The Graces Read online

  ‘Books are knowledge. Knowledge is power,’ I said archly.

  ‘And power is your goal? Curiouser and curiouser, Alice.’

  ‘Power is everyone’s goal, isn’t it? It’s just not something most people are brave enough to admit to.’

  ‘I’ll admit to it.’ He spread his hands grandly. ‘I love power.’

  I laughed. I liked watching him peacock. He did it knowingly, which helped him get away with it.

  ‘We’re the brave ones,’ he said, leaning towards me with a soft smile.

  Flirting.

  I was sure we were flirting.

  I searched for a quippy reply, and then saw that Thalia had glazed over. I suddenly realised why – Fenrin flirted with every female he came across. It was probably as natural as breathing to him.

  I was nothing special. Not yet.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. Then I turned back to Thalia. ‘There’s more food to sort, right?’ Her eyebrows rose.

  ‘Um … yeah. Salads. They just need to be emptied into those bowls.’

  ‘Cool.’ I busied myself at the food table. I wondered what they were thinking.

  It got pretty busy after that.

  Half the school was there, and I was sure most of them hadn’t been invited – they were tagalongs, attracted like moths to candlelight. Word about the party had got around. When I asked Summer about it, she just laughed and said she didn’t care who came as long as the most interesting people were there. I dared to think that just maybe she’d directed that at me.

  Thalia had been right – Summer loved her gift and gave a very un-Summer squeal when she unwrapped it.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ she said, her eyes round.

  ‘Trove.’

  ‘Oh my god, I love that place. Oh my god, it’s perfect. Thank you.’

  Her eyes sparkled. I felt a warm glow I’d been missing start to spread its wings inside my chest. I’d made her happy. It was worth owing money to Thalia to feel that, even though Thalia had waved away my promises to pay her back.

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ I said. My face was a glowing beacon of pleasure, but for once I didn’t care about showing what I felt.

  Summer carefully wrapped the bowl back up and put it with her other gifts. She leaned back on her hands as we sat together on a blanket, looking up at the swirling black sky. The bonfire roared steadily nearby.

  ‘So how come you’re into birds?’ I asked.

  ‘I like hawks the most,’ she said. ‘But anything that flies, really.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they’re free. They can go anywhere they like. No one controls them.’

  She looked at me for a moment, and the moment stretched out, growing a little too long, and then longer, and I couldn’t look away.

  ‘Did you have fun with Thalia?’ she said, with a knowing little smile.

  ‘She’s great. Kind of scary at first, but it’s a front, right?’

  Summer said nothing.

  I backed up quickly, feeling the misstep. ‘I mean,’ I said. ‘Well, everyone has their reasons.’

  ‘We all hide our true selves,’ Summer agreed, and my heart gave an excited, frightened lurch.

  But it was too soon to play that hand.

  Music shuddered against the rocks and mingled with the cracks of the bonfire. We watched as Thalia laughed and twirled underneath a boy’s arm, flamelight licking up the side of her.

  ‘She’s more fragile than she looks,’ said Summer, unexpectedly. The offer of an opening sanctioning my next question.

  ‘Marcus isn’t going to show up here, right?’ I said.

  ‘Nah, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘He’s not dangerous, though, is he? I mean, he’s just a bit obsessed.’

  Summer sighed, upending her drink into her mouth.

  I spoke as she drank, my voice dismissive. ‘Let’s not talk about it. It’s her business.’

  ‘Marcus …’ Summer paused. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  She glanced around, but the low roar of the fire and the rolling of the sea and the noise of the crowd kept our conversation private.

  ‘They were kind of together, briefly,’ she said to me.

  My eyebrows crawled up into my hairline.

  ‘It wasn’t public knowledge. And now, people … they think what they want about the whole thing.’ She shrugged, as if to say, what are you going to do? Then she tossed me a glance as sharp as knives. ‘Don’t go telling anyone about this. It’s her business, like you said.’

