Fergal meows from the front step and Meg bends down to give him a nose boop. ‘Bye, Mrs Kenny.’
I can sense Nanny Bet’s eyes on the back of my head as we step outside.
We’ve barely walked past two houses when the back of my neck prickles with hot pins and needles. I whirl round.
‘It’s happening again.’
Meg’s mouth falls open. ‘What? Where?’
The light is falling over Nanny Bet’s house, along with the front garden and footpath. I point.
‘Try the pinhole camera,’ Meg says.
My hands are shaking as I swing my backpack over my shoulder and unzip it. My fingers tingle as they rest on the wood. ‘Wait. What if my nan sees?’
‘I’ll distract her,’ says Meg.
‘How?’ I ask, but she’s already gone. Running through the light and knocking on the front door.
A glow falls over everything as the past superimposes itself over the present. The familiar smell of earth and metal reaches me. Blood, I realise with a sickening thud.
But everything else appears to be the same. The house, the flowers in the garden. Identical.
Meg looks back at me. I still haven’t taken out the pinhole camera. I can’t risk Nanny Bet seeing it.
A green car materialises in front of the neighbours’ house.
Nan’s door opens and Meg steps inside.
I remove the camera and step out onto the road so I have a clear view. I hold it up to my face, with the top just below my eyes, and point it at the house. I can’t see how anything’s changed other than the car, although in the vision the gate is closed. This is like one of those spot-the-difference puzzles. What am I meant to see?
A crow lands on the wall in front of me. I can’t tell if it’s really there or part of the vision.
The light starts to fade. I have a final look around, but apart from a hedge in a neighbour’s garden having been cut, I still can’t see anything different.
As the vision slips away, Meg opens the front door and gestures behind her. I pack away the camera as Nanny Bet appears at the door. She’s frowning, but when she spots me her eyes soften. She blows me a kiss.
Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I force myself to smile and wave.
I start walking and Meg catches up with me. ‘Well?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Huh?’
‘It was like I was getting a vision of the present. There was a car parked there and the neighbour’s hedge was different but everything else was pretty much exactly the same.’
‘Maybe that means it was something recent. Like, not that long ago. That could be important,’ she says.
‘I guess.’
‘And at least you got to practise. How did it feel?’
I recall the smoothness of the wood as I pointed the pinhole camera at the house. The vibration of my pulse as I held it steady. The feeling of rightness. Like everything else had fallenaway and I was able to focus on what was happening in front of me.
‘It felt like magic.’
Meg smiles and a warmth spreads through me. ’Well,’ she says, ‘how are you going to use your powers? For good or evil?’
