Summer Bay High

[I love music]

Megan’s grandmother, from whom she had inherited the gift of second sight, had told her that messages would often come unexpectedly and this fact was borne out now. A picture flashed suddenly and with startling clarity into Megan’s mind as an overwhelming sadness enveloped her. A dark, moonless night, a black river, a weeping bride. The bride turns and lifts her veil.

The face is Gypsy’s. (Chapter 39: Whitelady Woods)

Chapter 42

RUNAWAY TRAIN

Runaway train, never going back

Wrong way on a one-way track

Seems like I should be getting somewhere

Somehow I’m neither here nor there

Runaway Train © Soul Asylum

Gypsy Nash never stopped talking. Or singing or dancing. She couldn’t help it. The bright yellow light of the sun that laughingly stole in to wake her each morning drew her to life as though it were her own personal spotlight and the whole world her very own stage. From the age of three or four, sometimes even before the birds had had time to organise conductor and choir for the dawn chorus, Gypsy would fling back the bedclothes and, lisping snatches of nursery rhymes, toddle off to her parents room, where (with difficulty and determination, for she could barely reach it) she would turn the round brass handle, fling the door dramatically open and happily announce, “MOOORRRNNNING!”

This would be followed up by Gypsy, giggling infectiously, launching herself on to her parents’ bed like a human cannonball, or, if she’d already grabbed her Mum and Dad’s bleary-eyed attention, often as not a song or dance routine, inevitably accompanied by one or more of her favourite toys, or, on occasion, a “magic trick” (Pandy, Gypsy’s stuffed toy panda purchased on a day trip to Ocean Park, might “vanish” behind Gypsy’s back to triumphantly reappear raised above her head).

Despite the early hour and the fact Joel Nash, who was a police officer, might have been working a late night shift in the sticky heat of Hong Kong (the Nash family had moved there from Australia when Gypsy was a little over two years old and her brother Tom five, partly because it was a chance for promotion but for another reason, of which Gypsy was as yet blissfully unaware) and that Natalie, a trained social worker, who combined voluntary administrative work from home with looking after two small children, might have been typing up reports long into the night, they found it impossible to stay cross for very long with their sunny-natured small daughter.

Gypsy was well known in the friendly local community, her talkativeness, fiery red hair and green eyes making her conspicuous among the shy, dark-haired Asian children, and, being a born entertainer, she lapped up the attention. Storekeepers, market sellers, road sweepers, tram drivers, without exception everybody knew and loved her. Tom, too, had slotted in well and was popular with his classmates at his new school. And, although they missed so much about Australia, their beautiful large detached home with its own swimming pool, the barbies on the beach, the wide open spaces, and the laid back way of life, all swapped for the frantic pace of a rollercoaster city, Natalie and Joel agreed that they’d made the right decision to up sticks for foreign shores.

Space being a major problem in Hong Kong‘s crowded city, their new home at Number 15 North Kowloon Street looked exactly the same as its neighbours on the housing complex that provided cheaper accommodation for police officers and their families, each house being shoebox sized with a pocket handkerchief garden front and back. Except for the large colourful Oriental blooms that flourished there, the complex could have passed for any anonymous estate thoughtlessly thrown up by profit-driven companies in any anonymous British new town.

Despite their lifestyle not being as luxurious as it had been in Australia, the Nash family were happy. The first hint that anything was wrong came one unremarkable Tuesday morning a few weeks after Gypsy’s eleventh birthday.

Another torrential downpour had washed the land only yesterday, but the rainy season was thankfully drawing to its close and the hot humidity was finally broken, leaving a wonderful tang of freshness in the air. Natalie, feeling more energetic than she had done for weeks, was half listening to an English-speaking radio talk show while cleaning the downstairs windows. She waved as she saw Mrs Chang walking up the path, briefly noting she seemed troubled.

Mr Chang and Mrs Chang lived next door with their teenage son and they and the Nashes had often babysat for each other when the children were younger. Their offspring no longer needed babysitting; Kuan-Yin, known by his English name of Michael, had turned eighteen and Tom, who was a sensible fourteen-year-old, was considered old enough to be trusted now to look after his little sister. The Changs were a great deal older than Natalie and Joel, but despite the age difference they had become good friends.

Ivy Chang was a small, busy woman who had been born into poverty in a small village in China, her orphaned unmarried mother shunned by all until she stowed away with her baby to Hong Kong where, after living on the streets for some years, they were eventually found and taken in by a kindly elderly couple. Ivy’s first marriage was miserable, her husband a cold man who kept her short of money and rarely acknowledged their three small daughters and no one mourned his passing. Her fortunes changed however when she flouted convention and remarried and she had since trained as a teacher.

Having seen so much misery as a child, little shocked Ivy. But this story of unbelievable cruelty did. She put down the bundle of papers she was carrying and looked at her neighbour, deep concern in her chocolate brown eyes.

“I make tea. You feel better.”

“It’s Gypsy, isn’t it?“ Natalie, dreading what she would find, snatched up the pages before Mrs Chang could stop her.

The wording was Chinese, but the first few pictures were enough to know: an old newspaper print of Gypsy, just a few days old, being cuddled by a nurse at the hospital she‘d been taken to; shiny new photographs of the house where the Nashes lived now, aerial shots, nonetheless anyone with a smattering of geographical knowledge could have identified the area.

In the flurry of fleeing Hong Kong, Natalie never did find out how her friend had come by the information. Perhaps Mr Chang, in the line of his police work; perhaps Mr Chang’s brother, who worked for a newspaper in Kowloon; perhaps somehow during preparation for her students’ work. It didn’t matter. All that did matter was protecting Gypsy. It was for that very reason they had fled Australia.

“We have to go,” she said shakily, beside herself, distractedly beginning to stuff the laundry basket’s pile or unironed washing into a shopping bag, hardly knowing what she was doing. “We have to pack. I have to tell Joel, get the kids out of school…“

Kind-hearted Mrs Chang laid her hand on Natalie’s arm.

“My friend, tomorrow how long secret be secret?” she asked gently. “Is it not wise child hear from parents who love?” .

“No!“ Natalie cried emphatically. “Gypsy must never know.”

Her friend shook her head sadly and quoted an old Chinese proverb in her native tongue.

“What is told into the ear of a man is often heard a hundred miles away.”

*****

6 months later

Summer Bay High, Australia

The second the bell rang for end of school, Jodie Beamish bolted. Gypsy Nash already had. A whole hour ago. Shaken by Jodie’s revelation and feeling crook, she had been sent home.

Miss Hope, unaware of the drama that had played out only moments before, continued her lecture about the political situation in 1930s Australia, and Jodie buried her head in the thick history book without taking in a word. She had been all too acutely aware of the glint in Hayley Smith’s eyes and the smirk that played on Adam Kerr’s lips when she’d blurted out what she knew. Both were snobs and Adam loved to sneer at those he considered beneath him but Hayley was positively gloating.

With her beauty, family’s vast riches, and two heartthrob brothers (older brother Will could have his pick of any girl in the school and younger brother Nick was making a movie in Hollywood and had featured in an article about child stars in OK! magazine) Hayley had been queen bee of Summer Bay High - until stunningly attractive redhead Gypsy Nash came along.

Gypsy’s family were fairly well-heeled and Gypsy too had a heartthrob older brother although Tom was exceptionally clever and had soon dropped Summer Bay High in favour of Yabbie Creek Academy. But Gypsy had even more: a flair for singing and dancing, a love of life, and, worst of all, Will, Hayley’s adored older brother, eating out of her hand. Hayley and Gypsy had quickly become sworn enemies but so far all Hayley and her cronies’ attempts to bring down Pollyanna, as they mockingly called her, had failed miserably.

Until Jodie not only provided dynamite and matches, she lit the fuse.

Gypsy had made no secret of the fact she was adopted - in fact, to Adam’s disgust, she was actually proud of it, telling everyone her parents had probably been two very young and very poor high school students who loved her too much to keep her and that when she became a famous actress she’d find them and give them heaps of money.

Sitting in the sun-streaked classroom, remembering what Gypsy had always believed, Jodie would have given anything to rewind. Why, why, why had she said what she said? But she already knew the answer: jealousy.

Deirdre Kent, Summer Bay High’s caustic-tongued, thrice-married, bohemian drama teacher, who, at the grand age of forty-four still had men puffing out their chests and rushing to buy her drinks, had that very morning announced the results of the Bugsy Malone auditions. Jodie had set her heart on a speaking role. Bypassing the fact she was maybe a little too lacking in self confidence and “mumbled her lines like a halfwit,” as Mrs Kent bluntly told her, and encouraged by her friends because she really could sing and well (provided she stared at a random corner of the stage or, better still, closed her eyes because Jodie lost both tune and words if she dared look at anyone) she had watched the movie over and over and even begun memorizing some of the lines. But all she’d made was one of the chorus girls and then not even a dancing chorus girl, just someone who would appear at the very end of the show singing along with half a dozen others, while Gypsy Nash, who’d only been at the school for five minutes, for Crissakes, had been chosen for the starring role of Tallulah.

Jodie had left the Drama Hall, where Mrs Kent had verbally given each auditionee an honest appraisal (too honest, many would have said) with her face burning and tears stinging her eyes. Gypsy Nash had stayed, partly because Mrs Kent had asked her to in order to arrange rehearsal times and partly because she was busy receiving congratulations from everyone. And maybe she hadn’t been laughing at Jodie when Deirdre Kent tore her performance to shreds but in that vulnerable moment, when her dreams came crashing down, Jodie convinced herself that she had. She happened to catch Gypsy’s eye and she was smiling broadly, surrounded by - well, for want of a better word, fans - like Hayley Smith and unlike plain, mediocre, apparently couldn’t-act-if-her-life-depended-on-it-and-not-only-mumbled-her-lines-but-spoke-to-her-shoes Jodie Beamish, Gypsy Nash seemed to draw people to her.

And maybe, just before History class began, she hadn’t been rubbing it in, though it seemed very much like it, when, with very little prompting from her fans (God, it made Jodie sick, all this sucking up to Gypsy Nash) she jumped up on the desk and began singing.

“My name is Tallulah, my first rule of thumb, I don’t say where I’m going or where I’m coming from…“

Hayley who had declared school musicals geeky; she was, after all, she pointed out, related to an actual Hollywood star (neither she nor her friends troubled to audition) sat glaring at her rival. Gypsy had borrowed several of the boys’ ties and then looped them to form a long double necklace that she was swinging round her neck like a 1920s flapper. She was thoroughly enjoying herself .

And the words tumbled out before Jodie could stop them.

“Ha! Well, nobody ever did find out where you came from, did they? Nobody ever did find out who tied you up and dumped you on the cliffs like a piece of TRASH!“

There was a stunned silence, broken only by Adam’s half-smothered guffaw and Hayley‘s affected little giggle and the normally placid Jodie, who’d once been awarded an A+ (the only one she’d ever attained) for her essay on how even in wars killing someone could never be justified, could happily have murdered both.

It was unheard of for quiet, mousy Jodie Beamish to bag anyone out. That was what made it all the more…

…Frightening.

Gypsy, who had jumped down off the desk and, like everyone else, was staring at Jodie, felt a strange icy fear. Normally nothing fazed her, yet something caught in her throat even as she asked the question.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.“ Jodie rummaged in her school bag, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her. None of her small circle of friends took this particular History class and she felt very alone.

“No, say it.“ Gypsy demanded. “You can’t make up things like that and not say what you mean.“

“I’m not making it up, I swear.“ Jodie was trembling and on the verge of tears now.

“Tell me then.” Gypsy could hear the blood whooshing through her ears and her heart pounding against her chest. But she had to know.

“My Mum told me,“ Jodie at last said quietly, on the verge of tears. “She worked at the hospital so she knew.” Her voice wavered and became little more than a whisper. “She said they’d found you on top of the cliffs with your hands and feet tied together.”

*****

“Gypsy, darling…”

From downstairs in the vestibule Gypsy froze. Although she’d been careful to stuff a bundle of clothes in the empty bed, she hadn’t reckoned on Mum checking on her till morning. Mum! What was she thinking? She had no mother. She had no one…

A tiny voice of reason tried to tell her nothing had changed. She had always known she was adopted, hadn‘t she? When she was only five years old and curious to know more, Natalie and Joel had even arranged a family trip back to Australia so that Gypsy could visit the hospital where she’d been taken as a baby.

But they’d told her she was adopted because she was special, she argued back. They had let her believe, when she was very small, her idea that she was a lost princess and years later, in fact until Jodie Beamish opened her big mouth and told her what really happened, her own story that she was the daughter of a teenage couple who wanted the very, very best for the child they loved so very deeply but were unable to care for.

They hadn’t told her, like Jodie Beamish had, that when she was just a few days old someone had deliberately made the long, difficult trek up the jagged cliffs to place her tiny naked body, tightly trussed with strong rope, to blister and die in the searing heat.

There was still a tiny brown scar on her left wrist.

She traced her finger over it. Until today she had always assumed it to be a birthmark and never given it a second thought. But now she knew it for what it was: someone’s overwhelming hatred of her.

She heard Natalie’s voice again, joined now by Joel’s and she slipped into the shadows by the coat hooks under the stairs, a large golfing umbrella and her father’s spare kagoul from his police uniform enough to shield her.

“Let her sleep,” Joel advised. “It’s what she needs. At least Tom’s still away on the camping trip. We’ll wait till he gets back before we tell him.”

There was a silence. Natalie sounded as though she were crying softly and in the darkness Gypsy could picture Joel putting his arms consolingly around her and hugging her tightly to his chest.

They had each other. The forlorn figure stole softly to the back door, gently unhitched the latch and crept outside into an empty world.

*****

Hayley Smith absently cupped the teddy bear she’d owned since babyhood, and which was sitting on her bedroom window-sill, as she gazed out at the moonlight that shimmered over the harbour and skimmed the tips of the wavering trees of Whitelady Woods.

Today had been the greatest day ever at Summer Bay High. She almost laughed out loud as she recalled the way the colour had drained from Gypsy’s Nash’s face when Jodie Beamish blabbed. Thankfully, Will was still away on that stupid camping trip with a crowd of mates from the surfing club else no doubt he’d be dancing attention on her. As usual.

She hated the way he was so hung up on Gypsy Nash and so pally with her brother.

That was what came of attending a school as common as Summer Bay High, she thought ruefully. They could have gone to any school they chose, their parents told them they were rich enough to afford it, and Nick, to no one’s surprise, chose to board five days a week at a world-famous drama school in the city, but Will, despite Hayley’s attempts to persuade him otherwise, said he’d prefer to be “just one of the guys” and she had swallowed her disappointment and joined him there. Of course she could still have gone to a more exclusive education establishment, but without Will she knew she would be as lost as she was the terrible day when she was five years old and their parents slipped out to the shops and perished in a car that turned into a ball of flame.

Will was the only who cared about her. Nick was just a kid still and too young to even remember their real Mum and Dad (when he was seven he’d announced quite seriously, counting them off one by one on his fingers, that he didn’t believe in Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny or his real Mum and Dad anymore) and George and Julie Smith, their adoptive parents, gave her whatever she wanted and more…

Except the love she craved.

To her surprise, Summer Bay High hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought it would be. All the girls in her class envied her stunning good looks, fashion sense and designer labels while all the guys fell madly in love with her and pretty soon, to Will’s amusement, she not only had a substantial following but ruled the roost. But when the Nashes arrived everything changed.