  ‘No way.’ I shook my head. I meant it, too. Another test of loyalty. I could be trusted with secrets.

  ‘But then they broke up, and he wouldn’t leave her alone,’ Summer was saying. ‘He’s everywhere she is. He follows her around constantly, trying to get back with her. She hides it, but it’s making her miserable.’

  I glanced at Thalia, dancing, giggling. You never knew what went on underneath the surface of things. You wouldn’t look at that gorgeous girl and think she had anything bad in her life.

  ‘Well, maybe someone should do something about it,’ I offered.

  Summer shrugged. ‘Like what?’

  But her face said she knew what I meant.

  Lou and Gemma came bouncing up just then, shoving their gifts into Summer’s hands and talking over each other. They’d both bought her music. The three of them shrieked about bands I didn’t know for a while, and my cup was empty, so I got up to refill it.

  I’d managed to get one vodka mixed with orange juice out of my bottle, but now it was empty, so instead I had some of the fruity punch Thalia had made. It tasted the way spring flowers smell, and before I knew it, I’d had two cups and suddenly realised I was drunk-floating, that strange dislocation of feeling half outside of myself. Like my soul had detached its head from mine and I was watching everything with two sets of eyes, one of them under a time lag, as if someone kept accidentally pressing the pause button.

  The adults were long gone, and I was talking to someone whose name I couldn’t even remember, and it was later but who knew by how much. The bonfire drew everyone to it, and there was music, and girls screaming and dancing. I kept losing jumps of time, floating back down into the present every so often. Drunk. I remembered I was drunk. There was a call for skinny-dipping. Girls shrieking like gulls. Running.

  ‘You gonna come?’ said the girl I’d apparently been talking to.

  ‘It’s freezing.’

  ‘So?’ She laughed. ‘We’re young and fucked up.’ And she was off, skating across the sand, pulling off her jumper to the sound of whoops at the surf’s edge.

  ‘Christ,’ I muttered, but I must have said it louder than I thought. I heard a laugh across from me, and there was Fenrin, glowing through the haze in my eyes. We were almost alone; most of the party had gone to watch the stripping, shrieking girls or to join them.

  ‘You don’t care about impressing people, do you?’ he said to me.

  ‘Oh, if only that were true. Then I could be all cool, like you,’ I said wryly and grinned, then I worried that the drink had slurred my words.

  He made his way over to my blanket and sat next to me, leaning back on his hands with a sigh. Our fingers rested close alongside each other.

  ‘I’m not cool,’ he said to the stars.

  ‘Ah,’ I replied, wagging a finger. ‘Now it comes out. I’ve been waiting for this.’

  ‘I like you drunk.’ He smiled.

  ‘I’m not that drunk.’

  ‘You are. I can tell.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re more relaxed. Not so walled up.’

  ‘Huh. Should I be offended or flattered?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said through a wide smile. ‘It’s a compliment.’

  There might have been a pause then, but I couldn’t tell; I kept losing those leaps of time. Fenrin. Fenrin was talking to me. My body hadn’t yet caught up with the situation, and I felt no sickly flutterings. I felt funny and in control.

  ‘Sum
mer’s been telling me all about you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I replied, nervous and pleased.

  ‘Really.’

  ‘What terrible lies has she told you?’

  He laughed. ‘Summer never lies. She makes a point of it.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked, with what I hoped was just the right amount of tease.

  ‘Oh, I lie all the time. Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do, too, don’t you?’

  I didn’t reply. I watched his fingers creep up and touch the winding turret shell dangling from his throat.

  ‘Why do you always wear that?’ I said.

  He ran his fingertips over it, the kind of gesture that looked like he’d done it a thousand times. ‘It’s just a thing. Like a family thing. Each of us has an object. We chose them when we were kids.’

  ‘Like Summer’s amber bird,’ I said.

  ‘She told you about that?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘Aren’t you the observant one.’

