The Graces (4 page)

‘Sure,’ I muttered uneasily.

But inside, I felt myself start to unfurl with a secret kind of excitement. What if I really became River?

‘So, River,’ said Summer, and it came out of her naturally as if it had always been so. ‘As per our previously interrupted conversation, what are you doing at the weekend?’

‘Nothing much,’ I said. Everyone else would probably be going to the Wader, the late-open bar where all the surfers apparently hung out. It was all anybody could talk about in English on Friday afternoons. What they were wearing. Who they’d be seeing.

My extraordinary plans involved hitting up Luigi’s, the Italian chain restaurant next to the cinema, to see if they needed any weekend kitchen staff. The rest of the time I’d bury myself in films. Read some more of my witchcraft books. Write in my Book of Shadows.

Wonder what the Graces were doing.

‘We’re having a thing on the beach,’ said Summer vaguely. ‘Just a few of us. You should come.’

‘It’s April. Isn’t it, like, freezing right now?’

‘Oh, we always have a massive bonfire. It’ll be cool. We’ll have food. BYOB.’

I looked blank.

‘Bring your own booze,’ said Thalia helpfully. ‘We bring food. You bring drink. And a gift.’

‘A gift?’ I echoed, mystified. Was this some kind of strange local custom?

Thalia was coolly amused. ‘Well, it
is
considered polite when attending a birthday party to bring a gift. Or do you not do that where you come from?’

‘Whose birthday party is it?’

Summer rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not like a big thing.’

I rounded on her. ‘Yours? You never said anything!’

‘Really, because it’s just not a major deal.’

‘Not a major deal?’ drawled Lou, cutting in. ‘Are you serious? It’s basically the party of the year. Last time everyone got completely naked and did these chants—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Thalia. ‘I was there, nothing like that happened.’

‘It was after you fell asleep.’ Summer grinned wickedly at her.

I couldn’t tell if it was all a joke. Naked chanting?
I’d never be able to do that, no matter how drunk I got. But back then I didn’t know just how far I would go.

Thalia must have noticed my dismayed expression. She leaned closer to me as the rest of the table discussed the highlights of the year before.

‘What’s up?’ she said softly, underneath the cafeteria noise.

‘It’s just … I need to get her a gift.’

‘I have to get her something from Fenrin, on Saturday. He never sorts it out in time. You want to come with me?’

Fenrin’s name made my nerve endings sizzle.

‘If you don’t mind, that would be great,’ I said, without letting myself think about it. ‘Because I have
no
idea what to get.’

I still had a little bit of money stashed in the box under my bed – I could use some for a gift, though these days I often had to dip into it for food shopping when we were tight. We’d never exactly been a yacht-owning family, but with Dad gone, there was no second income to hide my mother’s love of slot machines. We had a silent pact I never remembered making – she wouldn’t remind me of the reasons why he wasn’t around any more, and I wouldn’t remind her that gambling wasn’t the best way to try to solve our money issues.

Thalia’s voice was casually sly. ‘Fenrin’s not coming with us, though,’ she said. ‘He always surfs all day Saturdays. It’ll just be you and me.’

‘O-o-okay,’ I drawled. My heartbeat skipped. His beautiful face flashed in my head.

Thalia peered at me, then glanced at Summer and laughed. ‘You were right. There’s nothing.’

Summer shrugged. ‘Told you. It’s a miracle.’

‘So she’s gay.’

I frowned. ‘She? I’m right here, you guys.’

‘Are you gay?’ Summer said, leaning back in her chair.

I suddenly noticed that Lou and Gemma were listening in.

‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

‘You don’t like Fenrin,’ said Thalia, her soft doe eyes narrowed in amusement.

‘I mean, I don’t know him. I’m sure he’s really nice.’

‘But you don’t lust after him. Hence, you must be gay.’

Lou laughed. Even Gemma was grinning at me. I wanted to strangle them both.

‘Um, okay.’ I held my hands up. ‘I’m not gay.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being gay,’ Summer said, her expression cold. ‘Are you, like,
ashamed
?’

The wolves were circling. Think fast.

‘No way,’ I replied firmly. ‘I read an article once that said there was no such thing as gay or straight, that sexuality was fluid. I mean, maybe if you’re totally straight, you’re kind of boring. No offence.’

Summer smirked at Thalia, who shook her head and said, ‘No
offence
, but girls don’t have what I need.’

‘The cock?’ said Summer, delighted.

