Fri. 6 Sep. 1872. – Just after lunchLord V. sent a carriage and I waved Mother off with a trembling, slightlynervous heart. I prayed my riding skills were up to the chase, but my fearswere groundless. They were a good hearty crowd and we rode for many a mile. Howwonderful he looked in jodhpurs and riding jacket! Back at the stable yard hestole another kiss and told me about a grand ball he was hosting tomorrow nightin the Great Hall with all his friends in the Barleybrook Etheric Club. He saidmany of his important warlock friends from the club were coming, very rich andpowerful. He looked me in the eye and said he would be honoured if I couldattend as his guest. I was so shocked but accepted with a glad heart. Howexcited I am! What shall I wear? Lord Percy’s so handsome, so dashing but Iknow his brooding good looks are not all that he is. He has a personality thatis attracted to the dark side, those smouldering eyes hide a hint of danger,and his association with warlocks proves my trembling fears are well founded.
“Helikes warlocks!” said Ophelia with a sigh.
“So handsome, so dashing!” said Lilith.
The girls stopped reading. They werenow watching Bill and Arthur with interest. Judging by the car, the chauffeurand the fussy mother’s diamond jewellery, these two boys were obviously acouple of rich pampered brats.
“How about those two toffee nosedtwerps?” said Lilith.
Ophelia gave the boys an appraisingstare. “Looks to me like they’ve never been near a girl in their lives.”
“Especially the skinny one in theglasses. I’ll bet he still wets the bed and has a teddy bear.”
Ophelia looked at ‘the skinny one inthe glasses’ and found, to her surprise, that she quite liked his browncorduroy jacket and paisley cravat. She thought he looked maybe interesting totalk to. She was somehow reminded of the people in Rowena’s journal.
“I think he’s kind of cute,” she said.
“Cute? I didn’t ask if he was cute. Ishe suitable?”
Ophelia reminded herself that she wassupposed to be on the hunt for a victim, not a boyfriend. “I think so. But arewe really going to do it?”
“Of course we are. You want to be awitch, don’t you?” said Lilith.
“But Professor Jareth said it wasillegal and dangerous and hasn’t told us exactly what it is.”
“Oh don’t me such a wimp! It’s ourticket into darkness, pleasure, amazing things. That’s what it is. We just needone of those boys to get us there.”
The only definite thing ProfessorJareth had told them to do was to find a virgin and that’s what Lilith intendedto do. The Prof. was going to show them the way into a dark and sinister worldand Lilith longed to be shown. She wanted to live on the edge, to be dangerous,and this was her chance. Her parents had pampered her, fussed over her, boredher and spoilt her. How she despised them for christening her Marjorie!Marjorie Blenskinsop was not a suitable name for someone so cool. Shewas Lilith now and had to do this terrible thing that Jareth had askedthem to do. It allowed her to embrace her true self.
Despite being beautiful, intelligentand from a rich family, she identified with life’s downtrodden freaks andmisfits, because she’s been told she was one herself, by her father! She’dconfessed she liked girls and boys as well, but especially girls. She lovedOphelia! Her father said she was to be quiet, that she was going to marry oneof his business colleagues, rich and of good stock. She’d screamed at him andsaid that she’d never forgive him for putting his other freak in a care home –her younger brother David, who had mental problems. She said she wanted all thefreaks in the world, freaks like herself, to rise up and slaughter every lastbowler hatted stock broker, pompous merchant banker, old fart judge and moneyedduke and dowager. The big wigs down at daddy’s golf club, with their brandy andcigars, their snooty wives and big houses would one day be bloodied and beaten.
The girls watched the chauffeur unloada trunk from the car. The mother kissed the top of the bespectacled one’s head.The car pulled off. As the boys went through the stone archway and into thequadrangle beyond, the girls got up and followed.
*
Billunpacked the last of the things his mother had put in the trunk: variousvelvety jackets, a college scarf, flared black trousers, white shirts allneatly pressed and starched, a spoon, a knife, a fork and a single dinnerplate. He looked at the yellow envelope for Professor Nox, placed on the heavyoak desk, at the single brass bed and cracked sink in the corner. This smallroom in Connaught Hall was going to be his home for the next three years and itall looked very spartan, with polished floorboards, ochre walls and dark woodcabinets and bookcases. The only thing he’d brought that could be consideredhis own was a leather-bound copy of The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin –something he’d found in the library room back home that had ignited in him acompulsive fascination. With a heavy sigh Bill left his room and knocked nextdoor.
Arthur answered with a grin.
“Come into the parlour my good man,”he said.
Bill stepped inside and was amazed atwhat he saw. Arthur’s room was the same as his own but it couldn’t have lookedmore different. The walls were lined with many posters of a band performing onstage. The band members all had long hair, colourful paisley shirts unbuttonedto the waist, electric guitars and swaggering postures. Bill noticed thebookcase in the corner was filled with tatty well-thumbed paperbacks. Coollooking comics were scattered
