Tomb

Eelco wasn’t normal. He’d known that since he was twelve. The first time he realised it was during an argument with his best friend, Jean Souris. Everyone argued with their friends, and he was no exception.

“Get lost!” he shouted, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. Nothing unusual about that, until Jean suddenly found himself three metres away, looking up in astonishment from the grass. They both doubled over with laughter. At home, however, the reaction was rather different. His mother, Yvette, clapped a hand over her mouth and went pale. His father, Frederik, looked resigned, as though he’d been expecting something like this. He gave Eelco a gentle pat on the head. But Eelco couldn’t quite understand why his parents walked out into the garden with their arms around each other.

The next morning, Yvette placed a pill on his breakfast plate.

“From now on, you’re to take one of these every day,” she said.

He knew what his mother was capable of, and he could picture her waiting room, always packed with people. “Erm, what’s the pill for?”

“It’s a blend of calming minerals that makes you aware of your moods. Knocking people over is a bit of a nuisance.”

He swallowed the pill, but that wasn’t the end of the matter. He didn’t have to go to school that day. Yvette considered Jean’s tumble far more important.

After breakfast, his father took him for a walk across the fields outside Halsteren, on the outskirts of Bergen op Zoom.

“Eelco, tell me again, step by step, what happened with Jean yesterday.”

“We had an argument, and I told him to get lost, making a dismissive gesture with my hand.”

“How did that feel?”

“A bit strange, as though I’d learned something new.”

“You’re developing magical powers, which isn’t surprising given your ancestry. You need to learn to control them. We can teach you the basics, but you really need someone who can give you proper lessons. I have one more question. If you spread your fingers and hold them against a light background, can you see anything?”

“I can see a faint greyish light, a little bluish, around my fingers. Just like everyone else?”

Frederik smiled. “No, Eelco. You can see it, I can see it, and four of your six uncles can see it. It’s a family thing. Some members of our family have to contend with magic—or benefit from it, depending on how you look at it. Auras are part of that, and it’s not normal for you to be able to see them at your age. Your brothers were older when they first could.”

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