Kiss of Death

by Lauren Henderson

  “Goodness knows, Taylor,” Miss Carter sighs. “Her aunt is taking her back to Fetters to lie down. We’ll see what the nurse has to say.”

  “I’ll go back too!” Taylor says immediately. “She shouldn’t be alone. I can sit with her in our room—”

  “I think I’m more than capable of taking care of one hysterical teenager, thank you, Taylor,” Aunt Gwen snaps.

  “No—Miss Carter, Miss Wakefield, please let me come!” Taylor sounds hysterical herself. “She’s my best friend, please!”

  “I suppose it couldn’t do any harm—” Miss Carter starts, but I interrupt her.

  “No!” I say loudly. “I don’t want her!”

  “Scarlett!” Taylor almost wails. “Scarlett, you have to—”

  “I don’t have to do anything!” I yell. “I know you saw that ghost—no, not a ghost, it was something real—I know you saw it, and you’re lying! Not just now, when we were coming back from the Shore as well! That’s twice you’ve lied about it!”

  “It’s not—I can explain—” Taylor begins, but Aunt Gwen’s voice cuts through us like a knife through butter.

  “This situation is completely out of control,” she snaps, her voice as tart as a lemon. “I am taking Scarlett back to school immediately. Miss Carter, will you please escort Taylor McGovern back to the group now, before the girls work each other up to any further heights of childish hysteria?”

  “Come on, Taylor,” Miss Carter says, turning away. “This isn’t helping Scarlett at all.”

  I look at Taylor; she’s white as a sheet. Pushing past Miss Carter, she runs up to me, dropping down next to me so she can be level with my face.

  “Scarlett, let me come with you!” she pleads. “Please! I can explain everything—just let me come back to school with you—”

  “Leave me alone,” I say angrily, my voice echoing off the stone walls. “I can’t trust you anymore! Plum saw that thing—whatever it was—it’s mad that you’re the one who kept lying to me, and Plum didn’t! Everything’s so messed up, I don’t know what to think!”

  Aunt Gwen pulls me to my feet.

  “This is clearly a case of a friendship getting too close,” she says over my head to Miss Carter. “We see it much too often, don’t we? It’s the bane of single-sex schools.”

  “What?” Taylor jumps up, yelling at Aunt Gwen. “That’s bull! You’re the one who told Scarlett she couldn’t see her boyfriend! If you were worried about me and Scarlett getting too close, why didn’t you let her see Jase?”

  “Jase Barnes is Scarlett’s boyfriend?” Miss Carter says in surprise, before she shakes her head. “This is getting completely out of control,” she says firmly. “Gwen, you’re absolutely right. Taylor, you will come with me this instant to rejoin the group.”

  “But, Miss Carter—”

  “Now!” Miss Carter barks at her, with all the authority of a gym mistress more than used to making reluctant girls jump on command.

  Aunt Gwen is already marching me back through the narrow underground passages as expertly as if she had spent her life down in these closes. In a matter of minutes, we’re climbing the wooden staircase again, emerging into the gift shop, startled faces turning to stare at us as we exit through the heavy iron-framed door into the daylight. The Royal Mile is bustling, and I balk at the number of people on the pavements, the sightseeing buses lumbering past; it’s too much for me to deal with. Too much reality, too much confusion.

  But it certainly isn’t too much for Aunt Gwen. Maybe she really is the best person to be taking care of someone in as highly emotional a state as I am right now; she hails a black taxi and has me inside, slumped on the backseat, almost immediately. The familiar ticking noise of the cab’s engine is loud and comforting, and in the fifteen minutes it takes us to drive back to Fetters, we don’t exchange a word.

  Aunt Gwen doesn’t take me to see the nurse, for which I’m also grateful; that woman was nasty enough to me last time I collapsed. I can’t imagine how sarcastic she’d be at the sight of me coming in twice in three days with fainting symptoms. Instead, I’m marched through the main hall, up five flights of a back staircase, and through a series of fire doors to a modern wing of the school so tucked away behind its Victorian Gothic facade that I didn’t even know it existed. This is clearly for the teachers—Aunt Gwen has her own suite of rooms, which are as spacious and luxurious as the pupils’ are cramped and old-fashioned.

