But today, Bryony had followed her and sat at her table, giving her no chance to walk away. Sarah’s absence was breaking her heart.
“No. He’s not back. Not yet, I mean.”
Bryony was desperately trying not to look Sarah in the eye, not to put an arm around her shoulder and hold Sarah close to her, as she would have done only a short while ago. She was relishing the rare chance to speak to her and didn’t want to scare Sarah away.
“Will he be back at all?”
“Of course he will.” Sarah’s tone was unconvincing. For once the Midnight talent for telling lies had failed her. Nobody would have believed her too-bright smile.
“Will he? Are you sure?”
“Bryony, please. I just don’t want to talk about this now.”
“Don’t push me away, Sarah.” Bryony sounded choked all of a sudden, and Sarah looked up in alarm.
“I don’t mean to …” How could she explain? How could she tell Bryony that she was keeping away from her because she was terrified of putting her in danger? That she felt she was like a walking curse, a curse that had befallen Leigh already and might fall on her too?
“You might not mean to, but you are. I barely see you anymore. You’re not answering my texts. I’ve given up calling you. What’s going on?” Bryony’s eyes were full of hurt. “Since Leigh … Since she …”
“I know. I know. It’s just that …” Sarah wanted so badly to tell her friend the truth. The whole truth. But she couldn’t.
Or could she, one day? Had she made Bryony part of her secrets, would she have believed her?
“I know it’s been a terrible time. Your parents, and Leigh … but hey, it’s still you and me, isn’t it? Best friends?”
“Yes.” Sarah smiled, a thin smile. But better than nothing, thought Bryony.
“Sarah … If you’re on your own … if you’re having to cope with all that family situation all over again, having to move in with Juliet … You can always come and stay with us, you know that.”
“It’s OK. Really. I’ll find a way.”
“The offer is always there, you know that.” After a pause, she continued, “Why did Harry go? I can’t believe he let you out of his sight. He seemed so … so attentive.” A bit too attentive, Bryony thought. More like possessive.
“Work. Stuff to sort out down in London.” Sarah smoothed down her hair, checking that her ponytail was still perfect, ran her hands down her skirt, straightening it. Bryony knew Sarah like the back of her hand – when she started straightening and checking and sorting, it was time to change the subject.
“By the way … Michael. I haven’t had the chance to tell you. It’s serious,” she announced.
Sarah couldn’t help smiling. Bryony changed her boyfriend every few months, moving on from one to the other in her sunny, cheerful way.
“Is it?” She couldn’t keep a touch of amusement out of her voice.
“Yes, yes, laugh away! But it is,” Bryony grinned conspiratorially.
“You mean … you and him …”
“Yes!” The girls grabbed each other’s hands.
“Oh my God!” Sarah grinned. “So it is serious.”
Bryony nodded. Sarah stroked her best friend’s red, wavy hair gently, in a gesture that was unusually demonstrative for her. They looked each other in the eye, and Bryony took in how worried Sarah really looked.
“Are you happy?” Sarah asked, a strange look in her eyes, one that Bryony couldn’t quite decipher. All she knew was that something was troubling her friend, and she wondered if it all came down to Leigh’s death, or if there was something else. With Sarah it was always difficult to say.
“Yes, very. Very happy. Listen, why don’t you come up to my house tonight? Michael will be there, but my sisters will be around too, so I promise you won’t play gooseberry!” she laughed. “We’d love to see you.”
“I can’t.”
Bryony’s face fell and she tipped her head to one side. “Oh, come on. You and Michael can get to know each other better … My two favourite people in the world.”
Sarah smiled at her friend’s coaxing tone. “I really, really can’t. I’m seeing my boyfriend.”
“You what?”
“I’m seeing my boyfriend.”
“Yes, I heard what you said! You have a boyfriend and you never told me? Who is he? When can I meet him? Did you … do you? Have you …? No, of course not,” she added quickly, seeing Sarah’s face. “Tell me all!”
