WHISPERS

The control of another’s will should only ever be utilized for their own good. We are here to guide and to mould, to bring out the greatest potential in every Unbound.

Binders’ Magic, The Book of the Binders

As the week progressed Darcey and the others were forced to turn their attention from harassing people to some small but strange rumours wiggling their way into the school’s consciousness.

Darcey’s been spending a lot of late nights at school with Headmaster Connaughty …

I heard Olivia had that chin reduction over the summer so she’d look more like Darcey …

Did you see the way Corinne looked at Katy yesterday when she was late for yoga class? I thought she was going to strangle her …

And that was how it began. Innocuous little comments appearing out of nothing. Whispers stirred. Phones vibrated. Darcey laughed them off, as if she were merely batting a fly away, but they quickly returned, until the whole school was buzzing.

Did you hear? Darcey was in Connaughty’s office for over an hour today …

People laughed at them disbelievingly and yet, the next day, they found themselves repeating what they’d heard, exaggerating, beginning to believe it themselves. Anna could sense the rumours as she walked through the corridors of the school, as if they were threaded into the air, forming faint suggestions on the tip of her tongue, waiting for release.

When the coven met that week they couldn’t contain their delight.

‘You’re welcome, you’re welcome.’ Effie bowed to the row of mannequins.

‘Read this one, read this one. It’s too good.’ Rowan shoved her phone under Manda’s nose.

Manda put a hand over her mouth, giggling at whatever she’d read. ‘Darcey looked so mad in class today. I’ve never seen her like it; she was snapping at everyone,’ she said.

‘I haven’t spotted anyone taking a picture of me for days,’ said Rowan. ‘Everyone is too busy whispering about Darcey, Olivia and Corinne. Their reign is coming to an end!’

Effie laughed. ‘Step up Queens of the Dark Moon.’

They spent the coven session reading all the rumours they could find, laughing until they cried. It felt good – it felt so good to watch Darcey fall into the web of her own making. When the session was over, Anna hung back, waiting for a moment alone with Effie and Attis.

She tried to sound casual. ‘Anyone find anything about Nana?’

Attis breathed out, nose flaring, eyes sparking. ‘I told you that line of enquiry was pointless.’

‘I know. I didn’t listen.’

‘Well, I’ve heard some things, but nothing solid yet,’ said Effie. ‘There are rumours about a crazy homeless witch in London who goes by the name of Nana. One guy said she was the oldest witch in the country, descended from a line of ancient Russian casters. Another swore she was from New Orleans. No one knew how or where to find her though.’

‘Ah,’ said Anna, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

‘I can ask Selene?’

‘OK, but maybe don’t tell her why you’re asking. I don’t think she’d be happy with me looking into my mother’s death like this.’

‘Of course she wouldn’t be happy,’ said Attis. ‘This woman claims to be a curse witch. She’s probably more deranged than Effie.’

‘All the more reason to find her,’ Effie responded.

They walked back through the school, Anna relating the incident with the snow and the garden and her panic as it had bloomed. She made light of it, hoping the story might soften Attis, but he did not smile or say goodbye when they parted ways. Anna sat on the train and grew more angry at him.

The following week the rumours continued to spread at an alarming rate. Darcey was not taking it well. She was angry, lashing out. Anna had heard that Corinne and Darcey had had a falling-out and now they weren’t speaking.

I saw Connaughty put his hand on her knee under the table during the council meeting …

She’ll do anything to make sure she gets a good reference for Cambridge …

She likes her men with lots of meat on them …

When Anna met the others for lunch in the common room, the whispering had taken on a life of its own, voracious and buzzing. She watched as a fly landed on a girl’s face and crawled towards her lips. She moved and it flew off to join others clamouring at the window.

‘Speak of the devils,’ said Effie, pointing openly at Darcey and Olivia, who had just entered.

Darcey held her head high, striding into the centre as if to dare anyone who would talk about her, and yet there was a slight tremor in her eyes – the look of a hunter realizing they have become the hunted. The whispers quietened but did not stop.

‘Disappear,’ said Darcey to a group of girls leaning against one of the high tables. They scattered and Darcey took their place. She clicked her fingers at Lydia to come and sit with them. Darcey began a conversation as if she hadn’t a care in the world. When Peter entered she called him over and pawed at him, playing with his hair, his ears, until he looked mildly irritated and left.

Only when Darcey was leaving did she look their way, trailing past their table.

‘Pudding, Beast, was that wise? A moment on the lips, a lifetime on your fat arse.’

‘You wish you had my arse, Darcey,’ Rowan replied, relishing another bite.

