The Selkie's Diamonds
The Realms. Book II
Morag Gray
Smashwords Edition
©Morag Jane Gray 2011.
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Chapter 1
The trouble started when my cousin Emma got married. Auntie Louise insisted that she had to have one of her cousins as bridesmaid, and my older sister Amanda drew the short straw. Not that she minded. She got an expensive frock and her hair and make-up done by experts. Also, she got to partner Robin Perry, who she has had a crush on ever since she decided she was out of love with our cousin Calum – not that he'd ever given her any encouragement. Emma married Robin’s brother. One afternoon, about a fortnight before the wedding, Amanda, Olly and I had to go to the dressmaker's after school and meet Mum and Emma. I looked forward to it as much as I looked forward to detention. It would be b-o-o-o-ring. I couldn’t find Amanda and Olly at the school gate even though they said they'd wait for me. I waited about ten minutes, and then thought I’d better get going or else Mum would have a blue fit. As I was walking past the railway station a girl in St John of the Cross's uniform stopped me.
“Are you Olivia McIver?” she asked.
“No, I’m her sister,” I replied guardedly. Olly seemed to know people everywhere and she never introduced me to them.
“Do you know where I could find her?”
“She’s supposed to meet me here,” I said.
The girl frowned and looked around, but there was no sign of Olly anywhere. “I suppose you’ll do, then. Can you give this to Emma McIver? It’s for her to wear at her wedding.” She handed me a small, flat parcel.
“Okay. Who's it from?” I asked.
“She’ll know,” said the girl. She disappeared into the muddle of school uniforms before I had time to ask any more.
I dropped the parcel in my blazer pocket, rearranged my schoolbag and trudged on towards the dressmaker's. I loitered past the shops and up the hill. Mum’s car was parked outside, and so was Auntie Louise's. That meant Emma was there already, and I could give her the parcel. I paused to look in the window, at a display of satin shoes, and underwear that looked impossible to do anything in except stand still. I pushed open the door and the bell tinkled in the back room. A harassed-looking assistant came out, and seeing it was just me brightened up. She ushered me out into the back room. Mum looked embarrassed. Olly sat in a corner, apparently oblivious to her surroundings, doing her homework. Auntie Louise had that look on her face that meant she was furious but wasn’t going to say so. My pretty cousin Emma, her cheeks flushed crimson with effort, stood in the middle of the room, trying to placate Amanda. Amanda, looking absolutely stunning in her bridesmaid's dress, was putting in an Oscar-winning performance. She’s brilliant at tantrums, is our Amanda. Tania, the other bridesmaid (matron of honour really, she’s married), bedecked in pale blue, artfully wrapped to conceal the burgeoning bump that was Greenhough Junior, looked resigned. I like Tania – she’s down-to-earth. I dumped my schoolbag on the floor and sat down on an uncomfortable fragile-looking gold wire chair next to Tania.
“What’s it about this time?” I asked. This was a rerun of last time, and the time before. It all got a bit tedious. Most things did when Amanda acted up. I think the dressmaker deserved double her money. Mind you, she almost got it.
“You remember the skirt wasn’t right last time.” I nodded. That was last week's scene. “Well, they’ve had to remake the whole dress, and there wasn’t enough fabric left on the bolt, so they used a new one, but apparently it’s not the same blue as the old one and it doesn’t suit her as well. A blind man would be pleased to see the difference. Now she wants both dresses redone in a different colour.”
“And a more expensive fabric?” I asked.
“Goes without saying,” replied Tania.
Emma had soothed Amanda by now, and the dressmaker was allowed to get on with pinning final adjustments. Amanda went off to get changed and Tania got up to have her dress adjusted. Emma, still looking frazzled, came and sat down beside me.
“Hello, Reb,” she said.
“Hi. Sorry about my sister.”
“Hey, it’s not your fault. She takes my mind off other details, like cakes and place settings and who we’ve forgotten to invite. She does focus the mind. I should have chosen you and Olly, or Kate.”
“Not Sophie?” I asked. Auntie Louise and Auntie Jo (Sophie's mother) have been feuding for as long as I could remember. No one knows why. Emma chuckled. She’s a good sort.
“How's the hockey going?” she asked. I told her about our latest victory, and that we were playing in the Redwood Shield next week.
“We really want to beat St John's,” I said.
“Yes, they won the shield more times than they should have when I was at school, and they always won the hockey,” she said. “Is Olly doing anything?”
“Yes, she’s in the junior debating and the junior Bible reading. We’ve got a good chance beating St John's there.” I remembered the package in my pocket. I pulled it out and gave it to her. “By the way, this random St John's girl stopped me and gave me this for you. She said it’s to wear at your wedding.”
Emma looked surprised and opened it. Inside was a pair of earrings – they looked like diamonds.
“Oh, aren't they gorgeous,” she said. They were. “But I won’t be able to wear them – I’ve got pearls.” She put out her hand to take one of them out of the box, but before she did, Amanda reappeared and the dressmaker called Emma to try on her dress.
“Look after them for me,” she said as she got up. As this was our signal to leave, I dropped the earrings into my pocket. When I got home, I put them in my dressing table drawer, and forgot about them.
The next four months were the most horrible in my whole life, up until then. We lost the hockey on Saturday, and we came last in the Redwood Shield, even though Olly won the Bible Reading. I got umpteen detentions. I became a permanent fixture in the detentions room. I kept rowing with Amanda, which didn’t bother me, and with Mum, which did.
