by P. Wish
“That makes no sense.”
“You never know,” Jane said.
Oliver nodded noncommittally. He drank some more coffee. “If you don’t mind—”
His plate was empty. “Sure.”
“I have a lot to catch up on. I’ll see you around,” he said. He bowed and picked up his closed book, tucking it under his arm, then grabbed his tray and walked to the tray rack. Jane waved goodbye to him and saw him disappear.
At 8:15 a.m., Jane stepped out of the dining hall and took the secluded path lined with grass and flowers that ran from the rear end of the dining room. The sky was a dull blue. Muffled woody sounds of alien birds filled the damp air. Crocuses had begun to sprout on the edges of the grass. For a moment, she remembered the scene of her son’s funeral. The same dark purple crocuses had lined the edge of the cemetery.
A muffled voice echoed in the distance. Jane looked around, straining to hear any other sounds. The moment was overtaken by the rustle of trees and the woodsy animal sounds. Jane’s eyes darted from one end of the long park to the other. She saw tall trees cast their dark shadow upon a rectangular building a few feet away from her. The clearing was covered with dead flowers and leaves, but a trail of mud and footprints ran through it. Jane’s eyes fell on the building. She inched closer, fighting the premonition that rose in her chest.
The one-story building was dilapidated. She heard a whimper. The sound came from the other side of the door. She took a step towards the door. The window was open—broken. Sharp glass shards lay scattered amidst the decomposing leaves and soil. Jane peered inside the broken window.
A long, winding corridor was illuminated by the daylight. Cobwebs framed the edges of the building’s decomposing wooden pillars. The whitewashed walls had been chipped away to leave behind a trail of slate grey concrete.
“Hello?” Jane’s voice echoed through the corridor. She walked to the entrance of the building, which was a few steps away from the window. A rusted steel lock clamped the door shut. She placed her hand on the doorknob, trying to pull it open. It was locked. It hadn’t been touched in a while.
Jane turned, but her heartbeat didn’t abate. She had heard somebody. Somebody could be inside the building. She edged closer to the door and pressed her ear against it. A distant vacuum-like sound filled her ears—silence. Saliva choked her throat. Her eyes grazed the perimeter of the building. Considering the fact that the building was surrounded by quiet trees, the chances were that nobody had heard it.
Jane hurried towards the broken window. The glass had been almost completely broken out, and the window was large enough for a person to enter. Jane placed her hand on the window frame. A remaining piece of glass dug into her skin. She pulled it out instantly, exposing some blood. She rubbed her palms against her pants and gripped the window frame with both hands. She swung and jumped through the window, which was two feet above the ground.
Her shoes landed on a piece of broken glass that lay on the concrete floor. The sudden movement dislodged a cloud of dust. Jane coughed, fanning the dust away with her hands. Her eyes darted to the dark corridor. She began walking further into the room, her heart pumping all the while. She was a stranger to the school. She knew nothing about it. She was doing this based on a questionable sound she had heard five minutes ago. She brushed the thoughts away and continued walking.
Broken wooden chairs, tables and dusty cushions appeared in the lonely corridor. The building was a storeroom of sorts. It was where the old stuff was dumped. A thick film of dust rested over her surroundings. She walked into a corridor lined with a dusty red carpet which had turned a dark maroon over the years. She coughed violently, irritated by the dust. Another sound met her ears. It was a quiet whimper, but she heard it. Jane stopped. She heard it again.
Her eyes turned to a closed wooden door right in front of her. Jane hurried to the door and pushed it open. Her eyes fell on the crumpled figure that sat in shadow amidst the pool of dust and dirt. His face was scratched. Crimson blood lined the cut. His face was brown and dusty. His tears had left a blackish trail on his face. He dried the tears with the edge of his shirt and looked at Jane. Jane noticed another cut had been added to the row of cuts on his arm. She breathed.
