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Authors: Laure Eve

The Graces (9 page)

BOOK: The Graces
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I leaned against the railing, the wind rolling off the sea and streaming my hair back from my face.

My gaze jumped between the three surfers, each one popping up out of the waves every so often. They had a small crowd watching them, mostly girls, calling cheerfully to one another, fit to compete with the cries of the seagulls circling overhead. It was late afternoon on a Sunday, a pretty strange time to pick considering the tide timetable, but coincidentally perfect for drawing bystanders to the seafront, a rare tourist or two in the mix, shading their eyes and pointing them out with grins, clapping when they rode a wave even for just a couple of seconds.

I’d gone for a walk, hoping to accidentally run into a Grace. I’d caught sight of the surf crowd and wondered if Fenrin would be among them. He wasn’t, not today, but my house was empty and it made me
itch restlessly inside, so I lingered to watch them.

It was Jase Worthington and two of his friends. His new girlfriend, Seela, was among the crowd on the beach, waving and laughing. She had shorts on to show off her tanned legs, as if the cold didn’t even give her a moment’s pause. I watched Jase emerge, gasping, from underneath the water. Seela blew him a kiss.

I remembered him calling Summer a stupid goth bitch.

His friend Tom managed to crawl up onto his board and stood for several seconds, howling to the beach crowd, who responded with claps. A tourist not too far from me leaned against the railing and joined in, indulgent and eager for a show. Tom wobbled and then dived neatly back into the sea to prevent an embarrassing tumble off.

There was a time before moving here, a time I would have watched that crowd on the beach and hated them. Hated them because I didn’t want to admit that I’d have given anything to be down there with them, so carelessly accepted. Belonging. I couldn’t seem to get on with people who wanted so much to belong, but underneath that, I knew that I wanted it, too. Now, though, the hate was gone. Envying a group like that seemed pointless when you had the Graces.

Stupid carny fakers, Jase had called them, hadn’t he?

I’d grown tired of the whole parade, and I watched Jase come up again, bobbing and shouting, until something about the shredded note in his voice and the stillness rippling through the group on the beach caught me.

He wasn’t shouting any more. He was screeching.

Seela went down to the water’s edge.

The wind turned and I heard her. ‘Tom!’ she screamed into the sea. ‘Go get Jase! Something’s wrong!’

Tom turned, his head slick as a seal, catching sight of his thrashing friend. He dived for him, their other friend reaching them both a moment later.

Sea spray and confusion for long, long seconds. Heads bobbing up and diving down.

I watched them drag Jase out of the surf and onto the beach. As soon as his foot touched down on the sand, he squealed, piercing and sharp. Nearby gulls lurched out of the way and took off clumsily, panicking.

‘Shit,’ I breathed. ‘He’s broken his leg.’

‘It could be a shark or something,’ said a voice beside me, tinged with nervous fascination.

I glanced around.

It was Marcus.

He was gazing at the scene, his hands braced on the railing. The wind in my ears had covered his approach.

‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘Round here?’

‘Has someone called an ambulance?’

I pointed to the crowd. Several of them had phones in their hands. Jase was sobbing now, wobbling wails drifting across the sand.

‘Poor guy,’ said Marcus with a frown. ‘That’s bad luck.’

‘Yeah.’

He cupped his hands round his mouth. ‘Do you need any help?’ he yelled to the crowd.

Only one of them looked up, and when she saw who was shouting, she quickly glanced away again. Jase had disappeared beneath a knot of bodies. I felt Marcus watching me.

‘You look like you think I’m planning to stab you,’ he said. ‘I guess you’ve heard all the rumours about me.’

‘I’m pretty new,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know anyone well enough to make assumptions about them.’

‘And yet.’

This nettled me.

‘What do you want?’ I said.

‘Can I talk to you a second?’

‘What about?’

His voice was quiet. ‘Maybe stop acting like whatever I have is catching and just have a conversation with me?’

I shifted, awkward. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, I get why. It’s what happens.’ His face was open. It bothered him, but he didn’t try to hide it. That was brave. I hid everything I could.

