She moves around me like she’s studying a work of art.
‘Have you any idea what one of my daughters could make of this precious gem? She could be a queen, an empress! She could build an empire! No daughter of mine would ever be so stupid as to desert such a prize!’
You know what?
I believe her.
‘Well take it from me,’ I say, ‘Gillian’s enrolled at Heartache High. And I’ve had to briefly take over her body to keep her alive, as there’s no sign of any succubus.’
Lamia appears to be genuinely puzzled.
‘This is incredibly interesting.’ She draws closer. ‘Do you mind if I…’
She’s almost face to face with me, yet she hang’s back, seeking my permission to stare deeper into my eyes.
‘If it will help,’ I say, ‘then go ahead.’
Iain’s taller than me, so I have to tip my head back slightly.
Now that really is weird.
Your lover’s eyes, staring into yours so intently that you feel like they’re trying to sink deep within you. Trying to find out absolutely everything they can about you.
I’m staring back hard into her eyes too, wondering if I could somehow develop the power to probe her own inner thoughts and being.
Nope; all I can see are two bright-blue sparkling eyes. Eyes I thought I was intimately familiar with until now. Now Lamia’s powers and talents lie behind them; they draw you in, like sun-kissed swimming pools you’re just itching to dive into.
At last, Lamia pulls back, puzzlement etched into her face more than ever.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘Joke?’
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, this body has never been in the possession of one of my daughters!’
*
Chapter 10
‘What do you make of all this?’
Back in Heartache High, I turn to my friends for advice.
‘Is she telling the truth?’
‘Seems like it to me,’ Jassy says with a resigned shrug.
‘I told you I’d never been to see her,’ Gillian assures us once more, this time a little tetchily.
‘I mean, like, wow, Steph!’ Dave says, fiddling with his geeky glasses. ‘Sorry we’ve all been silent here; but there are some pretty odd things turning up here, aren’t there? While you’re there, getting along on surprisingly good terms, could you possibly ask her how it works here with this time-return effect that keeps us locke– ouch!’
Jassy nudges him painfully with her elbow.
It also works as a nudge to me to get back to Lamia and her fifth floor room in London’s Soho.
Lamia’s observing me with an amused smirk on her face.
(Yeah, I’ve seen this smirk on Iain’s face a number of times, but usually he lets me repay him with playfully light punch to his waist.)
‘Let me guess,’ she says. ‘Consulting with your friends back in Heartache High?’
‘Well, yeah,’ I admit. ‘I need all the help I can get when facing you.’
She nods, gracefully accepting the flattery.
‘I’m impressed by your honesty. Naturally, it would have been foolish to deny it. I suppose you could say I’m the founder of Heartache High. So I do know how it works there.’
‘Does it work on the principle of the Mobius strip or – ouch!’
Jassy has just had to elbow Dave once more.
‘Perhaps we should name one of the halls after you,’ I suggest sarcastically.
‘Now now, Stephanie dear; up until now, I think we’ve both treated each other in an admirably civilised fashion, don’t you think?’
I nod; it’s true. She didn’t have to help me.
‘If we could get back to why I came here,’ I say. ‘You said that Gillian has never been inhabited by one of your daughters; does that mean she could have been possessed by a succubus from another family?’
‘Although I have given birth to a great many succubae and incubi, I am not the mother of the species. Added to that, some of my daughters from centuries ago have had their own children. They’ve set up, as it were, their own little offshoot of the family concern.’
‘Then she could have–’
I stop midsentence as Lamia shakes her head.
‘I really don’t think this magnificent body has ever – I’m sorry to say – been occupied by a succubus.’
‘So how is that possible? Why is she at Heartache High?’
‘If I may once more?’
She steps closer towards me yet again, this time raising her hands to her eyes.
Her hands almost immediately drop away, revealing empty blood-red eye sockets.
Iain’s face, without his eyes!
It’s terrifying!
‘No no!’ Jassy screams urgently. ‘That’s how she prophesises, remember?’
I pull away from Lamia.
‘Ah ah,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘You caught me out like that last time.’
Lamia stops advancing towards me.
She actually looks hurt.
Now it’s Iain’s hurt face, without his eyes!
‘You know Stephanie, I am trying to help you here!’
I almost relent. But it’s too risky.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But…well, I’m still not sure how much I can trust you. After what happened last time.’
‘Last time? You were trying to kill me! The halberd, cleaving my head in two?’
‘Your daughter Panthia had taken over my body!’
‘Survival of the fittest? Haven’t you heard of Darwin? And, when it comes to my daughters and sons, “fittest” is a rather apt word, don’t you think? Seeing as how we make a far better use of your young bodies than you ever did!’
‘To feed off the bodies of other young people! And you trap the ones you’ve taken over in Heartache High!’
‘We’re a species? Don’t we have a right to try and survive in a hostile world, like any other species? How do you think cows and pigs feel about your survival codes?’
