“Cray...will you stay here?”
“I don’t want to leave. I meant it when I said I love you...if you still want me.”
“I do. Of course I do.”
“But your parents might not want me around.”
He’s right. I couldn’t even tell my parents about what I’d been doing, not really, and I hadn’t wanted to tell them anything about Cray. I know they’re not going to react well to my homeless boyfriend staying in their house.
“I can hide you, just for tonight, until I work out what to tell them.”
Cray doesn’t look convinced, but he nods. “OK. Gives us time to work out what happens next.”
I don’t want to think about what that might be. What if Cray wants to go on some kind of crusade against the shades? I’ve already seen so much evil and death. I don’t want to put myself back in harm’s way, or drag my parents into the firing line and I don’t want Cray to go through any more than he already has. I can’t let it happen.
*
With Cray hiding upstairs, dinner with my parents is tense. It doesn’t get any better when they ask me about school.
“It was fine.”
There’s a pause while Mum and Dad exchange looks over their plates of pasta bake.
“Mrs Goode phoned me at work,” Mum says. She has a job four days a week at the cats and dogs home. Mrs Goode would have told her everything.
“People were assholes.”
“Michaela!” Dad says sharply.
“She can say what she likes about them,” Mum says, “you should have heard how upset her teacher was. Those kids are out of control, I can’t believe some of the things she said.”
“It’ll get better,” Dad assures me, “and anyway, you’ve got your friends.”
I think of Cray upstairs, my only friend.
“My old friends hate me,” I say, “but...there’s someone I was friends with, when I was away. I saw him today-”
“Where?” Dad says immediately.
“Just out, on my way home. I think he needs help, and I was wondering if you’d let him stay.”
“Well,” Mum starts, but Dad cuts her off.
“Michaela, if he needs help he should go to the shelter in town, or he can talk to someone at the drop-in. I can’t start taking teenagers in off the street.”
“But I know him, he’s got nowhere to go. He doesn’t have anyone else.”
“And I’m sorry about that, but I’m not this boy’s Dad, and I’m not prepared to risk bringing him into my house.”
“But-”
“Michaela I really think we should talk about how you’re going to handle school tomorrow,” he says.
“Mum?”
Mum sighs. “He has a point. Does this boy have family? Maybe we can phone them and explain the trouble he’s in?”
“They won’t care,” I say, “when he disappeared they didn’t really try looking for him. They went on holiday.”
Mum and Dad look at each other and I can see they’re not going to budge.
“Fine. OK. You’re not going to let him stay. But just so you know, if he hadn’t found me the night you threw me out, with basically nothing, if he hadn’t given me a place to sleep and clothes and food, I would have been in just as much trouble as he is now.” I pick up my plate. “I’m going to eat upstairs.”
“Michaela!” Dad calls after me, but I hear Mum shush him.
Upstairs I find Cray sitting on the floor between my bed and the window, out of sight.
“Did you hear?”
He nods.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. At least they have a good reason. I’m not even sure my parents would take me in, let alone someone I met on the street.”
“You can stay, I don’t care what they say.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“What? They’re going to throw me out again? Great. See if I care.” I sink down on the bed and offer him my plate pasta.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t think I can face school again,” I say quietly. “Today was...I know it’s not as bad as what you’re going through but...people were looking at me like I was dirty. Saying I had lice and STDs. They threw things at me. Chloe called me a hooker.”
“You know none of that’s true,” Cray says, getting up on the bed and taking my hand.
“But they enjoyed believing it so much. What if it doesn’t stop when I can finally leave school? It’s been in the paper, everyone knows.”
“After school you can move, go to university.”
“And just pretend that I never knew you? Any of you? That those months never happened?” I realise how selfish I’m being, Cray’s problems are so much bigger than mine. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“I was just about to ask you that,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting.
“I don’t think there’s anything to do about school, but I could see if I could help you use magic again. Sophia must have done something so you and others could use magic before, that’s probably why she made you new bodies – so you could have the magic in you. I’m sure I missed something in the Grimoire-”
“You don’t want to use magic.”
“But if I can get it back for you-”
“Michaela,” Cray shifts uncomfortably, “you don’t want to use magic to find the other shades, to help the people like you...I understand that, that it scares you. But if you can’t help them, I don’t want you to help me.”
I feel like he’s slapped me. The way he’s saying it makes me sound so selfish, that I only want to help him because I know him, because I love him. It’s not that I don’t want to help anyone else, if I knew for sure that there were other shades out there trying to kill people I’d want to do something. Only, I don’t know that, and I don’t know where I’d even start trying to find other people like me, or if they’d even want to be found. I’m only one person, with power that I can’t begin to understand.
“I can’t go off on a mission that doesn’t even exist,” I say quietly, “we don’t know anything about shades, not really. I don’t know how to find them, or how to find witches like me.”
“We can find out, from the Grimoire,” Cray says stubbornly, “and I’m sorry but, if you could find a way to give me back my magic, the first thing I would do would be to start finding ways to make sure no one else dies because of those things. No one like me, or Campion, or Nara, Chronicle, Ilex...and no one like you.”
