I heard on the radio that the guy who was stabbed died from his injuries.
It took a few seconds for the message to sink in. The man had died, and I’d touched his killer. The thought made me feel nauseous.
I thought school would never end. The events of the night before kept playing over and over in my head, and I just wanted to go home and blare music so hard that I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else except the beat.
But that wasn’t possible. I’d already left it a ridiculously long time to get a registration card, so I needed to head into the centre of the city to get that sorted. I was glad that I’d gotten some passport photos taken for that very purpose the week beforehand: there was no way I could get an identification card printed up looking like I did now.
It took an hour of queuing and a ridiculous amount of forms, but I finally got my card proclaiming me a non-national resident of Avalonia, along with an ID number. Well, at least I’d get less hassle at the checkpoints now. Mum’s company had sorted out her card for her, so she hadn’t needed to go through the whole palaver herself.
When I got outside rain was falling thick and fast. I took out my copy of a free newspaper I’d been handed on the way to school that morning and opened it over my head. It would be soaked through within minutes and fall apart, so I had to find somewhere to shelter fast. Running across Anderson Plaza, I collided head on into another person. I seemed to be making quite a habit of this. As I tried to apologise to the person in question I realised I knew the build from somewhere. It was Gethan. He initially seemed pleased to see me, but he recoiled slightly when he saw my cheek.
‘Scarlett, what happened to your face?!’
‘I’d tell you but my newspaper is about to dissolve any minute now’, I replied.
‘Quick, over here.’ Gethan grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the side of the road where his battered jeep was parked. The raindrops landed on the metal and glass with a melodious thudding sound. Gethan’s black hair was slicked to his head with the rain. His jacket wasn’t waterproof and he took it off before throwing it on the back seat. I badly wished that I didn’t have a swollen cheek like a gerbil and wet hair.
‘So?’ Gethan asked, looking at me with concern. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘I was in Bessborough yesterday with a friend,’ I began. I didn’t have the same qualms about telling him about what happened as I had about the kids at school. I knew that he was concerned about me. ‘A group of thugs attacked this guy with a flick-knife on the street I was on. The police arrived, the gang ran and one of them ran straight into me and sent me flying. I had the good luck to bang my cheek on the pavement.’
‘Is it fractured?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘No, luckily. It’s just a lot of bruising and swelling. It looks like the guy they stabbed might die though. That’s the really upsetting thing.’
He nodded sympathetically. ‘I can imagine.’
I changed the subject, trying to push my memories of the night before to the back of my mind. ‘What are you doing in town?’
‘Just hanging round with some friends.’
‘With Aradia?’
‘No,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Believe it or not, I do have other friends. So what are you doing here?’
I held up my shiny new identification card. ‘I was getting this.’ I tucked it into my wallet and shoved it deep into my shoulder bag.
‘It must have been frightening, witnessing a stabbing’, Gethan said looking at me with a soft expression in his eyes.
‘It was,’ I admitted. ‘I had a nightmare last night where I was the one they attacked. I’ve never witnessed anything that nasty and cruel before before.’
Gethan reached out a hand slowly, and began to trace the outline of my swollen cheek with his fingertips. I recoiled slightly, sure that it was going to hurt but it just tickled slightly. It was such an innocent gesture, yet it felt so intimate. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and I found myself leaning into his touch. For the first time I forgot all about the sinister events of the night before, and got lost in the moment. There was just the two of us in our own little world. The water streaming down the windows blocked off the outside word, it was literally just the two of us.
I leaned in towards him and he leaned towards me. All of the reservations I’d had – Sam, Aradia, the fact he was a Pagan – seemed inconsequential. His eyes searched my face, as if he was searching for something. We moved closer to another, our faces now mere centimetres apart. We were so close that I could feel the heat of his breath against my skin. He reached up his hand to lift a lock of hair away from my face.
