The Graces (10 page)

It was tough being at a school with no uniform. It was supposed to make you feel adult, but all it did was give me anxious thrills each evening as I went back and forth through my clothes rail until the sound of squeaking metal hangers gave me a headache.

Fenrin didn’t seem to discriminate between fashion types, though he’d been through his fair share of surfer girls. Anyway, I was the different one, right? He liked me because of that. I tried to smudge a load of eyeliner under my eyes to give them a smoky, glowery effect, but all it did was make me look tired, so I rubbed half of it off.

This was ridiculous. I’d never been like this about anyone before. I’d never had many friends. I wasn’t good with people, and it was hard to get along in this world if you weren’t. Easier to not put yourself out there, less hurt all around.

But then again, I’d never thought I’d meet anyone like the Graces. I knew now that I’d been holding out for them all along. Were we close? I couldn’t tell. I’d never had best friends before, so I wasn’t sure what behaviour told you that you were. But they were giving me secrets, weren’t they? I needed them to like me, to trust me enough to give me their help, to teach me to be a witch so I could fix everything that was wrong.

Maybe even get my father back.

It was the first and the best chance I’d ever been given, and I had to do everything in my power to use it.

I read a book as I walked into the cafeteria at lunch, letting it dangle languorously from my hand when I looked up to find a spare seat, trying to seem like I was still too immersed in the world on its pages to pay much attention to the world around me.

There they were. All three of them, together in the middle table, surrounded by a parade of gigglers.

Just go up to them like you’re supposed to be there.

Go on.

What if they ignored me?

You just spent the night at their house. How many other people in school can say that?

I walked through the cafeteria, Marcus’s warnings crawling through my head. I passed Niral, sitting with a group at another table, and for a moment I felt
panicked, like she could see the binding spell I had done on her playing like a film projector over my head. But all that happened was that she looked up, tossed me a dirty glance and then went back to talking with her friends.

She seemed disappointingly unspelled. I guessed that meant I wasn’t a witch yet – but part of me was glad. It was a petty, angry little thing to have done. I should have risen above it, but instead I’d risked an awful lot to teach a bully a lesson. From now on I’d behave as if I was barely aware of her existence. That was the Grace thing to do.

When I got to their table, I realised my mistake: there were no spare chairs. My face started to burn. It began at my neck and ate away at each section of skin until it reached my forehead.

‘Hey,’ I said, looking at Summer.

She had a drink to her mouth and didn’t reply.

‘Are you passing through on your way to the library, or will you be staying to enjoy this cafeteria’s fine roast beef with us?’ asked Fenrin, who had the suspect-looking meat in question skewered on his fork and a ripple of distaste across his mouth.

The face burn faded, leaving cautious relief in its wake. ‘I’ve got some time. For you, maybe even ten minutes.’

‘You’re a generous soul, Your Majesty. Have a seat … wait, there’s no chairs.’

No one moved.

‘I can stand,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to be here long.’

‘Dean, you were supposed to be gone already. Give River your chair.’

Dean eyed me.

‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’

No one would risk making a Grace ask twice. Dean got up slowly like he didn’t care. ‘Yeah, I’m so late,’ he said, stilted. ‘See you in biology?’

‘Yeah,’ said Fenrin absently.

Dean shambled off. I took the chair beside Fenrin. It was warm.

‘So you’re going to have to tell me the ending of that last film,’ I said to Summer. She was in conversation with Lou, who looked irritated when Summer broke off and turned her face to me across the table.

‘You mean you guys didn’t watch it?’ she asked.

Thalia rolled her eyes. ‘What are you even talking about? You fell asleep.’

‘So?!’

‘So we were under no obligation,’ Fenrin remarked, leaning back in his chair. I watched the way the curve of his shoulder moved underneath his T-shirt, and then
forced my eyes back to the table. ‘It was your crap pick, anyway.’

‘Where were you guys? At the cinema?’ said Lou.

Summer shrugged. ‘No, we just chilled out with some films and food at the house.’

I wanted there to be a stunned silence. Instead, I had to settle for a quick, shocked glance between Gemma and Lou.

