by Rosie Best
The other thing in my pocket was cold and smooth. I turned it over in my fingers, not pulling it out yet.
I had to wash my hands.
I stumbled into the en suite and jabbed at the light switch with my elbow. In the mirror above the sink I saw my reflection lurch into view. I looked like a zombie. My face was pale and my eyes were bleary.
My hands left more red streaks on the wide white bowl as I leaned over and rested my forehead on the cool mirror. For a hysterical second I thought of leaving the bloody handprints there for Gail the housekeeper to find in the morning. It’d serve her right if they gave her a heart attack.
You love finding things for my mother to freak out about. I’ll give you both something to freak out about.
I put my hand in my pocket and my fingers closed on the smooth stone again. I pulled it out and examined it, turning it over in the harsh light. It fitted comfortably into my palm, about the size of an egg and perfectly oval.
It wasn’t black. As I washed the film of blood away under the tap, the stone shone a deep blue with a bright white six-pointed star right at the centre. It happens sometimes when a gemstone cracks deep inside, at just the right angle to catch the light.
Did that mean this was a giant sapphire? It was polished up, to show off the star, like a gem would be. I remembered seeing one a bit like it before, years ago. I’d spent a day lurking around the display room at Christie’s, waiting for Mum to decide just how much she was willing to spend on a footstool that had once belonged to Oliver Cromwell.
But this was huge for a precious stone, and I’d seen some whoppers in my time.
Then again, there wasn’t much point getting incredulous over that when it’d been bequeathed to me by a man who was also a fox.
I let the stone slip into the sink with a ringing clonk, and staggered back to sit perched on the edge of the bath, my still-pinkish hands clenched on the porcelain. The shock of the cold surface helped a little. The bath was real, my aching soles and the gleaming tiles were real, the Fortnum & Mason handcream and the streaks of blood and the enormous cabochon sapphire in the sink were all real.
I should’ve known it wasn’t a dream. My dreams were never like this.
Although there was one chilling similarity.
I have to clear this up before Mum sees it.
At least in real life I had some chance of managing it.
I had a shower first, leaving my blood-spattered hoodie and jeans in the bath, where they couldn't stain the plush pinkish carpet. I scrubbed myself and then the sink, not bothering to wrap myself in a towel until I was done. I dripped nakedly on the horrible carpet as I padded to and fro, scooping the clothes into a plastic bag and sluicing down the bath, wishing I could persuade Mum to let me redecorate in a colour that didn't make me feel like I was washing in Candyland.
Back in the bedroom I stuffed the plastic bag back into the backpack and dived into the recesses of one of the wardrobes where there was a battered, neglected leather trunk. Pink and yellow flowers dotted its surface in crackling acrylic paint – Flowers, by Meg Banks, aged six years and four months. Inside, a layer of ballet programmes and school art projects hid a second layer of old diaries and secret, faintly rebellious cartoons.
Below that there was the real hidden compartment, just big enough for a backpack full of aerosol paint and some old clothes.
A secret within a secret. I was proud of how sneaky it was. I knew it’d worked when Mum confronted me with the contents of one of the diaries – standard stuff about how I hated that Gail went through my things – but never mentioned what was in the bottom of the trunk.
I sat on the floor, cradling the sapphire in my hands like a delicate bird’s egg.
And now? I glanced at my watch. It was nearly 5am. I shut my eyes, tiredness sitting heavily across my shoulders, but in the darkness I could still see twisting limbs, fur crawling back inside skin like a thousand microscopic burrowing worms, and the eyes – human eyes in an inhuman face.
And now he was dead.
I had no idea who – no, stranger than that, I had no idea what he was. But I didn't want him to be dead. I never managed to ask him if there was anyone in his life, anyone I should be breaking the news to.
After another few silent moments on my knees, turning the stone over in the shaft of light spilling out from the bathroom, I stood up and went to my laptop, to do what I always do when I don't know something. I googled it.