You have good reasons,
whispered my coal-black voice.

Sirens floated to us from the distance. An ambulance was on its way. The crowd at the seafront had swelled, and I felt suddenly uncomfortable with so many people around, so many gawping vultures, and me standing there like I was part of them, watching the show.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here. The cavalry’s arrived.’

*

We walked away, back into town.

I resisted the urge to look at him as he moved beside me. Marcus inspired curiosity. Everything I’d heard implied he was crazy or dangerous, but he didn’t seem it, and I enjoyed that. More importantly he’d managed to catch a Grace, and I wondered how he’d done it. I wondered if he could help me.

I skirted past the entrance to the Mews and moved us into the rest of the town centre – what I now thought of as the normal, boring bit – wandering aimlessly along the tiny cobbled streets. I always tried to wear the thinnest, flattest shoes I had when I went into town because I loved the feel of the smooth rounded stones against my feet. They felt ancient and immovable, fixed points in time. People would flit over them, people would come and go, come and go. The stones would remain the same.

‘I heard you changed your name,’ said Marcus, as we walked.

I didn’t reply.

‘It’s cool,’ he said quickly. ‘I mean, people can call themselves whatever they want.’

‘You’re two years above me in school, right?’ I said, to change the conversation.

‘Yeah. Same year as the golden twins. Where are you from originally?’

‘City suburbs. Totally different from here.’

‘How come you moved away?’

I stopped. I would not be delving into my past with a stranger. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘It’s just conversation,’ he said.

‘Look. I feel like I should say that Summer kind of told me all about you.’

Something skittered across his face – an expression I couldn’t quite catch before it was gone. He glanced up and down the street. It was a grey, half-light kind of a day, and most people were holed up inside.

‘What did she say?’ He tried to look casual, but desperation stood stark on his face.

‘That you’re obsessed with Thalia.’

‘Yeah, yeah. That I’m a stalker.’ He snorted. ‘Oh good. How original.’

‘I don’t think I can help you get to her.’

‘That’s not why I’m talking to you,’ he said quickly.

‘Then why?’

He waved his hands defensively. He was all elbows and long piano fingers. ‘You’re new. There are things you don’t know, okay? You should be warned before you get in too deep. Trust me, I know what it’s like to get in too deep with the Graces.’

‘Oh really? How come?’

‘Because I’ve been best friends with them my whole life. Until recently.’

His black hair was lank, his face pleasant enough. He was pale. Average. If you were feeling generous, you’d call him interesting in a consumptive, vampirish kind of way. He seemed so normal, but I knew that outsides sometimes didn’t match insides. I watched him glance up and down the street again. We were next
to an empty café, its horribly cheery striped awning flapping sadly in the wind. It was a primary-colours, mothers-with-prams kind of a place. No one our age would be caught dead in it. He gestured.

‘Can we just, like, sit down inside for a minute?’

He’d played me well, I’d give him that. When he pushed open the door and disappeared inside without even waiting to see if I’d follow, it was because he knew I would.

Marcus bought us both hot chocolates with marshmallows floating on their thin surfaces. We sat in the back, tucked into a corner table and away from the street view.

‘You’re wondering why they’d be into someone like me,’ he said, without preamble. ‘We kind of grew up together. My dad used to work with Gwydion.’ He smiled at my surprise. ‘It’s not a secret. You’re new, that’s all.’

‘Were you friends with all of them?’

‘Fen in particular. But you know how it is. If one adopts you, they all do.’

I knew.

‘So what happened?’ I said.

Marcus looked away.

‘Summer told me that you and Thalia were together for a while.’ I was trying to be kind.

His head reared. ‘She told
you
that?’

He seemed surprised they’d trust me with such secrets already, and I couldn’t help feeling a little bit proud.

‘Why don’t you just tell everyone?’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t treat you the way they do if they knew you were actually involved with her.’

‘It’s not up to me,’ he muttered. ‘It’s Thalia’s business. I’m not about to stab her in the back like that.’

