His epiphany was worse than the years of blaming Josie and the Kindred. He should've listened to Fiona. His tormentors were long gone. He had been the only one keeping them alive.
Ravenswood swallowed. He'd make the call to Dr Leishmann first thing tomorrow.
‘Are you sure you're alright?’ Toby said.
Ravenswood stared through the glass down to the stage. Lionel and Jacinta were doing the Nutbush in their medieval costumes, while the other boys kicked a hacky sack into the air.
‘Let's get on with the show,’ Ravenswood said with a pained smile.
The production was the only thing he had left. At least that was real.
‘Where are those girls?’
***
VIOLET
Slap.
‘Stop!’ Violet's eyes bulged so wide, they almost popped out of their sockets.
‘Isn't this what you wanted?’ Lila grabbed Angelika's hair and wrenched her chin up high.
‘No,’ Angelika muttered, blood bubbling on her split lip.
‘Let her go. What's wrong with you?’
‘She's out of the way now.’ Lila dropped her grip and Angelika's head slumped. ‘The stage will be yours. Like it should've been all along.’
‘Not like this. You're hurting her.’ Violet inched forward.
‘You wanted to hurt her.’ Lila's eyes were wide and innocent, but at the same time savage. ‘You said so yourself.’
Violet tensed. She wanted to run. Again. Go home, climb under the covers and hide forever. She'd said these things. She'd dreamed about smashing in Angelika's face, watching her squirm, doing exactly what Lila was doing. But her belly squelched with nausea, instead of satisfaction, at seeing the defeat on Angelika's face.
Violet shook her head.
Lila scoffed. ‘I thought you were stronger than this.’
Violet narrowed her eyes. ‘What's got into you?’
This was her closest friend, standing in front of her. The same freckled face she saw every day on the bus, at recess, in her bedroom where they sat cross-legged and listened to her crappy cassette player. Together they swooned over the posters of Corey Haim and River Phoenix posters and planned the day they'd finally get off this stupid island.
But this wasn't Lila. This Lila stood straighter, her skinny, flat chest puffed out like a pigeon. Her head was tilted back to show her white throat. Her nervous voice sounded suddenly like steel.
Lila raised an eyebrow and laughed. ‘Yes. What indeed,’ she cackled as she paced up and down in front of Angelika and jabbed her in the ribs like a cat toying with a mouse.
Violet tightened her grip on the hammer. ‘What are you doing?’
Lila stopped and spun around with a sigh. ‘You disappoint me, Violet. I thought you were one of us.’
‘Us?’ Violet gulped, checking the darkness around her.
‘I thought we could have such fun together. But I was wrong.’ Lila smiled sadly. ‘You are just as stupid as the rest of them.’
Violet gasped. It hit her with a flash. ‘You're not Lila,’ she whispered.
‘Bingo. You're right but you're also wrong. I'm here to help Lila. And you. But you're very ungrateful. I don't like when people are ungrateful. I've put in a lot of hard work to be here. But as usual, nobody cares.’
‘What have you done with her?’ Violet stammered.
‘Lila's around here somewhere.’ She waved her hand. ‘She does love you. She asked me to do this especially for you, and she promised you'd join us. But she was wrong. How unfortunate.’
‘Unfortunate?’
‘Yes. For you. I'll have to get rid of you. Like the other ones.’
Violet raised her hammer. Lila laughed and calmly smoothed down her burgundy hair as four pairs of black hands emerged from the shadows.
‘What the...?’
The fingers wrenched the hammer out of Violet's grip and flung the weapon to the ground. Violet stared open-mouthed at her empty hand.
‘You're not dabbling with a few black candles now, Violet. This is the real stuff. Not like those pagan try-hards.’
The black strong hands grabbed Violet by the shoulders and arms and dragged her on her heels towards a hulking drill.
‘You don't deserve Lila. She did everything for you. But you could never see beyond your own selfishness. You failed her just like all the others.’
‘I know, Lila. That's why I'm here. I'm sorry.’ Violet wriggled helplessly. ‘Get these off me and we can talk properly.’
