Danny sat in the crane’s nest, the rain turning to sleet, and he didn’t cry. He felt a strange, hollow peace. His father hadn’t left him a fortune. He hadn’t left him a secret. He had left him a dare.
The story begins on a Tuesday, with the rain lashing the Mersey grey. Danny, small for his age with eyes the colour of a bruised sky, stood on the roof of his tenement in the shadow of the two great buildings. In his hand was a piece of paper, folded into a tight, greasy square. On it, in Tommy’s shaky, half-drunk scrawl, was a list. Liverpool
Danny’s best friend, a sharp-tongued girl named Amina whose family ran the chippy on Lodge Lane, told him he was soft in the head. “He was a steeplejack, Dan, not a wizard. That list is probably just places he had to paint.” Danny sat in the crane’s nest, the rain
Amina refused. “This is suicide, Danny. Your da fell. Don’t you get it? The fall is the point.” He hadn’t left him a secret
They say in Liverpool, you’re never more than ten feet from a ghost. For fourteen-year-old Danny Quigley, the ghost wasn’t a person. It was a promise.