Текст книги "Finding Sky"

Автор книги: Joss Stirling

Соавторы: Joss Stirling
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‘Yeah, as if that’s going to happen. Sky, you’re my soulfinder, my partner—you can’t just walk away from me.’

‘I can’t?’

‘You must have felt it too. I knew as soon as you answered me—it was like, I don’t know how to say this, like the fog lifting. I could real y see you.’ He ran a finger down my cheek. I shivered. ‘Do you know what the odds of us finding each other are?’

‘Whoa. Go back a little. Soulfinder?’

‘Yeah.’ He grinned and tugged me closer. ‘No half life existence for us. It’s taken me a few days to get over the shock and I’ve been waiting to speak to you so I can break the news to my folks.’

He had to be winding me up. I placed my hands on his chest and pushed him back. ‘Zed, I’ve not a clue what you are talking about. But if you expect me to

… to … I don’t know what you expect, but it’s not happening. You don’t like me; I don’t like you. Get over it.’

He was incredulous. ‘ Get over it? Savants wait al their lives to find the one and you think I can get over it?’

‘Why not? I don’t even know what a savant is!’

He thumped his chest. ‘I’m one.’ He prodded me.

‘You’re one. Your gifts, Sky—they make you a savant. You must get that at least.’

I’d plotted stupid stuff in my head, but this was way beyond anything I could have thought up. I took a step back. ‘Can I have the shopping bag, please?’

‘What? That’s it? We make the most astounding discovery of our lives and you’re just going to go home?’

I took a quick look round, hoping to see someone.

Mrs Hoffman would do. My parents even better. ‘Um

… yes. Looks like it.’

‘You can’t!’

‘Just watch me.’

I tugged the bag from his fingers and hurried the last few yards to my house.

‘Sky, you can’t ignore this!’ He stood under the street lamp, sleet settling in his hair, hands fisted at his side. ‘You’re mine—you have to be.’

‘No. I. Don’t.’

I slammed the front door.

I couldn’t sleep that nigh

t. Hardly surprising seeing

what had happened out on the street with Zed.

Arrogant jerk. Thinking he could just announce that I was his and I would fal into his arms. I might fancy him but that didn’t mean I liked him. He was cold, abrupt, and rude. He’d crush me in five minutes if I was so foolish as to go out with him.

And as for al that soulfinder stuff—wel , that was just bizarre.

And what the heck was a savant?

I got out of bed and pul ed on a dressing gown, too restless to lie in bed turning the conversation over and over in my mind. There was so much I didn’t understand but I was afraid to ask for an explanation.

That premonition stuff had been plain creepy—he had me half believing him. But I didn’t want to change my life just because a guy dreamt something might happen to me. What next? He could say I had to wear only orange or risk getting run over by a bus? Would I go to school looking like a tangerine on his say-so? No, it was al just a ploy to get me doing what he wanted.

Which was what?

The back of my neck prickled. The conviction grew that I wasn’t alone. Nervous now, I moved to the window and gingerly drew back the curtain, Psycho-

style music shrieking in my head.

‘Sheesh!’ Heart in my mouth, I found myself face to face with Zed. I literal y had to bite my tongue to stop myself screaming. He’d climbed the apple tree and was sitting outside my room, straddling the branch. I threw open the window. ‘What are you doing there?’ I hissed. ‘Get down, go away.’

‘Invite me in.’ He levered himself along the limb.

‘Stop—get down!’ Panicking, I wondered if I should cal Simon.

‘No, don’t get your dad. I need to talk to you.’

I flapped my hands at him. ‘Go away! I don’t want you here.’

‘I know.’ He gave up on the idea of forcing his way into my room. ‘Sky, why don’t you know you’re a savant?’

I contemplated slamming the window on this weird Romeo-and-Juliet scene. ‘I can’t answer that when I don’t understand the question.’

‘You heard me speaking to you—in your head.

You didn’t just fol ow my hint, you heard words.’

‘I … I … ’

You answered me.

I stared at him. He was doing it again—telepathy, wasn’t it cal ed? No, no, I was projecting—this wasn’t happening.

‘Al savants can do it.’

