by S. B. Hayes
POISON HEART
POISON HEART
S.B. Hayes
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Quercus
55 Baker Street
7th Floor
South Block
London
W1U 8EW
Copyright © S. B. Hayes, 2012
The moral right of S. B. Hayes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library
eBook ISBN 978 0 85738 690 8
Print ISBN 978 0 85738 570 3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For my husband, Peter, and my sons, Michael, Christopher and Mark
PROLOGUE
We were on the number fifty-seven bus when it happened – the moment that would change my life forever. The day wasn’t anything special; it was mid-September, late afternoon, with the low sun blasting in and the smell of diesel filling the air. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, one by one, and I just knew someone was staring at me. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could sense them and – it was a compulsion – I had to look back. Slowly I turned my head to the left, where another bus had pulled up alongside. A girl had her nose pressed against the window. She had a heart-shaped face, full lips and straight brown hair, but it was the eyes that dominated. They were big and luminously green, just like those of a cat about to pounce. I put one hand on the glass and she did the same, in a perfect map of my fingers.
For some reason this made me think about my dream, the one I’d had since I was small. I’m entering a huge creepy house alone. I keep moving forward, past the giant front door with the peeling paint and coloured glass, through the porch, pungent with damp leaves, then into the hall of geometric blue and terracotta tiles until I’m at the foot of a winding oak staircase. I know I’m going to climb that staircase and I won’t be able to wake up even though I’ll be trying to. All my senses are alert; I hear every creak, feel each gnarl and groove of the banister and smell fruity decaying earth. Now I’m at the top, and the door in front of me is open but the corridor has suddenly doubled in length and I’m walking faster and faster, like running up an escalator the wrong way. It takes ages to reach the doorway at the end but I’m finally here, panting with curiosity.
There’s a girl sitting in front of a dressing table looking into an elaborately carved set of three mirrors. Her back is towards me and I’m desperate to see her face, but she doesn’t have a reflection. The three mirrors all reflect the room as if she’s not there. I’m closer now, almost touching her; one hand is resting on her back and I will her to turn round, but she doesn’t. I grip both shoulders and she’s resisting me all the way but, a tiny bit at a time, she turns and at last, I can see her, but the face is my own and it’s laughing at me, taunting me … Then I wake up.
I came back to earth with a jolt as the bus hit a pothole in the road. I was trying to forget the face at the window. I’ll always wonder if everything would have been different if only I hadn’t looked back that day.
CHAPTER
ONE
‘Katy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
I could feel goosebumps breaking out on my flesh. ‘It’s nothing, Nat. I saw someone … a complete stranger … and she stared as if she knew me.’
‘Maybe you met in one of your past lives?’ she joked.
Hannah snorted. ‘Or you have a telepathic connection?’
‘Everyone has,’ I answered seriously. ‘But we’ve forgotten how to tap into them.’
Nat waved her arms above her head and did a really bad ghost impression. ‘Katy gets messages from the other side.’
‘I do not.’
Her hand prodded me in the ribs. ‘Remember Mrs Murphy, the new religion teacher? You were certain she had a bad aura, and she turned out to be a complete and utter cow.’
‘I was right about her.’ I grinned.
‘What is it? Some sort of gift?’
‘No … just intuition.’
Hannah and I were sharing a seat and she nudged closer. ‘Does it tell you when Merlin will make a move?’
My stomach lurched as if I was on a roller coaster just before it hurtles downwards. ‘I thought we were going nowhere, and then today … it’s weird … something changed.’
‘What?’ two voices asked in unison.
I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging the memory like a blanket. ‘He looked at me in this incredible way. Like I was the only person in the whole world who existed.’
Hannah clapped her hands excitedly. ‘You think something will happen between you?’
‘Think so,’ I answered shyly.
‘Soon?’
‘Mmm. It feels like when thunder and lightning are moving closer and the air is really charged and … electric.’
‘Your psychic vibes again?’
I was used to being teased like this and stuck out my tongue. ‘I don’t need them with Merlin.’
‘How’s his aura?’ Nat asked.
‘It’s fabulously clear, strong and very pure.’
Hannah gave me a searching glance and wrinkled her nose. ‘You should be jumping for joy, Katy, but you look almost … depressed.’
I gripped the metal bar as the bus shuddered to a temporary halt. ‘What if I said it all seems too good to be true?’
A hand reached over and felt my forehead, but I shook it off. ‘It sounds pathetic, but I’m just not the type of girl who gets a guy like Merlin … one of the A-list.’
‘Who’re they?’ Nat asked indulgently.
‘They have perma-tans, highlighted hair, beach bodies and waxed … everywhere.’
Nat and Hannah laughed and I was really grateful for their support. They were always-there-for-each-other best friends, the kind I’d never managed to have, but having me hang around on the sidelines seemed to work for the three of us.
