Blackfin Sky (4 page)

Which was why she had anticipated an argument. Instead, Lily had elbowed Gui into silence as she smiled and nodded at Sky’s explanation of why it would be an absolutely earth-shattering devastation if she were not allowed to meet up with her friends at the beach bonfire.

‘Have fun, darling,’ Lily said, her feet curled under her on the couch as she nestled next to Gui.

Weirder and weirder.

Sky’s eyes narrowed. She keyed in a quick reply, trying not to drop her gaze for more than a second at a time in case her parents made some sudden move. But beyond a shrug from her dad and a smile from her mother, Sky’s parents were unflinching.

I think aliens have replaced my parents. I’ll be there in fifteen.

Pocketing her phone, she backed out of the room slowly. Then grabbed her coat and ran.

‘That was strange.’

Sky slumped down next to Cam and Bo on the twisted log beneath the pier. Both girls looked at her in stunned silence for a moment before the flying form of Cameron Vega tackled Sky backwards into the sand.

‘
Oof!
God, Cam—’

But Cam promptly cut her off with a stream of words so fast and high-pitched that no human could have understood, especially as they were muffled against Sky’s red coat. Bo’s voice sliced through the din, still sitting with her legs crossed on the driftwood and smoking a skinny roll-up.

‘The head cheerleader returns.’ Bo squinted at her through the smoke, not smirking at Sky’s scowl as she normally would. There were no cheerleaders in Blackfin, and Sky would certainly not have been one if there had been – at least, not voluntarily. Her only extracurricular credit would be her chess team membership, which she tended not to shout about. ‘Nice of you to call and let us know you’re alive. Oh, wait – you didn’t.’

Sky picked herself up once Cam had sprung back to her spot on the log and brushed the sand off her coat. ‘I don’t know what to tell you guys. I’ve been right here the whole time – it’s not
my
fault you don’t remember.’ Sky held up a sandy hand when Cam opened her mouth to interrupt. ‘Yeah, I get it. I can’t figure it out, and to be honest, I don’t even want to right now. I just want to chill with you two and forget the whole thing, just for tonight.’ She looked from Cam’s wide eyes to Bo’s slightly arched eyebrow. ‘No chance of that happening, huh?’ Sky sank down next to them again, casting a warning look at Cam in case she got any more ideas about taking her down. Cam smiled sheepishly.

‘I’m glad you’re back, Sky. We missed you.’

Even though Sky felt like she had seen her friends only a couple of days earlier, the sincerity in Cam’s expression made her feel the absence as though she, too, had lived it. The cold dread she’d felt that morning when her father confirmed she’d disappeared for three months settled in her stomach again. She wanted to forget the last two days had ever happened, and go back to living her life as normal. Well, as normally as one could in Blackfin.

Bo flicked ash from her cigarette into the small beach fire in front of her. ‘Did you know your grave’s been dug up? I was there earlier – it’s just a hole, now.’

‘What?’ Sky jerked in surprise. ‘It’s not
my
grave.’

Bo gave her a flat look. ‘Your name was on it. That pretty much makes it yours.’

‘But who dug it up? Why? I mean, I’m obviously not
in
it.’

Bo shrugged. ‘Somebody is. Or was. And I would have thought it should be a police thing, but there would have been tape around the site if it was an official exhumation. So I’m betting someone else did it.’

Sky turned to Cam. ‘What did your aunt say?’

Officer Holly Vega was the only police officer in Blackfin, and so grounded and matter-of-fact that nobody was ever surprised to learn that she was on the force. That didn’t mean she was well-liked, though. The entire population of Blackfin maintained a wary distance from her, as though the skeletons in their closets were spring-loaded and ready to burst out onto the front lawn.

Cam opened her mouth to answer, but Bo cut across. ‘You know we don’t talk to the po-po. Besides, she’s a police officer – she’ll figure out she’s a corpse short sooner or later.’

