The Furies

by Katie Lowe

  ‘Anyone,’ Nicky began, the inflection in her voice almost that of a politician offering platitudes in a trying time (I almost saw her, thirty years hence, in a crisp suit, manicured hands gripping the sides of a lectern), ‘anyone in your position would feel the same. You poor, poor thing.’

  Alex didn’t respond; a silence fell for a moment, Nicky examining each of us in turn. Only Robin didn’t appear to be playing along; she continued to stare blankly at the memorial, the plastic bouquets crackling in the low breeze.

  ‘Well, look,’ Nicky said, finally. ‘You know if you ever need to talk to anyone, you can talk to me.’

  Alex turned and smiled. ‘Thanks, honey.’ (‘Honey?’ I thought. Where did that come from?) ‘Just … Please don’t tell anyone you heard it from me, okay?’

  Nicky smiled; this was tacit agreement from Alex that she could tell whoever she wanted the content of our talk, if not the source. ‘Of course, sweetie.’ She leaned in and gave Alex a peck on the cheek, Alex stiffening as she did so.

  We were silent, again, until she disappeared. ‘Do you really think that’ll work?’ Grace said, as we watched the small gathering of teachers now sharing Mrs Goldsmith’s packet of menthols, huddled in nervous conversation.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Alex said, softly. ‘I guess we’ll soon find out.’

  ‘It seems unimaginable that we should find ourselves gathered once again, mourning yet another tragic loss in our community,’ the Headmaster said, pacing the wooden stage at the end of the Great Hall, between the stone plaques and tombs, death peering in on all sides. The altar loomed behind, cross gleaming in the sun like an insult. Though there were weekly assemblies scheduled for the student body as a whole, Robin and I rarely attended: on Friday mornings, they were a tempting period to skip. And yet, I thought, gazing up at the grand chandeliers; the faded frescoes on the ceiling, framed with gold; the stained-glass windows, with their ornate histories in ruby, and emerald, and sapphire – it was such a pretty place to sit, and think.

  A ripple of tuts ran through the audience, starting with the lacrosse team and rolling outwards to the rest of the gathered students, while teachers (who would, under normal circumstances, have plucked out offenders and publicly chastised them for their rudeness) averted their eyes, staring numbly down at their feet, pretending not to hear.

  Nicky had proven herself more efficient than even Alex had imagined. Within hours, letters of protest had appeared at the Headmaster’s door, first from students, and then, the next morning, from parents. She’d remained true to her word, however: nobody knew from whom the rumour had originated, only that we all believed it to be true. We’d been gathered, it seemed, for an ostensible assembly of mourning for the Dean, a chance for us to ‘share how we felt’, or – as we well knew – for the Headmaster to quell the ‘hysteria’ he’d claimed had possessed us, according to a conversation overheard from the girls’ toilets, whose pipes echoed the contents of confidential conversations to the girls always listening in.

  ‘But if they’re all saying it,’ the Chemistry professor had replied, tentatively, ‘doesn’t that suggest that maybe …’

  And they were all saying it. Everyone (except the four of us, of course) had their own version of the same story. The way he’d reached for a hand or, worse, a knee when some inconsolable girl sat sobbing at his desk; the way he’d offered compliments to girls who thought themselves ugly; the times he’d told them that they shouldn’t listen to the cruel words of boys, and that soon enough they’d find a man who understood and appreciated them … It was all meant well, at the time – I knew that now, of course – but in the cold light of suspicion, every kindness became a threat; a goodness made sinister.

  That they believed it – the lie, our lie – only served to heighten Robin’s conviction that we were somehow protected, supported in our actions, by the Furies we’d invoked months before. ‘It’s in line with their philosophy,’ she’d said, as the four of us walked through campus, the buildings burning fire red in the spring light.

  ‘Shhh,’ Alex had hissed. I caught a glance, a flicker, as she looked at Grace; a new shadow of worry, her usual assuredness shaken by Robin’s flippant, needling tone.

  I, too, had doubts about Robin’s conviction – though the shadow of the Furies still woke me in the night, a vicious tug from the base of my spine, a sickness in my gut, the smell of rotting flesh. It seemed, sometimes, as though Robin were baiting me, willing me to say out loud what we’d done; a vicarious thrill, I supposed, though her eyes seemed occasionally deadened, without their usual spark, her voice coming from behind a mask.

