I met David at the bottom of the stairs.
“No luck?” When I did not respond, he went on, “Always the quality of the silence with you. I mean anyone can do silence, but you really make them talk.” As if he knew me, as though he could say always about me. I shrugged, not trusting my voice. “It’s not so bad, is it? You’re here. I’m here. All grown up. It isn’t so bad, is it, Andy? What were we going to do? We were eighteen. We had nothing. No money. I was in trouble with the police. Half the time, I didn’t know if you actually liked me or were just trying to—”
“Well, I’m glad to see you got your problems sorted. Found yourself an heiress and everything.”
I heard someone coming up the stairs behind me and not wanting to be found there, I made to move off.
“So I’m damned to beasts?” he said.
“Yes, that’s about it.”
“Well fuck you too.”
“You’re her pet. Their pet.”
“Good to see you’ve still got Marcus in a death grip.”
* * *
Gradually, we drifted outside. I left through the library. Rob was there and drinking again.
“Em won’t let me search her person,” he said. “I’m giving up.”
The others seemed, if anything, keener. I saw Priss and Zack kicking up piles of snow, the spray of crystals flying outward from their feet and landing with little thuds; Peter and David passing one another in the courtyard without speaking; Marcus heading toward the front of the manor.
“Think you’ll find them in the fountain?”
He shrugged and I wondered how I’d pissed him off this time. We went on, an hour more, maybe longer. There would be more snow. The sun was visible only as a glare through thick white cloud. In the west it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the Downs began. The cold had seeped into my feet, but my cheeks were burning. I stamped and then took off toward the near edge of the lake.
Em had always been convinced the necklace was there, at the bottom among the reeds and mud. I imagined her, that morning, the stars still peeping out, tramping through the snow like a heroine from a Russian novel, standing at the lake’s edge, sheltered from the wind by the roof of the little temple, while we slept in our beds.
I scanned the lake, registering the ice, the desiccated reeds, rotten or hollow, the churned snow from where we’d walked that morning. When I looked up, I saw David, almost directly opposite me on the other side of the lake. He was making with firm purpose toward the temple, moving eagerly, with quick sure steps, like a fox on its way to an unlocked chicken coop. The hood of his coat was pulled back and I could see a rim of forest green at his neck and the flush of color in his cheeks. My eyes moved back to the temple and then to David, from David to the temple. And then, of course, I knew where the necklace was, as though I had peered through a window into his mind. Somewhere clever? Who was cleverer than Athena, goddess of wisdom?
There was no way to catch him up, not even at a sprint, and at the prospect of defeat, I let out a bellow, so that David stopped and turned. Over at the house, I sensed the others pause in what they were doing. David was smiling at me across the lake. He was a hundred meters or so from the temple, and so was I, only the sheet of ice lay between me and the necklace. The stone I had thrown earlier was still lying out in the middle where white met black.
Marcus shouted as I took off running. The snow lay in drifts on the banks of the lake and at each stride I went in up to the knee, then I half stumbled, half leapt, out onto the frozen ice. My heels met the ungiving surface and I slid forward, waving my hands, until I reached a patch where the ice was rimed with frost and my shoes gained purchase. Managing to upright myself, I bounded forward, back in control and gathering speed. David was still frozen at the lake’s far side but at the touch of my glance, he began to run and then we were both racing toward the temple and to where I was convinced the necklace was hidden.
The black patches lay ahead, but I was not thinking of them; I was not conscious of thinking of anything at all. It is odd to say it, but I was happy: my feet skimming over the ice, beneath me the dark depths of the lake, and then far down in the cold mud the slumbering fishes. I was aware of my body, flying forward, legs scissoring, my breath as it sawed in and out. The woods and hills were a blur. Yes, I was happy, possibly happier than I had been in years, even as I heard the ice crack and felt the faintest shift beneath my feet. My heart moved a little in my chest, and after that first lurch, I felt it beating against the bones of my rib cage and everything started going faster: my feet, the blurring at the edges of my vision, the air rushing into my lungs.
There was a second crack, somewhere behind me. It sounded like a shot, not like the guns yesterday, but a pistol shot, and beneath my feet the ice dipped a little, just a small movement, and when I looked down a little water was rolling onto the ice, but I couldn’t see the break. David was closer now, running flat out, his feet sending up flurries. We were converging, but I could not tell who would get there first. My feet were barely touching the surface. I was hurtling forward, now over the black ice. But I was always on thin ice, always waiting for the grasping embrace of the permanent cold, the always dark. At least now I was running.
My luck was in. The ice held, and then I was nearing the far bank. I was going to win. David had lost ground.
The bank ahead was steep. I jumped, landing in snow that was deep under a thin crust and I floundered, losing my footing, but pushing on, David only a few meters away. I might have still beaten him, but at my next step my foot kept on going and I felt my ankle roll over to one side and then a nauseating stab of pain. I struggled up, snow pouring from me, but my ankle wouldn’t take my weight, so I could only hop and then hobble forward.
David trotted up the temple steps and over to the head of Athena. For a second, he looked puzzled. The necklace wasn’t there. Not on the plinth, not around the statue’s neck. His fingers traveled over her face, over the blind stone eyes, and then they nipped in and plucked something from the dark open mouth. The necklace came out black with leaf mold and dirt.
David turned to face me, rubbing the necklace between his palms. He was breathing hard too, and we stood there looking at one another.
“I won,” he said.
“I guess you did.”
“How was the ice?”
“A bit bouncy,” I said.
His gaze fell on me gently, and he took a quick step forward, and then stopped to look over my shoulder. I turned and saw the others coming up the path, Marcus at the front and Rob bringing up the rear.
“He got there first?” Priss asked. I nodded.
“You nearly died out there on the ice and he still got there first?” Rob said. “Oh that’s just priceless.”
“Win some, lose some,” I said.
“Spoken like a loser.”
But I was glad of his prattle, and for the fuss Zack and Priss and Alice made of David. It made less of Marcus’s silence. Em and Peter were not saying anything either.
“You both worked it out at the same time,” Alice said. Her eyes flicked between us suspiciously.
“No, he was first.”
“So how did you—”
“I kind of just knew. It was a good hiding place,” I said.