Lure of the Night Page 3

  “You’d better go, don’t let it happen again.”

  I walked off to my locker and got rid of my hideous coat. I still had the too-long thick, woolen skirt, but I couldn’t take that off too. I found my way to class and sat down. As usual, nobody came to sit next to me. Mr. Wilkinson came into the room and stood in front of us.

  “Good morning, we’re looking at the Civil War this morning. 1861, causes of the conflict.”

  I got out my book and half listened as he droned on about Lincoln, Grant and Lee. I started to daydream, an image of Ethan Andros formed in my mind. I guess it was the connection between the Civil War, Nathan’s Wood and Ethan coming across me in the middle of the dark forest. I wondered why he wasn’t in school today, I hoped he hadn’t caught my cold when he came to see me. I remembered he’d touched me, had I transferred my germs to him? Hopefully not. There and then, I decided I’d go see him after school, if I could persuade Mom to let me. Someone was talking to me, I looked up.

  “Ah, Claire, so you are still awake,” Mr. Wilkinson said sarcastically.

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “I was asking you to tell us what you know about Gettysburg.”

  I thought about it, but honestly I couldn’t really care less about Gettysburg, but I stuttered out some crap about Pickett’s charge and scraped through.

  “Thank you for honoring us with your words of wisdom,” he said with a smarmy voice. “If you could stay awake for the rest of my class we would all be grateful.”

  I wasn’t really listening, a couple of the kids sniggered, but who cared? I thought of Ethan again, I wished I’d got his cell number. If he had a cell, although I didn’t know any kids who didn’t have one. Finally, the class ended and we moved on to math, more boredom. I was pretty good at math, the numbers always seemed to click into place for me where other kids had problems. Not that I ever admitted it of course, they’d give me hell, so I often pretended not to know things when they were as plain as cucumbers. But it was pretty mind-numbing too, there was little to be learned from the pathetic little class and I had to sit there pretending while the other kids stumbled along trying to understand the mass of numbers on the blackboard.

  ‘They’ had decided that lunchtime was to be a special torment for me. I went out into the yard and was trying to read a book, a supernatural story that was real interesting. Then they arrived, Stella and Fiona. Two other girls were with them today, Britney Rogers and Mae Jameson. Great, it was like the Spanish Inquisition, maybe they planned to burn me at the stake.

  “Hi, Claire,” Stella said, all sweetness.

  I nodded at her as I tried to move away to somewhere more quiet. “Hi, Stella.”

  “Your skirt’s hanging down,” she said, “would you like us to fix it for you?”

  “No, I can’t stop now, I’m in a hurry.”

  Britney and Mae barred the way. They had that look in their eyes, like half bored, half-feral, big cats waiting to strike. I almost expected them to start snarling.

  “I’ve gotta go, let me through.”

  “Sorry, Claire, but Stella wanted a word with you,” Britney said.

  I went to push past and she held up a hand, as I tried to go to the side of her a false nail caught in my school blazer and ripped clean off. It fell to the ground and lay there, like a bright, pink insect.

  “You cow, look what you made me do,” she said, her anger starting to blaze.

  “Britney, if you’d let me alone you know it wouldn’t have happened.”

  “The fuck it wouldn’t.”

  Her swearing seemed to unlock the floodgates, I heard Stella say, “She needs her skirt to be adjusted, whores always wear them short, her family would know that.” When I looked at her I could see a strange look in her eyes, like a bright light, it was wild, her eyes seemed glow with some kind of weird bright stare.

  They held me tightly and I struggled but Stella took out a pair of scissors. She cut into the hem of my skirt, ripped up the seam and then tore it all around so that the bottom ten inches fell down to my ankles. I looked down, working hard not to let them see me even think about crying, my panties were now visible under the ragged hemline of what was left of my skirt. I did my best to swallow my anger, it wouldn’t help me with four of them.

  “What’s going on here?” a voice shouted.