  ‘Is it like a magical thing, then? She was talking about channelling energy through objects, once. Is that your magical object?’

  But my eyes finally caught up with my brain and I saw his expression. I’d gone wrong, somewhere.

  ‘You don’t actually believe all that stuff, do you?’ he said, with what was, I think, meant to be an easy smile. ‘You know magic isn’t real, right? Like unicorns and Father Christmas.’

  I remembered what Summer had said – the rest of her family wanting to hide the truth about what they really were.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ I joined in, offhand. ‘Except fairies. They’re still real, right? Don’t go ruining my childhood, now.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Fairies are real,’ said a girl called Clementine on the next blanket over, who had been making her way through a giant joint and looked almost asleep. ‘You just have to look hard enough. They don’t show themselves to impatient people.’

  ‘You’re both delusional,’ said Fenrin affably, and necked his drink.

  ‘If it were real, though,’ I continued. ‘Magic. What would you do with it? I mean, say you could make anything happen. What would you make happen?’

  He shrugged. ‘God, I don’t know. I’d make myself King of the Universe.’

  ‘It has to be realistic.’

  He looked amused. ‘Oh, realistic magic. Well, why didn’t you say? I’d probably wish to be a shape changer, or something stupid like that. So I could spend as much time as I wanted being a dolphin or a whale or something, out in the sea. Leave all this behind.’

  I glanced sidelong at him. He was the second Grace to talk about freedom to me tonight. Curiouser and curiouser.

  ‘How about you?’ he said to me.

  Well, if we were going for truths between us …

  ‘I think I’d use it for vengeance,’ I said.

  His eyebrows rose and he laughed. ‘Christ, that’s dark

  ‘To help people who’d been wronged,’ I insisted.

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there’s a whole legal system for that.’

  ‘I’m not talking about, like, major crimes. I’m talking about the things people do to others on a daily basis, just because they can. The things they get away with. If you could use magic to stop people being hurt, turn it back on the bad guys …’

  ‘You’re talking about vigilantism. An eye for an eye.’

  I shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t you ever be tempted?’

  ‘To go down the dark path? Black magic?’ he teased. ‘Nah. It would have to be a pretty bad situation for me to think that was a good idea. Those kinds of things always have consequences, and they’re almost never worth it.’ He paused. ‘But I can see why Summer likes you now.’

  He grinned at me, and I shoved him.

  Soon after that, Summer found us. She stood over us in nothing but soaking black jeans and a velveteen crop top that clung to her in heavy wet wrinkles, dripping onto the blanket, hands on her hips and her shoulders jerking with the cold. I was cracking up at something Fenrin had said when she spoke.

  ‘Don’t sleep with her,’ she said to Fenrin suspiciously. ‘She’s my friend.’

  My laugh turned into a choking noise.

  ‘Try not to be crass, Summer,’ Fenrin said airily. ‘That’s more like something you’d do, not me.’

  ‘Jase was a mistake,’ she snapped. ‘I really don’t get why you hang out with him.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now,’ Fenrin replied. ‘He’s ignoring me.’

  Summer deflated. ‘Sorry,’ she managed.

  Fenrin shrugged, kicked her shin. She yowled and threw herself on him, her long hair showering us with freezing droplets. Jase didn’t matter, not really. Nothing came between the Graces, and you’d be stupid to try. Would I succeed where Jase had screwed up? Could I?

  Maybe I could, because even Summer now thought Fenrin was into me.

  Fenrin. Into me.

  The spell was working.

  CHAPTER 9

  It was edging into May, the weather was that perpetual rain-shine, rain-shine that made the outdoor courts steam, and Summer and I had now been friends for well over a month. People’s jealousy followed us around the school corridors like a bad smell, and I was getting more unsubtle attention than I could stand. It turned out that being under the wing of a Grace still didn’t make you invulnerable.

  It started in form room, while the teacher, Miss Franks, called attendance. She said my name. Before I could reply, Niral stuck her hand up.

