by Van Badham
‘What is this stuff?’ I asked Nikki. ‘Do you know what this is?’ I asked Michelle.
‘When we have a girls’ night,’ said Michelle, lighting candles, ‘we observe certain rituals.’
‘We haven’t told you about them,’ said Kylie, ‘because the big part of the ritual—’
‘—the biggest part—’ interrupted Nikki.
‘—is that whatever happens under the rose …’ said Kylie.
‘… stays under the rose,’ all three said in unison.
‘You’re not going to kill me, are you?’ I asked, only half-joking.
Nikki laughed. ‘Yeah, we are totally going to chop you up. That was our last new friend in the empanadas. You freak. Roses are carved over confessionals in a Catholic church to remind everyone that blabbing is a no-no.’
‘I think I’m Lutheran,’ I said.
‘Are you freaking out again?’ asked Michelle. ‘Because if this isn’t for you and you want to go home—’
There was something in her eyes that looked like condescending pity mixed with irritation. The kind of look you’d give someone before expelling them from the group.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I said.
‘Awesome,’ said Nikki, ‘because tonight we are going to use a whole set of new toys to do this properly.’
The girls were sitting around the purple rug so our foursome made a square. I made myself look at the centre of the rug, where a thick orange candle now stood in a flowerpot full of sand, which itself was on some kind of round wooden chopping board. Next to it were a packet of matches, some small bottles of essential oil, a goblet, an old stick, a small double-edged knife and a glass ball on a wooden holder.
‘It’s just a ritual. It’s not actually religious or anything,’ Kylie said to me with a friendly smile.
Nikki snatched the knife into her hand and bounded towards the doorway. ‘Time for the Tell-All!’ she cried. Something glinted on her knife blade as she flicked off the light.
63
Even through the light cotton of my pyjamas, I felt too hot. Maybe it was the candles. The room glowed with orange light. As Nikki shut the door and sat down on the rug, my mind said: This is exactly how people become drug addicts. You let yourself go along with something that you don’t trust because you’re so desperate to be included. The waffle-weave robe Nikki wore made her look like some kind of monk. Kylie had just said, It’s not actually religious. That meant that I was not actually present at something weird and Satanic. I was at a girls’ night. We had just watched a trashy movie. Nikki likes being theatrical, I reminded myself. She does stuff like this in Drama all the time. You’re just recovering from your freak-out upstairs. It’s fine, it’s all fine.
With a loud gasp that didn’t sound like it came from her own throat, Nikki thrust the knife into the air. She began walking clockwise around the three of us and the rug, extending the knife in front of her.
‘By the knife blade!’ she bellowed.
I shuddered.
‘By the knife blade,’ repeated Kylie and Michelle.
‘By the element of air!’
‘By the element of air,’ said the girls as Nikki walked around a second time.
‘Mark this our space, our sacred Circle. May the blue flame protect our working.’
‘May the blue flame protect our working.’
‘May our secrets stay under the rose.’
‘May our secrets stay under the rose.’
‘We have woven this Circle three times thick,’ said Nikki, completing a third turn and standing still. ‘One for maid, one for mother, one for crone with a stick. Let not our weaving come unspun, until it is by our Will undone.’
‘Our Will undone,’ said Kylie and Michelle.
As if it came from upstairs, I almost convinced myself I heard the faint echo of the dark laughter that accompanied my fainting spell in the afternoon.
Nikki replaced the knife on part of the round wooden thing. ‘What do we seek, ladies?’ she asked us, kneeling.
‘Truth,’ said Kylie.
‘We will have truth,’ said Nikki. She lifted the old stick and used the thinnest end of it to carve a symbol on the candle. When she had finished, the candle bore an ankh.
Now she took one of the bottled oils. She dripped some oil from a dropper into her hand. ‘Oil into wax, to gather the facts,’ said Nikki. She now lifted the matchbox. ‘By the element of fire!’
‘By the element of fire,’ said Michelle and Kylie as Nikki stuck a match. A golden glow radiated from the fat candle. Suddenly I could smell peaches.