Good enough. I wondered how long that piece of news would take to circulate.

‘You hear about Jase?’ asked Lou, rapidly changing the subject.

‘Oh my god, that’s bad,’ someone else joined in enthusiastically.

‘Why, what happened?’ Gemma asked.

‘He broke his leg surfing. Had to go to hospital. They said he was screaming and crying like a five-year-old having a tantrum.’

‘Really?’ Summer said. ‘When was that?’

Lou gave her a pleased look, as if she was being wonderfully sly. ‘Yesterday.’

Gemma whistled. ‘That must have hurt.’

‘Yeah, well. I’m not too sad for him, after all that shit he’s been saying about Summer. So maybe he got what he deserved.’

‘Harsh,’ Gemma commented, her eager tone
suggesting otherwise.

Now I understood. They thought Summer had made good on her promise to curse him.

I watched her. Her face was carefully blank, and she wasn’t exactly going out of her way to correct them. Had she really done something, or was it just coincidence? The conversation faltered.

‘So how’s the birthday party planning going?’ one of Thalia’s friends asked her.

‘Oh man, it’s such a nightmare,’ Thalia moaned. ‘Just even organising that many people.’

‘Esther’s doing most of it,’ Summer commented.

‘Not even. She’s dumped a load of it on me this time.’ Thalia was trying to sound disgusted but she looked happy. ‘I think it’s because Gwydion’s not going to be around. She’s freaking out about corralling everyone. You know what it’s like getting them to turn up to anything on time.’

Summer rolled her eyes. ‘God, our family. Remember Yule?’

Fenrin snorted. ‘Uncle Lleu in the bathtub?’

‘The
straws
,’ said Thalia.

‘And then all three of them at the front door, five hours late …’

‘And he’s all covered in mud, and he says …’

All three of them chorused, ‘Bloody tarot woman!’

Summer shrieked a laugh that tore into the air. The other two were convulsing. The rest of the table sat around awkwardly.

‘So your whole family always comes round for it,’ said Thalia’s friend, as soon as she judged it safe.

‘Whoever’s free,’ said Thalia. ‘If we had the whole family round, we’d have to have it in a castle to fit them all in.’

‘But it’s your eighteenth.’

‘So?’

The friend looked nervous. She was one of those who thought dressing like Thalia made her more acceptable. Camouflage, I guessed. Look like them, be like them. She had this dramatic silver streak in her hair. ‘Well that’s, like, special, isn’t it? It’s your eighteenth.’

‘If all you cared about was drinking in pubs, I guess it would be,’ said Thalia. ‘It’s never been that big a thing in our family. It’s just a number, you know?’

The girl nodded like she totally knew.

‘Our family’ means you’re being reminded that you’re excluded, I thought.

‘You should invite us this year,’ said Lou. ‘Gemma makes this wicked vodka cocktail called Sex on the Beach. It’s amazing. The whole party will love it.’ Her eyes slid briefly to Fenrin. ‘You could ask your parents
if you could have friends there this time,’ she finished, hopeful.

‘Well, we do,’ Summer replied. She seemed uncomfortable. I wondered if people tried it on like this every year. ‘We have family friends coming.’

‘Yeah, but, like, friends your age.’

‘Some of them are.’

‘It kind of seems unfair on you guys,’ Lou tried, glancing at Fenrin and Thalia. ‘I mean, Summer gets to invite loads of friends to
her
birthday. Is it because of that thing with that kid? Because that was years ago, and it was just a stupid accident.’

The Graces exchanged swift glances.

‘Um,’ said Thalia. ‘Well, it’s become like more of a family gathering these days. I mean, Summer’s is out on the beach, but ours is always at the house, so the family can stay round – it’s just easier.’

The unspoken hung on the air. No one from here was going because no one from here got invited to their house any more.

No one except me, that was.

I swallowed a burst of pure happiness before anyone could see it.

I felt a poke in my side. Fenrin was looking at me. ‘I’m bored,’ he said. ‘This party is all I hear about right now. What are you reading?’

I showed him.

‘
The Virgin Suicides?
Yay.’

‘It’s for English.’

