One of Us (22 page)

I catch up with him. “Greg,” I say. “I still have your jacket.”

He looks up. “Oh.” His eyes slide away.

“I'll try and remember to bring it to dinner.”

“OK.”

Why won't you talk to me anymore?
But I don't say that. What I say is, “Greg?”

He looks up, but not at me. “What?”

“Don't worry about the Math.” I hold on to a silver birch branch to steady myself. “It was nice of you to help me. But that's enough.”

Now he does look at me. He opens his mouth and closes it again. Then he shrugs. “It's up to you.”

I jump down into the clearing. Jeremiah has observed the whole exchange while trying to look like he's taking a stone out of his shoe.

There's the rock, squatting in the clearing. It doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

“Is this your famous Trembling Rock, Emanuel?” snorts Celestina.

“Yup. Look.” Emanuel puts his hands against the rock. Nothing happens. “Come on, guys,” he calls. “I don't think one person can move it on their own.”

So we all stand with our palms on the rock, which is warm from the sun.

“One, two, three, now!” calls Emanuel.

We push away. Slowly the rock begins to move. Back and forward it trembles, grinding on an invisible axle. Greg starts pushing it harder, rocking it faster and faster.

“Stop, stop!” shouts Serafina. “It'll roll right down the hill!”

“It can't,” says Emanuel. “It's been here for hundreds of years.”

As the rock trembles, it makes the faintest little rumble. It's rocking on its own momentum now.

When Emanuel starts to climb back up to the path, I turn to look at the rock once more. It's the size of a truck. I go back and touch the rough warm granite again. I can hear the others pushing their way through the bracken behind me, and a blackbird singing in the trees. I can almost hear the rock humming. Then a little crackling noise makes me jump.

Serafina is climbing back down the path. “Verity!” She comes up to me and stands with her back against the rock, hesitates. “I think I know what your secret is.”

My heart starts pounding. I have no idea what she's going to say.

“You like Greg, don't you?”

If I tell her she's made a mistake, she'll want to know what my real secret is. So I don't say anything, yet. I stare up at the fir trees.

“It's OK,” says Serafina. “Everyone always likes Greg.”

I look at her in surprise. I think of Greg—serious, frowning Greg—in his checked shirts, handing things out in the Meeting Hall. Knowing all the answers and getting top grades. Doing whatever Brer Magnus asks. But then I see him drawing in the Art room, charcoal shards flying off the paper. Sitting next to Emanuel in the common room, legs sprawled across the coffee table, laughing. Or wrapping his jacket around my
shoulders at Limbourne. Maybe that warm person is the Greg that everyone likes? Even now I'm not sure which one to believe in.

Serafina's still talking. “Don't worry. I won't tell him. Or anyone else.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Which is as good as admitting it. To change the subject, I ask her, “What about your boyfriend?”

She looks at me in surprise. “I told you. I had to end it.”

I watch her profile as she stares ahead. The breeze is lifting her curls. “Was he upset?”

“Yes.” She's trying not to cry.

“So why do it?” My voice sounds harsh. “You like him? He likes you? The only problem is he's the ‘wrong flavor'?”

She looks at me, shocked. “I thought you understood.”

I've been careless. “I'm sorry, Serafina, I do understand,” I say. “It's just that you seemed to really like him. But you did the right thing.” I nod firmly. What did she say before? “It was like oil and water. There was no future in it.”

“Serafina? Verity?” There's a flurry of moving branches as Jeremiah leaps down into the clearing. “Are you coming?”

Good work, K,
I tell myself.
It's almost impossible to offend Serafina, but you've managed to do it.

W
HEN WE GET
back, I see that Mr. East has dug a new flower bed outside the lodge. His spade and
trowel are lying on the dark soil but he's not there. I've never just left Raymond alone before, so I keep the leash on and turn to Serafina. “I need to find Mr. East. I'll see you later.”

The others go into the foyer and Raymond and I set off around the front of the building. As we walk under Brer Magnus's open window, I hear Greg's voice. I stop, and that's when I hear him say, “No, sir, I don't want to have anything more to do with Verity Nekton.”

The words cut into me. I run noiselessly on the grass, around the corner of the building and down the gentle slope toward the Sisters' house. I don't stop until I reach the rhododendron grove, and then I kneel down beside Raymond and bury my face in his warm fur. He gives my nose a quick lick.

“Raymond,” I murmur. “I don't know what I did to make him hate me.”

But then I think: it's not what I did; it's what I am. Maybe, somehow, Greg has found out that I'm not really Brotherhood. Maybe he's told Brer Magnus.

When I get back to the lodge Mr. East is kneeling by the freshly turned soil, planting seedlings. He stands up, wiping a sprinkling of earth away from his face, and gestures at the little green plants. “Sunflowers.”

