Her Dark Wings E-Book

Melinda Salisbury

• Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 413

Beschreibung

Her Dark Wings is a modern-day take on the Persephone myth, infused with the intense potency of teenage passions. The richness of Greek myth is vividly brought to life by the immediacy and originality of a fiery, contemporary drama. And iconic mythic figures crackle and change as a modern girl fills the Underworld with new life.Exploring the thin line between love and hate, obsession and attraction, friendship and betrayal, this is a breathless and bold story, beautifully told by an exceptional writer. It's about a girl who realises what she wants and, in getting it, brings soul to a stagnant world, and change to an unyielding god. It's about life - and hope - blooming in the unlikeliest of places. It's about being brave enough to release your wings.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR HER DARK WINGS

‘Salisbury’s voice sings at the crossroads of classical and urgently modern. She perfectly captures the violence of teenage friendship between girls and the holy terror and hunger of seventeen. Her storytelling is tight and focused and moves at a breathless pace: as all good myth-making should. This story is strange, elegant and chilling: I devoured it’

Sarah Maria Griffin

‘Melinda Salisbury is a lush, magical writer – who isn’t afraid of the dark. Her Dark Wings captures the glory of having a real best friend, and the mythic pain of being betrayed by one’

Rainbow Rowell

‘Infused with myth, Her Dark Wings is darkly enchanting, bold and unexpected. I loved experiencing this richly imagined world through the eyes of such a well-drawn, nuanced heroine’

Mary Watson

‘A skilled contemporary reimagining full of friendship and fury’

Deirdre Sullivan

‘All the hallmarks of Salisbury at her best: raw emotion; searing prose and a darkly imagined world’

Non Pratt

For Franzi, Katja and Antje, my Furies, my sisters

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONSEEDINGINVASIVERESIDUECATCH CROPENTROPYTOLERANCECULTIVATIONETIOLATEDEXPOSUREBOLTINGTHRESHEDHYBRIDLODGINGCULTIVATIONHARDEN OFFTERRAINEROSIONABSCISSIONCOTYLEDONNATIVEGERMINATIONMAIDEN TREEDEAD HEADBLOOMPARASITEANNUALSTASISFLOWERSPERENNIALHARVESTSEEDINGACKNOWLEDGEMENTSALSO BY MELINDA SALISBURYCOPYRIGHT

 

Tell me, of a world where the gods still rule in Olympus, where they spread across the world as sure as rosy-fingered Dawn and held their own these many years; Sing Muse, of the Titan spawn; Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter. Sing of Hades; the Receiver of Many, alone in his unchanging, unyielding realm.

Sing of the Boatman, of the Furies, of the rivers that flow in and around the land of the dead. Tell me where the triple-goddess, Hecate, now dwells. Tell me of silver-tongued Hermes, who moves between the land of the living and the world of the dead, foot in either, belonging neither.

Then tell me of the flower-touched girl hidden at the ends of the earth; of betrayal and vengeance, of blossoming and blame. Tell me of heartbreak and healing, tell me what it means to forgive, to plant a seed, to watch it grow.

Tell me what happens next, Muse.

Sing.

SEEDING

The morning after the festival, Mr McKinnon—who wrote and edited the Island Argus when he wasn’t teaching us—published an emergency edition of the paper. He must have started working on it the second he got home, then cycled around the Island in the dark to make sure everyone had a copy before breakfast. He went to so much effort.

The headline he used was ‘Daly’s Hero’.

I knew he meant Hero from Hero and Leander, because we’d just finished the Double Heroides in his class. It must have been the first thing he thought of: how fucked up to teach a poem that ends in a double drowning to someone who’d actually drown before he handed our essays back. But everyone else read ‘Hero’ and thought about film characters or stupid warrior men from epic poems. People who lived and died starting wars or fighting wars or ending wars; there was always a war involved somewhere. They’d forgotten about the actual Hero, who was just a girl.

So the headline did not go down well.

Cally Martin, who runs the Spar in Daly, went door to door with a wheelbarrow collecting every copy she could get her hands on; I didn’t let her have ours. She dumped them on Mr McKinnon’s front step, where, allegedly, Thom Crofter pissed on them, but only on the back page, out of respect. He was careful to avoid the photo of the girl found dead in the lake at the Thesmophoria Festival.

Daly’s Hero.

I’ll tell you something about Bree Dovemuir—she was no Hero.

Bree Dovemuir was my best friend for almost my whole life, until she became the person I hated most in the world. Sometimes second most, depending on the day.

Three months ago, it was still Bree-and-Corey, Corey-and-Bree, said as one word, treated as a single, doubled-headed entity; a mini-Hydra. The photo Mr McKinnon used in the paper was actually of the two of us, taken from the school website, except he’d cut me out so it was just her. The irony was not lost on me.

Despite his best cropping efforts, you could still see the seashell curl of my ear pressed against hers, the matching double-helix piercings that got us both grounded two summers ago; me for a week and Bree for the whole holiday. We’d held each other’s hands as the needle went in once, then again, pulses syncing with the beat of the song the piercer tapped her foot to.

