She says this in the enthusiastic tone of a children’s TV presenter, but her words are met with a groan of disappointment from the villagers, most of whom have no idea what she’s talking about, and who just want to get back to the party.
‘Four days ago,’ Sabrina begins, pretending she can’t hear them, ‘five women entered the Chrysalis.’
‘And one man,’ yells Daniel Foster indignantly. ‘Why does everyone keep forgetting about me?’
‘Five womenand one manentered the Chrysalis,’ Sabrina goes on. ‘Their mission?Change.’
She pauses, as if to give the audience a chance to react to this, but everyone just stares at her blankly.
‘Change comes in many forms,’ says Sabrina, tapping a key on her laptop, which makes a large screen come to life behind her, with a photo of the hotel on it. ‘Physical. Mental.Spiritual. The Chrysalis aims to facilitate them all, with its holistic approach to self-care, combined with the utmost in luxury accommodation.’
The screen behind her flicks through a series of slides showing various parts of the hotel, along with the dramatic landscape surrounding it, which I guess is supposed to represent the mental and spiritual changes Sabrina mentioned.
‘Over the last few days, our exclusive influencer team has experienced these changes for themselves,’ says Sabrina, tapping another key. ‘And just look at the results!’
She stands back to allow us a clear view of the screen, which now starts scrolling through some of the photos we’ve been posting while we’ve been here. There’s ‘princess’ Bex floating through the misty castle grounds before going back to her room to cry; Yasmin pretending to drink champagne in a cold bathtub; Zara and Millie looking gorgeous in bikinis I now know they almost froze to death in, although you wouldn’t know it to look at them. There’s even one of me stroking Bramble on the nose, and looking like I’m having the time of my life, when, in fact, I felt lonely and pushed out by everyone around me.
Every single photo is stunningly beautiful .?.?. and completely fake.
‘Can we get on with this?’ says someone plaintively from the direction of the dance floor. ‘This free bar isn’t going to last forever, is it?’
‘Although all of our influencers have produced amazing work,’ says Sabrina, pretending not to hear this, ‘only one of them can become the face of the Chrysalis. And, in order to decide who that should be, my assistafriend Luna and I have been carefully analysing the number of likes, shares and referrals they’ve managed to generate. We’ve also been sharing some of our favourite photos and videos on the Chrysalis’s Instagram account, and the influencer with the best overall engagement will become the face of the hotel for the next twelve months.’
‘What’s that? Is somebody getting engaged?’ asks Lord Glenmuir, holding a hand to his ear. ‘Speak up, woman. What’s she talking about?’ he adds, turning to Ian, who’s sitting next to him.
‘Don’t ask me,’ replies Ian, taking a swig of beer. ‘I don’t even know what an “assistafriend” is. I’m just here for the free booze.’
‘Luna,’ calls Sabrina, glaring at them both. ‘Could you pass the envelope, please? And Dante, you should be up here too.’
Beside me, Millie leans forward in her seat, but I just tap my fingers impatiently on my chair. It’s obviously going to be Bex who wins the contest – and just as obvious that it’snotgoing to be me – and now that we’re about to find out, I really don’t care anymore. I just want to get it over with, so I can speak to Hunter.
That’s the only thing that matters to me.
Luna gets hurriedly to her feet and hands her boss a large gold envelope. After a moment, Dante follows her to the front of the room, where he takes his place next to Sabrina, looking like he’s there at gunpoint.
‘This is just like the Oscars,’ observes Izzie, who’s somehow managed to get Stevie the dog onto her knee, and is hugging him as if he’s a teddy bear. ‘I wish we’d thought to make some popcorn.’
Sabrina takes her time opening the envelope, drawing out the moment for full dramatic impact.
‘And the winner is .?.?.’ She pulls a card from the envelope and holds it up to the light, only for Dante to snatch it rudely out of her hand.
‘Surely this must be a mistake,’ he says, squinting at the piece of paper. ‘This can’t possibly be right? You’ll have to do a recount.’
‘There’s no mistake,’ says Luna, two spots of colour appearing on her cheeks. ‘I counted it up myself. Twice, in fact. This is one hundred per cent the correct result.’
Stepping quickly over to the laptop, she presses another few buttons, and the hotel’s Instagram page appears on the screen.
‘As I mentioned,’ Sabrina says smoothly, ‘we’ve been sharing some of our favourite photos from the last few days on the account for the hotel. Luna added some today, in fact.’
She scrolls down the page, and I gasp in horror as a video of me standing on top of Hunter’s car appears.
‘I sent them that,’ says Callum excitedly. ‘It’s good, isn’t it? I’m going to put it on TikTok, too.’
I daren’t look at Hunter as the video starts to play; and, by the time it ends, I’m cringing so hard I’m in danger of disappearing into my seat. But the number of hearts at the bottom of the post shocks me into sitting upright again, sure I must be seeing things.
But no. It’s still there. Which means .?.?.
‘What we found,’ says Sabrina, ‘is that followers of the hotel’s account responded best to the rawer, more natural content we posted. They loved this video, for instance, which not only showcases the, er, unique relationship that exists between the hotel and the local community, but also shows the change that Rosie here has experienced as a result of her stay at the Chrysalis.’
