The Furies

by Katie Lowe

  ‘Too cold to swim, surely?’ Robin said, coldly.

  Nicky flashed a bright smile, doll eyes ringed with smudged mascara. ‘Not at all. I’m glad you could make it.’ She turned to me. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  I nodded. ‘Much better.’

  ‘Mr Holmsworth was asking after you today,’ she said; I hoped she hadn’t noticed how Robin and I both bristled at the mention of the Dean’s name, vivid, sharp. ‘He’s nice, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, after a pause. Robin, regaining herself, grabbed my arm. ‘Have you seen Alex and Grace?’

  Nicky pointed to the house. ‘They’re inside somewhere. Help yourselves to drinks – Nathan’s bartending.’

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ I said, as Robin began to pull away, her fingers tight around my wrist.

  ‘Oh god, no.’ Nicky laughed. ‘Brother.’ I smiled in response and gave an apologetic shrug as Robin dragged me towards the house; Nicky’s smile a little shadowed, hollowed by the slight.

  The music echoed across the lawn, Robin singing along in a low growl: the words ‘doused in mud, soaked in bleach’, ringing in my mind. Inside, girls sat knotted together on sofas, drinking from plastic cups and picking at the snacks artfully placed in bowls that read ‘Party!’ in felt-pen lettering.

  ‘Some party,’ Robin said, as we joined Alex and Grace on a sofa, bare legs sticking to the clear plastic laid to protect the white cushions beneath.

  Alex gave a weak smile; in the bright lights, the hollows under her eyes were a bluish-grey. I looked at Grace, who was chewing her fingernail and watching as the girls outside jumped into the pool, another attempting (and failing) to capture the moment on film, the camera flashing at the moment the girls hit the water.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I said, nervously. I hadn’t spoken to the girls since the night at the tracks; had assumed our spat had been forgotten, though it seemed, now, that I was wrong.

  Robin stood, abruptly, looking down at me. ‘I’m going to find this bartender.’ She waited, a moment, as though expecting me to follow; when I didn’t, she spun and walked away, knocking a plastic cup to the floor with her elbow as she passed.

  I looked at Alex and Grace again. ‘Look, if it’s about the fight—’

  ‘It’s not,’ Alex said, flatly. ‘Not everything is about you, you know.’

  Grace placed a hand on Alex’s knee. ‘Alex, don’t.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’ I began, silenced as Grace turned to me and gave an apologetic smile. ‘Oh my god,’ I said, cringing as she looked away. A stain of blue-black shadowed her jaw and neck, a patch of newborn-pink skin shining sickeningly at the edge of her hairline. She’d foregone the artful make-up she normally used to cover it – knowing, I supposed, that it wouldn’t disguise this. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Guess,’ Alex said, glancing at Grace through hooded eyes. She reached out for her, wiped a tear away with her thumb. ‘It’s nothing,’ Grace added, turning to me.

  ‘It’s—’ I breathed a long sigh, choosing my words carefully. ‘It’s not—’

  ‘So, guess what?’ Robin said, climbing over the back of the sofa and landing between us with a thud. ‘Nicky’s brother’s hot.’ We stared at her, the interruption bracing. ‘I know,’ she added. ‘You’d think he’d be all bug-eyed like her, but he’s not.’

  ‘Robin,’ I said, softly.

  She handed me a sloshing cup, the sticky liquid inside spilling over my fingers. ‘I’m going to see if he wants one of these.’ She rooted in her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag of dusty pills. ‘Want one?’ she added, waving it at the three of us. Alex and Grace shook their heads; I opened my palm, and she placed one in the centre, closing each of my fingers one by one. ‘Enjoy,’ she said, planting a kiss on my closed fist.

  I felt the girls watching me as I swallowed it, the sickly drink chasing the pill in a hot swell that radiated through my chest. When I looked, they glanced away, as though caught, and for a moment we were silent.

  ‘You can’t let him keep doing this,’ I said, finally.

  ‘Violet,’ Alex began, a warning tone in her voice.

