Page 2 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

‘I remember my own student days here. Back when Hazelhurst was a working castle.’ Another smile to show she’s joking.

‘We didn’t have Anarchy or any of that malarkey back then.

But what we did have was fun. So, I bid you all a good time tonight.

A principled good time. Right, you can come and collect your shirts. ’

Like a swarm, we descend on the stage. Margot slips into the crowd, easily disappearing. We make a beeline for the table holding t-shirts sized large. Squeezing through, I secure three of them, passing two back to the others.

‘Grab Nic one, will you?’ Haz calls.

Just the name causes a visceral reaction, all my senses standing on end, gut churning. I hoped she wouldn’t bother with tonight. I’ve not seen her in days. Now it’s spring, she spends her nights out in the forest, brooding in her tent. Suppose the weather will be too bad for that tonight.

I look over the tables. ‘Which size?’

‘Dunno, biggest maybe. Can cut it if she wants.’

Probably into a crop, the sleeves sloughed off. She does like her baggy cut-offs. A long length of torso, a dangerous hint of side boob. As hidden away as she keeps herself, she also enjoys being a tease. A dichotomy that pisses me off. Why can’t she just be one thing?

Free from the squash of bodies in the theatre, we inspect the shirts.

The backs of them used to depict the name of each club on the crawl; I remember from my Hazelhurst research days.

Now there’s only a huge QR code made up in blood red dye.

Don’t want the clubs getting wind of the festivities, I bet.

‘Phone out,’ Haz instructs, holding up her shirt.

I open my camera and aim it. It links me to an app, the icon just a black circle.

‘If this puts a virus on my phone, I swear…’

‘Wouldn’t worry about that. Worry about hackers.’

I wait for the thing to load. It’s not much as interfaces go. Just a black screen, some typewriter typeface.

The others crowd me as it continues typing.

‘This is creepy,’ Elly murmurs. ‘Like Anonymous-type crap.’

‘I think it’s ace,’ Haz counters.

I run my eyes over the minimal white text.

‘Says it’ll tell us where we need to go, when we need to go.

And something’s going to happen at each place.

Like a riddle to solve, or a challenge. Oh, I’m excited.

Look, here’s the first one: Ten glass skulls, scattered across the isle.

Better move quick, they’ll take you a while.

’ I lower my phone. ‘Glass skulls? Don’t get it. ’

‘I do.’ Haz grabs my phone, skimming the riddle herself. ‘Elly, remember last year when Nic was doing her weird initiation shit? She brought back that drink, that black stuff?’

‘Oh, shit, yeah. The bottle was a skull. Think that’s it?’

‘Yeah. Reckon they’ve buried ten bottles of it.’

Elly shakes her head. ‘Man, that stuff messed me up.’

‘Yeah, was rank. But fuck it, I want one.’ She taps the screen with a blunt nail. ‘Wanna take a clue each? Split up?’

‘Hang on. Let me read them again first.’

A couple are obvious. If you don’t win, you draw. Enter the castle’s giant maw, is clearly the drawbridge. People are hurrying past now, no doubt on the way to the treasure. Some clues are more obscure, taking us a while to decipher.

‘I’ll take this one.’ Haz taps the fourth clue. Where stone wolves leer and the rest of us fear. The beginning of all is buried here. ‘Gotta be the crypt, right?’

‘Better hurry,’ Elly says. ‘That one’s pretty easy.’

‘I’ll fight them,’ Haz calls back, already on her way.

‘God help them.’ Elly turns to me. ‘We splitting or staying together?’

‘Splitting,’ I say quietly, staring at the tenth clue. Up high, with the wailing wind. Look across where the rocks are twinned. The most ambiguous, but I know it. I bloody know it.

I also know who’s going to be up there with the wailing wind and twinned rocks. And she doesn’t like people knowing where her tent is.

‘Ouch.’ Elly puts her hand on her heart. ‘Don’t ever wanna hear that in any other context.’

I smile, kissing her hard on the lips. ‘And you never will. Race ya? You picked a clue?’

‘Picked, yes. Race, hell no. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’

‘Alright, little turtle. See you back at the lodge? Hopefully with pre-drinks!’

Nic

I can hear it. The wailing wind. It’s fierce up here today. I hadn’t needed the clue. Wouldn’t have bothered considering who texted it. Those twinned rocks are out there too. From my place perched on the cliff edge, they protrude from the sea like two devil horns, waves an angry froth around them.

