The Graces (18 page)

‘Look, say it does, right? Say it’s all true and we really are witches. Take a look at us, then. Do you think magic has made us better? We’re not better than you. We’re so screwed up it’s not even funny. Don’t you think we could have …’ She stopped. She stopped for so long I lifted my eyes a little, just long enough to catch her odd expression, like she was trying to make a funny face.

Then I got it. She was trying not to cry.

‘Don’t you think Wolf could have just, like,
not died
, if we were these amazing magical beings you’re so desperate to believe we are? Don’t you think he could have protected himself somehow against something as stupid as drowning?’

A part of me had wondered about that. But he couldn’t, and he hadn’t, and all I had now was the awful truth about magic that I’d suspected from the start – that it didn’t just fix things, that it wasn’t as simple as that. Because this was real life, and nothing was ever simple.

Summer sighed, a riffling shaky sound. She leaned back, drawing her slim legs up against herself. ‘It’s like … that’s why I like you. You’re so
you
. You act like nothing could ever be more certain in your life than being
you
.’

Because I’m the best actress you’ve ever met
, I wanted
to scream in her oblivious face.
Because I’m pretending to be a Grace
.

‘You really don’t get it at all, do you?’ I said. ‘No one wants to be who they really are. No one except people like you.’

‘People like me?’

‘People who get all the luck in the world and don’t even know it. All the money you’d ever need, all the friends and the chances. The beautiful house and the beautiful
things
and everything is just so easy for you, isn’t it?’

She blinked rapidly.

‘Look,’ she said, her voice sharper. ‘I get it, okay? You have your divorced mother and your father who just up and left you and your council house and your beans on toast for lunch. You need magic because you think that’ll give you control over your life.’

‘Oh my
god
.’

‘But no one has control,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve got to let it go.’

‘Stop the therapy talk. Please, I can take anything from you but that. The “poor you” pity party when you look at me. Is that why you became friends with me? Charity case?’

Summer looked horrified. ‘No!’

But I could sense the panicked ‘maybe’ lying just
underneath her skin. I remembered all the lunchtimes when she’d given me her food, saying she wasn’t hungry or she’d already eaten two breakfasts. What did they see when they looked at me? What did they
really
see? A poor little powerless ugly duckling they could make over with secrets and magic? The desperate new girl, hanging on their every word, willing to do anything to bask in their sunlight?

Is that what they’d thought of me all this time?

My fury was coming, and with it the fear that was always swept along in its wake, drowning in its tidal wave.

I had to go. Now. Before I let myself think one more thought or say another word. I got up and left Summer’s room, running down the stairs. I heard her call, but I wasn’t going to stop. I couldn’t stop. I walked out the front door this time, posting the key back through the letterbox. It was Thalia’s – it had that amethyst drop dangling from the plaited keychain.

Why did I always cry with my fury? Why couldn’t I be steely, powerful magnificence? What the hell kind of reaction was it to
cry
when you were angry? My chest felt like a screw was being drilled into it, tightening everything around it, because she just didn’t see it and so I couldn’t explain.

I couldn’t explain because there was no telling what would happen if I tried.

In the morning, Summer was waiting for me outside the school gates.

She stood there, in the way of everyone, the crowd parting around her like a wave around a rock. People talked to her, and she gave them absent smiles. They tried to stop, but two bodies caused a blockage and the complaints behind them began, so they had no choice but to be swept along, away from her. She didn’t even turn her head to watch them go.

She saw me before I saw her. There was no escape.

The crowd had thinned to a trickle by the time I reached the door, but it didn’t stop the stares as I walked up to her, my grip tightening on my bag straps.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, immediately. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’

It was the most awkward apology in the history of humanity. I heard the brittle anger and shame in my voice and cringed.

Her face softened. ‘Don’t be an idiot. It’s fine.’

And then she swept me into a hug.

My nose was buried in her hair. It smelled of liquorice. She was so alive underneath her shirt. I could feel the smooth planes of her back under my hands, the alive, beating warmth of her. Her arms had gone all the way round me, crushing me to her. I wondered what she smelled on me. I wondered if desperation had a smell.

