Giant Days

by Non Pratt

  At which point it became abundantly clear that it was Daisy who’d gotten things wrong.

  Ever one to make the best of what appeared to be a disastrous situation, Esther had embraced Harry Potter Quiz Night with all the enthusiasm that she would have embraced Rock Night. In seconds, she’d been assimilated onto a team of misfits captained by Susan’s friend Grace and including a girl called Noor, whom Esther recognized as someone from her course from her pink headscarf and dimpled smile, and a mountain in a Hogwarts T-shirt who was introduced as American Chad.

  They were terrible.

  As Esther and Grace drained pitcher after pitcher of Harry Potter–themed cocktails, the others seemed to get equally drunk on hysteria as their team, the “Mugglebloods,” crashed into last place through every round with increasingly far-fetched and fanciful answers, referencing magical creatures from all the wrong mythologies, made-up spells, and ever so slightly rude variations on character names.

  “Who knew A-level Latin would come in so useful?” Noor collapsed into Esther, giggling as they staggered their way out of the Union.

  “That look on Dumbledore’s face when you yelled out ‘haemorrhoidus explodus’ as the spell Harry used on Draco Malfoy!” Esther couldn’t breathe, she was laughing so much.

  “You guys are crazy!” American Chad leaned forward to put his arms over their shoulders and squeezed them so tightly, Esther felt as if her head would pop. “I’ve never had so much fun losing.”

  “Let’s go dancing!” Grace swung around and pointed in the direction of town, swaying unsteadily so that Noor gently shrugged Chad off and hurried over to her.

  Esther frowned, thinking back to how many pitchers they’d had, with Grace topping up Esther’s glass of “MargaRita Skeeter” faster than Esther was drinking it. She felt merry and fuzzy but in full control of her faculties, unlike Grace, who was having a heated and slightly hysterical argument with Noor.

  “Is she OK?” Esther asked Chad.

  Chad shrugged. “Who knows? She veers between nights of partying as hard as she works and days of sitting in her PJs eating nothing but cereal.”

  For a moment, Esther wondered why he knew this, before remembering Grace had said he was one of her housemates. “The only decent one,” she’d said, although Esther hadn’t exactly known what that meant. Not for the first time, she felt grateful to have been housed on a corridor with Daisy and Susan.

  She watched Grace lean forward to hug Noor, crying onto her shoulder.

  “Is this about her boyfriend in Plymouth?” Esther asked. He’d come up a few times during the quiz.

  “I guess. They talk a lot on the phone, but I think she’s finding it hard.”

  Esther nodded, thinking of how it had been when she was still with The Boy—the constant ache of not being with him and yet not being free, anchored in the water, pulled back and forth with the tide. It wasn’t hard to see how Grace was struggling to get the balance right.

  It had been difficult, but with a little distance, Esther thought that perhaps what had happened to her had been for the best.

  A salacious “Ooooooooh . . .” rippled around the table, and a few last-minute bets exchanged hands before someone took up the chant, “Dai-sy! Dai-sy! Dai-sy!”

  Scrutinizing her options, Daisy chose her spot and bent over. The baize was soft beneath her fingertips as she splayed the fingers of her left hand, the wood of the pool . . . pole? brushing against her chin. Drawing air into her lungs, Daisy channeled a little Zoise learning to summon a yogi-like calm amid the clamor of the pool hall. In one smooth motion, she struck the cue ball, and the room fell silent.

  The white rolled the length of the table and gently kissed the black.

  Almost before it was sunk, the room erupted into a cacophony of cheering and whooping. Ed Gemmell grabbed Daisy’s arm and swung it high into the air.

  “The undisputed champion—Daisy Wooton!”

  Overwhelmed at being the focus of so much good cheer from so many strangers, Daisy edged away toward the vending machine, hoping that no one would notice.

  But one person did: her opponent.

  “An excellent match and a worthy victor.” McGraw held out his hand, and they shook. For all that her loyalties lay with Susan, there was no denying that McGraw was one of the most considerate, polite, and downright chivalrous people Daisy had ever encountered. He had the manners of a Regency gentleman, the mustache of a middle-aged man, and the youthful twinkle in his smile of someone who looked at the world and liked it.

