Book of Lies

  And hear my gran’s voice:

  That should do . . . that should do . . . that should do . . .

  I scratch the stick into the dirt—​drawing the thing from my nightmare.

  Teeth. Claws. Eyes. They should be red. How do you draw red eyes in the dirt?

  I’m irresistibly drawn to the garden: Gran’s special garden. There is a climbing plant on the wall with red berries.

  No one is watching. Isobel is with Gran in the kitchen. They only just went in; they’ll be ages.

  I sneak around and grab a fistful of the berries, then run back behind the chicken shed. A thorn that came away with the berries cuts my finger. I suck on the cut, then squish and squeeze the berries into some sand to make eyes. They make goggle-eyes that stick up, bright red. Perfect.

  I sit back on my heels to study my artwork. Do the claws need to be bigger?

  Then the outline scratched in the dirt shimmers. The red eyes blink. The creature’s muscles ripple and stretch, then strain to pull away from the earth.

  The scream escapes from my throat before I can stop it. I run and plow straight into Isobel, almost knocking her over. She grabs hold of me.

  Gran is beside her. “Listen to me, Quinn. You are the only one who can send it back.”

  I’m crying, struggling to run, but Isobel’s hands are tight on my shoulders. She turns me around.

  “Quinn, open your eyes!” Gran says, and I have to open them. I look at Gran, afraid to look anywhere else. “Put out your hand,” she says, and she bends down. I put out my hand, and she puts dirt in it. “Throw this in its eyes, and tell it to go back to dust. Go on. You can do it, Quinn.”

  Shaking, I raise my eyes. My nightmare creature stands before us: horrible and tall, with long arms and huge claws dragging into the dirt, and I want to scream, to run. But it just stands there, like it’s waiting for something. Waiting to be told what to do.

  I throw the dirt. “Go back to dust!” I say.

  The creature vanishes.

  Then Isobel’s fingers are in my hair. She drags me into the house and throws me on the floor in the hall.

  Gran walks behind. She bends, takes my hands, looks at my fingers stained red, and shakes her head.

  “You will never touch my plants again,” she says. She says it that slow, special way that winds through my thoughts and wraps around inside me.

  “How did you know to mix blood with the berries?” Isobel demands. “How did you know the form to draw?”

  “I didn’t! I was just drawing something from a dream, and it needed red eyes, so I got the berries. I hurt my finger on a thorn.” I’m crying. My head hurts where she dragged me; my knee banged on the door and it’s bleeding.

  “She must be lying,” Isobel says.

  Gran shakes her head. “I don’t think so. She didn’t command the creature, just made it.”

  But Isobel locks me in a cupboard for lying anyway. I hear their voices, but not the words. Angry voices. Worried voices. Angry again.

  Later Gran unlocks the cupboard; Isobel is gone.

  She stares at me very gravely. “You really didn’t know what the berries would do, did you?”

  “No. I promise, I didn’t!”

  “You’ve such a talent for trouble.” She sighs. “Quinn, you must guard against the darkness inside you: it finds you so easily. It tricks you. You have to be vigilant and try as hard as you can.”

  Piper

  Clouds roll in as I walk, and the bare trees look almost black, like my name: Blackwood. I hug the knowledge close.

  The rain starts as I reach Zak’s front door. “Hello?” I call out, and step through. I timed this carefully, to be alone with Quinn; Zak should have left for work about half an hour ago.

  “Hi,” Quinn answers. She’s on the sofa, Zak’s throw blanket tucked over her knees—​a book in hand and Ness curled up next to her. Her face is pale, tired.

  “You look cozy.” I come in, sit on the chair opposite, and pat my knees. “Hi, Ness!” She raises her head. Her tail wags. She looks from Quinn to me, an almost human expression of confusion on her face. But she stays where she is.

  “Sorry,” Quinn says, and looks abashed. “Want me to shoo her over?”

  “No, of course not. Us being twins obviously has muddled her up.” That’s what I say, but Ness didn’t seem to have any trouble telling us apart the other day, and I’m piqued. I shake it off.

