That night I don’t stay up staring across the field towards Winterspell. I don’t sit on the windowsill while shadows dance between the trees, wondering about the fate of the fae in there, or what my bitter, broken-hearted father is doing. I close the curtains with a shiver and think about tomorrow.
But my dreams are tangled things of forests that grow thick along school corridors, and strange creatures chasing me down endless staircases, and in the morning, while I gather pears and cheese, and I butter the last of Mrs Mandrake’s soft, dark crusted bread, the anticipation of the day sends fizzles through my veins. And there’s something else. A little fear. What is Yanny hiding, with his special lessons and the way he makes the air change? Could he really be fae?
No matter, I tell myself. Whatever he is, I’m not about to miss out on school, after all this, and now that I’ve got Nan’s blessing. I dart through the door before she can take it back, and let myself be soothed by the reflection of the yellow sky in the slow-moving river, the mist still clinging to the moorland that bounds the forest, the weight of my bag on my back, the acorn around my neck that means family.
I’ve got everything I need.
Nothing I can’t handle.
7
Zara is waiting for me at the gate, the only still point amid the mass of kids’ bodies streaming through the vast wrought-iron gates. A little rush of joy squirrels through me as she raises one hand in a wave. As if I wouldn’t notice her. As if I wouldn’t stop.
‘OK?’ she asks, as I get close. ‘It’s nice that you’re punctual. Normally I wait for Yanny, but he’s always late, and I really hate being late.’
‘Should we wait for him, then?’
‘No – he doesn’t like it much. I can’t help telling him he’s late, and he already knows he is, so it’s not the best start to the day. Let’s go in, and he can sort himself out.’
It’s funny to think she doesn’t like going in on her own. She seems so confident; she glows with a kind of ready-for-anything energy.
‘Are we in the same form room? I didn’t see you there yesterday . . .’
‘Oh, I think you must’ve come in late, I was running an errand for Miss Olive. She has trouble with printers. So, about Winterspell,’ she says, as we head in, her voice low. ‘Do you live there? What can you tell me?’
My heart thuds. Why do all things lead back to Winterspell?
‘Uh, I don’t know. Like what?’
‘I wanted to go for a bit of an explore in there, but my mum says it’s forbidden – something about pollution in the water and ancient trees that fall without warning. And the kids at school say it’s haunted. Which can’t be true?’
She stares at me as we head up the steps to our form room. Unblinking owl eyes.
Can you start a friendship with lies?
No.
‘Ah, I don’t know about haunted, exactly,’ I say. ‘But my nan says we should avoid it.’
‘Even though you live so close?’
I hold in a sigh. She’s not going to give up so easily, but it’s the last thing I need this morning. My worlds are getting tangled already; with every step I take towards humanity, Winterspell creeps further in.
‘We used to go in there sometimes,’ I say, ‘but it’s creepy, and it’s got worse. Strange noises at night; weird lights flashing between the trees.’
It was supposed to be a little bit of truth to put her off, but now her eyes are glowing. ‘Really? Wow. I do believe in ghouls, you know. My Mamani has some very creepy stories about them. And if you were a dark spirit like they are, then an old forest like Winterspell would be the perfect place to hide . . . I’m not sure I’d want to be there, but everyone’s different. Mum says it’s the pollution that makes the mist rise when the sun sets, but I don’t know. And Yanny won’t tell me anything.’
‘He lives in there?’ I ask, my voice thin at the thought of the dark spirit who does hang out in Winterspell, somewhere. My father, who does not love strongly enough to find his way through.
‘Well, I think he does. He gets very strange about it when I ask him.’
‘Where do you live?’ I ask, taking my coat off as we find seats in the form room.
‘In town,’ she says. ‘It’s OK. I didn’t really want to move, but Mum got a new job, and so . . . here we are.’ She stares out of the window. ‘We lived in the city before; it feels quiet here. Everything’s a bit strange. Mum says it’s just because it’s new, but I don’t know. I think it’s genuinely weird.’
I grin as Miss Olive starts reading out the register. ‘It’s definitely weird.’
‘Zara Nassar?’
‘HERE!’ she shouts in reply to Miss Olive, before lowering her voice again. ‘I don’t know why Yanny won’t talk about it.’
‘Maybe it’s not weird to him. If he lives there.’
‘I s’pose.’ She sighs. ‘But there are definitely secrets in that forest, and up that weird staircase.’ Her face grows serious, and she plays with the cuff of her jumper. ‘I do not like secrets, Stella.’
‘Here,’ I say, raising my hand as Miss Olive gets to my name. I look back at Zara. ‘But doesn’t everybody have secrets?’
‘You talk far too much sense for this time on a Friday morning,’ she says. ‘Everybody might have them, but that doesn’t mean they should!’
Just then, Yanny rushes into the form room. Miss Olive glowers at him, and he gives her a smile that I swear radiates straight to her. She checks his name off her list with a gentle shake of her head, and then the bell rings, and we all pick up our stuff and head out again, catching him in the tide and swirling back out into the corridor.
‘G’morning,’ he says, untangling himself from the knot of kids heading in one direction, to come with us towards science. ‘Missed you at the gate, Zara.’
‘No you didn’t.’
‘I don’t know how it happens,’ he says, charging up the steps two at a time. ‘I leave at the right time – Ma hassles me enough . . . It just seems to take too long to get here.’
‘Maybe you dawdle,’ she says. And then, with a wink at me: ‘Maybe it’s the spirits in the forest, slowing you down.’
He falters on the landing for a split second as she charges up past him, and she doesn’t notice how he blanches, as if she hit him in the stomach. It’s there and gone in a blink, and then he rushes on after her, bag swinging, bright as ever, but the feeling remains in my belly all through the morning, and I can’t look him in the eye, even when we have art again without Zara. It’s just me and him sitting at the end of a big table, and the teacher is late, so everyone’s chatting, except I don’t know what to say to him.
‘How’s it going?’ he asks.
His freckles glow under the artificial lights; it’s dark, and the clouds are stormy outside, and the whole place suddenly feels claustrophobic. Every lesson is a different textbook, a different teacher, a different classroom down a different corridor. I’ve got lost every time I’ve looked for a loo, and I don’t know anything. I take a deep breath in, filling my chest, and breathe it out slowly, lowering my gaze to the old wood table with its scored lines and crossed-out words.