At least Emma’s wedding passed almost without incident. Olly and I had new dresses, too, and I loved mine (I’m not usually a frock person – I much prefer jeans or pants). About half an hour before we were due to go to the wedding Mum asked me to make her and Dad a cup of coffee. Since things had been a bit rough for the last two weeks, I tried hard to be the dutiful daughter. I made the coffee, added milk and sugar, and was carrying it through to Mum and Dad in the living room when the (expletive deleted) cat got under my feet. Result: two spilt cups of coffee and one ruined dress. I had to mop up the carpet, even though it wasn’t my fault, and I ended up wearing Olly’s next best dress.
The wedding itself was fun. Emma looked beautiful, and showed just how clever she is because she had these two blonde bridesmaids who really contrasted with her, with her pretty, dark hair. I danced a couple of times and flirted a bit with Robin Perry – he’s a lot of fun even if he’s old – he’s about twenty -three or twenty-four. It made Amanda mad, and that was good. She tried to get Calum to dance with her, to make Robin notice, but he was in an unsociable mood – he can be a surly beast - and wouldn’t play her games. Somehow, I tore Olly’s dress beyond repair.
Term 3 was just foul. I broke my wrist, and lost my place in the hockey team. It didn’t matter how hard I worked at school, I still couldn’t improve my place in class, and I continued spending most Monday and Wednesday afternoons in the detention room. Things at home weren't much better. The only person I didn’t row with was Olly and that was because she wasn’t speaking to me because of the dress. Even the cat hated me. Tensions increased as the term drew to a close. Amanda had a boyfriend by now. His name was Tom, he went to St Mungo's (which is where all the McIver boys go), and he really didn’t deserve her. He was far too nice. He invited her to the St Mungo's Senior Ball. Mum said she couldn’t have a new dress because she was getting a new one for the St Teresa's ball. She had three choices: last year's dress (couldn’t possibly, everyone had seen it), her bridesmaid's dress, which Mum would remodel so it looked less bridesmaidy, or stay home. She chose option two.
Mum is actually quite good at that sort of thing. The process was not without its dramas, and on several occasions the remodelling process ended in a shouting match. By the time Mum finished, though, Amanda had a stunning-looking dress, complete with hand-beaded stole, covered in tiny crystal beads and rhinestones, that Mum spent hours doing. It cried out for diamond jewellery. Gran and Granddad produced a delicate necklace, an early birthday present. She still lacked earrings. She begged, wheedled and nagged. Dad said Amanda had had enough money spent on her this year, and she wasn’t getting any more. She sulked for about a week over that.
The day of the ball she left school early, and went to the hairdresser instead of going to maths. When she got home, shortly after Olly and me, she raided both our dressing tables for make-up and jewellery. I’m not sure why; she has more than both of us put together. Olly had the exact shade of pink lipstick that she wanted. In my dressing table she found Emma’s diamond earrings.
“Where did these come from, Reb?” she asked, quite nicely because she really, really wanted them. I looked at them, surprised.
“They're Emma’s. She asked me to look after them for her. I think they were a wedding present. I’d forgotten about them, and I think she has, too.”
“Do you think she'd mind if I borrowed them?”
“Probably not.”
She got on the phone and rang Emma, who said yes, she had forgotten them and of course she didn’t mind.
At half past five Tom arrived, looking very grown up, and at the same time curiously young, in black tie and dinner jacket. He was suitably impressed with Amanda who, to do her justice, did look gorgeous. She’s really quite pretty. Mum took some photos, then they drove off to the pre-ball reception. This year it was at the Spanish ambassador's residence. Shortly after they left Mum and Dad went out. They were going out to dinner, to a show and then to supper. Olly and I had the house to ourselves. For the first time in a long time I felt like being remotely civil. We made ourselves dinner, and agreed on which channel to watch on TV. Olly even offered to help me with my French homework.
We were lying on the floor watching TV when my cell phone went. Olly’s rang at the same time. I answered mine. It was Amanda’s friend Sophie. She sounded upset. Amanda had disappeared. A group of them went outside for a cigarette (Mum didn’t know about this little vice of our dear sister's). She got talking to a girl from another school. That was okay, because smokers tend to be quite social, so Sophie said. But when they all went back inside again they realised neither Amanda nor the other girl had come back in. Several of them had done a circuit of the grounds, but there was no sign of them. The security guards hadn't seen them. And nobody knew who the other girl was at the ball with. Tom was quite worried. Olly’s phone call was almost identical, only it was from Katie Lindstrom. The mystery girl – small, slim, pale with dark curly hair- sort of fitted the description of the girl who gave me the earrings. I told Olly.
She said “Ring Emma.”
I obeyed and told Emma the story. In two minutes she rang back and said, “Calum is coming to pick you both up. Leave a note for your parents. We need to talk face to face. And bring the box the earrings were in.” I wrote a note. Then we picked our way through the major disaster that Amanda calls a bedroom and hunted for the box. It took ages, and Calum arrived before I found it. Olly let him in.
Calum’s a funny creature, a bit of a split personality. Most of the time he’s the sort of person that at family parties slopes off somewhere with a book. Mum thinks he’s secretive, and she doesn’t like that. He’s not really. He just doesn’t talk unless he’s got something to say. He’s usually very aloof, but underneath the reserve he’s quite good fun. If you get him in the right frame of mind, though, he behaves quite outrageously, especially if he’s with Robin Perry. Only the week before there had been some big scandal – I don’t know what they did, but Mum disapproved. Dad just laughed about it and said it was just boys letting off steam. Mum said they should both know better; they weren't boys any more, and that sort of behaviour was inexcusable. She’s never liked Robin very much – none of the aunts do, except Auntie Louise, and that’s weird, because usually she’s the one who dislikes people for no good reason - and Calum’s reputation suffers by association, I think. Calum often joins us in baiting Amanda. He’s at university, doing something very brainy to do with computers and patterns and stuff. His left hand is permanently curled up. He burnt the palm of it years ago. It doesn’t seem to bother him, but when he uncurls it you can see the burn mark. It is like a big red cross.