  ‘We should do something. Call the police—’

  Grace raised a hand, and I stopped. ‘We’re not going to—’

  ‘But Grace, Jesus—’

  ‘No,’ she said, the flicker of a sob in her voice. ‘No. Please, Violet. Just drop it.’ She looked at me, eyes meeting mine; saw the question I wanted to ask.

  I folded my arms, but felt childish; unfolded them, feeling the faint warmth of the alcohol and the pill seeping under my skin. I felt Alex squeeze my shoulder, the briefest of touches; flushed, ashamed of my reaction. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, turning to Grace again.

  Grace shrugged. ‘Don’t be. It’s fine.’

  It’s not, I thought, but smiled, aching with Grace’s pain as she smiled back. The music changed to a loud, thumping hip-hop track I’d heard before, a hit with the girls at my old school and, it appeared, those at Elm Hollow, who jumped up from their seats, squealing with delight as they bounced and shook to the rhythm. It seemed so easy, being them – there was a lightness in the way they moved that extended to everything about them. The way they laughed, bounced off one another as they sang along to the words; the way they wandered around Elm Hollow, unaffected by the ghosts that lurked in the portraits and busts that lined the halls. Even now, in the aftermath of Emily Frost – after a brief school-wide period of mourning, itself seeming somehow shallow, a thing performed but not felt – here they were, dancing, giggling, as though nothing could possibly be anything other than perfect.

  I realize, now, that this was as illusory as most of the things I thought I knew, back then; that teenage girls, in the main, are all racked with the ache of womanhood, the sudden realization that squandered youth is fleeting, and will be much sought after, too late. The strange attentions of boys, and men; the vivid pains of seeing oneself, that sad illumination – I know it, and see it in my girls, now. And yet, as the music pounded – as Grace shuffled in her seat and winced; as a girl motioned to Alex at a rapped phrase as though it referred to her, and glared at her when she didn’t react; as I felt the sudden rush of the pill kick in, and was sickened by it – it seemed as though we, among our peers, were the only ones singled out for such misery.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, turning to Alex. My eyes seemed a little behind my movements, the swell of the high turning everything liquid and bright, vivid in a way that seemed grotesque.

  She looked at me, eyes narrowed. ‘Depends on what it is.’

  I paused; chose my words carefully, though I knew there was no subtle way to ask the question that had been on my mind and now, in my intoxication, swallowed me whole. I took a deep breath. ‘Do you really think the – he – killed Emily?’

  Alex raised a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh. Not here.’

  ‘Please, Alex. I know Robin thinks it, but … Do you?’

  She looked at Grace, who nodded, slowly. ‘I think it’s the most likely explanation.’

  ‘But … He’s so nice. Why … Why would he?’

  Alex leaned towards me, I noticed her eyes still pink-lined from crying. ‘I think—’

  A scream erupted from the far side of the house; Robin cannoned through the dancing girls, drinks spilling on the carpet, the crowd watching wide-eyed as she grabbed both of my arms and pulled me up. I stumbled, shin cracking against the coffee table, its glass surface shuddering at the impact. ‘Robin, what the—’

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ she said, tugging at my wrist; I flinched, her grip Chinese-burn tight.

  ‘No, Robin, what the—’

  She turned to me, and stared for a moment, her pupils pool-dark and wide. ‘We have to go,’ she said again.

  ‘Not until you—’

  ‘How dare you?’ Nicky screamed, rounding the corner. ‘How fucking dare you?’

  Robin spun around, loosening her grip. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Stay away from him,’ she said,
voice trembling. A boy appeared behind her, tall and reedy, but with the same wide eyes and blonde hair as Nicky. Nathan, I thought, half-smiling at the root of Nicky’s anger – Robin caught, no doubt, straddling the boy, just to prove she could. As he stepped into the brightness of the living room, however, I saw a red welt blooming on his neck; two jagged half-moons, seeping blood.

  ‘This bitch,’ he said, reaching a hand for his neck; trembling as he pulled it away, the blood pooling in the lines of his palm. ‘She’s insane.’

  Nicky glanced at him, a high-pitched gasp as she saw the blood. She looked back at Robin, open-mouthed. ‘What is wrong with you?’

  Robin laughed. ‘Look, it’s not my fault if he likes it like—’

  ‘I never asked you to—’ he began, Nicky flinching at the response. She glared at him.

