Beth
My thoughts were haunted by that oily gleam in Nina’s hot-chocolate mug.
For days, I tried to find an innocent explanation.
I scoured the pantry for vitamins or medicines that might account for it, with no success.
When the others were occupied elsewhere in the house, I experimented furtively with marshmallows and other sweet ingredients, attempting to dissolve them in boiling water, then letting them cool.
But I failed to re-create the strange-looking shiny layer.
I kept replaying the night before Nina’s grandfather’s first visit: Markus popping his head into the tree house and saying, “Come on, sleepyheads . . . Mum’s making you hot chocolate indoors to warm you up . . .”
Twice, Nina had fallen ill just before her grandfather’s visits, and each time she’d drunk hot chocolate in the hours beforehand.
Hot chocolate that, on the second occasion, looked to have had something unusual added to it.
Hot chocolate that, on the first occasion at least, Leonora had made for her.
But why on earth would Leonora want to poison her own daughter?
* * *
I withdrew into myself, telling Jonas I needed space and telling Nina I needed to concentrate on my schoolwork.
I sat in my bedroom for hours, flicking through prospectuses for higher education courses that provided accommodation, wondering whether I should apply for one the following year to give me an escape route from Raven Hall.
When I wasn’t worrying about poison, I was brooding on my lost family, wondering what my brother, Ricky, would be doing now if he were still alive.
I longed to ask my parents for advice. I resented not having Ricky here as a role model.
Meanwhile, Nina bounced back to full health, and the rest of my life rumbled along in its normal routine; as the weeks passed, my anxiety about the possibility of poison eased, and my melancholy mood gradually lifted.
I stayed alert for any recurrence of illness in Nina, or any sign of odd behavior in Leonora, but nothing happened to raise my suspicions.
Eventually, I decided I might have been mistaken.
Perhaps I hadn’t seen anything strange in the mug after all.
By the time Nina’s birthday came around in June, I’d made a conscious decision to put the whole strange episode out of my mind.
If anything, the memory of my initial reaction to it made me feel guilty—how could I have leaped to such a dreadful conclusion about Leonora, when she was never anything but kind to both me and Nina?
As if to reinforce my guilt, Leonora and Markus took us to a West End show for Nina’s birthday and showered both of us with all manner of treats and gifts.
Life seemed good again. The long summer holiday was fast approaching.
And I felt secure enough in my position at Raven Hall to switch my focus back to trying to see more of Jonas.
But it was as difficult as ever to meet up with Jonas alone during the holidays.
Nina and I ate breakfast together, chose our daily activities together—we did almost everything together.
Finally, at the dinner table one evening, Leonora reminded Nina she had an optician’s appointment the following day—miles away, over near Cambridge—and I sensed an opportunity.
When I trudged down to the dining room for breakfast the following morning, I complained of a thumping headache.
“I think I might have to go back to bed,” I said. I kept my eyes narrowed, as if the bright sunlight streaming through the window were hurting them. “If that’s all right with you? You don’t need me to go with you today, do you?”
Leonora frowned and came over to feel my forehead. “Have you been drinking enough water? Do you want some paracetamol?”
I told her I’d already taken some, and I plodded back upstairs with a guilty conscience. My head was fine; I’d taken nothing. I cracked open my bedroom window and got back into bed, waiting to hear them leave.
As soon as Leonora’s car had disappeared down the driveway, I ran downstairs and phoned Jonas at the B and B.
Then I strolled out to the kitchen garden and picked a bowlful of luscious strawberries; I ate them out in the front, sitting on the stone steps in the sunshine and reveling in having the whole house to myself while I waited for Jonas to arrive.
“Let’s get away from this place,” Jonas said before he’d even kissed me.
I pulled a face. “I don’t know. I’m supposed to be ill. I don’t want them to come back and find me gone . . .”
“You can say you went for a walk to clear your head, can’t you?” He hooked his fingers into mine and drew me closer, his smile widening. “Come on, grab your bike, and let’s go into the village. I can introduce you to my mates, or we can go back to mine . . .”
“No.” Reluctantly, I pulled my hands from his. “I can’t. I’m not allowed . . .”
He sighed. “Okay. So—what then? Are you going to invite me in? First time for everything.”
It took a moment for the significance of his words to sink in.
“You mean you’ve never been inside the house?”
He shrugged. “Nope.”
“That’s weird.”
“Well, yeah. But it’s probably the least weird thing about this place, don’t you think?” He searched my gaze. “C’mon, Beth. What would you like to do? Don’t you fancy getting away for a bit?”
“I—” I shook my head. How could I tell him the truth? That I was scared to break the rules, too frightened of what Leonora might say if she discovered I’d snuck off into the village as soon as her back was turned. “Actually, I—my head doesn’t feel that great . . .”
Jonas’s gaze slid past me to the shadowy interior of the hall, and he took a step back. “Okay. Well, it’s up to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve wasted your time.”
“You know what I think?” His expression was tight. “This isn’t right. Not being allowed to go anywhere or see anyone. I think you should ring your aunt Caroline and ask her to take you away from here, find somewhere more normal to live. That’s what I think.”
“Wait.” I followed him down the steps and across the gravel to his bike. “I know what you’re saying, Jonas, but they’re still nice people. I like it here. It’s my home, now. So I have to follow their rules, you know? Does that make sense?”
He scowled. “Yeah. I get it.”
“Look, why don’t you come in? I’ll make us a drink. We can sit in the garden . . .”
For a moment, I thought he might say yes. We leaned toward each other, and we kissed with his bike jammed between us. But he’d already made up his mind.