I hadn’t wanted my ears pierced, but Bree begged me not to make her do it on her own. And when mine got infected—of course—it was Bree who insisted I keep them in, making me swear I wouldn’t take them out. And the sad thing is that when we walked into school the first day of autumn term, the rings hidden under our hair, it felt like it was worth it.

I should have known she was a snake then; she’d changed her hoops from the steel ones they were pierced with to tiny silver ones, so we didn’t quite match.

As if the headline wasn’t bad enough, Mr McKinnon had changed the dimensions of the photo and he’d messed it up, stretching her jaw wide, making her forehead huge. If it hadn’t been her obituary, I would have been thrilled by her mutant Wanted-Poster face. If it hadn’t been her obituary, I would have graffitied it—blacked out her teeth, added a monobrow, some hairy warts. Stabbed out her eyes with the compass from my maths set. Glued it to a doll made from grass and hair, spit and blood, and asked the Furies to curse her for her crimes. But it was her obituary, so there was no point; the worst had already happened.

The photo had been taken at the end of term, just before the summer that was supposed to be the best summer of our lives, because we were seventeen and Bree swore the summer you were seventeen was the best summer you’d ever have. And it wasn’t quite the truth to say it was of the two of us, because Alistair Murray was in the original photo too.

I was in the middle, the bridge between them; Bree’s best friend and Ali’s girlfriend. Until Bree and Ali decided they didn’t need a bridge, after all. They’d cut me out of the picture too.

When someone dies, there are certain things you have to do. The body has to be cleansed and oiled, a coin left on the lips for the Boatman so he’ll carry the soul away to the Underworld. There is the prothesis the night before the funeral, where the body lies in state and women sing the dirges over it. The next day is the ekphora procession to the graveside, where milk and honey and wine and water are poured into the grave as an offering to Hades. The chief mourners sometimes offer a lock of their hair too. Finally, the perideipnon feast to celebrate the dead.

Without the proper rituals the dead are left behind on the shores of Styx, unable to move on. It’s kind of the same when someone breaks up with you. There are rituals you have to do then too—not official ones, they don’t appear in any sacred text. But everyone knows them; the tried and tested ways to get over heart-break. And you have to do them, or you won’t move on either.

First, you call all your friends and they come for a sleepover—they come to you so you don’t have to get dressed, or risk bumping into your ex on the street. This is the relationship’s prothesis, but instead of singing dirges you sing your favourite songs, starting with the sad ones and then getting to the real angry shit, the fuck-you-forever songs. Once your blood is up, you delete your ex’s number, all the messages they ever sent and block them online. You do it to them before they do it to you—this is especially important if you’re the dumped, not the dumper.

Then, everyone lies and says actually they hated your ex, that they were never good enough for you. They promise better, brighter things, offer up rumours of who’s newly single, who always had a thing for you. These words and deeds become your bread. They feed and nourish you. They are your perideipnon. Really good friends will bring ice cream, too.

Slowly, you start to come back to life.

A week later, you ceremonially remove a lock, or several, of your own hair and get some new style, or you dye it rainbow colours, and a week after that you kiss someone’s brother or sister or cousin behind the old abbey ruins in Fraser’s Field. After a month, when it’s obvious it’s really, truly over, you take everything they ever gave you and set it all alight in your back garden; an offering to Aphrodite to send you a better lover next time. The fire makes your neighbours worry about sparks and wooden fences, and mutter darkly about the noise as you and your friends dance around a metal bin full of burning memories, but it has to be done.

These are the rites of the break-up, and if you do them properly, they fix you.

But when Ali and Bree left me for each other there was no ritual, because Bree wasn’t there to be the chief mourner. I was left marooned, somewhere in-between.

Now Bree is actually dead. And if you’re wondering if I’m sad about it, because it means we’ll never get to mend our broken friendship: No. I’m not.

I’d wished for it.

INVASIVE

Just before she was found, I was behind the south barn with Astrid Crane, who’d adopted me after the Ali-and-Bree betrayal, and some of the others from our year at school, far enough away from the fire that the parents could pretend not to see us.

Astrid had passed me the bottle of wine she’d stolen from somewhere. I never used to drink, but that was the old, happy Corey, who’d had a boyfriend and a best friend. The new Corey had neither, so I’d let the sour liquid spill over my tongue, and scanned the crowd again for Bree and Ali.

I kept doing it; in the village, at school, everywhere. They’d become my North, my internal compass swinging straight for them any time they were around. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or gutted when I realized they’d disappeared.

I also couldn’t decide how I felt about the boy I’d just kissed.

The Thesmophoria was good for that kind of thing. It’s an old festival; older than greeting the hamadryads when you drive through Green Wood, even though almost nobody had seen one in centuries; older than throwing pine dollies off Amphitrite Cliff to ask Poseidon to keep the fishermen safe. The Thesmophoria used to be a three-day celebration before the winter wheat was sown, to honour Demeter, and only women were allowed to go, but these days it’s a one-night-only bacchanal, where everyone on the Island gets absolutely blasted and behaves stupidly. Including me, this year. Kissing a random boy.

