Free Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris

of that feeling, the way her face intrudes on his thoughts, the way his fingers trace her name, the way everything somehow conspires to keep her always in his mind –
    It changes his behaviour. It makes him contradictory; at the same time more accepting, and less so. He wants to do the right thing, but, so doing, thinks only of himself. He wants to see her, but when he does, flees. He wants it to last for ever, but at the same time longs for it to end.
    Zooming closer, he brings her face into mystic, near-monstrous proportions. Now she is a single eye, its colour a hybrid of blue and gold, staring sightlessly through the glass like an orchid in a growing-tank –
    But through the eye of love, of course, she always appears in shades of blue. Bruise-blue; butterfly-blue; cobalt, sapphire, mountain-blue. Blue, the colour of his secret soul; the colour of mortality.
    His brother in black would have known what to say. Blueeyedboy lacks the words. But he dreams of them dancing under the stars, she in a ball dress of sky-blue silk, he in his chosen colours. In these dreams he is beyond words, and he can smell the scent of her hair, can almost feel her texture –
    And then comes a sharp knock at the door. Blueeyedboy starts guiltily. It annoys him that he does this; he is in his own home, hurting no one, why should he feel this stab of guilt?
    He puts away his camera. The knock is repeated; peremptory. Someone sounds impatient.
    ‘Who is it?’ says blueeyedboy .
    A voice, not well-loved, but familiar, comes to him from the other side. ‘Let me in.’
    ‘What do you want?’ says blueeyedboy .
    ‘To talk to you, you little shit.’
    Let’s call him Mr Midnight Blue. Bigger by far than blueeyedboy , and vicious as a mad dog. Today he is in a violent rage that blueeyedboy has never seen before, hammering at the front door, demanding to be let in. No sooner are the safety locks released, than he barges his way into the hall and, with no kind of preliminaries, head-butts our hero right in the face.
    Blueeyedboy ’s trajectory sends him smashing into the hallway table; ornaments and a flower vase fly into shrapnel against the wall. He trips and falls at the bottom of the stairs, and then Midnight Blue is on top of him, punching him, shouting at him –
    ‘Fucking keep away from her, you twisted little bastard!’
    Our hero makes no attempt to resist. He knows it would be impossible. Instead he just curls into himself like a hermit crab into its shell, trying to shield his face with his arms, crying in fear and hatred, while his enemy lands blow after blow to his ribs and back and shoulders.
    ‘Do you understand?’ says Midnight, pausing to recover his breath.
    ‘I wasn’t doing anything. I’ve never even spoken to her—’
    ‘Don’t give me that,’ says Midnight Blue. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. And what about those photographs?’
    ‘Ph-photographs?’ says blueeyedboy .
    ‘Don’t even think of lying to me.’ He pulls them from one of his inside pockets. ‘ These photographs, taken by you, developed right here, in your darkroom—’
    ‘How did you get those?’ says blueeyedboy .
    Midnight gives him a final punch. ‘Never mind how I got them. If you ever go anywhere near her again, if you talk to her, write to her – hell, if you even look at her – I’ll make you sorry you were born. This is your final warning—’
    ‘Please!’ Our hero is whimpering, his arms thrown up to protect his face.
    ‘I mean it. I’ll kill you—’
    Not if I kill you first , blueeyedboy thinks, and before he can protect himself, the hateful aroma of rotting fruit fills his throat with its hot-house stench, and a lance of pain drives into his head, and he feels as though he is dying.
    ‘Please—’
    ‘You’d better not lie to me. You’d better not hold out on me.’
    ‘I won’t,’ he gasps, through blood and tears.
    ‘You’d better not,’ says Midnight Blue.
    Lying dazed on the carpet, blueeyedboy hears the