“I’ll come and get you for breakfast in the morning and after that we will call your dad and find out which one of your neighbours has a spare key.”
“Oh, I never thought about that,” Megan says, tapping her forehead with the heel of her hand.
“No, because you’re fifteen,” I tell her. “But even if they don’t, I’m sure we can arrange for you stay over here at the castle until you dad gets back.”
“Really?” Megan looks at me with wide, tear-swollen eyes. “Thanks, Miss.”
“You can call me Ava,” I tell her.
“Is it all right if I call you Miss, because it’s dead weird to call an old person by their first name?”
“That works too,” I say, feeling suddenly much older than my years.
“Miss.” Megan looks worried. “Is your bedroom haunted?”
“Oh, not even slightly,” I lie. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about that. The ghosts of Castle Beaumont are all very”—I see her worried expression—“fictional. They are all very made up and not real, so you can sleep easy.”
“Oh good, I’m so tired,” she says, suddenly looking very young. I see myself at her age, never finding a safe place to rest my head.
“Me too, kiddo,” I say. “Come on, there’s a four-poster bed with your name on it.”
“What, like literally?” she asks.
Like I said, fifteen-year-olds.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rani is still fast asleep when my alarm goes off at seven the following morning. It’s a day off for the competitors at Castle Beaumont, while the judging panel decides who will be awarded fourth place and the smallest of the grants.
My head is a little fuzzy, and I could do with a few more hours of sleep, but I always get up at seven a.m., seven days a week, no matter what. We lived to a strict timetable when I lived in the home, and even after I left and had places in foster care, I could never quite give up the feeling that I’d be in trouble if I didn’t follow it to the letter. It’s been good for me as an adult anyway; routine is good. And in this weird, haunted castle full of very posh people and my potential brilliant AI boyfriend, it’s nice to have something normal to cling to.
Dressing hastily, I go to check on Megan, who is also still fast asleep, completely oblivious to the world. She probably needs a few extra hours, so I leave her to it and head downstairs for a litre or two of coffee, while I try to figure out how to break the news to Forrest that his star pupil camped out in the garden for half the night. You know, subtly and with tact so that he doesn’t totally freak out and have a panic attack.
“I found your star pupil, Megan, camped out in the garden at midnight,” I tell him when I find him already in the dining room with Artie. My mouth and its fondness for saying whatever occurs to it wins again. Forrest goes from sleepily watching Artie shovel Cheerios into her mouth to wide awake in a second.
“Wha... what?” he asks. He looks, well, he looks like a hot dad whose kid got him up at the crack of dawn on his day off. Stubble accentuates his jawline, and his curls are messy and mussed up. I get a flash of what it might be like to wake up next to him, in warm sheets with the heat of his body just out of reach, and THAT is not appropriate.
“Is Megan the little girl?” Artie asks. “I saw her too, Daddy. She was sad.”
“Uh-huh, sweetie,” he says. “What do you mean, Ava? Why... how was Megan camped out in the grounds?”
“Hang on a sec.” Having got to know me a little better, LadyB arranged for there to be my very own giant flask of coffee with my name written on it and everything, which may possibly be the most glamorous thing that has ever happened to me. Picking it up, I carry it to the table with a Castle Beaumont mug that she has also provided and fill it to the brim.
“So, I get back to my room last night and”—I look at Artie and decide to skip the Blue Lady part—“and I saw her wandering about in the garden. I go down there and...”
A few minutes later I have caught Forrest fully up-to-date.
“Is she okay?” Forrest asks. Seeing his cup is empty, I fill it with coffee from my flask.
“Daddy, can I camp in one of the tiny houses?” Artie asks. “Iwould like to camp in the chapel with all the pretty flowers. I bet there are fairies there.”
“She is fine,” I tell him, smiling at Artie. “Fast asleep. I’ll take her up some breakfast in a bit. It’s summer holidays, right, so it’s not like she has to go to school. It’s a day off, so even the kids aren’t coming back in. Megan gets that it was not her best idea. But she’s safe, and that’s the main thing.”
“Poor kid.” Forrest drops his head into his hands. “I can’t believe I let that happen to her. And now”—he looks at Artie—“looks like we might be going home a little early, kid.”
“No!” Artie cries. “I don’t want to go home early! You said we could play in the maze, and I could go on a boat! And what about my friend? I don’t want to go home.”
“You won’t have to go home,” I tell Artie. “None of this is your fault, Forrest. You counted all the kids onto the bus. It was the bus driver that didn’t notice she’d done a runner. I don’t really think even he is to blame. A teenage girl had a brilliant idea that turned out to be a terrible life decision. It’s a story older than time.” I pour him another cup of coffee, which is about as close as I can come to telling him that he is officially removed from my nemesis list.
