Raven's Gate

sense of reluctance. It had been the best sleep he’d had for weeks – and for once there had been no dreams.
    It took him a few moments to get used to the unfamiliar surroundings and remember where he was. His eyes took in a slanting roof, a narrow window with the sun already shining brightly through, a box of old paperbacks and an alarm clock showing ten o’clock. Then he remembered the events of the previous night. The power station, the dogs, the chase through the wood. He had told Richard Cole everything, even the truth about the way his parents had died. For six years he had managed to live with the knowledge of what he’d done.
    I could have warned them. I didn’t.
    And finally he had unburdened himself to a journalist who probably hadn’t believed him anyway. He wished now that he hadn’t. He felt embarrassed. He remembered how Richard had dismissed his theories about witchcraft and magic. It wasn’t surprising. If it had been the other way round, he wouldn’t have believed it himself.
    And yet…
    He knew what had happened. He had lived through it. The dogs
had
come out of the flames. Tom Burgess
had
died trying to warn him.
    And then there was the question of his own powers.
    He had seen the car accident that had killed his parents before it happened. It was the reason he was still alive. And there had been other things too. The jug of water that had smashed in the detention centre. And the night before, the way he had somehow managed to get Richard to stop his car.
    Suppose…
    Matt lay back against the pillows.
    …suppose he did have some sort of special ability. The police report he had found in Mrs Deverill’s bedroom had mentioned his precognitive abilities. By that they meant his ability to see the future. Somehow Mrs Deverill had got hold of a copy and that was why she wanted him. Not because of
who
he was. Because of
what
he was.
    But that was ridiculous. Matt had seen
X-Men
and
Spider-Man
at the cinema. Superheroes. He even liked the comics. But was he really pretending that he had some sort of superpower too? He had never been bitten by a radioactive spider or zapped by a mad scientist inside a space machine. He was just an ordinary teenager who had got himself into trouble.
    But he had broken the jug of water in the detention centre. He had gazed at it across the room and it had shattered.
    There was a glass vase on the windowsill. It was about fifteen centimetres high, filled with pens and pencils. Matt found himself gazing at it.
All right. Why not?
He began to concentrate, breathing slowly and evenly, his back supported by the pillows. Without moving, he focused all his attention on the vase. He could do it. If he ordered the vase to smash itself, it would explode then and there. He had done it before. He would do it now. Then he would do it again for Richard, and after that the journalist would have to believe him.
    He could feel the thought patterns emanating from his head. The vase filled his vision.
Break, damn you! Break!
He tried to imagine the glass blowing itself apart, as if by imagining it he could make it happen. But it didn’t move. Matt was gritting his teeth now, holding his breath, desperately trying to make it break.
    He stopped. His chest fell and he turned his head aside. Who did he think he was kidding? He wasn’t an X-man. More like a zero kid.
    There were new clothes piled at the bottom of the bed: jeans and a sweatshirt. Richard must have come in some time earlier that morning. And although he had threatened to throw them away, he’d also washed Matt’s trainers. They were still damp but at least they were clean. Matt got dressed and went downstairs. He found Richard in the kitchen, boiling eggs.
    “I was wondering when you’d get up,” Richard said. “Did you sleep OK?”
    “Yes, thanks. Where did you get the clothes?”
    “There’s a shop down the road. I had to guess your size.” He pointed at the bubbling saucepan. “I’m just making breakfast. Do you like your eggs hard or soft?”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “They’ve been in twenty minutes. I have a feeling they’ll be hard.”
    They sat down at the table and ate together. “So what happens now?” Matt asked.
    “Right now we have to be careful. Mrs Deverill and her friends will be looking for you. They might even have called the police and reported you missing, and if they find you with me, we’ll both be in trouble. You can’t just pick up fourteen-year-old kids these days and hang