‘Hello – oh, hi Pearl!’ my boss says as I walk in. ‘Long time no see! How are you doing? You look so strange without your hair!’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I reply. ‘I just – really need to swim.’
‘I’ve been meaning to call you and thank you for sending me Kel,’ my boss says, oblivious to my complete lack of interest. ‘He’s been great. But your job is still here waiting for you when you’re feeling better!’
‘Thanks.’
‘Excuse me?’ someone says at the counter, and my boss goes to serve them, and I take my chance. I take three large steps and jump into the water, clothes and all.
Water fills my shirt and it billows out around me like a balloon. I remember dimly that denim is the worst possible fabric to swim in as my jeans get heavy, my shoes like lead weights pulling me down. I let them.
This is ridiculous. This is a disaster. This is the most ridiculous, disastrous thing ever. How on earth did I get here?
And I can’t help laughing, because if I don’t laugh I’ll cry, and laughing underwater is a bad idea, because it quickly turns into choking. I push myself back up to the surface and grab the side of the pool, spluttering.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, Kel,’ I say, and sneeze.
He sits on the edge beside me, dangling his legs in the water. I want to tell him to go away, but he’s gazing at me soulfully and he did save me from the cats that one time, so I guess I owe him a basic level of politeness. ‘Um, how’s the fruit shop?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine. You know, whatever.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, um . . .’ he gestures at me, ‘you always swim in your clothes?’
‘No,’ I say, coughing to get the last of the water out of my system. ‘I just sort of had an urge. I really needed to swim, you know. To –’
‘– wash something away?’
‘What are you, a psychologist?’
‘Sorry, I –’
‘Nah, it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I just . . . I have some stuff going on.’
‘A guy?’
I give him a quizzical look. ‘What makes you think that?’
He shrugs. ‘You’re a girl.’
‘And so I can’t think about anything but guys, is that right?’
‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’
I sigh and rest my head against the edge of the pool. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I’m just . . . too much stuff is happening at once, you know?’
‘I guess that’s life,’ he says.
Real comforting, Kel.
‘How’s Jenny?’ I ask after a moment, due to lack of anything else to ask.
‘Same as always.’
‘How’s she coping with the . . . you know, Cardy?’
‘She’ll be all right. She’s tough. How are your friends?’
‘Fine, I think,’ I say, making a mental note to remember to text Phil back. Not that I’m going to be any help with her boy dramas right now. Her boy dramas are frothy boy rom-coms compared to the boy zombie-horror movie I have going on right now.
He looks at me for a long moment. His eyes bore into mine and for a moment I feel like he’s looking right through me, as if his gaze were coming right out the back of my skull. ‘Tell me it’s not a guy, Pearl,’ he says, grabbing my hand.
Oh FFS.
People feel really strongly about you, Pearl . . . there are at least three guys in our year who have been completely in love with you since primary school.
‘I have to go,’ I say, snatching my hand away and hoisting myself out of the water.
‘Pearl –’
‘Sorry,’ I say hurriedly, wringing out my dripping shirt. ‘I – there’s – bye.’
I would have run out of the leisure centre, but it’s hard to do that in wet shoes. I can feel his eyes on my back, his big, doleful, dark eyes, looking at me, looking right through me. I can’t look back at him.
I flee.
Shad probably isn’t going to be too pleased at me soaking his car interior but there’s no way I’m staying here. The black cat is still watching me from behind the tree and I flip it the bird as I drive away. I smack the steering wheel with my hand and brush angry tears – God, how much can I possibly cry? – from my eyes.
I could really, really use some chocolate. And a shoulder to cry on. Someone outside from this whole horrible mess. Someone who won’t ask questions.
I pull over at the side of the road and call Phil.
‘Hi, you’ve reached Philippa’s phone, please leave your name and your number and I’ll get back to you,’ her voicemail says, in her usual no-nonsense way.
Sigh.