‘Yawn.’

‘It’s pretty good, actually,’ I said, giving him an arch eyebrow. ‘It’s got interesting things to say.’

‘Isn’t it just about a load of stupid girls killing themselves over nothing?’ said another of Thalia’s friends.

‘Not really. It’s all about how sometimes normal people can be capable of extraordinary things. Like, you’d just never know that these girls had it inside them to do the horrible things they do. We always have to find reasons to make order out of chaos, but the worst horror is when the reasons are totally banal, or when there isn’t any reason at all.’

When I stopped, I realised I had talked myself into a yawning cavern of silence.

The girl’s forehead scrunched as she stared at me.

‘You might want to calm down,’ she said. ‘I mean, suicide’s not exactly something to get excited over, is it?’

‘You must be into morbid stuff,’ remarked another. ‘You’re like one of those people who think they’re vampires, right?’

‘Do you have a coffin at home?’

‘Do you drink blood?’

I knew what was happening. I just couldn’t seem to do anything about it.

You should be happy,
said my coal-black voice.
It means they’re threatened by you.

‘I
love
that kind of weird shit,’ said Summer. ‘Why would you want to be someone who never questions anything and just lives to eat, procreate and die? Probably in front of the television, watching some reality show about other bland people trying their hardest not to be bland?’

Beside me, Fenrin laughed. Summer blew him a kiss.

I loved them. I loved them with everything I had. How could I have doubted?

The first bell rang. As everyone started to pack up and leave, I waited until Summer was getting up, and then I copied her. We left together while Fenrin and Thalia lounged behind.

‘Thought you had somewhere else to be?’ she said to me.

I owed her the truth, after how nice she’d just been. ‘I was trying to be cool.’

She laughed. ‘You
are
cool.’

‘Well, thanks, Queen of Cool.’

‘Hey. You’re coming to the party, though, right?’

I stopped, astonished. ‘I am? I’m invited?’

‘Of course you are.’

Holy. Shit.

I didn’t even mind that she hadn’t said that in front of the others. It felt more personal. It existed just between us.

‘Oh god,’ I said suddenly in realisation. ‘I’ll need to get them a gift.’

Summer started to laugh.

‘Don’t laugh. What the hell do I get them?’

‘Stop freaking out – they get enough gifts from all the people who come as it is. They will want nothing from you, I’m telling you. They just want you there.’

I was blushing with happiness. It showed all over me, a neon glow, I was sure. It didn’t matter.

‘Well, when is it?’ I said. ‘I’ll have to check my calendar.’

I knew exactly when it was. The first of August.

‘Trying to be cool again? You don’t have a calendar. Your calendar is mine,’ said Summer.

‘You don’t own me,’ I sniffed, mock outraged.

‘Not yet,’ she replied, and flashed me a wicked smile.

One day in June, Thalia didn’t show up for school.

I hadn’t seen Summer all morning – we had no early classes together on Tuesdays – but I usually met her in the cafeteria if we had no other plans. At lunch I ignored my nerves and slid straight into an empty seat at the Graces’ usual table, despite none of them actually being there yet. Their friends said nothing, and I let myself relax, taking out my phone and fiddling with it to look busy.

‘She must be terrified,’ I heard someone comment, as I gazed at the screen and tapped on the keys. ‘To ditch school because of him.’

I lost the reply in cafeteria noise.

‘Has anyone seen him today?’ asked someone else.

‘Nah, he’ll be hiding away in the library.’

‘Maybe we should go and pay him a visit.’

‘I wouldn’t.’ That was Gemma’s unmistakable
squeak, and my gaze slid up to rest on her face opposite me. ‘They don’t like it when you interfere.’

‘He’s
stalking
her,’ protested Lily, Thalia’s silver-hair-streaked friend.

‘I know, but they can take care of it, can’t they?’ Lou paused. ‘I mean … you know what I mean.’

‘So why haven’t they?’

‘I don’t know, but—’

‘Come on, you guys.’ Lily looked around the table for support. ‘Thalia skipped school today because of him. He’s officially terrorising her. We can’t just let him get away with it.’

