Page 51 of The Perfect Guests
“I’m just—” I peered again toward the island, but dusk was rapidly giving way to night, and it was impossible to see more than hazy shapes. There was no gleam from a torch, no sign of Jonas.
“Did you start the fire?” Nina said. Her face was a smudge in the gloom, her dark eyes glittering. “Did you put something in my food to make me sick? Was it you?”
“No!” I stared at her, aghast. “How can you even say that?”
“Well, you think it was my mum—how canyoueven saythat?”
“I don’t know, Nina. I don’t know!” I stepped onto the ice in the brand-new pixie boots I’d been so proud of yesterday. “Please. Just go back.”
Nina’s tone changed as she followed me onto the slippery surface. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to think. Don’t leave me, Beth, please. I need you.”
I turned to face her, skidding a little. “No, Nina. Go back to your parents.”
“I’m not supposed to show my face to my grandfather, remember?” She sounded close to tears. “Where are you going? You can’t leave me here.”
I shook my head and half walked, half slid away from her as fast as I could. A new, thin layer of powdery snow covered the ice, and I swung my arms as I plowed ahead, trying to generate some speed to widen the gap between us. But it wasn’t long before I realized she was still following me.
“Beth,” she sobbed, “please don’t go. I need you.” Her voice rose in pitch. “Take me with you.”
I almost laughed at that, and I swung around, unable to see her expression in the darkness now, even from just a few meters away.
“I can’t even look after myself,” I said. “Just look behind you.” I waved an arm at the glow from the upstairs window in the distance. The faint wail of sirens reached us across the fields.
“But where are you going?” Her voice was a wail. “You’re going to see Jonas, aren’t you?”
My heart squeezed with sympathy for her, but what choice did I have? “You know you can’t come with me, Nina.” I began to slip-slide away from her again. “Go back to your parents.”
This time, there was no sound of her attempting to follow, andfor once I was grateful for Leonora’s rules. I veered away from the island slightly, no longer believing Jonas might be there waiting for me—he’d have joined me by now. Instead, I planned to skirt around the island, cross the lake, and walk up past Milner’s Drain to the main road. I’d lived at Raven Hall for eighteen months; I felt confident I could find my way in the dark—perhaps Markus was right about me becoming a proper Fenland girl. While the fire engines battled the blaze in my Raven Hall bedroom, I’d be marching down to the village to seek refuge with Jonas.
But then a shout flew across the frozen lake. “Girls!” It was Markus’s voice from somewhere near the dock. “Nina! Beth! Where are you?”
I hesitated, and in that moment, I heard Nina’s breaths, short and sharp, moving toward me again. I swung around, trying to make out her shape in the darkness.
“Go back, Nina!”
“No!” She crashed into me and grabbed my hands in her icy fingers. “I’m coming with you.”
Markus’s voice boomed out again, and it sounded closer. “Girls! Please! Where are you? Come back!”
“Let go of me.” I freed my hands from her grip and stumbled away, no longer sure of my bearings.
“Wait!” she called out. “Hang on. Dad drilled his holes on this side. He said we mustn’t skate beyond the island.”
Nice try, Nina,I thought. “I’m not skating.”
She was still coming closer. “But it might not be strong enough...”
“Well, go back, then!” I turned in a circle and caught her outline in my peripheral vision. “I’m trying to get away fromyoutoo—can’t you understand that?”
And that’s when it happened. A loud snap, like the crack of awhip. A strange, slow-motion shift of the ice beneath my feet. And we were both slipping and tipping. And no matter how far I clawed my fingers onto the ice in front of me, my feet and calves and thighs slid down, down, down into the cold, deadly water. I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t move. The world closed in around me.
Sadie
January 2019
What’s your mother’s name?”
Joe’s question hangs in the frosty air between them, and Sadie stares at him as if not understanding it. Eventually, she clears her throat.