‘Shut up. Gay, bi, straight, whatever she might be, River and I will be going shopping for your present on Saturday, so get your requests in now, ’cos you totally dropped the poor girl in it by not telling her it was your birthday in
three days.
’

‘Who’s River?’ asked Gemma.

They both ignored her.

Summer shrugged. ‘You know the kind of thing I like. Get me a band T-shirt.’

‘I will not,’ Thalia said. ‘The last one you bought had a picture of two skulls that sat right on your boobs. Esther pitched a fit, and I don’t really feel like making her mad at me.’

‘Whatever,’ Summer said airily, and started talking to Lou on her left.

‘So I was thinking of going around noon,’ Thalia said to me.

‘Cool. I can meet you there. You’re going to the Four Bells, right?’

The Four Bells was the shopping centre in the middle of town. It was a strange name to call a shopping centre, so I’d done a little research. Apparently, the council had named it after an old town myth, maybe thinking to root it into the community somehow, make it part of the local history. As if a man-made building full of gold-plated jewellery and plastic burger smells could be anything near as cool as that story.

Thalia scoffed. ‘That dive? No way. We’re going to the Mews.’

The Mews area was full of twisting alleys, away from the sea and close to the train station. I’d been told it was weirdo central.

‘Don’t look so worried. It’s okay around there,’ said Thalia, offhand. ‘Well, during the day, anyway. We won’t be hassled.’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not worried. So, we should meet at noon outside the train station?’

‘Yup.’

Inside, I was whirling.

I was going out with Thalia on Saturday.

She called me River.

They’d both called me River, as if it was my name.

Thalia threw a dangling scarf end back over one shoulder, picked up her fork and started to eat. But she didn’t just eat. She
shovelled
, forking it in like she’d die
if she didn’t consume every last scrap within a minute, jaw furiously working, cheeks puffed with food.

I think my mouth fell open.

Summer was watching me sympathetically.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Everyone gets the same look on their face the first time they see that dainty bitch eat.’

I had already begun trying to carefully piece together the exact construction of a Grace life. Maybe if I knew their formula, the combination of elements that made them what they were, I could understand them. Understanding something was one step closer to becoming it. So I noted it all down, all the little snatches of story and character they threw my way, and I asked them questions whenever I thought they might least mind.

I’d found the website early on.

As well as the no mobile phones rule, according to Summer they didn’t have internet at their house, so maybe they weren’t aware of its existence. It was buried as a link on some strange forum with only a couple of hundred members.

It was kind of a crap, basic site, the images
misaligned, with white text on a black background that hurt your eyes after a while. But what it lacked in design, it more than made up for in information.

A biography section gave a brief rundown of each Grace family member, including the parents, Esther and Gwydion. Esther’s shop, Nature’s Way, was listed there, with a couple of photos of the inside. Gwydion Grace went on business trips a lot. He was an adviser. The site wasn’t sure what he advised on, but his clients were important people. The parents were both lovely to look at. Fenrin looked a lot more like his mother than his father. There were uncles and aunts, grandparents, cousins. Everyone seemed to be a lawyer, or a CEO, or in government. An uncle was a record label head. An artist cousin sold his creations for ridiculous amounts of money. It seemed that whatever a Grace did, they’d make a success of it.

The website was adamant that they were witches. There was a rundown of every incident in town for the last nine years that people blamed on 1 August. This was in a submission section, so it wasn’t just one person speculating – a lot of people had posted their own stories in the comments.

The website said that their family had been in the area forever. That the Grace name was as old as the ancient standing stones that sat on the moors outside
town; they were a part of the landscape as much as any cliff edge or knotted tree. Officially, they were a wealthy, well-respected extended family, and a lot of them seemed to hold positions of power.

It made total sense. If you were a witch, you’d use magic to make sure you got ahead in life. It was human nature.

The site said there were four main types of Grace witch:

Water:
They were restless, creative, flighty and persuasive. Like water, they eroded people’s wills away. If you knew a water witch, chances were they’d be the one that everyone tended to agree with. They were deeply charming and could change people’s minds. Their symbol was Bilios, the world tree, which sat in a circle representing the universe.

Fire:
The protectors. They were strength. Confidence. Power. They could usually fight. They were natural leaders. Their symbol was a thick cross with tapered ends inside a circle.

Air:
The seers. They told the future and could see the truth of the present. They were the ones most used as consultants by powerful people, and that was how they made their living and their money. The site speculated that Gwydion was an air witch. They were very susceptible to mental attack and tended to be
extremely sensitive individuals. Their symbol was a three-pronged rod inside a circle.

