Spellweaver (4 page)

Felicity allowed Jamie
to take the beaker from her and he dutifully began following the
experiment that the teacher had set out for them. He was explaining
what he was doing as he worked, but Felicity wasn't paying
attention.

Her body convulsed in
a shudder as she felt suddenly and horribly exposed in the
classroom. She shuffled on her stool and folded her arms,
tightening her body in an attempt to make herself smaller. She
could feel herself fading into her world of isolation again, as if
it were calling to her and promising that everything would be fine
if she could just disappear. This was what she wanted, how she felt
most content to exist, but there was something about it that felt
different this time. She felt suddenly uneasy.

But something was
telling her that her sudden feelings of discomfort were rooted far
more deeply than she realised. She tried to shake the feeling but
found it impossible. She felt visible, far too visible than she
cared to be, and for some reason it frightened her.

And then she realised
why. The new boy, Oliver, was staring at her. For a brief second
his eyes were boring into hers, piercing them. It was almost
painful.

But then he looked
away and the spell was broken; Felicity’s fear dissolved as quickly
as it had arisen, so quickly that it was hard to tell if she had
even felt it. A wave of heat rushed to her cheeks, but a quick
glance around the classroom revealed that no one was paying her any
attention.

Apart from Jamie.
“Fliss? Are you listening?”

“What?” Felicity
looked at him. “Oh, uh... yes, I’m listening.”

“Really?” He peered at
her exercise book. “Could have fooled me.”

“Huh?”

He gestured with his
pen. “You haven’t written anything down,” he observed. “You were
meant to be making notes, remember?”

Felicity looked down
vacantly at her blank page, and then her gaze shifted to Oliver. He
was still engaged in conversation with Hollie, although it was
entirely one sided. He didn’t seem to have spoken a word since she
moved next to him.

The rest of the
Science lesson passed uneventfully and quickly, for which Felicity
was grateful. As the class left, she was joined in the bustling
corridor by Hollie.

“He
likes me,” she said excitedly.

Felicity looked at
Hollie with a blank expression, signalling that she had no idea
what she was talking about.

“Oliver likes me. I can tell,” Hollie clarified, grinning
widely. “Oh, Fliss, you just
have
to come to the
Talk tonight. I’ve invited Oliver and, well, you know... I need
moral support.”

Felicity glanced over
at the group of girls who made up Hollie’s entourage. “But what
about...?”

“Oh, them?” Hollie
waved her hand dismissively. “I have a lot of friends, it’s true.
But this is important. Oliver might be the man I’m destined to
marry and have kids with and stuff. I simply have to have my best
friend there!”

Felicity’s mouth
dropped open in surprise before she had a chance to control it. She
was agog: did Hollie just refer to her as her best
friend?

“So you’ll come,
right?” She looked pleadingly at Felicity but received no answer,
for Felicity was still quite overcome by surprise. “Oh please say
you will!”

Felicity tried to think of an excuse but ended up opening
and closing her mouth and making strained, gagging noises that
couldn’t possibly have passed for vocabulary. Hollie took that as
an acceptance and emitted an excited, giggly scream, pulling
Felicity into a desperately grateful embrace. “Thank you, thank
you, thank you!’” she squealed, and then composed herself in order
to deliver essential information about the evening. “Tonight’s
colour is red. You have something red you could wear, right? Are
you on Skype? We could compare outfits! But if not then just text
me a picture message. Oh em gee, Fliss, we are gonna have, like,
the
best
time!”

Felicity’s shoulders
dropped as she realised she was defeated. Whilst Hollie continued
chatting about what she was going to wear, how she was going to do
her hair and what songs she hoped would be played, Felicity trudged
along behind her, already plotting her absence.

And then she realised
that Hollie was trying to get her attention. “Oh, Fliss! I forgot
to tell you!” she was saying.

“Hm?”

Hollie rooted through
her tiny bag and revealed a note. “I was meant to give you this,”
she said, handing over the piece of paper. “You have an appointment
with the school counsellor, like, now.”

Felicity read the
note. “Mr Oakley?”

“That’s him,” Hollie
replied. “He probably wants to make sure you’re settling in
okay.”

Felicity stared at
Hollie blankly.

Sensing the need for
an explanation, Hollie continued: “Mr Oakley’s one of those
guidance counsellors. You know, the kind that goes to lots of
different schools to get kids to talk about their problems. Last
year we had a Miss Franks; me and Jamie had to go see her all the
time about our parents’ divorce. Was, like, a total waste of time
if you ask me.” She shrugged. “Anyway, his office is down that
way.” She pointed. “Shall I meet you after?”

Felicity nodded
helplessly, watched Hollie bounce away down the corridor, and then
she turned and began to make her way to the counsellor’s office.
She was quite grateful to finally be on her own. It wasn’t that she
disliked Hollie; she had been incredibly nice to her, shrugging off
her other friends in order to make sure that Felicity was settled
in her new school. The excitement of having a new student at
Greenfields had worn off after the first day, partially due to the
arrival of Oliver, but Hollie still devoted a lot of time to
Felicity. It was clear that she was eager to be friends, and that
was what concerned Felicity. It was such an alien concept to her.
Being alone was what she was used to; at least she didn’t have to
worry about losing anyone, because she never had them in the first
place. Not really.

Mr Oakley’s office was
clearly labelled. Felicity hesitated as she raised her hand to
knock, her eyes hovering over the words engraved into the brass
sign like a warning: School Counsellor. It might as well have been
displayed in red flashing lights and accompanied by a siren.
Felicity had never met a counsellor before, but she was dreading
it. Counsellors meant talking about your feelings, and that was
nothing short of her worst nightmare.

