The 1,000-year-old Boy. Ross Welford

I know! Just exploring, you know, Dad! Got a bit lost and that, but hey – no bones broken, eh? Ha ha!’

      Dad gave me a funny look. ‘Well, get in here sharpish, son. I want your help with the skirting boards.’ He turned to go back in the house.

      Wonderful, I thought. More decorating. The house hadn’t been in great condition when we moved in.

      We watched him go, before Roxy said to me, ‘You’re a lousy liar, Aidan. If there were prizes for bad acting, you’d win them all. In fact …’

      ‘Yeah, yeah – all right. Thanks a lot. It did the job. I want to know what happened to you.’

      Inside the shed, Roxy sat behind the tatty little desk. Her fingers were together like a tent in front of her mouth, and her elbows were on the table. I swear she was trying to be all cool and intimidating, but she was too small and scruffy to carry it off. Instead she looked like a kid impersonating a stern headmistress.

      ‘It’s stranger than we thought,’ she said.

      ‘It’s stranger than you thought,’ I corrected her. ‘To me, it’s some lady and her kid living a quiet life in a secluded house until you fall into their backyard.’

      ‘She had a cauldron, a black cat and a broomstick,’ said Roxy, counting them off on her fingers, and nodding her head as if that proved everything.

      ‘No, Roxy. She had a cooking pot, a black-and-white cat and a … I dunno … a brush, like we’ve all got at home.’

      ‘But you didn’t see inside the house.’

      ‘Well, no. But I was hoping you were going to tell me. By the way – how’s your head?’

      Roxy touched the back of her ear gently and frowned. ‘OK, really. Doesn’t hurt any more. She put some lotion on it.’

      ‘You mean a potion,’ I scoffed.

      She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘If you’re just going to mock me then you can get out of my garage.’ She pointed at the door.

      I sighed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … well, you do know that witches don’t exist? That magic and stuff aren’t real? It’s all just stories. You do know that?’ I was being sincere, and I was careful to avoid any tone of voice that might have sounded teasing.

      Roxy visibly relaxed. ‘I do know that. Or at least I did.’

      She reached under the desk and pulled out a laptop computer and flipped it open. Roxy hit a few keys and a film started. As it did, my mouth fell open until my jaw hit my knees. Well, almost. You know what I mean.

      

      At first, I had no idea what I was watching. It was just noise – rustling, crunching – and blurred grey-green stuff as the camera moved through … what?

      Leaves. Undergrowth. Bushes. And there was a voice, clear as anything. My voice saying: ‘Something flattish, with green bits?’

      Then Roxy’s voice: ‘You’ve got it. It’s a roof!’

      ‘Stop the video!’ I said to Roxy, and she leant forward to hit the space bar.

      ‘You were filming all of this?’

      She said nothing but grinned and nodded.

      ‘But … how? You didn’t have a camera.’

      With her left hand, she pulled at the side of her denim jacket and thrust it at me. Peering closely, I could see a tiny glass dome set into the brass button. She flipped open her jacket to reveal a black cable leading to an inside pocket and a little silvery box.

      ‘That’s a camera?’

      ‘Yep. Surveillance camera, 720p HD res, audio and video.’

      I nodded wisely, as if I knew what the heck she was talking about, and added an ‘Oh wow!’ for good measure. It seemed to work, because she became more enthusiastic.

      ‘Yeah, and, even better, this records at 16.4 MBps rather than MJpeg4, so that you can …’ she tailed off, looking carefully at me.

      I adjusted my face to the one you use in class when you haven’t been following what the teacher says, but you don’t want him to know. (Mr Reid, our maths teacher, knows this face well on me.)

      ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’

      I shook my head and then said, ‘Did you get this skip-diving as well?’

      She nodded distractedly and pressed PLAY again.

      It was strange watching back everything that had happened only a few hours ago. Roxy fast-forwarded the bit where we were just hacking through the woods until we came to the part just before she fell into the witch’s yard.

      (See? I’m doing it myself now. She’s not a witch!)

      The picture at this stage was just a bit of ground, as Roxy was lying down in the long grass.

      ‘Get down! She’ll see you.’ That was Roxy.

      ‘What? And turn me into a toad? I’ll take the risk, thanks.’

      There was a scuffling noise then a gasp as Roxy tumbled down the slope, and a loud, hard thump as she hit the ground.

      ‘Ow!’ I said. It sounded like a painful fall.

      The picture swooped and blurred and then just stopped, showing mostly sky as Roxy lay on her back, out cold.

      ‘That must’ve hurt!’ I said.

      ‘Like hell,’ said Roxy. ‘But not till I regained consciousness.’

      On the film, there were footsteps, and then a replay of what I had heard, in my cowardly horror, from the bank.

      That strange language. The woman first.

      ‘Al-vuh. Al-vuh! Kuma!’

      That’s what it sounded like, anyway. And then a load of garbled stuff that I couldn’t make out. I gasped as a close-up of the woman’s face filled the laptop screen. She was leaning over and peering at Roxy, and the tiny camera caught it all.

      Roxy paused the film. ‘And there she is!’ She said it like she was announcing a celebrity appearing on a red carpet.

      We stared at the screen and the woman’s face.

      How old was she? I admit that I’m not so brilliant at guessing adults’ ages. After thirty, I reckon, they all look pretty much the same until they’re sixty or so. That’s when they start to get wrinkly and white-haired like Gran and Grandad Linklater.

      So this woman could have been anywhere in that range. She had lines on her forehead and at the side of her eyes, but that might have been because she had a worried expression on her face. Her hair was in a cloth scarf, but some blonde bits were sticking out. Her cheeks were shiny and light red, like Pink Lady apples.

      Roxy pressed PLAY again, and the woman’s face moved back a bit, and side to side, as if assessing Roxy’s injury. She might once have been pretty, but, when she opened her mouth, her teeth were discoloured and worn, with gaps in both rows.

      Then she removed her sunglasses and I saw her eyes, a watery blue colour with pink, damp rims and pale lashes.

      ‘Have you ever seen anyone look as tired as that?’ I murmured to Roxy. ‘She looks like she could sleep forever.’

      The picture went back to sky and there was more conversation in their language, and something I could make out as, ‘In-ann bolld.’ She said it twice.