Ravensborough

by Christine Murray

  ‘Oh, ok...’ she said reluctantly. ‘I guess that makes more sense.’

  ‘Oh Scarlett? I saw you’re friends with a Pagan on Facebook.’ Ben said the words nonchalantly but his eyes were hard. He couldn’t know where I was going, could he?

  I went the colour of my name. ‘Well, we are almost cousins. She added me as a friend and I was afraid to upset her.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Mercifully Ben didn’t take it any further.

  ‘Bye guys!’

  When I got to the restaurant Aradia and Gethan were already there. I’d called ahead to tell my Mum that I would be going to a friend’s house for dinner. There were no problems with that. She was still favouring my social life over school. I wondered how long that would last. Probably until she saw my next report card.

  ‘Hey!’ Aradia called, waving at me.

  ‘Hi, how are you both?’ They were both sitting on the same side of the booth, which looked fairly coupleish to me.

  ‘I’m good actually’, smiled Aradia. She was in her school uniform, but Gethan was in a crumpled t-shirt and jeans. I wished that I had gone home to change out of my uniform. It was not flattering.

  ‘Hey Scarlett. Aradia was telling me that you’re into archaeology?’ Gethan said to me as I slid into the booth opposite them.

  ‘Yeah I have an interest in it. I’ve never actually done anything about it though, aside from watching programmes about it on television and reading a couple of books. Why?’

  ‘My Dad is getting some school kids to help with an excavation in the Wolfgang Mountains during mid-term,’ said Aradia. ‘Gethan and I are going; we were wondering if you’d like to come along?’

  ‘It might be good for you to get some experience on a dig,’ Gethan chimed in. ‘You can see whether or not you like it before you decide to do it at university.’

  ‘That sounds great!’ It really did. Aside from how much I liked Aradia and Gethan, it did sound like a fun thing to do. ‘But wait’ I said, suddenly deflated. There’s no way Rupert will agree to me spending an entire week with--’

  ‘The Angel of Darkness!’ Gethan intoned with a deadpan face.

  ‘Well put!’

  ‘That might be a problem,’ Aradia admitted. ‘But I happen to know that my darling father will be visiting Rupert on Sunday. You ask him whether it’s difficult to get a place in Avalonian universities studying archaeology. My Dad will be thrilled you’re interested in his subject, and he’ll then tell you that while grades are important, work experience strengthens your application.’

  ‘He’ll say that he's seen people with a slight advantage grade-wise getting overlooked for students who've shown an interest in the subject’, added Gethan. ‘At least that’s what he told me.’

  ‘I’m almost positive he’ll bring up the November dig, and offer you a place on it,’ said Aradia. ‘He won’t mention anything about me being there; he knows that would be a deal breaker for Rupert. Then you just have to work on your Mum.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It might work’, said Gethan. ‘It’s worth a try at least. I mean, you’re looking to spend your time off school kneeling in muck in the freezing cold to help a college application. What can they find fault with there?’

  ‘I’m going to the bathroom’, Aradia said as she stood up. ‘If the waitress comes while I’m gone order me the tomato and basil pasta and a coke please.’

  An awkward silence fell. It was obvious that Aradia was our conversational lodestone – we needed her around for conversation to flow.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘All right, I suppose.’

  ‘It must have been hard, leaving all your friends back in Dublin’, Gethan said suddenly. He leaned back in the booth and looked at me with his dark brown eyes.

  ‘Yeah it was. My friends are coming out after Christmas though, for four days.’

  His eyes looked sympathetic. ‘You must miss them a lot.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said sadly. ‘I do.’ While I was getting to know some great people here, it still wasn’t home. I didn’t want to be a downer though, so I put on the most cheerful smile I could muster. ‘It’s getting better though. I’m starting to make friends here, which makes me feel less of a loner.’

  Gethan arched an eyebrow at me like he wasn’t convinced, but he decided to let it go. ‘If you wanted to meet some more people, you could always get involved in my group. Fight the good fight for Pagan rights,’ he joked.

