As I drew closer, I saw Nancy sitting cross-legged on the ground. She was wearing gloves with the fingers cut off and holding a bottle in her hands. She was laughing too loud, her cheeks and eyes bright. She was drunk. Half the bottle was already gone. It’ll make her sick, drinking so fast. A rookie mistake. I saw Charlie encircled in a violet haze of smoke, the resinous smell of dope scenting the air. She was wearing a lace veil over her face, black of course, like a Victorian spiritualist. She motioned to me with a wave of her hand. I caught the glint of her smile through the darkness.
‘Where’s Moya?’ I said, looking around.
Nancy looked up at me, her lips wet. ‘She’s not coming.’
‘Oh, shush,’ Charlie purred. ‘She’ll be here.’ Her head turned towards me. ‘She has very strict parents. They wouldn’t let her within ten feet of us.’
‘She lies,’ Nancy laughed, digging furrows into the earth with her heels. ‘She tells them she’s coming to the youth club.’ She hiccupped, burying her chin into the fur collar of her coat. ‘I tell my parents I’m at Charlie’s.’
‘And I tell my parents I’m working at the pizza place in Brighton,’ Charlie said. She was a little unsteady on her feet, dancing a slow waltz. She exhaled smoke towards the stars. ‘They think I’m employee of the month.’
Nancy burst out laughing. The bottle fell from her hands and Charlie called her a clumsy bitch, which made her laugh even harder. There was something desperate about the sound of it, as if at any moment it could dissolve into tears.
I turned to Charlie. ‘So teenagers lie to their parents? You think that’s new?’
Charlie lifted the veil slowly from her face, casting it in elegant shadow.
‘I think it’s appropriate,’ she says. ‘You want one of these?’
I looked down at her outstretched hand. Pills. Small and diamond-shaped. I reached out my hand and then hesitated. What would Edie have done? That’s an easy answer, I told myself almost immediately. She’d have taken one, no question.
‘What are they?’
Charlie smiled, her head tilted to one side. ‘My little brother’s got ADHD. This is what he takes for it.’ She lowered her voice and leaned closer. ‘It’ll just help you focus, that’s all. You did say you wanted the ritual done right.’
I took one from her and held my hand out for the wine. It was warm and sweet and cheap-tasting, but it washed the pill down. Charlie laid a tablet on her tongue and grinned at me.
‘That’s my girl,’ she purred.
I looked down and saw the candles in jam jars at the compass points of Mary Sayers’s grave.
‘What’s so special about this grave?’ I asked, squinting at the headstone. Lost to the Waters, She will Return.
‘It’s Quiet Mary,’ Nancy said, passing the bottle to Charlie, who wiped the neck with her sleeve. ‘We’ve been trying to summon her.’
‘We have summoned her. I’ve seen her,’ Charlie said. ‘One time I even spoke to her.’
‘What did she say?’ I asked, lighting a cigarette. I wanted some more of that awful wine.
‘She said, “The water’s so cold, Charlie, I can’t breathe. Help me. It’s so dark down here. Help me.”’
I wished she’d lift the veil again. I didn’t like not being able to see her face.
‘Tell her what she looked like!’ Nancy hissed, her eyes round with awe. She swigged from the bottle again.
Charlie stepped closer to me, pale hands swimming before her. ‘Like the fish had been eating her. She had pondweed coming out of her eyes.’
Nancy was leaning back against the grave, listening with the rapt attention of a child to a bedtime story. I had a feeling this was one she’d heard before.
‘Quiet Mary found a way back,’ Charlie said into the darkness. ‘She found a path into our world and we can open the gateway just enough for her to come through.’
‘Where’s the gateway?’
‘Behind you.’
The dope made my head swim a little as I turned slowly, aware suddenly of how fast my heart was beating, my fingers twitching with my pulse. I was nervous but there was also a flash of excitement that ran through me like a shiver. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to feel how Edie must have felt. The way the night had stretched out for her.
‘It’s just a tree.’
‘That’s right. The tree is the gateway.’
I stamped my feet, urged my hands to be still. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
‘What about Moya?’ Nancy said.
‘We have to wait. It has to be four. An even number.’ Charlie again. I wondered how she knew so much about rituals and spell-casting and then I remembered someone telling me that all magic relied upon was the strength of your belief in it. Everything else was window-dressing.
Charlie suddenly sighed dramatically, hunching her shoulders as if in pain. She stretched out a hand to me, black-tipped nails over the cold stone.
‘She’s waiting for us,’ she whispered. ‘I can feel her presence drawing closer.’
‘Who is it?’
Charlie didn’t answer. Behind her I saw movement and for a moment my heart rose into my mouth, my vision blurred. It was her! But no, it was just Moya, walking at a brisk pace, long coat dwarfing her small frame.
‘I’m sorry!’ she said breathlessly. ‘My dad’s a miserable bastard. Am I too late?’
Everyone looked to Charlie, even me. It’s a pantomime, I
