She knows this makes her a bad person. But maybe when she confesses it all to Markus next weekend, he will help her to change, to improve, to become more like him.
Meanwhile, she wants just one last look at Raven Hall. It won’t alter anything, and she’s so close now, she can feel it calling to her. Just one last look, that’s all she wants, and then she’ll try her best to put it all behind her.
Beth
December 1989
It was the day before New Year’s Eve. Nina, Leonora, and I were in the dining room, eating croissants and admiring the patterns of frost on the windows, when Markus came charging up from the lake, waving his arms and shouting.
“It’s ready!” he declared as he burst through the door. “The ice is thick enough. Come on, sleepyheads.” He beamed at the three of us, still sitting there in our dressing gowns and staring at him. “Get your skates on!”
We scrambled upstairs to get dressed, and then Nina and I went out to the stable block to rummage through a huge box of skates. Most were of a similar design: leather lace-up boots with long metal blades underneath that jutted out front and back. As we pulled them out, searching for a good fit, I held up a pair that looked quite different: simple wooden-base sections with straps and blades attached.
“Those are Fen runners,” Nina said. “They were my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’. They used to have big skating parties here, when it froze like this—races with prizes. And people came from not just the village, but from miles around, and they had big feasts in the evening. I wish . . .” She gazed out toward the lake. “I wish I could have seen it.”
“It sounds amazing.” I ducked my head as an unexpected sadness washed over me. Not about the bygone era of skating parties on Avermere, but about the sensitive subjects I wasn’t supposed to ask Nina about—the mysteries and secrets at Raven Hall I’d learned not to query. I wanted to ask: Which grandparents—the Meyers or the Averells? Why are people from the village no longer invited to events here? Why aren’t you allowed to show your face at the rare parties your parents do hold? But instead, I frowned down into the box and pulled out another pair of skates.
The rumble of a car engine made us both scramble to our feet. Jonas had recently passed his driving test, and he was roaring down the driveway in his mum’s old Volvo. I stayed where I was and watched Nina jog across the gravel to meet him, her breath rising in puffs of steam, her arms hugging her body against the cold. More and more, I felt pulled in two directions these days. Did I want Nina’s friendship, and a stable family life at Raven Hall? Or did I want Jonas? I couldn’t have both.
Oh, snap out of it, I told myself. You’re seeing problems where there are none, as usual.
I started forward to join them. Nina held on to Jonas’s arm, chattering excitedly about the first time he’d walked here by himself to skate on Avermere—did he remember?—and how many times they’d fallen over, and how fast they’d gone, and how much fun it all was. Jonas nodded as he listened, but his gaze slipped around her to me before his smile widened. Suddenly, I desperately wanted him to give Nina the full attention she deserved, so I turned away.
Markus and Leonora were striding down from the house, all wrapped up and bright-eyed.
“Have you ever skated before?” Markus asked me.
“Yeah, a bit.” I’d been to the indoor ice rink in Peterborough a few times when I was younger, and I’d considered myself a pretty decent skater back then. But now that I was contemplating stepping out onto the surface of a real lake, I saw it had a different look entirely, and I slowed my pace as we approached the edge.
Nina and Jonas glided out onto the frozen lake first, and Markus and Leonora quickly followed. I stepped onto it hesitantly. Under my skate blades, the ice was translucent, but when I gazed out across the expanse of frozen water, it looked like a mottled mirror, reflecting the clouds and sky above. And I knew how deep the water was under that six-inch crust.
Nina and Jonas whooped as they shot across the ice, leaving swooping lines scored into the surface behind them. I stood still and watched. She went left, and he right, and then they looped around toward each other and picked up speed, the ice crackling and snapping around them.
I held my breath. They were going to collide.
Nina barreled into Jonas. He caught her, and they spun around and around, both laughing. I felt like a terrible person suddenly, inserting myself into Nina’s family and interfering with this beautiful friendship she had with Jonas. I tore my gaze away from them and scraped my skate blades against the ice, my heart still jumping.
Seconds later, they were in front of me, Nina flushed and beaming, Jonas stretching a hand toward me.
“Hey,” Jonas said. “Come on, we’ll help you.”
I allowed him to take my right hand, and Nina my left, and together, the three of us slid away from the reeds and out onto the milky expanse. I lifted my chin, not wanting to look at the ice directly beneath my feet.
“There,” Nina said. “You see? You can do it.”
I found my balance, and we picked up a bit of speed. It felt surprisingly good, having the three of us linked together. Maybe everything would work out, after all. I lifted my face to the bright, pale sky, and I laughed, and Nina and Jonas joined in with me.
“Okay,” Jonas said. “Now try by yourself.”
They let go of me, and I mimicked their body posture, leaning forward and clasping my hands behind my back. We peeled apart, heading in three different directions, and I realized with a surge of delight that I no longer felt afraid. The ice was hard under my blades, and the surface was pitted, but I pushed myself to go faster, curving to the right and then to the left. I felt weightless, as if I could carry on gliding forever, leaving all my problems behind me. With a smile, I turned and swooped closer to the others, then away again, relishing the wind in my hair and the sudden warmth of the sun on my face. It was exhilarating.
“Okay,” Markus called out from the shore. “Now the races begin.”
He and Leonora proceeded to roll two wooden barrels onto the ice, and they stood them upright a good distance apart. I joined Nina and Jonas by the first barrel, and our breath mingled overhead in a cloud.
“Right,” Leonora said. “One lap, Nina and Jonas first, start on my whistle.”
I hung back next to Markus, watching entranced as Nina positioned herself on one side of the barrel, and Jonas on the other. They were both serious-faced, poised to set off. Leonora raised her hand, then dropped it sharply while making a noise like a whistle.
Nina set off faster, but as they raced toward the far barrel, Jonas overtook her on his side of the ice. He was first to spin around the second barrel, and first to return, flying past Leonora and Markus and me, his arms raised in jubilation. Nina came to a stop by grabbing the barrel at our end, and her eyes were shining. I felt a surge of excitement. I wanted a turn.