I rub my hand over my eyes, it’s been such a long and horrible day. I was so happy to see Cray, but now he’s making me feel terrible for coming back to my parents and my old life. It’s not that I wouldn’t save someone if they were in danger, if I knew they needed help. It’s what he’s suggesting; that we go off on a quest to hunt down shades and protect other witches. It’s the kind of thing you’d see on the Syfy channel. I can’t even imagine it as a life.
“Let’s just get some sleep,” I say.
Cray looks like he wants to keep talking, but he can see I’ve had enough. He nods and I get my games kit so he has something clean to sleep in. I go to brush my teeth and change. When I come back he’s wearing my kit and sitting awkwardly on the edge of my bed.
“I’m OK on the floor, if you want,” he says.
“Don’t be silly,” I say, pulling back the duvet, “if you’re OK with sharing, we’ll share, like always.”
It doesn’t feel like always. Before, when we’d been sharing the bathroom at Waywood, it had been as equals, now I feel Cray’s discomfort at hiding under my pink duvet, in my room, wearing clothes that I’ve lent him. He must be exhausted though, as he falls asleep within minutes.
I lie awake, worrying about school tomorrow and trying to think of a way to keep both of my lives – my normal one with my family, and my life with Cray. For all that one of those lives contains witches and shades, magic and spells, it feels more real to me, and more solid than the idea of goi
ng to school until I can escape to Uni.
I stare at the ceiling and listen to Cray’s steady breathing, wishing I could put off tomorrow forever.
Chapter Twenty-Six
My alarm wakes me up, and when I turn over I realise that I’m alone in bed.
“Cray?” I sit up and look around. “Cray?” I hiss.
The door of my built-in wardrobe slides open; there he is, cuddled down on the floor between two boxes of old school stuff, covered in my pink dressing gown.
“Why are you in there?”
“Your Mum came in to check on you last night. I hid before she opened the door but, I didn’t want to chance falling asleep and getting caught.”
He has a point. I’d been stupid to think that he could stay out in the open while my parents were in the house.
“I’ll bring you up some breakfast,” I say, getting out of bed and picking up my throw and a pillow to take over to him. He passes me my dressing gown and I put it on.
“Are you going to school?”
“I think I have to. They won’t let me stay at home. Or Dad won’t, which is basically the same thing.”
Cray nods, looking unhappy but resigned.
“Mum’s home all day today,” I say.
“I can get out through the window and just keep busy until night,” he offers.
“I was going to say just, stay in here and hide if you hear her,” I say, “I’m not going to make you go outside in the cold.”
He looks relieved. I kneel down, leaning forwards slowly so he can stop me if he doesn’t want me to kiss him. Instead he turns his face to mine and brings a hand up to thread his fingers through my hair. I rest our foreheads together.
“We’ll work it out, I promise,” I say, “just...give me until the weekend to come up with a plan.”
“Hey, I’ve got nowhere else to be,” Cray says.
My heart hurts, leaving him in my bedroom like that. I know that with just a few glamours and a bit of trickery I could get him a new identity, he could be a real, living person then. We could find another abandoned house and he could live there, maybe even go to school if we were careful and smart about it.
I sigh as I traipse downstairs. I know it’s a daydream. No glamour would hold up for more than seven hours. With Cray unable to do magic I’d have to constantly renew his ID, money, everything and he wouldn’t let me do that, not if it meant I wasn’t helping anyone but him.
“Morning,” Mum says, putting bread into the toaster. “Ready for another day?”
“Not really.”
“Look at it this way, it can only get better,” Mum says.
Dad is eating toast in the living room, watching the news. I check that he’s not paying attention before I mutter to Mum, “I really don’t think I can go back there Mum.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mum pulls a sympathetic face and rubs my arm. “I know it’s hard but, just try and ignore them. They’ll get bored soon.”
I don’t see that happening, right now I’m the most exciting thing to happen at school since that guy punched through reinforced glass and got his arm stuck.
I’m not going to be allowed to stay home, so I eat my breakfast as fast as I can, then make more to take upstairs.
“Isn’t that enough toast?” Mum says.
“I’m hungry.”
“Hmm.”
Upstairs I pack my bag and get ready for school in the bathroom while Cray eats cold toast and drinks a lukewarm cup of tea. I leave him my packed lunch, thinking I can grab something at the canteen.
“I’ll be home soon,” I say, awkwardly, one hand on the door handle.
“I’ll be fine,” Cray says, “don’t let anyone get to you. What they think doesn’t matter. I love you and so do your parents.”
On my way out of the house, Mum stops me and hands me a plastic bag with some cereal bars, apples and bathroom stuff in it.
“I was going to give you some money but...well, I wouldn’t want it to go on drugs or anything that would get him in trouble. If you see your friend again today, give this to him.”
It’s a sad little collection of stuff, but I remember the way Cray looked last night; dirty and tired and hungry. I suppose in the days since Waywood he would have been happy to have a bit of food and some toothpaste, or a pack of face wipes.
“Thanks Mum.”
She shrugs and goes back to the kitchen to do the washing up. I shove the carrier bag in with my school stuff. I can eat some of the food for lunch, but the other stuff I’ll save for Cray.
