Contents
PROLOGUE
1. AUDREY
2. IVY
3. AUDREY
4. IVY
5. AUDREY
6. AUDREY
7. IVY
8. IVY
9. AUDREY
10. IVY
11. AUDREY
12. IVY
13. AUDREY
14. IVY
15. IVY
16. AUDREY
17. IVY
18. AUDREY
19. IVY
20. AUDREY
21. IVY
22. AUDREY
23. IVY
24. AUDREY
25. AUDREY
26. IVY
27. AUDREY
28. AUDREY
29. AUDREY
30. IVY
31. IVY
32. IVY
33. AUDREY
34. IVY
35. AUDREY
36. AUDREY
37. IVY
38. IVY
39. AUDREY
40. AUDREY
41. IVY
42. AUDREY
43. IVY
44. IVY
45. AUDREY
46. IVY
47. AUDREY
48. AUDREY
49. IVY
50. AUDREY
51. IVY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
About the Author
Amy McCulloch is a Chinese-White author, raised in Canada and based in London, England. Amy has been editorial director for Penguin Random House Children’s, where she published Zoe’s #1 international bestselling series Girl Online, and has written for YA and middle-grade readers in her series The Oathbreaker’s Shadow, The Potion Diaries and Jinxed. When she’s not writing, she can normally be found on top of a mountain.
Zoe Sugg is a multi-hyphenate businesswoman, content creator and the bestselling author of the Girl Online series. In 2009, she started her blog and social media channels under the name "Zoella" and took the online world by storm. She has amassed 25 million followers across her YouTube and Instagram channels, and regularly uses her platform to address important subjects like mental health, cyber-bullying and women’s health.
Also by Zoe Sugg
GIRL ONLINE
GIRL ONLINE: ON TOUR
GIRL ONLINE: GOING SOLO
CORDIALLY INVITED
Also by Amy McCulloch
THE OATHBREAKER’S SHADOW
THE SHADOW’S CURSE
THE POTION DIARIES
ROYAL TOUR
GOING VIRAL
JINXED
UNLEASHED
Follow Amy and Zoe on Instagram
@amymccullochbooks
@zoesugg
#MagpieSociety
For Tracey and Maria – who inspire us
Prologue
The night she died, all our phones were turned off.
The police didn’t believe us.
Kids don’t go anywhere without their mobile phones, they said. You expect us to believe you weren’t Snap-facing or Insta-booking or whatever it is you kids do these days at your end-of-term party? That not a single person took a selfie or boomerang or video?
We all had the same answer: No.
They checked our phones anyway. Logged into our clouds. But there was nothing to find.
The detectives discovered a scrap of paper at the scene. It was one of the posters that had been stapled to the driftwood gate that marked the entrance to the steps down to the beach. It said in big, bold letters: NO PHONES, NO CAMERAS, NO SOCIAL MEDIA, NO EXCEPTIONS!
As if anyone at the party needed a reminder. Because that was the whole point: we’d wanted a chance to switch off. To have a party that wouldn’t be documented, to dance the night away in blissful anonymity, to have memories that couldn’t be fact-checked by photographs and videos. No one broke the rules. No one wanted to. We all had eagle eyes when it came to spotting the telltale glow of a smartphone screen, or the glint of a camera lens.
Some of us might break a law or two, if we felt compelled. But disobey the rules of our end-of-term party? No one would dare.
The police officer rolled his eyes as he interrogated us one by one. You mean to say you all followed these rules? I don’t believe you.
But we had nothing to show him. That was the truth. So he asked us to tell him instead.
The beach was alive that night. The bonfire was lit, the flames leaping up into the sky. Some of the logs flashed green as they burned, choked with salt from the sea. As we danced on the beach, our shadows stretched up the chalk cliffs looming over the horseshoe bay so that it looked as if the cliffs were moving. Waves crashed in the distance, the low tide leaving the sand littered with seaweed and shells. The summer evening was warm, the start of another British heatwave.
