The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven

Author:Laura Steven [Steven, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-07-06T18:30:00+00:00

I got back from town late on bonfire night, having filed a postal request with the National Archives for the most recent architectural drawings of the convent. I’d claimed it was for a ‘school project’, because it never hurt to pretend to be twelve in these situations. Having endured a full day of lectures, seminars and hockey practice, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep reading.

The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by Alice.

Alice; wide-eyed, shaking, convulsing, spittle around the corners of her mouth, drenched in blue-ish shadow, hands outstretched to my neck, rasping, ‘I need your blood.’

I propped myself up on to my elbows, sure I’d misheard. ‘You . . . what?’

She sank to her knees, jaw cracking repeatedly as she gurned and shuddered like a dying spider. ‘I did . . . a ritual . . . my soul. It’s . . . split in two. Explain . . . later. Please, Lottie, ple-e-e-ease –’

Conflicting emotions rattled through me.

First, excitement. This was a lead. A big one.

Second, genuine concern for Alice; for the cartoon villain, for the girl who made me cry on my birthday. She looked so afraid, and it made me afraid for her. The pang of worry had an unusual texture to it, somehow deeper and grainier than it should have been.

Third, belief. She was in no state to explain to me why she needed the blood, what this soul-splitting ritual entailed, and yet I knew in the very roots of myself that it was true, and it was important – and it had something to do with what had been happening to me.

Even though I was awake, glimpses of another dream-life flitted through my mind: illuminated manuscripts, wooded glades, falling bodies. Stinging nettles, swarms of moths, vials of blood, red spatters on a white cornette.

The ruby in my throat burned hotter than a poker in a forge.

The pain rendered me momentarily useless. I fell to my knees beside Alice, breathless, the taste of blood in my mouth, as though the poker had pierced my neck, a melting blade I had fallen upon. It was so intense, so absolute, that I couldn’t even cry out.

I knew, without knowing how I knew, that the only way to stop it was to help Alice.

It was all connected, somehow.

It was all in the horrifying bones of Carvell. In its flesh and sinews, ancient and cruel.

I crawled to the small drawer in my writing desk, pulled out the eight-centimetre Damascus-steel pocketknife engraved with my family crest, tore it from its tan leather sheath, and pressed the very tip of the blade into the palm of my hand until it drew a few crimson beads.

Rasping and writhing, Alice handed me one of the vials I recognised from her briefcase. This one was filled with strange ingredients and smelled of elderflower cordial. I wordlessly added the blood and passed it back to her.

She drank it greedily, desperately, as though she’d been walking through the desert for a hundred years in search of this very tonic.

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