PART I

CHILDHOOD

There was a time when I was just a normal child. A kid with two parents, who lived in a regular small house in a small town close to London. All my uncles and grandparents lived far away, in West Ireland, and I had met them maybe twice in my life. There was nothing special about me: I liked the same things a kid would do, like playing, sleeping and so on. My school grades were average and my problems were average child problems: homework, getting caught at doing something your mum disapproves, and bullies. I had just two or three friends at school, and very few occasions, if none, to meet them outside class. So my childhood was mostly spent in loneliness.

I had an adult friend, though. It was our neighbour who lived in the flat next to ours. He moved there when I was three; at least I think I was three, not that it matters. The day he arrived, he didn’t lose any time and rang our bell to introduce himself. He wore some very elegant grey suite and his face seemed relatively young despite his white hair. While he chatted with my mother, I was hiding myself behind a door, until she told him they had a child. As she said that, I ran into my room. But I still heard the newcomer asking her something.

“May I meet him? I love children.”

While I tried to distract myself with a colouring book, my mother entered my room.

“Hayden, our new neighbour wants to know you. Don’t be afraid, he’s nice.”

Out of force, I got out of my room with her. The new neighbour saw me and made a huge smile. “Hello,” he said.

“H...hello” I replied, trembling.

My mother excused herself. “He’s shy, sorry.”

“No problem,” he said warmly, Then he turned his head to me again. “What’s your name?”

“Hayden...Hayden Darce,” I answered.

“That’s a nice name. I am Darrell. Darrell Kynthelig.”

I smiled a little. My name was the only thing I liked about me. It sounded pretty cool at the tongue, and my surname is very similar to Dark, like my hair. After that, it all became easier. We talked a bit, as much as a little child can talk, but he still looked very interested in my childish affairs. We even played together with some of my toys. He was very lovely.

There was a strange detail I learned that day: he had no family at all. I had never met someone who had no family. Despite that, he claimed to love kids. I couldn’t resist asking him why: his answer mentioned some health problems that prevented him from having babies. I didn’t understand very well then, since I still believed storks brought babies.

That day, he became a close friend with my parents and me. Even my father, who would come back later home from work, met him and liked him. He became a sort of uncle for me, and I felt him closer to family than my real relatives, who all lived so far. I loved Darrell, and my feeling was requited. Whenever my parents would go out I was happy: I knew they would leave me to his flat, where he would serve me chocolate milk and biscuits, then play with me.

The one day, he started becoming something more.

It happened one afternoon when I was seven. I was in 3rd grade and I felt totally miserable because of bullies. I wasn’t very tall, and I used to have protruding upper incisors, details that my black straight hair couldn’t help on mitigating. Bullies made fun of everything about me, throw me in the mud, trip me in the canteen, sometimes extorted my lunch too. I remember asking my teachers if I could remain in the classroom during breaks, but apparently it wasn’t possible by the school rules. So from Monday to Friday, twice a day, I had to go out, stay in my solitary tree, or in my solitary lunch table, and pray not to be seen, but every time it was a useless hope. A pair of times, I tried to hurt them physically, just to be readily punished by the school who pretended not to see anything they were doing to me. The only thing I could do was crying first in the school toilet and then crying again on my bed at home, always in silence, in order not to give them that kind of satisfaction, or worse, make my parents worry.

Stolen novel; please report.

I didn’t talk about them much with Darrell: I was too happy to stay with my ‘uncle’ to think about sad things. But that day had been so horrible that not even he could cheer me up. We were in his flat, and he had just brought me a new board game to play with, but I was so down I couldn’t enjoy it at all.

“What’s there, Hayden? You look unhappier than usual.”

With that, I couldn’t resist any more and hugged his legs, crying again.

He looked at me with compassionate eyes. “Bullies, am I right?”

“How do you know that?” I raised my head, surprised.

“Your parents told me something about it, but I didn’t know you were suffering so much.” He patted me on the neck. “It’s fine, Hayden. I’ll go prepare some milk and then you’ll tell me everything, do you feel like that?”

“Ok...but only because it’s you.”

“Good boy.”

Darrell went to the kitchen and came back with the usual dish with milk and biscuits. I ate them contentedly, feeling better.

He sat on the empty armchair. “Now, dear Hayden, tell me everything. No need to be shy, I just want to help you.”

I told him everything. I narrated about my daily routine of going out of class for playtime, go under my tree and be tormented by no less than three boys that made the worst fun of me, then ask at least once a day to go to the toilet and cry there, alone and in peace, and then, once home, stay the rest of the day mostly in my room with nothing but some comics for company.

“You don’t deserve all this,” he said in the end, always with that charming, comforting voice, “and if I tell so it’s because I know you well. I want to help you face those bullies.”

“Thank you Darrell. I love you,” I said, with broken voice.

“I love you too, dear boy,” he replied fatherly, “that’s why I want to give you a gift. The best gift ever. You won’t have any bully problem once you have it, promised.”

“R...really?”

Darrell’s smile was enlarging, so slowly that it was almost imperceptible. That smile, however, didn’t make him more sympathetic, but rather gave him some kind of mysterious look, which made me perceive, for the first time ever, there was something more about the man that had been an uncle for me.

“You’re special, Hayden. I’ve waited for a long time to tell you this, but you possess capabilities almost nobody has. You’re going to discover them very soon. This is my gift.”

“What do you mean?”

He got up. “You have powers. Like the superheroes in your comics. Don’t you wish to be one?”

“Yes, but...are you saying they’re real?”

“In a way, yes. And you are one of them.”

I was divided between excitement and confusion. Imagine a child that is told that he has special powers. Some will be more sceptical than others, but for all of them, it sounds like a daydream come true.

“What are my powers?” I asked.

“I can’t show you them here,” he answered, “we need to go out, where nobody can see us. So get yourself ready, we’re having a nice trip in the countryside.”

Part of my excitement was lost. The countryside was so boring for me. What could a child grown up in the city do in the middle of nothingness? “But Darrell, I don’t like going there!”

“I know, but this must remain a secret between us. Nobody must be around.”

Darrell had never been so enigmatic. That behaviour, back then, was totally new to me. Part of me felt scared...but he was my adoptive uncle and I trusted him. If he said I had powers, I could believe it.

“Ok,” I said.

“Good boy,” he smiled, “go prepare yourself.”

“Wait, I still didn’t finish my homework...”

“You can do those this evening. If your parents ask, we just had a nice walk together.”