Valentine

by Jodi McAlister

  But no. Disey calls the cops. Which means we have to go into the station to answer questions.

  ‘What made you think of going to the stables, Miss Linford?’ a detective asks me.

  ‘That’s where Marie went missing.’ I’m tapping my toes under the table, itching to get out. ‘And I went to the pub because that’s where Cardy went missing.’

  ‘Why were you able to find these things when teams of trained professionals have been unable to?’

  ‘Oh, come on, what kind of question is that?’ Disey says. ‘How is she supposed to know? She was the first one to think of looking there when Phil went missing –’

  ‘We have not yet ascertained that Miss Kostakidis is missing.’

  ‘She’s missing,’ I say.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘She’s my best friend,’ I say. ‘I just know.’

  The policeman leans back on his chair. ‘It was very irresponsible of you to go looking for yourself, ladies.’

  ‘We came up with the goods,’ Disey snaps. ‘And don’t call me lady.’

  The policeman takes a piece of paper and a pen and pushes them over to me. ‘Miss Linford, since you seem to be so good at it, I want you to write down all the places you think we might find your friend.’

  You won’t find anything, I want to say. But I bite my tongue and write. The more attention I draw to myself, the longer it will take me to get out of here.

  It’s harder than it seems, thinking of places that are Phil’s places, that are associated with Phil and no one else. The second-hand bookshop. Her favourite breakfast place. Her room.

  I jot them down but I know I’m not right. I know they’re not going to find anything. They’re not going to find Phil hidden deep in the stacks at the library studying. She’s . . . gone.

  Because of me. Because she’s my best friend. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had in the whole world, and I’ve repaid her by getting her killed.

  I close my eyes and breathe. No. Not dead. Not yet.

  ‘There,’ I say. ‘That’s everywhere I can think of.’

  ‘Thank you. When did you last hear from Miss Kostakidis?’

  ‘This morning,’ I say. I show them her text message on my phone. ‘Julian is her boyfriend. And he also dated Marie. Like I told you before. Can I go now?’ I ask.

  ‘I’d prefer you stayed here in case we have any more questions,’ the policeman says. ‘You can wait out there.’

  It’s like deja vu, walking out into the waiting room. Shad gets up immediately and puts his arms around both of us and I’m grateful for his long, lanky presence. He’s always made me feel safe and even though I am not safe and I will never be safe again I lie to myself for just a second.

  ‘How are you two doing?’ Shad asks.

  I will not lie to them again.

  ‘I’m really scared,’ I say in a small voice.

  Shad kisses the top of my head. ‘They’ll find her, Pearlie. They’ll find her.’

  I don’t want to, but I slip out of his embrace. I know he wants to make me feel better but the reassurance only makes me feel worse, more hopeless, because there is nothing that can be done. ‘Um, hey, Mrs Kostakidis,’ I say, sitting down next to Phil’s mother.

  She grabs my hand. ‘Oh, Pearl, thank you for doing all this. If you hadn’t noticed that Phil was missing – it might have been too late.’

  It might already be too late.

  ‘If there is anything I can do,’ I say, ‘then I’m going to do it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Phil’s mum says. ‘You’ve been a very good friend to our girl, Pearl.’

  I feel sick to the stomach.

  ‘Anything,’ I say again. ‘I’ll do anything to find her.’

  I walk over to the window and look out. It’s dark outside now. The night is cloudless and the moon is big and white, sailing over the top of the trees. I feel like it should be full, but it’s only a crescent, a mocking smile, laughing at me. We have her you won’t find her we’ll kill her we’ll eat her your fault your fault your fault.

  The room is full of people – all of Phil’s family is here, and Tillie somehow found out, and I think she called the entire school – but I still know the second he enters. I turn my back, but I know he’s seen me. ‘We have to talk,’ Finn says, grabbing my arm.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ I say, pulling away. ‘And don’t talk to me in public.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Pearl. We are so far beyond that now it’s not even funny.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We are going to do nothing,’ I hiss. ‘I will find her. I will sort this out. This is none of your business.’

