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  Dark Light

  Nicola Fulford

  Copyright Nicola Fulford 2010

  ‘Love can be murder…’

  Preface

  Amber took a steadying breath. She knew she didn’t have much time left, and what little time she had seemed to be filled with fear and hatred. And she could blame no one but herself, because it was she who had chosen this. Nothing could save her now, not even him, whose body lay pale and twisted on the ground beside her. But she was glad that it was nearly over; this world, this new, magical, terrifying world, was not one she wanted to be a part of.

  Chapter 1

  As the blue Toyota Yaris drove slowly away from 31 Staneld Drive, Amber didn’t look back. She had already said her goodbyes. Not that there was much to say goodbye to; no friends to watch drift away out of the rear window, no memories to relive, and certainly no trees to carve names into. No one had come to see her off, and why should they? The Wells family had long since given up on socialising, because wherever they went, whispers followed them. It wasn’t her fault, or really the fault of anyone around her. Her father had died, a month or so ago, under what the coroner had ruled ‘suspicious circumstances’, and ever since the small village of Polegate in Sussex had found it to be one of the most interesting topics of discussion since the day the vicar’s daughter was arrested for shoplifting.

  And that was why, first thing on a dewy October morning, Amber’s mother had packed up all their possessions into boxes, loaded up the car, and driven off with Amber, not so comfortably wedged between an old television set and a box of Christmas decorations, on the back seat. She wondered, as they drove away, how many of her old neighbours were watching from behind the safety of their net curtains, putting a motive behind this sudden move away from the town.

  She looked out the car window, watching the rows of houses merge into fields, and then back into houses again as they encroached upon the city. Her mother hadn’t told her where they were going because she said she wanted it to be a ‘surprise.’ Amber didn’t much like surprises.

  They drove for hours and hours, until the sun started to set behind the blurs of houses, barns, and fields they passed whilst the theme tune from the superman movie-just one of many on Amber’s top 30 movie theme songs album-blared out of the speakers.

  Finally, after hours of sitting in one seat, trying to avoid getting motion sickness, whilst hearing the occasional tingling of jingle bells from the Christmas box wedged against her ear, Amber’s mother pulled up beside a small, red-brick, terraced-house, with small, white-painted windows and a red and green stained glass pane in the front door.

  “Well,” her mum said. “What do you think?”

  Amber surveyed the house by the dim light of the street lamps. It was smaller than their last house, but it also seemed to be closer to town, and there was a decent sized garden separating it from the road. There was a path leading up the front door, which was painted a mossy green colour. All in all, the house seemed pleasant enough from the outside.

  “It looks pretty good,” Amber said. “But where are we?”

  “I picked a place at random off the map,” her mum replied. “This is just a couple of minutes drive from York city centre, and there’s a bus stop down the road so you can use that to get to school.”

  “So, we’re in…York?” Amber asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And where is that?”

  As Amber was later to learn, York, was a fairly large city in the north or England, in the county of, not-so-surprisingly, Yorkshire.

  They walked up the path together, carrying a couple of items from all the luggage packed into the car. Her mother pulled out a small brass key and inserted it into the lock. It clicked and the door swung open, revealing the inside of the house to Amber for the first time.

  The hall was the first room through the door, and it was floored with a light carpet that flowed through into a living room on the right hand side. In front of them was a staircase with a wooden banister, again carpeted in the same light colour as the rest of the house. She walked through into what she presumed was the kitchen, which was tiled with deep reds and greens, like the stain glass window. The only other room downstairs was the bathroom, which was just a tiny room with a toilet, a sink and a light switch.

  “There are two bedrooms and another bathroom upstairs,” Amber’s mum said. “The furniture deliverers should have put your bed and stuff in your room by now, if you want to take a look.”

  Amber was tired from the journey, and there was no food in the new house, and no TV or computer, so all she had to do for the moment was go to bed, which didn’t sound so bad to her right at that moment anyway.

  “I’m going to go to the supermarket first thing tomorrow and get some groceries,” her mum said as Amber went up the staircase. “I might be out when you wake up. Night-night.”

