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  FOR EMILIA, MY DOROTHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am so fortunate to have had so many generous, brilliant people help, guide, and advise me while writing this book. Thank you Rūta Rimas, Tina Wexler, Stephanie Thwaites, Claire Nozieres, Emma Herdman, Joanna McCracken, Laura McCuaig, Becky Allin, Michela Ciardi, Alex O’Brien, Tony Keefer, Freya Latimer, Alice Mowbray, Kari Lia Sim, Candy Seagraves, Amanda Nixon, Jessie O’Regan, Mary Jane Vaughan, Peter O’Regan, Kathy & Federico Meira, and Mark Johnson.

  And also a huge thank-you to the following for inspiring me more than they could ever know: Anya & Felix Donald, Oliver McMenamin, Annachiara & Federico Ciardi, Jacob & Emilia Sim, Spencer Roberts, Alejandro & Nicolas Reyes, Gracie & Elliot Meads, Toby Johnson, Lucia Meira, and, of course, Emilia Johnson—for the reward charts that kept me writing, and the invitations into an invisible world far more incredible than anything I could have ever dreamed up myself.

  PART I

  PROLOGUE

  00:00

  He had always wondered what it would feel like.

  Would it hurt?

  Would he know what was happening?

  Ironically, Dr. Banks could have explained—in minute detail—the science behind the procedure. He could have listed every single step required to destroy a human body cell by cell in one place, and then reverse the process in another. And yet—until now—he’d have been unable to answer these most simple of questions.

  So far—he was discovering—it didn’t hurt at all. And yes, he knew exactly what was happening, though his thoughts were disconnected and transitory—clear for a brief moment before being snatched back into the folds of a dreamlike fog.

  The gentle tingling of pins and needles in his legs became noticeable only when it began to contract, pooling in strength as the area of focus narrowed in at the center of his left shinbone and then started to move upward. His kneecap began to vibrate.

  A familiar checklist appeared in Dr. Banks’s mind. The beginning of Stage Eight, he thought—the reconstruction of detail. It was almost over.

  The sensation—now a deep shiver—began to travel slowly around his body—a body that, at this moment, only half existed.

  It was uncomfortable, but not painful.

  Dr. Banks felt the vibrations move up his spine, climbing his vertebrae one by one, like rungs of a ladder. On reaching the base of his neck, the shiver began to spread out across his shoulders, and a wave of overwhelming panic engulfed him.

  Something was very wrong.

  Before Dr. Banks could work out what that something was, the fear was gone and the thought vanished from his consciousness.

  The sensation continued to travel upward as his body was rebuilt piece by piece: his jaw, lips, cheeks, then nose.

  Another wave of anxiety hit him: there was something he was forgetting. Something urgent.

  His left eyelid twitched. Orange-white rectangles appeared, trapped behind his eyelids. His vision was returning. The rectangles bounced in and out of sight as his eyelids began to twitch with increasing violence and then, with the immediacy of somebody clicking their fingers, everything stopped. The humming surrounding him disappeared and the vibrations ceased.

  His eyes snapped open.

  Dr. Banks lay completely still on what felt like a padded table, staring upward and waiting as his eyes adjusted to the low ultraviolet light. His sight sharpened, and the black lines separating the dark gray ceiling tiles above him came into focus, but his head still felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton wool. It was the same confusion and grogginess he felt when his alarm clock woke him from a deep sleep. Except that he was almost certain he wasn’t asleep. And he definitely wasn’t at home in his bed. From what he could see, by flicking his eyes around the enclosed space, he appeared to be in a small square room with plain black walls. There were no pictures, no signs. Nothing except the table he was lying on and now, himself.

  And . . . And . . . What was that?

  Dr. Banks stared at a turquoise leather handbag sitting in the corner of the room and wondered if he was imagining things.

  He squeezed his eyes closed and opened them again. It was still there.

  Where was he?

  The humming sound suddenly reappeared and the shivering feeling returned, deeper this time, on the exact same spot on either side of his body—just below his elbows. He turned his attention to his right hand.

  It was only then that he noticed it wasn’t there. Yet.

  Dr. Banks stared at his elbow—the point at which his arm currently stopped—and watched as his lower arm began to slowly materialize. Atom to atom, molecule to molecule, linking together like tiny building bricks until the arm began to taper for his wrist and then widen again for his palm, then fingers.

  Finally the sensation ceased. He lifted his newly formed hand to his face and bent each finger in turn, then ran his eyes over the deeply etched lines on his palm and down to his wrist. A wrist, he realized in horror, that looked very different from how it should look.

  And that was when he remembered.

  His mind suddenly clear, Dr. Banks felt his heart rate shoot up and his breathing quicken.

  Without thinking about what he was doing, he raised his other hand and began to frantically press on both sides of his right wrist.

  “Parker!” he cried. “Emma!”

  Nothing. He sat bolt upright on the table and pressed down harder.

  “Answer me!”

  He was still calling out, his face now dripping with sweat, when the wall in front of him slid open with a loud whoosh, and a blinding white light flooded the room.

