I sat with her for a few minutes, stroking her hand, telling her I missed her, pleading with her to wake up. A nurse watched us and smiled at me. ‘That’ll do her good,’ she said. ‘Always talk as if she can hear you.’
‘You know what you could do?’ I said to the nurse. ‘Play music to her. I can tell you what bands she likes.’
‘Yes, please,’ the nurse nodded. ‘Anything to get a response.’
I rummaged in my bag and pulled out my phial of perfume from Dead Bouquet. I waved it under Zoe’s nose. I swear her lashes flickered. But no one else saw.
I went back there the next day and the next, with speakers rigged up next to Zoe’s bed and some incense sticks from Dead Bouquet. The nurse refused to let me light them, though, no matter how much I argued with her. I ended up dropping some perfume onto a tissue and tucking it into the sheet. The scent of another of Zoe’s favourites, Something Wicked, drifted into the sterile air of the hospital room.
I didn’t know what to do, exactly. The nurse said to keep talking to her, but I kept running out of things to say, so sometimes I just sang along to the tracks, so she would know I was still there, stroking her hand, thinking how much she’d hate to see how chipped her nail polish was. The singing helped me not to think too hard. I tried not to focus on those dark shadows that loomed over the head of her bed, the grey-black, cloudlike presences that I could only ever see if I didn’t look straight at them. Zoe needed me, so they weren’t going to scare me away.
I’d been there around three hours when I felt a tiny movement under my fingers and I jumped, as if a little flame had been lit. Zoe’s hand trembled.
‘Zoe,’ I whispered, glancing backwards to see if any of the medical staff were around. ‘Wake up. It’s me. It’s Anna.’
For a long few seconds, nothing. And then Zoe jolted, as if she’d been struck by lightning, opened her eyes wide and started to cough. She tugged at the mouthpiece helping her breathe and pulled it out. She stared at me, still coughing, then swore in a sort of a splutter.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re awake,’ I gabbled, trying really hard not to cry. ‘I should get a nurse.’
‘Wait.’ Zoe tried to sit up, then let her head fall back onto the ice-white of the hospital pillowcase. ‘Don’t go. Anna, there’s… there’s something…’
‘She’s okay. Your mum,’ I blurted out, because I guessed that was the first thing she’d be worrying about.
Zoe closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Thanks. I thought…’
‘I know. You should’ve told me, though.’
She chewed her dry lip. ‘I was so scared. I’m sorry. Are you sure she’s all right? You’re not just saying it to make me feel better?’
‘No, of course not. But –’
Zoe half-sat up again. ‘Hey. Hold my hands. There’s something I want to say.’
I hesitated. I should tell her about Kerry. Could Zoe cope with the news that Kerry was missing? She looked so thin, like a bare winter twig.
Zoe gave both my hands a weak squeeze. ‘The magic,’ she began.
I shook my head. ‘Let’s not talk about that. It’s over. We shouldn’t have…’
‘No. I shouldn’t have.’ Zoe’s soft voice dropped to a whisper and I leaned in a little closer. ‘What I worked out, on Halloween night, was that you’re the one. The one with the power.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. I think it was maybe all just, you know – coincidence. Things that would’ve happened anyway.’
Zoe closed her eyes. ‘It was more than that and you know it. It went bad for me and I know why. I wanted the wrong things. I turned it all against people and it came right back at me.’ Zoe’s breathing was fast and shallow. ‘But you – you always tried to do the right thing. And that’s when it worked best.’
I shrugged.
Zoe grasped my hands a little harder. There was a heat between our fingers. ‘You’ve got something special. Me – I was just playing at it. But you have something more than that. I mean it. When we did our magic, all the real power came from you. You have…’ she blinked a wetness away from her lashes. ‘You have a good heart, I think. Not like me.’
I couldn’t bear it. My throat ached as I tried to swallow back the urge to cry. ‘Don’t talk like that. Please.’
Zoe’s head sank back and her eyes started to close. ‘Come back tomorrow, yeah?’
‘She’s awake?’ a voice bellowed. The nurse bustled up behind me and pressed a button to call for help. As a doctor rushed in, the nurse steered me out of the room. ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘You brought her round. Good girl.’
The door closed and I was left there, my head ringing with Zoe’s words. I started to text my dad, my fingers still tingling and trembling. If I’m so powerful, I thought, how come I have never felt so helpless in all my life?
22
A good heart
I couldn’t get Zoe’s words out of my head. She’d turned around everything I ever thought about us. I wanted to do anything to please her, so she would always be my cool, funny, magical friend. But for her, I was the one with the power. And what she’d said about a good heart – that sort of echoed what my dad said about me, the time we argued. And what Kerry said, lots of times. And what Luke said, too. How come everyone thought I had this thing, this good heart, when all I felt was that it got me into trouble?
