by Cari Thomas
‘With due diligence and control.’ It was an Aunt-approved answer.
‘Perhaps we ought to see some …’
Anna’s mouth opened and closed like a fish on land. They liked to question her, to put her on the spot, but they had never asked to see her magic before. She looked to Aunt but she was nodding in agreement.
‘Pass me that frame.’ Mrs Withering tilted her head towards the mantelpiece. Anna walked over and reached for a picture of Aunt and herself when she was younger. ‘No. The one to the right.’ Anna realized she meant the picture of Aunt and her mother. She picked it up, hesitantly, and handed it over.
‘Very sweet.’ Mrs Withering studied it and then, to Anna’s consternation, turned it over and began unpinning the frame. She removed the photograph and promptly tore it into four pieces, splitting her mother’s face into quarters and scattering the pieces on the table.
Anna didn’t cry out. She clenched her fists and found that her heart felt as if it had been torn along with the picture. The women watched with eagerness in their faces. Anna didn’t dare look at Aunt. If she was enjoying this it would be too much to bear.
‘Now make it whole again.’ Mrs Withering sat back in her chair and stirred her tea. There were other clinks of china as the rest of the room followed suit, enjoying their refreshments during the show.
Anna didn’t know what to do. Was she meant to try to bind the picture back together? Was she meant to fail or manage the feat? Perhaps she was meant to resist the task altogether to prove she was against the very idea of magic.
‘Go on. We’re all waiting.’
Anna pulled out a bundle of fresh cords, hands shaking, and selected four lengths of blue cord – blue for calm. Slowly she began to tie them together with Stitch Knots, trying to focus as the circle of eyes closed in on her. My Hira is twine and thorn. She could hear Mrs Withering’s teaspoon grating against the edge of the cup; her loud, hot-tea breath.
She pulled the knots tight. Nothing happened. She wiped a sweaty palm against her dress, refocused and tried again.
‘I can’t tell if she’s started yet or not?’ said Mrs Aldershot. The others tittered with laughter.
‘Anna, your poor mother!’ Mrs Withering exclaimed. ‘One of the only pictures left of her and you don’t have the heart to put her back together again.’
Her words stung and brought with them feelings Anna had long tried to hide from. She looked at the torn pieces of her mother’s face and felt a sudden, immense sadness. I have always failed you. She looked towards Aunt and there was something in her eyes that suggested she understood, that this charade, this mockery was hurting her too – but she did not move.
Anna tied another knot but the photograph remained ripped on the table.
‘That’s enough,’ said Aunt.
Mrs Withering smiled with supercilious satisfaction, dropping the spoon into the cup with a final, violent tinkle. ‘You were right, Vivienne. There is nothing to worry about. She is weak. That must be hard, Anna; your mother had no problem with magic, but then again, she was weak too, in her own shameful way.’ Her mole was practically vibrating with pleasure.
Anna clenched her fists and shot her a look. You don’t get to talk about my mother! Aunt always spoke about her mother’s deficiencies, but she was allowed to – they were sisters. This woman had no claim on her. No right.
‘But wait! There it is! The true Anna hiding behind the pale hair, I saw a glimpse of her then. Didn’t I?’
Anna attempted to control the anger that had followed in the wake of the grief. She shook her head.
‘That’s right, girl, control yourself or we will be forced to bring your Knotting forwards. Considering this morning’s events, the sooner you are knotted the better. Our old enemies may be stirring. Beware smoke on the wind.’
Anna looked up.
‘Anna’s Knotting will proceed as planned,’ said Aunt. ‘When she is ready. You know it can’t be rushed.’
Mrs Withering screwed her lips into a tight-as-a-button smile. ‘When she is ready, of course, Vivienne. You’d just better make sure she is ready soon.’ She turned back to Anna. ‘You do wish to join us, don’t you?’
Anna surveyed the room – the circle of women with their preened hair and lipstick-stained smiles, goading and questioning – and felt them all to be hideous. They were most certainly mad.
‘There would be no greater honour.’