  “You said you had to spend time with your dad last night. Is he all right?”

  “Our dad. He’s OK. Ish. We just hung out and looked through some photo albums, talking about Mum. And the past. I found out a few interesting things.”

  She closes her book. “Oh? Like what?”

  “We weren’t born here. Our parents met at some hotel where Mum was working and Dad was on holiday. They fell madly in love! But he said goodbye and left her behind to go home and back to work.”

  “Not that madly in love, then.”

  “He always has been Captain Sensible. Then he realized his mistake and called the hotel. But they said she was gone, and they didn’t know where. He was heartbroken. Ten months later, she showed up at his door, with me in her arms. And said I was his. So I was right: he never knew about you.”

  “Congratulations. You are the Hercule Poirot of Winchester.” Quinn’s leaning away, arms crossed; she doesn’t want to talk about this. But you can’t always get what you want.

  “Why would she take me and leave you behind?”

  “I have no idea,” Quinn says. “Maybe it was too hard to carry both of us?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “She had to have a reason.”

  Quinn remains silent. She knows something, something she doesn’t want to say; I can feel it.

  “Our mum was good at keeping secrets. She never told me any of this, and wouldn’t let Dad tell me, either. But now that she’s gone, he thought I had the right to know stuff.” I watch Quinn carefully. “And there’s more.”

  “Oh?” She’s pretending she’s not interested, but the desires to know and not know are doing battle behind her mask.

  I smile. “Oh yes. Mum had a thing about not getting married. They told everyone they’d eloped, but they never actually tied the knot. For some reason, she wanted me to keep her name: Blackwood.”

  Quinn’s eyes widen when I say the name.

  “So I’m still a Blackwood: Piper Blackwood. And you are . . .”

  “Quinn Blackwood,” she says, confirming that she was raised with the same name. She shrugs.

  “And now I know where you are from, too: Dartmoor.”

  She half smiles. “Really? Are you happy? Now that you have the answers to all your questions?”

  Dartmoor is a guess, based on where Dad met Mum—​one I was hoping Quinn would confirm. But does her smile mean that I’m right, or wrong?

  “Not all my questions. Tell me, Quinn. About your life, where you grew up. We’re part of the same family. I care about you and want us to be close, but how can we be with secrets between us? I want to understand you and why you haven’t been in my life until now. Please.”

  There is uncertainty in Quinn’s eyes. She wants to believe me, and that is half the battle. I make myself stay silent, don’t press her. She looks down; hair falls across her face.

  She sighs, raises a hand to tuck the strand back behind her ear.

  Clink. Something clinks on her wrist with the movement.

  She’s startled and quickly tucks her hand under the blanket—​but not before I see a flash of brass and stone. Mum’s bracelet?

  “Where did you get that?”

  “What?”

  “I saw it—​Mum’s bracelet. It’s on your wrist. You must have stolen it when we were at the house. She was my mother; it’s mine!”

  “Hang on a minute here. You were just telling me how we are all part of the same family—​she was my mother, too.”

  “That doesn’t excuse stealing. Give it to me; give it to me now.” I hold out my hand, but
she just stares back at me, defiant, and I’m shocked, unsettled, but most of all angry.

  “I didn’t steal it. Dad gave it to me—​as you just pointed out, he’s my father too, remember?”

  “Oh, really? And when exactly did this happen?”

  “Are we back to that again? I will not account for every minute of my day to you. He’s my father, and if I want to see him, I will.”

  I’m shaking, actually shaking, with fury. “You mean you went there and pretended to be me to get him to give you stuff?”

  Ness jumps down from the sofa, slinks into the kitchen.

  The fury in Quinn’s eyes matches my own. “Believe what you want. But he gave it to me, and I’m keeping it. What do you care? This is one thing, and you’ve got a whole house full of her stuff.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “Then what is? That everything is yours, and nothing is mine? That you want me to be part of your family one minute, and don’t want me to go near them the next?”

