Poison Heart (7 page)

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you, Katy. Mrs Hudson was worried.’

‘I’m OK,’ I mumbled. ‘It’s just a headache and dizziness …’

‘Feeling sick? Eyes hurting?’

I grunted in agreement.

‘It’s a migraine. I get them too. The best remedy is to lie down in a dark room with an ice pack.’

Another wave of nausea hit me and I doubled up but there was nothing left in my stomach. I hated being seen like this, but it was out of my control.

‘You should go home,’ Genevieve said, patting me on the shoulder and picking a few stray hairs off my cardigan. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Hudson what happened.’

She put one arm around my waist and helped me to the door, asking if I wanted her to call a taxi. I screwed up my eyes, feeling utter remorse because she was being so kind.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I assured her, but my legs had turned to jelly and I needed to sit down.

She helped me to the nearest chair, which was positioned outside the office, and then went inside to arrange for the cab.

‘I’ll wait with you, in case you pass out,’ she told me firmly.

‘Thanks for looking after me,’ I answered gratefully.

‘That’s OK.’

I decided to clear the air. ‘Sorry if I made you feel unwelcome. Merlin thinks we have lots in common …’

She turned to me and I was startled again at the colour of her eyes, which seemed to react to the light, the pupils changing from glowing orbs into tiny slits. Her expression was disarmingly serene, her voice almost soothing. ‘That’s part of the problem with you and me, Katy … being alike.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course. There just isn’t room.’

‘Room for what?’

‘There isn’t room for both of us – you must realize that. And
I
want to stay.’

This was surreal; Genevieve was saying such horrible stuff to me, but the Cheshire Cat smile never left her face.

I felt sick again. ‘I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t want to play pathetic games. Just tell Nat and Hannah what happened and why I couldn’t come to lunch.’

‘They’re not even proper friends … you’re just an afterthought … you don’t get close to people … boring, sensible Katy. You could spread your wings and fly, but you don’t know how …’

‘What the …?’

Her tone changed abruptly and I was shocked to hear the malice in it. ‘I’m everything you’re not, and I’m going to take over your life.’

As a car horn beeped I stood up and lunged towards the
taxi. There was movement behind me and I lashed out, my hand coming into contact with soft flesh. I heard a loud cry of pain and looked back only once, as the taxi pulled away, to see the shocked faces of Nat and Hannah comforting the weeping figure of Genevieve.

Luke was getting out of his car as the taxi pulled away, but I tried to duck into my house without him seeing me.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he shouted across.

My facial muscles refused to arrange themselves into a smile. His expression was so sympathetic that without my knowing it was going to happen, I burst into tears, huge great sobs that made my whole body shake. In no time at all I was in Luke’s kitchen, sitting at his large oak table and staring into a cup of hot sweet tea.

‘I’m keeping you from work,’ I wailed.

He checked his phone. ‘I’m due in court in an hour, but I’ve got time for a chat. Now tell me what’s wrong. You look awful.’

‘I’ve just been sent home from college with a migraine. It’s nothing.’

‘Kat Rivers, you always were a terrible liar. Tell me the truth. If it’s that boyfriend of yours, I’ll—’

‘It’s not him,’ I insisted, wincing at the sweetness
of the tea. ‘I’m just having problems with this girl at college.’

‘Shoot.’

Luke was a patient listener. I told him what had happened and he didn’t once interrupt or defend Genevieve, as Mum had done, with warnings about the greeneyed monster or my being as much to blame. I could see that he believed me completely and I closed my eyes in gratitude. It meant the world to me.

‘Do you think people can make things happen to you?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘Sort of … horrible things.’

Luke twisted his mouth to one side. ‘I think if you’re susceptible and believe you’ve been … cursed … then bad things can occur as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. But only because your mind expects them to.’

‘The glass pendant she gave me,’ I said, ‘it’s really spooking me. It seems to change colour and … glow.’

‘Some sort of light catcher?’

‘Maybe,’ I answered doubtfully.

Luke shook his head with exasperation. ‘I’ll never cure your obsession with anything vaguely magical, will I? Every Halloween since you were six I’ve had to take you trick-or-treating … the first few years I had to carry your broomstick!’

I laughed and snivelled at the same time and my nose ran horribly. Luke handed me a tissue.