Darcey’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. A fly landed on her smoothie cup and crawled onto her finger; she shook her hand free of it. It returned. She flapped her hand again, growing more irritated. It clung to her finger. ‘Ugh, trust your table to attract the flies.’ She tried to brush it off and it flew into the air and then landed on her hand again. She made an irritated noise, slapping the fly and crushing its body into her skin. She brushed the debris off and looked between them with suspicion – a suspicion she obviously didn’t know how to pin down or put into words, but was there nonetheless.

‘Let’s get out of here, Olivia, it’s disgusting.’

Olivia linked arms with her and they flounced out.

‘She knows it’s us.’ Manda was reeling. ‘She knows.’

‘So?’ said Effie. ‘She’s going to be so busy fighting fires she’s not going to have time to light any new ones. We’ve got her now and the school is ours for the taking.’

Manda giggled slightly hysterically. ‘She can’t do shit any more.’

‘Manda, did you just say shit?’ Rowan laughed.

‘Lydia,’ Effie called. ‘Yoo-hoo, over here.’ Lydia looked around and hesitated. She knew talking to Effie would be crossing enemy lines, and yet Effie had her own form of influence. She walked towards their table.

‘Come sit with us. Did you hear this thing everyone’s been saying about Darcey and Connaughty?’ Effie made a shocked face and then leant in conspiratorially. ‘Do you think there’s anything in it?’

Lydia hardly needed any encouragement; she began to betray Darcey at once, spilling all the gossip she’d heard.

After lunch Anna went to the music room to play. She’d barely sat down when a song began to free itself from her fingers. It opened low and foreboding, followed by a series of high notes chasing one another, up and down. She wasn’t sure where the music was coming from, her or the piano: it felt as though they were playing each other.

After several minutes she became aware of a shadow in the doorway. The notes jarred to a halt. ‘What are you doing here?’

Attis closed the door behind him. ‘I have just as much right to be in this room as you. Perhaps I want to practise myself.’

‘Practise what?’

‘The, er, bongos.’ He grabbed some off the shelf, pulling them onto his lap.

Anna fought the smile on her lips. ‘You came in here to practise the bongos?’

‘Yes. Please continue. I’ll play quietly.’ He began to tap them gently until Anna laughed.

Attis grinned back at her, but then his smile dropped. ‘Anna. You have to tell me if your aunt hurts you. It’s not OK. I don’t think you understand – it’s really not OK.’

Serious Attis always unnerved her, his face was not designed for frowning.

‘She doesn’t hurt me – not really.’

Attis nodded, sadly. ‘Just tell me.’

‘I will.’

‘So … I asked around about Yaganov.’

Anna had presumed he wouldn’t help. ‘And?’

‘Nada. I’m sorry. I think that Library guy was a loon.’

Anna played a few irritable notes. ‘Maybe.’

He sighed. ‘What are you trying to find? Confirmation that your magic is cursed, somehow special? When we’re afraid, sometimes it’s easier to look for patterns, deeper meanings—’

Her fingers went rigid. ‘You think you know everything, Attis, but you don’t.’

‘You don’t have to do what your aunt says for the rest of your life. Humour her, become a Binder, then when you’re old enough you can leave. Escape.’

‘Escape!’ Anna laughed, spinning round on the chair to face him. ‘We can’t all be like you, drifting, relying on no one, doing exactly what you want, whenever you want.’ Her raised voice rebounded in the quiet acoustics of the room.

‘You’re going to get yourself hurt! Don’t you see that?’ His own voice rose to meet hers. Anna had never heard him sound like that before, the music of his voice flattened out like a piece of wire.

‘Why do you even care?’ she cried, exasperated. He didn’t reply and Anna didn’t know what answer she was looking for – that he was doing it out of some sense of coven responsibility, because she was Effie’s friend, or … for her.

He let a low, pained exhale escape his lips. ‘Just play the sodding piano, OK?’

‘I don’t want to while you’re here.’

‘Well, I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

Anna turned around and began to play because if she didn’t she was going to throw something at him. The song returned immediately, rumbling like thunder, flashing with high notes of lightning. Her fingers moved, quick as rain, up and down the keys. She didn’t want to think. She just wanted to play until her thoughts drained away. Attis watched quietly. She lost track of time as the anger drained itself away. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m being paranoid – just like Aunt.

She heard a faint beating from behind her, the sound of bongos. Her mouth twitched with a smile. You, Attis Lockerby, are an idiot.

She spun around accusingly. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

‘Very much so. Nothing like a good bongo session.’

Anna managed to glare and smile at him at the same time.

‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me if it gets worse at home and we’ll find a way to get you out of there.’