It’s not that I’d believed I’d be with Ali forever, more that I hadn’t really thought about life After Ali, until it happened to me. Kissing someone new wasn’t unexpected, but it’s not like I’d gone to the Thesmophoria planning it. On the one hand, I was satisfied I’d proved I’d moved on so everyone could stop pitying me. On the other, I worried I’d put a nail in a coffin I already knew was welded shut.

Most of all, I was afraid they’d think I was doing fine without them, and that I didn’t need them any more. I didn’t need Ali, but Bree …

I hated her. But I’d never, ever considered a life After Bree.

When the random boy had come to me, hand outstretched for mine, I was standing at the edge of the festival, trying to drum up the courage to either stay and find someone I could hang out with, or just go home and listen to my playlist of sadness for the thousandth time.

And then he appeared, with wide shoulders, a smile full of promises, and shadowed eyes; offering a place by his side. I slipped my fingers between his and followed him into the crowd, deliberately not looking for them, trying to act as though he was the only thing in the world on my mind as we started to dance.

I didn’t know for sure they were there, but it was the Thesmophoria and I couldn’t imagine them being anywhere else. And, honestly? In that moment I wanted them to be there. I wanted them to see someone else wanted me. I wanted the whole Island to see that I was fine, because some other boy with a beautiful mouth he’d painted gold, and a hammered copper mask that looked like scales in the red firelight, had picked me out of the crowd. Here was the proof that my world didn’t begin and end with Alistair Murray and Bree Dovemuir.

I needed to believe that. And the boy had, for one moment, kissed me with gilded lips and made it real.

His mouth was cold, he tasted like ice or salt, or diamonds—something clear and sharp and glittering, something that would quench or call a thirst, or buy an army, start a war. His hands were cold too, cooling my burning skin where they touched me, and my fingers gripped the lapels of his coat so tightly that they cramped. I wanted more; his kiss made me hungry. I wanted to swallow him down, like honey. I wanted to be like the mellified men we’d learned about in history, I wanted to consume this boy until he was my sweat and my tears, until it killed me and then I wanted to be buried in him for a hundred years.

I’d only ever kissed Ali, so I didn’t know how different it could be. I’d thought it would just be a kiss, like a hundred kisses before. I thought I knew what to do, how it would go.

I didn’t know anything at all.

And this was a kiss without love, or liking, or even knowing. This was a kiss just for kissing’s sake. Imagine if I cared. Imagine if it actually meant something.

I could hear the sound of drums, my own heart thundering. I knew with certainty that the ground beneath us had opened and we were going down, down, down, until the earth would cover us and bury us alive, and I was fine with that. I wanted that. I wanted him.

I pressed my whole body against his, and shivered when his hands moved from my face to my waist, holding me to him, keeping me there. Somewhere close by I heard a wolf-whistle, long and loud, piercing through everything. I remembered where we were and pulled back, embarrassed. But my fingers were still curled into his coat so he couldn’t get away because I wasn’t done—we weren’t done. And he was still holding me just as tightly. When I looked up into his eyes, they were dark and shining, like he knew exactly what I was thinking and he agreed, and I turned away because suddenly it was too much.

That’s when I saw Ali and Bree. It took me a second to realize it was them, partly because of their masks, but mostly because Bree didn’t look like Bree any more. The day before at school her hair had been in the usual top-knot, chestnut waves bound up and out of the way. Now it was short, cut to her chin, bouncing curls without the length to hold them down.

We’d always had long hair. She’d wanted to cut it for years but her mum wouldn’t let her; whenever they fought, Bree would threaten to chop it off though she never did; even she wouldn’t go that far. Until now. I felt a starburst of hurt that she’d do something so huge without telling me first, without us doing it together, even though it was stupid and we hadn’t spoken for months. I felt like she should have told me, or warned me. Asked me if I thought it would suit her. It did suit her, and that hurt too.

And it never stopped hurting to see her in his arms. To see them without me.

Bree was in a long tartan coat, cinched tightly at her tiny waist, that flared as she spun, her wind-tanned skin glowing warm in the light from the bonfire. Next to her I’d always looked like a child; short, soft and round, milky skin, wheat-coloured hair. And Ali, holding her, tall and broad-shouldered, like a warrior prince. They looked like equals. They looked like they belonged.

It killed the kiss. It soured the honey.

The boy followed my gaze and said something, but I didn’t hear his words over the roar of blood in my ears, like a thousand birds taking flight at once.

I wished her dead.

I wished for it with my whole heart. Because for a moment I’d forgotten about her and Ali and I’d been happy. But the second I saw them, all of the hurt and humiliation and anger came rushing back and I remembered everything.

How they must have spent weeks laughing together at what a gullible little idiot I was. How, when Ali took longer and longer to reply to my messages, I told Bree I thought something was wrong, and she said I was being paranoid. How when she started taking longer and longer to reply, she told me it was because I kept going on about Ali being weird, and she was bored of it. How they were probably together when I sent most of the messages, how they probably showed them to each other.