‘It is not an honour, Anna. It is a duty,’ Aunt corrected sharply.
‘Yes,’ Anna agreed. ‘I’m sorry. Shall I leave now?’
‘Clear this mess up first.’ Mrs Withering pointed at the torn pieces of the photo. Anna began to gather them up but Mrs Withering turned to the grate and with a flourish of her hands the stale logs sat within it began to burn, a small, concentrated fire. ‘You can throw them in there.’
Please, no. ‘Could I not just—’
‘Throw them in the fire. When you become a Binder you will have to understand what sacrifice means.’
Anna walked to the fire and threw the pieces into the flames. The face of her mother curled and blackened. She turned back to Mrs Withering with the hardest smile she’d ever had to form.
Mrs Withering smiled back. It reached her eyes this time. ‘Silence and secrets.’
‘Silence and secrets.’ Anna joined the others in their answering chorus.
‘You may go now. We have serious matters to discuss,’ said Aunt.
Anna turned to her and nodded. How could you just watch?
She made for the door as quickly as she could without actually running. It slammed shut behind her and she nearly collapsed against the wall. She had escaped. For now. But why would they move her Knotting? What did she have to do with six women hanging from Big Ben? Her ceremony had always felt like a distant threat, but Anna could feel it now, coming closer, hanging over her like a noose.
She would have given anything to hear what they were saying, what was really going on, why they were so disturbed by the news story, but she knew there was no point. When she was younger she’d often looked through the keyhole during their meetings, but it never revealed anything, only darkness. With her ear glued to the door, she’d never heard a sound. Just like the room on the third floor, whatever went on was enveloped in silence and secrets. It was not for her to know, not until she became a Binder herself. The thought made her feel cold and sick, but what choice did she have?
There is no choice, said Aunt, it is either that or let magic destroy you.
NOBODY
Weakness in feeling; strength in control.
Tenet Two, The Book of the Binders
‘Behave, work hard and stay away from Effie! And that boy! The risks are greater than ever. Remember, Anna, fine pearls make no noise.’ Aunt assessed her for any last flaws she hadn’t yet spotted and then gave her a perfunctory hug. ‘Now go, you’ll miss your train.’
Anna left the house, her new uniform uncomfortable, ironed into stiff lines. Black, white and maroon: the sixth-form colours. It would give her standing, make her conspicuous. She couldn’t be conspicuous. I’m a nobody. She touched each of the six knots along her Knotted Cord, every one tight with emotion.
The last few days of the holidays had settled themselves back into their usual shape. Everything appeared the same as always and yet nothing was quite the same. Aunt was tense, not her usual, irritable kind of tense, but an erratic kind – energised and frenzied one minute, jumpy and snappy the next.
Anna hadn’t been able to get the hanging women and the leering faces of the Binders out of her mind. The burnt-fear smell of their words. Aunt and the Binders had spoken of old enemies and threats and worse her whole life, so much and so often that it had become like background noise, like embroidery stitches forming a pattern she could not see and did not understand. But now it was different: a shock of real fear, like the prick of a needle.
There was only one threat the Binders truly feared. The ones who know our secrets.
&nbs
p; She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Attis and Effie either, unsettled to find that she wanted to see them again. She just didn’t want them to see her. They knew her secret – that she was a witch – and the thought made her feel dreadfully exposed. Anna was sure not even they were crazy enough to reveal their magic to ordinary people, but she didn’t think they were going to be particularly careful either and she couldn’t take those kinds of risks. She had Aunt to deal with, and the Binders ready to knot her at a minute’s notice. There were reasons of her own too – she had to remain a nobody.
She walked through the quiet of their neighbourhood, past the uniform houses, the church in its expanse of graveyard, the tidy parks. Just before the station, she stopped outside the newsagents and picked up a newspaper from the rack:
All gone cuckoo? Faceless Women mystery deepens
Despite the story’s national coverage and more than 500 witnesses speaking to police, the identities of the women remain unknown. Police are calling on anyone who might have any information …
Anna scanned the article quickly. It contained several new grisly photographs but nothing of use. How does no one know who these women were? She put it back down and checked her watch. She needed to go.
