Carry On Read online

  I don’t recognize the white lady on the ramparts as Agatha until she startles and turns to me. She must have heard me summon my blade. I immediately stow it when I see that it’s her.

  “Oh,” I say. “Hey. I thought you were studying.”

  I don’t feel angry with her anymore. Now that we’re standing out in the cool air, and I’ve had time to clear my head.

  “I was studying,” she says. “Then I felt like taking a walk.”

  “Me, too.” I’m lying again.

  I swear I don’t normally lie and keep secrets from my friends like this. It’s just—I can’t tell them I’m out here looking for Baz. I mean, I never want to talk to Agatha about Baz, for obvious reasons, and Penelope just doesn’t want to hear it.

  After our fifth year, Penny decided I wasn’t allowed to talk about Baz, unless he presents a clear and present danger—

  “You can’t just whinge about him every time he gets on your nerves, Simon. That would mean nonstop whinging.”

  “Why can’t I?” I asked. “You complain about your roommate.”

  “Not constantly.”

  “Constantly enough.”

  “How about this—you can talk to me about Baz when he presents a clear and present danger. And, beyond that: up to but no more than ten per cent of our total conversation.”

  “I’m not going to do maths every time I talk to you about Baz.”

  “Then err on the side of not whinging about him constantly.”

  She still has no patience for it, even though I was completely right about Baz that year—he was up to something. Even beyond his usual skulking around, being a vampire.

  That spring, Baz tried to steal my voice. That’s the worst thing you can do to a magician—maybe worse than murder; a magician can’t do magic without words. (Not usually, anyway.)

  It happened out on the Lawn: I’d spotted Baz sneaking out over the drawbridge at dusk, and went after him. I followed him as far as the main gates, and then he stopped and turned to me, all casual, with his hands in his pockets—like he’d known I was behind him the whole time.

  I was just about to start something with him when Philippa ran up behind me, calling, “Hiya, Simon!” in her squeaky little voice. But as soon as she said my name, she couldn’t stop. She squeaked monstrously, like a lifetime of words were being ripped from her.

  I know Baz did it.

  I know he did something.

  I saw it in his eyes when Philippa went mute.

  Philippa got sent away. The Mage told me that she’d get her voice back, that it wasn’t permanent, but she never came back to Watford.

  I wonder if Baz still feels guilty. I wonder if he ever did.

  Now he’s gone, too.

  When I notice Agatha again, she’s trembling. I unbutton my grey duffle coat, sliding the horn buttons through the cord loops. “Here,” I say, sliding it off.

  “No,” she says. “I’m fine.”

  I hold it out to her anyway.

  “No, it’s okay. No—Simon. Keep your coat.”

  My arms drop. It doesn’t seem right to put the coat back on, so I fold it over one arm.

  I don’t know what else to say.

  This is already the most time that Agatha and I have been alone since the start of the term. I haven’t even kissed her since we’ve been back. I should probably kiss her.…

  I reach out and take her hand—but I must move too quickly, because she seems surprised. Her hand jerks open, and something falls out. I kneel, picking it up before it blows away.

  It’s a handkerchief.

  I know that it’s Baz’s handkerchief before I even see his initials embroidered in the corner, next to the Pitch coat of arms (flames, the moon, three falcons).

  I know it’s his because he’s the only person I’ve ever met who carries old-fashioned handkerchiefs. He dropped one on my bed, sarcastically, when we were in first year, the first time he made me cry.

  Agatha tries to pull the linen from my hand, but I don’t let go. I snap it away from her.

  “What is this?” I ask, holding it up. (We both know what it is.) “Are you—are you waiting for him? Are you meeting him here? Is he coming?”

  Her eyes are wide and glossy. “No. Of course not.”

  “How can you say ‘of course not’ when you’re up here, obviously thinking about him, holding his handkerchief?”

  She folds her arms. “You don’t know what I’m thinking about.”

  “You’re right, I don’t, Agatha. I really don’t. Is this where you come every night? When you tell us you’re studying?”

