C.J. SKUSE is the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. C.J’s fifth novel THE DEVIANTS will be published by HQ in 2016.

For Jamie, he is my brother

I said there is no other

‘Hell is empty. All the devils are here.’

The Tempest,

William Shakespeare

Acknowledgements

Jenny Savill at Andrew Nurnberg Agency for your belief when I needed it most.

Anna Baggaley, Sarah Reader and everyone at HQ for your ceaseless support, editorial advice and general love for my little Monster

All my family, friends and early readers—my sister Penny Skuse, Matthew Snead, Laura Myers, Di Toft, Rachel Leyshon and Barry Cunningham. Thank you for all your advice and encouragement.

Hestercombe House and Gardens—a constant inspiration to me. This time round, Bathory School in the flesh.

Connie Bowler—for your very helpful reminiscences about boarding school life.

Judy Wasdell—for having a dog who habitually sniffs out spines.

All the UKYA book bloggers who follow me on social media and regularly spread the word about my books.

As always, a soundtrack of artists helped me knit and unpick this book every step of the way: Aiden, Alice in Chains, Gabrielle Aplin, Avicii, The Bangles, The Beatles, Birdy, Eminem, 5 Seconds of Summer, Foo Fighters, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ellie Goulding, The Heavy, Hole, Keane, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, Paramore, Rage Against the Machine, Royal Blood and Slipknot.

And to anyone who has screwed me over, rejected me or even just mildly pissed me off in the last thirty-odd years—you helped too. A lot.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Acknowledgements

1 I, Monster

2 The Devil Inside

3 Insidious

4 Jeepers Creepers

5 Dead and Breakfast

6 The Thing

7 Saw

8 Scream

9 The Hunger

10 Village of the Damned

11 Near Dark

12 Bride of Chucky

13 Black Christmas

14 The Vanishing

15 Psycho

16 Dead of Night

17 The Cabin in the Woods

18 Don’t Look Now

19 Hellraiser

20 Daughters of Darkness

21 The Omen

22 Possession

23 Let the Right One In

24 Resident Evil

25 The Silence of the Lambs

26 Les Diaboliques

27 The Descent

28 Final Destination

Endpage

Copyright

1 I, Monster

That last week at school before the Christmas holidays, death was in everything.

In Geography, the sea was eating away the coasts. In English, Juliet was stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Even the school gerbil, Rafferty, was found stiff in his water bowl on Tuesday lunchtime. The skies above us bore a foreboding grey gloom, telling us snow was on its way to suffocate the land. In the dorms, everyone was packing up their trunks for the coming break and preparing to say goodbye to the year.

And in our last floodlit netball practice that Friday evening, I saw the monster.

The thing generations of Bathory girls had nightmares about. The Beast of Bathory.

I watched it in the fading light through the wire mesh of our netball court fencing. A black mass, stalking quietly across the playing fields, its two yellow eyes turning to stare at me every so often as it walked, unchecked. Unafraid.

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! went the whistle.

‘Nash, pass! Pass! I’m free! I’m free!’

I was watching it as much as it was watching me.

Pheeeeee! ‘Natasha, are you playing netball today? Or are we playing netball and you playing Musical Statues?’

I tried to get my head back in the game. ‘Sorry, Mrs Scott.’

‘Rebound, pink team,’ she called, marching back up the court, whistle ready in her mouth. I sneaked a look behind me to the playing fields, but there was no sign of it. It must have dashed into the hedge. I put my trainer to the yellow line and clutched the ball firmly, looking for a free pink-bib to throw to.

‘Aaaaaaand …’ Pheee!

‘Nash! Nash! Overhead! Here! Here!’ Maggie Zappa was calling for it. Wing Attack, socks at half-mast, hair a mass of black curls. School rebel. I wasn’t throwing to her.

‘Nash! Here!’ Clarice Hoon, Goal Attack, too much make-up, bedmate of half the Lower Sixth St Anthony’s boys. We had a history. I wasn’t throwing to her.

Dianna Pfaff, my opposition Centre, was using everything she had. She wasn’t as fast as me, but she was tall, with a ballerina’s balance, and had several times marked me out of the game. Her thick blonde curls bounced and flew as she darted left to right in front of me, shadowing my every movement with her hands. I had to throw.

I saw Regan. Wing Defence, black plaits hanging down and thick, clear-framed glasses. Way back on the line. She had arrived in the Lower Fifth with a subtle smell of wrongness about her and the appearance of a spinster in her late fifties. She wasn’t even calling for it. I threw to her.

It bounced high off the ground in front of her, and she fumbled it offside.

Pheeeeeeee! ‘Foul ball. Advantage blue team.’

Regan bit her lip. Clarice rolled her eyes.

Maggie Zappa puffed and blew her fringe curls up from her face. ‘Da fuq didn’t you throw it to me? I was free. I had acres!’

‘Margaret Zappa!’ yelled Mrs Scott.

‘But I was free!’ She turned back to me, slapping her hands to her sides. ‘What did you throw to her for? You might as well have thrown it over the fence.’

The blues scored a goal before Mrs Scott had finished dressing down Maggie for a string of ensuing bad language. We all went back to the centre. Dianna Pfaff had the ball.

Pheeeeeeeee!

‘Dianna, here! Here!’

I marked Dianna’s movements like a shadow. She couldn’t pass, couldn’t get to anyone. Frustration screamed from her.

Pheeeeeeee! ‘Possession. Advantage pinks.’ Mrs Scott’s fat thighs smacked together as she marched over to us and pointed to the spot, handing me the ball. I spotted a free pink and lobbed it across the court.

‘Aw, hospital pass!’ cried Mrs Scott, as the ball bounced away from Jenny. ‘Rebound! Advantage pinks. Rebound. Advantage blues. Come on, you’re not nailed to the ground, reach for the ball! Jump for it!’ Goal Attack to Goal Shooter. Score. Pheeeeeee! ‘Pinks lead two to one.’

Dianna threw me a look as the ball was lobbed back in my direction.

Pheeeeeee!

‘Nash, pass! Over here, over here! I’m free!’

‘Nash, for God’s sake!’

‘Natasha! What are you …’

It had stopped there, just in front of the hedge, a black shape moving in the falling darkness across the playing fields. The huge black shape. It was waiting for me to go over to it. I went across the gravel, across the grass of the playing fields to the swings.

‘Natasha, come back here! What on earth …’

I had to see it more clearly. I had to know if it was there for sure, the thing I’d been seeing for weeks now, darting across fields, hiding around corners, vanishing behind trees. The killer of dozens of sheep and chickens. And possibly humans.

But, in a second, it had gone, vanished into the hedge with barely the rustle of a leaf.

Someone was behind me, walking quickly to catch up. I turned. Regan Matsumoto.

‘That was it, wasn’t it?’ she said breathlessly. ‘You saw it, didn’t you, Nash?’

I didn’t answer. Our PE teacher was marching up the grass behind us, face as red as her Aertex shirt. I was going to be punished. The only punishment Mrs Scott ever doled out: the thing no one wanted to do.

‘Just what the hell …’

‘I’ll collect the balls, Mrs Scott.’ I walked past her back towards the court.

There were many bad things about Bathory School for Girls—the rules, the staff, the food, the beds, the homesickness and the spooky legends including the Beast of Bathory—but some things about it were truly wonderful.

For a start, there was the amount of time we were expected to be outside. We were always playing sports—netball, hockey, tennis in the summer, swimming when it was hot enough in the outdoor pool.

Then there were the Hidey Holes, secret doorways and passages all over the main house, which had been there since Elizabethan times. Apparently their original purpose was to conceal Catholic priests who’d visited South Devon and taken refuge there—according to legend, one priest had hidden in a Hidey Hole for so long that he suffocated and died. Bathory girls had found four main Hidey Holes—two linking the Fiction and Reference Libraries, one in the Laundry room behind the towel rails and one in the wall behind the stage at the back of the gym—but there were more. The house itself was this huge, imposing grey building, surveying the remote South Devon moors like some buxom grey nursemaid with shining black eyes. It had a long flat roof and large turrets at either end. One turret was the Observatory where we had telescopes for stargazing, and in the other was the Weather Station where we took readings for science.

We had Hogwartsy-style Houses—Plantagenet, Tudor, Hanover and Windsor—and there was an unwritten rule that girls seemed to get picked for them according to their status, which was kind of like Hogwarts too. All the bad girls went in Plantagenet, all the ones good at sport went into Hanover, all the brainy ones went to Tudor and all the, well, the ones who weren’t really good at anything went in Windsor.

Another wonderful thing about Bathory was its setting. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and woods and acres of land in which to get lost. We were miles away from any form of civilisation, but we were quite self-sufficient. We had tennis courts, netball courts, playing fields, hockey pitches and formal and kitchen gardens where the cooks grew herbs and vegetables. Behind the house was a huge wooded valley with two large ponds and five beautiful follies in the upper sections of the woods. These were called the Birdcage, the Temple, the Wendy House, the Tree House and the Chapel. If you stood at the bottom of the valley by Edward’s Pond and looked up, you could see all of them, dotted around at regular intervals, like ornaments on a giant cake.

Back in the mists of time, before it became a school in the 1930s, Bathory House was the private home of the Duke and Duchess of Bathory and their twins, Edward and Grace, who were incredibly spoilt. When the little boy had asked for a pond to keep some fish, the little girl asked for a lake. Then the boy had asked for a tree house in the woods, but the girl had asked for a life-size version of her doll’s house, and so on and so forth. So basically, the Follies were monuments to the tantrums of two greedy little brats.

The wonderful really did outweigh the not-so-wonderful at Bathory and I loved it there. Especially at Christmas. The week before Christmas hols was usually the most magical time—full of parties, log fires, tobogganing down the hillsides in the snow, making sugarplums and traditional decorations for the end of term concert. It normally left me with the feeling of complete and utter happiness. Of safety. Of certainty that this was perfection.

But this Christmas, everything was different. There was no squidgy feeling. There was no safety. For me, Christmas was cancelled.

And Dianna Pfaff was making the most of my misery.

She sidled up to me as I was collecting up the balls after netball practice that evening.

‘Your head’s not really in it at the moment, is it?’

‘Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to help. Mrs Scott asked me to …’

‘I want to help,’ she said, and set the bibs down on the ground to help me pick up balls. ‘I heard about your brother …’

‘What about my brother?’

‘About him being missing. Everyone knows.’

‘He’s not missing. He just hasn’t been in touch with my parents for a few days. They’re a bit worried. He’ll be okay. How does everyone know?’

‘Penny Marriott heard it from Kezzie Wood who got it from a Pup with chickenpox who was waiting outside Mrs Saul-Hudson’s office when you went in this morning.’

‘So the whole school knows?’

Dianna’s lips thinned. ‘What’s the latest?’

She said it like you’d ask for a weather update. ‘He went on some whale-watching expedition at a national park on the northern coast of Colombia. He was supposed to ring home two days ago but he didn’t. Probably just out of range.’

Dianna nodded. ‘Do you think you’ll be staying here for Christmas then? If your parents have to fly out to Cambodia?’

The thought was acid in my mouth. ‘It’s Colombia. And no, it won’t come to that. He’ll be fine, I’m sure.’

But still Dianna looked twitchy. ‘Mum said there’s a chance I might be staying. Hope not though. Christmas here would be a nightmare. She’s still in Spain. New boyfriend. Such a leech … Anyway, if you want a hand with any of Mrs Saul-Hudson’s stuff …’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I don’t know, just, like, the diary or making her tea or organising anything, you know, just give me a shout. I’m here if you want the help.’