The walk to school is the same as it was the previous day; people looking, muttering amongst themselves, some kids pointing or shouting stuff that I ignore. In registration I sit completely silent in my corner and doodle in my planner. I don’t have any lessons with Chloe or Tasha that morning, but after a miserable lunchtime alone in the library, I walk to Geography ten minutes early and find both of them waiting for me outside the classroom. They’re not alone. Dan and Ben from my Maths class are there, as well as three other girls that Chloe sometimes talks to in PE if we need more than three people in a group.
My first thought is that they must be waiting for me, then reality kicks in and I realise that there’s no way they have my timetable memorised. It’s just bad luck that the Geography classrooms are all the way at the far side of the school, in a little annexe down a really long corridor where on-duty teachers never check.
For a second they all just stare at me and I stare back. I think in that second I understand how a rabbit feels when it comes face to face with a pack of dogs.
“Looking for somewhere to sleep?” Ben asks.
I turn around and head back up the corridor, but they follow me.
“Hey, he asked you a question,” Dan calls.
“Rude cow,” Chloe chips in, “Michaela, what are you doing down here?”
“Probably trying to go through people’s stuff,” one of the other girls says, just as Chloe grabs my arm and spins me around.
“We’re going to have to tell Mrs Goode if you were going into people’s bags.”
I don’t want Mrs Goode to know about the things that I used to do and I can see that Chloe knows it. I try and pull away but Ben and Dan have circled around behind me. I’m surrounded. There’s still five minutes until the bell goes. I can last that long, but they’re going to make the most of it.
“In fact,” she says, “maybe I should get her to tell your parents all about your homeless ‘boyfriend’...unless you were making him up.”
“Oh my God that’s so sad,” Tasha snorts, “even your imaginary boyfriend’s a loser.”
“Shut up,” the words fly out before I can stop them.
My response makes their eyes shine, they know they’ve got me now. My head is already pounding, I try and take a step back, but one of the guys grabs me one hand around my arm, the other squeezing my boob.
“Fuck off!”
I struggle, but he just laughs and Chloe smirks right in my face.
“You know Michaela, you could make a bit of effort now you’re not living in the same alley you piss in.”
She waves a hand back at her cluster of hangers on. “Lipstick please.”
I’m still struggling against the two idiots pinning my arms, but they’re not letting go. The pain in my head is so bad that I can barely think. I just want to get away.
Chloe’s coming towards my face with a bright red lip crayon.
“Let’s make you look nice for your lesson.”
The tip of the crayon skids over my cheeks as she colours them in. The girls are giggling, the two guys trying to hold me still as I turn my face away. The only warning I get is the crackle of hot energy over my palms, the sudden lack of pain in my head. The whole hallway shifts; it’s like someone has picked up the floor and shaken it like a rug. Chloe and her gang fall to the floor and I struggle to stay on my feet, stepping over the scrambling bodies of Ben and Dan.
Chloe’s the first one to get to her feet, staring at me.
/>
“What the-”
I blink, and she’s gone, just...gone. My breath catches, what the fuck have I done?
Then I notice Chloe’s clothes on the floor in a heap.
Tasha screams, and the other girls take up the cry as a long red snake, the bright, sickly colour of lipstick, slithers away down the corridor.
“She’s...” Ben says, then breaks off and looks at me. “You did that.”
“Stay away from us!” Tasha shouts.
Panic shoots through me. Fix it, fix it now! my head screams. I raise my hand, causing the girls to scream and throw their arms over their heads. I send energy out to the snake as it writhes on the vinyl floor. It twists and changes as I imagine Chloe’s real form, until the girl I know is lying on the ground, naked and wide eyed. Her pupils are slits, her tongue forked when she cries out in anger and fear.
I take a step backwards, then another. Chloe’s face shifts back to normal, but still I feel something terrible hanging over me. I don’t think, just throw up my hands and hurl out a blinding hex in all directions. The bell rings overhead just as they fall to the floor, unconscious. I need to get away before the halls fill with students.
Looking down at the unconscious people on the floor I summon up my energy. It comes easily, just leaping to my fingers. I focus on the element of air, of thought and memory, throwing silver darts of energy into their minds. They’ll forget they saw or felt anything strange or magical. Though part of me wants to do more; erase their minds until they’re drooling messes, I force myself to walk away from them and then, to run.
*
It was never very hard to get out of school, but the fact that I’m running gets the attention of the PE teacher locking up her car at the front of the building. Ms Carrow shoves her keys in her pocket and calls out, “Michaela?”
I run straight through the front gate and into the street.
“Michaela!”
By the time I reach the alleyway that provides a shortcut home, air is sawing in and out of my lungs. I have to slow down and walk. Knowing that my Mum is at home makes me reluctant to get there. Even now someone from the school is probably calling her. If Cray wasn’t there I’d probably avoid the house altogether. Knowing that makes me suddenly sad, in a way that Chloe and her asshole friends hadn’t managed. They might have called me names, humiliated me and felt me up, but they hadn’t made me feel like I had nowhere to run; the magic had done that.
Waywood Page 22