‘Can’t see there’s any fear of that with him–’
I stop myself short.
Gillian is glaring at me.
‘Sorry Gillian; but he does look a mess.’
‘He’s ill, Steph! That’s why he looks the way he does! He didn’t look that way when I…when I fancied him!’
What was she going to say?
When I went out with him?
We’ve all made that mistake here at Heartache High.
Fooling ourselves the guy we loved had at some time gone out with us.
‘I take it Dedi wasn’t exactly your number one fan at school, right?’
‘Sure, her and just about everyone else, if I’m being honest.’
‘But Dedi and her attendant witches; they weren’t your friends. More like the people who made your life a misery at school?’
‘Hah, that’s putting it mildly; more like making my life hell at school!’
‘Why? Why’d they do that? Do you reckon it was jealously, like Kath blurted out back there?’
Gillian shrugs, like she’s too modest to say, Yeah, who wouldn’t be envious of a schoolgirl who looks like a thousand-dollar-an-hour model?
‘Didn’t you tell your dad what you were going through?’
‘Oh sure Steph; hey look dad, these are the three sweet looking girls who are bullying me! The trouble with dads is they think it’s only bullying if you’re getting beaten up; they don’t realise the sweetest looking little girls have hearts that could put Hitler to shame. They’re devious; it’s psychological torture that no one else can spot. Especially any guy, who only sees sweet little girls.’
I nod; yeah, it must have been tough for her.
If she’d had a mum to turn to, who knows?
Her mum might have had a better idea how sweet little girls can torture you in a way that makes being beaten up seem relatively painless.
Notice I said relatively there, right?
I give her a hug.
She begins to sob into my shoulder. Before I know it, she’s wracked with a pained, hacking weeping.
‘You know, Gillian, all this isn’t really helping you. We…we have to figure out some way that I can withdraw and–’
She jerks back, her face red with tears.
‘You can’t Steph! My dad, Heddy; they can’t go through losing me again!’
*
Chapter 7
This is a nightmare.
A weird, living nightmare, where everything’s reversed.
Me, I’m now living in Heartache High, a school that – as far as the real world’s concerned – doesn’t exist, couldn’t possibly exist.
It might as well be a dream world as far as reality’s concerned.
But my nightmare’s taking place in the real world.
Gillian’s right, of course.
I can’t just pull out of her body, letting Heddy and her dad suffer seeing Gillian die again.
And I couldn’t face seeing Gillian just vanish either.
Which she will do, of course, as soon as her body dies.
So what the heck happened to the succubus who should be occupying her body, keeping it alive?
Why did it just up and leave this perfectly glorious body?
It’s an absolute gift to any succubus!
I mean, can you imagine what Lamia would be able to do with a body like this?
Lamia!
She’s my only hope!
I’ve got to visit her.
And ask her; just where the heck do you think Gillian’s succubus has got to?
*
Unfortunately, I can’t go visiting Lamia just yet.
Gillian’s body, although perfectly beautiful, isn’t up to the journey just yet.
Particularly if Lamia decides to put up a bit of a fight.
Particularly, too, as I lost the last fight we had.
Not good odds, right?
So, suddenly, Heddy and her dad are wondering why I’m going around insisting I help out more around the house. Whereas before, see, I was making any excuse I could to have a rest, to retire to my room
I’ve got to prove I’m fine now, right?
Prove I’m well enough to get out of this wheelchair.
Fit enough to go back to school.
Because the sooner I can visit Lamia, and get some answers from her, the sooner I can get back to Heartache High.
Hey, now just how ironic is that, eh?
*
What do you know?
While I’ve been getting Gillian’s body back into top form, how many visits do you think I’ve had from her friends?
That’s right – none at all.
None from oh-so-caring ‘I thought I should call round’ Paul either, of course.
What more proof could you have that their one and only earlier visit was nothing more than an exercise in letting Gillian know that Paul belonged to Dedi?
Know what? Just then, I almost said, ‘letting Gillian know that Paul belonged to Dedi now.’
But the now’s irrelevant, isn’t it?
There wasn’t any time before when Paul was Gillian’s.
So…why come round rubbing it in Gillian’s face that Paul was never going to be hers?
Was that all it was?
Just rubbing it in her face? An extra dollop of torture on what she’d already had to suffer?
The harsh punishment she had to have inflicted on her just for being beautiful?
Yeah, pretty little girls can be witches all right!
*
Chapter 8
Gillian’s not looking forward to going back to school.
That’s the Gillian sitting alongside me in my room.
Even as her dad stops his car outside the school, and I step out onto the kerb, she lurches forward, grabbing me like she wants me to turn back.
‘They can’t hurt you now, like they used to,’ I point out. ‘Not unless you let them get to you.’
Sure, even across the great divide separating Fountain Academy from Heartache High, emotional torture can still inflict massive, irreparable wounds.
‘We have to go through with it,’ I say to Gillian. ‘I need to prove you’re fit enough to visit London on your own; to visit Lamia, who’s our only hope of getting all this sorted out.’
