Ravensborough

by Christine Murray

  ‘Ah. . . yes. Coming from the sun drenched island of Ireland, you’re not able for the cold’, teased Ben.

  ‘It may rain a lot, but Ireland has a cool temperate climate,’ I emphasised, my breath freezing in a cloud in front of my face. ‘And Ireland is further south. Anyway, I wasn’t complaining. I’m just being practical.’

  ‘You should have told me you were going clothes shopping’, Cat pouted. ‘I would have come with you. Instead you left me with no excuse to not help my Mum clean the entire house. It’s slave labour. Just because my dad’s parents are visiting from Spain. She doesn’t even like my dad’s parents. My weekend is going to be terrible.’

  Mei put her head on one side. ‘Cat you are a total drama queen. You should be an actress.’

  Will started to laugh, ‘They don’t employ actresses who overact’. Ben chuckled.

  ‘You guys are sooo mean,’ she complained. If you just met Abuela and Abuelo you would understand. They are a complete nightmare.’

  ‘Well, Cat,’ Ben drawled, ‘I guess you take after your father’s side of the family.’

  ‘With friends like this, who needs enemies?’ Cat grumbled. ‘Scarlett, enjoy your shopping trip. And call me over the weekend, ok? I’ll need some distraction.’

  ‘Bye guys’, I said as they started to head off.

  ‘See ya Scarlett’.

  ‘Bye.’

  I was relieved when they walked away. We had a light homework load for the weekend, and I had been afraid that one of them would volunteer to come with me.

  I enjoyed the bus journey into the city. Without anyone to distract me, I could take in the scenery. Ravensborough was quite beautiful in a wild, rugged way. The area around the lake was particularly lovely. As the bus crossed the bridge the sun sank further and further below the horizon, turning the sky blue, yellow and purple. Then it finally dropped out of view, spilling cool shadows on the surrounding landscape.

  It took me longer than I’d planned to get to the Willow-Tree. I knew roughly where it was, but I still managed to get lost, and was ten minutes late when I finally walked through the door. The inside of the café was hot and welcoming after the iciness of outside. The noise of the milk steamers and the smell of ground coffee beans made me feel I could be back home, it reminded me of a coffee shop on my old street. Then I remembered why I was there. I looked around and spotted Aradia sitting at a table near the back of the cafe.

  I walked over. Her inky hair was worn loose and messy. She was reading a book, I squinted at it but it wasn’t a title I recognised. She, like me, was still in her uniform from school. Hers was miles nicer than mine though, a dark navy blue that was the exact colour of the night-time sky.

  ‘Hi!’ I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

  Aradia looked up and smiled. She closed her book, marking her page with a bus ticket. Her eyes were the same green as they had been last week in Rupert’s dining room. Maybe I had imagined the whole eye thing.

  ‘Hey, how are you?’ she asked, smiling. Her face was as pale as milk, small and neat. Her uniform was messy, though: probably a tendency that she had inherited from her dad.

  The crest on her school jumper was beautiful. It was an owl in full flight against the background of a silver thread moon. Above the image was written the name of her school, Ravensborough Minervan Academy for Girls. Underneath was a motto, small and stitched in Latin.

  ‘What’s the motto of your school’, I asked as I shrugged out of my coat and scarf.

  Aradia smiled. ‘Condemnant quod non intellegunt.’ It’s Latin for ‘they condemn because they do not understand.’’

  ‘Who doesn’t understand?’

  Aradia sighed. ‘People like my uncle. What are you going to order?’

  A waitress had come over to our table. We both asked for hot chocolate.

  ‘I’m really sorry about the other day,’ I said awkwardly. ‘I was really embarrassed when Rupert started coming out with all that rubbish.’

  Aradia shook her head. ‘Don’t be. It has nothing to do with you. He’s always been like that. He treats me and Mum like we’re the personification of evil. We don’t see him very often, thank God. Dad goes to see him on his own, mostly.’

