The Graces (5 page)

But it was too soon to play that hand.

Music shuddered against the rocks and mingled with the cracks of the bonfire. We watched as Thalia laughed and twirled underneath a boy’s arm, flamelight licking up the side of her.

‘She’s more fragile than she looks,’ said Summer, unexpectedly. The offer of an opening sanctioning my next question.

‘Marcus isn’t going to show up here, right?’ I said.

‘Nah, he wouldn’t.’

‘He’s not dangerous, though, is he? I mean, he’s just a bit obsessed.’

Summer sighed, upending her drink into her mouth.

I spoke as she drank, my voice dismissive. ‘Let’s not talk about it. It’s her business.’

‘Marcus …’ Summer paused. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

She glanced around, but the low roar of the fire and the rolling of the sea and the noise of the crowd kept our conversation private.

‘They were kind of together, briefly,’ she said to me.

My eyebrows crawled up into my hairline.

‘It wasn’t public knowledge. And now, people … they think what they want about the whole thing.’ She shrugged, as if to say,
what are you going to do?
Then she tossed me a glance as sharp as knives. ‘Don’t go telling anyone about this. It’s her business, like you said.’

‘No way.’ I shook my head. I meant it, too. Another test of loyalty. I could be trusted with secrets.

‘But then they broke up, and he wouldn’t leave her alone,’ Summer was saying. ‘He’s everywhere she is. He follows her around constantly, trying to get back with her. She hides it, but it’s making her miserable.’

I glanced at Thalia, dancing, giggling. You never knew what went on underneath the surface of things. You wouldn’t look at that gorgeous girl and think she had anything bad in her life.

‘Well, maybe someone should do something about it,’ I offered.

Summer shrugged. ‘Like what?’

But her face said she knew what I meant.

Lou and Gemma came bouncing up just then, shoving their gifts into Summer’s hands and talking
over each other. They’d both bought her music. The three of them shrieked about bands I didn’t know for a while, and my cup was empty, so I got up to refill it.

I’d managed to get one vodka mixed with orange juice out of my bottle, but now it was empty, so instead I had some of the fruity punch Thalia had made. It tasted the way spring flowers smell, and before I knew it, I’d had two cups and suddenly realised I was drunk-floating, that strange dislocation of feeling half outside of myself. Like my soul had detached its head from mine and I was watching everything with two sets of eyes, one of them under a time lag, as if someone kept accidentally pressing the pause button.

The adults were long gone, and I was talking to someone whose name I couldn’t even remember, and it was later but who knew by how much. The bonfire drew everyone to it, and there was music, and girls screaming and dancing. I kept losing jumps of time, floating back down into the present every so often. Drunk. I remembered I was drunk. There was a call for skinny-dipping. Girls shrieking like gulls. Running.

‘You gonna come?’ said the girl I’d apparently been talking to.

‘It’s freezing.’

‘So?’ She laughed. ‘We’re young and fucked up.’
And she was off, skating across the sand, pulling off her jumper to the sound of whoops at the surf’s edge.

‘Christ,’ I muttered, but I must have said it louder than I thought. I heard a laugh across from me, and there was Fenrin, glowing through the haze in my eyes. We were almost alone; most of the party had gone to watch the stripping, shrieking girls or to join them.

‘You don’t care about impressing people, do you?’ he said to me.

‘Oh, if only that were true. Then I could be all cool, like you,’ I said wryly and grinned, then I worried that the drink had slurred my words.

He made his way over to my blanket and sat next to me, leaning back on his hands with a sigh. Our fingers rested close alongside each other.

‘I’m not cool,’ he said to the stars.

‘Ah,’ I replied, wagging a finger. ‘Now it comes out. I’ve been waiting for this.’

‘I like you drunk.’ He smiled.

‘I’m not that drunk.’

‘You are. I can tell.’

‘How?’

‘You’re more relaxed. Not so walled up.’

‘Huh. Should I be offended or flattered?’

‘Oh,’ he said through a wide smile. ‘It’s a compliment.’

