The Faerie King

Prologue

T he first life I stole was the reason we had to leave London. Had to leave the echoing ball pit by the side of a motorway, the endless aisles of the toy store, the shimmering fountain where we wished on pennies, and all my friends—friends whose names I no longer remember.

Mum’s latest boyfriend, a man with a face like a bulldog and a laugh that never failed to make me wince, kept coming over.

Constantly. So often, in fact, that I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a house of his own. Perhaps he just drifted from sofa to sofa, leaving a trail of crushed cigarette butts and empty penny jars in his wake.

He’d turn up without notice and smoke in her kitchen, until the air was thick with the stench of his cheap rolling tobacco. He’d order himself burgers, never any for us, and guzzle fizzy drinks, knowing the sugar made Mum sick.

Worst of all, every weekend he’d invite his friends over. They’d crowd around Mum’s games console, their raucous laughter echoing through the tiny house, and snort lines of white powder off the glass table in her living room. They’d stay awake for days, their voices a constant, grating buzz, sometimes only leaving on the Tuesday morning.

And when they finally left, with bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, he’d yank Mum by the hair and throw her around, asking how she allowed the house to get into such a state. Her home became his private play pen.

I remember Dad coming over for one of his rare visits when her boyfriend wasn’t there. He picked me up and took me to the shopping centre, where he let me bounce on the indoor bungee jump until I almost threw up.

When my head stopped spinning, we sat in the round coffee shop, and I told him everything. I told him about how that rat bastard let strange men in and out of the house at all hours, their heavy footsteps waking me from my sleep.

I told him that when I’d get up for school on Monday mornings, sometimes I couldn’t use the shower because one of his friends would be passed out in the bathtub. Another would be lingering in the hallway, leering at the bathroom door—the one I’d soon leave in just a towel.

I told him how he hit her. Constantly. About the hospital trips and how I just wanted him, my real dad, to come and live with us. Why wouldn’t he come and live with us?

And that’s when he told me the truth. That’s when he whispered the secrets of the earth. That the ground feeds on rot and decay. That death begets life, and that there’s a hungry, thirsty tree right outside our kitchen window that he’s sure would love to help. All I’d need to do is leave the window open and tell the tree exactly what I’d like it to do.

So that night, I thought long and hard about how I wanted the tree to solve my problem.

And the next morning, Mum screamed when she went looking for her boyfriend and found him outside on the grassy knoll, bones cracked and limbs twisted into bloody knots. Dead eyes wide open, staring eternally out in fear and shock.

She didn’t want to live in London anymore.

And somehow, Dad knew to make one of his rare, clever phone calls at exactly the same time as she, in a panic, was deciding where she’d next like to live. When he told her he’d bought her a lovely house and a great big SUV out in the country, with a large garden and a fully stocked kitchen, suddenly she wasn’t as opposed to his help anymore. As hateful of his presence.

Suddenly, we were living near the prettiest forest I’d ever seen, only a few feet away from my hovering, cold, grey-eyed Faerie. The one that followed me wherever I went.