The boy lived with his mother and several arrogant cats in a small stone cottage, in an anonymous village, in the far north of England. An ancient aga spluttered and grumbled at them under a huge stone chimney in the center of the room, half-heartedly heating the cluttered room for a radius of about two feet. Thomas jumped up onto the hotplates and curled up contentedly.
Mother and son perched on rickety worm-eaten chairs around a small oak table, stoically munching through an uninspiring combination of shrivelled and insect-plagued garden vegetables and potatoes.
Conversation was scarce - the little boy's mother had long since given up asking him about his days at school. Either he would not reply at all, or would blurt out some fantastic story of his Latest Adventure, which just confused and upset her. His teachers always gave him glowing academic reports, but regularly told her he did not mix well with other children. The other children were afraid of his quietude, his knowledge. His aptitude for mathematics and science.
Once, his teacher, Miss Hollinshead had come round to the house, shown her a copy of what the little boy had written and asked her what it meant, as if she had been doing work for him. Unable to help, ashamed and frightened, she had accused the poor teacher of making it all up to embarrass her and sent her packing. Her son hadn't spoken to her for days afterwards, although she guessed he was as confused and worried as everybody else. Not to mention that the incident had made his life in the classroom just a little bit more difficult.
A tense, worried woman, she kept constant watch over her son lest he abandon her, following the example of his father. Every day she anxiously watched the boy return from school quiet and thoughtful. She would stand at the kitchen window and wonder at the transformation from aged philosopher into a typical 7 year-old, playing happily in an unfathomable world, bursting into life in their wild garden.
Later, while knitting absently by the fire and half listening to the boy chatter about his latest adventures, she would daydream of a time when life wasn't so secluded, when the world used to be safe.
The little boy knew nothing of his dear mother's dark moods, of course. His world was too full of wonder and excitement. Of course, the Shadow always lingered on the outside of his consciousness, but he was used to pushing it aside in favour of lighter pastimes. He did not know any other way to be.
Eventually the woman's weary head drooped onto her chest, pins and wool falling to the floor as she began to snore. The little boy gently covered her in a blanket then quietly slipped out into the dark. He blocked out the clawing, clutching Shadow and crawled through a well-worn hole in the overgrown hedge into next door's garden.
The old man was sitting on the front doorstep as usual, his hunched figure silhouetted against the open doorway, a thin wisp of white smoke swirling out of an ancient wooden pipe far up into the stillness of the November sky. They often met like this, the old man and the little boy, both appreciating the opportunity to share stories of the day's adventures.
'That foolish old man,' the little boy's mother would say, 'He has a worse imagination than you!' But the old man hardly looked up when his young friend settled down next to him and began to tell him about the pirates. The old man let him finish, then with a sigh began to speak softly, as if ending a conversation he had started in his head.
The little boy listened.
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