  ‘Yeah that’d be great’, I said innocently. ‘Maybe Rupert could come along too, help us give out fliers and then afterwards we can gather round a campfire, toast marshmallows and sing Kumbaya.’

  Gethan laughed. ‘I keep forgetting that you’re a Rationalist.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I answered. ‘Because I keep forgetting you’re a crazy person who believes in spells.’

  ‘Hi all.’ Aradia returned before he had a chance to answer. ‘Have we ordered yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I answered. ‘So, I’m still waiting to find out, how did you pull off that illusion the other day? Was it something in the jam jars or what?’

  ‘It wasn’t an illusion’, Aradia said with a furrowed brow. ‘It really happened. Why is it such a hard thing for you to believe?’

  ‘Because, if you can practice magic, why doesn’t everyone do it?’

  ‘You have to believe in it to practice it.’

  ‘Well, then why is Avalonia the only country in the world where these things happen?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Aradia. It’s just the only place where it’s talked about. In other countries magic and witchcraft are carried out in secret, behind closed doors.’

  ‘And you really believe this? It isn’t just a joke to play on the naive new girl in town?’

  ‘We don’t just believe it, you should too,’ Gethan retorted, crossing his arms across his chest. ‘Trying to deny the existence of magic is like trying to deny that the world is round.’

  ‘Right,’ I said unconvinced and hailing a waiter. ‘Can we order now?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It was Thursday evening. School had finished early, so I’d arranged to go to the cinema with Mei, who’d invited me quietly in English class. I was looking forward to spending some time with her on her own, without Cat. Cat was becoming extremely hard going, and I was getting fed up of hearing her bitch about most of the people in our year.

  As we walked through the doors of the Bessborough Odeon I was surprised to see metal detectors straight ahead of us.

  ‘They have metal detectors in the cinema here?’ I asked Mei. I had never seen anything like that. What could happen in a cinema after all?

  She nodded. ‘Sitting in the dark is a good way to attack people anonymously.’ She put her bag up on the counter so a security guy could look inside it. I did the same. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this,’ she said as we walked towards the ticket desk, ‘but constant security is part of life here.’

  I nodded. I’d started to figure that one out for myself.

  The film was a romantic comedy that was so lame that Mei and myself were giggling before ten minutes had passed. A girl in the row behind us shushed us, which just made us laugh harder. After ninety minutes of meaningful eye contact, questionable acting and hackneyed one-liners, Mei and I walked out of the cinema arm in arm.

  ‘Sorry for picking such a lame film’, Mei said. ‘You can pick next time.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry!’ I replied. ‘That film was so bad it was hilarious. One of the most unintentionally funny things I’ve seen in ages!’

  We walked by a computer superstore.

  ‘Do you mind if we go in there?’ Mei asked. ‘I’ve got to get a hard drive for my laptop.’

  ‘No problem.’

  I knew a little bit about computers, but not as much as Mei. I hadn’t realised how into computers she was. I wasn’t very technologically competent, but Mei spent ages trawling the aisles, picking out dream purchases to buy when she’d mana
ged to save a bit of cash. Finally she managed to select the perfect hard drive from a display of near identical ones. The only differentiation I could make between them was the prices.

  ‘I didn’t realise that you were that into computers,’ I said to Mei as we queued up at the cash register.

  ‘Yeah, I find them fascinating. That’s what I hope to do when I go to university. Study information technology.’

  ‘Wow, Mei wants to be a geek!’

  ‘And what do you want to be?’ she asked raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I think I want to be an archaeologist.’ We both started to laugh.

  ‘I don’t think archaeology qualifies as a non-geeky career choice,’ said Mei.

  Night was falling. The darkening sky had blotted out the warmth of the sun and it was now so cold that my breath froze on the night air. A group of six men walked past us. I got the tingling sensation along the back of my neck that I sometimes got when things didn’t feel right. The guys were around my age, in jeans and dark jackets. Their faces were grim and they walked with purpose. For some reason I couldn’t explain I kept my eyes on them as they walked away from me and Mei. There was something about them that I found compelling, though not in a good way.