‘Talking time is over. It's your turn to suffer. Like she's suffered. You have no idea the pain she's been through.’
‘I'm sorry, Lila. I'm here for you now. Tell me everything.’
Lila scoffed. ‘Lila's not in control anymore. You're talking to her anger and fear. Aren't they so much more fun?’
The hands shoved her Violet down flat on the bench, squeezing the breath from her lungs. With her head pressed against cool metal, Violet stared up into the hard-cutting edge of an industrial-sized drill bit. She tried to thrash her arms and legs but the strong fingers held her tight.
How had she missed the change in Lila? Violet trawled back through every one of their conversations since Monday looking for hints. She even replayed the cringe-worthy scenes where she was played the monster. Lila had been jumpy, chewing at her fingers and rarely sitting still, but Lila was always like that. And then there were her nose bleeds? And her insistence about curses? All the strangeness – the dreams, the accidents, the shadows – had it been Lila all along?
‘Lila, please wake up,’ Violet pleaded.
Lila laughed, her eyes blazing red. ‘Save your energy.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘You drew me here.’
‘Me?’ Violet chewed her lip.
‘All of you. There is so much delicious dark energy in this place. I've been waiting so long for the right moment to come out and play. Lila here kindly let me in. It took a little coaxing but she eventually saw the light.’
‘Who are you?’
‘No one. Everyone.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Now, that is an interesting question.’ Lila rubbed her chin. ‘I've pondered this for millennia. There has been so much written about my motives, mainly by small-minded people with even smaller imaginations, but I don't want to rule the world. I much prefer to stir the pot and watch what happens when everything goes awry. It’s such fun.’
Lila spun around with a chisel in her hand and lunged at Angelika, gouging at her creamy face. Angelika mewled. A trickle of red ran down her cheek and neck.
Lila prowled back and forth, giggling. Her laughter morphed and buckled, mutating into a bellowing cackle that scraped over Violet's teeth, while the shadowy hands pinned her shoulders down hard against the metal.
‘You hate this, don't you?’ Lila spat into Angelika's face. ‘Damage to your precious face? I've seen inside your head. Wow. What a messed up place you've got in there. I could have easily chosen you instead of her.’
Angelika squirmed half-heartedly, her eyes downcast.
‘This place is a real smorgasbord. So many choices,’ Lila giggled.
‘Lila. No,’ Violet said.
Lila yanked Angelika’s hair. ‘Who's the one in control now? You can't manipulate me like you can the others. Is this helplessness worse than damage to your face? This is all new to you, isn't it? Now you know how the rest of them feel.’
Angelika's shoulders trembled and tears joined the blood running down her face.
‘How boring,’ Lila sighed. ‘I thought you put up more of a fight. I was wrong.’ She turned to Violet. ‘Your go.’
The black hands pushed Violet's head down even harder onto the platform. The machine roared into action, and the drill bit span above her head.
‘Lila doesn't like this,’ Lila said, raising her voice over the grinding motor. ‘But I'm beyond caring. Lila is weak but I'm not. I'll make you pay for what you did to her.’
The drill
rumbled. Violet swallowed hard. The spinning drill slowly descended towards her forehead.
‘I haven't done a good trepanning in ages. They say drilling a hole in the forehead frees the evil spirits from the mind. Ha.’
‘Lila,’ Violet said. ‘You must be still in there somewhere? Please. Stop this.’
As Violet held her breath, her eyes fixated on the rotating drill bit, her teeth clenched as she anticipated the sear of pain.
One of them had taken darkness into her breast. But what about the other two predictions? Was Violet the one who would disappear for ever?
‘Lila. Lila. You don't need to do this,’ Violet begged.
‘Lila can't come to the phone right now,’ Lila laughed.
Violet grimaced. The air prickled over her skin as the drill bit came closer. With her arms and legs restrained, she only had one option. Luckily her mouth was free.
‘Why are you doing this to her? To Lila. Didn't you say you were helping her?’
