"We've been here before, Conor," she said. "So don't worry. I've felt really bad and I've gone in and they've taken care of it. That's what'll happen this time." She patted the duvet cover again. "Won't you come and sit down next to your tired old mum?"

Conor swallowed, but her smile was brighter and a" he could tell a" it was a real one. He went over and sat next to her on the side facing the window. She ran her hand through his hair, lifting it out of his eyes, and he could see how skinny her arm was, almost like it was just bone and skin.

"Why is Dad coming?" he asked.

His mother paused, then put her hand back down into her lap. "It's been a while since you've seen him. Aren't you excited?"

"Grandma doesn't seem too happy."

His mother snorted. "Well, you know how she feels about your dad. Don't listen to her. Enjoy his visit."

They sat in silence for a moment. "There's something else," Conor finally said. "Isn't there?"

He felt his mother sit up a little straighter on her pillow. "Look at me, son," she said, gently.

He turned his head to look at her, though he would have paid a million pounds not to have to do it.

"This latest treatment's not doing what it's supposed to," she said. "All that means is they're going to have to adjust it, try something else."

"Is that it?" Conor asked.

She nodded. "That's it. There's lots more they can do. It's normal. Don't worry."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Because," and here Conor stopped for a second and looked down at the floor. "Because you could tell me, you know."

And then he felt her arms around him, her thin, thin arms that used to be so soft when she hugged him. She didn't say anything, just held onto him. He went back to looking out of the window and after a moment, his mother turned to look, too.

"That's a yew tree, you know," she finally said.

Conor rolled his eyes, but not in a bad way. "Yes, Mum, you've told me a hundred times."

"Keep an eye on it for me while I'm away, will you?" she said. "Make sure it's still here when I get back?"

And Conor knew this was her way of telling him she was coming back, so all he did was nod and they both kept looking out at the tree.

Which stayed a tree, no matter how long they looked.

GRANDMA'S HOUSE Five days. The monster hadn't come for five days.

Maybe it didn't know where his grandma lived. Or maybe it was just too far to come. She didn't have much of a garden anyway, even though her house was way bigger than Conor and his mum's. She'd crammed her back garden with sheds and a stone pond and a wood-panelled "office" she'd had installed across the back half, where she did most of her estate agent work, a job so boring Conor never listened past the first sentence of her description of it. Everything else was just brick paths and flowers in pots. No room for a tree at all. It didn't even have gra.s.s.

"Don't stand there gawping, young man," his grandma said, leaning out of the back door and hooking in an earring. "Your dad'll be here soon, and I'm going to see your mum."

"I wasn't gawping," Conor said.

"What's that got to do with the price of milk? Come inside."

She vanished into the house, and he slowly trudged after her. It was Sunday, the day his father would be arriving from the airport. He would come here and pick up Conor, they'd go and see his mum, and then they'd spend some "fathera"son" time together. Conor was almost certain this was code for another round of We Need To Have A Talk.

His grandma wouldn't be here when his father arrived. Which suited everyone.

"Pick up your rucksack from the front hall, please," she said, stepping past him and grabbing her handbag. "No need for him to think I'm keeping you in a pigsty."

"Not much chance of that," Conor muttered as she went to the hall mirror to check her lipstick.

His grandma's house was cleaner than his mum's hospital room. Her cleaning lady, Marta, came on Wednesdays, but Conor didn't see why she bothered. His grandma would get up first thing in the morning to hoover, did laundry four times a week, and once cleaned the bath at midnight before going to bed. She wouldn't let dinner dishes touch the sink on their way to the dishwasher, once even taking a plate Conor was still eating from.

"A woman my age, living alone," she said, at least once a day, "if I don't keep on top of things, who will?"

She said it like a challenge, as if defying Conor to answer.