She’d been like this for months, ever since she found out I was the front runner for Head Girl. The final week she had really ramped up the helpful bit.

‘I know you want Head Girl as well, Dianna.’

‘No, no, it’s not that at all,’ she said with a nervous laugh, eyebrows up in her hairline, trying to come across completely blasé. She bounced a white netball between her fingers. ‘But you’re under a lot of stress at the moment, getting everything ready for end of term and the Christmas Fayre and the concert and what with your brother …’

‘My brother will be fine,’ I said, measuring every word so it didn’t come out as loudly as I wanted it to. So many other words teetered on my tongue, from ‘I can manage perfectly well without your help, you endless parasitic worm’ to ‘Get lost and die a slow lingering death in a ditch.’ But none of those things were ever going to come out of my mouth. In the end I simply said, ‘Thanks.’

In the changing rooms, the school matron and Maggie Zappa were arguing like two alley cats over a fish bone.

‘I didn’t take it, all right? Stupid old fart. Why do you always assume it’s me?’

‘Because it usually is!’ screeched Matron, hands on hips, her tight blue uniform dotted with melting ice flecks. She’d apparently been head first in the chest freezer, looking for some lost meat.

‘I haven’t touched your stupid turkeys. Get your hands off me!’

Eventually, Mrs Scott and Matron grabbed Maggie’s arms and led her bodily up the corridor towards the Head’s office, a string of expletives dancing along the air behind her.

‘Margaret, the more you struggle the harder you’re going to make this for yourself.’

‘I didn’t take them! Am I speaking another language? Have I woken up Chinese like that woman in the science video? I’m not responsible for your stupid turkey theft, capiche?’

‘You’re a liar,’ said Matron, teeth gritted, a huge bunch of keys jangling violently against her hip and strands of her black hair coming loose from her tight bun. ‘This has got your name written all over it, Maggie.’

‘Where? Where’s my name? Where? Tell me. Where’s the proof? I haven’t done anything. Nash, tell them I didn’t take them!’

I said nothing as they came past me, just did that very British thing of averting my eyes, cleaning a smudge on a nearby door frame. I made my way into the changing rooms and got washed and dressed for Prep.

I couldn’t associate with Maggie Zappa this week. Not this week of all weeks. I’d already blotted my clean copybook in netball by going into some kind of trance and walking off court. I couldn’t defend Public School Enemy Number 1 as well. Maggie had earned over twenty Blue Tickets for Plantagenet House this month alone. This week was just too important to even be seen talking to her. That badge was too important.

All I’d wanted since I’d arrived at Bathory was the Head Girl badge. The previous Head Girl had left the school suddenly at the start of the autumn term and ever since then Mrs Saul-Hudson had been vetting potential prefects. I was the front runner, there was no doubt. I’d made sure of it. I only had one more week to wait for the announcement and then all my deportment badges, my 349 Gold Tickets, my academic awards, my staying up late to help the Headmistress with the diary, all my sycophancy would be rewarded. Just one more week.

After changing, I did my hair in the sink mirrors and found myself standing next to Clarice Hoon. ‘They found your brother yet?’ she said, applying a thick layer of concealer to her under-eyes.

A dark cloud descended across my vision. I covered my accelerating heartbeat and shortness of breath by combing down my honey bob until my hair looked like the two sides of a golden apple. ‘Sorry?’

‘He’s quite fit, isn’t he?’ she continued, turning to look at me. She had so much mascara on she could barely lift her eyelids.

Don’t give her the oxygen of attention, came the voice in my head. She wants you to respond. I checked the pleats of my raspberry tunic and plucked a lint ball from my navy cardigan, ensuring my netball, hockey, tennis and athletics badges were all equidistant down the side of the V; my prefect’s badge in alignment with the base of my tie. One space remained on the V—the one right on my heart. Head Girl.

Clarice didn’t like my lack of reaction. ‘What will you do if he’s dead?’

‘Clarice Hoon, you’re on your way to Prep, not the Oscars.’ Mrs Scott had returned from helping Matron, complete with reddened cheeks, blown pupils and a torn shell-suit sleeve. ‘Enough with the make-up.’

Clarice waited for Mrs Scott to move away before she leaned in to me. I felt her hot breath on my ear. ‘I think he is dead.’ She slung her kitbag over one shoulder, smiled at our teacher, and slunk out of the room like a pedigree Persian who’d won Best in Show.

I had tried to keep the thought from my mind for the past two days but hearing it from someone else—hearing it from her—was too much to bear. I thought the room was empty when I collapsed against the cold porcelain basin, my forehead in my hands, my sobs echoing around the white walls. But, moments later, she appeared, standing over me.

Regan Matsumoto helped me to my feet.

2 The Devil Inside

Sebastian, my good-looking big brother with the shaggy blond hair. At twenty-two, he was six years older than me and he was good at it too. He’d taught me how to ride a bike, defend myself, drive a car and tie my shoelaces. Seb had tried to make me unafraid of life. Now, the only thing that made me afraid was not knowing where he was. If he was still alive.

Was. Is, I meant to say. He is still alive. His heart is still beating. I couldn’t begin to think of him in the past tense.

Saturday came, Saturday went. Sunday came with a screaming headache, and went with more crying, this time into the Che Guevara t-shirt that I’d nicked from his room at exeat.

Sunday lunchtime, Mum called—still no word.

I found myself volunteering to do things away from everyone so I wouldn’t have to look at the pitying faces, deal with the questions, talk to anyone about anything. I offered to clean the storage sheds in the Pig Yard at the back of the tennis courts, pull up weeds in the formal gardens, salt the drive, walk to Bathory village for provisions, just so I could sob without some infuriating arm coming round my shoulder. I wanted to work and walk until I was too tired to think. But it was impossible not to think.

I had looked up Colombia in the Reference Library. It had over 1.14 million square miles of land. Two thousand miles of coastline. Rainforests. Deserts. I found encyclopedia entries about tribal tales: mythical beasts that ate backpackers whole. Drug cartels who hacked off human heads with swords. Tourists going missing and never being found. Paranoia set in like bacteria and mutated over everything. I clung on to the one thing I knew—that I didn’t know anything.

I’m all right. Stop worrying. Worrying gets you nowhere. I heard him in my mind. I wanted to believe it.

I was in the field at the top of the drive, walking the school Newfoundland, Brody, when I saw it again. And again, all was silent. The birds had stopped.

The monster.

It was three fields away, a large black shape stalking through the long grass. Definitely too big to be a farm cat. I waited. In a couple of blinks, it had disappeared into a thicket of trees.

No one alive had seen this thing for decades. There had been sightings, scratch marks on tree trunks. Blood on the odd rocky outcrop on the moor. The odd fruit-loop venturing onto the moors, trying to track it, to no avail. I had seen it twice inside of a week. Why me?

Each night since my netball meltdown, I dreamed about my brother. I’d call for him and hear nothing but growls in the distance. A burning shack in a thick forest. Running up an endless staircase, feeling my skin burn as I screamed for him. A jungle of trees. An endless landscape of greenery and strange noises and dark places. In one dream, I parted some leaves and saw the monster, the huge black Beast, its head bent over Seb’s body. It looked up at me, orange eyes gleaming, my brother’s beating heart clamped between its jaws.

Regan Matsumoto wasn’t helping. She kept appearing silently in doorways, right in front of me. Never saying anything, just looking at me with black eyes like a ghost. One night I swore I saw her on the landing by the toilet. But the next moment she was gone.

Dianna Pfaff was shadowing everything I did like a very persistent blonde stain—offering to wake up the Pups for me, insisting on monitoring Prep with me, catching the post before I could get there, giving teachers messages I was supposed to give them. All to ‘give me a break’. All in the name of ‘help’. I didn’t need her help. I especially didn’t need the kind of help she wanted to give me. I could have screamed the roof tiles down. But I simply said, ‘Thanks,’ every time. Because Head Girl doesn’t scream the roof tiles down. Or rather, wannabe Head Girl doesn’t. The rumours from the village weren’t helping either. More and more began to swirl around: Mr Pellett had been attacked on his own doorstep in the middle of the night. There was blood spray on his hallway ceiling. A large shape had been seen stalking across his garden. Mrs Saul-Hudson told me to ‘play down the rumours’ and ‘say it was a burglary that had gone wrong’. I wanted to say no, say, You don’t know that for sure and neither do the police. It could be the monster. But I did the same as I always did. I said, ‘Yes, Mrs Saul-Hudson.’

The more I tried to clear my mind, the more it would fog till it felt like Head Girl was a rope dangling off a cliff face and I was barely clinging on. But cling on I did. I bottled and I clung. Everything I wanted to say, I kept to myself. Everything I wanted to answer her back about—the comments about my ‘scrawny wrists’ as I wrote in the diary, my ‘distinctly miserable face of late’ that might put off prospective parents at the Christmas Fayre—I held back. I swallowed it all down with a glass of tepid tap water and left it at that.

By Monday morning, Seb had been missing for exactly five days and I was losing it rapidly. I felt like a fish on the end of an unending reel.

French:

‘Natasha, est ce qu’il ya une piscine près d’ici?’

Something about swimming pools. ‘Er, non.’

‘Non?’

‘Non, Madame.’

‘Ah oui. Maintenant, nous sommes aimerons aller au la plage.’

Plage was beach. I think. Or plague. ‘Oui, la plage.’

‘Pouvez-vous me donner des directives à la plage, s’il vous plaît?’

Something about medicines to take when you had the plague? Or was she asking for cafés near the beach? My mind was a blank page. I had nothing. ‘Uh, non?’

‘Non?’

‘Oui. Er, non.’

Le grand sigh.

Maths:

‘With that in mind, Natasha, what is the value of n?’

‘The value of n?’

‘Yes, on the board. See where it says n? What is the value of n, if we know that x = 40 and y is 203?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No. What was y again?’

English Lit :

‘So, studying these passages in Jane Eyre and A Tale of Two Cities, how do we begin to compare and contrast some of the ways in which Victorian novelists use landscape to lend resonance to their work? Natasha?’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t you hear what I just said?’

‘Uh, no, sorry, miss.’

Big sigh. ‘The landscape in these two books. How does it lend resonance?’

‘I have no idea.’ Sniggers from the back.

It’s not like you, Natasha. It’s not like you. It’s not like you, not like you, not like you.

The only light that shone onto that day was when I saw the little white Bathory Basics van coming up the drive just before sunset. It pulled up on the gravel driveway just to the left of the front entrance, near the side door to the kitchens. I passed Mrs Saul-Hudson in the front porch.

‘It’s all right, ma’am. It’s just Bathory Basics with the turkeys for Christmas lunch.’

‘Oh wonderful, Natasha. I’ll leave you to deal with it. I’ve got the police on their way. Do you know where Dianna is?’

I stopped in my tracks. ‘The police? Is everything all right, ma’am?’

‘Yes yes yes,’ she said, all flustered and hair-flicky, looking all about her for something. ‘They come every year around this time. Just checking on who is staying over Christmas. Making sure we’ve done our safety checks, that’s all. All quite routine. Have you seen my handbag? Oh, I must have left it upstairs.’

‘Do you need me to talk to the police with you, ma’am?’

‘No, I need Dianna. You’ve got enough to deal with.’

