Guardian of the Dead

KAREN HEALEY

GUARDIAN

OF THE

DEAD

First published in 2010

Copyright © Karen Healey, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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Cover and text design by Bruno Herfst
Cover photos: Getty Images
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Robyn,

who has supported this story from infancy,

and for my parents,

who have done the same for me.

Contents

Part One

Southern Lights

Suddenly Strange

Sitting Inside My Head

For What You Burn

Lament for the Numb

Love in the Air

Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!

Violent

All Ready Now

Together Alone

Part Two

Pink Frost

Body-Shaped Box

Not Given Lightly

Home, Land and Sea

Unity

Why Does Love Do This To Me?

The Day I Went Under

Won't Give In

Epilogue Maybe Tomorrow

Afterword

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the author

PART ONE

SOUTHERN LIGHTS

I
OPENED MY EYES
.

My legs were bound and my head ached. There was one dark moment of disorientation before the bad-dream fog abruptly lifted and I woke up all the way and rolled to smack the shrilling alarm. I was exactly where I was supposed to be: in my tiny room, lumpy pillow over my head and thick maroon duvet wrapped around my legs. I disentangled myself and kicked the duvet away. The muffled tinkling as it slithered off the foot of the bed reminded me that Kevin and I had stored the empty beer cans there.

Well, that explained the headache.

I could hear voices in the living room, where the other girls in our little dorm-cum-flat were gathering. I huddled farther under the pillow, willing myself ten minutes more sleep and hangover recovery time. The wisp of a thought was drifting somewhere in the bottom of my mind, refusing to rise to the level of consciousness. Something I'd forgotten.

A truly incredible snore resounded from the boy sleeping on the floor.

I rolled out of bed so fast that I lost my balance and fell right on top of him, my full weight thumping against his impressive chest. He wheezed, his dark eyes popping open.

‘Shut up!' I hissed, jamming my hands over his mouth. ‘It's morning!'

Kevin's eyes went from huge to enormous. The lounge was horribly silent. I tensed as someone knocked on the door.

‘Ellie? Are you okay?' Samia asked.

‘I'm fine! I just fell!'

‘Did you hurt yourself?' The doorknob rattled.

‘I'm naked!' I yelped. Samia wore headscarves and long sleeves in public, but she often walked through our girls-only flat in nothing but her underwear, and for a moment I entertained the horrible vision of her ignoring my fictional nudity and coming in anyway. She'd find a boy
and
alcohol in my room, she'd tell Mrs Chappell, I'd get expelled from boarding school, my parents would have to leave their once-in-a-lifetime dream trip around the world, and then, they would kill me.

On the other hand, being discovered lying on top of Kevin Waldgrave would definitely improve my reputation at Mansfield for the few days I'd have remaining. I might even become someone vaguely acknowledged by the other students.

Tricky.

The doorknob stopped moving. ‘Oh!' she said. ‘See you in Geography.'

‘See you!' I cried weakly, and let out a sigh of relief as the noise from the living room became a shuffle of departure.

‘Your breath smells like an alcoholic's arse,' Kevin remarked. I got to my feet, hauled him to his, and punched him on the shoulder, not nearly as hard as I could have. ‘You fell asleep!'

‘So did you.'

‘It's
my
bedroom. And you have to get out of it before someone sees.' I gave him a quick inspection, and made him zip his tracksuit up over the beer stain on his long-sleeved shirt. The light-brown carpet lint I picked from the side of his face was almost the same shade as his skin, so I was lucky to catch it. His dense black hair was also a mess, but that was normal. ‘Okay. If you can make it to the road, you can say you went for a jog before breakfast.'

‘You're a genius.' He grinned, then shot me an uncharacteristically shy look. ‘Um. And a real mate. I think I said some stuff?'

I couldn't face that conversation feeling this sick. ‘You have to go,' I said, hating myself a little for the way he stiffened. ‘We'll talk later, though?'

Dark eyes looked down into mine. At six foot four, Kevin was one of the few people I knew who was taller than me. He was gratifyingly wider too, though in his case it was mostly muscle. ‘Sure,' he said. ‘We can talk on the way to rehearsal. Meet you at six?'

‘Rehearsal for what?' I asked, and then that dream-foggy memory caught up with me. ‘Oh,
shit
.'

‘You promised,' Kevin said.

‘Because you got me drunk! I can't believe you!'

‘Ellie, you get permission to get away from this place for a while, and all you have to do is teach the cast how to pretend to smack each other without actually smacking each other.' He spread his hands, looking very reasonable.

I wasn't fooled. ‘I have a black belt in tae kwon do, not in . . . stagy fake fighting.'

‘You promised,' he insisted. ‘And we really, really need you. Iris is getting pretty desperate.'

Iris Tsang was a year older than us, stunningly pretty, permanently enthusiastic, and so nice it made my teeth itch. As far as I could tell, she'd also been in love with Kevin since kindergarten, completely undaunted by his lack of reciprocation. It was no wonder that she'd dragged him into her play when the original cast members had started deserting, even though all natural laws stated that first-year uni students should forget all about people still at their old high schools.

This was what happened when I drank. It all seemed great at the time, and then it resulted in bad dreams and being dragged into situations where I'd have to talk to perverted egomaniacs who liked to prance around in tights, led by a woman who made me want to crawl into a total-body paper bag after ten minutes in her perfect presence.

‘Fine,' I growled. ‘But I'm never drinking again. Get the hell out.'

‘You're a real mate,' he said again, and hugged me before he went out the window, which was fortunately large. The building backed onto Sheppard's celebrated gardens, and from there it was just a quick climb over the fence. I watched him jog cautiously between the trees, and then turned to the concerns of the morning.

Samia could walk around in her underwear because she was slender and had actual boobs and smooth coppery-brown skin that never got pimples.
I
, burdened by skin that was less ‘creamy' and more ‘skim milk', and not at all blemish-free, avoided the mirror and peeled off my pyjamas. I replaced them with my last clean long-sleeved blouse and the hideous maroon pleated skirt that stopped at mid-calf and made my legs look like tree stumps. My mustard-coloured blazer was lying crumpled over my desk chair, so I grabbed the jersey instead. The scratchy wool cut into my upper arms and stretched awkwardly over my belly, leaving a bulging strip of white cotton exposed between skirt waist and jersey hem. I'd always been big, but after half a year with no exercise, living on the dining hall's stodgy vegetarian option, I'd gone up two sizes to something that I was afraid approached outright fat, without even the consolation of finally developing a decent rack. I put on knee-high grey socks – the girls were supposed to wear pantyhose, but no one ever did, just as we never wore the maroon trousers in winter instead of the stupid skirt – and slipped my feet into scuffed black shoes without untying the laces.

There. A proud representative of Mansfield College, New Zealand's third-ranked coeducational high school, at her dubious best.

I hid the beer cans in the empty drawer under the bed and hit the communal bathroom to brush my teeth, throw freezing water on my face, and brush my hair back into a sleek ponytail. Then I hoisted my ragged backpack, pinched the bridge of my nose against the hangover headache, and stepped out into the morning mists.