The Power(3)

Roxy doesn’t run from fights at school. If you do that, they’ll never stop saying, ‘Your mum’s a slapper and your dad’s a crook. Watch out, Roxy’ll nick your book.’ You’ve got to stomp them till they beg. You don’t run.

Something’s happening. The blood is pounding in her ears. A prickling feeling is spreading along her back, over her shoulders, along her collarbone. It’s saying: you can do it. It’s saying: you’re strong.

She jumps over the prone man, groaning and pawing at his face. She’s going to grab her mum’s hand and get out of here. They just need to be on the street. This can’t happen out there, in the middle of the day. They’ll find her dad; he’ll sort it out. It’s only a few steps. They can do it.

Short man kicks Roxy’s mum hard in the stomach. She doubles over in pain, falls to her knees. He swishes the knife at Roxy.

Tall man groans. ‘Tony. Remember. Not the girl.’

Short man kicks the other in the face. Once. Twice. Three times.

‘Don’t. Say. My fucking name.’

Tall man goes quiet. His face bubbles with blood. Roxy knows she’s in trouble now. Her mum’s shouting, ‘Run! Run!’ Roxy feels the thing like pins and needles along her arms. Like needle-pricks of light from her spine to her collarbone, from her throat to her elbows, wrists, to the pads of her fingers. She’s glittering, inside.

He reaches for her with one hand, the knife in the other. She gets ready to kick him or punch him but some instinct tells her a new thing. She grabs his wrist. She twists something quite deep inside her chest, as if she’d always known how to do it. He tries to wriggle out of her grip, but it’s too late.

She cuppeth the lightning in her hand. She commandeth it to strike.

There’s a crackling flash and a sound like a paper snapper. She can smell something a bit like a rainstorm and a bit like burning hair. The taste welling under her tongue is of bitter oranges. The short man is on the floor now. He’s making a crooning, wordless cry. His hand is clenching and unclenching. There’s a long, red scar running up his arm from his wrist. She can see it even under the blond hairs: it’s scarlet, patterned like a fern, leaves and tendrils, budlets and branches. Her mum’s mouth is open, she’s staring, her tears are still falling.

Roxy tugs at her mum’s arm, but she’s shocked and slow and her mouth is still saying, ‘Run! Run!’ Roxy doesn’t know what she’s done, but she knows when you’re fighting someone stronger than you and they’re down, you get out. But her mum doesn’t move quickly enough. Before Roxy can get her up the short man is saying, ‘Oh no, you don’t.’

He’s wary, pulling himself to his feet, limping between them and the door. His one hand hangs dead by his side, but the other’s holding that knife. Roxy remembers what it felt like to do the thing, whatever it was she did. She pulls her mum behind her.

‘Whatcha got there, girlie?’ says the man. Tony. She’ll remember his name to tell her dad. ‘Got a battery?’

‘Get out the way,’ says Roxy. ‘You want another taste?’

Tony steps back a couple of paces. Eyes her arms. Looks to see if she’s got anything behind her back. ‘You dropped it, dintcha, little girl?’

She remembers the way it felt. The twist, the explosion outward.

She takes a step towards Tony. He stands his ground. She takes another step. He looks to his dead hand. The fingers are still twitching. He shakes his head. ‘You ain’t got nothing.’

He motions towards her with the knife. She reaches out, touches the back of his good hand. Does that same twist.

Nothing happens.

He starts to laugh. Holds the knife in his teeth. Grabs her two wrists in his one hand.

She tries it again. Nothing. He forces her to her knees.

‘Please,’ says her mum, quite softly. ‘Please. Please don’t.’

And then something hits her on the back of the head and she’s gone.

When she wakes, the world is sideways. There’s the hearth, just like always. Wooden trim around the fireplace. It’s pushing into her eye, and her head hurts and her mouth is mushed up into the carpet. There’s the taste of blood on her teeth. Something is dripping. She closes her eyes. Opens them again and knows it’s been longer than a few minutes. The street outside is quiet. The house is cold. And lopsided. She feels out her body. Her legs are up on a chair. Her face is hanging down, pressed into the carpet and the fireplace. She tries to lever herself up, but it’s too much effort, so she wriggles and lets her legs drop to the floor. It hurts when she falls, but at least she’s all on one level.

Memory comes back to her in quick flashes. The pain, then the source of the pain, then that thing she did. Then her mum. She pushes herself up slowly, noticing as she does so that her hands are sticky. And something is dripping. The carpet is sodden, thick with a red stain in a wide circle around the fireplace. There’s her mum, her head lolling over the arm of the sofa. And there’s a paper resting on her chest, with a felt-tip drawing of a primrose.

Roxy is fourteen. She’s one of the youngest, and one of the first.





Tunde



Tunde is doing laps in the pool, splashing more than he needs so Enuma will notice him trying not to show that he wants to be noticed. She is flipping through Today’s Woman; she flicks her eyes back to the magazine every time he looks up, pretending to be intent on reading about Toke Makinwa and her surprise winter-wedding broadcast on her YouTube channel. He can tell Enuma is watching him. He thinks she can tell that he can tell. It is exciting.