“I wish we could talk about all this at school. It would be so much easier,” Jessa said to her four friends as they all lounged on the floor of her bedroom.

“It really would,” Maggie agreed. “But we can’t risk anyone else finding out Mr Fletcher’s secret. Plus, anybody who heard us would think we’re mad.”

“To be fair,” Tonia raised an eyebrow, “they already think we’re a bit nuts. Flynn, pass the ball.”

Flynn was thoughtfully squidging the tips of his fingers into the surface of the beach ball. He placed it firmly in front of his crossed legs and held his hand about seven inches behind it. On an exaggerated breath out, the ball moved away from his hand and toward Tonia across the circle.

“Gosh, Flynn, you’re so good at this,” said Maggie. “Your hand doesn’t even move! I thought we weren’t supposed to be able to do motionless telekinesis until second or third year.”

“It’s amazing how you’ve picked up telekinesis, Flynn,” said Annora.

“Well, they do say it’s easier for a telepath to learn telekinesis than the other way round,” he said casually. “So it’s really not that impressive.”

“Of course it’s impressive. You’re great at both,” Maggie sighed.

“You’ll get there, Maggie, don’t worry.” Tonia took her turn passing the ball touchlessly across the carpet, moving her hand slightly to guide the motion as she manipulated it with her thought.

Maggie was the least competent telekin of her friendship group, and—to her dismay—one of the least competent in the whole class.

“Mags, don’t forget that your telekinetic ability is still on par with what’s expected of you as a first-year,” Flynn tried to reassure her. “You’re not below average.”

“Doesn’t make me feel any better, though,” Maggie retorted. “Most of you are above average.”

The ball rolled to Annora, who stopped it with her pointer finger and then poked it back to nobody in particular. She had barely developed her telekinetic skill but, unlike Maggie, was not the slightest bit bothered.

“Annora, you always choose this game,” Jessa said, “but why do you want to play psychball if you’re just going to pass it like a regular ball?”

“Because it’s still fun! In primary school nobody ever wanted to play ball with me, except in PE lessons. And that’s only because they had to.”

“That’s so mean,” Maggie sympathised. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I’m just glad I finally found some real friends. I love being able to share things with you guys.”

“Speaking of sharing,” Tonia turned to Jessa, “did you tell your sister that we know about Mr Fletcher?”

“No way. She’d tell my parents what we did, and I’d be grounded for a million years. They got back together the other day, though. Even my mum doesn’t know that they broke up, she thinks they had an argument and decided to wait a while before moving in together.” Jessa paused. “Honestly, I wish he’d just tell us more about what’s going on.”

“He’s trying to protect us,” Flynn said sincerely.

“I know. But come on, we know this much. He should just tell us everything.”

“Knock knock! Who’s hungry?” the chirpy voice of Mrs Baxter said from outside the door. Jessa stood to open the door for her mother, knowing that if she verbally said the words “knock knock” instead of knocking, her hands must be full.

Jessa’s mother entered the room with a large tea tray supporting a plate overflowing with sandwiches, a teapot and five mugs all with different decorations: a smiley face, a World’s Best Dad, a Greetings from Cornwall!, a The name Audrey means…, and a brightly coloured, hand-painted JESSA, which was promptly grabbed by Jessa herself.

“Help yourselves, loves. And if you’re still hungry, there’s cake downstairs,” Mrs Baxter left with a gigantic grin on her face.

“Your mum is so nice,” Annora said. “You’re really lucky to have such a nice family, Jessa.”

“Thanks,” Jessa smiled. My sister’s kind of annoying, but I suppose she’s all right most of the time. I don’t see her much these days anyway.”

“I always wanted a real sister,” Annora continued. “My parents fostered a little girl once. That was a bit like having a sister, I think.”

“Annora, if you don’t mind me asking,” Jessa began, “do you call your parents “mum” and “dad”, or by their names?”

“I call them Mum and Dad.”

“Do you miss your birth parents?” Maggie asked tentatively.

Annora held the beach ball close to her and rested her arms over it.

“I don’t really remember them. Sometimes I think I remember the accident, but I told my therapist that once and he said I couldn’t be remembering it for real, because I was too young. But Carol and Stanley adopted me when I was four, so I think of them as my parents, even though I know I wasn’t their baby.”