When I finally found the box he asked to see it. He wrinkled his nose at it.
“Good job you rang Emma,” he said. “She needs to see this, and so does Finn.”
We piled into his beaten-up little car and drove across the city to Emma’s house. Calum parked on the street, which was one of the hair-raising twisty narrow ones, hanging onto a hillside, that it seems it’s compulsory for newly-weds to live in. He looked around at the other cars, and said,
“It looks as if we're last.”
We began the trek up to the house. I think there are fifty-two steps from the road to the front door. There are more to the back one. The house was an ugly little wooden one, painted muddy yellow, with a violent pink door. Firewood was stacked neatly in the porch. Emma answered our knock. The inside of the house belied its unpromising outside. Although shabby and old-fashioned, it was immaculately tidy and inviting. Emma took us down a narrow passage to a warm and cheerful, large, open-plan kitchen-living room. Tania and Andrew Greenhough were there. Tania sat on the sofa, close to the fire, with her feet up on the log basket. Her bump was definitely a bulge now. Andrew and Finn sat at the dining table. I’m a little intimidated by Finn. He’s nice enough, but he hardly ever smiles, and he has a long scar down one side of his face that makes him look rather sinister. I don’t really know Andrew. Robin Perry sprawled on the floor in front of the fire, playing with a puppy. He grinned at us. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s so old.
Olly and I exchanged uncomfortable glances. We didn’t really know where to start, but Calum said,
“I’ve seen the box. There's something wrong with it.”
Finn asked, quite kindly, “Can we see it, please?” I fished it out of my coat pocket and put it on the table in front of him. It was quite an ordinary box, a small flat rectangle of cardboard. The lid had a pattern of red and gold swirls. Finn picked it up and opened it. He recoiled, as if something had hit him. Andrew gingerly pulled it across the table and examined it.
“Where did you say you got this?” he asked.
“It was before Emma and Finn’s wedding, one day when they were getting dresses fitted. I missed Olly and Amanda at the school gate, so I was a bit late. This girl from St John's stopped me and asked if I was Olly. I said I was her sister, and she asked me to give this to Emma. It was for her to wear at her wedding, she said. Emma opened it, but she was distracted. Amanda was having a tantrum. She said she was wearing pearls and asked me to look after it. I took it home and forgot about it. Amanda found the earrings tonight before she went to the ball. They went with her dress. So she rang Emma and asked to borrow them. Then her friends rang us to say she'd been talking to this girl from another school and had disappeared. The description sort of fitted the girl who gave me the box. So Olly said to ring Emma, and I did, and now we're here,” I finished.
“You opened it Emma?” Andrew asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Did you notice anything, feel anything then?”
“No, but I wasn’t really paying much attention. I had just calmed Amanda down, and then the dressmaker called me to get my dress fitted. I was just in too much of a flap.”
“How have things been for you since you got it?” Finn asked me.
I looked at Olly. She grinned.
“Bloody awful,” she said. “She’s permanently in detention, she can’t play hockey and she fights with the rest of us all the time. Only she doesn’t fight with me “'cause I haven't been speaking to her.”
“That about sums it up,” I agreed.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “There's a powerful curse on this box.”
“And the remnants of a calling spell,” said Andrew. I would have though they were nuts, except they all looked so serious, even Robin, who never looks serious about anything. I watched Calum, because he’s reliable (in spite of what Mum thinks) and I respect him. He looked as serious as the others. Olly’s a bit quicker on the uptake than I am.
“Someone was out to get Emma, and they got Amanda instead, is that it?”
“It looks like it,” agreed Finn.
“Lucky them,” she said. Calum and Emma grinned.
“What do we do now?” asked Emma. “Do we go and get her back?”
“Count me out,” said Tania. “Archie's due next week.”
“Better count me out, too,” Andrew said mournfully. “I want to stay married, at least for now.” Tania threw a cushion at him.
“Get her back from where?” I asked. “Do you know where she is?”
“Not exactly,” said Finn, “but we have ways and means of finding out. If the spell wasn’t meant for her, and we know it wasn’t, then she should be okay. Do you want another look at this?” Andrew shook his head. Finn looked to Tania, who also shook her head.
Robin said, “It’s no good me looking at it. I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything you don’t already know.”
“Mind if I burn it?” Finn asked. Nobody minded, so gingerly he took the box between thumb and forefinger and walked over to the fire. Robin rolled out of the way, pulling the puppy with him. The puppy snarled and barked furiously at Finn as he opened the fire door and tossed the box in. It exploded in a roar of purple flames. Hastily Finn closed the door. A blast of foul smelling smoke filled the room as he did so. The purple flames burned for far longer than they should have for such a little box. When they finally died down Olly’s cell phone rang. It was Katie Lindstrom. Amanda had just turned up, and was okay. Emma asked to speak to her. She took the phone out into the passage so we couldn’t hear what she said.
While she was on the phone I introduced myself to Robin’s puppy. It was a cute roly-poly thing, mostly Labrador but with a bit of something else by the look of it. It was a creamy colour, with floppy reddish ears, and at the playful, nippy stage. It got hold of my coat sleeve, growled and pulled. I was scared it would tear it. That would cause yet another row with Mum. Fortunately Robin is not as irresponsible as he pretends to be. He picked up the puppy and carefully prised its jaws apart so I could get the sleeve out.
Emma came back into the room; her face was white and angry.