Earth:
They were the practical witches, well-versed in herb lore. They took care of the everyday necessities of the witch, such as health products and medicines, home protection, magicked food. They got none of the glory, but they were the most essential of all witches; often the head of the family. They were grounded, patient, loving and forthright. Their symbol was a five-pointed star, representing the five senses, usually with a gem studded in the middle to symbolise themselves, at the calm centre of all things.

I spent some time trying to work out which one each Grace was. Summer I had down as air. She had a thing for birds and enjoyed telling the truth. Fenrin was fire, maybe, a natural leader. But then again he surfed and loved the sea and was the most charming creature I’d ever met. So maybe more water. Thalia was earth, through and through. She looked like a dryad, something born of trees and sunlight. I let myself think about which one I would be if I were a witch, but none of them seemed to fit me exactly right.

There was no clue as to the website’s creator. It had to be someone in town, but I couldn’t even begin to guess who it was. Was it secretly one of the Graces who had set it up? How else would anyone know any
of this stuff? I read everything on there obsessively, but I wondered if the website writer was some kind of crackpot and everything I read was a lie.

I couldn’t deny the tingle inside me, though: an insistent rush that said ‘what if?’

Just because it sounded unbelievable didn’t mean it couldn’t also be true.

Thalia was already waiting for me outside the train station.

I was only two minutes late, but it was kind of ridiculous I was late at all considering what time I’d got up. It had taken me longer than I’d thought to settle on an outfit to wear – something that said everything I wanted to say so that I didn’t have to say it.

Her expression was one of vague impatience, like she was already regretting the whole thing. Her hair was loose, sticking on her shoulders in shining folds, and round her hips she wore a thin belt chain with little burnished flat disc charms hanging off it, making her tinkle faintly when she moved.

‘I thought we could start in Summer’s favourite shop,’ she said, as soon as I was close enough to hear her.

I cocked my head, nervous. ‘Um, hi? Yeah, that sounds good.’

She led the way and I skittered alongside her. We cut through the back of the station, down a rough set of steps with an iron handrail that looked as if it had been battered straight into the rock. The steps ended in a cobbled alley, the stones all mismatched sizes, tripping the careless. There was nothing down here but the back of some poky shop, its doorway crammed with split rubbish bags.

Thalia’s stride was confident. I tried to match it. Something caught the edge of my gaze, and I looked up at the wall we passed.

There was a carving of a face sticking out of the slabby rock.

‘What is that?’ I said, stopping in my surprise.

‘Hoffy Man,’ said Thalia.

‘What?’

‘The Hoffy Man,’ she repeated, coming to stand beside me. ‘You don’t know about that? Oh, you’re new here, aren’t you? I forgot. The Hoffy Man. He’s just a local nature god.’

I stared at the carving. The face was soft and round with big, pursed lips and hollow eyes, its forehead crowned with hair that looked more like bunches of leaves. Was it a real being I could talk to? Did it appear to people if they said the right incantations, or if they knew its real name? What did it think about humans?
What did it know?

‘What’s it doing here?’ I said. The face stared across the alleyway, seeing nothing.

‘The Mews is the oldest bit of town. Normality doesn’t intrude so much around here. The old stuff hangs around, you know?’

She tugged gently on my elbow. ‘We should go,’ she said.

I dropped my gaze quickly. I didn’t want to alert them so soon to my obsession with things like this. The friends they had were attracted to the implication of magic that hung over them like mist as much as the glamour they talked and breathed. I was different. I wanted to see beyond the glamour to the real them.

Thalia moved us out of the alley and into a more normal high street, though it was cramped and dirty in comparison to the main part of town. This was the kind of place that never got any council-funded Christmas lights.

She didn’t say much as we walked. I’d expected her to be more like Summer, who seemed to talk until you gave her what she wanted from you. Thalia didn’t seem to want anything.

We came to a door. A painted wooden sign dangling from a bracket fixed into the wall read ‘Trove’. The little bell above the lintel tinkled
sweetly. Steps led down to another door, which was pulled shut.

‘It looks closed,’ I said.

‘It’s not.’ Thalia pushed the door open and I followed.

Inside we were greeted with a claustrophobic jumble of insanity. If you were tall, you’d bang your head on the odd musical instruments strung across the ceiling, and people of all heights had to navigate around the glass globes hanging almost all the way to the floor. Objects were piled on tables and stools, dark wood cabinets full of trinkets lined every wall and corner. Roiling, buzzing tribal music played faintly in the background. The air smelled musty and old.

‘We’re bound to find something in here,’ said Thalia over her shoulder.