She drove him to school, and he got there early every single day, even though it was a forty-five minute drive. She was also waiting for him every day after school when he left, taking them both straight to the hospital to see his mum. They'd stay for an hour or so, less if his mum was too tired to talk a" which had happened twice out of the previous five days a" and then go home to his grandma's house, where she'd make him do his homework while she ordered whatever take-away they hadn't already eaten so far.

It was like the time Conor and his mum had stayed in a bed and breakfast one summer in Cornwall. Except cleaner. And bossier.

"Now, Conor," she said, slipping on her suit jacket. It was a Sunday but she didn't have any houses to show, so he wasn't sure why she was dressing up so much just to go to the hospital. He suspected it probably had something to do with making his dad uncomfortable.

"Your father may not notice how tired your mum's been getting, okay?" she said. "So we're going to have to work together to make sure he doesn't overstay his welcome." She checked herself in the mirror again and lowered her voice. "Not that that's been a problem."

She turned, gave him a flash of starfish hand as a wave, and said, "Be good."

The door clattered shut behind her. Conor was alone in her house.

He went up to the guest room where he slept. His grandma kept calling it his room, but he only ever called it the guest room, which always made his grandmother shake her head and mumble to herself.

But what did she expect? It didn't look like his room. It didn't look like anybody's room, certainly not a boy's. The walls were bare white except for three different prints of sailing ships, which was probably as far as his grandma's thinking went towards what boys might like. The sheets and duvet covers were a bright, blinding white, too, and the only other piece of furniture was an oak cabinet big enough to have lunch in.

It could have been any room in any home on any planet anywhere. He didn't even like being in it, not even to get away from his grandma. He'd only come up now to get a book since his grandma had forbidden hand-held computer games from her house. He fished one out of his bag and made to leave, glancing out of the window to the back garden as he went.

Still just stone paths and sheds and the office.

Nothing looking back at him at all.

The sitting room was one of those sitting rooms where no one ever actually sat. Conor wasn't allowed in there at any time, lest he smudge the upholstery somehow, so of course this was where he went to read his book while he waited for his father.

He slumped down on her settee, which had curved wooden legs so thin it looked like it was wearing high heels. There was a gla.s.s-fronted cabinet opposite, filled with plates on display stands and teacups with so many curlicues it was a wonder you could drink from them without cutting your lips. Hanging over the mantelpiece was his grandma's prize clock, which no one but her could ever touch. Handed down from her own mother, Conor's grandma had threatened for years to take it on Antiques Roadshow to get it valued. It had a proper pendulum swinging underneath it, and it chimed, too, every fifteen minutes, loud enough to make you jump if you weren't expecting it.

The whole room was like a museum of how people lived in olden times. There wasn't even a television. That was in the kitchen and almost never switched on.

He read. What else was there to do?

He had hoped to talk to his father before he flew out, but what with the hospital visits and the time difference and the new wife's convenient migraines, he was just going to have to see him when he showed up.

Whenever that would be. Conor looked at the pendulum clock. Twelve forty-two, it said. It would chime in three minutes.

Three empty, quiet minutes.

He realized he was actually nervous. It had been a long time since he'd seen his father in person and not just on Skype. Would he look different? Would Conor look different?

And then there were the other questions. Why was he coming now? His mum didn't look great, looked even worse after five days in hospital, but she was still hopeful about the new medicine she was being given. Christmas was still months away and Conor's birthday was already past. So why now?

He looked at the floor, the centre of which was covered in a very expensive, very old-looking oval rug. He reached down and lifted up an edge of it, looking at the polished boards beneath. There was a knot in one of them. He ran his fingers over it, but the board was so old and smooth, you couldn't tell the difference between the knot and the rest of it.

"Are you in there?" Conor whispered.

He jumped as the doorbell went. He scrambled up and out of the sitting room, feeling more excited than he'd thought he would. He opened the front door.

There was his father, looking totally different but exactly the same.

"Hey, son," his dad said, his voice bending in that weird way that America had started to shape it.

Conor smiled wider than he had for at least a year.

CHAMP.