  “Night,” Amber called from the midpoint on the stairway. The carpet was really rather soft on her feet.

  She carried on up the stairs and into the first room on her left, which turned out to be the second toilet, so she went back out and into the room opposite, which had all her furniture from the old house in it.

  Her bed was pushed up against a small window, and her chest of drawers was next to the door. The walls were painted in a neutral shade of blue, matching the carpet, which was the same as the one downstairs.

  Amber lay down on top of her bed fully clothed, and looked up at the ceiling. It was a something she’d done since before she could remember, because looking at the plain white ceiling helped her relax and think. It was calming.

  And that was how Amber fell asleep on her first night in York, with her coat still on, her feet hanging off the end of the bed, and the light shining brightly around the room.

  The next morning when she woke up, Amber mum’s car was gone, and there was still no food. On the other hand, her mum had set up the television set in the living room, so Amber spent the first ten minutes of her morning flicking through the channels until she found her favourite American sitcom on the screen. When the doorbell rang the first time, she thought it was on the television, but then it rung a second time, and she was forced off the sofa to see who it was. She thought it was most likely that her mum had forgotten her keys. Again.

  But when Amber opened the door, it was not her mother that stood on the step. Instead, a tall, good-looking boy, with short but wavy hair, leaned casually against the wall, looking so comfortable, and striking, that he might as well have been a permanent fixture to the garden.

  “Hi,” he smiled. “I’m Will. I live down the road. My mum saw you moving in yesterday and I thought I’d come and introduce myself.”

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Amber.”

  “Nice to meet you Amber.” Will shook her hand coolly and leaned again on the wall.

  “Sorry,” Amber said. “I’d invite you in for a cup of coffee but I don’t think we have any coffee. Or cups,” she added.

  The boy named Will laughed.

  “There’s a coffee shop down the road, it’s actually quite popular around here, all the locals go. I could show you if you like?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” Amber smiled.

  So, thinking of the phrase ‘when in Rome’, she grabbed her coat off the peg by the door and joined Will on the path to the apparently renowned coffee shop.

  “So where did you move from?” he asked as they walked along the leaf-strewn footpath.

  “It’s a little place called Polegate, in Sussex. We lived there all my life.”

  “So what made you move?” Will asked.

  Amber swallowed. She didn’t like this question; she didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to her father; she’d learnt from past experience that
once that slipped out, people never acted the same around her again. Thankfully, though probably not so great for Will, a dog that was being lead past them by a short, stumpy woman, turned around and started growling and barking, and baring its teeth at him. Both Will and Amber jumped back in shock, but then after the first second or so, Will stared the loud bull-terrier down until it whimpered away with it’s bewildered master following close behind.

  “What happened there?” asked Amber.

  “Yeah…it was.” Will looked back over his shoulder at the diminishing figure of the dog and its owner. It seemed perfectly happy now, wagging its tail and jumping around. Will on the other hand, looked not only angry, but also thoughtful.

  The next minute they reached the coffee house, which was actually a tiny triangular room with two tables and a counter.

  “What’ll it be?” Will asked.

  “Oh, I’ll get this,” she said.

  “No, no, no, you’re my guest,” he insisted. “Consider it your welcome to York present.”

  “Ok then, I’ll have a coke.”

  “One coke coming up.”

  Amber went to choose a seat; it wasn’t like there were many to choose from. Out of the two tables, one was occupied by a mother and her two children, and the other was cramped and pushed into the corner, but as it was the only one there was, Amber couldn’t be picky.

  “Here we go,” Will put two cokes down on the table and took a seat.

  “So what about you?” Amber asked.

  “What about me?”

  “What’s your life story?”

  “Born here what feels like centuries ago, go to school down the road, and that’s about all you need to know.”

  Amber took a sip of coke.

  “What’s it like here?” she asked.

  “It’s alright,” said Will. “It rains a lot, and it’s cold, but the people are friendly enough.”

