The mystery has begun

Alaric

It's been two years since his mother died in a terrible train crash, and Alaric's life continues to unravel. He and his father are barely on speaking terms, and Withern Rise, their Victorian mansion, is in shambles. Trapped at home during a blizzard, Alaric stumbles into a parallel world; a reality in which his mother is still alive. There's only one problem ... someone else is living his life.

Naia

Naia tries not to dwell on the horrible accident two years ago that nearly took her mother away. Now that life with her parents in Withern Rise has returned to normal, Naia thinks the worst is behind her. But during a freak snowstorm she's confronted by a stranger. Why does this boy look like her? Why does he have the same thoughts? The same memories? Who is he?

Alaric's and Naia's discovery of each other sets off an electrifying chain of events. And as their lives - and lifelines - entwine, the two teenagers uncover a truth with the power to rearrange, or even erase, their very existence.

A Crack in the Line

By Lawrence, Michael

Greenwillow Books

ISBN: 0060724773

Chapter One

Day Seven

At sixteen, Alaric and Naia were as alike as any two people of opposite sexes can be. They had the same dark eyes and hair, same long, straight nose, wide mouth?even the same slightly crooked front tooth. But it wasn?t looks alone. Far from it. They shared a history, a lineage, memories, and had lived all their lives in the same house, Withern Rise, where they had occupied the same room, done the same things, more often than not had the same thoughts at the very same instant. And yet . . .

They had never met.Hadn?t the faintest inkling of each other?s existence.

They knelt at their windows, on their beds -- same window, same bed, unknown and invisible to each other -- gazing out at the same water, trees, February sky. The boat landing below the garden was opaque with frost and the river toiled beneath shifting plates of ice. Snow was falling. The first soft white splodges thumped the window; clung to the glass for anxious seconds before losing their grip and slithering downward.

But while watching identical snow strike identical windows, Alaric's and Naia's circumstances could not have been more different. The central heating, for one thing. The central heating in both houses had been installed in the same hour twenty-eight years earlier, but while at Naia's the system was regularly serviced, the one at Alaric's hadn't been serviced for almost three years, with the result that the boiler had packed up five days ago. Her room, therefore, was snug and warm, while for Alaric, fully dressed within the fat cloak of his duvet, it felt as cold indoors as it looked out.

Then, suddenly, another difference. A movement, across the river from his window but not hers. In the ragged clump on the opposite bank, a man stepped from cover. He was thin, elderly, a bit seedy looking in a shapeless black overcoat, and he simply stood there, staring at the house. Probably harmless, Alaric thought; some nosey parker with nothing better to do on a cold winter morning. But you never knew. He might be casing the joint. There'd been a lot of break-ins around here lately.

"Al, I'm off now!"

His father's voice, downstairs, trying hard to sound light. They'd argued ferociously last night. Things had gotten out of hand, ending with recriminatory shouts, slammed doors, rages in separate rooms. The echo of the row filled the morning house like bad air. Alaric waited for the call to be repeated before discarding the duvet and sidling out to glare down from the galleried landing. His father, a dwarf in the hall far below, smiled tautly up at him, keen not to part on bad terms.

"Have to go, son."

He went down, heavy footed, face set in an unforgiving mask, no immediate plans to put their estrangement behind him. The house seemed to get colder and colder the lower he went. His hostility also increased with every step. His father sensed this.

"Al?look?try and see it from my point of view. I have a life, too, you know. And think of Kate. It won't be easy for her either, at first."

He didn't give a shit about Kate. "Do you know what day it is?" he asked sharply. His father's frown said it all. "That's what I thought."

A difficult pause, until: "You've got my mobile number?"

"Yeah."

"Not that you'll need it. Liney'll be here soon, if she doesn't end up in a ditch. Driver from hell, that woman. If she makes it, she'll sort out anything that needs sorting."

"I don't need a baby-sitter," Alaric said bitterly.

His father snatched up the overnight bag at his feet. "We've been over that. You're still a minor, which means I'm still responsible for you. You'll have to put up with her." He softened his tone, with effort. "It's only a couple of days, anyway." Attempted a smile. "Come and see me off?"

They walked down the long, cold hallway that ran from the rear of the house to the front door. Actually, they walked from the original front to the original back, the two main entrances having been effectively reversed since the 1930s. In 1884, when Withern was built, the river was a commercial and social highway. Most visitors from beyond Eynesford and the adjoining market town of Stone came by boat. The river frontage of the house was moderately impressive back then. The brickwork was brighter, there were painted shutters at the windows, and the door, set into a quarry-tiled porch, was reached via a flight of steps from the boat landing below. The porch and steps and landing were still there, but the shutters had been removed long since. A pair of somber yews guarded the porch and ivy scrambled across the walls, but the house looked rather plain these days?especially in winter, from the river.

"I could do without this," his father said, opening the door to a gust of snow. "Just hope it's only local, that's all."

He scooped the bottle of milk from the step and handed it over like a parting gift, then flipped up the collar of his old brown bomber jacket. Part of the collar stayed down. Alaric didn't tell him.

"I'll give you a ring when I get there. Sometime this evening."

Alaric shut the door the moment his father was off the step but remained where he was, listening for the distant creak of the garage doors and the forty-year-old Daimler growling to life, slow tires on gravel as it reversed out, and finally the deep-throated toot as the car plunged into the avenue of trees that swept all the way to the gate.

And then he was alone, in a house as cold and still as an empty church. He went through to the kitchen and put the bottle of milk in the fridge, cursing his life, his luck, his world.

Continues...

Excerpted from A Crack in the Lineby Lawrence, Michael Excerpted by permission.
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