I call her home number instead. Her mum answers on the third ring. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi Mrs Kostakidis, it’s Pearl. Is Phil there?’
‘No, I’m afraid she’s not, Pearl. She went out early this morning – she said she was going to see you.’
Unease begins to filter through my body.
‘Um, no . . . I haven’t seen her all day,’ I say.
‘Maybe you could try calling her mobile?’
‘I’ll give it a try,’ I say faintly. ‘Talk to you later.’
‘Bye, Pearl.’
I take a deep breath and try calling Phil’s mobile again.
Voicemail.
She’s fine, Pearl, I say to myself. She has to be fine. She’s Phil. This stuff doesn’t touch her. She’s not a Valentine kid and she wouldn’t believe in it even if she was.
But Marie is dead. And Cardy is dead.
My phone beeps. I grab it. Where r u? Finn has written. I hav 2 talk 2 u.
I throw the phone onto the passenger seat and start the engine. I have to find Phil.
I’m halfway out of town when my phone rings. I glance over at it, praying it’s Phil, dreading it’s Finn, but it’s neither.
‘Pearl, where are you?’ Disey says tersely when I pull over to answer. ‘Your singing lesson was over two hours ago.’
‘I –’
‘If you want to go out with your friends that’s fine, but can you call first?’
I open my mouth to make up some story but stop. I will not lie to them again.
‘Pearl?’ Disey asks.
‘I think Phil’s missing,’ I say.
There is silence from Disey on the other end of the line. ‘What makes you think that?’ she says at last.
‘I called her phone and it went to her voicemail,’ I say, ‘so I called her house, and her mum says she left early this morning to see me, but she obviously never came to see me, and she won’t pick up and I just have this horrible feeling . . .’
‘Okay, okay,’ Disey says. ‘I want you to come home.’
‘No, Disey!’ I exclaim. ‘I have to look for her! I have to find –’
‘Let me finish,’ Disey interrupts. ‘Come home. We’ll try her again from here while you’re on your way. If we haven’t managed to get in contact with her by the time you get home, Shad’ll go get Phil’s mum and go to the police. And –’
‘And?’
‘And you and I will go looking,’ Disey says. ‘I’m not going to let you go off half-cocked. If she really is missing, we need to get as many people looking for her as possible.’
‘Dise –’
‘And if she is missing, I don’t want you finding whatever or whoever it is that got her on your own.’
I take a deep breath. Disey and the fairies. Disey and the sharktooth man. Disey seeing the dancing. Disey facing down the armies of the Unseelie, telling them that they can’t have her little sister.
‘If you don’t come home,’ Disey says sharply, ‘I will come and find you. And you know I will.’
The only thing worse than Disey facing the fairies with me. Disey coming to find me, stumbling upon disaster, and facing the fairies alone.
‘I’m on my way,’ I say.
There’s another text message on my phone. Pearl, c’mon we have 2 talk. U know we do.
I don�
�t reply.
Disey and Shad are waiting at the front door when I pull up in the driveway. ‘You’re soaking,’ Disey says as I get out of the car. ‘What happened?’
‘It’s not important,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Did Phil pick up?’
Shad shakes his head. ‘Her phone’s off, wherever it is.’
‘Go and get changed,’ Disey says. ‘We’ll take my car.’
‘Phil’s mum –’
‘I called her,’ Shad says. ‘She hasn’t heard from Phil either. I’ll pick her up on the way through.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Helena says from behind Shad.
‘No, Hels, it’s all right –’
‘No,’ Helena insists. ‘I want to. And shouldn’t someone wait by the phone there, just in case Phil calls?’
‘She’s right,’ Disey says.
‘Come on, then,’ Shad says. He and Helena scamper to his car.
Should I be letting Helena go with Shad? She might be – no. I don’t have time to worry about that. Even if she is some kind of fairy, there’s nothing I can do right now. Finding Phil has to be my focus.
