by Allyse Near
Edgar was the only one who thought to glance up at Isola’s window. She waved tentatively. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and pointed at it. She shook her head – Father had confiscated hers, claiming she needed sleep, not distractions, although she recognised it as a punishment, too.
It was dusk when Edgar contacted her.
She was hanging backwards off her bed, reading Brontë upside-down, when the flickering of his bedroom light caught the corner of her eye.
Letting her body slide off the bed and coil gently on the floor, Isola went to the window, hesitant at first, before throwing it wide. At once there was the sound of steel unsheathing and Ruslana appeared, her midnight-cloak swirling around her as she assumed a defensive stance beside Isola.
All was silent.
‘Isola,’ said Ruslana urgently. ‘What is it? What did you see?’
‘Nothing, yet,’ Isola replied, narrowing her eyes as Edgar’s light strobed frantically then flashed off. A sudden sound filled the night sky, a metallic whirring, and she spotted the dark silhouette of Cassio’s remote-controlled helicopter hovering over Number Thirty-seven’s satellite dish.
Isola gave a snort of laughter then covered her mouth; it would not do for Father to check on her now, not while the toy helicopter was floating drunkenly towards her window. A small package swung perilously beneath it.
Although obviously aiming for her window, the toy lurched upwards and landed on the roof. Ruslana went up to retrieve it as the darkness gathered, while Isola looked intently for the pilot. All the curtains of the Poe house were closed, however, and Edgar was nowhere in sight.
Ruslana brought the battered helicopter to Isola, who quickly untied the small package. Inside was a small, creased sketch of her – the bright, streaky face of pastel paints let her know it was based on her appearance at Edgar’s party the night prior.
There was also a short note.
Hey you!
How are you feeling? Believe it or not, Pip and I actually managed to clean most of the place up – and hid the broken stuff in the yard – so the ’rents weren’t too cranky when they came back from my nan’s this afternoon. But when Grape called and told us what had happened to you, Mum FLIPPED. She says I’m never allowed to have a birthday again, which means I’m stuck at 18 forever, I guess???
Anyway, I really hope you’re feeling better, and I’m sorry I’m a complete moron. I tried to visit, but now I just think your dad wants to kill me. Maybe I’ll send him a drawing too. I didn’t get the best look at his face, but I assume he’s just you with a beard, right?
– E. A. P.
P.S. I hope you like the bracelet! I thought it might make you feel better, especially if you got one today that matches. You can wear them like warrior wristbands or something. I have, like, a hundred so I won’t miss it.
Inside the envelope Isola found a slim, plastic hospital bracelet; Edgar’s name was printed on it, along with his birthday and date of admission. It was from the year before, at the Our Lady of Immortal Heart Hospital.
‘Must be from his transplant operation,’ she said wonderingly, buckling the indentification tag around her left wrist.
Ruslana smiled at that. The Fury was serious and stoic and rarely smiled, but when she did it was stunning, a wonder of the world.
Isola played with the hospital bracelet as she described to Ruslana the feeling that overcame her.
‘I don’t know what made me do it. I mean, did I want to kiss him? Do I still want to? Was it because I’d been drinking or I was still upset about her and those birds and I wanted comfort?’ She hesitated, wondering if she’d sound mad, like Mother, if she went on . . . But she could tell Ruslana; the Fury would not laugh. ‘But it felt like . . . like I heard her, in my head.’
‘Heard who?’
‘Florence. I’m worried that she’s . . .’
Ruslana fingered her jewelled scabbard and sat on the end of Isola’s bed. ‘Don’t waste an ounce of worry on that monster,’ she growled. ‘She may have got through old man Furlong and Rosie, but she won’t get past me.’ A muscle in her cheek worked furiously, as though she were trying not to cry.
Isola reached out to gently stroke the Fury’s long black hair. She knew why Ruslana treasured Rosekin and her kind – tiny creatures who came from an all-female race, who never had to worry about death at the hands of their men. To protect was Ruslana’s natural instinct, and it betrayed her compassionate nature, which was hidden so carefully in her stoicism.
