Even before I'd turned around, I knew who it was.
"Hello Nina," said Fabian.
I've got to say that the reviews I've been getting so far have been phenomenal! Thank you, one and all, for your kind words of encouragement. This chapter is simply dedicated to you.
Nina
The inside of Anubis House was dark, as it always had been, despite the massive stained glass window behind the stairs made up of hundreds of coloured squares that shone a rainbow of light on the polished black and white checkerboard tiles. Everything was in its place: the antique mirror, the heavy wooden chest at the bottom of the stairs, the ancient grandfather clock that ticked and chimed ominously throughout the house, and of course the ornate sarcophagus with its hieroglyphics and intricate drawings of divine events of ancient Egypt. The scent of Trudy's cooking wafted through the air, completing the picture. Memories lapped at me like the waves on a storm-troubled sea, making the hard lump in my throat swell even more and spread to my chest. My steps faltered and I stopped in the middle of the hallway, taking in every tile, every wooden panel, every shadow. Amber's hand squeezed my forearm. The girl who had let us in – Cat – stood in the double doorway that lead into the living room and called, "Trudy! They're here!" Then she turned back to us and I saw a tiny, almost imperceptible frown flicker across her pretty, pale face, almost like a flinch of pain. Cat's clear grey eyes held mine for the smallest moment, provoking a strange jerk in my stomach. In that fraction of a second, I recognized something in her eyes, something so familiar that I couldn't understand what it meant.
It was the housemother's arrival in the hallway that broke our eye contact. Trudy bustled into the room, in her usual busy manner, a thousand watt smile lighting her slightly wrinkled face. She was dressed in her favourite style of a kaftan top, pink and sparkly this time, and jeans. Amber let go of me and hurled herself into Trudy's open arms shrieking "Trudyyy!" almost bowling the poor housemother over. When Trudy managed to prise Amber's grip away from her, she held the silvery-blond's shoulders and inspected her with teary eyes.
"Oh, my, look at you!" She said softly, looking around at the rest of us. "Look at all of you! You're all so grown up!" Alfie stepped forward to hug Trudy. He had never really outgrown his gangly teenage body, and still had to stoop down when he looped his long arms around the housemother. When Trudy turned to embrace Patricia, I saw a flicker of embarrassment in the slim girl's eyes, but she hugged the housemother nonetheless, even if it was a little stiff. Trudy patted Patricia's cheek, and then turned her attention to me.
"Oh, Nina," She said quietly just before she gathered me up in a tender hug. I hugged back fiercely, inhaling the smell that hung around her; a combination of soap, washing-up powder and sugar. I noticed over the housemother's shoulder that Amber was dabbing away tears with her French-manicured fingers, and that Alfie had an arm looped around her. Cat was shuffling her feet by the bottom of the staircase, one hand resting on the banister. She slid her right foot back and forth on the tiles, keeping her eyes down. When she finally let go of me, Trudy's gentle, dark eyes inspected my face. She brushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and I felt a light blush rise to my cheeks. I'd always felt less worried and scared when Trudy was around. She was just so bubbly and happy that you couldn't help but feel the same.
"Where's Victor?" Alfie asked warily glancing quickly up at the landing as if the sour-faced caretaker was going to wink into existence at the mention of his name, the way he always had done when we had still boarded at the house.
Trudy frowned. "Victor left the school not too long ago. Retirement. I haven't heard much from him since." The troubled look in her eyes as she said that made questions bud in my mind. I looked over at Patricia, who met my eyes. She raised her eyebrows.
"I take it we're the first ones here, then." She said. Trudy nodded.
"Yes, but I expect the others will get here soon," Then she smiled around at everyone and clapped her hands together once. "But how about a little tour while we wait?"
Mara
Despite the air-conditioning blasting in my face, the inside of Sam's little car was stuffy. Sam was driving, and I was in the front passenger seat. He kept one hand on the wheel, but had placed one on my bare knee and was stroking it slowly and rhythmically with his fingers, never going above the hem of my navy blue skirt. I smiled and let my head rest on the seat, breathing in the warm air as my eyelids drooped. I was tired after the night we'd had together. Sam, who'd never been to England before, wanted me to show him what restaurants were best. After a short reflection on the subject, I'd decided finally to take him to one of my favourite places – a traditional English pie shop – where we'd shared a massive steak and ale pie. Then, when we'd gotten home at around eleven pm, we'd gone straight to bed. I liked snuggling up to Sam's body, feeling the warmth of his arms around me and the gentle weight of his lips as they brushed my skin.
"Almost there now…" My fiancé said in his Canadian accent that had begun to pick up a tiny Scottish twang. I felt a bubble of excitement about seeing my old schoolmates again. I wondered where they all were now, if they were studying, or if they were working, if they had fiancés just like me. I knew a little about them. On occasion, Amber would call me or email me out of the blue. Of the eight others, she was the only one to contact me more or less regularly. But we still weren't as close as we were before, when we were at school. I ran a hand through my hair and breathed in the warm air. I knew of course that Nina had gone back to America soon after graduation, and that Amber had become a columnist at a popular teen fashion magazine, and that she was still with Alfie after all that time. The last I'd heard of Patricia was six months ago. There were rumours that she might be getting sacked from yet another job, which was unsurprising if her numerous drunken escapades were anything to go by. As for the others, I didn't have the faintest idea.
"I hope you're going to keep your promise. About marrying me twice." Sam said. I turned my head to look at him. He gave me a playful sideways smile, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.