  Will spent the next hour explaining the ins and outs of the city, and telling her about other people living in the neighbourhood. It felt good to Amber to be able to talk about someone else for once, and with someone who felt like a friend. Will was just one of those people that within the first five minutes of talking to, it felt like they had been your best friend forever.

  His watch beeped.

  “Oh, I’ve got to go,” he said suddenly, he hadn’t even finished his drink. “It was nice meeting you, I’ll see you around sometime.” Will virtually jumped out of his seat and did a sort of awkward indoor run to the door.

  Amber got up too; she didn’t like sitting on her own.

  The rest of the day, and the one after that, was spent unpacking everything from the car. It was not fun work, and Amber found she did most of it in front of the television screen, as she seemed to do many things recently.

  Then, before she knew it, it was Monday morning, and she was getting ready for her first day of school. She didn’t know whether she was looking forward to or dreading it, but as she got off at the bus stop opposite the school, she supposed she felt a bit of both. As well as a whole lot of fear. Amber had combed her wavy brown hair into a thick ponytail, and had packed her old school bag with a notepad and a pencil case, which was pretty much all she had ever needed for school. She never took books; books were old, pointless (especially if there was a movie version of said book), and heavy.

  She stood and watched as students flocked in through the tall, wrought iron school gates.

  “Hi,” said a girl who had got off the bus behind her. She had straight, brown hair tied up in a bun. “I’m Hannah, you’re new here?”

  “Um, yeah,” she said. “I’m Amber.”

  “So, did you just move here Amber?”

  “Yeah, we got here on Friday night.”

  “Wow, so you’ve not had much time to get set up then?” asked Hannah.

  “No, I guess it’s been a bit of a rush.” She smiled awkwardly. Amber was always a little bit awkward around knew people, unfortunately unlike Will, she found it difficult to be friendly with people who weren’t actually her friends.

  “Well, I’ve been going to school here for years now, so allow me to be your official guide.”

  “Oh, um, thanks,” she said. The day would be easier with someone to show her around, Amber supposed.

  “Just follow me,” Hannah led her across the road and through the school gates, which revealed a series of buildings, each with students walking in and out of. “So where have you moved from?” she asked.

  “It’s a small town called Polegate, near Sussex.”

  “Is Sussex that place up North?” Hannah asked.

  “No,” Amber said. “That’s Essex. Sussex is down South more.” She wondered how much attention Hannah paid in Geography lessons.

  “So, first of all, you’ll have to go to the school office to make sure you’re all signed up and get your timetable, and then they should point you in the general direction of where you need to go. Chances are we’ll be in the same class so I’ll see you soon.”

  “Oh, Ok,” said Amber. “Thanks.”

  She headed over in the direction Hannah had pointed to a large redbrick building towards the left-hand side of the school grounds. Not many students were going into this building, but Amber could see some teachers through the window, marking papers and drinking coffee.

  “Hello,” said a tall woman with short, blonde hair. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I’m new here, I’m Amber Wells?”

  The woman clicked about on her computer for a moment, and nodded. She moved from behind the desk-it was at this point that Amber realised that a large pair of stiletto heels made up the woman’s vast height-and fetched a pile of papers from an in tray on the other side of the office.

  “Ok, if you could just sign here,” she pointed to a dotted line. “And I have your timetable for you. Your first class will be French, it’s in the language block, across and the third staircase to the right down the hall,” she gestured with her hands. “Room fourteen.” The woman handed Amber the papers. “Have a nice day.”

  “Thank you,” said Amber, taking the papers and walking off down the hall, not entirely certain where she was going, but certainly not wanting to pick out the map she’d been given and walk around with her nose in it. That would definitely not make a good first impression/

  But when she got further down the corridor, she couldn’t for the life of her remember if it was the staircase on the right or on the left. She rifled through the papers to see where the map was amongst them. She was ashamedly now planning to be the new girl who spends her day with her face in a sheet of paper. Except there was no map, and as a result of her rummaging, she had dropped all those papers on the floor.