“Stupid little cow,” she said.
“What did she say?” asked Tania. She shifted uncomfortably, and stretched her legs out in front of her.
Emma snorted. “She said she'd just gone out for a smoke with a friend, and basically it was none of my business what she did. I asked her who the friend was. She said her name was Jenny. That’s all.”
“What about the earrings?” This was Andrew.
“She didn’t know what I was talking about, she reckoned. She denied ever having borrowed them. I don’t know if I believe her or not.”
Calum drove us home, and being the well-brought up McIver boy that he is, saw us safely inside. Mum and Dad were not back.
Chapter 2
None of the ball photos showed Amanda wearing earrings. It was very strange. About a month after the ball she broke up with Tom. I began to think I had imagined the whole earrings thing. Life returned to normal. My wrist healed nice and straight. I stopped getting detentions, and things at home improved, at least as far as Mum and I went. I still rowed with Amanda, but part of that was habit and the other part was because she was Amanda. Olly and I got on better than we had done in a while, but she never mentioned the earrings or that night at Emma’s.
The end of the school year came and went. Olly and I went into town one day before Christmas, to finish our Christmas shopping. It was a stupid thing to do. It was really, really hot and sticky.
“Means it will rain on Christmas Day” Olly grumbled. Every shop was packed with people. While she went into a bookshop, to look for something for Granddad, I mooched around looking in windows. I had finished, and I just wanted to get in a bus and go home. A boy on a skateboard shot past me. I didn’t take much notice. He stopped suddenly, turned and came back.
“Rebekah?” he said.
“Yes?”
It was Tom. He took off his backpack and dug around in it for a while until he found a battered white envelope.
“It’s a couple of ball photos. Your mum took them with my camera.” He shrugged non-committally. “I’ve just had the film developed. I thought Amanda might want to see them.”
“Thanks, I’ll make sure she gets them,” I said.
“Cool. See yah,” and he skated off into the distance. He really was far too good for my sister. I opened the envelope. There were two photos, and when I saw them I almost dropped my parcels. They were both taken in our sitting room, and in them Amanda clearly wore a pair of diamond earrings. Thoughtfully, I put the photos into my bag. Then I forgot about them.
Olly was right. It rained on Christmas Day. The McIver Christmas was at Uncle Dave's and Auntie Louise's this year. Since Gran and Granddad decided they were too old to host it any more it has rotated around each of the five households. All the Aunts and Uncles were there, and most of the cousins, including Emma and Finn, and Calum. Tania and Andrew Greenhough and baby turned up. Their family was all in England, so Auntie Louise invited them, too. The baby was the most gorgeous little thing, smiley but not yet mobile, with incredibly beautiful dark brown eyes, like Andrew's. He (the baby, not Andrew) kept all the Aunts gushing. Calum as usual sloped off somewhere with a book once the food was gone. He really has no party manners at all.
James, the cousin nearest to us in age, had got some CDs, and wanted to listen to them. He'd forgotten his discman, so I said I’d lend him mine. I reached into my bag to get it, and found the white envelope Tom had given me. I looked for Emma, but she was busy in the kitchen with Auntie Louise, so it was no use showing her. I put the envelope in my pocket, handed the discman over to James and began the hunt for Calum. The house is not large, but Calum has the advantage of having lived there most his life. He knows all the hidey-holes. Eventually, after a tip-off from Granddad when he realised I was not just being a pest (Granddad is very protective of Calum’s privacy), I tracked him down in a tiny room off the garage. It was not much bigger than a cupboard, furnished with a single bed with an old striped cover, a desk with a computer and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Calum lay full-length on the bed, book in hand. I knocked, and he greeted me with a scowl.
“What do you want, and who's with you?”
I stuck out my tongue at him. “No-one's with me. Calum, I want to show you something.”
“What?” he grunted.
“Do you remember the night Amanda went to the St Mungo's ball, and you took Olly and me to Emma’s?”
He looked sideways at me. “Yes. What of it?”
“And you remember Amanda told Emma on the phone that she didn’t know anything about earrings?” He nodded. “Well, none of her photos showed her wearing them. I began to think I’d imagined it all. Then the other day I bumped into Tom in town, and he gave me these. She hasn't seen them.”
I laid the photos on the bed in front of him. He whistled, a long slow intake of breath. He picked each one up in turn and looked at them, then he looked at me over the top of his glasses.
“Has Olly seen them?” I shook my head. “Get Andrew or Finn, or both. Bring them here,” he ordered. He picked up his book again.
Andrew was easy. The baby, tired of the attention of the Aunts, was getting grizzly, so a walk around the garden with his dad and ultimately to Calum’s hide distracted him nicely. He was asleep by the time he got there. Finn was a different matter. I found him engaged in a deep philosophical discussion with Uncle Dave (Johnstone) and Uncle Peter. In the end I left him there, and hurried back to Calum’s room. He watched the baby while Andrew examined the photos. Andrew looked up when I came in.
“Can I keep these?” he asked.
“Sure,” I shrugged.
He said, “I’d like my father to see them, that’s all.”
Calum raised his eyebrows. “Why?” he asked.
“Because they look like Selkie work, only it’s unusual for Selkies to use diamonds. They prefer pearls. I only know of…he might have some idea of where they came from, or who made them.”
“Meaning, he might be able to shed some light on who sent them to Emma.”
“Exactly. Although I have my suspicions now.” Calum laughed grimly.
“Am I missing something?” I asked.
Calum looked a bit abashed. “Sorry, Reb. I forgot you were here.”
Andrew took the photos, and I didn’t think any more about them.
