Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“No, no,” he said. “An estate is public housing. You call them projects or something like that. Some of them are rough places. This one was one of the worst—it had been ripped apart, was stinking, falling to pieces, completely dangerous in every way. So they moved everyone out and shut it down. They were building a block of fancy new flats in its place. So in I go, jogging through, no problem. Good shortcut home. And then . . . I see the wire. Severed. Live. On the ground. Sending out sparks. And here I was, standing in this lake-sized puddle not ten feet away from it. I saw the thing come off the ground. I saw it lift up and move. And then it bullwhipped into the water, and I felt the first shock hit . . . and then, I saw him. He had long hair and this weird yellow shirt with a big collar, some brown sleeveless jumper over it, bell-bottoms, and these shoes . . . red-and-white ones, with two-inch soles. He was like no one I’d ever seen before, right out of the seventies. He hadn’t been there a second ago, but I could see that he was holding the wire and he was laughing. And then I realized that my legs were shaking. I fell to my knees. He kind of teased the wire over the water, and I was saying, ‘No, no, don’t.’ He just kept laughing. I tried to move, but I fell into the water on my face. After that, I can’t remember. I survived, of course. The whole thing was caught on CCTV, so someone in security saw it all happen. Of course, what they saw was me trespassing and then having some kind of seizure and falling into the water I was standing in. They found the wire when they got there, of course, and realized I’d been electrocuted. I told them about the other kid, but when they looked at the footage, I was alone. And that was the beginning . . .”

Callum looked up at the church spire. The vicar had given up his staring and left us alone.

“Something happened to me in that water,” he said. “Something happened to my legs. Because after that day, I couldn’t run right. I couldn’t kick right. I lost all my nerve. The only thing I could do, play football, was taken from me. But then a few weeks later, a man showed up at my door to ask me if I wanted a job. He already knew everything about me—my family, my football. I needed some convincing it was all real, but then I agreed. First, they sent me off for some training, police stuff mostly. Then I met Stephen. He was in charge. We didn’t get on at first, but he’s all right, Stephen. Once he started training me, it was obvious why they picked him to be in charge.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s brilliant,” Callum said. “Top marks at Eton. That’s as clever as they get. But he’s not a total wanker, like most of those people are—he’s just a little special sometimes. Anyway, from there, I shadowed someone on the Underground for a while. They had me in as a trainee. Stephen taught me about the Shades, about the history, about the new plans for how everything was going to be run. When he thought I was ready, he gave me a terminus.”

He held up the phone and looked at it with admiration.

“A terminus?” I said. “That’s what it’s called.”

Callum nodded.

“The very first thing I did was go back to that building site. By the time I got there again, the new flats were up. Shiny glass ones, with a gym up top, all full of bankers. I had to look around for a little while, but I found him. I guess he didn’t like the new building much. He was down in the car park, just wandering around, looking bored. I actually felt sorry for him for a second, poor bastard, doomed to walk around some car park, and whatever monstrosity comes next. He didn’t recognize me. Didn’t think I could see him. He paid me no mind as I walked right up to him, took out my phone, pressed one and nine, and fried him. He’ll never hurt anyone again. But that’s the first day I knew—this was my real calling. I don’t know what I would do without it. It’s the most important thing in my life. It gives you back some control.”

“When Boo walked up to him, she had her phone out,” I said, putting this together with the memory that was playing over and over in my mind. “I thought she was handing me her phone.”

“She finally tried to use it,” Callum said, stopping. “God . . .” He leaned over and put his head in his hands. “She doesn’t believe in using the terminus,” he explained. “We fight about it all the time.”

I’d been so wrapped up in my own part of this that I hadn’t really noticed how Callum and Stephen and Boo felt about each other. I saw they were upset, but . . . now it hit me. They were friends.

“So,” he said, lifting up his head. “Now you know how we can take care of him. Do you feel better?”

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know.

Jazza was out when I got home, so I was on my own, listening to people talking and laughing in the rooms around mine.

My desk was a nightmare—an altar to all the work I hadn’t done over the last few days. It was amazing how quickly your academic future could crumble. A week or two and you were totally out of step. I might as well have missed the entire year. I might as well have never come to Wexford. Of course, now I had bigger things to worry about, but I allowed myself a few minutes of panic to take in the enormity of how screwed I was, Ripper stuff aside. It was almost like a mental vacation from the stress of the ghosts and the sight and the murders.

The dark came fast, and I had to switch on my desk light. Then I heard people getting up and going to dinner. It was already five. I had no appetite, but I had to get out as well. I wasn’t staying here by myself. When I got outside, Callum was gone and the police car had taken his place. Stephen sat in the driver’s seat. He waved me over and opened the door. As soon as I got in, he drove around the corner, away from the prying eyes of people going to dinner.

“It’s time to go over the plan for tomorrow,” he said. “It’s very simple. You stay at Wexford. We’ll cover the building at all times. Boo’s well enough to come. She can’t walk, but she can be here, in a wheelchair. She can keep her eyes open. Tomorrow morning, I search your building from the top down. I’ve got special permission from the school. Once we’re sure it’s clear, you stay inside your building all night, with Boo. I’ll be at the front of the building, and Callum will be at the back. He won’t be able to get in without one of us seeing him. You’ll never be alone, and you’ll never be undefended. And you’ll have this.”

He held out a phone—specifically, Boo’s phone, which was the same low-tech model they all carried. This one still had the white scratch marks on the black plastic from when it had skidded across the road after Boo’s accident.

“I know you know what this is,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied.

“I followed you two,” he said simply. “I saw you go into Bethnal Green station, and I saw your reaction when you emerged.”

“You followed . . .”

“Callum’s wanted to tell you from the start,” he said. “I probably would have ended up telling you if he hadn’t. I had a feeling it was going to happen. But now that you do . . .”

He held up the phone. “It’s called a terminus. Terminus means end, or boundary stone.”

“It’s a phone ,” I said.

“The phone is just a case. Any device would do. Phones are just the easiest and least conspicuous.”

He removed the back of the phone and showed me the contents. Inside, where all the circuitry and computery bits were supposed to be, there was a small battery and two wires joined in the middle by some black electrical tape. He pried this up very, very carefully, and waved me in closer to look. There, wrapped in the fine ends of the wires, was a small stone of some kind—a pinkish one, with a twisting streak down the middle.