  For a moment, as his eyes adjusted to the light, Dr. Banks continued to press down on his wrist and shout, panic overriding any sense of logic. It was only when the view of the adjoining room came into focus that he stopped.

  The first thing Dr. Banks saw—before the people dressed in purple or the view from the window in the background—was the sign on the wall.

  Three letters made of solid gold.

  Three letters that speared him with the greatest terror he had ever felt.

  SIX.

  CHAPTER ONE

  71:38

  Parker had been a student at River Creek Middle School in Upstate New York for only five days, but he already knew that he hated it. It wasn’t just that he missed his school and friends back in England, or the farmhouse he had grown up in, or even that he had been forced to move less than an hour away from where his mother had died. Mostly, he thought, as he sat at his desk listening to the whispers around him, it was that he had never felt so alone.

  Parker watched as Jenna skipped to the front of the class. She twirled around, sending her two brown plaits flying out on either side of her head, then looked at her friend in the front row and giggled.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” said Mrs. Ford.

  Mrs. Ford clasped her hands and leaned over her desk, beaming as if this was the presentation she had been waiting for. It would have been more believable if she hadn’t done exactly the same before every one of the twenty-two presentations that Parker and his classmates had already sat through. He wondered if Mrs. Ford would perform the same gesture for the twenty-third presentation: his. He was hoping not to find out, at least not today.

  Jenna gave a small cough, giggled again, then began to read from the single handwritten piece of
paper in her hand.

  “The person I admire most is Missy May. . . .”

  At the mention of another celebrity’s name, Parker’s heart sank. He looked up at the clock. Eight minutes left.

  “I think she’s an amazing singer and role model for girls my age. Her songs are amazing and she never stops smiling, even though she has to smile for photographers all day. . . .”

  Parker’s eyes followed the red second hand as it moved, painfully slowly, around the face of the clock.

  “My favorite song is ‘Happy La La Land.’ The lyrics are amazing. . . .”

  If Jenna could just keep repeating the word amazing for five more minutes, thought Parker, he would be able to go home and rewrite his presentation before their next class.

  The funny thing was, of all the assignments he had been given so far, this one had been the one he had been least bothered about. Back at his old school in England, he had been assigned the exact same piece of work. Parker had written down as much of his previous talk as he could remember, added a few extra details to bring it up-to-date, put it in his bag, and thought nothing more of it. But now almost the entire class had delivered their presentations, and so far every single one had been about a celebrity. He knew it was a petty thing to worry about, and it wouldn’t have bothered him back in his old school, but it was just that after having been completely ignored the entire week, he didn’t want the first time he drew attention to himself to be for the wrong reason.

  “And that is why I admire the amazing Missy May. Thank you for listening.”

  Parker’s head snapped up. She was finished? That can’t have been more than two minutes, he thought. He looked up at the clock and saw that he was right.

  “Great job, Jenna. Maybe a little short on time and facts but excellent delivery,” said Mrs. Ford. Jenna grinned and skipped back to her seat and to a smattering of weary clapping.

  “We have time for one more.”

  Oh no, thought Parker. He bowed his head low and slid down as far into his chair as he could without falling to the floor.

  There was a brief pause, and then he heard Mrs. Ford asking somebody what was the name of the new boy at the back. There was no answer.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Mrs. Ford making her way toward him. He waited until she stopped at his desk and only then, reluctantly, did Parker look up.

  “Parker? It’s your turn,” said Mrs. Ford.

  Parker hesitated. He wondered whether if he explained that he really didn’t want to do it, she would let him off. Before he had a chance to ask, however, Mrs. Ford leaned down.

  “Did you do the assignment?”

  Parker nodded. “But, I, um—I don’t think I properly understood what we were meant to do. Would it be okay if I did it next week?”

  Mrs. Ford didn’t seem to have heard him, and then he realized why: she was too busy reading the paper on his desk. He quickly put his hand out to cover it, but it was too late.

  “I don’t see what the problem is; it looks wonderful!”

  Parker could feel the eyes of the whole class on him. He lowered his voice.

  “It’s not about a famous person.”

  Mrs. Ford gave a small laugh. “Oh, honey, that’s absolutely fine. Now come on, up you get.”

  Parker grimaced. He slid the paper off his desk and walked slowly to face the class. For the first time during class, the room was completely silent. Everybody, Parker realized with a sinking feeling, was watching him attentively—curious to find out about the new student, he supposed.

  Mrs. Ford was already back at her chair, hands clasped and smiling once again. She gave him a nod, and Parker, shoulders hunched and looking down, began to talk.

  “The person I admire most is my father—”

  “A little louder, Parker. We can’t hear a word you’re saying,” interrupted Mrs. Ford.

  Parker took a deep breath and started again, still looking down, but this time in a louder voice.

  “The person I admire most is my father, Dr. Geoffrey Banks. . . .”

  As soon as he said it, a wave of muffled laughter traveled across the class.

  “The reason I chose my father . . .”

  There was some more stifled giggling. Parker clenched his jaw and looked over at Mrs. Ford.

  “You’re doing fine,” she said, glaring at somebody sitting in the last row.

  “The reason is that not only has he brought up my sister and me on his own for the last three years, but also that he has done this while working on some of the most important research that’s going on right now in the science world. My father . . .”