‘I’m not hearing anything. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘I can see that and I have to know why.’

Confused, the only strategy I could come up with was denial. I had to get him out of my apple tree. ‘I’m sure that’s very fascinating but it’s late and I want to sleep. So … um … goodnight, Zed. Let’s talk about this some other time.’ Like never.

‘You won’t even give me a hearing?’ He folded his arms.

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I’m your soulfinder.’

‘Stop that. I don’t understand you. You’re nothing to me. You’re rude, cold, you don’t even like me and have taken every opportunity to criticize me.’

He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘So that’s what you think of me?’

I nodded. ‘Maybe this is, I dunno, your latest plot to humiliate me in some way—pretending you want me.’

‘You real y don’t like me, do you?’ He gave a hol ow laugh. ‘Great, my soulfinder doesn’t understand the first thing about me.’

I folded my arms to hide the fact that I was trembling. ‘What’s there to understand? Jerks are pretty easy to read.’

Frustrated at my repeated rebuffs, he made a move towards me.

I took a step back. ‘Get out of my tree.’ My finger was shaking as I pointed to the gate.

To my surprise, he didn’t refuse, just studied my face, then nodded. ‘OK. But this isn’t over, Sky.

We’ve got to talk.’

‘Get out.’

‘I’m going.’ With that, he dropped to the ground and disappeared into the night.

With a sob of relief, I slammed the window shut and col apsed on the bed. Tugging the duvet around me, I curled up, wondering what exactly was happening here.

And what I was going to do about it.

That night the dream came again, but this time with more details. I remembered the hunger—I’d barely had anything to eat for days except crisps and chocolate. They left me feeling sick. My knees were grubby and my hair matted on the side I preferred to lie on at night. My mouth felt sore, my lip swol en where it was cut on the inside. Sitting on the grass verge, I felt empty of anything but fear, a churning sense of panic in my stomach that I could only conquer by concentrating on the daisies. They were so white, even in the darkness they glowed against the grass, petals folded. I hugged my knees, gathering myself up like one of them.

I didn’t like the smel here—dog, car fumes, and litter. And a bonfire. I hated fire. The roar of the motorway droned on; the traffic sounded angry and rushed, no time for a lost little girl.

I waited.

Then the dream changed. This time it wasn’t a lady in a headscarf who came up to me—it was Zed.

He stood over me and held out a hand.

‘You’re mine,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to claim you.’

I woke, heart pounding, just as dawn broke behind the mountains.

The next few days at school were a slow torture.

Compared to the first weeks where I hardly ever saw him, I now ran across Zed at every turn. I could feel his brooding gaze as I walked through the dining hal or passed along the corridor. I begged Tina for lifts home and even dropped in on Mrs Hoffman when I got back so as not to be alone in the house. Zed was making me a prisoner. It was one thing to hanker after Wolfman from afar; it was entirely different to find him zeroing in on you.

Saturday morning and there was a knock on the door early. Simon and Sal y were stil in bed, so I went to answer it, mug of tea in hand, expecting it to be a delivery for the studio.

It was Zed, holding a massive bunch of flowers. He thrust it at me before I could shut the door on him.

‘Let’s start again.’ He held out a hand. ‘Hi, I’m Zed Benedict. And you are?’

I grappled with the flowers—they were my favourite colours—purple and blue.

‘Go on—this is the easy part. “I am Sky Bright and I’m from England.”’ He put on such a ridiculous accent I felt some of my reluctance folding under the urge to laugh.

‘I do not speak like that.’

‘Sure you do. Go on.’

‘Hi, I’m Sky Bright. I’m from Richmond, England.’

‘Now you say, “Wow, what lovely flowers. How about coming in for a nice cup of tea?”’

That accent had to go. I threw a look over my shoulder, wondering if Sal y or Simon would come down.

‘They’re asleep.’ Zed nodded into the house.

‘So?’

‘Wel , they are lovely flowers.’ Perhaps we did have to talk. Here was better than school. I stepped out of the way. ‘Coffee?’ He didn’t seem the sort for a cup of PG Tips.

