The thing was, something big did happen, the very next day. For me, anyway. And it was the thing I’d been thinking about during the ritual, that I didn’t want Zoe to know. It was Saturday; both Mum and I were quite late getting up and it turned out we’d run out of milk. Mum was groaning because she’s useless without her first cup of tea in the morning. I felt a bit guilty because I knew I’d used up all the milk the previous night, so I offered to go out to the little corner shop a couple of streets away.
I was in the shop clutching my carton of milk, half-reading the covers of some of the magazines on the shelves, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped and turned to see Luke, standing over me with a big grin. He was wearing a big soft sweater and a really mad woolly hat that looked more like the thing that my gran puts over her teapot. If he hadn’t been so cute, he’d have looked like a complete idiot. ‘Er – like the hat,’ I said, laughing. ‘I think.’
Luke pulled it off his head, showing his mussed-up mop of dark hair. ‘Forgot I was wearing that,’ he said. ‘My grandma knitted it and – you know –’
‘That’s quite sweet,’ I said.
Luke pulled a face. I thought, well, Anna, that was a stupid thing to say. I’m sure boys hate being called sweet. Even I hate being called sweet.
‘I reckon you’d look better in it than me,’ Luke said, reaching out and putting the thing on my head. He pulled it down over my ears. It was really warm and had a sort of smell of him.
‘Trying to hide my face?’ I said.
‘No!’ Luke pulled the hat off again. ‘That’s the last thing I’d want to do.’
‘Right.’ I shifted from foot to foot. The milk carton was really cold and my fingers were getting a bit numb.
‘Anna,’ Luke said. ‘Er… I don’t suppose you want to go out sometime?’
I took a deep breath in. I could feel my whole body getting kind of warm and I was fairly sure I was blushing. ‘Umm, yeah, sure,’ I said, as casually as I could make myself sound. In my head, though, I was leaping up and down and singing something like the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Whatever you like,’ Luke said. ‘I’m off next Thursday night. We could go to the pictures or we could go and get something to eat if you like.’
‘Eat?’ I said.
‘Great. Anywhere but the place I usually work, I’m sick of the sight of it.’ Luke gave me a massive smile. He had really kind eyes, I thought. Long eyelashes. ‘Shall I call for you?’
I thought for a moment. ‘I’ll meet you in town,’ I suggested.
On the way home, my insides were flipping over and over like someone had entered them in a pancake race. This was the thing I’d been wishing for last night – that Luke would ask me out. And the next morning there he was, just like that. It was too much of a coincidence, I thought. The only trouble was – I didn’t much fancy telling my mum. And I also didn’t like the idea of telling Zoe.
I hadn’t quite worked out how I was going to word it when I met up with Zoe outside Dead Bouquet later that afternoon. I could tell before she said anything that she was in some sort of a bad mood. She was standing outside the shop and I waved at her as I walked up to meet her, but she didn’t lift a hand to respond. And when I got right up to her and said ‘Hi’, she didn’t answer, just spun around and clattered down the little steps into the shop. I followed her. ‘Something wrong?’
She gave a shrug that was so tiny I almost missed it. I followed her over to the bookshelves and watched as she picked up the first book to hand and started flicking through it.
‘What’s up, Zoe?’
‘Anything to tell me?’ she said, not looking up from the pages of the book. Another one about magic, I noticed.
‘What do you mean?’
Zoe smacked the book shut and glared at me. ‘I really don’t like hearing about what my so-called best friend is up to from the likes of Kerry.’
I felt queasy. I hate fighting with people and I couldn’t stand to fall out with Zoe. ‘What did she say?’
Zoe pursed her lips, as if she could hardly bear to say the words. ‘Apparently my best mate and Kerry’s mega-geek of a brother are now an item.’
‘When did she tell you that?’
‘I had the misfortune to run into her on the bus. I had to suffer her all the way into town, which would be bad enough at the best of times, without her going on about you and her horrible relations.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘He only asked me out this morning. I was going to tell you this afternoon.’
Zoe gave a snort. ‘You do realise Kerry is just about planning your engagement party?’
I breathed out hard. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s just one date, that’s all.’
‘I thought you had much better taste,’ Zoe said. And that was just about all she said to me for another half an hour. I found myself hanging around the shop watching her trying on clothes and scents and chatting to Geena behind the counter, as if I wasn’t there at all. I thought about just leaving and going home. But I didn’t want to fall out with Zoe. She would be just fine without a friend – after all, she’d been happy enough before I came along – that’s what Kerry said. Whereas I’d get lumbered with Kerry and we’d be the geek-girls that everyone laughed at. I was only tough and cool when I had Zoe beside me.
‘Come to the cafe with me,’ I said.
Zoe shook her head. ‘Can’t. No cash.’