Jessa suddenly felt guilty for complaining about her sister, or for ever saying anything bad about her parents.

“You don’t have to feel sad for me,” Annora told them with a gentle smile. “I’m not sad. Sad things happen. I was given a second chance, and I’m very grateful.”

A gentle moment fell over the five friends.

“So now I have a question for you, Jessa,” Annora said.

“Yeah?”

“What’s our next move?”

Jessa looked at each pair of eyes that awaited her response.

“Well,” she began slowly, “we know Lynch is out there somewhere. I think our first step is to figure out where he is.”

“How do we do that?” Annora enquired.

“I’m not sure.”

“Should we tell Mr Fletcher?” Annora asked innocently. “Maybe he can help, you know?”

“I don’t think we should risk it,” said Tonia. “He’s already suspicious of us right now. It’s probably best if we act totally chill for a while. And we have a History Club meeting this week, so I think we should use it for regular stuff. You know, actual history stuff.”

“I think so too,” said Jessa. “Mr Fletcher’s probably going to be watching us like a hawk.”

“Even if he’s not watching us,” said Maggie, “he still might try and check up on what we’ve been doing. If he found out we’re using school time to look into Lynch or the kidnapped children, I think he’d flip out.

“And anyway,” said Jessa, “we still don’t know exactly what Mr Fletcher is up to. Maybe he can’t be trusted.”

“That’s harsh,” Tonia said.

“But think about it, we found out his secret but he still won’t tell us what’s going on.”

“Jessa, we’ve been through this,” said Flynn, “he’s doing it for our own good.”

“But I feel like we’re beyond that now. We’re too far into it. He said it himself—we already know too much,” she replied. “So in regards to that mystery, the question is: who is taking these kids? We need to find that out.”

“We sure have a lot to figure out, don’t we?” Annora said.

“Going back to what you overheard, Jessa,” said Maggie. “They said something about other Agents in schools, right?”

Jessa nodded.

“So we know it’s not specific to Winsbury,” she thought aloud. “Hand me that netpad, please.”

“What are you looking for, Mags?”

“I’m just searching general crime records.”

“Let’s think,” Tonia stated. “What kind of thing could it be? Child trafficking?”

“I think we’d have heard about that,” Jessa replied.

“If it were anything big, we’d have heard about it already,” Flynn added. “Which means it probably hasn’t been in the news.”

“Interesting,” Maggie said quietly. “I just ran a search for crime records involving young people, and there’s been a string of people under the age of sixteen reported missing.”

“Like Emmeline?” Tonia asked.

“No, different to Emmeline. None of these were injured. They were all reported missing and then found the next day, so the cases were closed.”

“How many?”

“At least thirty, and the activity dates back to almost a year ago. All over London.”

“But they definitely all came back?” asked Jessa.

“Yep,” Maggie replied. “All returned, with no explanation.”

“That has to be related, right?” Jessa said.

“Maybe the Agents realised something suspicious was going on and sent Mr Fletcher to Winsbury to check up on it.”

They sat for a moment.

“So what do you think we should do?” Jessa posed to the group. “We can’t really go out looking for people who are kidnapping teenagers. But I feel like we’re responsible for what we know. My dad always says “knowledge is power.” But what do we do?”

None of them knew what to say next. The thoughtful silence was interrupted by a rapid knock at the door, then Mrs Baxter poked her head in.

“Sorry to bother you kids, but Annora’s mum is here to pick up her and Tonia. And I’m going out to the supermarket now, so I’ll be back in an hour or so. I just love doing the weekly shop in the evening, I get any parking space I want—what a treat! Okay, you all be good while I’m gone!” her voice trailed off as she walked away, and the teenagers heard the chitter chatter of the two mums jabbering away by the front door.

“Well, I suppose we should go,” Tonia suggested to Annora, who pulled herself up from the floor and straightened out her skirt.

The group of friends hugged their hugs and said their goodbyes as Tonia and Annora climbed into the back of Annora’s mum’s little purple car.

