Hollow Pike (31 page)

From the tangled bushes at the end of the garden, a figure watched the house intently. Pale fingers pulled leaves aside, seeking a better view of the building. Only one light
was on. Through the thin curtains over the French windows, the figure could see a young couple holding each other tenderly.
Enjoy it while it lasts
. Did they know what was coming? Did they
know how little time they had left?

The figure took one last look before melting into the infinite darkness of Pike Copse.

Head

Lis had almost fallen asleep in Danny’s arms – a rare moment of perfection. It was refreshing to know such moments were still possible
and
could happen to
her. She’d been starting to think they only occurred on TV. She would never say the ‘L Word’, but she was kind of thinking it.

Lis remained resolute, however. She
had
to leave Hollow Pike. There was no doubt about it now. There’d been someone on her terrace. She’d felt safe with Danny, but he
wasn’t going to be around forever. He couldn’t be her one-man security team.

She walked to school alone, feeling the solitude acutely.
Witches are not real. Witches are not real
, she told herself repeatedly, like it was her own personal mantra. Looking through the
trees, shrouded in morning mist, the idea of witches seemed almost plausible. The scenes from
The Crucible
wouldn’t be out of place in these woods – the girls dancing around
tongues of fire, dark spirits emerging through the smoke. Lis could almost hear the low chants.

Lis promptly filled her head with thoughts of Christmas in an attempt to distract herself. There was a glistening frost on the ground and misty lanterns of her breath hung in the air. If she
could get through the last few weeks of term she’d be free of this town. God only knew what she’d face back in Bangor, but Bronwyn and her bitches had to be better than the murky figure
who watched her, violated her room and sent her sinister threats.

The morning roads seemed quieter than normal. Why wasn’t there anyone around? Every time a leaf rustled, Lis’s head whipped to face it and she didn’t dare put her iPod on in
case it masked footsteps behind her. She couldn’t shake it – the feeling of eyes staring at her. It was as if the trees themselves were watching, waiting.

Feeling tightly wound, Lis finally arrived at Fulton High. Entering the main gates she noticed Nasima and Fi buzzing around Harry, their new queen bee. There must have been a coronation over
half term or something, because Harry had taken Laura’s place. Her hair was bigger, her skin more tanned. Without Laura around to knock her down, she even appeared to have grown taller,
although Lis figured that was purely psychological.

‘Y’all right, London?’ Harry sneered. ‘Nice shoes, where’d you get them? The market?’

Lis couldn’t be bothered with this today. ‘No, Harry, I stole them off a tramp, right after I shagged him. Satisfied?’

Harry had no comeback for that one and Lis felt suddenly smug. Kitty would have been proud of that. Don’t act bothered, but don’t ignore them either – stand your ground. Maybe
she was going back to Wales stronger after all.

Jack, Kitty and Delilah were already in G2. Lis slipped into her seat next to Jack, waiting for registration.

‘Hey, how come you weren’t on the bus?’ he asked.

‘Missed it again.’

Kitty obviously wasn’t going to apologise for her stroppiness yesterday, but she did act as if nothing had happened, which was fine with Lis.

‘Morning. What did you get up to last night?’ Kitty said.

‘Nothing,’ Lis fibbed. She wasn’t going to tell them about her conversation with Danny just yet – especially the fact that she’d given away their darkest secret.
‘What did you get up to?’

‘Just hung out at Jack’s,’ Kitty said absent-mindedly.

‘All of you?’ Lis didn’t want to seem like she was interrogating them, but she needed to know.

‘Yeah,’ Jack answered. ‘I sent you a text but you never replied.’

That was true, she did have an invitation from him. Their story checked out.

Mr Gray, who probably liked Lis a lot less after yesterday’s performance, bumbled into class sporting a large tea stain on his pinstriped shirt. He put a mug down on his desk and looked
around the class, his eyes falling on her. ‘Ah, Lis. Could Ms Dandehunt see you in her office please?’ Her face must have fallen all the way to the floor, because he added quickly,
‘Oh, I don’t think you’re in any trouble.’

‘Oh, OK.’ Still, she frowned at Jack, feeling anxious.

Delilah wagged a finger at her admonishingly. ‘Good luck, darling,’ she said and winked.