‘If you insist.’ He smiled, a shade nervously for him, and entered.

‘Come through to the kitchen.’ I busied myself switching on the kettle and finding a vase for the flowers. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? I messed up. I want to say sorry.’

I tipped the plant food into the water. ‘These are a good start.’ Actual y, it was the first time anyone had ever given me flowers. I felt less nervous in daytime, knowing my parents were just upstairs. I could cope with this conversation if he felt the urge to apologize.

Tina would probably think it worthy of its own newsflash if she knew that the great Zed Benedict had stooped to humble himself to a girl.

Zed juggled with the cafetière. ‘How does this thing work?’

I took it from him and showed him how much coffee to put in. ‘You’re not very at home in a kitchen?’

‘Family of boys,’ he said as if that explained it.

‘We’ve a coffee maker—does great filter coffee.’

‘And she’s cal ed your mum.’

He laughed. ‘No way. She gets waited on hand and foot in our house.’

OK, I could do this. We were having a normal conversation about normal things.

He took his mug and sat at the breakfast bar. ‘So tel me something about yourself. I play drums and guitar. How about you?’

‘Piano, sax, and guitar.’

‘See, we can talk without me freaking out on you.’

‘Yeah.’ I chanced a look at him; he was watching me like a bear crouched over a hole in the ice, ready to hook a salmon. ‘You … you like al music, or just jazz?’

‘Al , but I like the freedom to improvise.’ He patted a place next to him on the bench. I sat down, keeping a space between us. ‘I like to cut free of what has to be. For me it’s a kind of free fal with the notes as the parachute.’

‘I like that too.’

‘It’s musicians’ music. Not so straightforward as some but real y repays when you get into it.’ He gave me a look, asking me to understand there was another meaning below his surface words. ‘I mean, you’ve got to be real y confident to launch into an off-the-cuff solo and not make a fool of yourself.

Everyone can make mistakes when they rush something, go in too early.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You real y didn’t know.’

Oh God, he was going to raise that savant stuff again.

He shook his head. ‘And you’ve not the faintest idea why I warned you that day. You think I’ve been trying to scare you.’

‘Weren’t you? Al that stuff about knives and blood.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles, clenched on the table between us. ‘It’s funny sitting with you. I get so much from you, like you’re broadcasting on al frequencies.’

I frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

He stretched his long legs out, gently bumping mine. ‘It’s difficult to explain. I’m sorry I’ve been rude to you.’

‘Rude? I just thought that you had some weird al ergic reaction to economy-sized English girls.’

He looked me over. ‘Is that what you are?’

‘Um … yeah.’ I stared at my feet. ‘Stil waiting for that growth spurt Sal y’s been promising since I was fourteen.’

‘Your height’s perfect. I come from a family of giant redwoods; a bonsai makes a pleasant change.’

Bonsai! If I’d known him better I would have dug him in the ribs for that one. Too shy, I let it pass. ‘So you’re not going to explain what’s been the problem with me?’

‘Not today. I’ve messed it up once; I’m not going to risk spoiling it a second time by rushing. This is too important.’ He picked up my hand and punched himself in the side with it. ‘There—I deserved that.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Yep, that’s me.’ But stil he didn’t explain how he knew I’d wanted to do that.

Zed released my hand. ‘OK, I’l head out now. I don’t want to push my luck. It was good meeting you, Sky. See you around.’

I didn’t trust this reformed-bad-boy behaviour, but Zed clearly wasn’t letting this go. On Monday at the end of school, he was waiting for me by Tina’s car.

‘Hi, Tina, how’s it going?’

Tina stared at him, then looked at me, eyebrow quirked. ‘Fine, Zed. You?’

‘Great. Sky, ready to go home?’ He held out a motorbike helmet.

‘Tina’s giving me a lift.’

‘I’m sure she won’t mind if I do that. I want to make sure Sky gets home, OK, Tina?’

Tina looked as if she did mind, not least because she didn’t trust Zed any more than I. ‘I said I’d take Sky.’

He held the helmet out to me. ‘Please?’