And, of course, it was rammed with us. Out of uniform, it was harder to tell who was who. Ironic, wasn’t it, that a uniform designed to make us all look the same actually became a blank canvas on which we could showcase our individuality? Now, in our normal clothes, we looked like regular teens. But we weren’t.
We were students of Illumen Hall.
That’s what made this party different. At other times of the year, students from nearby schools would come to our events – our Samhain party was legendary and if you missed our Christmas Extravaganza, you might as well say goodbye to any semblance of a social life.
But the end-of-term beach party was ours. We lived together for the whole year and, whether you enjoyed your time at school or not, separating for the summer suffused everyone with a sense of melancholy. No matter how hard you tried to avoid it, if you were one of the chosen 600 who attended Illumen Hall, you were woven into the fabric of the school. Summer split us apart and this party was a final memory to sustain us through two months of enforced separation.
The smell of charcoal permeated the air. The logs snapped and crackled with the heat, sending up blisters of embers into the rapidly darkening sky. Combined with low house beats and swaying bodies, it was intoxicating – or maybe that was just the copious amounts of alcohol that flowed into our paper cups.
The tide crept in as the hour grew later, until the bay was almost cut off and the only way out was back up the rough-hewn steps cut into the cliff face. It was all beautiful: us, the sand, the waves and the fire.
A blood-curdling scream sliced through the music. The crowd of writhing bodies froze. Then there was a surge, a ripple of panic that leaped from person to person. The screaming continued, the music snapped off, and we rushed as one down towards the water.
The screaming was coming from the sea. A figure was standing by the water. The sun had disappeared from the horizon, but there was enough ambient light to see by.
A body lay on the sand, waves lapping at the soles of her feet. She was on her front, but her head was tilted to one side, her lips tinged an unnatural blue.
Pale skin, blue lips, tangled strands of hair, twisted limbs.
And, on her back, an elaborate tattoo of a magpie, every detail intricately laid out across her shoulder blades, which jutted out on either side of her spine as sharp as knives. The bird’s wings were stretched out so that the edges of the feathers curled across on to her collarbone, and the tail feathers disappeared beneath the back of her dress.
A voice. ‘Go back to town and call the police. She’s dead.’
1
Audrey
Is there anything worse than starting over at a new school?
Turns out there is. Starting over at a new school when it’s lashing down with rain and a hurricane-force wind is blowing. In just a few months, I’ve managed to go from a warm, inviting red-bri
ck high school in sunny Georgia to what looks like a lame-ass version of Hogwarts on an isolated peninsula somewhere in the south of England, and in the worst weather I’ve ever seen. The windshield wipers of my dad’s Merc are moving at lightning speed, the engine still running, the sound mirroring my pounding nerves.
‘Be good, Audrey,’ he says, without turning around from the front seat.
Be good. Have words ever been so loaded? What he really means is, Don’t screw this up – don’t make things worse – only two more years until you’re no longer our responsibility and we can wash our hands of you once and for all. But, of course, none of those things are actually said. They’re in the tightness of my dad’s shoulders and the fact that Mom isn’t here at all, but away with Jason, my younger brother, in the south of France. Edison, my older brother, is at college in New Haven, and so no help at all either.
I don’t answer Dad. Instead, I take a deep breath and stare out the window. If I thought it looked ancient on the website, IRL Illumen Hall makes me feel like I’ve stepped back into a different century. It looks positively medieval. Like it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the severed heads of bad students staked between the turrets, Game of Thrones-style. Still, I’d risk the wrath of the Lannisters over staying in the car with my dad for a second longer, so I open the door, clutch my Chanel bag to my chest and brave the rain.
He shouts something as I run towards the entrance of the school, but his words are swept away by the wind.
I make a spectacular entrance, tumbling through the doors as they open smoothly, and, before I know it, I’m dripping rain on to a polished hardwood floor.