If Cam was offended by the offhand insult to her aunt, she didn’t show it. But then her effervescent brain was focused elsewhere.

‘It’s almost like you’re a zombie and you clawed your way out of your own grave,’ Cam said.

Bo took one look at Cam’s worried face and burst out laughing. Sky tried to smile, but it felt flat.

‘How come you were at my … at the cemetery, anyway?’ Sky balked at using the words
my grave.
The cemetery lay at the edge of town, nestled between Provencher Street and the steep rise up into the Lychgate Mountains. It was a miniature labyrinth of broken angels, crumbling tombstones, and exactly thirteen black cats – and not even Bo was creepy enough to hang out there by choice.

Bo looked levelly at Sky. ‘I’ve been talking to you there for the last three months. I guess it’s become a habit.’

Sky swallowed thickly, unable to answer.

‘Bo!’ Cam hissed, though it wasn’t nearly as menacing as she had no doubt intended. ‘Stop making her feel bad. It’s not her fault she didn’t die!’

Bo ignored Cam. ‘So did
you
speak to Cam’s aunt?’

‘Uh, no … Why?’

‘You must see how she might be a
little
curious to know what happened to you, seeing as she spent the last three months questioning suspects.’

‘Suspects?’

‘Had to rule out murder, I suppose. Nobody really believed
Skylar Rousseau
could accidentally kill herself.’

Suddenly Gui’s impromptu fishing trip and her mother’s willingness to let her out of the house made sense – they were avoiding Officer Vega. Or at least keeping her away from Sky.

‘You’re really starting to sound annoyed that I’m alive.’ Sky forced a joking tone, but she knew Bo wouldn’t miss the reproach behind it. Bo looked away silently; the closest she would ever come to an apology. Cam went on, oblivious.

‘You’ve missed so much stuff going on, Sky! Have you seen the new guy who’s working with your dad? His name’s Jared and he’s got this whole goth-pale but with a smokin’ hot bod thing going on and like a bajillion piercings – even in his tongue – and the smokiest eyes I’ve ever seen!’

Sky laughed at Cam’s enthusiastic appraisal. ‘Yeah, Dad mentioned he had someone working for him now. Maybe I’ll go and check him out soon.’ She grinned at Bo’s raised eyebrow. ‘Unless he’s already off-limits?’

‘Pah.’ Bo’s laugh never quite sounded like a laugh, as though she couldn’t be bothered putting in the effort to make it convincing. ‘As if you’d be interested.’

‘So, what else did I miss?’ Sky fidgeted a little. ‘I mean, while I was … away?’

‘Since your party, you mean?’ Something in Bo’s tone was even more pointed than usual, and Sky looked up to find an equally pointed look aimed at her. The kind that said,
we’ll talk later.
But Sky didn’t want to wait until later.

‘Did something happen at my party that I don’t know about?’

Bo arched one immaculate black eyebrow. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Ooh!’ Cam smacked her palm against Bo’s thigh, she was so excited. ‘I almost forgot! The chess club got closed down because they didn’t have enough members!’

Quite why Cam was so invigorated by relaying this piece of news was a mystery to Sky. It had quite the opposite effect on her. ‘Really? But we’ve always gotten by with six members…’ Comprehension cut her off. ‘But it’s only been a few months, and I’m back now. Maybe Mr Hiatt will start it up again.’

Bo laughed her flat laugh. ‘Of course he will, if you ask him.’

The silence that followed was marred only by the distant sounds of some of their classmates fooling around further along the beach. At least until Sean appeared at his sister’s back holding three cans of coke in a precarious pyramid. Once he’d handed a can to each of the girls, he came and sat in the only vacant log-spot, next to Sky. He squeezed her arm for a second, like he was checking she was still there.

Sean wasn’t especially tall, or even very muscularly built like a lot of the boys in their school year, but there was something so confident in the way he moved that it was difficult to peg him as a nerd – despite his two-tone cardigan and green Converse trainers.