  Which was probably exactly the reason Susan found him intolerable.

  “Do you fancy another game?” McGraw asked, but before Daisy had a chance to excuse herself, his phone rang. Looking down, McGraw frowned at the name onscreen before answering. “Hello?”

  This wasn’t supposed to have happened. Susan wasn’t someone who drank too much. Ever. It must have been something in that tapas platter.

  It certainly smelled like something in that tapas platter.

  “I’m not drunk. I’ll be fine.” Susan groaned at the patch of tarmac she was staring at, sitting on the curb, her elbows propped on her knees, hands supporting her head. “You’ve got to get your train.”

  “We’re not leaving you on your own . . .” Beebz said from somewhere above.

  Susan spat despondently, wondering how much more she could possibly throw up before she turned inside out. She didn’t know where Madeleine had gone, probably somewhere out of splatter range. Susan really was more worried about them getting the train than anything else. She couldn’t afford for them to stay over. Couldn’t afford having to explain to Esther and Daisy who they were or why they were there . . .

  There were some scuffled footsteps and murmured conversation, and then Beebz was crouching in front of Susan, nose wrinkled as she said, “Cavalry’s here. Forgive us our trespasses and all that. It was good to see you, Ptolemy.”

  “Bye, you, feel better.” Madeleine was back again and kissing the top of Susan’s head, which was almost certainly the only safe place to kiss.

  And then someone was hauling her up. Someone strong. Someone familiar.

  Someone against whom Susan would have invoked Subsection B of Clause 4 of their contract, if she’d felt a little less feeble.

  It was a bright and cheery morning, but only Daisy was up to see it, lying in bed and checking her e-mails to find one from Jasper.

  Welcome, Brethren.

  Thank you to all those who attended last night. Please find attached the MP3 file for this week’s Zounds of Zoise—20 minutes a day is all it takes. See you next week!

  Remember: The path to enlightenment reveals itself to those who share. Bring a friend, and reap the bounty of the Brethren.

  Daisy looked over to where her own velvety black robe hung on the back of her door. The robe was on loan. Daisy was free to attend up to three sessions as an honorary member, after which point she was expected to make a contribution to the group and become a full acolyte. When Daisy had asked what kind of contribution was expected, Elise had recited the same line as at the bottom of the e-mail: The path to enlightenment reveals itself to those who share.

  “Yes, but share what?” Daisy had frowned.

  “You can introduce friends to the group or share worldly possessions.”

  “You mean money?”

  But Jasper had overheard and stepped in. “Cash holds no meaning for one who wants for nothing. It is not the worldly value of your gifts that Zoise desires, but the emotional value of the transaction.”

  Which hadn’t exactly cleared things up, but he’d gone on to explain about the belt system, and Daisy had gotten caught up in the thought of progressing to her first full belt. It was a bit like being back in Girl Guides and working toward a badge, and Daisy welcomed the feeling of purpose that came with it.

  Her smile faded as she heard noises from next door. Susan was awake.

  It was safe to say that Susan did not have the healthiest relationship with sleep. Last
night, it had reached a new low as she plummeted into a fractured reality, with Beebz and Madeleine face-swapping with Esther and Daisy, McGraw’s voice asking over and over, “Are they going to sign a contract, too?” mixed through with lucid recollections that she wished were dreams and also, horrendously, more vomiting.

  When she woke, fully and finally and mercifully restored to something like health, Susan knew that there was worse to come, and it had nothing to do with the aftereffects of the tapas platter. Or seven neat whiskies.

  “Susan?” There was a knock on the door before Daisy pushed it open and, seeing that the inhabitant was conscious, tiptoed across the room. She opened the window and lay a plate of toast and a cup of black coffee on the bedside table. “You should eat.”

  “Thank you,” Susan whispered, not able to meet her eyes.

