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She reached across to poke his shoulder.
Mum appeared out of nowhere, making us all jump.
“Jesus,” Byron hissed, earning another poke from the vicar’s daughter. “I didn’t know you could teleport, Mrs. W.”
Mum smiled sneakily, wind batting her dark hair around her face. “There’s a lot you kids don’t know about me. I could be a secret superhero. Dr. Strange eat your heart out.” She touched my shoulder. “Ready to go inside?”
I sucked in a slow breath and nodded, trying to hold onto my curiosity when nerves spiked. The faster I went into my new room, the faster I could get the lay of the land, and the less scary it would be. The unknown was terrifying; I’d learned a long time ago that not knowing was what scared me. Once I’d been to a place, met a person, accomplished a task—whatever gave my anxiety power—it lost its control over me.
I turned my ring around and around my finger.
I’d been terrified of going to high school, but after a few weeks it was as ordinary as primary school. This would be no different. Even if it was bigger. On an island in the middle of the Irish Sea. Completely isolated. With a dozen times more pressure and families rooted in old money and new technology. Sure. No different.
I glanced down at my ring, a spiky gold crown encircling it to remind me of my inner bad bitch, and that I could rule anything like a queen, even my own panic. Tannie’s words, not mine.
You’re not anxious, you’re a queen and a bad bitch.
“I’m ready,” I lied, and followed Mum, Dad, Honey, Byron, and Lurch—sorry, Doyle—into a three-storey grey building to our right.
The back of my neck tingled, and I could have sworn someone was watching us, but when I glanced back to the park no one was looking our way.
I shook my head and let the door fall shut behind me.
CHAPTER TWO
CAT
Ireally shouldn’t have counted my lucky stars about the lack of a thunderstorm. I shoved the sleep mask off my eyes and squint-glared at my new bedroom as thunder rumbled and rain battered the old window above the bed. The shapes of the wardrobe, desk, and shelves on the wall were still unfamiliar and my heartbeat quickened, but sudden lightning illuminated the sky, bright enough to drive through the brocade curtains, and I settled as I saw where I was and that I was alone. No bogeymen. No scary, six-foot-tall porter who’d broken into my room while I tried to sleep. For five hours, and counting.
“Ugh,” I groaned, and let my mask fall back over my eyes, rolling over and hissing when cold sliced across my back as the covers rode up. I yanked them back down, shivering. This room was freezing, not at all helped by wind that drove through gaps in the aged window frame. The first thing I’d buy when I got down to the village—unimaginatively called Ford’s End like the island—was a heater.
I wanted, very suddenly, to go home. But that was easier said than done when there were only two ferries a day until term began, when the boats would drop to one a week. Also, it was the middle of the night.
I was here to stay, and I had no choice but to live with it.
I sighed, relaxing into the bed as it began to warm again, and then jumped at a sudden crash of thunder and a rush of wind so severe that it sounded like a screaming woman. My body tensed instantly, and there went any chance of sleep.
I groaned. Why didn’t I go to med school somewhere warm and temperate? I could have taken a gap year, or could have been studying medicine in Australia like Virgil right now.
Virgil…
I pushed up my mask again and fumbled under the cold pillow for my phone, light blinding my eyes as I stabbed what I thought was the clock app, closed the calculator app, and eventually found the world clock. It was just after two p.m. in Sydney. Thank fuck. I didn’t stop to wonder if he’d be in class; I swiped clumsily at my phone until it began to ring, then mashed it to my ear.
“Prickly,” he answered instantly, annoyingly upbeat. Maybe the Aussie sun was giving my serious oldest brother a sunny disposition.
“Poet,” I replied, my voice rough. “I hate it here. Come rescue me.”
He snorted, which was more like him, and said, “No chance. You got yourself into this mess, wanting to follow in Mum’s footsteps. I tried to tell you the creepy island in the middle of the ocean wasn’t your best option, but would you listen?”
“You don’t need to gloat,” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes and staring at my room as another flash of lightning lit the unfamiliar walls, followed by the distant rumble of thunder. “It’s freezing, and stormy. I’m in bed like a fucking ice cube.”
“So get another blanket.” I could hear his signature dismissive shrug.
“Sure, Virgil, let me just go get another blanket at three a.m. in the damn morning. Good idea. Capital.”
“God, don’t say capital. You sound like Uncle Edgar.”
I snorted, smiling despite myself. “Was it like this when you moved away? The homesickness?”