Sarah looked away again.
Oh, God, she’s not happy, thought Bryony.
“Well, his name is Nicholas.”
“Nice. Is he from Edinburgh?” chirped Bryony, trying to be upbeat in spite of Sarah’s vagueness.
“No, he’s from Aberdeen.”
“Cool. What does he do? How did you meet?”
“He’s taking a gap year from Uni. He’s doing law. We met …” In my dreams? He saved my life, and killed Cathy, the Valaya leader, by having her pecked to death by ravens? “We met in the Royal Mall. By chance. In Thornton’s. We were both buying chocolates.”
“Oh, romantic! But when? How long have you been together?”
“Just after my birthday. It’s early days, really.”
“Right.” Bryony played with her bracelets for a while, stroking the beads with her fingers, pretending to be totally absorbed. “Sarah,” she said then without looking up.
“Mmmm?”
“You asked me if I’m happy. But are you?”
“What? Of course I’m happy!”
Bryony raised her eyebrows and gave her a meaningful look.
Sarah sighed. “He’s my first serious boyfriend, you know that.”
“I know, I know. After years of being married to your cello!”
“Yeah, well, my cello is good to me!” Sarah laughed, in spite of herself. For a second she looked like the old Sarah, the girl she was before her life fell apart.
Bryony covered Sarah’s hands with hers. “But …? Because there is a but, isn’t there?”
“It’s just that – I don’t know.” Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know if I … love him.”
“Love is a big word! Do you feel butterflies when you see him?”
Sarah looked at her friend, opening her mouth to reply, and then she closed it again. How could she explain what happened to her thoughts when Nicholas was around?
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“You don’t seem convinced.”
Sarah stood up suddenly. She’d said enough. “Well, I’ll keep you posted. It’s all good. And anyway, these days all I’m thinking of is that letter from the RCS.”
“That’ll take ages. I’m dying to hear from the art schools. So, when will I meet this Nicholas?” Bryony wasn’t giving up.
“Soon. Promise.” As soon as I have the whole Sean mess sorted out. As soon as I can face it.
“We can go out, the four of us. For chips, maybe?”
“Sure. Great idea,” Sarah replied, aware of her stomach tightening at the weirdness of the whole set up.
Why should it be weird for us to go for chips all together? I don’t know. But it would be. Nicholas hardly ever eats, for a start. There never seems to be the time, somehow.
In a rush of affection, Bryony threw her arms around Sarah, who closed her eyes for a brief moment, inhaling the distinctive scent of her friend’s hair – bluebells, she would have recognized it anywhere.
“You know I’m here, don’t you? Any time, day or night, you can phone me. Or come up to my house.”
“I know, I know.” If only I could tell you.
Bryony got up and started gathering her things. “Oh, wait! I completely forgot. I have to do a project for my photography class. Pictures of the full moon. I thought your garden would be the perfect place.”
Sarah hesitated. Just because she hadn’t been dreaming, just because they’d had some peace for a while, didn’t mean they weren’t still under threat. To have Bryony wandering around her garden at night …
> She wracked her mind, trying to find an excuse. Couldn’t think of anything.
“When?” she asked with a smile, pretending to love the idea.
“The full moon is tonight. Please, please, please, Sarah? Sorry about the short notice.”
Oh, no.
“Okay,” Sarah sighed, trying not to sound too anxious.
“Great, then! I’ll see you around nine.”
The girls turned their backs on the football pitch and all that had happened there, and walked, arms linked, towards the school building.
As soon as they were gone, Sean broke his glamour of invisibility, stretching his arms and legs.
I’ll watch over you both, he thought.
“Yes?” whispered Sarah into her phone, gaining a few dark looks from the serious looking boy sitting across her. They weren’t supposed to take calls in the library, but when Sarah saw it was Nicholas, she had to answer. She had to warn him that he was about to meet Bryony, the girl he’d heard so much about.
“It’s me. I just called to say hi.”