  ‘Of course it’s my business! This is all my fault.’

  ‘No,’ I say flatly, ‘it’s mine. Now get out of my way.’

  ‘Pearl, we have to talk.’

  ‘I said get out of my way.’

  I glare at him. He sighs and moves. ‘Pearl, I –’

  ‘Save it,’ I snarl, and march back over to Disey and Shad.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Shad asks, nodding over at Finn.

  I look back over my shoulder at him. ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Can we go? I just want to go home.’

  ‘If you want to, of course,’ Disey says. ‘They can’t force you to stay just to answer questions.’

  Disey goes to tell someone we’re leaving. Shad puts his arm around me and holds me close, and I cling to him. I don’t want to, but I can’t help looking over at Finn, and I allow myself to feel pain, to miss him, just for a little while. Because this is the last time I will ever see him.

  ‘Right, let’s get out of here,’ Disey says.

  I grab her hand. ‘You know I love you guys, don’t you?’ I say.

  ‘Of course, Pearlie,’ Shad says.

  ‘I mean it,’ I say. ‘I really love you guys, more than anything in the world.’

  ‘We love you too, Pearlie,’ Disey says. ‘More than you can ever realise.’

  ‘As long as you know,’ I say.

  I put my arm around Disey and we walk out to the car like that, me between my brother and sister, the Linford family, together, loving, always.

  For the last time.

  How do you choose what to wear when you’re going to die?

  I have every light in my room blazing as I flick through the clothes in my cupboard. I can hear Disey and Shad talking in the kitchen, probably about me, and I wish I could go out and see their faces one last time, but I’ve said good night to them already. Good night, which meant goodbye.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. A little longer, Pearl. Just hold it together a little longer.

  I wonder if it will hurt.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  I feel like I should be wearing something white and floaty, the sacrificial virgin walking to the slaughter. That’s how they do it in stories, don’t they? A life for a life. A willing sacrifice.

  I grit my teeth. If I’m going to die, then I’m going to take as many of the bastards down with me as I can.

  So I dress sensibly to die. Running shoes. Track pants. Big old jacket with big pockets, which I stuff with bread and salt. Beanie. Everything inside out. Iron pendant round my neck in plain sight.

  I could just . . . not go. I could pretend that Phil going missing was a coincidence and that there was nothing I could do except stay here and wait and hope. I could curl up in bed and read a book, and . . .

  I will never read another book.

  I close the door of my wardrobe on all the clothes I will never wear again.

  I could do nothing. But I won’t.

  I look out the window at the white sliver of the grinning moon. ‘I have to save her,’ I whisper out loud.

  This is my fault. I let the fairies keep thinking I was the Valentine. To save Finn. To save myself, because I didn’t want to die. Maybe I’d be dead already if I’d let Finn do what h
e wanted. If I’d let him be the knight in shining armour, instead of insisting on doing it myself. Maybe I’d be dead, but Phil would be fine.

  I have to fix this.

  Because I’m not precious. I’m not magical. I’m not the Valentine. And my life is not worth more than Phil’s.

  Out of desperation and the one tiny iota of hope I have left, I try Phil’s phone one last time. ‘Hi, you’ve reached Philippa’s phone, please leave your name and your number and I’ll get back to you.’

  I put the phone down on the desk. It rings almost immediately. A split second of hope turns to despair when Finn’s name flashes up on the screen.

  I think of Finn, paint him in my mind, his long fingers, his shadowed, vulnerable eyes. Teetering on the precipice of life and death, my rage seems very far away. Maybe I could save myself if I answered the phone. If I let him sacrifice himself. But my anger is not hatred. I can’t give up control here, and he is a wild element that I cannot control. If he had to choose, he would pick me over Phil and I can’t let that happen.

  I hope he will be all right. And I hope that, in thousands and thousands of years when the world has changed but he remains, he remembers me. I would quite like to be remembered.

