‘I shouldn’t have left you in there alone.’
Alice and I were tucked in a quiet corner of the dining hall, stacks of hot buttered toast in front of us. She was shoving slabs into her mouth as though she’d never eaten in her life – which was strangely endearing – while I couldn’t stomach any food. The red flare of her eyes, the monstrous voice, those violent gashes on her pale torso . . . they haunted me.
She shrugged, crumbs flying everywhere. ‘I get it. I probably would’ve done the same.’
I gave Alice a good-natured chuckle. ‘You wouldn’t have given me the blood in the first place.’
She stopped chewing and studied me carefully. Pre-ritual Alice might have snapped at me over that, but this neutralised version seemed to weigh the statement with pure, emotionless logic and reasoning. ‘You don’t know me as well as you think you do.’
Looking around, I noticed Salem wasn’t in the queue for her kippers. That was strange. She was usually here at nine on the dot.
I cupped my coffee mug with my hands, letting the heat burn through my palms. Having spent the night with Alice’s warm body pressed against mine, I couldn’t seem to shake the cold this morning. ‘You’re right, I don’t.’
Alice had told me on the way over here – our heads pressed together as we talked in a hush – that the ritual was the reason she had that gap in her memory on the night of Poppy’s death. She’d performed it for the first time and blacked out. This in itself should be incriminating; I saw first-hand how murderous she’d become while in the throes of it. At first I wondered whether she had found Poppy, found a way into the tower, and killed her. She certainly had it in her when she was in that state.
But a few things about this didn’t add up. Firstly, I had to assume that the police had discovered that the blood on her shirt was her own, otherwise she’d be in prison right now. Second, how would she have found her way into the tower? The door had been locked and, as far as I knew, none of the faculty members who used to have keys had reported being attacked by a psychotic red-eyed first year. There was a chance I’d found another entrance, but it was currently bricked over and I was still waiting for the National Archives to get back to me with a blueprint.
None of it quite fitted.
Alice popped a crust of toast into her mouth, then flipped her wine-red hair over her head so the side parting was even deeper. It was unbrushed and unkempt, but it looked right on her. She looked like she was about to respond when her eyes snagged on a spot just below my chin.
‘When did you get another piercing?’
My stomach somersaulted. In all the drama and exhaustion, I’d forgotten to wear my pashmina. The crew-neck sweater wasn’t high enough to cover the ruby.
Lifting my hands defensively to the bead, dread seized my heart.
It was no longer just one bead. There was another.
No wonder it had hurt so much last night, in the throes of helping Alice. Was that the sensation of another one piercing through? I hadn’t been conscious for the appearance of the first one.
It was impossible to describe the creeping terror this second bead caused. Would they just keep appearing until they circled my neck like a noose?
Would the rubies’ power only intensify now there were two of them? One ruby already had a hold over me; could choke me into submission if I didn’t behave the way it wanted to. What would another sentient jewel do? I thought of how those invisible roots had curled around my throat and squeezed when I’d tried to tell my dad I wanted to go home. I thought of the intangible hand on my shoulder, guiding me around campus, and of the lasso around my stomach whenever I got too far away.
Dread grabbed me by the ribs. Why was this happening to me?
I knew I had to tell Alice the truth – about the haunting, or the possession, or whatever the hell this was. After what I’d witnessed last night, I knew she was the only one who wouldn’t doubt that something paranormal was happening here. We were both falling victim to the Carvell curse, whatever that curse may be. We could help each other figure out how to free ourselves.
Breath hitching in my chest, I whispered, ‘They’re not piercings.’ I gulped. ‘They’re from Sister Maria’s statue.’
Alice blinked. ‘I – What? How? Did you steal them?’
‘No.’ I bit my top lip with my bottom teeth. ‘They just appeared on my throat. One just over a month ago, and one . . . at some point last night, I guess.’
Alice blew air through her lips. She took all of this at face value – which made sense, given the completely absurd things that had been happening to her too. ‘That explains why you immediately believed me about the ritual. Does it hurt?’
I looked away, focusing instead on a painting of a rolling wheat field dotted with hay bales. ‘It’s okay.’ An outright lie; they hurt like hell, and I felt like I might throw up from the fear.
‘No, it’s not,’ insisted Alice. Through the corner of my eye, I saw her lean over the table to get a closer look. Then she whispered, ‘Can I see?’
For a goth this was probably an incredibly exciting and erotic turn of events, so I swallowed hard, turned back to face her and nodded. She reached out a long, elegant finger and traced it over the beads. The roots in my neck curled with pleasure, and I fought the urge to shiver.
‘Wow,’ she breathed, then sat back on her bench. ‘They’re really in there.’
‘Yeah.’ I finally reached over and grabbed a piece of now cold toast to dissipate some of the weird tension that had gathered between us. ‘So I feel like we have a lot to tell each other.’
And so, over several cups of steaming coffee – mine milky and sweet, hers black and bitter as the Northumbrian night – we told each other everything. I explained how I kept waking up at the foot of the tower, hands bloodied as I clawed at the stone, my run-in with Mordue, the lassoed-stomach feeling, the visions of wooded glades and illuminated manuscripts and bloody vials that surely, surely must have come from Sister Maria herself. I told her about how I’d wanted to go home, right after Poppy died, but the ruby had started choking me until I fell back into line.