Page 58 of The Elements

“I can,” I said, pulling myself to my feet a little unsteadily. I wanted to run into the water and wash myself. I felt grubby and dirty, embarrassed by what had happened. My natural twelve-year-old curiosity had given way to immediate shame.

“No!” insisted Arthur. “He’s my brother. If I get to do it, then he does too.”

I glanced behind me. There were several tunnels leading from where we were, and I wasn’t sure which one would take me back to the beach and which would lead me further into an inescapable labyrinth.

“I’m going home,” I said, turning away, but Pascoe ran ahead, cutting me off.

“It’s my turn!” he shouted. “You said we could both do it!”

“I didn’t!” I cried, because I’d said no such thing. “I can’t, anyway. It hurt.”

“Freya,” said Arthur patiently. “Do you know what a tease is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s when a girl leads a boy on,” he explained, “but then won’t go all the way. It’s the worst thing any girl can do.”

“It’s even worse than murdering someone,” agreed Pascoe.

“But I don’t want to,” I repeated, starting to cry now, because, while I may have been complicit in what had taken place with Arthur, I knew that I didn’t want to do it again. With anyone. For a long time.

Seeing that I wasn’t going to change my mind, Arthur pushed me to the ground and pulled my arms back, pinning them down.

The moment violence took over, my brain seemed to disassociate itself from my body.

A part of me thought that one of them would take a rock and bash my brains in, killing me like Kitto Teague had supposedly killed their mother, if I didn’t give in.

And so I lay there, and he did what he wanted to do.

Every day over the next month, they would collect me after lunch and we would make our way to the caves together, rarely talking now, and the same thing would happen.

Looking back, I don’t understand why I allowed it to continue.

I didn’t enjoy it, but I was worried that they would abandon me.

I was twelve and desperately lonely. Thanks to Hannah’s insistence on my being her unpaid servant, I’d never been allowed to have a friend, let alone two of them.

Perhaps this, I told myself, is what good girls did for their friends.

Eventually, however, I decided that I’d had enough.

Beth didn’t notice my change of mood, but Eli did and asked me about it.

I wanted to confide in him but worried that if he knew the things I’d been doing, then he would want to do them with me too.

And he was so much bigger and stronger than the twins that the idea was too frightening for me even to contemplate.

When I told the boys that I wouldn’t go to the caves with them anymore, they said I had no choice, that the game only ended at the end of the holiday.

“No,” I insisted. “It’s not going to happen again.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?” asked Pascoe.

“Because,” I said, “if you make me do it again, I’ll tell.”

This unnerved them, and I felt I had regained some power.

After this, I didn’t see them for three days and, despite myself, felt even lonelier than ever, wondering whether I had made a mistake.

When they finally called at the cottage again late one night, Beth was out as usual and I was already preparing for bed.

“We’re sorry,” said Arthur, holding a bunch of flowers in his hands, and there was something about his forlorn expression that made me think that he really was.

“Really sorry,” added Pascoe.

“We still want to be friends.”

I looked from one boy to the other and felt a surge of gratitude toward them. They were company. And I longed for company. It only took me a moment to say that I forgave them.

“There’s something we want to show you,” said Pascoe, and I shook my head and said that whatever it was, it would have to wait until the next day. I was too tired.

“No, this is too good to miss,” said Arthur. “It’s only up by the swimming-pool pit.”

“What is it?” I asked, intrigued.

“You have to see it for yourself,” he told me, and, not wanting to fall out with them again, I agreed, putting on some warmer clothes and allowing them to lead the way.

The pit looked much the same as it always did.

The lorry had come a few days earlier, so it was once again half full of paint cans, ripped cardboard, and enormous empty boxes.

Arthur and Pascoe were standing by what looked to be a wooden chest, and from the words on the side I could tell that it must have held some of the latest furniture to arrive.

“Come down,” they insisted, and when Arthur held out a hand for me, I took it and joined them.

They opened the lid of the chest, and we all looked inside.

It was empty. Arthur climbed in, and he didn’t have to squeeze up too much to fit; it was the perfect size for a boy his age.

I stared down, wondering why he was bothering.

When he clambered out again, Pascoe took a turn and lay down too, his arms crossed across his chest, as if he was lying in a coffin.

He closed his eyes, waited a few moments, then slowly sat up, speaking like Dracula.

“ I want to drink your blood. ”

I rolled my eyes. It seemed strange to me that they’d dragged me all the way here just to look at an empty box.

“Your turn,” said Arthur, turning to me when his brother got out, and I shook my head.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“You scared?”

I wasn’t. I just couldn’t see the point of climbing into a box only to climb out again.

“She’s scared,” said Arthur, turning to his brother, who nodded.

“It’s because she’s a girl,” agreed Pascoe, and I sighed and said fine, I’d do it.

I climbed inside and lay down on my back, just as Pascoe had done, and looked up at them.

In the sky was a full moon, and it caught my eye as I stared at the gray shapes dotted across it, which I decided were continents, and on one of those continents were countries, and in one of those countries was a city, and in that city were houses, and my father lived in one of those houses and he wasn’t a wrong ’un at all, but was kind and lonely and missed me.

“Happy?” I asked, but instead of answering, they pulled the lid of the box over, shutting it tight.

Immediately, everything went black. Shocked, I didn’t even have the strength of mind to push it back up, and a hammering began from outside.

To my horror, I realized that they were nailing it closed.

After a moment, I found my voice and started banging at the makeshift ceiling, calling their names, begging to be set free.

“You need to think about your behavior,” said Arthur casually, and then I heard the sound of earth from the pit being thrown on top of my coffin.

“Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to breathe.

We’ve left a hole free above you and we’ll send a tube down.

But you’ll be in there for a while, so you might as well get used to it. ”

I screamed and continued to push at the roof as more soil landed and, even though I knew the chest was already at the base of the pit, I imagined the scene from outside, the entire quarry being filled with soil and me disappearing forever beneath it.

I banged and banged, growing more terrified than I had ever been in my life before.

This was it, I told myself. This was how I was going to die.

Buried alive.