They are upon us within seconds.
The sound of screaming drowns out my thoughts, and I watch dazed as girls close in from all directions, their arms outstretched as they yell Felix and Alastaire’s names.
The ground seems to shift beneath us, and the air all around us shimmers, vibrating with tension.
A girl just a few feet away from me hold up her phone and takes a photo, and for a moment the flash blinds me, sending a sharp pain searing through the backs of my eyes.
I tremble, the hysterical fangirl shrieks shuddering through my chest like the buzzing of a million bees.
And as in any swarm, a queen leads the charge.
Beth Donklin, our school’s undisputed Queen Bee, leader of the three B’s, Her Royal Bitchiness, is just a few feet in front of me.
“Nothing’s over,” Jade says seriously, turning to face Kitty with a solemn expression. “I’m getting you out of here. We just need to find someplace quiet. Away from people. Where we can figure this whole thing out.”“'’Tis too late for al' dat,” I hear a soft Irish accent right next to my ear. ”We’ll 'av ter leave.”I snap my head around, face to face with the pretty girl in the pink dress. The girl who is so unusually strong, and whose lap I’m sitting on. The girl with Lyall’s voice. Lyall’s soft brown eyes. Lyall’s gentle bittersweet grin I know so well, sweetly smiling at me right now.“Lyall?!” I ask. My hands move faster than my manners - I pull the glittery pink mask away from his face and over his head.“Surprise,” Lyal
“Let go of me!” I hear Jade shout.It takes me a moment to make sense of the scene before me.The helicopter is hovering above us like a swollen obsidian dragonfly stirring the sky with metal wings, a rescue ladder dangling down, held by the scowling lady in black.She’s shouting “GO! GO! GO!” in the general direction of the boys.Kitty is half way up the ladder, her dress billowing around her legs.A huge man in a black suit is holding Jade back. Jade’s yelling Kitty’s name over and over, fighting to break away.For a moment Kitty stops climbing. She looks back over her shoulder at Jade, and I can see the pain written all over her face.But the lady in black looks up at her and shouts “DON’T STOP!”, and Kitty hurriedly turns her back on Jade and continues climbing, before disappearing int
Time passes. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. I stir to wakefulness, rising up out of a deep and dreamless sleep. The room is dark. I can hear Felix’s voice, soft and muffled. He’s singing Déjà Vu. Where is he? I sit up in bed with a jolt, wide awake, trying to trace the source of the sound. It’s distant, yet somehow very close… far away, but definitely in my bedroom. In fact, it’s in my bed. Silvery light bleeds out from beneath my pillow, a soft glow seeping into the dark. I lift my pillow and I almost can’t believe my eyes – it’s my long-lost phone. It’s been missing for ages, since my birthday. It purrs softly in my hand, and in a split second I’m both relieved to have finally found it, and bitterly disappointed to realise that the singing
I’m running through the dark midnight forest.The night-cloaked trees cluster around me like the walls of a gloomy maze, but I won’t get lost.I know the way. He’s calling me. The one I love.I glide over small streams, hollow moss-encrusted tree trunks, a sea of ferns. From time to time I look up. Stars wheel through the patches of black sky peeking through the forest canopy overhead. As I run, the sky lightens to a deep royal blue, paling to lilac speckled with the ghosts of the fading stars.Day is coming.I have to hurry.I’m almost there, but I won’t reach him in time.So I call his name, hoping he’ll hear me.But no sound comes out. I’ve forgotten his name. In fact, I’ve forgotten his face, my face, my name, everything.How am I supposed to find h
By the time we get into town, it’s well past 9am. The walk from the cabin to the car park took longer than usual – Kitty insisted on wearing kitten heels for our little excursion. Even though they’re pretty low compared to her usual footwear, she still fell flat on her butt right at the start of the hike, and moved at a snail’s pace after that.It could be worse though. At least she’s not wearing stilettos.Still, her feet are covered in blisters after their ordeal, so it’s a blessing that we were able to get into the jeep at the car park and drive into town, rather than Kitty hobbling all the way.By now, the boys should have woken up and found the note I left for them on the fridge. Hopefully they’ll just carry on without me, and they’re in the recording studio working on melodies and lyrics for the new songs.As we drive along NW 32nd Avenue, Kitty po
After we finish our coffees, we head over to the Whole Foods Market on 15th Ave. Kitty got all flustered when Jade gave her the receipt but refused to let her pay the bill. It was folded in two, and I bet he wrote down his phone number for her.He has no idea what he’s getting himself into.She acted like she wasn’t interested, but she slipped the folded receipt into her bag when she thought I wasn’t looking. She’s been unusually quiet ever since.As we walk down the long aisles stacked with a rainbow of organic peppers and fruit, Kitty mumbles about how hard it is shopping for the boys. Lyall and Ben will eat anything, but Elliot only eats low-carb high protein, Alastaire won’t let anything but the finest delicacies taint his refined palate, and Felix always checks labels for MSG and food dyes and throws away anything that doesn’t meet his rigorous standards.
There’s a somber mood in the car as we drive across town to the Ninth Order of Angels Catholic Church.Kitty doesn’t ask me about what happened at the shops. She doesn’t need to – it’s pretty clear what went down.A few months after the accident, after it became obvious that Mia’s parents were avoiding my mom and dad and me, I tried to see it from their perspective. I realized that every time they looked at me, they were seeing the girl who survived instead of Mia. How many times had they wished in the small lonely dark hours of the night for history to rewrite itself? For me to be at the bottom of the ocean with the others, while their daughter got to live on instead? How fervently had they bargained, begged, prayed?I forgave them long ago, but they clearly haven’t yet forgiven themselves.A flock of blackbird
Ask the angel.The words echo through my mind over and over. There’s no doubt who I need to speak to. I only know one angel, after all, even if in real life he’s more pervy and devilish than angelic.Still, I can’t even imagine what I’m meant to say to Alastaire. He’s going to think I’m crazy if I start asking him about witches and sea serpents and ghostly messages from my dead friends.Before we reach the cabin, Kitty and I stop at the edge of the forest clearing where I found my bicycle overgrown with roses and moss a few weeks ago.I wanted to show her that it’s the same as Mia’s grave. She still doesn’t believe that the crumbling old headstone could possibly be Mia’s, but at least if she sees my bike she’ll have to admit that something suspicious is going on.But when we reach the spot, there’s nothing there