I pulled away.

‘I just got so angry,’ I said haltingly. ‘I didn’t want you to see me like that. I had to leave. I’m not good when I’m angry.’

‘
You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry
,’ she said in a droll voice. ‘You’re like She-Hulk.’

I tried to laugh.

Summer sighed. ‘God, I’ve had screaming matches with every member of my family recently. I get it.’

She took my hand and pulled me into the building. Stares followed us like spotlights.

‘I said some shitty things to you last night,’ she said, not looking at me. ‘You know we don’t see you as a charity case, right?’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said, with conviction I didn’t feel.

‘Okay, good. I don’t want to be one of those horrible people who don’t even know their own
privilege, you know?’

‘Sure,’ I tried.

I tugged her hand to get her to stop beside my locker, and I popped the door open.

‘So let’s forget it?’ she said, hopefully, and I melted.

‘It’s forgotten,’ I said. ‘Like it never was.’

‘Good,’ she sang, hanging off my locker door.

If only everything in life were that easy.

As I rummaged through my textbooks, I felt her come close to my ear, her voice low. ‘Listen, we could use your help with something.’

Despite everything, my skin tingled in that old familiar anticipation.

‘What is it?’ I murmured.

‘We’ve been trying to get Fen’s memory back.’

Oh, Jesus
.

‘We’ve tried every charm we know, and nothing is working,’ she said. ‘I said I thought it was because his brain had blanked it out on purpose, and he just …
lost
it with me. He just needs some kind of closure, you know? I keep telling him, look, you don’t really want to remember seeing your … you know,
drown
. How completely heart-stoppingly awful would that be? He’s so angry and devastated. He’s so …’

She stopped. In complete, panicking alarm, I could see her eyes filling with tears.

It wasn’t just Wolf they’d lost that day. Now they were losing Fenrin, too. Thalia was halfway to basket case. Summer was desperately trying to hold them all together, but they were tearing themselves apart. She needed me.

She needed me, and I needed to step up, and screw the consequences. I would take whatever was waiting for me at the end of this. That was what it was to be brave.

‘You were there,’ she said. I looked up at her, sick with sudden adrenalin. ‘I know you left and you don’t remember what happened afterwards, but you saw them together in the cove. I think you’re the missing piece. If we include you in the spell – maybe we could get
your
memory back, at least? Would that … would that be okay?’

Her eyes flashed past my shoulder, and I heard a voice behind me.

‘Yes, River,
would
that be okay?’

I’d know that drawl anywhere.

Fenrin moved around me, coming to rest beside Summer.

It was the first time I’d really seen him up close for weeks, and he looked, truth be told, kind of awful. It was easy to romanticise tragedy, like you suddenly transformed into some sort of Byronic hero, sitting
in darkened rooms with crystal glasses of whisky, hair tousled and artfully lank from all those sleepless nights staring at the walls and cursing the gods.

Fenrin looked a lot like he’d been doing exactly that. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with red. His hair had dulled to a dirty blond, and his skin was almost grey in places.

I stared at him, too shocked to speak.

‘Yeah,’ he said with a smile. ‘I look like shit, don’t I?’

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

‘So.’ He folded his arms. ‘I hear you saw us that morning in the cove.’

My eyes flickered to Summer. Her whole frame was tense.

‘Um,’ she said. ‘Well, I had to tell him, River. We tell each other stuff.’

‘We tell each other everything,’ Fenrin corrected.

‘You mean, apart from the time we did a spell on Thalia without telling her?’ I said. ‘Apart from the fox heart spell she did against Marcus without telling
you
? Apart from probably a hundred other things you guys hold back in your hearts like future ammunition?’

I hadn’t meant that to come out. I had meant to think it, not say it.

‘Well, well. You’re so eloquent when you choose to
be, aren’t you?’ said Fenrin, sounding amused rather than angry. ‘Don’t stop now, let’s just get it all out in the open. So you saw us. Wolf and me.’

