Dead Jealous Read Free Page A

shut and forced the image away.
    ‘Have you kissed him?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Have you tried?’
    ‘No! He’s my friend. I can’t – can’t risk losing him.’
    ‘Seems to me that’s exactly what you’re risking.’ Beth sat forward. ‘Look, I’m in no position to tell you what to do. But what’ll happen if you do nothing? If you say nothing? Watching him with someone else, it’ll eat you up, Poppy, until there’s nothing left. Love is like fire: unless it’s channelled it destroys everything.’
    Beth got to her feet and glared at the lake, so flat that it could be a sheet of glass. With a grunt, she launched the bottle into the sky. Droplets of whisky formed an arc, a perverse black rainbow. The bottle hit the water with a splash, sending shockwaves towards the shore.
    Beth raked both hands through her hair and sniffed. She turned to Poppy and laughed, but there were tears in her eyes.
    ‘Y’know, when I first saw you, I thought I was seeing her ghost, or sommat. But it was just this place playing games with me.’
    ‘What will you do?’ Poppy asked.
    Beth didn’t seem to hear. She stared down at the festival ground where lines of people were snaking around, to a reel of fiddles and drums. If it wasn’t for the flickering bonfires and the smell of burning, it could have been a kids’ fancy dress party.
    ‘They’d like this place to be about peace and the earth and all that crap. But something stinks,’ Beth muttered.
    ‘Yeah, it’s called self-delusion.’
    ‘No. They believe something. I can respect that. Maya was into all this stuff. Was always going on about me being psychic.’ Beth snorted and shook her head. ‘But this place, don’t you feel it? It’s a dark place.’
    ‘I’m not sure I—’
    ‘—Stinks of shit. And the thing about shit is that eventually some of it floats.’ Beth zipped up her jacket and stuffed her hands into the pockets. The attitude vanished and suddenly she looked small and exposed. ‘What would you do?’ she whispered. ‘If it were you looking for this Michael? Would you keep looking, even if you knew he’d never love you back?’
    Michael. With his slightly turned-down mouth that always made him look so damned sullen. Eyes so steady, so knowing, that they sometimes frightened her. Would she ever be able to let him go?
    Beth glanced out at the dying rays of the sun and nodded. ‘Aye. I reckon I’ll keep looking.’

CHAPTER TWO
    The air smelled of burning.
    Whispers of smoke rose up from the scorched remains of bonfires. At the centre of the crescent-moon field, the hollow body of the wicker man remained tall, untouched by the flames of the night before, and monstrous in the half-light. There’d been a stay of execution. But Saturday they’d be celebrating Lughnasadh and Big Willy would burn.
    Poppy shivered. Bloody barbaric. Even if it was just an effigy.
    Zipping her hoodie against the chill, she crept past Mum and Jonathan’s tipi, towards the lake. It had been a long night. The drums and tin whistles had kept her tossing and turning. Along with thoughts of Michael, and Tariq, and Beth, that seemed to play on an endless loop in her head.
    Only a few half-conscious bodies stumbled around the makeshift village, most of them heading for the foul-smelling chemical loos and then straight back to their tents. Understandable – it wasn’t even five-thirty and last night had been a late one for most.
    Up on the bluff overlooking the lake, at the place where she and Beth had sat, a lone figure was silhouetted against the dusty orange and purple sky. At first she wondered whether it was Beth, but the outline was too solid, too thick to be her. She wondered whether Beth had found her friend.
    Friend – ha! That word hid so much.
    The campsite seemed uneasy, as if the whole place was holding its breath. A shiver tickled her spine and she thought about slipping back inside her tent and zipping up the flap until more people were around. But there were people all