Nikki resumed her corner of our square and nodded to her left. ‘When the wick is aflame, the truth speaks its name. Kylie, you can start.’
‘So, Michelle,’ said Kylie, slapping her knees and smiling as if it were lunchtime behind the Technology labs, rather than a hoodoo version of truth-or-dare under Nikki’s house. ‘Dan Rattan. What’s the story?’
Michelle smiled warmly and relaxed. ‘We’ve been talking on the phone for months,’ she said.
‘No!’ said Nikki, returned to her shrieking, usual self. ‘But he was with Tracy Taylor at Belinda’s party.’
‘He’s breaking up with her tonight,’ said Michelle. ‘Last night he said he still loves me and he came at recess today to prove it. And tomorrow night, I’m going to prove to him why he should.’ There was a pause. ‘We’re driving out to White Beach!’ she exclaimed, making a shrill noise in her hands.
My brow furrowed. Somehow I had the feeling that Dan was there right now, and with his hands full.
‘Do you reckon you’re ready for it?’ asked Nikki.
‘Well,’ said Michelle, ‘I’m driving Dad’s car to Wollongong in the morning to get a massage, wax and a facial.’
Cupcakes coagulated in my stomach.
‘What do we think of this news, girls?’ asked Nikki. She looked at me. ‘Remember, it’s all under the rose.’
‘I think it’s awesome,’ said Kylie. ‘I think you were stupid to break up with him last time.’
‘I think it’s awesome too,’ said Nikki. ‘But maybe you shouldn’t rush into doing the business with Dan until you know that the whole Tracy thing is properly over.’
‘It’s just,’ said Michelle sadly, ‘waiting was how I lost him the last time.’
‘If he truly loves you,’ said Kylie, ‘it won’t matter.’
Of course, if he’s an opportunistic, special envoy from Slime Land who’s secretly banging your best friend, I thought, he will lie to your face while he takes your virginity in the back of a car.
Three faces stared at me over the light of the orange candle.
‘What?’ I said.
‘What you just said,’ said Nikki, ‘about Dan.’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ I protested.
‘Special envoy from Slime Land?’ said Kylie.
My brain struggled. I was sure that I hadn’t opened my mouth, but Michelle’s eyes were flashing. ‘Fran would never do that to me,’ said Michelle, ‘and you don’t know a single thing about Dan.’
I tried to say the words, ‘Of course I don’t’ but they wouldn’t come out. Instead, I said, ‘I know a bit about him.’
‘Like what?’ asked Nikki. Her face was creased with curiosity.
Something was wrong. This was an ordinary TV room in an ordinary suburban house. These were just ordinary girls from school. Scratching on candles couldn’t compel me to tell the truth.
Could it?
Trying to buy myself enough time to formulate an explanation, I reached for my pendant. The girls stared at me expectantly. The turquoise was neither hot nor cold in my hand. You’ll have to choose your words carefully, and avoid questions, my mind whispered through the stone. You submitted to their Will when you joined the Circle. I can’t help you now.
I breathed in. Out. I leaned forward. ‘I know that you really care about him,’ I said truthfully.
Michelle raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’
�
�Since you told me he’s been seeing someone else,’ I said, trying desperately to write true sentences in my head before I said them, ‘I’ve been concerned that he may not be able to devote himself completely to you.’
My lungs heaved. Michelle looked slightly less furious but her face was dark with suspicion.
‘It’s a fair point,’ said Kylie, ‘if he’s been calling you while going out with her.’
If being in the Circle was going to trap me into saying things I didn’t want to, I decided I would leave it. I reached my hand behind my back to steady myself and stand up. Before my hand had even reached the ground, though, my fingers seemed to dip into something thick in the air. I pushed my hand harder towards the floor – and was stung with an electric shock.
As I nursed my hand, none of the girls reacted.
‘You can sit further forward on the cushion,’ Nikki said.
