Waywood

by Sarah Goodwin

  I pay for a can of Coke and a bacon sandwich as I’ve yet to eat anything and take it up the crazily leaning stairs to the upper floor, where the linoleum is sticky, but where it’s usually quiet. Chloe, Tasha and I have had a lot of bitching sessions up here, watching the people plodding past outside and making fun of whoever’d annoyed us that week at school. It seems so long ago now, I’m pretty sure the woman at the till doesn’t even recognise me.

  Chloe is sitting in our usual spot, looking out through a porthole she’s wiped clear on the steamy window. Her blond hair is even longer than it was when she went away, must have had time to get some extensions added. Her feet are tucked under the table in their new Nikes, and she’s fiddling with her gold ‘C’ necklace with one hand as she peers down at the street.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She jolts and whips her head around, then her eyes go wide, “Kayla?”

  “Yeah,” I go over and set my plate on the table, putting my can next to it as I sit down and pick up the ketchup bottle. “Sorry, I’m starving.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” she hisses, her tanned hand reaches across the table and grabs mine, her plastic nails graze my knuckles. “We’ve been worried sick. They even had an assembly at school, people are putting flowers outside the gates for fucks sake.”

  This is news to me. “My parents kicked me out.”

  “Well, they’ve been keeping that quiet,” she says, “I mean, I heard the police had been round there, so maybe the school got on to them when you didn’t show up. It’s been in the paper, everyone’s looking for you.”

  “Well, I’m fine,” I say, and can’t resist adding, “no thanks to Tash. I went round there the night they kicked me out for having all that weed in my room. She wouldn’t let me in. Said she reckons I stole stuff last time I was there.”

  Chloe’s eyes flicker and I remember then that I’d also taken money from her Dad’s wallet, plus a few Blurays that I’d traded with one of the guys who was dealing to me.

  “Anyway, she wouldn’t let me and you were still off on that sodding trip.”

  “So where did you go?”

  “I-” I falter, can I tell her? She’ll think I’m mad, or a total loser for buying into this witch stuff. Already the urge to please her, to stay on her good side has returned.

  “What?” she says, “are you sleeping rough?” her eyes almost gleam, the same way they do when she talks about other people’s breakups and pregnancy scares, that same pleasure in witnessing someone’s drama.

  “No, I...I have somewhere to stay, with friends.”

  “Friends?” she frowns, and I feel a smarting sting of anger. She doesn’t believe me.

  “New friends,” I say, and my anger prompts me to add, “friends who are there when I need them.”

  “Hey, I was on that trip, I didn’t even know about all this until I got back.”

  “But you wouldn’t have had me to stay even if you had been here.”

  She huffs like I’m being difficult on purpose. “Well, Mum and Dad might not have let me. Anyway, what’s the deal with these ‘friends’ - you’re dressed like a pikey stoner.”

  “I haven’t smoked since I got kicked out,” I say, realising it’s true as I say it.

  Chloe doesn’t look impressed, but that gleam is back. “Are you on the hard stuff now then? Like, what? Heroin?” I see her scope out my arms for needle marks.

  “I’m not on drugs. Jesus.” I pick up my sandwich and rip a bite out of it, feeling as usual like a hefty cow beside Chloe’s tiny body.

  “So what are they then? Are you hanging out with all the homeless piss-bags? Those old men and the scary women with the dirty hair? Can you even wash?” I see her eye my hair with some disappointment, as I’d glamoured it extra clean and perfectly styled.

  “I live in a house with some other runaways. They’re all our age, or a bit older, one dropped out of uni. But they’re all really cool.” I seize my chance to score a point on her, “and one of them, the guy that took me there, he really likes me. We’re going out.”

  I feel my heart sink into my stomach when she rubs my hand pityingly. “I read about guys like that in Company, they find some girl, like, a really needy one, and they pretend they’re interested until they can get them to go on the game for them.”

  I snatch my hand away from her. “That’s not it. Cray’s the best person I’ve ever met, and he’s a lot smarter and better looking than those twats you let in your bra after a few drinks.”