‘Is it about the man in the village who was killed, ma’am?’

‘Yes,’ she said and minced off upstairs without another word.

Bloody Dianna, I thought. Bloody bloody bloody Dianna. Why was she the one to help her talk to the police about it? What about me?

I tried to shake the image of the blonde assassin from my mind as I stepped out onto the front mosaic to greet Charlie Gossard from the shop and try to be happy. I’d had a substantial crush on Charlie for a while now. His dad ran Bathory Basics and he worked there, serving customers and ‘out the back’ though I never really knew what went on ‘out the back’. It had started with the odd flirty comment about what I was buying whenever I walked there on a Saturday morning for provisions, then it progressed to long looks across the freezer in the summer. Now, we were into conversations and every now and again he’d give me some sell-by pies or sweets if there were any due for chucking out. I hadn’t told him about Seb being missing or anything serious like that—our conversations mostly ran to school or what Xbox game he’d recently bought and what his top score was.

He caught sight of me as he got out the driver’s door. ‘Hi, Nash.’

‘Hi, Charlie,’ I said.

‘How are you?’

‘Yeah, fine thanks.’

He was big into gaming, and even though I wasn’t at all, I enjoyed listening to him talk. He could have been reciting the phone book and I’d listen to him. Charlie had short blond hair, blue eyes and always wore tight t-shirts, even in winter, which you could see his nipples through. Maggie said he was a ‘un renard chaud’, which meant a hot fox, but I just thought he was lovely. There was always a long white apron tied around his waist, usually smeared with grubby fingermarks.

‘Do you need any help?’

‘Yeah, if you don’t mind. Thanks.’

His smile cut a diamond into the early evening light and he went to the back doors of the refrigerated van to unlock them, then reached in to get one of three humungous turkeys out for me to carry.

‘She’s a heavy one, mind. You got it?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, straining to hold it in both hands and making my way towards the kitchen door. He grasped the other two, one in each hand.

‘Dad said make sure your cook knows they’re premium birds. KellyBronze. Free range, the lot.’

‘Oh, great,’ I said, struggling a little with the weight of mine as he edged past me and opened the side door to allow me inside. Cook was delighted and, as she and Charlie settled the invoice, I hung around, even though I knew I had no business being there. I was just waiting. For anything. For some little shred of Charlie that I could think about for the rest of the day. Something to send me to sleep smiling tonight instead of crying.

When the invoice was settled and he and Cook had talked about cooking times and types of stuffing and ‘succulence’, he walked back out with me to the annoyingly nearby van.

‘So,’ he said. ‘I guess you go home for the holidays tomorrow then?’

‘Yeah. I guess so.’

‘Not looking forward to it?’

I shrugged. ‘It’ll be nice to see my parents. Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be nice. Presents and Midnight Mass and everything.’

‘Oh, we went one year. Pretty boring really.’

‘It’s tradition though, isn’t it? My mum and dad enjoy it.’

‘Yeah, it is. Gotta keep the old folks happy.’

‘Yeah.’

We both laughed, a nervous sort of laugh that went on as long as it could because it was obvious neither of us knew what to say next. We’d run out of conversation so quickly, I hadn’t seen it coming. I had nothing in reserve to impress him with. I did a bit of subtle eye-batting and leaning in the hope of … What was I hoping for? For him to take me in his arms and ravish me right there in the school driveway? I didn’t know. I just knew I needed something from him. Something more.

‘What are you getting for Christmas then?’ I asked, hopelessly. Desperately.

He laughed. ‘Probably some Boxing Day overtime and a thick ear.’ He smiled, wringing his hands like they were cold. I did the same, mirroring his movements.

‘Are yours freezing too?’ he asked, reaching for them and taking them in his. They were warmer than mine, but at that moment I didn’t care if he’d been lying about having cold hands just so he could hold mine. I didn’t want him to let go. ‘Yeah, they are.’ That tiny moment, with him holding my hands in his, made the day seem finally worth getting up for.

‘I’m all right now,’ I said, regrettably pulling them away and looking down to hide the flames in my cheeks.

‘Listen, you better get in and warm up before they fall off. I’ve got another twelve of these to deliver before the end of the day. Have a great Christmas, all right? And I’ll see you next term.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, as I watched him make his way back to the van. ‘Charlie?’ I called, when he was almost in.

‘Yeah?’ He looked back.

‘You have a great Christmas too.’ And we both smiled at each other. For now, that would have to be enough.

Monday night after Prep and monitoring the Pups’ bedtime, I bathed and wrapped myself in my school-approved navy dressing gown and raspberry slippers with the school crest on and went down to Mrs Saul-Hudson’s office for our usual routine of cocoa and diary. She was sitting at her desk when I knocked and went in, closing the door behind me.

‘Oh, Natasha, is it that time already?’ she said, already in her pyjamas and dressing gown herself and looking more flustered than normal. ‘Sorry, I’ve got such a lot to do before tomorrow.’

‘Good evening, ma’am.’ I placed her cocoa mug down in front of her, my tap water down in front of me, and opened the diary to tomorrow’s page so she could see it. ‘It’s all done for you to check.’

‘Wonderful. Before we go through tomorrow’s notes, have a seat. I wanted to talk to you about something.’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

She took a sip of her cocoa and I took a sip of my water. Then she settled down the mug. ‘Lovely. Just right as usual. Right, last day of term tomorrow, we’ve got lots of visitors coming. Who is supervising Pups all day?’

I opened my notebook and clicked on my pen. ‘The usual staff, ma’am, plus I’ve allocated three prefects from Tudor, Hanover and Windsor House to the three groups as well. No lessons means lots of extra hands on deck, which is great.’

‘Excellent. And how about the Tenderfoots?’

I checked my notes. ‘Two prefects, three members of staff and two TAs. That should be quite enough, ma’am. A lot of the Tenderfoots have gone home early.’

‘Good, and the Christmas Fayre?’

‘Stallholders will be arriving from ten a.m. and the Years Nine and Ten have been briefed by their form tutors about helping set up stalls and—’

‘What about the play?’

‘Years Nine and Ten will be setting out the chairs once they’ve helped with the stalls.’

Mrs Saul-Hudson smiled and sat back in her large leather chair, like a queen testing out a new throne. ‘Where would I be without you, Natasha?’

I smiled and blushed at the same time, taking a large sip of my water.

‘So how are you bearing up? It must be very hard on you and your parents with Sebastian still not found.’

She’d sucker-punched me, bringing Seb into the conversation so quickly, but in a way I was glad she’d found time to care.

‘I’m trying not to think about it really, ma’am,’ I said. ‘Not much I can do by worrying.’

‘That’s the stuff,’ she said proudly. ‘Keep busy, that’s always the best way. No sense in worrying. Worrying, I always say, does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, just empties today of its strength. You bear that in mind, won’t you?’

‘I will, ma’am,’ I said, once I’d figured it out.

‘And you’re doing a marvellous job here so it would be a shame if … well, if things started to slip.’

I didn’t know what she meant by that at that exact moment, but I didn’t have time to figure it out because the next demand came swiftly round the next corner.

‘Oh, and in the morning I want you to arrange some signage to go up once the choral procession through the woods is over. I’ve asked Mr Munday to … well, we’ve taken steps anyway, just in case anything grisly is about. I’m sure there isn’t but, well, best to be safe.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Just regulation “Keep Out” signs, was it?’

‘Yes. Nobody will be going up there over Christmas anyway, but we need signs keeping anyone out of the woods and away from the ponds in case they freeze over.’

I made a note in my book. ‘Yes, ma’am. Is this what the police suggested we do?’

‘Hmm?’ she said, looking up from her papers in alarm as if I’d just asked her what method she suggested I hang myself with.

‘Your meeting with the police this afternoon? They were here to talk about the man in the village and the … beast?’

‘Oh that!’ she said, almost shrieking with laughter. ‘Oh that, yes. Yes, the police did say we needed to take extra precautions.’

‘And … Dianna was a good help with the police?’

‘Yes, wonderful. Actually, you really have both been a constant support this year. And without any detriment to your grades. I don’t know how you and Dianna do it, I really don’t.’

I poured a mental pail of cold water over the flames that had just ignited in my mind. Dianna? A constant support? A constant thorn in my side, rather. A constant interloper on my duties, definitely. ‘Well, I can’t speak for Dianna but I enjoy it, ma’am. I like helping out.’

‘Well, you’ve both been a marvel. How is the play coming along?’

‘Oh we’re almost there, ma’am. If you’d like to come and watch the dress rehearsal, we’ll be starting just after Prayers tomorrow morning.’

‘Lovely, yes, I might do that. And talking of Prayers …’

Here it comes, I thought. This is it. This was the moment I’ve been waiting for. My heart began to pump like a clubhouse classic.

‘Would you be an absolute dear and set out the hymn books first thing tomorrow, please? I meant to ask Clarice Hoon but I never got round to it. Oh and breakfast tomorrow—’

‘I can monitor it,’ I said quickly, so as to squeeze the information, the golden information out of her just that bit quicker. ‘Sorry, ma’am, was there something else you wanted to say about Prayers?’

‘Uh, yes, erm, I’ve forgotten what it was now,’ she chuckled. ‘I’m sure it’ll come to me. I must just tidy up these last few things and show my face at the staff Christmas party. I promised I’d do a little speech and announce Employee of the Year. Any idea where that gold picture frame I got from the mother-in-law last Christmas is?’

‘Yes, it’s on your tallboy in your apartments, ma’am.’

‘Oh good, I’ll wrap that up quickly and give that as a prize. Was there anything else?’

‘Er, no, ma’am.’

She got up from her desk chair as I got up from mine, and went over to her corner armoire and took down a coat hanger from which hung her Christmas end-of-term red trouser suit. ‘Be a dear and go up and hang this in my bedroom would you?’

I looked at her. I waited for her to look at me. Any sign, any inkling, any vestige of good news, vanished from her face.

‘That’ll be all for tonight, thank you, Natasha,’ she said finally, with a knotted brow, clicking off her desk lamp and leaving me in darkness.

3 Insidious

I spent a fitful night, worrying about Seb and angsting over Head Girl. Obsessing over why my dad hadn’t called me with news. Fixating over why Mrs Saul-Hudson hadn’t mentioned some shred of hope that that badge was mine in our meeting. If I got that badge I would be able to cope better with Seb’s disappearance, I knew I would. I’d be able to focus myself on my duties and I would stop worrying so much. If I didn’t get it, what then? What the hell would I do? Who the hell was I at this school if I wasn’t Head Girl? Just some wannabe?

That Tuesday morning, the last day of term, I had a phone call.

I was waiting to be connected to my dad on the public phone outside the school office. There was a shiny prospectus on the shelf and I was absentmindedly peeling through it while I waited. It stated that Bathory School ‘prides itself on its record of pastoral care’. I looked through the pages of all the girls, six-year-old Pups, wide-eyed Tenderfoots, spotty Pre-Pubes, proud prefects and perfect Head Girls of years gone by, action shots of athletics and gymnastics, wondrous gazes down microscopes, contented smiles while reading books on beanbags, playing cellos in the Music room, waving through coach windows on the way to Switzerland, Venice or Amsterdam. I’d done all of that. I’d had all these experiences. My parents were paying £9,000 a term for all this and it wasn’t as though they were rich, not like a lot of the other girls. My mum and dad ran a bakery, that was all. They weren’t loaded by any stretch of the imagination. But they’d sent Seb to a private school, so they sent me too. I knew it was a struggle. I knew I had to do my best.