Zed Benedict saying ‘please’. Icicles were forming in Hel . And he was offering to fulfil one of my private fantasies: me riding out of school on the back of a hot bike. I knew it was a kind of cliché, but this rocked.

‘Sky?’ asked Tina, worried now.

I suppose such humility should be encouraged.

‘It’s OK. Thanks, Tina. I’l go with Zed.’ I took the helmet.

‘If you’re sure.’ She bunched her dreadlocks back, a gesture that I knew meant she was uncomfortable.

Not real y. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah.’ Her last look left me in no doubt that I was going to get a gril ing on what happened after she left.

Zed led me over to his bike. We were attracting quite a few astonished stares from the students mil ing about.

‘I’ve never ridden one of these before,’ I admitted as I climbed on behind him.

‘The secret is to hold on tight.’

I couldn’t see his face but I would’ve sworn he was grinning. I slid forward and looped my arms around his waist, my legs brushing his hips. Easing out of the car park, he turned the bike up the hil . As he pushed up the speed, I tightened my grip. I felt a brief caress of his hand on mine—a reassuring touch.

‘Doing OK back there?’

‘Fine.’

‘Want to go a bit further? I can take you up into the mountains. There’s about thirty minutes of light left.’

‘Maybe just a little way.’

He went past the turning to my house and up the road. It became a switchback. There was little beyond here, only a few hunting cabins and a couple of isolated chalets. He pul ed up on a promontory with a view back down the val ey. The sun was setting ahead of us, bathing everything in a buttery gold light that gave an il usion of warmth despite the cold.

Parking the bike, he helped me dismount and let me admire the view in peace for a few minutes. The overnight frost stil hung on in shady patches, the leaves, edged with white, crunchy underfoot. I could see for miles—the mountains which I had ignored al day thrusting themselves back into my conscious thoughts, reminding me of my insignificance in comparison to them.

‘So, Sky, how was your day?’

Such a regular question from Zed was a surprise: Wolfman turning into puppy-carrying-slippers? I think not. It was kinda hard to trust him when he was acting so normal. ‘Fine. I did a little composing at lunchtime.’

‘I saw you at the piano.’

‘You didn’t come in?’

He laughed and held up his hands. ‘I’m being careful. Very, very careful with you. You’re a scary girl.’

‘Me?’

‘Think about it. You rip me up in the parking lot in front of my friends, save my best penalty kick, chuck me out of your apple tree—yeah, you’re terrifying.’

I smiled. ‘I like the sound of that.’ SuperSky.

He grinned. He hadn’t guessed my thoughts, had he?

‘But what scares me the most is that there’s so much riding on our relationship and you don’t even know it.’

I huffed out a sigh. ‘OK, Zed, try and explain it to me again. I’l listen this time.’

He nodded. ‘I guess you don’t know anything about savants?’

‘I know more about soccer.’

He laughed at that. ‘I’l just give you a little information now then, just to get us started. Let’s sit here for a moment.’ He boosted me up so I could perch on a fal en tree trunk, putting my eyes on a level with his as he leaned against it. It was the closest we’d been to each other since the raft and I was suddenly very aware of his eyes drifting over my features. It almost felt as if his fingers, not his gaze, were caressing my skin. ‘Sure you want to hear?

’Cause if I tel you, I’ve got to ask you to keep it a secret for the sake of the rest of my family.’

‘Who would I tel ?’ I sounded oddly breathless.

‘I dunno. The National Enquirer maybe. Oprah. A congressional committee.’ His expression was wry.

‘Er, no, no and definitely not,’ I laughed, counting them off on my fingers.

‘OK then.’ He smiled and brushed a tendril of hair off my brow. There was a quivering intensity to him, as though he was holding himself in check, afraid to let go of the reins. A little nervous, I groped for one of my usual distancing techniques, trying to recast this encounter as one of my comic strip imaginings, but found that I couldn’t. He made me stay right here and now, completely in focus. The colours—his hair, eyes, clothes—weren’t brash, but subtle, sparkling, multi-toned. High definition had switched on in my head.

‘Savants: I’m one. Al my family are, but I’ve got a heavy dose being the seventh son. My mom’s a seventh child too.’

‘And that makes it worse?’

