I made a face. ‘Ugh.’ I felt those little tremors inside, that I get when I look out of a high window.
Jodie waved at us to sit down on her slightly greasy sofa. ‘Right, you two,’ she said. ‘Is it true?’
Zoe and I glanced at each other. ‘That depends what Kerry’s been saying,’ I said.
Jodie sighed. ‘Listen. I’m not an idiot. Kerry’s not capable of making things up. She said Zoe pulled a knife out of her school bag the other day and that she might’ve used it if someone hadn’t come along and interrupted. Is that right?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not right. The knife isn’t a proper one, is it, Zoe? It’s just like – like an ornament. And Kerry kept going on and on about what was in the bag. That was the only reason Zoe got the stupid thing out.’
I looked at Zoe for back-up. ‘That’s true,’ she said, with a little pout, inspecting her nails. ‘Kerry shouldn’t be going around spreading stupid stories like that.’
‘You’re lucky she didn’t tell anyone else, like a teacher or your mothers,’ Jodie said. ‘I talked her out of that. I said I’d make you get rid of the thing.’
Zoe stopped picking at the chipped varnish on her nails and looked Jodie in the eyes. ‘I’ve already got rid of it,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was doing in the first place.’
I looked from Zoe to Jodie. I haven’t got rid of it, though, I thought. I’m the one with the knife now.
Jodie raised her barely-there brows. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You can still get into plenty of trouble, no matter what kind of knife it is.’ She stroked the scar on her face. ‘I hate knives.’
I was about to ask her about how she got the scar, when there was the sound of a key in the door and Dave came in with a clanking bag of beer bottles. He put it on the floor and said, ‘Hello again, girls.’
He had a way of looking at us, up and down, that made me feel hot and squirmy. As if I was doing something I shouldn’t. I couldn’t explain it. ‘We should go,’ I said.
‘What have I said?’ Dave pretended to be upset.
‘Nothing. It’s just –’
‘Are mummy and daddy waiting? Is it nearly bedtime?’
I pretended to laugh. But now, somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to get up and go straight away, even though I really wanted to. Dave was staring at the ladder Zoe always made sure was in her black school tights. At first, I didn’t think Zoe had noticed, but she crossed her legs and sort of tucked them back. She knew he was watching. That horrible shame-y feeling washed over me again.
Jodie came to the rescue. ‘Shut up, Dave, the girls were about to go anyway. You said we were going out tonight. Go and get changed.’
Dave leaned back in his chair. ‘You see the way she pushes me about? Bet you don’t treat your boyfriends like that.’
‘We haven’t got –’ I stopped. I didn’t want to have this conversation.
‘Two lovely girls like you? I don’t believe it.’ Dave was really leering at us.
I put a hand across my churning stomach.
‘Unless you don’t want a boyfriend. Are you –?’ Dave’s mobile burst into a loud blast of music and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it. He walked out of the room to talk to whoever it was.
Zoe stood up. ‘Better get off,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ I said, to Jodie, and we both scuttled as fast as we could out of the door. I pressed the lift button hard, again and again.
‘What were you thanking her for?’ Zoe nudged me with her elbow.
‘Making sure Kerry didn’t drop us in trouble,’ I said. ‘If she hadn’t talked to Jodie, she might have gone to your mum, or school, or anything.’
Zoe turned her lips downwards. ‘Jodie was just sticking her nose in. We don’t have to answer to her.’
‘I noticed you didn’t tell her that,’ I said as we got into the lift and put our hands across our noses and mouths because of the stench.
She smiled. ‘No, because we have to keep her on side. She’s the only person we know with her own place to stay. That might come in handy one day. And she’s mates with Geena from Dead Bouquet, remember.’
It felt great to get out into the evening air. We took big gulps of breath and I found myself flapping my arms to shake off the lingering smell from the flats. We laughed and linked arms.
‘I could kill Kerry, though,’ Zoe said, as we strode through The Cut with soft mud under our feet. ‘What did she think she was playing at?’