She wandered past a tall, ancient-looking desk, and a man suddenly popped up from behind it.

‘Oh,’ he said, looking at Thalia. ‘You’re her sister.’

‘Hi, Mr Tulsent,’ said Thalia. ‘You mean Summer?’

The man pushed his glasses up his nose with a nervy movement. He was thin, all angles, an oversized cardigan hanging off his frame and greying wispy hair sticking out from his head.

‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Is she not with you?’

Thalia smiled. ‘Not today.’

We rounded a wall and stood together in a poky corner, hidden from view. Thalia picked up a huge glass marble with a strange, dusky splash caught in its core.

‘He’s so into Summer,’ said Thalia in a whisper. ‘And he’s pretty weird, like he doesn’t quite know how social rituals work. I’ve never once heard him say “hello”. It’s almost like he’s not from around here, but he’s not exactly foreign either, you know? Summer’s in here all the time, though, and she says she talks to him sometimes.’

‘Really? Why?’ I said, matching Thalia’s disdain.

She laughed. ‘No idea. You know Summer.’

I didn’t, actually. Superficially, maybe, but not enough to know what Thalia meant. That was another Grace thing, I was starting to notice – when you were in their crowd, they assumed you’d always been there and you knew everything they did. It was somehow isolating and comforting at the same time.

I wandered over to a cabinet and peered through the glass. It was packed full of jewellery – thick bracelets, rings, necklaces with twisting silver chunks, everything studded with polished, coloured stones as big as my fingernails. I wanted to touch them all, run my fingers over them, slip them over my skin. You could spend hours in this place, just peering at
everything Mr Tulsent had to offer.

We were in there a while, giggling over fertility idols and staring at instruments I couldn’t even guess how to play. Eventually, I saw a wooden bowl with one side raised into a carved bird, its wings hugging the rim.

‘This is pretty cool,’ I ventured.

It was too small for a serving dish and too pointless for anything else, but it looked mysterious and elegant.

Thalia took it from me and turned it over in her hands. ‘Nice. An incense burner. How come you picked that out?’

I shrugged. ‘Summer likes birds, right?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘She carries that orangey-brown bird everywhere with her,’ I said. ‘What is that?’

‘It’s amber,’ said Thalia shortly. ‘Come on. Let’s get the incense burner.’

She turned away before I had the chance to say a word and took the bowl to the till. It was twice as much money as I’d scraped together from my box that morning. Before I’d even protested, Thalia paid the other half without so much as a word. I didn’t know how to thank her, so I didn’t – I just promised to pay her back next week – and I had to watch her shrug and laugh and say I shouldn’t ever bother because she had too much money as it was. I’d often wondered what
it would be like to have too much money. I’d thought it was an affliction only professional athletes and celebrities suffered from, but apparently you could be rich in a quiet way, too.

After that, we went to a tiny music shop, and Thalia bought an album of some obscure band from the grinning guy behind the till, who clearly thought she was the most delicious thing he’d ever seen. I felt like smacking him. I felt protective. Everyone in this town was in love with a Grace.

I was hoping we’d have coffee together, sit with our gifts nestled on the table between us and sip foamy cappuccinos and talk and laugh and other people would look over and envy us. But Thalia said she had a lot to do, so only a couple of hours later, I found myself standing at the station again, watching her move away from me, sunshine on her hair. She told me to come down to the beach that evening at around six. I waited until she disappeared from sight and then went home, my mind already full of potential outfits.

By five o’clock I was ready, but there was no way I was turning up that early. The bus to the beach only took ten minutes from my place, so I sat in the living room and watched TV, trying to ignore the nervous curdling in my belly.

At quarter to six, my mum poked her head through
the door and glanced at my clothes. ‘Going out, are we?’

‘There’s this party down the beach—’

‘I’ll be back late,’ she interrupted, and disappeared again.

That was the most I tended to get out of her these days. She had always been the expressive one, equally quick with a joke or a shouting match. But now that Dad wasn’t around, she’d all but gone silent, like it was better she never said anything to me again. I missed that. I even missed the shouting.

I suddenly realised Summer’s gift and the bottle of vodka I’d taken from the cupboard were on display at my feet, but she hadn’t even looked at them.

I arrived about half-past six. The party was in a cove secluded from the main beach by a row of tall, slippery rocks. I slid and picked and wobbled my way down there, and I saw a surprisingly small crowd busily setting up. I stood awkwardly for a moment before spotting Thalia and making my way to her.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m not late, am I?’

Thalia looked at me in surprise. ‘No, you’re kind of early, actually. No one else is here yet.’