‘OK.’ Anna nodded, knowing that if she was going to get out of there, she had to do it her own way. She closed the piano lid and stood up, but Attis moved towards her.

‘Now, have you thought about this?’ He produced a piece of paper.

‘What’s that?’

‘A sign-up for the Performance Assembly.’

‘And why are you showing me that?’

‘Well, you write your name down on it, you see, like this …’ He took a pen out of his pocket.

‘I am not signing up for that.’

‘OK. I’ll sign it for you.’

‘You will not,’ she said, snatching the paper from his hand. ‘You’re not the boss of me, Lockerby!’

‘When are you going to show people your music?’

‘I’m letting you listen, aren’t I?’

‘I mean real people, not piano perverts like me.’

‘Oh, in that case, my answer is still never.’

‘And it’s still a disappointing answer. Why do you insist on disappointing me?’

‘It’s better than leading you on.’

‘I’d much rather be led on.’

They stood watching each other in the dark room. It was too dark and too warm. He was too close.

‘Come on,’ said Anna abruptly. ‘We’d better get to class.’ She stuffed the sign-up sheet into her bag and dragged him towards the door.

‘Who’s the boss of who now, Dr Everdell?’ He laughed as they left.

Anna was careful not to play the piano as she’d played it earlier with Attis watching. Her fingers moved methodically, the notes falling into perfect line, while Aunt sat beside her. The metronome was more maddening than ever: tick, tock, tick, tock … I’m running out of time!

How had Effie and Attis found nothing out about Nana at all? Effie had been trying, at least, but Anna wasn’t so sure Attis had truly tried, no matter what he claimed. She had no idea where his resistance was coming from. The boy was impossible to understand. Impossibly frustrating.

‘Keep in time.’

Anna focused back on the ticking and let her mind sink into the song. She thought of the one she’d played earlier, so charged and freeing. She smiled imperceptibly as she wondered how Attis’s bongo-playing might fare against the metronome. Her mind began to lose itself in its wanderings and the gentle beckoning of the music; Aunt and the ticking faded away. Some feeling rose up, a feeling she couldn’t put her finger on, but the music took hold of it, the melody softening, the notes melting into one another, then quickening like a heartbeat, lighting up the dark places of her mind and bringing a heat to her cheeks—

A sharp pain pierced Anna’s finger, slicing through the song. A line of blood ran down the white piano key. Anna lifted her finger – blood was running from its tip. A thorn had dug deep into it as she played. She looked at Aunt, incredulous.

‘Curious how the metronome began to tick in time with you and not you with it,’ said Aunt, ignoring the injury. Anna felt her stomach drop; she had not even noticed. ‘But then you were so carried away, weren’t you? By the beauty of the song … the beauty of the music, the magic of it. I’ve never heard you play that way before.’

Anna tried to find words to explain herself.

‘Neither have the roses, apparently.’ Aunt nodded to the rose bush atop the piano. It was tightly closed up – except one rose. One had bloomed, red as her own blood. Anna looked at it in horror. She had lived with those roses her entire life and not a single one had ever opened. It was beautiful – a deep, alluring red, the petals folded with never-ending questions, a centre dark with whisperings.

‘The Binders will be visiting over the Easter break.’Anna tore her eyes away from the rose, trying to take in Aunt’s words. They only deepened her horror.

‘They want to see how you’re getting on. If you’re remaining in control of your magic. It will be extremely embarrassing for me if they see that you are not, not at all.’

‘I am. I …’ Anna thought of the garden blossoming, seven circles in static, rumours spreading. Am I?

‘Don’t trust magic.’ Aunt reached for the rose. ‘It looks beautiful, doesn’t it? Smells like the first stirrings of love – but all the while it’s wrapping its thorns around your heart and before you know it, well, you know how your mother ended up. Whispers are spreading in the news. The Binders are tense. I don’t want to give them any reason to worry about you too, do I?’ She made a knotting gesture and the rose closed back up without a sound.

For a moment Anna almost told Aunt about the curse mark. The words were on the tip of her tongue but she held them back. Aunt would not be understanding – she’d know that Anna had been practising magic; her anger would probably spill over and leave Anna with more to deal with than a single line of blood on a piano key.

It was a miracle that Aunt sent her to her room without further punishment as it was. Anna lay in bed thinking over the Binders’ upcoming visit and running her Knotted Cord through her hands, feeling its six knots – strong and tight and secure. Weakness in feeling, strength in control. Am I in control? Or is my magic in control of me? Can curses be controlled? Perhaps it’s better if I am bound. But no. Anna knew she couldn’t give up yet. She just had to find another way to understand what was happening to her.

