It’s dark when I wake and Mum doesn’t believe too much in heating so the flat is freezing. I put thick socks and a hat on before I even get out of bed, wrapping myself in my quilt and stumbling over to the window. It was a night of dreams. Of wolves howling, and blue fingers that drew frost on windows. Of snow-covered mountains and Alberic’s strange copper eyes. And now, when I look out of the window, it’s like the world was with me. There are no wolves, thank goodness, but on every surface in the darkened street, every rooftop, lintel and tree, is a fine layer of frost. The cars sparkle clean and white beneath a pearly sky, and only a single set of footprints marks the glittering pavements, still scattered with autumn leaves now curled and frozen. It’s all so quiet, and so beautiful. Somehow, I guess through Mum’s stories, winter has always held magic for me. All the dirt and grime hidden beneath layers of ice and snow. Anything seems possible. My stomach rumbles. Porridge. That’s what I need. I drag the quilt with me into the kitchen. The kettle’s on and Mum’s looking out of the window herself, a faraway look on her face. ‘It’s settled properly today,’ she says. ‘Yesterday was the first, but this morning is glorious, isn’t it?’ ‘Glorious,’ I say, shuffling to the cupboard and pulling out the oats. A few spill on the floor. ‘But I do wish we had a microwave. Or heating.’ ‘The heating is on, and here, I’ll do the porridge.’ She takes the oats from me. ‘You make the tea. Could you not find a jumper? The quilt is a little cumbersome, no?’ ‘It’s fine,’ I say, tucking it around myself and shuffling to get mugs and milk. ‘Cosy.’ ‘You know it’s mostly in the mind,’ she says. ‘You start to shiver and your body tenses and then, even if you’re not actually cold, your mind thinks you are.’ ‘I am actually bodily cold,’ I say, pouring boiling water over the tea bags, wondering what would happen if Mum ever saw my hands covered in frost. Was it real? Could it happen again, just like that? ‘Goodness, Owl, you’re going to scald yourself,’ Mum fusses, coming over as I struggle to hold up the quilt while stirring the tea and fretting silently. ‘Give me that.’ She whisks the quilt away. ‘Hey!’ I jump, dropping the spoon. Mum slings the quilt over the back of a kitchen chair and turns back to the porridge, and I think she’s saying something but I can’t hear her because my skin is screaming at me, tightening as a pale, glittering something sweeps up from my fingertips to my shoulders. I can feel it, curling around the back of my neck and spreading over my scalp, like steel tendons wrapping around me. I look from myself to Mum, not breathing, not moving an inch. It’s happening. Right now. Almost as if I predicted it. What do I do? Call out to her? Run? Stand here like a statue until it passes? Will it pass? What is this? The room darkens around me and it feels like time has stopped, like I’m stuck in some kind of alternate place where everything is magnified. I notice cracks in the floor tiles that I’ve never seen before, the pencil marks up the wall where we’ve measured my height over the years. The porridge bubbles and sputters, an avalanche of sound that threatens to choke me, and Mum’s just standing there, in our normal kitchen in our normal world, gesticulating with the spoon as she keeps on talking, but if she turned … if she turned, what would she see? Would she scream? I imagine the spoon falling from her hand, the porridge boiling over, her eyes widening with shock and fear. And there’d be no going back. Nothing would ever be normal again, if she saw this. I look down at myself again, hoping that I imagined it, caught up in the bloom of new winter. But, as I watch, little flower-like crystals start to spread over my forearms. They’re beautiful. They’re madness. I snatch the quilt from the chair, fling it over myself and scarper to the bedroom, shutting the door and leaning against it, a hot sob bursting out. I lower the quilt slowly, taking deep breaths, looking down at myself with dread. But my skin is normal again. Normal and cold, with goosebumps. I sit on the bed. What was that? It looked like frost. Was it frost? How can it have been frost, on my skin, just like that? Surely such a thing just doesn’t exist – has anyone, ever, in the history of the world, been able to freeze themselves? I’ve never heard of it. It’s impossible. ‘It’s like something from one of Mum’s stories,’ I tell the owl on the bedpost. It’s not a good thought. ‘Stupid,’ I say out loud. The owl stares at me balefully with its round wooden eyes and offers no reassurance. ‘Owl? Are you coming?’ Mum calls. ‘Yes,’ I call back, grabbing my heaviest jumper. ‘I imagined it,’ I say to the owl. ‘That sort of thing just doesn’t happen. Does it?’ The owl blinks with a little dry snapping sound. I flinch away, my breath catching in my throat, and then slowly, skin creeping, lean in towards it. ‘Did you blink?’ I whisper. It doesn’t answer. Obviously. I stare at it for a little longer, until my eyes ache and my head starts to spin. Then I let myself breathe again. It doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything. It’s a wooden owl, for goodness sake! Mum calls again and I make my way back to the kitchen. I won’t think about it. I won’t think about anything. And if Mum notices anything’s wrong, I’ll demand some proper answers about my father. That will throw her off. After porridge, and thankful that Mum is still a bit wrapped up in her new project, I spend five minutes on Google, keeping half an eye on the completely ordinary non-moving wooden owl. I feel like I’ve lived about a thousand years already this morning and the day has only just begun. Frozen skin, blinking owls – what next? Person getting frost on skin: nothing but stuff about frostbite, with some really gross pictures of feet. Frozen person: all about cryogenic science, freezing people to bring them back to life. Frost on skin: some weird beauty treatments and something about uremic frost which is connected to quite bad kidney disease. So then I look up kidney disease, and I don’t have that: I’d be really sick and there would be other symptoms. I feel fine. And the frost isn’t even there now. If that was even what it was. Which it wasn’t, because things like that don’t happen to human beings. By the time I get to school I am in no mood to deal with anything else. I just about manage to keep it together for the morning, with Mallory shooting me concerned looks and Alberic’s strange presence needling me. I keep my head in my books, do the best listening I have ever done in all the lessons, and then manage to sit at a table with Conor at lunchtime so there’s no chance for private conversation; he’s too busy trying to steal crisps from Mallory and moaning about Alberic, who thankfully is nowhere to be seen. ‘The guy’s a proper freak,’ he says, as if Mallory and I had asked. ‘Won’t talk to anyone, just mooches about on his own, all weird and intense. He’s probably been transferred for doing something morbid.’ ‘Like what?’ someone asks. ‘I don’t know,’ says Conor, flicking his hair out of his eyes. ‘Like eating the dissection toads, or something.’ Eeyuch. I tune out and concentrate on trying to stomach my tuna sandwich. Suddenly it tastes toady and disgusting. ‘Owl,’ Mallory says finally, catching up with me as we head towards geography. ‘What is going on with you?’ ‘I’m fine,’ I say with a smile. ‘You are so not. What is it? Did you ask your mum about your dad? Did she tell you?’ ‘No, and no.’ She corners me, pushing me up against the lockers while people swell around us, her small face determined. She is small, Mallory. A head shorter than me, brown hair pulled neatly back from her face. Her uniform is always pristine, unlike mine. ‘Mallory!’ ‘I’m worried. You’re not being yourself.’ I feel the confusion of everything build behind my eyes while she watches me, concern growing on her face. But it’s not like a normal problem, is it, where you tell your best friend and then she says something that somehow makes sense and fixes it? It’s not a crush, or a row with your mum. What could she say? What could she do? ‘Owl, please …’ ‘You’d think I was crazy. And it isn’t even anything anyway.’ She shrugs. ‘So tell me about the nothing. Be crazy. That’s fine. At least I’ll know about it.’ ‘Not here,’ I say, as someone bumps into us and I notice Alberic heading towards the classroom, his Mohican standing out a mile. ‘After school?’ ‘Fine. And you’ll tell me everything?’ I nod. ‘And in the meantime stop worrying. Whatever it is, it’ll be OK.’ I do love Mallory. I’m not sure she can fix this, but I know she’ll try.