Ruslana turned her face away, and Isola respectfully averted her eyes, letting the Fury regain her emotional equilibrium. She traced the ringed bruising on her knee that she’d noticed earlier and frowned. How could she explain? Florence hadn’t been near her . . . Florence had been inside her . . .
‘Was it a good kiss?’
Isola sighed. ‘Wonderful.’
‘That boy’s Jack the Ripper, baby.’ Isola looked sideways at her, nonplussed, and Ruslana tapped her innocently on the nose. ‘It means he’ll take your heart.’
Isola nodded, looking back to the small sketch the boy across the street had made. A glitter-crusted lock of hair fell over her face and she shook her head, trying to dislodge the pink sparkles.
‘Hold on, princess.’ Ruslana steadied her head, her breath caught on the sharp edges of her lips. ‘Rosekin.’
‘What? Where?’ Isola craned her head, looking about the room for the familiar pink bubble.
Ruslana brushed her long nails through Isola’s ringlets, collecting a smattering of electric-pink dust. ‘This is Rosekin’s faeriedust,’ she said in a low voice as she opened her palm for Isola to inspect. ‘I’d recognise her shade anywhere.’
Her razor lips were shaking now; Isola pretended not to notice. ‘They never give their dust to anyone, not even Nimue children like you. It’s said to have the power to heal the good and kill the wicked.’ Ruslana rubbed the tiny amount of dust into Isola’s hands before clamping them closed. ‘Use it wisely, princess.’
Sex, Drugs and Grape Tomoyaki
Father was still home when Isola went downstairs for breakfast. Surprisingly, he’d made a bowl of sweetened porridge, and he nudged it towards her as she flopped tiredly into her seat.
‘Are you sure you’re right to go to school?’ he asked gruffly, scrubbing at his whiskery cheek. ‘It’s all right, if you don’t wanna . . .’
Isola avoided his gaze. ‘I’m fine, Dad. The doctor just said I got a bit dehydrated –’
‘You could have called me.’
‘It’s all right, James was in the area and I didn’t want to –’
‘Not just for that, Isola. When you get lost or, you know, if you’re worried about your friends doing something stupid – even if I’m just across the street, or on the other side of town, or asleep, or whatever . . . Well, you call me.’
Isola stirred a teaspoon of sugar through her porridge, blushing into her orange juice. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
He waited for her to finish eating, then cleared his throat noisily. His keys were jangling about his knuckles. ‘Come on. I’ll drive. That wood’s looking a bit . . . rotten.’
She opened her mouth to argue – where was this sudden burst of protectiveness coming from? – but closed it abruptly, knowing that, with everything that had been happening in Vivien’s Wood, it wasn’t safe for her, even during the day, with brother-princes by her side.
Grape was waiting by Isola’s locker, her eyes wide and nervous as she scanned the corridors for her approaching friend. Isola had already spotted her and slunk up behind a thicket of blue dresses; for some reason, she felt nervous, and also, strangely angry.
‘Hey, Grape,’ said Isola softly, and Grape jumped in fright.
‘Isola! Hey! Are you okay? What happened to you? Why haven’t you answered your phone?’
‘Got confiscated,’ she said vaguely, twirling her combination lock. Father had returned her phone the night before, and Isola had been flooded with her best friend’s wor
ry. But Isola hadn’t replied, and she still wasn’t sure why.
‘Oh Sola, I tried to visit you – Jamie called me, and he was really shocked that I didn’t already know what had happened. And I’m so sorry, I know you went in after us, but we were just having a bit of fun and we didn’t get lost, I never thought you would . . . I mean, you practically live there, it’s insane that you’d get . . . and I know I’ve been a shite friend, I had too much to drink and I didn’t even realise – oh, I’m sorry!’
Isola had felt a freezing sensation run rat-like up her spine at Grape’s use of the word ‘insane’. ‘You’re sorry,’ she repeated, in a strangely icy voice. Grape looked confused, and still worried, chewing her lower lip. ‘Sorry for almost getting yourself killed, or me?’