  “Oh here, let me get those for you,” said a pair of feet. Well the feet didn’t say them, but from crouching on the ground that was the only part of this person Amber could see. When she looked up, there was a body, a guy’s body, with a head and everything. Weirdly though, when he saw her face, the boy turned around and walked off in the opposite direction, jaw set.

  Amber shook her head and gathered up the rest of the papers herself, not quite sure what kind of people were at this school.

  She took the left-hand staircase, but that took her to the Science block, so she tried to retrace her steps and ended up in History, then when she opened a door to ask for directions, she saw Hannah sat at the back, and realised that the walls were covered with French posters.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she whispered, because the teacher was talking to the class. She nodded at Amber, who took a seat near Hannah at the back.

  Most of the class were looking at her, including Hannah, who smiled friendlily. Regrettably for Amber, the French teacher also noticed the interruption that this new girl’s arrival was making, and somehow-Amber could not think how-thought it would help settle the class down if she made her come up to the front and introduce herself. Now, bare in mind, this is not a small class, there were about thirty pairs of eyes starin
g at Amber as she walked, head down, to the front where the whiteboard was. When she had set the class to work, the teacher came over to Amber’s place.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Madame Bothe. Mrs Kelly said you were on your way up quite a while ago, did you have trouble finding the class?”

  “Yes,” Amber smiled guiltily.

  “I know it can be a bit confusing sometimes, I remember on my first day…”

  Madame Bothe rambled into a story of her first day at work as a young teaching assistant. Amber found herself staring around the room at the many posters and magazines.

  “Amber?”

  She jumped back into awareness.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “What would the answer be.”

  “Pres la piscine.” Her mouth said the words without her thinking them; it was the strangest sensation, like they literally appeared on her tongue without even touching and part of her brain. She didn’t even realise she was speaking until she heard her own voice saying the words.

  “Well done,” said Madame Bothe.

  Amber smiled and nodded. She wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.

  All throughout the lesson, Amber was aware of prying eyes watching her. The only good thing about being at the back was that if she looked up quickly enough, she could catch people mid-stare and make them turn around embarrassedly. That usually stopped most of them from staring again. It was a trick she’d picked up in her old school, after her father had been taken away.

  As soon as the bell rang Amber jumped out of her seat and started packing up her things. She didn’t want everybody stopping to introduce themselves, when she would never remember who they were, and would then be forced to look like an idiot a couple of hours later when they tried to talk to her again. Thankfully, Hannah was first to reach her, and therefore others were prevented from being able to stop Amber to start up a conversation.

  “So, what’d you think?” she asked.

  “It was alright,” Amber said. “I’m just glad I got the answer to that question right.”

  “Yeah, for a minute there it looked like you weren’t going to get it.”

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Amber said. They walked through a door into what looked like the lunch hall, where it looked like most of the school were gathered. Walking down the side of the crowd, Amber brushed against another body, and felt a slight shock, like when someone rubs their feet on the carpet and prods you with their finger. She turned around to see who it was, and saw a pair of deep, blue eyes staring back. Above those eyes was a mess of black hair. It was the guy from the hall.

  “Hannah,” she leant over and whispered in the shorter girl’s ear. “Who’s that?”

  “Who’s who?” Hannah whispered back.

  “The guy behind us,” said Amber.

  Hannah turned around inconspicuously.

  “What guy?” she asked, looking back to Amber.

  “What do you mean what guy, he’s right-“ Amber turned around, but the boy with the black hair and blue eyes was gone. “Maybe he went to his next class,” she said.

  When she turned back, it was to almost walk into another girl who had clearly stopped to talk to her. She was tall with flowing blonde hair arranged fussily on her head. Amber pictured her as the kind of girl that checked her reflection every time she walked past a shop window.

  “Hi,” the girl with the blonde hair said. “You’re Amber?”

  “Yeah,” Amber said.

  “Well, I’m Eva. I was in French earlier. You’re new here,” Eva stated.

  “Yes, I moved here from-“

  “Sussex, I know. Anyway, I have to go and pick something up from reception, but I’ll talk to you later? Bye.”

  Amber turned with raise eyebrows to Hannah.

