Evil Star

that dangled from her arm.
    Gwenda locked the door behind her and walked away. She knew exactly where she was heading: Forrest Hill, a school in Yorkshire.
    She was going to see her nephew, Matt Freeman, again.
    He would certainly be surprised.

    Chapter 2 The New Boy
    It was the same dream as always.
    Matt Freeman was standing on a tower of black rock that seemed to have sprouted out of the ground like some-thing poisonous. He was high up, alone, surrounded on all sides by a sea as dead as anything he had ever seen. The waves rolled in like oil, and although the wind was howling all around him and the sea spray stung his eyes, he felt nothing . . . not even the cold. Somehow he knew that this was a place where the sun never rose or set. He wondered if he had died.
    He turned and looked toward the shoreline, knowing that he would see the other four waiting for him, separated by a stretch of water half a mile wide and many miles deep. They were always there.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Three boys and a girl, each about his age, waiting for him to make the crossing and join them.
    But this time it was different. One of the boys had some-how found a vessel to carry him across the water. It was a long, narrow, flimsy boat made of reeds that had been woven together with a prow rising up at the front, shaped like the head of a wildcat. Matt could see the waves batter-ing it, trying to send it back. But the boy was rowing with strong, rhythmic strokes. He was cutting across the water, getting closer by the minute. Now Matt could make out some of his features: brown skin, dark eyes, black, very straight hair hanging down to his neck. He was wearing torn jeans and a loose shirt with a hole in one of the elbows.
    Matt felt a surge of hope. In a few minutes the boat would reach the island. If he could just find a way down, he would at last be able to escape. He ran to the edge of the tower and that was when he saw it, reflected in the inky surface of the water. A bird of some sort. Its shape rippled, distorted by the waves, and he was unable to make out what it was. It seemed to have enormous wings, white feathers, and a long, snakelike neck. A swan! Apart from the three boys and the girl, it was the only living thing that Matt had seen in this nightmare world. He looked up, expecting it to skim overhead on its way inland.
    The swan was huge, the size of a plane. Matt screamed out a warning. The creature was hideous, its eyes blazing yellow, its claws reaching down to grab hold of the water, pulling it up like a curtain behind it. At that moment, its bright orange beak opened and it let out an earsplitting cry. There was an answering crash of thunder, and Matt was beaten to his knees as it flew overhead, wind pounding at him, the sound of its shriek exploding in his ears. The curtain of Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star water fell, a tidal wave that smothered the tower, the shore, the entire sea. As Matt felt it crash down on him, he opened his mouth to scream . . .
    . . . and woke up, gasping for breath, in bed, in his little attic room with the first light of dawn seeping in through the open window.
    Matt did what he always did when his day began like this. First he checked the time on the clock next to his bed: half past six. Then he looked around, reassuring himself that he was in his bedroom, on the third floor of the flat in York where he had been living for the past five weeks. One by one, he ticked the items off. There were his school books, piled up on the desk. His uniform was hung over the back of a chair. His eyes traveled over the posters on the wall: a couple of Arsenal players and a film poster from War of the Worlds.
    His PlayStation was on the floor in the corner. The room was a mess. But it was his room. It was exactly how it should be.
    Everything was all right. He was back.
    He lay in bed for the next thirty minutes, half awake and half asleep, listening to the early morning traffic that started with the milk truck wheezing past the front door and gradually built up with delivery vans and buses setting out on the school run. At seven o'clock, he heard Richard's alarm go off in the room downstairs. Richard Cole was the journalist who owned the flat. Matt heard him get out of bed and pad into the bathroom. There was a hiss of water as the shower came on. It told Matt that it was time he started getting ready, too.
    He threw back the covers and got out of bed.
    For a