Fairytales for Wilde Girls (18 page)

 

Isola Intensive

The young female patient presented at Avalon Charity Hospital early the next morning, suffering dehydration and some degree of confusion.

She'd spent the night alone in Vivien's Wood.

Her father had found her. ‘She didn't come home,' he'd said, looking confused. ‘I woke up and she wasn't in her room, and I just knew.'

The nurses tilted her bed and plucked at the tubes that pierced her arms, saying in kind voices,
you can tell me, dear, I won't blame you if you did take something you perhaps shouldn't have – some kind of pill, maybe? – and you just didn't want to say so in front of the doctor.

The was a memorial picture of Mama Sinclair on the wall. Isola felt like one of the wan, fey girls in the bloodletting wing from a history book she had once read, pierced through by chainsaw-leech jaws, staring dully at the ceiling as she was devoured alive.

Although there was nothing left in her system, the hospital recorded the incident as a suspected drink-spiking, exacerbated by cold temperatures and dehydration.

Isola was propped up in a bed with an IV drip in her arm. A short, bespectacled Indian man thumbed through the clipboard at the end of the bed.

‘Apparently, Isola,' said the doctor mildly, not looking up from the notes, ‘you told a nurse that your name was Florence?'

Isola shrugged at him. Dr Aziz. Her mother's doctor.

‘You also told her you got lost in the woods – despite being a frequenter of the area, according to your father – because you forgot to leave a trail of breadcrumbs behind you?'

Isola thought of Jamie's never-fail excuse. ‘I've got a black sense of humour,' she replied.

Dr Aziz eyed her curiously. ‘I haven't seen you down at the practice for some time,' he said abruptly. ‘I'm glad, though – you never want to see a face too often in my line of work. I hope you're keeping well. But you look pale. How have you been sleeping?'

Dr Aziz was a good doctor. His bedside manner was textbook perfect; he'd always breathed on the stethoscope before ice-bolting it to her back, and he'd promised he'd never broken a needle off in anyone's skin.

But he had not fixed Mother Wilde.

‘Sleep is for the wicked,' said Isola automatically. She laughed, and squeezed the tube of the IV drip, hoping to pump the liquid through faster so that she'd be on her way sooner.

‘I've been getting a bit less than usual. Home troubles,' she added meaningfully, hoping he'd attribute her demeanour to the stress of dealing with Mother and not with a haunting. From what she remembered, she'd only been in the Devil's Tea Party for a few minutes, and had stepped out to find it was dawn, and she was turning blue, with thorns in her skirt-hem and wet bones, and she hadn't the strength to move until Father had come to rescue her.

When the saline bag had drained, Dr Aziz slid the needle from the puckered vein and told her that Father had returned to work and could be reached on his mobile when she needed to be picked up. He put a cartoonish band-aid over the leaky pinhole in her elbow crook, admonishing her kindly, ‘Drinking and the wilderness never mix, Miss Wilde.' On his way out he left the card for his private practice on her bedside table. An invitation. An unsaid word of concern.

Officially discharged, Isola went downstairs and made the call she'd been dreading.

 

A faded red car with a painted moustache on the bonnet rolled into the ambulance zone and double-parked. James kicked the passenger door open – the outer handle was still broken. Isola got in.

The previous summer, James had left CDs on the dash and they'd melted in the scorching sun like Dali's dripping clocks. He liked the way the mess looked now, a little work of absurdist art on Pepito's ashtray altar. Isola watched the tiny rainbows reflecting in the window, studiously avoiding James's gaze.

‘So,' he finally said, his bitten fingernails tapping his heartbeat out on the steering wheel. The rhythm was a little too fast. ‘Eventful night.'

‘Yeah, you should have come.'

‘Why? To keep
you
out of trouble?' said James, firing up at once.

‘No,' said Isola quietly, leaning her aching head against the window. ‘To get in trouble
with
me.'