Jessa closed the cold night away and she and Flynn and Maggie scuttled back up the stairs into the sanctuary of her room. Jessa promptly flopped herself down on the bed with a loud sigh.

“Oh, this is a pretty scarf,” Maggie cooed from her seat on the rug.

“It’s Annora’s,” Jessa said, resting her head on her hand to look in Maggie’s direction.

“Ah, you’re right. Do you want to hold onto it for her or shall I take it home with me?”

“I can do it,” Jessa said, standing up from the bed. “I’ll go and shove it in my bag so I remember to take it to school on Monday.” She held out her hand and took the bunched up scarf from Maggie’s hold.

“It’s so soft!” Jessa wrapped the long scarf around her neck twice, snuggling into the chunky knit. She sauntered to the full-length mirror on the back of the door and looked into the reflection, striking a silly pose just for fun.

Then her eyes met those of her reflection, and she stopped.

No.

All Jessa saw was darkness.

Black as though she were asleep in the dark of midnight. But her eyes were wide and sleep was absent.

Panic.

Her heart quickly turned to a thumping drum inside her chest, keeping the time that her mind could no longer comprehend. The darkness took over all her senses.

Then, from the black hole came a ringing that pierced through her brain.

Out of the darkness came a scene from somewhere other than reality...

She was formless, watching two men in long coats exit a white van.

The sight before her shook with the disintegrity of a television screen with a wavering connection, flickering and shuddering.

With a loud whoosh, the scene skipped to the two men hurriedly walking down a London street. Jessa felt the pounding of their shiny shoes on the pavement.

“Excuse me, Miss?” one of their voices growled.

Annora.

Jessa saw the small girl’s youthful face turn to view the two men. Her red mane of hair tumbled from her head and spilled out over the scarf tied firmly around her neck.

“Yes?” she replied so politely.

Whoosh.

Their hands grabbed at Annora’s arms, trying to hold her from flailing. One of them shoved a hand over her screaming mouth.

Her calls for help reverberated inside Jessa’s head.

Jessa tried to yell but could make no sound from her shapeless embodiment floating in the scene.

Whoosh.

A dimly lit room. Annora stood silently, the two men behind her. Her pupils were wide and darkened, staring, unfocused. She didn’t move.

“It didn’t work, your Grace,” spoke the same man’s voice that addressed Annora on the street.

“What?” The tiny reply was spoken by another man. Jessa couldn’t see him clearly. His form flickered more intensely; his long dark coat made him difficult to see in the darkened room.

“The tag didn’t work, your Grace. We couldn’t tag her.”

“What are you saying? I taught you how to do it. I gave you the power to do it,” the small but intense voice said. “You’re supposed to be my aides. Do you know what that means, Woodrow?”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“And what does it mean, Woodrow?”

“It means… uh… that we aid, you? Your Grace?”

“You are an imbecile. What’s your excuse, Brooks?”

“I’m sorry, your Grace,” the second man said with his head down.

“You’re sorry about what, exactly?” the well-spoken, quiet man said.

“That, um, I’m an imbecile, your Grace?”

“Well, at least you have the enterprise to admit it,” the small man snarled. “You should both feel incredibly ashamed of this unprosperous occurrence. We’ve come too far and we can’t afford to let mistakes like this happen. I have other things to concentrate on now—that’s why I need you to take care of the gathering. The only other tag I wish to perform myself is the final one. So we will train again, and next time you will not fail me.”

“Yes, your Grace,” Woodrow and Brooks said quickly.

The man lowered himself gently to look directly at Annora, who still stood, unmoving.

Whoosh.

Jessa suddenly felt the sensation of having a body, but it wasn’t her own.

With all her effort she tried to move, but to no avail. She was completely powerless. All she could do was watch through Annora’s eyes as the man’s face came level with hers.

His eyes had no colour. His skin was almost grey.

He reached his hand toward her face, in front of her eyes. His cold skin touched hers.

“Mmm, another parapsych,” he said genially. “It is true that my grand vision is all-inclusive, and a lateral life force is just as useful to me as a parapsych’s. But, oh,” he shuddered, “there is something so deliciously sweet about a young parapsych mind.”

His fingers gripped her skin. And then further.

