Gemini Rising (7 page)

Nathalie seems to have noticed the difference, as well. As I see her surveying the drinks and looking decidedly uncomfortable, I realise that usually I would appear exactly the same. Tonight I don’t have to worry – however reluctantly, Mum let me come here, with an agreement that I’ll be home on Sunday. That’s, literally, days away. I can do whatever I like. Besides, now that I’ve completely blown it and they probably all want to kill me back at my house, I might as well make the most of this and really enjoy myself.

I go over to the dresser and pour myself an enormous glass of brandy topped up with plenty of Diet Coke. That’s always one of the many minefields for me – knowing what you’re supposed to drink. Whenever I’ve been out to the pub with Shimmi and Nathalie, we all agonise over it. I down my drink in a few gulps and, by the second one, find it doesn’t taste too bad after all. More to the point, I’m feeling warm and sociable and dancing about to Trouble Every Day way more readily then I would have imagined.

In fact, before long, I have never been so drunk, and I feel brilliant. Elyse and I dance and drink and dance until we fall down, music blaring and no one to tell us to turn it down. I don’t even care that I’m a terrible dancer and am probably completely embarrassing myself. When we eventually collapse back onto the bed, we’re all giggling and so thoroughly over-excited it’s nearly hysteria.

‘Want a cigarette?’ Elyse asks, lighting up without even bothering to open a window.

Mel and Shimmi each take one and I am a split-second away from shaking my head. Then I find myself reaching out and plucking one from Elyse’s open pack.

‘Thanks,’ I say, ignoring Nathalie’s curious look as I clumsily light up.

‘Hey, Sorana,’ Elyse whispers after a moment, shuffling across to me. ‘You’re not used to smoking, are you? You’re not inhaling properly. Do it like this.’

She demonstrates, blowing a perfect smoke ring in the process. My squirming, stomach-churning humiliation gradually gives way as I realise that she’s actually being nice.

‘Elyse? You know over at Gareth’s earlier – who was that other guy?’

‘What other guy?’

‘Um, hello? He’s the one I saw in the car that night, who I asked you about – he was just there at Gareth’s! About our age, stupidly good-looking, guitar, leaning around the kitchen next door like some sort of modern-day James Dean. Is he a friend of Gareth’s or does he live there?’

‘Oh. Him. That’s Jago. He’s Gareth’s stepbrother; he lives with his mum most of the time, but he turns up here every couple of weeks. He’s a dick.’

‘
Really?
What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me about him when I asked you?’

Elyse fixes me with a concrete-hard stare. ‘Look, I mean it. He’s bad news. You don’t want to get involved. Just forget it, all right?’

‘Yeah, but —’ I’m not only drunk but insanely crushed-out, so it’s probably no bad thing that Shimmi interrupts.

‘Hey, Elyse – what’s
this
?’ she calls over, out of nowhere.

She is lolling about on the floor, drunker than any of us and flopping nearly under the bed. She has pulled something out from under there and is examining it intently, albeit in a slightly cross-eyed fashion.

‘Oh, that?’ Elyse replies casually. ‘That’s an Ouija board. I’m really into that kind of thing. Like my astrology chart.’

She looks over at me, and indicates the diagram of symbols on the wall that I noticed earlier. I’m consistently amazed that Elyse can be so unself-conscious. Or maybe she just doesn’t realise the rules, or at least doesn’t obsess over them like I do. Either way, the effect is pretty awesome.

She crawls down onto the floor next to Shimmi and pulls the Ouija board out from under the bed to show her properly, along with another wooden box. I’ve never seen a real Ouija board before, and this looks like a
really
real one, if you know what I mean – all old, dusty and sinister.

‘Hey, shall we do it?’ Shimmi says.

‘No way!’ I shriek, not caring by this point if the others all think I’m a total wuss. ‘No way. I am not messing about with that stuff. Just…look at it!’

‘What?’ Elyse is mock-indignant. ‘Like I said, I do this stuff all the time. It’s fine. It’s really interesting – it’s not like all that stupid scary stuff you see in horror movies.’

‘I’m with Sorana,’ Nathalie chimes in. ‘I’m not doing it.’

The others all roll their eyes and I feel mean for wishing that Nathalie would shut up. I know she’s trying to help, but I don’t want her to lump us in together and make it so that she and I are the two losers against the others.