  ‘She’s probably got some sort of disease, too. You should get yourself tested.’

  He drew breath, as though about to retort, but seemed to think better of it. ‘You should leave,’ he said, finally, the crack in his voice relieving him of any authority.

  Robin turned to me, and reached for my hand, still burning from the pull. I looked at Grace and Alex, who stood, slowly, and followed us out, past the pool and through the birch trees, the music bringing everything back to life once again.

  I said nothing, waiting for the inevitable: for Alex’s bitter remark, for Robin’s spark of self-defence, Grace and I silent as they fought. We’d pick our sides, apologetic glances shared between us as we did so, and stalk off into the night – Grace to Alex’s house, Robin to mine. And then, things would return to normal, these moods and petty arguments washed away with the tide.

  And yet, as we walked, shadows lengthened by the streetlights, the sound of foxes screeching and nipping in the dark, neither Alex, nor any of the other girls, said a word. Robin tugged at my jacket, possessive fingers crawling into pockets for my cigarettes. I swatted her away, as she pouted; chastened, I pulled the cigarettes from my bag and handed them to her, declining when she offered them to me.

  ‘We can’t carry on like this, you know,’ she said, the embers vibrating as she spoke. She turned back to the girls, their eyes fixed on the ground. ‘I mean, you might be able to live with what he did, but I can’t. She was our best friend.’

  Alex’s head snapped up, her mouth open: I waited for her to retort. She drew breath; sighed, shook her head.

  Robin’s tone was belligerent, exasperated. ‘We have to do something. We can’t just—’

  ‘Robin,’ Alex said, flatly. ‘I’m not disagreeing with you. You’re right.’ She glanced at Grace, who nodded, solemnly. ‘We should go to the police. Give them what we have. They can investigate.’

  Robin laughed, coldly. ‘Like they did with Grace’s dad, you mean? Because that worked out really well last time.’ A bitter silence fell, for a moment; Alex’s mouth opened and closed, stunned, searching desperately for a response. ‘Besides,’ Robin went on, ‘he deserves worse than anything they could do. He murdered Emily. Nothing’s going to bring her back.’ She didn’t look at me, seemed almost to be avoiding my eyes. I remember noticing that before she spoke, briefly, in the same way one feels the tremor before the quake: knowing, then, that the words she’d say next were about to hurt.

  ‘And nobody will ever replace her,’ she said, flatly.

  The words held in the air like a sting, a barb in my heart. A truth spoken that I already half knew, suspected, but brought to life in vivid colour with those six words.

  I felt the other girls’ eyes on me, a flicker of doubt, or nervousness; set my expression, mask-like, the blankness itself no doubt a sign of the hurt. She’d excuse it, if I raised it – the words masked with indifference, righteous anger, the white-hot heat of the moment – and yet, while I didn’t know what the Dean had or hadn’t done, I no longer cared. All I felt was the violent sting of rejection, the bitter sweat pooling on my skin.

  ‘Alright,’ I said, finally. ‘Fine. Don’t go to the police. But what do you want us to do about it?’ I knew, of course, what her answer would be. And I hated myself for being led to it; for being so weak – so desperate for her approval.

  She said nothing, though her hand brushed against mine as she continued down a winding side street, pausing in front of a house with a garden overrun with weeds, grass knee-high and ragged next to the eerie neatness of the rest of the street.

  ‘For Emily,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘We’ll do it for her.’

  For Emily, I thought, with a pang of envy, though it felt, in the moment, like grief – not for her, but for my friends, their shared sadness, and for me. If I disappeared – if something happened to me – would they care this much? Or would I be forgotten – a passing entertainment, a mere shadow of the friend they truly loved?

  I looked at Robin, who gave a long, low sigh through her teeth, and remembered what she – what they – had done for me. The Furies, the four of us, taking revenge. The things that we could do, the power we possessed, the stories we told ourselves of dreams, snakes, and beating wings and claws that split the air; the way Robin, in our moments of doubt, would pull the four of us together with the force of her belief, words electric and vivid with righteous fury at men, at injustice, and brutal power.