I could count every single lash framing his spectacular eyes.

‘Yeah, there’s a multiplier effect. Savants have this gift; it’s like an extra shift in a car, makes us go a little bit faster and further than normal people.’

‘Right. OK.’

He rubbed his hand gently in circles on my knee, calming me. ‘It means we can talk telepathical y to each other. With people who don’t have the savant gene, they would feel an impression, an impulse, not hear the voice. That’s what I thought would happen when I spoke to you on the soccer pitch. I was pretty surprised when you understood me—blown away, in fact.’

‘Because?’

‘Because it meant that you are a telepath too. And when a soulfinder speaks telepathical y to her partner, it’s like al the lights coming on in a building.

You lit me up like Vegas.’

‘I see.’ I didn’t want to believe any of this but I remembered hearing his voice tel ing me to float when I’d fal en out of the raft. But it had to be a coincidence—I wouldn’t al ow it to be anything else.

He rested his head against mine. I made a subtle move to retreat but he curled his fingers around my nape, holding me gently to him. ‘No, you don’t. Not yet. There’s more.’

The warmth of his hand seeped through to relax my tense neck muscles. ‘I thought there might be.’

‘When’s your birthday?’

What possible relevance did that have? ‘Um …

first of March. Why?’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not right.’

‘It’s the day of my adoption.’

‘Ah, I see. That’s why.’ He flicked his fingers lightly over the curve of my shoulder then let his hand drop to cover mine which I’d clasped on my lap. We stayed like that in silence for a while. I sensed a shadow—a presence in my mind.

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he said. ‘I’m just checking.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m imagining this.’

He gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘I’m just checking my facts. I can’t make a mistake about something like a soulfinder.’ He moved away, the sense of him being with me receding, leaving me lonely. ‘I understand now. You’ve come from a dark place, haven’t you?’

What could I say to that?

‘You don’t know who your biological parents are?’

‘No.’ My nerves returned, coiling horribly inside me like maggots swarming out of a rotten apple. He was finding out too much. Letting people close hurt—this had to stop.

‘So you never knew that you had a gift.’

‘Wel , that’s because I don’t. I’m ordinary. No extra shifts in here.’ I tapped my head.

‘Not that you’ve found. But they’re there. You see, Sky, when a savant is born, his or her counterpart also arrives about the same time somewhere on the earth. It could be next door, or maybe thousands of miles away.’ He linked his fingers with mine. ‘You have half our gifts, I the other. Together we make a whole. Together we are much more powerful.’

I rol ed my eyes. ‘It sounds sweet, a nice fairy tale, but it can’t possibly be true.’

‘Not sweet. Think about it: the chances of meeting your other half are tiny. Most of us are doomed to knowing there’s something better out there but we can’t discover it. My parents were two of the lucky ones; they have each other thanks to a wise man of my dad’s people with a gift for finding. None of my brothers have yet located their partner and each of them struggles with it. It’s a kil er, knowing things could be so much more. That’s why I rushed. I was a starving man facing a banquet.’

‘And if they never meet their soulfinder?’

‘It

can

go

many

ways—despair,

anger,

acceptance. It gets worse as the years tick by. It hadn’t real y begun to worry me yet. I’m incredibly lucky to escape al that angst.’

I refused to believe this yarn he was spinning and took refuge in flippancy. ‘Seems simple to me. Can’t they run a savant match-making service on Facebook or something? Problem solved.’

He smiled wryly. ‘Like we haven’t thought of that.

But it’s not about your birthday exactly, but when you were conceived—that gives quite a lot of variation nine months on. Think how many people in the world were born on or around your birthday. Then factor in the premature babies, the ones overdue. You’d be trawling through thousands. Savants are rare—

there’s only one in every ten thousand or so. And not every savant lives in a country like ours with computers at home. Or even speaks the same language.’

‘Yeah, I see that.’ Sort of, if I was going to buy this whole thing, which I didn’t.

He cupped my chin gently in his palm. ‘But against the odds, I’ve discovered you. On a soccer pitch of al places. Sky Bright from Richmond, England.’

This was so strange. ‘What does this al mean?’

