I peered out of the back window, and saw Aunt Phoebe standing on the doorstep. She gave me a sad wave. I watched her shrink as we drove, fading into the sunlight that streamed through the trees.
I turned around, and saw my eyes reflected in the driver’s mirror. They were brimming with tears.
On a few occasions she turned around to give me a look, and I tried to avoid her eye. Eventually she turned her angry gaze on the passing countryside instead, allowing me back into my own world.
The trouble was that my world was filled with Scarlet. Everything we passed in the familiar landscape reminded me of her. The way she used to hop over wooden stiles, while I dangled my legs over warily. The way she used to pick the green leaves off the bushes and crush them into tiny pieces. The way she used to smile at the blue sky, pointing out the shapes in the clouds that only she could see.
The worst was when I noticed two girls, perhaps sisters, playing together in a garden. I felt the memory flow through me, and as hard as I tried, it wouldn’t stop coming. The day Scarlet left for school …
We were standing there on the lawn, each with our matching suitcases; Scarlet in her uniform, me in a plain pink dress.
Father wanted to send us away. “Time to get an education,” he said. “Time to become proper young ladies,” he said. But Scarlet had won a place, and I hadn’t. So they were sending her to Rookwood School, and me to stay with Aunt Phoebe. Father waved goodbye to us with a glass of whisky in his hand. Our stepmother, wearing a pinafore and a grimace, dismissed us without even a second glance as she fussed over her sons, our stepbrothers.
Maybe Aunt Phoebe was a better alternative to our parents, but she was strange and scatterbrained. You could never tell what she was thinking.
There on the lawn, with the suitcases, I knew what Scarlet was thinking. She wished that we were both going to the school, so she wouldn’t have to go alone. I knew she was thinking that, because I was thinking it too. I started to cry; big, gulping, childish sobs.
Scarlet took my hand. “Don’t worry, Ivy-Pie,” she said bravely. “I’ll write you a letter every week. And you’ll write me one back. And when I’ve finished school I’ll come and get you, and we’ll run away together and become beautiful actresses, or prima ballerinas, only we’ll be even more famous because we’re twins. And we can go to America, and everyone in the whole world will want to be our friend.”
I cried even harder. Because it was ridiculous, and I would miss the ridiculous things that Scarlet came out with. Not only that, but because we both knew that I would never become famous and loved by everyone.
That destiny could only be Scarlet’s.
I wiped away a tear and quietly folded my knees up on the seat, risking further tutting from Miss Fox. But she didn’t notice, so I stayed curled up there, trawling through my memories.
Scarlet making a fortress from blankets, protecting her dolls from the Viking Hordes. (That would be me. I wasn’t much of a horde.)
Scarlet leaving trails of painted Easter eggs around our garden, making me find them with clues and riddles. (Our stepbrothers always tried to smash them.)
Scarlet brushing her hair for a hundred strokes before she would let me plait it.
Scarlet hunched over her diary, scribbling away, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth.
My sister always wrote in her diary. Every little event had to be pinned to the page. I never saw the point of it then, but she always said that if she didn’t write down everything that happened, it would just disappear forever. There would be no one to remember.
I told her that I would remember, always, but she just laughed and took no notice.
I started picking at the stitching of the seat nervously. There was no way that Scarlet would have been afraid in this situation. She would have taken it in her stride, asked all the questions I wanted answers to. But Ivy Grey never asked questions. Well, not difficult ones anyway. I always just did as I was told.
“Stop that, child,” Miss Fox hissed. “And sit properly!”
I looked up from my lap, but she had already turned away.
Scarlet would have answered back. Scarlet would have drummed her feet on the seats. Scarlet would have ripped out every bit of that stupid stitching.
I did as I was told.
Soon the road widened, and more houses slid into view. I saw a dark-haired man digging his garden, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. His beard and strong features reminded me of Father, and I felt a sudden pang of guilt – I hadn’t even spoken to him for months. He was working in London, I supposed. The economy was still reeling from the Crash and it had left him working all the hours he could.
It wasn’t as if I was close to our father. When we were younger, he had been a fiery man, always shouting. But soon after our stepmother came along, he became different. Scarlet was relieved; she was grateful for the peace, didn’t miss the fire. She could never understand why I would prefer the man who shouted at us to the man who spent long hours withdrawn, blank-faced.
With three boys to spoil, our stepmother swiftly decided it was too much for her to keep looking after us as well. That was when she suggested that he ship us off to boarding school.
If only he hadn’t sent us away. If only we’d stayed together.
If only …
The car slid through a pair of enormous gates. Beside them were pillars topped with stone rooks in flight, their wings spread wide and claws grasping at the air.
A long drive snaked its way up to the school, through a cloak of trees and past what looked like a lake shimmering in the distance. We came to a halt and I heard the driver’s feet hit the gravel as he climbed out.
“Watch your step, miss,” he said, pulling open the door.
I smiled up at him as best I could as I clambered out with my bag.
Rookwood School loomed over me, huge and imposing. The bright green trees that lined the drive looked lost in the gloom of the building. The walls were stone – the highest parts blackened by years of chimney smoke. Dark pillars stretched towards the sky in front of me, and crenellations framed the vast slate roof.
It looked like a castle. Or a prison.
It took all my strength not to turn and run back down the length of the drive. Of course, even if I had, I would surely have been caught and punished.
Rooks flew past overhead, their loud caws mixing with the distant shrieks of girls playing hockey.
“Don’t just stand there gaping, girl.” Miss Fox was looking at me like I was an unexpected slug on the sole of her shoe. “Follow me, unless you think you have something better to do.”
“Yes, Miss … no, Miss.”
She turned around, muttering something that I couldn’t hear.
I followed her up the front steps, her sharp shoes clacking and pockets jangling. The front doors were huge,