  ‘Why does your Dad go to see Rupert at all if he treats you and your Mum like that?’

  ‘Because Dad feels bad that his parents died when there was bad feeling between them. I was their only grandchild, but they never laid eyes on me. Rupert infuriates Dad, but they’re the only relations that they both have. And he doesn’t want more bad feeling. Well,’ she laughed drily, ‘at least not from his side.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m guessing you didn’t tell Rupert or your Mum that you were meeting me here?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No, that’s what I thought. I didn’t tell my parents either. They wouldn’t have any problem with me seeing you, but they know that you'd have to go behind your Mum’s back, and could have given us hassle from that angle.’

  Our hot chocolate arrived. I took a sip. It burnt my tongue, but the heat spreading out in my mouth was heavenly.

  ‘Aradia? Can I ask you a question?’

  She looked up warily. ‘You can ask, but I might not answer.’ She looked guarded for the first time since I’d met her.

  ‘The other day, when Rupert was acting like a prize idiot, I thought that your eyes changed colour.’

  ‘Oh! Is that all?!’ Aradia’s face lit up in a grin, ‘yes my eyes change colour.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘Well, Paganism is really another way of viewing the world around you. Rationalists, she said the word with heavy irony, ‘see the world through one filter. Children with magic in their blood, their eyes change colour with their emotions. It influences how they see, changes the frequency slightly. When kids hit puberty their eyes come under their own control. If they want to see through a different filter they have to control the colour change themselves. ’

  ‘So you changed your eye colour on purpose, to see differently.’

  ‘No I didn’t. My eyes changed because I was angry.’

  ‘But you’re what, sixteen? How come you haven’t outgrown that?’

  ‘Because I’m not fully a Pagan child. I got magic from my Mum, but not from Dad. I have most of the powers of a magic child, but I have to work harder to hone them. Hence the heavy duty school. The Ravensborough Minervan Academy costs a lot of money. Rationalists hate it because it produces most of the intelligent opposition to them and their dominance. Mum and Dad sent me there because, if I’m going to control my powers at all, I’ll need a lot of help.’

  I was incredulous. ‘But if the eyes of Pagan children change colour, how do the Rationalists explain that? I mean, how can they deny that you’re all slightly different from them.’

  Aradia laughed. ‘They say it’s illusion. Contact lenses even. Anything that stops them from admitting that there might be something more beyond their concrete world, where everything has a price.’

  ‘But, do you actually believe that you have magic powers, and that fairies,’ I pointed to the delicate iron bracelets on her wrists, ‘actually exist?’

  ‘Do you?’

  I shook my head so vehemently that a piece of my dark red hair went into my chocolate. ‘No I don’t. I think that Rupert was wrong to be so rude to you, but I can’t believe magic exists.’

  Aradia leaned back in her chair and gave me an appraising look. ‘Then why did my eyes change colour?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not something I can explain.’

  Aradia stood up and put on her coat. Oh no,’ I thought. Now I’d offended her.

  ‘I’m really sorry if I offended you’, I said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘None taken. I’ve got to go and help Mum in the apothecary. It’s late night opening. But clear your schedule for tomorrow, I’m going to show you a side of Avalonia that Rupert would never show you.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’
<
br />   ‘If I tell you I’ll ruin the surprise.’

  I wanted to know where I was going. ‘But what will I tell Mum and Rupert?’

  She grinned and tucked her book in her bag. She threw some coins on the table. ‘You’ll think of something, you rationalists always do. Meet you here at ten tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m not a...’

  But she was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Part of me was indignant at Aradia’s assumption that I would drop everything in favour of spending the day with her without knowing what exactly we would be doing. But despite my irritation, I wanted to meet up with her again. Most of the people I knew here would think I was crazy, but I couldn’t help it. I was curious.

  The bus on the way home from meeting Aradia stopped at the start of the Starling-Bird Bridge. Two soldiers got on and slowly worked their way from the front to the back of the vehicle, checking everyone’s documentation. I handed over my passport with the Irish harp on the front of it, and was subjected to heavy questioning about why I was in Avalonia. Rupert kept telling me that I needed to get sorted out with an Avalonian identification card soon. Maybe he had a point.

