Twig

by wildbow

  He hadn’t escaped the effects of the poison. The man seated to his right and the headmistress another seat down were both looking about as uncomfortable.

  Had they eaten more, being larger in build?

  “Everyone!” Red-jacket boomed out the word. He had a faint but real British accent.

  The noise level dropped.

  “Something in the meal looks as though it might have been undercooked. Head straight to your dorm rooms. If you have to—” he paused. “It is best if you use the wastebins in your room instead of trying to make your way to the toilets. I expect there will be too much demand. You will be looked after, but go now before you feel any worse.”

  We’ll be looked after?

  Jamie was staring intently, still in his seat. He stirred when I reached across his field of vision for a pitcher of water, only a quarter of the way filled. I emptied the contents into another pitcher, then slid it across the table to Gordon.

  “What’s this?”

  “If we can’t get to a wastebin,” I said. “Better the jug than the floor. You hold onto it?”

  Gordon took the glass pitcher by the handle, one arm supporting Helen. It wasn’t much, but it served as a weapon.

  “Go ahead,” I told Jamie. While he and Lillian circled the table, I emptied another pitcher into the one at the center of the table, holding it in my hands.

  Not that it mattered too much. If it came down to me needing a weapon to defend myself, I doubted things could be salvaged.

  Still made me feel better.

  We headed for the girl’s dormitory with Helen and a few stragglers. I was glad to be shorter than the norm, as I ducked my head down and let the crowd shield me from the eyes of the teachers.

  I’d hoped that the act of taking care of Helen would let us break away, but there were too many people vacating the dining room. Even those who were well were being driven out by the aroma of vomit. It was humid in the room with the heat from the kitchen and the sheer number of students, and the humidity helped carry the offensive odor. We couldn’t break away from the crowd, and I wasn’t sure that the dorm room would be much better.

  Beside me, an older girl hunched over, making a guttural noise. Everyone near her cleared out of the way.

  I took advantage of the gap in the crowd to step closer. I stuck the empty pitcher beneath her mouth, pulling my head back and away so I didn’t have to look as she emptied a portion of her stomach’s contents.

  “Thank you,” she said, still bent over, smiling.

  She reached to take the pitcher, and I pulled it away from her grasp.

  “Reserved for friends,” I said.

  She looked a little bewildered and lost.

  “And here I thought you were a gentleman,” Erma mumbled.

  “I’m a bastard, born and bred,” I said. And there’s no way I’m handing a weapon over to a potential enemy.

  With students moving slowly and some pushing or jostling, the way up the stairs looked like more of a jam than any day on King Street. We were probably safe while we were a group, but if the crowd separated us, or if someone tried to slip us the wrong end of a knife while we were in the crush of bodies, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to respond accordingly.

  I saw Gordon shooting Jamie a look, and I sensed that he was thinking along the same lines.

  We were stuck.

  “Where are the showers?” I asked.

  “Showers?”

  “Baths? Where do we wash up?”

  “Upstairs one floor,” Gordon said. “Above the dining room.”

  He took the question as an instruction, and he and Helen dutifully forged their way into a gap in the crowd. Jamie, Lillian and I hurried to follow, me holding my pitcher off to one side, to avoid the smell.

  People were slow, some had stopped on the stairs, sitting or on all fours, and there was a smell that suggested they weren’t all simply throwing up. It was a mess, a disaster, and a stain on Mothmont on many levels.

  That part of it all was almost certainly a clue.

  There were a lot of details to be picked out of this. Motivation, approach, the nature of the enemy…

  I idly moved the pitcher to one side, intending it to be a shield against anyone reaching for me or holding a weapon, but it ended up serving another purpose. The sight of a glass container filled with vomit made two girls shy back. It was an avenue for me to slip upstairs, skipping ahead three steps, ducking past two students, and stepping to safety, free of the sickly herd.

  The others followed me as we headed into the girl’s showers. Two showers were already running, and the room was filled with steam. The floor was white tile, the stalls themselves were wood painted with an exceedingly glossy paint. Each stall was recessed, with hooks and benches before the door and the shower beyond.

  “They get individual stalls?” Jamie asked. “Why do they get individual stalls?”

  “Shh,” Gordon shushed him.

  Erma had followed us, and staggered past us to the first available stall, where she promptly decorated the floor with her dinner.

  I glanced around, then pointed. While the others led the way, I stepped to nearby stalls and turned on the water. The hiss of water filled the room.

  By the time I caught up with the others in the furthest shower back, Helen was standing upright, her expression blank. Gordon stood with a foot resting on one of the little benches at the entry to the stall, while Jamie and Lillian occupied the other short bench.

  I stood at the entrance to the stall, where I could peek out and keep an eye on the door. Clouds of steam drifted.

  Helen reached past the others for my pitcher, and I let her have it. Without flinching, she emptied some onto her sleeve. She turned on the water, cold more than warm, and stepped under the stream. The water ran over her, soaking her hair and uniform. The makeup around her eyes ran.

  I glanced away, my attention on the other stalls. Pacing back a bit, I bent down, peering under stalls. I saw some bare feet and wet socks. It looked like Erma was sitting on the floor of the shower, letting water run over her.