‘You don’t scare me anyway,’ he joked. ‘You can put a hex on me and turn the milk sour or get your cat to trip me up.’

‘Genevieve’s the one with the hexes,’ I sniffed. ‘Since she appeared, everything in my life’s gone wrong. Cigarettes mysteriously appeared in my bag and Mum thinks I’m a secret smoker and Merlin is to blame. Then Merlin and I had our first cross word because I was being unsympathetic about Genevieve’s tragic life, and now Hannah and Nat think I’m jealous, spiteful and unforgiving of … poor old Genevieve.’

Luke began moving his arm in a circular movement, pretending to stir his cauldron, and attempted a hideous cackle.

I stayed completely straight-faced. ‘Very funny. I should have listened to my first instinct. I knew there was something sinister about her.’

‘She knows just how to get at you, Kat. She’s probably found out you’re a sucker for tales of hideous crones with pointy hats and big noses.’

I smiled weakly. ‘If she came at me with a knife then I’d know where I stood.’

‘Don’t say that. You’re not going to let her carry on like this?’

‘I can’t stop her,’ I told him in all seriousness. ‘She’s just too strong.’

Luke refilled his cup from the percolator on the stove, brow furrowed in concentration. I idly glanced around his kitchen, admiring the reflective white surfaces that flooded the space with light and the smart stainless-steel appliances, trying to forget the decor in our own kitchen. Mum had
kept our 1970s knotty pine units and an ancient brown cooker that the scrap merchant probably wouldn’t even want.

When Luke spoke I could smell the coffee on his breath. ‘But that’s the point, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘This girl, Genevieve, seems to know all your weaknesses, almost as if …’

‘We mean something to each other,’ I finished. ‘Except I never in my life set eyes on her until a few weeks ago.’

There was a shout of greeting as Luke’s mum came through the front door. She came over and hugged me, chattering as she put away her shopping. I could see Luke making a gesture behind her back towards the door.

‘Mum, I’m helping Kat with … an English assignment, so we’ll have to go upstairs and use my computer. It’s a good job you’re not a proper girl,’ he joked, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Mum disapproves of me taking Laura to my bedroom.’

I didn’t mind the ‘proper girl’ comment; in my eyes he was still the messy boy with the thatch of blond hair who made model aeroplanes and painted plastic soldiers. Laura had been Luke’s girlfriend for almost three years, but his mum still treated them like teenagers who needed a chaperone. I tried to look impressed by his bedroom because the tatty carpet had been replaced by pale laminate flooring and the old pine wardrobe by sleek built-in sliding units. Luke now had a double bed with leather headboard, and smooth white walls, no posters in sight, but there
were still dirty socks on the floor and papers strewn all over his desk and it still smelt like it did when he was fourteen.

Luke picked up a marker pen and stood in front of the whiteboard which was hanging on one wall. This felt like being in a detective show and I felt a small shiver running through me. He cleared his throat importantly.

‘Look, I did a piece on stalking once and picked up some of the psychological stuff. I’ll throw out a few possibilities.’

‘OK.’

The first possibility is that you have something she wants, which makes you a threat.’

‘She wants everything,’ I sighed.

Luke began to write. ‘She has an urge to make you suffer as well. An irrational but very focused vendetta.’

‘That’s for sure,’ I agreed darkly.

‘What could she possibly have against you?’

‘Nothing,’ I wailed. ‘I’ve done nothing to her … except … look back.’

‘Look back?’

As I remembered that day, I could still feel the sun burning my face and her eyes boring into me. ‘I was on the bus and she was on another bus and she stared at me … really hard. It all began then.’

‘You don’t do all this just because of a face at a window.’

‘
She
did.’

Luke scratched his chin. ‘Mmm. She’s gone out of her way to collect information about you, which is obviously
important to her. It gives her the upper hand and makes you vulnerable. It proves her campaign is carefully thought out and has taken time and effort.’

‘Obviously she doesn’t have much of a social life,’ I grunted sarcastically.

‘There’s an element of power in the stalker. They want to feel in control of you.’

‘And manipulation. She plays games.’

‘Very good,’ Luke praised, and I felt absurdly pleased.