  They walked up to a man who was getting out of his car. In a few seconds, one of them produced a flick knife and stabbed it into the man’s abdomen.

  I stared, stuck to the spot. My mind was struggling to comprehend what it had just seen. I didn’t know how the knife had managed to make its way through the layers of padding of the man’s heavy jacket, but it must have done, because when the attacker pulled out the knife its glinting surface was marked with thick, fresh blood.

  Some distant part of me was screaming at me to run, to get away before these men turned on me. The rest of me was paralysed, unable to get away. I was dimly aware of the screeching sound of a siren getting closer, but it was still a surprise when a police car shot into the street behind the men. The gang turned and ran, one of them hitting me full force and sending me sprawling to the ground. I felt a dull pain in my cheek as I landed.

  ‘Scarlett, are you ok?!’ I heard Mei cry from above me. From the ground I saw the policemen pursuing the gang, and heard of one of them radioing for an ambulance.

  ‘It’s ok, tell them I don’t need an ambulance,’ I said to Mei as I sat up.

  ‘The ambulance isn’t for you, it’s for the man who was stabbed!’ Mei said holding out her hand to pull me up.

  ‘Oh,’ I said feeling foolish.

  ‘Are you ok?’ she asked, giving me a concerned look. ‘That was some knock you got there.’

  ‘I might have a few bruises in the morning, but that’s about it. What was that about?’

  A police officer came over and tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Sorry miss, one of the men knocked you over as they escaped, is that right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Can I take your name please?’

  ‘It’s Scarlett Edwards.’

  ‘You’re not from around here?’

  ‘I moved here from Ireland a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Affiliation?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m only here a few weeks, but my mother’s fiancé is a Rationalist,’ I answered, my fingers seeking out the side of my face which was beginning to really hurt.

  ‘What about you?’ The officer turned to look at Mei.

  ‘Mei-Zhen Miller, Rationalist.’

  ‘Ok, I’m going to have to take you both down to the station and take witness statements from you.’

  I rang Mum on the way home and tried to explain what had happened. She started panicking, and kept interrupting me, thinking that I’d actually been involved in the stabbing itself. Once I’d got her to understand that I’d just been knocked over as the gang got away, she was too worked up for me to calm down. She said she’d come straight down to Bessborough police station to collect me.

  They brought me in to an interview room where I gave my statement to the police. They were disgruntled that I had no official Avalonian identification, and therefore no identification number. I promised to get one as soon as I could.

  When they had asked all their questions, a female officer walked me out to the front desk to wait for my Mum to arrive.

  ‘What was the attack all about?’ I asked. I was feeling innocent and naïve, but I couldn’t work out what justified that kind of violence.

  The police woman sighed. ‘It was an FPL attack we think. The victim was a Rationalist who was dating one of their sisters. Luckily we had a squad car in the area, or who knows what could have happened.’

  Two officers then brought in a youth. He looked around twenty, with hair cut close to his skull. They made him empty his pockets and take off his jacket. He must not feel the cold, because all that he was wearing underneath his jacket was a light t-shirt. A light blue and black elaborate tattoo decorated his left inner forearm.

  ‘Cool tattoo,’ I whispered to Mei.

  She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Hardly. It’s a Pagan gang mark.’

  Seriously, I had so much to learn.

  ‘What is the FPL?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re a very violent Pagan faction. FPL stands for the Federation for Pagan Liberation. They talk a load of rubbish about freeing their people, but really they’re just a load of thugs.’

  Mei raised her voice at the end of her sentence and the guy whipped his head around to glare at her. Mei gazed calmly back at him as he was led away to the cells. I shrank back in my seat. This guy looked like he could cause us some serious injury if he wasn’t being restrained by two officers. Why antagonise him?