  Margaret Granger loomed up from behind the girls. They looked worried and guilty.

  “I said, what’s going on?” she repeated.

  Stella was the first to get her act together. “Claire wanted us to shorten her skirt, Mrs. Granger, we were trying to help her.”

  She looked at my skirt, my underwear showing below the hem. “Is that true, Claire?”

  I shook my head, but I didn’t say anything. Whatever I said was always going to be wrong, they could sort it out for themselves. Unless she was totally deaf, dumb and blind she could see exactly what had happened, it was as plain as day.

  “I thought not. Look, you have a coat, I saw you wearing it this morning. You’ll have to put it on for the rest of the day, you can’t go around like that.”

  Great, just when my life couldn’t get any worse, it got worse. She looked at the four girls.

  “We do not tolerate bullying in this school, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You are all in detention for the next five schooldays, don’t let this happen again. And you can let me have a proposal to compensate Claire for her skirt, I want it on my desk by the end of the day. Now go away and behave yourselves. Dismissed.”

  We walked off, I went to my locker and got out ‘that’ coat. I put it on, and feeling like a total clown, went to find a corner to hide in. I still had my book and I sat on a step and carried on reading it, ignoring the sniggers as other kids went past me. The word of the skirt-cutting incident had traveled, they all knew why I was wearing my coat. I wanted to hide in some deep, dark corner but in the meantime, I made that corner in my own mind. At least they couldn’t get at me there, unless I let them, and that just wasn’t going to happen. I kept out of everyone’s way for the rest of the day. Mom picked me up from school and I dived straight into the tricky question.

  “Mom, I wanted to go and look up Ethan after tea, I think he may be ill, would you drop me over there?”

  The car swerved a bit as she recovered from the surprise. “Ethan, you mean Ethan Andros, that boy who lives the other side of Nathan’s Wood?”

  “Him, yeah. The boy who helped me out when I was lost in the middle of the night. He wasn’t in school today and I just wanted to check that he’s ok.”

  “I don’t think so, honey. Stay home tonight.”

  “Mom, I want to go and visit Ethan. He’s a nice guy, I won’t stay long.”

  She was quiet for a few moments. “Look, I’m not too keen on you going over there, there’s something strange about that family. I don’t want you getting involved with them.”

  You mean like they come out to help your daughter when she’s lost and frightened in the dark wood, I wanted to say. But I needed her to cooperate.

  “Just a quick visit, Mom, how could that hurt? And what do you mean by strange?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know really, there’ve been rumors, witchcraft, black magic or some such thing. Someone said there are vampires in Nathan’s Wood, it could the Andros family, you know.”

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “You cannot be serious?”

  She shrugged again and changed the subject. “How was school today?”

  “Crap.”

  “What? Why do you say that?”

  “Because some girls set on me and cut my skirt, they said it was too long.”

  “My God, Claire, were you hurt, did the principal find out?”

  “No, I wasn’t hurt. Yes, she found out, they’re all in detention.”

  “Can it be fixed?”

  Yeah, like don’t worry about your daughter, bullied and tormented every time she sets foot in the school, just ask about that stupid skirt. “No, it can’t be fixe
d and I wouldn’t wear it again if it could be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mom, think about it, what happened today. I really don’t want it to happen again.”

  She was quiet. Was she thinking about it, realizing how stupid she’d been? Probably not.

  “I’ll get you another one.”

  Ok, definitely not.

  “Look, Mom, all I want is a quick visit to check on Ethan, ok?”

  “My sister Rita is coming on the weekend, she’ll be bringing Katie and John. You can spend some time with them.”

  So it was the old change of subject routine. Rita was Mom’s snooty sister, Katie and John were her step kids by her third marriage. As far as I knew she couldn’t have kids herself, which I guess saved some potential misery to the kids she might have had. Katie and John were abominable. I mean, not just unlikable, they were pretty mean with it. They didn’t like me, which was cool, because I couldn’t care less about them one way or the other.

