towards the sound and then she saw it, on a little shelf to the right of the door, a crystal ball held in the cupped palms of a stone angel.
The crystal swirled with a milky white mist.
Touch me.
Lizzie stopped when her hand was about an inch from the crystal surface.
No. The urge was strong but she knew what would happen if she did. Ever since she had been a small child, she had had an uncanny knack of being able to read objects. It was something she had grown up with so at first it had seemed natural; it was only when she had first mentioned it to Kat, who had looked at her as though she was a changeling, that she realised not everyone had the gift. ‘It’s just your imagination running away with you,’ Kat had said, folding her in her embrace and stroking her hair, trying to soothe and normalise her, to reassure herself as much as Lizzie. ‘You see things because you want to see them, sweetie. It doesn’t mean anything…’
Lizzie had never mentioned it to her again after that but she had known Kat was wrong. Later, when she looked it up, she saw it was called psychometry. She used it carefully, secretly, to connect with her past and the mother she had lost as a child. The rest of the time she tried not to touch anything much at all if it was likely to give her a vision. She really didn’t want to know.
The crystal was calling to her. She rubbed her palms down her dress to stop herself reaching out to obey the unspoken whisper.
‘What did you see?’
Lizzie jumped. A boy was standing on the bottom step of the vast staircase, dwarfed by its height and breadth. He was staring at her. It was disconcerting; she hadn’t known anyone was there.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I didn’t touch it.’ She sounded defensive, which was ridiculous. She’d done nothing wrong and he was only a child. Deliberately she relaxed her face into the smile she used for the public.
‘Hi, I’m Lizzie.’
The boy looked at her as though he was trying to make some sort of private decision about her. It was an odd expression for such a young child; wary, thoughtful with a flash of calculation. It hinted, Lizzie thought, at a rather terrifying intelligence.
‘I’m Johnny.’ He came forward and stuck out a hand very formally. Lizzie shook it.
‘You’re Amelia’s brother. I saw you at the wedding.’ She recognised him now from the church, traipsing in behind the flower girls in Amelia’s wake, looking as though he’d rather be somewhere else. Amelia’s family had turned out in force for the wedding. They were all very close, a situation which Lizzie secretly envied.
‘They made me be a page boy.’ Johnny sounded disgusted. He looked down at his miniature three-piece suit with loathing. Lizzie could hardly blame him. It was horribly twee. ‘I hated it,’ he said. ‘I’m six years old, not a baby.’
Lizzie smothered another smile. ‘Life lesson, Johnny. People are always trying to make you do stuff you don’t want to do. You have to stand up for your rights.’
‘Arthur says sometimes you have to do what other people want to make them happy,’ Johnny said.
‘That’s true,’ Lizzie acknowledged. She wasn’t great at putting other people’s happiness first. She’d had to struggle too hard for her own. She thought Arthur, whoever he was, sounded a proper goody-goody. ‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘Next time, though, ask Arthur whether he’d like to be a page boy instead of you.’
Johnny giggled. ‘Arthur’s too big to do that.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Did you really see nothing in the crystal?’
‘Not a thing,’ Lizzie said lightly. She remembered now that Amelia liked all the flaky stuff, though with the amount of drugs she and Dudley took sometimes they didn’t need a crystal ball to see things. Lizzie didn’t do drugs. She’d grown up seeing her father offer Ecstasy to his dinner guests along with coffee and mints. No thank you.
‘The crystal called to you,’ Johnny said. ‘I heard it.’
OK, so he was an odd child, Lizzie thought, but then so had she been. She felt a tug of affinity with him.
‘I thought I heard a harp playing,’ she said, ‘but it must have been the wind. That must have been the sound you heard too.’
‘There’s no wind today,’ Johnny said.
‘Then it must have been the band,’ Lizzie said.
She saw Johnny watching her with those bright blue eyes and thought, He knows. He knows I’m lying. How can he? He’s only six.
‘Amelia says that the crystal speaks to her,’ Johnny said seriously. ‘Maybe that’s what you heard. She says it has healing powers.’
‘That’s nice,’ Lizzie said, wondering how many more of Amelia’s new age philosophies her little brother had absorbed. Not that she could criticise. She might not like possessing woo-woo powers but she could hardly deny they existed.
‘Johnny?’
This time they both jumped. A man was crossing the hall towards them, young, tall, unmistakably related to Johnny with the same lean features and dark blue eyes. Where Johnny had ruffled blond hair, this man’s hair, however, was black, and unlike Johnny he looked good in a morning suit. Lizzie thought he also looked familiar and wondered if they had met before. There had been such a crowd in the church, and she knew so many people, but she couldn’t quite place him. Perhaps she’d seen him on a billboard; he looked like a model.
His gaze focused on her and Lizzie saw that he recognised her and, a second later, saw equally clearly, that he did not like her. It was a novel experience for her to be disliked. She worked hard to be sweet and appealing. There was no reason to dislike her.
‘Hi, Arthur,’ Johnny said. ‘This is Lizzie.’
‘I know,’ Arthur said.
Arthur Robsart, Lizzie thought, of course. He was not a model but he did do something on TV, not that she ever had time to watch, and he had some impossibly glamorous fiancée who wasn’t at the wedding because she was about to make it in Hollywood. He was also Amelia’s older brother, or half-brother, she thought – Amelia’s family was almost as complicated as hers – which, she supposed, explained his dislike for her. Her heart dropped a little. She’d tried to be nice to Amelia; after all, she was Dudley’s oldest friend so she should be Amelia’s friend too. But somehow it hadn’t worked and evidently Arthur knew that and like some other mean people, thought she should get out of Dudley’s life.
Johnny scrambled up from the step and held out his arms unselfconsciously to his brother, asking to be picked up. Arthur’s face lightened into a transforming smile.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, ruffling Johnny’s hair. ‘Your mum’s looking for you.’
‘I want to get out of this stupid outfit,’ Johnny grumbled, fretful as any ordinary six-year-old now.
‘Come on then.’ Arthur swung him up onto his shoulders. ‘Let’s go and get changed.’ He gave Lizzie a cool nod, nothing more. Her heart dropped a little further, which was weird since his dislike mattered not at all. She was seventeen years old
