Perfectly Reflected (18 page)

The cloud was moving fast, and the oppressive heat and sunshine seemed suddenly intensified. It was a matter of minutes before the cloud rolled over, making the world darker and much, much cooler. There was another burst of lightning, close enough that I automatically looked around at the trees nearby, but down here by the river I was safe enough. The buildings at the top of Richmond Hill looked like they could be in trouble though. Finally big, fat drops of water started to fall, splatting on the gravel. I did a quick mental calculation of where I was; carry on or go back? As the rain started in earnest I realised that it made no difference; I was going to get soaked either way. I might as well enjoy it.

I stepped out along the towpath, now completely alone, enjoying the feeling of the water running over my face and cooling my aching arm. There was something very apt about the situation, and I let the rain wash away my worries for a while.

It was still pelting down as I got to the entrance to Marble Hill Park. There were old stone steps down to the edge of the river there, presumably the remnants of some long-gone jetty. I used to feed the ducks all the time when I was little. There were no ducks there today, though, it was too wet even for them. I smiled slightly
at the thought, but was suddenly pulled up short by a chillingly familiar voice.

“Looking for me, are you?”

I whipped around; standing in the middle of the towpath behind me was Catherine. Rain had darkened her hair to a flat brunette colour, and water was dripping off the ends. She was dressed for cooler weather in a plain shirt and jeans, both of which were plastered to her. She held a large rock in one hand.

My heart sank. I knew that I wasn’t up to brawling with her; I just wasn’t fit enough. All my injuries were screaming out in protest as I automatically tensed, ready for whatever was coming next. I pushed the wet hair off my face and squared up to her, knowing that the worst thing you can do with a bully is to show fear. But she didn’t back off, she just stood there, an evil smile on her face.

“You have something of mine, I believe.” I decided I might as well get straight to the point.

Her smile was cruel. “Whatever makes you think I’ve kept that old tat?”

“Don’t play games with me, Catherine. I know you have it, and I know why you wanted it.”

“Hmm, it was such a shame about the golf course. If you hadn’t moved when you did, you wouldn’t be walking around here today, that’s for sure.”

“I’m tougher than you think,” I said defiantly, sticking out my chin and feeling the rain run down my neck, trying to avoid looking at the rock.

“Pity.” Her look was scathing.

I couldn’t decide on my best approach. Appealing to her sense of friendship seemed quite laughable; she radiated scorn and
loathing. I carefully and unobtrusively flexed my wrists, trying to gauge how they would stand up to a scrap. Pain shot up my arm. Not well then, I decided. But it was my only option for getting Callum back, and I would put money on the fact that he was here, watching us. If I could only get the amulet off her he would be able to disable her, I was sure. The thought that he was so close spurred me on.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Catherine, but I will if I have to. Please give me back my amulet.”

“You must be joking! You’ll only get your little friend to steal from me again, and I’m not having that.”

“Please don’t blame Olivia. She was just worried about me; she wanted to keep me safe. I had no idea that she was even there, even less about what she was doing.”

“I don’t care about any of that. She did what she did, and I’m not going to forgive her for it. As I can’t hurt her, you’ll have to do instead.” She paused, a nasty, scheming look on her face. “You and Olivia, two of my least favourite people; this way, I can kill two birds with one very literal stone.” She casually tossed the rock from one hand to the other.

“But why? I don’t understand. Why do you hate me so much?”

“Don’t give me that!” she sneered. “You know perfectly well what you’ve done and why I hate you. I thought life as a Dirge was bad, but this,” she waved her arm around, “this is just hell. A head full of
your
memories, you insufferable little brat, and knowing that all of it – everything – is your fault. Little Olivia has made sure I can’t remember
why
, but I’m still absolutely sure that I hate you, and that you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

As if to prove that point a huge bolt of lightning suddenly
split the sky above us and the immediate crack of thunder made my eardrums pop. Rain continued to pelt down, washing away any thin veneer of civilisation about her. She looked like a vulture, waiting to strike.

I had to try again. “If you don’t give me back my amulet I won’t give up, you know. I’ll hunt you down and get it from you sooner or later. You look into my eyes and you’ll see that I mean every word.” I stared at her, refusing to blink until the driving rain made it impossible. She continued to stand there, rock in hand, a scathing look on her face. I tried to get my balance, weighing up how to block the rock when she threw it.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said scornfully, spotting my movement. “There’s no way I’m going to fight you with this. I have what I need and anyway, you’re not worth the energy. The only reason I came here was to give you something.”

That surprised me. “What?” I asked suspiciously. “If it’s not the amulet, what else do you have that I want?”

A smug smile flashed across her face. “I thought you might like a few last words with your boyfriend.”

“What do you mean?”