  So this is where a lot of the school fees go, I think, the cynical granddaughter of a headmistress. Bet they don’t let the parents anywhere near this wing.

  Aunt Gwen chivvies me into the sitting room and indicates an armchair while she bustles off into the adjoining kitchenette. I peer around and notice a bedroom off one side of the sitting room, and what I assume is an en suite bathroom beyond it. The living room is very nicely furnished, with a leather sofa and two matching armchairs round a coffee table, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk, and two huge windows with views over the parking lot to the Fetters football pitches beyond.

  “Here, drink this,” Aunt Gwen says, coming back with a mug of tea and setting it down in front of me on the coffee table—on a coaster, naturally. “Plenty of sugar in it. That’s always good for a shock.” She takes a seat in the other armchair. “Oh, and open that window next to you,” she adds, nodding at it. “Cold air will do you good as well.”

  There’s no disobeying Aunt Gwen; I stand up obediently and twist the chrome handle, cracking the heavy, double-glazed window open as little as I can get away with. The breeze is sharp on the back of my neck as I turn away, and I must admit, she’s right; it does wake me up, even as I’m shivering.

  I sit back down in the armchair and pick up the tea, blowing on the top to cool it down. Aunt Gwen has brewed it as strong as she could.

  “Drink it all,” she commands, fixing her bulging, green gobstopper eyes on me.

  One of Aunt Gwen’s most effective powers is her ability to not say a word, which is a lot harder than you’d think. Under her basilisk stare, I dutifully drink down my entire mug of tea. The sugar and caffeine rush, combined with the cold air blowing over my face, dispels the last wisps of dizziness from my meltdown; I set the mug on the table, feeling as good as I can, considering that I just threw a major wobbly and am now seated in front of my horrible aunt, doubtless about to get one of her special, nerve-crunching lectures about exactly what’s wrong with me.

  I take a deep breath and brace myself for the onslaught. But her first question takes me completely by surprise.

  “Are you still in contact with Jase Barnes, Scarlett?” she asks, leaning forward and smoothing her tweed skirt down over her knees. “Taylor McGovern said just now that he was your boyfriend. I told you in no uncertain terms to break it off with him earlier this year. And I certainly assumed that after all that unpleasantness with his father, and Jase’s disappearance, the two of you were no longer in touch.”

  I bite the inside of my lip and prepare to tell a string of lies. There’s no point having a confrontation with Aunt Gwen; I live in her house, and she made it very clear to me months ago that if I kept seeing Jase, she would do everything in her power to turn my life into even more of a living hell than she’s managed to do so far.

  “No, Aunt Gwen,” I fib, sliding one hand under my thigh so I can cross my fingers. It may be a silly superstition, but this isn’t just any lie; it’s to do with Jase, and after what happened last night at the quarry party—blood rises to my face when I think about it—I’m more protective than ever of our relationship.

  It isn’t enough, though. Aunt Gwen doesn’t look remotely convinced.

  “He’s gone,” I say. “I haven’t heard from him since he took off. We weren’t even seeing each other when all that happened. I just wanted to help him because I was sure he was innocent.”

  To sell the lies, I call on the memories of how awful I felt when Jase didn’t ring me for all those weeks, and how even more awful I felt when I thought we’d br
oken up. It’s like being an actress, when they tell you to think of something really sad, like your dog dying, so that you can cry on cue; I feel my face sag in misery, my mouth turning down at the corners.

  From Aunt Gwen’s expression, I see immediately that it’s worked; she’s nodding in satisfaction.

  “The Barnes family are nothing but scum,” she says, settling back in her armchair and crossing her legs. “Look at the grandmother! And that pathetic creature Kevin married!”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard Aunt Gwen say a nice word about another woman, I reflect, but she’s particularly nasty about poor Dawn. Jase’s mum isn’t exactly the Brain of Britain, it’s true, but she means well, after all, which is more than one can say about Aunt Gwen. It’s odd that I think of Jase’s mum by her first name, rather than calling her Mrs. Barnes, but when you meet Dawn, you know that treating her like an adult just doesn’t feel right. In a maturity contest between her and Lizzie Livermore, I honestly think Lizzie would win.