He wasn’t even bothering to keep his voice down. Curious looks were tossed our way.

What was I supposed to say?

‘Go on,’ he goaded. ‘What did you see?’

His feet digging in the sand. Wolf’s hands on him, holding him down. The way their jeans were dragged down past their hips.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, my cheeks heating.

‘Did you see him die?’

‘Fen,’ Summer warned, his name a humming sound in the back of her throat.

‘Did you?’

‘Of course she didn’t. Leave her alone.’

‘Summer, I love you, but kindly fuck off,’ Fenrin said calmly, and her mouth snapped shut, her eyes hurt. ‘So you don’t remember anything about what happened?’

There was a crowd gathering, listening in. I could feel it round the edges of me.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I stammered out.

Where was the Fenrin who used to pull me to his chest and whisper secrets in my ear, who did a spell with me in the woods to save his sister, to save his
family? Who laughed and flirted with me as easily as breathing? There was no trace of him in this glass-eyed boy. This boy who looked one step away from an awful precipice.

‘You’ve been avoiding us,’ he said. ‘It’s been weeks since you’ve come to the house. Summer said you could barely talk to her on the phone, but at least you talk to her. When you pass
me
in the corridors, god, never mind talking, you won’t even look at me. Why?’

My gaze slid to Summer. She was stricken. Stricken but mute. However reluctant she was about how this was playing out, she was not going to stop it.

I guess I understood that. I would always come in second to them.

‘I just … feel bad,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Do I need to spell it out? Because of Wolf. I liked him,’ I whispered, and the awful truth of it hit me. I
had
liked him. Sullen, intriguing, unexpectedly kind Wolf.

‘So did I,’ Fenrin said, nodding. A horrific understatement. How could my pain compare to his? ‘Which is why I’m like this, River, I think you can get that. And I think you know why I’m pushing you. Because I think I know why you’ve been avoiding us. You
do
remember, don’t you?’

I was a maddened, fluttering moth, trying to
escape, attracted back to the burning light, trying to escape, back to the light, away, back.

I hadn’t prepared for this. It should have felt momentous. My full confession. Here they were, waiting for me to speak the truth at last, and all I could feel was the burn at the back of my throat that told me I wanted to be sick.

‘Yes,’ I said, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Summer recoil.

‘What did you see?’ said Fenrin, his voice flat and calm.

‘I saw you there, both of you, in the cove. And you were so close to the water’s edge, but he was closer. You’d left him behind and you were coming up to me, to talk, maybe to explain. I don’t know. And this wave …’ I swallowed. ‘This wave, it came out of nowhere. It came and it knocked him off his feet. Then he comes back up, and for a second I think it’s fine. But it’s not. Because before he can get out of the water, another wave comes, bigger than the first. And it rolls over him. And when it pulls away, he’s gone. He’s just gone.’

‘Oh my god,’ said Summer, and her voice was tearful. It tore at me.

Fenrin put his arm around her and hugged her to his side. His voice, when it came out, was low and vicious.

‘Did you know that his parents don’t believe the police? They think he ran away. They think he’s still alive.’ Fenrin’s eyes half closed, as if he was in pain. ‘I thought he was still alive, too. Even though I knew, the more time went by, that it was impossible. Every day I’ve been waiting for him to come back. You could have saved us that.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Summer choked out. ‘Why would you keep that from us?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Panicking, I ran through explanations in my head – but there was no reason I could give them that would save this. ‘Everything was so messed up. And with the police – none of you remembered anything except me, so I figured it was best if I didn’t, either. It would have looked weird if it was only me that remembered, and I was there when it happened. I was scared. The whole thing was so … it all happened so fast.’

I was losing them. I could see it. I was powerless to stop it.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Fenrin shook his head. ‘It’s too late for that.’

I watched him walk away, Summer pressed against his side.

I watched them walk away from me, and did nothing.

I found the first one hanging from the handle of my locker.