“I’m just not sure I can keep doing this.
” He frowned down at his handlebars. “You won’t tell Nina about us.
You’re not allowed to come round to my house.
Every time I come up here, I’ve got to pretend we’re just .
. .” He bit back the rest of his sentence.
“It’s not really working, is it?” He swung himself onto his saddle and put one foot on a pedal.
“But—” I said. “You’ll still come back, won’t you? You’ll come swimming with us . . .”
“I don’t know, Beth.” He squinted at me. “Just ring me, okay? If anything happens. If you need me. For anything.”
I returned slowly to the top step and watched him cycle away until he was out of sight.
Then, with a sense of wounded irony, I went back inside to find some painkillers—I really did have a headache now.
I couldn’t see a way of keeping everyone happy.
Leonora, Markus, Nina, Jonas. And as much as I liked Jonas, I had to keep Nina and Leonora happy if I didn’t want to jeopardize my position at Raven Hall.
So Nina and I swam without Jonas that summer, and whenever she grumbled about his absence, I tried to look innocent and changed the subject.
And unsurprisingly, Nina invented new ways of entertaining us.
She decided she would throw a party for me at the end of the holiday, to belatedly celebrate the anniversary of my arrival at Raven Hall.
To my surprise, Leonora agreed to the plan, and it kept Nina and me busy for a couple of weeks.
We drew up a guest list of school friends for Leonora’s approval, and we baked a huge cake and ordered sparklers, and we arranged for an up-and-coming band from London to perform in the garden.
On the evening of the party, Jonas joined us for a while, and he pecked me on the cheek in front of the other guests, which made me blush.
But when I looked for him a while later, hoping to grab a few minutes alone with him, he’d already set off on his bike for home.
September, and the new school year, came around quickly, and my sadness about the situation with Jonas was replaced with worries about coursework and exams. In the middle of October, Markus went off to Malaysia on a six-week diving trip, and not long after this, Leonora called Nina and me into the drawing room one evening with a glint of excitement in her eyes.
“I was thinking,” she said, “now you’re both getting older, maybe I should take you on a shopping trip. We could go into London next Saturday, have a day of trying on clothes—what do you say?”
Nina and I were thrilled. Up until now, Leonora had ordered all our clothes for us from a catalog, but my jeans were becoming too short, and I fancied something a little more elegant anyway.
In the end, not only did we go on a huge and successful shopping spree; I also got my hair cut at a posh salon, and Nina persuaded Leonora to let her have her ears pierced.
I knew we were being spoiled, but there was no point resisting it, and both Nina and I were very pleased with the outcome: we felt much more grown up.
It was only days later that Jonas paid us a surprise visit at Raven Hall.
He greeted both Nina and me with equal friendliness, and he asked us casually—out of earshot of Leonora—whether we fancied sneaking out that weekend, to go to a party in the village with him.
I kept my expression neutral, and he didn’t stay long—he said he’d leave us to talk it over.
“Oh, go on,” I begged Nina, after we’d gone up to her turret bedroom to discuss it in private.
“What harm can it do? Your mum’ll be none the wiser, and we’ll have a great time.
” I was already imagining myself wrapped in Jonas’s arms, swaying to dreamy music, with Nina conveniently distracted by some other good-looking village boy.
But Nina gnawed at her fingernail. “I just don’t think we can, when my dad’s not here. If Mum did realize we were missing, and she was here all by herself . . .”
I flexed my fingers, frustrated. “How’s that different from both of them finding us missing? And she’d guess what we were doing, wouldn’t she? It’s hardly the crime of the century, is it? It’s just a party.”
But Nina shook her head. “If Dad was here, he’d come into the village to look for us, but Mum by herself . . . She’d be distraught. I can’t risk it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” I glared at her. “This is ridiculous. I’ll go by myself then.”
“You won’t.” Her eyes glittered. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I wanted to cry with frustration. But I couldn’t risk disobeying Nina.
I could feel all my old insecurities returning, sliding along my skin, slipping into my pores, and creeping around my body.
I stomped away down the spiral staircase and slammed my own bedroom door behind me.
I loved Nina like a sister, but sometimes I hated her too.
I couldn’t sneak out without her, in case she told Leonora.
Despite my sometimes ambiguous feelings about Raven Hall, I still didn’t want to be sent away.
We didn’t go to the party.
* * *
I was still in a bad mood with Nina when Markus returned from his trip abroad. Nina and I stood side by side on the top step as Leonora hugged him on the gravel, and Markus laughed as he swung his suitcases from the car boot.
“These are twice as heavy as when I left; I’ve stuffed them with so many presents for you.”
But as Nina trotted down the steps and launched herself into his arms, his gaze slid over her head and landed on me, and his taken-aback expression made me feel acutely self-conscious.
Had he forgotten I lived with them now? Or perhaps he hated my new look?
I tucked my hair behind my ear and waited for Nina to let him go, and by the time he came up to greet me, his face was friendly again.
“How’re things, Beth?” he said. “You’ve both been growing up again, I see.”
I trailed after them—Leonora hanging on to one of his arms, and Nina on the other—and I knew they all noticed my quietness at the welcome-home dinner that Leonora had prepared for him.
But I didn’t know how to hide this painful loneliness that gnawed at me in spite of the warm chatter around me, and as soon as I could, I slipped away and went to play my violin in my bedroom.
I missed my parents and Ricky as if it were only three weeks they’d been gone instead of three years.
It was a sign of how much of an outsider I was feeling that I even began to look forward to Caroline’s dutiful Christmas visit. She might be cold and selfish, but at least she was my real family.