‘Can we do it again, then?’ Luke asked. I nodded. He leaned down and kissed me lightly on the lips. I tried to kiss him back and our teeth bumped awkwardly. And then something happened and it was like our lips sort of melted together and the kissing felt as natural as anything.
16
Demolition
The almost never-ending rain in the first weeks of July meant that school trips, sports days and an end-of-term barbeque all got cancelled. We dragged listlessly into the summer holidays. Neither Zoe nor I were going away anywhere during the break, as neither of our families had any spare money and soon we were bored out of our heads. Dad went off to London on some training course and to be honest, I was quite pleased to see him go. I’d forgotten how annoying it was to have him follow me and Mum round the house switching off lights and things to save on the bills. And he was the reason I still hadn’t told Mum I was going out with Luke, because I knew he’d be difficult about it.
Zoe was doing rituals every other day and I still kept having bad dreams. Almost every night, I woke up in tears, imagining a bed full of graveyard earth, or that I was trapped in a coffin and couldn’t breathe. One time I was sure I was covered in blood and I ran out to the bathroom to find it was only sweat.
It was worse than bad dreams, though. Sometimes, it was more like a kind of hallucination. I knew I wasn’t asleep, but I could feel that soil and mud all around me as I lay down. I swear I could feel cold, waxy fingers pressing my eyes closed, clamping my mouth in case I screamed. I felt stale breath on my face and insects crawling through my hair. But if I leapt up and slammed the light on, nothing was there and I would find myself glaring around an empty room, panting, my heart pummelling my ribs.
Mum tried to get me to go to the doctor about not sleeping properly, but I didn’t want to. I could hardly tell the GP that I had a bedroom stuffed with tools for witchcraft. He’d surely have me locked away or something.
After a couple of weeks of dull summer holidays, Zoe’s mood was sour. She hated me spending any time with Luke and I couldn’t cope with all her nasty jokes and comments, so I kept the dates to a minimum. Plus, I felt guilty about the way she’d been treated by Tom, so it felt wrong to say anything about boyfriends at all.
Soon the rituals happened every day. Zoe seemed to feel better after them. The cuts on our fingers where we’d nicked them, to drop blood on the skull as an offering to the spirits, were getting scabby and sore.
One afternoon, when the rain beat on the windows and it was so dark and cold I had my dressing gown on over my clothes, Zoe decided we should cut our arms instead, a little bit, and I was insisting on putting a plaster on mine because I didn’t want Mum asking questions.
Just then there was a ring at the doorbell and we both jumped and giggled. ‘Who’s that?’ I groaned, hoping Mum hadn’t sent some friend round to check on us while she was out.
Zoe went into Mum’s room, which was at the front of the house, and leaned out the window. She winced. ‘Who do you think?’ she said and I realised Kerry had spotted her, because she gave a half-wave and turned back to me, rolling her eyes upwards. We should have guessed it would be Kerry – if we had, we could’ve hidden in my room and not answered the door.
‘So much for bringing us something good,’ I said to Zoe, as we headed down the stairs. ‘The spirits sent us Kerry.’‘Oh, dear goddess, what did we do wrong?’ Zoe smirked and we shrugged at each other and opened the door.
There she was on the doorstop, looking like she’d found all her clothes in a skip as usual and grinning from ear to ear. ‘What you up to?’ Kerry asked. She wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, hoping that would answer both her questions.
‘Good!’ said Kerry, bouncing up and down on her toes. ‘Guess what? I’ve just seen Jodie and Dave. They’re having a party tonight at their flat. They said we can come.’
Zoe and I gave each other a look. Now this was more like it.
‘What time?’ Zoe asked.
‘They said from six, but,’ Kerry glanced around and giggled, ‘it’s going to go on all night. He said it was a – oh, no, I’ve forgotten –a demonstration party. Or something like that. Can’t remember. Dave said bring a bottle, but Jodie said we couldn’t be expected to buy drink, so she said bring crisps or something.’ She held up a rustling carrier bag.
Zoe frowned. ‘I’ve got no money.’
Kerry bounced up and down again. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ve got loads in here. I had some cash left from the last time my aunty Eileen was here. My mum doesn’t exactly know, though.’ She gave us a goofy smile. This was Kerry’s idea of being really, really bad.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost four o’clock. ‘Right, let’s go and start getting ready. We’ll tell our mums we’re going to Emma Wood’s house.’
Kerry started to follow us up the stairs. ‘Who’s Emma Wood?’
‘She’s a girl at school and she lives on the new housing estate.’
‘I don’t know her,’ Kerry said, as we went into my room.
‘That’s ’cause she doesn’t exist, you dumbo,’ said Zoe. ‘Emma Wood is someone we made up ages ago. That’s where we always say we’re going, when we don’t want to say where we’re really going. Get it?’
‘Ohhh.’ Kerry flung herself down on my bed. ‘What is that smell?’
‘We said,
