A Boy, Lost
By redwolf

By the time they wheeled Sarah into the delivery room, she was practically howling. She felt like someone was trying to turn her inside out, or rip her in half; tears and sweat were mixed together on her pink face, and her eyesight was going blurry from the pain. And John wasn't there – he'd been stuck in traffic on his way home from work forty minutes ago, but he still hadn't arrived. It would all have been so much easier if she had had his fingers to break.

But she didn't. So she was just going to have to do this herself.

She took a few, deep breaths and then held them; she focused intently on what it would be like after – she would have her baby, finally. Her baby. She felt another contraction; it was like a fist around her womb, and she bit out a cry, her deep breaths flying out of the window. She rode out the pain, more tears leaking from under her eyelashes, and wondered if she could actually do this.

She could. She had to.

“All right, Sarah,” the doctor said from between her legs – a strange, green creature, his face covered up as if he was going to be dealing with some sort of radioactive material rather than a baby. “Are you ready to push?”

She couldn't even answer; she felt another contraction clenching in her belly and, screaming with the force of it, Sarah pushed her son into the world.

00000

Nathaniel Flowers did the usual slamming-act when he came through the front door on a mild Friday afternoon. He was always told not to slam the door (what teenager wasn’t?) but he did it anyway (what teenager didn’t?), despite the various threats and warnings he received for doing so every single day. His permanently bleak mood towards his house and home life seemed to prevent him from closing anything – be it a door, a cupboard or an argument – without creating a bang and eliciting a bollocking.

And, just as he'd expected, “Don’t slam the bloody door!”

If Nathaniel had bothered to even glance up on his way to his room, he would have seen his Father stood in the kitchen doorway, a glass of whiskey in-hand, his top button undone and his shirt untucked. But Nathaniel didn’t bother to glance up and acknowledge his father's presence; he never did. He continued to storm up the stairs and into his bedroom (slamming the door behind him, as his Father no doubt knew he would), slinging his bag into a corner and yanking his school tie off over his head, trying his very hardest to refrain from punching something.

As per usual, Nathaniel's generally jovial mood had evaporated the moment he set foot through his own front door and been alerted to the presence of his perpetually mashed father. Unlike other boys his age, Nathaniel didn't view his father as someone he could play playstation games with, or play football with, or relate to in any way, shape, or form. In fact, Nathaniel Flowers' only had one person he could really count as a friend, and that suited him down to the ground. He had a very ostrich-like approach to life; he ignored everyone and expected everyone to ignore him in return (which they usually did). When this tactic failed... well, Thomas was usually around to defend him. But usually (thankfully) Nathaniel was left to his own devices; at home as well as everywhere else.

In fact, he was drastically unlike other sixteen year olds' in many ways. He hated his house (though many teenagers claim to, few of them would rather live in an alleyway), preferred his own company to that of other people his age, and could probably debate you into a corner without hesitation; but you could really tell that this one didn't follow the masses by taking a peek in his bedroom. The only form of decoration – if you could even call it that – was a framed picture of Nathaniel’s late Mother, which hung on the wall next to his bed (it was the only picture of her in the house, and Nathaniel had to fight his Father tooth and nail to hang it up – in the end his Father had let him win, mainly because he never bothered to venture into his sons room anyway). Nathaniel, in the act of pulling off his hated school shirt, looked at the picture briefly – as if expected her to reprimand him for slamming doors, too – and then turned his back on it, pulling on a clean t-shirt and fishing a jumper out of the wardrobe.

Watching Nathaniel move methodically around his bedroom, one would suspect that he was going through motions of some sort; as though he'd done the same thing so many times, that he now did it without thinking. In fact, as Nathaniel began to pull out a tent bag, a sleeping bag and a half empty bottle of wine, one would start realising that something of interest was going on, even if it wasn't particularly out-of-the-ordinary.

Nathaniel had spent the entire walk home from school cajoling his best friend to stop out with him that night – Thomas was still grumbling about the weather when he went into his house, but Nathaniel knew he would come, despite the cold; he’d never once bailed out on a camping trip, not since the camping trips had begun four years earlier. (Truth be told, ‘trip’ was a bit of an overstatement. A very large overstatement, really; the entire ‘trip’ involved walking behind their houses and putting the tent up in the overgrown field. They were a stones throw away from their homes, but that was beside the point. They were still ‘out’, and that was good enough for Nathaniel.)

Nathaniel slung both the tent and the sleeping bag over his shoulder, grabbed a pillow off his bed and his coat from behind the door. He didn’t bother with anything else; if he’d forgotten anything crucial he could simply open his back gate and come up to get it – his father always forgot to lock the back door, and there was a spare key under the mat, just in case.

He jumped the last three stairs and swung on the banister – something else his Father continued to rage at him for doing, something else Nathaniel did mainly for that reason. He dropped his various packages outside the back door and made his way into the kitchen, in search of food. Lately, Nathaniel had taken to buying and cooking his own meals; his dad, who ate during the day, sometimes forgot that there was another mouth in the house. Nathaniel poked about in the fridge and, in the end, settled for a ham, cheese and lettuce sandwich; not the most nutritious of dinners, but it would do. Anyway, Thomas was generally peckish during the night and always brought supplies with him, to save any midnight treks to one of their kitchens (‘supplies’ usually consisted of a packet of Marlboro Lights and a box of cereal, which were to be consumed dry and washed down with either water or screw-top white wine).

Nathaniel ate his sandwich standing at the counter and gazing out of the window into the back garden (the view wasn’t much, considering that it was the middle of October, but it wasn’t bad – a few of the tougher flowers were still fighting the cold and blooming away, and the fact that the entire lawn had turned into a flowerbed in the twelve years since his Mother’s death gave the garden a sort of magical, mysterious quality that Nathaniel quite liked. A rogue ivy had consumed almost the entire fence, and in the summer poppies would bloom seemingly at random around the walls). He knew that his Father hated the garden, and always talked about mowing the lawn and killing the ivy and generally sorting it all out, and Nathaniel was glad that he never bothered to get round to it. Thomas, at least, said it was a hell of a lot more interesting than his own garden, although finding a missing tennis ball in the grass could take hours.