I run down the hall to my room and throw on some new clothes, paying no attention to what I’m wearing but making sure it’s on inside out. Then I race out to the kitchen and I ransack the cupboard. I dial Julian and wedge my phone between my ear and shoulder as I throw salt and bread into my bag.
He picks up on the second ring. ‘What?’ he says shortly.
‘Where the hell is Phil?’ I demand.
‘You tell me,’ he says. ‘We had a fight last night and –’
‘Don’t you dare lie to me,’ I say. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Has something happened to her?’
‘Yes, something’s happened to her!’ I snap. ‘She’s missing. I can’t find her anywhere. And if I find out you had something to do with it, or that one of your Seelie pals did –’
‘– who?’
‘– then I will kill you,’ I snarl. ‘I mean it. I will literally kill you. Do you understand?’
I hang up without waiting for an answer.
I run out to Disey, who is hefting her car keys in her hand. ‘Here, you’ll freeze,’ I say, grabbing her jacket from the hook inside the door. ‘Put this on.’
‘It’s inside out,’ Disey says, struggling into it.
‘No time to change it!’ I say, running to the car. ‘Come on!’
Disey slides into the driver’s side and starts the engine. ‘Where to first?’ she says. ‘We should look at places where she hangs out a lot – the library, maybe –’
‘The stables.’
‘Pearl, what would Phil be doing out there?’
‘It’s where Marie went missing.’
‘But –’
‘It’s where this all began.’
And that’s what they do in the stories, right? They go back to the beginning?
Stories, Pearl, the little voice in my mind sneers. Your best friend is missing and that’s all you have to rely on – stories.
I ignore it. I can’t succumb to despair or doubt. Phil’s life depends on it.
I should have texted her back. I should have called her. How could I have wasted time on stupid Finn Blacklin when Phil needed me?
I put my head between my knees and breathe before I descend into a full-blown panic attack.
We’re nearly there when Disey’s phone rings. I answer it. ‘I’m at the police station,’ Shad says. ‘They’re not too keen on the idea of going out to look for her when they’re not even sure she’s missing –’
‘She is missing!’
‘– but they’re going to anyway,’ Shad says, talking over the top of me. ‘They’ll find her, Pearlie, don’t worry.’
How could I have been this stupid? How could I have seen two of Julian’s ex-girlfriends get horribly murdered and blithely continued on my way? And even if Julian isn’t involved, I should have realised that of course the fairies would use someone I love to come at me. It could have been Disey. It could have been Shad. But it was Phil, and I didn’t even think of trying to set up some kind of protection mechanism, some way of making sure this didn’t happen.
If she dies, it will be because of me.
The tyres crunch on gravel as we pull up. Disey doesn’t bother to lock the car. It’s pretty obvious the stables are deserted.
To her eyes, anyway.
I glance up. There is a line of black birds perched in the tree above my head, and I swear they’re all grinning evilly.
I reach into my bag and grip the salt shaker. ‘Come on,’ I say.
We trudge up the hill to the deserted building. The sun has almost set and the place is full of gloom, seeping through the place like a disease. ‘You kids seriously partied up here?’ Disey asks. ‘This place is feral.’
‘I guess it’s different when it’s full of people,’ I say. ‘Let’s look around.’
‘We’re not splitting up,’ Disey says. ‘That never ends well.’
I am more than happy to agree with her.
It’s not a big place and it doesn’t take us long to go through it. We peer into all the old stalls, into the mangers, into every nook and cranny we can find, but it’s empty. Not a shred of hay remains, not an abandoned bottle from the party. All traces of life have been removed.
Disey pulls out her keys and flicks on a penlight. The tiny ray of light somehow makes the creeping darkness seem darker. ‘I don’t think there’s anything here, Pearlie.’
‘We haven’t looked in the bathroom yet,’ I say.
And, of course, just like in any good story, that’s where we find something, in the last place we look.
‘Is that Phil’s?’ Disey asks.
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s Marie’s.’
