eleven

MILLSTONES AND ROPE BURN

There’s a ping as another e-mail comes in. I stare at the sender, unable, for a moment, to believe what I’m seeing. Then I grab my mouse and click on it, hoping against hope  .  .  .

From: gymgirlalison@pipserve.co.uk

To: scarlettwakefield@wakefieldhall.edu

Subject:

Stop ringing me and Luce. We don’t want to talk to you. Plum and everyone are really picking on us cuz we were friends of yours which is COMPLETELY UNFAIR and it’s doing my head in. Don’t reply to this. Luce says the same but she is so cross with you she wouldn’t even write to you. Just pretend that we don’t exist, like that day you went off with Plum and sat on her stupid fountain. We’ll NEVER FORGIVE YOU.

I delete it so fast my fingers almost scorch the keys.

Sometimes I feel even guiltier about betraying Luce and Alison than I do about Dan’s death, because I don’t know how Dan died, or what I did to cause it. But Luce and Alison—I know for certain it was all my fault.

There’s no one I can talk to about this. And because I can’t talk about it, I feel as if I’ll never be free of it. Dan is dead, and his death will hang around my neck forever. There’s some expression like that, I think. Having a millstone round your neck, that’s it. And what I did to Luce and Alison—turning my back on them, walking away from our friendship—is a millstone, too. My guilt is weighing me down, pressing on me so it feels hard to breathe.

I have to get out of the house. It’s five-thirty. I was going to do some homework, but now my mood’s so bad that I can’t concentrate. I thunder down the stairs, taking them two at a time and raising a complaint from Aunt Gwen, who’s in her office marking essays. I barely register her, though, because I’m thinking about millstones. They’re big and round and they have a hole in the middle. I expect the idea came from that hole—you imagine having a big heavy stone slung over your head, hanging round your neck, so heavy that you could barely stand up under its weight, let alone walk or run. That’s what my depression is like, a weight so backbreaking that it’s a real struggle to act normally—worse, sometimes I don’t think I even know what acting normally is.

I killed someone. Someone I really liked. It’s not just that Dan is dead, it’s that my dreams of getting to know him, going out with him, maybe even falling in love with him, have been shattered. And I never kissed anyone before. It was the most amazing kiss, and it was over almost before it began. I’m scared I’ll never have that again, an incredible physical connection with a boy. I’ve lost something that I only had for the briefest moment, but was the best thing that had ever happened to me in my life.

Oh yes, and I betrayed my two best friends just so I could go to a stupid party where I was supposed to be the going-home present for Simon, who didn’t even know me.

No wonder there’s an enormous great whacking millstone round my neck.

Thankfully, it’s a nice autumn day outside. Golden leaves are falling slowly from the trees that line the drive, moving gently in the light breeze, like the snow in those paper weights that you shake up and watch settle again. The leaves almost seem to be in slow motion, a cloud of pale yellow, glinting in the sunlight, descending gradually, buoyed up by the wind currents, to settle on the glinting green grass. I put out my hand, seeing if I can catch a leaf for good luck, but nothing falls into my hand. What a surprise.

To my right are the official school grounds. I could go and wander round the lake, or get lost in the maze, or sit beneath the weeping willow trees and indulge my gloomy mood. But I don’t feel like doing anything that clichéd. I want to explore, I want an adventure. I want to distract myself from my thoughts and my memories. And as I look over toward the hedge that surrounds the rose garden, I see someone trimming it.

It’s that gardener guy. As I watch him clipping away at the top of the hedge, evening it out, he senses that I’m looking at him, and he raises his head. He’s too far away for me to really make out his features, but I think I can see white teeth flash in a smile, and he lifts one hand from the heavy secateurs to raise it in a wave to me.

No. No, no, no. My fault for looking at him, for getting his attention. Everything’s my fault at the moment. I can’t deal with a boy, can’t even talk to him. Look what happened the last time I did that! Immediately, I turn my back and walk away, crossing the drive, my trainers crunching on the gravel. In a moment, I’m in the thick stand of trees on the other side, hidden from his gaze.

Six feet in, there’s a high wooden fence. Beyond the fence are the real woods, the ones that separate Wakefield Hall from the public park beyond. There’s another, much higher fence, made of wrought iron, that runs between the woods and the park, making sure no intruders can come in. But this fence isn’t to keep out intruders, it’s to stop the girls from going into the woods. The school grounds, though large and sprawling, are patrolled by teachers strolling around, keeping an eye on what the girls are up to: but you can’t patrol woods. You could hide there for days if you wanted. Which is why the woods are off-limits, and why there’s this high wooden fence running around them, just in case some girls are naughty enough to disobey the extremely strict rule set in stone by my grandmother—sorry, Lady Wakefield. . . .

Still, if a girl is really determined, this fence isn’t exactly Fort Knox standards. I mean, it doesn’t have rolls of barbed wire round the top, or anything really daunting. I look around me, but there’s no one on the drive—no girls coming back from the village, eating Snickers bars and gossiping, no Aunt Gwen deciding to follow me out and see what I’m up to. I walk along the fence for a minute, sizing it up. Then I reach up to an overhanging tree branch and test it, seeing if it’ll take my weight. It doesn’t even bend.