  ‘Miss,’ she said. ‘She’s not here.’

  Miss Franks peered at me, trying to work out the game.

  ‘She’s right in front of me, Niral. I can see her.’

  I was mute. I should have just come out with something quick and slick and wry, and it would have broken Niral’s attack before it could really begin. But my throat closed up on me, betraying my body’s fundamental cowardice, its life mantra: better to be silent than stupid.

  Niral’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You mean River?’

  She looked at me.

  The whole class was silent, soaking it up.

  Miss Franks waited for me to say something, then cleared her throat. ‘Her name is not River, Niral.’

  ‘Well, that’s not what I’ve been told. I think she’s changed it.’

  She. Her. They were talking about me and I still couldn’t speak.

  Silence.

  Everyone waited for me to defend myself. But I knew if I opened my mouth, it would come out wrong, or not at all.

  Summer would have sighed, lounging on her chair. ‘You’re just jealous, sweetheart,’ she would have said. ‘I mean, your name means “calm” and you’re, like, a screaming clown. Your whole existence is one big irony.’

  Laughter. Niral somehow smaller than before.

  This scenario ran through my head while the room stared at me. I ducked my head down.

  Miss Franks sighed. ‘Well, thank you for your delightful input, Niral, but I think I’ll stick with her given name.’

  She moved on down the list.

  I heard giggling.

  I heard someone whisper, ‘Pretentious bitch.’

  *

  I sat outside in the last dregs of the afternoon light and read through the instructions again.

  The chant was stupid. I’d flicked through my books for help, but I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t make me feel like an idiot saying it out loud. One book said you could make up your own chant, which fitted in with what Summer had said about magic – it wasn’t the words, it was the intent. The words just helped you form your intent. So I’d written my own, and in the dark of my bedroom at three in the morning, it had sounded shivery good. In daylight it was all wrong.

  I picked through the objects I’d brought – a coil of black satin ribbon, a black clove-scented candle, and the picture of Niral I’d printed out from the array of photograph
s she had put online.

  ‘Boo.’

  Startled, I dropped Niral’s picture and, caught by the wind, it skipped across the ground. Summer’s biker boot clamped it down with a jangle.

  I clutched my stupid spell toys. Summer planted herself down beside me. She was dressed head to toe in black, and her legs looked endless in the skin-tight jeans she was wearing. I’d chosen a scrubby spot on the riverbank, a ten-minute walk from school. We were shielded by a few spindly trees, but right opposite was a supermarket car park, filled with people going to and fro with their shopping bags.

  ‘Why’d you pick this spot?’ said Summer.

  ‘You need a river, to carry the ashes away from you. But this was the only part of the bank I could find that was easy to get to. It’s stupid, isn’t it? Someone’s going to see.’

  ‘Even if they did, they wouldn’t know what you were doing.’

  ‘Bet they would,’ I said. ‘This whole town is obsessed with witches.’

  With Graces, I wanted to say.

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Summer. ‘Get on with it.’

  I frowned at her.

  ‘Oh please, you can do it in front of me. Why did you even ask me to come down here?’

  ‘So you could check I was doing it right. I don’t want to mess it up.’

  Summer crossed her ankles, leaning back on her hands. Her hair was loose and the ends blew around her arms. ‘It doesn’t matter how you do it, or what with. It’s your will that drives it. Remember?’

  ‘So if I used, like, a neon pink ribbon instead of a black one and vanilla instead of clove, it wouldn’t make a difference?’ I was trying to be sarcastic.

  ‘It makes a difference in the beginning, I guess. Certain things amplify certain other things. And you make those associations in your mind, you know? So: Red for love. Black for restraint. First comes ritual magic, with specific objects and tools to help you focus. Then channel magic, where you don’t use anything except one object to channel your will through. Then thought magic. Thought magic is just you. You change things with just yourself, your presence in the universe like a weight on a piece of string, bending it to your will.’

  My heart began to thrum painfully in my chest.