Nathaniel finished his sandwich and made another (better to be safe than sorry), still gazing off into the garden, wondering absently if his Father would put up a fight about Nathaniel going out. Usually he couldn’t care less what his son did – most of the time he barely seemed to care that he had a son – but, sometimes, he pulled himself together long enough to attempt to act like a real Father (which really wasn’t appreciated in the slightest) and start bossing Nathaniel about. This was generally greeted by petulance and a lack of cooperation.

Nathaniel chucked the crusts of his sandwich in the bin and (after giving the kitchen a bit of a tidy – something else his father never bothered to do) grabbed his hat from the coat rack outside the kitchen door. He pulled it on over his flaming red hair – something he'd inherited from his mother (luckily, it wasn't the only thing) – and then yanked on his coat, vaguely wondering if his Father would even be compus mentus at this point. He shouldered the living room door open; his Father was sat in the old armchair, his beady eyes fixed on the television. Nathaniel felt fleeting disgust and disbelief that this was the man who sired him, before pushing it away and adopting the usual coldness he held only for his dear old Dad.

“I’m camping out with Thomas,” Nathaniel said.

His Father grunted.

Nathaniel took it as ‘okay, son, have fun, be careful, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, grab my torch from the garage, do you want some money?’ etc. and exited the room. He grabbed his stuff from by the back door and swung by the garage to get the torch; he couldn’t have been in from school any longer than half an hour and it was already beginning to get dark. He slipped out of the back door, down the garden path and out of the back gate, flicking on the torch as he went. He needn’t have – he could easily pick out the tip of Thomas' cigarette burning in the darkness.

Nathaniel shined the torchlight in his best friends’ face and said, by way of greeting, “Those things give you cancer.”

Thomas replied, “You could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

“Touché.”

It was one of their oldest arguments; one that they’d been having since Thomas had picked up the bright idea of smoking a year or so previously, infuriating Nathaniel so much that he didn’t speak to him for two days (Nathaniel quickly realised that he had no other friends he wanted to spend any time with at all, and, frankly, life was boring without Thomas causing trouble at his elbow). Nathaniel dropped his sleeping bag on the wet ground and sat on top of it, staring up at his best friend with a condescending, you’re-a-complete-idiot look on his face.

After a few minutes of this, Thomas sighed. “Fine,” he said, chucking his cigarette end on the ground and stamping on it, “you win. Nice hat by the way.” He smirked at his best friends’ headgear (a purple contraption with a bobble on the top, knitted by Nathaniel's grandmother as a Christmas present the previous year).

“Shut up, at least I’m warm,” Nathaniel replied, getting to his feet and picking up the tent bag. He removed the bottle of wine and stuck it under his arm, handing Thomas the bag with a flourish. “All yours, mate, you know I’m rubbish with tents.”

Thomas rolled his eyes but took the tent bag, shaking all the poles out of it and onto the floor, and lining them up in order of size. Nathaniel snorted with laughter and Thomas sent him a glare. “Look, Hat Boy, do you want this done quickly or do you want it done right?”

Nathaniel replied, “Quickly.”

Thomas duly ignored him.

00000

Two hours later, they were sat Thomas' kitchen table, eating soup and hot rolls.

Thomas' mother, Holly, (who had become Nathaniel’s surrogate mother when his own had died when he was only four) had come to fetch them at half seven, telling them that if they didn’t have something warm before they zipped themselves in for the night she’d probably find them dead of hypothermia the next morning. Needless to say, the two boys had agreed in a heartbeat; time flies in the summer, but at the end of autumn two hours in a cold tent feels like a lifetime.

“So,” Thomas said, craning his neck as far as it would go to glance out of the window and make sure their tent wasn’t being robbed – not that there was anything worth stealing in there, anyway, “how come you wanted to sleep out so much?”

Holly tactfully slipped out of the room; she was well aware of what went on next door (the walls, after all, weren’t as thick as you’d like) but Nathaniel had never mentioned it to her, and vice versa. She loved that boy like she loved her own son, but there were some things you just couldn’t talk about – unless, that is, he broached the subject first (which he never did – though Holly didn't doubt he told Thomas almost everything).

Nathaniel waited until he heard the click of the kitchen door before replying, “Anniversary.”

“Wedding?”

“Yep.”

“Ouch.”

Nathaniel’s Father was guaranteed to become shirty whenever Nathaniel asked about his Mother, but he knew that their wedding was a no-go area question-wise, no buts and no exceptions. Nathaniel had never seen a single picture of the wedding, and none of his surviving grandparents cared to mention it to him; all he knew about it was that John Flowers had been young, and Sarah Wolf had been four months pregnant. From things he’d heard whispered and things his Father had shouted at him when drunk, Nathaniel had sussed that he was unplanned and – in his Father’s case, at least – unwanted.

“Tell me about it,” Nathaniel said in an attempt to be nonchalant, getting to his feet and putting his empty bowl in the dishwasher. “He’d already started when I got in.”

Nathaniel heard the squeak of Thomas' chair as he got to his feet and came to stand next to him at the counter. Nathaniel could almost feel the waves of sympathy rolling off his best friend. “That’s shit,” Thomas said quietly.

“I know,” Nathaniel replied, after a time.

The two of them stood at the counter, looking out of the window at the spot in the darkness where they presumed their tent would be; each momentarily lost to his own thoughts. Neither of them noticed Holly re-enter the room (she stood in the doorway for a moment, watching them, wondering if it was possible for people who spent enough time together to grow alike – it must be possible, because these two boys were so similar sometimes that it scared her. Like now, for instance; the way they leant on the counter, the way they stared intently out of the window into nothingness, the way their hair – one raven haired, one red haired – stuck up at the back, the front, the sides, the way their awkward teenage bones jutted at harsh angles, the way they both jumped when they finally noticed her and then smiled lopsidedly at what she had in her hands). She walked into the kitchen and plonked two bags of crisps, two Mars bars and a flask on the table.

“We have,” she said, leaving the room and coming back in a moment later, “the strangest things in our pantry. Here,” she handed them both a packet of raisins and a bag of jelly tots. “Fill that flask up with tea and I reckon you’re both set for the night.” She smiled as they both swept down (so tall for sixteen; again, something they had in common – the both of them almost six foot, and she barely five, five) and kissed her, one boy to each cheek.

