Spellbook of the Lost and Found

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Annabel Henry
5 years ago
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1 Prologue That night, everybody lost something. Not everybody noticed. It was a Saturday night on the cusp of summer and the air smelled like hot wood and burning rubber, like alcohol and spit, like sweat and tears. It was warm because of the bonfire in the middle of the field, and because of the stolen beers, the wine coolers bought with older siblings IDs, the vodka filched from step- parents drinks cabinets. There was the hint of a strange sound, that some thought might have been a trapped dog howling, but most decided was just in their imagination. Some kept drinking, thinking this was just another night spent in a field at the edge of town, close to that invisible line where suburbs become countryside. Some noticed without really understanding what they d 1

2 Spellbook of the Lost and Found lost. Some kissed each other with cake on their tongues, rainbow icing dissolving between mouths to make new colours. Some took their school books and threw them on the bonfire, not caring that there were still two weeks before the summer exams. Some turned round and went back home. Some forgot things they d always known. Others stumbled, just for a moment, not knowing that they d lost more than their step. Some hung back, nervous, torn between edging closer to the fire and calling their parents to come get them. Some slipped small pills on to their tongues and swallowed them with soft drinks, the bubbles tickling their throats as it all went down. Some choked on cigarette smoke even though they d been smoking for years. Some gripped others zips in shivering fingers, lowered jeans or hitched up skirts. Others watched from the shadows. By the time the fire had burned down to glowing ashes and a pile of charred wood, when everyone was dreaming deep in their own beds or lying through wine- stained teeth to their parents or getting sick in their best friends bathrooms or continuing the party in someone else s house, apart from the few who d passed out where they sat, there was nothing left in the field but the things we had lost.

3 Olive Sunday 7th May Lost: Silver, star- shaped hair clip; jacket (light green, rip in one sleeve); flat silver shoe (right, scuffed at the toes) Daylight is only just touching the tips of the trees when the bonfire goes out. I am leaning against a bale of hay upon which someone I don t know is sleeping. I roll my head over to look for Rose, who I was sure was sitting, legs splayed, on the ground beside me. The grass is mostly muck at this point, beaten down by many pairs of shoes and feet. My own feet bare, the nails painted a shiny metallic green that doesn t show up in the morning darkness are dirty. So is the rest of me. Rose isn t here. I call out for her but nobody answers. Not that I expect she ll be able to; sometime in the night 3

4 Spellbook of the Lost and Found she lost her voice from shouting over the music, from singing along to really bad songs and from all the crying. Getting ready to go out last night, Rose told me, Our plan for the evening is to get excessively drunk and then cry. She swiped her lashes with another layer of mascara, which seemed fairly unwise, given the aforementioned plan. Can we make the crying optional? I said. My eyeliner s really good right now. It had taken me twenty minutes, six cotton buds and five tissues to get it even. Absolutely not. I sneaked a look at my best friend s reflection. She blinked to dry her mascara. It gave her a deceptively innocent air. I don t know why you want to go to this thing in the first place, I said. This thing was the town s summer party. It s held in May every year. Until midnight it s filled with sugar- hyper children stuffed dangerously full of badly barbecued burgers threatening to throw up on the bouncy castle. Their parents bop self- consciously to decades- old pop music blaring from rented speakers while the teenagers our classmates sneak off to nearby fields to drink. I told you why I want to go, Rose said. I plan to get excessively drunk. And then cry, I reminded her. And then cry. 4

5 Olive Well, you know what they say, I said to the back of her head. Be careful what you wish for. We slept in the field, which seemed like a good idea at the time. There is a growing chill despite the slowly rising sun and I don t know if it means that a storm is coming or just that I ve been in the same position for far too long. I m beginning to lose all feeling in my right shoulder, the one propped on the prickly pile of hay. When I look down, on one bare and dirty arm I see the words: If you don t get lost, you ll never be found. They re blurry because my eyes are blurry; it takes five blinks for me to make them out. They run from shoulder to wrist and seem to be written in my own wobbly handwriting, although I don t remember writing them. When I lick a finger and rub at an n, it doesn t smudge. For about as long as we ve been friends, Rose and I have written what we refer to as our mottos on each other s arms. When we were younger, they were things like You are beautiful or Carpe diem. These days they re injokes or particularly poignant quotes. We both got detention for a week last year because of our matching block capitals reading DO NO HARM BUT TAKE NO SHIT. I must have written this one during the party, although when or why, I have no idea. My head feels fuzzy. With a wince and a sigh, I drag myself out of the last dregs of drunkenness and shakily stand up. 5

