‘Isabella, you have the eyes of a hawk. A hawk with binoculars.’ Even with her heightened Few senses, Cassie had always been impressed by her friend’s attention to detail.
The Argentinean girl didn’t smile. ‘I’m sorry, Cassie.’ She sighed. ‘I thought it was Jake.’
Oh, God. Instantly regretting both her good-natured nagging and the mistimed joke, Cassie felt her scalp prickle with horror. She ducked her head under the water for a moment to get rid of the alarming frisson. ‘Isabella …’
‘I know, I know. There wasn’t anyone there at all. It was the curtains. They made shadows. Look, I’m sorry.’ In a small voice she added, ‘I feel like I see Jake all the time. Like … like he’s haunting me, or something. It’s awful.’
‘Of course you do. And of course it is.’ Cassie touched Isabella’s arm as they floated in the water, and searched her face anxiously. She couldn’t help remembering the horror she’d seen in Jake’s eyes, the very first day she’d met him, in Paris, when he’d mistaken her briefly for his dead sister. And now, with a terrible irony, Isabella was seeing Jake, her own dead boyfriend, in shadows. Once again Cassie felt sorrow and guilt overwhelm her.
‘Come on.’ Gently she tugged Isabella’s hand. ‘Let’s swim.’
‘Yes. You’re right. I need to get a grip.’ Isabella struck out into the waves.
Cassie followed her. ‘Isabella, wait! That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know, Cassie,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘But I mean it, I really do. It’s so stupid. I wish I could just snap out of it.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Cassie swam on her side so she could watch Isabella. ‘It hasn’t been long at all, since—’
‘I can’t spend the whole term, the rest of my life, just missing him,’ interrupted Isabella fiercely, avoiding Cassie’s eyes. ‘I can’t. It’s happened. I need to try and move on. I just don’t know if I can.’
Truly, Cassie couldn’t see any alternative either, but she was damned if she was going to sit back and let Isabella be relentlessly unhappy. ‘Well, we’ll be really busy this term,’ she comforted her friend. ‘There’ll be loads of field trips. And … And remember what Richard said? There’s actual shopping up in Malindi!’
Shopping? Oh God, Cassie. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, they felt stupid and inadequate, and she rushed to drown their echo in her own head. ‘You will have a good term, Isabella. As good as possible, I’ll make sure of it.’
‘Oh, Cassie, you’re sweet.’ Isabella smiled at her at last, floating on to her back. ‘But a good term? That is perhaps a bit too much to expect.’ She gestured with an arm, splashing water. ‘Look at this fabulous place, and I can’t even be excited about it. The Academy used to have such magic for me. And now …’ She rubbed her face; Cassie suspected it was more than seawater she was wiping away.
‘Too many memories,’ she suggested softly.
‘Yes. Too many memories. I never realised how much of this place was Jake. For me, anyway.’
‘Maybe you’ll get the magic back, with a bit of time?’
‘Maybe, Cassie. But I’ll never get Jake back, will I?’
There was nothing Cassie could say to that. Hurriedly Isabella turned her face away, and swam in a rapid crawl back towards the reef.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Hey, Cassie! Isabella!’ Books in one arm, Ayeesha used the other to give them each a swift fierce hug. ‘You were elusive over the weekend! I saw you on Saturday and then you disappeared!’
‘We were kind of … exploring. We weren’t trying to avoid you,’ lied Cassie with a stiff smile. ‘It’s great to see you again, Ayeesha. And you, Cormac!’ She submitted to a hug from Ayeesha’s eternally upbeat Irish boyfriend, and then he turned to Isabella, embracing her more soberly.
‘We’re so sorry about Jake,’ he murmured.
‘Yes,’ said Ayeesha, putting an arm around Isabella’s shoulders.
She nodded, clearly incapable of answering, so Cassie quietly said, ‘Thanks.’
But oh, please, let’s not pursue the subject right now …
The corridors were thronged with students on the first day proper of term, but there was a sense of even more reluctance than usual to get stuck into classes. Too much snorkelling and sunbathing over the weekend, thought Cassie fondly, had made them all very unprepared for schoolwork. For herself, she was glad to be starting classes again; she and Isabella had behaved like recluses after that first swim, hanging out in their room: painting their nails, reading, talking. It had been a lovely quiet start to the term, but for Isabella’s sake, it couldn’t go on forever.
‘You’ll have to excuse me, Ayeesha,’ said Cassie solemnly, pulling Isabella along by the hand. ‘I need to handcuff Isabella to me so she doesn’t try and escape Maths.’
Ayeesha laughed a little too brightly. ‘What’s new! Eh, Isabella?’
Isabella’s lips twitched and she nodded, but she said nothing, not even to moan briefly about the horrors of algebra. She eased herself away from them and preceded Cassie into Herr Stolz’s classroom. Ayeesha and Cassie exchanged apprehensive glances, and Cassie shrugged.
‘She’ll be OK.’
‘Oh, I hope so.’ Ayeesha squeezed her arm anxiously, and hurried after Isabella into the classroom.