She lets go of my arm. She nods her consent.
‘It wasn’t just those three,’ she tells me miserably. ‘It was everybody; everybody was against me.’
‘Everybody?’
I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice.
That really doesn’t make any sense.
Normally, even the most bullied kid manages to have some friends, don’t they?
Even if it’s other bullied kids.
Gillian’s attitude has made me uneasy.
As I walk along the path leading to the school’s large doors, I look at everyone warily.
They each return the same kind of wary stare.
Like they’re not quite sure how they should be reacting to me turning up at school once more.
They hang back.
They quickly move out of my way if there’s even the slightest chance that we might draw so close together we’ll have to recognise each other’s presence.
At the top of the low flight of steps leading up to the school’s double doors, a happily giggling Dedi is locked in Paul’s embrace.
She turns as I approach, smiles brightly. Paul too.
‘Gillian! You made it!’
Breaking away from Paul’s clinch, she reaches out to me, touching me tenderly on the shoulder like she’s the nurse who’s finally helped me through my illness.
‘Well done, well done!’
She even kisses me lightly on the cheek.
‘Yeah, yeah, well done Gillian!’ Paul says with a sluggish nod but a surprisingly kind grin.
Strangely, Dedi’s eyeing everyone around us, her hard gaze flitting quickly from one to another.
Everyone returns her gaze, like t
hey’ve been waiting for it, like it’s a signal.
Oh oh; what’s going to happen now?
‘Sorry Gillian, it’s so good to see you,’ Dedi says, ‘but me and Paul, we just need to be together for a while before first class.’
Taking Paul’s hand, she leads him down the steps.
I notice that she’s casting her gaze over those around us, briefly locking eyes with everyone she can.
‘See you around!’ Dedi trills gaily.
As soon as she’s turned her back on us once more, everyone eagerly gathers around us.
Smiling. Beaming.
They rush towards me.
‘Gillian! Are you okay? You look great!’
‘We’ve missed you!’
‘Great to have you back!’
*
‘I don’t understand,’ Gillian says. ‘They were all so awful to me before.’
‘It was that look from Dedi I reckon. It was like she was giving them permission to treat you okay.’
‘You mean…you mean everybody was being awful to me before because Dedi had told them to?’
‘I doubt she had to tell them; they saw she didn’t like you, so they didn’t want her to see them with you. Worried it would bring her and the other two witches down on them.’
‘Great – so why the change now? From Dedi I mean; surely it can’t be just because she’s got Paul?’
‘It’s odd, yeah; but what other reason could there be? Maybe, too, even she can feel a little sorry for you.’
Gillian shrugs, like she doubts it.
‘Sorry Gillian; life at school must have been hell for you.’
*
In Heartache High, if you want to know anything about myths and legends, Jassy’s your girl.
If it’s answers on physics, then Dave’s your guy.
Well, okay, there might be someone more knowledgeable on these subjects, but I haven’t come across him or her yet.
Besides, Jassy and Dave are my friends, and they’ve helped me out before.
Iain’s specialist subjects are, more or less, football and the guitar.
If he heard me saying that, he’d quite rightly claim it’s a bit unfair. He does okay in other subjects too. But I reckon we can both agree he’s hardly up to master standards.
Either way, we’ve also both agreed that he might as well go ahead and take part in an important match he’s set up to play.
After all, when I’m visiting Lamia all he’ll be able to do back in my bedsit is sit there and worry. Unless she challenges me to a sort of Deliverance-style guitar duel, or keeping a football up in the air longest.
Dave and Jassy know what to expect of Lamia; in Gillian’s case, I’ve had to give a quick heads up on how things might pan out
Thing is, it turns out that when I meet Lamia, I’m probably the most shocked of the four of us.
*
Chapter 9
Last time I’d faced Lamia, she been an exotically and elegantly glamorous woman.
I would never have guessed it was a body that was nearing sixty (you can measure Lamia’s age in thousands of years).
If there’s one thing you can admire the succubae for, it’s the way they make the most of any body they take over. They can transform it into one of the most seductive men or women you’ve ever come across.
And now she’s done the same with Iain’s body.
Sure, I think Iain’s gorgeous.
The most gorgeous boy I’ve known.
But wow, he’s turned out looking like a Greek god in Lamia’s hands.
(Is ‘in her hands’ the right expression? I think it is: she obviously spends an awful lot of time on personal grooming. On choosing the most expensive, most flattering clothes too.)
‘Adonis; you’re thinking of Adonis,’ Jassy adds helpfully as, back in my Heartache High bedsit, she intently listens to my running commentary of the encounter with Lamia.
I’d prepared myself for the unblinking eyes. It was one of the first things I’d noticed about Lamia the first time I’d encountered her.
A punishment from the gods. She can never close her eyes.
Of course, as she rises from behind her desk to greet me, she tries to expertly hide the fact that her eyes are unblinking, staring.
If I hadn’t been expecting it, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
But I do notice. And, staring out from Iain’s broad, kind face, her eyes are even more unnerving than when I’d met her previously.