Tom was older than Will and academically much brighter, but they were both into sports in a big way and had stayed good mates even when, after only a handful of weeks, Tom, finding Summer Bay High classes far too slow for his quick brain, switched to Yabbie Creek Academy. But Tom had never been as much of a problem as Pollyanna was. Hayley scowled at a passing cloud. She had come across upstarts like Gypsy Nash before and had quickly put them in their place, back down where they belonged. But Will’s disloyalty, when he began taking Gypsy’s side over his own kid sister, that hurt so much.

Will was all that Hayley had.

And she had everything. Breathtaking beauty, millionaire parents, dozens of friends, dozens of guys wanting to date her. But it wasn’t the same as having someone who was always there for her. Or used to be until Pollyanna came along. She lifted Freddie Teddy to her face and rested her tear-smeared cheek against the comfort of his soft fur.

“Hayley, you jerk!“ She whispered, suddenly aware of the momentary lapse.

She was queen bee of Summer Bay High, wasn‘t she? She was someone the whole school adored and looked up to. What would they think if they saw her now? And she pulled first herself and then the velvet drapes together, wiped her eyes and closed out the eternity of the watching sky.

*****

“Oh, my good Gawd!”

In one swift movement, Irene Roberts, temporary manager of the hugely popular Summer Bay Diner while its owner Alf Roberts was away on a long pre-retirement vacation, dropped the saucer of milk she’d been carrying, gripped the collar of her dressing gown, grabbed the Diner’s oldest chair (some say it belonged to Alf’s own grandfather, some claim it’s a clever fake) by one of its fancy curved legs and towered over the table, hoping to frighten away the burglar and fervently hoping that her earlier performance, pleading for the stray cat who was an occasional night-time visitor to reveal its hiding place, hadn’t already ruined Act Two.

“I’m warning you, matey, my friend Kitty is phoning the cops right now so if I were you I’d get out of here quick smart! Kitty!” she added, raising her voice to a roar. “KITTY! TELL THEM THE INTRUDER’S STILL ON THE PREMISES!”

The intruder gave a muffled giggle, quickly followed by a gulped-back sob. And that was, strangely enough, when Irene knew with overwhelming certainty that some devastating news had broken their heart. She was. you see, an expert on identifying broken hearts.

She owned one.

Oh, not the broken heart of the star-crossed lover though the star-crossed lover will know this damaged heart well, for it touches the darkest part of the night and hears the saddest sigh of the ocean.

Yet this pain runs ever deeper.

It begs for love while shutting out those who would love and all the while casting smiles to the world outside while the world within is lost

This is the pain of being alone.

In the quiet of the lonely night a passing truck, on its way to deliver cargo to some distant city, rumbled along the hilly road that bypassed Summer Bay and briefly captured in its light the troubled face of Gypsy Nash, the splash of tears that defiantly refused to fall held in her large green eyes.

"Oh, lovey!”

Irene let go of the chair and crouched down beside her. She, like everyone, had only that day heard the devastating story that was Gypsy‘s. News travelled swiftly in a town small as Summer Bay, and the Diner was a meeting people for many folk. The students from Summer Bay High had been buzzing with the gossip as they bought milk shakes and French fries.

“You poor little mite. You must be so cold and hungry.”

“No, no, Mrs Roberts, I’m boiling! And I’ve heaps of food with me. See?”

Gypsy, who sat beside a large canvas holdall, dressed in jeans, mud-splattered trainers and a hooded windcheater that looked suspiciously as though it had been padded out by more than one jumper (as indeed turned out to be the case) proudly held out a paper bag that contained four flattened cheese sandwiches and some squashed sausage rolls

“I’m just waiting till the rain goes off. I’m fine, no worries!” she continued brightly, her sodden clothes and haunted eyes belying her optimistic words. “Sorry I woke you and made you spill the milk.”

“B****r the milk,” Irene proclaimed.

“And break the saucer.”

“B****r the saucer,” Irene decreed.

“Kitty phoning the police, though!“ The young girl’s lips twitched.

Irene shrugged and rolled her eyes comically. “It was the best I could come up with under the circumstances. Lousy, I know. ”

And suddenly they laughed together in their heartbreak, one so young yet and one who had seen more summers than she, both so heavily betrayed in a world that had once promised so much to each.

*****

The Present

The River Restaurant, Whitelady Woods

“Oh, Gypsy!”

Gypsy, who was gazing up at the stars while leaning her head against Jack Holden’s shoulder, trying to spot the shooting star that he insisted he could see, started as Megan Ashcroft, who was sitting behind her on the steps of the abandoned restaurant, uttered her name.

She turned and laughed uncertainly as she met Megan’s intense gaze. Megan often had an unnerving habit of staring before she spoke, as if mulling things over.

“Hey, come on, Megsy, chill!“ Gypsy protested uneasily. “You’re freaking me out here.”

“Sorry.” Megan smiled apologetically. “Didn’t mean to. I guess I’ve just had a bit too much to drink.”

She took off her wide-brimmed hat and shook free her long frizzy hair, mentally berating herself. No matter how distressing her vision might be, what good would come of worrying Gypsy? Megan only ever saw the future, and even then the pictures would be hazy, coming together with painful slowness, the jigsaw rarely making any sense until after the event. She didn’t have the power to alter destiny.

But her friend had been through so much. Even now, though Gypsy was happy living with Irene Roberts and, after the storminess of the last few years, she was, thanks to Irene’s influence, finally renewing her broken relationship with her foster parents who’d moved to Yabbie Creek after Tom left for Uni, Hayely and her gang managed to make her life a constant battle.

“My lady?”

Jack grinned, noticing Gypsy still seemed troubled and thinking to make her laugh. Gallantly, he offered her his hand and when she took it, he kissed her fingers like a knight of old and pulled her gently upwards, where her smiling lips willingly met his own.

“It’s giving!” Noah Lawson suddenly yelled triumphantly, accompanied by a loud crash. The rotted door of the old restaurant had been banging continuously and he and his girlfriend Kit Hunter had been determined to push it open and explore.

“Come on, guys, why are we all sitting out here in the cold?“ Kit called, intrigued.

Megan rose and followed on after her four companions. She was the last to enter. The dark, dilapidated building smelled of damp and brushed their heads with large cobwebs, the broken floorboards creaking under their wary footsteps, their whispers and giggles echoing through the emptiness of years.

A sense of the inevitable swept over Megan like a tide as their moonlit reflections flitted ghost-like along the thick grimy glass through which enchanted diners had once been given a spectacular view of a colourful laser-beam water fountain that now trickled dismally with rust and rain. And all that she knew with any certainty was that whatever terrible sorrow awaited Gypsy, it waited outside somewhere in that night. Inside she was safe. For a little while.

“Que sera sera,” she whisperedto herself, to quiet her anxious heart. “Whatever will be, will be.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE: For Gypsy’s confrontation with Joel and Natalie, see Chapter 26: Tramps and Thieves.

[I love music]

This fic is based on an original idea by Skykat

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

Her arm brushed against something soft and warm and she knew immediately what it was. Freddie Teddy, that long ago childhood gift, that symbol of innocence. She hugged him tightly to her chest pulling her knees up around them and wrapping her arms around her legs. Creating a protective layer to keep the dark out. A wall to keep the badness out. Tears stung her eyes as she felt her whole body shake and she hugged Freddie even tighter, drawing comfort from him. Memories washed over her. Childhood memories.

Memories of tonight.

Kit locking her in the bathroom. Kit and Noah pashing. Kane Phillips pinning her against the tree and making her feel like...like something that had been put out with the rubbish. A surge of white hot anger flooded through her. He would pay. And Gypsy “town bike” Nash and that slag Kit Hunter. The whole bloody world would pay! Freddie Teddy belonged to the past. She didn’t need him anymore. She didn’t need anyone.

Hayley scratched her carefully polished and manicured fingernails into the teddy bear’s face and felt a strange satisfaction as she plucked out its eyes...

Chapter 12: Revenge

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Kat (Skykat) for her powerful description of Hayley cuddling Freddie Teddy.

You, Being One of the Beautiful People are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith's Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies Party of the Year...

Chapter 43

With a Little Help from My Friends

What would you think if I sang out of tune

Would you stand up and walk out on me

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song

And I'll try not to sing out of key

With a Little Help from My Friends © Lennon/McCartney

“Hayley? Hayley, Hayley!”

The distant call became ever more urgent. The shadows in the dream, as if fearing discovery, with fading voices, then whispers, then silence, drifted further and further away, until they melted, then blended, then vanished into the dark of the night.

Hayley sat up groggily, shielding her eyes from the harsh glare of light that blurred her vision, eventually managing to make out a figure. For some unfathomable reason, Crazy Cassie, tears streaming down her face, eyes and hair wilder than ever, was leaning over her and clutching a bedside lamp so close that Hayley could feel the heat of its bulb burning on her skin.

“For ****'s sake, jerk!” she protested in annoyance. “I can't see!”

“Sorry, sorry!”

Spluttering with embarrassed laugher, Cassie set down the lamp. Hayley scowled at her and blinked in disbelief at the startling brilliance of light that flooded the room as though they had journeyed to the core of the sun. The magnificently lit chandelier (an original feature of the eighteenth century mansion though now set with dozens of bulbs in place of candles); the silently flickering TV screen; the modern-day adjustable wall lights set to “super bright”; the still glowing bed-side lamp...What the hell was going on? Or, more to the point, was there anything at all that wasn't going on?

“What are you you trying to do, for Crissakes?” She demanded. “Provide a landing light for passing planes? It's like bloody Las Vegas in here!”

“Sorry!”

Cassie giggled again and clicked off the bedside lamp (which made very little difference to the stunning brightness of the room) wishing she could come up with rapid fire witty comments like Hayley. She had tried at random times since she started Summer Bay High to deliver what she'd fondly imagined to be a funny remark but, except for Martha who would smile loyally, Hayley's crew would stare at her as though she had just been dropped from outer space and then laugh at her, not with her.

Cassie sighed. Except for Martha 'Mac' McKenzie, sometimes she wondered if her friends really were her friends. But she shouldn't feel like that, should she? She should just be grateful, as Hayley told her, that The Beautiful People let a dag like Crazy Cassie hang with them in the first place. And Cassie was grateful, but it was so hard when you didn't have much money or stunning looks and being with them made you feel gawky and awkward. Hayley didn't know how lucky she was, with her beauty and her brains and her filthy rich parents and her movie star younger brother Nick and gorgeous, gorgeous hot older brother Will. Cassie would give anything to have Will for a boyfriend but he was madly in love with Gypsy Nash, who treated him like dirt, told him she'd never love him in a million years, and slept with other guys just to wind him up. He deserved way better than Gypsy. He deserved...well, someone like Cassie.

In fact, once when Will and Gypsy had broken up yet again and The Beautiful People convinced her she'd never have a boyfriend unless she made the first move and asked a guy out, that was the way it was done these days, Cassie had marched up to Will, taken a deep breath and declared, “I think you're seriously fit. Fancy a date?”

The nearby sniggering made her realise too late that her so-called friends had set her up for a fall. Again. She flushed beetroot red as Lisa Hanley and Emily Hood guffawed. Pretending to be genuinely interested in which boys she had the hots for, they'd drawn her into talking about her crushes on Kane Phillips and Will Smith. Kane hadn't bothered turning up for school as usual, but Will had been in the school cafeteria too, chatting with some mates. Go for it, Lisa and Emily said, he wouldn't be able to refuse without looking like a rat when so many people were around to hear. And Hayley would be stoked if Cassie began dating her brother, Emily added, plus it would be one up on Gypsy Nash, The Beautiful People's arch enemy.

After a startled silence and despite the amusement of his mates, Will had been really sweet about it, gently telling Cassie he was flattered, but he didn't think they were each other's type. It made her feel a bit better about things when Hayley laughed mockingly when she heard about Will's refusal and told Cassie there was no way he would go out with an ugly freak like Cassie Turner. Mac had been blazing when she'd heard and, after telling Cassie it had just been a silly joke and why was she so obsessed with getting a boyfriend anyway, she'd really bagged Lisa and Emily out. No worries, she was ugly and stupid and didn't deserve a boyfriend, Cassie told Martha later, thinking her friend would be glad to hear it, but instead Martha furiously told her not to be so silly, and any guy who dated Cassie would be a very lucky guy. But she was ugly and stupid, wasn't she? That was why her uncle had done what he did.

After Emily and Lisa's stunt, Cassie had felt all mixed up again. She often did. Like now, her emotions were all over the place. She was giggling like an idiot and crying like a child. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands as she sat down on the spacious double bed.

“What's the matter now, you fat buffoon?” Hayley blustered.

She knew by no stretch of the imagination could pencil-thin Cassie ever be described as “fat” but she liked to keep minions in their place and the jibe was the best way to hit home, Cassie being addicted to chocolate and though always fretting she might start to pile on weight totally unable to resist it. And sometimes Crazy Cassie scared her. Why had she just decided to sit on the bed? Did the freak really swing both ways like Adam Kerr had hinted tonight? It was true Mac and Crazy Cassie were forever hugging and whispering together and no, Hayley was not jealous of their friendship, she told herself firmly, as though someone else had just asked the question.

Alarmed that Crazy Cassie might actually be thinking of making a pass, she tugged on the satin sheets and edged as far away from her as possible.

“I was really worried about you, Hales. I'm so glad you're alright!”

And a broad smile of relief lit up Cassie's face. The genuine concern was lost on Hayley however.

“Why wouldn't I be?” She snapped impatiently.

Her companion shrugged. “I'd been trying to wake you for ages. I tried making heaps of noise with the music and stuff, but that didn't work so I tried putting on all the lights instead,” she explained earnestly, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to wake someone with either noise or light but never both together, and not taking offence at Hayley's ingratitude. Mac was always telling her she was too nice to people, but Cassie knew how frightened Hayley had been earlier, when she thought she'd seen the ghost of Lady Eleanor, and she put it down to her still being shaken up. “You were screaming and yelling for your Mum and Dad to come back. What's the matter, Hales?” she asked sympathetically. “Did you have a blue with your olds?”

“It was a dream,” Hayley bristled. “Dreams don't mean anything, you nosey cow. And stop calling me Hales. Only my friends call me Hales and I don't make friends with dags.”

“I was only...”

Stung, Cassie stood up and wandered around the luxurious bedroom. Why did Hayley have to be so bitchy? She had everything. Except friends, the thought suddenly jumped into her mind. The so-called Beautiful People, hand-picked by Hayley to receive invites to her “party of the year”, had been way too busy enjoying themselves and had deliberately ignored how obviously upset their hostess had been when Cassie led her indoors after Hayley's scare of thinking she'd seen Lady Eleanor's ghost. Cassie couldn't leave her. Who else would stay if she didn't? Martha was the only other person who might care and Martha still hadn't come back like she'd promised she would. Cassie bit her lip, the same flurry of alarm resurfacing as it had done several times before tonight.

Martha, after taking a call from Jack, had said she was going to meet him and wouldn't be gone long but she'd been gone forever and every time Cassie rang her friend's mobile there was no answer. What if something terrible had happened...? No, she chided herself, she was just being melodramatic as usual. Her Gran often teased her about it, telling her she read too many thick romantic novels and watched too many OTT TV soaps. Of course Martha would be alright! Jack always looked after her, didn't he? And, okay, they'd had a tiff, but they always got back together. It wasn't like Martha to desert her friends, but...well, she was with Jack and they were made for each other. Cassie smiled to herself like a proud mother as she roamed about the room, choosing to blank Hayley's spoilt voice and whatever she was whining about now. And in the end, for once Hayley actually gave up, picked up the remote and clicked the TV to a disaster movie, turning the volume to its loudest level in protest at Cassie's unexpected rebellion but wary of goading her too far in case she walked out and left her all alone. She was still trembling inside after that sighting of Lady Eleanor's ghost and didn't believe for one second Cassie's story that it had only been someone dressed up.

