Ravensborough (18 page)

‘Ok,’ I said slowly. ‘Will it hurt?’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in magic at all!’ he said, arching an eyebrow at me.

‘Well, maybe I’m starting too. And you didn’t answer my question.’

His face was granite hard and serious. ‘It might hurt. If I try to hurt you with something your locket doesn’t protect against, then yeah, it could be painful. I know that doesn’t sound too appealing, but I think that it’s better if we find out any potential weaknesses in your protection in a friendly environment.’

‘Ok....but I don’t like pain.’

‘I’ll try to make it as gentle as I can.’

A look of great concentration came over his face and he stared at me intently. Just as I began to become uncomfortable, he relaxed his expression.

‘Well I can’t get into your mind anyway.’

With the things that were scrolling through my head right now, that was just as well.

Next he placed his hands together and slowly drew them apart. As his hands moved away from each other a ball of dark light appeared between his palms. It was black and cloudy, but seemed to glow and pulsate. He stood up and stepped backward a few steps, until there was a decent distance between us. I felt my heartbeat start to race. There was no way that this was either illusion or delusion. This was real. A feeling of dread filled me as I stared at Gethan. I didn’t know exactly what kind of damage that ball could do, but it looked really dangerous. All of a sudden he threw it in the air and pushed it towards me.

I put my hands up to protect my head. The feeling on impact was not like a really large water balloon exploding against me. The sensation rocked me backwards and nearly knocked me over. I staggered backwards at the impact, but I managed to keep my balance somehow.

‘Right’, I said. ‘I guess we can chalk that one up as a chink in my armour.’

Gethan laughed. ‘That should have sent you a few feet in the other direction. The fact that you managed to stay standing is pretty incredible. So it looks like the locket is charged with pretty strong magic.’

About five ravens landed in a nearby tree, and watching proceedings with what looked like a quizzical expressions in their jet black eyes. Their plumage was such a shiny black that they almost looked wet.

‘You watch him’, I said to them. ‘And make sure that he doesn’t hurt me.’

Gethan tried a number of different coloured balls which he told me were designed to do all manner of things, from binding my (nonexistent) powers, to preventing my muscles from moving, to taking away certain senses. All of these I could withstand fairly easily. Then he tried some more which he told me were meant to hurt me. Again I remained untouched.

Then he fixed another intense look on me. I felt a tingling in my head, not unlike the onset of a bad headache.

I told Gethan this.

‘Is that all?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean
is that all
? It hurts!’

‘I was trying glamour, though. It’s used for manipulating people. You didn’t feel attracted to me, ready to do anything that I asked?’

‘No more than usual,’ I said, to confused to be anything else but honest.

He laughed. ‘Seriously, though.’

‘I am being serious.’

Gethan walked over to me and gently stroked his fingers down the side of my face. He studied my face as if he was trying to commit it to memory, and before I knew what was happening his lips were on mine. My entire body was alive with sensation, all I was aware of was me, Gethan and the feel of his lips on mine. And it was delicious…

…until he pulled away.

‘Did I do something wrong?’ I asked, embarrassment coursing through my veins.

‘It hurts’, he muttered, leaning against a tree for support. Now that I looked at him, I could see he was panting, in a way which I knew had nothing to do with the clinch we’d just been in.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Your heartbeat must have increased and your locket thought that you were in danger.’

It looked like the locket was a tad overprotective. Great, I’d wanted to kiss him since I met him, and now that I had I hurt him. Fantastic.

At that moment my mobile rang. I slipped it out of my pocket. The caller display said home. I pressed the answer call button.

‘Hello.’

‘Hey Scarlett, how are you?’ It was Sam, but how was he calling from my house number? I didn’t have long to wait for an answer.

‘I thought that I’d fly in and surprise you!’ he said. ‘Come on, you didn’t think I’d leave you alone for your birthday, did you?’

‘Your Mum was surprised to see me arrive,’ Sam continued.

I bet she was.

‘How long are you staying?’ I asked. I turned away from Gethan. This couldn’t be happening.

‘Until Saturday! We get our midterm the week after you do here, so I thought who better to spend it with then the girl I love? And I wanted to be here for your birthday too.’