A dusty lamp’s glow, an open drawer, the twilight, a lifeless arm…the images began rearranging themselves in Jane’s mind. They poured forth with the force of nausea, unable to change direction or stop. The boy’s sobs began to fade away. Jane’s arm banged against the wall, bringing her back to her senses. She had to focus.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, holding on to the firm tone of her voice. He remained silent. He had to be in pain, but his face had no expression. His knee was bleeding too. Jane walked to his side and extended a hand to him. She met his eyes and flinched. They warned her, but they also called to her. He was in pain, but he didn’t have the strength to fight.
“We need to get you to the infirmary,” Jane said. She looked down at her hands. They were trembling again. She extended the other arm. The boy didn’t budge. A hostile expression spread over his dark brown eyes. He wanted to be left alone. Yet, the depths of his eyes were desperate for help.
“What happened?” she asked, half-knowing and half-fearing the answer. Her hands were shaking.
He sat silently, looking out the dust-laced glass window that blurred the dull light. Another moment ticked by.
“The wound could get infected,” Jane said, bending to examine his cut. Her fingers brushed over his knee. He winced, and she pulled her hands away and looked into his eyes. She saw the fearful expression in them. His eyes pulsated with his heartbeat.
“Let’s go to the infirmary,” she said, her voice firm with resolve. “You need to get up before anything happens.”
She grabbed hold of his arm. He looked at her, begging her with his eyes to leave him be.
“Come on,” she said, using some of her strength to pull him up.
He took a deep breath and made an effort to move. Jane hurried to his side and helped him up. His trembling fingers grabbed Jane’s strong arms.
At 8:45 a.m., Jane entered the main building where the infirmary was situated, a two-minute walk from the storage building. St. Anne’s was huge, and navigating the campus wasn’t easy. At every corner, there seemed to be something that Jane didn’t know about.
Jack panted, clutching his bleeding arm. His messy brown hair was darkened by the sweat on his scalp. He coughed. Jane helped him walk to the end of the corridor. She turned before Mrs. Wolverhampton’s office and followed the green carpet to a brown door that was marked with a golden name plate. It was the infirmary.
Jane pushed the door open. It hit the wall and sent vibrations screaming across the room.
“Hi—” A startled nurse jumped off her seat. She turned to the boy. “Jack,” she said, her response surprisingly placid.
“He’s been hurt,” Jane said.
“I see that,” the nurse said.
Jack sat on the bed, his eyes meeting the floor.
“How did you get hurt?” the nurse asked Jack, examining his arm.
Jack didn’t say anything.
“Jack?”
“I fell down.”
The nurse rolled her eyes, dabbing the wound with antiseptic.
“The cut is deep. It’s gotten to the tissue,” Jane remarked, taking a closer look.
The nurse turned to Jane. “I’ve never seen you around.”
“I’m Jane. I’m the new biology teacher,” she said, flashing a half smile. The nurse continued to disinfect the wound.
“I found him in the storage building. I don’t know what happened, but he was hurt,” Jane said, breathless.
“The storage building? How did he get in there?” the nurse said, her eyebrows knitting. A dark expression covered her face.
“Is there a problem?”
“Students aren’t allowed in there.”
“What were you doing there?” Jane asked Jack. He didn’t answer.
The nurse moved closer to Jack and examined his wounds further. The blood on his face and knees had clotted.
“It’s not infected,” she said. “He needs to rest. He’ll be fine by the evening.”
Jack didn’t say anything. He laid his head against the pillow and stared blankly at the ceiling. He covered his arm with the shirt, hiding the scars. Jane stood like a rock three feet away from Jack. His eyes met hers momentarily before they joined the nurse’s.
The nurse peeled the gloves off and scratched her braided black hair. She collected her black, wiry hair into a bun and readjusted her hair clip. She ran her espresso-colored hands under a stream of warm water. The smell of antibacterial soap filled the air. She wiped her hands and drew the curtains over, blocking Jack.