  “Were we followed?” Gordon asked, his voice low.

  “Don’t know,” Jamie murmured.

  “When things get this messy, it gets harder to keep track of things,” I said. “Which might be what they’re counting on.”

  “Trying to catch us out?” Gordon asked.

  I nodded. “Shaking things up, yeah. What worries me is Mary.”

  “I didn’t have any clue,” Helen said.

  “It’s okay,” Lillian said, reassuring. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m well aware,” Helen said, turning her blank expression on Lillian. Anyone else might have sounded irritated, but Helen didn’t sound anything. “If I had an idea and ignored it, then it would be my fault.”

  “I… okay,” Lillian said.

  “Who is she?” I asked. “This Mary?”

  “Mary Elizabeth Cobourn,” Helen said. “Her father isn’t influential. Accountant to the rich and famous. It’s why I didn’t pay particular attention to her.”

  “Who is her mother?” Gordon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said. “I just looked at the men, because of the prior pattern. Would have asked, but it’s harder to ask about a girl’s mother.”

  I nodded. Most mothers were teachers, nurses, or homemakers. Nothing so interesting that we could ask. There were more women attending the Academy, but few from the last generation.

  “Worth looking into,” Gordon said. He ran his fingers through his golden hair, which was damp with the light spray that had touched it. “Check the rest of her family, why she might be selected out of all the students here.”

  I could sense how stressed the others were. This maneuver had put us all in a reactionary position, and our options were limited until the other shoe dropped. I volunteered some information, hoping to get them focused again. Not necessarily improving morale, but I doubted that was a real issue. We knew this sort of situatio
n well enough. “We know she had a role in this. She might as well have told us to our faces that she was involved, the line about enjoying our meals, the look she gave us. It means something, if she doesn’t care about us coming after her.”

  Jamie nodded. “The puppeteer is using these students as murder weapons. As a killer, he has a pattern. Murder-suicides. One after another. The suicides cover up evidence. If Mary keeps to the pattern, she’s either going to come after us—”

  “Or she’s going to go home,” Gordon said. He paused. “Oh.”

  I followed his thoughts to the same conclusion. “This is the endgame.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lillian cut in. “I’m not following.”

  “They know we’re onto them,” Gordon said. “Our puppeteer somehow figured out about us. Maybe through a connection to the Academy, maybe by some other means. He got scared, and now he’s wrapping up. Get everyone sick, and in the midst of the chaos he can send his weapons after us, or students are sent home and finish their jobs.”

  “Or both,” I said. “If they’re careful about how they come after us, there’s nothing saying they can’t take a run at us and then disappear.”

  “That’s possible,” Gordon agreed. “Especially if they know who we are, they might not want to pick a fight.”

  I heard a noise and glanced past the entrance to the stall to check the door.

  Two more students. One was crying.

  I stepped further into the steam and shadow and eyed them until they disappeared into a stall. No sign of hostility.

  “Either way,” Gordon was saying, “our puppeteer may be wary enough to take a break for a few years, let interest in things die down, or pack up and head to another campus at another school.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “This approach here feels ugly. Making students sick? Vomit and shit everywhere.”

  “Hurts Mothmont where it counts, and what hurts Mothmont hurts the Academy,” Gordon said.

  “Personal,” Lillian said.

  I nodded. “Now you’re getting up to speed.”

  She looked annoyed at that phrasing.

  “We have a man—” Gordon said.

  “—Or woman,” Jamie cut in.

  Gordon continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “—Who considers these children to be expendable assets. He alters them somehow, gives them a target, and has them die after the fact, tidying up the evidence. He does this because he hates the school? That’s an awful lot of hate. Do we really think he’s a teacher? That’s a lot of involvement and hours of the day to spend around something you hate that much.”

  “Isn’t it possible?” Helen asked.

  “No,” Gordon said, frowning a little. “I really don’t think it is. It feels too spiteful, twisting the knife for good measure when he could simply stab.”

  Helen nodded.

  “What if this isn’t about the school?” I asked.

  “Go on.”

  “It’s personal, but it’s a grudge against a person.”

  “Against the headmistress?” Gordon asked.

  I offered a languid shrug. The moisture in the air was starting to collect on my skin and clothes. I wiped my forehead and pushed my hair back and away from my forehead. “Jamie? Any thoughts on the faculty?”

  “They were talking as a group before Mr. McCairn did his announcement,” Jamie said. “The headmistress didn’t have a lot to say.”

  “Did students serve the teachers food?” I asked.

  “Yes, right from the kitchen,” Jamie said. He paused, glancing to the left, “Mary served the three at the end.”

  “Making the headmistress look bad by keeping her ineffectual,” I said. “More poison or whatever it was—”

  “Emetics,” Lillian said. “Maybe laxative.”

  “Mary gave the headmistress more emetics than anyone else,” I amended my statement. “The question is who would have a grudge against—”

  I sensed a movement out of the corner of my eye. My head turned, my hand and one finger going up for the benefit of the others.

  “To your rooms, now,” a woman’s voice cut in.

