‘You’re straddling two worlds.’
‘Stop with the two-worlds shit,’ he warns playfully, pressing his cheek against mine as we stare at the sky.
I feel so jittery being this close to him.
‘What did Taran look like?’
‘He was about my height and build, with short, dark hair.’
‘Did he look like Celyn?’
‘Like a giant? No. Taran was slighter, but who knows who he would have grown up to become. He was only nineteen when we lost him.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
His hold on me strengthens.
‘Are all those stars like our sun?’ I ask after a while.
‘Some are a hundred times bigger.’
‘Whoa. Do they have planets too?’
‘Most of them, but it’s hard to know how many.’
‘How do you even know they have planets in the first place?’ I ask with confusion. Surely they’re too far away to be able to see.
‘Most are detected by monitoring the light given off over time and looking for dips in brightness that may indicate an orbiting planet. And sometimes a star will wobble as a result of a planet’s gravity – usually a very large planet that’s in close orbit. We’re talking super-Jupiters.’
‘Jupiter’s our biggest planet, right?’ I remember that much from school.
‘Yep. If Earth was the size of a grape, Jupiter would be the size of a basketball.’
‘It’s incredible to think that there really are other worlds out there.’
‘Whether or not they can sustain life, though – who knows? Earth is pretty special.’
‘I remember you telling me that you liked space because it’s so big and it made everything you were experiencing at home seem smaller by comparison.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice suddenly sounds subdued.
‘Tell me about your bedroom in the Tudor wing,’ I request softly. ‘I’m sorry I shut you down last time.’
He releases a barely audible sigh, but I can feel it leaving his chest.
‘We used to have outdoor seating outside the Great Hall – tables for the café. My windows looked over them. When I was about five or six, I remember peering down at some kids in the courtyard: a brother and sister out with their mum and dad, having cake. The girl was about my age and her brother was probably a couple of years older, and they kept getting down from the table to play tag around the fountain. I liked the look of them, kind of wanted to go down and play with them myself, but then the boy looked up and saw me – I can still picture him so vividly. He pointed and squealed, “There’s a ghost!” And I remember his parents and sister looking up too, and his sister looked so scared. I just backed away into the shadows of my bedroom.’
There’s nothing funny about this story. I can hear in his voice that he’s still disturbed by it.
I rub his arm, encouraging him to go on.
‘The thing is, I felt kind of invisible, growing up. I used to wander the corridors and the staff would ignore me. I knew my mother loved me, but she was often out socialising or was distracted by other stuff that was going on, and I had a string of nannies and au pairs that I struggled to bond with. Hugo was the centre of my father’s attention, the only one worth devoting his time to. And Hugo had absolutely no interest inme whatsoever – he was seven years older and he idolised our father. He was like his shadow, following him around, copying the way he spoke to staff, ordering them to do what he wanted. That felt wrong to me, even when I was young. You think I’m entitled, but you should have met my brother.’ He sounds bleak.
‘I don’t think you’re entitled, Ash,’ I say seriously, wanting to right that wrong too. I’m ashamed for trying to make him feel small.
He rubs his thumb across my shoulder to show me that I’m forgiven.
‘That boy calling me a ghost completely did my head in. I began to wonder if, to some, I really was invisible. I stopped wanting to go in the gardens during visiting hours, just in case it happened again. Looking back, I can see that I became withdrawn, but my parents didn’t notice. I stuck to leaving the house in the evenings, and one day I ventured into the woods by the lake and bumped into Taran.’ He releases a small laugh. ‘He shot me with his Nerf gun. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.’