  “You do know she never took it off, that she was wearing it when she died. Did you wash the blood from it, or was that part of the attraction?”

  Her eyes are horrified and angry. Have I gone too far? Panic swirls into the rage. I need her. I stay silent, struggling for control. Why won’t she do what I say? Something has gone wrong, so wrong, and I don’t know what it is. My words aren’t working.

  Quinn’s eyes unfocus. She nods to herself, her face quietens, and then her eyes meet mine. “I’ve had enough of this craziness. I’m either part of your family or I’m not. You need to decide. Either we go to our father, together, or I’m leaving and never coming back.”

  Quinn

  Rain lashes down, stings my face as I stomp up the road. I’m soon drenched but past caring. The wild weather suits my mood.

  Really, who does she think she is?

  To think I was almost going to open up to her. I’m not sure just what or how much I would have told her, but I wanted to give her something—​just to make her happy. And then she calls me a thief. A twinge inside reminds me that I had been thinking of being just that—​of taking some of Isobel’s fancy jewelry—​before Dad came in. Before he gave me this bracelet. But she went too far, saying that I’d pretended to be her just to get stuff. I never wanted to pretend to be her. It’s Piper who wants me hidden away, like a guilty secret.

  Is that what I am?

  Last night’s dream lingers uneasily in my mind—​another childhood memory I wished had stayed forgotten. Could I really make creatures from darkness, dirt, blood and berries, or was it just a dream, a hallucination? A guilty secret, indeed. I march on through the rain. Would I really leave if Piper decides she doesn’t want me to stay on my own terms? This is still my family too. She doesn’t have the right to say if I stay or go.

  Piper wants me to tell her all my secrets; she wants me to hide away and be good. I’ve spent too much of my life hiding away. I’m not doing it anymore.

  And little does she know: I’m not made to be good.

  She’ll find out soon enough. But not because I’ll tell her: show, don’t tell. She can work it out for herself.

  Before I marched out and left Piper, I told her she’d better stay put at Zak’s, in case someone spotted both of us. It was about time she stayed in while I went out—​about time she realized what it feels like to be a prisoner.

  She didn’t say anything; she just watched me go. Her face was white. She somehow can’t comprehend that I won’t do what she wants, how and when she wants it. Is she really so spoiled that she thinks the world and everyone in it should be slaves to her wishes?

  Despite my anger, the cold is starting to sink deep into my bones. What now? I’m hungry, and I haven’t got any money. The only place I have to go is Zak’s house, and Piper is there.

  Or Piper’s house. I could go to our dad now and introduce myself. Though if I go there without Piper, he’ll probably think I’m her and having some kind of mental breakdown. That’s what I tell myself, but maybe I’m just plain scared to do it—​to face him on my own and tell the truth.

  There is one other place: Zak’s restaurant.

  I don’t know where I am, and I wander some back streets, looking for the way to the main street. That’s when I see it: the sign for WENDY’S WITCHERY. This has got to be Wendy’s shop. I hesitate at the window. It’s hung with all manner of trinkets and charms, crystals and colored stones. There is a warm light on inside, and an OPEN sign on the door.

  Should I go in? This could be my chance to find out what she knows about Isobel’s bracelet.

  Lightning splits the sky; the rain intensifies. Yes.

  A bell tinkles as I pull the door open. It’s a small shop, and there is no sign of anyone until Wendy steps through a door at the back.

  “Piper?” She’s surprised, and so very pleased to see me—​a warmth that feels real. Didn’t Zak say Piper doesn’t even like her? I’m teetering on the brink of telling her who I really am, just to have someone—​anyone—​sympathetic to talk to. Someone who might be my friend, not Piper’s. But I just stare back at her, silent.

  “Oh, poor thing, you’re soaked. No umbrella in this weather? Take off your coat; here, sit.” She pushes me toward the only chair. She chatters on while extracting my coat, proffering a towel for my hair, and making tea. She passes me a cup. “Now, what has you out on such an awful night?”

