The lights went out while Max was brushing his teeth. One second there was a warm yellow bathroom, and the next there was nothing at all — no hum from the fridge downstairs, no little glow from the landing lamp. Just dark, and the tap dripping, and Max standing very still with a toothbrush in his hand.
"Power cut!" Mom called from the kitchen. "Don't worry, love. It's the whole street." Then, after a pause: "There are candles in the cupboard under the stairs. Could you fetch them? I've got a pan in both hands."
Max said nothing for a moment. Downstairs was fine in the daytime. Downstairs in the dark was a different downstairs. But there was the torch on the landing shelf, exactly where it always lived, and his fingers found it before he had finished deciding. It was small and yellow, with a rubbery grip that squeaked a little when you squeezed it. Click. A soft round pool of light appeared on the carpet, like a spilled cup of milk.
"Coming," Max said. The word came out small, so he said it again, bigger. "Coming!"
The top stair creaked. Max thought about calling out for Mom to come and hold his hand — thought about it hard — and then had a better idea instead. Counting. Counting made things ordinary.
"One," Max whispered, and slid one foot down. "Two. Three." Slow breath in. Slow breath out, the sort of breath that fogs a window. "Four. Five."
At six, the torchlight wobbled across the coats hanging by the front door, and one of them leaned out with a long empty sleeve, and Max stopped dead with his knuckles tight round the rubbery grip. His knees felt like jelly on a plate. He breathed in. He breathed out. Then he pointed the beam right at the thing, properly, the way you look at a word you don't know yet.
A coat. Dad's coat, with the button missing. Nothing else at all.
"Seven," said Max, and carried on. "Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen." Thirteen was the hall floor, cool and smooth under bare feet.
The cupboard under the stairs breathed out its old smell of wellies and hoover bags. Max crouched, held the torch steady with both hands, and swept the light along the shelf: a tin of shoe polish, a ball of string, a rolled-up beach towel — and there, in a shoebox, four fat white candles and the long matches Mom kept up high.
He carried the candles into the kitchen with the torch tucked under his chin.
"My hero," said Mom, and lit them one by one, and the kitchen filled up with soft wobbly gold. They ate toast by candlelight. Max told Mom about the coat, and about counting to thirteen, and Mom said, "Thirteen. That's exactly right," and neither of them mentioned being scared, because it had already gone.
Later, upstairs, Max set the little yellow torch on the bedside table and left it on, beam pointing at the ceiling. The house settled. Somewhere a fridge hummed back to life. Max's breaths went slow, then slower, and the small round moon of torchlight stayed exactly where it was, all the way into sleep.