‘Erm, suppose she’s got a point,’ Dave mumbles.
‘I didn’t want to be part of such a species, Stephanie!’
With a swift rising and falling of her hands, Lamia replaces her eyes.’
‘My very first children were murdered! And, as if that wasn’t suffering enough, I was condemned to endlessly witness their murder. That’s why I can never close my eyes!’
All this was true, I knew. Jassy had informed me of Lamia’s tortured history.
I was lost for words.
I could hardly apologise, could I? After all the suffering she had created?
She must have observed the dilemma creasing my face.
‘You think I’m an evil woman, yes?’
‘Well, at the moment, you’re an evil man.’
‘You know what I mean, Stephanie. I’m a woman deep down inside, as you know. A woman who has suffered the worst a woman can suffer; the murder of her children.’
‘So you take your suffering out on other children.’
‘I now have other children I must care for and help survive. Is it my fault what nature those children have had forced on them by the gods?’
‘Wow, you’re making yourself sound like the victim here!’
‘From my point of view, and the point of view of my children, I – we – are the victims of an overly cruel judgement.’
Her eyes – those mesmerising, emotion-laden eyes – are now pleading, sorrowful.
I really really don’t get this!
I’m feeling sorry for a monster!
‘I can show you I’m not the monster you think I am,’ she says, as if she’s actually managed to read my mind. ‘Where’s your boyfriend, where’s Iain; I have a proposal to make to him.’
*
Chapter 11
I had never touched, never been in the arms, of the real Iain.
Yes, we were together now at Heartache High, and that felt real enough.
Y
et when it came to his real body – I had never experienced feeling it close to mine. So I had nothing to compare our experiences at Heartache High with.
When Lamia had made her offer to briefly withdraw into a far corner of the mind, allowing Iain to regain control of his own body, I’d naturally checked that Gillian would be okay with me using her body to touch and feel Iain, to be touched and caressed by him.
As soon as everything had been agreed, Iain had been dragged away from his football match. Then Gillian, Jassy and Dave had left us.
I hadn’t been quite sure how it would work at first.
But I knew Iain was Iain once more when his wildly staring eyes softened. They twinkled with amusement, then flooded with kindness and longing.
‘Is…is this okay for you?’ I asked nervously. ‘Me looking like this, like Gillian?’
I couldn’t admit that I was nervous for another reason; that Iain would prefer Gillian’s body to mine.
‘I thought it would be, but…’
He kisses me. He caresses me.
Tenderly. Hungrily.
‘But?’
‘I can sense that it’s really you. I don’t know how; but it’s like my touch goes deeper, feeling the real you.’
It could have been a polite, diplomatic way of reassuring me.
Only I knew what he meant.
It wasn’t just the physical Iain I was holding in my arms.
I was also holding the Iain I had come to know at Heartache High.
The inner Iain.
The emotional side of Iain.
Was it because I was occupying someone else’s body?
Because he was once again in control of a body he’d been ejected from?
We could experience each other’s emotions in a way that would have been impossible had we just come together as a normal boy and girl.
I could run my hands through the quivering delicacy of his love.
I could feel his hands slip along the undulations of my longing for him.
Our passions merged, became one, separated once more, then entwined seemingly endlessly.
I’m feeding on his love for me.
I’m devouring it.
And he’s absorbing my love, like he has an insatiable hunger.
Like he needs my love to stay alive.
As she had promised, Lamia had almost completely retreated to the deepest recesses of mind, leaving Iain free to control his body.
Yet so strong had her own emotions been that I feel elements of their residue.
The torturous suffering of seeing her children murdered.
The endless torment of forever witnessing their murder, through eyes condemned to never close.
The endless anxiety of a mother protecting her new children. Children that she knew would be remorselessly hunted down if ever discovered.
Yet there’s also something else; an unrelenting lust for revenge.
The pride of a mother not unlike a spider, spreading her endless web of dangerous offspring.
*
Chapter 12
It couldn’t last.
Iain had to return to Heartache High.
‘I’ll be back properly soon,’ I tell him.
I almost say permanently.
But I realise that this isn’t the kind of word I’d like to associate with Heartache High.
*
I don’t go straight back to Gillian’s.
I take a train in the other direction.
It will have to be quick trip, but I’m curious; how does Panthia do it?
How does she fool mum and dad into accepting her as part of the family?
It’s odd standing outside my home.
My old home.
Especially as I’m waiting for me.
Waiting for me to come home from school.
*
When I see myself turn up, I’m surprised.
Wow, I’m so popular!
There are boys and girls hanging around me, like every word I come out with is a precious jewel to be treasured or a poison charm to be feared.
If I hand out a word with even a hint of flattery, it brings a wonderful smile to their faces.
If there’s a barb to the comment, the recipient suddenly finds themselves ignored by all the others.
Like I’ve suddenly dismissed them from court. And anyone associating with them is in danger of contracting the same disease of unpopularity they’re suffering from.