  But for my doubts, the idea was a comfort, her feverish belief somehow infectious. For the horror of what we’d done – the stopping of a beating heart, spilling of innocent blood, which still, to this day, stalks my dreams – was a thing so unimaginably awful that to place it in the realm of the fantastic, to will it into fiction, seemed to lessen its impact, momentarily, at least. Maybe she’s right, I had thought – or, rather, willed, a silent prayer – as she’d opened her textbook at Baudry’s Charlotte Corday and hissed ‘She’s one of us,’ while Annabel stood mere feet away. I’d felt my cheeks burn a furious blush, and saw Annabel smile; felt a rush of relief that she hadn’t heard.

  ‘We may never know,’ the Headmaster went on, ‘why or how such a tragic accident could befall one of our own—’

  A wail rose from the back of the hall, where one of the senior girls – a girl whose name I didn’t know, but whose greenish-blue hair and nose piercing I’d admired, from a distance – stood and glared at the Headmaster, her voice echoing through the crowd. ‘We know!’ she howled. Behind her, Annabel sat, arms folded, impassive under the stone angels’ watch, the only teacher not staring intently at the floor. The only one who smiled, for a split second, when the girl added, ‘He killed Emma Frost!’

  I caught Robin’s eye, the slightest of glances; she was deathly pale (a hangover, I assumed, though since the night of the murder it seemed all four of us were occasionally stricken by the memory, our blood draining rapidly away at the thought). The Headmaster cleared his throat, a warning; but the faculty remained silent, seated around the edges of the hall. ‘We don’t know anything to suggest—’

  ‘We do! We all know what he did!’ another girl shouted, the first emboldened by the support. ‘He’s a murderer.’

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, but the note of weariness in his voice seemed only to rouse more students to their feet. He turned to the choirmaster, who began the requiem, but the choir were all but drowned out by the chants of the girls around us – ‘Murderer! Murderer!’ – building in both volume and speed, the whole student body on their feet.

  Except, that is, for us. I couldn’t say whether it was the word itself, the brutal rhythm of it screamed by our peers, or whether it was the realization that we’d started something which had now sprawled, horribly out of control, becoming something larger and more unimaginably cruel than we could have possibly imagined. It might simply have been the finality of it: the empty chair, the mournful mass. I closed my eyes, willed the shaking from my hands.

  Robin coughed into her sleeve. I glanced at her, nervously. She reached for my hand and squeezed it tight, arm shaking with the force of it. Is she crying? I thought, as she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. It couldn’t be. Don’t, I willed her, not now. Only after a moment did I catch the spark of a smile under her blazer’s bruised sleeve, teeth burrowed into her hand in an attempt to stop the laughter. As the choir sang, she doubled down, shoulders shaking.

  She can’t be, I thought. It’s not funny. It’s not.

  Feeling eyes on the two of us, I leaned over, arm across her shoulder in something I hoped looked like comfort, and pinched her arm, tight. ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed. She turned a little towards me, her face contorted, wracked with the effort of controlling laughter that refused to be contained. Her hair stuck to my lips; I peeled it off, knowing this would make her laugh more
; and when it did, in spite of everything, I laughed too, pressing my face into her shoulder.

  I turned to the girls, who stared straight ahead, an expression of horror on their faces that would have almost certainly given them away, were it not for the saving fact of Emily, their grief something the other students imagined there instead, a mask imposed upon us – a relief. All of us, together – Robin and I laughing, violent and grotesque; Alex and Grace wracked with a bitter, tragic chill – were protected from what we’d done. Immune, in this moment at least, from the consequences of the crime, the punishment. Murder, now, a joke.

  When the assembly finished at last (the requiem abandoned, the Headmaster’s words drowned out and long forgotten), we followed our fellow students out into the Quad, hanging our heads as we passed Annabel, who looked over our heads at the clusters of girls huddled, sharing stories of the Dean’s ‘odd’ behaviour, the ‘inappropriate’ things he’d said. She wrapped a gossamer-light shawl around herself, and watched, no doubt taking in the aesthetics of the scene.