  ‘They’re like dogs, you know? They smell fear,’ she said as if it was no big deal.

  Just then the door of the station opened and Mum and Rupert came in. Mum looked at me with anxious eyes. I quickly introduced them both to Mei.

  ‘I’m sorry, what an awful way to meet’, Mei apologised. ‘I promise I won’t make a habit of ending up in police stations with your daughter.’

  Mum smiled weakly. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. ‘Did they arrest the guy who assaulted you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But he stabbed another man with a flick knife. I think the police are focusing on that more than me.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Mum gasped. ‘That could have been you.’

  ‘The man in question knocked into Ms. Edwards by accident. The motivation for the attack was a personal grudge. He bumped into your daughter as he was trying to make his getaway,’ the police officer interjected helpfully. She was obviously used to calming hysterical people down.

  The drive home to Chesterfield was kind of awkward. Rupert and Mum didn’t seem to be speaking. At one set of traffic lights Rupert put his hand out to cover her, but she moved it away.

  ‘I thought you said that it was safe here,’ she said quietly.

  ‘It is safe, mostly,’ Rupert argued. ‘She was knocked over in the middle of a crime, that could happen in any city in the world. Unless she gets wrapped up in the conflict, she’s just as safe in Ravensborough as she was back home in Dublin.’

  When we got home tensions were still strong. I’d been through enough drama for one night – I wasn’t in the mood of witnessing anymore. I went upstairs and had a shower instead. The warm water soothed my aching muscles. I got out of the shower and groaned when I saw my reflection in the mirror. A reddish purple bruise was settling on my right cheek where I’d hit it off the pavement. I’d have to wear my hair down tomorrow. No doubt it would only get worse overnight.

  I was right. The next day not only was my face a funky purple yellow colour, but my cheek had swollen up, distorting the shape of my face slightly. It seemed like everyone was staring at me, laughing at me because of my injuries. It looked like my new girl sheen had worn off and I was finally accepted. Now I was just one of the fray, and able for the taunts and cruel whispers that I’d gotten back home. Great, just great.

  I crept into political studies, picking a seat as near to the back as
possible so I could just disappear into the background. Unfortunately, the bad luck that seemed to be around lately refused to dissipate.

  ‘Scarlett, what happened to your face?’ asked Ms. Jeffries. Any chance I had of remaining under the radar disappeared as everyone swivelled in their chairs to gawk at me.

  Mei rolled her eyes at me. She knew how much I hated any kind of attention, let alone this kind.

  ‘I bumped into someone last night and fell,’ I said simply. There was no was that I was going to get into more detail than that. There were a few snickers around the class at my clumsiness. I’d hoped that I would be more popular here than I’d been back in Dublin, but it seemed like a case of same shit different school.

  Cat looked around, obviously irritated by the way our classmates were amused by this. She flicked her hair over one shoulder.

  ‘You know, she didn’t just fall over. Did you guys hear about that stabbing last night? The Pagan guy who went all loco on a law-abiding Rationalist? Well, they knocked Scarlett flying when they were fleeing the scene.’

  The snickering stopped, but now the stares held something closer to respect and curiosity. To be honest I wasn’t sure which one I hated more.

  Ms. Jeffries pressed more details, which I gave reluctantly. I knew Cat had thought that she was helping, but I wished sometimes that she could keep her big mouth shut.

  Ms. Jeffries was thrilled, however, and used my story as a springboard to discuss the threat that all Pagans represented in Avalonia. Knowing Aradia and Gethan – nice friendly people who to the best of my knowledge had no interest in stabbing random people or wresting control of the government by force and persecuting all Rationalists– I found it hard to believe that every Pagan was as bad as they were often presented. Maybe Aradia and Gethan weren’t the only ones in Avalonia who were deluded.

  While Ms. Jeffries was still in mid tangent, Mei sent me a paper aeroplane across the classroom. I was worried Ms. Jeffries would have seen it, but she was as blind as a bat. I unfolded it and saw that Mei had written a message.