‘Nash, hi, it’s your dad.’

I closed the prospectus. ‘Hi, Dad.’

‘Nashy, it’s good to hear your voice, darling.’

I wanted to cry. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed his voice. ‘Is everything okay? You don’t usually phone this earl—’

‘I know, darling.’ He’d called me ‘darling’ twice. This really wasn’t good.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Uh, it’s Seb.’

That was all he’d needed to say. The bottom dropped out of my world. I reached behind me and felt for the corridor wall so I could lean against it.

‘Nash? Nash, darling, are you there?’

‘Yeah.’ I didn’t dare say anything. I didn’t want the silence on the line to be filled with words I’d always dreaded I’d hear. Words from my nightmares. But I had to ask. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Well, there’s still nothing. They think he’s gone off the map a bit.’

I sank back in the big leather swivel chair and it turned me towards the wide bay window. He hadn’t said dead. He still wasn’t past tense. There was still hope.

‘Oh,’ I said.

I could hear Dad scratching his stubbly chin, another bad sign. He hadn’t shaved. By the way he was talking so quietly and slowly, it sounded like he hadn’t slept either. He always talked like that when he’d done a night shift. ‘They’ve made contact with three of the lads on his expedition. Apparently, three of them went off to spot a pod of manatee while the others returned to camp. Seb’s group didn’t come back. I’m sure all will be well. You know Bash. If he fell into a pit of snakes he’d come up wearing snakeskin boots.’

This was Dad trying to make me feel better. It didn’t help. All it did was make me think my big brother had fallen into a pit of snakes.

‘He’s more than likely just gone somewhere remote where there aren’t any phones and he can’t get in touch.

‘We’re catching a flight out there this lunchtime. Managed to get a couple of cancellations. So, I’m afraid, you’ll have to stay there, baby, at least for now.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘Can’t I come?’

‘We can’t come and get you, darling, we’ll have to leave for the airport in a couple of hours.’

‘But I could get a train or something.’

‘It’ll take too long. We’ve got to get our flight. Look, you stay there, where you’re safe. Where we know where you are. We spoke to your Headmistress and she said Matron’s going to be staying over Christmas as well so you won’t be on your own.’

‘So, the Saul-Hudsons aren’t staying?’ I said. ‘First I’ve heard.’ They never went away for Christmas, always New Year skiing, but never Christmas. They always stayed here in case any girls were going home later.

‘Yeah, she said they’re leaving tonight to go skiing or something in Scotland. There’s a few other girls staying as well as you she said. Okay? Nash? They said Matron’s very happy to stay instead of them.’

‘Okay, Dad,’ I said. Cowards, was all I could think. And then my mind went to all the Christmas presents I’d wrapped and put under the loose floorboard in my room. I couldn’t wait to give Dad his. It was this board game he used to play as a kid and thought they’d stopped making. I got it on eBay months ago when I was home for the summer. When Seb was there. We’d had a barbecue for his birthday. We were always together for birthdays and Christmases. Always. Always.

‘What about Christmas?’ A single tear fell into the phone mouthpiece. I rubbed my cheek.

‘We’ll have our Christmas when we get back. All four of us. Okay? Try not to worry too much, Nashy. They’ll find him by then, I know they will.’

I swallowed down a lump of emotion and built a dam for any more tears. There was nothing to cry about yet, I kept telling myself. When I got off the phone, the pain in my throat was worse, but I wouldn’t cry.

‘There’s nothing to cry about, stop it. Stop it,’ I said aloud.

Often, at times where I didn’t know what to do, I’d hear Seb’s voice in my head. He was always full of advice. He always said the right thing.

Suck it up, Nash. I’m fine. Just fancied being on my own for a bit, that’s all. Typical Mum and Dad to panic and get the Embassy involved. I can look after myself.

I could hear it. But I didn’t believe it.

I was in the Chapel, already dressed in my Bob Cratchit outfit for the dress rehearsal straight after morning Prayers. Even though I’d spent a fairly sleepless night, I’d been tasked with setting out the hymn books and assembling the right hymn numbers on the board above the lectern so I focused on the task at hand. I was a mere minutes from the official announcement of Head Girl and I had to put everything else out of my mind.

The Chapel was set apart from the main school, at the start of the wooded valley known as the Landscape Gardens. It was the first building you saw at the bottom of the path. Warm, wooden, bedecked in burgundy and navy curtains, carpets and prayer cushions, it was where we worshipped, where we heard any big announcements and where girls ran if they needed help from a higher source.

‘Hi, Nash.’

Clarice Hoon and a couple of her hangers-on, Allie Powell and Lauren Entwistle, sauntered in and took early places right on the back bench. I heard the creaking of their pews, whispering and a few giggles.

I carried on putting up the numbers on the hymn board. Two five six. One one nine. Twenty-three. Don’t get angry unless you have to, came his voice in my mind. They’re not worth your anger or your tears. ‘Any news about your brother yet?’ Clarice called out. I looked over to them. They had their feet up on the pew in front. ‘Bet you’re worried about him, aren’t you?’

I went over to the organ and got the music sheets ready for Mr Rose.

‘He’s really hot,’ said Lauren.

‘I saw him at Sports Day last year. He came with your parents, didn’t he?’ Allie this time—like Clarice was working them both like a ventriloquist’s act. More giggles. More whispers. ‘Has he got a girlfriend?’

There was a cloth underneath the eagle lectern. I bunched it up and wiped over the top and around the eagle’s bald head, trying hard to zone them out. They’re idiots. They couldn’t find their own backsides with both hands. Don’t even listen. Block it out.

‘Why are you ignoring us, Nash?’

She’d been like this ever since Fourth Form. Last summer I’d reported her for pushing a Pup down the main staircase. There were many things I hadn’t reported her for as well.

‘Just trying to get this place ready,’ I muttered, keeping my head down as I finished polishing the lectern. Now I had done everything I had to do. The hymn books were laid out. The lectern and music were ready. I had to go back down the aisle, past them, to get out of the Chapel and rejoin my class.

I knew one of them would move the moment I was level with them. She blocked my way with her whole body. Don’t vent it. Keep it in check. Stay strong.

‘Let me past, please, Clarice.’

Her face was thick with foundation and blusher. Her breath smelled of sour milk. ‘Why won’t you talk to us? Are you too good for us or something?’

Acid began filling my chest. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’ Lava bubbled up in the middle of my chest. Think of Head Girl. Set the example.

‘Nothing to say? Not like you, is it? You had plenty to say to Saul-Hudson when you reported me.’ She whipped her hair flirtatiously over one shoulder. ‘You never report Maggie and she’s done a lot worse than I have.’

Avoid eye contact. ‘You had your revenge,’ I said, remembering the start of term. She’d put tacks in my outdoor shoes. She never admitted it, but I knew it was her.

‘Why don’t you ever report Maggie Zappa? Are you and her lesbi-friends now?’

‘I report people who do bad things, Clarice. Maggie doesn’t endanger life. Maggie doesn’t abuse children.’ I still didn’t look at her.

She stepped back from me. ‘Abuse children?’ She looked back at the other two, who were laughing. ‘Who have I abused?’

‘I’m not going into it now.’ I tried barging through her, but she held me in place.

‘Whoa there, you can’t just say that and then walk off. That’s libellous.’

She’d learnt that word in English last week. We all had. ‘Actually it’s slander, but it happens to be the truth. Now let me past, please.’

‘No, you’re accusing me of something, so accuse me. Tell me what I’ve done.’

‘Get off me.’

‘No. Finish what you were saying. I abuse children or something.’

‘You really want me to say it now?’ I glanced back at Allie and Lauren. They were transfixed, like they were watching some award-winning movie moment.

‘Say it,’ she snarled.

I looked just past her, still not focusing on her eyes. ‘I didn’t tell Saul-Hudson about the five different St Anthony’s boys I’ve seen you sneaking up the back stairs in the past year.’

She went crimson.

‘I didn’t tell her that you cheated in the Maths test or spat in the school governors’ tea. But yes, I did report that you pushed a new Pup down the stairs. And that I’ve watched you drag a compass across a Tenderfoot’s knee in Prep to see how long it would take for her to scream. I report people who do that kind of thing. Not because I’m a lesbian, but because you’re a psycho. Do you want me to go on?’

I pushed towards the Chapel door. Allie and Lauren looked like two frightened lambs, lined up for the garrotting machine. I was on my way, my foot over the step, almost back out into the crisp, cold morning, when I heard her say it.

‘I hope your brother died slowly. In pain.’

Died, she said. Past tense. Deceased. No longer with me.

Kill her.

No more cooling voice of advice. I flew back into that Chapel like a wind and grabbed her by both shoulders, slamming my forehead against hers with an eye-watering CLUNK.

The rest I don’t remember.

And before I knew it, I was running.

4 Jeepers Creepers

I didn’t stop running until I was deep into the Landscape Gardens. I headed straight for the old wooden Wendy House, opened the yellow front door and shut myself in. It was freezing. All I had on was Bob Cratchit’s threadbare shirt and torn trousers.

I’d often wondered what the consequences would be if I’d let the reckless part of my brain decide things for me. The part of my brain that wanted to key the cars of people my dad had fallen out with. The part that wanted to touch boiling hot surfaces. The part that wanted to shout back and swear all the time. The part that wondered what it would be like to punch Clarice Hoon in the face every time she laughed when I tripped over or got a question wrong in French. And now I knew. It felt horrible.

I don’t know how long I’d sat there on one of the little toadstool seats, my head aching like I’d loaned it out as a wrecking ball, a ready-laid plastic dinner service set out beside me, when Maggie Zappa, still in her Mrs Cratchit dress and bonnet, appeared in the doorway.

She sat down on a toadstool on the other side of the table and pulled a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her lacy apron. She took one out and offered it to me.

‘Go on.’

I didn’t think, I just took it with a hand I didn’t realise was shaking. She cupped her hand around the end and held the lighter as I inhaled. Seb had taught me how to do it without coughing. I let the smoke out, slowly. ‘We’re not allowed up here. Mrs Saul-Hudson said it was out of bounds over Christmas.’

‘Why are we up here then?’ said Maggie, blowing smoke through the little square window. ‘You’re gonna get a bruise there.’ She pushed her finger into my forehead. There was a pulsating ache radiating out from where she touched me and I winced.

‘Aargh! God. What the hell did I do?’

‘I wondered how long it would take.’

I looked at her as I exhaled the cigarette smoke, shuddering at the taste. I felt warmer somehow. ‘What?’

‘You and Clarice going at it in the Chapel. I was outside. I watched the whole thing through the window.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what happened. I can’t even remember what I did. My head hurts, I know that.’

‘You beat the crap out of her, that’s what you did, ma petite oignon,’ said Maggie, cigarette dangling from her mouth as she laid up one of the plastic plates with bits and pieces from the box of fake food. ‘Your head hurts because you headbutted her. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s all right. She deserved it. She’s a total dick.’

‘Violence is never the answer.’

‘Sometimes it is,’ said Maggie. ‘Just because her parents own a racehorse and live in Dubai, doesn’t mean she owns the world.’

‘They own the fifth largest racing stables in the world.’

‘So? Some people are born dicks, some achieve dick-ness and some have dick-ness thrust upon them. Isn’t that how the saying goes?’