Michelle looked as if she was about to ask me a question. Unprepared, panicking, I blurted, ‘I’ve never actually seen Dan before today. All I have to go on is the way people talk about him. I just want you to be careful.’
‘Yeah, I’d make him earn it,’ said Nikki. ‘He’s been with Tracy for ages. You don’t want him treating you like sloppy seconds.’
Trying to steer questions from me, I tried one of my own. ‘Do you believe that he loves you, Mish?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Have you ever had reason to suspect he’d want to “bang” Fran?’ asked Kylie lightly.
Michelle’s head dropped. Kylie and Nikki exchanged looks of alarm.
‘It happened when we were still together,’ Michelle said unwillingly, looking at the ground.
‘What?’ demanded Nikki. My eyes widened.
‘Not literally. I asked him who out of all my friends he would want instead of me and he said her. He said he thought she was really hot and most guys he knew thought so too. He told me that some guy on the football team offered him a thousand dollars if he could convince me and Fran to make out in front of his mobile phone camera.’
‘That’s really horrible,’ said Kylie.
‘It was my fault,’ said Michelle, shaking her head as if by doing so she could stop the words coming out. ‘I kept asking “Who?”, “Who?”, and then he told me.’
‘He didn’t have to tell you about some pervert and his phone porno,’ Nikki said.
‘Then there was this time he needed money really badly, and I felt so guilty that I wouldn’t do that stuff with Fran, because the other guy was serious. They all love her. Dan said that whoever cracked Fran would be a school hero. It made me feel …’ she started to cry, ‘… really small.’
It was clear from how hard she cried there was no way this was information Michelle wanted to share – whatever was making this happen, it was dangerous. So this is what it’s about, I thought. This is the group therapy sleepover from hell. Everyone’s forced to tell the truth until the rest of the group knows enough to break them.
Maybe it was warranted in Michelle’s case. Five minutes ago she was going to sleep with Dan Rattan tomorrow night. Now, I guessed, she probably wasn’t.
‘Do you really believe that he loves you, Mish?’ I asked again.
Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I don’t … I don’t know …’
What you believe to be the truth can change in a very short time.
64
Kylie and Nikki were silent while Michelle cried herself out. Finally Nikki said, ‘You can ask for truth now, Michelle. You’re on Kylie’s right.’
Michelle sniffed, gave a pathetic smile. ‘So are you and Ryan sleeping together?’ she asked Nikki.
‘Oh my God, every day!’ said Nikki, flinging her hands to her mouth as soon as the words were said.
‘We knew,’ said Kylie flatly.
‘How did you know?’ she said through her fingers. ‘Did he say something to Steve? He said he would never say something to Steve. Or any of the others. Or tell anybody. Ever.’
‘It’s the way you act around one another,’ said Kylie. For the first time since I’d met her, there was something in her voice that was almost patronising.
‘Every single day?’ asked Michelle.
‘Every day since his mum’s been away,’ said Nikki. ‘I can’t help it. I think I’m a nympho. We’ve done it in every single room of his house. Even the laundry.’
The converse of truth revealing things you want to keep hidden is learning things about other people you don’t want to know.
‘Is it good?’ asked Michelle.
Nikki thrust a cushion in front of her mouth. ‘It’s awesome!’ she screamed into it. I saw Michelle crumple with sadness, but Nikki didn’t notice. She pulled the cushion away from her face and said to Kylie, ‘Are you surprised?’
‘I’ve thought Ryan was gay since Year 8,’ said Kylie.
‘Me too,’ said Michelle.
‘He is so totally not,’ Nikki said with a self-satisfied grin. ‘But if other chicks want to think that and stay away, that is so fine with me. Rob’s the one who’s gay.’ Again, her hands were flung to her face.
‘Rob!’ shrieked Kylie.
Nikki nodded as if she didn’t want to. ‘He told Ryan. He thought that Ryan was gay too. Then Rob told me because he didn’t want to put Ryan in a position where he was keeping something from me. So only me and Ryan know.’