There’s no Cherry.
No Mary.
I’m not wearing the regulation school shirt. It’s tied around my waist, flapping around my legs.
The top I’m wearing has been pulled low, revealing bared shoulders.
On one shoulder, I’ve got a tattoo.
Great!
As if Panthia has heard my groan of dismay, she suddenly looks my way.
Her eyes narrow, animal like.
Like I’m another animal that’s mistakenly wandered into her domain. And she’s taken it as a challenge to her authority.
Does she know who I am?
Can she, somehow, detect that I’m here inside Gillian’s body?
Surely not?
Even in the bizarre world of the succubae, that can’t be possible, can it?
Yet she’s till staring.
Staring so hard that everyone with her has also stopped to stare.
They all glare at me angrily.
I’d better leave.
I had hoped to hang around long enough to at least get a glimpse of my mum and dad.
But that would have been ridiculously painful anyway.
So I slip away.
*
Chapter 13
As we’d parted, Lamia had given me one last piece of advice.
‘Ask the girl more about her relationship – or yes, even her lack of it – with this boy. There’s where you’ll find the answers to everything, I’m sure. If she says she can’t remember anything odd, then probe deeper, get inside her head – oh, sorry. You’ve done that already, haven’t you? But you know what I mean.’
As I travel back on the train towards Gillian’s home, it’s an ideal time to start interrogating her a little bit more on Paul and his attitude to her.
‘What can I say?’ she says miserably. ‘He didn’t really have any attitude to me; he just ignored me. Completely. As if I didn’t exist. And I mean that literally.’
‘You’re kidding me! He might not be interested; but he could hardly be unaware that you existed.’
‘Well, sure, originally he didn’t just ignore me. But that was probably worse than acting like I wasn’t there. He’d jeer at me. Make fun of me. Humiliate me. I don’t know why; I’d never done anything wrong to him.’
‘He behaved like that? And yet you still loved him?’
‘Because he wasn’t always like that. Other times, he’d be really kind to me. So I’d think, maybe there is a chance after all. I’d kid myself that this was the real Paul; that he was just being nervous and silly, like boys can be, when they’re around girls.’
‘Yeah, like they’re still about eight years old, but just stuck in an older body.’
‘After he’d been nice to me, when I saw him around again, I’d just have to smile at him, or just say hello, and he’d start making fun of me again. Acting like I was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen; like I was suffering from leprosy.’
‘Gillian, he doesn’t sound very mature you kno–’
‘But as I say, Steph, at other times, he’d be wonderful! I mean like really wonderful. A different guy entirely. Like one minute he was fine, and the next he’d been taken over by some malicious little – well, this eight-year-old kid you mentioned. Nasty. Childish. Times like that, I just wanted to scream at him to grow up.’
‘Why do you think he’d chop and change like that? Didn’t you ever ask him?’
She shakes her head.
‘I didn’t dare. He’d just be awful to me again.’
‘Well, you know what Gillian?
You’re finally going to ask him; tomorrow, at school.’
*
The school’s trophy cabinet is quite impressive.
That’s the cabinet, understand?
Not the trophies inside.
The cabinet looks like it was built to house about ten times more cups and shields than it actually holds.
Someone’s tried to fill up the gaps with awards the school has more or less presented to itself; Man of the Match, Team Player, Captain’s Award, that kind of thing.
There are also framed photographs of the winning teams.
If the team didn’t actually win – which is pretty often – there’s a picture of the team anyway, with small, virtually unreadable plaques declaring ‘Runners Up’, ‘Semi Finals’, Quarter Finals’, that kind of thing.
Dead wasps litter the floor.
The glass is smeared with finger and hand prints. Possibly even a few squashed nose smears too.
Such is the sporting achievements of a typical school these days.
On the photographs, I think I can see Paul.
It’s not easy to tell that it really is him. This would be the Paul as he used to be, rather than the wasted Paul I’ve seen hanging around with Dedi.
I have to check the small listing of names beneath each photo to reassure myself that it really is him.
It’s like one of those pictures you see of someone taken before they’ve started taking drugs.
It was taken just six months ago. Yet he looks about three years younger.
Fresh faced. Full faced, rather than gaunt, skeletal.
Athletic too. A guy at ease with himself, going by his relaxed pose.
The confidence shows through in his easy smile.
It’s not a cocky smile either.
It’s a kind smile. His eyes shining.
At last I can begin to see what Gillian had seen in Paul.
So, what changed him?
What changed confident, happy Paul into one-step-up-from-a-hobo Paul?
*
Chapter 14
Paul doesn’t look like he’s ever been on a winning school sports team.
He looks like he’d have a problem picking up the pile of jackets young kids use as goalposts on a playing field.
Yet Dedi hangs around him like he’s a prize catch that anyone might steal from right under her nose at any moment.
Getting him on his own isn’t easy.