Page 28 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

She stares at the book for a long time before finally closing it with a grudging thunk. The scissors slide away from my neck. I turn my face into the pillow, suddenly exhausted.

Sitting back, Nic looks me over like she’s realising our positions for the first time. Her gaze snags on my thighs, the new lines etched there.

She nods to them. ‘How do you do that shit?’

I take the question for what it is, a way to move on from what just happened. I graze my fingers over the rough marks, my sleep shorts ridden up to the tops of my thighs. I should feel ashamed talking about it, but it’s like talking to myself, the shadow self that resides within.

‘My nails mostly.’

She picks up my fingers, regarding them dispassionately. ‘So that’s why you keep them so fucking long.’ She drops my hand. ‘Not very lesbian of you.’

‘I’ve had no complaints.’

‘No? I heard Haz won’t even fuck you.’

‘Wow, you’re in a mean mood tonight. Why is that? Sulking because you’re stuck here for the weekend?’

‘It’s not ideal.’

‘Yeah. Not for me. Can you get off me, please? No offence, but you’re bloody bony.’

She swings her leg over me and gets off the bed. I sit up, dragging myself against the headboard and blowing out a steadying breath. Bloody hate crying. The grimoire’s lettering winks in the light. I pull it onto my lap to flick through.

The storm’s still raging outside. Mad to believe this will last all weekend. Does that mean no power for that long too? With my phone torch on, I’ll soon lose battery. Nic attempts to combat that by lighting a bunch of candles around the room.

They soften her face. She looks almost as exhausted as me now.

I turn back to the book, letting the familiarity of it wash over me.

My fascination with magic would have been cause for concern for any other parent that wasn’t my mother.

But it kept me occupied, out of her face.

Out of the streets, too, which could only be a good thing considering where we first lived.

‘Here.’

Nic holds out my glass, now filled with a different liquid.

‘What is it?’

‘Whiskey. Can’t be arsed to go back down for the Coke.’

‘Is it poisoned?’

Nic shakes the glass. ‘Drink it or don’t, Tilda, just take the damn thing.’

I relieve it from her, taking a tiny sip of the burning stuff. Never seen the appeal of neat spirits, not unless I’m too hammered to care.

‘This is the spell we should be doing.’ I tap the page. ‘A binding spell.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Nic climbs back on the bed, pulling herself up beside me. ‘I’d rather a hex.’

I clutch my glass tighter, willing my body not to fidget. One wrong move and I’m scared I’ll run her off, get myself kicked out her room. That she’s let me stay this long is a miracle.

‘We can do a hex.’

Nic lets out a quiet huff. ‘Do you even believe in that stuff anymore?’

‘No, but…here we are.’

‘Yeah. Here we are.’

We both flinch when something slams into the window.

‘Jesus.’ Nic jumps up and looks out the glass. ‘If a tree falls, we’re fucked.’

‘Then don’t stand too close.’ I gesture her back, feeling a thrill when she obeys.

We listen to the storm in silence for a while. It’s not quite companionable, in fact it’s bloody awkward, but I’m still taking it as progress.

The whiskey’s helping, undoubtedly the intention of it. I’m more slouched on the bed now. When we had our sleepovers, they were always in the little tipi her dad fashioned for us. A lot snugger than this huge bed.

I play with the gold ribbon, twirling it around my little finger and fashioning a knot.

Nic’s index finger taps her thigh where it rests, a sure indicator she’s not as relaxed as she seems. Taking the other end of the ribbon, I tie it around her own little finger.

She snaps her head down to look but doesn’t pull away.

In my head I think up a rhyme in an effort to fortify that final spell of ours.

‘Hey. Do you remember the storm the night we moved into the new house?’

I eye her profile as she considers whether or not she wants to answer.

She has a fairly sharp jawline, in line with the rest of her.

The candlelight blurs the faint freckles on her face.

I wouldn’t say she grew up pretty, but certainly striking.

Shifting too, in that cool, androgynous way.

She’s more on the feminine side tonight, but I don’t know if I’m just equating that with her vulnerability.

‘Yeah,’ she finally says. ‘I remember looking out the window with you, waving at that kid and his mum watching from across the way. I said we should make friends with him.’ She swings her head to me. ‘Do you remember what you said back?’

I shake my head, not remembering at all.

‘You said yeah, we could use him as a sacrifice in one of our rituals.’

‘I said that?’ I laugh softly. ‘My God, why was I not in therapy back then?’

‘God knows. You certainly needed it.’

‘And instead I got you. A willing initiate.’

Nic shakes her head. ‘So easily led back then.’

‘But not now?’

‘Now…I don’t even recognise myself.’

When I wake up, I’m alone in the bed. I lie there for a moment, but I know she’s not coming back. The sweet scent of smoke from carefully extinguished candles is evidence enough for that.

I play with the woollen blanket that’s over me, vaguely remembering her tucking me in. Or had that been a memory from yesteryear, one I’m trying to rewrite today with?

I pull it off me. Either way, so much for me not sleeping alone.

I stomp to the door but when I turn the handle, it’s locked.

‘Really?’

I try the light switch but the power’s still out. Wind howls behind the window, the shadows of her room more sinister now I’m alone. I thumb my phone to message Nic, only to see she’s already sent one.

Nic: Spare key in top bedside drawer.

Praying my phone torch will last, I yank open the drawer.

It feels weird rummaging through her stuff, especially when I spot a strap-on at the back, along with a pump bottle of lube.

She clearly doesn’t care if I see it, so I try not to either.

It’s not like I don’t have a couple of toys in my own.

Shit, between the four of us, this whole house is full of them.

I find the key inside a little origami box. The house is so dark, the corridors appearing endless. I hear nothing from downstairs. I’ve been asleep for ages; it’s the small hours of the morning now. That whiskey knocked me out.

In the lounge, all is quiet. Haz and Elly are conked out on the floor, the slitted gleam of Nic’s eyes telling me she’s still awake from her place on the sofa. She closes them without a word.

I kneel on the makeshift bed, putting a hand on Haz’s shoulder.

‘Tilda?’ she mumbles. ‘Where the fuck you been, man?’

I kiss her shoulder. ‘Here now, cutie-pie. Budge up.’

I snuggle down between them, sighing when her arm comes around me. I feel Elly’s heat on my other side, greedily soaking it in as a strange coldness comes over me.

‘Wanna join the spoon train, Nic?’ Haz says.

‘Not interested in four-wheeling.’

‘But four wheels make a car, baby.’

I snort when Nic only rolls over, muttering a long-suffering fuck under her breath.

I lie awake for a while, listening to the violent splatter of rain on glass and Nic’s occasional sighs.

I feel oddly sorry for her alone on the sofa, despite it being her choice. I can’t help but think that was how her life was after me. Lonely, self-defeating. She wouldn’t have thought twice about hopping into bed with me back then. She preferred it that way.

I think of the mask on her door, taking comfort in the fact that wherever she went afterwards, she still chose to take me with her.