How I’d tried calling her all the way home after Ali broke up with me and she never answered, never replied, never once said sorry. How she sent her little brothers to my house to bring back the stuff I’d left at hers and collect the things she’d left here. She’d made a list: books, a cardigan she didn’t even like, a set of pyjamas, three nail polishes, an almost-empty tube of hand cream, and, worst of all, Ali’s big blue jumper that I’d had longer than he ever did. How she’d excised me from her life so neatly and I was here, months later, still clawing at myself to tear all the little bits of her out of me.

I hated her so much in that moment.

So I sent a cursed dart out from my mind, straight into her chest, and wished she’d drop fucking dead. That she’d be dragged to the Underworld and left there to rot.

The boy spoke again.

‘What?’ I’d said, barely looking at him, too busy with my hate.

He didn’t repeat himself, drawing me back into the dance, away from Bree and Ali, around the fire so it blocked them from view. But the magic was gone, and I’d smelled the fat and onions from the burger stand overpowering everything, could hear the guitar in the band was out of tune, see how stupid we all looked, most of us wearing jeans and bundled up against the weather, faces covered by cheap masks with feathers and sequins that fell off and were crushed into the mud. As if they might be enough to fool any gods that walked among us we were like them. As if we could be anything other than human.

There was no more kissing. The boy left me the moment the music ended, giving me a funny little bow before he disappeared into the crowd, like a character from a play, and I didn’t blame him, because why would he have stayed? No one stayed with me. For me.

For a second, I was lost and alone, terrified Bree and Ali would notice, then I saw someone waving from by the barn and the relief when I realized it was Astrid almost knocked me down.

I dropped into the space Astrid made for me, my thigh pressed against hers, and took the bottle she offered. When I raised it to my mouth I could feel her lipstick, greasy on the rim. The boy’s lips had been cool and velvety. I ran my tongue over my own and tasted salt and honey.

Realizing no one else was wearing one, I pushed my mask back and Astrid leaned forward and took it, putting it on and grinning. Stained dark by the alcohol, her smile was a chasm. I shivered.

‘Who was that?’ Astrid leaned into me, sloppy and wine-friendly.

‘Dunno.’

Astrid gave me a look, and I realized how stupid my answer was. There were just twelve hundred people on the Island and the only tourists here right now were a middle-aged couple staying at the B&B. I took a deep gulp of wine and tried to place him—he wasn’t from school, I was sure of that. He could be from one of the other islands, gate-crashing our party, I supposed, instead of staying at his own. I wondered how I could find out.

Then I realized, with a sharp, almost-electric shock, that I wanted to know who he was because I wanted it to happen again. That at some point soon I was going to kiss someone—him—not just to prove something, but for real. And I didn’t know what to think about that, because it sounded like healing and moving on and I wasn’t ready yet. There had been no break-up rites and I wasn’t done tending my garden of grudges.

‘They were watching,’ Astrid said, distracting me. ‘Ali looked furious when you kissed him,’ she continued.

‘Ali can kiss my ass,’ I replied, pleased at how calm I sounded. I didn’t feel it; I felt shipwrecked. ‘What do you think of Bree’s hair?’ I asked, still cool, still casual. As if I care.

‘It looks like a helmet. She looks like she’s about to ask for the manager.’

‘Right,’ I laughed, even though we both knew it wasn’t true.

Astrid prised the bottle from my fingers and brought it to her mouth, tilting her head back as she drank, exposing her throat to the night like a sacrifice. I looked up. It was cloudy; no stars glittered above us, no chance of catching the Orionids. No wishing on a star for me.

I wondered what Bree had thought when I kissed the boy. If she’d been shocked, or relieved. Maybe even a little proud. If she’d cared at all.

Hunter Kelley lurched to his feet, his eyes glazed and fixed on the distance as he staggered away, obviously willing himself not to puke until he was alone. He did this at every party—he couldn’t take drink at all. I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Five to midnight. I wanted Bree and Ali to break up horribly and publicly. I wanted to go home. I wanted to find the boy. I wanted.

Lars and Manu started kissing noisily, and I remembered last year when Ali and I had snuck away from the festival, running down the lane hand in hand to his house, to make the most of it being empty. I looked around for him and Bree, but couldn’t see them. They’ve gone, my traitor-brain whispered. Probably at Ali’s house, in Ali’s bed, while you stay here, with your long, boring hair, drinking shit wine.

That’s when Hunter screamed.

Astrid pulled me to my feet and we joined the crowd running towards the lake. People were yanking their masks off, frantically looking at everyone around them, searching for their people. You could see the relief as they realized the ones they loved were safe.

Everyone safe, but her.

The crowd parted for me, though no one remembered it like that afterwards. Thom Crofter told my dad he physically tried to stop me from approaching the shoreline, and Mr McKinnon said to Merry he ordered me to stay back. But a lot of people misremembered things on the Island. You couldn’t really trust anything that happened here.

