The Fragile Tower - Book 1 of the No.1 magical fantasy series

The Fragile Tower Chapter 4 - The Searching

Grace had never seen Ma look like this, as if she had been rubbed out and then drawn all over again without any colour and with twice as many lines and wrinkles. In contrast, Dad looked almost indecently healthy and cheerful as he raced around phoning people, and then the police, and then flying in and out of the house to check everywhere he could think of. But Grace knew that the frantic running was just his own way of dealing with the terror.

The first time he left, while Grace cuddled a sobbing Maggie on the sofa, Ma turned to her with enormous dark eyes. Grace saw the accusation in her expression, and she flinched. She almost wished that Dad was still there. He didn't seem to read Ma's thoughts in the way Grace did, but then he hadn't known her as long. Ma and Grace had been a duo for six years.

Faced with Ma's expression, she found words tumbling out before she'd even had a chance to plan what she would say.

"When Benjamin tried to get up on the stage, in the light show, I stepped in instead. The guy doing it asked him if he wanted to be tested, and I thought... that there was something wrong. He had this glass globe, and I took it, and it shone so brightly it hurt my eyes."

Ma's face was absolutely still, but Grace waited for her before saying anything more. In the end, her mother croaked, "Did he give you anything?"

"A gold coin, but I didn't want it." She remembered Benjamin snatching it out of the air with triumph, and closed her eyes for a moment. "Benjamin took it."

She opened her eyes to look at Ma, expecting her to shout at her, but her mother was looking away from her, her eyes still big and round and terrified as she looked at something that Grace couldn't see.

"What did he look like, the man on the stage?"

"Strange," Grace told her. "His eyes seemed to change colour, like the lights in his show. I thought it was a trick but I couldn't see how he was doing it. He had blond hair tied back, and he was tall. Taller than Dad, but... bigger."

Ma nodded, lowering her head, and the way she did it made Grace stare. It was as if Grace had just confirmed something she already knew. But how could she have known?

"Ma, what is it? Who was he? Do you know him?"

But the doorbell chimed, the police arriving, and Ma got up quickly, never once looking at Grace as she let Lieutenant Doorig and his pretty Deputy in and began trying to explain what had happened.

Grace had trouble focusing on the two officers, even when they started asking her questions. She was looking at her mother, and wondering how much she had been hiding. She kept having to ask them to repeat themselves.

"So you don't think he had any reason to run away?" the Lieutenant asked her, for the third time, and she finally looked at him in confusion.

"He's eight years old, and afraid of the dark. Why would he run away in the middle of a freezing night? It makes no sense at all."

The Lieutenant nodded, though she could tell he wanted to disagree.

Grace didn't want to hear more about Benjamin running away. She wanted to know about the other missing children, and she asked, before he could say anything else, "What about the fair?"

"The fair?"

"Yes. I told you we went to the fair, so have you been to talk to them?"

"We've got officers on it," Doorig said, and looked like he was about to ask Ma something. Grace didn't let him do more than open his mouth.

"Was the fair at Saranac Lake yesterday? Did that little girl, Kelly, go?"

The Lieutenant stopped, with his mouth slightly open, and glanced over at his Deputy. Grace didn't need to know anything else, but she didn't miss the way Ma stared at her. She knew that Grace had kept the disappearance from her, and that this was her fault. All of it.