Shane Hegarty - Darkmouth

Sergeant Doyle drove off. Finn’s dad watched him go. “Close the door on your way in, Finn,” he remarked as he re-entered the house.

Finn groaned. He should have known it was pretty much impossible for him to snoop on his dad. Even his childhood games of hide-and-seek had been ruined by his father’s inability to even pretend he didn’t know where his son was.

As Finn started towards his front door, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, a blur further back along the street, moving quickly from one doorway to another. It was smaller than him, but tall enough, and he caught a glimpse of what might be fur. Red, flaming fur. Either that or …

Finn hesitated, opened his mouth to call his dad, then decided against it.

He held his palm out but felt no rain, turned his head towards home but heard no alarm.

He looked at his house, then back towards the figure. Quick and deft, it disappeared round the corner.

This was one chase Finn needed to do himself.

He followed it.

As he turned the corner, Finn got a better glimpse of the figure he was pursuing.

He felt a shot of relief as it confirmed what he had hoped from the moment he saw it. He was confident now that he would not need any help, any armour, any weapon. Nor would he need any of the courage his father kept insisting he would one day find.

It wasn’t a Legend but a person. And, if a person was going to be sneaking around, a mass of blazing red hair wasn’t much use for blending in.

Arriving on to the next street, he saw her straight away. She hadn’t even attempted to hide, but instead appeared to be waiting for him, leaning against a wall, her eyes only half visible behind her hair. Finn had felt those eyes trained on the back of his head throughout the school day, but whenever he had glanced back at her she hadn’t been looking at him.

“What do you want?” he asked, realising he didn’t know the new girl’s name.

“You’re Finn, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Finn crossly. “And you are …?”

She didn’t answer.

“Why are you following me?” said Finn. “I mean, have you seen my street? We don’t exactly get many visitors.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Then you should know that you’re better off staying away.” He took a deep breath so he could stand a bit taller. “I deal with a lot of things far worse than you every day of the week, and it usually doesn’t work out well for them.”

“That’s not what I heard either.”

Finn immediately deflated. “You seem to have heard everything then,” he said, betrayed by a squeak of hurt in his voice. “Now leave me alone.”

He turned and started marching away.

“Emmie!” she shouted after him. “My name’s Emmie. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. First-day nerves, I guess.”

“Yeah, well …” Finn paused, but he still didn’t know what to say.

“I mean, my dad moved here because of his job and I never thought I’d end up in a small town because, you know, I grew up in the city and I’ve never had to be the new girl, not that I had that many friends back home anyway, but I had a few and now they’re there and I’m here and this town is kind of weird because, you know, I wasn’t even allowed to bring Silver with us because he’d get hurt just climbing the walls because – oh, Silver’s my cat by the way – because of all the glass on them. I mean, what is the story with this place and its high walls and all the glass and these narrow mazy lanes? Do people actually like living like this? Because it seems like, I don’t know, kind of depressing. I mean, another few weeks and I’ll probably just go completely …”

Emmie stopped, suddenly aware of how much she had blurted at him.

Having been blurted at , Finn was a little stunned.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “It’s to stop those, erm, things, isn’t it? I heard all about it. In school.”

She stepped forward, her hair parting a little to reveal green eyes that were wide with enthusiasm. “Tell me, do you see many of them? Did you see one this morning? Are they dangerous? What are they like? Have you ever killed one?”

Self-awareness reasserted itself and she stepped back, tucking her head down so that her face again retreated behind her hair. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be so nosy,” she said. “It’s just, well, it’s kind of cool .”

A flush burst across Finn’s cheeks. Emmie looked around, seeming a little uncomfortable. “I’ve blabbered on too much. I’d better go.”

“Oh,” said Finn, still a bit dazed by all of this.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said brightly.

“Whatever. At school, I suppose.”

“I’ll see you before that, on the way there.”

Emmie opened the door of the house they were standing in front of and disappeared inside.

Finn remained where he was, somewhat bemused by the encounter. He looked at the house for a few seconds. It was a standard mid-terrace, nothing special. His house was similar, of course – from the outside at least – so he knew how deceptive looks could be, but Emmie’s was on an ordinary street, lined with busy houses and cars and a sense of life. It wasn’t the ruin that his street appeared to be. He envied that.

Finn turned to make his way home. As he did, he noticed the twitch of a curtain in the downstairs window, but whoever was there was gone just as quickly.

Finn sat at the desk in his bedroom, below a windowsill cluttered with coins, batteries, broken bits of an old phone, and a frayed cuddly toy with eight arms and soft fangs that he’d never been able to bring himself to throw out. His goldfish, Bubbles, picked about the stones in his tank, occasionally darting in fright at his own reflection.

In front of him was a large hardback book: The Most Great Lives of the Legend Hunters, From Ancient Times to the Modern Day (Vol. 18: ‘From Rupert the Unwise to Sven Iron-Tooth’) . Finn was meant to be studying it, but his eyes were not on the book. Instead, they were on the now dark, quiet street outside, which still glistened with the wet of the day’s rain.

His mind was somewhere else entirely.

It was replaying the sight of the car that morning, crumpling like a tin can. The disappointment on his father’s face. The moment when the Minotaur had cornered him. The smell of its breath still clung to Finn’s nostrils, forcing him to run the scene over and over in his head, and he felt his shame grow with every replay until it formed a large knot in his chest.

From deep within the house, he could hear dull thuds and whirrs. His father had been making something for weeks now, sometimes long into the night. Since returning home, Finn had seen him only briefly – when he walked into the kitchen while Finn was doing his homework, telling him what section of The Most Great Lives he had to read that night, while prising a blade from the food blender before leaving again without explanation.

There was a thump so loud it sent a shiver through the house and shook Finn out of his self-pity. Then silence.

Finn glanced outside, trying to clear his mind. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the curved, diamond-like object that had been in the Minotaur’s nose and held it up to let the street light catch its edges. Before he could study it further, his door opened. Finn quickly threw the crystal into an open drawer.