Free Fire Star by Chris D'Lacey

this?” Gwilanna asked. From the shadows beside her chair, she brought forth a square-shaped wicker basket. A small lithe figure was darting around inside it.
    “Snigger!” gasped Lucy.
    Gwilanna raised a frown. “Is that what he called it? How dreadfully quaint.”
    Chuk,
went the squirrel, standing on its hind legs and clinging to the wicker, doing its best to gnaw through the weave.
    Lucy balled her fists. “What are you doing with him?!”
    “He’s a hostage,” smirked the sibyl, and her face grew dark, “to make sure you do exactly as you’re told. If you even
think
about squealing for your mother I’ll turn this rodent into a pair of flea-bitten socks.” She poked a finger at the cage, then reeled back sharply as Snigger tried to sink his teeth into her flesh. “I discovered — during my ‘stay’ with you — that when the boy wrote his story about this tree rat, he was ahead of time.”
    Lucy pulled a face. “What do you mean?”
    “He could predict things, child; what he wrote came true, though the gap between the two only covered a few seconds.”
    Lucy puzzled over this but didn’t reply.
    “He, of course, was bewildered by it, just as you are now. His minute brain did not possess the intellect to understand that time does not truly exist.”
    Lucy glanced at the carriage clock on Henry’s mantelpiece. “Why do we have clocks, then?”
    The sibyl gave out an irritated sigh. “So we can glimpse different aspects of the present. Oh, never mind. Just take it from me, your tenant can do it. What’s more, his ability is growing stronger.”
    Lucy pushed her hands between her thighs and shuddered. She didn’t like the sound of this. “How do you know?”
    Gwilanna stood up and paced the room. She dropped the basket onto the fireside rug, causing Snigger to tumble like a hamster on its wheel. “I decided to watch him. I left a calling card on that silly little contract he made with his publishers.”
    “I saw it,” said Lucy, lurching forward. “Three squiggles — like on Zanna’s arm.”
    “Squiggles!” Gwilanna’s screech rattled the windows. “Don’t be so insolent, girl. That sign is feared throughout the far north.”
    “Sorry,” said Lucy, though she wasn’t at all. Her mind was working fast. It had just occurred to her how to attract her mother’s attention — if not that of a listening dragon. Gwilanna’s last shrill burst would havebeen heard in every corner of the living room next door. If she could be made to shriek upstairs, it would easily be detected in the Dragon’s Den.
    “Where was I?” snapped the sibyl.
    “I can’t remember. Can I go to the toilet, please?”
    “No, you may not. We were talking about the boy. Through magics, I have followed his latest saga. Did you know I feature in it?”
    Lucy shook her head very slowly indeed. Gwilanna, in David’s Arctic story? What could he be
thinking
of?
    “Yes, child, I was astonished as well. But then the boy is a strange enigma. When he writes, it seems his auma is driven by the need to engineer his fate. He is creating the circumstances for — well, you will discover that in time. Look out of the window. What do you see?”
    “Nothing.” It was pitch-black outside.
    “Stars, girl. Can’t you see the stars?”
    Not really,
thought Lucy. One or two were winking gently, but … wait, here was her chance: “They’ll be easier to see from Mr. Bacon’s study window … upstairs.”
    “No doubt,” said Gwilanna, not taking the bait.
    Lucy clamped her fingers around her thumb and sighed.
    “What do you
know
about stars?” Gwilanna pressed.
    Lucy folded her arms. This was all she needed: a science lesson. “They’re a long way off. Our sun is a star and the Earth revolves around it.”
    Gwilanna raised a half-impressed eyebrow. “Elementary, but correct. Now, let me teach you something else. Every object you see in the sky, every twinkling celestial body, exerts an influence on our lives. You and I, this