  “Simon…”

  “Answer me!” It comes out an order. It comes out drenched in magic, which shouldn’t even be possible—because those aren’t magic words, that isn’t a spell. The spell for forcing honesty is The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—but I’ve never used it; it’s an advanced spell, and a restricted one. Still, I see the compulsion in Agatha’s face. “No,” I say, pushing magic into my voice. “You don’t have to!”

  Her face falls from compulsion to disgust. She backs away from me.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” I say. “Agatha. I didn’t. But you—” I throw my arms up. “—what are you doing here?”

  “What if I am waiting for Baz?” she spits out, like she knows it will shock me stupid. It does.

  “Why would you?”

  She turns to the stone wall. “I don’t know, Simon.”

  “Are you waiting for him?”

  The wind is in her hair, making it lash out behind her. “No,” she says. “Not waiting. I’ve no reason to believe he’s coming.”

  “But you want him to.”

  She shrugs.

  “What’s wrong with you, Agatha?” I’m trying to control my temper now. “He’s a monster. An actual monster.”

  “We’re all monsters,” she says.

  She means that I am.

  I try to tamp down the anger coiling up my legs. “Did you cheat on me? With Baz? Are you with him now?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  She sighs, and leans forward on the rough stones. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you want to say anything else to me? Like, ‘I’m sorry’? Don’t you want to fix this?”

  She looks back at me, over her shoulder. “Fix what, Simon—our relationship?” She turns to face me again. “What is our relationship? Is it just me being there when you need a date to the ball? And crying for joy every time you come back from the dead? Because I’ll still do that for you. I can still do all that. Even if we’re not together.”

  Her perfect pink chin is thrust forward and quivering. Her arms are still crossed.

  “You’re my girl, Agatha,” I say.

  “No. Penelope’s your girl.”

  “You’re my—”

  Her arms fall. “What Simon, what am I?”

  I knot my hands in my hair and gnash my teeth. “You’re my future!”

  Agatha’s face is contorted and wet with tears. Still lovely, though. “Am I supposed to want that?” she asks.

  “I want it.”

  “You just want a happy ending.”

  “Merlin, Agatha, don’t you?”

  “No! I don’t! I want to be someone’s right now, Simon, not their happily ever after. I don’t want to be the prize at the end. The thing you get if you beat all the bosses.”

  “You’re twisting everything. You’re making it ugly.”

  She shrugs again. “Maybe.”

  “Agatha…” I hold my hand out to her. The one that isn’t holding Baz’s handkerchief. “We can fix this.”

  “Probably,” she says. “But I don’t want to.”

  I can’t think of what more to say.

  Agatha can’t leave me. She can’t leave me for him. Oh, he’d love that—he’d love to have that over me. Damn it all, he isn’t even here to have that over me.

  “I love you, Agatha,” I say, believing that migh
t work. Those words are practically magic in themselves. I say them again: “I love you.”

  Agatha closes her eyes against the sight of me. She turns her face away. “I love you, too, Simon. I think that’s why I went along with this for so long.”

  “You don’t mean that,” I say.

  “I do,” she says. “Please don’t fight me.”

  “You can’t leave me for him.”

  She looks back at me one more time. “I’m not leaving you for Baz, Simon. He’s gone. I just don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want to ride off into the sunset with you.… That’s not my happy anything.”

  * * *

  I don’t argue with her.

  I don’t stay out on the ramparts.

  My cheeks are hot and itchy, and that’s always a bad sign.

  I rush past Agatha to the stairs, and run down them so quickly that I miss a few and keep leaping down to the next landing.

  And then I’m just sort of floating down the stairs. Falling without actually falling.

  I’ve never done that before, and it’s weird.

  I make a note to tell Penny, then a note not to tell her, but I run towards the Cloisters anyway because I don’t want to go back to my empty room, and the drawbridge is up, and I don’t know where else to go.