‘But—’

‘Look, I don’t care about the rumours,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me.’

The unspoken hung in the air. The Graces’ opinion was the only one that mattered. He remained loyal, maybe hoping it would eventually win their favour back.

Well, good luck with that, Marcus.

I remembered Summer maintaining a staunch silence in the cafeteria that day he tried to talk to Thalia in the lunch queue. They didn’t join in everyone’s mocking of him, but neither did they do a damn thing to curtail it. The power lay with them, but they didn’t use it. What did that mean? Were they punishing him? Were they crueller than I wanted them to be?

‘You think it’s stupid,’ he said, softly, looking
at me. ‘Are you going to tell everyone what Summer told you?’

‘Of course not,’ I began.

‘Why not?’

Because I don’t know you and I don’t owe you anything.

‘Because you feel the same loyalty I do,’ he finished for me. ‘Because that’s how they make people feel.’

‘They don’t
make
me feel anything.’

‘Please. They totally manipulate everyone in this whole town.’

‘How on earth would they do that?’

He licked his lips nervously. ‘You know. The witchcraft stuff. Black magic.’

‘You really believe in that?’ I said in my best poker voice.

‘Are you saying that after hanging out with them, you really
don’t
?’

I was silent.

He looked triumphant.

‘So what else don’t I know about them?’ I asked casually.

Marcus stared at the far wall, drumming his fingers on the table. Tap tap tapping. A lot of nervous energy wrapped up in that slim frame.

‘For starters,’ he said, ‘the Graces might be one of the most powerful families you’ll ever meet. I’m talking
about money. Old money, and fingers in every pie you can think of. Half the government has a connection to a Grace, somewhere down the line. I mean, it makes sense – the water witches are best at being charming and persuasive. Persuaders can become leaders, and make the right people change their minds about things—’

‘That’s kind of paranoid.’

‘Not really. That’s life, for rich and powerful people. You have no idea what they could do with a wave of their hand.’

‘Come on. They’re rich, so what? They don’t run this town.’

‘Yeah, they do. You just don’t see it yet.’ He laced his fingers together in his lap. ‘Fen and I used to talk about it a lot. He said being a Grace is like being in a cult. When you’re in it, you can’t see why anyone else would live or think or act any other way. It’s only when you start to surface that you realise how screwed up it can be.’

‘So, what? They brainwash everyone? They’re just that powerful?’

‘Why not? You’ve seen how everyone hangs on their every word, right? And they have all sorts of strange things going on, like arranged marriages with other families, just as old and moneyed as they are. They
treat their own family members like prize horses. And they treat everyone else like cattle. It’s so “keep it in the family”, and they hate anything that threatens that.’

‘Fenrin isn’t like that. Summer’s not like that. Thalia—’ I hesitated.

‘Fen is like that, actually, and it’s something he really hates about himself. Summer’s the same, for all she plays the rebel. Thalia, are you kidding? She’s her mother mark II.’ He sighed. ‘Cut her in half and you’d see “Grace” the whole way through. Like rock candy.’

I was beginning to see why people didn’t like Marcus. Why he had the ‘weird’ brand stamped on his forehead. He said things other people only thought in the privacy of their own heads, and he seemed utterly fearless about looking like an idiot for it. He knew what everyone thought of him and didn’t care.

I felt a grudging admiration begin to stir.

‘Even if I believed in your conspiracy theories,’ I said, ‘why are you telling me all this?’

His eyes darted to mine, quick, and then away. ‘Everyone in school’s been watching you for the last few weeks. Did you know that?’

I was silent, unsettled.

‘And they wouldn’t have if you’d just been another friend the Graces picked up, you know the way they do.’ He paused. ‘But they don’t have
best
friends. They
don’t ditch people in favour of someone else, the same someone else all the time.’

‘So?’ I managed.

‘So,’ he said, his voice wavering with amusement. ‘People don’t get how you did it. They don’t get you. Everyone’s afraid of what they don’t understand. And fear turns to anger.’