As he did so, the sleeve of his jumper moved back to reveal a black mark on the inside of his arm. As I looked down I noticed that it was black ink, in a whorl pattern interspersed with pale blue threads. With a sickening feeling, I realised that it was a tattoo like the one I’d noticed on that thug’s arm the night before. Fainter, but it was undeniably the same mark as the one on the inside the attacker's forearm. A sense of dread came over me as I remembered what Mei had called it. A gang mark. Gethan was involved in this.
I pulled away from him as if I’d been burnt, picked up my schoolbag and opened the door.
‘Where are you going, it’s still raining,’ said Gethan. ‘Let me give you a lift home.’
‘No thanks,’ I replied as I jumped out and slammed the door shut. I didn’t know if he’d follow me, so I decided to run. I wasn’t the most athletic person in the world, and the rain made getting a grip on the ground was difficult. The rain was still torrential and I was soaked by the time I got to the bus stop, but I knew that I had done the right thing. Mei had said last night that all members of the FPL had the same tattoo, that they were dangerous. And there was Gethan with the exact same mark on his arm. Was he dangerous? I didn’t know. Maybe Ms. Jeffries was right. That was the problem with moving somewhere new – you just didn’t know the rules.
My heart was still pounding in my chest at how close I’d been to danger. Gethan had seemed nice enough. He certainly didn’t seem like the type of guy who would go out and attack someone. But then, what did I know? I’d lead a very sheltered life up until now, and I didn’t feel equipped to deal with the complex situation I now found myself in.
And who could I tell about this? ‘Mum, I think I may have been hanging out with a member of a violent gang’ wasn’t exactly going to go down well, was it? Mei was Rationalist, as were all my other friends. Aradia was the only person I could go to who wouldn’t immediately condemn me for hanging out with Pagans, and she wasn’t going to be able to see my point of view either. It was obvious that her and Gethan were really close. I mean, it wasn’t like I knew that much about either of them really. For all I knew Aradia herself was involved in that gang. After all Rupert had said that she was dangerous.
Rupert, I felt a dart of shame. He was the person that I should have trusted, and I’d done the exact opposite of everything that he suggested that I should do. Smart, Scarlett. Real smart.
After a few minutes a bus pulled up. It was packed and the stuffy heat of the bodies inside combined with the precipitation outside made the windows steam up. It was uncomfortable, but I managed to get a seat beside a large woman carrying a large array of shopping bags. Every time we rounded a corner sharp objects in the bags stuck into my arm. My phone kept vibrating, and glances at its screen confirmed that it was Gethan calling me. I didn’t answer. After eight calls he stopped. Around ten minutes later the phone started to vibrate again. This time it was Aradia.
Great, I thought. He’s told on me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time I got home I had about six missed calls on my mobile from Aradia. I continued to ignore her calls. I just didn’t know what I could say to her. The thought that Gethan might have something to do with a violent gang made me sick to my stomach. But getting my identification card had taken longer than I’d thought, and my friends from school were going to be calling
round in less than half an hour. I really didn’t have time to think about this right now. I pushed all thoughts of Gethan to the back of my mind and concentrated on getting ready instead. I dried my hair and stuck my dinner in the microwave. Mum filled me in on her day in work, and didn’t seem to notice how preoccupied I was. Although maybe she put it down to the events of the night before.
Right on time the doorbell rang. Mei, Cat, Ben and Will had arrived, and I could tell that they were overwhelmed by the size of Rupert’s house. I still hadn’t gotten my head around the idea that this was now also my home. I introduced Mum and Rupert to Will and Ben, they’d met Mei and Cat before.
I could tell Mum didn’t like Cat. Her need to dominate any conversation irritated her. Mum started addressing all her questions by name to Ben, Will and Mei in an effort to stop her talking. Not that Cat took the hint.
Rupert had said we could use one of the reception rooms downstairs to hang out in, but I was terrified that one of my friends would spill something on his expensive rugs or knock over some priceless antique. Instead I herded them upstairs to my bedroom. I sensed that I had done the right thing, because they were much more relaxed in my shabby chic bedroom than they’d been downstairs.
