THE STORY SO FAR …
Ruby Brooks, Freya Dixon and Ivy Finch quickly became friends when they met at Chalmers Hall. They were there to attend a summer camp for teenagers who needed a detox from technology. The camp was hosted by the Ash Tree Foundation, an organisation that claimed to help teenagers addicted to technology.
Aspiring actor Ruby had been stalked and almost killed after she’d downloaded the EchoStar app to help her with her schoolwork.
Wannabe eco‑influencer Freya had become a criminal when she followed the advice of the AdelAIDE home assistant to try to boost her social media profile.
And keen gamer Ivy was sent to Chalmers Hall Ash Tree Foundation after arranging to secretly meet up with a fellow gamer. Ivy realised
he had lied about his age when he’d tried to lure her into his car.
The girls thought they’d be spending their school holiday learning to be to less dependent on technology. It was looking as if it was going to be a pretty boring summer …
Instead, they discovered the Ash Tree Foundation was a front for Novo Reality, a dangerously addictive augmented‑reality platform. This was the brainchild of tech‑baroness Dagmar Nilsson, who dreamt of a world where everyone was constantly logged in to Novo Reality and under her control. Dagmar worked with her nephew, famous influencer Conrad O’Connell, to isolate Ivy from the other girls and convince her to join Novo Reality.
Ivy was hidden away in a folly in the grounds of Chalmers Hall and hooked up to an augmented reality machine 24/7. Meanwhile, Dagmar told everyone Ivy had run away, leaving her parents and friends frantic and terrified.
But Ruby and Freya didn’t believe their new friend had run away. They discovered the truth as they tried to find clues about where Ivy might have gone: Dagmar Nilsson and the Ash Tree
Foundation were behind EchoStar and AdelAIDE, and now Ivy was in terrible danger too.
They managed to rescue her, despite all three girls almost being killed in the process. But Dagmar and Conrad escaped …
Now, a year later, their lives are mostly back to normal. Freya is about to move to Scotland to start university, and Ruby and Ivy are preparing to start sixth form when the summer holidays are over.
But Dagmar Nilsson won’t give up her dreams of ruling the world through technology just yet …
CHAPTER 1
I lay on Freya’s bed and peered around her bedroom. You couldn’t tell Freya was leaving for Scotland in the morning unless you looked very carefully and knew her very well.
The thing was, I did know Freya very well. Since surviving our ordeal at the Ash Tree Foundation, we’d become really good friends, so I could easily spot all the things Freya had packed to take to university in Scotland.
For example, a photo of me, Freya and Ruby was missing from the corkboard above Freya’s desk. We’d asked a theatre usher to take it when we saw Hadestown in London last Christmas. The three of us had squashed together to fit the poster of Hermes behind us into the shot. My cheek had been mashed against Ruby’s face, Freya squeezed in on Ruby’s other side and Hermes smirking over our heads.
Also missing was Freya’s battered old sewing machine. Freya’s stepsister, Ella, had told Freya not to pack it because there wasn’t space for it in the tiny flat Freya would be sharing with Ella and Ella’s girlfriend, Margot.
This wasn’t the same Margot who’d shown me how to use Novo Reality in the folly of the grounds of Chalmers Hall; it was just a weird coincidence they had the same name and both worked in technology. Ella’s Margot was a website developer and definitely not in a creepy cult. Still, it made me shudder every time someone said her name, and I’d asked Freya to refer to her as “Ella’s Margot” to help me out.
Anyway, Freya declared she’d sleep under the bed and keep the sewing machine on top of it if she had to, so Ella gave in and let her pack it.
The wardrobe had been cleared out too. I hauled myself off the bed and walked over to it, hitting at the empty hangers like a bored cat.
“What are you doing?” Freya asked me as she entered the room.
“Ivy’s moping,” Ruby said, coming in behind Freya.
“I am not,” I said. “You can’t even see my face because it’s looking at the wardrobe.”
“Yes, but I can sense it,” Ruby replied. “I’m very sensitive to moods.”