Bree was facedown in the lake, her brand-new hair like a halo around her head, flirting with the weeds at the edge. The tartan coat was gone; she was wearing a white dress, the kind of thing her mum was always buying her and she pretended she hated but she never wore anything else. It was bunched up around the tops of her thighs, and even though I hated her I wanted to get in the water and cover her up.

‘Is he the one you love?’

‘What?’ I turned towards the voice.

‘I said, look away, love,’ Cally Martin said, trying to force me back. ‘For gods’ sake, child, don’t look.’ But I was made of stone, and even her strong hands couldn’t make me stop staring at the girl in the water. Bree.

After we learned to swim, we used to play a game called Dead Man’s Float. To win, all you had to do was keep your face in the water for the longest time. She always won. Always. And just when you started to panic that maybe this time something had actually gone wrong, she’d roll over and shout in triumph.

But she wasn’t rolling over. People were crying and she wasn’t rolling over. The water made her skin look green and mottled. She looked like a naiad. She’d like that. I’d tell her, if she rolled over.

I’d wished her dead. But I hadn’t really meant it. It was just the heat of the moment. I’d just meant a little bit dead.

Not dead like this.

She wasn’t rolling over.

‘Where’s Mick Dovemuir?’ someone called for Bree’s father.

‘Where’s young Alistair Murray?’ someone else said.

‘Bree?’

Ali appeared, walking unsteadily over to us all, a bottle of something dark and sticky-looking in his hand. His brown hair was tufted, cheeks reddened.

‘Who screamed? What’s going on?’

Ali dropped the bottle when he saw her floating in the lake. It didn’t break, hitting the wet ground with a dull thud. He stared at Bree, frowning, and then he started to walk past me, into the water.

Mr McKinnon grabbed him then, and Ali lashed out, clocking him in the face, but Mr McKinnon didn’t let go, clinging to Ali as he screamed Bree’s name over and over.

‘Or did she break your heart?’

I whipped around again, and saw Manu being comforted by Lars. They were the only people nearby, and neither of them were close enough to have said it. Lars gave me a bleak smile, stroking Manu’s neck, whose face was buried in Lars’ faded lavender hair, and I paused, torn between pressing back into the mass for comfort of my own, and running far, far away.

The foghorn-boom of the Island police sergeant’s voice cut across the night as he moved through the crowd, issuing instructions for everyone to keep back, and Merry had appeared by my side, gripping my arm. Then the sergeant was in the lake, pulling Bree’s dress down, his back to us. I thought I saw his shoulders hitch once, but when he turned his expression was grimly professional.

‘Go home. All of you,’ he ordered. ‘There’s nothing more to be done here.’

His eyes fell on me, his expression full of pity, before he looked away, as the Island’s sole other police officer appeared.

‘Should I make a list of people here?’ Declan Moretide—only three years older than me but somehow police—asked the sergeant.

‘I know who’s here.’

Which was true. It was the Thesmophoria. It was the Island. Everyone was there.

‘Meredith, you should get Corey home,’ Cally Martin told Merry, who’d nodded and tucked my arm into hers.

‘Let’s go home, pet. Come on, now.’

I’d let her guide me away, leaving my ex-best friend dead in the lake.

RESIDUE

I’m on my bed, messing with a Dione’s Flytrap, when Merry knocks on my bedroom door. I consider pretending to be asleep, but I like Merry. And she isn’t stupid.

‘Corey?’ she calls through the wood. ‘Can we chat, or are you pretending to be asleep?’

I almost smile. ‘We can chat.’

Merry opens the door and peers around it. ‘Hey. How’re you going?’

I shrug. ‘Fine.’

She looks over the dim room and I do the same, then wince. There’s a collection of cups on the bedside table, all full of cold, abandoned coffee. We’re out of bottled water and I hate the taste of the Island tap water so I can’t drink more than a sip, even if I’m desperate. The curtains are cracked just enough to give my plants some light, my bedclothes are rumpled about me in a kind of nest, the muddy jeans I wore to the Thesmophoria lie on the floor where I’d shucked them off Saturday night, leaving them where they fell. I know the room has a smell, because I’d noticed it when I came in from the garden yesterday. It isn’t necessarily a bad smell, just what I smell like when I stop using apple shampoo and lemon body wash. A bit sweet-sour. Organic. Animal.

Another kind of stepmother would take all this as a sign I was not, in fact, fine, and would tell me to take a shower, or at least open the window. But Merry isn’t like that.

‘Your dad’s doing tacos for tea,’ she says. ‘He made seitan for you. He says if there’s anything you want to add from the garden, you’ll need to fetch it out for him.’

I shake my head. ‘It’s just your cabbages and a few parsnips left.’

‘No bother.’ She hesitates, clearly building up to something and I brace myself for it. ‘He’s just gone down to the Dovemuirs’.’

My heart falters. ‘Right.’ I gently tickle the fringe of one of the leaves and watch it slowly close. Ali gave it to me for our six-month anniversary but I can’t get rid of it. I look up to see Merry watching me.