Jessa felt his awful hand penetrate her head, reaching for thoughts and memories, breaching Annora’s mind.

Jessa was trapped in Annora’s body. The searing pain of white noise ached in her consciousness.

She felt flashing lights and the seething of time, and heard whispers through the blackout. The sound of voices in unison, hissing his name.

“Silas.”

Whoosh.

A return to darkness, and she heard his voice roll from his pockmarked throat.

“Take her back,” he said. “She’s ours now.”

“Jessa? Can you hear me?” a familiar voice faded in through space. “I think she’s unconscious. Flynn, call an ambulance! Jessa!”

“Maggie?” Jessa groaned and fluttered her eyes open.

“Jessa!” Maggie touched the back of her hand to Jessa’s forehead. “Oh my goodness, are you all right?”

“I—I think so,” the words came out weak and forced.

“Can you see how many fingers I’m holding up?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, three,” Jessa replied.

“Okay, now focus on the tip of my finger…” she pulled her index finger closer and away from Jessa’s face, then side to side.

“I’m okay, Mags.” Jessa pulled herself up to rest on her elbows. Flynn touched his hand to her arm.

“What just happened?” Flynn swept Jessa’s hair out of her face. “We thought the scarf was choking you.”

“The scarf…”

“Yeah, Annora’s scarf, remember?”

Jessa scrunched up her face, trying hard to recall what now felt like a dream from which she’d awoken.

“I put it on. But then I saw her wearing it.”

“What?”

Jessa sat up quickly, eyes wide and panicked. “We have to find Annora! He’s going to take her.”

“Woah, slow down, take it easy!”

“I think I just saw the future!”

Maggie and Flynn looked at each other.

“Don’t look like that! I swear I’m not hallucinating or remembering wrong or whatever you think is going on here.” Jessa pointed to the scarf. “I put that on, and then I was… somewhere else. On a street, somewhere. And Annora was there, but then two men took her.”

“What men?”

“They took her somewhere dark,” Jessa interrupted, not even hearing Maggie’s question. “They told him that they tried to do… something, to her. I don’t remember.” Jessa stopped. “It was him. He read her mind, I felt it. I saw him. And he’s going to keep her.”

“Jessa, who are you talking about? Who’s going to keep her?”

“It was Silas Lynch. He’s the one who took the missing children, and he’s going to take Annora.”

Jessa recounted her story over and over until her friends knew every word. Mrs Baxter returned home and poked her head in to check on the three of them, but Jessa deliberately chose not to tell her mother anything.

“We should really tell someone about this,” Maggie whispered after Mrs Baxter went back downstairs.

“Not my mum,” Jessa replied. “She won’t understand, and she’ll worry.”

“I think she has a right to be worried!” Maggie scolded. “If this is real, and you really saw the future, then we need to tell someone immediately.”

“Jessa, could you tell from the vision, when this is going to happen?” Flynn asked.

She shook her head.

“I think we need to tell Mr Fletcher,” said Flynn. “What if it’s going to happen tomorrow? We have to protect Annora. Mr Fletcher told us to go to him if we had any information about the people who are attacking students, and if you think you saw them and that Annora’s next, we have to tell him, right now.”

“It’s almost 10:30, though, my dad will be here soon to pick us up, Flynn,” said Maggie.

“I’ll try calling him,” Jessa picked up the netpad from her bedside table.

“Dialling, HugoFletcher,” the machine spoke in its vaguely inhuman way. The three teenagers waited.

“HugoFletcher unavailable.”

“Try again.”

“Dialling, HugoFletcher. HugoFletcher unavailable.”

“VoiceDial Audrey Baxter”

“Dialling, AudreyBaxter. AudreyBaxter unavailable.”

“Close VoiceDial!” Jessa said through gritted teeth and tossed the netpad onto her bed.

“We should just go there,” Flynn picked up Annora’s scarf. “And we should take this too so he can look at it. He doesn’t live too far away, does he?

“No, it’s about a ten-minute drive. But we don’t have time to go there before Maggie’s dad comes to take you both home.”

“And I’m sure Jessa’s mum wouldn’t let us go out this late anyway, Flynn,” Maggie reasoned.