Ruby pushed past Freya and came to stand in front of me with her arms folded.
Then she sniffed the air around my head. “Yup,” she declared. “Moping.”
“I am not,” I said.
“I’ll be back at Christmas,” Freya said. “And we’ll message all the time.”
“I just don’t understand why you’re going now,” I said before I could stop myself. “We have the whole summer holiday left. University doesn’t even start until the end of September.”
“To settle in,” Freya and Ruby said together, then laughed.
“I know, I know,” I added, trying to summon a smile. “I’ll just miss you, that’s all. I’ll miss us all together. Last summer was awful. I really hoped we’d have a great summer this year.”
The three of us went silent as we remembered what happened to us last year at Chalmers Hall.
“It might still be a great summer?” Freya said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
I tried to imagine what tomorrow would be like without Freya around, and the day after, and the day after that.
“No!” Ruby shouted suddenly, making me and Freya jump. “We’re not doing this. Not on Freya’s last night. Come on – let’s go out and get gelato or something.”
“Gelato?” I said, giving Ruby a puzzled look. “Where would we get gelato in this town?”
“I also said ‘or something’,” Ruby huffed. “Now let’s go!”
*
We didn’t find gelato, but we did find tubs of fancy ice cream in a takeaway pizza place a few streets away. We got one chocolate and one cherry, passing them between each other as we walked. It was a warm night, the beginning of summer, and we wandered aimlessly. Ice cream dribbled down our faces as we laughed at Ruby’s jokes.
Until a pair of gates loomed in front of us.
“Chalmers Hall,” Freya said in a low voice.
I hadn’t been back here since the night Freya and Ruby rescued me from Dagmar Nilsson and the Ash Tree Foundation. None of us had.
One of the gates was hanging off its hinges. They stood open like an invitation.
“Let’s go home,” Ruby said gently, taking my arm.
I pulled free and took a step towards the gates. “I think we should go in,” I said.
Freya shook her head. “That’s a bad idea, Ivy,” she said.
“I know, but I want to,” I replied. “Just to look. To make sure.”
“Make sure of what?” Freya said. “The police told us they’d found no sign of Conrad O’Connell or Dagmar Nilsson, or any of the Ash Tree Foundation people in there. It’s like they vanished into thin air.”
“Ivy doesn’t mean that,” Ruby said in a quiet voice that was so different to how she normally spoke. “She means make sure it was real. Right, Ivy?”
I stared at Ruby, then I nodded. That was exactly what I’d meant.
“Sometimes it feels like a dream,” I said. “Sometimes I still dream about it.”
“Ivy …” Freya began, but Ruby interrupted her.
“It won’t hurt to go in for a minute,” Ruby said. “It might help to lay the ghosts to rest.”
“I don’t like this,” Freya said. She pulled out her phone. “But if we’re doing it, we’d better turn our locations off. I don’t want Ella and my mum to freak out if they check on me and see I’m here.”
I smiled at her. “Good thinking,” I said. I pulled my own phone from my jeans pocket and switched the location tracker off.
At my side, Ruby was doing the same.
“All done,” she said, putting her phone back into her bag.
“Let’s get this over with,” Freya said.
Ruby grabbed my left hand, and Freya took the right one.
Hand in hand, we slipped between the gates and started down the track towards the main building.
The track was overgrown, brambles tugging at my jeans as we walked. The trees along the pathway made it darker and colder than out on the street, and I shivered.
“We can still turn around,” Freya said softly, but I shook my head and kept walking.
The track opened out into the grounds, and Chalmers Hall was right in front of us.
We clearly weren’t the first people to come here since the Ash Tree Foundation had abandoned it. There was graffiti on the walls, empty beer bottles on the ground, and some of the windows had been smashed.
“Looks like it’s become the local party spot,” Ruby said. “The front door’s open.”
“No,” Freya said. “We’re not going inside.”
I slipped my hands free of Ruby’s and Freya’s, and marched to the door.
Then I was inside Chalmers Hall once more.