  Alex and Grace joined the two of us still laughing (though quietly, imagining ourselves unseen) on the grass, damp and glistening with spray (the caretakers had seized the rare opportunity when the whole school was called in to water the parched, dry grass).

  ‘Urgh,’ Robin groaned, wiping a slick of mud across her bag. ‘Fucking idiots.’

  ‘What was going on in there?’ Alex said, glaring at Robin. ‘Were you—’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Were you laughing?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, grinning. ‘It was just—’

  ‘You’re just like Emily, you know that?’ Alex spat.

  I felt my cheeks turn hot, a flash of anger, first – then, with a shudder, a flicker of fear. ‘What?’

  ‘No matter what stupid fucking thing she does – no matter what – you stick up for her.’ She tore a blade of grass into pieces, dropping them to the ground. ‘It’s pathetic.’

  ‘Fuck you, Alex,’ Robin said, stiffly. ‘Just because she’s got a sense of humour—’

  ‘A sense of humour that’s going to get us arrested.’

  ‘Oh, calm the fuck down. No one even noticed,’ Robin said, though her eyes darted around, pupils wide and black.

  Alex looked at Grace. ‘We noticed. It was pretty hard not to, frankly.’

  ‘Fine. Fine. No fun, ever again. Got it.’

  ‘That’s not what I—’

  ‘You know what, Alex?’ Robin said, rolling heavily onto her feet. ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Oh, real smart. Real eloquent!’ Alex shouted, as Robin turned and walked away.

  I stared after her for a moment, stunned, before turning back to the girls.

  ‘Great. Nicely done, Alex,’ I said, rising to stand, the world unsticking itself for a moment, a laconic vertigo rippling the edges of my vision.

  ‘She’s out of control,’ Alex said, coldly. ‘You need to make her—’

  ‘I don’t need to do anything,’ I spat. ‘Maybe you need to stop being so …’ I felt around for the words, the right thing to do, though nothing came. I was exhausted, suddenly, the weight of it all sudden and cruel; and I staggered after Robin as she disappeared between the blocks, realizing only too late that the girls hadn’t asked me to come back.

  We sat in stolen deck chairs on the terrace, the chill of the early evening seeping through our skin. We’d been at Robin’s house all afternoon, her parents holidaying somewhere – ‘some McFun forced-corporate-entertainment camp,’ she’d said, before changing the subject – drinking recklessly, working our way slowly through the bottles in their drinks cabinet, water spilling on the floor as we replaced each stolen sip.

  She handed me a skin of white powder, and I took it, recklessly, as though it might erase the images still lingering in my mind; the raw bodily smell I kept catching as I moved, though from where it came I didn’t know. I’d showered since, though I hadn’t washed my hair; the thought of blood matted into the black dye sent a shudder, now, down my spine – not entirely unpleasant, a vivid thrill coiled in the risk.

  She stood; rocked back and forth, the record player crackling from inside as she sang along, the words slurring into each other. ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,’ she sang, clicking her jaw after every phrase. I did the same, an automatic response. I’d been gnawing the inside of my cheek, the flesh raw and ragged, tasting of blood; the yawn offered a respite, albeit a brief one.

  ‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,’ she sang again, rocking back on her heels, stumbling back into the glass doors, her drink a lurid splash across the window. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered, turning to survey the mess.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’re making me dizzy.’

  ‘No,’ she said, gripping the back of the chair. ‘You’re making me dizzy.’

  I groaned. ‘You’re not making any sense.’

  ‘It’s like seeing double, with you,’ she slurred, digging her fingers into a bowl of glass beads and throwing them in the air, wincing as they fell. I covered my face with my arms, the beads hitting the floor like gunshots. ‘Like you’re you, but you’re also her. I don’t know why.’

  I’d been trying to find a way back to our argument with the girls since we’d left campus. ‘You’re just like Emily,’ Alex had said, the words burrowing deeper each time I remembered: Emily was dead. And if the Dean was right, the girls had killed her. But each time I returned to the subject (which so dazed me that my thoughts seemed to circle around it, like water in a drain) Robin glared at me, and – as though trying to spite me – swallowed another pill (palm pressed to mouth as though holding in a secret), or drank so intently from the wine bottle that I had to wrench it from her hands, promising not to ask again.