She bustled over to turn the kettle on while the two of them went hunting for gloves in Thomas' room (they’d have no chance of finding any this millennia under all of the clothes and magazines and Cd's that were strewn about – his room was like a pigsty; she kept telling him to tidy it!), and by the time they came back down – having discovered a pair of gloves each, not to mention a hat for Thomas and what appeared to be one of her Pashminas wrapped around Nathaniel's neck – bundled up like Arctic explorers, Holly was wondering if they should bother going out at all. She opened her mouth to say as much, but the twin looks of boyish excitement on their faces quelled her. She may as well let them have their fun while they were young enough to have it.

00000

By half-past one, the raisins and jelly tots were long gone – as was the tea – and the boys were now rapidly becoming three sheets to the wind. They were cocooned in their sleeping bags, sat with Nathaniel's fathers torch between them, shining a beam of light through the roof of the tent and up into the sky; they'd stopped joking around, and had moved on to the talks that they only ever seemed to have in the dead of night.

Thomas was nursing the – now almost empty – second bottle of wine, listening raptly to one of Nathaniel's rants about how utterly incompetent his Religious Education teacher was. Thomas, who was in the set below Nathaniel for RE, didn't really care about such things – he just disliked school and teachers in general; he had no idea if one was worse at teaching than the rest.

“—and she wouldn't even answer me!” Nathaniel was raging, gesticulating wildly. “I put it in every way possible, and the woman would not give me a bloody answer – you'd think seriously insulted Jesus, the way she was looking at me. Can you believe it?”

“Er, no.”

“The woman is useless. And creepy as fuck; she's always smiling and happy, even when she's telling you you'll go to hell. It's... unnerving.”

“I thought you didn't believe in hell?” Thomas asked, handing Nathaniel the bottle, as his throat was probably dry from talking so much.

“I don't,” he replied. “And I don't see why the lessons should be taught as if we all do.”

Thomas blinked. “It's a Catholic school.”

“That's not the point; we should be learning other things – about other religions, and morals and ethics and philosophy and stuff. Not learning to recite Mark's effing Gospel off by heart.”

Thomas snorted with laughter. “You should go up in front of the board of governors, Nath, they'd love you.”

Nathaniel grinned. “Funny,” he said. “But, seriously, don't you think it's all a big waste of time? What use is Mark's Gospel going to be to us in the real world? They don't sit you down in a job interview and say, 'right, what did Jesus do to the fig tree?' do they?”

“No.” Thomas shrugged. “I'm not particularly bothered, to be honest. All lessons are pointless. When is anyone ever going to ask us about the significance of Piggy's glasses in Lord of the Flies?”

Nathaniel pondered for a moment. “That's a good point,” he conceded, and they drank to it. After a moment of silence, he said, “When are we ever going to have to square root anything?”

“When will we ever want to find out how much sodium is in... um...”

“Your education is wasted on you.”

Slowly, the talk – as all talks eventually do – moved on to the opposite sex. Thomas paid Nathaniel back in abundance for his earlier rant about their hapless teacher; he bored Nathaniel almost to tears by talking for twenty minutes about a girl called Sherry. Which, Nathaniel thought privately, was a really stupid name. Sherry was a disgusting drink for old people which reminded Nathaniel of tat and dust. Which, of course, didn't put him in a very good frame of mind about Sherry, who, he learned, Thomas would be meeting tomorrow.

“Today,” Nathaniel corrected, checking his watch. “It's Saturday now; has been for about two hours.”

Thomas rubbed his hands together and winked. “You should see her, Nath, she's beaut.”

“Mmm,” Nathaniel replied half-heartedly.

“You should come out with us tomorrow – she's bringing some mates, and they know some lads from school... like a group thing, in town. Probably end up drinking at someone's house, or something. You might enjoy it.”

“No thanks.” Thomas was the social one, who occasionally went to parties, or hung out with people other than Nathaniel. He always invited Nathaniel along though, and Nathaniel always refused.

“Sure?”

“Definitely.”

Thomas shrugged. “Fair enough. But, y'know, you should really—”

But then the batteries in the torch died, and they were plunged into darkness.

Nathaniel closed one eye, and then the other, letting his eyesight adjust to the early-morning half-light in the tent. “Oh,” he said. And then the two of them were laughing.

00000

They finally emerged at eight the next morning, and, after farting about attempting to take down the tent, Thomas headed, silent and puffy-eyed – looking every inch a ten year old child – back into his house, and Nathaniel pretended to go into his, too. In reality he dumped his stuff at the back door, jumped the gate at the side of the house and started the ten minute trek into the town center, wondering if anywhere would be open for him to procure a decent breakfast. He mused as he walked – about his Dad, and whether he would even bother to get out of bed today, about Thomas, and if he would end up sleeping with another town bicycle – Sherry, he thought with disgust – before heading down the High street and turned into Subway.

He ordered a breakfast Sub from the sleepy girl behind the counter and – not wanting to be the only person in the place and forced into making polite conversation with her – headed to a bench in the almost-deserted shopping center, settling down to watch men in suits hurry towards the train station, checking their watches every two seconds and doing the annoying half-run, half-shuffle that only those who were late for trains ever did.

Eventually, some life came into the place – life enough that Nathaniel could prowl around shops, unnoticed, pocketing small treasures that he refused to pay the earth for. He snorted; if there was a God, Nathaniel was going straight to hell. He sidled out of Topman and, after finding nothing of interest in any of the shops the shopping center had to offer, decided to head for the library (where one could quite easily while away the hours). The librarian – who recognised and rather liked the quiet, flame-haired boy that could bury himself in books so deeply that one would have to tell him several times that the library was closing before he would even hear you – nodded at him as he came in; Nathaniel smiled at her, and began pulling books off the shelves at random, looking for one that caught his eye.

He finally decided on a book of short stories, 'Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders' (the name, for some unknown reason, appealed to him greatly), and sat down to read.

00000

By six o'clock that evening, Nathaniel had read half of Fragile Things (it now lay at the bottom of his bag, imploring him to carry on reading), combed the shopping center twice for anything interesting (he had found nothing), manage steal his dinner from the bus station shop (they were so used to kids nicking that they barely bothered to apprehend anyone anymore) and cleverly evaded Thomas, who, if he had spotted Nathaniel, who ducked into a doorway just in time, would have roped him into joining him and his little crew of giggling girls and boys who clearly wished they were giggling girls.

Nathaniel, finally conceding defeat, trod home.

