The Graces (7 page)

I didn’t even realise when the film ended – Summer had an uncanny knack for voices and had us in stitches recreating the villain’s lines. We were drunk. We were drunk together, and it was the best feeling in the world.

‘Food break!’ Thalia announced, standing up. ‘I’m going to get the cookies.’

‘And I need the … well, you know.’ I made my way out.

‘To the left!’ Summer shouted cheerily behind me. ‘To the left, to the left!’

I waved my hand behind my back. It had gone so dark outside, and there were no hallway lights on. Thalia slipped past me and raced down the stairs like a ghost in the dimness, her feet almost noiseless on the wood. I crept along and found two empty bedrooms. The third room was a toilet.

I locked the door firmly and stared at myself in the mirror.

I looked all right.

It was going well.

I repeated this to myself several times until I could almost believe it. I ran my fingers underneath my eyes, cleaning up the makeup that had smeared. I washed my hands twice with this odd, lumpy bar of soap that smelled of the sea. Maybe it was from Esther’s shop.

I couldn’t face going back into that room, not quite yet, so I crept down the stairs to the first floor. I just wanted to explore a little. It was a big house. How could I ever know it if I didn’t look at everything in it?

Summer’s bedroom was on the far left. The next door along hid a bathroom dominated by a sunken plunge bath tiled in foggy blue glass. Another bedroom after that – it was grown-up and beautiful, filled with thick woven throws and rough-textured furnishings in natural colours. A spindly desk had open books scattered across it, and herbs in little clay pots perched on every available surface. The same gem parchment was on the wall.

Thalia’s room.

Next to hers was an emptier guest bedroom and then a study. I went inside, not daring to turn a light on in case someone saw. The light from the hallway would
be enough to see by.

It smelled old, warm and spicy. The study walls were covered in black lacquered glass-fronted cabinets. I itched to see and touch the objects inside. Reams of cardboard files jostled for space with pieces of crystal, a clock with glass balls that constantly rotated, trunks no bigger than shoe boxes with ornate iron hinges and tantalising keyholes. What secrets did they have locked inside them?

‘What are you doing in here?’ said a voice.

I jumped. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said into the dark, while my heart climbed up my throat and buzzed in my mouth. ‘I’m really sorry.’

A desk lamp came on. There, sitting in the chair, was Gwydion Grace.

I hadn’t even noticed his shape when I’d come in. He was sitting on his own in the dark.

Was he going to kick me out? Would he tell everyone? Drag me upstairs and out me?

‘I was just looking round,’ I said. ‘Your … your house is really beautiful, Mr Grace.’

He blinked at that and his eyes shifted away. It gave me space to look at him properly. He was pretty. Not handsome – pretty. High cheekbones, long slim nose. Summer looked like him. They had that curve to the mouth, that arrangement of face. His chestnut-brown
hair curled past his shoulders and was pulled back into a ponytail. His eyes were big and glassy.

He looked up at me. Sad. His eyes were sad.

‘You’re Summer’s friend,’ he said.

I waited. It hadn’t seemed like a question. He had gone silent, watching me.

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ I tried.

‘You didn’t know I was here.’

‘Well, you were sitting in the dark.’

That had been too much like a challenge. He leaned forward. ‘I think we both know who’s in the wrong here.’

I didn’t feel like squirming, though. Maybe it was the wine. I was drunk. ‘What’s the matter?’ I said.

He looked startled. ‘What?’

‘You’re here in the dark, alone. I thought maybe you were upset.’

He stood up. I felt like stepping back. I made myself stay still.

‘Why are you
here
?’ he asked.

‘Summer. Summer invited me.’

He seemed to consider this. ‘I’m surprised Esther allowed it.’

I kept silent.

He started towards the door.

‘Stick to the top floor, and drink your wine, and watch your films,’ he said at the doorway. ‘It’s nice to be young, isn’t it?’

I felt my held breath slowly hissing through my lips.

You have no idea what it’s like
, I thought.
How hard it is.

I think he knew that, too. The way he said it hadn’t seemed to indicate ‘nice’.

A part of me wanted to tell him that. He looked like he needed to talk to someone. Maybe I’d imagined it, though. No, I would give nothing away.

