Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Seven

Rideten, Five Years Before

Aislen fought her way through the press of students all seeking their own recess break-time locations, trying to avoid being touched by any of them, but failing miserably, the bubbles bursting around her, almost drowning her in noise.

(Fucking whore! Triquetra’s whore!)

(Got what she deserved.)

The bursting bubbles released a flood of black water and for a moment, it threatened to drag her under. In the depths, she saw Toby’s bloated face bobbing by. She fought her way to the surface, breaking free, to find that she stood, dry, in the school yard.

(Pregnant slut!)

Aislen looked down to find that her stomach had swollen into a round ball, pushing up her shirt and jumper and down the waist of her skirt to reveal skin stretched tight. She tried to tug her shirt and jumper down to hide it, to cover it with her hands, shame and humiliation flustering her, but it was too large, and growing every moment. She knew that there was no way she could hide it, and no way she could outrun it. It was, after all, within her.

“There is another way,” Lucy appeared before her. Lucy’s face was deathly white, her irises blanched in death, her lips blue. She offered Aislen a bloodied knitting needle. “It hurts like nothing else, but give it a good shove, and you won’t be pregnant anymore.”

Aislen danced back from the puddle of blood that formed around Lucy’s feet, dripping down her legs and staining her socks.

“They don’t care what happens to us,” Lucy told her, her skin turning black and her body crumbling into dust before Aislen’s eyes, until nothing remained but a sticky pool of blood reflecting her own face back at her.

She heard Lillian’s laughter, and looked up, to the grassy knoll, at the ring of jocks and cheerleaders.

“Shh,” Diana held her finger to her lips. “Don’t show, don’t tell.”

Lillian held the polaroid photos that Heath had taken in her hand like they were cards. “There are two ways to silence a mouthy cunt,” she said.

Heath and Cameron looked over Lillian’s shoulder at the photos.

“I like that one,” Cameron pointed to one of the shots. “That’s fucking sexy.”

Heath rose to his feet, his expression stern and strained. “Just behave Aislen.”

Beyond them, Rhett used a knife to carve the Triquetra’s knotted, twisted triangle into his skin, over and over, blood running off his fingertips. He met her eyes and smiled. “I’m running out of room on me. Can I start on you?”

Aislen woke with a start.

For a moment she lay, listening to Bianca snore in the bed on the other side of the screen that divided the room into two. Just a dream, she told herself, feeling the cold prick of sweat on her skin. Just a dream. Just a nightmare.

Her stomach kicked in, and she slapped a hand over her mouth, shoving her way free of the bedclothes and running from the room, down to the bathroom, just managing to close the door and fumble the toilet seat up before vomiting into the water. “Fuck,” she groaned. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She brushed her teeth and showered quickly, before wrapping her bath robe around her.

Bianca was at the door when she opened it. “Hey,” she said as Aislen stepped out.

“Hey,” Aislen replied. In the week since she had arrived at Rideten’s School of Art, hey was about the most in-depth a conversation as she had with her roommate. Her and Bianca’s schedules seemed to run to different classes, different mealtimes, and different sleep schedules – with Aislen often retiring early, exhausted by the early stages of pregnancy, whilst Bianca returned to the room past midnight and only seemed to need five to six hours of sleep to function.

“So,” Bianca leaned against the doorframe.

Aislen paused, surprised by the new syllable. “So?”

“So, the girls and I are heading out tonight. It’s a Friday after all. Dancing, drinking… Men,” Bianca lifted an eyebrow. “Are you in?”

“Sure, thanks,” Aislen was thrilled with the invitation and the inclusion.

“Great,” Bianca smiled. “New girl buys the first round of shots.”

“Okay.” A couple of drinks wouldn’t hurt, Aislen added to herself as Bianca closed the bathroom door. Aislen continued into the bedroom. She dressed and applied her makeup, thinking of Rhett as she applied black shadow to her eyelids. She put her hair up, taming the curls into a severe, high bun.

Only when she was absolutely ready, nothing more to do before going downstairs, did she let herself check her phone, the momentary hope dashed by the blank screen. No missed calls, no messages. Not even from Tiffany and Patrick.

She hesitated before dialling the Edison’s number.

It rang twice, before a man answered, and for a moment, Aislen’s heart leapt. “Cameron?”

“He’s not here,” Mr. Edison said, his voice so similar that it made Aislen’s heart ache all the more. “Who is this?” From his tone of voice, he knew though.

“Aislen,” she told him. “Aislen Carter. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Cameron. Do you have his mobile phone number?”

“No,” he was curt. “You have to stop calling every day. You’re upsetting my wife. She’s not well, and your constant calls are not good for her.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Aislen whispered. “But I really need to talk to Cameron, or Rhett, or Heath, or all of them… Yours is the only number listed.”

“Something that we’ll be remedying next year,” he replied with a sigh. “I can’t help you. My wife and I can’t help you. Leave us alone. Leave our son alone. Just… get on with your own life.”

“Please,” Aislen pleaded. “Please… I really… I need to talk to him. To them.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to you. He doesn’t want you. Just, forget about him, and stop calling here!” Mr. Edison hung up the phone. She redialled but got the engaged signal. He had left the phone off the hook, she thought bitterly, to stop her from calling again.

She put the phone into her bag along with her art supplies for the classes of the day.

She was the only one in the kitchen and made herself a quick breakfast of tea and toast, washing and stacking the dishes when she was done. As she stepped out of the house, she lit a cigarette, knowing that she needed to stop smoking, but, almost in defiance, her body seemed to crave it more and more.

Each breath of cigarette smoke reminded her of Rhett, of the taste of his tongue, of his wicked smile as he blew out a stream of smoke. The craving was not a craving for nicotine, she acknowledged to herself, but a craving for the Triquetra that she was trying to sate with the tools that she had on hand.

The first class was figurative work. As the teacher positioned the models, Aislen arranged her sketchpad and charcoal.

“Drawing the human body is to develop an understanding of light and form,” the teacher announced, stepping back from the models. “Subtle detail and nuance are important. You need to connect with the model, to delve into what makes that person special and beautiful. This is the study of humanity in all its grace and frailty.”

Aislen began to draw without seeing the models as anything more than shapes. In her mind, she pictured the Triquetra rather than the men and woman who posed before her. Her mind drifted over the shadows that caught in the valleys between Rhett’s stomach muscles, the texture of the curls in Cameron’s hair, the way the light stole the colour from Heath’s eyes.

Concentrate Aislen, she told herself, shaking herself free of fantasy and focusing on what her hand and eyes had translated onto paper. However, as she did, she felt her heart stutter - the woman was pregnant.

She looked up at the model to confirm that the rounded belly wasn’t Aislen projecting her own situation on her art. No. The woman was pregnant and glowing with it.

In the break, when the models, dressed in the white robes that the school provided, gathered around the coffee and tea table, Aislen watched the woman in fascination as she flirted with another model. He kissed her, lingeringly, his hand cupping her stomach. He broke the kiss, looking down in surprise, and then up, his face lighting in delight. The woman laughed.

The baby had kicked.

Aislen hurried from the room, rushing out into the garden, doubling over, her hands braced on her knees as she dragged in air. That wasn’t in her future, she realized with cold hard clarity. Heath, Rhett, or Cameron wouldn’t share a moment of joyful amazement as the baby kicked, and they wouldn’t look at her with such light and love in their eyes.

“Oh, god,” she whispered. What was she going to do?