‘And anger leads to hate, and hate leads to the dark side.’

‘You can take the piss all you like. That’s how it works. You’ve stayed over at their house. Do you know how many people in school have done that?’

‘A few.’

‘None. No one since me.’

I felt a thrill scuttle down my spine.

‘So I felt like I should warn you, from one Grace reject to the next, what that’s actually like. Because it feels good now, but when you do something they don’t like, your life is going to go very wrong. And as soon as everyone else notices you’re out of favour, the rumours will start. To be shut out and rejected, when you’re not even the bad guy … you’ll see how it feels. It’s not
them
. It’s never them. It’s everyone else. While you’re friends with them, you’re under their protection, but as soon as they’re not into you any more, everyone else will punish you for being in with them. It’s just how it works.’

‘I know how bullying works,’ I shot back. ‘I’m not afraid of small, pathetic people who treat others like crap just so they can feel better about their own small, pathetic lives.’

Marcus studied me keenly. ‘No, I guess you aren’t,’ he said. ‘But these are not ordinary people you’re friends with. And this is not an ordinary town because of them. It’s just … it’s hard for anyone to see straight around them.’

‘But you do, I guess.’

‘I do
now
.’

Now he was on the outside.

‘Does this mean you’re not going to try and get back with Thalia?’ I asked.

His face dropped, hard. ‘That’s none of your business,’ he said flatly.

‘But it seems like you still love her, despite what you say.’

He had clammed up. Maybe he thought I was fishing for the Graces. I wasn’t, exactly – I was curious. Was he just going to passively sit around and wait for them to like him again, or was he going to do something about it?

‘Why did you guys break up?’ I tried.

He was silent.

A drop of suspicion began to bloom. ‘What did
you do?’ I said.

‘Still none of your business.’

He’d just spent the last few minutes trying to shroud the Graces in shades of grey, but what I hadn’t yet determined was just how innocent he was in all this. What if he’d done something awful? What was I supposed to think about all the bad things he’d said about them then? How could I find out more about the truth? There was that website, but …

Something clicked.

‘Hold up,’ I said.

He looked at me.

‘You said something about water witches. Persuaders.’

‘Right.’


You
made that website.’

His face changed.

I thought I was starting to understand Marcus. What a person chose to keep secret could tell you all you needed to know about them. What they showed was who they wanted to be. What they hid was who they actually were.

I leaned back, my chest growing tight. ‘Oh my god. That’s how it has all that private stuff on there about them. I knew it must have come from someone close to the family.’

‘It’s not private,’ he said. ‘Everyone already knows most of it.’

‘Including all the witch types and their symbols? All the anecdotes about family members? I’m supposed to believe they tell everyone about things like that?’

He was silent.

‘Isn’t that kind of like stabbing them in the back? You know, the thing you said you would never do?’

‘It was right after they turned on me,’ he muttered. ‘I was angry. And I wanted to warn people.’

But the website didn’t read like that. It read like someone who was in love with them, their danger and their secrets. I still didn’t know whether he wanted me to stay away from them or to use me to get him back in with them, but either way I wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to help me – he wanted to help himself. I didn’t hate him for it; it was just human nature, but I wasn’t prepared to be used like that. I had my own plan to worry about.

‘Look, I have to go,’ I said.

He looked up at me with a startled rabbit face. ‘Wait a second.’

‘I’m sorry for what happened between you guys, but it’s nothing to do with me, okay?’ I stood, backing out of the tiny corner he’d manoeuvred me into. ‘I can’t help you, Marcus. You just have to let it go. Just leave
Thalia alone. Leave them all alone. It’s better that way.’

His mouth opened and closed. I felt a little bad. But I wouldn’t jeopardise my friendship with the Graces because he’d screwed up his.

I turned and walked fast out of the café. Away, away, breathing a sigh of relief.

He was shouting at my back.

‘You think they won’t fuck you over, too? They will. They
will
.’

BOOK: The Graces
9.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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