With a series of arrows he connected all his points together in a circle. ‘This all comes back to my belief that she – Genevieve – knows you from somewhere and—’

‘Impossible,’ I interrupted.

‘Or,’ he continued, ‘she’s targeted you because of something she
believes
has happened between you, a case of mistaken identity.’

‘She can’t have confused me with someone else,’ I said slowly. ‘She knows too much about
me
.’

He sat down beside his desk, picked up a glass paperweight and turned it over in his hand. ‘She might be a complete fantasist who’s made up the whole thing in her own head and dislikes you for no reason at all.’

‘That sounds bad,’ I answered. ‘Because if it’s fixed in her head then no amount of denial will change it and I can’t reason with her.’

‘Want my advice, Kat?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘While this is going on, you have to be brave and take
everything she throws at you. Don’t show any emotion, because she’s looking for maximum impact.’

I screwed up my face. ‘So just take it – the insults and everything?’

‘Play your own game and be reasonable, calm and polite. It’ll annoy her like hell.’

I thought about this for a moment. ‘I suppose it will. She wants to get at me… but I pretend she doesn’t.’

‘And promise me you won’t dwell on the stupid witch stuff. If she makes you believe she has unexplainable powers, then you’ll never try to stop her. She’s real – hideous but real – and we’ll defeat her with logic and cunning, nothing else.’

‘Logic and cunning,’ I repeated.

Luke gave me a big thumbs-up. ‘And here’s the best bit: she knows things about you, but you know nothing about her, so now it’s our turn.’

‘What have you got planned?’

He tapped the side of his nose. ‘A journalist never reveals his sources but I told you I’d always be there for you.’

I gave a rueful smile. When Luke was in Year 11 and I was in Year 7, he stopped me from being bullied with a promise that I could always count on him, a promise he hadn’t forgotten.

‘The weird thing about all this, Luke … I’m not the kind of girl other girls envy. I’m so ordinary.’

‘Don’t put yourself down,’ he answered casually. ‘I think you’re special.’

I opened my eyes in surprise at this unusual compliment, but he immediately put one finger in his mouth and made a gagging noise.

‘Whereas Genevieve,’ I went on, ‘she could light up a whole room. She’s got this way about her … charisma, self-assurance, magnetism … whatever it is, she’s got bucketloads.’

Luke took hold of one of my hands to calm me down. His were warm and reassuring but surprisingly rough.

‘Dad’s roped me into helping him work on the house,’ he explained, examining his palm. ‘And he’s a real slave-driver.’

I didn’t want to leave, but he picked up his car keys and jangled them impatiently. I stood up cautiously and held on to a chair because the room was still slightly tilting.

‘What about Laura?’ I asked with concern. ‘She’s just welcomed you home and now you’re off on some wild goose chase for me.’

‘She’ll understand … I’m sure she will. Mind how you go, Kat.’

I walked back to my house feeling better and more together. Luke had made me see that there was a way out of this. I was going to fight for what was mine and not fall into the trap of being set up again. I took some tablets for my migraine and went to my room. It was soothing to be alone. I meant to work on some designs, but my head still ached and I sat staring out of the window. My desk was deliberately arranged so that it faced our garden, which was
only a small patch of straggly grass dotted with overgrown shrubs, but it still inspired me. The clouds were indistinct and raggedy today, reminding me of flotsam spread on water, but a plane had left a trail in the sky that looked like two crossed spears.

I was busy studying the emerging pattern when the room darkened and a bird appeared from nowhere and sat on the ledge, staring right in at me. It looked distinctly like a crow – jet black with a huge wingspan and beady yellow eyes. It pecked on the glass for a few seconds and then seemed to fall. I raced downstairs in case it was hurt and might become victim to Gemma’s sharp claws, but all that was left was a large black tail feather lying on the patio. I picked it up and ran it through my fingers. The oily texture made me shudder so I put it in the bin. On impulse I went upstairs to grab the pendant and threw that away as well, wondering why I hadn’t done this sooner.

My mood nosedived again when I delved into my bag only to discover that my key ring was missing. It contained my first photograph of Merlin and was undoubtedly my most prized possession. When everything had spilled out of my bag at college it definitely hadn’t been left on the toilet floor, and the unwelcome thought came to me that Genevieve had stolen it for a reason.