THEY HAD A hot dinner that night, sitting at a pair of long tables in a great hall filled with the echoes of their excited chatter. Ashley sat between a girl whose name she didn’t know and a boy who she had heard the other kids call Chris. Both of them took little notice of Ashley, instead chatting excitedly with their neighbours or the children across the table. They were full of talk about the activities they had done that day – the fishing, the archery, the tennis – and deep in her gut, Ashley felt a faint squirming of uncertainty, even jealousy. While she had been off walking in the woods with Malory, the other kids had bonded over piercing worms on hooks, or chasing tennis balls they had whacked over the high fences. She had felt special while she was with Malory, as though she’d been singled out, but now she felt even more isolated. The older girl was sitting at a separate table with her grandfather and her brother. Ashley had to lean back in her chair slightly to get a look at her.
‘Are you gonna eat those or what?’
Ashley turned back to see Chris looking at her frankly, a fork jabbing in the direction of her plate. She had chicken nuggets and chips with beans, a longed-for feast at home, but the tension in her stomach meant she had barely touched them. Instinctively, she leaned over her plate and picked up her own knife and fork. She had an older brother, so she knew how to guard her food.
‘Yeah, I am actually.’
Chris gave her a disgruntled look and turned back to the boy on his left.
When the plates had been cleared, bowls of ice cream were brought out, and the noise in the hall grew even louder. Ashley snuck another glimpse at Malory and saw that the older girl was leaning forward over her own bowl of ice cream, her long dark hair framing her face. She looked sad. Belatedly, Ashley saw that her brother, Richard, wasn’t in his seat; she looked around and spotted him at the other table, walking down the row with his hands behind his back. He was pausing now and then to talk to the children, and each time he did, a little pocket of quiet surrounded him.
The windows that looked out over the lawn were filled with early evening light, but there were still shadowy places in the hall. Ashley saw a Heedful One detach itself from the dark, its flickery, stilted movements especially strange amongst the colour and noise of the other kids. She put her head down and concentrated on her ice cream, savouring the sweet vanilla and chocolate sauce.
At least there’s this, she thought, swirling more sauce through the pale yellow ice cream. At home, we hardly ever get ice cream, and never chocolate sauce, unless we had money for the ice-cream van. Even so, as the chatter around her continued, she felt her cheeks grow warm with shame. Why can’t I just make friends, like I’m normal?
‘Enjoying the food, are we?’ The voice cut through the general hubbub, and Ashley glanced up to see Richard, now at their end of the table. He looked tall and handsome and somehow sharp; his hair was brushed back from his forehead and the angle of his jaw against his throat was stark. He was smiling faintly, as though amused by something, but the look in his eyes was cold and hard. The kids nearest him were quiet, as though he were a teacher that had caught them talking. Richard moved closer to speak to them more directly, and Ashley couldn’t catch what he said, but she saw one boy lower his head and another frown slightly. After a moment, Richard proceeded up the table, until he stood just behind and to the left of Ashley. He was a smudge of colour in the corner of her eye, but his voice was clear and loud.
‘That’s it, eat up.’ Ashley felt his knuckles brush the back of her shirt as he curled his hand around the top of her chair. ‘All that free food,’ he said in a slightly lower voice. ‘You must love it.’ He leaned down until his head was at the same level as theirs, and his tone seemed to grow friendly even as his words dripped with scorn. ‘Get your chow, you little scroungers, eh?’
Ashley turned her head to glare at him, regretting it even as she did it, and he grinned at her and slung an arm around her shoulders. Shockingly, he was as hot as a stove, his fingers where he rested them on her arm hot enough to burn. Ashley felt herself instinctively trying to pull away from him, but there was nowhere to go.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘Ashley, isn’t it? You don’t look so special to me.’ He put his lips against her ear, and she felt his breath, hot as a furnace against her skin. ‘Do you think you’re special, Ashley?’
Someone from across the hall called his name – his grandfather, perhaps – and he straightened up and stalked off. Ashley turned to watch him go, her throat tight with trepidation. The Heedful One that had been moving slowly around the hall peeled off and followed him out of the great room.
* * *
That night, Ashley lay in her narrow bed in the long dormitory room, listening to the other kids’ whispers and giggles gradually die down as the lights were turned out. It was late, but she felt wide awake. The pillow under her head was too big and smelled wrong, and the quilt was stiff and scratchy. All she could think of was their cosy flat, so warm and so familiar. Normally, in bed she would have been listening to the sounds of Aidan’s snores, the click and thump of her dad returning home from wherever he had been that evening, or the faint sound of her mother’s voice as she talked to one of Ashley’s aunties on the telephone. She missed them all acutely, so much so it was almost a physical pain in her chest – a hollow, scooped-out feeling just behind her breastbone. She wanted to go home. She wanted to go home so much.
As the other children gradually fell asleep, all she could hear was the wind wailing down off the fell behind the house, and the tick of some big clock somewhere.
Just close your eyes, she told herself. Close your eyes and go to sleep.
She found that she couldn’t, though. To close her eyes would be to give up her vigilance, and the big dormitory was so long and wide, so much bigger than their entire flat. It had so much room for things to hide in.
You’re being daft. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.
And then, just as she really was starting to drift off to sleep, a thin yellow beam of light shot soundlessly across the room, splashing against the far wall. The door on the other side of the room had opened, just a crack. There was someone standing there, watching.
Ashley pulled the covers up to her neck. The door opened a little wider. It was possible to see a slim figure there, and in the brief wink of yellow light before he pulled the door shut behind him, Ashley recognised Richard’s sharply angled face, although all trace of his previous smugness had vanished. As she watched, he came silently into the room and walked past a few of the beds, pausing at the foot of each one as though he’d forgotten something. Then, he bent over one of the beds in the row opposite Ashley’s bed. When he came up again, he was carrying something in his arms. Someone, Ashley corrected herself.
Richard lifted the bundle in his arms closer to his face, although if he said anything, Ashley couldn’t hear it.
He left the dormitory, shutting the door once more behind him.