Guilt coursed through me. Here was my boyfriend having come over to surprise me on his week off from school, and paying for his air fare from the meagre wages that he got working part-time in his parents’ newsagent. He was doing all this for me, while I was getting involved with another guy.

I pushed that all out of my head as I struggled to make my voice sound normal.

‘Where are you now, anyway?’ he asked.

‘I’m on my way home, I’ll be there in around half an hour, is that ok?’

‘Perfect, I can’t wait to see you.’

‘I can’t wait to see you either’, I said, feeling like the biggest hypocrite ever. ‘Bye.’ I hung up the phone.

Gethan turned back to face me, his expression unreadable. He’d been standing so close to me that he’d heard both sides of the conversation.

‘I suppose you want me to give you a lift home’, he said flatly.

‘If you wouldn’t mind. There isn’t a bus from here that runs to Chesterfield or...’ I trailed off. He’d turned his back on me and was walking to the car. I hurried after him, my legs struggling to keep up with his much longer ones.

The drive home was uncomfortable. I tried to start up conversation a couple of times, but Gethan just ignored me. When we finally got to Chesterfield he turned to me with an unreadable expression on his face.

‘Well at least we know now that you’re protected from dark elf magic. Go talk to Aradia. She’ll teach you how to strengthen your shield so you won’t even feel the little effects you felt earlier.’

‘Gethan I...’

‘Just go Scarlett.’ His eyes flashed with anger. ‘Your boyfriend is waiting.’

‘But can I call you?’ I asked. I needed to make this right, but I wasn’t sure how that was possible.

His eyes were hard and unflinching. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. Aradia can help you from here. Oh, and here’s your birthday present.’ He reached across and pulled a brightly wrapped package from the glove compartment.

‘Thanks,’ I said awkwardly. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

Gethan gave me a tight smile. ‘You’re right, I shouldn’t have. Bye Scarlett.’

I got out of the car and walked over to the house. I tried to push the despair I felt to one side as I watched him drive away. But he knew I had a boyfriend, I told myself. It wasn’t like I hid it from him or anything. Some part of me just wasn’t buying it though.

I tried to calm my emotions as I put my key in the lock, tried to will a smile on my face so I could show the right level of excitement when I saw Sam.

‘Hey!’ he walked into the hall when he heard me come in and wrapped his arms around me. I hugged him and tried to put the whole mess with Gethan out of my mind.

‘It’s great to see you’, I smiled at him. ‘Thanks for coming all this way.’

‘Ah, it’s only an hour and a half flight.’

Mum came into the hall behind him, with her arms crossed firmly across her chest. ‘I came home from work, and there he was sitting on the front step. I was so surprised.’ Mum’s words sounded innocuous enough to the average person, but I could hear the note of steel that lay behind them. Sam’s habit of popping over unannounced and generally treating our home like it was his own had really annoyed Mum when we lived in Ireland. I could tell she wasn’t overly pleased about having him as a house guest for the week.

‘I’m as surprised as you are,’ I said, lest Mum thought that I’d had any part in this at all. ‘Come on Sam, let’s go into the living room.’

Despite what had happened less than an hour ago, I was really happy to see Sam. With all the turmoil going on, trying to navigate the rivalries within Avalonian society, and now with the possibility of some supernatural danger about to befall me, it was nice to be with someone who had known me beforehand, someone from a simpler time. Mum may not be his biggest fan, but at least he wasn’t dangerous, and I could tell both sets of friends about him. I could tell everyone. Well, everyone except Gethan. I pushed that thought to the back of my head. I couldn’t think about that right now.

We caught up on what was happening with my friends were back home, and for a while I was transported back to Ireland. I was so involved with our conversation, and talking about people we knew that for a while I almost forgot that I was in Avalonia.

As the conversation moved on to my life here, I wasn’t sure how much to tell him. Hesitantly I discussed my different groups of friends and the antagonism between the two factions. I told him about Aradia and Gethan, and how I had to hide seeing them from Mum, Rupert and everyone in school. I could tell he was shocked at the way life was here.