  “Well at least someone wants to get into my bra,” she gives me a tight, pitying look, “this Cray’s probably just happy you’ve still got teeth and occasionally rinse your pants.”

  “Yeah, well, at least he’s not a two-faced bitch,” I say, “you don’t give a shit about me, you only want the gossip. You’ve never given a fuck about anyone but yourself.”

  Her face turns scarlet under its cakey foundation. “Fuck you. You know what, you’ve probably got lice and...crabs! and I bet you’re on fucking heroin and you’ll get AIDS from that scummy pimp boyfriend and you know what, don’t come crying when you do. You’re such a fucking cow Michaela.”

  “My name is Stone,” I say, “and don’t call me selfish when the only reason you wanted to talk to me was so you could cash in on whatever horrible thing you thought had happened to me. You’re a gossipy bitch, Chloe.”

  “Stone?” she laughs at me like I’m a snivelling kid on my first day of school. “What the fuck are you even on?”

  “I’m a-” but the word ‘witch’ sticks in my throat like a bone, and I can’t get it to come out. I try again as Chloe looks at me with a wrinkle of disgust in her forehead. Still, I can’t say it. I stand up and grab my bag, breakfast forgotten. I just want to get away from her. This was a horrible idea.

  “Freak,” Chloe says, shoving her chair back and coming after me “Everyone at school’s going to hear about this.”

  I turn around and forgetting in that second that I’m a witch, that I’ve thrown rugby players into walls and spoken with a dark Goddess, I hawk up all my saliva and spit in her face. Then I’m away, down the stairs, through the café, I shove the door open and leg it across the street.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I take my phone out of my bag and shove it in a bin as I elbow my way past a group of tourists. All I want is to get to the bus station and get back to Waywood. I’ve been so stupid. Hadn’t I always known that Chloe and Tash weren’t interested in me, not really? They liked having someone to show off to, someone in awe of their expensive, cool things and their access to drugs and booze. They’d never cared about me one way or another. If it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t have been kicked out in the first place. They were the ones who’d steered me towards weed, who’d made out I was dull and stupidly shy without it.

  Tears sting my eyes. I want to go home. Home to Waywood and Cray, where I can be myself. There are so many students around, I feel like a stupid kid fighting against the flow of eighteen year olds, the cool Japanese students with their preppy clothes and Superdry jackets, best friends walking with linked arms, brightly coloured and grown up..

  Mum and Dad pop into my head. Was Chloe right, were people really looking for me? I suppose I should have known that my parents would tell everyone that I ran away. It would look really bad, for Dad especially, if anyone found out the truth. As I hurry to the bus station, determined to outrun the sore part in my chest where my faith in my friends had been, I think, for a second, about just running through town. I could be home, at my real home, in under an hour. It’s closer than the campus, closer than Cray. In town, surrounded by electric lights and the normal bustle of the high street, the Christmas lights already strung above me and the air smelling of coffee and exhaust, Waywood seemed like a dream.

  My steps falter, for a moment I stop in the street and consider taking the right hand turn towards home, rather than carrying on towards the big orange bus and Waywood. It’s only the thought that I can’t take my Mu
m slamming the door in my face that drives me to get on the bus back to campus. Weird as things are getting at Waywood, at least I know Cray won’t lock me out.

  The bus isn’t empty, but I huddle at the very back and cast the strongest invisibility glamour I can, blocking out sound and sight so that when I start to sob, no one hears me, or even looks my way.

  As I’m walking through the village, scrubbing tears away and miserably noticing the Christmas decorations that have already gone up in the windows of the cottages, Cray comes walking down the street to meet me. He’s wearing a grey t-shirt with ‘Drink Tea and Worship Satan’ printed on it and I’ve never been so happy to see him. Without realising that I was about to, I walk right up to him and put my arms around him, my face against his chest. He hugs me back, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

  “You weren’t around this morning, thought I’d check the library.”

  “I went in to town,” I say into his shirt.