Marcus was a little obsessive, okay. But terrorising?

‘What did he do?’ I said.

There was the briefest of pauses as the table adjusted, weighing whether to include me or not.

‘You don’t know?’ said Lily.

I shrugged.

Gemma sighed. ‘He showed up at the Graces’ last night, asking for Thalia. They told him to leave, but an hour later they found him
inside
the house. He’d opened the back door somehow and was on his way to her room.’

Oh, Marcus. I felt sorry for him, but breaking into their house? Whatever made him think that was a good idea?

‘Did they call the police?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘My point exactly,’ said Lily, gesturing at me and slumping back into her seat.

‘That would scare him off properly, wouldn’t it?’ I ventured.

‘Considering what he’s done before, I seriously doubt it,’ Lou sniffed.

‘Why, what’s he done before?’

Silence.

Gemma shrugged. ‘She’s new, remember? It happened before she got here.’

‘I can’t believe they haven’t told you about that,’ Lou said.

‘Oh come on,’ Gemma said reasonably. ‘It’s not something they’d want to talk about with strangers, is it?’

Except I’m not a stranger. I’m their best friend.

I waited, looking between them. I wanted to know what Marcus wouldn’t tell me too much to play the fake apathy game.

‘It happened during Christmas break,’ said Gemma, and then stopped. ‘How do I put this? Marcus kind of attacked Thalia.’

‘
Attacked
her? How?’

‘Their parents walked in on him, like, forcing her
down on her bed,’ Lou said, her voice flat and hard with anger. ‘Apparently, he’d flipped and kept telling her they were meant to be together. When she said she wasn’t interested, he basically leapt on her like a predator. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t been interrupted?’

My stomach twisted in slimy, sickened knots. ‘Oh my god.’

Their voices fluttered on. I couldn’t believe it.

Thank god I hadn’t tried to help him.

I sat at the table for the rest of lunch, but neither Summer nor Fenrin showed up. When I reached my next class, Summer was already there. She gave me a tight smile, but passed me no notes, and when I tried to talk to her afterwards, she practically sprinted out of the door.

She had no phone to text and ask what the matter was, no opening to her. I couldn’t ask anyone else, and I couldn’t do anything about what might be going on without me. I just had to drift along like the ghost I was before, no Summer to anchor me, feeling like the last three months had never happened, and how fragile my existence was without her even for one afternoon.

I got through the last class by distracting myself with daydreams. It was warm outside and the teachers couldn’t be bothered, either. Everyone was just waiting
palpably for the end of term, that rush of cut grass and sun through the open classroom windows turning their heads.

The last bell rang. I walked through school to the front gate, moving past the stragglers and the after-school clubbers. My face said I was going out into the sunshine, nothing bothering me. I hung around outside, pretending to wait for a pick-up. Friends of theirs slid past me, their faces that strange mix of half glee and half grim seriousness that always accompanied bad gossip, but I saw no sign of the Graces.

There was nothing else to do. It took about twenty minutes to walk to the Grace house from school, and by the time I reached their shaded lane I could feel a thick line of sweat running a groove down to my stomach. The windows stared down disapprovingly at me as I rapped the knocker three times and stepped back.

Nothing.

I couldn’t go home without knowing. I brushed past tangled vines on the brick wall, making my way to the wooden gate that led down the side of the house and into the gardens beyond. The bell chimes hanging from the gate’s top frame tinkled sweetly as I walked through, skirting the herb garden before arriving at the back door that opened into the echoing cool of the hallway.

It was unlocked.

‘Hello?’ I called, my voice strangled with nerves.

Nothing.

Someone had to be home – they’d never leave a door unlocked like that, particularly after what had happened with Marcus. But if no one was around … I longed to look through the glass jars in the cabinets of Esther’s conservatory, the base oils and pastes she kept in the fridge, the dried herbs and droppers and mixers and the pretty lavender velvet cloths. I wanted to flip through the books on her shelves, the ones with the thick leather bindings, run my fingers over the words and symbols inside them as if I could absorb them by touch alone. I came to the bottom of the stairs, wondering what to do next, when Wolf appeared next to me.

