Fire Stone.
I smelled the paper, searching some long-forgotten scent I’d been chasing all my life and then folded the embossed paper with care along the creases, popping it back into the bag. As I ran my hands down the length of my jeans, I breathed in and out through my nose. Palms sweating and unable to sit still, this would go down as one of the most uncomfortable car journeys of my life.
“It’s my first time in a limo.” I leant forward again, unable to resist the urge to talk.
My answer was another stern look from under those bushy brows in the rear-view.
“Is this how my aunt commutes?” I glanced out of the window at the swollen clouds. “It seems fancy.” Sliding my butt along the leather seat again I wrapped my arms around the headrest of the passenger chair. “She must be someone pretty important to have a chauffeur.”
No answer.
“If she’s away who will be there to look after me?” It was a joke. I didn’t need looking after. At just eighteen and largely self-sufficient, I was more than capable. But it was fun to wind the silent driver up by asking inane questions.
“Everything is taken care of.”
“Everything?” That warning bell jangled again. “Why did she write and ask me to come if she isn’t going to be here?”
He didn’t answer, which was no surprise. Instead, he nodded his head at a giant set of wrought-iron gates. I craned my neck to see the top. Bronze motifs supplemented black iron-work, and leaves and flowers ornately wound their rigid stems around the posts of the gates in intricate patterns. “Whoa.” The car slowed to a halt giving me a close up of the impressive entrance.
My jaw dropped as the gates swung open without a sound. A small signpost with black, bold lettering on a white board simply stated Fire Stone.
“Are we here?” I bounced on the leather seat causing the bushy brows to furrow together. “Hey, I’m excited! I’ve never left New York before. This is awesome.” No one would believe it back home.
I blocked all thoughts of home from my mind as we cruised up a wide sweeping drive. The driveway turned a broad corner before ending in a horseshoe in front of a crumbling building covered in dark creeping ivy. “What on earth?”
I blinked as a handful of children walked past the limo. Only a couple tried to peer in through the tinted glass. My excitement at my first leg of my new life cooled. “This is awful.” I shrunk back into the leather upholstery.
It was a school, which was bad enough in the grand scheme of things, but worse, it was what movies portrayed as a proper ‘English’ school. The kids milling around were all dressed in identical navy blazers with navy and silver ties. Girls and boys alike.
“I am not going in there.” I folded my arms. I wasn't given to childish dramatics—having grown up real quick at the age of seven but… “I sure as hell didn’t fly all this way to go to some school with a bunch of snobs wearing a uniform.” I’d tried to research Fire Stone—it didn’t exist in internet land. There was no reference to it at all. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few days,” I don’t know why I continued to speak to the chauffeur, his lack of conversation didn’t give me hope of any answers. “This is all completely unnecessary.”
The pit of my tummy clenched and dropped, and I palmed a sticky hand through my hair, strands of red tangling into my fingers.
“Mrs Cox is inside,” he said, completely ignoring my protests.
“Mrs Cox?” Who the hell is Mrs Cox?
“She’s waiting for you.” The chauffeur hesitated, his gaze meeting mine in the mirror. “It’s not that bad; this is a good school.” From under the eyebrows I caught a glimmer of sympathy.
“But I don’t need to go to school. My education is over, done, finished.”
“I’m sure Mrs Cox will explain.” The driver dropped his gaze and opened his door, walking around to my side of the dark sedan and pulling on the handle of my door. I’d been by myself for ten years—I’d faced almost everything by myself with only passing temporary carers to guide or support me. But right there and then I wanted to hide under the smooth floor mat of the car and never surface into fresh air. A crowd was gathering which only made my sweaty-palm syndrome worse.
“I don’t want her to explain. Could you take me back to the airport please?” I frowned back out of the window. “That building looks like it’s about to fall down.”
“Out you get, lassie.” The nameless driver had hardly been verbose on the drive here, but his tone softened as he called me lassie, and somehow my legs responded, jerking to life and stepping out of the car.
I was grabbing the universe containing duffel from the backseat when the scrunch of heels on gravel pricked at my ears. Swallowing, I straightened and turned. The woman in front of me was so small I had to lower my expectant gaze, and then lower it some more to find her face. With a hooked nose, lips dipped with a pronounced V, and round eyes, she reminded me of a sparrow bobbing for seed. Quick bright eyes focused on mine. The grey of her hair made her eyes seem more silver though up closer they were a pale blue. Tiny and birdlike, her fingers jerked towards me in greeting and I shook her hand, wondering how she maintained such a ferocious grip when she owned a wrist that looked like it would snap