  When I got home I found that I was in luck. Mum and Rupert were going to a friend of his for lunch the next day. They said that I was free to join them, but I could tell from their expressions that it was more of an adult thing. I pleaded homework, and casually said that some of my friends were planning to get together tomorrow so I might tag along. This was well received. Mum was so happy that I was beginning to carve out a life for myself in our new hometown that she making friends trumped studying. She urged me to get out of the house and have some fun, which was exactly what I planned to do.

  I didn’t feel good about lying to Mum, and I’d never really had to deceive her before. But although she was working in Avalonia, and was steadily amassing a group of friends in her own right, whenever she was unsure about something in this new environment she looked to Rupert as her compass. He would advise her against a friendship between me and Aradia, so I had no choice but to keep them both in the dark.

  It was hard to know what to wear, considering that I had no idea what we’d be doing. I decided to go for outdoor casual, jeans, flat boots and a rich purple jumper that complimented the colour of my hair perfectly.

  Again I made the journey across the lake to the main city. When I got to the Willow-Tree, Aradia was waiting for me, leaning against the wall outside it. Her jacket was coal black and reached to her knees. The legs below the coat were encased in denim, so I guessed I’d gotten the mood of the day right. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, emphasising the sharp contours of her cheekbones and chin. She saw me and waved at me enthusiastically.

  ‘So where are we going today?’ I asked, shoving my hands deep in my pockets.

  ‘This’, Aradia gestured around her, ‘Is neutral territory. You live in a Rationalist area, so I’m going to give you some balance and broaden your perspective.’

  Realisation dawned. ‘You’re taking me to the Pagan quarter.’

  ‘Initially, yes,’ she said. ‘Think of this as an educational field trip.’

  ‘And here was me thinking you just enjoyed my company.’

  ‘Of course I do!’ Aradia rolled her eyes. ‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t be here trying to make you understand.’

  I wanted to ask about Gethan and how she knew him, but couldn’t think of a way to drop it casually into conversation.

  We began to walk uphill. My journeys into the city had tended to focus on the arty student area immediately surrounding the Willow Tree and the uber wealthy area around Guinevere Plaza. When I came with Mum and Rupert we went to King’s Quarter, a fashionable area where Ravensborough’s richest citizens came to shop. This was uncharted territory for me.

  Mostly the city was laid out like any other. Small localised shops jostled with international chains. The architecture was quite old but this wasn’t unusual in Europe. What was unusual was that every so often, for no apparent reason, a pair of iron gates were set into the wall. They were open but, if they were closed, they would have stopped people from journeying any further down the road. Sometimes the iron gates were missing, but the giant hinges that had once held them in place were still seen on the buildings that stood on each side of the street.

  ‘Why are there so many gates?’ I asked Aradia.

  ‘They were used in the old days to section off different parts of the city, when the religious divisions were particularly bad. They keep them now so that, if rioting does break out, they can close the gates and stop it spreading to other areas.’

  After walking for around twenty minutes or so, we came to a small gate, around the size of a door, set between two buildings. Aradia opened the gate, which squeaked loudly, and gestured for me to follow her.

  Behind the gate was a steep set of steps set into rock. Aradia hopped up them lightly, as lithe as a mountain goat, but I walked up them carefully. They were damp, with dark green moss clinging to some parts of the stone, and I was afraid I would slip. The iron handrail was engraved with a beautiful pattern of leaves, but it was damp too. It was a relief when we finally reached the last step and opened another gate and stepped onto another street.

  ‘Welcome to the Pagan Old Quarter.’ The street was narrow, and had a winding medieval character. The hill that the quarter sat on was so steep that the upper levels were reached by a series of steep steps, like the ones we’d come up. On the eastern edge of the hill on a high point, stood the Castleost, a fortress that overlooked Lady’s Lake and the rest of the city. I recognised it from my guidebook.