His Dad was up and washed when he returned, which, he had to admit, was something. He was making burgers in the kitchen, a glass of orange juice at his elbow. But Nathaniel wasn't fooled; he knew as well as anyone that looks could be deceiving. Not looking for a fight, he ate a couple of the sausages that his Dad put in front of him, then disappeared into his bedroom to telephone Thomas, who would no doubt be home by now.

When Holly answered the phone and informed him that no, Thomas wasn't in at the moment, he didn't know quite what to do. He crossed to his school bag, which was where he had left it the afternoon before, and pulled out his planner, in which was Thomas' mobile number (Nathaniel had never bothered to use it before – generally, if he wasn't with Thomas, then Thomas would be next door; he had no use for a mobile). Nathaniel dialed it, and waited until someone picked up the other end.

“Hello?” Thomas' voice echoed down the line, with many others in the background; Nathaniel distinctly heard a girl with a sugary voice ask, “Who is it?”

“Tom, it's Nathaniel,” Nathaniel said, not noticing how unimpressed he sounded when he heard a lot of giggles erupting on the other end of the phone.

“Oh, hi. What's up?”

“Nothing. I just wondered if you were camping out tonight?” Nathaniel tried to make his voice sound as casual as possible when he asked. He could hear mumbles, and they were beginning to annoy him.

“Mate, I can't – one of the lads has got a car, and he's going to get some cans. You should come round – it'd be a laugh. We're at Sherry's.”

“Oh,” Nathaniel said, and left it at that.

The silence grew. “You'd like it,” Thomas said, though he sounded as if he knew he was talking complete rubbish. “Her parents are away, there's a few of us here. You should come round.”

“Nah,” Nathaniel said.

There was a pause. “All right.”

“Yeah.”

“See you later, then.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

Dial tone. Nathaniel put the phone down on top of his dresser and sighed. He looked around his room, wearily, running a hand through his hair. Then his eyes settled on the bag he'd taken out with him – he picked it up, and turned it upside-down over the bed; various things fell out: a bracelet that he'd taken a liking to in Topman, some sunglasses from River Island, a weird necklace type thing from an alternative shop, a chocolate bar, and Fragile Things – the book he'd borrowed from the library.

Despite the fact that it was only half-past seven, and it was a Saturday night, and he was young and should be out frittering away his youth, Nathaniel climbed into bed and began to read.

00000

He woke up with a start, some hours later, and thought he was having a heart attack; he had fallen asleep with his book on his face, and had at first been unable to identify the weight that was pressing down on him. Then it slid off, and Nathaniel was faced with his absurdly bright bedroom, in comparison to the dawn-light that was filtering through the window. He checked his watch and let out a groan – it was four o'clock in the morning.

He turned off his light and lay still, trying to get to sleep.

Five o'clock came and went, and then half-past five. At quarter to six, Nathaniel decided that trying to sleep was a pointless exercise, climbed out of bed (he had managed, once again, to fall asleep fully clothed), crept out of his room, down the stairs and out of the front door, pulling on his coat as he went.

Nathaniel, who had done more than his fair share of middle-of-the-night, angry walks, headed vaguely towards the town, taking a few side-roads and alleyways that he usually wouldn't have bothered with. But he wasn't going anywhere in particular, and felt no real need to rush anywhere. There was the odd car trundling up and down the main road, but other than that, the streets were thankfully quiet. He walked for a while, past the old mental hospital and the abortion clinic, past the church and down near the cinema.

He was just thinking that he'd double back, get his wallet, get some breakfast somewhere and perhaps see a film, when a red ford fiesta broke the silence of the morning, screeching around the corner and hitting Nathaniel as he was crossing the road.

He died almost instantly.

Nathaniel could feel certain things that indicated he was swimming into consciousness – even if his mind was so disconnected that he barely registered them. He could feel a dull pain in his stomach, fading even as he lay there, and knew his back was against the ground; the rest of his body felt like it was floating in clouds. After a moment he realised he was lying on something that was both soft and hard at the same time (which, if he had been fully awake, would have perplexed him greatly – but, right now, he was content just to be slightly puzzled). It seemed to mold itself – whatever 'it' was – around his body if he moved, yet it was firm beneath him. As he drifted towards complete awareness, he realised that the mysterious substance was warm, which he thought was a trifle odd. He knew that he could easily open his eyes and find out what, exactly, said mysterious substance was, but he was far too comfortable, and was slowly being lulled back to sleep by the sound of—

Waves?

That did it; Nathaniel gave up his stubborn attempt to stay asleep, cracked open an eye... and nearly jumped out of his skin. Pushing himself up on his elbows to berate his best friend, who was standing above him with his unruly hair blocking out the sun, looking down at him with his hands on his hips. “Jesus Christ, Thomas,” Nathaniel said drowsily, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Then the figure above him shifted its weight from one foot to the other, momentarily moving its head from in front of the sun. Before Nathaniel was temporarily blinded, he managed to get a glimpse of a face; enough to discern that the person stood above him was most certainly not Thomas. He had skin almost as pale as Nathaniel's, and was wearing a long trench coat, despite the warm sun that was bearing down on them.

“Hello,” he said (for it was, judging by its voice and features, definitely a 'he'), “I hope you're not feeling too rough.”

Nathaniel, shielding his eyes from the sun, looked up at the boy above him. “Not at all,” he replied, then, deciding that the only way he would be able to work out who he was conversing with would be to stand up, attempted to pull himself to his feet. Pain immediately gripped his stomach and he had barely made it to his knees when he collapsed again. He let out a mumbled curse and rubbed his stomach, gritting his teeth against the waves of severe pain; he felt like somebody had kicked him. When a hand descended into his vision, Nathaniel grabbed it and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet – the abrupt movement causing another stab in his torso. He opened his mouth to thank his rescuer when he realised precisely where he was; the ability to speak seemed to desert him.

He was on a beach. It took Nathaniel a moment before this actually sunk in; he was on a beach. A sandy, wave-lapped beach. He had been asleep on a beach, moreover – asleep on a beach with an only a complete stranger for company. He blinked once, twice, thrice, but the scenery didn't change. He turned to his new companion. “We're on a beach,” he said, staring out to the sea. He could tell just by the warm wind caressing his skin and the heat of the sun above them that they were not anywhere in England. Or the Northern hemisphere.