The schoolbag hangs alone on a peg near the sink. We both know better than to touch it, so we just stare. I must have seen her carrying that thing around a thousand times, every day of school since Year Seven. She drew a love heart in liquid paper on the front pocket when she started dating Julian with MJ + JB inside it. She always said she was going to scratch it off but she never did.
And she never will.
All this posturing. All this, ‘we’ll work this out, Finn, we’ll work this out!’ And what have I actually done?
Nothing.
‘If Marie went missing from here,’ Disey says, ‘then the police must have searched this place. The bag must be new.’
I nod.
‘So whoever this sick bastard is has come and put this here on purpose.’
I nod.
Disey grabs my arm. ‘Come on, Pearlie. We’re getting out of here.’
I sit numbly in the front seat of the car as Disey calls the cops. They can come up here. They can search. They won’t find anything. They might not even find the bag. It might have been spirited away by then.
Everything Disey said was right. But what she didn’t know is that bag – that sight – was meant for me.
They’re tormenting me. They’re . . . teasing me.
Fairies are arseholes.
‘The police are going to send a team up here,’ Disey says. ‘They said maybe they can get DNA off the bag or something.’
‘Won’t that take weeks?’
‘Probably.’
‘Phil doesn’t have weeks.’
‘I know,’ Disey says. She turns the key in the ignition. ‘Where to now?’
‘The Haylesford Hotel.’
Disey looks at me sideways. ‘I didn’t know you and Phil hung out there.’
‘We don’t, it’s just . . .’ I will not lie, I will not lie. ‘If Cardy went missing from there . . .’
I can tell exactly what Disey’s thinking. You won’t find anything. But she is quiet.
We drive in silence. I stare out the window at the trees, looking for black cats, black birds, black horses, Phil standing by the side of the road, anything. My phone beeps and I know it’s not Phil, but
I glance at it anyway.
Dont b like this plz!
‘Who’s that?’ Disey says.
‘Just someone from school. Nothing to do with this.’
The hotel is full of people when we get there, a quiet hubbub of conversation burbling around us. ‘Hi, Disey,’ the barman says as we walk in. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Nothing,’ Disey says. ‘Just looking around.’
‘Are you snooping for the paper?’
‘No. Just looking for a friend.’
We look cursorily around the bar area before going out the back. I stick my head into the girls’ bathroom and Disey marches fearlessly into the men’s. ‘Nothing,’ she calls to me.
‘Nothing here either,’ I say, before pushing open the door to the disabled toilet.
‘What’s that?’ Disey says, peering over my shoulder at the necklace hanging from the toilet paper holder.
‘Julian gave this to me,’ Marie laughs. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’
‘You are so lucky,’ Annabel enthuses. ‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘How did he afford it?’ Tillie asks. ‘Did he prostitute his sister?’
Marie fingers the necklace and grins. ‘I’m not asking questions,’ she says.
‘It’s Marie’s,’ I say. ‘Julian gave it to her for Valentine’s Day when we were in Year Ten.’
Disey pulls out her phone and dials the cops. ‘Get down here now,’ I hear her say. ‘We found something at the hotel.’
MJ + JB. The necklace that Julian bought Marie. And now Phil is gone. And I know Julian is mixed up in all this fairy business.
But he’s Team Seelie. Team Seelie just want me to stay in the house until I agree to go with them to their fairytale kingdom or whatever. I know they’re cruel – nice people do not make people dance on hot coals – but they’re not going to send me on a wild goose chase of Julian clues all over Haylesford. The Julian stuff is a cover. Or even a coincidence. This isn’t about Julian, unless Julian has switched teams, because this isn’t Seelie.
This is Unseelie. And it’s about me.
One of the unfortunate side effects of having Disey along is that she insists on reporting everything to the police. If it had just been me doing the run-around, then I would have seen the things that had been left and known they were there to taunt me and not done anything about it so I could keep going, keep looking, keep hunting, to try to find something, anything, that would lead me to Phil.
Valentine Page 28