I'm not going to hide away anymore, I decide, as I make my way to the Sisters' house. I wanted to help Oskar for good reasons, and in spite of everything I know now about the goodness of the Brotherhood too, those reasons are still true. All I have to do is give him the list, finish my exams, and see out the year.

It isn't me who's stonewalling Greg without even saying why. It isn't me telling Brer Magnus I want nothing more to do with him. But then I think: which one of us has the false name—false everything really—and is here as an impostor? And if Greg does know, or even suspects, that's enough reason to freeze me out.

It's not fully dark yet, and the air is scented with crumpled petals, swirling in the breeze like feathers in a pillow fight.
Not everything was false
, I console myself. I stand under the porch and fish in my bag for my key. Then I hear a scrape of gravel.

Greg is under the arch that leads to the library. “Verity,” he says, very quietly.

I step back onto the path.

“I'm sorry,” he says.

“Me too,” I say.

And then he goes, dissolving into the shadows of the arch. And now it feels much more final than it did before, because our “sorry” isn't really for what has happened between us. It's for things that are too big, things that have gone on for too long, things we can't change.

CHAPTER 24

T
HE VISITORS
'
BOOK
turns up before the next weekend meeting and although Brer Magnus must know it was taken from his office, there's been no further mention of it. I tape the list of names to the back of my bedside table so that I don't have to keep hiding it and can get it quickly if Ril turns up. But I don't hear from her.

Greg and I are polite to each other but that's all. If he does know who I really am, he's giving nothing away. The only time I can forget is when I go swimming in the pond near the rhododendrons. The rest of the time I am wound up in the tense fear of discovery. The days pass in eating, sleeping, and studying.

Then, on the day before term ends, Brer Magnus gives me a note from Ril.

Dear Verity,

I'll pick you up tomorrow after the garden party. Please have everything ready.

Ril

The summer vacation begins with a bang here. First there's a dance and then a garden party for families too. I know what Ril means by “everything”—the list of names. The cocoon of studying and living here bursts open and all the worries come crawling out again.

It's almost over, this life, and I still don't know whether I'll be coming back after the summer. I still don't know if there's a sleeper cell at the school either—the only reason I came here in the first place. It's the last dance tonight. I lay the deck-chair dress on my bed.

“Verity, you can have this, if you want.” Celestina holds up an emerald-green silk dress. It's the one she was wearing the first time I met her. “Try it on.”

When I pull it over my head I can see that she's taken up the hem for me. In the mirror, wearing
this, my eyes look almost as green as Celestina's. She's watching to see if I like it. If I'm not careful my eyes will fill with tears. They do anyway and I smile at Celestina in the glass.

Serafina looks up. “Oh, Verity,” she says. “You look lovely!”

Celestina nods. “Not bad.” She picks up her brushes. “I'll do your hair if you like.”

“OK,” I say. I reckon I'll have to let her, as she's been so nice about the dress. Though in a way, I wouldn't have minded wearing my old friend, the deck-chair. For old times' sake.

Celestina sweeps a comb through my hair, which now hangs past my shoulder blades. It's a serious business to her, so we don't talk. And that's nice. I'd like to tell her I'll miss her, but I don't know how. Somehow I think she knows anyway. Her fingers are quick and light in my hair. I haven't been to a hairdresser for years. No one else has touched my hair since I was a little girl. Then Celestina gets out her makeup bag and does my face as well, humming softly as she brushes and smudges.

Finally she's finished. “Do you want to have a look?” She swivels me around to face the mirror, and just for a moment it's as though I'm looking at Greg's drawing of me. Celestina smiles behind me in the mirror.

T
HE GLASS DOORS
of the canteen are open and the party has spilled out to the lawn. It's nearly dark
already and the light from the room pools on to the grass outside. Brotherhood parties start late and go on all night: every now and then some random detail like this from Oskar's Manual pops into my head. They must think we citizens are very boring, with our formal civic ceremonies instead.

Inside, dancers swirl around the room, and a band plays wild fiddle music, with flutes and no singers. I don't know these dances, but everyone else knows when to turn and when to stand still. I can see Emanuel dancing, and Greg walking toward us. He's wearing a white shirt. He takes Celestina's hand. They look very comfortable with each other and I wonder again if they're together. Her hair swings around her shoulders as she laughs up at Greg. He whirls her around, and his face breaks into a smile.

I stand in the open doorway. The breeze swishes the silk dress against my legs, so that although my face feels hot, the rest of me is cool. I can see all my friends. I can call them that, on this last night. Celestina is still dancing with Greg. They turn between the two lines of dancers. Celestina laughs, her long black hair spinning out behind her. Greg has had a haircut. I know the shape of his head from drawing him so many times, and I know the feel of it from holding it to wipe the blood from his face. I feel tears welling in my eyes. I never used to cry before I came here. I must stop this.