I shrugged and shivered. We walked fast to get back to the well-lit street. ‘I think she’s just easily scared.’
Zoe made a huffing sound. ‘You know what Kerry is? She’s sanctimonious.’
‘Big word for a school night,’ I said.
‘It was on a blog I was reading,’ said Zoe. ‘She thinks she can tell other people what they should do and how they should behave and she’s always being such a good little girl. It makes me sick.’
‘I don’t think she means it,’ I said.
‘Don’t you get all sanctimonious too,’ said Zoe.
‘I wouldn’t try to be anything I couldn’t spell,’ I said and we sniggered.
‘What’re you doing tonight?’ Zoe asked.
‘Not much, why?’
Under the white street lamp, Zoe’s face was pale and tiny strands of her hair, frizzed up in the cold, were lit up. ‘Tom’s band is playing in a bar in town.’
‘They’d never let us in. And my mum will never let me –’
‘I’m not talking about going to the gig.’ Zoe checked the time on her phone. ‘If we get changed and go now, we can catch him before it starts, when they’re setting up.’ She pulled back her hair into a ponytail, smoothed it down and shook it out again. ‘After all, he must be getting desperate by now, after losing my number. He might be pining for me.’
I grinned back at her. ‘Yeah, all right. We’d better catch him before he dies of a broken heart.’
On the pavement outside the bar, Zoe fished a pocket mirror from her bag and checked her make-up.
‘You look stunning,’ I tried to reassure her.
She turned to face me. ‘Should I do this? Am I crazy?’
‘Of course you should do it.’ I sounded more convincing than I felt inside. But I knew that was what she wanted to hear.
She put a head around the door of the bar, then ducked out. ‘Let’s go around the back. I think they’ll be bringing their gear in that way.’
In the pub car park, I recognised the battered old van from the first gig and a couple of the band members were there, heaving drums and speakers out of the it.
‘Is Tom around?’ Zoe asked one of them, who pointed towards the bar. At that moment Tom strolled out. He was hard to recognise without the make-up. He looked older than I’d remembered, for one thing.
He gave us both a brief nod and turned to the drummer with a sniff. ‘Not many in there tonight. Another dead one, by the looks of it.’
I heard Zoe take a deep breath in.
‘Hey.’ She gave him a smile. ‘Maybe you need a good dancer on the set to liven things up a bit.’
Tom turned his head towards her, gave a grunt and looked straight back at the van. He smelled of cigarettes. ‘Want a hand taking this in, Mick?’
I felt myself going hot with embarrassment. And anger. I wanted to slap him. I could almost feel Zoe’s confusion, thickening and weighing down the air.
‘Tom. It’s me, Zoe.’ She was still smiling but it had an edge to it, of something like desperation.
Tom frowned at her. After a few beats, he said, ‘Hey! Zoe! Good to see you!’
He has no idea who she is, I thought. I wanted to run away.
‘Zoe the dancer,’ she persisted. ‘Did you – did you lose my number?’
The drummer cackled. ‘It’ll be with all the other numb
ers, sweetheart.’
‘Look, er – I have to set up,’ Tom mumbled, actually stepping backwards. ‘Maybe see you at another gig sometime, eh?’
‘Sure.’ Zoe raised a hand in a kind of wave, but Tom had already turned away and was striding towards the bar. I put an arm around her shoulder and gently steered her back out to the road.
She turned to look at me, her face flushed and her eyes watery-bright. ‘He forgot who I was.’
‘Maybe he was just busy,’ I said. ‘You know. Distracted.’
‘Maybe he’s a jerk,’ she countered.
I smiled. ‘That too. You OK?’
She gave me a weak grin. ‘I will be. Let’s go back to your house and play with knives.’
13
Ritual
Mum was standing right next to the door when I put in my key. She went on at me for being so late and said she had to go out for some sort of evening training session at work.
‘I did tell you about it last night.’ She shook her head and gave me her mum-style pop-eyed glare. Then she handed me a tenner. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had time to cook. You and Zoe can get a takeaway or something.’