“Bi-tch!” she muttered.

But, deep in thought, Cassie was oblivious. It had been a weird night. After a disagreement with Hayley, Adam Kerr, who'd always had the hots for her and normally fawned ingratiatingly around her whenever they'd had words, desperate to get back in her good books and maybe rewarded with a quick kiss or whole pashing session, seemed, like Martha, to have disappeared off the face of the earth. But Cassie was glad about that. Just thinking about that creep made her skin crawl. That leering look he'd given her tonight when she'd been wearing nothing but a bathrobe had reminded her so much of her uncle.

She caught sight of her reflection in the three-winged mirror of the antique dressing table. Three Cassies looked back, and each with the same terrible secret in their large brown eyes. He was dead now, but he came back still in the nightmares. In the the tap-tap-tapping on the bedroom door and the creaking of the traitorous brass handle, no matter how many times repaired great age inevitably working it loose and weakening the lock once more; in the smell of whiskey on his breath; in his shadow falling across the calm of the sunlit fields; in his voice startling her as she sat in the hammock quietly reading and catching the last dying rays of the reddening sun; in the sudden terrifying touch of his fleshy hand beneath the dinner table squeezing her knee and smoothing upwards. In the small rooms of its cottage and in the isolation of The Old Farm, where was there to run, where was there to hide?

Each month, with sickening dread in the pit of her stomach and with shaking hands locking herself in the bathroom and crying with relief when there was a show; each night weeping noiselessly so that Gran's heart was never broken with the truth about her beloved only son, and, oh, God, the pain, there were times when it hurt so much she thought she would die. And did she, had she...? Was it all her fault? Was it something she said, something she did, some way she looked...? Because Kane Phillips and Adam Kerr too had...

Stop. But...Now! Now, Cassie Turner, right this very minute.

Martha said there was no way what happened with Kane Phillips had been Cassie's fault. Martha had been blazing with anger at the very idea. And if her best friend said what happened with Kane Phillips wasn't Cassie's fault, was it possible, when she finally found courage enough to confide in her, Martha would say what happened with Cassie's uncle wasn't her fault either? Was she right? Was her uncle and NOT Cassie to blame?

The brand new thought surged through her like a warm cleansing shower of hope running through her veins. She caught a breath as her heartbeat quickened with excitement. All these wasted years she'd believed something that wasn't true! It had taken a friend to pull her out of the quagmire of emotions that had dragged her down. With friends, you could be whatever you wanted to be. Friends were there for you, backing you all the way, catching you when you fell, reassuring you when you were down, making you strong. But Hayley, poor, poor Hayley, she'd been through the same terrible ordeal with Kane Phillips and Hayley didn't have any true friends to confide in. Except Cassie and Martha and she constantly shut them out.

Cassie looked down, absently studying the dressing table's intricate pattern of entwined plants and fruits carved into the rich mahogany wood. The nearby wastepaper bin, like all the modern-day appliances, so oddly out of place in the grand room with its chandelier and antique furniture, had overflowed. She stooped down to return the overspill of what looked like stuffing and golden brown wool. The gold-brown bits felt strangely rough. She ran the texture curiously through her fingers. No, wait, it wasn't wool, it was...

She suddenly felt herself rocked off balance as the contents were snatched out of her hand.

“Leave that!” Hayley ordered furiously. “What do you want to play in garbo for, retard?”

By a hair's breadth, Cassie managed to catch hold of the dressing table and regain her footing.

“But, Hayely, it's...” She began.

“It's rubbish!” Hayley insisted, an uncharacteristic tremor of uncertainty slipping into her voice. Cassie was staring as though she could see right through her.

“He's cute, isn't he?” Martha picked up the golden-coloured teddy bear which lay on the pillow of the pink-satin-sheeted bed. The three teenagers had trooped in for Hayley to show off her latest outfit that had come straight from an exclusive Milan fashion house. “I keep meaning to ask, Hales, was he a prezzie from a guy?”

Hayley grimaced disdainfully. “As if! I expect guys to buy me expensive gifts, classy jewellery or perfumes, not cheap trash that does for sluts like Gypsy Nash. Nah. That's just Freddie Teddy. The olds got him for me when I was a bub. Ugly, old, moth-eaten bloody thing, I'd chuck it out except they'd only throw hissy fits. What are you grinning at, fruitloop?” she added as she lifted the beautiful cream dress that she would be wearing to Nick's film première next month, careful to let the pearl and sequin embroidery catch the light, and looking forward to seeing her friends green with envy.

Cassie shrugged, realising she'd been smiling. It was obvious that Freddie Teddy was a much-loved and much cuddled childhood toy! He was never in the same place each time they visited. Sometimes he'd only been moved by a fraction of an inch, but Cassie, intrigued by the tiny chink in Hayley's armour, and intrigued too by what made her so needy would look for him specially. And not without concern. Cassie often sat with Penny the cat in her lap to rest her teary face in her soft black fur, taking comfort from the warmth of contact when there was no one else she could turn to.

“Oh, Hayley!” Cassie couldn't keep the overwhelming sympathy out of her voice though she knew her pity would only irritate her. “It's Freddie Teddy! Who'd be sick enough to do that?”

“Jerk!” Hayley spat, her eyes cold as ice. “I did it myself.”

“But why?”

Cassie was staring at her so hard now that Hayley's hand itched to slap her.

“I don't have to explain myself to you!” She replied, turning away.

And then she said no more but screamed in terror as all power cut out and plunged them both into total darkness.

[I love music]

This fic is based on an original idea by Skykat

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve split this chapter into two parts as I’m about due to update but, being away, I haven’t had much time to write. As a result, most of the Barry/Irene “dinner date”, some of which was quoted in the preview, will be in Part Two. Hope you enjoy!

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith's Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

Long after the Baystormer had rolled away along the distant coast, the heavy rain that had pooled in the broken guttering was still seeking refuge and so slowly slithered along its diverted course on to the roof until it came to the tiniest gap where it dripped steadily down through on to the old wooden beams.

Irene looked up at the leak above the Diner entrance without the problem really registering. Barry and Kim could be anywhere. The night was dark as ink and it was probably wiser to stay in the Diner until morning brought its welcome rays of sunlight. She sighed heavily as from her shelter she vainly searched the immediate vicinity of the night with a solitary candle like an inn-keeper of old greeting tired, dusty travellers. The irony was not lost on Irene.

“You look like Wee Willie Winkie, matey!” She muttered. Then she sighed again. “Oh, Barry! I only wish...” She swallowed back tears.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Soundlessly above her, the first beam, softened and weakened by the hours of rain, began to work loose... Chapter 37: Showdown

CHAPTER 44

THE ROSE

(PART ONE)

It’s the heart, afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance

It’s the dream, afraid of waking, that never takes a chance…

Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed, that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose

(The Rose)

(words and music by Amanda McBroom/also recorded by several others including Bette Midler/Westlife/Elaine Paige etc)

Catching her breath, Irene Roberts breathlessly pressed a fist against her chest as the bout of coughing eased. Beams of rotted wood had pinned her legs to the ground and she could only sit and watch helplessly as the last tiny pieces of white paint and plaster fluttered around her like angel snowflakes. She gave an involuntary shudder as the latest downpour brought in its wake some creature that dropped on to the back of her head, crawled down her neck and finally used the blade of her shoulders as a launching pad to land with a gentle clatter before scurrying away.

Clouds of thick grey dust permeated the air, stinging her streaming eyes, but apart from the heavy weight of the beam pressing on her legs and a badly twisted ankle she was otherwise unhurt. The leak responsible for the damage was still thundering furiously down but the roof collapse that had been pushed through by heavy rain pooling in broken guttering had been confined to directly above the front entrance of the Diner and the rest of the building was mercifully unscathed.

A calm seemed to fall over the waiting night. Through the gaping hole in the roof silent stars shimmered in its hushed velvet sky as though those she had loved and lost would watch over her yet. And perhaps they did. The candle she had been carrying to light her way in the darkness had fallen harmlessly into the soft muddy earth outside, its solitary flame quickly quenched before any spark or flame caught. Yellow candlelight flickered peacefully in the antique silver candelabras that had travelled with Alf Stewart’s forefather in the ship that had carried him and his fellow explorers in their quest to find new lands across the oceans to the sun-bathed coast they named Sun Bay and later Summer Bay.

A different dream captured Irene’s soul. A dream she hadn’t known breathed until tonight.

She had told him she loved him.

She had told him when he couldn’t hear, when it may have been too late. She yearned for his touch, to inhale his scent, to feel his body close to hers. She ached to be with him, protect him, grow old with him. But how and when and where she had first fallen in love with Barry Hyde she didn’t know.

Till through the wispy dust motes where the shadows of yesterday danced a memory slowly crept.

*****

Twelve-year-old Irene McFarlane sometimes felt as though her little brother Benji had wrapped himself up inside a great invisible overcoat. She could almost see the image in her mind, its collar turned up and buttoned right up to his nose, only the top of his head visible, his eyes shining with hidden dreams and unshed tears.

“What did they do?” She blocked his way as he pushed his way through the front door of 10 Morningside Crescent and made to head upstairs.

Benji’s mouth formed a round “O” of astonishment and his head jerked upwards. How did she know? How did she always know?

“I‘m a witch,” Irene said calmly. “What did they do?”

“Nothing, our Irene. Don’t tell Mam!” He added hastily, now that he’d been rumbled dropping the small brown hands that had hidden the secrets, for one had been covering a rip in the elbow of his coat while the other had clutched the coat hood hanging by a tenuous thread, the peculiar “thinking” stance and muddied knees as he staggered through the off-latch door having alerted Irene at once.

He blinked as another raindrop splashed down from his hair, his black curls flattened by the rain, to join those already racing in silver rivers down the contours of his face. Benji didn’t own a standard school raincoat. None of the MacFarlane children did. The meagre grant that was meant to buy them didn’t stretch to full school uniforms. Benji owned instead a second-hand duffle coat that had been worn every winter for the last three years and that was now way too tight for even his small, slight frame, marking him out every bit as much as his dark skin in the snooty white middle-class neighbourhood.

Not that it had been a particularly good duffle coat, to begin with, Irene observed, with a twang in her heart for the sibling she fretted about most out of all six younger brothers and sisters she fussed over like a mother hen.

A corner of its right hem had already been smeared with patches of white paint in a previous ownership, the reason it had been donated to the high street charity shop, and an ironed-on name patch, stuck irremovably to the back of its inner lining, bore the words in neat indelible marker pen Peter Harris Grade 1. At some stage too the unknown Peter or a compatriot had dabbled in art, using the same indelible pen to decorate the inside of the hood with a spiky-haired figure of no nose, uneven eyes and matchstick legs smiling grotesquely as it reached with outstretched arms towards an unsuspecting world.

Irene gently wriggled Benji out of the duffle coat, absently wondering whether the figure was meant to be mother, father, friend or self-portrait.

“And how exactly did you plan to stop Mum from finding out?”

She examined the damage to the hood with critical eye and authoritative voice. Their mother had taken five-year-old Terry and three-year-old Ruthie to a doctor's appointment and her eldest daughter had been given the afternoon off school to mind baby Christabel and give Benji and their ten-year-old twin sisters a meal when they arrived home.

Strange as it may seem, it wasn’t fear that kept the McFarlane clan from telling their mother everything. No, far from it. It was actually a desire to shield her. Evelyn was a gentle, old-fashioned, almost ethereal, soul who loved to read the classical literature and ancient history books that she regularly borrowed from the library, and who, although she tried her very best to hack it, never could grasp the rudiments of cooking and ironing and other practical tasks needed to raise a family. She loved deeply her seven children who had five different fathers between them, frequently going without herself to give her brood enough and more, but she fell in love far too easily and trusted the world far too implicitly. Not being capable of any kind of meanness or cruelty herself, Evelyn imagined nobody else was either. It was a charade the McFarlanes happily went along with.

As soon as she was old enough to take charge, Irene, who seemed to have bagged all of her mother’s common sense as well as her own, did.

“Oh, no worries! I’m just gonna walk like this.” Benji replied gravely in answer to Irene’s question, demonstrating his earlier sloping gait.

Irene rolled her eyes Heavenwards. “As if she wouldn’t wonder why you were walking like a dying duck! Use your noddle, Benjamin McFarlane!”

Despite his recent terror in the (fortunately successful) struggle to escape a bashing, of being chased, pushed and rolled over in mud, dodging a fist in his face, having his coat tugged at and ripped, then almost being knocked down by a car whilst running away, Benji snorted. Noodle sounded like a polite word for something else and being an eight-year-old boy he was very much into forbidden words.

Irene, correctly identifying the reason for his smothered laughter, rapped her knuckles on his head.

“Pay attention, you flamin’ great gallah! Mam’s gone to take our Terry and our Ruthie to see the doc so we’re good for an hour or so. I can patch up that elbow with a quick needle and thread and I’ll run the hood through the sewing machine. You keep an eye on Christabel for me. The little bugger’s had a grand sleep, a bottle and a nappy change, but she’s up for climbing out of that bloody playpen again so you better let her out of jail before she blows her parole. Just find something to keep her occupied while I‘m busy.”

“I could play something for her to have a dance to!” Benji suggested, the burdens of the world suddenly falling from his little body like magic and his face lighting up at the thought of his beloved music.

“Best get your clarinet then, matey,“ Irene agreed, thanking the gods that the clarinet loaned to Benji from Harper Road Primary School hadn’t been on his person when the bullies struck and for the new music teacher, Mr Halford, who had discovered his talent for singing and was busy nurturing it, which in turn was developing Benji’s confidence and helping him make a few friends. Sadly his two best mates Kenny and Joe were away on a school trip that Evelyn hadn’t been able to afford and the twins finished half an hour later hence the nowadays somewhat unusual circumstances of Benji walking home alone. It seemed poor Benji always would be a target for racist thugs.

But Irene could afford to grin as she shook the coat free of raindrops and clicked on the light of the little back room, known quaintly in the McFarlane family as the “cubby hole” and the scene of much heartbreak for Evelyn as she tried in vain to “make do and mend” and much relief as the ever practical Irene came to the rescue and subtly delegated her mother to helper while making her feel she couldn’t possibly manage the task in hand without her. Music was Benji’s great love and he would soon forget all his troubles and lose himself in it.

Straight talking mixed in with large spoonfuls of common sense, stirred rapidly with heavy doses of kindness, sprinkled liberally with tolerance and understanding, it was a successful recipe she still followed today.

*****

Unlike the “smart casual dress” as specified in the dinner invitations and as worn by other diners, her companion had chosen to wear a suit and tie that would have done justice to the most formal of occasions and, seemingly unaware of the relaxed atmosphere as people laughed and chatted, he sat ramrod straight, his hands neatly folded on the table in front of him. Pretending to study the drinks menu, Irene Roberts nee McFarlane watched in amused affection as Principal Hyde looked around at the Yabbie Creek Academy’s school canteen that was currently filled with couples seated at romantically-themed tables-for-two and students wearing name badges acting as their waiters and waitresses, finally bringing his gaze back down to rest embarrassedly on the single red rose poking out of the water in the small cut glass vase beside the centrepiece ice bucket…

[I love music]

This fic is based on an original idea by Skykat

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

CHAPTER 45

THE ROSE (PART TWO)

It’s the heart, afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance

It’s the dream, afraid of waking, that never takes a chance…

Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed, that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose

The Rose

(words and music copyright Amanda McBroom, also recorded by Westlife, Elaine Paige, Bette Midler etc)

Unlike the “smart casual dress” as specified in the dinner invitations and as worn by everyone else, Summer Bay High Principal Barry Hyde had chosen to wear a sombre suit and tie that would have done justice to the most formal occasion and, detached from the relaxed atmosphere as people laughed and chatted, he sat ramrod straight, his hands neatly folded on the table in front of him.