The pale boy next to him nodded, and then, to Nathaniel's complete and utter shock, lifted up Nathaniel's t-shirt and laid a long-fingered hand on his stomach. Before Nathaniel could object to being fondled by a someone he had met only two minutes prior, the boy had removed his hand, clucking. “Internal bleeding,” he said, matter-of-factly. Nathaniel looked from the boy, to his stomach, and back. Then the boy caught Nathaniel's eye, and grinned widely. “I'm Magnus,” he said, sticking out his hand for Nathaniel to shake. “It's nice to meet you. Your stomach should stop hurting in a matter of minutes.”

Nathaniel's usually superb mind seemed to be taking a beating today. He wrinkled his nose. “What's going on?” He asked, abandoning all pretense of being even half-way confident with the situation. “I was—”

“It may take a while for your memory of what happened to return,” Magnus said, cutting across Nathaniel before he could finish. “It usually does, for most people.”

“Oh...” Nathaniel said, “right.”

Magnus tilted his head as he looked at him; Nathaniel knew that he could tell he had no idea what on earth he was talking about. Magnus smiled. “I'm here to welcome you,” he said slowly, raising his eyebrows pointedly – it was clear that he thought Nathaniel should have caught on by now.

Nathaniel, who was slowly becoming irritable with trying to decipher riddles, folded his arms. “Welcome me where?” He snapped, trying to ignore the unremitting stabbing pains in his stomach. “Where am I?”

In reply, Magnus sighed, grabbed Nathaniel's elbow and turned him one hundred and eighty degrees; some meters behind them the beach ended, disappearing into the tree-line. Visible over the trees, about a mile away, was a huge, white city, the tallest of its buildings disappearing into the clouds. Nathaniel's mouth fell open, and Magnus grinned smugly. “Heaven,” he said. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”

It was a moment before Nathaniel could get his voice box to work. He mouthed, wordlessly, struck dumb, and then his face split into a smile. “I've lost my mind,” he said joyfully, and laughed. “It's finally happened – Thomas always said I had a screw loose, and now, look! I'm stuck on a tropical beach with bloody Lestat, who's telling me I'm in Heaven! I've gone insane. I've lost my marbles.” And he sat down, heavily, on the sand.

Magnus remained standing over him. “You haven't gone insane, Nathaniel, you've d—”

“How do you know my name?” Nathaniel asked, sending Magnus a frigorific glare.

Magnus smiled. “Magic,” he replied.

Nathaniel huffed, and folded his arms over his chest. He was getting rather fed up of his winsome companion. “If I haven’t gone insane, then I'm having a nightmare,” he said with finality. “That's it, isn't it? I'm dreaming; all I need to do is wake myself up, and I'll be at home, in bed.” He closed his eyes and gave his arm a firm, hard pinch. Nothing happened, except that now he had a pain in his arm as well as his belly. Still, he pinched it again – it hurt. “Fine,” he said, ignoring the fact that Magnus was smirking broadly, “maybe I can't wake myself up. Maybe I just have to wait until I wake up naturally.” And he leaped to his feet, setting off down the beach.

Magnus stared disbelievingly after him for a moment, and then set off at a jog in his wake. “Where are you going?”

Nathaniel didn't break stride or turn around. “I'm going to walk around until I wake up. There's no way I'd dream about walking around, is there? You only dream about mad things.” As soon as he said it, he realised that this dream was turning out to be pretty mad; walking or no walking. “I'll wake up in a minute, you'll see.”

Magnus rolled his eyes and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “Fine,” he said. “You won't mind if I wait for you to wake up, then.” He sighed, and began following silently after him.

Nathaniel managed to successfully ignore Magnus for the better part of twenty minutes. He walked steadily onwards, without looking back once, still aware of Magnus' presence behind him and the steady crunch of a second pair of footsteps on the sand. After a while, Nathaniel finally conceded that his plan wasn't working, and slowed to a halt. Magnus stopped a couple of meters behind him. “You know,” Magnus said slowly, “seeing as you're asleep – and, if you don’t mind me saying, it doesn't look like you're going to wake up soon – you could at least play along. Think of it as a practice run.”

Nathaniel bit his lip and rubbed a hand over his eyes – he was tired (how could he be tired? He was asleep!) and irritable, and his legs were starting to hurt from walking on the sand for so long. At least the pain in his stomach had abated. “Fine,” he snapped at last. “I'll humour you.”

Magnus' face broke into a grin again, and he beckoned Nathaniel to follow him. He made his way to the edge of the trees, and walked along it, evidently looking for something. Eventually, he turned onto a small path (that, busy storming around attempting to wake himself up, Nathaniel had not noticed) into the trees, and Nathaniel – wary but, he had to admit, intrigued – followed him at a distance. After fifteen minutes of walking, Nathaniel began to hear sounds. Not usual city sounds – beeping horns, cars, and trains – but voices, all mixed together; it was faint, but audible – it sounded like wind.

Nathaniel was about to open his mouth and say so, when they emerged from the trees and into a field – in which a path had been carved through the grass by millions of pairs of feet. They were in the shadow of the city now; the huge, white buildings towered above them, and Nathaniel was so busy looking up, trying to see the top, that he didn't realised Magnus had come to a stop. He walked straight into his back. They had arrived at a set of gates; the two of them paused as the gates opened (seemingly of their own accord), and Nathaniel turned to Magnus. “What,” he asked, smirking widely, “no pearls?”

Magnus snorted. “Funny,” he said, “I said that on my first day.”

Within minutes, they had begun to worm their way into the city, and Nathaniel could barely keep his feet on the cobblestone roads – he was concentrating on trying to take in everything at once, rather than not falling on his face. The buildings that stretched into the sky around him – as well as being pure white, which was odd enough – were devoid of graffiti, posters advertising the latest whatever, and dirt of any kind. They were spotless and, despite being made solely of white bricks, rather lovely to look at. They seemed timeless, classic; they wouldn’t have been out of place in 21^st century New York city, but Nathaniel could easily imagine regal gentlemen ascending the stairs on their way to a ball. There were bohemian cafes that had been lifted straight out of 60s Paris and shops just like the ones they had at home; a dark haired girl burst out of one in front of him, her arms full of bags, chattering with her friend and almost sending Nathaniel flying into the road.