  The music gained speed; I sat up, the wooden slats pinching my thighs. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, she was so good,’ she sang, spinning around. ‘Oh, she was so fine.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, catching the slur in my voice. ‘Who do you mean?’

  She went on dancing, eyes closed, face turned upwards to the moonlight. Against the blazing garden fence, the pieces of her blurred, disembodied white, becoming Bacon’s lurid triptych. Under her chin, jutting out with bared teeth, I spotted a dried smudge of something, a half-print shadow that was probably ink, or eye shadow. Still, I couldn’t look at it; couldn’t look at her, knowing, in this moment, she was thinking of Emily, the girl she’d killed: the girl who looked like me, but wasn’t. It seemed like everyone always was. ‘I’ve got to pee,’ I said, stumbling to my feet, wrap still in hand, and wandered inside, leaving the patio doors wide open behind me.

  I drank in the details of her family, of her, found in trinkets. By the stairs, a framed newspaper clipping of Robin at eight years old, her drawing chosen for the council’s ‘Safety First’ initiative; a cracked clay mug in the sink, ‘Mummy’ painted across the front. (‘My sister’s,’ she said, catching me looking. ‘You think I’d make something that ugly?’) It was all utterly unlike I’d imagined: her room littered with fairy lights, torn posters on the wall, a king-size bed with deep-pink sheets. It seemed too homely, too nice, to be Robin’s. ‘Mum’s a clean freak.’ She’d shrugged, hanging her blazer in a white wardrobe etched with lilies.

  I stopped at a wall of shelves, filled with ornaments and photo frames (Robin and Emily, as children, a tease: with a squint, I could pretend they were us, friends all our lives); antique teapots and crystal glasses; a wooden box with an embroidered lid, a teddy bear crosshatched into the top. I peeled open the lid and looked inside, examining passport photos and orphaned keys as though they might hold her secrets.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ she said, grabbing the backs of my arms. I jumped; dropped the lid down, and spun around. ‘I need some fresh air. And,’ she added, grinning, ‘the fair’s in town. I love the fair.’

  I groaned. ‘I hate the fair. And I’m tired.’

  ‘Oh my god, you’re slurring. Barely even—’ She paused, b
urped, shook her head. ‘Barely even making words. You need it too. Come on. Dance it off.’ She pulled me up off the bed, her hands cold and damp with sweat, while the song went on, faster and faster, until I felt my heart begin to shudder, sickly.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, over-articulating each word, teeth cracking the t. ‘See? Not slurring.’ I lost my balance; steadying myself, pressed my back against the door, coat handle bruising my shoulder blade. ‘Let’s … Let’s go out.’

  I was grateful for the sobering cool as we walked, the darkness curling around us, though the sky still glowed a deep, low blue, the trees in silhouette shadowless against the night. I pulled a peony from a hedge and squeezed it as we walked towards the glow of the town, the petals turning to flesh as we walked through the fair. Children screamed, the faint pop-pop of toy guns fired at rubber ducks, watched over by dead-eyed Felixes and grinning Tasmanian Devils. Occasionally the Haunted House would erupt with a Vincent Price laugh, one cracked skeletal arm raised up to the sky as Thriller played on an endless loop.

  ‘You know what they call this?’ Robin said, turning to me. She held out a stick of candy-floss, lurid pink and furry on my lips.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, pushing it away. ‘Call what?’

  ‘This, right now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The witching hour.’ She turned to me, and winked.

  I laughed. ‘How very apt.’

  ‘Hey, ladies – you wanna ride this?’ a voice called, words lingering in the air.

  Robin turned, and I followed her gaze. Between the burger van and ticket truck, a tall, thin man stood clutching three bottles of beer, swaying a little with the effort of standing still and pointing at his groin. I tried to make out the writing on his t-shirt – a slogan, the print cracked and faded – as a group of boys in gas masks ran between us, jumping the railing at the dodgems and hijacking the cars. ‘Ignore him,’ I said, walking on.