"How you hanging in there, champ?" his father asked him while they waited for the waitress to bring them their pizzas.

"Champ?" Conor asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

"Sorry," his father said, smiling bashfully. "America is almost a whole different language."

"Your voice sounds funnier every time I talk to you."

"Yeah, well." His father fidgeted with his wine gla.s.s. "It's good to see you."

Conor took a drink of his c.o.ke. His mum had been really poorly when they'd got to the hospital. They'd had to wait for his grandma to help her out of the toilet, and then she was so tired all she was really able to say was "Hi, sweetheart," to Conor and "h.e.l.lo, Liam," to his father before falling back to sleep. His grandma ushered them out moments later, a look on her face that even his dad wasn't going to argue with.

"Your mother is, uh," his father said now, squinting at nothing in particular. "She's a fighter, isn't she?"

Conor shrugged.

"So, how are you holding up, Con?"

"That's like the eight hundredth time you've asked me since you got here," Conor said.

"Sorry," his father said.

"I'm fine," Conor said. "Mum's on this new medicine. It'll make her better. She looks bad, but she's looked bad before. Why is everyone acting likea"?"

He stopped and took another drink of his c.o.ke.

"You're right, son," his father said. "You're absolutely right." He turned his wine gla.s.s slowly around once on the table. "Still," he said. "You're going to need to be brave for her, Con. You're going to need to be real, real brave for her."

"You talk like American television."

His father laughed, quietly. "Your sister's doing well. Almost walking."

"Half-sister," Conor said.

"I can't wait for you to meet her," his father said. "We'll have to arrange for a visit soon. Maybe even this Christmas. Would you like that?"

Conor met his father's eyes. "What about Mum?"

"I've talked it over with your grandma. She seemed to think it wasn't a bad idea, as long as we got you back in time for the new school term."

Conor ran a hand along the edge of the table. "So it'd just be a visit then?"

"What do you mean?" his father said, sounding surprised. "A visit as opposed toa" He trailed off, and Conor knew he'd worked out what he meant. "Conora""

But Conor suddenly didn't want him to finish. "There's a tree that's been visiting me," he said, talking quickly, starting to peel the label off the c.o.ke bottle. "It comes to the house at night, tells me stories."

His father blinked, baffled. "What?"

"I thought it was a dream at first," Conor said, scratching at the label with his thumbnail, "but then I kept finding leaves when I woke up and little trees growing out of the floor. I've been hiding them all so no one will find out."

"Conora""

"It hasn't come to grandma's house yet. I was thinking she might live too far awaya""

"What are youa"?"

"But why should it matter if it's all a dream, though? Why wouldn't a dream be able to walk across town? Not if it's as old as the earth and as big as the worlda""

"Conor, stop thisa""

"I don't want to live with grandma," Conor said, his voice suddenly strong and filled with a thickness that felt like it was choking him. He kept his eyes firmly on the c.o.ke bottle label, his thumbnail sc.r.a.ping the wet paper away. "Why can't I come and live with you? Why can't I come to America?"

His father licked his lips. "You mean whena""

"Grandma's house is an old lady's house," Conor said.

His father gave another small laugh. "I'll be sure to tell her you called her an old lady."

"You can't touch anything or sit anywhere," Conor said. "You can't leave a mess for even two seconds. And she's only got internet out in her office and I'm not allowed in there."

"I'm sure we can talk to her about those things. I'm sure there's lots of room to make it easier, make you comfortable there."

"I don't want to be comfortable there!" Conor said, raising his voice. "I want my own room in my own house."

"You wouldn't have that in America," his father said. "We barely have room for the three of us, Con. Your grandma has a lot more money and s.p.a.ce than we do. Plus, you're in school here, your friends are here, your whole life is here. It would be unfair to just take you out of all that."

"Unfair to who?" Conor asked.

His father sighed. "This is what I meant," he said. "This is what I meant when I said you were going to have to be brave."