‘Something like that.’ I sniffed. ‘I just saw red. Nothing could have stopped me. I lost it. I completely lost it.’

‘She deserved it, don’t worry. She’s had that coming for a long time, let me tell you. She was born a dick. There’s no point going over it, wondering if she has Daddy issues or if Mummy never let her drive the Ferrari. Don’t reason with it. You’ve got to show people like that what’s what or they’ll stamp all over you. She won’t give you any more grief now, just you watch.’

‘She said my brother was dead. She said she hoped he died in pain.’

‘Ugh, what a cow!’ said Maggie.

‘I know he’s dead.’

‘You know that for a fact, do you?’

‘No.’ I dragged on the cigarette.

‘Well then. You don’t know jack.’

We stared each other out. Maggie wasn’t going to be first blinker, so I gave in. I didn’t understand what she was doing here. Of all the people to come to my aid, Maggie was the last I’d expected. We’d barely had a conversation since she’d started at Bathory last spring. But here she was, giving me a cigarette and seeing me at my absolute worst, but not judging me. It was just what a friend would do.

‘It’s been nearly a week since he went missing.’

‘Five days I’d heard.’

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I haven’t slept properly for ages. I’m forgetting chores. There’s misspellings all over today’s diary. I read over my libretto first thing. I couldn’t remember any of my lines for A Christmas Carol. I knew them all last week. I knew all yours last week too.’

‘So? There’s more important things in life than chores and a play everyone’s seen a million times. And the Muppets did it waaaay better anyway.’

‘Yeah, I know, but …’

‘Plus them four Pups they’ve got playing our kids—how come they’re all white? At the very least they ought to be mixed race. It’s totally miscast.’ She dragged on her cigarette until the stem was nearly all ash. ‘Or are they not my kids? Did Bob Cratchitt shag around in the book?’

‘Not as far as I know.’ I came to the end of my cigarette and she offered me another one. ‘I’m going to stink.’

She shrugged. ‘Just stand next to me. I’ll take the blame. I’m like a blame sponge. Ciggy stink. Stolen turkeys. I’m your girl.’

I smiled. ‘So you didn’t steal them then?’

She looked at me. ‘What would I want with three frozen turkeys?’

‘I have no idea.’ We sat in silence, Bob and Mrs Cratchit smoking their cigarettes in silence. Then I just came out with it. ‘I’ve lost out on Head Girl.’

‘What?’ Maggie shrieked. ‘Who says?’

‘No one. But I know I have. I’ve just punched a fellow prefect, for God’s sake. She’s not exactly going to overlook that, is she?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘She might. What with all the stress you’ve been under lately, worrying about your brother and that.’

I shook my head and stared at a woodlouse crawling its way across a plastic apple on top of the cooker. ‘Dianna’s won. I know she has.’

‘Pfaff?’ said Maggie. ‘Great. That means we’re all screwed. Oh well.’ She sighed and lit up another.

‘Oh well?’ I repeated. ‘Do you know how hard I’ve worked to be Head Girl? I’ve been up every morning to help with Pups or unlock outside doors since … forever. Every single hockey, netball or athletics practice I’ve been out there, tidying up balls or polishing javelins because no one else volunteers. I monitor Prep, every night.’ My voice was getting steadily louder.

‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’

‘I’ve got spotless deportment. I miss phone calls home most nights just so I can sit in that study with Saul-Hudson and go through the diary while she sits there on her yogically tightened arse, picking lip hairs and drinking Tesco Finest cocoa while I’m stuck drinking that … value crud she gets for the rest of us!’

‘Whoa, it’s all coming out now,’ Maggie laughed.

‘Sorry,’ I said, breathing deeply, my head falling into my hands. ‘Just can’t believe I’ve fallen at the last sodding fence.’

‘You let it out. It’s good for you,’ said Maggie. ‘‘Bout time you gnashed your teeth a bit. Listen, you don’t know Pffaf’s been given Head Girl, do you?’

‘It’s a pretty safe bet. She called for Dianna to talk to the police with her. Not me. She said I’ve “got enough to deal with”. If that isn’t a massive hint as to who she trusts the most at this school, I don’t know what is.’

‘But you practically run this school, Nash. Saul-Hudson would be lost without you. If she’d rather put that chucklehead in charge of running the place, then let her. She doesn’t deserve your respect. What other headmistress would keep me here as long as she has, eh?’

‘True,’ I said, forcing a small laugh. ‘I’ve failed her big time this week though. She was relying on me.’

‘Why do you want to be Head Girl anyway? All that extra responsibility. All it involves is doing the diary and sorting out pissy little tea rotas and wiping Saul-Hudson’s arse. Let the Golden Snitch deal with all that if that’s what she really wants. I bet your brother doesn’t give a crap.’

I laughed. This much was true.

‘Seb would want you to enjoy yourself, wouldn’t he? You can’t enjoy yourself if you’re constantly trying to impress other people. All that is for when you’re grown up. Now is the time to kick back—at least until you’re eighteen. Then you can start thinking about job prospects and contraception and hatchbacks.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’

She blew out a thick cloud of smoke. ‘For what?’

‘For never sticking up for you.’

‘You’ve turned a few blind ones to me, I know you have. So come on, chin up, tits out and let’s go get our God on.’ She gestured towards the open Wendy House window. A line of students had already begun the trek up the path towards the Chapel on the opposite side of the valley.

‘Do you mind if I sit next to you in Prayers?’ I asked her as we stepped out of the Wendy House.

‘Yeah. If I can share your hymn book.’

‘Why where’s yours?’

‘Kinda flame grilled it yesterday. Don’t ask.’

There was a tremendous creak of the pews and everyone stood up to greet Mrs Saul-Hudson, who took her position at her bronze eagle lectern as the organ ceased its hum. I stayed seated throughout.

‘Good morning, girls,’ she boomed, removing a small hair from the lapel of her red suit jacket.

‘Good morning, Mrs Saul-Hudson,’ the assembled pupils all droned back at her, apart from Maggie who preferred ‘Good morning, Mrs Stool-Softener.’ She threw me a look and I smiled, despite myself.

‘That woman literally has no neck,’ Maggie whispered into my ear, at which I burst out laughing.

Mrs Saul-Hudson threw me a look, full to the brim with disappointment.

I sucked my swollen lip again, spotting Regan Matsumoto staring at me from the choir pews at the front. Why was she always staring at me? I could see no evidence of Clarice Hoon or her vile apostles though and Matron hadn’t pitched up either. I figured they were all in Sickbay. Clarice wailing on and on about how I attacked her and pinned her down. The other girls just crying in harmony.

It was as though Maggie had read my mind. She leaned in to me again. ‘I see the Hoon Patrol haven’t rocked up. Probably in Sickbay getting her face reassembled.’

I looked down at the prayer cushion beneath my feet and tried to decipher which Bible story was knitted into the fabric today. Maggie had Noah and the Ark. On the other side of me, Carrie McKernan had Jonah and the Whale. Mine showed a monster. Maybe it wasn’t a monster. Maybe it was the Devil.

‘Girls, before I begin our last assembly of term, there are a couple of grave matters which I must discuss this morning,’ said Mrs Saul-Hudson. Everyone sat to attention, eager to know the fate that had befallen Bathory in the night.

Maggie leaned into me. ‘Bet her husband’s been caught dogging again.’

‘What?’ I said, snapping my head to look at her. ‘He was night-fishing,’ I whispered back.

‘Sure he was.’

Saul-Hudson continued. ‘First of all, I’m sure you have all heard by now that a man very sadly died in the village a few nights ago. There have been some rumours flying about the school regarding the cause of his death. I want you all to be assured that he died as the result of a burglary that went wrong and the perpetrators have been caught, so you are quite safe.’

She smiled. Nobody smiled back.

‘So he didn’t have his guts ripped out by some wild animal and die in agony on his doorstep then?’ said Maggie, leaning into me.

‘Apparently not.’

Saul-Hudson continued. ‘The second matter I must bring to your attention concerns last night’s staff Christmas party. A person, or persons, broke into the kitchens and laced the party food with a toxic substance …’

Maggie leaned in again. ‘Staff toilets take a bit of punishment, did they?’

‘Sssssshhhh!’ I said, bubbles of laughter and fear mingling in my belly.

‘I do not consider this act to be even remotely amusing.’ She scanned us all, daring us with her eyes to laugh or even breathe wrong. ‘I suggest the culprit come and see me after Prayers in my office and tell me privately—’

Maggie’s hand shot up.

Saul-Hudson honed in on her, thinning her frosty eyes. ‘You.’

‘Yes, me,’ Maggie sighed. ‘It was only laxatives though, Mrs Saul-Hudson. Guess you’ll be throwing me out of school now, won’t you?’ She held up her wrists as though a pair of invisible handcuffs were to clamp down on them. But they didn’t. All Mrs Saul-Hudson did was clear her throat and say, ‘See me after Prayers, please. Now, let us pray.’

There was a shuffling and creaking again as every teacher and all the school’s three hundred and four girls arranged their cushions and knelt down to pray for trespassers and daily Hovis.

I clasped my hands and closed my eyes, inhaling the strong atticky smell of the Chapel and the musty old hymn book just beneath my nose. There was a snigger to the right of me.

I opened my eyes and nudged Maggie. ‘You still hell-bent on getting chucked out?’

She nodded.

‘But why?’

Maggie looked at me. ‘Je suis have mes raisons.’

‘… and give us this day our daily bread … I don’t think they’ll expel you for putting Ex-Lax in the cocoa. They didn’t for spray-painting the pony or putting the custard in the minibus.’

‘More’s the pity,’ she said.

‘… the power and the glory … She could put you in the Chiller again.’

‘… forever and ever … Maybe I want to go to the Chiller again.’

Please, please, let Seb be all right. ‘Amen.’

The Chiller was supposed to be the most feared place in the school, but basically it was just the laundry room where teachers sent girls to ‘cool off’, tucked away at the back of the school basement. All the younger kids were afraid of it, but it wasn’t so scary. It was always warm and smelled gorgeously of clean washing. I’d lost track of the amount of times I’d seen Maggie frogmarched down there to serve a time out. But Maggie was afraid of no one and no place. Whenever I’d gone down there to retrieve her for a teacher, she’d just be sitting on top of one of the washing machines, picking her nails or singing.

‘Please be seated,’ said our Head when the prayer was over. And we all were. There followed an end of term lecture about not treating our rooms like hotels, news from the past few months (netball victories, a ‘positive’ visit from the school governors and a new bench donated by one of the trustees—who definitely was not a paedophile) and details about the Christmas Fayre that afternoon; who would be doing what and when. Stallholders would arrive to set up on the Orangery lawns at eleven a.m., the younger ones would be ‘making mince pies’ (folding impetigo into pastry) and the first year Sixth Formers (our class) would be adding finishing touches to the play, which would start in the Hall at three p.m. The candlelit procession through the Landscape Gardens rounded everything off and then the girls could find their parents and go home for Christmas.

And then it came. The dread in my chest was strangulating.

‘And lastly, I have the great pleasure of announcing my new Head Girl, who will take up her post at the beginning of next year. It’s been a very difficult decision, owing to the quality of the candidates I had to choose from, but the girl I’m appointing is kind, considerate, brimming over with focus and dedication. She is accepting and kind to all students and is a keen exponent of fair play. She is also extremely loyal to Bathory and to what we are trying to achieve here.’

