BUK

Chapter 6 As the extraordinary boy with ash hair stood up, he took hold of her hand ever so gently.

It was one of those moments when life seemed to freeze-frame. If Nancy had been looking at the scene through the lens of a webcam, she would have assumed that her laptop had just crashed. All noise around her seemed to have the volume turned right down and all the people, cars and buses stopped dead.

Buk and Nancy now stood in their own bubble of space and time.

‘Hold this,’ he said offering her a corner of the Codice. ‘And look very carefully at this symbol here.’

Immediately Nancy took the Codice, she felt a strange sensation in her fingertips. The Codice felt warm and soft, like skin. ‘It’s alive!’ she exclaimed in sudden realisation.

‘Shh,’ said Buk. ‘Just concentrate.’

Nancy looked where he was pointing and saw a letter, similar to an ‘Ω’, about halfway down the page.

It reminded her of a gate. She felt a bit silly at first but the longer she looked at the letter on the page, the less self-conscious she felt and the more absorbed. The letter seemed to get smaller, but the page around it 24