  I snap off the light. All that’s left is the silvery moonlight, streaming through the window. This is brave, right? I should feel brave. But I don’t. I only feel guilty, and responsible, and frightened beyond belief.

  The last things I will ever feel.

  I pop the security screen out and clamber out the window. They’re waiting. I knew they would be. Hundreds of black cats stare up at me, the ground bristling with them, a sea of seething bodies. The moonlight catches the evil glint in their eyes.

  ‘A trade,’ I say. ‘I offer you a trade. My life for my friend’s life.’

  They stare up at me, unblinking.

  ‘Take me to her,’ I say.

  The sea of cats part, a path spread before me, a path crossed by hundreds, thousands of black cats. The most unlucky path there is. The path to an early grave.

  I take it.

  At the edge of the bush the black horse dances. It kneels to the ground. I do not hesitate.

  On the black horse’s back, I ride to my doom.

  I don’t know if we ride for minutes or hours or if we leave the world altogether and enter a new one. Everything is dark, the only sound the rustling of the wind in the leaves, the occasional scurrying of some creature in the undergrowth and the noise that possums make that sounds like an army of zombies is coming to get you. I used to be terrified of that noise when I was little, but it doesn’t frighten me now.

  Please let it not hurt too much.

  Phil must have taken this journey too. I don’t know how the horse conned her onto its back – she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d be susceptible to fairy wiles. But can anyone really resist a fairy, when it comes down to it?

  I think of the Seelie dancers in the bush, probably not far away from here. Maybe they’re there now. Maybe they’d come to save me, if I worked out a way to call them. Maybe they’re following me right now. Maybe I can still hope I’ll make it out of this.

  But who’s to say they won’t kill me too when they work out I’m not their Valentine?

  I can’t risk it. I can’t risk anything, when Phil is on the line.

  She must be so scared. She won’t be admitting it to herself: she’ll be trying to be sensible and assess her situation and find a way out and all those things that you’re supposed to do. Phil is good in a crisis. But this is one she can’t deal with. Hell, I can’t deal with it. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m in so far over my head it’s not –

  I’m slipping, sliding, falling. I scream involuntarily – and then I hit the ground. I fall hard, and it hurts, but I’m still alive.

  Which probably means the Unseelie have got some special extra-horrible death planned out for me. Something far more prolonged and painful than your basic water-horse drown and dine.

  The black horse dances away into the darkness. I’m alone.

  All right, then.

  I stand up and dust myself off, reaching inside my inside-out jacket and pulling the salt shaker out of my pocket. In my other hand, I clutch my iron pendant.

  I’m at the edge of Miller’s Creek. I’ve been to this particular spot a couple of times before, swimming. Disey and Shad used to play here as kids and sometimes we all come down here in summer. It’s surrounded by tall gum trees. In the day, the water is the colour of tea, rushing around a big rock in the middle of the creek. I remember there being a wicked current.

  I never imagined myself dying here. But then I never imagined myself dying anywhere, except perhaps in bed, at about a hundred and fifteen years old, surrounded by my billions of grandchildren.

  I’ll never have children now, let alone grandchildren. Hell, I’ll never even kiss anyone who isn’t Finn or Dave. I guess I should be grateful Finn and I had our twenty-four hours of make-out shenanigans, however badly it ended. I got that essential life experience in before I die.

  Before I die.

  The wind rustles in the trees. The water rushes before me. The moon shines down on the whole sinister scene, illuminating everything with a ghostly silvery light. Dimly, in the distance, I think I hear music, but it’s so faint that I don’t know if it’s real or my imagination. Not that it matters.

  Let’s get this over with.

  ‘Phil?’ I call out. ‘Phil?’

  ‘Pearl?’ I hear very faintly.

  ‘PHIL!’ I yell. ‘I’ve come to get you! Where are you?’

  ‘Finally,’ a voice says.

  I look around wildly. ‘Where is she? Who are you?’