Then they’d glared out of the face of an exotic beauty. Somehow, such a wide-eyed look didn’t seem quite so odd, so out of place, when it was a beautiful, seductive woman facing me.
Now, though, it’s the guy I love who’s staring at me crazily.
Or, rather, he’s not staring at me.
He’s staring at the stunningly gorgeous Gillian.
And then it dawns on me: even Lamia can’t help gawping at Gillian’s beauty.
After all, she sees Gillian as a potential berth for one of her daughters.
I know what she must be thinking:
What would one of my ravenous daughters be able to do with a body like that?
And that, of course, is why I’m here Lamia.
Because one of your daughters abandoned one of the most bountiful ships afloat.
*
‘Why doesn’t Lamia recognise her?’ Dave asks. ‘I mean, if one of her daughters had taken her over, they must have met.’
‘Perhaps she does recognise her, but doesn’t want to show it,’ Jassy points out. ‘When Steph called to arrange this appointment, she gave Gillian’s name; Lamia might have recognised the name, and wondered why she was calling again.’
‘And as I’ve already explained, I’ve never met this Lamia,’ Gillian insists. ‘I’ve never been to London before.’
‘You mean you can’t remember ever going,’ Jassy says, ‘just as Steph had also been made to forget she’d ever paid a visit.’
‘Yeah, as we’ve probably all been made to forget,’ Dave adds sourly.
It’s not easy for me to follow this conversation while also accepting and returning Lamia’s greeting. It’s all going on at exactly the same time.
‘Ahh, Miss Hazlehurst; so pleased to meet you!’
‘It’s so good of you to see me,’ I reply breathlessly.
My eyes are locked on hers as we shake hands. I’m trying to detect the slightest hint of recognition.
She indicates that I should take the chair set in front of her desk with a graceful wave of her hand. (Should I be saying ‘his’? It seems so odd, when I know this isn’t really Iain. I can’t forget that there’s really a highly-seductive succubus making ‘his’ every move for ‘him’.)
As I take the seat, Lamia unashamedly looks me over with obvious appreciation.
‘When you said on the phone that you were suffering unrequited love, Miss Hazlehurst – oh, may I call you Gillian? – I wasn’t quite expecting someone so exquisitely beautiful to grace my rooms!’
A line like this coming from a boy as handsome as Iain could be intimidating, even taken as a come on. Yet Lamia gives him just enough of a feminine movement and an easy tone of voice to remove any sense of unwanted interest or threat.
‘But believe me Gillian, no matter what your problem is, you’ve come to the right place!’ Lamia continues proudly.
She once more waves an arm, this time to indicate a nearby cabinet stocked with an array of stoppered medicine bottles.
‘I have exactly the right kind of love potion to resolve any problem for you!’
Yeah, sure you do Lamia, I feel like saying.
Like the potions you use on all those poor kids who come seeking your help, right?
Kids who are put to sleep, just so one of your daughters or sons can take over their bodies.
Lamia’s looking at me strangely, like she’s trying to probe for and winkle out whatever secrets she can.
‘I think I may have given the wrong impression over the
phone,’ I reply, confidently returning her gaze.
‘Wrong impression?’
Her gaze is briefly wary, as if she senses a trap.
Has she foreseen all this?
As well as her curse, she had also received a gift from the gods; the gift of prophesy.
She had used it against me at our last encounter. She had known how our dual would turn out; with her as the victor, sacrificing the aging body she possessed to take over Iain’s younger, more athletic body.
‘We’ve met before,’ I say.
‘We have?’
Why is she still keeping up this pretence that she’s never met Gillian before?
Surely they have met before?
How else could Gillian’s body have been taken over by a succubus?
Are there other ways that this can happen, without involving Lamia?
I rise to my feet so that I’m directly facing her, our eyes locked.
‘I’m Stephanie; Stephanie Johnson. Remember me?’
At first, Lamia’s a little taken aback.
And then she laughs.
‘Remember you? How could I forget?’
With a sweep of her hands either side of her body, she indicates Iain’s muscular frame.
‘This is your boyfriend’s wonderful body, isn’t it? Is that it? Have you come here to thank me for allowing your boyfriend to join you at Heartache High?’
I glower at her.
‘You know,’ she says, ‘I must congratulate you on your acquisition of such a wonderful body. Even when you frown, you’re exquisite! Such a vast improvement on your last body!’
‘That’s what I’m here to ask you about; this wonderful body.’
‘You are?’
She looks and sounds doubtful, like she’s unsure where this conversation could be headed.
Perhaps she hasn’t used her gift of prophesy to predict how this meeting will end after all.
Then again, she was hardly going to suspect that this would be anything other than one of her regular ‘consultations’.
‘How can I help you?’ she asks nonchalantly.’
‘Who did you help to take over this body? And why have they left it?’
‘Left it!’
Her eyes widen wildly in surprise. She says ‘left’ as if it’s the craziest thing she’s ever heard.
‘Who’d leave such a glorious price of work?’