“As you might imagine, Callum is here. In fact, he’s been bugging me ever since I got the amulet. He’s even more irritating in my head than he was when we were in St Paul’s.”

Even though I had expected it, I was still surprised and spoke without thinking. “Callum’s here? Now? Can I talk to him?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not going to hand the amulet over to you! I’m just prepared to pass on a few farewell messages, that’s all.” She hesitated for a minute, her eyes glazing for a fraction of a second. “He’s quite cross. In fact, he’s shouting so much I can’t really make any of it out.” The smug smile was back. “Perhaps
it’ll be easier to do it the other way around. What would you like to say to him?”

I couldn’t resist. “Callum, I love you. I’ll find a way, I promise!”

“Ah, how sweet. Did you get that?” She was looking across the river as she spoke. “What? No final words?” She turned back to me. “He’s incandescent with rage. It’s really rather funny.”

A hollow dread started to creep through me. What was she planning to do? “Catherine, stop it! Look, give me back the amulet; Callum will be out of your head, and you can go and do whatever you want to do. I’m not going to press charges over the assault, and you already have my money. You can go wherever you want and I give you my word that none of the Dirges will bother you again.” I looked at her flashing green eyes. “Start a new life somewhere else,” I begged.

“You still don’t get it, do you? I’m only here at all because of you, you little troublemaker. I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t want to be here. I hate this life, I hate having your memories, and I really, really hate you.” Her voice was chillingly calm. She walked slowly down the steps towards the water until she was on the second-
to-last
step.

“But—”

“Don’t bother,” she shouted back up towards me over the noise of the pounding rain. “The only thing that’s going to make this miserable existence any better is knowing that yours is even worse.”

“I don’t understand.” As I spoke a huge flash of lightning lit us both up and the simultaneous roar of thunder made me flinch. Catherine just stood there, water running off her, a strange, hideous smile on her face.

“Say goodbye to Callum, loser!” she sneered, and with that she pulled back the sleeve of her shirt and ripped the amulet off her wrist. For a second I was rooted to the spot, then I leapt after her, seeing my chance to get it back. But before I had got down the first few steps Catherine swung the rock down from above her head, crushing the amulet against the stone step. Shards of blue flew in all directions, mingling with the rain.

“NOOOO!” I cried in horror. Before I could get to her she smashed the rock again into the mangled remains of the bracelet, laughing wildly. Then in a single, sweeping movement she scooped up the bent, disfigured silver and the last bits of the stone and hurled them far out into the Thames.

“No…” I moaned again, distraught, as my only link to Callum rained down in pieces into the grey water.  

End of Term

Catherine left immediately afterwards, laughing at me sitting on the stone steps in the rain.

“Oh, get a life. That’s what you just told me, remember? Now we’re both free of him. You know, you’re better off without him, the miserable swine,” she cackled. “Don’t ever come looking for me again, OK?”

I couldn’t speak, I just sat, trying to memorise the patch of water where the remains of the amulet had fallen, but the driving rain made it impossible. I had thought things were bad before, but now, she was right, it was much, much worse.

I crawled over to the place where she had smashed the amulet. She had managed to pick up most of the bits with that one swipe of her hand, but a few tiny slivers still glittered in the puddles. Not wanting to believe, I picked up the largest piece I could find. The beautiful blue stone was utterly destroyed. This scrap had no glinting depths, just the deep-blue colour. The fire that had brought me Callum was gone. Clutching the tiny scrap tightly in my hand, I sat back on my heels and howled.

I wasn’t sure how long I spent on the steps, the water running off me and the tears running from me. When I had lost Callum before, when I thought that he was playing games with me, I had been distraught. But that had been because I had lost my dream
boyfriend and it had been my choice to break it off with him. This was different; this was a whole new world of pain, and I really didn’t know how I was going to be able to survive it.

Eventually the rain stopped. I was lying on the steps, eyes on the river, trying to visualise the spot where the amulet disappeared. I still had the piece of the stone grasped tightly in my hand, a useless shard that would never again summon Callum to my side. I lifted my hand to look at it again, slowly uncurling my fingers. Something dark and sticky was running between those fingers, and I shook my hand in surprise. A fountain of blood traced an arc around me. Sitting up as quickly as I could, I saw that there was a deep puncture wound in my palm. I had been clutching the stone shard so tightly I hadn’t realised it had pierced my skin. But the blue fragment had gone, washed away when I had shaken my hand. There was blood everywhere, and everything I touched made it worse, each drop falling into the puddles and growing alarmingly. It looked like a murder scene.

Numb, I tried to find a tissue to stem the flow, but I had nothing useful in my pockets. I sat, letting it drip into the river, waiting for it to stop. The clouds and the oppressive heat had gone, leaving a washed-out-looking sky but bright-green grass and trees. Sunlight sparkled off the drops of water on the leaves. I looked at them dispassionately. Would I ever care again? Finally the bleeding slowed, and I risked standing up. My aches and pains were irrelevant to me now that my heart was broken clean in two.