‘Or we can do the tarot cards, if you prefer?’ Elyse goes on, opening the wooden box and taking out a deck of ornate, oversized cards wrapped in a silk scarf. ‘This is a special astrological pack. I mean, they were my mum’s and you’re not
really
supposed to use someone else’s tarot cards without their permission, but I’m sure it’ll be fine…’

Elyse looks at me like she’s disappointed, and I can’t stand to see that look on her face. Without thinking about it, I fiddle with my bracelet and I’m automatically reminded of what happened the last time I decided to be brave.

‘OK, fine!’ I relent, with a grin in Elyse’s direction and a tone much more certain than I feel.

I leap off the bed and fill up my glass with more brandy. The three of them crouch on the floor, setting up the Ouija board on the threadbare carpet – it looks like an old-fashioned parlour game, with the alphabet inked in fancy letters around the edge of the board, and separate circles for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in the middle.

I take a sip of my drink and surreptitiously have a look at what’s going on. Nathalie’s set herself back from the rest of the group and is intently examining the edge of the rug, refusing to look up.

‘OK, Nathalie, I get the message – you don’t have to join in,’ Elyse dismisses her. ‘Come on, Sorana – I know you want to, really. Hey, that means there’s four of us, like the four elements in astrology! Earth, air, fire, water; north, south, east, west. One of us at each corner.’

I have no idea what Elyse is talking about, but I force a casual smile as I take my place at one corner of the board. What’s the harm, right? Considering she didn’t want to do it in the first place, Nathalie looks surprisingly sulky at being left out.

‘You’re the air sign, Sorana – Gemini, yeah?’ Elyse winks at me and says this like it’s a huge compliment. I decide there and then to go with this, to stick with her in this weird and unexpected direction. It’s worth it.

‘Two fingers each on the pointer, like this. Now, what do you want to ask? Close your eyes. Concentrate…’

As if hypnotised, I close my eyes and think hard, feeling the bass from the music vibrate through the floor. After a moment, I crack one eye open, half expecting the others to be looking at me and laughing, but I see that all of their eyes are closed, their faces serious. I shut my eyes again and feel the pointer start swinging jerkily around the board. We all open our eyes in a flash, and giggle nervously.

‘Oh my God, who moved it?’ Shimmi exclaims. ‘Sorana, it was you, wasn’t it? You didn’t want to join in and now you’re trying to freak us all out.’

‘No way! Honestly, it wasn’t me. Nathalie, you keep an eye on the rest of them.’ I feel a pang of conscience that she is being left out.

We all calm down and try again, but this time we can’t stop giggling and the pointer is zooming all over the place. We’re all basically pissing ourselves with hysteria before we decide that it might be a good idea to give up.

But not completely, because then Elyse unwraps the tarot cards from their silk scarf nest. Like the Ouija board, they are fancy and archaic, in muted golden colours and curlicues that look as though they’ve been faded by decades or even centuries.

‘OK, universe!’ Elyse strikes a pose for extra drama. ‘I’m picking one card – you tell us what’s what.’

Nathalie seems less freaked out by this, and she moves back into the group looking more relaxed. We are all drunkenly and happily cackling away as Elyse performs this elaborate pantomime, until she suddenly goes pale and shaky. Then we keep laughing, but a bit more uneasily, semi-convinced that it’s part of the act.

That’s until she drops the cards in a flurry and then falls to the ground after them in a way that she couldn’t possibly fake. Melanie screams, then crawls across the floor towards her sister. When she gets closer, we all hear her take a sharp breath. She takes the one card that is still clutched between Elyse’s fingers, and holds it up to us.

‘Don’t show them!’ Elyse shrieks, struggling up from the floor. ‘They don’t need to see.’

It’s too late. The card, quite clearly even to a novice like me, is Death. Skeletal and terrifying and looking right at us.

‘It doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means,’ Elyse gabbles, trying to smile but still looking too-white around the eyes. ‘It doesn’t mean death, as such. I mean, not that we’re all going to die or anything. It can be, like, symbolic. I just freaked out a bit, that’s all.’

‘Ha! That was hilarious! Scared much?’ Shimmi crows, drunk enough to be apparently oblivious.