The door opened before
her knuckles met the wood. She blinked, surprised, and found
herself staring into the face of a man who looked as caught off his
guard as she was.

He recovered himself
quicker than she did. “Ah,” he said with a smile. “You must be...”
He paused and glanced down at a clipboard he held in his hand.
“Felicity Lucas?”

She nodded
helplessly.

“Excellent,
excellent,” the man said. “Come in.” He turned and went back into
the office, Felicity following him dutifully and
reluctantly.

The room was quite
large for an office, smaller than a classroom but still rather
sizeable. There was a computer at one end, beneath the tall, dirty
window, and in the centre there stood a small coffee table with
four soft chairs around it, their fabric fraying and torn slightly
to reveal the dull orange foam beneath. Some unfortunate students
had clearly been picking at it, possibly in frustration at being
held prisoner by previous counsellors, as it was missing little
clumps here and there, like half-eaten cheese. All around the room,
from ceiling to floor, were shelves and shelves of books. It was
cosy, if it a little musty, and in spite of the light that managed
to enter the room through the age-old smears on the window, it was
quite dark.

“Have a seat,” Mr
Oakley said, and Felicity did so, watching the counsellor
nervously. He looked different to the rest of the secondary school
faculty. Some of the teachers seemed to take a lot of pride in
their appearance and suited themselves up with matching ties and
the shiniest shoes that Felicity had ever seen, as if they thought
it somehow enhanced their authority over Greenfields’ rebellious
students. Others were clued in to the fact that professional attire
was not a contributing factor to the education of the children in
this particular school and wore more casual, fashionable clothing.
The counsellor was like a bizarre mix of both. He wore formal
trousers and a shirt but no tie, and instead of a matching suit
jacket he wore one that was made of corduroy and had leather
patches at the elbows. A pair of thick, black rimmed spectacles sat
on the tip of his nose and on his feet he wore canvas shoes. It was
as if he was trying to be trendy, and though Felicity knew little
about fashion, she decided that he was failing. She was absolutely
certain that Hollie would think so.

“So,” he said, sitting
in one of the soft chairs opposite her. “How was your first day at
Greenfields?”

Felicity shrugged
awkwardly.

“I know it can be
hard, moving schools,” the counsellor continued. “New teachers, new
buildings, new neighbourhood... it can be a lot for one young
person to take, and that’s before we even get started on homework,
the pressure of your GCSEs, making new friends -”

Felicity stared.
Although Mr Oakley’s speech had sounded somewhat rehearsed, he had
spoken with a degree of excitement that unnerved her.

He stopped when he
noticed her stare. He regarded her curiously, and then he leaned
towards her. “But that’s not why you’re here, though, is it?” he
said. “You’re here because your mother died.”

The bluntness of his
statement caught her by surprise.

“It’s okay, I’ve dealt
with this a hundred times before,” he said with a dismissive wave
of his hand, noticing her surprised glance. “You’ve got a lot on
your plate right now. I understand that you used to live in the
country, and that your father wasn’t in the picture much
before?”

Felicity stared for a
few seconds, still taken aback by Mr Oakley’s frankness and stunned
that he seemed to know so much about her life, and then she shook
her head.

“So
your parents had already split up?” Mr Oakley asked, making a note
on his clipboard. “And your mother - oh, I’m sorry. I don’t seem to
have your mother’s name written down.” He looked at her
expectantly.

“It was Audrey,”
Felicity replied weakly. “Audrey Lucas.”

There were a few more
scratches of a pen on paper. “When was it that you lost
her?”

Felicity slipped her
finger between her collar and her neck, tugging at her shirt
uncomfortably. She was not entirely convinced that this was how a
counselling session was supposed to go. “It was in June,” she
answered him at last, and hoped that the interview would end sooner
rather than later.

“And, uh...” There was
a pause. “How did your mother die?”

Felicity swallowed.
Was it was getting hotter in the office? “It was a car
accident.”

Mr Oakley stared hard
at her for what seemed like an age, and she felt compelled to look
away. He made some more notes, slower this time, and then he leaned
back in his chair. “It’s a difficult time, I know. But there are
strategies that we can use to help you manage your grief. I expect
that you’re feeling sad to have lost your mother, angry at her for
leaving you and probably confused at how you’re able to cope.” He
spoke as if he knew her, but Felicity quickly realised that
although he may have had a few details of her life scribbled down
on that hateful pad of his, he didn’t actually know her at
all.

“The first thing I
want you to do is to write all of your feelings down,” he
continued. “Maybe keep a diary or something. It’s the first step to
being able to talk about it - and we’re going to be spending a lot
of time talking about, Felicity.”

It sounded like a
threat.

And then he stood up
and offered her his hand. “Well, that will be all for
today.”

The heavy atmosphere
instantly shattered, and Felicity could breathe again. She was
stunned, so stunned that she almost didn’t stand up, but her
desperation to get out of the office jerked her into action. She
shook the counsellor’s hand.

“I’ll
see you again soon,” he said with a smile.

Wasting no time,
Felicity picked up her satchel and shuffled hastily towards the
door.

“Oh, and
Felicity?”

She stopped
dead.

“Tell Oliver Smith to
come and see me, will you?”

Relief washed over
her. She nodded, left the room and waited for the musical click of
the door closing behind her, the signal that her ordeal was over.
When it sounded, she finally let out the breath she had been
holding and allowed her heart to beat again. She dabbed at her damp
forehead with her sleeve. Classrooms filled with people, lessons
where she might be expected to make a contribution and even the
constant presence of Hollie were all trivialities compared to that
experience. She leaned on the wall, took a moment to steady her
breathing, and headed to her next lesson.