Sylvain lingered on the front steps. Through the open car door, Allie watched as he talked quietly to his mother. As always, it hurt a little to see anyone so close to their parents. She hadn’t spoken to her own parents in months. Phone calls were impossible while she was on the run. She knew Isabelle kept them informed about her. But it wasn’t easy to accept that they didn’t care enough to insist on speaking to her.
I wonder what it’s like to be liked by your own parents, Allie thought. And then she pushed the thought away. It was easier not to think about them.
Mrs Cassel pulled Sylvain into a tight hug before finally letting him go. As he ran down the steps to the car, Allie saw her wipe a tear from her cheek with a quick brush of her fingers.
By the time Sylvain was seated and looking back at her, she’d composed her face. She waved at them with serenely. As if they were just normal kids, heading off to a normal school.
A guard closed the door of the SUV and Allie heard the thunk as all the doors locked automatically through the central system.
A thrill of excitement ran through her like electricity. Even if they’d changed their minds now it was too late.
They were going home.
Four
‘You have to make your mind up, Allie.’ Jo sounded exasperated.
Allie turned to look at her in surprise. They sat beneath the spreading branches of the ancient yew tree in the church yard at Cimmeria. The setting sun had turned the sky a fiery red. It caught Jo’s short, blonde hair and tinged it pink.
The colours reminded Allie of something but she couldn’t place it.
‘About what?’ Allie asked.
‘Sylvain,’ Jo said. She leaned back against the tree trunk with a sigh. ‘I feel so guilty. Like it was my fault you got into this.’
‘Into what?’ Allie was perplexed. ‘I’m not in anything.’
‘You’re in a muddle,’ Jo said, and her familiar cut-glass accent made Allie smile. ‘You don’t know what you want.’
Allie flinched. That was what Sylvain had said to her before she left Cimmeria.
Jo wasn’t finished yet. ‘You have to choose the one you love.’
‘I know that.’ Frustration made Allie’s voice sharp.
Jo’s eyebrows went up and Allie raised her hands in an apologetic gesture.
‘Soz, Jo. It’s just … Let me try and explain.’
But how could she explain what she didn’t understand? That she cared for two boys and didn’t want to hurt either of them. That her relationships with both of them were loaded with the baggage of past mistakes.
That when your own family didn’t seem to love you it was hard to love anyone else.
‘I guess … I wouldn’t recognise true love if it walked up to me on the street and bit me on the leg. So how can I say I’m in love with Sylvain? Or I’m in love with Carter? I love them both. But I don’t know what “in love” even is.’
Jo reached over and took her hand. Her fingers felt like nothing against Allie’s skin. As insubstantial as a cloud.
‘I can only tell you what I know,’ Jo said. ‘Love is I care about you. I trust you. I understand you. I want you near me. In love …’ Jo looked wistful, her gaze fixed on some point far away, just beneath the red sky. ‘In love is: I would give up everything. Even myself. You, I can’t live without.’ She turned her wide blue eyes back to Allie; they were filled with tears that glistened like stars. ‘Do you understand?’
The bedroom door flew open with a crash, flooding the room with light.
Startled, Allie scrambled back in bed, arms in front of her torso protectively.
Where am I?
‘It’s true. You’re really back.’ Zoe’s flat, familiar voice steadied her.
Squinting into the glare, she could see the girl’s small frame hovering in the doorway like a shadow.
Her gaze skittered around the room.
Desk, bookcase, whitewashed floor … Cimmeria. My bedroom. Home.
It all came to her in a rush. Zoe was right. She really was here.
‘Hi, Zoe,’ she said, her voice hoarse with exhaustion. ‘Long time no see.’
It had been after four in the morning when they’d finally reached the school. Allie had fallen asleep in the car, her head against Rachel’s shoulder. Sylvain woke them both when the car stopped at the end of the drive.
Everything had felt dreamlike. The damp and chilly English night. The Victorian, gothic school building towering over them. It was all darker than she’d remembered. More intimidating.
Groggy, she’d blinked up at the school, wondering why no lights were on at all. No teachers came out to greet them.
They’d stumbled up the steps to the front door, but, before they could open the door, a guard had opened it from inside.
Where did he come from? Allie had wondered as the black-clad man stood back to let them pass.
They’d parted at the grand staircase, Sylvain heading to the boys’ dorm, she and Rachel to the girls’ rooms.
It was so quiet every footstep seemed to echo.
Even though it was the middle of the night, Allie couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Isabelle le Fanult, Cimmeria’s headmistress, hadn’t come to greet them after so long away.
But when she’d walked into her old bedroom she found that someone had made up the bed with crisp, fresh sheets and turned back the duvet. A set of pyjamas with the Cimmeria crest had been left on the pillow. The desk lamp cast a warm glow over it all.