She’d never in her whole life been summoned to a head’s office. Wasn’t that fate usually reserved for terrorists and stuff? Even when things were really bad at GCC, Lis had
always dealt with her class teachers. Slipping out of G2, Lis made her way down G corridor. Halfway down the hallway, she stopped at Ms Dandehunt’s room and found the door standing open for
her.

‘Ah, Lis,’ called the head teacher. ‘Do come in and take a seat. You won’t mind if I finish my Ready Brek, will you?’

‘No,’ Lis replied, entering the office and ignoring the bizarre spectacle of a grown woman eating mush from a plastic bowl. It was a simple, square room with one wall of shelves
filled with an enviable collection of snow globes.

Enviable if you’re a mad woman who collects tacky ornaments, that is
, thought Lis.

Hanging from the walls were various photos of Ms Dandehunt with pupils of Fulton. Some of them looked
old, like Antiques Roadshow
old! How long had Ms Dandehunt worked in Hollow Pike?

Lis seated herself at the grand central desk as the head popped the last of the goo into her mouth.

‘Yummy!’ she declared, letting the spoon clatter into the bowl.

‘Mr Gray said you wanted to see me?’

‘Yes. You’re not in any trouble,’ she echoed Mr Gray’s sentiment, ‘but I have had a phone call from you sister.’

Ah, that explained it then. ‘OK, what did she say?’

Ms Dandehunt rested her chubby chin in her hands. ‘She said you were dead set on leaving Fulton High School. Is that right?’

‘Yes. I’m going back to live with my mum.’

‘I see. I imagine you’ve missed her terribly.’

‘Yeah. It’s been hard.’

‘And it hasn’t been easy for you here at Fulton, either, has it?’ Ms Dandehunt regarded Lis with owl eyes, full of knowledge. Lis remembered that Mr Gray had told her weeks ago
that the teachers were always listening – what did Ms Dandehunt know?

‘Sorry, I don’t know what you mean,’ Lis said carefully.

Ms Dandehunt smiled knowingly. ‘Well, first of all there was trouble with Laura Rigg, God rest her soul. I heard about her little internet rumour.’

‘Oh, that was nothing.’

‘Nonsense! It was a very cruel thing to do to a newcomer,’ Ms Dandehunt insisted. ‘And then you fall in with Miss Monroe, Miss Bloom and that quiet young man they hang around
with. Charming, clever pupils, but . . . not the easiest of friends, I’d hazard.’

‘They’re fine. Really.’ This was excruciating, worse than Mr Gray’s little chats.

‘Good. I hope so, because I’d hate to think that your decision had anything to do with problems at Fulton. That’s not the kind of establishment I want at all,’ Ms
Dandehunt said seriously.

First-period Maths was suddenly more tempting than it had even been before. ‘My friends are awesome, really.’

Ms Dandehunt walked over to her shelves and gave one of her snow globes a shake, making the glitter swirl and sparkle around the kitten inside. ‘We never spoke about the bird in your
locker, did we?’

‘The raven?’

‘Crow.’

‘What?’

‘Crow, dear. It was a crow. They’re different. Ravens are a
type
of crow, but not all crows are ravens. Do you see?’

Lis nodded, although wasn’t entirely sure she understood.

‘Strange business that, wasn’t it? You know, many hundreds of years ago, the crow had much greater significance than it does today. It was a very powerful symbol; an omen,
too.’

Lis’s palms felt sweaty all of a sudden. ‘OK . . .’

‘You know, many witches had birds as familiars. Do you know what a familiar is, Lis?’

Lis felt panic setting in. She couldn’t look Ms Dandehunt in the eye, so she focused on the cluttered desk before her instead. There were more snow globes, a photo of Ms Dandehunt with a
furry black cat, and about a hundred files overflowing with paperwork.

‘No, I—’ Lis broke off, her jaw locking in horror, because underneath some of the paperwork, only visible because she’d accidentally moved a file with her hand, was a
hardback notebook covered in apricot flowers and tied with a yellow ribbon.

Laura’s final diary.

Lock-in

‘You what, dear?’ Ms Dandehunt looked for her to finish the sentence.