“I was about to phone you. Bryony is coming round to the house tonight. Around nine.”
“Exciting. I’m about to meet the famous Bryony. I’ll come and get you at school.”
“No. I mean, I have so much homework …” She scrambled. The boy sitting across Sarah stood up, glared irritably and strode out of the room. He was going to find Mrs McGough, the school librarian, to complain about Sarah.
“Would I … inconvenience you, Sarah?”
“No, of course not. Honestly, Nicholas. Come up to the house later. I need … I need some time alone, I have stuff to do.”
“Right.”
His voice was cold and Sarah’s heart started beating faster. Have I upset him? And why should I feel so guilty for wanting some time alone?
“I’m in the library. I have to go.”
“Fine.”
She closed her eyes. “Please don’t be angry,” she began, but stopped at once. This is not me. I shouldn’t be apologizing for this.
She heard the click that signalled the end of the conversation. Suddenly, she realized why she was feeling so nervous about Bryony’s visit. It was because she felt in her bones that Bryony wouldn’t like Nicholas.
What if Sean turns up tonight too?
Sarah stared out of the window onto the school car park. Nicholas, Sean and Bryony all there at the same time. The thought of it was like a firework going off in her head. She stood up and gathered her things quickly, so quickly that a few loose papers and a pencil fell out of her messenger bag, and she didn’t even stop to gather them. On the doorstep she bumped into Mrs McGough, followed by the boy who’d been so annoyed by her talking on the phone in the library.
“Do I have to remind you that you can’t take calls in here, Miss Midnight?” Mrs McGough began. “The school has a very strict policy about the use of mobile phones.”
“Sorry,” interrupted Sarah, and stepped out – but she hesitated and turned, her long hair brushing the boy’s arm, her eyes searching his, finding them, locking him to her stare.
A hint of the Midnight gaze – just a hint.
I’ve never seen eyes as green as this, the boy had time to think, just as the pain hit him. He pressed his hands against the sides of his head, sudden agony exploding right in the middle of his forehead.
“Ouch!” he murmured, staggering slightly. The librarian took a step towards him, then turned to glare at Sarah, as if something told her where the boy’s distress was coming from.
But Sarah was gone. The boy managed to open his eyes in time to see her striding down the corridor, her long black hair down her back. He blinked over and over again, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing – there was a girl following her, a little girl with blonde hair, wearing a blue pinafore – a little girl who hadn’t been there a second before. He blinked once more, and she was gone.
11
Crown of Thorns
Because I never thought
It could be different.
Sarah needs time alone. She needs time away from me.
Very calmly, very coolly, Nicholas slipped the phone back into his pocket and let a silent fury sweep through him. Certainly she must see that this was a mistake. There was no reason they should be apart that night, no reason at all. They could only be apart when he decided. There was no sense in Sarah being on her own, or with that girl, Bryony.
I’ll start tonight. I’ll start with Bryony.
Nicholas closed his eyes and prepared himself to speak to his father. He knew the King of Shadows would rejoice in his son’s fury, his desire to kill.
The Surari heard their summoning from a long way away, deep within the Shadow World. One of Nicholas’s favourite species, the ancestral predators – those who fill human beings with primitive terror and awake memories of being torn limb from limb. Sarah’s house would be their target tonight.
Nicholas would be there to protect the girls, of course, and he would do his very best. But one of them would be beyond salvation, and Sarah’s breaking would have properly begun.
12
Scrying
If I came close to you
Would it be the way
It used to be?
Or would I know at last
That what was there is gone?
Sarah was in the basement where her parents kept all their magical and hunting equipment, the door safely locked, kneeling on the duvet spread on the floor. Open in front of her, the wooden chest that held their precious maps, some new, some so old they looked as if they would crumble under her touch. Sarah chose a modern map of Edinburgh from the stack and spread it carefully in front of her. She’d also laid out Sean’s protection charm, one of her mother’s silver bowls and the sgian-dubh that used to belong to her aunt Mairead.