Obviously, fox shapeshifter got me nothing remotely fact-based. I read the Wikipedia entry on shapeshifters four times, in case there was something I’d missed, but couldn’t get past the idea of scouring lists of mythical figures for hints about the man I’d just seen fall down and die in my school playground. After that I poked around paranormal research sites for a while, but couldn’t escape the distinct whiff of bullshit.
Frustrated, I clicked away. Habit hooked me and I opened a private browser and rattled off the address for graffitilondon.com. The first topic on the board: New E3 art, Waterloo Bridge. My heart lifted a little. E3 was my total hero. He had a genius for colour, composition, positioning, everything. I clicked through, hoping someone had taken a picture, though I almost didn’t have to – I trusted, I knew, that it was going to be beautiful. I suppose that’s what it’s like to be a fan.
The piece was right on the underside of the bridge, where it passed over the Victoria Embankment. It was a figure of a man with wings, falling through cloud. The photo wasn’t the greatest quality, but I could make out the clean stencil lines on his dark skin and coppery wings, and the splatters of silver and white dripping all around him as he fell.
Unnamed, as usual, the poster had written underneath the picture. But E3’s definitely using Icarus symbolism here so I’m calling it Icarus J.
I scanned down to the comments, expecting a chorus of agreement… and my heart sank.
Nice. but his tag’s not E3. it’s two hearts on top of each other.
It’s two 3s with one reversed, retard.
your wrong its a flower.
my god how arE YOU ALL SO DUMB IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT HE’S CALLED I <3 HIM.
omg E3 stans r the worst hes a banksy wannabe raghead.
I loved E3’s work, but the mystery over his tag had caused so many flame wars I was surprised the graffitilondon servers hadn’t melted. We all knew how this would go – the volunteer mods would lead the forum in a rousing chorus of Don’t Feed The Trolls, which wouldn’t work, and then they’d spend a couple of hours threatening and then liberally applying the banhammer. They were going to have a busy night and I didn’t envy them one bit.
I shut the browser with a weary sigh and lay down on my bed, wrapped in a towel, holding the stone up above my head and turning it slowly in the mingled blue-and-yellow light from the computer screen and the streetlights outside my window.
I might never know who the fox-man was. I might be left with nothing but a story nobody would believe and a stone I could never show anyone. My stomach twisted urgently, selfishly, at the thought. This couldn’t be it. I wanted to know more.
How did he get the stone? Why was he carrying it with him?
And how did he get to be a fox, anyway? Could he turn back whenever? Maybe he was cursed... maybe it was something he had touched...
I dropped the stone with a little cry. It dropped onto my chest and lay there, heavy, cold and solid.
Of course, if it was cursed, it would’ve changed me already, right?
My stomach grumbled, and I rolled over to glance at the clock. 5.27.
I could lie awake for an hour, buzzing with weirdness, waiting for my alarm to go off so I could get up and join my parents for our normal silent breakfast: a bowl of muesli with skimmed milk, and a cup of herbal tea without any sugar, while Dad circled things in the Financial Times and Mum scrawled notes in the margins of her Cabinet memos in violent red ink.
I could do that. Or... I could do something else.
A couple of minutes later, clot
hed and dry, I swung carefully over the creaky step at the top of the stairs and headed down the dark, perfumed staircase.
The lilies on Mum and Dad’s landing glowed like alien parasites in the faint dawn light from the staircase window. I held my breath as I passed their door, but nothing stirred.
The shock of the freezing tiles on my bare feet as I stepped into the entrance hall sent adrenaline pumping through me. I stopped by the hall table and leaned there for a second, my palms sticky on the polished oak and my legs suddenly unsteady. A wave of tiredness hit me and I thought about just going back to bed for an hour. Then my stomach rumbled again, sounding like a roll of thunder in the silent hallway, and I willed it quiet, pricking my ears for any sign of movement from upstairs. There was nothing.