The noise of the storm outside is almost completely swallowed up by the building as the doors close softly behind me, and the quiet is disconcerting. I slowly lift my eyes, trying to take everything in. My gaze stops at a huge portrait of an imposing woman dressed in an elaborate emerald silk gown. She’s staring down at the door as if she’s judging every person who enters. I feel about two inches tall – which is surprising because I’m five eleven and normally tower over everybody.
‘Intimidating, isn’t it?’
I spin around to see a woman dressed in a smart pale-pink suit with matching low-heeled pumps.
‘Yeaaah.’ My Southern drawl echoes round the atrium. Ugh. I’ve never managed to sound as out of place as I feel.
‘You must be Miss Wagner?’
‘Oh, uh, just Audrey is fine,’ I say.
Her lips pull into a tight smile – she doesn’t look like she takes too kindly to the idea of casual greetings. ‘I’m Mrs Abbott, headmistress of Illumen Hall.’ She extends her hand and I shake it weakly. ‘I saw you and your father pull up in the courtyard – I’m sorry I didn’t come out to greet you, but …’ She shrugs, and gestures to the puddle I’m making on the floor. ‘Your things have arrived safely, so I’ll show you up to your room.’
I raise an eyebrow. I know my dad’s company is big and important, but is it normal for the principal – headmistress – to act as tour guide? ‘Where is everyone?’ I ask.
‘Most pupils won’t be here until this afternoon, in time for the welcome assembly.’
She’s walking away before her sentence is even finished, and I scramble to keep up, my flip-flops squelching on the wood floor. I bump my hip into the banister, only just stopping myself from cussing. Klutsy, loud, foul-mouthed American isn’t the first impression I want to give Mrs Abbott. I’m never this awkward back home, but here I can’t help craning my neck to gawk at the lofty ceiling with its intricate carved stonework, or at the gigantic paintings that almost completely cover the walls. I’ve never been in a place like this that wasn’t a museum or a gallery.
‘We’ve put you in Helios House,’ says Mrs Abbott, climbing the stairs. ‘You’ll be sharing a room with one of our top pupils, Miss Moore-Zhang, so you can direct any questions that you have to her. She’ll give you the full tour once you’re settled in.’
I take a deep breath. I really hope that my new room-mate and I will be good friends. I want a fresh start here – new country, new school and a whole new set of friends. Brendan, my then-boyfriend, laughed when he found out I’d be sharing a room. You? Princess Audrey? A good reminder of why he’s now an ex-boyfriend.
We turn down a hallway on the second floor where we need to step over a fairly large pile of rubble. Mrs Abbott tuts loudly at a gaping hole in the ceiling.
She sees the frown on my face. ‘We’ve had some building work done over the summer that I’ve been promised will be finished by tomorrow.’ She raises her voice as she says that last part. I think I catch an answering grunt from deep inside the cavernous ceiling. I wonder if Mrs Abbott thinks I’m gonna report back to my dad. As if.
I try not to get too much dust on my bag as I follow Mrs Abbott down the hallway. ‘Did you bring your ID card?’ she asks me as we stop by a pair of double doors.
‘Oh, um …’ I dig through my handbag, knowing I put that stupid school pass somewhere. It’s the size of a credit card, and apparently my key to all different areas of the school – including my accommodation.
Mrs Abbott waits a few seconds and, when my searching becomes even more frantic, lets out the tiniest huff of annoyance. She takes her own pass out from her suit pocket and swipes us in. ‘You must keep your card safe – without it, you’ll have trouble getting around.’
‘Here it is!’ I say, finally prising it free from between a make-up compact and my AirPods case. I make a big show of putting it in the front zipper of my bag. We pass by something that looks like mailboxes, covered by a glass window, and I catch my name written underneath one of the shelves.
‘Here we are.’ We’re outside room number seven. ‘Your home for the rest of the year. Sorry I have to dash off – as you can see, there’s a lot going on that needs sorting out before the chaos tomorrow. I’m sure Miss Moore-Zhang will be along shortly. In the meantime, settle yourself in and unpack. And, Miss Wagner – welcome to Illumen Hall.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. About a billion questions bubble to the surface, but Mrs Abbott doesn’t hang around to hear them. I take a deep breath, steel myself and push open the door.