For a second, I look at her in horror – her inappropriate reaction makes me think she’s tempting fate, that she’s inviting catastrophe upon all of us. For a second, I have a flash that something terrible is going to happen. The rest of us are all silent for a moment, exchanging uneasy glances. Gradually the atmosphere dissipates; the shock wears off and I realise I’m being superstitious and it’s just a silly board game.

The rest of us then seem to make a conscious decision to go along with Shimmi and laugh hollowly. There is only one solution – another drink. Elyse turns up the music and knocks back a bit more booze herself, putting away the Ouija board and the tarot cards.

I know I’m drunk enough that I might pretty much forget the whole incident by morning, but not yet. I can’t seem to shake the weird feeling that this has somehow been planned – whether that’s true or not, I am royally freaked out.

It’s one of those horrible moments when you wake up in the middle of the night, in the pitch black, and have no idea where you are.

It’s a minute of heart-rushing, head-spinning panic before I remember I’m at the twins’ house. It doesn’t help that I am crashed out in a heap on the hard floor and I’m still in my clammy clothes. As I relax into the darkness, the room starts to feel almost cosy. We are all bundled in together and the air is thick with condensation from our collective, rhythmic breathing.

Suddenly, a voice cuts through the dense silence.

‘Sorana?’ Elyse hisses in a stage whisper. ‘Are you awake?’

I’m amazed she hasn’t woken up the other three as well, but they are passed out, totally dead to the world, and don’t even stir.

‘Yeah,’ I whisper back. ‘I’m awake.’

‘I don’t want to wake up the others… Follow me.’

We pick our way through the other sleeping bodies and out of the room. The texture of the collaged walls feels foreign under my fingers.

It’s marginally lighter as we make our way downstairs. I can see that Elyse is wearing a raggedy old sweater over her pyjamas, with fake Uggs slipped onto her feet. It’s nearly summer, but it’s chilly at this hour. She’s holding another equally voluminous jumper, which looks like it’s made of layers upon layers of expensive black spider webs, and indicates that I should put it on over my jeans and T-shirt, as I pull on my Converse.

‘Come on. I’m bored,’ she says, as though this is perfectly normal in the deadly early hours of the morning. ‘The others won’t be awake for hours. Let’s go outside.’

We creep through the kitchen and out of the back door. The digital clock flashing on the front of the oven, the only light I can see, says it’s coming up for four o’clock in the morning. Outside, the rush of air should wake me up but – maybe it’s the fact that we’ve been drinking as well as the velvety hour – I still feel as though I’m in some half-conscious dream world, like I’m watching myself from through a window.

At the end of the garden is a gate, almost hidden by overgrown plants. I follow Elyse out of it and beyond, onto a narrow towpath that runs the length of the river. It’s darker still out here until my eyes adjust again and the only light to be seen comes from Gareth Next Door’s, one lone lamp blazing at the top of the house.

‘I know – creepy, isn’t it? That’s Gareth’s room. Whenever I’m out here late at night, his light’s still on. I’d think he was just afraid of the dark, but a few times I’ve caught him at the window – staring into mine and Mel’s bedrooms.’

We’ve had the curtains open all night – she could have told us.

‘So, do you come out here at night a lot?’

‘Yeah, sometimes. I like being outside when I can’t sleep, which is pretty much all the time. There’s never anyone out here, so I can just walk or sit by the river and smoke or whatever.’

‘Don’t you get scared?’

‘Nah. Sometimes there are foxes, and once a deer, but I never really see another person – except Gareth through the window. Anyway,
I’m
the scary one, don’t forget – I’d scare the shit out of anyone who caught me out here.’

‘Aren’t you worried about sneaking out at night? Your dad would kill you if he caught you – well, I mean, I know my mum would.’

‘He’s never even noticed. And if he did, I don’t know if he’d care.’

‘Oh, I—’

‘It’s OK.’ I can sense Elyse shrugging next to me in the dark. ‘You must be thinking it. I bet your mum wouldn’t just go out and leave you alone if you had friends staying the night. She’d, I dunno, make cupcakes or something.’

‘What? No way! My mum has never in her life—’

‘Well, you know what I mean. I saw her; I saw your house. You can see mine isn’t like that. It used to be…when we lived with my mum.’

‘So, did they split up? Do you live here full time now?’

‘Um, actually, my mum died. They were divorced, and we used to live with her. That’s part of the reason why we moved here and had to start at a new school when term had already started.’