Grape looked horrified and Isola felt her cheeks reddening like bitten apples – how could she explain the utter helplessness she had felt when the party wolfpack had disappeared into Vivien’s Wood? How could she redirect the rage she felt, not at Grape, not really, but at herself for letting this happen?
Grape had put herself in incredible danger and Isola couldn’t even tell her why.
And wasn’t it her fault, really, for disturbing the corpse, for attracting its mindless wrath? Wherever Isola went she brought danger. Edgar had been safer under the power station, in his old home on the other side of the valley, yellowing as his kidney failed, where Isola couldn’t reach and taint him . . .
‘I told you to stay out of the damn woods!’
Isola was yelling now; girls bustling past had slowed, rubbernecking at the unfolding drama, and Grape looked steadily sicker while Isola felt something small and warm and Grape-coloured inside her turn to ice.
‘Isola, please, listen. Edgar called me yesterday – he couldn’t get in touch with you, he was worried! And –’ Grape seemed to falter then steel herself, lifting her chin slightly. ‘I am, too. But please, Isola, I’m so, so sorry I didn’t notice you missing, but please stop yelling, everyone’s staring and you’re getting hysterical –’
Hysterical: psychologically unwell, from ‘hystericus’. Latin for ‘of the womb’.
Because lunacy and la feminine always seemed to go hand in hand.
Isola saw red.
‘I am NOT!’ shouted Isola. ‘I’M NOT LIKE MY MOTHER!’
‘What, I never said . . . Isola, wait!’
Sitting alone in conservative Sex Ed class, it was more difficult than usual to concentrate on the sterile and mechanical depiction of women as baby machines, of sex as a function and not a desire. Girls whispered behind her. They knew Isola had spent Saturday morning in hospital. No more than that, of course, but still they bounced around phrases like ‘stomach pumped’ and ‘completely drunk’ and ‘slut’ and ‘freak’.
‘I heard she slept with the birthday boy,’ snickered one girl.
‘Probably couldn’t think of a better present,’ replied another.
‘Or a cheaper one,’ added Bridget snidely, and the wicked giggles peppered Isola like spitballs lodging in her hair. Her legs were aching too, and she knew that if she lifted her dress, she’d find more bruises circling around her legs; another set of black stripes.
Mother Wilde’s Lock and Key
Father took her to and from school every day after that.
Isola leaned her cheek against the glass as they drove down the gravelly road, glimpsing the forest – my forest, she thought furiously – as a tangled, deadly thing. Father had not banned her outright from entering it, but without her twice-daily hike through Vivien’s Wood the gloaming domain felt less under her control – wild, not Wilde – and she shifted in the car seat, fiddling with the radio station, wondering whether this strange feeling could constitute fear.
One evening, Mother had left a note, composed entirely of ransom-letters cut out from the newspaper.
Gone to church. Be back later. Love you – Mum.
‘Dad, do we have a church?’
‘Yes, Roman Catholic,’ growled Father, picking cornflakes out of his beard. Another of his here’s-one-I-prepared-earlier dinners.
‘I mean, a church we go to.’
He coughed into his coffee mug, shook his head. Burnt bean-flakes rose to the surface like fish food.
‘What about Mum?’
‘She was raised in it, I guess. Her Ma was pretty religious. Said she’d never speak to us again if we didn’t get you baptised.’
This was the same grandmother who envisioned a conservative world but gave up on her earthbound dreams when she got Do Not Resuscitate tattooed across her sagging chest.
What Mother Asked Father (and Isola Overheard) When the Death Anniversary Rolled Around Again
‘Do you think that’s a type of suicide? Not choosing to finish, just . . . choosing not to continue.’
She exchanged a meaningful look with her own reflection in her teacup. Isola didn’t think it would work so soon. Only the night before, a tearful Mother had reclined on the lounge in one of her best dresses, drinking wine the colour of the River Seine. Sometimes Mother got theatrical when she was depressed. She had fingered the rim as though she was waiting for Madame Guillotine to fall; the crystal had warbled, angel-voiced. Isola had laced Mother’s next glass with the thimbleful of faeriedust Rosekin had sprinkled on her.
