Rose, who had only ever been to Scarborough on her holidays, stared up at the Tower all the way to their hotel. She didn’t look at anything else. She tripped over twice and was scolded by her mother four times for not watching where she was going. But she didn’t care. It would take something very, very special for Rose to want to look anywhere except way up above her, to the tangle of iron crisscrosses that stretched high, high up into the sky, to the beautiful peak that floated in the clouds.
It wasn’t until the middle of her holiday that something very special took Rose’s mind and eyes from Blackpool Tower.
Rose and her parents had been walking along the promenade, from the north to the south, for what felt like a very long time. Rose kept glancing backwards to look into the sky, and every time she did, Blackpool Tower bore down upon her. The crowds of people moved slowly along the promenade, for everybody was gazing at something: the endless roaring sea, or the sands crammed with families, or the fairground rides that soared round and round. The walk to the Pleasure Beach was taking so long that when Rose’s mother spotted a space on a bench, she pulled Rose and her father over to it so that they could all rest their aching legs.
They had been sitting on the bench, the early September sun blazing down on them, for only a few minutes before Rose’s father spotted a friend of his walking by. Rose’s father jumped up and patted his friend heartily on the shoulder as they exclaimed about the chances of spotting each other away on holiday, and Rose’s mother smiled politely at the man’s wife, who wore a fancy yellow hat.
As her parents stood and laughed about things Rose didn’t understand, she stared up at the Tower some more. When the sun began to make tiny white dots on her eyes, and her neck became sore, she dropped her gaze and looked along the colourful promenade that was shining with people. She looked at the green trams and the stalls selling salty seafood. She looked up towards The Pleasure Beach, at the row of hotels opposite a man holding some donkeys, and it was there that she spotted the door.
A tiny handwritten sign above it made every little hair on Rose’s body stand on end in excitement.
Gypsy Sarah. Fortunes Told Here.
Rose knew that her mother would scold and her father would frown if she moved from her spot on the bench, but something inside Rose made her stand and wander over to the door. The door was blue, which was Rose’s third favourite colour. Rose pushed at it, wanting to know what was behind it so much that her insides seemed to quiver a little as it gave way.
Colours and shapes that Rose had never seen before in her quiet Yorkshire life dangled and jingled behind that door. And amongst all the purples and pinks and golds and crystals and gems sat the oldest woman Rose had ever seen.
Gypsy Sarah’s crinkled face puckered as she saw Rose hovering in the doorway.
‘Are you here for a reading?’ she whispered, gesturing to Rose with a hand that looked as though it was made of the brown paper Rose’s dresses were sometimes wrapped in when they were new.
Rose tore her gaze away from Gypsy Sarah, and turned to see her mother and father still deep in conversation with the people near the bench. She could quite possibly have her fortune told before her parents even noticed that she’d gone.
She turned back to the room. ‘Yes, please,’ she answered quietly, her words flying out amongst the exotic colours.
Rose knew little about fortune tellers: she knew little about anything. She did not expect her life’s story to be told, or for Gypsy Sarah to smell of a strange combination of burning wood and lavender and raw meat, or for her hands to be grabbed and squeezed, or for Gypsy Sarah to cry out in a scratchy voice:
‘You must find the boy with purple eyes, for he will give you your life! He will give you a gift!’
‘A gift?’ Rose asked, intrigued and wide-eyed.
A gift, Rose thought as she carefully placed every coin of her holiday pocket money into Gypsy Sarah’s quivering hand, as she shuffled out of the shadows of the room and blinked in the bright sunlight, as she sneaked back to her place on the bench and sat as though she had never moved while her parents continued to talk to their friends, as she slept by the side of her snoring mother and father in Room 35 at The Fortuna Hotel.
Puppies and hair ribbons and books and dolls filled Rose’s mind each time she thought of Gypsy Sarah and the boy with the purple eyes. For what else, to an eleven-year-old girl, could a gift mean?
Rose thought of the boy with the purple eyes as she was swept along the crammed promenade, as she ran her hands through the gritty beige sand on the beach, as she sat up straight in the hotel restaurant. She looked into the eyes of the boy who helped the man holding the donkeys, of the boy selling oysters in the little white hut, of the boy who was staying in the room next door at The Fortuna Hotel. But she saw no purple eyes.
On Saturday, Rose bathed in the sea as her parents snoozed on the sand. She paddled at the water’s edge for some time, and then walked out until the water reached her shoulders. Although Rose wasn’t a very good swimmer, she managed to propel herself a little by kicking her legs haphazardly and waving her arms against the cool waves. The water was calm and lulled her gently out to sea. The swarms of people bathing and splashing and shouting became more diluted as Rose moved away from the water’s edge. The silver water blurred around her.
And then, everything shot into a burst of magnificent colour.
He was swimming towards her, shooting through the water like a fish. His eyes were not the purple that Rose had imagined. They weren’t a pale, striking lilac as she had thought they would be, but a deep, velvet violet. When he smiled at Rose, she began to tremble and lost her momentum beneath the water. She fumbled, her legs kicking wildly, bitter salt flying into her mouth and making her want to spit and cry out.
‘Well! What’s the matter with you?’ the boy giggled, treading water expertly. His voice was a twinkling bell, light with laughter.
Rose frowned. ‘Nothing’s the matter, you just frightened me.’
The boy held out his hand, which was brown, and shiny with water. Rose took it, and they moved towards the shore. She continued to kick and the boy pulled her along, so that she moved almost gracefully through the waves.
‘What’s your name?’ the boy asked as they felt sculpted sand appear beneath their feet.
‘Rose. What’s yours?’
The boy laughed again, his dark face screwing up in pleasure. ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ He stuck out his tongue, then smiled. His teeth, although crooked, looked white against his skin. He rubbed his black hair from his face as they walked away from the water.
Rose stiffened, and wished that she hadn’t told the boy her name. She felt hard little goosebumps prickle her skin as the sea breeze washed over her, and wondered again what her gift from him might be.
‘What are you doing tomorrow afternoon, Rose? I have something exciting planned,’ the boy said, wiping his nose with his hand and leaving behind a streak of water on his cheek.
‘I’m—’ Rose squinted over to where her parents lay on the sand. Tomorrow was their last day: their train home was at 6.30 tomorrow evening. She thought about how long and bleak the day would seem, knowing that it was their last. ‘I’m not doing anything, really. But we have a train home to catch tomorrow evening, so my parents might want me to stay with them all day.’
‘Stay with them all day? But you’re not a baby,’ the boy, who didn’t look much older than Rose, said.
Rose puffed out her shiny wet chest. ‘No, I’m not. What have you got planned?’
The boy shrugged and moved closer to Rose conspiratorially. ‘I’m going to sneak into the