I get a good grip on it, holding on tight, and I swing myself up, walking up the fence, bracing the soles of my feet to take some of my weight, till my feet reach the top of the fence. My knees bend, and I walk my hands up along the branch till I’m squatting on the top of the fence and I can see the other side. I push off and jump down. It’s an easy landing. One thing I’m used to is jumping. Ricky used to make us do squat jumps up and down onto solid foam blocks almost half our height for minutes on end, grabbing the back of our T-shirts to haul us up as we flagged, yelling in our ears to motivate us.

I miss Ricky, but I miss Luce and Alison more.

Ugh, that e-mail! The guilt is like something stabbing me right through one ear and coming out the other side. I push Luce and Alison out of my mind as best I can, because there’s nothing I can do about them, and look around me. The woods are very quiet; as soon as I landed behind the wall, it was as if a heavy silence settled here, as if the falling leaves are muffling any noise that might reach me.

It’s wonderful. Total peace. Why have I never come back here before? My brain races: I can spend most of my after-school time here if I want. As long as I show up for dinner at seven in the school dining room, no one will know or care where I am the rest of the time. Aunt Gwen will be glad to have me out of the house. If she even bothers to wonder about my whereabouts, she’ll probably just assume I’m in the library doing my homework. Not that she’ll give a damn anyway.

A bird is chirping overhead, and I can hear the whir of wings as another one joins it. This is so calm. Complete solitude: just me and the birds. I lean back against the tree, surveying the woods, the blue sky above, visible here and there through the thick cover of the branches, which are still heavy with leaves. I think about coming here every afternoon, isolating myself completely from the world outside, and the idea is so very tempting that it makes me wonder how healthy it would actually be. If you’re being pushed away by everyone, is it really best to let that happen? To hide behind a wall and let the leaves fall on your head?

And just as I’m debating this with myself, I see movement through the trees, and I hear what sounds like grunting. I jump: I thought I was completely alone here. There are squirrels scurrying through the branches, rustling the leaves, but the shape I can see is a lot bigger than a squirrel. And it’s in the tree, about halfway up.  .  .  . Wait, what kind of animal is that big? For a moment I’m really scared. Then I tell myself that this is England, and there are no large, dangerous animals in the trees. Pull yourself together, Scarlett. I mean, even a polecat or some kind of wild forest cat couldn’t be that big  .  .  . and a dog couldn’t climb like that.  .  .  .

Now my curiosity is kicking in. I creep closer, careful where I put my feet, so I don’t snap any branches and alert whoever, or whatever, to my presence. I pick my way gradually over the forest floor of mulch, broken twigs, and brown ferny debris fallen from the trees. The shape in the trees is moving, descending now, and then I hear a panting gasp and a thud as it lands. I freak and duck behind a tree. That was definitely a person. No animal makes noises like that. But who on earth could be out here in this no-man’s-land behind the fence, climbing trees?

I peer out from behind the tree and my jaw drops. I actually feel the muscles loosen. Lots of wild speculations were running through my mind, but this is way off any of them. It’s the last thing I would have expected to see.

It’s that girl Taylor, the big-shouldered, shaggy-haired one who does phenomenal leg lifts. And now I realize how Taylor got those big shoulders and that enviably muscular back. She’s halfway up a rope, which she has somehow slung around a high tree branch and fastened securely, securely enough for her to be able to put her entire body weight on it as she climbs up it.

Wow. I’ve climbed rope myself in gymnastics, but we always did that climb where you wrap the rope round one foot and stand on it with the other, pushing down with your feet, so you’re not taking your whole weight with your arms. Taylor isn’t doing that. She’s climbing like a man, hauling herself up with her arms alone. I can see the muscles in her arms and back straining and swelling with the effort. Her breath is coming in short quick spurts, and the sweat’s dampening the back of her tank top.

Bloody hell. This is a really hard-core workout. Taylor reaches the tree branch above, and with one hand, slaps it, as if she’s scoring. Then she grabs back for the rope with her free hand and starts descending the rope again, still only using her arms.

She’s coming down too fast, I think. I got rope burns doing that once, and I wince, watching her; that’s got to hurt a bit.

There’s that noise again as she lands, thudding down with a grunt that signals release from major physical effort. She looks at her palms ruefully. I was right; she’s given herself rope burn. And then she kneels down, picks up something, and swivels round, facing in my direction.

The rope burn can’t be that bad. Because what she’s holding is a big tree branch, gripping it tightly, double handed, as if she knows how to use it. She’s holding it like some sort of bat, and frankly the sight is pretty scary.

Especially because she’s starting to walk toward the tree I’m hiding behind.

“I know you’re there!” she yells menacingly, her American accent loud and clear. “I know you’re behind that tree! Come on, show yourself!”

Jesus. I duck back behind the tree. I could make a run for it, but then she’d chase me, and what if I tripped and fell and she whacked me with the branch? I peer out between some leaves. She’s nearly on me, and her face is set and angry.

Five seconds. Four. Three. I’ve left it too late to run, and that would be cowardly anyway. She’s almost at the tree. I jump out, hands in the air.

“It’s okay!” I scream. It’s humiliating to hear how panicky I sound. “It’s Scarlett! Don’t hit me!”