Ollie!' she shouted out again to the house.

 

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