That was when Nathaniel first looked – really, really looked – at the people that were milling about, and he stopped and stared for so long that Magnus had to go back and retrieve him from almost a full street away. Nathaniel glared at him when he returned. He didn't look at all pleased. “Take your coat off,” he snapped at Magnus, who grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

“You got me,” he said, before sliding off his coat.

Nathaniel's lips thinned, and he visibly blanched. “Wings,” he spluttered, his eyes the size of dinner plates. “Wings?”

Magnus shrugged again. “I didn't want to scare you,” he said, the white, feathered wings on his back – which reached down to almost the backs of his knees – twitching and ruffling, as if they had a mind of their own and were more than happy to be out of the confines of that coat, thanks. “Some people have woken up and run screaming down the beach.” Nathaniel only nodded; he felt like he would very much like to do some running and screaming of his own, right about now. Magnus looked at him closely, before plucking at the front of Nathaniel's t-shirt. “Come on,” he said, “all will be explained, I promise.”

He set off down the road and a thoroughly unconvinced Nathaniel (who, now, had no trouble keeping his feet – his eyes were firmly fixed on the fluttering, feathery pair of wings before him) followed.

A few twists and turns later, they arrived in a huge square, at one end of which sat an enormous building. Nathaniel was only vaguely surprised to realise that that was their final destination; they ascended the steps in front of it – upon which a number of people were sprawled, their wings twitching, waving at him as he passed – and Magnus knocked, once, on the huge, oak doors.

The door was opened by a girl who reached no higher than Magnus' shoulder; her straight, dirty-blonde hair was long enough for her to sit on, and she regarded Nathaniel with pale blue eyes full of interest. Magnus gave her a roguish grin, and gestured over his shoulder to Nathaniel. “Newbie,” he said, and the girl smiled.

“Hi,” she said to Nathaniel as he passed by; he could only smile uneasily in response. He trotted after Magnus, who had pushed open a set of inner doors and disappeared behind them. Nathaniel shouldered the door open and, for the seemingly millionth time in the space of half an hour, froze. His mouth dropped open.

To say that they were in a big room would be an understatement. To say that they were in a gigantic room would be an understatement. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest room Nathaniel had ever been in in his entire life. He thought that ten Cathedrals would sit comfortably inside it – neigh, twelve – the room was so huge that he could barely make out the other three walls. He looked up and saw, miles away it seemed, a ceiling of such beauty that it rivalled the Sistine Chapel. Magnus, however, didn't seem awed by it at all; he was striding down the middle of the room with purpose, and Nathaniel (who would have happily wandered around the room all day, marvelling at it) had to jog to catch up with him; when he did so, he had nothing but questions.

“Where are we? What's this building for? How old is it? Is it some sort of church or something?”

Magnus laughed. “No,” he said, “not a church. It's where we bring new arrivals.”

Nathaniel opened his mouth to point out that he wasn't a new arrival, he was dreaming, actually – but he kept his point to himself, and continued to follow Magnus. After a minute or two of walking in silence, they reached another door. Magnus stopped in front of it and turned to Nathaniel.

“In you go,” he said.

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. “Alone?”

“Alone.”

“Oh, er... right.” Nathaniel reached out to push the door open, but, to his shame, hesitated. “What's inside?” He asked, knowing that he sounded childish but, frankly, not caring.

Magnus winked. “You'll see,” he said. Nathaniel harnessed the urge to throttle him.

“Okay,” Nathaniel replied, and pushed the door open, disappearing inside before he could change his mind.

00000

Nathaniel stepped into a small antechamber that was just as, if not more, beautiful than the room before; the ceiling was lower, and the walls were covered in what appeared to be Renaissance paintings of angels. The golden ceiling, Nathaniel knew, would be intricately detailed if he was close enough to see it, and stained glass windows let the dappled sunlight drift into the room. Nathaniel was turning on the spot, trying to take in the murals on the walls, when a voice called, “Nathaniel Flowers?”

Nathaniel jumped and spun around; at the other end of the room there was table, behind which sat two people. One of them was standing and gesturing for him to approach. As he did so, he saw that the woman on her feet was a being of such astounding beauty that Nathaniel was momentarily dumbfounded by her. He tried not to stare as he approached, but he couldn't help it; her reddish-brown hair fell in small, loose curls down her shoulders, and her big, round face held him mesmerized. He reached the table after what felt like an eternity, and she smiled at him. “Nathaniel Flowers?” She repeated.

Nathaniel nodded, and swallowed around his dry mouth. “Yes,” he said.

She smiled at him again and sat down, her pale eyes regarding him closely. The man next to her, whose blond hair was so fair it was almost white, said, “Welcome,” and pulled a sheet of paper towards him. “You are Nathaniel James Flowers?”

“Yes.”

“White British?”

“Yes.”

“Sixteen years old?”

“Seventeen next week.”

The man nodded and scribbled something down on his paper; Nathaniel tried to read his writing, but he couldn’t. The woman continued to smile at him. They were wearing normal clothing – the woman, a summery dress printed with pink flowers, and the man a t-shirt and jeans – and they both came equipped with a pair of bristling wings. The woman caught his eye. “I'm Gee,” she said, reaching across the table to shake his hand. “It's nice to meet you.”

The man looked up from the paper and smiled fleetingly. “Mike,” he said, by way of introduction. Then, “Name of guardian?”

Nathaniel's brow furrowed. “Guardian?”

The man called Mike looked up at him and smiled. “The person who met you on the beach. They’re technically called ‘guardians.’”

“Oh,” Nathaniel said. “It was Magnus. I don’t know his last name.”

Mike and Gee exchanged a glance and Gee chuckled. “Oh, we know Magnus. Is he outside?”

Nathaniel looked from one of them to the other, confused. “Yeah.”

Gee's smile widened. “You could possibly tell him to come in here?”

Nathaniel nodded, still perplexed, and trotted back to the door. He opened it and stuck his head out; Magnus was lolling against a wall nearby, his coat slung over his arm, studying the far-distant ceiling. He looked taken aback at Nathaniel's sudden appearance. “That was quick,” he said, “it usually takes longer.”

“I’m not done,” Nathaniel said, “they want to see you.”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “I should have known,” he said, and followed Nathaniel back through the door.

“Hello, again,” Gee said to Magnus when they returned. “I didn't think we'd see you so soon.”

Magnus grinned and perched on the edge of the desk. “Neither did I. Mr Flowers, here, didn't look left and right and was hit by the only car that was moving in a half-a-mile radius.”