Jane stepped away from the curtains and began walking to the door.
The nurse dried her hands with a paper towel and chucked it into the trash. She walked over to the computer and sat before it. Putting on her reading glasses, she began to type.
“How did you find him?” she asked, busy typing.
“I heard his voice on the way to class.”
“Was there somebody else with him?” Her black eyes looked at Jane from above the lowered glasses.
“Uh…I saw two boys with him last night. Do you think—” Jane stopped herself.
Her eyes turned to the computer screen. Jane sat in one of the chairs as the nurse typed.
“Do you think he’s being bullied?” Jane asked, leaning in. The nurse stopped typing and turned to Jane, then turned back to the monitor and resumed typing.
“He’s scared,” she said after a long moment. “But he won’t tell me why. I hope he doesn’t end up like Robert—” She stopped typing.
“Robert Brown?”
The nurse was still. She stopped typing.
“I…I heard some students talking.” Jane said.
“Don’t listen to them. We don’t usually talk about him around here,” the nurse said. The edge of Jane’s hand brushed against the nurse’s cold fingers. She turned to the computer.
“Do you believe in the ghost of Robert Brown?” Jane asked—a juvenile question but worth asking.
“Of course not,” she said immediately. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Jane turned in Jack’s direction. A curtain blocked her view. She turned to the clock. She stood up. “I need to get to class,”.
“Thank you for bringing him here,” the nurse said. “I’ll discharge him after the doctor’s had a look at him.”
Jane traced her steps down the corridor. The sound of chatter filled her ears. Students walked up and down the corridor, dressed in the beige-and-brown school uniform. She passed a row of classrooms and stood outside her own. The door was ajar, revealing a narrow image of the class.
Jane reached for the edge of the door. She noticed clotted blood at the edge of her palm. It was from one of the scratches she had gotten while trying to pull Jack out of the storage room. She pulled out tissues from her bag and cleaned the wound. Before she opened the door, Melissa spoke.
“The detective asked about Robert Brown,” Melissa said.
Jane stopped, pulling herself away from the door.
“Robert Brown? Why did he ask about Robert Brown?”
“He knows there’s some kind of connection between the murders.”
“He must’ve heard the rumors,” the raven-haired girl said.
“Where did you hear this?”
“Ummmm…I can’t remember.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I saw the ghost when I started school at St. Anne’s.”
“Oh God, get over it. You were sleepy and lost. You could’ve seen an alligator.”
“But I didn’t see an alligator. I saw a ghost. Robert’s ghost,” Melissa insisted.
“Whatever.”
“Don’t you think he died the way he did?”
“He drowned, Melissa. Lots of people drown.”
“Not in a pond. This is not the Pacific Ocean.”
“Okay, first of all, he drowned in a lake, not a ‘pond.’ And he couldn’t swim.”
“Then why did he go to the lake in the first place? If you can’t swim, why would you go to a lake?”
“You know why.”
“That’s why I know it doesn’t make sense.”
“You think he didn’t commit suicide? But it was very clear. He was depressed, Melissa.”
“That is what the detectives said.”
“And the doctors. And the school staff. And he himself wrote about it.”
“You actually believe the detective?”
“Course I do. I don’t have a hyperactive imagination.”
“It’s not imagination. It’s intuition.”
Jane burst into the room.
“Good morning. Sorry I’m late. I was caught up in…well, it doesn’t matter,” she said, placing her bag on the desk. The students stared at her blankly.
Jane pulled a stack of graded papers from her bag and placed them on the table. “I graded your papers this morning.”
She moved around class, distributing the papers. One of the boys received his sheet from her. It was an A. He slid the sheet under his desk, expressionless. She opened her class list. Everybody was present in class except for Jack. She remembered the nurse calling him ‘Jack’. So, he was in her class.
“Jack won’t be joining us today. He’s had a little accident and needed to be taken to the infirmary.”