‘Oh, shit – Elyse, I am so, so sorry.’

‘Things are a bit rough at the moment, that’s all. It’s not my dad’s fault – it’s not like he
wanted
us to come and live with him all of a sudden, you know? So, it’s a combination of him not being here or, the rest of the time, just letting us do what we want because he feels guilty about my mum.’

We walk slowly along the river, the edge of the bank a silver wire in the moonlight, for a moment.

‘Elyse, can I ask a question?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The books you’re always reading, at school – what are they?’

‘Oh, those… Well, don’t get all… judgy.’

‘I won’t!’

I am too fascinated to be all…anything.

‘I saw how you got with the Ouija board. This is sort of similar. It’s astrology, mostly.’

‘Astrology? Like, what sort of stuff do you mean?’

‘Well, you know I’m kind of into star signs. I’ve been drawing up astrological charts and then using them, like to make predictions. It’s a sort of fortune telling. But then you can use that to influence things, to make other things happen. It really works – I’m getting stronger and stronger. I’m starting to make things happen.’

‘Like what?’

‘Nothing major, just silly things. Using the positions of the planets and the phases of the moon, stuff like that. Making sure that certain things happen when they should. I could probably make it rain next time you want to skip hockey, you know.’

‘Yeah, right…’

She ignores me. ‘I could lend you some books if you like — we could try some stuff together? You’re into reading all sorts of books as well, aren’t you? I promise you, you’ll like it if you give it a try. It’s honestly nothing scary; it’s really interesting. It’s just about harnessing your own power and the elements, and being able to use it for whatever you want.’

Now, this sounds appealing. If I could have a fraction of the power that Elyse seems to wield everywhere she goes, then I want a piece of that.

‘Cool. How did you get into it?’

‘My mum, actually. She was an astrologer.’

‘A
what
?’

‘Yeah, an astrologer. Don’t freak out, it’s not as crazy as it sounds! She was kind of a medium as well, but that’s a whole other story.’

‘So, do those, um, powers run in families?’

I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. The weirdest thing is that it doesn’t feel
that
weird, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

‘Well, it’s not exactly like that. We’re not talking vampires and ghost-hunters here. She was an expert on it – she had all the books and would draw up the most amazingly accurate charts. A lot of it’s about learning, but she was definitely intuitive and had a kind of natural gift. I think Mel and I have it, too.’

‘No way…’

My reaction may be incredulous, but I believe every word that Elyse is saying. It would be impossible to make this stuff up – and, besides, who would?

‘Mum said that Mel was a natural, like her. I have a little bit of the gift, but not like Mel does and my mum did. My astrological chart is pretty strong, but Mel’s is off the scale – those few minutes’ difference can have a big effect. Anyway, Mum encouraged us to learn about that sort of thing, and I became more interested the more I found out. I suppose it’s sort of become my hobby, learning about it. Then, since my mum died, it’s helped me – just to keep the idea of it alive. I’ve got all her old books and I like to remember what she taught me, you know?’

‘Yeah. That’s amazing.’

‘I’m really glad you understand, Sorana. I knew you’d get it, somehow. I didn’t want to freak you out.’

‘No, actually, you didn’t. I think it’s really cool,’ I say, meaning it.

‘Like I said, I’m glad. Because – and don’t think this is really lame, but – I’m really glad Mel and I met you. I have this strong feeling that we’re going to be really good friends.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘You see, now you know I’m really into the astrology thing,’ she goes on, ‘and that’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.’

‘Talk to
me
about?’ I echo.

‘Yeah. It’s important, actually. It’s really important. You know when we met that night, at the Trouble Every Day gig, I said it was a sign? Well, I wasn’t just saying that.’

‘I know what you mean – it
was
a pretty cool coincidence…’

‘There’s no such thing as coincidence. It was more than that. It’s all about your birthday.’

I’m really happy to go along with this line of conversation – attributing great importance to me, my birthday, and my favourite band is not something I’m going to argue with.

‘Yeah, I think I know what you mean,’ I say – sagely, I hope.

‘I know you know. It’s the Gemini thing, a connection. I knew we’d find each other – twins, Gemini, Trouble Every Day. It’s all lining up just as I knew it would.’

‘Yeah. Um, in what way, exactly?’