‘Steve would …’ Kylie began. Something like sadness crossed her face. ‘I actually don’t know what Steve would do,’ she said quietly. ‘I know that Garth—’
‘—he’d beat him up,’ said Michelle. All three girls looked forlorn.
‘When you’re ready, Sophie,’ said Nikki, looking up at me with dark eyes. ‘It’s your turn.’
65
I didn’t have the same curiosity about my friends’ sex lives as they had about one another’s. As the wheel of questions turned one step closer to Nikki, I grew more convinced she was going to ask me about the lovebite on my neck.
Whatever this purge session was, I was not going to let anyone – least of all these girls – know about Brody, what had happened between us, or how I felt. Brody may have been a mystery, he may have been ‘bad luck’, but I knew from the way he’d kissed me that the attraction between us was desperately mutual. I also knew his attraction to me would vanish if I told our secrets to the girls he despised.
Holding my pendant may have been pointless, but it enabled me to concentrate my thoughts of Brody into its stone. I needed to somehow distract Nikki from the question she wanted to ask. My one opportunity was with my question this turn.
The way information was spilling made me disinclined to even ask anything trivial. I didn’t need to know any more about Nikki’s laundry adventures with Ryan, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable by giving voice to my curiosity about Marlina – besides, something in me didn’t really want to know whether she was, indeed, under the house.
‘Can’t I pick dare instead?’ I asked.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Michelle.
‘I’m overwhelmed,’ was the honest truth.
‘It stays under the rose,’ reassured Kylie.
For Rob’s sake, I hoped so.
‘He’ll be fine,’ said Nikki. Again, I hadn’t felt my lips move.
Michelle made a patronising smile. ‘We’re your closest friends in the world. You can ask us anything.’
The restraint to not argue this mentally was immense. I thought of Lauren instead, and how after watching a DVD on a night like this, she and I would have just watched another DVD.
I shut my eyes in a desperate attempt to clamp out unwelcome thoughts, lest I give myself away. When I opened them again, I jumped – Nikki was mere centimetres from my face.
‘By the element of earth,’ she said, producing the glass ball in a raised hand, ‘seeker, seeker, search in shine – there’s clarity that dwells in thine.’
The ball shone. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’ I asked her.
&nbs
p; ‘They reckon it can make things clearer,’ she said.
‘How do you know this stuff?’ I asked.
‘Eavesdropping,’ she said cryptically. She dropped the ball into my hand. The glass felt warm. As I stared at it, the other girls began to chant, ‘Seeker, seeker, search in shine … Seeker, seeker, search in shine …’
Nikki scooped up another brown bottle of oil. ‘Try some of this,’ she said, putting some drops of oil onto her index finger, and then pressing her finger onto my forehead. I recoiled.
Traces of mist clouded the ball. The oil on my forehead radiated soft heat.
‘What do you see?’ asked Nikki.
‘Mist,’ I said.
The glass ball seemed to be filling with fog, although I knew the glass must be magnifying the smoke trailing from the orange candle. I realised how humid the room was becoming.
‘What’s in the mist?’ purred Nikki.
‘Reflections.’ I could see the lights from all the candles, blurry on the glass surface, and the curvature of the ball allowed me to see the whole room. There was Michelle, her face orange in the light. Kylie, with orange hair. Nikki, whose eyes were brilliant with concentration …
… And Marlina, outside the Circle, just near the door, pushing her head out of the plastic storage box.
I yelped. ‘I don’t want to look!’ I said, closing my eyes. The chanting stopped.
‘You have to,’ said Nikki.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Michelle.
Nikki gave my hair a yank. ‘Tell us what’s in the ball.’
‘Smoke,’ I said, eyes closed. My lips were trembling, my blood was pumping too fast.
‘And on the ball?’
I didn’t answer.
‘What’s reflected on the ball?’ demanded Nikki.
‘Niks, back off – she’s freaking out,’ said Kylie.
‘She’s always freaking out!’ she retorted.
Michelle was calm, as usual. ‘What do you think you see?’