Pretending to scan the menu, Irene Roberts watched as her dining companion looked around at Yabbie Creek Academy’s normally unremarkable school canteen (in fact, in keeping with the building’s 1850s construction and original use as a holding base for would-be settlers, it often seemed downright austere) which was now filled with couples seated at romantically-themed tables-for-two and students wearing name badges and acting as waiters and waitresses. Eventually, and still blissfully unaware of Irene’s close scrutiny, Barry finally brought his gaze back down to rest embarrassedly on the single red rose poking out of the water in the small cut glass vase near the centrepiece ice bucket.

It was as though, Irene thought, as if he had wrapped himself up inside a great invisible overcoat, its collar turned up and buttoned right up to his nose, only the top of his head visible, his eyes shining with hidden dreams and unshed tears.

Lord, she hadn’t thought of that simile for years! It was how she’d often thought of Benji.

Irene automatically sent up a silent “love you” to the brother who had died so tragically by his own hand at the magical and terrible age of eighteen. She wasn’t religious and what little belief she once held had died the day her whole family (except for the twins, who some years previously had been taken abroad by their father never to be returned) were killed in a car crash on the same day Benji committed suicide, but it was a habit she had gotten into. Often in everyday life a word, a scent, a touch, would waken some memory to live and breathe and smile again and she would immediately cast an inner prayer to her loved ones to let them know they were in her heart still.

Barry cleared his throat. “It’s a very nice place here, isn’t it?” he remarked, for all the world as though they were booked into some expensive plush restaurant.

Irene shared an amused glance with Laura, the student busy dishing up their food, a small, plump girl with long blonde hair tied back in an emerald green scrunchie, who obviously had a thing for emerald green to judge by her large emerald green clip-on ear-rings and matching chunky emerald green bracelets, as well as a thing for the violinist serenading the diners, a sandy-haired youth wearing name badge of Simon, to judge by her frequent coy glances in his direction.

Amidst the general chatter and laughter in the canteen of Yabbie Creek Academy a very serious message was being conveyed. A blown-up photograph of a beautiful, large-eyed, skeletal young African child holding a wooden bowl to her mouth was the first sight that greeted guests as they were shown to their tables. The Academy students had arranged the Fun Romantic Disgusting School Dinner “To remind us” as their advertising literature read, “that in the words of the poet Robbie Burns, “Some hae meat that canna eat and some wad eat that want it” in aid of the charity they had founded. HeartBeat aimed to set up schools in remote African villages, with the hope each school would eventually become the heart of the village, a base where education, food and medicine could all be provided. Heads of education establishments and their partners had been invited to the dinner by the charity organizers so that they could explain how their own students and they themselves could become involved.

Principal Barry Hyde was here by accident and, bashful at the best of times despite his ferocious persona, felt ill at ease as he straightened his tie for the third or fourth time. Donald Fisher, the departing principal of Summer Bay High, had already promised to attend the dinner before he left for the United States and school secretary Irene had already agreed to accompany him. It was his first social engagement as principal and he was determined to make a good impression. He pulled himself together.

“Enjoy your meal,” the fair-haired young girl with the alarmingly large ear-rings and tribal bracelets was saying.

Barry eyed the lumpy mashed potatoes flecked with green, the overcooked cabbage, undercooked sprouts and the two pieces of fatty unidentifiable meat swirling in watery gravy.

“Thank you. I’m sure we will. It look delicious,” he said politely.

The violin music that had hitherto been screeching like a wailing cat suddenly screeched like a wailing cat in great distress as Simon shook with suppressed laughter. Principal Hyde looked momentarily startled but quickly regained his composure.

The student who was wine waiter for the night approached their table as Laura, producing notepad and pencil from apron pocket, and pretending she just happened to be going that way and not following Simon, moved on to the next.

“Would sir care to sample the wine?”

Nick Appleby was a straight A student but had always been far more interested in chasing his childhood dream of becoming a comedian. He was thoroughly immersed in the comic role he had created out of his own imagination, that of a snooty wine waiter complete with exceptionally snooty (albeit unidentifiable) accent and had been “harassing” diners with the same bottle of wine all evening. As Barry gave assent, he condescendingly poured a measure of warm, corked wine.

A bottle of previously ordered wine already leaned contentedly in the centrepiece ice bucket. To compensate for the complete lack of haute cuisine, the Academy students had at least promised decent drinks and that later a modest but perfectly edible buffet would be served to their guests while, in keeping with the no waste policy, any uneaten food from the Fun Romantic Disgusting School Dinner would, as pre-arranged, be put in special bins for distribution to a nearby pig farm.

Nick, expecting the usual good-natured banter from the diners that had punctuated the evening, was all set to laugh with the latest couple and uncork the good bottle. To his astonishment, however, and despite several bits of golden cork floating merrily round in his glass, the guest swirled the contents, downed it in one gulp, nodded, smiled and indicated he should pour again.

Delighted at this unexpected approval and playing the snooty waiter to the hilt, Nick obliged with alacrity.

“H’and h’if I may say so, sir, an h'excellent choice!” He declared, filling the wine glass with a theatrical flourish and watching as, without batting an eyelid, Barry took several sips and drained the glass.

Irene, seldom at a loss for words, sat dumbfounded for a whole minute. And then she chuckled. Obviously she’d misread Barry Hyde and a wicked sense of humour beat underneath that pompous exterior!

“Mrs Roberts, please!” Barry hissed. “This is a very serious occasion!”

He jumped as a ripple of applause and laughter greeted the remark. Poor Barry had been concentrating so hard on protocol he’d been unaware that a silence had fallen all around the nearby tables as other couples, already victims of Nick’s practical joke, had begun to watch and listen in amusement.

“Thanks for joining in, Mr Hyde!” Nick grinned, glancing quickly at the name on the place-mat and dropping his acquired accent. “And if you ever feel like a change from teaching,” he added, popping the cork off the bottle of good wine, producing two clean glasses from his tray and filling them; “you’re more than welcome to tread the boards with me if I ever make it in comedy.”

Another round of applause, louder than before and peppered with cheers, met with Nick’s words. Quite at home in the limelight, he turned and bowed to his enthusiastic audience, and began a new act as the snooty waiter trying to pretend he wasn’t drunk.

Although baffled by the acclamation, Barry had nevertheless accepted it graciously, but now that Nick had left he turned to Irene, perplexed.

“Mrs Rob…Irene,” he whispered uncertainly, the laughter almost drowning out his words, a worried frown creasing his brow and a red glow rising up from his neck. “I have a confession to make. I …uh…I’m afraid I wasn't joking. I was…was trying to be…well, how I thought I was expected to be. What did I do wrong?”

And he straightened his tie yet again, looking at her in askance.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she smiled.

“In the language of the Summer Bay High students, Kim says I should grow a sense of humour,” he mumbled, embarrassed to admit it.

“Kim said that?” Irene tried in vain to picture shy, placid Kim being impatient with his father.

“Not in so many words.” Barry retracted. “Irene, I want so much to be a good father and a good principal. Will you help me…?”

She placed her hand over his. “”Barry, trust me. All you have to do is be yourself.”

*****

By night, the perfume of the roses would often steal indoors as though seeking the lost wraith of a dream.

Kim always left his bedroom windows wide open. He loved to inhale the pure, free air. If he could, he would have abandoned house and home and every night slept under the stars. But his father said people who were lucky enough to be able to should sleep in beds and not alone on cold, hard, unforgiving ground.

He clutched Kim’s arm as he spoke, almost as if afraid he was going to leave immediately and, startled by his intense reaction to the casual comment he might buy himself a tent and go camping in the bush sometime, Kim found himself saying he probably never would. No doubt Dad was quoting from some poem or other; he was forever reading thick, worthy volumes that Kim couldn’t even begin to understand - and not just for setting school assignments either, but sometimes just for pleasure! Maybe Kim took after his Mum for hating poetry and all things academic. There was no chance of him ever becoming a high school principal like his father.

Barry Hyde might still hold out the vague hope of him gaining a place at college (they both accepted Uni wasn’t even a distant glimmer on the horizon) but outdoors working with animals was where Kim wanted to be.

He’d recently taken up fishing though he threw anything he caught straight back into the water; the fascination was simply in other living creatures, be they animal, fish or fowl. Of course he’d got to know others who fished regularly at the river, but his painful shyness made him uneasy in company and as far as Kim was concerned the great thing about fishing was, once the serious business of hooking a catch got underway, nobody talked. His fellow anglers tended to be much older, men with wives and kids and mortgages, so it was easy to take a rain check on invitations to barbies or beers with excuses about schoolwork. They assumed he was going to see his girl and teased him good-humouredly about it and Kim grinned and let them think it was true. Sheesh, if only! Hell, he’d never dated a girl, never even kissed a girl, not properly. He was way too shy.

It didn’t help matters that the chicks at Summer Bay High had recently begun referring to him as a Greek God, no doubt winding him up just for the fun of seeing him blush. The only girl he ever really felt comfortable with was Cassie Turner but dating Cassie Turner wouldn’t impress his Dad. Dating beautiful, sexy, millionaire’s daughter Hayley Smith would and Kim wanted so much to impress his father. That was why it had been so hard to sleep the week he received the invite to Hayley’s party.

The night he and Dad talked, he’d tossed and turned, listening to the distant roar of the sea until he’d finally drifted into dreams as turbulent as the waves.

The flash of the outside security light pulled him rudely awake.

Forgetting the troubles that had been on his mind, Kim sprang to the window with a grin. The ginger tom who was owned by - no, wait, no self-respecting cat was owned, cats owned their owners - the ginger tom who owned the elderly Miss Dora Parker, proprietor of Ye Olde Summer Bay Lolly Shoppe where they both lived, was obviously out on the prowl again!

Kim liked to keep tabs on “his animals” as he referred to the stray cats, dogs and other assorted creatures that were regularly brought to Yabbie Creek Animal Rescue Centre where he volunteered and which was the main animal welfare station for the many small seaside towns that dotted the coast. He had been helping out there the day the ginger tom, who’s legendary reputation for fatherhood had gone before him and who had been successfully dodging the warden vans all the way from Settler Point to Summerhill, was brought in. It was obvious from the first Zeus had attitude.

Lucy Scott, one of the other weekend helpers and who was studying Greek mythology at Uni, had taken one look at the prisoner’s arrogant expression despite his battle scars and flea bites and named him at once. Nobody disagreed. Zeus suited both him and his history.

Since then of course the cat had been neutered and, according to all the veterinary manuals, should now have been a homebody who rarely strayed from the fireside. But Zeus had never troubled himself to read veterinary manuals and often slipped through the cat flap to re-live his misspent youth (albeit as an observer nowadays) until the microchip under his skin and the name on his collar identified him as surely as any miscreant’s electronic ankle tag. He would be taken back home - supposedly in disgrace, but, not having read any dictionaries either, Zeus didn’t know the meaning of the word, nor did Miss Parker and her customers help matters by making even more fuss of the prodigal pet every time he was returned. Kim was all set to tap in an alert for the night wardens to be on the look-out again and had already grabbed his mobile when the sight that greeted him stopped him in his tracks.

It was his father who had triggered the silent alarm.

The false light of the security lamp cast a smoky greyness around where Barry Hyde sat on the bench overlooking the rockery with its sparkling waterfall and tiny stone animals, the eye-catching feature constructed by the previous owner of the house, the now famous Jeremy Quentin, whose talents had long since taken him to New Zealand, where these days he produced a hugely popular TV gardening show. Every inch of the beautiful open plan garden had been lovingly created by JQ, as the public affectionately nicknamed him, and the flowers, fruit trees and rose bushes he’d nurtured combined to coat the night with a heavenly aroma.

Barry Hyde sat with shoulders hunched and head down. Kim hesitated, unused to seeing his strong, confident father looking so weak and vulnerable and uncertain whether to disturb his solitude. And then the scent of the roses lingered on the air like whispers and curled fingers of love around his heart.

It was a balmy summer’s night. Down the rolling hills the trees swaying in the gentle breezes like giant guardians of the earth offered tantalizing glimpses of the moonlit sea and the rise and fall of the foam-tipped waves as they rushed to the shore. Kim said nothing, but sat down beside his father and looked down towards the sea and Barry raised his head briefly in acknowledgement. And yet, oddly, for they rarely shared confidences, the silence was companionable.

Barry Hyde cupped tenderly in his hands a champagne flute that held a single red rose. Kim recognised it. A rose was regularly placed in the same tall, slender glass that was always set before the photograph of the mother and brother he never knew. For some reason, they never used a vase. Over the years the odd one or two received as presents gathered dust or were given away.

At last Barry looked up at him, eyes glistening. “I loved your mother.”

“I know,” Kim replied in the same hushed tone, and shuffled uneasily, embarrassed at seeing his father so close to tears.

“This glass. It was the very last glass she drank from. We toasted your birth. After we lost Jonathan so tragically…” His voice trailed away, husky with emotion. “Nobody should have to sleep alone in the cold, hard, unforgiving round.”

He had teasedher about the lipstick stain as they stood together mutedly washing and drying the dishes of the “celebration meal” (a takeaway banquet for two delivered to their door and a bottle of supermarket champagne that had been cooling in the fridge) so as not to disturb the deep slumbers of their newborn son.

With a vague smile as though she hadn’t really been listening, Kerry swirled the champagne flute into the soapy water once more. Days later he found her trying to drown Kim in exactly the same way as he’d always suspected she’d killed Jonathan, flown into a wild rage and killed her.

Her body was buried alone on a silent hill, the grave dug by his own guilty, blood-stained hands.

Kim bit his lip. Those words again. One day he’d ask Cassie, the only person he was sure wouldn’t laugh when he asked, what poem, play or book they came from and what exactly they meant because he was damned if he knew, but they obviously meant a great deal to his father and he wanted so much to share his father’s pain, to try and touch this invisible barrier that even at times like this prevented them truly reaching out to each other.

“Dad…?” He worriedly broke through the long silence his father had lapsed into, bringing Barry reeling back from the mists of time.

“Is it wrong for me to love someone else?” Barry Hyde spoke with uncharacteristic self-doubt as he looked down at the rose cradled in his hands.

“Irene Roberts?” Kim guessed, smiling. “Dad, I’d give my whole world for you and Irene to get back together. She made you happy.”

“It’s not that simple, son.” His father sighed. “I don’t deserve Irene’s love. She doesn’t know everything about me.”

“It’s easier than you think, Dad,” Kim replied earnestly. “Tell her everything about you. If she loves you too, nothing will change that.” He took a deep breath. Times when he gave advice to his father were rare. “It’s like I’ve always said. You should relax more. Laugh a bit. Stop taking everything so seriously. Irene made you do that. You were perfect together.”

A wave of both relief and fear crept into Barry’s soul as he realised the truth in what his son said. “Sometimes, Kim, you can actually talk a whole lot of sense!”

And in a moment the father-son bond snapped like cotton thread.

“I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. If I’m dumb, I’m dumb.” Kim shrugged matter-of-factly and tried not to show the hurt, yawning and stretching as he got to his feet. “Guess I’d better get some sleep, I’m bushed. Got the swimming practice first thing tomorrow and then a busy day ahead at the rescue centre.”

“Kim.”

His son turned back, flicking his blond fringe out of his eyes.