It was a tiny doll made of sticks of wood, no bigger than my thumb, a shapeless piece of orange cotton wrapped around it like a dress. Little black daubs for eyes. A piece of string around its neck, the other end tied to the locker handle like a noose.

At first I thought it might be a bizarre gift from Summer. A secret message of some kind.

It was a message, but not a good one.

Then I came into form room one day and found the chair I always sat on wrapped tightly in reams of black ribbon.

I knew exactly what that one meant.

Every morning, in those few nothing seconds before I woke up properly, my life was a blank slate, and I was just a girl with everything before me. Then
I remembered the way things really were and I started to feel sick.

My mother’s way of noticing was to ask me again if I needed to go back on the meds I’d been taking just after Dad disappeared. I didn’t have the strength to get angry with her – I knew it was only her way of trying to help me. I told her no. I didn’t want to shut everything out like I had back then. Maybe it was dangerous, but I wanted to feel this, every minute of it.

She didn’t press. She never pressed. I couldn’t stop going to school, though – she worked nights now, which meant she was in the house during the day, and there was nowhere in this tiny, claustrophobic town to go without running the risk of being spotted cutting classes.

Every morning I walked up to the school gates, as late as I could make it without getting into trouble, so no one would be there to start whispering when I went past. I went to my locker, scanning for a telltale flash of colour or a shape that meant something had been stuck to it or hung from it. More often than not nothing was there. That was the worst thing about it. They were so irregular I could never know when I’d find something, so every minute of every day was spent drenched in expectant dread.

I tried to pass Summer notes in the classes we took together, like before. The first one I watched her read,
then screw up and drop on the floor where anyone could pick it up, like there was nothing I could say that deserved to be private. The next couple I left in her locker. I never got anything back from her.

Twice after school I made the trip to the Grace house. If I just turned up there, she’d have no choice but to see me. And maybe the sight of me would click together comfortably in her head, reminding her of all that had gone before, all the things we had done in that place together, how
well
I fitted in there – all that was too good to throw away.

The first time I got to the top of their lane and then turned back, nervous. The second time I got as far as the front door before suddenly realising I was drenched in sweat, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. Rather than keel over on their doorstep, I retreated, pulling my phone out, fumbling. My thumb hovered over the 9 button. But as soon as I reached the top of their lane, I was all right.

I felt like eyes watched me walk away. I clutched my phone tightly all the way home on the bus, but the feeling had gone, and I was too afraid of my own treacherous body to try again.

At lunch, Summer was either completely surrounded at a crowded table, or she wasn’t even in the cafeteria, outside on the courts or anywhere else.
On those days she was obviously in the copse, and I always noticed the people missing along with her – Gemma, Lou, Niral – though Niral seemed to be ill a lot at the moment, off school here and there.

For a second, I let myself feel shamefully triumphant about that – maybe my spell was finally working. But a binding didn’t make people ill; it just stopped them from doing what you wanted them to stop doing. Niral was likely spearheading this entire campaign against me – the goddamn mastermind of it. She often stared at me in the corridors, nudging her friends as I walked past. Once I saw her near my locker. She caught sight of me, stepped back and disappeared round a corner fast. When I got there, the dial of my padlock was covered in some kind of oil. I was too afraid to touch it, and had to make do without my textbooks for the rest of the day. Her illness was total coincidence, the universe mocking me. My spell on her had failed. My spell on Fenrin had failed. Our attempts to break the curse had failed.

I would never be a witch.

A crow feather placed carefully under my chair in history class.

Clove rubbed into my coat so it stank of it for days.

Broken eggshell pieces poured into the open slot of my bag when I was turned the other way.

A twisting symbol scrawled onto my locker with a Sharpie.

Every single thing was a form of warding, binding, protection.

Protection against me, not for me.

I waited for a tingling sensation, or something like mild suffocation, something that would tell me their charms were working. But nothing like that ever came. I had bad dreams, but I’d always had bad dreams, and I couldn’t honestly say if that was them or me.

I started incessantly calling the Grace house. I couldn’t stop myself. If they’d just let me explain.