‘Wow, look at that view’, Will walked over to the window. It was dark now and the Starling-Bird Bridge was lit up in the distance.
Ben was examining my music collection on my laptop. Mei sat down on my bed while Cat sat beside Ben, flicking her hair, talking a lot about the type of music that she liked, and generally trying way too hard.
I sat down on the bed beside Mei. She reached out a hand and picked up a photo frame on the nearby shelf.
The picture was one of me and Sam. It had been taken last Christmas at Funderland, a travelling carnival that came regularly to Dublin. We had only been going out a couple of months at that stage. I was holding a giant teddy bear that he’d won for me at a stall. Sam was hugging me from behind and was resting his chin on my shoulder. We were both grinning. It wasn’t a great picture of me – the camera flash had made me look unnaturally pale – but Sam looked great in it. His blonde hair was spiked and his skin was beautiful and tanned. I tried to remember who had taken the photograph. Probably Lindsay. I suddenly felt a pang of loss that hurt so much it took my breath away.
‘Is that Sam?’ Mei asked.
I nodded.
Mei looked at the photo again. ‘He’s really cute’, she said admiringly.
I tried not to think of what I was missing back in Dublin. Right now, Lindsay, Doyle, Molly, Ally, Danny, Brian and Sam would be at the battle of the bands gig. It was hardly fair to think it, but the thought that Sam was having fun without me didn’t make me feel good. All the people I cared about seemed so far away.
‘Actually Scarlett, your music collection isn’t half bad,’ said Ben, breaking me away from my thoughts..
I rolled my eyes, glad to return to a subject that didn’t make me so emotional. ‘Praise indeed!’ I said sarcastically.
Ben ignored my sarcasm. ‘I didn’t know you liked Underdriven.’
‘Well I didn’t know you liked them either!’
‘Is Crystalline their new album?’
‘Nope, it was their first album. Nobody really liked it though. It was only when their second album hit the charts in a big way that this one took off.’
‘I like a woman who knows her music,’ said Ben, raising an eyebrow at me.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ I snorted. ‘You’re too moody to like anyone!’
Ben grabbed at his chest. ‘You wound me!’
Cat looked decidedly put out.
I tried to push my feelings of abandonment aside. Unfortunately the only things to take their place were thoughts about Gethan, and whether or not he was part of the gang I’d run into last night. I tried to chat with the others about different subjects, but my mind felt like it was on a continuous loop. Eventually, unable to keep it in any longer, I burst out.
‘Sorry if this is a stupid question, but if Pagans don’t practice magic, why do Rationalists dislike them so much?’
There was a confused pause at the rapid change of subject. My friends shot strange looks at each other, and for a second I didn’t think anyone was going to answer me. Then Mei began to speak.
‘There are some Pagans who believe in energy magic. Who cast spells for luck, love, happiness and all the rest of it. They’re known as spiritualists, and they’re basically fine. But there are also occultists. It’s believed by many that they practice actual real magic. It’s energy based, but much more visible. It can have dangerous consequences.’
‘How can you tell the difference between a spiritualist Pagan and an occultist Pagan?’ I asked.
‘They should all be avoided’, Cat said dismissively. ‘They’re all dangerous in their own way, with their beliefs in filters.’
Mei sighed. ‘If you meet an ordinary Pagan, you won’t notice anything particularly different about them. The world occult means ‘knowledge of the hidden’. In order to see these worlds, their eyes are said change colour.’
‘Like your cousin’, Cat said with disgust.
‘They make you believe,’ Ben supplied. ‘Because once you believe in the hidden world, once you think you know about the hidden world, you can’t turn back. It’s a cult.’
My mind struggled to understand what everyone was saying. ‘But why do they want you to believe in their magic?’