“You’re not dumb. You never have been. You’re wise beyond your years. I will tell Irene everything about me.”

Kim nodded, pleased. “Cool. You guys were made for each other.”

He was taken aback when his father unexpectedly swept him into his arms.

“Good night, Kim,” he said awkwardly, breaking away just as suddenly as if ashamed of his fatherly display of emotion. “Sleep well.”

“’Night, Dad.” Kim tried to make out the embrace had been no big deal to him but despite his best efforts he couldn’t help grinning from ear to ear. “Don’t stay out here too long. They reckon we’re gonna have heavy thunderstorms breaking this long spell of hot weather. Maybe even a Baystormer soon.”

“I won’t. I just need to gather my thoughts.”

They smiled at each other in genuine affection.

Barry watched as the son he loved more than life itself headed back inside the house.

“And you too, Kim,” he whispered. “I need to tell you everything about me too.” He dropped his gaze. “And I could lose you both when you find out what I am.”

He took the rose from the glass and brushed it tenderly against his lips. Two or three red petals fluttered and twirled to the grass. Despite the warm breaths of the night, he was shivering.

*****

Pinned helplessly by the fallen wooden beam, Irene Roberts gazed up at the hole in the roof, her memories consumed by Barry.

“In the language of the Summer Bay High students, Kim says I should grow a sense of humour.”

“Kim said that?”

“Not in so many words. Irene, I want so much to be a good father and a good principal. Will you help me…?”

“Barry, trust me. All you have to do is be yourself.”

Was that the moment she had first fallen in love with him? The moment their eyes met and she saw that hidden underneath the brusque, stern principal of Summer Bay High was an honest, shy and gentle man?

Out of the corner of her vision, she suddenly caught the fleeting yellow glimpse of a shooting star as it streaked across the night sky. It was gone in seconds. Long enough for her to make a wish for Barry Hyde to be kept safe and yet not long enough for the wish to carry on the air.

Wishing upon a star. It was silly. It was childlike. It was all the hope she had left in the world.

*****

“Dad, you can’t give up now! Try to hang on. Will’s gone to get help. Come on, Dad! Come on!”

So tonight, the night of Hayley’s party, he had finally made out with a girl. And not just any girl either, but sexy, beautiful Gypsy Nash, who could have had her pick of any guy - even if she had used him just to make her arch enemy Hayley jealous. What did it matter now? What did the fight with Jack or the blue with Will matter? Nothing else mattered anymore as Kim tried desperately to pump the water from his father’s bloated chest.

But the beat of Barry Hyde’s pulse grew fainter.

The moon slipped quietly away. The noisy chirping of the crickets and the faraway hooting of an owl faded into silence as an icy breeze chilled the shadow-darkened night, slithering through the blades of grass and troubling the black river.

Kim didn’t look to see the cause. If he had, he might have seen standing beside the ancient path the shimmering white ghost of a bride.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, that's the cliffhanger! Is Barry dead? Tune in next time!

[I love music]

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

AUTHOR’S NOTE: You know, mainly due to the lack of reviews and falling viewing count I’ve totally lost interest in writing this. I’m trying to tie it all up now (with difficulty)!

This chapter contains a warning for references of a sexual nature .

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks of Uglies

***Party of the Year***

CHAPTER 46

AWAKENING

“Jeeesus!”

Kane Phillips’ whole body jerked in response to the icy water that abruptly covered every inch of it, pulling him out of his steady drift into a strange world that had been alternating between unnaturally bright Technicolor memories of childhood and an eerie silent blackness.

His teeth were chattering but his arrogance hadn’t quite deserted him. “I asked for a drink of water, darlin’, not a bloody bath!”

“Fine. How about a cold shower instead, loser?” Martha McKenzie threw down the now emptied deep square container he’d brought from the freshwater pool and picked up the remaining utensil, a plastic Volvo bottle, and poured its contents over his head.

A flash of fury wiped the smirk off his face. “**** off, you stupid b***h! If I could get up, I’d…”

“Careful, Kane. I’m the one calling ALL the shots.”

It was the third time Mac had thrown water over someone in less than twenty-four hours (Jack Holden to teach him a lesson for pashing Gypsy Nash; Kane Phillips twice for being a lowlife: two down, how many more to go?) and yet she was the one shivering. And crying. Hating herself for being too weak to deprive him of water to avenge her friends, hating him for what he’d done. And hating herself for crying.

He watched her warily. It was well know that when Martha “Mac” McKenzie got into a strop she took no prisoners. Jack Holden had once been forced to apologize profusely or face the prospect of walking home stark naked in the pouring rain when he got Martha so mad she stole all his clothes and locked him out. Adam Kerr had once put his hand into his school bag and found his hand crawling with maggots (courtesy of Kim Hyde’s mysteriously missing fishing jar) after he mocked her best friend Crazy Cassie. Then there was the guy in the Diner who’d made a leering sexist comment. Jeez, it was doubtful if he would ever sow the seeds of future generations! Oh, there were heaps of tales about Martha McKenzie. Most of all that she had three older brothers who would immediately beat up on anyone who upset their kid sister. And that, to date, she hadn’t needed any of them for protection.

Uncharacteristically, he wisely weighed up his words before he spoke again. “Whatever I did, sorry.”

“And you think that’s all it takes to make everything alright? Jerk!”

She retrieved the bloodied Swiss army knife that she had earlier flung to the ground in horror that she had stabbed him and he flinched involuntarily. That knife had already been plunged into his stomach once and he was way too crook to defend himself if she chose to use it again. He was barely holding it together as it was.

She sat down beside him, her long, dark hair falling across her face, and began busily scraping patterns in the sand like a small child concentrating on some new childish game. Except she was no small child and she was using the sharp point of a knife to create criss-cross lines that left uneven trails of freshly-tasted blood in their wake.

“Mac…?” Somehow his voice wasn’t his own. He hadn’t heard fear in it like that since he was a little kid.

“I could have killed you,” she murmured. “You could have died.”

He almost told her there was still a damn good chance that he might and was it her time of month or too much Crazy Cassie company that had turned her psycho? But suddenly he wasn’t in control anymore. That same wild spark that had always attracted him now terrified him.

“Mac. Tell me. What’d I do? I really don’t know. I swear.”

She met his gaze and her heart flipped in a moment’s pity. Cassie was right about his eyes. They were so blue and so unexpectedly gentle. As if there was a completely different person behind that tough, sarcastic front. And in that moment of weakness she crumbled completely. No matter what he’d done, she couldn’t bring herself to kill another human being. Inwardly apologizing to Cassie and Hayley, she grabbed the discarded shirt and quickly, afraid she might change her mind, tied it tightly around his wound, stemming the flow of scarlet blood.

“Wow, that was pretty much expert. Thanks.” Kane Phillips spoke in conciliatory tones, uncertain whether she was going to turn on him again.

She shrugged. “I’m used to it. Back on the farm where I grew up, we often had to fix injured animals.”

He let the thinly-veiled insult pass. “I still don’t know what I did to hurt you though, Mac,” he said carefully, taking advantage of his companion’s quieter mood.

“You didn’t exactly hurt me. But you hurt my best friends Cassie and Hayley. Badly. And if you hurt my friends then you hurt me.”

His brow creased, trying to make sense of her words and, with difficulty, still frozen from the soaking, still weak from the loss of blood, using a large rock as both support and backrest, he raised himself to his elbows and squinted at the sea. Lazy breaking rays of sunlight were stretching pale yellow fingers down from the sky and loudly squawking gulls were skimming the green foamy ocean, diving, swooping and rising in pursuit of an early breakfast, but the cold breeze of night wasn’t yet done, and a stinging wind swept suddenly across the waves, lifting her hair to whip her face, leaving the taste of salt on their tongues.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, Kane.” Martha’s earlier sympathy began to wane. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. You raped them, you sick, sick b*****d.”

“What?”

But Martha McKenzie obviously didn’t believe him and Martha McKenzie was still playing with a knife.

“I didn’t touch Hayley. I scared her, sure. But I didn’t touch her.”

“Keep talking, Kane. You’re not off the hook yet.”

Martha absently activated the spring mechanism on the Swiss army knife, flicking the larger blade on and off, blissfully unaware of the threatening gesture. Flicking the knife was something she often did when deep in thought. One of her many tomboyish habits like whistling or throwing on any old clothes or taking a great interest in car engines. But Kane Phillips wasn’t to know that.

He willingly obliged. She may have dressed the wound but that knife had been retrieved a little too fast for his liking. He talked fast.

“Nothing happened with Hayley. I made her think something was gonna happen, I admit. But nothing happened. She was coming on to me and then backing off like it was a game. So I played a game right back. I wanted to teach her a lesson. I pretended I was gonna force myself on her and then I let her go.”

“Not funny.”

“Yeh, okay.” He watched the knife, transfixed. “I see that now.”

“And Cass?”

“God knows what was going on in Cassie’s head. She seemed determined to…well, lay me. I know it might sound weird but I’m not lying, Mac. She was like someone else. Like someone I never saw before.”

Everything he’d said so far was ringing true. Hayley hadn’t wanted him charged but wouldn‘t say why. Cassie had been acting totally out of character, even accusing her friend of being jealous of her plans to get with Kane. But Martha had no intention of making things easy for him.

“You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you? You think I got rocks in my head? You’re a sicko, Kane, no two ways about it. How come when I woke up you were peeling off your shirt? How come you were trying to pull down my jeans?”

“What was I supposed to do? You were bleeding. I planned to use the shirt as a bandage. Still looks pretty bad.” He observed. “Kind of ironic that it got used on me instead, huh?”

Martha’s hand went defensively to her hip. It was only a flesh wound where the unopened knife in her pocket had nicked her skin. The large glistening stain of bright red made it look far worse than it was.

“Jeez, Mac! You really thought I was gonna…?” Realisation was beginning to dawn. “Was that why you ran off when we came out of the cop shop? Why you fell into the river?”

“Okay. Okay, what were you doing in the grounds of Rowan House then?” What were you doing prowling round the women’s wing? The cops told me,” she added, reading his startled expression. “Come on, Philips!” Martha stabbed the knife viciously into the gritty wet sand. “Crawl your way out of that one!”

He looked out at the sea for a long moment. And just when she thought he’d run out of answers, he took her breath away with his reply.

“My Ma’s in there.”

“She’s been in there years,” he continued pensively, as it to himself. “Ever since a bungled suicide attempt left her brain damaged. I don’t visit anymore. She don’t know who I am so what does it matter?”

He shrugged as though it didn’t but the croak in his voice and the single tear glistening on his cheek seemed to tell a different story. And whether it was only that bitter wind to blame, perhaps we will never know.

“Take a seat, son.”

There were plenty to choose from. A row of ten or more cream leather easy chairs were still set in a semi circle and gathered around a whiteboard, some meeting recently finished, flip chart folded back on to a fresh blank page. But he walked past the more comfortable chairs and for some reason chose a straight back wooden one that seemed to have been placed there as an afterthought and from which he first had to remove a plastic beaker bearing the dregs of cold coffee and a torn and dated magazine sprinkled with biscuit crumbs. And as he laid the cup and magazine on the nearby window-sill and turned one of the cream arm-chairs around ready for his mother he suddenly realised the reason why he’d chosen to sit where he did.

The light might come back into her eyes.

She loved music. And flowers. Before Dad deliberately broke the cheap tinny-sounding radio when he found his wife and two small sons often plugged it in and danced in fun round the kitchen while he was out drinking, she would tell Kane and Scott, glancing at their garbo-strewn, rat-infested garden, that one day they would live somewhere far away from here, just the three of them, that had flowers of every colour and description. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of flowers, she promised breathlessly, as they stomped and swerved and laughed to some random song, and her eyes bright with hope. Till Richie took even hope away from her while he and Scott cowered under the table screaming in terror.

Odd-chair-out was nearest to the large bay window where silver wind chimes rang merrily every time the playful breeze kissed and which gave the very best sweeping view of the hospital’s extensive grounds. She would be able to see the curving sweep of the trees that lined the paths and gave way to the benches where patients could sit and admire the carefully cultivated gardens and the sunlight glinting golden sparks on the ornate fountain where, years before she had become a resident of Rowan House, he and Scotty, so angry at a world that had dealt them the devil’s hand of a violent alcoholic father and a beaten and cowed, mentally unstable mother, had spray painted obscenities, thrown clumps of soil and uprooted flowers into the water and smashed rocks against the spinning, shiny marble fish that dipped and rose to gush spouts water from ever-open mouths. The cost of the vandalism had run into thousands of dollars but, thanks to the blind spot on the security camera, they were never caught although a substantial reward was put up if anyone could help identify the “perpetrators of this mindless act”. But it wasn’t mindless, it wasn’t! When they finally ran off, panting with exertion, they high-fived in triumph that the fountain had been left as broken and damaged as they were themselves.

An anonymous benefactor, a millionaire businessman, outraged at the “wanton destruction”, paid for the fountain to be restored to its former glory, and as it had been long, long ago in less enlightened times when Rowan House Residential Centre was known as Summer Bay Mental Asylum (for the Incarceration of Lunatics and Imbeciles) and, according to the newspaper reports of the day, “charitable ladies and gentlemen whose generous donations made this institution possible applauded Alderman George Bishop’s speech and then all partook of a splendid high tea around the refreshing waters of the fountain, music being provided by gifted cellist The Honourable Miss Elizabeth Butterfield.” (You know, I am at a loss to know where the patients must have been during this grand soiree. Presumably, the “lunatics and imbeciles” were locked away inside.)

There was little chance of anyone recognising him now as one of the two most destructive kids who would regularly scale the wall of “Loonie Park” to scare one another and create general havoc but his reputation in other ways had gone before him. Everyone knew of the notorious Phillips family of Summer Hill, the father a shiftless, drunken bully who dabbled in drugs and crime, the two sons already with a police record. The staff at the hospital didn’t like him very much but there was nothing they could do about it. They tolerated his presence because at fifteen years old he was still a kid in the eyes of the law. Even though he’d grown up as soon as he’d learnt to walk and talk.

“No more than an hour, son,” the medic said, as he helped in a waif-like woman, who clung nervously to his arm, stooped, half-deaf and prematurely aged from her husband’s beatings. “We don’t want to tire your mother.”

They left the doors open and found excuses to go in and out, not trusting him alone with her. And though the patients’ own private wards was where visitors were usually taken, they kept him well away from her own tiny private room, obviously afraid that, like his father, he might even steal what little she owned.

But ten minutes proved to be more than enough. She didn’t remember having any children. She was convinced he was his father and kicked him when he tried to calm her, shouting, screaming and hitting out, weeping in hysterical terror, begging the nurses to make him go away. Each and every visit followed the same heartbreaking pattern as the first. Over the years his visits dwindled and then they stopped altogether.

Until the night of Hayley’s party, when some deep loneliness led him to where the trees’ hushed shadows trembled in the stilled waters of the moonlit fountain, to where the quiet night and silently-lit windows watched and waited to speak their secrets.

Cassie.

Her large scared brown eyes had spoken volumes. But he’d been on fire and all that mattered was the fire inside him was quenched. When it was over, his kiss had barely registered on her cheek. And her eyes had been more afraid than before.

“Maybe Cassie,” he admitted in a low, choked voice. “Though I didn’t mean to…” His voice trailed off and she didn’t catch some of the words.

“For some reason, she wanted to make out with me. I knew she didn’t really want to, but I kept telling myself it was okay because she said she wanted to. That’s no excuse though, is it, Mac? It’s not something I feel proud of,” he added, drawing a shaky breath, “You know, I swore I was never gonna be like my Dad...” A sob caught in his throat.