‘It means that’s it for us. For life.’

‘Joking?’

He shook his head.

‘But I’m only here for, like, a year.’

‘Just a year?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘And you do what then? Go back to England?’

I shrugged, assuming a calm I didn’t feel. ‘I don’t know. It depends on Sal y and Simon. It’s going to be hard because I’l have done a year here and the course is completely different back in the UK. I don’t want to start al over again.’

‘Then we’l find a way for you to stay. Or I’l fol ow you to England.’

‘You wil ?’ I was hyper conscious that his fingers had once more entwined with mine. I’d never imagined what it would be like just to hold hands with a boy. It was nice but a bit scary at the same time.

‘Hel , yeah. This is serious.’ He squeezed my fingers, taking a better grip. ‘So she doesn’t run for the hil s.’

‘Meaning?’

He lifted one of my hands and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He kept his fingers stil locked around mine as he leant beside me, looking out on the same view.

‘I thought you might be a bit wary of me at first, until you got used to me. The nice me, not the jerk me.’

‘Wary?’

‘Wolfman, remember? You’ve got me down on the dark side; I saw that in your thoughts.’

He knew about Wolfman? Kil me now, why don’t you?

‘No way, it’s cute.’

I gave a strangled groan of humiliation.

He

chuckled.

He

was

enjoying

my

embarrassment, the rat. ‘I know I can be a bit hard to talk to sometimes—like when we met at the ghost town. I’m going through … ’ he shook his head, ‘it’s tough right now. And sometimes, I just get, overwhelmed. Too much weighing on me.’

OK, I wasn’t buying the soulfinder stuff, but I couldn’t ignore that he had an uncanny ability to pluck thoughts from my head. ‘You’re not making this up? You do something, don’t you?’ I was thinking of the way he seemed to know what I was going to say before I said it.

‘I do a lot of things.’ The sun slid behind the horizon, the honeyed light fading to old gold. ‘I’d like to do some things with you, Sky, if you want to. I was wrong to rush in claiming you as my soulfinder—you need to arrive at the same place with me. After al , we’ve the rest of our lives to get this right.’

I swal owed. Tina had warned me about this. What could be more al uring than a boy tel ing you that you were more or less made for him? That’s what the evil guys always did to lure in those poor saps in the stories, wasn’t it? But right now I couldn’t think of that; al I could think about was Zed, standing there looking so … wel … hopeful. ‘What kind of things?’

He gently ran his free hand down my arm, linking fingers on my other side.

‘Go for a ride.’

I smiled shyly. ‘We’ve just been doing that.’

‘Then we’ve ticked the first box already. Next we might go out to the movies in Aspen, or risk the diner in Wrickenridge and have everyone stare at us al evening.’

‘The movies sound nice.’

‘With me?’

I looked down. ‘I might risk it. Once. But I stil don’t like you much.’

‘Understood.’ He nodded solemnly but his eyes were smiling.

‘And this soulfinder stuff—I don’t believe it. It leaves no room for choice, like some cosmic arranged marriage.’

He grimaced. ‘We’l leave that aside for the moment then. One step. Go out with me?’

What should I say? I liked this Zed, the one that brought flowers and kicked easy penalties to stop a newcomer being humiliated, but I hadn’t forgotten the angry, dangerous Wolfman. ‘OK, I’l give you a chance.’

He lifted my fingers to his mouth, gave them a playful nip, then let go. ‘Then it’s a date.’

I spent the next few days agonizing over my decision. Part of me was thril ed that I’d been asked on a date by Zed. I’d been manoeuvred into agreeing, that was true, but I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t felt flattered. As Zoe had once told me, any female with a pulse would want to be asked out by a Benedict. Stil , I didn’t want to spil it even to my closest girlfriends, mainly because I daren’t think it true. I had the crazy notion that saying it out loud might make it disappear like Cinderel a’s coach at midnight. I was also worried what Tina would say.

Something on the lines of ‘have you lost your mind?’.