He left.

I gave it a minute. Then, cautiously, I slipped back upstairs. He had disappeared, and I heard a burst of laughter from behind the bedroom door, signalling safety. His eyes were in my head one final time, before I opened the door and the sight of Fenrin sprawled out on his bed slapped everything else away.

I wanted to run over, launch myself next to him, pretend to be a child, carefully uncaring of who else was there. Accidentally brush his leg with mine.

I didn’t.

They had just started the second film. Thalia was back and arguing with Summer over an actor’s name. I realised I was hungry and placed myself on the floor next to Thalia, reaching for the bowl of popcorn. At
some point, my glass was full again, and I didn’t know where all the wine was coming from, and I forgot to care.

We kept laughing, and I kept noticing how I tilted my head back so far I thought my neck would snap, and how much my stomach hurt. It felt so good. I knew if I were on the outside looking in at this night, I would ache so much to be part of it.

The second film finished. We’d switched all the lights off. Summer and Fenrin had changed places – she was now sprawled on his bed with sleepy eyes. He was on the floor, Thalia in between us.

I willed Thalia away with everything I had.
Please
, I thought silently.
Please go away.
A few minutes later, I got my wish. Thalia clutched her stomach, sitting bolt upright.

‘I think I need the bathroom,’ she announced and didn’t even wait for a response. Once she’d bolted out of the door, Fenrin and I looked at each other. He laughed and I followed suit.

‘Some people can’t hold their drink,’ he said, tossing a salted almond into his mouth.

‘Will she be okay?’

‘Oh yeah. She’ll chuck it all up and feel right as rain. Don’t worry, she’s used to it.’

‘Really? I didn’t think she was a big drinker.’

Fenrin paused, as if only just aware of what he’d said. He shrugged.

I leaned closer to him, using the bowl of nuts as my excuse. He stretched his head up to look over the bed.

‘Summer is out,’ he said as he relaxed back down and sighed. ‘Guess I’ll be sleeping in her room tonight. That place looks like a bomb hit it.’

‘We could carry her,’ I suggested, flushed with my new role as co-conspirator.

‘You try moving her. She weighs a ton when she’s asleep. And she does
not
wake up until she’s had her ten hours or whatever.’

‘Wow. I wish I could sleep like that.’

‘So do I.’

I kept my voice light. ‘Bad dreams?’

‘Sometimes,’ he said absently, staring at the wall. ‘Or, you know. I suppose I just … think about things too much.’

‘What kind of things do you think about?’ I asked him.

‘You know. Life. The world. The human race.’ Fenrin propped himself up on one elbow. We were close now.

Close enough to kiss, if he stretched.

‘The thing is,’ he said softly, ‘we’re all going to die.’

‘Yes.’

‘But the first time you really realise it … how do you get over that?’

‘Get wasted.’

We laughed.

‘You don’t, I think,’ I said, finally. ‘You never get over it. The rest of your life is spent knowing it, over your shoulder.’

‘Are you okay with it?’

‘No. But sometimes yes. And then no, again. Sometimes it’s okay. Like now. We’re drunk. We feel good. But tomorrow … life crowds in again. And then you find another way to block out the truth, just so you can get through the day. If we let ourselves see too much truth, it scares us. You have to block it out or you’d never get anything done. You’d just wander around being perpetually depressed or amazed.’ I paused. ‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t want to see the truth. It’s just that maybe we have to see it in stages to be able to understand it.’

Fenrin gave me a side glance. ‘Truth stages. I like that. I like the way you think. The way you talk. You’re not afraid of the truth. So many people are afraid of the truth.’

His eyes were glistening at me in the light of the television. He leaned back against the side of the
bed, and I copied him. As we spoke in low voices, life seemed to expand before us, the endless universe, filled with questions and dark mystery.

At one point, and he did it so smoothly – lots of practice, though I shoved that thought away as soon as it came – he put his arm round my shoulders, pulling my back into his chest, my head resting against his shoulder. His fingers dangled, brushing my skin, my collarbone. He did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. My lower belly squirmed.

‘What about your family?’ he said. We’d been talking about his sisters.

I tried not to tense. ‘What about them?’

