Dark of the Moon. Siobhan Curham

once they decided to leave without us. Hurt crushes my heart. I guess years of friendship don’t just disappear over night, no matter how bad things had become between us.

      I think back to the last time I saw Jenna, looking down at me from the boat while I pleaded with her to stay. Will that be the last time I ever see her? I shove the thought from my mind and take her hair straighteners from the case. Just the very notion of hair straighteners seems crazy now. What does any of that stuff matter – hair straighteners, make-up, the latest look – when, at any moment, life can hurl you face to face with death?

      I rummage further and feel the cover of a small, hardback book. I pull it out and open it. The first page is covered in Jenna’s handwriting but the water has caused the ink to run so the words are just one long bumpy line. Is it her journal? I feel a weird mixture of guilt and longing. I know it’s wrong to read another person’s private thoughts but it might be the only way I get to hear Jenna’s voice again. I carefully turn to an inside page. Once again most of the words have bled together, but one line remains unspoilt:

       I can’t believe I almost told G I slept with Todd, especially now we’re stuck on this

      What the hell? I hold the writing up to the firelight. But my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me. It’s there in black and white. Jenna slept with my boyfriend. But when did she sleep with him? My mind starts rewinding furiously. Was it here on the island? Or back at home? It can’t have been here – it would have been physically impossible for them to sneak off without being noticed. So that means . . .

      I feel sick as I think of how she questioned me over and over in the couple of weeks before we left about whether I was going to sleep with Todd on the cruise. My hands start shaking so hard I have to put the notebook down. I remember huddling next to Jenna in the hold of the boat after the storm hit. ‘I have to tell you something, Grace,’ she’d said, right after she asked me if we were going to die. Was that what she was going to tell me? Did she want to clear her conscience? I hug my knees to my chest and take a couple of slow, deep breaths. Even though Todd and I have broken up, it’s like Jenna’s reached out of her journal and socked me right in the stomach. I pick up the notebook and stumble to my feet. All that time I spent stressing about what I’d done to make her act so weird, and it was because she’d slept with my boyfriend. It was bad enough when I figured out she liked Todd, but this is the ultimate betrayal. So what if Todd and I weren’t right for each other. She was supposed to be my best friend.

      I start pacing round the fire. She can’t have cared about me at all. She lied to me. She made me think she was the only person I could count on, and all the time . . . But she could be dead. The enormity of that realisation snuffs out my angry thoughts in an instant. I take one last look at the notebook then drop it on to the fire. A cloud of steam hisses up from it.

      ‘Grace, honey, are you okay?’ the Flea calls over from the cluster of trees where he’s helping Belle to pack.

      ‘I’m fine,’ I mumble, sitting back down. I glance back into the case and notice a glint of silver. I look closer. ‘Oh, no!’

      ‘What is it?’ The Flea starts walking over to me.

      A silver chain is draped across Jenna’s nail polish remover. I take it out and hold it up to the firelight. A pendant sways on the end. A pendant engraved with a snake above the letter H – for Hortense.

      ‘The pendant!’ The Flea exclaims.

      I nod numbly.

      The Flea frowns and scratches his head. ‘How the heck did it get there? Where did you put it after we found it?’

      I think back to when the pendant last appeared, by the HELP sign we’d made on the beach. Right after I’d seen someone trashing the sign. I’d taken it on to the boat – and flung it out to sea. So how had it ended up in Jenna’s case? I remember Hortense whispering to me in the forest and telling me that every time Jenna had hurt me she’d done something to hurt her back. Was this her way of letting me know that she’d wrecked the boat? Had she killed Jenna for me? Then I think of how that one single line in the journal had remained legible. Had Hortense somehow managed to preserve it from water damage – so that I would see it? So that I would discover the truth?

      ‘Where’s Cruz?’ I say, looking around frantically.

      ‘He’s right there, by the boat, honey.’The Flea takes hold of my arm. ‘What’s up?’

      ‘Is everything okay, Grace?’ Belle calls over from the trees.

      ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I call back, but my voice is shrill. I turn to the Flea. ‘How’d the necklace get in her case?’ I whisper. ‘I threw it into the sea.’

      The Flea frowns. ‘Why’d you do that?’

      I start scuffing at the sand with my toe. ‘I – it was making me uneasy, the way it kept turning up all the time.’

      The Flea raises his eyebrows. ‘Well, I guess it was washed up on the shore and Jenna took it. You know how mad she got when it went missing the first time.’

      I nod and take a deep breath. I want to believe him. I really do. But fear keeps on clawing at my mind.

      ‘Okay, guys, are you ready?’ Cruz calls as he starts walking over from the boat.

      I turn back to the fire and drop the pendant into the flames. I don’t care what Jenna did with Todd! I yell at Hortense inside my head. Just leave me alone. Leave us all alone! I wait for her reply, for her soft sinister voice to echo back at me, but again there’s nothing. All I hear are footsteps on the sand behind me. I turn and see Belle feeling around for my hand. I take hold of hers and grip it tight. Then I take a deep breath and look over at Cruz.

      ‘Let’s go,’ I say. I don’t care what kind of storms might be lurking out at sea. I have to get off this island. I have to get away from Hortense before she drives me insane.

      As the boat pulls away from the shore I start shivering uncontrollably. This is it. If Hortense is going to pull a stunt to get us to stay she’s going to have to do it now. My throat feels so tight I can barely breathe. I close my eyes and think of Mom. Before Dad left and Mom’s life collapsed in on itself like a burst balloon, she was a total yoga nut. One time, when I was freaking out about my mid-term math paper, she taught me how focusing on my breathing could help me stay calm. I imagine her thick southern drawl now, reminding me what to do: ‘In through the nose, honey, out through the mouth. In through the nose, and out through the mouth .’

      I keep on doing this as Dan and Cruz hoist the sail. A sudden breeze causes the faded fabric to billow and the boat picks up speed. It’s not until we’ve been going for a few minutes that I allow myself to look back. The sunrise is making the peak of the volcano glow so red it looks like it’s about to erupt. I look down at the beach. The pale sand is scarred with the scorched remains of our fires and, right in the middle, our HELP sign made of sticks. I think back to when we first arrived, and how beautiful and inviting the island had seemed after the terror of the storm. If only we’d known. I turn away and look out to sea. My heart is thumping like a bass drum. Please, please let us get away, I silently pray. At the other end of the boat, Cruz looks at me and smiles. But his eyes look anxious and I can tell he’s thinking the same as me – is it really going to be this simple?

      A sudden breeze spins the sail round and we all duck as it narrowly misses our heads.

      ‘Shit!’ Cruz grabs hold of the sail and tries to steer the boat back on course, but the wind is too strong.

      ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ Belle asks.

      ‘It’s just getting a little breezy. No need to worry,’ the Flea says, but his voice is tight.

      ‘Help