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“Sure, go on up, he’s been awake a while now,” he heard his mother’s muffled voice call from downstairs, followed by hurried footsteps racing toward his bedroom door. No knock. Typical Grace, he thought, as she came bounding over to his bed.
“Wow, would you look at that. The cast goes all the way up to your waist!” she said, inspecting his leg like a doctor. “Give me a pen, I’ve got to sign this.”
He stretched over, grabbed the felt tip he’d used earlier on a crossword his mum had given him, and handed it to her. She dropped something on the floor beside her jacket and took the pen.
“Careful, please. I know your strength,” he said as she set to work on his cast.
“How much pain are you in?” she asked, concentrating on her drawing.
“Not much now. They gave me these tablets to take regularly. Though Mum said she didn’t want me getting addicted to them,” he replied, sitting up a little. The TV blared from the other side of the room, Batman swinging across the screen.
“Careful, you’ve jogged me…” she muttered. “…this will have to be a skull now!”
“Sorry,” he said, trying his best to stay still. “How are you anyway?”
“Oh, fine. They sorted my teeth out, but they gave me something too, some painkiller, and Dad said he didn’t want me going to school after, so I stayed home with him all day and helped him work.”
It was now Sunday. Grace had come by yesterday, but his mother had said he was sleeping. They had spent nearly all day at the hospital getting his cast made up. He’d heard Grace when she came over later, and had tried to get her attention from his window as she left, though she hadn’t seen him. He was still unsure how he had gotten home that day; everything was hazy.
He remembered lying on the ground with rain spluttering across his face, strange sounds around him, a white mist thickening the air. Then suddenly he was in his living room with his mother frantically on the telephone; then in the hospital waiting room with people rushing around him. His timeline of events was strained, snatches of moments and blurs of time moulded into one big smear of memory.
His mother came into the room.
“All done with your soup, love?” she asked. Despite it clearly being a broken leg, she had set about treating him for a wide range of imagined ailments. This resulted in bowls of soup, pillow‑fluffing, extra jumpers (“to keep out the cold, luv”), and a strange liquid in a black bottle that tasted like he was swallowing rusty pennies.
“That’s a lovely, uh… skeleton, Grace,” his mother said, picking up the tray beside his bed and noticing her contribution to the cast.
“Thanks. I’m taking art lessons now at the Grange,” Grace replied, not taking her eyes off her work.
“I can see it’s money well spent, dear,” his mother said. “If you need anything, either of you, just shout.” She left with the tray.
“So, what happened?” Grace asked, signing her artwork carefully near his toe. An upside‑down Mexican sugar skull grinned up at him.
Zach told her everything he remembered, from the morning when he’d first passed the house. Grace was a good audience; she gasped in the right places and got angry when he told her about the bullies.
“Those guys are gonna get what’s coming to them one day!” she said, looking off as if filing the thought away for later use.
“So do you think it was the old man from the Lore House?” she asked, fiddling with the bottom of her jumper.
“It looked just like him, well, from what I remember. But even though I heard the dog barking, I didn’t see it at all,” he said.
“Odd! I heard they were going to tear down that old house last year and build, like, four houses on the land. But for some reason it never happened. I can’t believe someone actually lives there.” She paused, imagining horrors. “They must be mad. It’s a scary place.” She looked back at him. “But how did you get back?”
“I… urm… can’t remember that part,” Zach said, slightly embarrassed. “It is weird…” he added quickly, “…and now I’m stuck with this cast for ages. They gave me some crutches, but Mum wants me to keep off them for a while.” He stuck a finger down the cast to scratch an itch.
“When you’re better, we should go investigate that house, you know. See what’s inside. Maybe we can get in the back way,” Grace said, completely serious.
“Are you nuts? I’m not going back there. And I’m not using that shortcut again either,” Zach said, reminding her it was she who had shown him it in the first place, and perhaps implying she should share some responsibility for the state he was now in.
“Oh, it’ll be fun. At least you didn’t get set on by that Collins kid. I think he’s moving away soon anyway, think his parents are getting divorced or something,” she said.
“Pity!” Zach replied. They both laughed.
“So, lots of TV for you in the next few weeks?” she said, crossing the room to turn his set down.
“Well, maybe. But it gets boring after a while,” he replied.
She spun toward him, as if waiting for a cue.
“Which is exactly why I brought you this,” she said, returning to the bed and picking something up from the floor. She handed him a large ornate book.
It wasn’t like the books he’d seen in the bookstores his dad dragged him into whenever they went shopping, not that he minded, he loved to read, he just didn’t like the crowds. This book was more like the ones in the school library: imposing, leather‑bound, as thick as his arm and as dusty as his room. Its bright red cover bore the words Fractured Fairytales indented in a fancy font. He couldn’t see an author’s name.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, slightly suspicious. Grace had a habit of, in her words, “borrowing” things.
“I found it in my loft last weekend. Mum wanted me to get the Christmas decorations down—” Zach made a noise to interrupt. “—I know, I know. It’s only October, but you know what mums are like. Anyway, I was having a nose about, like you do, and I found this in one of the old boxes. It’s excellent, with these strange pictures in it, though I’ve not had a proper look.”
She opened it and placed it, not very gently, on his lap. Zach felt the weight of the leather and the metal corners. The pictures were indeed interesting: sketches, the kind that looked like they were drawn to show movement.
“So, I thought, while you’re getting better, you can read through this and let me know if it’s any good. Odd though, I flicked through and there are lots of empty pages at the back, like it’s unfinished,” she said. “But like I said, I didn’t really investigate it too much.”
Zach found the blank pages; there were quite a few.
“Maybe that’s what they did with old books,” she said matter‑of‑factly, “in case they needed to add something once it was made.”
“Hey, look, this story is about a boy called Zachary!” he said, pointing.
“Ooooh, weird. I wonder if there’s a girl called Grace in there too!” she said, leaning closer.
“Maybe. Where do you think the book came from?” he asked.
“I’m not sure…” Grace said, scrutinising the book with renewed interest. “I asked Mum and she didn’t know where it came from, but she said I can have it. Probably got it in a charity shop or something.” She fixed her ponytail, which had come loose.
“Do you want some lunch?” he asked, knowing Grace was always hungry and never one to turn down food.
“Ah, would love to, but I have to go to my grandparents this afternoon. Dad wants to pick things up for the car‑boot sale we’re doing next week.”
“Are they the nice ones?” Zach asked, remembering her two very different sets of grandparents. Grace had told him once how her mean grandmother had whipped her with a tea towel for dropping a cup.
“Nah, it’s the nice ones, so I don’t mind going,” she said. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re alive at least. Let me know how you get on with the book. I’d forgotten about it until yesterday and found it poking out from under my bed. Know you like to read,” she added, glancing at his huge bookcase.
She slid off the bed and stroked his cast on her way past, admiring her artwork. “Call me later, though. I should be back around seven,” she said, lingering in the doorway and pulling on her jacket.
“Okay, have fun. I’ll let you know if sad old Grace turns up in the book, probably as a witch,” he said, winking.
“Meanie,” she said, and slipped out the door. He heard her going down the stairs two at a time, shouting goodbye to his mum.
Havoc and Consequence 