“Jessa, what if you ask your mum if we can sleep over tonight?” Flynn proposed. “Do you think there’s any way we can sneak out?”

“Mum will go to bed at about 11, and dad went to the pub with his work friends so he won’t be back until about 1. So yeah, we could probably get out without being noticed. And I know Mum would say yes if I asked for you both to stay over. What do you think, Mags?”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into these things.” She took a deep breath and reached for the netpad. “VoiceDial Celine Turner.”

#

“So what now?” Maggie asked. “We just wait until your mum goes to bed and then we walk out?”

“Well, we can’t just walk out,” Jessa lowered her voice. “To get downstairs we’d have to go right past my parents’ room. And my mum does fall asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, but she’s a light sleeper. She’ll wake up for sure, if she hears us going downstairs late.”

“So how do we get out?” asked Flynn.

“The window.” Jessa pulled her curtains apart to show them the slanting roof right under her window.

“You can’t be serious,” said Maggie.

“It’s totally safe, I’ve climbed down here before.”

“Why?!” Maggie exclaimed.

“I don’t know,” Jessa shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Sometimes I think you’re a bad influence on me, Jessamine Baxter,” Maggie said, cupping her hands on the window to look out into the darkness.

“It’s easy, I promise. We just climb down this little section of the roof, and then the garden fence is right there below, so we can easily hop down onto the patio. Then we just go out through the side entrance. We have to be quiet on the front drive because my parents’ window looks out over the front of the house. Then once we get up to the main road, it’ll be easy to get a taxi.”

Jessa handed out hoodies for Maggie and Flynn to wear, as they couldn’t return downstairs to get their coats without raising suspicion. Fortunately, they all had their own shoes, which Flynn was particularly pleased about, as Jessa had limited footwear in her bedroom and he “didn’t fancy wearing slippers or flip-flops.”

“We can pretend we’re just watching a movie.” Jessa flipped on the television. She dove onto the duvet and pulled a fluffy blanket over her legs. Maggie and Flynn did the same, wrapping themselves up cosily.

It wasn’t long before Mrs Baxter knocked on the door, just as Jessa had predicted. “Have fun, kids,” she blew kisses from the door, “and don’t stay up too late. Audrey’s room is made up ready for Flynn whenever you go to bed.”

“Thanks, Mum!”

“Goodnight, Mrs Baxter!” they said, as coolly as possible.

The door closed and they all stared at the movie on the screen. Some ruggedly good-looking actor was fighting grubby bad guys.

They counted down the minutes until it was safe to leave.

11.15.

“Wait here,” Jessa tiptoed out of her room toward the closed door of her parents’ bedroom. She returned within seconds, with thumbs up, to see Maggie holding the netpad again.

“Just thought I’d try one more time,” Maggie said. “It still says he’s unavailable. And neither he nor Audrey has responded to the text messages. So I guess we’re doing this?” Maggie glanced over at the window.

“You ready?” Jessa asked quietly. They both nodded.

Flynn stuffed Annora’s scarf in a small yellow rucksack that he pulled from the wardrobe.

Jessa unlatched the window and pushed it open. They all tightened into their warm layers a little more as the cold March air rushed into the room.

“Climb down backwards, on your hands and knees,” she instructed. “Just go slow, and you’ll be fine. Then when you get to the edge, put your feet on the fence and jump down.”

Flynn went first.

The two girls watched him make his way to the edge, where he gave them an ‘OK’ hand signal before jumping onto the patio beneath. Maggie took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully before copying him, slowly crawling her way down. Then Jessa too, backed out of the window, leaving the movie playing at a low volume to mask any unwanted sounds from their atypical exit.

As Jessa had predicted, there were plenty of London taxis available.

“Bit late for you kids to be out, ennit?” the brusque taxi driver questioned, peering at them in his rear-view mirror.

“Bit late for you to be poking your nose into other people’s business, ennit?” Jessa retorted.

“Oi,” came his meagre response.

Maggie read from the piece of paper onto which she’d written Hugo Fletcher’s address. “Please take us to Foxdown Court, Battersea.”

“You got it.”

And he drove.