Gee tutted. Mike, scribbling furiously, said, “Sod’s law. Was it death on impact?”

The three of them looked at Nathaniel, whose eyes had widened to roughly the size of dinner plates. In one swift movement, Gee jumped to her feet and passed her chair over the table to Magnus, who placed it behind Nathaniel and pushed him down into it. Nathaniel barely noticed. The pain in his abdomen, Magnus' tosh about internal bleeding, this whole Heaven fantasy… Nathaniel felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. He heard Magnus say something to Gee and Mike, and then felt his head being pushed between his knees.

A red ford fiesta. It was a red ford fiesta.

“Yes, it was,” Nathaniel heard Magnus say above him, “It was quick." 

There was a shuffling of papers. Nathaniel struggled back into an upright position; Magnus crouched down to his level and brushed Nathaniel’s hair back off his forehead. “How do you feel?” He asked, then grimaced. “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have sprung it on you like that.”

Gee, still on her feet, said, “You get quite blasé about death when you’ve been here as long as us.”

Mike, for the first time since Nathaniel had entered the room, put down his pen and stretched. He looked at Magnus, where he was still mothering Nathaniel. “I presume you want to stay here again?” He said, and Magnus nodded. “I thought so.” Mike looked at Nathaniel, and his eyes softened. “Are you all right?” Nathaniel mumbled his reply, embarrassed, and clambered to his feet. “It’s okay, that happens a lot of people when their memory returns. You’d be surprised how many people have collapsed on this floor.”

Gee reached out and touched Nathaniel gently on the arm. “You'll be fine,” she said. “You become accustomed to it after a while.” Nathaniel nodded again, and she smiled at him encouragingly. “Who do you want, then?”

Nathaniel blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Who do you want to guard?” At the look on Nathaniel's face, she added, “What – you think you just get to lounge about up here?”

Nathaniel turned to Magnus, a look of absolute incredulousness on his face. Magnus was smiling sheepishly. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.” 

Magnus shrugged. “Fairy Godmother, at your service.”

Nathaniel suddenly found himself sitting down again. He glared up at Magnus. “You’re my guardian angel?” He said, and dropped his head into his hands. “That’s precious.” He could sense Magnus laughing beside him.

“One and only.”

Nathaniel made a noise that was half a laugh and half a groan and got to his feet again. He felt like his legs had given way far too many times in the last hour or so. Attempting to digest this latest piece of information, Nathaniel turned back to Gee. “So… what? I get to guard someone?”

“Yep,” she replied. “Anyone you want. Shakespeare and most of the monarchs are already taken, as are George Bush and most of history’s famous villains. People like to think that they can change the course of history, but, of course, that never works out. Films stars tend to get snagged these days too, so we’re always the first to know when there’s a scandal going on on earth.” She grinned. “Other than that… yeah, anyone you want.”

Nathaniel had barely heard her. His ears were ringing. “Anyone? Even people who have already lived?”

She nodded. “Anyone. Why? Got someone in mind?”

Ten minutes later, Nathaniel was sitting in the setting sun, hyperventilating on the steps of the gargantuan building that he and Magnus had just left. Magnus seemed quite unfazed by Nathaniel's mini-breakdown, as did the other angels around them, all of whom were gazing at the gasping boy with vaguely interested faces – they had clearly seen it all before. After a few minutes of deep, whooping breaths and muttered curses, Nathaniel calmed down enough to speak. “I don't believe this,” he said to Magnus, who snorted.

“No, I didn't think you would.”

“This isn't real,” Nathaniel said, ignoring Magnus and getting to his feet. “I'm still dreaming.”

Magnus sighed. “You're not,” he said. “You can keep telling yourself that forever, but you're not. And deep down, you know you're not.”

After a moment, Nathaniel sunk back down onto the step and dropped his head into his hands. “I don't want to be dead,” he said quietly. “I never wanted to be dead.” He felt Magnus pat him on the back.

“Gee's right. It's surprisingly easy to get used to, being dead. It's just like being alive, really... but with a few, minor differences.”

Nathaniel lifted his head and glared at Magnus. “A few minor differences?” He repeated.

Magnus looked reproachful. “Don't look at me like that,” he said, “it's not my fault you walked out in front of that car.” Nathaniel's blanched, and Magnus grimaced. “I'm sorry. That was tactless.”

Nathaniel dropped his head back onto his arms and sighed. “It's okay,” he replied. “I'm just... adjusting.”

Magnus surveyed the square and nodded. “It won't take long. Adjusting. You miss people, but... it passes.”

Nathaniel turned his head to watch Magnus, and his eyes landed on Magnus' wings. Forcing himself not to stare, he asked, “Do you miss people?”

Magnus dropped his eyes to his knees and ran a hand through his ebony hair. “Sometimes,” he said quietly. He looked over at Nathaniel and visibly bucked up. “It's just like moving to a new city. Come on – I'm supposed to be showing you the ropes.”

Nathaniel sighed. “Actually, I really don't feel like—” but before he could say more, Magnus had grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet, down the steps and across the square. Nathaniel decided that it was probably best not to argue, and followed him without complaint.

Magnus slowed to a halt in the middle of the square and gestured around him. “This is Heaven,” he said, and Nathaniel felt himself flinch inwardly. He believed it, but he still couldn't believe it. “For want of a better word,” Magnus continued, “it's basically a big city on an island. Obviously, it's not actually on an island, but that's how it appears. This is where you come if you die between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. You're assigned a person to guard, and that's what you do until they die. Then you go on.”

Nathaniel's head began to spin as he took everything in and attempted to digest it. “Right,” he said, then raised his eyebrows. “Go on where?”

Magnus shrugged. “No one really knows.”

“You don't know?”

Magnus shook his head. “No more than anyone did on Earth. Everyone has theories, of course, but... your guess is as good as mine. Some people reckon you get re-born.”

“Like reincarnation?”

“Yeah. Other's think that you spend eternity in the place you loved the best, with the people you loved the most. The only people who really know are the people who are already there, and no one has bothered to come back and tell us yet.”

Nathaniel closed his eyes and nodded. He was starting to get a headache, and was forcefully reminded of Thomas complaining that trying to learn trigonometry gave him a migraine. Pushing he thought of Thomas away, he asked, “Why didn't you go on?”

Magnus shrugged again. “I never do.”