She looked directly at me. I, for once, held her gaze.

‘This girl will be your representative, your prefect leader, in loco parentis when there isn’t a member of staff on whom you can call. I am sure you will agree she is the right person for the role. Your new Head Girl is … Dianna Pfaff.’

There was a lengthy pause between the announcement and the beginning of the applause. The girls were shocked. The news about my ‘quite vicious attack on Clarice’ had yet to reach the majority of them, but I could feel eyes on me, looking at me for a reaction.

Maggie stared at me, mouthing a string of choice words. I smiled, a rictus grin, and watched Dianna stride along the aisle towards the lectern, where Saul-Hudson pinned the badge to her cardigan. I clapped along with all the others as she made her way back down the aisle to her pew, badge gleaming.

Dianna passed our pew, flashing us a sanctimonious, paint-stripping smile.

‘Whatever,’ I said, like a bitten apple, feeling itself going bad from the inside. ‘Whatever.’

5 Dead and Breakfast

As I made my way to the Refectory that morning after Prayers, I walked slower than everyone else. I was swept along on the tide of other girls who were all just like me, in the same uniform, just trying to get to the same place, The same. Not special. Not the best. I felt like little pieces of the person I was were flying off behind me never to return. I didn’t care that there was a little dab of Blu-Tack on my sole, sticking to the highly polished parquet every so often. I didn’t care that my tie was slightly askew. And I didn’t care if I was late for breakfast. For once in my life, I did not care.

The Refectory was a large, high room, echoing with the sounds of clinking cutlery, loud chatter and the dishwasher whirring in the kitchen through the hatch. It had a parquet floor and walls decorated with scholarship boards dating back over a hundred years. Some of the Year Tens on my table were playing the game where you picked a name from one of the boards and everyone had to guess which one. They usually honed in on names like Smellie or Windass—the favourites were always Ethel Glasscock from 1947 and Olive Dicks from 1955.

It wasn’t long before I spotted Clarice Hoon, three tables away with all the other prefects. Her left arm was in a sling; her bottom lip was even more swollen than mine. She’d brushed her hair so that a curtain of it fell down across the bashed-up right side of her face, and tried to cover it with make-up, but she hadn’t done a good enough job. I caught details from the girls along my table. She’d fallen. Down the main staircase. Probably drunk. It had been known. Someone was covering for me. I felt a pang of guilt. I took a seat on Table Nine, aka The Rejects Table, and knowing looks all around me as I sat down told me what a huge statement I was making by not sitting with the other prefects.

‘Could you pass the toast, please?’ I called up the table to anyone who was listening and immediately, the toast rack was on its way down.

Maggie eventually scuffed in, socks rumpled down, face like thunder, looking like she’d been heaved through a hedge by her hair. I guessed by her scowl that she hadn’t been expelled. Inwardly, I sighed in relief.

‘Don’t ask,’ she griped, ignoring looks from the other girls and yanking out the chair opposite me.

‘Saul-Hudson still not expelling you then?’ I said, pouring her out some juice. It dripped on the table. I didn’t bother to wipe it up. What a rebel I was becoming. I’d be making headlines in the school magazine at this rate.

Maggie frowned. ‘I’m living in a sea of morons and the only life raft is made from moron trees. Twenty Blue Tickets, an hour in the Chiller and a loooong lecture about why I “mustn’t break in to Sickbay and steal laxatives”. What’s it gonna take to get kicked out of this dump?’

‘They’ll only send you to another school if you get kicked out of this one. Maybe a worse one.’

‘There isn’t a worse one,’ she said, looking like she meant it.

Regan Matsumoto sat down at the end of our table. As quiet as a mouse yet as noticeable as a fart, nobody liked Regan though nobody quite knew why. It was just one of those innate things, like in the wild when mother animals reject the offspring with health defects. We’d all rejected Regan. Picked her last for team sports. Left her to wander the playing fields alone at break to identify insects and talk to people who weren’t there. All I really knew about her was that her parents had won money on the EuroMillions and were now so loaded they didn’t work, just took holidays. But they never took Regan with them.

A clickety clack on the polished parquet tiles signalled the arrival of Dianna Pfaff, our sparkling new Head Girl, a bundle of letters in her hands.

‘Hello, Natasha. Margaret.’ She beamed, her blonde bob shimmering in the early morning window-shine.

‘Hi, Dianna,’ I said, biting on both words as though they hurt me to say them. I reached for the milk jug. ‘Congratulations.’

She smiled and looked down at her badge. My badge. ‘Thanks, Natasha. I really couldn’t believe it when she said my name.’

‘Yeah, me neither,’ I muttered.

‘How come you’re on post today, princess?’ said Maggie, snatching the letter Dianna handed her. ‘Thought you’d have a minion running about for you.’

Dianna’s bangs quivered with annoyance. ‘Drop dead, Margaret.’

Maggie faux gasped. ‘I’m shocked. Our new Head Girl using such a callous remark? You get any post from your brother today, Dianna? I’ve always wondered, do prisoners really stick their envelopes down with spunk or is that a myth?’

Dianna stiffened and leaned over Regan’s cereal bowl.

‘Very funny, Margaret. You really should be on Britain’s Got Talent. They’re in dire need of comedians.’ She seemed really annoyed for some reason and every time she spoke, little flecks of spittle flew directly into Regan’s juice glass.

‘You’re so full of shit, Dianna. That must be why your eyes are brown.’

It went on like this for a while. It always did. I finished my toast and a whole bowl of cornflakes, the war of words still raging around me. Eventually, Dianna was the first to run out of comebacks. ‘There’s two for you, Natasha.’

She held out two white envelopes. I took them both and saw the handwriting on the top one was Mum’s. A Christmas card from her and Dad. I didn’t recognise the second one. All around me, the chatter and clinking stopped.

When I looked up, all eyes around the table were on me except Regan’s. She was slowly chewing into a slice of toast while watching a money spider crawling over her free hand like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. I ripped into the envelope and opened the letter.

Dianna was still hovering. ‘Anything important?’

‘Keep your beak out,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Uh, I think it is my business. I am Head Girl.’

‘Yeah, and don’t we know it?’

‘What does that mean?’

Maggie swigged her orange juice then licked her lips, slowly like a cat. ‘The only reason you wear that badge is cos you brown-tongued your way up Saul-Hudson’s arse. Everyone knows it should have been Nash who got Head Girl, not you.’

Dianna’s nostrils flared. ‘Well, Natasha fell at the final fence, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah, and why was that, do you think?’ I said. When I looked up, Dianna was staring at me. I opened my second letter.

It was a picture. Hand-drawn and coloured. Trees. Leaves. A large black monster with huge pointed teeth. Between its jaws it held a man’s body. The man had blond hair. There was red scribble all around the page. It was supposed to be the Beast. My brother. Blood.

I folded the letter back up and slotted it into the torn envelope. As I returned to my toast, I took a quick scan of the room, fixing my own face into a calm mask.

Clarice.

I picked her out again, three tables away, talking to Lauren Entwistle. She glanced across at me, and quickly glanced away again.

‘Who was your other one from?’ asked Maggie.

Choose your battles. Just ignore it.

‘Oh, just my nan. She can’t come and get me over Christmas. She’s away.’

‘Well, my mum’s still fighting a big divorce case in LA so she’s not going to be back any time soon either. And Dad’s in New York till whenever.’

‘Is your dad a lawyer too?’ I asked.

‘No, architect,’ said Maggie. ‘Something to do with that new thing they’re building on Wall Street or something, I dunno.’

‘One World Trade Center?’ I said, hardly believing it.

‘Summing like that.’

‘Wow,’ I said.

‘Sooo, we can have Christmas here on our own and totally let rip! No parents, no teachers, no Saul-Hudson ramming her big fat honk into our beeswax.’

‘Matron’ll be here though,’ I said.

She grimaced. ‘Yeah, but we can outrun her if we have to. Beeyatch.’

‘She’s been lovely since I heard about Seb,’ I said. ‘She asks me every morning if I’ve heard anything and whether I need to use the phone.’

‘Bless,’ said Maggie, unconvincingly. I knew how much she hated Matron and I didn’t wonder why. It was because Matron was usually the one who caught her out. Every single time.

‘There’s a Pup staying as well,’ I said, trying to think of the little girl’s name.

‘And I am,’ said a small voice. We both looked at the stern-looking girl with the plaits.

‘Why will you be here?’ asked Maggie, barely hiding her disdain.

‘I’m not allowed to go home for Christmas,’ Regan said, matter-of-fact. She pushed her glasses up her nose and dipped her head.

‘Why aren’t you allowed to go home?’

Regan swallowed down some cornflakes, leaving a milk drop on her chin. ‘I’m only allowed home one holiday a year, summer or Christmas. I went home in the summer so …’

‘… so you’re here for Christmas,’ I finished.

She nodded.

‘Oh peach parfait,’ groaned Maggie, her spoon clattering against her empty bowl.

‘Well, I guess we can make the best of it,’ I said, trying to find a bright side. ‘Plan a midnight raid on the kitchen or something.’

‘The devil is at your elbow, my child,’ said Maggie with an evil stare and a suggestive eyebrow wiggle.

I laughed.

Regan laughed too, but I don’t think she knew what she was laughing at. She still had a milk drip on her chin. ‘We can go looking for the Beast that killed the man in the village.’

Maggie and I looked at her.

‘It would be better than sitting in the library. I spend a lot of time in the library.’

She didn’t say it to court pity. It was just a fact. And it was a fact with a subtext: spending time in the library was code for I have absolutely no friends.

‘I slept in there on Sunday night.’

‘Why?’ said Maggie. ‘All there is are encyclopedias and crappy books like Common Sense Beekeeping and Fun With Yarn. Not exactly party central.’

‘It’s warmer than the dorm. I was reading all the old school scrapbooks that the prefects of the past used to keep. About all the parties and plays. And the Beast.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Maggie laughed. ‘The Beast of Bathory? The stupidest mythical beast known to man. He only comes out in the winter when there’s no food around.’

‘He killed Mr Pellett in the village. He was a retired accountant. Lived up at The Old Apothecary.’

‘How do you know all this?’ said Maggie.

Regan tapped her nose. ‘I know a lot of things about the Beast of Bathory.’

I thought about my monster.

‘It’s just a scary story,’ I said. ‘The prefects have been telling the Pups ghost stories about the Beast of Bathory for generations.’

‘It’s more than a story. It’s real. A man died last week. It tore him to pieces. Two tourists went missing at the end of last summer and they haven’t been found.’ She fumbled with her collar and pulled out what looked like a necklace made from green garden twine. Right in the centre of it, there was a tooth. She showed it to us. ‘What do you think that is?’

‘Uh, looks like a tooth,’ said Maggie.

‘Looks like a dog’s tooth,’ I said.

‘I found it on the path between the Chapel and the Tree House. It’s one of the Beast’s incisors. Look at the size of it.’ The tooth was pretty big, about the length of a Post-it note. And about the same colour yellow too.

‘How did you make the hole?’ I asked her.

‘I did it in the CDT room. Imagine being ripped apart by a mouth full of them.’ She looked at the tooth like it was a naked picture of Ryan Gosling.

Maggie threw me a look, grabbing a last piece of burnt toast from the rack. ‘It’s total and utter rubbish. It’s probably plastic.’

‘No it’s not,’ said Regan. ‘People have seen it.’ She looked directly at me. I poured myself some more apple juice.