Soaked through and covered in bloodstains, I took the back route to the station in Twickenham, not wanting to walk past the police station. I walked on autopilot, not catching anyone’s eye, just focusing on getting home. I didn’t want to think beyond that. A couple of well-meaning people approached me, but one look at
my dead eyes made them beat a hasty retreat. It seemed that I had spent hours by the river, so I had missed the afternoon rush hour. When I finally got to Shepperton I started the long walk home, trying not to think. I hadn’t got far when a car pulled up next to me with a screech of brakes.

“Alex, for heaven’s sake, where have you been? Everyone’s been frantic.” Grace’s voice was full of concern, and her tone changed to horror as I turned to look at her. “What have you been doing? Are you OK?”

It was all too much. The emotion that I’d been holding in since I left Twickenham overwhelmed me and I crumpled into her arms.

She manoeuvred me efficiently into the front of her car, and I heard her on the phone as she walked round to the driver’s side. “Josh, I’ve got her. Unharmed, I think, but not good. Shock, possibly. I’ll talk to her and bring her back in a bit, OK? Let the others know, will you?”

I sat limply in the passenger seat, looking at my palm. It had started to bleed again. “Have you got a tissue?” I asked in a scratchy voice, holding it up towards her. Grace always had tissues, and plasters and everything you might need in an emergency. She gently held my hand while she wiped it clean, then pressed a clean wad into the wound.

“Hold that tightly for a minute. Let me see what else I’ve got,” she instructed, and I obeyed mutely. I felt the astringent touch of an antiseptic wipe, and then she was prodding it all over. I couldn’t face talking just yet, so I let her get on with it. She muttered quietly to herself as she worked. “Hmm, can’t see anything in the wound, so should be OK to cover; deep, but not wide enough to need stitches. There’s a plaster, nice and tight. Now, let’s
look at the rest of you. Messy. How did you get so much blood on yourself? I think I have … yes, just the thing.” She ripped open a packet of wet wipes and started cleaning me up. I felt her hesitate as she wiped away the remaining make-up over my bruised face, but she didn’t comment. I let her get on with it, lifting arms when instructed, turning to and fro. Finally she was done.

“There’s not much I can do about your clothes, so thank goodness your parents aren’t at home.”

I nodded my head very slightly.

“Poor Josh has been frantic. He thought maybe you’d gone to school, so when the coach came without you on it he called me to check, and I told him that you hadn’t been seen all day. Your phone has been unobtainable for hours.”

I used my good hand to pull my phone out of my pocket and handed it to Grace.

“Well, I’m not surprised that this isn’t working – it’s full of water. Did you fall in the river or something?”

“Got caught in the rain,” I said simply, unwilling to expand too much further.

“I know it chucked it down but you must have been out in it for hours to get this soaked.” She looked at my jeans and my hair. “
Were
you out in it for hours?”

I nodded once.

“OK, babe, you are obviously not yourself, but it’s all right, I’m here now.” She slipped her arm around the back of my neck and gently pulled my head on to her shoulder. “Was it Catherine again?” she asked. I nodded slightly. “Don’t worry, I’m here now,” she repeated, gently rubbing my arm. “Tell me when you’re ready.” Hot tears fell on to her T-shirt as I let go.

We must have sat there for an hour, and at one point I was conscious that she was sending a text, but I couldn’t bring myself to move. When I stopped sobbing, she offered me another wet wipe. “Here, run that over your face, it’ll make you feel better.” I sat up in my seat and did as instructed, and it did help a little.

“Thank you,” I managed finally.

“No worries. Do you want to tell me what she did now…?” She tailed off, obviously not keen to start me off again.

“The amulet. She smashed the amulet. Now I’ll never see Callum again,” I whispered.

“Oh, Alex! How? What happened? Oh, poor baby, no wonder you’re so upset.”

“She found me on the riverbank, taunted me for a while and then smashed it with a big rock.”

“Can’t we get it fixed?”

“The stone was in tiny pieces, and she picked all of them up and threw them in the river.”

“But why? Why would she do that?”

“She just kept going on about how much she hated me and how everything was my fault. I have no idea what she means. How can it be my fault? I’ve done nothing to her, nothing!” My voice was rising and I knew I was becoming hysterical.

“Shhh,” Grace soothed. “Don’t get upset, that’s what she wants. We need to think our way out of this mess.”

She was right. I needed to get a grip. “I’m sorry, it’s just the thought of never…” The emotion overcame me again and I had to stop.

Grace nodded. “I understand.” She carried on rubbing my arm and I tried hard to keep it all together. Finally she spoke again. “Look, everyone has been really worried; I need to get you home.
You could also do with getting out of those wet clothes. Are you going to be up to moving soon?”