6 Spellbook of the Lost and Found I take stock: I am missing a shoe (the other is half buried in the muck beside me) and my jacket. My dress is covered in grass stains and smells distinctly of vodka. I have the beginnings of an epic headache forming and I seem to have lost my best friend. Rose! I call. Rose? The boy on the hay bale twitches in his sleep. Hey, I say to him loudly. I poke his shoulder when he doesn t wake up. Hey! The boy opens one eye and grunts. He has dirty blond hair, a stubbly chin and an eyebrow piercing. I vaguely remember dancing with him last night. He squints at me. Olivia? he says hesitantly. Olive. I have absolutely no idea what his name is. Have you seen my friend? Roisín? he says in the tone of someone who isn t sure he s saying the right thing. Rose. Olive, he says, sitting up slowly. Rose. Yes, I say impatiently. He s clearly still very drunk. Yes, Rose, have you seen her? She was crying? I pick up my shoe and shove it on my foot, figuring that one shoe is still better than none. I know. That was our plan for the evening. Did you see where she went? Your plan? 6

7 Olive I scan the field for any sight of her. There s a blue denim jacket crumpled up on the ground not far away. I take it because I m beginning to feel very cold. Pale blue light spills over the trees and into the field. My phone is dead so I don t know what time it is, but it s probably close to 6 a.m. I start to make my way towards the road. The boy on the hay bale calls out to me. Can I ve another kiss before you go? I look back at him and make a face. Another kiss? Not a chance. See you around? I shake my head and walk away quickly. Most of my memories of last night seem to have disappeared with Rose. I make my way around the field, scanning the faces of the sleepers (trying to keep my eyes averted from the ones who clearly aren t sleeping). It doesn t take long; she isn t here. I glance behind me and see that the boy on the hay bale appears to have disappeared, probably slumped on the grass. I am the only person standing. I turn round in a circle, taking in the stone wall and the tangle of bushes surrounding the field, the fence near the empty road on the other side, the small line of trees separating this field from the next one. There s someone there, almost hidden between two spindly pines, staring at me. 7

8 Spellbook of the Lost and Found It s a boy. He s wearing a flat cap and an old, holey jumper that might be green or black it s hard to tell in the shadows. He has a lot of brown, curly hair under that awful hat and is wearing thick, black- framed glasses. He has a hundred freckles on his skin and a guitar slung over his back. He looks like a cross between a farmer and a teenage Victorian chimney sweep. He is unmistakably beautiful. Before I have time to break his gaze, he turns and walks away and I lose him between the trees. I look down at myself, at my dirty dress and borrowed denim jacket, at my one bare foot and my grass- stained legs. I could be Cinderella, if Cinderella was a short, chubby, hung-over seventeen-year-old with smudged make up and tangled hair. And, while I m very glad that I don t have a dead father and an evil stepmother, I m not entirely sure how I m going to explain my current state to my parents when I get home. I try in vain to smooth the creases out of my dress and reach into the bird s nest of my hair to pin it back with the silver, star- shaped hair clip I tied it up with yesterday, but either my tangles have eaten it or I lost it sometime in the night. My bike is where I left it, chained to the fence by the side of the road, but it takes me several tries to unlock it because my hands don t seem to want to work properly and my brain feels increasingly like it s trying to turn itself inside out. When I clamber on, my bare foot sticks uncomfortably to the pedal. 8

9 Olive I pass a grand total of three cars and one tractor on the road into town. The clouds above me are getting very grey, almost as if the dawn has changed its mind and wants to revert back to night. My dress blows up in the breeze, but there s no one around to see so I keep both hands on the handlebars and try to ride steadily. Under the sleeve of my borrowed denim jacket I can see the tail end of the sentence written there: you ll never be found. It comes back to me in a flash. Rose in my bedroom last night, staring at her reflection in my vanity mirror while pouring generous measures of Tesco Value vodka into a bottle of Diet Coke. She said, If you don t get lost, you ll never be found. We d drunk a fair amount of the vodka already and her words were slightly slurred. At this rate, I said to her, the only thing we ll lose tonight is the contents of our stomachs. My prediction was accurate: another flash of memory has me bent over a hay bale, throwing up some unholy mixture of slightly Diet- Coke- flavoured vodka and the barbecued hot dogs that we all ate on sticks, posing for pictures, holding the phallic meat like rude children. My stomach lurches at the thought and I have to pull over to the side of the road to retch again. If you don t get lost, you ll never be found. I cling to the low stone wall by the side of the road like a lifeboat, and sigh. Without warning, it begins to rain. 9

10 Spellbook of the Lost and Found Fat drops fall on the mess of my hair, darken my jacket, hit the dry roadside like cartoon tears. Splat. I have to blink them out of my eyelashes. I sigh again and drag my bike from the ditch. I cycle home through pounding rain and with a pounding headache. Maybe it s that I drank too much and remember too little about last night. Maybe it s that Rose left without me. Maybe it s what the blond- haired boy said about another kiss. Maybe it s the beautiful boy I saw at the edge of the field, looking like he d lost something. But I feel like I might have lost something myself, and I have no idea what it is.

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