There might have been a pause then, but I couldn’t tell; I kept losing those leaps of time. Fenrin. Fenrin was talking to me. My body hadn’t yet caught up with the situation, and I felt no sickly flutterings. I felt funny and in control.

‘Summer’s been telling me all about you,’ he said.

‘Oh, really?’ I replied, nervous and pleased.

‘Really.’

‘What terrible lies has she told you?’

He laughed. ‘Summer never lies. She makes a point of it.’

‘What about you?’ I asked, with what I hoped was just the right amount of tease.

‘Oh, I lie all the time. Doesn’t everyone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You do, too, don’t you?’

I didn’t reply. I watched his fingers creep up and touch the winding turret shell dangling from his throat.

‘Why do you always wear that?’ I said.

He ran his fingertips over it, the kind of gesture that looked like he’d done it a thousand times. ‘It’s just a thing. Like a family thing. Each of us has an object. We chose them when we were kids.’

‘Like Summer’s amber bird,’ I said.

‘She told you about that?’

‘I guessed.’

‘Aren’t you the observant one.’

‘Is it like a magical thing, then? She was talking about channelling energy through objects, once. Is that your magical object?’

But my eyes finally caught up with my brain and I saw his expression. I’d gone wrong, somewhere.

‘You don’t actually believe all that stuff, do you?’ he said, with what was, I think, meant to be an easy smile. ‘You know magic isn’t real, right? Like unicorns and Father Christmas.’

I remembered what Summer had said – the rest of her family wanting to hide the truth about what they really were.

‘Oh, I know,’ I joined in, offhand. ‘Except fairies. They’re still real, right? Don’t go ruining my childhood, now.’

He laughed.

‘Fairies
are
real,’ said a girl called Clementine on the next blanket over, who had been making her way through a giant joint and looked almost asleep. ‘You just have to look hard enough. They don’t show themselves to impatient people.’

‘You’re both delusional,’ said Fenrin affably, and necked his drink.

‘If it were real, though,’ I continued. ‘Magic. What would you do with it? I mean, say you could make
anything happen. What would you make happen?’

He shrugged. ‘God, I don’t know. I’d make myself King of the Universe.’

‘It has to be realistic.’

He looked amused. ‘Oh,
realistic
magic. Well, why didn’t you say? I’d probably wish to be a shape changer, or something stupid like that. So I could spend as much time as I wanted being a dolphin or a whale or something, out in the sea. Leave all this behind.’

I glanced sidelong at him. He was the second Grace to talk about freedom to me tonight. Curiouser and curiouser.

‘How about you?’ he said to me.

Well, if we were going for truths between us …

‘I think I’d use it for vengeance,’ I said.

His eyebrows rose and he laughed. ‘Christ, that’s dark

‘To help people who’d been wronged,’ I insisted.

‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there’s a whole legal system for that.’

‘I’m not talking about, like, major crimes. I’m talking about the things people do to others on a daily basis, just because they can. The things they get away with. If you could use magic to stop people being hurt, turn it back on the bad guys …’

‘You’re talking about vigilantism. An eye for an eye.’

I shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t you ever be tempted?’

‘To go down the dark path? Black magic?’ he teased. ‘Nah. It would have to be a pretty bad situation for me to think that was a good idea. Those kinds of things always have consequences, and they’re almost never worth it.’ He paused. ‘But I can see why Summer likes you now.’

He grinned at me, and I shoved him.

Soon after that, Summer found us. She stood over us in nothing but soaking black jeans and a velveteen crop top that clung to her in heavy wet wrinkles, dripping onto the blanket, hands on her hips and her shoulders jerking with the cold. I was cracking up at something Fenrin had said when she spoke.

‘Don’t sleep with her,’ she said to Fenrin suspiciously. ‘She’s my friend.’

My laugh turned into a choking noise.

‘Try not to be crass, Summer,’ Fenrin said airily. ‘That’s more like something
you’d
do, not me.’

‘Jase was a mistake,’ she snapped. ‘I really don’t get why you hang out with him.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now,’ Fenrin replied. ‘He’s ignoring me.’