The kitchen echoed to the soft slap of my feet on the tiles. Dim steely reflections of myself followed me across the room, like ghosts. The enormous main refrigerator loomed in one corner, next to the walk-in pantry. They were too large for a family of three with just two staff, and locked, of course. I eyed the gleaming padlock, but steered clear. That wasn’t my target for today – it was like the Everest of rebellion. If I broke into the Party Fridge I wanted to have plenty of time, equipment, and possibly a Sherpa and a rescue helicopter on standby.
I pulled open a cupboard and rooted around until I found an open, half-used bag of peanuts. Perfect. I poured about half the contents into my palm and put the rest back, then leaned on the central island, surrounded by low-hanging saucepans, chomping on my spoils.
They were gone pretty quickly and I lingered in the kitchen, wondering what else I might find in the cupboards. The brushed steel clock read 5.45. I still had a bit of time...
And that was how I came to be standing by an open cupboard when Hilde turned her key in the back door. She was early. I yelped guiltily at the sound and jumped back as she walked in, her chef’s whites slung over one arm, her enormous black handbag swinging beneath them.
“Meg!” Her face flushed and darkened in the dim slanting light coming through the blinds. “You know you are not supposed to be in here.”
My face went hot and my heartbeat hammered in my throat. A flash of memory – the fox and the jewel and the blood – did absolutely nothing except to make me selfishly one hundred per cent sure that this situation was worse.
“What are you doing?” Hilde demanded. She threw her whites down across the counter and her handbag thudded down on top of them. “How dare you steal like this?”
I didn’t bother to point out that this was my kitchen, my home, that they were therefore my nuts.
Nothing in this house is really mine. Except for my paints.
And the stone.
Hilde planted her hands on her hips.
“Sorry,” I said, my voice cracking. “I was just hungry.” I cringed even as I said it. Her sharply over-plucked eyebrows twitched, but she didn't comment.
I backed away, but she crossed the kitchen, her black heels clacking on the tiles with the precise inevitability of a ticking clock. “Stop,” I said. “Please.”
Hilde paused, by the door, one hand reaching for the handle. Then she shook her head and walked out of the kitchen.
I turned to stare out of the back door, across the lawn, as the sun rose over the roofs of Kensington, behind the sculpted cherry trees. I could have run away, charged out through the alley and not looked back. But the idea barely flitted through my mind before I brushed it away. I wasn’t going to give up everything I had over half a bag of peanuts.
I only wish my mother had such a keen sense of perspective.
She strode into the kitchen with her thin pink dressing gown pulled tight around her shoulders. She looked at me and sighed, her lips pursed.
“Oh, Margaret, how could you?” She looked tired, though her drooping eyelids were the only clue in her pale, smooth post-Botox face. She sighed deeply again and looked away – apparently she couldn’t even look at me, such was my utter betrayal. “Is this why you didn’t lose weight this week? Hilde is so good to you she goes out of her way to make sure your diet is appropriate...”
Oh yeah, Saint Hilde. I met her eyes over Mum's bony shoulder. Sneak.
“This is how you repay her? And me? We do our best to help you deal with your problem!”
I drew in a deep breath. Breathe with the rage, I told myself. Just breathe, and look away, and in a few seconds you won't need to reach across the room and strangle the word “problem” out of her.
My mother turned red-rimmed, half-tearful eyes to me. “You ungrateful little bitch.”
...oh crap. My eyes snapped back to her face and I fought against the urge to back away. Sudden, unwarranted swearing is like Mum’s poker tell. When she breaks out the B word, all bets on reasonable behaviour are off.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt it, too, under the blowtorch heat of her stare. My palms prickled with sweat. I cringed inside, my stomach squeezing painfully around the handful of peanuts. Bile rose in my throat. I could feel the ghosts of her hands tight on my shoulders, forcing my head down, hot vomit stinging my throat...
It only happened once. On the night of the last general election. I’d gained a few pounds and I couldn’t get the zip done up on the size twelve Versace she’d had made for me to wear to her re-election party. Maybe it was election night stress, but she just snapped. I could see it in her eyes, something mad looking out through her, in the seconds before she seized handfuls of my hair and held my head down over the sink until I threw up, retching over and over because her bony fingers were digging into my scalp and I was scared and I just wanted to get her off me...