School started again, and I was promoted to the 2nd XI for cricket. I was rapt. The first game of the season was against Queen Alexandra's College. We lost the toss, and they batted first. They did quite well. A dark-haired girl I thought I knew from somewhere batted like a professional. She hit the ball over the park. I distinguished myself by catching her out when she was on 44. I batted at number eight – not a brilliant place but better than number eleven. We had a respectable total on the board when I went in. We were not winning, but neither were we totally beaten. The dark-haired girl was the wicket keeper.
“That was a good catch,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Finn wants to talk to us after the game,” and she nodded toward the side-lines. I saw two men, one with a creamy, red-eared Labrador cross on a leash. The other one was Calum.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“He’s my cousin,” was the reply. That’s where I’d seen her before – at Emma and Finn’s wedding. I batted tolerably well, getting twelve before I was run out.
“Bad luck,” said the keeper after she whipped the bails off the stumps. In the end we lost by seven runs.
After the game and the usual courtesies finished the Quacs keeper and I hung around waiting.
Someone called “Do you need a ride, Sylvia?”
“No thanks, I’m going with my cousin,” she answered.
The two men drifted across the park towards us. One of the Quacs teachers gave them a strange look. The creamy dog came up to me and sniffed me, then jumped up like a long-lost friend.
“Robin’s puppy!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, the sod's gone off to London and left Emma and me with the blasted dog,” grumbled Finn. But there was a smile in his voice as he said it. I don’t think he minded really. I noticed Calum avoided the dog. Finn introduced Sylvia and me. It seemed she already knew Calum, and had known him for years. The teacher was still watching us.
Sylvia said, “I’d better go and tell Ms Smith who you are, otherwise she’ll probably report you to the cops.” Finn handed me the dog's leash, and went with her.
“Good game?” asked Calum.
“It was okay. What’s all this about? I’d probably have made 25 if she hadn't put me off.”
Calum grinned. “Finn'll tell you. What time are you expected home?”
“So long as I’m home by dinner time. Dad’s helping Gran and Granddad with their shift, and Mum’s taken Olly up the Coast for tennis.”
He nodded. “Would you object if I took you out for lunch?”
“That would be cool,” I said. “Thanks.” I texted Mum to tell her. We wandered over to Finn and Sylvia. Calum, bless him, had his heap of a car at the bottom of the hill. Sylvia and I gratefully dumped our gear in the boot. We shared the back seat with the dog, under strict orders to keep it away from the driver. That was harder than it sounds because the dog was at the bouncy stage and kept trying to lick his neck. We drove across town and up the roller-coaster ride that passed for streets to get to Emma’s and Finn’s house. Finn took the dog up to the house, and came back with Emma. She squeezed into the back with Sylvia and me.
“Where to?” asked Calum.
Finn said “What about Café on the Rocks.”
“Won’t it be crowded?” Calum wanted to know.
“Probably,” said Emma, “but that’s a good reason for going. And we might see someone famous.”
The café was beside the sea, with a large al fresco area that overlooked the beach. Sylvia and I pushed together a couple of tables right on the edge of the sea wall while Finn and Calum joined the queue to order lunch and Emma got us glasses of water from a nearby cooler. We sat in the sun, a light breeze keeping the day from being too hot. Still, I was glad of my cap. I sat looking north, to a beach crammed with families; almost wall-to-wall bodies. Near us a small fat child kept heading into the water, in spite of the best efforts of a frazzled mother who kept fishing it out again. Two older children yelled when the small fat one plodded through their sandcastle in its quest for the sea. By the sea wall the beach turned rocky, and it was rocky for quite some distance to the south. I turned to look at them. I like rocks. Emma left us to go and talk to some people at another table. She seemed to know half the people at the café. Sylvia and I made polite conversation. She is the same age as me and in the same form, only at Quacs. She plays soccer. She has two older sisters and a younger brother. Her father is the chaplain at St Mungo's. She was really interested in the fact I was a twin. I told her it was overrated.
Calum and Finn found us, followed by a sulky waitress bearing glasses of Coke and a strong black coffee for Emma. Emma spotted them, and came back. She sipped her coffee thankfully.
“I think I’ve made us good and visible to everyone here,” she said. “No-one will bother us now.” She was right.
While we waited for our lunch Finn said, “You remember the diamond earrings, Rebekah?” I nodded. “Andrew found out where they came from. He was right, they are Selkie make. Apparently they are very old, and have been in his family for generations. His father recognised them from the photos. But we still don’t know where they are, or why they were sent to Emma.”
“You said they had a spell on them,” I said cautiously. “Were you serious?”
“Yes,” he replied. I shot a surreptitious look at Sylvia to see how she was reacting. She did not appear to be amazed or disbelieving or shocked. She listened with interest.
“What sort of spell?” she asked.
“A calling one, and a fairly powerful curse,” said Finn.
“Oh. Nasty,” she responded, and sipped her Coke. Finn sat and frowned at his Coke glass. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who smiles as seldom as he does.
“I still don’t get it,” he said, slowly. “Who would have anything against Emma? Why would they send her something like that?”
“And…” I began, but Calum kicked me under the table. The kick was accompanied by a warning glare. “And Amanda actually wore them,” I said lamely.
“Did Olivia handle the box at all?” Finn asked.
“No, just Amanda, Emma and me.”
He nodded. “Good.”
The waitress arrived with three lunches. She asked abruptly who was having what. The lunches – mushrooms and bacon, Eggs Benedict and an omelette, were claimed by Calum, Sylvia and Emma. Finn and I had to wait until she crossed the road to the café and back before we got ours. We watched her standing on the other side, carrying our lunches, while about a dozen cars went past. But it was worth the wait. Calum had ordered black pudding for me. I love it, and can never have it at home because Dad is on a low-cholesterol diet, Olly thinks it sounds disgusting and Amanda is a vegetarian. I swear when I have my own place I’m going to eat it once a week (at least to begin with). Nobody talked much as we ate. I was starving, and judging by the speed with which Sylvia put away her plateful, she was too. Cricket's hard work.