  “Do you want to walk for a bit?” he asks and I nod, not wanting to face the others with my red eyes and snuffly nose. He puts his arm around me and we start to walk back towards the road, under the bare trees and over the wet leaves on the ground. He opens the gate for me and takes me down to our spot by the lake; the hidden jetty where the branches hang low and the water is dark, churned by flapping ducks and the paths of the swans.

  I sit on the boards with my legs crossed and my shawl pulled tightly around my shoulders. Cray sits next to me, legs dangling over the edge of the jetty, feet almost in the water.

  “What happened in town?” he asks after a while.

  “I checked my texts this morning, There was a new one, today. It was my...it was Chloe from school. She asked to meet me, because I’d missed so many calls and texts. So I went to the café in town where she was going to be,” my eyes blur and I know my face is scrunching up all blubbery and unattractive. “She was so horrible,” I hiccup.

  He puts his arm around me and I cuddle into his armpit, choking out sobs. It’s so humiliating and yet I can’t stop. Cray strokes my hair slowly while I cry my eyes dry. At last I let my heavy eyelids fall and bury my face in his shirt.

  “Whatever she said,” Cray says quietly, “it wasn’t true. People like that, people who pretend to be your friend when it suits them but don’t really care, they don’t tell the truth. They just lie, all the time, and convince themselves they’re being honest. But you’re special.”

  “I’m not,” I say. “I’m not, just because I know a few spells now-”

  “Not the spells. You. Not everyone can cope the way you have, not without becoming hard and sharp. Not everyone could believe the way you do, in magic, in...” he lets out a breath, “when I ran away I saw horrible things, I lived in wet, cold places and I never had enough to eat. There were violent, unpredictable people, weird people and it was scary. I had a very sheltered life before I ran away and it was hard. After going through all that, I didn’t think I could believe in anything, magic or love. But I do. I believe in our power, and I believe in you. I love you.”

  I look up at him, my heart motionless in my chest.

  “Worst timing ever, I know,” he says awkwardly, his cheeks flaming.

  “I love you,” I say, the words are a fishhook in my heart, the line attached to him. It’s painful but it’s a connection. It feels good somehow, wonderful even. I never imagined I could feel something so strong.

  Cray’s face lights up, the nervousness melting from his expression. “You do?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah I do.”

  He kisses my wet cheek, then my lips, his mouth gentle and chilled by the wintry air. Kissing him is like hiding away in my warm bed, safe and comforting, but it sends a thrill up my spine like smoking for the first time, or lifting a bottle of rum from the off-licence. For a while I let myself get caught up in him, feeling that fishhook tug at my tender heart with each touch of his hand on my face, his lips against mine.

  “I just wish I could see them,” I say after a while, when we’re lying on the boards, his hand in mine.

  “Your parents?”

  “Mmm,” unhappiness wriggles in me, rotten and full of maggots, “I keep thinking, if they saw me...it’s been a while, maybe they’ve forgiven me.”

  Cray is quiet, and I tip my head up to look at him. “What?”

  “I went back, to my parents,” he says.

  I lever myself up on my elbow, “When?”

  “A few months after I ran away...I said I saw things. One of them was a friend, at least, he was my age and we slept in some of the same places some nights. He said his name was Rally. He was an addict. Every night I saw him he was sniffing spray glue or anything else he could get his hands on. He’d spray it all out into a bag and huff until he passed out. It bothered me, but, I wanted him around because he knew what was what – he knew where we could get the best thrown out food, where was safest to sleep and I didn’t know any of that. But it was winter and...” Cray shudders and I squeeze his hand, “he passed out one night and when I woke up in the morning he was practically frozen solid. His fingers were all black, and his eyes were open, all frosted over.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I took my stuff and I went all the way home. All I wanted was to get into their house and hug my Mum and take a hot bath. I wanted to forget seeing Rally like that. But, when I got to the house they weren’t there,” he swallows thickly, “they were on holiday.”

  “Cray...”