Sarah unclasped her silver bracelet and took off her earrings, one by one, slipping them inside her jeans pocket – her mother’s diary had told her that metal interferes with magic. She sighed, summoning her courage. The scrying spell she was about to cast made her uneasy. Frightened, even.
The last time she’d tried one, she’d ended up being possessed by something that spoke through her, announcing the return of the King of Shadows – not to mention being thrown against the wall and getting badly bruised. It was unlikely that this attempt would go without incident. Which is why she had prepared for a soft landing – spreading two duvets and a few pillows on the basement floor.
She lit the white candle, signalling the beginning of the spell. The blade was cold against her skin. She flinched as her blood gushed red and copious into the silver bowl – she had sharpened Mairead’s knife and the cut was deeper than she’d intended. Her arm hurt and trembled as she lifted the bowl over the map; her heartbeat was furious and her breathing shallow as she closed her eyes and waited. The little red pouch started vibrating softly.
The air shifted around Sarah, a strange, electric feeling – and she knew the spell was working. She opened her eyes in time to see the pouch float upwards and sideways, over the silver bowl. It dipped itself into Sarah’s blood, and then floated up again above the map, as if deciding where to go. Suddenly, it dipped, marking a spot with its blood-soaked velvet and rising again at once.
Sarah swallowed, expecting something to happen at any moment, as it had happened with the last scrying spell she had performed.
But nothing happened.
Trying to breathe normally, Sarah allowed herself to lower her eyes to the map, the protection charm still hovering in mid-air, to check the place it had marked. It was a spot very close to her house, right where Edinburgh ended and the moorland began. That very moment the pouch fell, spraying thin drops of blood over the map. The candle flickered and went out. The spell was over, it seemed. Sarah waited another instant before she felt she could exhale at last. Yes, it was over.
She was about to place the bowl on the floor when something grabbed her, pulling her up and away from the floor. Inc
redulously, she saw her bent legs hovering a few inches from the duvet, as if she were floating on an invisible cloud. She closed her eyes and braced herself, because she knew what was coming. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could hold on to as she was lifted higher and higher, still holding the bowl. Suddenly, she was thrown against the wall with such force that multi-coloured spots exploded in front of her eyes before she landed with a thump and a soft cry, every bit of her body hurting. Lying on her back, she could see the room circling around her – the weapons’wardrobes, the desks, the oak table, the duvet – and something else. A face.
There was a girl kneeling beside her, bending over her, her face close to Sarah’s. Sarah tried to focus, to take in the girl’s features – who was she? – but a wave of nausea took her, and then everything went black.
After some time Sarah came to her senses, her eyes fluttering open. She felt sick, and her head was throbbing. She sat up slowly, holding her head, and felt a stab of pain in her back and in her side. She checked her ribs, her arms and legs, moving them slowly and carefully – nothing was broken.
And then she remembered – the girl. Was someone there, or had it been a vision? She looked around, braced for another attack – but there was nobody. The door was still closed. Sarah dragged herself to her feet – she had to lean on the wall for a second – and limped towards the door. She checked the handle – it was still locked. Nobody could have come in.
Who was that girl?
One thing was sure, she thought, contemplating the hideous mess that the spilled blood had made on her duvet and how she would need to clean the place up: if she could help it, it would be the last time she’d cast that spell.
13
The Watcher
Shining above me
A canopy of stars
And below me
The ancient domes
Soil demons. Sarah shuddered, remembering her friend Angela being dragged underground. A ghastly, lingering death, to be slowly suffocated by soil, never to see the light of day again. Angela’s hands sticking out of the mud, desperately trying to hold on to something – and Sarah grabbing her fingers as they slowly disappeared. It was an image she’d never forget. Soil demons were too frightening for words. And yet, there she was, walking alone towards Sean’s house, knowing that two of those creatures had attacked Sean and Harry’s widow, Elodie.
Tide (The Sarah Midnight Trilogy) Page 8