Nathaniel frowned and remembered something Mike had said. I presume you want to stay here again? “How many times have you... you know, let the opportunity go by?”

Magnus smiled. “A fair few times,” he replied, but didn't say any more.

Nathaniel didn't push. He watched the sun sinking below the buildings and saw people slowly heading slowly towards wherever they were going, in groups or hand-in-hand or alone, their wings fluttering and twitching. He suddenly felt the desperate need to sit down, and put his hand on Magnus' arm to steady himself.

Magnus glanced at him and worry creased his forehead; he took Nathaniel by the elbow and started to lead him across the square. “You're exhausted,” he said, “I'm sorry, I should have let you sleep first.”

Nathaniel allowed himself to be towed along, looking at the passing buildings with vague interest, not really paying attention to where they were walking. He was reminded of his one and only trip to London; he had tried to look at everything at once, and the whole day was just one big blur in his memory. He felt like that now. Magnus pulled him to a halt in front of a porceline-white block of flats.

“This is where you live,” he said, and lead Nathaniel through the doors. “We used to have revolving doors,” he added, “but everyone kept getting their wings caught. We figured a good, old-fashioned push door would be better suited to everyone's needs.”

Nathaniel snorted with laughter as Magnus pressed the call button for the lift. Nathaniel watched him hit the button for floor ten, and wondered if he'd be able to remember any of this in the morning. Then he wondered why they couldn't just fly up, and fought down hysterical giggles. The lift slid into movement, and Nathaniel leant against the wall, yawning.

“You get my friends old rooms,” Magnus said as the lift came to a halt and the doors opened, “he went on last week.”

“Okay,” Nathaniel replied; it didn't look like he had much of a choice. They went down a short corridor with only three doors; 28, 29 and 30. Magnus came to a halt at door 30, and pulled a key out of his pocket.

He handed it to Nathaniel. “You can do the honours.”

Nathaniel unlocked the door and pushed it open; they walked into a room that wasn't unlike the apartments of the sitcoms Nathaniel had watched on television. The first room they entered was obviously the living-room, equipped with a sofa, a fireplace, an armchair and a bookshelf. Through a small arch-way was the kitchen area, and there were two more doors leading out of the living-room, presumably to the bathroom and bedroom. Nathaniel could barely believe that, after years and years of wishing, he was finally going to live by himself.

“You can decorate it however you want,” Magnus said from behind him. “It was stripped pretty much bare after Stevie went on.” Nathaniel nodded numbly, still staring around at his new living quarters.

“There's some food in the fridge,” Magnus went on, “and plates and cups and stuff in the cupboards. There's some clothes in your room, but just the floaty linen stuff that everyone gets on arrival. We can go shopping tomorrow and get everything you need.”

Nathaniel nodded again. “Okay,” he said, and turned to face Magnus. He was tired, and scared, stuck in an unfamiliar place with people he didn't know. “Okay.”

Magnus smiled at him. “I know it's weird,” he said. “It takes some getting used to, but you'll adapt quickly. I'm just next door, in 29, if you need anything. You should really get some sleep, dying is pretty exhausting. It's best to get a few full night's sleep afterwards.”

Nathaniel started to say 'okay' again, but stopped himself. “Right,” he said instead, thinking that sleeping was the last thing he'd be able to do.

Magnus put his hand on the doorknob. “Any questions before I go?”

Nathaniel almost laughed; questions were something he had in abundance. He sifted through them in his head, wondering which he wanted to know the answer to the most. After a moment, he asked, “How—what, exactly... I mean, what do you all mean by 'guarding' someone?”

Magnus paused in thought. “Well,” he started, “you just look after them. Stop them from doing bad things, make sure they're okay and try to cheer them up if they're unhappy.” He smiled. “Like an invisible Jiminy Cricket.”

“But... how do you get down there?”

“You find a quiet place and close your eyes,” Magnus said, “and think about what you're trying to do. And then you're there, with your charge.” He shrugged and leant on the open door. “It's strangely easy. And when you want to come back, you just think about Heaven and you're back.”

Nathaniel looked thoroughly unconvinced. “How do you stop someone from doing something bad? Surely, if they want to do something bad, they're going to do it?”

“You talk them out of it.”

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows. “They can hear you?”

Magnus tilted his head. “Well, not really,” he said. “Did you ever hear me?”

“No.”

“Did you ever get a feeling in your stomach telling you not to do something, or not to go somewhere, or a small voice in your head that niggled away at you when you did something wrong?” Nathaniel nodded, and Magnus grinned. “That was me. People just call it a conscience.”

Nathaniel sighed and sat down on the sofa. “So, you just talk to them?”

“Yep, it's that easy.”

Nathaniel looked up at Magnus and regarded him closely. “Was I easy to guard?”

Magnus sighed and swung the door shut. He took a seat opposite Nathaniel and watched him. “Yes and no,” he said carefully. “You were always well-behaved. Usually. You never did anything bad, and you never really wanted to. But...” he paused, “you weren't always happy.”

Nathaniel looked at his knees. “No,” he said, “I wasn't.”

“I always tried to cheer you up,” Magnus continued, “but usually Thomas managed it all right.”

Nathaniel looked at him sharply; he was about to ask how Magnus knew Thomas when he realised that Magnus would probably know Thomas as well as he knew him. Instead, Nathaniel nodded, and suddenly found himself close to tears. He looked away out of the window.

“I knew you'd choose him,” Magnus said. “Before Gee even asked, I knew you'd pick him.”

“He was my best friend.”

“I know,” Magnus said softly. He got to his feet, checking his watch as he went. “It's getting late.” Nathaniel checked his own watch, only to find that it had stopped working. He looked at it, puzzled. “They do that when you come here,” Magnus said. “It's almost nine o'clock.” He smiled, and turned to the door. “I'll come and wake you up in the morning.”

“Er, right. Okay.”

Magnus opened the door and stepped into the corridor. “Any last questions?”

Nathaniel was half-way through shaking his head when he stopped. Mutely, he pointed to the wings on Magnus' back. Magnus looked over his shoulder at them and chuckled. “These?” He asked. “You'll get a pair soon enough. You'll know when they're on their way.”

Nathaniel frowned. “How? How will I know?”

Magnus chuckled. “Trust me,” he said, turning to leave and pulling the door closed as he went, “you'll know.”

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