Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow, #3)(41)

“Whatever,” I mumble, looking down again.

“I come out once a week to check on them. There’s a pregnant doe I’m keeping an eye on. Or trying to.”

“Oh.” Now I feel bad for snapping.

I look up at Niamh again. She’s sitting in the grass with her legs bent in front of her, and her arms resting on her knees. She left her white doctor’s jacket in the car, and she’s got on heavy tan trousers and a dark green T-shirt.

Plus tortoise-framed, green-tinted sunglasses that are very nearly fashionable. She’s staring out in the direction of Watford. Maybe she can see it. “It’s always strange coming back here,” she says. “It makes me feel like I’m going back to school.”

“Yeah…”

“You must miss it,” she says.

I bark out a laugh. “No. Do you?”

“No. But I wasn’t…” She glances over at me.

I scowl back at her. “You weren’t what?”

“You know…”

“I don’t.”

Niamh shrugs and looks away. “Agatha Wellbelove.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, come on.” She shifts her sunglasses to the top of her head. “You must know…”

“Enlighten me.”

“It means, ” she says disdainfully, “that the whole school revolved around you and your friends.”

I lean towards her. “It did not. And how would you even know? We weren’t in school together.”

“I’m only three years older than you, Agatha.”

Is that true? Could Niamh have already made that many bad skin-care choices? I lean back against the tree, folding my arms, and staring at her.

“Did we really play lacrosse together?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember playing lacrosse…” I say sharply.

“Well, I was on the team, three years ahead of you.” She frowns at me.

“Why are you acting offended? You’re the one who doesn’t remember me. ”

“I didn’t pay attention to the upper years.”

Niamh tips up her chin and laughs unpleasantly. “Did you pay attention to anyone?”

That’s when I see it. “Nicks and Slick, I do know you!”

She puts her sunglasses back on. “I’ve been telling you that you do.”

“Snakes alive. What happened to you?”

“What?” She looks surprised and offended, and this time, I can’t blame her.

I try to backtrack—“I mean…”

Niamh … Niamh is Brody. I didn’t even know Brody had a first name. (I mean, of course Brody had a first name.) The girls my age were afraid to speak to her. She was our best attacker. Six foot one, built like a brick wall.

Crowley, her thighs were a wonder—you could serve tea on them. And she had this short, platinum-blond hair, all quiffed up like Niall Horan.

“I mean…” I say again, “your hair.”

Niamh touches her dark brown bun. “Oh. Well. I got tired of bleaching it.

And getting it razored every three weeks. Vet school is a grind.”

Brody. Niamh is Brody. She was absolutely merciless on the field. She plowed into me once. I had time to get out of the way, but I was paralyzed with fear when she came bearing down on me. Her face was all red. White hair, black eyebrows. That monstrous nose. I should have recognized that nose!

“You shoved me once,” I say.

Niamh shrugs. “I shoved everyone.”

“Like, really shoved me.”

She brushes some grass off her boots. “It was lacrosse.”

“A noncontact sport.”

“Yeah, the way you played it.”

“Hey,” I object, “I was good at lacrosse!”

Niamh looks at me again. Gimlet-eyed, even in sunglasses. “Were you really?”

“Not in fifth year, but eventually.”

“Huh.” Niamh doesn’t look like she believes me. It’s a very Brody look.

“Our team went to Nationals my last year!” I insist.

“That’s nice,” she says. “The closest I got to Nationals was seventh year.

We had to cancel our qualifying match because your boyfriend brought home a werewolf, and the whole school was quarantined.”

“He didn’t bring it home; he fought it in the dining hall.” I keep leaning towards her to make my arguments, but none of them are landing. “He fought four!”

Niamh shrugs. “The match was cancelled.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get the lupine virus.”

“I was vaccinated. The whole team was vaccinated!”

“Well, don’t take it out on me,” I say. “I didn’t cancel your precious lacrosse match.”

“You were part of the goings-on.”

My mouth drops open. “I. Was. Kidnapped.”

Niamh rolls her eyes, very meaningfully, like what I’ve just said is both irrelevant and ludicrous.

I lean towards her again. “What was that? Do you not believe I was kidnapped?”

“We all believed you were kidnapped … the first time.”