‘You could be one of the A-list,’ Hannah said kindly.
‘Not with my corkscrew curls, hips and flaky mother,’ I insisted.
I always got in the bit about the flaky mother before anyone else could, and my appearance could never be described as conventionally pretty.
‘Why shouldn’t someone like Merlin be interested in you?’ Nat suddenly demanded.
I looked away into the distance. ‘Have you ever dreamed of casting some sort of spell to conjure up the perfect guy? Well … I have, and that’s Merlin.’
‘Life can be magical.’ Nat sighed. ‘You of all people should believe in that.’
I looked at her with affection and ruffled her crazy pink hair. ‘But it’s all happening so fast. I’m on the brink of something new and amazing and I’m completely … terrified.’
Hannah took out a compact and retouched her already perfect make-up. ‘This is a new start for all of us,’ she declared. ‘No more school uniforms, no awful Miss Owens with her moustache and polyester blouses full of static, and everyone in their pathetic little groups.’
‘You’re right,’ I agreed. ‘College is great. We’ve got much more freedom and everyone is so friendly.
’
I closed my eyes for a second to whisper my own private wish.
And this is the year I’m finally going to find my feet and make a splash. A great life is around the corner waiting for me – I just know it.
I stood up and rang the bell as my stop approached.
‘Come back to my house,’ Hannah urged. ‘We’re searching for holidays on the Net.’
‘My mum hates me being away even for one night,’ I moaned. ‘There’s no way she’ll let me go.’
‘She’ll have to let you go one day, Katy. You have your own life.’
I shook my head and frowned. ‘She completely relies on me. We’ll probably end up dressing the same and finishing each other’s sentences.’
‘Ever seen the movie Psycho?’ Nat called after me.
I stumbled off the bus, deep in thought, and from nowhere came a surge of unexpected hope. Hannah was right – I should be jumping for joy. Everything was coming together for me – college, friendships, Merlin; there was even hope that Mum might improve. I grabbed hold of a lamp post and ran around it until I was dizzy while Nat and Hannah knocked on the window and waved madly. It took a few moments for my vision to clear and I shielded my eyes. There’d been a shower and heat was actually rising from the pavement, making everywhere hazy. I looked again – the girl with the green eyes was standing on the corner of the road. I blinked furiously. She was there, but only in the way that smoke is there for a second before it dissipates. She was a wisp of a memory that evaporated but left me feeling unsettled again. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me.
It was inevitable that I’d have to come down to earth. My heart sank as I opened my front door. The living-room curtains were closed in the middle of the afternoon.
‘Hello, Katy.’
Mum always said my name as an apology. The room smelled stale and musty. She was still in her nightdress, eyes screwed up at me in the semi-darkness.
‘Headache?’
She winced and lay back on a cushion, nodding. I plonked my bag on the carpet, thinking how nice it would be to disappear upstairs and work on a new design for textiles. It was like a drug to me, the only time I could really lose myself, but Mum had been alone all day and needed company. I tried to sound sympathetic. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
She coughed. ‘I haven’t eaten and there isn’t much in the fridge.’
‘I’ll raid the cupboards,’ I told her, ‘rustle something up.’
The kitchen was depressing – dirty washing on the floor, dishes in the sink and my feet glued themselves to the ceramic tiles. Mum had always been unstuck around the edges, but the older I got the worse she seemed to become. I cleaned up, trying to stop the growing stabs of resentment, and microwaved a frozen shepherd’s pie for her. Because I’m a vegetarian, the smell of warm mince made me feel queasy. I heated up a can of tomato soup for myself and dunked a stale white crust in it.
‘My throat is like glass, and the pains in my head are blinding …’
Sick people can be so selfish. Where did I read that?
‘It’d be nice if you could make it home earlier. I know you love college, but the day drags so much …’
If you tried to help yourself and went to the support group or bothered to talk to anyone about your problems …
‘You’re not thinking of going away in the summer, Katy? I really couldn’t cope on my own.’
Home is starting to feel like a prison, without a reduced sentence for good behaviour. And you’ve never even let me apply for a passport, so how could I go abroad?
‘Maybe you could take a year out of college … until I’m feeling better?’
I pleaded a ton of homework and escaped to my bedroom, desperate for some space, and stayed there until Mum shouted me down later in the evening. She sounded unusually excited, and when I reached the bottom stair I noticed that her cheeks were flushed and her face animated.
‘You’ve just missed her, Katy. I had a visitor, a young girl selling jewellery. Look what I bought for you.’
Mum dangled something green and silver in front of my face as if she was trying to hypnotize me. I held out my hand and she placed some kind of pendant in it. The prickles began again and the sensation was so strong it felt as though insects were crawling all over my skin. It was made of emerald glass which was exactly the same colour as the pair of green eyes that had stared at me so intently today. Mum didn’t have to describe her caller. Instinct told me who she was.