No-one wanted pudding, so we went for a walk along the rocks. Emma and Finn sat on the grass and laughed at Calum, Sylvia and I jumping around on the rocks. I had clambered out as far as I could without getting wet when a huge seal rose out of the water and stared fixedly at me. If I didn’t know better, I could have sworn there was a human face underneath the seal's one. Calum cannoned into me and almost knocked me into the water. He grabbed hold of me and breathed in sharply. The seal looked at me for ages, and then it turned and swam out towards the harbour mouth. For some reason it put a damper on our playing around. Calum had gone quite white and quiet. He let me go and headed back to the grass. I took my time getting back. As I jumped onto the grass I heard him say something to Finn about selkies. It meant nothing to me, but Finn looked bothered.
We dropped Sylvia off first. She lived in Westhaven, quite close to the café. Then we had another hair-raising ride to Emma and Finn’s. Calum had lapsed into silent mode, so once they got out of the car I began the process of making him talk. He grunted answers. The car hurtled down the hill and around corners as if we were in a rally.
Near the bottom of the hill I said, “It always amazes me how you can change gear like that. Your hand doesn’t seem to bother you at all.” He slammed on the brakes. Fortunately there was a stream of traffic going past. He turned and looked at me fiercely.
“What do you mean about my hand?”
“It’s curled up. It looks quite useless.”
“And you can see it?”
I nodded. “And the burn mark on your palm. I can’t remember it ever looking any different.”
He gave a gulp that might have been a laugh. “My own mother doesn’t know about it, and it’s been like this for ten years. That would have made you about four. And you can see it.” He shook his head in disbelief as he pulled out into the traffic. “I thought only the Perrys and Rev Seeley knew about it. They put the glamour on it for me. Can Olly see it, do you know? Or anyone else?”
“Dunno. Granddad might. No one would believe him, anyway. What’s a glamour? And what is this Selkie business that you all keep talking about. And why did that seal upset you? And Sylvia said Finn wanted to talk to us about something and we didn’t go over anything we haven't said or done before.”
“That’s just Finn’s way of working. He’s marshalling his facts, and he’s found out what he needs to know from you. He’s very good at working out what’s in the spaces, what you didn’t say but thought.” I wriggled a bit uncomfortably. He gave me another long look, without the fierceness. “Do you believe in magic?” he asked.
Just as I was going to answer my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket, a protracted exercise because I forgot which pocket it was in, and it was in the one made least accessible by my seatbelt. It was Gran. Dad had had some kind of seizure and she was at the hospital with him. Mum and Olly were on their way back from the Coast. I shut the phone blankly.
Calum asked, “What’s wrong?”
I told him. He stopped immediately, turned the car round regardless of the traffic and drove to the hospital.
Eventually we found Gran. I swear hospitals are designed to keep ordinary people out. We had to follow a yellow line on the floor to get to the emergency ward and it vanished at least three times before we got there. Ever since that day I’ve hated hospitals and their disinfectant-and-sickness smell. Amanda sat on a squashy vinyl chair, sobbing. She stood up when we arrived, flung her arms around me briefly and then launched herself at Calum and clung to him. Gran, dear, upright, snippy Gran told her to pull herself together. Reluctantly Amanda obeyed. Gran is about the only person she is scared of.
After he asked about Dad, Calum said, “Where's Granddad?”
“Bob from next door is sitting with him. I told him I wouldn’t be long, but I really want to be here for Sue and Olivia.”
“I’ll go and stay with him. Then you won’t need to worry.” He turned to me and gave me the briefest of hugs. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yes, thanks. And thanks for lunch.”
“My pleasure,” he grinned. Amanda looked daggers at me as he left.
Chapter 3
The man who came home from hospital was my father, but he was not my Dad. Oh, he looked like him and he sounded like him. But the part of him that was Dad, the young part, the fun-loving part, the person who appreciated fine living had gone. Over the ensuing months more and more of him vanished, never to be recovered. Mum cried for three days, then pulled herself together and got on with the task of shepherding her daughters through adolescence. And we did not make her job easy.
Dad had a brain tumour, inoperable. Gran took him to hospital because he had had several fits that afternoon, not just one. The epilepsy medication they put him on made him dull and disinterested in life. He went back to work for a while, but had to shorten his hours.
Amanda, to give her credit, took over running the house from Mum for the first couple of weeks. She cooked, cleaned and laundered. She even offered to try to transfer her studies from Otago so she could stay home, but the combined family insisted she went. At the end of February she packed up and left for Dunedin, to do a pre-Med year.
Once she left, I lost interest in school and everything related to it. Olly did the opposite. She threw herself into her studies, the Drama club and everything else she could think of. She was hardly ever home, and when she was home she stayed in her room and studied. Only my cricket kept me going. In March Dad had his first round of radiotherapy. By then I was back in the detention room on a regular basis. I would arrive home late, but I often cooked. Mum and Dad would arrive home later, drained from the therapy. Olly retreated to her room as soon as she got home, only emerging for meals.
