It's in a different tense because she is remembering, not because I am stupid :D
The journey back was a haze. I remember watching Evelyn run from me, seem to disappear into the waterfall itself, becoming nothing more than the clear cold stream of icy poison. Poison...
Pippa and Ann were sitting together on the tree, their legs swinging and their eyes shining with this new secret, this delicious knowledge that brought us together and drove us apart. Felicity was nowhere to be seen, and my chest constricted as I thought of all that we did not know here.
"Fee! Fee!" I could feel the panic bubbling up inside of me, threatening to fill my lungs and freeze my heart. I glanced around me wildly. Pippa could sense my unease and slipped off the tree to join me. "Where is she?" she whined, her fingers unconsciously knotting and unknotting the skirt of her dress.
I caught sight of what seems like a wall made entirely out of plants. Branches and stems snaked upwards, fresh green leaves softening the effect. I ran to it, and realised that it was just a thicket of hanging vines. I gazed upwards, trying desperately to see where they came from, but they twisted and spiralled up out of sight. Pushing them aside, I stopped in my tracks and felt my heart cease to beat.
She was there. My bare feet sank into the white sand and the brilliant light seared painfully into my eyes. My mother was there, hollow and broken, the tears staining her cheeks and the chill sapping her of hope. Felicity was facing her, her white blonde hair loose and tumbling down her back, her hands and feet painfully pale. She was just staring at my mother, her fingers hanging loosely from her arms, perfectly still, perfectly silent.
"Fee!" Pippa raced to her, tugging on her hand, and then screamed.
"What? What is it?" I followed, grabbed felicity and spun her around. Her skin was paler than ever before, paler than could be imaged, fading into the light as if she were dissolving into it. Her hair was almost luminous, longer and wilder and harsher than before. Her lips were blood red, open slightly in the most perfect pout. But her eyes were what chilled me to the bone and sucked the air from my lungs. Her eyes were huge, wide and blank and black. Her pupils merged into her irises with no distinction. I let go, stumbled back from her. And then she opened her mouth and screamed. It was raw, terrifying and wild. Her eyes, blacker than Indian ink, were fixed unseeingly on something we cannot imagine. Ann joined us, clutching Pippa in newfound trust and friendship, and for an instant I wondered if she ever feels hopeless, grasping at straws, terrified that anything she touches would turn to dust.
I knew instantly what I had to do.
"Close your eyes!" I screamed, over the wind whipping around us and the rain beginning to fall. I tore the locket from where I had replaced it around my neck, and, grasping it in one hand, tell Pippa and Ann to lay a finger on it. I could already feel the humming, pulsing through me like my blood had been replaced by something blood and wicked and powerful. I grabbed Felicity, overcoming my fear of the black holes of her eyes, and concentrated on the alcove of Spence. I have never wished so hard to be home.
We are back, tumbling over one another in our panic and confusion and haste. Pippa and Ann are locked together in a mess of hands and feet and writhing terror. Felicity is lying still on the floor, her eyes closed. Part of me wishes that she will never open them again, so that I never have to see the blackness and bleakness and emptiness of the world. But I have to wake her, have to make sure she is back. Our Fee is back.
Her eyes open, and for a second I truly believe that she is still flooded with the darkness that terrified me to my core. But her true eyes are back, the mocking, grey eyes of Felicity Worthington, admiral's daughter and wicked schoolgirl, petulant brat and adventurous friend. My friend.
But is she still?
She seems the same, powerful and serene. "What happened back then? Where did I go? Who was that woman? Your mother?"
The questions are unlike her; she usually pretends to hold the answer to everything in her porcelain palm and knowing grin. Pippa and Ann ignore her, mumbling something about feeling tired and dancing the next day. I help Felicity to her feet, and for a second, in the wavering light of the candle, her eyes are black once more, and her grin is feral. But I remind myself that it is a trick of the light, and watch as the shadow of the boy named Kartik disappears from the window of the hall. I no longer care that he watches me. I care for my life.