Suddenly joining a church may not have been Isola’s initial idea of the first step on the road to wellbeing, but at least things were changing.
Already, it seemed, things were healing.
Mother, buttoned in a coat with the pink pinch of cold in her cheeks, announced her arrival with a ceremonial slamming of the front door.
‘Mum!’ said Isola, and though she’d practised the exclamation all evening, she couldn’t keep the shock from her voice. ‘Where’d you go?’
‘Didn’t you get my note?’
‘Yes, and it made me assume you’d been kidnapped!’
Mother deposited her handbag on the couch and unravelled her scarf one-handedly. ‘Well, I went of my own free will, baby. It’s a little church near your school that I thought sounded interesting – I read about it online.’
The bag toppled off the couch and its contents rolled out – lipstick tubes, a tabloid magazine, a pamphlet for weekly group meetings.
It had been an ocean of blue moons since Mother had last ventured past the rosebushes. Too long for these sudden things – for make-up and celebrity gossip and a shiny new interest.
Isola narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Was there a seedy-looking club next door? And a stupid sign out front?’
Mother actually laughed, then lassoed Isola in the scarf and planted a kiss in her dimple. ‘It’s all right, Sola. I haven’t joined any mad cults. It was just a nice cup of tea with some new faces.’
Isola snuck the pamphlet upstairs. Alejandro read it over her shoulder.
Possession and Other Spiritual Ills
What Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You About Mental Health
And What Our Church DOES
The insignia heading the pamphlet was a red heart tattooed with a keyhole at its centre: the Church of the Unlocked Heart.
Moon Clue
A few times a week, Isola stole into the High Street florist after school and secretly ripped the heads off tulips. She left them scattered along her windowsill and in the corners of every room and in the attic eaves where mice nested.
But like Grandpa Furlong before her, Rosekin wasn’t coming back.
Winsor was hanging around more than usual; she seemed convinced that, if her cousin returned, she’d be back at Number Thirty-six. Isola was pleased the faerie was remaining positive, but unfortunately the circumstances hadn’t brought them closer. In fact, Winsor was being more insufferable than usual.
The ringed bruises seemed permanent on Isola’s legs now. They didn’t bloom yellow-white when she jabbed them anymore, but they still ached like pools of stoppered blood, and every now and then another twin set appeared.
She was striped from the top of her thighs to
her knees. She’d resewn the hems of all her shortest skirts.
Now and then, she also felt little sharp pains around her throat. She felt constricted. Like a strangled bird.
‘What’s that?’ asked Christobelle, who was splayed in the tub.
‘What?’ Isola twisted her neck in the mirror and saw it: a red mark on her collar, shaped like a crescent moon. She rubbed the steam off the mirror and clutched her towel tighter.
Christobelle motioned her closer, and as Isola bent obligingly, she traced the hot banana moon. ‘It looks like a kissing bruise.’ The mermaid giggled, and Isola pulled away.
‘Someone’s been kissing the dead birdies then, too,’ added Winsor, who had squeezed uninvited under the bathroom door.
Isola chucked her toothbrush, but the faerie dodged it. ‘Get out, Winsor!’
‘Only wanted to suggest it. I’ve seen all those birds and rabbits and things, too, Princess Prissy.’ Winsor bared her fangs. ‘Maybe you’ll go the same way.’
‘I said, get out!’ Isola retrieved a fly swat from the bathroom cabinet and waved it menacingly.
Winsor’s green eyes glittered. ‘Maybe that’s why your princes left. Maybe she’s getting rid of them to clear a path to you!’
‘GO AWAY!’ Isola kicked open the bathroom door, threw the faerie out on a riff of hot steam, and slammed it shut. She blocked the gap under the door with a wet towel and and glared at Christobelle. ‘And thanks for your concern, Belle!’
‘You’re welcome.’ Christobelle nonchalantly flicked her fin in Mother’s freshly made bubblebath. ‘I stopped in on that little pond in Vivien’s Wood, you know,’ she said suddenly.
Isola turned away from the cabinet, her expression shocked. ‘When?’
‘Today. Looks positively awful in there, Isola. Like death.’