  “You really don’t like Dawn—Jase’s mum,” I observe.

  Aunt Gwen’s eyes bulge.

  “There’s nothing to dislike,” she snaps. “Dawn Barnes is simply a nothing. She wasn’t even that pretty when she was younger, let alone now.”

  Harsh, as Taylor would say. But you just have to look at Aunt Gwen to understand why she might be catty about another woman’s looks. Poor Aunt Gwen didn’t have much luck in the beauty department; she takes after her father, and my grandfather’s craggy, masculine features and big, sturdy build don’t translate well to a female. Of course, Aunt Gwen could make more of an effort—do something with her frizzy sandy hair, dye her eyebrows, wear clothes that make her look less like she’s in an Agatha Christie village mystery from the 1940s, with her twinsets, pearls, and orthopedic-looking sturdy shoes. But it’s true that the raw materials don’t give her much to work with, and the thyroid disease that makes her eyes bulge out like an angry frog’s is very unlucky.

  I don’t look anything like Aunt Gwen; I’m a dead ringer for many of the Wakefield women in the family portraits. Small frame, white skin, blue eyes, dark curly hair. My mother was actually a distant cousin of my father’s, so I have Wakefield blood on both sides, which explains why the resemblance between me and a lot of the previous Wakefields in crinolines and bonnets and, later, bustle skirts, is so pronounced. I know Aunt Gwen hates me for this, but it’s not exactly my fault, is it?

  And without meaning to be too much of a bitch, I do think Aunt Gwen should be more careful about commenting on other women’s looks. I mean, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

  I close my eyes for a moment, feeling a little woozy. I squinch the lids shut tightly, shaking my head, in an attempt to wake myself up.

  “So you’re not still in contact with Jase Barnes?” Aunt Gwen asks. “You don’t have any idea whether he’s planning to come back to Wakefield?”

  “No,” I say, opening my eyes again. Why is she going over this? I wonder. I already said I wasn’t.

  I turn toward the window a little, letting the air blow onto my face. I’m feeling a bit dizzy again. Probably because I got so little sleep last night—or rather, this morning.

  “I think I should go and lie down,” I say to Aunt Gwen, stifling a yawn.

  “Not yet,” she says with a shake of her head. “We have a lot more to talk about.”

  Really? I think. All you seem to be asking me is the same question about Jase, over and over again.

  “I just feel a bit woozy,” I say apologetically.

  “Stay where you are,” Aunt Gwen says calmly. “You’re fine in the armchair.”

  It’s true, the armchair’s very comfortable, squashy and yielding; it’s just that it’s hard to relax in Aunt Gwen’s presence. No, I amend that; it’s impossible.

  “Did you ever wonder, Scarlett,” Aunt Gwen continues conversationally, “why I live in the gatehouse? Not the family wing of Wakefield Hall? There’s a whole floor, almost, of the Hall, that was being done up for your father and mother. And now it’s closed off, and I’m in that tiny little cottage where the lowest member of staff used to live.”

  My eyes widen.

  “I did, actually,” I admit. “Wonder about it, I mean.”

  She nods.

  “It was my mother’s idea,” she says. “After your parents died. She wanted me to move in there with you, bring you up; she wanted me to bond with you. Be a sort of substitute mother, I imagine.” She snorts in contempt at this idea. “Crammed together in that horrible little box—what was she thinking?”

  She leans forward again.

  “But of course, you realize her real motive,” she adds. “She was terrified. Terrified that I had something to do with your parents’ being killed. She couldn’t bear to think about it. So she made me take you in and bring you up, to prove to herself that she didn’t believe it. And, I assume, to make sure nothing happened to you. She didn’t think I could risk anything happening to you when you were in my care.”

  My mouth is hanging open; I’m dumbfounded. This is so unexpected, so hard to process, that there’s nothing I can think of to say.

  Also, my head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton wool, and my lips don’t seem to be working very well.

  “And she was right, wasn’t she?” Aunt Gwen smiles. It’s like watching a crocodile bare its teeth. “I couldn’t have risked you having an accident when you were small and vulnerable, could I? It would have been much too suspicious.”

  “But Mr. Barnes killed my parents!” I manage to get out. “He knocked them off their scooter—he ran them down with his van!”

