The First Week at the Castle
Chapter One
The first thing you should know is that none of this is my idea, and none of it is my fault.
I’m not short of ideas, I have lots of them. Most of them are silly, or impractical, or best forgotten about, but a few years ago I had an idea—a vision—that became my whole life, and which is finally ready to share with the world.
If it was up to me, I would have unveiled my revolutionary new AI program quietly, in a peer-reviewed paper in some dull corner of the internet. Not here, in the rococo ballroom of an English stately home that is so magnificent it would give Mr. Darcy an inferiority complex, with what feels like the whole world staring at me. You see, I am your textbook mad-scientist, a classic introvert who prefers to avoid most other people at all costs and who never, not ever, willingly goes to parties, especially not the kind that are also international innovation competitions, where my stupid, awkward, dumbass photo is being displayed twelve feet high on a screen behind the presentation stage. I’m sure they’ve made my red hair even more red on purpose.
I have my best and dearest friend Rani Shah to blame for that.
I’m here at ridiculously posh and luxurious Castle Beaumont for the next three weeks because it was my best friend Rani’s idea that I put forward my work to the annual Beaumont Foundation Innovation Prize, which is basically like Science (and also the Arts for some reason) Has Got Talent, except the prize is getting your work fully funded and out to the world in a fraction of the average lifetime that it usually takes. Tonight is the first night oftwenty-onenights in which the four shortlisted nominees will live here in this castle, which is definitely haunted, by the way, working under observation, and, if we get to stay to the second week, giving presentations while a panel of experts decides who gets the big prize.
When Rani suggested it, I said, “Don’t be ridiculous,” but then Rani did that thing she does where she teases me out of my comfort zone and makes me engage in society whether I like it or not. So much so that she is not only with me here tonight, but for the next three weeks, commuting to her business in York during the day. Partners and families are also invited, and Rani said we counted as family. If she wasn’t at my side, I wouldn’t be here. Sometimes it’s annoying having a best friend who passionately believes in your talent and doesn’t think you can change the world whilst staying in your pyjamas, but whatever. I’m here and I have to get on with it now.
Tonight, they announce the four shortlisted projects. The other ten contestants have come from all around the world. At least Rani and I only live fifteen miles down the road in York. Packing for me wasn’t that hard. I just put everything I own in a bag and brought it with me, because I don’t own a lot of stuff. Rani is gleefully supplying me with the requiredevening wear from her vintage fashion business, Rani’s Retro, because I don’t own dresses. So that’s why I’m standing here, in the middle of this crowded ballroom, in an egg yolk–yellow Bardot-style 1960s embellished evening gown that makes me feel a bit like a fish finger. Rani looked me up and down after I’d put the dress on and said, “Hmm, maybe I was too confident in that yellow.”
But by that time, it was too late to find anything else.
To recap, being here in the first place, and this outfit, are not my fault.
It’s probably this offensive yellow that threw out my internal satellite navigation systems and made me blunder into this stupidly tall man who just walked into my path like an... annoying obstruction. Oh, and douse him all over with a large glass of red wine.
“Oops,” Rani says.
“What the...?” he splutters. The wine blooming into a massive burgundy stain on his pristine white shirt is kind of fascinating. But also awful; I feel terrible. Poor man, walking around like an enormous obstruction in a white shirt when I’m in the vicinity. Did nobody warn him? Did he not see the dress of terror?
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, trying not to dwell on how the wine has made his shirt somewhat translucent. “It’s this yellow dress, and also I got distracted by the profiterole tower. I forgot to eat lunch, you see. But I think if you pour white wine on it, or salt, or rinse it under hot water... or cold water, it will be fine. One of those things, let’s try them all! I’ll help. It’s the least I can do.” Then I remember my secret weapon when it comes to laundry disasters. “Oh! And Rani here, she’s always bringing back vintageclothes from the brink of disaster. She’ll know how to fix it. You’ll know how to fix it, won’t you, Rani?”
“I will, but first just to confirm, is that pure silk?”
“How could you be so stupid?” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. How utterly stupid... is this sabotage?”
One second ago, I was willing to do anything to help. Now all I can think about is how I will have my vengeance on this person, in this life and the next.
“It was an accident,” Rani says, instantly defending me. “Go change, and let me have the shirt. I’ll get it good as new.”
“It was hand stitched,” he tells her, sweeping one black curl off his forehead, without so much as a thank-you.
“Lucky for you I’m an expert in restoring couture,” Rani says icily, holding out her hand. “Give it to me, I’ll sort it.”
“No,” he says. “You don’t understand...”
Just as my giant ginger photo appears on the screen. He looks from it, to me, the woman who looks like a straight banana went clubbing.
“Oh, you’re Ava Green,” he says with more than a hint of disdain. “The tech girl.”
Rani and I exchange a glance in which she tells me she has my back if it comes to fisticuffs. Which, when you think about it, is a weirdly demure word to describe an all-out punch-up.
“And you are Forrest Faulkner,” I say loftily, after reading his lanyard. “Poet and Art Boy. And you just called me stupid. Mistake, Poet Boy. Big mistake. No one calls Ava Green stupid without...” Making me feel terrible and taking me straight back to all those miserable years at school when everyone bullied and insulted mewith that word every single day. But I can’t find a way to translate that into a credible threat. “Being stupid themselves.”
Sure, it was me that spilt wine all over him, and yes, I wasn’t looking where I was going, because true, all I could think about was getting as many of the profiteroles from the profiterole tree onto my plate before they disappeared in a desperate bid to distract myself from the yellow, butwhowears a pristine white shirt to a party anyway?
“What?” he spits out, angry.
“There is only one thing that I cannot tolerate in this life (well maybe two if you count sock seams, three if you count labels, four if you count rice pudding because what-the-fuck?), fine, MAINLY the one thing I will not stand for in this life is being called stupid by anyone, ever again. Least of all a poet.”
“Not everything is about you, you know?” he says. “The audacity of you tech-bros.”