Summer deflated. ‘Sorry,’ she managed.

Fenrin shrugged, kicked her shin. She yowled and threw herself on him, her long hair showering us with freezing droplets. Jase didn’t matter, not really. Nothing came between the Graces, and you’d be stupid to try. Would I succeed where Jase had screwed up? Could I?

Maybe I could, because even Summer now thought Fenrin was into me.

Fenrin. Into
me
.

The spell was working.

It was edging into May, the weather was that perpetual rain-shine, rain-shine that made the outdoor courts steam, and Summer and I had now been friends for well over a month. People’s jealousy followed us around the school corridors like a bad smell, and I was getting more unsubtle attention than I could stand. It turned out that being under the wing of a Grace still didn’t make you invulnerable.

It started in form room, while the teacher, Miss Franks, called attendance. She said my name. Before I could reply, Niral stuck her hand up.

‘Miss,’ she said. ‘She’s not here.’

Miss Franks peered at me, trying to work out the game.

‘She’s right in front of me, Niral. I can see her.’

I was mute. I should have just come out with something quick and slick and wry, and it would have
broken Niral’s attack before it could really begin. But my throat closed up on me, betraying my body’s fundamental cowardice, its life mantra: better to be silent than stupid.

Niral’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You mean River?’

She looked at me.

The whole class was silent, soaking it up.

Miss Franks waited for me to say something, then cleared her throat. ‘Her name is not River, Niral.’

‘Well, that’s not what
I’ve
been told. I think she’s changed it.’

She. Her. They were talking about me and I still couldn’t speak.

Silence.

Everyone waited for me to defend myself. But I knew if I opened my mouth, it would come out wrong, or not at all.

Summer would have sighed, lounging on her chair. ‘You’re just jealous, sweetheart,’ she would have said. ‘I mean, your name means “calm” and you’re, like, a screaming clown. Your whole existence is one big irony.’

Laughter. Niral somehow smaller than before.

This scenario ran through my head while the room stared at me. I ducked my head down.

Miss Franks sighed. ‘Well, thank you for your delightful input, Niral, but I think I’ll stick with her given name.’

She moved on down the list.

I heard giggling.

I heard someone whisper,
‘Pretentious bitch.’

I sat outside in the last dregs of the afternoon light and read through the instructions again.

The chant was stupid. I’d flicked through my books for help, but I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t make me feel like an idiot saying it out loud. One book said you could make up your own chant, which fitted in with what Summer had said about magic – it wasn’t the words, it was the intent. The words just helped you form your intent. So I’d written my own, and in the dark of my bedroom at three in the morning, it had sounded shivery good. In daylight it was all wrong.

I picked through the objects I’d brought – a coil of black satin ribbon, a black clove-scented candle, and the picture of Niral I’d printed out from the array of photographs she had put online.

‘Boo.’

Startled, I dropped Niral’s picture and, caught by the wind, it skipped across the ground. Summer’s biker boot clamped it down with a jangle.

I clutched my stupid spell toys. Summer planted herself down beside me. She was dressed head to toe in black, and her legs looked endless in the skin-tight jeans she was wearing. I’d chosen a scrubby spot on the riverbank, a ten-minute walk from school. We were shielded by a few spindly trees, but right opposite was a supermarket car park, filled with people going to and fro with their shopping bags.

‘Why’d you pick this spot?’ said Summer.

‘You need a river, to carry the ashes away from you. But this was the only part of the bank I could find that was easy to get to. It’s stupid, isn’t it? Someone’s going to see.’

‘Even if they did, they wouldn’t know what you were doing.’

‘Bet they would,’ I said. ‘This whole town is obsessed with witches.’

With Graces, I wanted to say.

‘Come on, then,’ said Summer. ‘Get on with it.’

I frowned at her.

‘Oh please, you can do it in front of me. Why did you even ask me to come down here?’

‘So you could check I was doing it right. I don’t want to mess it up.’

Summer crossed her ankles, leaning back on her hands. Her hair was loose and the ends blew around
her arms. ‘It doesn’t matter
how
you do it, or what with. It’s your will that drives it. Remember?’