‘Witnesses swear it’s bigger than any beast you would get in a zoo. Twice the size of a tiger.’

Maggie stared at her with wide eyes, almost missing her mouth as her thickly buttered toast rose to greet it.

‘Loads of people have been killed in the past two years. And now Mr Pellett. There’ve been sightings recently. All at night.’

‘Convenient,’ said Maggie.

‘They say it has bright red eyes and growls like a tiger. It’s taken sheep from the farms. Everyone knows about it.’

Maggie laughed. ‘Bright red eyes. Don’t make me laugh. All boarding schools have these stories cos they’re so deathly dull. If you go up to the Blue Bathroom and say Adolf Hitler three times in the mirror, he appears and stabs you. And if you stand on the eleventh step of back stairs at eleven minutes past eleven on the eleventh month of the year, some weird leprechaun thing comes up out of the stairs and drags you down to hell.’

‘O’Leary’s ghost.’ I nodded. ‘Isn’t there one about the ghost girl of Grace’s Lake too? The one who sleepwalked there in the night and fell in, all tangled up in her bed sheets?’

Regan was stony-faced. ‘The Beast is real. People have died.’

We both looked at her. She really believed it.

‘I’ve seen tree trunks with scratches all up the bark. And I found something behind the Temple. Something awful. Do you want to see it?’

Just then, the bell dingalingalinggggged out in the corridor and Maggie and I both jumped out of our skins. Regan didn’t. She was just staring at us, waiting for an answer.

6 The Thing

While my form was busily black-bagging up their desk contents and lockers and cleaning the classrooms, I was sent to Mrs Saul-Hudson’s office for a ticking off about my attack on Clarice.

And that was all I got. A ticking off. I didn’t even receive a billion Blue Tickets for Tudor House or a detention or anything. Just a long monologue about how my parents would ‘have to be told’, how ‘fighting’s never the answer’ and how it was ‘understandable with the amount of stress I was under with my brother’s situation’.

And that was it.

The reason for my lack of punishment had little to do with what I’d done to Clarice, and everything to do with what I knew about the Saul-Hudsons. I was the secret keeper, you see. I’d been Mrs Saul-Hudson’s right-hand man for a long time. I had intimate knowledge of their private apartments and I knew stuff about them that they definitely wouldn’t want spreading around. Punishing me was a risk they couldn’t take, despite breaking a golden rule of the school.

Maggie was incensed.

‘You break a girl’s face and you get nothing? It’s so unfair! Not that Clarice didn’t deserve it or anything, cos she actually did, but you got nothing? Actual factual nothing?’

‘I know. This school is fundamentally flawed, Maggie,’ I told her as the break-time bell rang out in Long Corridor. ‘It’s the reason why you’re still here.’

‘Must be.’

The three of us hotfooted it across the frosty front lawn, up the flint steps into the valley where the Landscape Gardens began.

On hot summer weekends, being at Bathory School was heaven. I loved being a boarder. We could go outside to do our prep or take the three-mile walk into the tiny village of Bathory for ice cream, and we were sometimes allowed to swim in the pool to cool down. We could sit beneath the hazelnut tree on the Orangery lawn in our vests and shorts or play croquet.

But on winter days like this one, we were rarely let outside, except to walk Brody or go up to the Chapel for prayers and Sunday service. The swimming pool was frozen over and the hazelnut tree bare and stark without its leaves. Our noses glowed red and our breath left cloud trails on the air. I was still glad of something to take my mind off Seb. When I thought about him, I felt myself starting to lose my mind. Bathory just wasn’t the place to lose your mind. You might never get it back.

‘It’s just up here,’ said Regan, as she led Maggie and me towards the Temple, right at the top of the bank and up into the woods.

‘It’s not far now.’ She led us deeper in, where the tops of the trees were alive with birdsong.

‘Is this really worth it?’ said Maggie. ‘If we’re late, we’ll miss the fit work experience boy pruning the Quad hedge.’

The Quad was the square expanse of grass separating the French room from the corridor to the Science lab. ‘He’s finished,’ I said. ‘He’s not back again till the spring.’

‘Aw what?’ she groaned. ‘He was the one good thing about being here. Je suis desolate.’

‘He wasn’t that fit anyway.’

‘He bloody was. Didn’t you see him take his top off in the summer? Holy Mary Mother of Abs.’

‘There’s more to boys than abs and pecs.’

‘Not much more,’ said Maggie. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t get horny, Nash. You must crave it, we all do. Have the odd fantasy about Keith the bus driver or Mr Saul-Hudson in his golf trousers. Or out of them …’

I couldn’t even fake a laugh at that one.

‘No, I know who you’ve got the bubbles for,’ said Maggie. ‘Charlie the Shop Boy.’ She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

‘Shut up.’

Regan looked back at us blankly, and Maggie ‘explained’: ‘Nash fancies the boy who works at Bathory Basics.’

Regan carried on walking in silence.

Maggie gave the back of her head a dirty look. ‘God, what a sulk fest.’ She stopped to catch her breath. ‘Oh come on, let’s go back. Bet you any money she’s taking us to So-Not-Worth-It-Town.’

‘We won’t know until we get there, will we?’ I said, picking up the pace.

Pretty soon, we were up in the highest part of the valley, where a sloping dirt track, worn by centuries of wooden carts transporting ice from Grace’s Lake and Edward’s Pond up to the now overgrown icehouse, led to the Temple.

Maggie and I stopped walking. Pigeon-toed, Regan stumbled gingerly through the prickly bushes and crouched down behind the folly.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, beckoning us with her hand. Maggie looked at me then shrugged, and together we fought our way through. Partially hidden by rotting leaves and damp twigs was something that looked like a long knobbly stick covered in school Bolognese.

‘What the frig is that?’ said Maggie, batting away an errant branch. ‘That’s disgusting.’

I pulled my jumper cuffs down over my hands and shoved one across my mouth, trying to push images from my mind: my brother’s body, cut into pieces by guerrillas in the Colombian jungle.

Regan poked at the thing with a long twig. ‘I found it when I was exploring.’

‘You brought us all the way up here in the freezing cold to show us a sheep’s leg?’

‘It’s not a sheep’s leg,’ said Regan, standing up. ‘I don’t know what it is. What did you think you were coming to see?’

‘That’s not a sheep’s leg,’ I said behind my hand. Neither of them heard me.

‘I dunno,’ said Maggie. ‘A dead body or something? A monster’s cave? A tunnel back to civilisation? Not a frigging sheep’s leg.’

‘I told you it’s not a sheep’s leg,’ said Regan, moving closer and bending down to poke it with a twig. ‘I think it’s from a cow.’

‘I think it’s a spine,’ I said.

‘A SPINE?’ They both cried out, in a chorus of disgust.

‘Yes. Look at the bottom, there’s ribs sticking out of it. And the gunky stuff looks like intestines. It’s thick too.’

Regan levered up the end of it with her twig. ‘Is it … human?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s way too big. You’ve seen Bony Bonaparte in the Science lab. A human spine is much thinner than that. This looks to me like it’s come from a large animal. A cow or a horse, or something.’

‘But why is it here? Where has it come from?’ said Regan.

‘I don’t want to think about that,’ snapped Maggie, rubbing her arms. ‘I wanna go back inside, not stand here in the freezing cold, debating about some random bone. I told you this would be a big fat slice of nothing.’ Without another word, she started back through the bushes.

I waited for Regan. ‘I really think the Beast had something to do with this,’ she said.

‘It’s more likely a wildcat or something.’ I shrugged, although not even I believed that theory.

‘You haven’t seen it closely enough,’ said Regan. ‘Come here.’

I looked after Maggie, then moved closer and crouched down to look. ‘See?’ she said, pointing to the top of it.

‘Yeah.’ I put my jumper-cuffed hand up to my mouth again. ‘It stinks.’

‘But look at the bite mark on the top. Something bigger than a wildcat did that.’

‘A big wildcat?’ I said.

‘But what if it’s not?’ She stared hard into my eyes, like she could read the sell-by date under my skull. ‘You saw it on the playing field, didn’t you? That time in netball. I know you did. Aren’t you even curious about it?’

‘Regan, the Beast of Bathory is fictional, okay?’ I sighed, expelling a huge cloud of white air. ‘That’s why it’s in the myths and legends book in the library. It’s a story made up by some weirdo with an Abominable Snowman fetish.’

She wasn’t buying it. ‘Yes, but you hear about these sorts of things all the time, don’t you? Legends made up about beasts and monsters, just to keep people from going to places where they shouldn’t. Like Satan. There’s a school of thought that says he’s just made up to stop Christians from straying from the path of righteousness.’

I snickered nervously, no idea what I was actually snickering about. ‘Yeah, well, this conversation is getting a little too deep for me.’

‘Satan’s not the only one,’ said Regan, flicking a plait over her shoulder. ‘There are myths and legends in every culture, which came about to stop children being naughty or getting out of bed. The Bogeyman. Baba Jaga. Bloody Bones …’

A branch cracked somewhere in the woods.

‘What was that?’ I said, a frozen ache spreading all through my limbs.

‘Maybe it’s the Beast, come back for the spine?’

A distant ting-a-ling-a-ling tinkled in the distance. ‘Come on, that’s first bell.’ We were so far from Main House, I wanted to get going.

‘There has to be a reason why this spine is here and I want to know what it is,’ said Regan stubbornly. ‘Either it’s here because the Beast is real and it’s attacked a cow or a horse—or it’s here because someone wants us to think the Beast is real.’

I stood up. ‘Fine, whatever. I’m going back down now, okay?’

Regan followed me as we picked our way back through the bushes. In front of the Temple, we looked over the valley—I could just see the dot of Maggie walking beside the lake. I started back along the track, but I could tell Regan wasn’t following. When I looked back, she was just standing there, outside the Temple; her stare blank and cold, her eyes appearing almost black in the wintry light.

‘Regan?’

She didn’t move immediately—then, slowly and thoughtfully, she began walking towards me.

‘You know it’s real. There’s fear in your eyes,’ she said, as she passed me. Her own eyes were as dead as a shark’s.

I shivered as she left me there, wishing Maggie hadn’t been so far away.

7 Saw

Dad called me from Heathrow just before lunch, just to say I love you and We’ll be back soon. I could hear everyone back in the Refectory as I put the phone down, pulling their Christmas crackers and cheering as the turkeys were brought out to be carved by staff members at the ends of the tables. It was a joyous time. I just wished I’d felt it.

I rejoined the school midway through the turkey course. Christmas didn’t mean the food got any better at Bathory, despite all the little extras—roast potatoes (hard), organic carrots (mashed), peas (frozen), stuffing (God knows), pigs in blankets (raw) and figgy pudding and custard (grim) and though the sight of it all brought bile into my throat, I took a spoonful of each, knowing that if I didn’t there was nothing else to eat until dinner. The food at Bathory had always been bad. When I’d first arrived as an eight-year-old Pup, I’d been vegetarian. The first week, when I realised the vegetarian option was either a saucer of grated Smart Price cheese or a grey hard-boiled egg, I quickly switched back to meat to keep myself alive.

On a more positive note, Clarice Hoon hadn’t given me any more grief about Seb, aside from the odd snide look as I walked up Long Corridor. This I could handle. First to lose their cool loses the argument, Seb told me, and he was right. As always.