  The silent reproach that flooded into the room after Daisy left was suffocating. After a restorative shower, a change of clothes, another round of toast and coffee, and a short stroll, Susan paused outside Esther’s door and listened to the murmur of conversation within before knocking and entering. Esther and Daisy were sitting on the bed, caught in a tableau of what looked like a game of gin rummy.

  “Hi,” Susan said.

  “How are you feeling?” Daisy asked gently, setting her cards down.

  “Terrible.”

  “Do you want me to make you something?” Daisy was already half off the bed when Susan raised a hand to stop her.

  “Not that sort of terrible.” God. This was hard. “I feel bad about what happened yesterday.”

  “You mean blowing us off to go and hang out with your real friends?” Esther’s words stung.

  “Yes. That.”

  The two of them were looking at her expectantly, but when Susan remained silent a moment too long, Esther spoke. “Are you ashamed of us or something?”

  “Of course not.” But her protest had no effect on either of their expressions. “The only thing I’m ashamed of is me.”

  Humility. It hurt.

  “Go on,” Esther said.

  “Look. I just—I didn’t plan for my friends to come here. It was a surprise visit, and . . . I panicked.”

  “Why?” asked Daisy, her voice, her expression a little softer than Esther’s.

  “I’m just not ready for things to . . .” She meshed her fingers together. “Mix. You know?”

  Daisy glanced at Esther, then said, “I’m not sure we do.”

  Closing her eyes, Susan tried to put words to something that she’d never tried to make sense of. Opening them again, she knew that if they didn’t understand what she said now, there’d never be a way to explain it.

  “I have . . . trust issues.” Esther snorted at this, but Daisy settled her. “I don’t want you to get to know me through someone else. I want you to get to know me through me.”

  “You do?” Esther’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I do.” Susan managed an almost-smile. “But . . . I’m not like you. It takes time.”

  Susan looked across the room at her two friends—the two people who had started to matter the most—and wondered whether it was enough to want them to understand.

  Esther shrugged, glanced at Daisy, and said, “OK.”

  Picking up the cards, Daisy looked over at Susan. “Want me to deal you in?”

  Over in F-block, McGraw returned from a pleasant Sunday lunch with Ed to find a Post-it Note on his door.

  1) J-block, Catterick Hall, is considered out of bounds at all times.

  Last night, I believe you breached our terms. Consider this a warning.

  4

  J-BLOCK UNITED

  Esther was painting yellow cobwebs on her black-varnished nails when she heard someone step into her open doorway.

  “Hard at work, then?” Susan asked.

  “I think I missed my calling.” Esther splayed her fingers and took a photo of her handiwork. There was always a swell of appreciation for dark nail art in the run-up to Halloween.

  She watched Susan perch on the end of the bed and clear her throat.

  “Are you hinting that you want me to give you a dark magic manicure?” It was too good an opportunity to miss, but as soon as Esther snatched Susan’s hand, she recoiled at the sight. “Eurgh! Wait, no, this is far more horrific than anything I could achieve.”

  Ragged cuticles, split nails, scabbed skin—Susan’s hands looked like those of a zombie that had just clawed its way out of the grave.

  “Achievement unlocked. I am officially too slovenly for a makeover.” The malevolence in Susan’s grin was dimmed beneath a veil of caution. One day on, and things were still a little tender between them. “Anyway, I’m not here to enable your time wasting.”

  She took a card out of her top pocket and handed it to Esther.

  “Grace gave me this. We’re all invited.”

  Esther looked down at the card, the words HALLOWEEN PARTY in what looked like fake blood catching her attention.

  “But you hate parties.” Esther looked up in confusion. “Parties mean people, and you hate people.”

  “Not all people.” Susan studied the nubs of her fingernails before muttering, “There’s a couple I think are all right.”

  But the last word was barely more than a squawk as Esther barreled in to give Susan a hug.

  “Steady on,” Susan said, wriggling her way out of Esther’s arms. “Don’t think I’m going to dress up.”