“Who’s Jack?” one of the girls at the back whispered.
“Your classmate?” Jane put in. “The one who sits at the back. Long hair falling over his face?”
“Oh.”
“You know him, don’t you?”
“Not really.”
Jane stopped by the infirmary later that afternoon. She opened the door carefully, making sure not to disturb the patients. She walked in. The nurse wasn’t in. She glanced at the wall clock. It was lunchtime. Jane proceeded to the row of beds beyond the green curtain. She jerked the curtains away. Jack was sleeping in the first bed. His body was covered with a white bedsheet. The scar on his cheek was covered with a Band-Aid. Another student slept in the bed next to him. As she backed off, she noticed his exposed arm. She’d seen it in the dark, but it looked more horrific in the daylight.
Her eyes trailed to the exposed scars on his hands. A row of cuts, some healed, some red and some dark ran over his inner arm. He had been cutting himself. She closed her eyes. A lump pricked her throat. No, it couldn’t be happening again. She closed her eyes.
Ben’s phone call played in her mind. Her eyes were moist.
“I arranged the funeral for Charlie. It’s tomorrow at nine,” he’d said in a low voice. She was at work. The sounds of the noisy detectives’ office melted away. She stood up and walked out of the room.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Please be there,” he said in a calm voice. “It’s for Charlie.”
“I—I will,” Jane said.
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Thank you.”
The next day wasn’t anything like she’d planned. She got to work at seven in the morning. The suspect in the case she was investigating didn’t show up all morning. Jane camped outside his two-story apartment in West London all day. The coffee and pie churned in her stomach. She glanced at her watch, tense. Her subordinate, who was supposed to arrive at eight thirty, arrived at ten thirty. However, the suspect had shown up shortly before. She followed him around town, trying to track down the person he was meeting. By the time she was done, it was noon.
When Jane got to the cemetery, everyone was gone. Ben stood amidst a sea of graves, his back hunched over a tombstone. The blue morning skies had faded to grey. The slippery soil moved u
nder her shoes and she slipped twice on her way to the grave.
Ben stood in the distance, his head bowed before a freshly dug grave. The tombstone stuck out from the ground. Jane inched closer to his form. He turned. Specks of brown hair lined his chin. His green eyes were filled with sorrow.
“I’m sorry, I—”
Ben stood up suddenly. He loosened his black tie which he wore over his white shirt and black suit. He walked past her. Jane turned around. She didn’t say anything. Neither did he. He disappeared away from the grave. She turned to the tombstone.
Charlie Grey
Rest in Peace
Her eyes clouded with tears. She gathered her face in her hands and sunk to the ground. The dampness of the soil condensed on her trousers. She sat on the ground, warm tears running over her face. She watched the sun set and stayed even after it grew dark.
Jane walked out of the infirmary, clutching the wall for support. Light spots formed before her eyes. She heard a gruff voice coming from the next room. She closed the infirmary door slowly and took a few steps towards the next room. “Meeting Room 1” was written outside the room in gold letters. The door was not fully closed. Through the narrow gap, she saw a puny man sitting behind a desk. His posture was marred by his hunchback. His hair was silver, and his small blue eyes twinkled.
“Are you Dr. Daniels Foster, the physician?” It was Gary’s voice. Jane strained her neck to see him.
“Yes, I’m Dr. Daniels,” the old man said.
“I’m Detective Myers,” Detective Myers said, surveying the man. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Mr. Greene.”
“I was sad to hear about…um…the whole incident,” the aged doctor said, his eyelashes casting a shadow over his eyes. “I’d be happy to cooperate in any way possible.”
“Thank you,” Detective Myers said. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Sure.”
“How long have you been working at St. Anne’s?”
“Well, I don’t actually work here. I work at the NHS facility in Tenterden. I come down here if there are any serious cases.”
“I see. And how many years have you worked at NHS?”