  “I didn’t tell her, I swear,” was the first thing the smaller girl said. “She just always knows what’s going on. That was actually pretty impressive though.”

  Amber sighed.

  “What class is next?” she asked.

  “English,” said Hannah. This cheered Amber up a little; she had always liked English.

  By the time she reached the halfway point of the lesson however, Amber had got to the point in the written work where she was bored enough to start looking around at the other people in the class.

  She had been set in partners with Eva, who she actually got on really well with. Eva seemed to be really smart as well; she was just one of those people who had everything: good looks, brains, kindness. Eva had invited her to go shopping with her at the weekend, and Amber had said she would ask her mum, but that she could probably come. It would be the first time she had met friends out of school for months; since the court hearing, in fact, when all her old friends had started to separate themselves from her.

  Looking around the classroom was actually quite a good boredom buster though; it was entertaining watching the other partners working together, with one person desperately trying to explain why they had the right answer to the other, or people openly debating the answer in fairly loud voices. Occasionally, her eyes met with other people’s who were looking round the classroom like she was; some for general inspiration, while others were just plain bored like her. One of the pairs of eyes she met were a deep, sapphire blue, beneath a head of jet black hair, and they weren’t looking around the room. They were looking at her.

  “That would be Matthew Pryer,” Eva said, catching Amber’s line of sight.

  “He’s…. strange,” said Amber.

  “He can be, but he’s absolutely gorgeous.“ Amber thought Eva’s intelligence was spoiled slightly by her shallow worldview.

  The rest of English was a blow, and then it was History, which Amber had never liked that much anyway. Then it was lunch, something that she hadn’t been looking forward to, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid people coming up to introduce themselves. She didn’t like being the centre of attention. Thankfully, it was Eva who led her back to the lunch hall, and as she seemed to rather like attention, she managed to attract most of it away from Amber. But not all of it.

  “Hi,” said a tall boy with short, blonde hair. “It’s Amber, isn’t it?”

  Amber nodded.

  “I’m Kyle, nice to meet you.”

  “Hi,” Amber said.

  “You’re new here?”

  “Yes, I just moved to the city.”

  That was the general flow of most of the conversations over her table at lunch. Hannah came and sat across from her, but didn’t look very comfortable. Nonetheless, she smiled when Amber met her eye. She got the idea that Hannah and Eva didn’t really talk to each other on a regular basis.

  “So what do you think of your day so far?” asked the blonde boy, Kyle.

  “It’s not as bad as I thought,” she replied.

  “The lunches aren’t great though,” said Eva. Amber looked at Eva’s meal, which consisted of some wilted looking lettuce with a few slices of tomato and a glass of water. Amber wouldn’t even call that ‘lunch’; she had gotten a hamburger with fries.

  “Where did you say you moved from?” asked a girl with sleek brown hair a few spaces down from Amber, who was getting a little sick of the question. She didn’t want anyone to find out about her past.

  “I lived near Sussex.”

  “So it must have been quite sunny then?” asked the same girl.

  “Yeah, it was nice and warm,” said Amber.

  “Quite a difference from up here,” a boy with spiky black hair and tanned skin said, taking a sip from a bottle of coke.

  “It is but, I think I’m going to like it here,” she said thoughtfully.

  After the bell rang to signify end of break, Amber was supposed to be going to PE, which she actually quite like as a lesson because she got to go outside. She’d been playing sports for years now-when she was little her dad would take her to the village green to practise- and as a result, she was pretty good at it. She enjoyed doing things she was good at. Th
e PE lessons were separated, with the boys doing football while the girls did hockey. It was cold outside, but Amber put her best into the game. The good thing about hockey was that she could take out all her anger on the ball, which actually improved her playing as she could hit it further. All in all, the lesson was quite a success for Amber, whose teammates were impressed by her ability to forcefully get the ball off the opposing team.

  After trudging back inside and getting changed back into school uniform, the girls headed up to the art block, which was on the other side of the school grounds. The boys came into the lesson late because they’d been help back by Coach Redfearn, trying to sign them up for the upcoming match.