She sighs, then sits beside me on the bed, her weight tipping the old mattress so I fall against her; I put the plant on the bedside table so I don’t squash it. Merry wraps an arm around me and I lean into her, inhaling rosewater, the black castor oil she rubs into her scalp, the almond cream that softens her hair. At the moment it’s in long twists, tied up with a white silk scarf; she’d had them done fresh for the Thesmophoria.

‘It’s the prothesis tonight at the temple. For Bree,’ she says. ‘The ekphora is tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ I turn to face her, fighting a wave of dizziness. ‘But it’s Thursday tomorrow. She only … It only …’ My words bottleneck in my throat.

‘The Dovemuirs don’t want to wait to …’ She pauses, and I know she’s considering how to phrase it. ‘To lay her to rest,’ she finally chooses. ‘You know what they’re like. They want it done properly.’

I swallow. I do know what Bree’s parents are like.

‘Right. But isn’t it a bit fast? Is there not going to be an investigation?’

Merry frowns. ‘Why would there be?’

‘Because no one knows what happened. How she got in the water.’

The answering silence is suspicious.

‘Do they?’ I ask. ‘Merry?’ It comes out sharper than I mean it to. ‘Sorry.’ I apologize.

She squeezes my arm. ‘We just weren’t sure if you’d want to know.’

‘I do.’

‘All right.’ Merry releases me, shifting so we’re face to face and I reach for the flytrap again, cradling it in my hands, running my fingers along the leaves and letting the few that are still open close over them, holding me. ‘Well … Alistair says the last time he saw her, she told him she was going to the bathroom and he went to get them something to drink. Cally Martin confirmed that Bree was behind her in the queue, and they chatted for a bit, until Bree said she couldn’t wait any more, and left. Cally was the last person to see her.’

I blink. ‘Is that it?’ I ask. ‘She just ditched the queue and fell in the lake?’

Merry nods. ‘Pretty much. Declan—PC Moretide—thinks she tried to get behind the reeds for privacy and slipped. They found her coat folded nearby.’

I remember how it flared when she spun, like a cape.

‘No,’ I say. Because that can’t be it. I shake my head and repeat it. ‘No. Bree’s a good swimmer. And the lake isn’t even that deep where she was.’

Merry’s voice is so gentle when she replies. ‘Alistair said she’d had some vodka; they both had. And it was pitch-black, and the water would’ve been ice cold. Paralysing. It only takes a few seconds.’

‘But it doesn’t make any sense.’ My voice cracks, and I clamp my mouth shut to stop anything else escaping me. My lips are chapped; I rub them together, feeling the skin coming away.

Merry’s eyes glisten and she swipes at them with her sleeve. ‘I know. I know, pet. It’s awful. No matter what happened between you … It’s awful.’

She pulls me close for another quick, hard hug, before standing up and clearing her throat at the same time. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to let you know what the plans are, so you can decide if you want to go. No pressure, either way.’ She looks around the room. ‘Mind if I take a few of the mugs? Oh, and there’s bottled water now, your dad picked some up. I could bring you a fresh coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’ I manage. ‘Sorry. I should’ve brought them down.’

‘It’s no bother.’ Merry offers a sad smile and gathers up the cups, hooking the handles with her fingers, careful not to spill anything. As soon as she’s gone, I wriggle out from the blankets and close the door behind her. I lean against it, stomach full of eels.

She wouldn’t die like that. Not Bree.

If she thought the queue was too long, she absolutely would leave it and find somewhere that suited her better, because that was Bree—she always did what she wanted, when she wanted, and she hated to wait for anything. But she wouldn’t die because of it.

Except she did, I think. Barely two hundred metres from where we’d all been dancing and laughing, she’d drowned.

In early summer, before everything went wrong, me, Bree and Ali, had been down at the south of the Island, at Thetis Point. There was a bit of cliff the older kids would jump off into the sea, but we’d never done it. Usually, we followed the worn path down the cliffside into the small, black-sand cove, and waded into the water from there. But that year we’d realized we were the older kids and Bree wanted to jump. So she had; no hesitation, flinging herself off the top the moment we got there, so impatient that she’d peeled her dress off on the walk, leaving me to pick it up.

I didn’t believe she’d actually do it until she did, caught in the air for one shining moment, her arms outstretched like wings before she’d dropped out of sight. I’d gripped Ali’s hand as we’d edged forward, looking at her in the glittering sea below. Far, far below. My insides lurched and I pulled back.

‘Come on!’ she’d shouted up to us. ‘It’s amazing!’

I’m not scared of heights, but I am scared of falling. Of spaces with edges and not being connected by hand or foot to the ground. There was no way I’d be able to do it, and I knew it.

‘I suppose we should start the walk down,’ Ali had said when I’d stepped back from the edge.

I could hear in his voice that he wanted to jump. And I wanted him to have what he wanted, because we were in love.

‘I don’t mind walking alone,’ I’d said.