CHAPTER
TWO
Katy – Be the first to see the new studio XXX
In my eagerness to answer I overstretched and knocked my phone off my bedside table. There was a loud thud and a reverberating series of smaller thuds, because I ripped up my bedroom carpet last year and stained the floorboards an amazing shade of indigo, my favourite colour. I hardly dared look in case it was broken, and when I did my hands were shaking. Merlin’s text held the promise of something I was too scared to think about, but not going just wasn’t an option.
I was ready in less than fifteen minutes but it wasn’t cool to appear too eager, so I twitched, bit my nails and changed clothes six times before setting off to his house. Mum watched me leave wearing her abandoned face, but nothing could make me feel guilty today. I quickened my pace, not wanting to talk to Luke, my next-door neighbour, because he always teased me and I couldn’t have handled that right now. I was so strung out with anticipation that all my senses were super-alert. It had been a wet summer and the landscape was so lushly green that it almost hurt my eyes. I could hear creatures moving about in the grass, leaves rustling in the breeze and a bird cry from far away. A faint rainbow beginning just behind Merlin’s tall Victorian house spurred me on. I never quite wanted to believe that if I ran far enough and fast enough I wouldn’t eventually reach it.
‘Hello, Katy … I’ll show you through.’
Merlin’s mum smiled as she opened the front door. She was tall and slim, with long glossy hair coiled on top of her head. She wore a kimono-style robe and looked great without a scrap of make-up. I knew she was a sculptor who had commissions from famous people, which made me a little in awe of her. I followed her up to the attic room, which had now been converted into a studio for Merlin. She gave a discreet knock on the door.
‘Merlin, it’s Katy.’
He hadn’t heard us because he was so engrossed in his painting – the tip of his tongue just visible, eyebrows knitted together and deep-set grey eyes focused yet far away at the same time. His features were sharply interesting and full of angles, with razor cheekbones and a deep cleft in his chin. His skin seemed exceptionally pale in contrast to the dark tangled hair that fell into his eyes and was impatiently brushed away with a flick of his wrist. I could have watched him all day, but a hand in the small of my back urged me to go in and a voice whispered, ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’
I didn’t want to shatter the moment because Merlin appeared so self-contained, but after a minute it felt wrong, as if I was spying on him. ‘Merlin … your mum let me in.’
‘Katy? You’re here.’
He got up quickly and covered his canvas with a sheet.
‘Can I see it?’
‘Not until it’s finished,’ he insisted. ‘Well … like the space?’
‘It’s fab,’ I said, knowing that even if it was a shed at the bottom of the garden smelling of cats, I’d have said the same thing. ‘The windows are huge and the view’s amazing.’
We both moved towards the angled roof windows, my shoes echoing on the paint-splattered floor. ‘The light is perfect,’ Merlin admitted. ‘I could stay up here all day.’
This was the closest we’d ever been. Our arms were touching and I didn’t dare move in case I ruined the moment. Sometimes when I was with Merlin I found it difficult to breathe. Neither of us spoke. A century ago I’d have probably swooned because my corset was too tight, and Merlin – who had the looks of a brooding romantic hero – would have swept me into his arms as if I
was as light as a feather. But girls weren’t supposed to pass out any more just because they were close to a member of the opposite sex.
One of his fingers began to stroke the palm of my hand and the other joined in. My heart was beating crazily. My hand moved its way into his, but we both still stared out of the window, frozen.
Why did this always happen? I couldn’t stand it any longer and had to say something this time.
‘Why don’t you kiss me?’ I blurted out.
I couldn’t believe I’d said it, but it seemed to break the ice. He turned and slowly bent his head, his six foot one inch versus my five foot five, until our lips touched and the room became a kaleidoscope of different colours.
‘That was worth the wait, Katy.’ His gorgeous face was instantly lit by a smile, as though the sun had burst through a cloud.
‘You’ve been waiting for it to happen?’
Merlin said just one glorious word. ‘Desperately.’
I still needed reassurance. ‘When did you first think about me like that?’
He sighed. ‘The first time you walked by I felt something weird happen. I was pulled towards you like … you were a magnet.’
I tried not to grin insanely but failed miserably and, even better, Merlin hadn’t yet finished with the compliments.
‘You had almost a glow surrounding you. Does that sound stupid?’
‘It sounds amazing.’ This was an understatement – I could have died of happiness on the spot. I nervously studied my feet. ‘Does that mean we’re … you know … together.’
He squeezed my hand and stared directly into my eyes. ‘We’re together.’ He didn’t look away for a second and I was drawn into the intensity of his gaze, noticing the perfect arch of his brow and his ridiculously thick lashes. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘What’s that?’ I was instantly worried.
His lips curved upwards. ‘The painting … it’s of you.’
I covered my face. ‘When can I see it?’