C.J. SKUSE is the author of the YA novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC. She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University where she is planning to do her PhD. C.J’s fifth novel THE DEVIANTS will be published by HQ in 2016.
For Jamie, he is my brother
I said there is no other
‘Hell is empty. All the devils are here.’
The Tempest,
William Shakespeare
Jenny Savill at Andrew Nurnberg Agency for your belief when I needed it most.
Anna Baggaley, Sarah Reader and everyone at HQ for your ceaseless support, editorial advice and general love for my little Monster
All my family, friends and early readers—my sister Penny Skuse, Matthew Snead, Laura Myers, Di Toft, Rachel Leyshon and Barry Cunningham. Thank you for all your advice and encouragement.
Hestercombe House and Gardens—a constant inspiration to me. This time round, Bathory School in the flesh.
Connie Bowler—for your very helpful reminiscences about boarding school life.
Judy Wasdell—for having a dog who habitually sniffs out spines.
All the UKYA book bloggers who follow me on social media and regularly spread the word about my books.
As always, a soundtrack of artists helped me knit and unpick this book every step of the way: Aiden, Alice in Chains, Gabrielle Aplin, Avicii, The Bangles, The Beatles, Birdy, Eminem, 5 Seconds of Summer, Foo Fighters, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Ellie Goulding, The Heavy, Hole, Keane, Jay-Z, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, My Chemical Romance, Nirvana, Paramore, Rage Against the Machine, Royal Blood and Slipknot.
And to anyone who has screwed me over, rejected me or even just mildly pissed me off in the last thirty-odd years—you helped too. A lot.
Table of Contents
That last week at school before the Christmas holidays, death was in everything.
In Geography, the sea was eating away the coasts. In English, Juliet was stabbing herself with Romeo’s dagger. Even the school gerbil, Rafferty, was found stiff in his water bowl on Tuesday lunchtime. The skies above us bore a foreboding grey gloom, telling us snow was on its way to suffocate the land. In the dorms, everyone was packing up their trunks for the coming break and preparing to say goodbye to the year.
And in our last floodlit