‘Sure?’ I didn’t really like taking money from my mum. A year or so ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now I knew she always had to watch what she spent.
‘It’s fine, I’ve had a bit of overtime this month,’ she said, already halfway out of the door.
Zoe and I raised eyebrows at each other. The house to ourselves. The first thing we did was ring for a Chinese takeaway and we ate it in front of the TV, watching some bad reality programme so that we could laugh at all the losers taking part. Zoe laughed a little too hard. I knew that she was putting up a front. If I mentioned Tom, she waved her hand at me and changed the subject.
We put the cartons and the last bits of food in the kitchen and thumped our way up the stairs to my room, where Zoe drew the curtains and put on some music – Ghost, followed by Black Widow. We set everything up – the skull, the black candles, the chalice, the knife. A handful of graveyard earth.
The music, with its muffled drum beat and mournful-sounding flutes, got under my skin a bit. It sounded like some sort of medieval funeral. Zoe said she loved it and that we should keep it on to create an atmosphere. Everything seemed to make me extra nervy, though. I kept glancing round, over my shoulder, over Zoe’s shoulder, thinking I could see shapes moving about.
Zoe shook her head. ‘It’s just the candles,’ she said. ‘They make weird shadows. You get so easily spooked, Anna.’
There was a special ritual that Zoe had worked out. She wrote something on thick parchment-style paper, then rolled it up and put it on the little table with the candles and skull. I wanted to ask her what she’d written down, but I thought it might ruin the mood, so I kept quiet. The incense sticks kept up a steady, thin trickle of scented grey smoke, making the air feel full and fuggy. Zoe anointed both of us with an amber-coloured oil, on the forehead and wrists. It smelled like a church at a service for the dead.
Closing her eyes, Zoe picked up the knife and held it high. The candle light caught its blade and made it gleam. It left Zoe’s face shadowed out, but I could see her fingers around the knife handle, glowing as if heat was flowing through them. She drew a circle in the air with the knife. Before I could work out what she was doing, she used the tip of the blade to pierce her index finger and let drops of blood fall on top of the skull, where they trickled blackly across its smooth surface.
Zoe put her hands on top of the skull, her eyes still closed. If she’d hurt herself with that knife, she gave no sign of it. I placed my own hands on top of hers, but I was too afraid to close my eyes. In the background, the music sounded relentless, and it felt as if it was growing louder and the drum was banging along to my own pulse and heartbeat. The flutes made me want to cry. We gripped each other’s hands. Our fingers felt death-cold. Mine were trembling, but Zoe’s were steady. She was whispering, names and words that I couldn’t make out, because the music seemed to be drowning everything out, blocking my ears from the inside.
A thundering, banging noise made us both jump and I let out a scream. Zoe blew out the candles in one breath and rushed to pick everything up, while I leapt up and ran down the stairs to see what the noise was. Someone was hammering at our door.
I pulled it open to see Kerry standing on the step. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I’ve been knocking for ages.’
I stood with my mouth open for a second or two. ‘You didn’t have to bash the door like that,’ I said. ‘It sounded like you were trying to break it down.’
‘But you weren’t answering.’
‘We might’ve been out.’
‘But you weren’t.’
I sighed. ‘What do you want, Kerry?’ I said this quite loud, so that Zoe would hear me and would make sure there were no traces of the ritual.
‘I’ve just come to see you. Can I come in?’ Kerry took a step towards me and I had to stop myself from swinging the door shut in her face. Instead I took a step backwards and let her walk inside.
‘Zoe is just upstairs,’ I said. ‘Let’s, umm, go into the kitchen and make some hot chocolate.’
Kerry followed me into the kitchen. I switched on the light and as it flickered into a bright glare, we both stared around. ‘Oh my god,’ I whispered.
The place looked as though there’d been a small explosion. The takeaway boxes, plates, knives and forks had been thrown around the room. One plate had smashed and was in pieces on the floor. The kitchen walls were smeared all round with red, like something from a horror film.