‘You never talk about them. What are they like?’

‘Boring.’

‘It’s just you and your mother, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where’s your father?’

I hesitated. ‘He’s … he’s not around,’ I said. I couldn’t face talking about that, not with Fenrin Grace.

Block it out. Push it down into nothing.

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘Nope. Only child.’

‘That’s tough.’

‘Is it?’ I said, though I agreed with him. ‘Some people might say it’s easier.’

‘No. You might get what you want more than others, but it’s lonelier.’

In my belly, something turned and dug its claws into me, sharp. It was. It
was
.

‘Do you get on with your mother?’ he asked.

‘God, no. She can’t even stand to be in the same room as me.’ I laughed, trying to lighten my tone. ‘Not like you guys.’

‘Oh, sure.’ His voice was sharp.

‘No?’

‘What you see is not necessarily what you get with the Graces, my River.’

I smiled into the dark. Just two words.
My
and
River
. Amazing how just two words could change so much.

Silence. I wanted to ask more, but he came out with it first.

‘Ready for a truth stage?’ he said in an overly casual tone.

I felt him underneath me, his voice vibrating through my skull. I felt the weight of his arm and the conversation.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘It’s about why I never stick with one girl for long.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You’ll laugh.’

‘Only if it’s funny.’

‘Oh it is,’ he agreed, his voice a comfortable purr. ‘See, my family has this superstition. They say that if a Grace has a relationship with someone “normal”, then something bad will happen. It’s a curse.’

‘Someone “normal”?’

He said nothing.

Someone who isn’t a witch.

‘You’ve had lots of relationships,’ I tried.

‘You couldn’t call anything I’ve had such a long word. I’ve had fun. It has to be more serious and long-term than that, or it’s not a curse.’

His words were gently slurred around the edges.

‘They have these stories. These bullshit stories they’ve fed us ever since we were little. Great-aunt Lydia hanged herself because her “normal” husband went mad. A Grace back in Victorian times eloped with a farmer’s daughter – she ended up shooting him dead. My mother’s cousin, her husband killed himself the day after the wedding. A curse. You see?’

The drink fog had lifted slightly. ‘Those are true stories?’ I said.

‘Completely. Of course, whether they’re because of a curse or not is another matter. And those stories work on you. We believed them unquestioningly when we were kids. Then we grew up and derided them as
overblown crap. But they left their stain on us. There’s always a little part of your mind, right at the back there, the bit you keep locked up, that wonders
what if?
’

Silence descended. I didn’t know what to say. A curse. It sounded impossibly tragic, something that belonged to myth and legend rather than real life.

Fenrin laughed, a noise that cut the quiet. ‘It’s become so bad that my sister breaks up with a guy she’s known her whole life because of it, and then he goes psycho anyway, so now of course she believes in the curse implicitly because look, there’s the evidence. Never mind that maybe he’s just naturally unstable. Never mind he’s always had issues. Which she knows.’

Marcus. He was talking about Marcus.

Curiouser and curiouser.

‘Maybe that’s how it works,’ I said softly. ‘It makes you attract people who are already dangerous.’

‘That’s a pleasant thought,’ he replied, and his voice was just a little sharper than before.

I kicked myself, wondering how I could repair the damage. I felt him shift underneath me, and I reluctantly pulled away from his chest, my whole body shrinking crossly when the heat of him left it. I thought it was all over, that I’d ruined it, but then he spoke again.

‘Well, maybe you should tell my mother your theory. Then she might stop having affairs.’

I raised my eyes to his. His features were unreadable in the dark.

‘She’s having an affair?’ I said, astonished. ‘With who?’

‘Take your pick. At least three that I know of. They never last long. She makes sure they don’t.’ His voice was bitter. ‘Guess why.’

‘She’s afraid of the curse?’

He gave me a sardonic thumbs up. Had he drawn the parallel between Esther’s behaviour and his own? Of course he had. He was waiting for someone. Someone special – a witch who could withstand the curse.

‘Your dad – you think he knows?’

He shrugged, expansive in his false, drunk bravado. ‘He knows.’

I thought of their father sitting in the dark, alone. His pretty, sad eyes.