Lila furrowed her forehead. ‘This is what I do. Isn't it, girls? I give people what they want. Sometimes, when I deliver on my promises and my new friends get to experience what they truly want, they change their mind. People are fickle like that.’ She shrugged.
‘Girls?’ Violet frowned.
With a snigger, Lila slipped out of earshot and into the dark. Violet clenched her whole body and waited, her breaths shallow.
The shadowy fingers loosened their hold as feet shuffled nearby. Violet turned her head and Lila stepped back into the light. But she was not alone.
Lila thrust a body onto the concrete floor. The person dressed in black landed with a thud, a mop of dark curls covering her face.
‘Rowan?’ Violet gasped.
***
HOLLY
On the ground, Holly braced herself. She covered her face with her hands as the stampede of claws and squeaks neared.
Something small slammed into her head and sharp toenails clambered through her hair. Holly squealed and shook her arms, flinging the rat up against the wall, but a second rat took its place and scuttled over her forearm. A third jumped up on her shoulder and scurried down her back. Its claws scratched her skin through her thin witch costume. A fourth rat, and a fifth, scraped and gnawed. Holly stopped counting after that. She cowered wishing for the Pied Piper.
Years ago, at a Grand Final party in her street, while the parents had drunk Moselle and danced embarrassingly, Bernadette from next door, who was older with a perm and smoked menthols, had told all the kids the tale of a rat plague. When the council had demolished the remaining buildings on the future school site, rats had flooded Beacon Hill. They’d infested the houses for months, chewing through power lines, raiding pantries and setting up nests in cupboards. At the time Holly thought it was just another freaky Beacon Hill story. She frowned. That had been thirty years ago at least, if it happened at all. But the scratches of claws on her skin were very real. Where had they all come from?
‘Help. Someone,’ she shrieked.
An endless stream of rats clambered over her. Holly curled into the foetal position and tucked her arms underneath her. Saliva flooded her mouth as gusts of hot breath ruffled against her neck and fur rubbed against her skin.
She retched.
The taste of vomit sharpened her senses. What was she doing lying here expecting someone else to save her? The rodents were big but she was ten times their size.
Her adrenaline surged and her mind cleared. She stopped shaking with fear and shook with anger instead.
‘Get off me!’ she screeched and tore a rat from her neck and pelted it against the brick wall. It squealed as it bounced and scurried away.
Tiny claws pierced her scalp and she grabbed a handful of matted fur. But she was too slow to stop the sharp teeth gouging a chunk of flesh out of her face. Holly wailed and clutched at her cheek, her hand filling with warm blood as the triumphant rat leaped off and scampered away.
‘You little bastards.’
Holly pulled herself to her knees and then her feet as she flailed her arms. She sent a few more rats skidding across the linoleum with a swift kick.
She waded through the stream of rodents surging past her as she limped towards the door. The strange gas smell lingered and Holly pressed her hand pressed firmly against the leaking rat bite on her face.
She reached the double fire doors and leaned on them but they, too were locked.
‘What is going on?’ she roared, fists clenched. ‘This is a fire hazard.’
As she grimaced, a scream pierced the air. Holly’s stomach twisted. She peered through the small rectangular windows. Lights blazed up ahead, coming from the stairs leading to the metal and wood workshop. She pressed her ear against the hairline crack between the doors.
‘Lila.’ She rattled at the doors. ‘Lila!’ She yanked them with all her strength.
Another scream rang out.
‘Violet! Stop!’
But the doors were locked tight. Holly groaned and slumped against the wood, her own breath loud in her ears.
‘Holly, Holly,’ a voice cried.
Holly glanced around the empty corridor. The voice sounded close, but suddenly she was all alone. Even the rats were gone.
‘Lila?’ she said.
‘Holly!’ the voice screamed. ‘Hurry!’
‘Lila! I'm coming.’
Her chest thumped as she ripped the fire extinguisher from the wall and slammed the hard butt into the small windows. Glass splintered with a satisfying crack.
‘I'm coming!’
***
VIOLET
Lila tugged at Rowan's tangled hair and revealed a grey-skinned face mottled with bruises. Violet whimpered. She tried to look away but the shadow hands pried open her eyelids.