Dad’s tumour responded to treatment, and for a little while we had most of our Dad back. He still got very tired, but he could laugh and enjoy life a little. Term Two went well. Dad seemed to be recovering. I got promoted to the 2nd XI for hockey and I fell in love. I met Philip on the bus. Because I’d been in detention (again) I caught the 4:10 bus home. Plenty of St Iggy's and St Mungo's boys got that bus – it connected with the three-thirty one from Westhaven. James Miller, who I have known forever, said “Hi” to me. With him was this absolutely gorgeous boy, the traditional tall dark and handsome. Well, not so tall, but definitely the other two. He smiled at me and sat next to James. I studied the back of his head all the way to my stop. They both smiled at me when I got off. I thought about Philip all the way home, and all through classes the next day. I went home on the 4:10 bus again, and Philip smiled his glorious white smile and spoke. This was progress. By the next week he came and sat next to me. Then it became a habit to wait for him, even if I didn’t have detention. I thought about him all the time. My insides would turn over whenever I saw him. A couple of times he came and watched my hockey games, but not as often as I went and watched him play soccer. He played very well, and was worth watching.
Olly disapproved of him. She said he was shallow. I didn’t care. I was too dazzled. But I have to confess I didn’t like some of his friends very much. They were all older than me - Philip was in Year 12. Most of them drank a lot and a few of them smoked dope. Their nickname for Philip was Paedophile, because of me. He was quite different when he was with them. I liked him much better when he was by himself.
Our birthday was a non-event. Olly and I spent it, with Mum, in the emergency ward. Dad had another round of seizures. They discovered the tumour had grown again. Another round of radiotherapy saw to it that what little was left of our Dad disappeared all together. The radiotherapy did no good. Dad got worse and worse. He couldn’t tolerate any kind of noise. Even the fridge humming upset him, so we weren't allowed any music that you could hear outside our bedrooms. He became fractious and demanding. Eventually Mum had to give up work to nurse him. Gran and the Aunts and Uncles rallied round, but there were limits to what they could do, especially Gran, as Granddad slowly and gently slid into senility.
Olly and I spent as much time away from home as we decently could, sometimes together but more usually apart. Most afternoons I met Philip. On Saturdays I played hockey in the mornings and watched Philip play soccer in the afternoons. Then we hung out with his friends – never very late because I was still expected to be home for dinner. I suspect that they enjoyed themselves more once I’d gone. I saw Sylvia once at one of his games.
The cricket season came around again. We played Quacs twice, and beat them the second time. Sylvia was still in their second team. I asked her why, since she was so good.
“The Firsts play on Sundays, and I’m not allowed to play on Sunday mornings. I have to go to church.” She pulled a face. “Sorry about your Dad, by the way.” We exchanged phone numbers. School broke up. Philip was working on the other side of the city, so I didn’t see him at all. Amanda came home and helped Mum. She passed all her exams, but not well enough to get into Med School. She was quite philosophical about it. She'd actually improved enormously while she'd been away. We had an almighty row one day when she told me what a self-centred little cow I was. I couldn’t tell her about the cold lump in my inside every time I looked at Mum or Dad. I did tell her she had no right to tell us how to feel when we'd been the ones living through it all year. She told me I had no business judging her and how hard it was being so far away. I got a holiday job stacking shelves at the local supermarket. It was boring, but the people there were fun and it kept my mind off Dad and home.
A week before Christmas Dad died. I texted Philip to tell him but he didn’t answer. I assumed he had no money on his phone. Olly and I put our arms about each other and howled. Dad’s funeral was on the 23rd of December. By then we had done with crying. All the family were there, Mum’s as well as Dad’s, and a huge number of people Dad worked with, people Mum worked with, friends from all over the place and way back. Poor Gran looked absolutely shattered. Granddad knew he was at church, but couldn’t really figure out why. Gran had to try to explain to him that Michael had died. Then he wanted to know why only three of the boys were there. That set both Gran and Mum off. Calum, looking quite handsome in a dark suit - I’d seldom seen him dressed up like that - took him in and sat with him. Gran came in with us, as the chief mourners. The minister made sure we were as comfortable as possible, and people kept saying the service was lovely, but I don’t remember much of it, just that I felt terribly, terribly sad that I would never see my Dad again, and mourning that he had really died back in February. Olly did a reading and Uncle Peter and Uncle Dave (Johnstone) did the eulogies. He had been Dad’s best friend since they were at school.
I absolutely hated the afternoon tea afterwards.
The after after-match function was much more relaxed. It was at home. All of both families were there. It’s quite impressive seeing all my relatives assembled at once. There seem to be hundreds of them. Calum got Granddad ensconced in an armchair. I got drinks for them both, then I perched on the arm of the chair to talk to Granddad. Calum hovered. Granddad asked me who I was, so I explained. Then he asked where Michael was, and I explained that. Twice.
“Honestly Granddad, you seem to be away with the fairies!” I said in mild exasperation.
“Nonsense,” he snorted. “Calum’s the one who's been away with the fairies. Just ask him.” Calum went absolutely scarlet.
Christmas was cancelled, but we had a low-key (for the McIvers) New Year's party at Uncle Roger's. Assorted hangers-on came. Emma announced, with shining eyes, that she and Finn were having a baby in July. Everyone congratulated them. Baby Perry would be the first of the next generation of McIvers. The bubbly came out for that. Amanda brought Tom. This was a bit of a shock to me. He was also studying at Otago, and they had got back together during the year. I suppose if I had been at home a bit more and had paid more attention to Amanda I would have known. Calum brought this stunning, vivacious redhead, Vanessa. Apparently she'd been his girlfriend for a while. She hadn't been to a McIver event before. No. I lie, I’m pretty sure she was at Emma’s and Finn’s wedding.