It was easy to locate Mr Fletcher’s apartment in the newly built Foxdown Court complex. They had wondered how they’d even get into the building if the main door were key-operated, but were fortunate enough to run into a group of elegantly-dressed but slightly inebriated women who held the door open for them.

“9F. Here it is,” Jessa said. She knocked, to no answer. She knocked again, but still nothing. “I guess we’ll just wait, then.”

#

“Jessa?!” Audrey exclaimed.

“Where have you been?!” Jessa exclaimed.

“Excuse me? Where have I been? What on earth are you all doing here outside Hugo’s apartment? It’s the middle of the night! Mum and Dad will be worried sick!”

“It’s all right; they don’t know we left—”

“You snuck out of the house? What were you thinking?”

“Hey, ladies, let’s just go inside,” said Hugo. “I’m sure they have a reason for being here.” He unlocked the door and motioned for them to enter. “They’d better have a reason for being here.”

“We had to come to you, Mr Fletcher,” Flynn began. “Jessa had another intuition, and we think Annora’s going to be kidnapped next.”

“We did try calling you first but neither of you picked up the phone,” Maggie said apologetically. “We thought it was too important not to tell you immediately.”

Mr Fletcher sighed. “Tell me what happened, Jessa, as detailed as you can remember.”

She recounted the story, of putting on the scarf, of collapsing, of watching Annora being kidnapped by the dark-coated men.

“It was him, Mr Fletcher, it was Silas Lynch,” she finished and waited anxiously for his response.

Jessa thought she was dropping a kind of bombshell, a fantastic piece of evidence into the mystery. But Mr Fletcher just looked at her, blinking in a moment of misapprehension.

“I’m not following,” he said. “The only Silas Lynch I know of is the one from twentysomething years ago…”

“Yes, that one!” she said.

“I’m sorry Jessa; I’m still not getting it.”

“What don’t you get? You don’t believe me?”

“Calm down, it’s not that I don’t believe you, I just don’t understand. I need you to be a little more specific.”

“Silas Lynch is back! He’s alive!”

“O-kay…” he said slowly.

“Remember what I told you after our trip to the National Parapsychological Museum? In the Modern History exhibit…” she trailed off, imploring him to understand her.

“Yes, I remember you telling me that. But again, what’s the connection?”

“It’s him! It’s Silas! He’s the one who’s kidnapping students!”

“I studied that story,” Audrey interjected. “He was burned alive.”

“No, they tried to burn him alive,” Jessa held her hands out emphatically, stressing her words. “But he’s not dead!”

“I don’t know how you come up with this stuff, Jessa,” Audrey shook her head.

“I’m not making it up!”

“We actually looked into it,” Maggie did her best to sound reasonable. “We checked the database, and Silas Lynch’s death record is incomplete. There is real evidence to suggest that he didn’t die.”

“So that’s what you’ve been up to…” Mr Fletcher said quietly. He took a deep breath and smiled at the three teenagers gently. “All right, listen up. I appreciate you coming to me, and for looking out for your friend, but it’s extremely unlikely that you saw the future. That kind of skill just doesn’t happen out of nowhere.”

“It must be some kind of object-reading! I know that’s a real thing. I put on Annora’s scarf and that’s when I had the vision. I saw it, Mr Fletcher, I know it’s going to happen. She’s next.”

“Futuresight isn’t an object-based ability,” Hugo Fletcher said calmly. “You see, there’s no certainty that an object would be in use at any point in time in the future, so objects can’t allow readers to see future events. Does that make sense?”

Maggie and Flynn nodded.

Jessa frowned. “I know what I saw.”

“And I believe you saw something, though it couldn’t have been futuresight. Please don’t worry. I’ll keep a close eye on Annora, as a precaution. But I’m sure she’ll be fine. Now let’s talk about getting you all home, shall we?” He suddenly looked very stern.

“We just need to go back to Jessa’s house, our parents both agreed we could stay over tonight.”

“I’ll drive them back,” Audrey tutted.

“Please don’t tell Mum,” Jessa whined. “Please please please?”

Audrey sighed. “Fine. I won’t tell this time. But I swear, Jessa, if you ever pull anything like this again, you will be in so much trouble.”