  “So what about going to see Ethan?”

  “Claire, I’ve said no, that’s the end of it.”

  When I got home, I changed my skirt and put the torn one outside in the dumpster. I booted up my computer, but there was nobody I really wanted to talk to online. I only wanted to talk to one person, and he wasn’t around and I wasn’t allowed to go and visit him. Story of my life.

  After that day, I had a few days’ peace, nothing more was said about the skirt. I was called to the Principal’s Office, where Stella, Fiona, Britney and Mae were stood waiting to apologize to me. They’d obviously been rehearsing, they said in chorus, “We’re sorry for cutting your skirt, Claire.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “They’ve got the money to buy you a new one, Claire.”

  “Right. Would you put it in the charity box, please?”

  Mrs. Granger was open mouthed and a bit pissed off, I guess she’d pushed them hard to come up with the cash. Maybe she hadn’t been bullied herself and had her own skirt cut in half.

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is, was there anything else?”

  She shook her head and I left the office. What the hell else was there to say? It was all so false and they knew it. There was still no sign of Ethan in school. I was getting more worried.

  On the Saturday, my Aunt Rita turned up with her two kids, Katie and John. Katie was a year younger than me, an eager Girl Scout with a real attitude problem. She was destined to graduate, spend a year as an intern and then the rest of her days as a Stepford Wife, leaving a trail of misery in her wake. John was the zit king, repulsive, he had a face like a cold pizza. They arrived just before lunch, we sat eating, and it was all I could do not to be sick with John’s spotty face and Katie sat there picking her nose. Even worse, after lunch John kind of hung around, like a whipped dog. I excused myself and went up to my room to check my emails, not that I had any emails that were worth checking, I just needed some space, a respite from the gruesome Adams family. Then Johnny Zit poked his head around my door.

  “Hey, Claire, how’s it going?”

  “It was going fine, John. What do you want?”

  “Yeah, right. Could I have a word with you?”

  I told him ok, after all, he was a guest and some obscure rule said that no matter how repulsive someone was, you couldn’t be nasty to them when they were a guest. Not that he was behaving badly, it was just the pizza face I found hard to take.

  “I’ve got something I want to run past you, Claire, see what you think.”

  “Ok, what is it?”

  He hummed and hahed forever, I thought he’d never spit it out. Then a terrible thought struck me, was he going to want to try and make out with me?

  I gave him my cool, uninterested look. “John, I don’t know where this is going but I’m really not terribly interested.”

  He looked hurt. “Look, Claire, I’m only after a bit of advice, that’s all.”

  “Well, ok then. But why don’t you say what you mean?”

  “Er, right, yes. Claire, I’m in love and I want to get it out in the open.”

  There was something going on here, something in the wind that I’d totally missed, some kind of signal that had flown right past me.

  “And?”

  “Well, if Mom finds out she’ll go crazy, I don’t know what to do.”

  I was still not adding two and two together. “John, the first thing is to let the girl know how you feel, after that you can tell your mom. Have you told this girl?”

  There was a silence then, I thought he’d totally lost it. Then he said, “No.”

  “For God’s sake, you’re sixteen, just tell her and take it from there. She might not even want to have a relationship with you, problem solved.”

  “It’s not a girl,” he said quietly.

  Oh, shit. He’s right, Aunt Rita will go crazy, but I couldn’t say that. I was quiet, we both sat there saying nothing. Our eyes met.

  “Haven’t you ever felt really good about someone?” he asked.

  Ethan. My thoughts turned to my knight in shining armor. I relived that night in the wood several times every day. I’d made a plan to get out on Sunday and go and look him up while Mom was busy with her country club friends. I said, “Maybe.”

  “Christ, you’re a cold one, Claire,” he said.

  Typical, of course. When you didn’t say exactly what they wanted you were cold. If you didn’t act like they wanted, you were strange. If you didn’t wear the right clothes, you were a weirdo. But I didn’t argue, I’d learned long ago that it was pointless. Let them get on with their pitiful lives.