  The door of room number 12 was wedged open, revealing the extent to which Esther had embraced her favorite festival. Bat-shaped bunting swooped from corner to corner, and fake candles glimmered inside skull-shaped lanterns and the occasional hollowed gourd. Susan’s skeleton had been temporarily relocated and arranged by the door, one arm offering a bowl of gobstopper “eyeballs” bobbing about in a bowl of bloodlike black-currant cordial. Esther had somehow managed to rig up a motion sensor so that when anyone passed, the skeleton would emit a recording asking whether they would like to make a sacrifice.

  Susan approached, skirting outside the range of the sensor, just to be contrary.

  “This is your five-minute warning—WHAT THE HOLY HELLFIRE HAVE YOU DONE TO DAISY?”

  Susan was a medical student. She was familiar with blood and viscera; in preparation for her degree, she’d indulged in some pretty extreme Google-image exposure therapy. It was safe to say that Susan had Seen Things.

  But she had never before Seen This Thing.

  Esther sat back on her heels and studied her handiwork. Daisy herself remained still, glasses folded in her lap, eyes closed, breathing slow and shallow.

  “Doesn’t she look amazing?”

  That was one word for it, but there were several that were much more appropriate: Terrifying and grotesque and disturbing sprung to mind.

  Susan waved a hand in front of Daisy’s face, but there wasn’t so much as a flutter behind her eyelids.

  “Did you hypnotize her? Daisy?” Susan snapped her fingers—no response. “Daisy Wooton, you’re scaring me.”

  “That’s the whole point.” Esther rolled her eyes, then said, “Oh, you mean the meditation. She’s been going to some yoga club where they give you MP3s to help with your meditative cycle. Zeus or Zorb or something. She popped her headphones in and has been like this ever since.”

  The two of them looked at Daisy speculatively.

  “She said to tap her on the nose when we wanted her to come out of her meditative state.” Esther leaned in and tapped Daisy three times on the nose.

  Daisy’s eyes opened slowly, pupils coming into focus.

  “How do I look?”

  Daisy hadn’t been convinced she was Halloween party material, but in the hands of her self-appointed fairy goth-mother, she certainly looked the part.

  When she emerged from her meditation, Daisy marveled at how Esther had turned a pair of tights into sleeves that were painted to look as if the skin of Daisy’s arms was peeling away to reveal rotting muscle fibers and clotted blood. Beneath wild g
reen-and-gold-sprayed curls, half of Daisy’s skull had been face-painted away to expose teeth and tongue, while the other half had been made up so beautifully that even her huge round glasses didn’t detract from the effect. If Daisy only approached people from the left, they’d think she was gorgeous.

  While Daisy looked like something that had emerged from the grave of a ritual sacrifice, Esther had gone for the sexually promiscuous vampire aesthetic. Her hair was straightened into two thick black curtains, framing long-lashed eyes with yellow irises, courtesy of a pair of contact lenses that Esther had spent at least fifteen minutes trying to put in before Daisy pinned her down for Susan to do the honors. The corset she wore was so tight that her breasts had been plumped into plush round cushions, as if two oversize marshmallows had decided to nestle on her chest for the night. A thin dribble of fake blood trailed from one corner of her shiny red lips down her neck and into her eye-popping cleavage.

  If it weren’t for the trapper hat that Esther had rammed firmly over Susan’s ears moments before they left, Susan would have looked exactly the same as she always did: boots, jeans, and a checked shirt.

  When the third person they passed actually stopped to poke Daisy in the rotting side of her face, Daisy resolved to give Susan creative control over her outfit the next year.

  Not all of Sheffield University’s first-year students lived in halls. A few, like Grace, shared houses on the city’s many little side streets. Cheaper but riskier. What if you didn’t like your housemates? What if you ended up living with people who left dirty plates under the settee, or insisted you go in on a Sky Sports subscription even if you never watched TV, or walked through the house in nothing but their slippers?

  The thought had been too much for Daisy, who preferred to know the people who had the opportunity to murder her in her sleep.

  Daisy, Susan, and Esther followed the bloody footprints from the gate of Grace’s house to the doorstep, admiring the effort that had gone into spookifying the front of the building, which was bedecked with cobwebs and bouncy rubber bats and snakes and . . . bunnies.