She fell slowly into disturbed dreams: she was playing the piano, petals were falling, but thorns were wrapping themselves around her hands, piercing her fingers, vines winding around her body and throat; the notes on the page in front of her unfolding, reshaping into circles – seven circles – the music growing louder, louder, louder – reaching a climax and then – a loud thud.

Anna jerked upright in bed, suddenly awake, the music fading from her ears.

She saw that the book of fairy tales had fallen from the shelves onto the floor again. She crept out of bed and picked it up, taking the cover off. ‘How did you get there?’ She was growing used to talking to books.

It answered only with a gleam of moonlight across its front, catching the tree engraving. She took it back to bed and read the second fairy tale, hoping it would be happier than the first.

Little Red Cap

In a faraway land beyond sky and smoke, mountain and lake, a maiden lived on the edge of the forest with her mother. Her grandmother was sick and her mother told the maiden she must pay her a visit. She gave her a basket of apples, a cake and a vessel of wine to take as gifts. She put the little maiden’s best red cap on her head and told her not to stray from the path.

Little Red Cap set off into the woods. She was careful not to stray from the path, until she heard a terrible moaning from among the trees. Whatever was making the noise sounded as if it was in a great deal of pain. She left the path and discovered a big black bear in a big black rage, roaring and growling and holding its paw. It had a thorn embedded there. Its anger was a terrifying thing but the maiden stepped forward and in her most gentle voice offered to remove it. The bear turned to her and roared, blowing her cap right off her head, but she stood her ground. Then he dropped to the floor and offered up his paw. She removed the thorn and the bear was happy. He gave Little Red Cap a present: a bag to wear around her neck containing twig, coin, needle and thimble. He guided her back to the path and she continued on her way.

Before long she heard a voice calling her name from among the trees. She stepped off the path once more and came upon a wolf. He asked her where she was going. Little Red Cap explained she was off to visit her grandmother, who lived in the old cottage by the three elder bushes. The wolf told her she ought to pick some flowers to cheer up her grandmother’s old, frail heart. Little Red Cap thanked the wolf and began to search the forest for flowers.

The cunning wolf ran swiftly ahead and found the old cottage. He quickly killed Little Red Cap’s grandmother, gobbling her up, leaving only a little flesh which he put in a dish in the pantry and a little blood that he drained into a bottle. He put on the grandmother’s clothes and got into bed.

When the maiden arrived the wolf called out in a croaky old voice: ‘Come in, my child.’

Little Red Cap stepped into the house. ‘Grandmother, I have come with apples, cake and wine for you and flowers for your home.’

‘Put the food in the pantry and the flowers in a vase, my child. Are you hungry?’

‘Yes, I am, Grandmother.’

‘Then take the meat you find in a little dish in the pantry and cook it in the cauldron. Are you thirsty?’

‘Yes, I am, Grandmother.’

‘Then drink a small glass of wine.’

The young maiden ate the meat and drank the wine, which was truly her grandmother’s flesh and blood. Once she had finished the wolf said something in a whisper that she could not make out.

‘What did you say, Grandmother?’ asked the maiden.

The wolf whispered again and the maiden drew closer.

‘I still can’t hear you, Grandmother.’

The wolf whispered again and the maiden stepped even closer.

‘Speak louder, Grandmother.’

The maiden sat down on the edge of the bed and put her ear to the wolf’s mouth.

This time she heard it: ‘Now, I’m hungry!’

But Little Red Cap sprang from the bed before the wolf could catch her. She took the twig from the little bag around her neck – it turned to wind and blew the door open. She ran out.

The wolf followed and began to catch her up.

Little Red Cap took the coin out of her little bag and threw it behind her – it turned into a mountain of earth which slowed the wolf down for he had to run up and down it.

Little Red Cap continued to run but the wolf again began to catch up with her. She pulled out the needle from her little bag and threw it behind her – it turned to fire and set the forest alight. The wolf was caught among the flames.

Little Red Cap ran and ran but the wolf leapt high over the flames and began to catch up with her again. She pulled out the thimble from her little bag and threw it behind her – it turned into a great river. The black bear appeared from the forest and told Little Red Cap to jump on his back. She held on tight and he swam across, delivering her safely on the other side.

The wolf leapt into it after them, but the river was too deep. He sank and drowned.

At least this one had a happy ending. Aunt had always preferred the other kind of story, the one with retribution: There are no happy endings in real life, my child, and stories will not protect you. The wolves will always be waiting in the woods. Anna shivered at the recollection of her words and closed the book of fairy tales. She couldn’t spend her whole life fearing shadows. ‘If you can’t protect me, then I have to protect myself,’ she whispered.

The book did not reply.