I’d meant it too. I was worried about Bree being in the open water by herself for the fifteen or so minutes the walk down would take. I’d be safe on the path, but if she got cramp, or if something else happened … it felt like it was tempting the Fates to leave a young woman alone in the sea. We know people from the mainland call us backward and think we’re all superstitious weirdos, but they don’t have to live here. It’s easy for them, in their concrete towns with their subways and skyscrapers, to forget what it’s like to live where there are things in the woods, watching and waiting. There are winter days when the wind blows the wrong way and we hear the singing far out at sea; I’ve seen people with my own eyes being held back from the icy water, swearing they’re being called. And people out here still die with Poseidon’s name on their lips every now and then.

It doesn’t hurt to keep one eye on the gods. Just in case.

‘You jump,’ I’d insisted to Ali. ‘We can’t leave her by herself in the ocean. Go on. I’ll meet you down there.’

He didn’t even pretend to mull it over. ‘All right.’ He was undressed in seconds. ‘See you down there,’ he’d said, kissing me fast on the mouth, tasting like the chocolate we’d all shared on the way up. Then he was gone.

I waited until he surfaced with a cry of joy, and then I’d gathered up his and Bree’s forgotten clothes and shoes and started towards the path, scrambling down as fast as I could, cutting a full five minutes off the usual time. I took my shorts and T-shirt off, left all our stuff in a tangled heap, then swam out to them.

They were treading water close together as I approached and when they turned to me, Bree’s eyes were shining.

‘Holy shit, Cor, there was a seal!’ Ali shouted to me.

I turned, looking for it. ‘Where?’

‘Right here! Just after Ali jumped in it popped up, right next to us,’ Bree added, high and excited. ‘It was so beautiful.’

‘It was unreal,’ Ali said. ‘It just started swimming with us. Like, just swimming around us.’

‘Are you sure it was a seal?’ I asked, still spinning in the water, scanning for dark shapes.

‘Yes,’ Bree said, her voice sharp. ‘What else would it be?’

I ignored that and turned to her. ‘Were you scared?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Bree’s mouth twisted as if the idea was ridiculous. ‘It was really sweet. Like a water dog.’

‘Yeah,’ Ali agreed. ‘It was like it wanted to be our friend.’

‘Wow,’ I said, my voice flattened by jealousy, but they didn’t notice, or they didn’t care. They started racing each other and I leaned back and floated, staring up at the sky.

The seal didn’t reappear, and I wondered if maybe they were making it up to tease me; it sounded too good to be true, too convenient that it happened at the exact time I wasn’t there, but they insisted it was real and talked about it for the rest of the day. Not just the rest of the day, but for weeks after: Remember when we swam with the seal?

I think that’s the day it started with them. When they saw the seal together.

I wonder if Bree knew what was happening to her, in the lake. Whether she fought it, or gave herself over to it. They say you see your whole life flash before you when you drown.

A tiny part of me wonders if she thought of me.

Because I’d been thinking about her. I’m almost always thinking about her.

CATCH CROP

It’s not that I actually think I killed her. You can’t wish people dead, any more than you can wish them in love with you, or wish yourself a million pounds. I know it’s just a horrible coincidence that she died after I’d thought it, but I feel weird now I’ve remembered it; can’t help feeling a little guilty.

Which is good, I tell myself, because if I didn’t feel bad, I’d be a monster and I’m not. I’m the victim.

Are you still the victim if your enemy is dead? A voice whispers in the back of my mind. Doesn’t that make you the victor?

Screw this. I need my garden.

Merry is pacing in the living room, on a call with her PhD supervisor judging from her expression, and she gives me a stressed wave as I pass, heading for the kitchen. I pick a jumper out of the clean laundry pile and pull it over my pyjama top, shove my feet in the boots waiting by the back door, then go outside.

The air is a cold, sharp shock after the closeness of my bedroom, pinching my skin through the jumper. I pause to breathe it in, all the mingling smells; wood smoke from fireplaces across the Island, the salt of the sea and seaweed rotting on the strandline. And under it all, the rich, soft earth of my garden.

Pretty much everything I grew ripened early this year, so I’ve already covered the beds, except one that still has few straggling parsnips I hope might get a little chunkier, and a trio of red cabbages I’m growing for Merry. I want them ready for the Haloa feast next month—Merry does this thing where she spices and caramelizes them and it’s my favourite—but when I check them over, they look small and fragile, struggling against the circumstances.

‘Me too,’ I whisper, then feel like an idiot.

I give them a little pat, and leave them to it.

Then, I dig. It’s messy, boring and painful work—I’ve never started digging a bed without regretting it halfway through—but the thing is, you can’t just leave a hole behind. You either keep going, or fill it back in, and with those as your choices you might as well carry on. Plus, it’s good to slam a hoe into the mud when you’re pissed off.

My mother was a gardener too, according to Dad. Maybe she still is—we last spoke for approximately four minutes on my sixteenth birthday. She phoned and wished me many happy returns and asked if I planned to stay on the Island. I thought she was hinting that I should visit, but she sounded scared when I suggested it. Maybe whoever she’s with now doesn’t know she has a kid. For all I know, I have brothers and sisters.

