He shakes his head, a small smile playing on his lips. The sick feeling in my stomach grows but he strides away, heading for Johan on the other side of the circle before I can say another word.

A gentle tap on my shoulder makes me look up. It’s Leanne.

“I’m going to look for Al. I think I saw her head down to the river.”

I say nothing. If I speak, I’ll cry.

“Emma.” Her fingers brush my forearm. “I know you slept with Isaac this morning.”

“How?”

“You don’t need to know that. But you might want to consider leaving before Daisy finds out.”

“I can’t go anywhere, the weather’s too bad.”

“That’s a shame” – she smiles sweetly – “because it’s not safe for you to stay, either.”

She drifts away, the hem of her skirt silently sweeping the ash on the patio as she moves.

I got Leanne wrong. She’s not a tick bird pecking at a rhino’s hide. She’s a seahorse – harmless, unusual, cutesy – drifting through our friendship without disturbing anything or anyone until she’s right up beside me, and then snap, she attacks. What she just said wasn’t a dig and it wasn’t a subtle put-down. It was a threat. And I’m not waiting around to find out what it means.

Chapter 34

Chapter 34

I sit up slowly, the beginning of a hangover pulsing in my temples, and push my hair off my face. The air smells of bonfire smoke, meat and sweat. Leanne is asleep on the mattress next to mine, a white church candle between us, spluttering and spitting as the wick fights to stay lit in a deep pool of wax. Al’s asleep on the other side of her, the hood of her sleeping bag pulled up over her head, her mouth ajar as she snores softly. Daisy is spread-eagled on the next mattress along, still wearing her clothes, her sleeping bag rolled up at the end of the bed as though she passed out where she fell. She looks doll-like in her sleep, her long lashes splayed on her cheeks, her short stubby fingernails pressed to her mouth.

Leanne looks so tiny and frail. Without her enormous black-framed glasses, her face looks small and mole-like. Black roots have appeared at the base of her pink fringe. I crept away from the party after her “kindly” word in my ear last night and returned to the girls’ dormitory. I crawled into my sleeping bag, still wearing my shorts and vest top, and pulled up the hood, and then I lay awake for hours, sweating beneath thick layers of nylon, polyester and wool as excited screams and raucous laughter taunted me from the patio.