Sky popped the top on her can as she gazed into the darkness further along the sand where a group of boys were still fishing bottles out from under the pier. All manner of flotsam washed up on Blackfin’s shores, and there was always an assortment of bottles in among it. Whenever they were at the beach, the Blackfin teens would search through the bottles for messages – and would generally find one or two in a good haul. Sky listened to the clink of glass in the distance.

‘Find anything good?’

Sean nodded. ‘One angry letter to Father Christmas. But you can hardly see them now, and the last one Charlie fished out had a dog turd in it. At least I hope it was a dog’s.’ Sky laughed, but Sean seemed distracted as he stared into the low fire, his brown eyes burning like hot coals with its reflection. ‘Aunt Holly’s been trying to reach you. I said I’d call her if I saw you here.’

‘Sean!’ Cam hissed and kicked out at her brother, but Sean deftly moved out of the way, ending up almost on top of Sky.

‘Sorry.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But she has to ask you some questions. About where you’ve been. And stuff.’

It was odd to see Sean ill at ease. His innate calmness was one of the things Sky liked about him the most – partly because he was oblivious to how unusual a trait that was.

‘Yeah, Bo mentioned something about that.’ The ring-pull on Sky’s can became a source of some fascination. ‘But I don’t know where I’ve been. Well, I mean I
do,
but none of you believe me.’

She chanced a glance up at Sean and found him studying her.

‘I still can’t believe you’re really here. I mean,
here.’
He looked away. ‘Have your parents taken you to the hospital to get checked out?’

‘Hospital?’

Sean looked down at his hands, elbows propped on his knees. ‘Yeah. I know that’s like a dirty word or something around here, but modern science is kind of
the thing
everywhere else in the world.’ The three girls regarded him in silence, and he sighed. ‘I mean, so they can test you for drugs. And, you know … check you over.’

‘She wasn’t kidnapped, wingnut. She
died.
We all saw her before they put her in the ambulance – no way was that girl about to get up and run away for three months.’ Bo relit her roll-up in the edge of the fire. A long draw on her cigarette, and her face disappeared for a moment in the smoke. ‘This isn’t some experiment for you two to puzzle out over heated looks and chemistry books.’

As confused as she was by Bo’s comment, Sky still managed to blush. She had been partnered with Sean for chemistry last term, and he’d certainly taken the opportunity to ramp up his flirtatious behaviour – almost enough for Sky to start thinking he was serious about her.

Sean leaned back, one palm braced on the driftwood. His expression was somewhere between insulted and amused. ‘I’m open to other explanations if you have one—’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Bo continued, glowering at him only long enough to scathe a little. ‘There
is
no explanation. Not for this, not in this town.’

All four sat in silence for a long moment as they each considered this. Except for Cam, who squeaked briefly as she began asking a question before promptly forgetting what she had been about to ask.

It was Sky who broke the silence finally. ‘I think my parents have been trying to keep me off your aunt’s radar since I’ve been back. I have no idea why, but the way they’ve been acting, it’s like … I don’t know,
secretive
or something.’

Though Sky had only just realised this, the truth of it had been nagging at the back of her mind since her parents had first started with all that infuriating glancing the previous day.

Sky had always liked Officer Vega, with her sensible shoes and a smile that said she would figure out this bizarre town and its residents eventually. More than that, though, Sky refused to hide from her friends’ aunt when she had done nothing wrong – even if she wasn’t able to answer her questions.

‘Yes, I think she guessed as much.’

‘Tell her I’ll come to your house to speak with her first thing in the morning. Text me if that’s a problem, okay?’

For a while Sky tried to steer the conversation away from herself to more normal things, but finally gave it up and settled instead for silence. Her friends continued weaving grand webs of conspiracy to explain her absence, but Sky wasn’t really listening. She was distracted by a slithery, dark feeling that something was wrong. Wrong with
her
.

Sky let the ridiculous words of her friends float past her, away from the firelight and off into darkness.