A grin spread over my mouth, and I let one hand trail down to where his was stroking my knee, placing it delicately on top. "I always keep my promises." Personally, I wanted to put off a wedding until we were a little older, maybe after we'd finished uni, but Sam insisted that we do it as soon as possible. I hadn't ever imagined that at twenty-one years of age, I'd be engaged to some guy I'd only met nine months before and preparing a wedding. I intended to be a good wife, to give him a lasting relationship, like the one my parents had. My mother and father had been together since they were seventeen. When my older sister Holly and I were children, we'd always pulled disgusted faces when our parents kissed in front of us, but I realized eventually that their undying love was a good thing. I hoped that one day, when Sam and I had a family and a life together, that we would be as happy as I was with my parents.
Sitting there in that little car, driving down the summer sun-baked English country roads with Sam, I was absolutely that our life together was going to be the fairytale most girls can only dream of.
Nina
Walking into my old room was strange. Amber and Alfie were busy rediscovering the ground floor, and Patricia had decided to lounge around the living room, leaving me to head upstairs. The beds were in the same place, one by the window and the other sitting against the wall opposite it. The one closest to the window, the one that had been mine, was covered by a sandy-gold silky duvet and a white blanket folded down at the bottom. On the dark wooden headboard, the name Ali was glued on with glittery gold letters. The walls were plastered with the images of pop bands and baby-faced actors posing for the paparazzi and photoshoots. Everything was ordered and tidy. The other side of the room was a different story altogether. It was messy, as I remembered Alfie and Patricia's bedrooms being. Instead of glossy posters on the wall above the bed, there were sketches and paintings of all sorts of things. They weren't framed or straight. Some overlapped others, and some were almost completely hidden. There were more on the bed, unfinished or scrunched up, and pencils were strewn amongst them. There was an easel leaning against the wall with an incomplete painting of a pink rose on it.
"Whoa, explosion in a paint factory," Said a voice from behind me. I turned and saw Patricia standing by the door. She was watching me with her arms folded. She must have seen my puzzled expression, because she said, "This was my room too, remember?"
"Oh," I breathed, remembering my first few weeks at Anubis House when Patricia had been my reluctant roommate. She came to stand beside me, looking around.
"Mmm, yes. Very… arty." She said as her eyes scanned the messy side. I smiled.
"Patricia?" I asked.
"Uh-huh?"
I watched as she walked over to the tidier bed and sat down on the edge of it. She picked up a bare glass jewellery prop in the shape of a woman from the bedside cabinet. She inspected it, turning it over in her hands thoughtfully. "What did you mean when you got out of the car? About me not being the only one to have to face up to things?"
Patricia smiled and put the jewellery prop back on the bedside cabinet without looking up at me. "Do you remember how much I hated you when you first got here?" I stared at her in silence. Eventually, she looked up, meeting my eyes with her sea-coloured ones. She chuckled. "I thought you were a total cow."
I blinked and shifted my weight from one foot to the other, wondering if this was an answer to my question. "How could I forget?" I replied, giving her a brief, genuine smile. I went over and sat beside her on the bed, not quite shoulder to shoulder. "I mean, we're not exactly BFFs now either, are we?"
Patricia shrugged. "No, we're not. But you know, if it hadn't been for all the Joy stuff, I think we could have…" Her words trailed off. She took a deep breath and her mouth turned up in a grin. "You know."
"Been friends?" I suggested. Patricia looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
"Liked you. Don't push it." She said.
I felt myself smile. That's more like the Patricia we all know and love, I thought. The tall, slim girl also smiled. We sat in silence for a moment, before we heard the dreaded ding-a-ling. I felt my smile evaporate and the pit of my stomach drop.
He's here, my mind screamed in blind panic. Patricia got to her feet.
"Come on, we'd better go and faff around telling them how much we missed them." She grumbled. It was only when we got to the top of the stairs that I felt the enormous wave of relief. It wasn't Fabian. It was Mara Jaffray and a tall guy I didn't recognize with dark hair built like a quarterback. Amber had already appeared in the hallway bouncing in with her usual war-cry of "Eeeee!" Alfie and Trudy appeared a moment later.
Patricia and I moved down the stairs as Amber strangled her friend in a back-breaking hug, squealing all the time.
"Amber… can't… breathe…" Mara gasped, her chocolaty eyes wide. The silvery-blond girl released her grip, still giggling excitedly, and Patricia stepped forward. The two girls also hugged while the dark-haired guy and I stood silently by.
"And who's this?" Amber asked Mara, sneaking glances at the dark-haired guy, sizing him up with a mischievous grin.
"Oh, this is Sam, my fiancé," Mara explained. Sam smiled and looped an arm around her.
Amber giggled and clapped her hands together excitedly. "Aw, that's so sweet!" She said dreamily. Both Sam and Mara looked slightly embarrassed as Amber cooed. "We have so much to talk about, Mara!" The silvery-blond said, grabbing the ebony-haired girl's arm and dragging her away from her fiancé. Mara glanced pleadingly over her shoulder at the rest of us just before Amber hauled her around the double doors into the living room, chatting indistinctly. Patricia, Trudy and Alfie followed, leaving only Sam and I in the hallway.
Sam watched them go, chuckling quietly to himself with one eyebrow quirked. I shrugged at him. "She's a – uh – bit full on sometimes."
"I can see that," He mused. He wasn't English. I recognized his accent as a mix of Canadian and something else. I could now hear Trudy fussing over the newly-arrived Mara in the living-room.
"Shall we –?" I asked, nodding towards the double doors. Sam smiled and we turned to make our way into the living-room to join the reunion. But I had only taken a few steps when I paused. I could feel eyes on my back. Even before I'd turned around, I knew who it was.
"Hello Nina," said Fabian.
Jara: Coming Soon.