  The shops were similar to the ones in the city quarter we had just left behind. Cafes and clothes shops, newsagents and restaurants. As we walked towards the castle I saw new shops nestled between them. Angel shops, shops selling nothing but herbs and, like Ben had told me, working forges.

  ‘Do you mind if we pop in here?’ Aradia asked as we came to a shop that proclaimed itself to be Ravensborough’s oldest chandlery.

  ‘Not at all. But what’s a chandlery?’

  ‘It’s the old name for a candle making shop,’ Aradia replied pushing open the door of the shop.

  I followed her inside. I’d never seen so many types of candle in the one place before. There was every colour imaginable, and dozens of different shades. They were all different shapes, and they ranged in size from tea lights up to thick candles that were taller than me.

  Aradia picked out four thick candles, about the height and width of a jar of coffee. They were different colours: blue, green, yellow and red.

  ‘Some of these are really pretty’, I said to Aradia, my hand skimming one that was intricately carved in the shape of a rose.

  My eye caught a small thin candle, no taller than my hand. It was the pale colour of beeswax, and there were small horizontal black lines along the edge of it, marking space. The side was marked with roman numerals. The base was marked I and at the top of the candle there was XXIV, twenty four.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked Aradia.

  She peered over at what I was looking at. ‘Oh, that? It’s a clock candle. You light it, and it takes roughly an hour for the wax between each line to melt. It was an old way of keeping the time when the sun wasn’t out.’

  ‘There can’t be much use for those nowadays though, surely?’ I said.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Aradia smiled, as she paid for her candles.

  We walked further up the hill, winding around the other side until we lost sight of Lady’s Lake. We passed shops with notices in the window, saying that there were sales on chalices, goddess statues, candles, broomsticks. And yet, there in the middle of it all was a Starbucks. It was a strange mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar. At the end of the street stood a huge granite building. It was at least a hundred years old, probably more. In the grounds was a statue of a woman, dressed in ancient robes. Her arm was outstretched, and on this outstretched arm was perched a stone owl. A sign
outside was engraved with the name of the institution: Ravensborough Minervan Academy for Girls, Day and Boarding School.

  ‘That’s your school, right?’ I asked as we passed it by.

  Aradia scrunched up her nose. ‘Yep. That’s it.’

  ‘Do you not like it there?’

  Aradia shrugged. ‘It’s alright. I’d prefer to go to the school near where I live, though. That’s where most of my friends go. Minerva is a good school, but it’s heavy on the academic and really political. They want to produce students that are high achievers, that will go into the big corporations in Northport and Camelot and become politicians. Who’ll work to make Paganism a leading force in our country. And I’m just not that kind of person. Like I said, I’m only there to work on controlling and my magic side. Other than that...’

  ‘What do you want to do when you leave school?’

  ‘Study archaeology, like my Dad. Though my Mum says I have a natural talent for healing so...let’s just say I’m kind of undecided. What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know’, I admitted as we passed a small temple, dedicated to the god Thor. There were so many strange things to look at in this part of town. ‘Moving here was such a big upheaval. I don’t even know what country I’ll be in when I finish school, let alone what university or course I’ll do.’

  ‘Do you want to go back to Ireland?’

  ‘My boyfriend’s there.’

  Aradia nodded her head. ‘You’re doing the whole long distance thing?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re trying to. I'm going to see him after Christmas. It seems a long way away right now. What about you? Is there anyone special in your life?’

  ‘No one I’d miss too much if I had to move overseas. Hurry up, we’re almost there.’

  I pulled up my hood to protect myself from the icy wind that blew around the hill. My ears and fingers were completely numb.

  Aradia turned into another set of narrow steps flanked by two buildings. Halfway up, there was a bright blue door set into the wall. Aradia pulled her coat sleeve up to look at her watch. ‘It’s almost eleven, so we’re early, which is fairly unusual for me.’ She knocked on the door.