I feared if I talked to her, she’d persuade me that he was manipulating me, that he’d love me and leave me in the classic pattern of the bad boy. I wanted to believe in the new Zed: that I’d got him wrong, that he could be gentle, that we had common ground and could find more given time. But there was so much to take on board—the savant stuff (was that even real?), the soulfinder thing he was fixated on. My deepest fear was that he was just pretending to like me because he needed me in some way I couldn’t yet fathom.

My mum noticed my distraction but she did not guess the cause.

‘Sky, are you listening to me?’

‘Um … yes?’ I hazarded.

‘You were not.’

‘OK, I wasn’t. What did you say?’

‘I said we should buy you something special for the opening.’ Sal y eyed the limited contents of my wardrobe with her usual good taste. ‘You’ve been worrying about it, haven’t you? That’s what’s got into you.’

‘Um …’

‘I agree: you don’t have anything here that wil do.

We’l have to get you a new outfit.’

The Arts Centre was marking the occasion of its formal opening with a black tie reception. Everyone in Wrickenridge was expected to turn out—after al , there wasn’t much competition for entertainment until the ski season arrived. And if Sal y thought I didn’t have a suitable outfit I was in trouble: Zed was bound to be there.

‘I’d like that but where can we go to shop? I can’t face going al the way into Denver.’

‘Mrs Hoffman—’

I groaned.

‘ Said there was a very nice boutique in Aspen, just forty-five minutes away on the interstate.’

In the end, Simon came too, saying we’d not spent enough time together as a family since arriving. He treated us to lunch in an Italian place, then made himself scarce while Sal y and I hit the boutique.

‘I might just get myself something new as wel ,’

said Sal y, fingering the rows of dresses with longing.

‘Oh, now the hidden agenda is revealed!’ I teased her, pul ing out a long red number. ‘This isn’t about me—it’s al about you. Try this on.’

After thirty minutes of indecision, we settled on two dresses with prices that Sal y tried to ignore. Aspen catered to the exclusive skiers, the Hol ywood A list, so had tags to match.

‘They are investments,’ she said, pul ing out her credit card. ‘Yours wil do for the bal in the summer.’

‘Prom,’ I corrected her. ‘And I think parents are supposed to cough up for a new dress for that too.

It’s tradition.’

‘Then I’l just have to sel a few more paintings.’

She closed her eyes and signed the bil .

We were giggling like mad conspirators as we got ready that evening.

‘Don’t tel Simon about the shoes,’ Sal y warned.

‘He doesn’t understand about the need for coordination.’ She bit her lip. ‘They were horribly expensive, weren’t they?’

‘Where are my girls?’ Simon shouted from downstairs. ‘We’l be late!’

Sal y went first down the stairs, posing for effect in her red sheath dress.

Simon gaped.

‘I look good?’ she asked, a smal frown forming.

‘I’ve changed my mind. Let’s stay home.’ He grinned, running his hand down her satin-clad back.

‘I hope Sky is wearing something a little less revealing. I’l be chasing off the boys if she looks anything like you.’

I presented myself for his inspection. I had chosen a forget-me-not blue strapless dress that stopped short just above my knee. I’d let my hair loose, leaving it curling down my back, held at the front by two jewel ed combs.

Simon shook his head. ‘I don’t think I can cope.

Back to your rooms, girls.’

We laughed and seized him by the arms, towing him out to the car.

‘But look at you, al dashing in your James Bond outfit!’ I told him, straightening his bow tie. He made it a point of honour to use a real one, then always had to get us to tie it for him. ‘Sal y and I wil be fighting the girls off with canapés and cocktail sticks.’

‘I look to you both to defend me,’ he said, winking at me in the rear-view mirror.

The Rodenheim Arts Centre had a roof line that echoed the peaks behind, sliced in two by an irregular glass pyramid lit up with a wash of blue light. On a crisp, cold night like this, the shapes made a dramatic contrast to the star scattered sky. It could almost be the prow of a spaceship travel ing through the Alpha Quadrant. Through the glass front I could see the party was already in ful swing. Mr Keneal y was spruced up for the evening, providing light music from a piano in the foyer. Waiting staff slipped through the crowd with trays loaded with nibbles, ranging from elaborate sushi to spicy Mexican dips.