  Aunt Gwen raises her hands and claps once, mockingly.

  “Why don’t you try thinking for a moment, Scarlett? You’re supposed to be a bright girl. Did it ever occur to you to wonder why Kevin would bother to do something as senseless as run over Sir Patrick and Lady Wakefield? Why would he have taken a risk like that unless he had something huge to gain? What, did you think he was a homicidal maniac? You’re as big an idiot as your mother, that brainless little fluffball. Kevin killed your parents so that I could inherit the Hall, my dear. We were in it together.”

  I simply don’t believe this. She’s playing a horrible joke on me, torturing me, knowing that no one will believe me when I tell them what she said to me, because it’s so impossible and outrageous.

  I try to shake my head, but it’s as heavy as lead. Something’s very wrong with me.

  “Don’t you like what I’m telling you, Scarlett?” Aunt Gwen says, smiling even more now. “Then why don’t you leave? I won’t try to stop you.”

  I push my hands down on the arms of the chair, but I can’t lift myself. I’m almost paralyzed; my bones might as well be made of polystyrene, my muscles of cotton wool. I can’t brace myself against the chair; my arms collapse instead.

  “Antihistamines always had this effect on you,” she informs me. “I gave you one when you were small and had hay fever, and you went out like a light.” She looks reminiscent. “It was very tempting, I can tell you! But, as I said, it was too soon. I made a note of the active ingredients in the pills, and I bought some more last week and put them in your water bottle. I was hoping you’d fall off the edge of that mountain and split your head open.” She shrugs. “Well, I didn’t have much luck with that, did I?”

  “Taylor said … antihistamines …,” I mumble.

  “Taylor’s a clever girl,” Aunt Gwen agrees. “That’s why I was so relieved when you didn’t want her to come back with us this afternoon. Goodness knows what’s going on between the two of you, but it worked out perfectly for me. Your tea had four pills crushed up in it—you should be very drowsy by now. I just hope you can take in what I’m saying. It would be a disappointment for me if you couldn’t, frankly.”

  “You—and Mr. Barnes?” I say, my lips almost numb.

  She nods abruptly.

  “We were—together, when we were younger,” she says, and now she looks wistful
, almost vulnerable. “But it was impossible, of course. He was the gardener’s son, and I am a Wakefield! Ridiculous! But Kevin was always ambitious. When I made it clear to him that no one could ever know that we were seeing each other, he got furious. Really angry. Kevin had a terrible temper. He tore off and married the first woman he met, that stupid little nothing, Dawn.” She’s frowning now. “But naturally, that didn’t last. How could it? She bored him to death. So we began seeing each other again. And it occurred to both of us that if your father was out of the picture, my mother would be a lot more generous to me.”

  She looks directly at me, her eyes flashing.

  “Patrick was always her favorite,” she says bitterly. “The son—her firstborn—serving in the army, marrying a Wakefield cousin, for God’s sake! He did everything right in her eyes! And then, when they had you, and it was clear that you were going to be a perfect tiny little Wakefield clone, it was as if I didn’t even exist for my mother anymore. Everything was Patrick’s, everything. I thought if he wasn’t around anymore—and your mother, too, because my mother just drooled over her—that it would all be different.” She sighed. “I wanted you gone too, of course. That would have been best. But Kevin wouldn’t do that. Not a little girl, he said. That was too much. He turned out to have some scruples.”

  She laughs, without a hint of humor.

  “But it was too much for him anyway, wasn’t it?” she says resentfully. “He couldn’t cope with what he’d done. He was weak, weaker than I ever expected. After running down your mother and father, he dived straight into a bloody whisky bottle. God, it was so infuriating! He’d barely even look at me afterwards—he blamed me for talking him into it, when it was his idea just as much as mine.” Her eyes narrow. “Pathetic! Catch me ever falling to pieces like that! At least my mother never made the connection. But I know she suspected I was involved somehow, I know it. Otherwise I would never have been sent to the gatehouse. And made to look after you. God, those were the worst years of my life. Waiting, waiting, until enough time had passed, and you were old enough so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Till I could finally get rid of you and be the only heir to Wakefield Hall, whether my mother liked it or not.”