When she first moved here, she started an organic fruit and vegetable business, which was ambitious considering there are so few people and mostly everyone grows their own stuff. But not like her—Dad says she had greenhouses full of pineapples and peaches, figs and olives, things that would never normally grow here. It’s how she met him; he was cycling down to the lighthouse and she stopped him by the road and offered him a punnet of June strawberries. Nine months later, I was born.

And three years after that, she left us and didn’t look back.

Too warm once I’m working, I pull the jumper off and toss it behind me. The cold air feels good against my hot skin and I pause to let it wash over me. Then I look down into the shallow hole and realize it’s the same shape as a grave.

Bree never liked the garden at this time of year. She said it was depressing, that it looked dead. I tried to explain that even the bare parts weren’t really dead, just sleeping, but she didn’t understand. She liked it when it was full of flowers.

I lean on my digging hoe, and close my eyes.

‘I thought you were leaving that bit for my barbecue pit?’

My father, still dressed in the boiler suit he wears to work in the lighthouse, lopes towards me, carrying two steaming mugs. He’s the kind of tall that means he always stoops a little, as if his whole body is apologizing for making you look up that far. I guess I inherited my height, or lack thereof, from my mother too.

‘I was. But it’s not like you’re going to build it in winter, and the land’s-a-wasting, Mr Allaway.’

He doesn’t laugh. ‘For the love of Zeus, Corey, are they your pyjamas?’ He nods at my T-shirt and shorts. ‘It’s nine degrees. Are you trying to catch pneumonia?’

I fetch my jumper, hauling it over my head and knocking my bun askew. I leave it lopsided, the grease of the last five days holding it mostly in place, and take the mug he holds out to me, sniffing it.

‘I made it with bottled water,’ Dad says with a sigh.

When I was eight and refused to drink it, wouldn’t even brush my teeth with it any more because it tasted like sucking pennies, he took me to the doctor, who said I had something called ‘pine mouth’, even though I’d never eaten a pine nut in my life. She said it would go away in a couple of weeks, but it didn’t. A few weeks later my dad replaced all of the pipes with new plastic ones, but I still wouldn’t drink it. The Island water comes from a spring, deep underground—the kind of water, he reminds me, that rich people pay through the nose for. They’re welcome to it. Whatever it is, I hate it.

‘Talk to me, Cor.’ He sits on the edge of the bed with the cabbages in, balancing delicately. I perch beside him, press my spare hand into the soil and rub it. It feels nice between my fingers. Soft and warm. I press into it further, planting my whole hand up to the wrist.

‘About?’

He gives me a look. ‘I’ve just seen the Dovemuirs.’

‘Merry said.’

‘Mick was asking after you. Wee Aengus too.’

I lower the cup and look at him. ‘How are they?’

‘Mick’s holding up. Trying to be strong for Ella and the boys. Ella’s a wreck, of course. You know how she was about Bree. I think things will get easier for them after tonight, and tomorrow. They’ll be able to start healing. He wanted you to know you’re welcome there any time.’

I always did like Bree’s dad.

‘Little Mick doesn’t seem to understand Bree’s gone,’ he continues, grey eyes soft and sad. ‘Mick said they might send him and Wee Aengus to one of the mainland cousins for a bit, after the funeral.’ He pauses. ‘I think you should go. Maybe not to the prothesis. But to the ekphora, tomorrow.’

‘I don’t know,’ I shrug. What’s the etiquette for going to your former best friend’s funeral? ‘Everything was so bad between us.’

‘I think you’ll regret it if you don’t. And it would mean a lot to Mick and Ella, you were practically their kid too, before …’ He backpedals when I glare at him. ‘I don’t condone what Bree did. Or him. They both betrayed you and you’re right to be angry and hurt. But … She’s dead, Cor. It changes things.’

Annoyance flares. ‘It doesn’t change anything for me. She’s still a b—’

‘Don’t speak ill of the dead,’ my father snaps.

In that moment, I wish Bree dead all over again; outrage lightning in my veins, because it will always, always, be like this now.

I know, as clearly as if Cassandra herself had delivered the prophecy, that what Bree and Ali did to me won’t matter to anyone any more. I won’t be allowed to hate her. Or even him. She’ll always be young and beautiful and dead too soon, and that will eclipse everything. Every shitty thing she did and said, wiped away. It’s so unfair, and I can never, ever say that aloud, because at least I’m alive, right?

I bite my tongue to keep from screaming. I hate her. I will always, always hate her.

‘Hey,’ my father says when I keep my mutinous gaze down, too scared to look up in case I say something to him that I can’t take back. ‘I know things have been hard for you. I’m on your side, you know that, right?’

Then be on my fucking side, I think. Understand why I can’t go and cry over her, or watch Ali cutting a lock of his hair off over her. Understand why this doesn’t change anything for me, why it makes it worse.

I make a fist in the earth and hold on for dear life.

He reaches out and rubs my shoulder then stands, knees clicking as he does. ‘OK, kid, I’d best get on. What’s it going to be?’

It takes me a few seconds to understand he means the new bed.

‘Flowers,’ I murmur, then change my mind. ‘No. I don’t know yet.’

‘All right. Think about tomorrow,’ he says as he returns to the house.