Her party outfit was stained with patches of dirt like money pinned to a Greek bride. Pale paint splatters on her forearms disguised the puncture bites of blood drawn out for testing. The soles of her glittering red heels were now eternally wine-scented.

She propped her feet up on the dash and wondered whether Dorothy ever admired her pale ankles in the same way, sheathed in starry blood, or whether she'd imagined the feet of the dead witch who'd owned the shoes first. Dead witch heels, that's what she was wearing. Not like Cinderella's at all. And Glinda was no fairy godmother.

‘Where'd you get those?' James pointed to her knees. Mirroring bruises ringed them, like age lines in a tree trunk.

‘Dunno.' Isola tugged at the hem of her dress, placing her hands over her knees. ‘Last night, I guess.'

While James watched the road, Isola inspected her legs. She poked the markings, which ached and turned yellow at her touch. Fresh black bruises ran all the way around.

Like a single stripe in a pair of stockings.

 

Alejandro was beside himself.

‘
I lost my sisters!
' he roared. ‘And by the grace of Nimue, I will
not
lose you too!'

Her face hot with furious tears, Isola stormed outside. She wasn't even sure who or what she was angry at – Father's distance or Grape's irresponsibility or Alejandro's tone.

She threw Dr Aziz's business card over the plum tree's shallow grave.

Text: An Interlude

ISOLA ISOLA ISOLA ISOLA ISOLA ISOLA ISOLA

~

WHERE DID U DISAPPEAR OFF 2 LAST NITE?

~

CMON BABE I HAVE FUNNY STORIES 2 TELL U

~

I JUST SPOKE TO JAMIE AND HE SAID U WERE IN HOSPITAL???

~

ISOLA WHAT HAPPENED???? ☹

~

PLEASE ANSWER UR PHONE ☹

~

I TRIED U GUYS AT HOME, I GUESS NOBODY'S THERE. PLEASE LET ME KNO UR OK SWEETIE

~

R U OK?

 

Edgar the Ripper

Father had left a scrawled note, his handwriting closer to a bear's than a worried parent's:
I am very disappointed in you.

That night Father came home in a towering rage.

She heard a few people knock on the door, but his gruff voice would echo, garbled, up the stairs – clearly, she wasn't allowed visitors. Isola saw Grape, then Ellie Blythe, Pip and Jella arriving together. Edgar visited too. His mother, Lotus Blossom, brought a covered up casserole dish, which Father accepted, but she too was turned away fairly quickly.

Edgar was the only one who thought to glance up at Isola's window. She waved tentatively. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and pointed at it. She shook her head – Father had confiscated hers, claiming she needed sleep, not distractions, although she recognised it as a punishment, too.

It was dusk when Edgar contacted her.

She was hanging backwards off her bed, reading Brontë upside-down, when the flickering of his bedroom light caught the corner of her eye.

Letting her body slide off the bed and coil gently on the floor, Isola went to the window, hesitant at first, before throwing it wide. At once there was the sound of steel unsheathing and Ruslana appeared, her midnight-cloak swirling around her as she assumed a defensive stance beside Isola.

All was silent.

‘Isola,' said Ruslana urgently. ‘What is it? What did you see?'

‘Nothing, yet,' Isola replied, narrowing her eyes as Edgar's light strobed frantically then flashed off. A sudden sound filled the night sky, a metallic whirring, and she spotted the dark silhouette of Cassio's remote-controlled helicopter hovering over Number Thirty-seven's satellite dish.

Isola gave a snort of laughter then covered her mouth; it would not do for Father to check on her now, not while the toy helicopter was floating drunkenly towards her window. A small package swung perilously beneath it.

Although obviously aiming for her window, the toy lurched upwards and landed on the roof. Ruslana went up to retrieve it as the darkness gathered, while Isola looked intently for the pilot. All the curtains of the Poe house were closed, however, and Edgar was nowhere in sight.

