The Book of Rapture by Nikki Gemmell Page A

around and lifting his shirt and holding his shoulder blades and saying, ‘See, look, this is where our angel’s wings once were,’ then sliding her hands around his tummy and keeping them there for a very long time and bowing her head, and going very still .
    She’s here. Close .
Then a spirit passed before my face and the hair of my flesh stood up.

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    Proper feral now, wilder versions of themselves. Like abandoned houses where nature has run rampant. A river-map of dirty lines on their palms, matted hair clotting into dreadlocks, clothes they can’t be bothered to wash. As grimy and greasy as worn bank notes. It’ll be war-paint next, blood on the cheeks. Mouse sniffles. A cold’s coming on. Tidge says it’s his body crying; Soli says shut up, you lot, you have to stay strong. She never gets colds. She’s such a pirate of a girl, always battling on; it’s in her chin, its perky point, and the set of her mouth. ‘I wish I could infect you,’ Mouse grumbles and breathes hard into her face.
    Oh, guys.
    He keeps looking across at the old volume on the windowsill. The book muncher of the family hasn’t dared a touch. As if he’s terrified of what it may hold, the certainty of what it may impart. Your child who’s knotted by complexity, so complicated, tight; for all his cynicism he hates novelty and adventure and risk, for all his pushing away he needs you so much. His little hand used to lock over your throat whenever you lay next to him to lull him to sleep. ‘I’m holding on to you so you can’t run away from the beddy-byes,’ he whispered once. ‘I’ve got the mummy disease, you have to stay close.’
    He goes up to the old book now, hovers a touch, retreats.
Hold this book close to your heart for it contains wonderful secrets.

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    A bomb. Somewhere in the wings of outside. Far enough away but still the twins cower on the floor with their arms wrapped over their heads. Another. A siren insisting. And then it is over, the aftermath. The children rush to the window. A soldier’s footsteps pound past then a child’s. ‘Wow!’ Tidge shouts. Raggedy trousers flit by and there’s a cheeky yell and a flash of a smile and your kids crane their heads but all they catch is a tangle of hair and pyjama trousers under shorts and a white balloon being tugged on a string and they all laugh at the clean, crazy, up-yours joy of that, so bizarre and happy and fragile in this place.
    ‘Who was he?’ Tidge asks.
    ‘Maybe he’s from some old abandoned house.’ Soli smiles. ‘Filled with a huge gang of kids who flit about in the shadows, scavenging for food, playing jacks with the knucklebones of soldiers—’
    ‘Safe,’ Mouse butts in, craning his head at the window. ‘Let’s find them, guys. It’s no use waiting any more. We’ve got to get out.’
    ‘But Dad,’ Soli protests, ‘what if he comes and we’re not here?’
    None of them can answer that.
    You’ve all heard the stories. Feral kids. Caught in the city’s cracks. Lairs of lost children who’ve been stained by the world,with eyes that are old because they’ve seen too much. The trunk of the tree outside glows golden with the last of the day and the world for a moment catches its breath. Everything, suddenly, is weighty with the loveliness of the light; the blank, shining windows of the building opposite, the tree, the sky. Your kids’ existence has shrunk to this untouchable beauty, another child’s whoop and his joyous footsteps, their dying out.
    Suddenly, insistently, irrepressible hope.
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

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    B backs in fast. Spilling cutlery from the trolley, not bothering to pick it up. The table’s piled high but there are no silver domes, not even a white cloth. Something big’s up. The kids find each other’s hands. B turns. Takes a breath, doesn’t want to say what’s coming next. He has to go away. They’ll have enough to eat — a last-minute thing — only two