‘Oh, sure,’ I said casually. ‘I came early to help you guys set up.’

Thalia paused, like she was assessing me. The risk of seeming uncool was worth it if I got to hang out with the family before anyone else.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘There’s a big table over there. Dump your alcohol with the rest, and Summer’s gift can go on the pile next to it. I’ve got all this food to unwrap from the cooler. Come find me.’

She floated off.

I kept my head down as I moved, fixing my neck firmly in place so I didn’t look around for Fenrin. I put my gift and vodka bottle on the table and went to join Thalia in arranging the amazing array of food she’d brought.

‘Are those your parents?’ I said, even though I knew they were. A man and a woman were standing next to a half-built bonfire in the centre of the cove. The woman, Esther Grace, was throwing handfuls of something into the heart of it, and her lips were moving.

‘Yeah. Don’t worry. They’ll leave soon after people start arriving.’

I watched their mother stretch her slender arm out again, and I couldn’t help myself.

‘What’s she doing?’ I said, turning back to Thalia – and then freezing. Fenrin had suddenly appeared in front of us. He was helping himself to a thick hunk of walnut bread.

‘She’s “witching” it so that it burns all night for us,’ he said, making sarcastic air quotes, his mouth full.

‘Shut up, Fen. Don’t start. And don’t hog all the food already. Go away.’ Thalia flapped at him. ‘And please wait until after she’s gone to start drinking.’

Fenrin gave her a bulging grin, still chewing. Even with his mouth stuffed, he was flawless. Like all of them. He swallowed and shifted his gaze to me.

‘So we finally get to see you out of your natural habitat,’ he said.

‘You mean school? That’s not my natural habitat.’

‘Oh, I think it is. You love the library, all that brooding quiet and rustling paper. You hear the call of the books, like the far-off howling of wolves.’ His voice was teasing.

‘Books are knowledge. Knowledge is power,’ I said archly.

‘And power is your goal? Curiouser and curiouser, Alice.’

‘Power is everyone’s goal, isn’t it? It’s just not something most people are brave enough to admit to.’

‘I’ll admit to it.’ He spread his hands grandly. ‘I
love
power.’

I laughed. I liked watching him peacock. He did it knowingly, which helped him get away with it.

‘We’re the brave ones,’ he said, leaning towards me with a soft smile.

Flirting.

I was sure we were flirting.

I searched for a quippy reply, and then saw that Thalia had glazed over. I suddenly realised why – Fenrin flirted with every female he came across. It was probably as natural as breathing to him.

I was nothing special. Not yet.

‘Sure,’ I said. Then I turned back to Thalia. ‘There’s more food to sort, right?’ Her eyebrows rose.

‘Um … yeah. Salads. They just need to be emptied into those bowls.’

‘Cool.’ I busied myself at the food table. I wondered what they were thinking.

It got pretty busy after that.

Half the school was there, and I was sure most of them hadn’t been invited – they were tagalongs, attracted like moths to candlelight. Word about the party had got around. When I asked Summer about it, she just laughed and said she didn’t care who came as long as the most interesting people were there. I dared to think that just maybe she’d directed that at me.

Thalia had been right – Summer loved her gift and gave a very un-Summer squeal when she unwrapped it.

‘Where did you find this?’ she said, her eyes round.

‘Trove.’

‘Oh my god, I love that place. Oh my god, it’s perfect. Thank you.’

Her eyes sparkled. I felt a warm glow I’d been missing start to spread its wings inside my chest. I’d made her happy. It was worth owing money to Thalia to feel that, even though Thalia had waved away my promises to pay her back.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ I said. My face was a glowing beacon of pleasure, but for once I didn’t care about showing what I felt.

Summer carefully wrapped the bowl back up and put it with her other gifts. She leaned back on her hands as we sat together on a blanket, looking up at the swirling black sky. The bonfire roared steadily nearby.

‘So how come you’re into birds?’ I asked.

‘I like hawks the most,’ she said. ‘But anything that flies, really.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re free. They can go anywhere they like. No one controls them.’

She looked at me for a moment, and the moment stretched out, growing a little too long, and then longer, and I couldn’t look away.

‘Did you have fun with Thalia?’ she said, with a knowing little smile.

‘She’s great. Kind of scary at first, but it’s a front, right?’

Summer said nothing.

I backed up quickly, feeling the misstep. ‘I mean,’ I said. ‘Well, everyone has their reasons.’

‘We all hide our true selves,’ Summer agreed, and my heart gave an excited, frightened lurch.