I stopped in the hallway, remembering the last time I was here. I’d had to be carried outside by the police because I was too weak to walk after what the Foundation had done to me. I remembered how Conrad had attacked me in the dining room after he’d tried to convince me to join them. He’d even tried to kiss me.
“I bet the whole place has been trashed,” Ruby said, arriving at my side. Her voice echoed off the walls, and I looked around, seeing the broken furniture, the empty cans and crisp packets littering the floor. “And looted too. Some of the stuff in here was probably really valuable.”
As Ruby wandered into Dagmar’s old office, I pictured the vase I’d thrown at Conrad when I’d been trying to escape. It had been one of a pair that looked expensive – I’d realised that the first time I saw them.
“It’s so weird to think we stayed here,” Freya said, rubbing her arms as if she was cold. “Slept here. It feels really different now. I wonder if the attic has been looted too? Not that there was much in there to take.”
I could hear Ruby opening and closing drawers inside Dagmar’s office.
“You never did see the Blue Room, did you?” I asked. “The bedroom where Dagmar put me instead of the attic with you and the others. It was really nice.” Despite everything, I hoped it hadn’t been wrecked.
Freya shook her head.
“Come on. I’ll show you. We’ll be quick,” I added. “Ruby, we’re going upstairs.”
“Obviously I’m coming,” Ruby replied, bustling out of the office. “Look what I found duct‑taped to the underneath of the desk.”
She held up a huge brass ring with lots of keys hanging off it.
“I wonder why the police didn’t find them?” Freya said, staring at the keys as if they might explode. “Taped under a desk isn’t exactly a genius hiding place.”
“Unless they were put there more recently –after the search?” Ruby suggested.
We all looked at each other.
“Maybe we should leave?” Freya said.
I stared at the keys Ruby was still holding up and then turned towards the staircase.
“Let’s vote on it. I say stay,” I said, surprising myself. But I’d come this far – I didn’t want to turn around and leave. I wanted to put the Ash Tree Foundation and Chalmers Hall behind me for good. If I left now, this place would always haunt me. I wanted to be free of it, once and for all.
I continued, “Besides, if someone hid the keys there, it means they’re not using them right now – it wouldn’t make sense to hide them if they were here. So we should be safe.”
“I agree,” Ruby said. “And I want to see behind the scenes. Freya? What do you think?”
“I guess we’re staying,” Freya sighed. “But please let’s be really careful. I don’t like this.”
“Of course. Do you think the keys are for here?” Ruby asked. “Or the weird folly in the grounds?”
“Here,” I said. “The folly was all done with electronics and keypads. Everything was the latest tech.”
I had a fleeting moment of longing for the Novo Reality headset I’d used down there. I pushed it aside.
My feet found their way back to the Blue Room easily, but the door wouldn’t open. I rattled the handle and pushed against it in case the wood had swollen and made it stick, but it stayed closed.
“It’s locked,” I said.
We all looked at the ring of keys in Ruby’s hand.
“Lucky we found them,” Freya murmured as Ruby held the keys out to me.
It took me a few tries, but I found the right key and let us in.
The clock that used to be on the bedside table was gone, but otherwise the room looked the same as the last time I’d seen it. The bedcovers were thrown back just as I’d left them. There was even still a dent in the pillow from my head.
“OK, I can see why Dagmar was able to suck you into her creepy tech cult,” Ruby said, staring around the room. “This place is unreal – it’s like a film set. Four‑poster, bed, fancy dressing table, velvet curtains. Wait, does that bath have little lion feet?”
Ruby and Freya dashed into the bathroom, and I listened as they squealed about the claw‑footed bathtub and how soft the towels were and how nice the soap was. I was surprised it was all still there – that no one had stolen it.
“And this bathrobe? It’s the softest thing I’ve ever touched. Is it made of angels’ eyelashes or something?” Ruby said. “It smells amazing too. Like fancy cologne or something.”
I slipped the ring of keys into my pocket and crossed to the window. I looked out onto the grounds, just as I did the first time I was here. It was getting dark now – night was falling.
And then I saw a light heading towards the house.