‘So if I used, like, a neon pink ribbon instead of a black one and vanilla instead of clove, it wouldn’t make a difference?’ I was trying to be sarcastic.

‘It makes a difference in the beginning, I guess. Certain things amplify certain other things. And you make those associations in your mind, you know? So: Red for love. Black for restraint. First comes ritual magic, with specific objects and tools to help you focus. Then channel magic, where you don’t use anything except one object to channel your will through. Then thought magic. Thought magic is just you. You change things with just yourself, your presence in the universe like a weight on a piece of string, bending it to your will.’

My heart began to thrum painfully in my chest.

This was the kind of knowledge I needed. How it worked. How to control it. How to actually
do
it. She spoke the language of the possible and it gave me hope.

‘So now I get why you wouldn’t tell me who the binding spell was actually for. It’s not polite to cast spells on your friends, you know,’ Summer remarked.

I looked down at the printout of Niral.

‘Are you joking?’ I said, coldly. ‘We’re not friends. She hates me.’

‘She’s just jealous. She doesn’t hate you.’

‘What could she possibly have to be jealous about?’

Summer grinned at me, but it was all jagged at the edges with apology. ‘I guess because we’re friends now.’

‘She didn’t like me before that, either.’ I held the picture up, rolled it into a scroll and started to wind the black ribbon round it with deliberate slowness, making sure each strip was touching the one before. No gaps. Screw the chant – I didn’t need it, did I? As I wound the ribbon, I silently asked the universe to shut Niral up so she couldn’t say one more nasty word about me.

Careful,
said a voice in me.
Just be careful. What if something really does happen to her?

Go away,
I told the voice.
She deserves it.

When the ribbon was knotted and secure, I placed the clove candle in front of me. A lighter appeared before my hand.

‘Thanks,’ I muttered. I lit the candle and held the dangling end of the ribbon over the flame until it caught. I let go of the whole thing, dropping it into the tin can balanced on the ground before me, watching the ribbon burn and fizzle, the paper curl to ashes.

When it was burned through, I took the tin can, slid down the incline of the riverbank, and crouched precariously, stretching out one hand to tip the ashes into the water. I would not look up. I would not see the
puzzled open mouths of the shoppers opposite as they wondered what on earth I was doing.

‘Do you even know why Niral goes after you like that?’ Summer said from behind me. She hadn’t moved.

The spell done, I pulled myself back from the bank and sat, copying her pose. ‘Who knows?’

‘Because you’re all impervious. You have this shell around you like no one can touch you. Like no one is as good as you.’ Summer saw my face and held her hands up. ‘I know, I know. But until people get to know you, you can seem a bit like that. And to someone like Niral, it just feels like a “screw you”, you know?’

‘It’s
not
a “screw you”. I don’t even want her to notice me. That’s why the shell.’

‘Don’t be angry, I totally get it. But Niral doesn’t because she’s all surface. She only sees that far.’

I sighed. ‘Logic or whatever.’

‘The truth hurts.’

I felt a splat on my neck. And then another.

‘Crap, it’s raining,’ I said. ‘We’d better go.’

But Summer’s hand was on my arm. Her slender black nails.

‘Wait,’ she said. Her face was suddenly animated, alive in that changeable way she had, flitting from emotion to emotion. ‘Wait.’

‘We’ll get soaked.’

She grinned. ‘So let’s. Stay here with me.’

I couldn’t say no. I was beginning to wonder if I could ever say no to anything she wanted. She didn’t have to come here. I was spelling one of her friends, and she didn’t have to be okay with that. She didn’t have to spend her time with me at all. But she did.

The rain poured down on us. All of a sudden it got violent, buckets tipping from the sky, drumming down so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I watched her kneel on the ground, her legs soaking up the wet. She still had my arm, and she shriek-laughed, and I wanted so much to be that carefree. Her face turned towards mine and her hair was stuck to her cheeks. I was laughing, too, uneven gulps that sounded more like choking.

The rain eased.

‘Hot chocolate at my house?’ she gasped out, water running over her lips in rivulets.