  I heard footsteps. Both those belonging to the woman and the footsteps of the fleeing girls.

  A sharp knock, a few stalls down.

  “Out,” was the order.

  Doing the rounds, clearing everyone away.

  Gordon held up his hand, counting off on his fingers, his voice low. “Who has a grudge against the headmistress? Someone on campus, who can communicate with the students. Who is Mary and why her? Look at who her mother is. What is the mechanism of control? And don’t forget that they’re liable to come for us. Be on guard, and don’t forget they might try to take you out with them.”

  “And their families,” Lillian said. “If they get away…”

  “We’ll step in if it looks like there’s any danger of that happening,” Jamie assured her.

  “We will,” I agreed. “I’d bet money this ploy of theirs has another angle. Watch out for the angle.”

  There were nods.

  “Out,” the teacher gave the order, several stalls down.

  “My friends,” Erma said. “They were in here.”

  Selling us out?

  No, Erma didn’t know we were trying to avoid the spotlight.

  “Do we need to worry about Erma?” Gordon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Helen said.

  “Not wanting us in the girl’s dorm was suspicious,” Gordon said, his voice a whisper.

  I could hear the teacher’s approaching footsteps, hard soles on tile.

  “Oh, that?” Lillian asked. “Her room’s a sty. She doesn’t know how to look after herself.”

  Our entire group collectively relaxed.

  There was a metal-on-metal squeak as another shower was turned off.

  I turned to face the woman as she emerged from the steam.

  “Boys in the girl’s showers?” she asked, her voice arching, as if she were about to launch into a tirade.

  “It’s okay,” Lillian said. “We—”

  “Not another word. This is most certainly not ‘okay’!” the woman said, building up steam.

  Helen stumbled forward, lightly headbutting the woman in the solar plexus. With wet hands, she clutched the woman by the shirtfront.

  “Miss Williams,” Helen mewled the words, “I feel so bad. Please. I—”

  Helen paused, apparently holding back her gorge.

  Gordon stepped forward, hurrying to offer my pitcher of vomit to the woman. The woman had to fight Helen’s clutches to get to the pitcher and offer it to the girl.

  Helen managed to unload a mouthful of vomit and missed the pitcher entirely, dropping it on the floor between the woman’s feet. She coughed, clutching at the woman’s shirt again. “It hurts.”

  I jumped in. “We know her, and she had it worse than anyone, and we didn’t know what to do. There were so many people on the stairs we weren’t sure we could get anywhere in time.”

  “She had someone else’s mess on her sleeve,” Lillian said. “I thought she could clean off, but I couldn’t support her myself, because Erma was there too, so we came here, and she went into the shower like that.”

  “I wanted to get cool,” Helen said. “I feel hot and sweaty and gross and…” her words dissolved into incoherent whines.

  “I—” the woman started.

  “Please, we don’t want to get in trouble,” Gordon said. “We didn’t know any way to help her.”

  “You don’t—”

  “It hurts,” Helen said. “My stomach is cramping.”

  “Enough,” the woman said. She managed to extricate herself from Helen. “Enough of that. You need to act like young adults. I understand that this young lady is feeling unwell, but that’s no excuse for the rest of you.”

  She glanced over us, and we collectively managed to look miserable and pitiful enough to get to her.

  She gave me a curious look. “What happened to you?”

&nbs
p; “Scrap, ma’am,” I said.

  The woman made a face. “Boys, to your dorms, right now. They’re doing headcounts shortly. I’ll look after Helen here.”

  We nodded and hurried to obey.

  Once I was at the entrance to the showers, I glanced back. I could make out Helen with her head resting against the woman’s chest, giving me a sidelong glance, a light smile on her face.

  I resisted the urge to smile back.

  Had things been different, I might have tried to get myself in trouble. As nice as it would have been to see how punishment worked here and if it might be used to keep the bad seeds in line, I didn’t want to add more complications to a bad situation.

  I was damp but not wet from the ambient moisture of the shower, and I ventured into a hallway that reeked of sick. The students had been cleared out, but the air would have that bitter taste to it for weeks.

  Jamie, Gordon and I all made our way down the hall.

  “That was good,” Gordon said. “Being able to talk, touch base.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But we’re on our back foot. We know very little where it counts. They’ve seized the initiative. Until we turn things around, we’re going to be responding, not acting. We don’t have time to waste, if they can just call it quits and go murder mom, dad, and themselves.”

  “At which point the Academy can’t keep the situation under wraps,” Gordon said. “What do you think, Sly? Want to slip away, see what you can do while you’re staying out of sight? See if you can turn things around or get the right words to the right ears?”

  “If they’re doing headcounts, they’ll wonder where I’m at. Depending on how things go, that wondering might reach our puppeteer.”

  “That’s not a no,” Jamie commented.

  I smiled.

  “He has at least an idea of who we are,” Gordon said. “Having you lurking could scare him.”

  “Or she has an idea who we are,” Jamie said. “We could scare her.”

  Gordon rolled his eyes.

  “I’m just saying. Most teachers are female.”

  “I’m only saying this doesn’t feel like a woman’s work,” Gordon said. “Women care about kids on a deeper level.”