The first thing I notice is a deep bay window, right opposite the door, framed with voluminous white voiles and heavy brown velvet curtains. Across it sits a little bench covered in forest-green satin. It looks like the ideal reading nook – even I might be tempted to curl up with a book once in a while – and even though it’s stormy outside I can tell the window will bring a lot of light into the room in nice weather. The walls are panelled in rich cherry-coloured wood and there are two single beds pressed up against the walls on either side, along with two matching wardrobes, two desks and two dressers. It’s as if a mirror has been placed down the centre of the room.
There are some loose boards in the hardwood floor that rattle as I step on them, but nothing a good rug won’t cover. With a few pictures to warm up the wood, some ornaments dotted around … it won’t be so bad. I smile to myself and take out my phone to send a picture to Lydia, my best friend back home. She’s obsessed with interior design so will have plenty of ideas about how to jazz it up.
My boxes and suitcases are in the hallway outside, but I’m in no rush to move them in. Still, the first thing I take out is my school uniform, which is pressed and fresh in its bag from the dry-cleaner’s. I unzip the bag and stare at the uniform – my new outfit for the rest of the year. The blazer is a deep navy blue wool, with gold buttons in the shape of stars. The pleated skirt is the same, accented with stitches in gold thread. It’s not so bad.
I jump as a voice comes from behind me. ‘Don’t get too comfortable. This room is cursed.’
2
Ivy
‘This room is cursed,’ I say, pushing my way round the tall, white, blond, slightly fragile-looking new girl in the doorway.
Be kind. Mum’s words ring in my ears. Lola’s awful accident at the start of the summer is already making this year difficult enough. Bu
t it’s hard to be kind when I’m about to meet the girl I’m giving up my privacy for.
And it’s especially hard to be kind when everything about her screams that we won’t get along. In one hand she’s got an oversized smartphone with a pink, fluffy case, and over her shoulder is a flashy designer bag. It must be freezing outside, but she has flip-flops on. I don’t like to pass judgement on someone before talking to them, but she’s making it too easy.
She darts round at the sound of my voice, her big blue eyes widening with fear. ‘Oh my God, you scared me. Hi, I’m Audrey!’
Oh, it gets worse. She’s American.
She hangs her dry-cleaning on the back of the door and extends her arms towards me, a grin showing off her perfect white teeth. ‘So pleased to meet you!’ she says.
I dodge her hug. ‘Oh wow … too soon,’ I mutter. Ignoring her pained expression, I walk past her and place my battered leather satchel down on one of the beds to claim it. It’s the better bed – the one with the view out of the bay window and the brand-new mattress, things you’d only know if you’d studied this place inside and out, like I have. ‘I’ll take this side,’ I say – stating the obvious, but then she probably needs that.
Shrugging, she places her bag on the bed opposite. She sits down and the ancient springs creak. I wonder which dusty storage room they dragged it out of – turning this spacious single room into a cramped double.
‘So, you’re my new roomie,’ she says.
‘Your powers of deduction are marvellous,’ I respond, putting on my poshest-sounding voice. ‘I’m Ivy.’
She frowns, picking at the edge of a baby pink, manicured fingernail. I turn my back on her, feigning interest in the contents of my bag, but feel a twinge of regret. It’s not her fault I’m in such a terrible mood. Well, OK, it kind of is. But she doesn’t know that.
I’ve been dreaming of this year ever since my first night at Illumen Hall – staring at the ceiling, listening to other girls toss and turn and snore in shared accommodation – because finally, finally, I’d get to have my very own room. I’ve been grafting, working every angle, on my very best behaviour, so that I would be the one lower-sixth student in Helios to earn the privilege of having their own room. When it was confirmed at the end of last term, it was better than any prize.
The Magpie Society One for Sorrow Page 1