But no one ever answered.

The noise woke me from one bad dream into another.

That wasn’t my mother’s voice. It was all smooth, with sweet notes.

And there – a man’s low burr, words indistinct.

I cracked an eye open and peered at my alarm clock. Mum had work friends round sometimes, but it was early Saturday morning, which seemed like a strange time for a visit.

Or maybe it was the police again. Maybe the Graces had told them that I’d lied about what I remembered.

Adrenalin got me upright and dressed in a matter of seconds.

I crept down the stairs.

The kitchen door was shut and the voices were muffled. I hugged the wall, straining to hear. No good. I didn’t have to wait long, though. Before I could rabbit back up the stairs, the door opened and Mum poked her head out. She caught sight of me and her mouth shut. She’d been about to yell for me, it looked like.

‘Oh, you’re up, are you? You’d best come down here, then.’

She disappeared back into the kitchen. I left the bottom step and stood just outside the door, heart kicking and kicking. It was quiet. Very quiet. What was I walking into? Scenarios buzzed anxiously through my head. Not one of them prepared me for who it was.

Esther and Gwydion Grace were sitting at our rickety kitchen table.

I stood in the doorway, cycling fast through surprise, fear, wariness.

‘Hello,’ said Esther pleasantly. ‘Late night?’

I regarded her. She shone, luminous, in the dull light of her surroundings. Her hair was loosely wrapped in a thick trail down her back. She seemed the same. But how were you supposed to be when someone close to your family had died? Crumpled, maybe? Something? Gwydion looked like he’d walked straight out of an ancient forest fairytale and had been
persuaded into normal clothes to blend in. There was a plate of biscuits on the table, and they both had mugs of dishwater-coloured tea in front of them, big thick mismatched mugs that didn’t fit with their supple, fine-boned hands.

I glanced at my mother. The Graces seemed perfectly content to sit and say nothing, but that wasn’t her way. Perhaps they’d figured that. She fidgeted, clacking her pink nails on the tabletop.

‘Well,’ she said brightly. ‘We’ve been talking quite a bit while you were sleeping, haven’t we?’

‘We have,’ said Esther.

I would give them nothing until I knew what their game was because it couldn’t be anything good.

‘We’ve been talking about you and Esther and Gwydion’s family.’ Their names sounded so thick and jerky coming out of my mother’s small mouth. ‘About everything that’s happened. And we think maybe it’s a good idea, right now, to be giving them a bit of space.’

‘What does that mean?’ I said.

Esther’s cat eyes were cold. ‘It means that we are grieving over Wolf right now. Our hearts are broken. Summer and Thalia and Fenrin, they need some time away from everything.’

‘I’m not stopping them from that.’

‘Oh, honestly,’ Mum snapped, growing red. ‘Put
a lid on the backchat for once, please. You’re not doing well. You’re bad for one another. After what’s happened … I’ve had letters from the school, too.’

I went still. Most of me didn’t care, but there was still a hushed, secretive bit of my soul that wanted to be the normal, popular girl who got great grades, the one people liked. That one was going to do well in life and make her parents think she was such a lovely girl. They’d smile when they talked about her. You could long for something you’d never been, even if you would never know the real shape of it.

‘I know you’ve enjoyed spending time with Summer,’ said Esther, her voice soft. ‘And I’m sure that what happened to Wolf has been hard on you, too, so I’m sure you understand. There’ll be no more wild parties. Everyone in my house has spent too long being given free rein to do what they like, and I don’t want them to end up like Wolf. You need to stop calling the house every day, and you need to stop coming round.’

‘You’ve been calling their house every day?’ Mum’s face was creased with a dismayed frown. I was silent. Sides had already been chosen before I walked in. I didn’t have a chance.

Maybe that was why I said what I said next, the last sting of the bee before dying.

‘Is this about the curse?’

The hit I’d scored flickered across Esther’s face.

‘Excuse me?’ she said.