Can’t believe the storm hasn’t broken yet. I want to light a cigarette to go with the drink in my hand. Too blustery for that. Cheap lighter from the student shop wouldn’t be up for it.

The glass skull is cold in my hand. I place it between my boots instead, tongue still burning from my latest glug. It’ll be black now, that’s what this shit does. Fuck knows what it’s doing to my insides.

I keep drinking anyway, because here’s something else I can hear today: the snap of my arm, my own short scream.

It’s louder today. The anniversary. There’s nowhere to contain it.

No grave, no resting place. He whorls around me, incessant and rageful.

Aunt Kathleen wouldn’t tell me where he was buried, if he even was.

I visited every cemetery I could the following years.

No sign. He was dust, blown away on the wind. Makes sense he’d blow his way to me.

My tent rattles behind me. Should probably take it down. At least until the storm passes. But that’ll mean holing up with her again. Not something I can do today, certainly not sober.

Hence the club crawl. Hence this black poison.

I hear twigs snap. Could be anyone. Dumb app, sending them here. Whole place feels violated. The wolves won’t bother here now and that pisses me off all the more.

But of course it’s not just anyone. I hear an uncertain breath. Don’t even have to be looking to know she’s looking at me. Like I’m some dangerous animal. Tucking those flying dark strands behind her ears, freezing in her cropped jacket.

I close my eyes against the beating in my heart.

Dangerous.

I could toss her in an instant, let the devil in the ocean take her. Maybe toss myself afterwards. I don’t feel steady, can’t have her here. But of course I don’t make her leave. I’m as stuck as these rocks, turned rigid from the cold wind.

There’s something different though. This vow I made days before. Seems kind of poetic to do it tonight, given the day. Is she ready to face her past? Because I sure am.

‘Heard them try to bury it last night,’ I say, still not turning around. ‘Ground’s just fucking rocks, so they left it in the end. Wasn’t hard to find this morning.’

‘You’ve been drinking that since this morning?’

I release a huff. ‘Wouldn’t be conscious if I had.’

‘That bad?’

I hold out the bottle without answering. The weight of it disappears. I still don’t look. Not until she starts hacking her guts up. She’s bent in half, back of one hand to her mouth as she coughs, the other still grasping the bottle. Careful not to spill any despite her distress.

I watch dispassionately until she calms. ‘Just can’t hack this place, can you?’

Tilda frowns, still gasping. ‘Thanks for your help there.’

‘What was I supposed to do? Heimlich manoeuvre?’

Setting her face into a glare, she straightens up, taking another sip.

Smaller this time, hesitant. I’m thrown back to Halloween.

We were just playing at first. She had giggled, I think, when I did that thing with the glow stick.

Then it all went wrong, and she was never the same with me.

She drinks me in small sips. She’s hesitant.

That stuff’s gone to my head. Tilda watches those twinned rocks and I’m thinking about my arms around her. Who was Heimlich anyway? The guy who invented it, or someone who was saved by it?

My arms would be tight. Crotch pressed against her ass. Hurting her to save her. Tilda had done some form of that in our other life. Hurting me to save herself.

She sniffs, wiping her watery eyes. ‘They’re gonna think you made me cry.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

No, that had been a decade ago. Tilda cried a lot back then; she was just that kind of kid.

Crying got her things, couldn’t blame her.

Wasn’t the same for me. Dad just wasn’t like that.

If I wanted something, I had to earn it, impress him.

All her crying pissed me off at first. All that girlish emotion.

But that last time, that last day, it had been my leaving that made her cry.

I cried too. I wasn’t a robot. Just a ten-year-old who had never really been treated as one.

The tears went on for a week, I was missing her so much.

Then I found Dad, hanged, and the tears stopped, evaporated with the anger that came instead.

The anger that’s been cultivated, perfected, over the years.

Like a poison garden. And here’s Tilda, come for her fill.

‘We got your shirt,’ she says.

‘I know. Haz said.’

‘Cool. Well, I’m gonna get back before it pisses it down.’ She catches my eyes. ‘You should too. It’s dangerous up here in the rain.’

I just smile until she drops her gaze.

‘I’m taking this too.’ She hefts the bottle. ‘As a thank you for the shirt.’ She gives me one last look just as it begins to rain. ‘See you later, then.’