‘Our runaway has come home. Well, she never actually left the school grounds in the first place. Getting rid of the understudy was step one. She was Lila's first. Lila was so nervous but I was so proud.’
‘Is she?’ Violet said but she already knew the answer. Rowan's lips were blue, and her eyes were blank.
Lila snorted. ‘You people. You're blind to what's going on right under your noses...’
‘You...you didn't?’ Violet stared open-mouthed. She blinked, wishing Rowan would move, wishing it wasn't true.
‘...so wrapped up in your own petty little dramas. “Does he like me?”, “Do I look fat?”, “What did she mean by that?” Blah blah blah. Lila and I could whisk someone away without anyone noticing, not even the police. Fools. Not that I'm complaining. It makes the whole game much easier for me.’
Lila let go of Rowan's curls and her face hit the concrete with a thump.
‘Lila? How could you?’
‘We're only doing what you wanted, little friend. What you were too gutless to do. I just helped. And as you'll learn, I deliver on my promises.’
‘I never asked...’ Shame squeezed Violet's throat closed again. Rowan’s corpse was stone cold evidence of all stupid reckless things she'd said.
‘Oh, but you did. Everyone heard you.’
Violet's eyes misted over but she gritted her teeth and sucked back the tears.
‘Rowan. I am so sorry.’
‘Too late now.’
Violet's stomach was rock hard but this time she didn't look away from Rowan's dead body. It didn't matter whether she meant it or not. Her hands were as guilty as Lila's.
Think.
She had to do something.
Think.
Her mind was as murky as a churned-up creek bed.
Lila cackled again.
The drill whirred, the metal caught in the half light as the strong black fingers gripped her shoulders.
Think!
There had to be a way.
‘I know you're still there, Lila,’ Violet said, gently biting her lip. ‘Please come back. You have to be strong. Don't let this thing take you over.’
‘Oh, so now you're concerned about your friend?’
‘Don't
listen, Lila. I know I've been a cow. I'll make it up to you. I'm your real friend. Not this thing. Remember my thirteenth birthday when you secretly baked that cake. We hid it away in my bedroom but we forgot to get a knife and had to eat it with our hands. Remember? Big fistfuls of cake. We gorged ourselves until we felt sick and rolled around on the carpet, moaning. I had chocolate icing under my fingernails for days.’
Lila patrolled up and down but her mouth stayed closed. Violet breathed a little easier and kept going.
‘And the time at Mid-City when the ushers threw us out of that soppy romance movie for laughing too much.’
Lila stayed quiet.
‘And the time we dyed your hair with the supermarket dye and it went green instead of blonde. We thought we were going to get in so much trouble.’
‘Oh, give up,’ Lila said. ‘Stop glossing over the past. I can taste your fear. It tastes like treacle.’
‘And the first day we met in Grade seven homeroom?’ Violet persisted. ‘Remember Miss Smolik with the big lump on her face? You said you liked my sweatshirt. The one with Mickey Mouse on the front. How embarrassing. We were such kids.’ Violet forced out a light-hearted laugh.
Lila stood with hands on narrow hips. ‘This is all very nice, but where were you when Lila really needed you?’ Lila’s eyes were as hard as the drill bit revolving above Violet's head. ‘Didn't you notice the bags under her eyes? How she was wasting away? Didn’t you wonder why she never wanted to go home? You never asked what was troubling her.’
Violet lay open mouthed. She had noticed these things but this was just Lila. Everyone had their quirks. She would have asked if she suspected something was truly wrong.
‘Didn’t you know what was going on? What her stepfather was doing to her?’
‘No,’ Violet choked out. Was it true? Had her best friend had been suffering every day and she hadn't even noticed?
‘Let's hear some more stories about what a great friend you are.’
‘Why didn't you tell me?’ Violet spluttered. Her voice cracked as she pictured Lila’s stepfather's rough hands touching her, forcing her. How alone she must have felt. Violet vomited into her mouth.
The Flower and the Serpent Page 24