Running the rest of the way to the station, she took the train to Dulwich. She briefly fantasized about not getting off at her stop, staying on the train until she found herself somewhere else, someone else, but before she knew it she was traversing the long driveway to the school entrance, cars roaring past and the cut-grass lawns sparkling green. The school reared up before her: a sprawling, red-stoned beast, grand and prowling as an old lion, all high windows and turrets and spires rising above the trees, looking as if it had been transplanted to London from the pages of a Gothic novel. It had in fact once served as a Victorian workhouse, a place where the poor were housed to work and die quietly. Behind its grand entrance doors lay a labyrinth of corridors, narrow and claustrophobic as a hive.
Fellow pupils stepped out of their four-by-fours, kissing mothers and fathers goodbye, but Anna didn’t stop to greet anyone. She hurried to the entrance, finding her stomach in knots, just as it had been the first time she’d walked through the doors; after a childhood of homeschooling, she’d been so excited, so full of hope to be experiencing the real world, to be getting away from Aunt. Now all she felt was dread.
It wasn’t that she hated school. She enjoyed her lessons, she was top of the class in several subjects, she loved escaping to the music room to play the piano – it was just all the rest of it. She had to stay focused, as Aunt had said. Get the grades, get into medical school. Even if she lived with Aunt forever, at least if she was a doctor she’d have something of her own life, her own independence, skills that could help people. It wasn’t magic but perhaps it could be something like freedom.
The smell of polished wood greeted her, familiar as the navy carpets beneath her feet. Groups collected around her, friends seeking friends, constellations forming, drawn together by the pull of summer gossip. Whispers stirring. Phones beeping. Anna listened to it as she passed:
‘Yeah, broke up but then he posted those pics of her—’
‘I missed you! Where have you been all my life?’
‘Not a virgin any more – the beach club toilets apparently.’
‘Lost so much weight—’
‘She’s not coming back, not since Darcey shunned her.’
‘Did you see the new girl?’
The air was feverish with excitement, a bubbling anxiety beneath the surface. The gossip mill had begun turning and everyone was required to make their offering.
No one batted an eyelid as she passed. Anna breathed out with relief.
A nobody, still.
She made her way to the Athenaeum – the main school hall – for assembly. It was an exceptionally grand room, with mahogany-panelled walls, stained-glass windows and a raised stage at the end; stiff-backed chairs creaked and groaned as the pupils took their seats below it. Anna quietly took a seat at the end of a row and looked out for Effie, but couldn’t spot her among the crowds.
All grew quiet as Headmaster Connaughty took up his position on the stage, only just tall enough for the wooden lectern behind which he stood. ‘Welcome back to St Olave’s School for Girls. This year is the start of the rest of your lives …’ He was as wide as he was short with a florid, shiny face, an inelegant combover and a bulbous nose. His speech – like all his speeches – was merely an excuse for him to discuss his own exceptional feats in life in getting to where he was today: head of one of the most prestigious schools in London: ‘You must mould your ambitions! Just as I moulded mine and achieved greatness,’ pounding his fists on the lectern, dabbing frequently at his melting forehead with a handkerchief.
Anna looked behind him to the prefects seated on the stage. Darcey Dulacey front and centre, scanning the rows of pupils before her regally, bone structure pure-bred pedigree, hair bronzed, make-up impeccable, a proprietorial smile and cruel eyes, judging and assessing. Anna felt her stomach churn with acid.
‘Look at Darcey’s tan,’ a girl in the row behind started to whisper. ‘Did you see her summer pictures from the Amalfi coast? Sickening …’
‘All those couple selfies with Peter. Life’s not fair.’
‘Are they back together then?’