I flinched. ‘Jesus, you scared me.’

‘Why are you here?’ he said, his dark eyes probing. His accent glotted up his throat like chocolate, deep and rich.

‘Thalia wasn’t at school today, and there’s all these rumours floating around, so I just wanted to know if everyone was all right.’

I started to feel stupid. They were all fine.

But then Wolf said, ‘Keep your voice down. They’re in the kitchen.’

He moved towards it, glancing back over his shoulder to me as if I should follow. So I did.

The Grace family sat round the huge oak table. Thalia was noticeably absent. I wanted to ask where she was, but the air around them was heavy and damp with something just past – or just beginning – and I felt like an intruder.

Wolf slipped silently into the kitchen and leaned against the nearest wall, but I hung back in the doorway, uneasy. Esther and Gwydion had their backs to us – I didn’t think they even knew we were there. Fenrin and Summer were opposite them. I saw Summer’s eyes slide up and catch on mine briefly before falling away.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Gwydion’s normally melodious voice was honed sharp. ‘We don’t need the police interfering in our business. We will handle it ourselves.’

‘He was in the house,’ Esther shot back. ‘He got into the
house
. What kind of protection does that afford us?’

Gwydion snorted. ‘He isn’t some stranger, Esther. He spent half his childhood here. The house knows him.’

Silence.

Esther folded her arms with a gentle clicking of bangles. ‘Then it must be Thalia. She must still be seeing him, talking to him, to aggravate it like this.’

‘She’s not,’ Fenrin snapped. ‘She’s done everything you asked her to do. That’s the problem. God, it’s got nothing to do with the curse –
you
created this mess. She’s being crushed under the weight of all your expectations of her, and he’s mentally unstable. What did you think was going to happen?’

His mother shot him a glance that could have cut stone. She had a delicate and fragile air, but underneath that, there was something I’m not sure I would have dared cross.

Gwydion leaned forward. ‘It’ll be dealt with, Fenrin. And you’ll say no more about it.’

‘Dealt with how? What are you going to do?’ Fenrin’s voice rose and rose, a car heading straight towards a cliff. ‘Nothing. Because that’s how we deal with problems in our family. We ignore them and hope they go away. We freak out over curses and secretly screw a string of people instead of admitting we’re miserable, waving our hands and chanting instead of doing anything
practical
about—’

‘Stop,’ said Summer, her voice sharp. ‘Fen, stop—’

Gwydion stood. He pointed towards the door. ‘Get out.’

No one moved.

‘Get out, go to your room and calm down. Your mother and I will deal with this. It doesn’t concern you.
None of this concerns you. Leave.’

I tried to shrink into the wall. It was then that Gwydion turned his head and caught sight of me.

His eyes were no longer sad. They were furious.

‘
All
of you, please,’ he said.

Esther started to turn in her seat. I backed out of the kitchen fast.

Wolf came out after me. Fenrin brushed past him as if he wanted to shove him out of the way and marched to the stairs without so much as a glance in my direction.

‘She’s here because she’s supposed to be.’ I heard Summer’s voice in the kitchen. ‘We have an assignment due together, so I asked her to come round after school. It’s not her fault, is it?’

Shit.

Wolf stood by me. I was grateful for the solid weight of him there – he could have abandoned me. In that moment, we were outsiders together.

Summer came out of the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry,’ I started to say, but she shook her head.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Just give me a minute.’

I watched her catch up with Fenrin on the first-floor landing.

‘Fen,’ she said. ‘Wait.’

He rounded on her and held out a finger, pointing
it straight at her face. She shrank from it.

‘You. You could have said something. But for all that you play the rebel, Summer, you’re just a fucking daddy’s girl. You’ll do everything they tell you. You’ll suffocate and wither away here, just like everyone else.’

His eyes were alive and his body shook. He raced up the stairs. We heard the slam of a bedroom door.

Summer stood for a moment, her back to us. She went into her bedroom without looking back.

I turned around, unsure of what to do with myself. Wolf’s eyes were on me as he tilted his chin up to the back door.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in the garden, out of the way.’

I followed him out.