  “Well, I was thinking about what you said at the restaurant. About having seen my mother’s bracelet before—​maybe here, in your shop.”

  “Ah, yes. Let me have a look at it again?”

  I pull up my sleeve and hold out my arm, and Wendy peers at the bracelet.

  She finally shakes her head. “I must have been mistaken. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like that here. It seems familiar somehow, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen it before.”

  “Do you mind if I have a look around?” I ask.

  “Of course not! Do, do. I might have forgotten something.”

  I put the tea down, wander around the shop. There are charms and jewelry, but it’s all modern stuff. Some of it is made to look aged, but there is nothing actually old, like my bracelet.

  There is a bookshelf along the back wall. It’s full of what look like secondhand books, all different shapes and sizes. I pick one up. Spells for love? I make a face. Though, maybe . . .

  “Wendy, could it have been in one of these books that you saw the bracelet?”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea. There are a few, there—​top shelf—​that have photos of charms and so on.” She points out which ones, and I get them down. I take one myself, and she starts leafing through another.

  The one I have is mostly about stones and crystals. I flip through it, then pick up the next one.

  A musty smell rises as I turn the pages. It looks to be handwritten; the writing is odd and mostly unreadable, but there are frequent drawings, and most are of jewelry. “This book looks more promising,” I say.

  I flip through the pages, then pause at a diagram of a bracelet—​one that looks very like Isobel’s, but without a stone pendant. “How about this one?” I say, and Wendy peers over my shoulder.

  “Oh, well done,” Wendy says. “That must be where I’ve seen it before.”

  I pull my sleeve up again and hold out my wrist next to the drawing.

  “You can tell it isn’t the identical bracelet, but the pattern of links and beads is just the same. I thought I’d recognized it!” She’s beaming.

  “Can you read what it says here?” I ask, and point at the writing under the drawing. It’s curly and oddly slanted; I can make out some letters, but not all.

  She peers closely for a moment, then looks up. “It says that this precise pattern of interlocking rings and beads is the basis of a protection spell.”

  “A protection spell? What’s that?”

  “It’s witchcraft! Or rather, antiwitchcraft. It stops the wearer from being susceptible t
o spells.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “But I can’t find any reference to combining a protection spell with a pendant of power.” She touches the stone hanging from Isobel’s bracelet. “I’ve never seen one quite like this before.”

  “A pendant of power? What is that?”

  “They act to focus the power of the wearer—​if they have any, of course—​though I’m not sure about this one. It looks a little different from the pictures I’ve seen.”

  “Do you know what the markings on it mean?” I hold out my hand, and she studies the pendant closely.

  “I can’t see any markings on it. Can you?”

  I look at it again. The lines are faint, but the pattern they make is clear. Wendy can’t see them at all? I shake my head. “No, no—​sorry, I must have been mistaken.” Shock fills me. I lied.

  “I’ve alarmed you, haven’t I? Your mother probably just picked the bracelet up at an antique fair or something, without an inkling what it was for. And even if it works, it can’t do any harm to stop witches casting spells on you, can it?”

  “I suppose not.” My mind is racing, my face carefully composed. Most people might look at it that way and dismiss it as being of little relevance to them or their lives.

  But most people don’t have a grandmother who is a witch.

  “If you ever want to sell it—​well, I think I could get a buyer very easily, for quite a lot of money.”

  I’m surprised. “Really? I didn’t think it was worth much. I mean, it isn’t gold or anything.”

  “It’s the history in it. I’ve read about them but never seen one before. I probably would be a better businesswoman if I didn’t tell you! But I’m sure I could get, oh, ten thousand pounds for it, before commission. At a minimum.”

  I stare back at her, open-mouthed. “No. Really?”

  She nods. “Absolutely. There are collectors who’d kill to get their hands on something like this.”

  My mind is whirling. That would be quite enough to get away from here, to start over again. Somewhere new, where nobody knows me, where nobody has any reason to search into my past.