When I was done she threw a flannel at me and walked out, and neither of us ever mentioned it again.
I never did fit in the stupid dress.
Standing in the kitchen, awaiting sentencing, I twitched my head around, shaking the hair over my face, so that I wouldn’t scream at her.
She drew in a big shaky breath, like she was surfacing from a long dive underwater.
“Ungrateful child,” she muttered.
Maybe she’d been remembering that night too. I could never tell.
“Go to the wardrobe till it’s time for school,” she said. “Whatever you took, let that be your breakfast.”
I didn’t try to argue. That lesson, at least, I’d learned early on.
The wardrobe was a big old oak thing in my mother’s study, and she’d been locking me in it as a punishment as long as I could remember.
When I was three, it was terrifying. A huge dark cavern full of witches and monsters and crawly things, and coat hangers that hung down like butchers’ hooks.
Then there was a wonderful period of grace when I was about six when I stopped being afraid. I simply imagined my way out. I knew, with perfect six year-old’s logic, that either Mum would let me out, or the door would swing open and I’d feel a pine-scented breeze on my face and I’d just walk into Narnia and leave this world behind forever.
Sadly, Mum always got there first.
I knew we probably looked faintly absurd now, as she marched me up the stairs with one bony hand digging into my soft fleshy upper arm. But the wardrobe was just as effective as it had ever been. Now I was sixteen, five foot six and a size sixteen despite her mad, megalomaniacal efforts to get me down to a size zero. I banged my elbows on the solid wood, the hangers tangled painfully in my hair and the shoes dug into my thighs if I tried to sit down.Mum locked me in and I hunkered there, in the close, shoe-smelling darkness, and lifted my fingers to trace graffiti patterns on the smooth wood.
CHAPTER THREE
A couple of hours later I turned into Kensington Square, running my fingers over and over the cabochon sapphire in my coat pocket. All around me, gangs of girls walked and chattered, laughed, fought, bullied and flirted their way into school. For a few more yards everything seemed normal, but the atmosphere changed as I drew closer to the front door. A murmur of excitement passed through the crowd. The chatter grew louder. My
heart started to pound, and I felt sweat prickling behind my ears.
There was police tape across the side gate. It wound around Henry’s neck like a bright yellow scarf.
I dropped my gaze to the pavement and kept it there.
The stone was cool against my fingertips.
Miss Kilgarry and Miss Wolfcliff were pulling double duty on the big staircase in the entrance hall, doing their best to keep things moving, waving their arms like they were signalling a plane in to land.
I shuffled up the stairs with everyone else, hugging the banister – until a scuttling patch of blackness shot over the back of my hand. I snatched my hand away with a yelp. Heads turned, someone walked into my back, and the chorus of “What, oh my God what?” rolled over me like a wave. A glimpse of eight thick legs and a furry body streaked up the bannister and vanished.
“Banks?” Miss K demanded from the top landing.
“Spider, Miss,” I gasped.
Possibly a bad move. Several girls shrieked and tried to pull away from me, shaking out their arms – except there wasn't room, and I heard cries of “ow!” and “oh my God, watch yourself, yeah?” as I managed to ride the general upwards tide to the top of the stairs. A bony arm dripping with jangling bangles elbowed me in the ribs, and I tripped over a trailing backpack strap. At the top of the stairs I burst from the crowd almost at a run and escaped into the relative calm of our classroom with a relieved gasp.
Most of 10E were already there. They were crowded up to the windows, looking down at the garden.
I was about to join them when I stopped, looking over at our lockers in the corner behind the teacher’s desk. I slipped my hand into my pocket again and gripped the stone tight.
It wasn’t safe at home. Sure, if Gail found my paints I’d be in the deepest shit since that guy on YouTube with the elephant, but I could always get more paints. I was never going to see another stone like this one. I wanted it safe, and that meant not keeping it in my mother’s house.