‘What have you been doing?’ asked Kerry, her eyes big and round. ‘How have you managed to make all this mess? Won’t your mum go completely wild? Mine would kill me.’
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t understand it.
I ran out of the kitchen and shouted up the stairs to Zoe. She strolled down slowly, giving me a little nod to tell me that she’d put everything away upstairs. I pushed her into the kitchen. Zoe gaped and swore under her breath.
‘Help me,’ I said. ‘We have to get rid of all this mess before my mum comes home.’
Kerry immediately started picking things up from the floor. ‘What time is she back?’ she asked, pushing the torn, soggy cardboard from the takeaway boxes into a plastic carrier bag.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, raking my hands through my hair. ‘But it can’t be long.’
Zoe picked up the broken plate and wrapped the pieces in kitchen roll. ‘We need to know how the hell this happened.’
‘Yes, what were you two doing?’ Kerry demanded.
‘It wasn’t us,’ I said, grabbing the kitchen roll and starting to wipe the walls. The sticky, red smears were sweet and sour sauce, it turned out and it took a few squirts of cleaning spray to get rid of them.
Zoe tried the back door. ‘Not locked,’ she said. ‘Someone must’ve walked in and done this. Charming.’
A horrible thought struck me and I ran into the living room to see if there was any more damage. But it looked exactly as we’d left it. I took the bags of rubbish out to the bin, squinting around to see if anyone was there. It was dark and deserted.
When I went back inside, Kerry and Zoe were arguing. Kerry said that we must have done the damage ourselves and Zoe was insisting that we didn’t.
‘How could someone have come in and done all that without you hearing them, though?’ Kerry asked. ‘Although you didn’t hear me knocking at the door for ages. Did you have headphones on or something?’
We didn’t answer, because at that point we heard Mum’s key in the door. I flicked the kettle on as she put her head round the kitchen door. ‘Wow, girls, thank you for cleaning the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you good? Sorry I was so long. The bus was really late.’
‘Kettle’s on,’ I said, as brightly a
s I could, though I was still trembling. Zoe made three hot chocolates and I made my mum a mug of tea and ushered her towards the sofa. ‘Sit down and relax,’ I told her. ‘We’ll go upstairs out of your way.’
‘You should tell your mum,’ Kerry said, far too loudly, on the way up the stairs.
‘Tell me what?’ I heard Mum call, half-heartedly, from the sofa.
I didn’t reply, but Zoe poked Kerry hard in the back.
Upstairs, I closed the bedroom door firmly behind us. The smell of oil and incense was still very strong and Kerry sniffed and wrinkled her nose.
‘Don’t you dare say anything to anyone about this,’ I warned Kerry. ‘Not even Jodie, right?’
‘But…’
‘Just shut up, will you?’ Zoe’s mouth was a hard line. ‘It’s all horrible enough without you making things worse.’
Kerry’s phone bleeped. She glanced at it and said she had to go home. ‘Luke says Mum’s looking for me. Shall I take my mug into the kitchen?’
‘Leave it here, I’ll sort it out.’ I didn’t want to give Kerry the chance to get into conversation with my mum, so I steered her to the door.
Back upstairs, Zoe and I stared at each other.
‘What the hell happened, then?’ I asked, dropping onto my bed. ‘I didn’t know what all that red stuff was on the walls, at first. It was like something from a nightmare.’
‘Want my theory?’ Zoe raised her carefully black-pencilled eyebrows. ‘I reckon it was Kerry.’
I laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. She’s the last person who’d do something like that. She’s too – I don’t know. Too boring. And good. What was that word you said before?’
‘Sanctimonious,’ said Zoe. ‘But it doesn’t mean someone’s really good, just that they like to look that way.’ She tapped her nails on the little table. ‘She could’ve got in the back door, no problem.’
‘So could anyone,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it more likely it was some stupid kids? Or – or someone who was high on something and didn’t know what they were doing?’
The Misper Page 10