“You don’t have to be,” Martha said, taken aback by his tears. “You can change. I’ll help you. But not as an item, Kane. Never as an item. I want you to get that straight. I’ll go see your Mum with you, I’ll be there for you. But I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. Not as your girlfriend or anything. As…as…” she floundered, wondering exactly what it was she was offering.

He didn’t really know why he’d opened up to her so much. Even about vandalizing the fountain. It wasn’t the knife making him talk now. He’d forgotten all about the knife, lost in the memories. Maybe it was the shock of coming so close to death. Maybe it was a need to share with someone after being alone for so long. Maybe it was just…

… reaching out…

…...........................because when we finally reach out…

………………………………..........................................................someone reaches right back………

“Friends?” he suggested tentatively.

“Friends,” she agreed gently, locking her fingers in his.

And, quietly, companionably, together they watched as a new day glowed down through the sleepy clouds and a pool of golden sunlight rippled peacefully on the ocean. Friends.

Who, though they didn’t know it yet, would soon need each other more than they ever dreamed…

[I love music]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I haven’t had much time for writing the last couple of weeks so thought I’d update with the completed first part so I could concentrate on writing the second half some time over the Xmas hols from work - well, that’s the plan anyway. (It’s pretty long already - as usual.) The next update should be some time around Xmas/New Year.

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

Chapter 47

HOMECOMING

Little girl lost.

The words popped into Julie Smith’s head out of nowhere. She’d seen the inside of airports hundreds of times since husband George, due in no small part to Julie’s equally sharp brain and business acumen, had made his money in property but Brooke’s excitement, though Brooke was no stranger to travelling herself, swept her up in it too.

As usual, the teenager hadn’t stopped talking. About chocolate; American Idol; blusher; the-brother-in-the-rock-group-currently-in-rehab; Afghan hounds; dental floss; broken heels; hotels made of ice; the colour turquoise; President Obama…for Brooke, no subject was too big nor too small. She had come into the Smiths’ lives through her wealthy parents being among financial backers of the movie Julie’s adopted son Nick was starring in. Well, okay, starring was a slight exaggeration.

Nick had been plucked from the relative obscurity of his Yabbie Creek drama school and flown out to Hollywood with his adoptive mother as guardian to play dying tug-of-love kid Harry in a new romantic weepie set in the 1940s. As the fictional character was a couple of years younger and Nick spent most scenes sitting by the fire, pasty-faced, coughing and wrapped in a large blanket, the rapid increase in his height and filling out of his face over the months could fortunately pass unnoticed. Sadly the completed movie, not having any famous names to capture the public’s interest, had gone straight to video, leaving everyone involved in its making asking themselves how on earth a “classic” like A Lonely Heart Never Sleeps lost money while Pay Freeze, a “mediocre thriller” starring Al Pacino and Tom Cruise, raked in the cash.

Nothing perturbed Nick however and his brief brush with fame was no exception. Meeting Brooke was, as far as he was concerned, the highlight of his fledgling movie star career.

It was a shock to Julie when Nick began dating - she had still been thinking of him as a kid with playground crushes - but she had since become very fond of Brooke, only daughter of Larry and Darleen Marino, who were “in advertising” and much younger sister of Jesse Marino, drug-addicted drummer of the rock band JFK. Underneath all the designer clothes, perfume and make-up was an uncertain young girl whose parents showered her with money but who never seemed to notice her.

And being an uncertain fourteen-year-old was something Julie herself remembered only too well.

She had grown up in poverty, her mother unable to work due to being a full-time carer for her disabled husband, and she would never forgot their disappointed expressions when she had angrily thrown down the solitary birthday gift of a box of chocolates and screamed “My friends get heaps of decent prezzies for their birthdays!” before storming upstairs to her bedroom and sobbing her heart out because Julie Fleetwood, as she was back then, didn’t have any friends, she was called a geek and laughed at and that very afternoon she had overheard Becky Swift and Debbie Barlow, the two coolest girls in her class, giggling about her being “trailer trash” because everybody knew that Mrs Fleetwood shopped in charity stores and “Frumpy Fleetwood” wore second hand clothes.

In an ideal world, Julie would have gone back downstairs and apologized and appreciated the thought behind the gift. But this is not an ideal world and, like many a fourteen-year-old before and since, Julie valued her peers’ opinions far above whatever anyone else said or did. It shamed her now, and of course when she grew up she outgrew her childish ingratitude, but now was far too late to go back and change those many similar storm-filled teenage days. And, poor as they were, at least she did have their love whereas Brooke, for all her luxurious lifestyle…

“No way! Oh, my God!”

The young girl gave a theatrical little scream and fanned her face, undaunted by the stares of other previously bored, and now thoroughly entertained, passengers at the airport departure lounge.

“Oh, my God!” Brooke repeated, turning to Julie. “Can you believe these guys actually met the Queen?”

With stereotypical British reserve, the “guys who had actually met the Queen”, Mum, Dad and two girls of perhaps eleven or twelve, smiled politely and looked rather bemused as people tended to be when they met Brooke for the first time. The two younger girls watched in dumbstruck admiration as she chatted animatedly, her expensively styled, glossy chestnut hair falling like a shower over her shoulders. Their parents’ sudden lottery win had transported them into an exciting new world (after three weeks in the States they were now off to Australia) and new-found confidence but Brooke exuded movie star glamour.

“No, I’m afraid you misunderstood. We only saw the Queen,” the father of the family said, almost apologetically. “We were among the crowd watching when Her Majesty went past in her carriage for the State opening of Parliament.” He added, for Julie’s benefit.

But at that moment Brooke espied Nick returning with the bottle of mineral water she had requested and she went to take it from him and to place a cherry-red lipstick smear on his collar in her eagerness to place a kiss on his lips.

The Englishwoman laughed. “Nice to know Royalty still impresses then! Are your daughter and her boyfriend at Uni?”

“Oh, she’s not my daughter. She’s my son’s girlfriend. And they’re a bit too young for Uni yet, they’re only fourteen,” Julie corrected, amused that they obviously thought her American like Brooke. “Nick’s being so tall and Brooke’s make-up and style probably make them seem older.”

“Oh. I see.”

Denise Downey’s voice turned suddenly cold and she flashed a brief but meaningful glance first at her husband and then at her two pre-teen daughters. If they thought when they hit fourteen they were going to date boys, wear sexy clothes and cake themselves in make-up that made them look at least twenty-one, they had another big think coming. Fortunately, their allocated flight seat numbers were being called or she might well have been tempted to tell Julie that encouraging youngsters to pretend to be older than their emotional age could cope with was just asking for trouble.

“Oh! The English guys have boarded already? I was gonna introduce Nick.”

Brooke sounded hurt and on an impulse, aware her ultra confidence was just a front and behind it was a shy, sensitive teen, Julie squeezed her hand. A surprised, pleased look lit up the American girl’s pretty face at the gentle motherly touch. Though one had to look closely to find Brooke’s natural prettiness.

Her flawless skin was needlessly hidden behind thick foundation, her lip liner created lines that didn’t exist before it was applied, the shaped and thinned eyebrows made her look permanently surprised. But her eyes, blinking behind their long fake lashes, gave her away.

“What’d I do, Annie J?” she grinned at Julie and Nick, her perfectly capped teeth gleaming.

The auntie nickname had “just happened” as Brooke herself would have put it. She had come to think of her boyfriend’s mother as a kindly auntie, confiding in her rather than her own parents, and as Brooke had a habit of shortening everyone’s name J was a natural progression from Julie. And as time went by Julie really did feel more and more responsible for her.

Julie herself had had a boob job while in the States but Julie was old enough to know her own mind. Brooke, without telling a soul, had paid easily out of her very generous allowance for faked documentation that lied about her age and had been all set to be booked into an exclusive clinic to be given breast implants the week after Julie and Nick returned home to Australia.

Brooke’s parents thought it a great joke when she was rumbled. Julie had been shocked both by Brooke’s actions (she later sobbingly confessed that she had planned to get her nose, which didn’t need fixing, “fixed” next and then, even though she was skinny as a rake, maybe a tummy tuck) and their blasé attitude. When she’d suggested that, in addition to the later visit planned for Xmas (work commitments meant the Marinos couldn’t get to Australia any earlier) Brooke travelled back with she and Nick to spend the long school vacation in Australia they had bitten her hand off. No mention of how much they’d miss their daughter. They were already strangers to each other, Julie thought sadly.

Even Hayley hadn’t yet gone down the road of hating herself so much she thought plastic surgery was the only answer. Julie felt a surge of guilt. She had never bonded with her adopted daughter as she had bonded with Hayley’s brothers Nick and Will. Never found any common ground. Hayley was a terrible snob but deep down she must feel every bit as unloved as Brooke. And in her own way how much of a snob had the younger Julie been?

“Nothing. Mom (Nick had picked up the American pronunciation during his long stint in the States) was just checking you were still alive because you forgot to speak for two seconds.” Always the joker, Nick neatly sidestepped Brooke’s amused slap and was caught instead by Julie’s.

“Oww!” He laughed ruefully, rubbing his arm as his mother and his girlfriend high-fived each other.

Julie affectionately flicked back Brooke’s hair. “She’s older than you,” she smiled. “But you remind me so much of my daughter Hayley. I've missed her.”

[I love music]

Anything?”

“There’s a faint pulse.” His face soaked with tears, breathless with his vain attempts to restore his father to consciousness, Kim Hyde answered his friend’s question without looking up.

“Come on, Dad. You can make it. You’ve got to!” He took another breath and once more began desperately pummelling his chest.

“Look, mate, maybe I should go for help...?” Will suggested uncertainly.

He knew of a short cut that would take him to the road where he might flag down a car. Will Smith turned in the direction of a huddle of shadowy trees where he, Hayley and Nick, exploring the area when they’d first moved to Summer Bay, had been intrigued to discover the Ancient Path. They had never followed the winding path to its very end but Will trusted himself to find the way.

His fate was sealed. (Chapter 40: Faith)

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

CHAPTER 48

WILL

A sky that saw it was beautiful awoke to break into small, pink sailing clouds. Pencil thin yellow lines of sunlight filtered slowly down through the few gaps it could find in the thick, clustered trees of the Ancient Path while a breeze, more autumn-chilled than summer-blessed, carried in its wake dust and debris to scatter far and wide. Birds and rodents too had over the years added their spoils to nest and den, occasionally shiny coins or silver buttons that would catch the sun’s smile to glisten and deepen the Path’s air of mystery.

Will cursed as, pushing his way through overgrown branches and sturdy, waist high plants that had flourished in the darkness with frequent showers of rain and narrow pockets of sunlight, his ankle plunged into treacly mud.

Taking a short cut across the Ancient Path to go for help for Barry Hyde had seemed a good idea at the time, but now he bitterly regretted his hasty decision. He had assumed the Path would eventually lead out to the coast road, but he had never been to the very end to find out and it was way too late to turn back. Maybe, even though it was much farther, he should have headed in the opposite direction, to the long abandoned and reputedly haunted River Restaurant, where the steep, winding stone steps that had been cut into the cliffs would have taken him down to the wharf.

But Summer Bay was a quiet little town and folk liked to keep it that way. Even if the recent Baystormer hadn’t kept many a would-be reveller home, the dozens of bars and eating places of the hugely popular wharf would be silent and deserted now: an ancient bye-law required all commercial establishments to close on Sundays and, due in no small part to the eccentric charm of the ruling that still enchanted tourists, this was still strictly adhered to. (ie The original eighteenth century Keep Holy the Sabbath Day notice beginning with that famous, and at the time perfectly serious, warning:

Be Vigilant All Ye for Demons

Witnessed in these Strange Lands Tuesday Last

Flew out of the Waters a Great Sea Creature

The Beast the size of a Horse hath Seven Heads, each Head hath Eight Eyes and Terrifying Fangs …

The Sabbath Charter, as it became known, can still be viewed, housed in a Perspex glass case nowadays, on the very same toll booth on which it was first displayed.) (See footnote below***)

Will clutched at the stitch in his side and took time out to catch his breath. Surely he had to be getting close to the coast road by now? For some time the noise of the sea had been growing even louder, roaring like thunder and yet unlike any other sound he had ever heard from the sea before. But maybe the strange slopes, suddenly rising out of the earth almost as if to trap the unwary, and the wizened old trees, weighed down by branches so thick and full it almost seemed they listened, altered perception here. Jeez, though, he only hoped he could make it in time to get help! The Path seemed to be taking him round in circles. He looked all round, trying to figure out where he was. And that was when he saw it!

A pale thin sun - or was it the moon? - seemed to be playing mind games with him, an intermittent glowing light threading eerily through the trees, following him into the gloom as if…as if it were some intelligent being…

“Sheesh, grow up, you wuss!” Will chided himself.

Ghost and monsters was a theme with his family, he mused, trying to take his mind off the crazy idea he was being followed, steadfastly refusing to look back and ignoring the shivers running down his spine like icy fingers, as he pushed away a low, soaking wet tree branch that must have taken offence at the pushing and shoving, for it sprang right back to slap his ear.

He had often told his younger sister and brother ghost stories, embellishing the tales with torchlight, shadows, surreptitious knocks and twitching curtains in an attempt to frighten them even more. Nick found it funny but Will soon learnt not to tease his kid sister too much. Hayley was terrified of everything…thunderstorms and the monsters she was convinced lived under the house; ghosts and witches and giants; barking dogs and motorbikes and raised voices; spiders and clowns and the dark…

And although as she grew up she outgrew some of her more childish fears, in some ways she became more timid than ever. Hayley had always been a Daddy’s girl, running to the father who adored her whenever anything scared her, reassured when he scooped her up into his big strong arms and called her Buddy. Everyone spoilt little Hayley. It was hard not to. But after their parents’ deaths in a car crash when she was five years old and their subsequent adoption everything changed. Nick, being the youngest, was the new darling of their adoptive family, Will, being the eldest, was the one being groomed to take over their adoptive father’s property empire. Somehow poor Hayley didn’t fit in anywhere anymore. Will could understand why she had decided to be someone at Summer Bay High, earning herself the nickname of Miss Piranha in the process (courtesy of fiery Gypsy Nash and her friends, mockingly nicknamed Pollyanna in return by Hayley and her crew).

Nick was the opposite of Hayley, he thought, continuing along the twisting path, aware without needing to look that the glowing light still pursued him. As soon as Nick heard about the Ancient Path, on the very edge of the extensive grounds of the Hartwell estate, he had wanted to explore.

Their adoptive mother Julie loved to read about unsolved mysteries and she had eagerly snapped up a well-thumbed, hard-backed volume of Ghosts and Legends of Summer Bay (published long before the paperback reprints that will be a more familiar sight to you in bookshops nowadays) at a charity sale. Nick, like many before him, had been fascinated by the elaborately detailed pen-and-ink illustrations by renowned artist Henry Desmond (1864-1932) and which were the original reason for the book’s quickly soaring popularity: The Great Sea Creature Takes to the Skies; The White Lady’s Solitary Walk; Villagers Gaze in Fear at the Strange Phenomenon of Four Moons; Did Ancient Path Lead Benjamin Quigley and his Faithful Dog through Time Portal? (Desmond had added an assortment of peculiar creatures apparently following man and dog) A Ghostly Ship and Ghostly Crew Doomed to Sail the Ocean for All Eternity; Water Sprites Seeking Food (here, he had sketched several luminous elves with hollow black eyes crawling on to the river bank, some swallowing insects and even lizards whole)…Desmond’s vivid imagination knew no bounds.

