Ravensborough by Christine Murray Read Free Book Online Page A

especially outside a church.
    ‘There are a lot of people here,’ I commented. ‘The churches back home wouldn’t see anywhere near as many people on a Sunday.’
    ‘Well, we’re very religious here,’ said Cat as we walked towards the church. ‘All good Rationalists go to church.’
    I saw what she meant when the service started. The priest went through the usual ritual prayers. But his homily was full of justification for Rationalists being the most powerful group in Avalonia. There was a section demonising Pagans, talking about how they were a danger to the entire country. It was very thinly veiled hate. There was a lot of talk about keeping our hearts free from the dark shadows of Pagan superstition. We were warned of the dangers of fraternising with Pagans. I thought of my phone switched to silent mode in my pocket, containing plans to meet up with someone I suspected was a Pagan. I guessed that wouldn’t fly to well with the good people of Chesterfield.
    The next week was easier than the one that had just gone by. I was losing my new girl status, and hung around with Cat and her friends. I was beginning to get on better with Mei than I did with Cat herself, though – we were more on the same wavelength.
    I had sent a few text messages to Aradia, and we arranged to meet on Friday evening after school. I may have been feeling more at home here, but I still didn’t know my way around Ravensborough very well, so I asked her if she knew the Willow-Tree cafe where I’d been on Saturday. She said she did.
    I kept the meeting a secret from everyone. I knew Rupert would hit the roof if he knew that I was meeting up with Aradia on my own. If he wasn’t comfortable with us talking in his own house, there was no way he’d be ok with us meeting up alone in the city. Because of that, even though I didn’t like doing it, I had to lie to Mum and say that I was going to Mei’s. I didn’t tell anyone in school, because I didn’t want any hassle. Ben, after being told the whole story by Cat, kept referring to me as a witch-lover. I couldn’t see what the big deal was. None of the Rationalists actually believed that magic actually existed. They saw Pagans as members of a faintly ridiculous cult, albeit one that made the whole country a laughing stock to the rest of the world. Most Pagans weren’t harming anyone, so what was the problem?
    School on Friday seemed to take forever to go by. It didn’t help that some sadist had decided that a double class of maths was the ideal way to finish of a Friday afternoon. We were ploughing through the delights of trigonometry, something that I’d already covered at home, making it especially monotonous. ‘One of the aims of trigonometry,’ our maths teacher Mr. Schaffer told us, ‘is to find the length of one side of a triangle through logic, by utilising the known values of the other two sides.’ I refrained from pointing out that a truly ‘logical’ approach would just involve using a ruler.
    Ben and I were in the same class. I looked sideways at him while Mr. Schaffer moved on to angles. Was he really oblivious to the fact that Cat had a major crush on him? Or did he just not care? It was hard to know with him.
    After class we walked out the front gate. Mei, Will and Cat were waiting for us. When I didn’t turn to walk home via my usual route, Cat asked as to where I was going.
    ‘I’m just heading into the city to have a look around. I need some new clothes. I do not have enough jumpers for this weather.’
    ‘Ah. . . yes. Coming from the sun drenched island of Ireland, you’re not able for the cold’, teased Ben.
    ‘It may rain a lot, but Ireland has a cool temperate climate,’ I emphasised, my breath freezing in a cloud in front of my face. ‘And Ireland is further south. Anyway, I wasn’t complaining. I’m just being practical.’
    ‘You should have told me you were going clothes shopping’, Cat pouted. ‘I would have come with you. Instead you left me