‘Gemini is the sign of the twins. I’ve known this was going to happen, that our charts would meet. Mel and I are twins, but we’re not actually Gemini – I wish we were: our powers would be doubled. We’re Gemini rising, which is nearly as good.

‘Sorana – our birthday is six months before yours.
To the day
. Our charts are identical, half a cycle apart. It would be spooky, if I hadn’t already known it was going to happen.’

‘What do you mean you knew it was going to happen?’

‘This sounds super cheesy, but there’s no other way of saying it: it was in the stars. I’m not kidding. I’ll show you the charts I’ve drawn up and you’ll see exactly what I mean. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for, our third.’

‘Yeah, you said something before about the four corners. What about Shimmi – and Nathalie?’

‘Well, Nathalie doesn’t really want to get involved, and that’s cool – I kind of knew that would be the case. With Shimmi, I already know that her birthday works – her chart doesn’t resonate with ours as strongly as yours does, but she’s fine. I need to do some more research on it, but I’m pretty sure it’s all going to fall into place. Fate, you know what I mean?’

‘Yeah, fate…’ I murmur.

I suddenly notice that, while we’ve been talking and cautiously inching our way along the river, we’re quite a long way from the house and a thin blue light has started to break all around us. It’s almost daytime again.

Elyse laughs and puts her arm around me as we run back along the towpath to the house.

‘By the way, you can keep that jumper if you want. It suits you. Besides, we’re sisters now.’

It’s official. My first real, full-on hangover. I feel really pukey and my head is actually pounding, but it’s sort of worth it for this weird sense of abated curiosity. Like – oh, so
this
is what a hangover’s like.

Up until now, I’ve always stopped. I’m not sure what’s been holding me back all these years; being around the twins is doing me a world of good. Perhaps it
is
meant to be, just as Elyse says.

So, even though I am feeling crap beyond belief, it makes me feel quite sophisticated to down two Nurofen with a sugary black coffee on Saturday morning. Then we all set about making a huge mess of the kitchen as we knock up some eggy bread.

Being drunk last night was fun, but hanging about this big house being hungover is maybe even better. I am left with the vague impression that I dreamed the whole scene of walking along the river with Elyse in the middle of the night – either that or I was still slightly drunk. The memory of it is a shifting, unclear thing that I can’t pin down. I huddle in Elyse’s gossamer-fine black mohair sweater, reluctant ever to take it off again, clinging to it like it’s proof. Of what, I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s nice to have nothing to do all day on a Saturday, and nobody to tell you otherwise. At my house, if I sit still for longer than thirty seconds, my mum starts saying things like, ‘Well, if you’re not doing anything, you can come to the supermarket with me/clean your room/unload the dishwasher/help Pete wash the car’, to the power of infinity. At the twins’ house, Saturdays are an entirely different experience. It’s only us, with the run of the whole house and the knowledge that we’re clear until Sunday. I have never realised before how nice it is just to be left alone, to feel like you can do as much or as little as you like.

By the time it gets dark, with the candles once again blazing and rain pouring outside, it’s cosy in Elyse’s room. We hole up, with a pile of blankets and a load of snacks; none of us feels like drinking as crazily as the night before, but Elyse has retrieved a dusty old bottle of her dad’s red wine from the cellar, and I’m rather enjoying feeling all fancy and French as I sip at it. Elyse shrugs that her dad won’t mind, but even I can tell that it tastes expensive compared to what my mum drinks from out of a box at home – Chateau Neuf de Something.

‘There’s nothing good on TV. Anyone want to watch a film?’ Elyse asks, to general murmuring assent.

She has an ancient little TV in her room – a step up on me, as of course I’m not allowed a television in my room at all because it would be ‘antisocial’ – plus, of all things, a VCR and stacks of dusty, antiquated videotapes.

‘It belonged to my parents years ago, and I wanted to keep it ‘cause I’ve got loads of cool films on video,’ she explains. ‘Old school!’

So, we end up staying awake nearly all night, watching weird retro films that I’ve never heard of, but quickly fall in love with –
The Crow, The Craft, Heathers
. Awesome – my head filling up with teenage witches taking charge of the school, dead goths proving that death is not the end, murder and revenge and excellent outfits.

Every so often, Elyse, cocooned in her duvet on the floor next to me, nudges me and grins. Then I know for sure that I didn’t dream the interlude by the river in the night.