  I stand under Penny’s window and think about how I could just call her if the Mage hadn’t banned mobile phones at Watford two years ago.

  I still feel hot.

  I try to shake some of the magic off, and a few sparks catch on the dry leaves beneath me. I stamp them out.

  I wonder if Agatha is still up on the ramparts—I can’t believe she’d say what she said. For a moment, I wonder if she’s been possessed. But her eyes weren’t all black. (Were her eyes all black? It was too dark to see.)

  She can’t leave me like this. She can’t leave me.

  We were settled. We were sorted.

  We were endgame. (If I get an endgame.) (You have to pretend that you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can’t carry on at all.)

  Agatha’s parents like me. They might even love me. Her dad calls me “son.” Not like “I think of you as my son,” but like, “How are you, son?” Like I’m a son. The sort of guy who could be someone’s son.

  And her mother says I’m handsome. That’s really all her mum ever says to me. “Don’t you look handsome, Simon.”

  What would she say to Baz? “Don’t you look handsome, Basil. Please don’t slaughter my family with your hideous fangs.”

  Agatha’s father, Dr. Wellbelove, hates the Pitches. He says they’re cruel and elitist. That they tried to keep his grandfather out of Watford because of a lisp.

  Fucking hell, I can’t—I just. I can’t.

  I lean back against a tree and put my hands on my thighs, letting my head fall forward and my magic course through me. When I look down at my legs, it’s like I’ve got no boundary. Like I’m blurred at the edges.

  I have to fix this. With Agatha.

  I’ll say whatever she wants me to say.

  I’ll kill Baz, so that he isn’t an option.

  I’ll tell her, I’ll change her mind—how can she say that there’s no such thing as happy endings? That’s all I’ve ever been working towards. The happy ending is when things are going to begin for me.

  I have to fix this.

  “All right there, Simon?” It’s Rhys. He’s coming up along the path from the library in his wheelchair.

  I look up. “All right. Hiya.” I’m not all right. My face is flushed, and I think I’m crying. Do my edges look blurred to him? He hurries past me.

  I let Rhys get a head start, then follow him back to Mummers House.

  I should sleep this off.…

  I’ll make sure that I power down—that I’m not going to set my bed on fire—then I’ll sleep it off.

  And tomorrow, I’ll fix it.

  27

  SIMON

  I’m not sleeping this time when I hear the noises.

  I’m just lying in my bed, thinking about Baz.

  What did he say to Agatha? What did he promise?

  Maybe he didn’t have to say anything. Maybe he just had to be himself. Smarter than I am. Better looking. Wealthier. Fucking horsier—he could go to all her events and wear the right suit and the right shoes. He’d know which necktie went with which month of the year.

  If he weren’t a vampire, Baz’d be bloody perfect.

  Bloody perfect. I roll over and press my face into my pillow.

  There’s a creaking then, and a cold wind. I try to ignore it. I’ve been taken in by this feeling before. There’s no one here. No one at the window, no one at the door. The cold creeps up under my bedclothes, and I pull up the blankets, rolling onto my back—

  And see a woman standing at the end of my bed.

  I recognize her. It’s the same person who was standing at the window that night. And I recognize her as a Visitor now; I’ve seen enough of them. She’s come from behind the Veil.

  “You’re not him,” she says to me. Her voice is cold—actually cold, like it starts in my bones and icily flushes up through my skin—and woeful.

  I want to summon my sword, but I don’t. “Who are you?” I say.

  “I keep coming. This is his place. This is where I’m called. But there’s only you here.…”

  She’s tall and wearing formal robes, like a solicitor’s or a professor’s, and her dark hair is pulled up into a thick bun. Even though she’s translucent, I can see that her robes are red, that her skin is dark olive, and her eyes are grey. I recognize her from her portrait outside the Mage’s office—

  Natasha Pitch, Watford’s last headmistress.

  “Where is he?” she asks. “Where is my son?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer.

  “Did you hurt him?”

  “No.”