  Slowly, ever so slowly, she rises out of the water. She’s just in front of the rock, illuminated against it as if an eerie glow is coming from her skin. Her hair is green, tumbling down her back like seaweed. Her smile is wide, bright, white, her teeth the teeth of a shark. She’s beautiful and terrifying and I know her.

  ‘Jenny?!’ I say disbelievingly.

  ‘Hello, Pearl,’ she says.

  ‘It’s you,’ I say numbly.

  I am such an idiot. I am such a moron. Tillie worked this out before I did and she doesn’t even know fairies exist.

  Of course it wasn’t Helena or Julian or any of those other million billion people I suspected for half a second. New girl in school. Obvious. Obvious, no matter how many sharktooth men she saved me from. Of course she spent all that time getting close to Cardy – she must have been the one that took the rock out of his foot! But then I guess he served her purpose and she killed him. Because that’s what she is. A killer.

  I should have listened to the part of me that knew she was bad and not the one that was all, ‘you’re just jealous, Pearl’. I should have trusted myself – oh my God, Kel.

  I whip round. The black horse trots out from the trees. I blink, and suddenly the horse is gone and the sharktooth man is standing before me. He grins his wicked grin and then Kel is there, smiling at me. ‘Hi Pearl,’ he says.

  Kel. Kelpie.

  No wonder I didn’t get it. That is the crappiest fake name in the history of the world.

  ‘Congratulations, you fooled me,’ I say. ‘I had no idea you were the wicked witch of the west and her pet monkey. I’d give you a medal if I had one. What do you want?’

  ‘You know what we want,’ Jenny replies.

  ‘And here I am,’ I shoot back. ‘I came, didn’t I? Where’s Phil?’

  Jenny gestures with one white, dripping arm.

  ‘Let me go!’ I hear Phil yell, and then she comes into view on the other side of the creek, manhandled by –

  ‘Cardy!’ I exclaim.

  Just for a second, I’m happy. I don’t care whose heart it was that Kel had in his hand that night, but it wasn’t Cardy’s.

  ‘I’ve been enjoying him greatly,’ Jenny says, smiling her shark-like smile. ‘Oh, he struggled at first, of course, but beyond that strong faça
de he puts up, he’s really quite banal. His mind caved easily – so very easily.’

  I swallow. I can see the blank, glazed look in Cardy’s eyes from here. It’s the look that Julian wore that night in my room when the fairies called him away.

  It might be easier to deal with if he was genuinely evil. A zombie. She’s basically turned Cardy into a zombie.

  ‘Let him go,’ I whisper.

  ‘Unless you have another Seelie changeling up your sleeve, I’m afraid that’ll be quite impossible,’ Jenny says lightly. ‘That was the deal – a life for a life. Unless you’d rather that your dear Philippa becomes our dinner?’

  ‘Pearl!’ Phil yells.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll be as tasty as the last one,’ Kel says reflectively. ‘Her struggles were delicious.’

  ‘This one is rather stolid,’ Jenny answers. ‘But she is here, and very convenient.’

  ‘I liked the last one,’ Kel says, licking his lips. ‘We had a wonderful time once we realised she was not the Valentine. Before our feast. It was almost a shame to eat her.’

  ‘Stop,’ I whisper.

  ‘Though I don’t know if she’ll be able to compare to you,’ Kel says, advancing on me. I back away, the water lapping at my feet. He takes my hand and runs his fingers up my arm. I shudder. ‘There’s fire in you, burning beneath the surface.’ He raises my hand to his lips. ‘It’s always better with us, you know,’ he whispers. ‘Wouldn’t you like to enjoy yourself before you die?’

  I try to jerk my arm away, but he’s too strong. He looks at me with big dark eyes as he kisses my hand, and for a moment, his dark hair falling over his pale skin, he almost looks like Finn. I ache.

  Then he opens his mouth and bites my hand. His needle-like teeth pierce my skin and I scream and scream and try to pull away, but he won’t let me go. I kick at his legs, but I might as well be kicking a wall.

  ‘Let her go!’ Phil shouts from the other side of the river. ‘She hasn’t done anything to you! Let her go!’