Tom reminded me that he had given me some photos for Amanda. I confessed I had forgotten about them, and promised to look for them. I even searched my bag, and lied, saying I didn’t know where they were. Surreptitiously I went in search of Calum. As usual he had sloped off with a book. I took a while to find him. He was sitting on the back step, reading by the light that shone out the kitchen window. He gruffly promised to try and get the photos back from Andrew. Shortly after that he and Vanessa left. About a fortnight later he turned up with the photos. He told Amanda he'd been cleaning his car and had found them, and that they must have fallen out of my bag. She was delighted to have them, especially as Tom had a copy of one of them up in his room in Dunedin. I noted with interest there were no earrings.
I didn’t see or hear from Philip all holidays. He turned up at my first cricket match for the new term. He acted as if there had been no time at all between the end of last term and the beginning of this one. I was a bit hurt because he didn’t mention Dad at all. He just expected to pick things up from where we left them. I let him kiss me, but I gave him the message I was not very happy with him. I saw him only two afternoons during the next week. He invited me to a party on Saturday night. Mum let me go, which surprised me. Amanda told me to ring her if I needed picked up or anything. I didn’t enjoy it much. Philip had too much to drink and spent most of the evening pawing at me and trying to persuade me to go to bed with him. Even the best looks in the world go off when the owner is inebriated and can’t focus his eyes on you. Fortunately Sylvia was there – she was the only girl I knew - so I stuck fairly close to her. Her father came to pick her up at about half past eleven, so I left the party with her and rang Amanda to pick me up from Seeley’s place. She did. Philip and I had a monumental row the next week, then he tried again to pressure me into having sex with him. It seems as if he sees it as the fix for all problems. I refused several times over the next few weeks.
The next McIver event was Granddad's 80th birthday party, in mid March. Mum gamely held the party at our place. There were thirty-one McIvers there - Amanda was the only one missing because she'd had to go back to university – and an assortment of Gran's and Granddad's friends and more distant relatives. Amanda went back to a place in the School of Dentistry, so her vacation ended better than it had begun. Granddad gathered he was the guest of honour, but he didn’t really have a grasp of what was going on. I chatted with him for a while, and Olly had a turn, too. Calum flitted in and out. He and Granddad have always had a special relationship – I mean, we all do with Granddad, he’s cool, but Calum’s always just had something a little extra. Half way through the evening I got a text from Philip, dumping me because he'd found someone else. I was gutted. I managed to maintain my composure while Granddad cut his cake, we drank his health and the Uncles and Auntie Chris made speeches. Then I fled.
I went down the garden to the tree house, determined to have a good cry in private. Dad built it for us, and for a long time it was Olly’s and my favourite place. I climbed up, lay on the platform, and bawled. I felt humiliated. Eventually I merely felt wrung out and angry. I was in the middle of composing a really vicious text message when I heard a movement in the tree. I slid across the platform and stuck my head over the edge.
“Who's there?” I asked, as steadily as I could.
“Sorry, I didn’t know there was anyone here,” came Calum’s voice. He stopped where he was.
“Come up,” I said.
He hauled himself up and perched on the edge of the platform, swinging his legs in the air. I came over and sat beside him. I was glad it was dark, so he couldn’t see how blotched my face must look, but he noticed something was wrong.
“You okay?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve just been dumped. By text message.”
“How rude. Did he give a reason?”
“No. Yes. He’s found someone else. He wanted me to sleep with him and I wouldn’t.” It took a long time to say this out loud.
“Fair enough. For you, I mean.” He was silent a minute. “I suppose that makes two of us.”
“You and Vanessa have broken up?” He nodded, not looking at me. “When? Why?”
“Basically the same reason. It was at New Year. She wanted us to move in together and I didn’t want to, not yet. So she ditched me and found someone else.” He shrugged. “It hurts.” I nodded but didn’t say anything; he didn’t expect an answer. We sat in silence for quite a while. Calum is good company when you don’t want to talk.
We just stared out at the view. It was spectacular from there, looking out over the northern part of the city. Strings of lights twinkled far into the distance.
Eventually I said, half to myself, “It’s like fairy land.”
“No it’s not,” he said absently. “It’s nothing like that at all.” Then he recollected himself and said, “I mean, I imagine it’s nothing like that.”
“No you don’t,” I rounded on him. “You know what it’s really like, don’t you? Granddad was right that day when he said you’d been away with the fairies.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, not very convincingly.
“Liar. There is some mystery about you, and Emma and Finn are in on it too. Remember the day Dad got sick, the day you took me out to lunch? You asked me if I believed in magic. I never answered you. I don’t know if I believe in magic or not, but I believe there's some thing strange about you, Calum McIver, and I want to know what it is. I don’t have any right to know I suppose, but strange things have been happening for ages and you keep dropping these hints and I want to know what’s going on.”
He had the grace to look a little ashamed. “How long have these strange things been going on, do you think?” he asked, quite quietly and seriously.
I cast my mind back. “Um, since Amanda went to the St Mungo's ball. No, before that, since that girl gave me the earrings for Emma. Yes, that would be it. That’s two years ago now.”
“That’s about right. There is still something going on with those earrings and because you have fairy sight you’ve got involved. That girl should have given the parcel to Olly, not you, to pass on to Emma. It wouldn’t have had any effect on her. She would have forgotten about it once it was out of her possession, just like Amanda did. But she gave it to you. It was a small mistake, and one they wouldn’t have counted on. You can’t be made to forget things the way Olly and Amanda can. And you’re susceptible to the spells on the package, which were directed at a mortal with some magical gifts. Emma. And you, it turns out. It’s just as well neither of you tried the earrings on or we'd have a real problem on our hands. It is part of the reason your life has been so horrible for the last couple of years. Not the whole reason – a lot of it is just life.”
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