‘The curse. The one about how if a Grace witch loves a non-witch, one of them dies or goes mad. I mean, that’s part of why you’re so obsessive over their private lives, isn’t it? You don’t let them go out. You don’t like them having friends that aren’t one of you. You never let people stay over at the house. You interrogated Summer about me because she dared to invite me over to watch films. I mean, it was just films. What did you think we were doing?’

I felt a hand grab my arm. ‘Stop that,’ Mum said, shocked. ‘You can’t talk like that to them. Apologise right now.’

I wouldn’t. Not to her.

‘Apologise, young lady!’

It was demeaning, seeing my mother flap in their presence like this. Beauty. Glamour. Money. They all weighed heavy on the room, sucking the air out of it until you felt like you had to breathe double time just to stay upright.

Esther held a hand up. ‘It’s quite all right,’ she said mildly. ‘She obviously needs to talk. Please, go on.’ She directed the last at me with a little smile, as if there was nothing else I could say now that would affect her.

So I damn well tried my hardest.

I folded my arms, holding myself together. ‘You threw Marcus out of your house, and you terrified Thalia into cutting him out completely, making her miserable and driving him crazy because he’s in love with her. That’s not a curse. That’s just cruel. Your cruelty is her cruelty now. She’s learning from the best.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve been told—’

I ploughed on over her. If I stopped now, I wouldn’t start again. ‘They don’t have to tell me, I’ve
seen
it. I’ve seen how Fenrin could never even show anyone that he loved Wolf. They had to sneak around behind everyone’s backs because they were afraid—’

‘Because he
knew
it was wrong!’ she hissed, suddenly. ‘He knew it was—’

She stopped. But it was too late because I could already see the word half-formed on her mouth: disgusting.

She thought it was disgusting.

She sighed. ‘And I suppose it was Summer who told you all of this? What else did she tell you?’

‘Why does it matter?’ I shot back.

‘Because you’re not a Grace, so how could you possibly understand us?’ Her voice was tinged with a sickly kindness. ‘You’re not like us. You’ll never be like us. You want to feel special, don’t you? Well, here’s the ugly truth – some people are ordinary. The best of them
at least have the intelligence to know it. Be a little more mature. You already have a place in the world, and it’s here, with your mother. You don’t belong with us.’

Esther sat back and folded her arms. Her jewellery tinkled.

‘I wasn’t sure we needed to do this,’ she said. ‘But I’m worried for you, River, and for Marcus. You’re both very sensitive individuals. We’ve been discussing it, and we think the best course of action would be to take Summer and Thalia and Fenrin out of school.’

‘What? You’re going to homeschool them?’

‘No. They’ll be going to boarding school, away from here. Of course, Thalia and Fenrin only have to finish the year and pass their exams. If they do well, they’ll be taking a year out to go travelling together abroad. Summer will stay at her cousins’ in the city at weekends and board at her new school during the week.’ She gave me a sympathetic head tilt. ‘You won’t be seeing them any more.’

For a moment, I was struck dumb.

‘You can’t …’ I swallowed away the crack in my voice. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Of course we can.’ Gwydion’s voice was matter-of-fact. ‘We do what’s best for our children. Your mother will understand. So will you, one day, when you have children of your own.’

‘I’m sure you can make some new friends,’ Esther remarked, taking a biscuit from the plate in front of her. ‘You seem like a nice girl. Maybe even a boyfriend? I hope you like surfers – we tend to have those in abundance around here.’

She dropped me a wink as if we shared a secret and took a bite out of the biscuit. I felt a panicking fury like vomit in my mouth. I wanted to run. I wanted to hit back. Anything not to feel this yawning black hopelessness that told me I offered nothing, that I was nothing, and always would be until I was dead.

Some people are ordinary.

You don’t belong with us.

‘Esther,’ said Gwydion, leaning towards her.

Her beautiful face had gone bright red. Her throat shuddered.

‘Esther.’

Her chest tried to heave. She gripped at her throat.

‘Oh god, she’s choking,’ Mum breathed. ‘Water, let me get you water!’

Esther struggled. I was sinking in horror.

This was not happening.