Yep, they all, except Hayley, loved a good ghost story. Even their adoptive father George, whilst insisting everything had to have a rational explanation (and he would happily provide one even when there weren’t any) would often relate tales he had been told as a boy by his own father, who had lived some years in Singapore and worked in a notoriously “haunted” Jakartan hospital.

Reality breached for a moment as Will paused again to catch his breath, beads of sweat on his forehead. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. And the winding path, even at its beginning, had been more outgrown than he remembered, but that was hardly surprising…

He’d been thirteen the last time he’d taken the Ancient Path, not long after they’d moved here, when Nick insisted there were all kinds of strange, exotic creatures hidden in the long grass. Exactly what, he didn’t specify, but he had recently been flicking through the pictures of Ghosts and Legends of Summer Bay and was also trying (in vain) to persuade their parents to let him keep some exotic pet, a crocodile or python wouldn’t need much looking after, he suggested hopefully, this being Nick’s optimistic solution to his mother’s allergy to animal fur.

“Look, mate, you’re hardly gonna find many mini tigers lurking in the undergrowth,” Will sighed, feeling, as always, he had to be the responsible older brother and not let Nick, who was only eight, roam too far on his own.

Nick’s face lit up. “Mini tigers? Here? D’ya reckon there might be?”

Will shook his head pityingly and checked back on Hayley, who had insisted on joining them in exploring the mysterious Ancient Path, bearer away of Benjamin Quigley and his Faithful Dog - if, indeed, they had ever existed to be borne away in the first place. She hated getting muddy and she hadn’t really wanted to go at all, but ever since their parents’ deaths, six years ago now, she never liked being separated from her brothers.

Hayley had turned into a terrible snob and her spoilt little rich girl antics often drove easygoing Will to the brink but as he looked back now protective big brother mode kicked in.

The Smiths were still fairly new to the picturesque little town of Summer Bay. Nick, who had wanted to go on stage ever since he was four and saw his first show, at his own request boarded weekdays at the prestigious Yabbie Creek Drama School while Will and Hayley had chosen to attend Summer Bay High, where, to Will’s amusement, his little sister, persuading him not to breathe a word to anyone that they were adopted and not born into their vast wealth (by a lucky coincidence they already shared the same surname as their new Mum and Dad) had been busy building up a fan base of shallow hangers-on impressed by money and looks. Or The Beautiful People, as they had begun to refer to themselves.

Will had stayed well out of what he regarded as kids’ stuff but just recently he had got well and truly caught up in the middle. Gypsy Nash, a gorgeous chick with gold-flecked green eyes, a beautiful smile, fiery red hair and the temper to match, had joined Summer Bay High some weeks back and he was totally smitten. But Hayley and Gypsy had become sworn enemies and Will suddenly found himself treading a fine line between loyalty to his kid sister and trying to impress Gypsy, the only result being he seemed to be the fall guy whenever the sparks flew. As they did just about every day.

But right now neither her entourage nor her adversaries would have recognised Queen Bee Hayley Smith as she tried to hurry through the mud, so desperate not to be left behind, small white hands bloodied and scratched as they curved around trees, silky blonde hair dirty and matted, sad blue eyes warily watching out for spiders, snakes and God only knew what other terrors.

“C’mon, Buddy, it’s okay,” Will said gently, walking back to take his little sister by the arm and help her climb over tangled tree roots that had busied themselves over a great many years with dark, murderous thoughts, creeping silently over the path determined to strangle one other.

“Guys, guys!” Nick suddenly yelled. “There’s some kind of weird insect down the hill! I’m gonna catch it and start my own exotic insect zoo!”

Perhaps the crumpled, multi-coloured candy bar wrapper, carried from afar by an errant wind and glinting beetle-like in the sunlight as it fluttered idly by, was startled to find itself re-invented as a weird insect and destined for an exotic insect zoo, for it abruptly quickened its pace.

Undaunted, Nick, snapped open the matchbox pulled from his pocket, raised the fishing net he had brought “in case of water sprites” and jumped down the “hill” - one of two or three they had passed, peculiar, sand-coloured shallow pits in the earth where no flowers, plants or trees grew or ever seemed to have grown, created perhaps by freak weather conditions over thousands of years or perhaps by some unearthly hand (for the wide area surrounding the Ancient Path and Whitelady Woods abounds in myth) forgetting the wise old adage that two hands are better than none at all. He landed heavily and, unable to save himself, managed to twist both ankles in the process.

Nick was sitting in a heap, his face screwed up in agony, when Will finally caught up although, typical Nick, he tried to make a joke of it.

“Just think, bro, when I’m a famous movie star you and Hales can tell them all about my dangerous hunt for the exotic insect!” He announced, albeit with difficulty, gritting his teeth against the pain, mocking himself by flicking back his hair in movie star pose, adjusting imaginary sunnies and looking for all the world as though he sat there reay to begin a leisurely picnic.

“More like what an idiot you are!” Will sighed, grinning in spite of himself. Luckily they hadn’t strayed too far from the mouth of the Path, where they had left their bikes.

“I’m gonna have to carry you on my back till we get to the bikes and I can wheel you.” He decided, having jumped down beside Nick, assessed the injury and discovered, unsurprisingly, his mobile phone didn’t pick up any reception here. He turned to his kid sister, who was watching anxiously from a safe distance, concerned about Nick but too worried about the thick mud to continue. “Hales, when we get to the bikes, you reckon you can ride yours home fast and let the olds know what’s happened?”

Eleven-year-old Hayley had always been a competent cyclist and he had no qualms about asking her to cycle home alone along the stony roads and bumps of the massive Hartwell Estate. Even at the tender age of seven she had been a little star at her beginner level cycling lessons, often being called upon to help the less confident kids, and later flying through her cycling proficiency test.

“No worries!” She gave a smile that transformed her into the Hayley he remembered, the pre-Summer Bay Hayley, who, although she was becoming fixated even back then with money and looks, wasn’t quite the total bitch Summer Bay High knew her to be.

Bikes just didn’t figure in Hayley’s itinerary these days, Will reflected. The only transport that mattered to her was anything that enhanced her image such as limos or open top sports cars. What the hell happened to her in those years since their parents died? Sure, he could see how it’d happened, but maybe as her older brother he should have…

“What the ****!” Will just had time to catch hold of an old oak tree as he suddenly stumbled.

The Ancient Path had come to abrupt halt and somehow he knew without knowing how he knew that it had taken a circular route and met with Whitelady Woods. But barely had the thought formed when his tenuous hold on the tree, its bark still soaked and slippery from the recent Baystormer, slipped. Unable to stop himself, he slithered into another pit, this one much, much deeper and more narrow than any before...

*****

Will groaned in pain. He seemed to have landed on some kind of ledge but his back, dragged along the rough ground as he fell, had taken the brunt of the damage. High above he could just make out the slowly brightening sky and below he thought he could hear the sound of water but the inky blackness made it impossible to see. Maybe this had been the fate of Ghosts and Legend’s Benjamin Quigley and Angus. Maybe, deep in the bowels of the earth and hidden by the darkness, lay the rotting skeletons of a man and dog. Jeez, he could die here!

Almost gleefully, the eerie glowing light, tinged with green now and emitting a steady, high-pitched whistle, picked up speed…

***Footnote: To view The Sabbath Charter, leave the beach near the formation of rocks known poignantly as The Widow’s Bairns, follow the old path down to Moira’s Creek, then walk by the side of the creek until you reach the stone milestone marking the distance from the village. The toll booth is situated at the bottom of the hill.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Um…re the footnote, I got a bit carried away again!!! Hope you enjoyed the update. I’m going back to another writing project for a while but I’ll get back to SBH asap.

[I love music]

You read about a certain set of characters and then it's five chapters and as many months before you see them again.I suspect a lot of new readers did the same and thought the same as I did, "This is really well-written but what's it all about?"

You’ve got a point. It’s six chapters and six months since we last caught up with these two characters…

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

Lonely night. Black, dark, calm, terrifying night...Hayley scratched her carefully polished and manicured fingernails into the teddy bear's face and felt a strange satisfaction as she plucked out its eyes...

(Chapter 12)

CHAPTER 49

WIND BENEATH MY WINGS

So I was the one with all the glory

While you were the one with all the strength

Wind Beneath my Wings (Bette Midler)

“Hales. I know what you were going to do.”

Cassie spoke gently. She hadn’t spoken in a while. Neither of them had. Not since the sudden power cut had plunged them both into darkness and Hayley had finally stopped screaming, reassured by the trickle of light when Cassie, sensing her terror of the dark, drew open the curtains.

“Freak!” Hayley snapped. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

They sat at opposite ends of the bed like two small children who’d been grounded unexpectedly and not quite knowing how to deal with the fallout. Cassie’s hands, fingers locked together, rested neatly on her lap and she clenched them even tighter, wondering if she was doing the right thing by introducing the topic.

She had flung open the thick curtains but the moonlight only served to enhance the shadows and the sneer on Hayley’s face. Yet somehow even though Hayley was being her usual abrasive self Cassie knew she wasn’t wrong. She had stopped screaming when Cassie opened the curtains. She had simply sunk back down on to the bed as though ashamed of her childlike fear of the dark and said nothing when Cassie sat beside her.

“I sat in the bathroom for ages looking at that bottle of pills,” Cassie said carefully.

“You could have done us all a favour.” Hayley spat. “What stopped you?” She meant the question to be sarcastic but to her consternation the pause before it and the tremor that crept into her voice gave her away.

Cassie looked down at her hands. She’d never told anyone about it. She’d thought one day she might tell Martha, but even in her wildest dreams she never imagined her confidant being Hayley. Anyway, killing yourself wasn’t something you just “talked about”, was it? It was something you locked away deep in your mind and in your heart, a secret all of your own to keep, hidden behind the façade of being glad to be alive because the world is supposed to be so wonderful and you’re never meant to get so down. But that’s okay for those with someone. That’s okay for those who are loved. Where will the lonely go?

She bit her lip. “Gran would have been heartbroken and...”

“You’re loopy like I always said.” Hayley interrupted the answer, suddenly realising she’d revealed far too much with her question and trying to bluff her way out of the faux pas as she flung down the TV remote she’d been toying with and stormed over to the window. “I was hell as like thinking of topping myself, you stupid b***h. Only freaks like you go in for all that drama queen stuff.”

“You wouldn’t have destroyed Freddie Teddy if you weren’t thinking of destroying yourself too,” Cassie said quietly. “He’s part of you. Always has been.”

“Who the hell told you about that?” Hayley turned furiously round, glaring at her companion with the contemptuous glare she’d perfected and expecting Cassie to flinch as usual. But Cassie wasn’t to be bowed anymore and met her gaze, unperturbed.

“I asked Will who gave you the teddy bear I saw in your room,” she answered calmly. “He told me you’d had Freddie Teddy since you were a bub.”

“He had no right…” Hayley began, then stopped herself. What was wrong with her? No matter what she said, no matter what she denied, she was still telling Crazy Cassie way too much. It was as though Cassie was drawing the information out of her. Or maybe, the thought flew to her mind, it was because there was no one else to tell…

“Hayley,” Cassie said in the same quiet, steady voice. “Stop bagging me out. Because if you don’t, I’m not going to stay.”

Hayley shuffled uncomfortably. The last thing she wanted, she realized, swallowing the lump that caught in her throat, was for Cassie to leave. Her so-called friends, The Beautiful People, too busy partying and enjoying themselves at Hayley’s expense, hadn’t wanted to know earlier when she’d been crook. Mac wasn’t around. Adam Kerr, who normally hung on to her every word, had disappeared. Will was too wrapped up in Gypsy Nash for her to confide in these days. Cassie was the only who’d stayed. Through thick and thin. That was what a true friend did, wasn’t it?

“My uncle was abusing me,” Cassie whispered through the silence that had fallen between them and Hayley glanced up, though, recollecting the cruel jibe she’d made about Cassie being a “filthy slag” after Kane Phillips had taken advantage of her, she couldn’t meet her eyes and instead stared straight ahead at their pale moonlit images reflected in the antique mirror.

“It started when I was ten or eleven. I just didn’t know how to make it stop.” Cassie hunched her shoulders and folded her arms high across her chest, the nightmares playing out again in her memory. “How could I tell Gran? He was her only son and it would’ve broken her heart. I kind of went in on myself. The other kids at school said I was weird and started bullying me for it and I…I just wanted to…to end it all. But I couldn’t. Killing myself would have broken her heart too. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Why didn’t you tell a…tell a friend?” Hayley crumpled a tissue that she‘d snatched out of a nearby box, uncertain of herself, unused to giving Crazy Cassie advice. To giving anyone advice.

Cassie shrugged. “I didn’t have any,” she said simply. “Not till I came to Summer Bay High and met Mac. But never mind me.” She smiled fleetingly for a childhood stolen, only her dark eyes revealing how deeply the terrible betrayal had scarred her. “Uncle Ben’s dead now. I don’t have to worry about him anymore. What about you, Hales? Is it a guy? I mean, it must be something serious when you’ve got everything, a mum and dad who love you, all this fantastic wealth and…”

“No, I DON’T!” Hayley protested, close to tears. “I’m sick of pretending and sick to death of the hangers-on. They’ve never cared about me, all they’ve ever cared about is all this Fantastic Wealth that I DON’T have because me, Will and Nick were adopted and my new mum and dad don’t even like me so they’ll probably turf me out penniless soon as I reach eighteen. So now you know.” she added sulkily, stunned by her own outburst. Where had that come from? It was as though all the pent-up anger, fear and loneliness had been stored inside her heart for years awaiting its moment to be unleashed. “And now you know I don’t have millions no doubt you don’t want to know me anymore so you might as well rack off!”

“Oh!” Cassie’s jaw dropped in shock.

A thousand questions sprang to her lips and she had already drawn breath to ask the first when she saw Hayley’s hands shaking. So afraid of rejection, Cassie thought, her big heart melting and instantly forgetting every single put-down, every single cruelty Hayley had ever inflicted on her. “But we’re friends, Hales.” She stated with the simple childlike honesty that many mocked but that true friends like Martha loved most about her. “Why should it matter if we’re rich or poor or live in a mansion or a hovel or if we’re green or purple or…”

Only Cassie could have come up with such a peculiar simile. Hayley choked back the near tears and smiled despite herself, overwhelmingly relieved that her friend hadn’t walked out on her.

“Green or purple?”

Cassie shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeh. I guess I do.” Hayley’s voice sounded strange even to her own ears. There was a genuineness in it that she hadn’t heard in a long, long time. “Cass…don’t tell anyone what I told you about me not being born into all this though, will you? And I’ll give you…”

“We’re friends,” Cassie cut in sharply. “We don’t need to bribe each other to keep confidences.”

Hayley guiltily dropped her gaze. Cassie was right. Cassie was right about heaps. How had the balance of power shifted? And yet it wasn’t about power anymore. It was as though they both stood on the same level. Like they listened to, watched out for each other. Like they could share their deepest secrets and dreams without the emotional complications of sex and romance that came with boyfriends. There was a comforting warmth about just knowing Cassie was there for her. Hayley hadn’t known a feeling like it since…

Hayley and Emily were best friends. They’d gone to the same kindy and now they went to the same Big School. Their teacher Mr Robson called them The Giggle Twins because they giggled about everything, even being called The Giggle Twins. Sophie, Eve and Miranda were their friends too, but if they had to pair up or hold hands crossing the road on a school trip it was always Emily and Hayley.

They did everything together. They both loved strawberry cheesecake with ice cream and dunking chocolate fingers in milk. They both got car sick going uphill and they both screamed hysterically if they saw a spider spinning a web. They invented secret names for things, like Jammy-Joe was a sugar doughnut filled with jam and mirrow meant mirror, giggling when they used words only they understood. Their favourite game was pretending they were sisters, especially princess sisters, and they had all kinds of adventures as Princesses Hayla and Emila.