Ruslana brought the battered helicopter to Isola, who quickly untied the small package. Inside was a small, creased sketch of her – the bright, streaky face of pastel paints let her know it was based on her appearance at Edgar's party the night prior.

There was also a short note.

Hey you!

How are you feeling? Believe it or not, Pip and I actually managed to clean most of the place up – and hid the broken stuff in the yard – so the 'rents weren't too cranky when they came back from my nan's this afternoon. But when Grape called and told us what had happened to you, Mum FLIPPED. She says I'm never allowed to have a birthday again, which means I'm stuck at 18 forever, I guess???

Anyway, I really hope you're feeling better, and I'm sorry I'm a complete moron. I tried to visit, but now I just think your dad wants to kill me. Maybe I'll send him a drawing too. I didn't get the best look at his face, but I assume he's just you with a beard, right?

– E. A. P.

P.S. I hope you like the bracelet! I thought it might make you feel better, especially if you got one today that matches. You can wear them like warrior wristbands or something. I have, like, a hundred so I won't miss it.

Inside the envelope Isola found a slim, plastic hospital bracelet; Edgar's name was printed on it, along with his birthday and date of admission. It was from the year before, at the Our Lady of Immortal Heart Hospital.

‘Must be from his transplant operation,' she said wonderingly, buckling the indentification tag around her left wrist.

Ruslana smiled at that. The Fury was serious and stoic and rarely smiled, but when she did it was stunning, a wonder of the world.

Isola played with the hospital bracelet as she described to Ruslana the feeling that overcame her.

‘I don't know what made me do it. I mean, did I
want
to kiss him? Do I still want to? Was it because I'd been drinking or I was still upset about
her
and those birds and I wanted comfort?' She hesitated, wondering if she'd sound mad, like Mother, if she went on . . . But she could tell Ruslana; the Fury would not laugh. ‘But it felt like . . . like I heard her, in my head.'

‘Heard who?'

‘Florence. I'm worried that she's . . .'

Ruslana fingered her jewelled scabbard and sat on the end of Isola's bed. ‘Don't waste an ounce of worry on that monster,' she growled. ‘She may have got through old man Furlong and Rosie, but she won't get past me.' A muscle in her cheek worked furiously, as though she were trying not to cry.

Isola reached out to gently stroke the Fury's long black hair. She knew why Ruslana treasured Rosekin and her kind – tiny creatures who came from an all-female race, who never had to worry about death at the hands of their men. To protect was Ruslana's natural instinct, and it betrayed her compassionate nature, which was hidden so carefully in her stoicism.

Ruslana turned her face away, and Isola respectfully averted her eyes, letting the Fury regain her emotional equilibrium. She traced the ringed bruising on her knee that she'd noticed earlier and frowned. How could she explain? Florence hadn't been near her . . . Florence had been
inside
her . . .

‘Was it a good kiss?'

Isola sighed. ‘Wonderful.'

‘That boy's Jack the Ripper, baby.' Isola looked sideways at her, nonplussed, and Ruslana tapped her innocently on the nose. ‘It means he'll take your heart.'

Isola nodded, looking back to the small sketch the boy across the street had made. A glitter-crusted lock of hair fell over her face and she shook her head, trying to dislodge the pink sparkles.

‘Hold on, princess.' Ruslana steadied her head, her breath caught on the sharp edges of her lips. ‘Rosekin.'

‘What? Where?' Isola craned her head, looking about the room for the familiar pink bubble.

Ruslana brushed her long nails through Isola's ringlets, collecting a smattering of electric-pink dust. ‘This is Rosekin's faeriedust,' she said in a low voice as she opened her palm for Isola to inspect. ‘I'd recognise her shade anywhere.'

Her razor lips were shaking now; Isola pretended not to notice. ‘They never give their dust to anyone, not even Nimue children like you. It's said to have the power to heal the good and kill the wicked.' Ruslana rubbed the tiny amount of dust into Isola's hands before clamping them closed. ‘Use it wisely, princess.'