Chapter Two
Amelia
The sterile smell of the science lab attacked my senses, seared my nostrils, and slammed straight into my brain, where it left a nice kicker of a headache. I rubbed my temples and tried to concentrate on my notebook. Not a chance. My vision was blurring again, driving me to distraction. I could hear someone talking at the front of the room, but the words wouldn’t form into anything coherent. I felt my legs shaking as I swayed on my seat. In a panic, I gripped the edges of the desk. What the hell was wrong with me now?
I took a couple of deep breaths, wishing I could calm down already. A firm wall of nothing pressed against me. Nothing, yet it made my heart race in double time, and forced my uneven breathing to grow ever harsher. I had to be coming down with something. Maybe I needed to eat more than a slice of dry toast for breakfast. The dizziness began to pass, and I stared at a scratched name on the surface of the desk, determined to get through the class without passing out.
“You okay?”
I glanced blankly at my science partner.
“You haven’t even started writing any of this down,” she said.
The fair-haired girl smiled encouragingly at me, but I couldn’t place her name. That had been happening a lot lately, along with confusion, dizziness, and headaches, too. Maybe my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t pinpoint one thought or memory that didn’t lead to the horror of my grandmother’s death. Perhaps my brain was protecting me by distracting me from thinking clearly.
“Amelia?” Confusion crossed the girl’s face, her freckles pulling together as the skin on her nose wrinkled.
“Yeah, sorry. I’m fine…” Her name, her name… What the hell was her name?
“Ger. Remember?” She grinned then, and I couldn’t resist smiling back. I hadn’t made many friends in Dublin. Occasionally, some of my classmates joined me at lunch when I sat at Perdita’s table, but they didn’t want to spend time with me and probably only hoped my more popular older brother would join us. I couldn’t blame them for finding it hard to warm to me. Once I met Perdita, I sort of latched on and didn’t look back, which was not good, especially now that Perdita had so much on her mind. Unfortunately, the curse compelled me to seek her out, to bond with her, yet she seemed to have no trouble running away from me of late. I pushed that thought to the back of my mind. Between my family and Perdita, we all had a lot to deal with. I couldn’t expect anything more.
As if I had invited conversation, Ger spent the rest of the class chatting away. I didn’t mind so much as I didn’t quite know how to respond. Was I supposed to pretend to be a normal teenage girl or was I supposed to follow Perdita’s lead and push everyone away? I didn’t know how I was supposed to deal with anything anymore, and I didn’t have Mémère to guide me.
“You should hang out with us sometime,” Ger said as she walked with me to our next class.
I mumbled something in response, and she seemed to take the hint, because she played with her hair for a couple of seconds before saying goodbye and walking ahead of me. Awkward.
The headache worsened as I passed by the gym; the stench of sweat and socks and who knew what else completely overwhelmed me. I retched right there before running straight to the bathroom to throw up the little that was in my stomach.
I sank to the floor of the bathroom while sweat trickled down my temples. The bell had rung while I heaved; I would be late. There wasn’t much point going to class when I couldn’t concentrate on anything aside from the thumping of my headache. Or so I told myself. I scrunched up a piece of tissue in my hand, and rubbed my knuckles against my eyes, hoping to push away the pain. The feelings of nausea had all but vanished, but the headache was worsening. A drumbeat in my skull. A hammer behind my eyes.
The door swung open, and Ger strolled in, grinning at me. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly.
“Is it Ana or Mia?” she asked in a curious tone of voice.
“What?” It took me a few seconds to understand she thought I had an eating disorder. “Oh. Neither. I’m coming down with a bug or something. I’ve had a headache all morning.”
“Well, your clothes are hanging off you.”
I stood and stared at myself in the mirror. I was looking pretty thin. My cheeks had hollowed out, and my collarbone was a little… dramatic.
“I swear,” I said, “I eat.”
Ger checked out her lip gloss in the mirror and apparently decided it needed topping up. “I believe you. I was just wondering. The headache thing, though. My aunt gets migraines. She throws up every single time. Says the pain’s worse than childbirth. And you looked like you were in serious pain earlier. Plus the lights in the lab are pretty killer. That’s why I thought I should check if you were okay when you disappeared in the hallway.”
“Yeah.” I shrugged and tried to smile, my reflection scaring me now that I really paid attention. “It’s probably a migraine.”
“Wanna get to class? Or go to the office to see if you can wrangle a painkiller?”
“Tried that the other day. No go. No pills for the kiddies.” I smiled, which felt weird, as if the skin on my face was pulled too tight.
“Yeah, they suck.” She made a face before turning to look at me, slipping her lip gloss back into her shirt pocket. “Hey, sorry about your grandmother, by the way. I heard she died abroad. That really sucks.” Her voice softened.
My breath hitched in my throat. “Thanks. I should probably go to the office anyway. Just in case. Hope you don’t get in trouble for being late to class.”
She grinned, her face lighting up. “I’ll take you. Say I couldn’t leave you vomiting in the hallways. Come on.”
She linked arms with me and pulled me after her, pointing out students in the photographs that adorned the walls so she could tell me bits of information about them. By the time we reached the office at the other side of the school, the headache had eased, the nausea had completely dissipated, and I was feeling a lot better.