Emily said brothers were gross. She knew that without Hayley having to tell her because she had brothers as well, three of them! Dean hadn’t long been born so didn’t really count yet, but Harry was sooo boring with his footie and boys’ games and Josh was always breaking wind and thinking it was funny. Hayley’s older brother Will thought he knew everything and her baby brother Nick was always being sick or soiling his nappy or crying for his bottle just when they were about to go to the park or to the shop for lollies. Brothers could be okay sometimes, they agreed, but you couldn’t let them be getting ideas or they took over. Sometimes they visited each other’s houses and Emily’s brother Harry liked Hayley and Hayley’s brother Will liked Emily, but the girls told them they were being stupid. But they giggled about their “boyfriends” when they were alone and when they grew up Hayley was going to marry Harry and Emily was going to marry Will.

Things were so simple back then. Nobody could ever dream their parents would be wiped out in moments in a car crash, leaving Hayley, Will and Nick orphans, tearing them abruptly away from their old lives and friends. And the friends, somehow for Hayley they never happened again after Emily, Sophie, Eve and Miranda.

“Sorry,” Cassie said. “I didn’t meant to jump down your throat like that.”

“It’s okay.” Hayley shook herself out of her reverie.

“But, honest, Hales, I really don’t care about you being rich or poor,” Cassie said earnestly. “No matter what, we’ll still be friends. Can you smell smoke?” She added suddenly, puzzled. “The gardeners wouldn’t be burning leaves somewhere on the Hartwell Estate, would they? Not so early in the morning?”

Hayley wrinkled her nose, baffled. “I can smell burning, but we paid all the staff to take time off so’s we could throw the party. Maybe someone’s got a barbie going.”

But a noise like rain pattering heavily against the pane made them both turn as one towards the bedroom window where to their horror a blur of orange flame had leapt to hungrily engulf every inch. …

[I love music]

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Sorry for the shortness of the chapter (or maybe people prefer short chapters instead of my ramblings? ) and the long delay, I’ve been busy working on other writing projects and getting back into original fiction.

This chapter contains a warning for references of a sexual nature.

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

Chapter 50

OMENS

“Megsy? You okay? Because… because I’m not.”

Gypsy smiled a sad little fleeting smile that haunted her beautiful green eyes like the shadow of dreams long past. She had stopped to wait for Megan as they explored the long disused River Restaurant that stank of decay and echoed with the lonely lapping of the river, its windows filthy and broken, its walls stained with mould, and lost forever the glitz and glamour that were the hallmark of its grand yesterdays.

She glanced briefly at their companions. Jack, Noah and Kit were still fooling around, pretending to scare one other in the moonlight-streaked darkness. Kit was screaming in mock fear as Noah trailed a cobweb along her neck, while a rat the size of a small kitten, that had sat unseen on an upturned table, twitching its whiskers at the interesting new scents pervading the night air, scurried away to slither under the same gap through which it had entered, its soft furry body brushing against Jack’s ankle as it fled, making him first cry out and then laugh at his fear.

Only a few minutes ago Gypsy too had been laughing.

And then a strange, low whistling noise had made her turn. Seeing Megan staring out through the dirt-encrusted, broken windows, she followed her gaze, and she too watched in silence as a glowing, green-tinged light hovered over Whitelady Woods before curving in on itself and disappearing before their very eyes.

“You saw it?” Megan whispered back, a rare note of surprise creeping into her voice. She had inherited the gift of second sight from her grandmother and she was used to seeing and hearing strange sights and sounds. But, just as her grandmother had said, very, very few other people would ever share the same experience. And then only if…

Gypsy nodded, speaking in the same hushed tones. “And heard it. None of the others did though. What does it mean?”

She couldn’t explain even to herself why she hadn’t screamed or yelled out a warning although her heart had been - still was - beating nineteen to the dozen. But something deep inside her told her that only she and Megan had seen something. And it wasn’t Jack she wanted to comfort her, it was…

The boy who’s heart she’d broken over and over. The boy she’d mocked, hated, treated so bad. Till in the end, Will walked away. Even though she loved him.

“I don’t know," Megan said, shaking her head helplessly. "I only wish I did. But the very fact you saw it must mean there’s something you have to do, something you have to know…”

Megan tried in vain to make sense of the vague images that ran too quickly through her mind like a glimpse of some up and coming movie the producers were keen to entice an audience to watch without giving away anything of the story. Whitelady Woods. The moonlit river. The Ancient Path. “I know it was the White Lady, I know it was Lady Eleanor, but…”

Gypsy was shaking like a leaf caught in a breeze and Megan squeezed her hand. “Oh, Gyps! It doesn’t always mean death to the person who sees her, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, despite what the legend claims.”

“If anyone had told me a few days ago that I’d be taking notices of signs and symbols, I’d have said they were crazy.” Gypsy spoke as though she’d lately been running, her words punctuated by quick, small breaths, her face, already shiny from the greasepaint she’d applied, eerily white in the moonlight filtering in through the jagged, broken glass. “But I’m the crazy one,” she added, shivering. I’ve let the only guy I ever loved go forever.”

“Maybe not forever,” Megan said. “We…”

And then suddenly there was much more than moonlight. There was a glow as strong as though the sun had burst out of the sky and fallen to the earth, as, roaring and sparking, the fire rolled in a carpet of furious red and orange flames towards Whitelady Woods.

*****

They had been so deep in conversation it was only now they became aware of the confusion downstairs. Of people running, shouting, screaming.

Cassie jumped to her feet at the same time as there came a tremendous pounding on the door.

“Open it, open it!” Hayley yelled, beside herself with fear. “It’ll be someone to rescue us!”

But Cassie didn’t need to unlock the door. Before she reached it, the handle shattered and the door burst open with a final thud. A figure clad in motorbike gear, his face masked by a scarf, only his eyes visible, shoved Cassie aside and, caught by surprise, she toppled to the floor, banging her head on the corner of the dressing table, blood spurting from her temple.

Hayley froze in terror as he came towards her, his bloodshot eyes expressionless, reeking of alcohol and obviously high. She screamed as he lunged at her, but he pressed his hand hard against her mouth, stifling her screams, forcing her backwards.

“Payback time, Princess Pricktease,” he sneered, throwing her roughly on to the bed, and she screamed again only for her head to be jerked backwards, her neck cricking painfully, as he clamped his hand over her mouth once more. She tried in vain to fight him off, pushing, biting, scratching, but he was much, much stronger, his free hand tearing at her clothes…

[I love music]

Liked the conversation between Gypsy and Megan, like Megan said it hinted at a lot without giving anything away.The ending caught me completely by surprise, again.Who is that?And does he have something to do with the fire?

My lips are sealed.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I decided to take a chunk of this chapter out so I’d have something to begin the next chapter with as I’m also working on some non-H&A writing.

This chapter contains a warning for references of a sexual nature

You, Being One of the Beautiful People, are Cordially Invited to Hayley Smith’s Strictly No Dags, Dropkicks or Uglies

***Party of the Year***

This story is based on an original idea by Skykat

Chapter 51

FOLLOWERS

Noah and Jack tore through the night towards the hungry flames, gut instinct kicking in. There could be people trapped in there. Terrified people frantically trying to find a way out, partygoers spilling out into the night, coughing and choking, desperately needing the medical attention both were trained in.

“NOAH, NOAH!”

Kit’s screams of terror as she raced after her boyfriend were quickly swallowed by a roaring torrent of fire, her voice trailing away on the fierce wind of flames. Her eyes stung and she felt sick and dizzy. The smoke was growing blacker and thicker by the minute, curling around her body like a shroud.

And then she felt safe arms suddenly catch her as she staggered helplessly in the darkness.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” Kit was relieved to hear Gypsy’s voice close by. “Look, there’s Megan ahead, waving, yelling at us to follow her. I mean, if she can’t find the way, being psychic…!”

Eyes burning, Kit thankfully clutched her friend’s arm. “I can’t hear or see anyone, Gyps! I’ll need to hold on to you.”

*****

“Gypsy! Kit!”

Breathlessly, trying in vain to battle against the invisible force that was pulling her further and further away from her companions, Megan called their names once more but still they didn’t hear as they ran into the firelit night.

And then they were gone.

She was alone now. All alone. Nothing but silence left. The smoke swirled and danced and became a river. The red glow of fire faded, yet strangely its heat remained…

Benevolent now, burning down from a cloudless azure sky.

It was the beautiful daylight of early morning. Pinpricks of sunlight sparkled diamond-like on the river yet shadows remained. On the opposite bank, under the cold shade of the weeping willow, curled dead leaves floated slowly downstream.

She looked down into the turquoise water and saw the wavering reflection of a bride carrying a colourful bridal bouquet. She felt her arms rise of their own accord and furiously hurl the bouquet far into the river. Watched with quiet satisfaction as, quickly separated and broken, they too trailed along the gently-rippling river. Down by her feet a large grey spider skirted the uneven river bank, its long legs scurrying hurriedly over grass and stones, while a small breeze gently lifted the branches of the trees of Hartwell Woods, its sweet kisses left unsung on the summer air.

“Eleanor…?” Megan said quietly, afraid.

“Hear me,” a voice whispered through the wind.

Megan swallowed and nodded. “I will,” she promised.

And, heart beating fast, inwardly asking her grandmother for guidance and protection, she allowed Lady Eleanor’s memories to consume her.

Something compelled Megan to pull back the veil.

It was strange to see through another’s eyes. To see herself as a plumper, smaller girl with blonde ringlets tumbling over her shoulders, with a pure white wedding veil pulled back over her face, stranger still to finger the gold locket and feel the heavy despair weighing down her heart.

“I loved him.” Eleanor whispered in the rush of the river. “I loved him!”

Hot tears pricked Megan’s eyelids and a lump rose to her throat. She felt as though she’d been weeping forever. She closed her eyes and listened.

Lady Eleanor Hartwell had fallen in love with Captain Harry Silcock the very moment they met. It had been at the ball held at Hartwell Mansion to celebrate both her eighteenth birthday and inheritance of the title. Her parents had died a year ago, within months of each other, Lord Thomas Hartwell contracting smallpox and his wife Lady Margaret, who’d nursed him devotedly throughout, succumbing herself to the disease soon afterwards. Eleanor, their only child, was mercifully spared.

It was however another seven years before she would come of age, at twenty-five, to inherit the Hartwell estate and until then her godmother, whom she had always known as Aunt Beatrice, had been appointed her legal guardian. Aunt Beatrice, in her late forties and never married, was a cold woman, not deliberately cruel, but she had been bought up in a strict religious household and was not given to emotion, lacking the exuberance and “romantic notions” of Lady Margaret's daughter. Aunt Beatrice was horrified that the would-be heiress had been allowed to “run wild and free as any gypsy”.

“A lady must at all times conduct herself as a lady” she was fond of quoting, and Eleanor would be reprimanded for running or made to practice walking for an hour or more with heavy books balanced on her head for slouching in her seat or locked in her room to reflect on “the error of her ways and pray to God for forgiveness” if she dared kick off her shoes and hitch up her dress to paddle barefoot in the silver stream.

Beatrice was anxious that Eleanor should marry well and to this end threw several balls and dinner parties to which eligible men were often invited.

Harry Silcock had been one such eligible bachelor introduced to Eleanor.

Several years older than she, he had sailed the world as a sea captain but now looked to find himself a wife and settle down. Young and naive, she was smitten, quickly flattered by the handsome older man’s attention. His skin was nut brown from the sun, his face weatherbeaten, his deep, treacly voice like music to her soul, his brown eyes held the magic and mystery of faraway places. Her godmother considered him an excellent catch and was delighted when they were engaged to be married soon after their first meeting. Eleanor’s friends however were less certain.

There were rumours, they said, that he’d made his money captaining the African slave ships. They said he was not a man to be trusted. They said they saw in his eyes, in his bearing, that he didn’t truly love her; that he sought only to increase his wealth and to control her. Eleanor would have none of it, believing them jealous.

Encouraged by Harry, who dismissed them as “giddy young girls out to do you harm” by the time of the wedding, she had dropped every single one of the friends, two or three of whom had been playmates since early childhood and cared for her like a sister. Her life revolved only around her fiancé and godmother. But Eleanor cared little. She needed no one else.

But no love is perfect and neither was the love of Eleanor and Harry.

They rowed fiercely one sultry summer’s night when the moon was round and full and roses scented the air. He accused her of making eyes at other men. He said she flirted shamelessly and refused to listen to her pleas she was innocent of such a charge.

That fateful night she broke away from the dancing and took herself and her tears away to the Love Seat.

Her mother had had the small wooden bench, just big enough for two and beautifully carved with exquisite engravings of hearts, doves and flowers, built into the wall when Hartwell Mansion was first created. A stone gazebo jutting out above offered shelter from rain, a protective walled corner gave tender warmth should the air breathe cold. The nearby trees of Hartwell Woods, huddled together in shadows to tell each other their secrets, bowing their heads to the mystical Ancient Path, in winter blocked icy winds and in summer cooled sweltering air; by day the river shimmered and shone and flowers bloomed in a glorious riot of colour; by night, troubled hearts would be soothed by the hushed lapping of the river and joyous chirping of crickets.

She had sat here before with Harry, and as a child too had liked to slip away from her nurse to sit dreaming dreams that she would find the true love her parents had known. Tears had begun to pricked her eyelids once more when a movement nearby made her start, for she had not heard anyone approach.

“Such a close night, is it not?”

Harry’s half-brother Arnold stood before her. He loosened the cravat tied rakishly around his neck and glanced down at her cleavage as he spoke.

Eleanor flushed. It was the first time she’d worn the beautiful green silk dress, daringly low cut in keeping with the Parisian fashion that was all the rage. She had carefully draped a pretty lace shawl around her shoulders to avoid her godmother’s disapproval but the ballroom had been exceptionally warm, and, swept up by the gaiety of the evening, she had soon slipped it from her arms. She wished now she hadn’t left the shawl indoors. Arnold unsettled her. Until very recently he had lived in Europe but now he was home social niceties decreed it only polite to invite him to the ball. He was much younger than Harry, being nearer Eleanor’s own age, and she found him oddly attractive, for he shared many of her fiancé handsome features and mannerisms.

“It is.” She agreed uneasily, dabbing her eyes and glad of the handkerchief that hid her confusion.

To her consternation, he sat down beside her. The bench was barely big enough for two, being meant as it was for sweethearts, and, shocked at his body being so close against her own, she sprang to her feet.

He merely laughed easily, as though the indiscretion were of no matter, and stood too. Perhaps, she thought, it was the way of the Europeans and he had lived most of his life there.

“My brother is a headstrong fool,” he smiled, tilting her chin and gazing into her eyes, eyes so like Harry’s own that her heart fluttered with a strange forbidden excitement. “I could relate to you such amusing tales that Mother told me of when he was but a boy! That is, if you care to listen. Would you do me the honour of walking with me, Miss Eleanor? We could stroll by the river where it is so much cooler.”

Intrigued, thinking to later tease Harry with her new-found knowledge when they reconciled, for reconcile she was sure they would, Eleanor smiled back and took his gallantly proffered arm. “I will, sir.”

Megan suddenly crumpled helplessly to the ground, screaming in abject pain and terror, as a terrible darkness covered the lonely sky, the wind rose and wailed, and the river lashed in wild, tempest-tossed fury, Eleanor’s words carrying through the whispering trees.

“I was so stupid, so trusting….down by the river…he raped me…”