‘Oh yeah, big time …’
Anna tried to block them out. So Darcey and Peter were back together – what does it matter to me? Peter wouldn’t look in her direction, whether Darcey existed or not. Unfortunately Darcey did exist and there was no escaping her; everyone would be talking about her all day. She was smart, rich, exceptionally dressed, a talented ballerina, spoke Mandarin and ran the school student council, but all of that was merely an accessory to her main skill. Darcey was popular because she knew how to control the conversation, how to place herself at the centre of the gossip web – and how to ingest anyone who stood in her way.
‘And now to introduce the new joiners this year. I hope you will make them all feel welcome and show them what it means to be an Olave’s lady.’ Headmaster Connaughty’s chins wobbled. Anna hated how he always used the word lady as a weapon against them.
Sarah Egerton.
Tiana Oakley-Smith.
The new girls came up on stage one by one, receiving their school badge and shaking hands with Connaughty. Most looked uncomfortable and self-conscious; others rose with their head held high, fuelled by an air of self-entitlement. Darcey watched them shrewdly.
Charlotte Robinson.
Effie Fawkes.
Anna sat up at the sound of her name. Effie made her way onto the stage slowly, casually. She did not fit into either category. She wore the uniform as if it was a mere suggestion and her hair was loose, against regulations. Headmaster Connaughty looked at her with mild irritation. She held his hand for a few seconds longer than the others had, looked at him – right at him – until he almost seemed to recoil, and then she turned away and scanned the row of prefects as if they were faintly amusing to her.
As she left the stage it felt like she ought to carry on walking, out of the hall and to somewhere she belonged, for she did not belong here, not at St Olave’s. Everyone else seemed to feel it too; whispers spread in quiet ripples. Anna saw Darcey strain to get another look. She’s got you worried. Anna smiled and then hid it, lowering her head once more.
Afterwards, the lower years were led out, leaving only the sixth form. Headmaster Connaughty gave them all a knowing look. ‘Now, as you are all aware, the final two years at St Olave’s ceases to remain distinctly girls only and we welcome gentlemen from St Olave’s Boys for mixed classes.’
Charged whispers sparked among the remaining pupils. Connaughty put up his hand. ‘Control yourself, ladies. I know, it is overwhelming to be joined by the godsend that is the male sex.’ His words writhed with sarcasm, but he straightened himself up taller, as if he clearly considered himself at the forefront of the male species. ‘St Olave’s Boys
are also permitted to use your sixth form common room and dining area, just as you will be able to use theirs. However, canoodling or other inappropriate forms of relations on school premises will not be tolerated. Neither will any pregnancies.’ Headmaster Connaughty laughed loudly at his own unsavoury joke before dismissing them, the whispers breaking free in an overbearing torrent of noise.
The morning’s lessons were full of introductions. New textbooks, new teachers, new syllabuses and new scandal and slander to overhear. Anna listened, knowing that, without a phone, she was only hearing the surface of it. She was perturbed to find that Effie was already caught up in it, despite being a member of the school for a matter of hours.
‘Transferred from NYC—’
‘I heard she got expelled for drugs?’
‘I heard she set the place on fire.’
‘I heard she had an affair with a teacher …’
No one knew anything really but the gossip mill fed off lies; it could turn pure water to tar. A shut mouth catches no flies. That’s what Aunt said about idle chatter.
Anna was doing her best to keep her distance from Effie but before lunch their whole year would be gathered together for the annual torture of the uniform inspection. Anna made her way to the allotted classroom, fiddling with her Knotted Cord, her dread increasing because as the head prefect of their year, Darcey, would be in charge – but Anna couldn’t deny she was curious too, interested to see how Effie might fit into the hierarchy.
She slotted in at the back of the queue. Effie didn’t appear to have arrived but Darcey was already in full swing – she and her usual accomplices, Olivia and Corinne, sitting on high stools at the front of the classroom, slurping on green juices as they picked over their victims. Darcey had the juices delivered every morning and you always knew who was in her inner circle or current favour by whom she gave one to. They were known as the Juicers.
‘Necklaces aren’t allowed,’ Darcey declared. ‘I’ll have to confiscate it.’
‘But it was a gift from my boyfriend,’ the girl cowering in front of them attempted to protest.