Lis dragged her eyes away from the diary. It had to be Laura’s. She’d seen Laura with it that morning on the rugby pitch, and it was the
same one
. Why did Ms Dandehunt have
it? Why wouldn’t she have handed it over to the police? Why? Why?
Why haven’t I answered her question
? Lis thought frantically.

‘I was just going to say that Fulton High has been great,’ Lis gabbled, ‘but I didn’t realise how much I was going to miss Wales. I’m Welsh through and through at
heart, I guess.’ She knew she sounded like a crazy person, but she felt like she had to get out of the office in the next ten seconds or the scream building in her chest would burst from her
lips. Because the only reason Ms Dandehunt would be hiding that diary was if she had a secret to protect.

And that was when Lis saw it. On the second shelf from the top of the wall, almost hidden in the museum of snow globes, was an inconspicuous sprig of lavender bound with a black ribbon.

Lis almost fell off her chair. The old woman was a witch! As insane as it sounded, it suddenly made sense. After all the weeks of whispers, rumours and ghost stories, Lis found herself living in
a world that contained witches: a new, impossible reality.

‘Lis, are you all right, dear?’ Ms Dandehunt asked, fixing her in a hawk-like glare from behind her thick glasses.

‘Yeah. I, er, just saw the clock and thought I’d better get to class,’ Lis replied. ‘I don’t want to miss Maths.’

‘Good girl. What a dedicated student you are. If only they were all like you.’

Wasting no further time, Lis sprang out of the chair and made for the door, almost tripping over her own legs in her hurry. ‘Thanks, Ms Dandehunt. Bye.’

‘Take care, Lis,’ the headteacher called after her. It could have almost been a warning.

As soon as she left the office, Lis spotted Kitty’s purple hair bobbing towards the exit at the end of G corridor and, ploughing through the stream of pupils, she raced to catch up with
her. Knocking a group of Year Eight boys out of the way, Lis was relieved to see Jack and Dee alongside the taller girl.

Falling into step with them, Lis hauled Kitty to one side before she could enter her Maths lesson.

‘Christ, Lis, what are you trying to do? Pull my arm off?’

‘You can’t go to first period – any of you. We need to talk NOW.’

The library was almost empty, save for Daphne running a feather duster over the bookshelves. The four friends crammed themselves into their usual toasty corner by the pipes.

‘And you’re sure it was the same diary?’ Jack asked, tucking into a ham sandwich.

‘Dead sure. Same book,’ Lis told him.

Delilah looked at Kitty, doing that telepathic thing that couples do. ‘Oh my God. That means . . .’

‘. . . that she had something to do with Laura’s death!’ Kitty finished. ‘Otherwise, why wouldn’t she have handed it over to the police? She knew they were looking
for it; the police file said she’d been contacted about it!’

Lis spoke in a low whisper. ‘I’m going to say something completely mental now, but just listen for a minute. I think she’s a witch.’

Jack nearly choked on his lunch.

Delilah raised a delicate eyebrow. ‘Oh,
now
you believe in witches?’ she said.

‘I know, I know!’ Lis checked to make sure no one in the old library was listening. ‘She has a black cat
and
the same flowers that I found under my pillow. It’s
her.’

‘The super-grim way Laura
was
killed was more like a sacrifice than an attack,’ Kitty admitted thoughtfully.

‘And we live in Hollow Pike,’ added Delilah. ‘Maybe the witch trials didn’t get all the witches. Maybe they just drove them underground.’

Jack finished his sandwich. ‘Can you hear yourselves? Laura was killed by a psycho with a big knife. End of.’

‘But, Jack, look at the way Laura was killed . . .’ Delilah spoke with urgency now that the picture was taking shape.

‘OK, she was killed by a psycho with a knife who
thinks
she’s a witch,’ Jack amended. ‘And what’s more psycho than that? Literally nothing!’ Then he
looked thoughtful. ‘Ms Dandehunt is kind of crazy. I guess it could have been her . . .’

Lis had to admit, Jack had a point. She didn’t believe in magical flying witches, but she certainly believed in people losing the plot. At the end of the day, isn’t that why people
do terrible things – because of the dark beliefs they harbour? A chill ran up her spine. ‘We have to get that book from Ms Dandehunt’s office. If it’s evidence, we can give
it to the police, and . . . ding-dong the witch is dead.’