Midway through lunch, Mrs Saul-Hudson marched in and dragged Maggie out. It turned out she’d just had a phone call from a pilot at RAF Lyneham who’d done a fly-past the previous day, who’d kindly informed her that the school now had letters crudely daubed on its roof. Instead of assisting with the Christmas Fayre preparations, I gladly spent the afternoon helping Maggie to clean it off.

‘Why though? Why not expel me for this? It does NOT make sense!’ she shouted, as I scrubbed away at the second S in ‘SAVE US’. ‘Why keep giving me these stupid meaningless detentions? I mean, I’ve tried EVERYTHING to get out of this place. I’ve done it all …’

‘… even vandalised a listed building now,’ I added.

‘Yeah. I don’t know what more I can do,’ she cried. ‘Maybe I could get a boy in here. Yeah, that might do it.’

‘Why do you want to leave so badly?’ I asked. She didn’t answer immediately, so I pressed. ‘Seriously, you can tell me.’

‘I just wanna go home, that’s all. I don’t need an education.’

‘But they’ll only send you somewhere else, won’t they?’

‘Fine. Then maybe they’ll send me back to my old comp where I was happy and settled and didn’t have to wear this cheap scratchy boy-repeller.’ She loosened her tie like it was hurting her neck.

‘I’d miss you,’ I told her.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘I would. You’re the thing that’s keeping me going at the moment.’

‘Yeah, well, you’ll get over me eventually.’

She carried on scrubbing. I felt no padlock on my urge to tell her any more, so I just said it. ‘They’re paying double the fees.’

‘Huh? Who?’

‘Your parents.’

‘WHAT?’ she cried, standing up and slamming her scrubbing brush down on the flat roof where a thousand soap bubbles flew up into my face. ‘What do you mean? How? How do you know that? Are you joking me?’

I shook my head, wiping little flecks of foam from my nose and cheeks. ‘Your file was out on her desk when I was in there a few weeks ago. I wasn’t going through it or anything, I was just putting her cocoa down. And it was there, in your file. I read it.’

Maggie sat back down on the roof. ‘Double fees? That’s really why I’m still here?’

I nodded. ‘There was a letter in the file, open, from your dad. I only read a bit, as I said, it was just there on the desk. He wants you to get your GCSEs here so you can go to a good Sixth Form or get a good apprenticeship when you leave. He doesn’t want you sponging off them like your sister does. And because you were kicked out of two other schools, Mrs Saul-Hudson agreed to keep you here, come what may. He thanked her for it. But that was it, that was all I read.’

Maggie shook her head. I sat down next to her. She looked beaten down. Flattened. Lost. ‘I can’t believe he’s done this. He knows how much I hate it here. I’ll run away.’

‘No you won’t.’

‘I will.’

‘You won’t, Maggie. You’d have to walk at least ten miles to the nearest train station.’

‘I’ll hitch.’

I looked at her. ‘Maggie, don’t.’

‘Why not? My parents clearly don’t give a toss. He’s leaving me here all Christmas, that’s how much he loves me. Git.’

‘They’re paying £18,000 a term so you can get your education, Maggie. I’d say they love you a hell of a lot. And anyway, I’m here all Christmas too so it won’t be so bad.’

‘They’re sadists. Actual, factual sadists.’

‘Why do you hate it here so much?’

‘Why?’ she repeated. ‘Look around you, Nash. We’re in the middle of actual NOWHERE.’

I shrugged, looking around us beyond school land towards the moors and the hillsides dusted with icing sugar snow and spindly black trees. Coupled with the cinnamon smells rising up from the Fayre and the tinkling of a carol from somewhere, it felt like we were in a scene from a Christmas card. It was stunning. ‘That’s not so bad. It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think? Look at the snow on the hills, on the trees.’

‘And I hate nature.’

‘That can’t be the only reason you want to leave, the isolation.’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘The food’s crap as well.’

‘Yeah it is a bit, isn’t it?’ I grinned.

‘And …’

‘What?’

She went to tell me something then stopped herself. ‘It’s like you said—the place is “fundamentally flawed”. Why else would we be allowed up on this very old, probably very unsafe roof, to scrub tiles. No one gives a crap about Health and Safety here, do they? No one gives a crap about us.’

‘Look, the parents are starting to arrive.’

Cars were trickling through the top gate at the far end of the driveway. There was the lightest fluttering of snow on the gelid air as a succession of Rolls-Royces, Mercedes, Porsches and Volvos rolled up the drive and parked up, their occupants following the signs through the formal gardens towards the stalls. I stopped scrubbing and walked to the West Turret roof to look down on the Orangery lawn. Stallholders had been at the school all morning, setting up their Christmas glögg, hickory smoked nuts, handmade crafts, wicker baskets, pomanders and tree ornaments. A ginger girl, Rosanna Keats, was standing at the arched entrance to the formal gardens, with a tray of glögg in little tumblers and a plate of sugared plums. Two girls standing next to her—I think it was the twins Hannah and Heather Bolan-Wood—bore fat chunks of stollen and gingerbread on little red and white napkins.

My mum and dad would have loved to see all this. They’d enjoyed it last year. Dad had gone on about his eggnog for months afterwards and Mum had bought these Hansel and Gretel tree ornaments which she said reminded her of me and Seb. Seb’d taken the piss, as he usually did at my school events, about our indoor and outdoor shoes, our ‘no whistling’ and ‘no TV except on Saturdays’ rules. He’d laughed all through the school concert, at the Pups forgetting their words and Regan Matsumoto’s tuneless trumpet recital. All the girls in my dorm kept going on about how hot Seb was. I’d just found him annoying. I’d have given anything to be annoyed by him again today.

‘Have you seen Regan recently?’ I asked, hugging the chimney pot on the Weather Station turret as the eerily distant sounds of the choir singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ came floating upwards.

‘Huh?’

I sighed and hopped down off the turret roof to rejoin Maggie in the middle. ‘Regan Matsumoto. You know. Weird girl? Plaits?’

‘Best friend is a spine in the woods? Yeah, what about her?’

‘I haven’t seen her about this afternoon. Have her parents come to pick her up then? I didn’t see her go. She said she was staying here for Christmas.’

Maggie was clearly distracted. ‘Ssh,’ she said, not taking her eyes from whatever she was looking at on the west side of the school. ‘Come and look.’

I moved across to the Observatory turret, where she was hiding behind the chimney, and she pointed towards Edward’s Pond. A figure was walking by herself, carrying a white bag, towards the Birdcage. She looked round. It was Dianna.

‘What’s she doing?’ I said.

‘Dunno,’ said Maggie. ‘She keeps looking round, to see if anyone’s following her.’

‘She looks very furtive,’ I whispered.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Secretive. Like she’s doing something she shouldn’t. Maybe she is.’

‘Oh, she so is,’ said Maggie, her eyebrows going into suggestiveness overdrive. Dianna looked around again and disappeared into the trees.

‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘This is Dianna Pfaff we’re talking about.’

‘Yeah, I know. The Kate Middleton of Bathory School. Wouldn’t swear if her fanny hair caught fire. But what’s it about then? And what’s in that bag?’

I shrugged. ‘Candles for the procession or something? The route goes that way.’

‘The route’s already marked,’ said Maggie. ‘I watched Amy Sudbury and Helena Freemantle doing it this morning with white paint and gaffer tape.’

‘Okay well—’

‘Look, there she is again,’ said Maggie as Dianna’s blonde head appeared in the gap between the trees and the path from the Birdcage up to the Temple. She still had the bag. Then we lost her. ‘Damn.’

‘What is she doing up there?’ I said aloud.

‘I’ve got to know,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m gonna go and catch her red-handed.’

‘No, wait,’ I said, holding her arm. ‘Wait until she comes back down and then go and ask her.’

Maggie was just about persuaded. I went back to scrubbing the roof while she watched and waited for signs of movement in the gardens. Pretty soon, the gorgeous sugary smell of roasting chestnuts and the sweet notes of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ came floating up to greet us from the scene below.

‘That bleeding caterwauling,’ Maggie muttered. ‘Seriously, I’ve heard better noises coming out of abattoirs.’

‘How many abattoirs have you visited then?’ I said, swilling off the last white remnants into the guttering.

‘Nash, Nash, she’s coming back, look!’

I put down the bucket and raced back over to the Observatory turret roof again, hiding behind Maggie as we watched Dianna coming back down the hill. She disappeared into the trees. When she reappeared, we saw that the white bag she had been carrying had gone.

I looked at Maggie. ‘Where’s the bag?’

‘Oh, we have sooooo got something on Princess Di.’

‘Like what?’ I asked. ‘We saw her walking into the valley with a bag. Big deal.’

‘Maybe she’s the dreaded Beast of Bathory, and in the bag are some more severed limbs! MWAH ahh AH!’

I laughed. ‘Come on, seriously.’

‘Let’s go and ask her about it now,’ said Maggie.

‘Not yet. We don’t want her to know we’re on to her. Don’t you know anything about espionage?’

‘Eh?’

‘Espionage. Spying. Look, we’re in the driving seat here—we’ve got something on her. If we go down there and let her know what we know—not that we know much—she’ll make up some feeble excuse, and next time she’ll be even more careful about covering it up.’

‘Covering what up?’

‘Whatever it is that she’s just done,’ I said. ‘No, we have to play it really cool, don’t let her suspect we know anything. Come on. Let’s go and put these back in the yard. I need to get my libretto.’

* * *

Later, as the others squealed off to the dorms to collect luggage and leave with their parents, Maggie helped me put the signs up in the Landscape Gardens saying ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Unsafe: Frozen Water’ and then we got two hot chocolates from one of the stalls and played cards in the bay window of the common room. Girl by girl, trunk by trunk, car by car, the school emptied, the Christmas smells disappearing and the chatter evaporating on the polar white air. A Pup called Tabitha Bonham, who was also staying behind until her army parents picked her up some time before Christmas Eve, had latched on to me and was sitting by my feet with a floppy toy rabbit, the ear of which was in her mouth.

‘SNAP,’ Maggie shouted and banged her hand down on the coffee table between us. I stared out of the window as she shuffled the stack. I longed to see my dad’s blue Volvo Estate beetling down the driveway, sweeping round the turning circle at the front of school. To see Mum and Dad get out of the front. To see my brother Seb leap out of the back seat and come running up to hug me. But it was so far away. They were so far away. The night grew darker and emptier.

The door to the common room burst open and Dianna Pfaff stormed in, mumbling and cursing under her breath.

‘Bloody stupid do this do that. Hateful …’

‘Hi, Dianna,’ I said. She did a double take.

‘Natasha,’ she said. ‘Margaret. Pup.’

‘Princess,’ said Maggie, slamming down a jack on top of my jack. ‘SNAP!’

‘Dammit!’

Maggie smiled, collecting up her cards. I had seven left. It was the third game in a row that I’d lost, but I didn’t mind. I’d seen a bright side—me, Maggie and a fairly sweet Pup on our own with Matron over Christmas. We could make the best of it.

I looked over at Dianna, who was removing a plastic container of Rice Krispie cakes from her locker. ‘Everything okay, Dianna?’

She closed her locker. ‘No, not really. I just got off the phone to my mother. Looks as though I’ll be staying for Christmas as well.’

Then again …

Maggie groaned. ‘Oh you are fu—’

‘SNAP!’ I shouted as Maggie took her eye off the stack. Then the door opened again and the one person I wished had been oven-roasted with our reconstituted turkey strode in and removed her coat.

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