And that was me pretty much done. I started to feel a tightness in my chest as I looked at my little corner of the dorm, that familiar early warning of anxiety on the horizon. The walls started to slowly press in around me, and it didn’t feel as if there was enough air in the room. My fingers found the bracelet again, worrying at the tiny knots so hard I was afraid they’d all unravel.
Not losing it already are you, Abs? Beth’s voice was always there in the back of my mind. The best friend, the best big sister a girl could have. I knew it sounded corny, but so what, it was true – she was the one person who’d always been there for me, no matter how many times we upped and moved with Mum and Dad’s ever-changing deployments. The only constant. It had been difficult, almost impossible half the time, to make friends and hang on to them, but I’d lucked out because I had my best friend there with me all the time. Except for now, of course. I was here, and she was off settling in at uni, and nothing was ever going to be quite the same again.
Quit overthinking it, Doofus. We’ll talk online. And the holidays’ll be here before you know it.
She’d told me so many times. It was burned into my brain, but still it was hard to hold on to. I’d be OK for a bit, then I’d feel myself slipping again.
You’re not on your own.
Trying not to look at the walls as they pressed in towards me, I leant over to pull the curtains back from the window, fumbling with a fiddly, ancient-looking screw-fitting before I could finally fling the sash up high enough to let in the late summer air. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with it, as a gentle breeze skimmed across my skin.
“You’ve always got to look for the positives,” Dad had kept telling me. All summer long. And I got that, I really did. It was just that sometimes the positives were really, really good at hiding.
A shriek from outside overrode my overthinking, and I stuck my head out of the window to see what was going on. The dorm faced out directly onto the courtyard, and I could see cars lining up outside the gate now – disgorging laughing kids with enormous bags. No one looked up at the new girl in the window; everyone was busy looking for their friends at ground level. I got to be invisible, anonymous, for just a little while longer.
A brightness in the trees to the left caught my eye: a flash of midnight blue, followed by a fierce flare of red in the sunlight. I stuck my head out further, risking discovery to peer across at the branches swaying in the late-afternoon breeze. And there he was again. “How’s your wife, Mr Magpie?” I only whispered it this time in case anyone did look up and think I was insane. Do you even have to say it again if it’s the same one? If it even was the same one. He’d need a name if he was going to keep showing up. I watched as he flicked his head from side to side, as if he was telling me ‘no’ – no what? No I don’t have to say it again? No he’s not the same one? Shouldn’t he, perhaps, have been nodding ‘yes’, as in ‘yes, Abby, you’re losing your mind, talking to a bird’?
His eyes locked on to mine as I thought it – the only soul out there who saw me. They flashed a deep, disturbing shade of red – a trick of the sunlight, no doubt, and presumably the flare I’d initially seen. I tried to hold his gaze. It felt like a question of pride. My eyes started to burn, and he emerged the clear winner as I closed them to clear the bright, piercing after-image of his own.
When I looked again, he was gone.
I told myself it could have been worse – it could have been a raven. That would have been way more creepy. The stuff of powerful poems and brooding teen dramas and meaningful nightmares.
Trust me to end up with a magpie. I never quite got it right.
With nothing left to unpack, I had no reason to hang around in the dorm. Except that with people now starting to show up and swarm around, I suddenly really didn’t want to do the whole New Girl thing. That first bit, where everyone stares at you like you’re a new exhibit at the zoo and no one’s worked out what category of animal you are just yet; where you have to smile so hard to prove to everyone you’re not a predator that your face burns; at the same time as not letting anyone think you’re prey either. That bit doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you go through it.
I started to wish I’d gone back down with Tyler. At least then I would’ve had someone there, to maybe make the introductions and take the pressure off. And everything was different this time. I wouldn’t get to go home at three o’clock. I wouldn’t get to argue with Mum over breakfast, and make up over dinner. I wouldn’t be able to con Beth into doing my homework for me. I wouldn’t be able to go home until Christmas.
My self-pity alarm went off in my head. I needed something to take my mind off it, and fast. It never mattered what you thought about, so long as you just didn’t think about the thing that hurt. No way could I go down there with red-rimmed eyes – that would put me smack bang into the ‘prey’ category with a huge target painted right on my back.
In the end I settled on trying to think of everything I knew about magpies. It didn’t take long, but it was kind of random enough to derail the bad thoughts. Magpies were bad luck if you saw them on their own – that was why you had to ask about their wife, because if you acted like there were two of them it was fine. Although I had no idea why no one ever asked about husbands.
They were supposed to like shiny things. They were territorial, I thought, although I realised I was basing this purely on a YouTube video I’d once seen of a girl on a bike getting attacked by one. It was hilarious. There was something else, too, something right at the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite untangle. Something to do with blood, and the devil. Beth would know – she’d gone through a pretty heavy-duty Catholic phase once.
Beth! I hadn’t even messaged her since I’d arrived. She’d be worried about me.
I grabbed my phone. She was online, of course. She was always online.
-hey B! whats that thing with magpies & the devil? Can u remember?
There was a slight pause, and then, ‘Beth is typing…’
I let out a slow breath as the familiarity of contact started to work its magic and calm me down. Everything might have changed but some things would always stay the same – right? I couldn’t work out if that made any sense or not, but I liked the thought of it either way.
-Hello, Beth. How are you? I’m fine. I made it to my new school safely. I’m settling in OK. You can stop worrying now…
I laughed, and rolled my eyes.
-sorry!! hi! hows u? all good here. the magpie thing though?
-Seriously? Why aren’t you making friends instead of asking me crazy weird questions?
-cos theres a magpie outside and im trying to think of the blood thing, what was it, do u know??
-Yes, of course I know. I read, Abs. Actual books, not your dodgy Fifty Shades nonsense *bites lip*
-whatever! i only read them to see what the fuss was about!
-That’s what they all say, Sis.
-yeah well at least i didnt watch the film *points finger*. anyway are u gonna tell me or not??
-Only because they wouldn’t let you in. And it depends, are you going to start properly spelling and punctuating your messages?
-yeah