  I nodded, reached for Robin’s hand as she’d reached for mine, under the mermaid, when I’d told her the truth about Tom. ‘For Emily,’ I said, softly; in my mind, the words for them.

  And so, five days later, we retraced our steps through the bland suburban streets, sky huge over the absolute flatness of it all, laughing and talking beneath the air’s steady hum. I remember it, that thrilling lightness: the nerves, anticipation, and fear coursing through our blood.

  ‘Welcome to hell,’ Robin said, as we passed through miles of boxy houses, shingle and white plastic fronts like rotting teeth, dusty garage doors, crazy paving, names that didn’t suit: Lavender Cottage, the Old Barn, Honeysuckle House.

  I’d asked Robin how she’d found the Dean’s address. She had feigned a sprained wrist, waiting until the school nurse’s back was turned to slip into Reception and finger through his personnel file. I wondered whether I had ever had a choice in the path that led me here, or whether Robin had anticipated my every response, as we’d stood outside his house, just days earlier. I felt ashamed of myself, for being so easy to predict – reliable, and reliably dull.

  She stopped at the same garden overrun with weeds, worse in the daylight. I followed the girls down the narrow gap between the houses, through an unlocked metal gate.

  Out back was a bird bath, stained white with shit, an upturned watering can, a tired and broken fence. On a washing line that whined with the wind, a set of gardening gloves hung alone, fingers twitching as starlings perched watching on the wires.

  Robin ran her fingers around the edges of the plant pots, tipping them with her feet until she found a key. Was it luck, I wondered, or had she known it would be there, able to predict the Dean’s actions, as she had my own?

  Inside was much the same as out. Curtains closed against the sunlight, carpets worn thin, grey linoleum floors muddy with grease; a damp mat mouldering in the bathroom. A stuffed Bagpuss toy on a bed in a room filled with posters torn from magazines, a ‘Keep Out’ sign scrawled on the door above a photo: daddy and daughter, smiling by the sea. Another brief flash of envy, blinked away.

  ‘When do you think he’ll be back?’ Grace said, peering through the door as I stood, staring at the mundane pieces of Sophie’s life. It had seemed so glamorous – London, New York, Beijing – but now, my fingers tracing necklaces hanging from a headless doll, I felt nothing but pity for her. For her life, so much like mine. Maybe we’re doing her a favour, I thought, faintly. Maybe she doesn’t want to come back.

  ‘Not for a while, I guess,’ I said, turning to leave. I felt caught, somehow, as Grace looked at me through hooded eyes, her skin blue-white in the dim light. We both flinched as a laugh erupted from downstai
rs, tearing a crack in the silence.

  ‘Shhh,’ we both hissed, finding Robin bent double, gripping the edge of a chair, while Alex sat on the sofa, her hand covering her mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ Robin said, shoulders shaking with laughter.

  I felt a flush of irritation at them – at Robin, her flippant cruelty, her childishness. ‘Can we just take something and get out?’ I hissed, looking to Grace for support.

  She offered an apologetic smile, before reaching for the object in the girls’ hands, the source of their laughter. ‘What is it?’

  The thought set off a ripple of giggles between the girls again. Alex handed Grace a photo, and the two of us peered at it through the dim light. It was like the ‘magic eye’ paintings that seemed to be everywhere at the time (but which I could never make out, much to my frustration). The lines shifted, and a crowd of people began to appear, teenagers not much older than us. At the centre of the picture stood the Dean – unmistakably him, the same wide, dark eyes, same round, fat cheeks – in heavy make-up, pale-faced with red lips, his hair a black, tangled mess.

  ‘He looks ridiculous,’ Grace said, voice taut with suppressed laughter.

  I nodded, saying nothing. There were others in the photo, figures I didn’t recognize, all with faux-Bowie lightning bolts, shards of glitter, tall, back-combed hair. Boys and girls, laughing, without a care in the world. Just like us.

  A shadow of red in the back of the photo caught my eye. I took it from Grace, and walked to the window, opening the curtain a little, a shaft of sunlight blazing in. I looked closer. Curls, a smile half-concealed, one black eye behind a boy’s raised arm. ‘Hey,’ I said, gesturing to Grace, the others still snickering in the corner. ‘Is this Annabel?’