A Storm of Paper Starlings

25. Endings & Beginnings

Daniel's working in Sweden right now. He texts me regularly, but whenever I mention my mum or Amethyst, he goes silent for days.

Archer and Seth saw Amethyst in the village a few days after I came home, but she had a chaperone, so they didn't get a chance to talk to her. Archer said she looked anxious.

I examine the photo Amethyst gave me, studying the other people for the first time since I got it. I don't know how I missed it so many times. Her long, red hair braided, Mara Morrigan sits by a campfire, her back to the camera, but her face in profile. She should've been no older than ten, but she doesn't look a day younger than when I last saw her. I'm starting to think Sean and Mara are immortal, but that's impossible.

Going back to school after the holidays is brutal. There's no Leia. No family. No goats. And I've alienated the only other person who actually likes me. I avoid Si skilfully. I'm spiky, and nobody approaches. It goes on like this for weeks. I'm leaving soon anyway, so what does it matter?

Still, I watch the main doors while I wait for Si under the naked tree, because I know he feels guilty about the kid in year nine who tried to copy his jump off the classroom roof and broke his arm.

I'm distracted by squealing. Turning to the source, I find Seth striding through the rain towards me with flushed cheeks, his panicked eyes just visible beneath the brim of a baseball cap.

"Christ, they're feral," he mutters under his breath.

I hug him, glancing over his shoulder at the huddle of laughing girls. "What are you doing here?"

He rubs his hands together and grins. "Clubbing."

"They don't have clubs in Oxford?"

"I'm meeting some guys from uni, and my best mate's over from France. Thought I'd catch up with my favourite cousin first."

I smile. "Do you even have any other cousins?"

"That's beside the point," he says, eyebrow arching high. "Are you waiting for someone?

"Yeah, uh..." I scan the grounds. "Oh."

I see Si and start walking towards a huge fancy car with blacked-out windows. I'm vaguely aware of Seth behind me, and I want to keep moving, but I stop and pull my hood further forward.

Si's rain-soaked hair is plastered to his head, and he's arguing with someone obscured by an umbrella. He looks at me then, all trapped and sorry. He raises his hand like he's going to wave, but his fingers curl together, and he ducks into the car. A man with matching hair follows him into the back seat, the umbrella still floating inexplicably in the air. But umbrellas don't float. A shorter man I didn't notice before flaps the umbrella as he closes it, then climbs into the driver's seat.

"You okay?" Seth asks as the car drives away.

"Yeah, fine," I say absently.

After Seth drops me off at Pandora's, I sit on my bed for hours, staring at my sketchbooks.

Si's not at the scrubs at the weekend, and he's not at school on Monday. Leia orders me to sort things out with him, to kiss him and tell her all about it. But he doesn't come back.

The rumours are wild. The parents of the kid with the broken arm blame Si for their son's foolishness, but since the thousand other kids in the school didn't copy his stunt, and there'd even been a don't-try-this-at-home PSA in assembly, there's not much his parents can do about it. Everyone thinks Si got permanently excluded after he set fire to the IT suite, even though nobody actually saw him there. The official line is it was an electrical fault, not arson. Either way, Si Moore is gone.