‘Is it that bad?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty bad. In some ways it’s a great country, there are a lot of really good things about it, but there’s also a lot of distrust and hatred under the surface. The thing is, I like Rationalists
and
Pagans,’ I explained. ‘I don’t see why I’ve got to pick sides. But apparently, that’s the way it works here. You can be accepted into one community or the other, but not both.’

‘So will I get to meet any of your Pagan friends while I’m here?’ asked Sam.

‘Yeah, I hope so. But wait,’ I said suddenly. ‘I got my midterm last week, I’m back in school now. What are you going to do all day?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sam easily. ‘I might wander around Ravensborough: it has a cool music museum that I want to see. Plus there are a couple of things I saw on the internet that seem interesting. I’ll look them up on the internet later on.’

‘No need, I have a Ravensborough guidebook upstairs. Lindsay gave it to me when I left.’

‘Cool, that works for me. So what are you doing for your birthday on Friday?’ asked Sam.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I really can do. Like I said, I have two groups of close friends who I can’t mix together. So it’s awkward.’

‘Maybe we could do something together?’ he asked, giving his trademark heart-breaking smile.

‘Yeah’, I said smiling as I tried to ignore the sense of guilt I felt. ‘That’d be really nice.’

Sam laughed at me the next morning when he saw the awful colour of my uniform. ‘It’s like they designed it especially to clash with your hair,’ he said with a broad grin.

‘Thanks a lot,’ I said, throwing a bread roll at him, but I couldn’t help smiling back at him.

We both walked to school together, me pointing out landmarks along the way. When we reached the school I saw my friends clustered in the corner of the yard. I waved to them and beckoned them over.

‘Sam, these are my friends. Will, Cat, Mei and Ben’, I pointed them out in turn. ‘Guys, this is Sam.’

‘Hi’, Cat gushed as she put her hand out to shake Sam’s. ‘We saw your picture, but it didn’t do you justice. You are so much cuter in real life.’

Mei caught my eye and shook her head.

Ben also stretched out a hand to shake Sam’s. ‘Nice to meet you, Scarlett never mentioned you were here.’

‘That’s because Scarlett didn’t know.’ Sam wound an arm around my waist and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I flew in yesterday afternoon and surprised her.’ He grinned at my friends.

‘That is
soooo
romantic! Like something out of a film or something!’ Cat batted her eyelashes furiously trying to look alluring. It didn’t bother me that she was hitting on my boyfriend. I’d realised long ago that Cat just had to be the centre of attention at all times. It wasn’t anything personal.

‘So are you going to be here for Scarlett’s birthday?’ asked Mei.

‘Yep’, Sam grinned back. ‘That was the whole idea.’

‘Well then you’ve got to have a party!’ Cat announced, her face lighting up. ‘Seriously, Rupert’s house is made for a party.’

‘Right’, drawled Will sarcastically. ‘Lots of valuable – not to mention breakable – antiques on every surface? Yeah, sounds like party central to me.’

‘But the high ceilings, the large rooms and the huge back garden? Am I the only one here who thinks that it would be an absolute crime not to have a party there?’

‘I think you are, yes’ said Ben.

‘I think a party sounds like a great idea’, Sam said pulling me towards him. ‘What do you think, Scarlett?’

For some reason, the idea just did not appeal to me right now. There was too much going on and I really wasn’t in a party mood. But I wasn’t in the mood for an arguing about it either.

‘I think I’ll have to ask Mum and Rupert,’ I said, stalling for time. Just then the bell went.

‘That’s the start of school. Have fun at the museum,’ I urged giving Sam a kiss on the lips, trying to block out memories of the kiss by the lake yesterday. Though I was still wearing the locket, it didn’t cause me any problems when I was kissing Sam. It obviously didn’t see him as a threat to my safety.

‘I’ll see you when you finish school,’ said Sam. ‘What time is it that you finish again?’

‘Four o’clock.’

‘Cool. I’ll see you then. Nice meeting you all!’ he raised a hand towards my friends as he walked backwards away from us. Then, blowing me a small kiss, he turned and walked towards the bus stop.

‘He seems nice’, Mei said to me, tucking her arm through mine as we walked towards our first class.

‘He does actually’, said Ben teasingly. ‘Way too nice for you, Edwards.’

I gave a long sigh as we walked into the school. ‘You have no idea how right you are.’