  “They uh...they went on holiday, the holiday they’d booked for just before they were dropping me off at boarding school. Our last family holiday and they went without me. I’d been missing for two months. That was all. It was a lifetime for me, not being able to sleep without someone stumbling over me or a policeman shining a torch in my face. Not having enough to eat, my feet always wet, always cold. I hadn’t washed properly in eight whole weeks...they had everything and they left anyway.”

  A bird screeches out on the lake. The grey day’s drawing in and everything’s fuzzy with shadow. Pinprick lights show across the water, the stars fading in against the blue-ink sky.

  I touch Cray’s face, and in the half-light under the trees he looks grey, feels as cold as a stone. His face is wet.

  “I haven’t told any of the others,” he says, “after I saw they were gone I came back to the city, moved around Bristol for a while, then I met Ilex and he brought me here. If he hadn’t...being on my own like that was the worst thing I’ve ever gone through. All I saw when I closed my eyes was Rally. I should’ve-”

  “You couldn’t have helped him,” I say quietly, “trust me. My Dad kept on at me about the drugs, but I didn’t listen. You can’t make someone listen to you.”

  “I could now,” he says, sitting up, “I could look at him and tell him not to do it anymore, and he wouldn’t. Just like that. I could...if he’d had another few months he would have ended up here. He would have been safe, if only I’d...”

  “You were a kid,” I say, “and your parents were bastards, they don’t deserve you. If they couldn’t see everything you were before you got your power, they don’t deserve to know you.”

  “I didn’t say any of that to keep you from seeing them.”

  “I know.”

  “I just wanted to tell you.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “Tomorrow we can go see them. Or if you want to go on your own, that’s OK. We can go to the bus stop now-”

  “It can wait,” I say, moving closer and using the tail end of my scarf to wipe his cheek, “let’s go home.”

  We pick our way around the lake in the growing dark. The path home is almost invisible and we stumble along, almost blind with no street lamps to guide us. Cray’s hand never leaves mine and it’s just like the first time we came to Waywood, only now I’m leading him. I’m showing him the way.

  There’s a fire in the garden, I see it from the kitchen window as Cray and I hang up our things. Chronicle and Campion are stretched ou
t on a blanket, playing with one of the old board games. Ilex is flicking sticks into the flames, Nara huddles in a garden chair with a book on her knees.

  “I’m not really up for seeing them,” Cray says, already looking towards the stairs, “I might just...”

  “Do you want me to come up?” I say, feeling my face go nuclear only seconds later. “I mean, just to talk a bit, not-”

  “I didn’t think you meant anything by it,” he says, “but if you don’t mind, it would be nice.”

  “OK.”

  By some unspoken agreement we head along the landing to the bathroom, where Cray takes out his lighter and starts picking pinpricks of light out of nowhere. The candles from my potion session quickly become a small forest of lights, most still cold and dead but a few on the sill and in the sink shining in the dark.

  From the girls’ room I bring my mattress and Cray brings his. We make up a bed on the bathroom floor, over the painted circle. Our sleeping bags and cushions, blankets pooled haphazardly, Cray doesn’t bother changing, or even glamouring his clothes into pyjamas. He looks exhausted. There’s an awkward moment as I get into the bed next to him, my heart going like a heavy baseline in my chest, but he puts his arm around me and I snuggle close. The bathroom smells like herbs and dust and candle smoke.

  “Do you know how easy it would have been, for us to miss each other?” Cray says after a while. “If I hadn’t left home, if Rally...I never would have found my way here. And you, there are so many ways it could have gone. It makes me scared to even think it.”

  “Well, I’m here,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I don’t go and see my parents, not the next day or the day after.

  The bathroom becomes our room, officially; aside from our bed we move in our clothes and the few bits and pieces I brought from home, Cray’s decks of cards go on the little shelf over the sink, along with my pink jewellery box where I keep my magical tools. At night we sit on the mats and talk, or he lies with his head in my lap and tells me about tarot, about the art of cartomancy; telling the future with cards.