Suddenly, the mug handle seemed to be burning my fingers. I set it down quickly and glanced behind me to the door. Had something been added to Nina’s drink? Was this why she was sick? The idea was shocking, but the more I tried to come up with an alternative explanation, the faster my heart raced.
Poison.
I backed away from the sink and retreated up the stairs to my bedroom as quietly as I could. Who could I ask about this? Who could I go to for advice?
It would be appallingly disloyal to mention this to anyone outside of the family. And what might the repercussions be if I mentioned it to Leonora, or to Markus, or to Nina? What if I was wrong? They’d be hurt, offended—outraged, even. It didn’t bear thinking about.
My only option was to keep it a secret.
I crawled into my bed and pulled my sheet and blanket over my head, and a single word rolled around and around in my mind.
Poison. Poison. Poison.
I thought back to earlier that morning when Raven Hall had felt like a safe place. Now I wasn’t so sure.
She spreads her meager picnic around her on the grass and sighs. She spent all of last Saturday roaming Avermere without managing to bump into the tall, kind-eyed horticulture student. It took her three hours to hitchhike to Raven Hall again this morning, and so far, her luck hasn’t picked up.
Where is he?
There were several cars parked in front of the stable block again today, but she’s never been good with car makes. She recognizes the young doctor’s Ford Capri—mink blue, he told her it was, once; his pride and joy—but other types are just a blur, and she couldn’t begin to work out whether the student’s car was here this morning. She imagines him at home in London instead—perhaps his long-haired girlfriend has gone to visit him there.
She’s brought her sketchbook with her, and she tries to distract herself by drawing her view of the lake and its little island, but her heart’s not in it. She closes the book with a snap. Then, just as she’s packing away her uneaten food and preparing to leave, along he comes, striding down the trail with a long stick in his hand, like an overgrown schoolboy. She scrambles to her feet, her heart booming.
“Aha!” he says. “Hallo. I was hoping I might bump into you.” He eyes the flattened patch of grass and her crumpled clothes, and he narrows his eyes. “You don’t live out here, do you? In a little burrow by the lake, or something?”
She laughs, delighted. “I wish I did.”
“I’ve got some tea, in a flask . . .” He pulls a face as he swings his rucksack from his shoulder. “Sounds boring, I know, but . . .”
She shakes her head. “It sounds lovely.”
They make themselves comfortable on the grass, and the student pulls out more than just a flask—he has a Tupperware container packed with perfectly ripe strawberries, and two generous slices of treacle tart wrapped in brown paper. She discovers she is hungry after all.
“They’re from the garden,” he tells her as she bites into her first strawberry. “At Raven Hall. They’re good, aren’t they?”
She closes her eyes and pretends to be savoring the taste while she squashes down memories of nurturing those strawberry plants with her mother, years before.
“They’re gorgeous,” she manages to say at last. “What’s it like, then, studying horticulture in London?” Really, she wants to ask him whether his girlfriend minds him taking picnics out into the countryside to share with a girl he barely knows. But she’s worried what the answer might be—that he feels sorry for her, or that any old companion would do. If either of those is the case, then she’d rather not know.
He gives an exaggerated sigh, then grins at her. “It’s harder than people think, actually. I’ve just finished a load of exams, and there’s never enough time to do what I want . . .”
“Isn’t this what you want?”
“Well, yes, what I mean is—I feel guilty about doing nice things like this, when I should be . . .”
“Working?”
“Yeah . . .” He tosses a strawberry husk into the undergrowth. “And my mum’s not very well, so I feel like I should spend as much time with her as I can.”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry. My mum was ill, too, for a long time.”
He squints at her, and then he sits up straight and gives her a concerned look. “Do you mean . . .”
“She died, a few years ago. I—” She shakes her head, not sure what she wants to say. “I miss her so much, every day.”
“Oh.” Tentatively, he reaches out and touches the back of her hand. “I’m really sorry. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have . . .”
“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s just—I suppose I might know a bit more how you feel. Than other people do, I mean. Luckier people.” She’s thinking of the long-haired girlfriend in the orange crop top.
He nods slowly. “We don’t actually know what’s wrong with my mum. The doctors can’t work it out . . . She’s a medical mystery.” He tries to smile. “But they’re trying different treatments. And, you know, we’re lucky in other ways. Mustn’t take stuff like this for granted.” He gestures at the tangled weeds behind them. “When you think of what other people go through—did you know the poor family who lived at Raven Hall before? They had a daughter about your age—”
“No,” she says abruptly. “I never knew them.”
They sit in silence for a minute, watching a swallowtail butterfly explore a patch of thistles.
“Well . . .” The student crumples his treacle tart paper into a ball and drops it into his rucksack. “You’re right. We should talk about happier things, before I have to get back. Did you meet up with your friend the other day?”
She stares at him, trying to get past the phrase “before I have to get back.” Has he grown bored with her already? Is he missing his girlfriend? And what friend does he mean? Oh, of course—the young doctor.
“No, I didn’t bother seeing him, in the end,” she says. She drains her tea and hands the cup back to him. “I need to get going myself, actually.”
They don’t speak as they gather their belongings together and brush crumbs from their clothes, but once they’re ready to go their separate ways, the man stretches out his hand.
“I’m Markus, by the way,” he says. “It was nice talking to you, and—thanks, you know, for understanding about my mum.”
She nods. “I’m . . .” But the tip of her tongue hesitates on the roof of her mouth as his earlier words rattle through her head: “the poor family who lived at Raven Hall before.” She lifts her chin. “Lara,” she says. “I’m Lara. I’ll look out for you again next weekend.”