Cat tucked her hair behind her ear and sat up straighter. ‘It’s all about control, Scarlett. They want to control Avalonia. The more people that they convert to their wacky cause, the better chance they have of achieving that. That’s why there are terrorist groups, like the one that attacked you last night. They want to use violence to take control of the country.’
‘So the FPL are a... political group?’ I asked.
Will nodded. ‘A very dangerous one.’
‘Are there Rationalist terrorist groups?’
There was a silence. Everyone seemed much less willing to talk. Finally Cat burst out. ‘Well, yes obviously. It’s only natural that some Rationalists are so afraid of Pagans that they take matters into their own hands.’
‘And they’re violent too?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but...’ Cat seemed flustered. ‘If Pagans would just leave us alone then there’d be no issue. So yeah, Rationalists have some violent gangs but only because they started it.’
I was silent. I didn’t know much about politics, granted, but there was something slightly chilling about mass violence being justified in the same way as kids fighting in the schoolyard.
The rest of the night passed easily enough. We watched DVDs, made popcorn and generally had a nice night. Occasionally my phone beeped to say I’d gotten a text, but I decided not to check it.
Later when they’d gone I checked the phone. A mixture of texts from Aradia and Gethan asking me to call them back. I just deleted the messages. I just needed some space to think.
On Saturday I got a phone call from Nick confirming that I had a place on the dig the week after next. Part of me was tempted to turn it down – a week with a mixture of dangerous Pagans didn’t sound like the best idea in the world. But he had gone to a lot of trouble to get me on the dig, and I wouldn’t be able to explain my change of mind to my mother. Plus there was the undeniable fact that it would look good on my college application if I decided to stay in Avalonia. So, with trepidation, I accepted.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Somehow I managed to avoid contact with Aradia and Gethan over the next week. After a frenzy of texts and calls they’d gradually fallen silent. I got a private message sent to me through Aradia’s Facebook account asking for me to call her, wondering why I’d run away. But I still couldn’t bring myself to talk to her.
Then there were the dreams. I kept having nightmares about the stabbing, waking up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding in my chest. How could that kind of violence be justified? It shouldn’t be, and I didn’t want to
have anything to do with anyone who believed it could.
Midterm came around all too quickly. And midterm meant the practice dig, an entire week in the same field as Gethan and Aradia. It wouldn’t be easy to avoid them there. This should have been a really big deal for me. I’d been fascinated by archaeology since I was a little girl, and, under normal circumstances, going on a dig would be really exciting. ‘Normal circumstances’, meaning of course, that I wouldn’t be digging around a load of criminals armed with heavy shovels.
The first morning of the dig in the Wolfgang Mountains arrived. The day didn’t start out well; I wasn’t a morning person and Nick collected me at six am. I had to peel myself out of bed, and every fibre of my being wanted nothing more than to snuggle down into the warm blankets and sleep. Nevertheless, I forced myself up and out into the ice cold pre-dawn world. The stars were still out, fighting the orange hue that was beginning to make an appearance on the horizon.
‘It’s still dark out!’ I said to Nick grumpily as I clambered into the back of his truck. Aradia was in the backseat too, slumped against the side of the door with tiredness. She obviously wasn’t a morning person either. She looked at me with a hurt expression on her face. Her eyes flickered from green to blue to indigo in the car’s interior light. For a moment it looked like she was going to say something, but then she bit her lip and looked out the window instead. Then Nick slammed his door and plunged us all back into darkness. Nevertheless, I could feel the waves of anger radiating from her direction. It looked like I’d really hurt her feelings. Despite my uneasiness about Pagan factions, and my belief that she was involved with them, I felt bad for hurting her. It was a lot easier to remember that she was dangerous to hang around with when I wasn’t sitting beside her. I mean, she didn’t look dangerous. She was all angular limbs and tragic face. If I hadn’t been responsible for making her look like that, I would have found it comical.
We were silent for around twenty minutes. Though the atmosphere between Aradia and I was making me feel awkward, in reality there was nothing strange about it. It wasn’t like conversation usually flowed easily before dawn.
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