  “You can’t lie to the dead.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  She looks over at his empty bed, and her sadness is so potent that in that moment, I’d do anything to get him back for her. (I’d do anything to bring him back.)

  “The Veil is closing. It will be twenty years before I can see my son again.” She turns back to me and pushes forward. She’s starting to fade. They all fade; Penelope says they can’t stay long, two minutes tops.

  “You’ll have to do.”

  “Do what?” She’s so cold, I can’t stand having her this close to me.

  She reaches out and takes my shoulders—her hands like ice, her breath a painful chill on my face.

  “Tell my son,” she says fiercely. “Tell him that my killer walks—Nicodemus knows. Tell Basilton to find Nico and bring me peace. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Find Nico.…”

  “Nicodemus. Tell him.”

  “I will,” I say. “I’ll tell him.”

  Her face falls. “My son,” she says, cold tears gathering in her eyes. “Give him this.” She leans forward and presses a kiss into my temple. No one has ever kissed me there. No one has ever kissed me anywhere but on my mouth.

  “My son,” she says, and it sounds like a whisper, but I think it’s a shout—I think she’s just fading now.

  I lie in bed, trembling, after she’s gone. The room is so cold. I should build a fire, but I don’t want to open my eyes.

  * * *

  I must fall sleep, because the cold wakes me again, a fresh wave of it, deep in the night. It hangs like a cloud of chill over my bed, then seeps into me, touching me, cradling me.

  “My son, my son,” I hear.

  There’s no figure this time, just this everywhere cold. And the voice is higher and thinner, a wail on the wind.

  “My son, my son. My rosebud boy. I never would have left you. He told me we were stars.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I say. I shout it—“I’ll tell him!”

  I just want her to go away.

  “Simon, Simon … my rosebud boy.”


  I close my eyes and pull up my blankets. But the cold is on me, it’s in me. “I’ll tell him!”

  If Baz ever comes back, I will.

  28

  SIMON

  I can’t wait to get out of my room in the morning. I run out the door with my tie hanging around my neck and my jumper thrown over my shoulder.

  I have no plans to come back. Ever. There’s no room for me in there with all the ghosts. Let Baz’s mum hang out with his empty bed; I’m tired of staring at it.

  I have to tell Penny what happened. She’ll be disappointed that I didn’t drill the ghost with questions. “Sorry about your missing son, Mrs. Pitch, but since Baz isn’t here, we may as well use this time to advance magickal science.…”

  Penny’s already got tea and toast at our table when I get there. I grab a plate of kippers with scrambled eggs.

  “We need to talk,” I say, dropping into a chair across from her.

  “Good,” she says. “I thought you were going to make me beat it out of you.”

  “You know already? How do you know?”

  “Well, I know something happened. Agatha’s sitting alone, and she won’t even look at me.”

  “Agatha?” I look up. Agatha’s sitting by herself on the other side of the dining hall, reading a book while she eats her cereal.

  “So?” Penny asks. “Is this about me sleeping in your room? Because I can talk to her about that.”

  “No,” I say. “No … we broke up.”

  Penny’s about to take a bite of toast, but she pulls it back. “You broke up? Why?”

  “I don’t know. I think she’s in love with Baz.” That reminds me. I’m wearing the same trousers as yesterday. I reach into the pocket and feel his handkerchief.

  “Oh,” Penelope says. “I guess I can see that. I mean—”

  I push my face forward. “You can see that? How can you see that? My girlfriend falling in love with my sworn enemy? My girlfriend, who’s good, falling in love with my enemy, who’s completely evil?”

  “Well, your relationship has had better … years, Simon. You and Agatha both seemed like you were just going through the motions.”

  “And ‘the motions’ include cheating on me with Baz?”

  “Did she cheat on you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Penny sighs. Like she feels sorry for me. She’s unbearably patronizing sometimes. “Agatha’s not really in love with Baz. She’s just looking for something that sticks. It’s romantic to be in love with a dead vampire.”