‘Don’t be daft, I’ll pay.’ I could hear the begging note in my own voice. Zoe looked as if she could take it or leave it, but she marched out in the direction of the little cafe next door.
She was wearing a long, black, cape-style coat I hadn’t seen before. ‘No wonder you’ve got no money,’ I said, as she draped it over the back of her chair. ‘Great coat. When did you get it?’
Zoe didn’t reply, but picked up the menu card from the table and pretended to read it. As if we didn’t know it off by heart. ‘I haven’t had any lunch, actually,’ she said. Her nails were gun-metal grey.
‘Get something to eat, then,’ I said. ‘I’ve got enough.’ That was even though I’d been hoping to use the money to pay half with Luke on Thursday night. I’d worry about that later. Talking Zoe round was the important thing right now.
Zoe chose a smoked salmon bagel and a mint tea. ‘I was hoping Kerry had made it all up,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d laugh when I told you. I didn’t think it would be actually true.’
‘It’ll probably just be the once,’ I said. ‘We mightn’t get on.’
Zoe narrowed her eyes. ‘Kerry said you hit it off the first time you met and that he’s wanted to ask you out for ages.’ She made a gagging noise. ‘She’s going to love this. It’ll be a chance for her to hang around with us even more.’
Zoe was right. Of course. Kerry would use it to claim me for her own.
So when Zoe suggested we do another ritual, I said yes straight away to please her, even though the sessions were freaking me out. We went back home with some new incense sticks and a CD. Zoe found she had a ten-pound note in the bottom of her bag that she didn’t know was there. Mum told us Kerry had called round, twice. ‘I said you’d be back later. Why don’t you give her a ring?’
Zoe sighed.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘If she calls, would you say we’re out? Please?’
‘Why?’ Mum frowned at me.
‘Because – because – oh, Mum, she’s a pain in the neck. I can’t be bothered with her tonight. Please.’
Mum shook her head at me. ‘I’m not happy about that sort of thing. It’s not nice and I don’t like lying to the poor girl.’
‘Let’s just go out, then,’ Zoe suggested. ‘I mean, I know it’s raining. But we’ll be OK. We could find a bus shelter or somewhere to hang about, couldn’t we, Anna?’
Mum rolled her eyes. ‘All right. But just this once. I’m not going to make a habit of it. This is something you need to sort out yourself.’
Mum even let Zoe stay for something to eat. And she kept Kerry at the door while we sat in the kitchen with our hands over our mouths, trying not to snigger out loud. It was clear Kerry was being pretty persistent, but in the end, she had to take Mum’s word that we weren’t there. Mum came back inside and clattered some plates around. ‘That was awful. She said she’d seen you coming along the street. I had to persuade her you’d gone straight back out again and I don’t think she believed me. I’m not doing that ever again, girls. I felt terrible.’
Once we were sure Kerry wouldn’t come back, we told Mum we were going to listen to music in my room. And as soon as I was sure she was sitting in front of her favourite TV programme, we closed the door, drew the curtains and set up our altar. Candles, skull, incense, a handful of graveyard earth. The knife.
‘You should offer some of your blood, like I do,’ Zoe said.
I shook my head. ‘Too squeamish. Remember what I was like when we just talked about blood in biology? I nearly passed out then.’
‘It’s a couple of drops,’ Zoe argued. ‘The point is, you’re giving something to the spirits to thank them for helping you. It’ll take a few seconds. Come on. You have to take this more seriously. We’re not messing about here.’
I stared down at the skull, which was a sickly yellow-white in the candle light. It still had a couple of brownish smears of Zoe’s blood from the last ritual. I couldn’t say to Zoe that actually, I only wanted to mess about. It was the seriousness of the thing that scared the life out of me.
We started the music again, not too loud because I wanted to keep an ear out for Mum. If she opened the door and caught us, she’d have a fit. I held my hand over the skull, as Zoe said her ritual words. It started with her saying some names and calling on the spirits to help her. The names were her dad, she said, and the woman from the grave nearest to where she’d taken the soil. Then she read out more lines that sounded like a sad poem. She’d written it all herself. I had a second or two of sharp pain as Zoe dug the tip of the knife into the tip of my index finger and pressed it gently so that three drops of blood fell down onto the skull. They trickled slowly across it, like dark tears. She did the same to her own finger and the drops of blood fell onto mine. Zoe pushed my clammy hands down onto the cool smoothness of the skull. She placed her hands on top of mine and held them down. Her eyes were closed and her eyelids trembled like black moths on the pale flower of her face.
‘Ask for whatever you want, now,’ she whispered. ‘It will happen.’
The music sighed sadly in the corner of the room. I tried to tell myself I was just imagining the dark shapes moving around in the corner of my vision, and the way the room seemed to be deathly cold. I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about Mum and Dad. I pushed away any thoughts of Luke.