I sat up straight and nodded. There was no avoiding the fact that I had to get on, but I really didn’t want to go through it all again and again. “I don’t really want to talk to anyone else,” I pleaded.

“I understand. We do need to tell Josh something though; he’s been beside himself with worry.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for everyone to get involved. It’s not fair.”

“That’s what friends are for, Alex,” she said, squeezing my good hand gently. “I’m sure Josh would understand too, if you told him.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be silly, he’ll never believe it, any of it.”

“All right, this is what we’re going to do. We’ll tell him that you had another run-in with Ashley over Rob. Josh will buy that, and he doesn’t like Rob either, so that’ll help. No one else needs to know anything.”

My thoughts were too dulled with pain to bother wondering whether it was the right solution; it was easier to let Grace take charge. “That sounds all right, I suppose,” and suddenly the contrast between her and Catherine became almost too much to bear. The tears started streaming again.

“Shush, shush. Don’t upset yourself again.” Grace passed me some more tissues. “Are you going to be OK to go now?”

For the first time I turned and looked her in the eyes. “Please, please don’t say anything about C … C … Callum,” I managed with a gulp.

She squeezed my hand. “I won’t say a word, I promise.” She
sat back in her chair and put her seat belt on. “Come on, belt up. Let’s get you home.”

The hours passed in a daze. Mostly people seemed to believe what they had been told. Josh was the most sceptical, especially since I had told him about Catherine, but he could see I was suffering and he kept quiet. The next day I went into school to empty my locker as it was the last day of term, but all the activity and celebrations went on around me without touching me at all. I felt as if my whole world was wrapped in cotton wool, every edge slightly dulled, every voice muted. Grace had persuaded Josh not to tell Mum and Dad anything. I didn’t want them feeling worried about me and cutting short their break, and there was nothing they could do anyway. I had to work through this on my own.

There were two separate factions at school: one with me, the other with Ashley and her tales of imaginary boyfriends. They could all see that I was hurting, and my friends tried to rally around, but it was hard when I could give them no information. Ashley took that as a vindication of her story and got even louder in her crowing. I really ought to introduce her to Catherine, I thought at one point; they had a lot in common.

After school finished at midday, Grace and I filled her car with all our stuff and made our way home. I felt really guilty about keeping her from the traditional summer end-of-term celebration. Every year loads of our friends and classmates went straight to the Hampton open-air pool, and dozens of the boys from the next door school did the same. It was usually a great event.

“I really appreciate this, Grace,” I said again, as we approached my house. “But are you sure that you don’t just want to leave your stuff here and go back to the pool?”

“I don’t want to leave you. You shouldn’t be alone, not right now.”

“Thanks, but honestly, I’m going to have to learn how to get on. He’s not coming back.” I tried very hard to keep my voice from cracking and I nearly managed it. “Why don’t you go, and you can check on me when you come back for your stuff? Then I don’t have to feel bad about destroying your social life.” I paused for a second. “Is Jack going?”

“Yes, he’s planning to. He won’t mind if I’m not there, though; he’ll understand.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of others who won’t mind if you’re not there, either. Are you really going to risk letting all those girls see Jack half-naked and not be there to protect him?”

She pursed her lips, considering. “That’s a good point, actually. I’ve been having a bit of trouble with Sasha – I think she might be planning to make a move on him.”

“You really ought to go and keep an eye, then. Nowhere more public than the pool…”

She stopped the car smartly on the gravel drive outside my house. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” she asked as we carried all my art folders and textbooks into the hall. “I mean, Jack won’t do anything, I trust him completely.”

“I know that, but do you trust Sasha?”

“Hmm, point taken. OK, I’ll go. I’ll be back about five. We can give some thought to what to do next then.”

“Grace, the amulet is smashed, Catherine did what she wanted to do. There’s nothing to give any thought to.” My heart felt empty as I listened to my own words.

Grace was characteristically stoical about it. “You don’t know that. It’s a weird piece, you said so yourself. We’re not
defeated yet.” She smiled at me. “Don’t get into any more trouble while I’m gone.”

“I promise. Give Jack a kiss from me.”

“I will, you can be sure of that. See you later.” She gave me a quick hug. “Call me if you need me, remember.”

I shut the door carefully behind her, heaving a sigh of relief. I loved Grace to bits, and knew that she would do anything for me, but I needed to be on my own. The strain of being with people had really taken it out of me and I sank exhausted on to the sofa. The house was cool after the heat and sunshine outside, and completely silent. At last I was somewhere where no one was going to ask me questions or look at me quizzically, or suggest that I go to the doctor or the police. I hoped that Josh would be staying out for a while longer, so I had a bit more time to myself.