  Mrs Rutt the art teacher ushered everyone into their seats as she shuffled to the large drawing board that filled the whole left-hand wall.

  “Ok,” she said. “Good afternoon, we’ll have to get started quickly today because of you getting here late, so you’ll all have to be really quiet so we get all the work done. You wouldn’t want to stay behind would you?”

  She set them to work sketching the person next to them, who for Amber was Eva. Amber started first, sketching the girl with the flowing blonde hair as best as she could, baring in mind she had no artistic skill whatsoever. It didn’t make it any easier that Eva kept criticising what she was doing every few minutes.

  “You’re making my head look big,” she whined.

  “I think it looks lifelike,” said a tall boy with brown hair who was walking past their table.

  “Who’s that?” Amber whispered when he was a little out of earshot.

  “That’s Darren,” Eva said, then loudly enough so he would hear, “He thinks he’s funny.”

  “I don’t think I’m funny,” he called over his shoulder. “I think I’m hilarious!”

  After Darren’s comment, Eva didn’t complain about the drawing so much, and they then switched, so that it was Eva sketching Amber, who had a good time criticising the other girl as a punishment. Darren kept on walking past and putting in his own sarcastic spin on things, and although he had come across quite pompous at first, he actually was pretty funny.

  At the end of the lesson, the girls packed up their bags and were heading out the door. Amber tried to catch Hannah, but she left the room really quickly, and all Amber could see was her and Darren held them back talking to them.

  On the way out the door, Amber was too busy talking to Eva and Darren to be looking where she was going. She looked forwards for what couldn’t have been more than a second, and ended up head butting the door. Or the door head butted her, it was hard to tell; it had all happened so fast. Her nose made a solid, painful clonk as it made contact with the wooden surface.

  Amber straightened back up, clutching her now bleeding nose, and found her eyes locked in a pair of oak-leaf green ones, which were staring at her through the little window in the door which had just hit her. They were the boy’s eyes, Matthew Pryer, Eva had said his name was. He looked at her for another second or so, and then tuned on his heel and walked down the steps, leaving Amber on the other side of the door, still with Eva, who was making a big deal over the blood dripping from Amber’s nose.

  “What the hell did he think he was playing at?” Eva said angrily.

  “What do you mean?” Amber asked.

  “Didn’t you see?”

  “See what?” Amber was getting confused and annoyed, in about equal measures, which was not a good mixture of emotions.

  “He like swung the door in you face,” said Darren.

  “Who, Matt Pryer?” she asked.

  “Did you hit your head as well or something? Yes Matthew Pryer, who else?” Darren knocked on her head with his knuckles.

  “Do you want to go and get something from the nurse for your nose?” Eva asked as they walked down the steps outside.

  “No,” she said. “It’s the end of the day, there’s no point. I’ll just go home-I don’t have to get the bus today because my mum’s picking me up.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah it’ll be fine, thanks though.”

  “It’s fine, I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Eva.

  “Bye.”

  “Bye,” Darren added.

  Amber stomped out to the car. She had been hiding any anger because she didn’t want to look like psycho-girl on her first day, but she was really annoyed that someone would just slam a door in her face. Who does that? she thought. And this Matthew Pryer guy had been acting weird with her all day, and he had no reason to. He’d never seen her before in his life.

  Her nose was still bloody when she slammed the car door a few minutes later.

  “What did you do to your nose?” was the first thing her mum said to her.

  “Hello to you too,” was Amber’s reply.

  “You don’t need to be snappy. How was your day?”

  “Fine.”

  “Ask me what I did today.”

  “What did you do today,” Amber mumbled unenthusiastically.

  “I got a job!” said her mum, unperturbed by her daughter’s nonchalance. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Yeah, great,” said Amber.

  “I’m working in an office, and it’s not much, but it’s enough for now,” she continued happily. Amber’s mum had never had to get a job before, because her dad had always been there to pay the bills. Now he was gone, she was sole provider for the household. “So how was your day?”

  Amber thought for a moment, before coming up with the best, most positive word she could think of, which was: ‘Eventful’.