  There was another wave of muffled laughter, and Parker felt his whole body tense. He turned to Mrs. Ford, who motioned for him to keep going.

  He took a deep breath but didn’t look up. It’s just a few minutes, he told himself, then you can forget this whole thing.

  “My father is a molecular biophysicist,” continued Parker. “While still a student at Cambridge University, my father and mother, who was also a scientist, were on a team that worked on sequencing DNA. DNA is the molecule that instructs each cell in an organism to tell it what to do and can . . .”

  As Parker began to explain what DNA was, he saw a girl at the side rolling her eyes in boredom, and another one smirking. He turned and saw a boy—Aaron, if he remembered correctly—leaning over and whispering something to the boy sitting next to him. They were both grinning.

  In that moment, Parker decided he didn’t even care about the grade he got for this. He just wanted it to be over. He looked back at his sheet and ran his finger down the page until he got to the final paragraph.

  “My father’s work has influenced everything from DNA testing to cloning. I admire him very much—as a person and for his work—and, because of his influence, I also hope to be a scientist one day. Thank you.”

  Parker was already halfway back to his desk before most people realized that he had finished. There was no applause.

  Red-faced, Parker sat down. He folded his arms and didn’t look up, even when Mrs. Ford thanked him for his brief but interesting presentation. He felt like such an idiot. If only he’d chosen an astronaut or someone who everyone knew, he thought. And yet, feeling his embarrassment begin to turn to anger . . . It hadn’t actually been that bad. Sure, he’d chosen his dad, but his dad had an interesting job. In his opinion, choosing Missy May was far worse. It was only when the bell went and everybody jumped out of their seats and started to rush past him to the door that he realized they hadn’t been laughing at his choice of subject.

  “Farth-uhhh,” he heard somebody say in a mock English accent. Everybody around him started laughing. A couple of other people—Parker didn’t look up to see who—repeated it.

  “Farth-uhhh!”

  Parker felt his face burning as he realized they weren’t laughing at what he’d said but at how he’d said it. Right now, even though he’d chosen him for his presentation, Parker hated his dad for making them move here.

  CHAPTER TWO

  71:15

  Parker would have stayed in the classroom for the entire lunch break had Mrs. Ford not insisted on escorting him to the cafeteria. As they walked, Parker kept his head down and listened in silence as Mrs. Ford did her best to offer him some words of comfort.

  “Just remember,” said Mrs. Ford as they hovered by the cafeteria entrance, “the first week is always the hardest.”

  “I know. Thanks,” mumbled Parker. There was an awkward pause as he waited for her to leave.

  “Do you want me to go in with you?” asked Mrs. Ford finally.

  Parker’s head snapped up. “No. I’m fine.”

  Before she had a chance to insist, Parker quickly walked away.

  * * * * * *

  The lunch line was long, and as Parker waited and did his best to ignore the whispers of a group of students from his English class ahead of him, the now-familiar pangs of missing England bubbled deeply in his gut. He had hoped, over the first tw
o weeks after his arrival, that those pangs would disappear once he started school. Unfortunately, he thought miserably, the exact opposite had turned out to be true. He paid for his lunch, tray in hand, and caught sight of his sister waving him over.

  Despite how he felt, it was true that he wasn’t completely alone. He did have his dad and sister, yes, but he couldn’t talk about his loneliness with either of them. Since starting his new job, his father had been so stressed and overworked that he no longer had any time to spend with them. And Emma, well, he’d always been the one to watch out for her. Anyway, even if he were to confide in her, he already knew exactly what she would say:

  Of course you’ll make friends. Stop being such a pessimist.

  She would say this though because, being ten, she was two years younger than he was and because, unlike him, she had settled into their new American life with annoying ease. It was also because she had only recently learned the word pessimist and liked to drop it into conversation as much as possible. In Parker’s opinion, however, there was a big difference between being a pessimist and a realist. A pessimist expected the worst at all times. A realist expected the worst only with good reason. He was a realist.

  Emma waved again, thinking Parker hadn’t seen her. She was sitting at a table surrounded by her new friends: all girls, all ten years old. Even if this hadn’t bothered him—which it did—the table was packed anyway. Emma, having apparently already taken this into account, pointed to a two-inch gap between the two girls opposite her. Thankfully, Parker had already spotted an empty table a bit farther along, and he motioned over to it with his head. Emma didn’t seem bothered. She shrugged and turned to her friends.

  “He doesn’t want to be seen hanging out with us,” she signed, smiling.

  “I don’t blame him,” signed her friend, opposite.

  He heard them all laugh as he walked over to the table and sat down.

  Emma was deaf. She had been born with a damaged auditory nerve that meant she couldn’t hear any sounds at all. This was the reason that their father had enrolled them here at River Creek instead of at the middle school closer to their new home: this one had a deaf unit attached and would allow Parker to keep an eye on his sister. Emma had objected, arguing that she was now old enough to take care of herself. Their father hadn’t agreed. As it turned out, Parker thought as he unwrapped his sandwich, she had been right. Emma wasn’t the one that their father had needed to worry about.