  “What am I going to do?” he asked.

  “You’ll have to man up, John. Face up to it, if you are gay, tell the important people in your life. Especially this guy you say you like.”

  “She’ll kill me.”

  He had a point of course. She would kill him. “She’ll find out eventually,” I said.

  “I can’t do it.”

  I shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

  We sat for a while longer and when he realized he wasn’t going to get anything else out of me he left my room. Just when I was starting to relax again, his sister came in. Dear Christ!

  “Hi, Claire, I wondered if we could go out for a walk, I feel like some fresh air.”

  I raised my eyes to the heavens. What next? But then I thought about it again, this could be useful to me. They had a Latin motto for it. ‘Carpe Diem’, seize the day. I’d used it in an essay once, the teacher made a point of saying how clever I was, the kids set the paper on fire afterwards in the yard.

  “How about a stroll to Nathan’s Wood?”

  “Is that the forest just up the road?”

  “Yep, that’s it.”

  “Great, that’ll be nice, gee, thanks,” she gushed.

  I almost felt guilty, but if she got her walk and I could detour to look up Ethan, it would be a win-win. I told Mom we were going out for a stroll. She was deep in conversation with Aunt Rita, John was sitting in the corner looking miserable. We grabbed our jackets and went out. Mine was a kind of short ski coat with a mysterious shaped design on it that someone said was by the Scottish designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Whoever he was, it sounded posh, so I felt cool wearing it.

  We reached the wood and I tried to orientate towards Ethan’s house. I estimated it was about two miles on the other side of the wood, it was a long walk and before we had got halfway, Katie was whining. “It’s too far, Claire, I don’t want to go any further.”

  “I thought you were a Girl Scout.”

  “I am, but we don’t do stuff like this, we make paper decorations and sing songs.”

  “Right,” a real bunch of regular heroes, “not much further.”

  Another half mile. “I’m frightened, it’s dark in here.”

  Well it would be, that’s why it’s called a wood, it’s because of all the trees, leaves and things, keeping out the sunlight. “There’s nothing to be fright
ened about.”

  We walked on, then she got out her cell, we were in a small clearing. “I’m calling Mom, I don’t want to go any further.”

  She called, her mother answered straight away, I heard her high-pitched whining voice from three feet away. It was like an angry buzz saw.

  “Where did you say you were, a wood? Wait a second.”

  A few seconds, then the abrasive voice cut through the peaceful glade again. “Put Claire on the phone.”

  I took the handset. “What are you doing taking my daughter into a dark wood, don’t you know it’s dangerous? Where exactly are you, we’re coming to find you? You stay where you are until we get there.”

  I told her we were not far from the Andros house. Mom overheard, she grabbed the phone. “What are you doing there near the Andros place, I thought I told you not to go there?”

  She didn’t say that exactly, but so what, if that was what she thought, I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t change anything, now I came to think of it, including the whining kid I was stuck with.

  Another pause, then, “You’d better carry on to the Andros house so that we can find you. We’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes,” she hung up.

  “I didn’t mean to get you into trouble,” Katie said.

  Yeah, right. “We’d better press on to the house, they’re expecting us to be there.” Why did people say, ‘I didn’t mean to get you into trouble’ when they deliberately got you into trouble? We walked on through the wood, I reckoned we were almost there when a guy stepped out in front of us. I wasn’t worried, he wore the Forest Ranger uniform. He seemed friendly enough, gave us a smile, but I was cautious, his ID badge said Ryan. Like Stella Ryan, they were the only Ryan family in town, as far as I knew.

  “Are you girls ok, you’re not lost, are you?”

  I shook my head. “We’re going to the Andros place, it’s not far now, is it?”

  “No, about three hundred yards, you’re going in the right direction. Why are you going there?”

  “To visit.”

  “Well you’re out of luck, they’re not there at the moment. They’re away for a week or two, asked me to keep an eye on the house.”