Gated II: Ravenhill Academy

by Matt Drabble

  Alex found himself lost in the words as Joshua spoke. They had discussed matters deep into the night as they had started sharing a room since the end of term. He had expected that one of the teachers would have separated them by now, but no one had. Every night he fell asleep listening to Joshua’s soothing words as they flowed over him, sending him off gently into a night full of wild and exciting dreams from which he never wanted to awake. His dreams were dark and lustful with thoughts and emotions that he didn’t quite understand and yet wanted to explore.

  “I can show you the world, Alex,” Joshua whispered seductively. “I can give you everything that your heart has ever desired; all I ever ask is loyalty from my followers. Loyalty Alex, loyalty above all else. In return I can give you the world.”

  Alex couldn’t help but turn towards Ms King as though his head read his mind. The young teacher arched her back and stretched her arms above her head. Alex followed the contours of her body as her shape was silhouetted through the glare of the window. He could see the outline of her bra through her shirt and his mouth went dry and his trousers felt a little too tight. His eyes roamed down her figure stopping where her jeans hugged her hips and the dark and scary secrets that lay hidden in between.

  Joshua suddenly slapped his hands together hard in a single clap and Ms King broke from her spell. She looked around the room and smiled towards the two boys. “Think I’ll get a coffee if you boys will be ok on your own for five minutes,” she said, in a normal tone of voice as she left the room.

  Alex couldn’t help but watch her as she left.

  “Loyalty, Alex,” Joshua whispered in his ear. “Loyalty, and I can give you the world.”

  ----------

  Father Brendon Monroe walked into the small village police station; in reality, it was little more than a shop front with a long counter and an office setup.

  “This is all very mysterious, Sergeant Ross,” he said grinning. One look at the policeman’s face wiped the grin from his own.

  “It’s a sad business I’m afraid, Father; I was wondering if you might offer a little spiritual guidance to the poor woman,” Donald said gravely.

  “I don’t understand, Sergeant.”

  “Please, it’s Donald, Father.”

  “Then it’s also Brendon, Donald. Now, suppose you tell me what you require of me.”

  “Old lady went nuts and damn near chopped her old man’s head off,” PC Paterson said indelicately from his seated position at one of the back desks.

  Brendon saw the sergeant flinch at the young PC’s choice of words.

  “I’m afraid that we’ve had somewhat of an incident,” Donald said more diplomatically.

  “Incident my arse,” Paterson laughed.

  “Why don’t you be a good lad and make the Father some tea?” Donald ordered sternly.

  Brendon watched as the young man took his feet off the desk and sulked his way through to the small kitchen at the rear of the station. “Coffee if you’ve got it,” he called quickly, as his insides rebelled at the over saturation of tea already sloshing around his system.

  He waited silently as the sergeant moved closer to him.

  “The Merryweathers,” Donald started.

  “Mavis and Colin, I know them reasonably well,” he answered honestly.

  “Well first off, I need your absolute discretion here Father... Brendon,” he corrected himself. “This is not information to be shared outside of this station, not with anyone, is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” Brendon said succinctly.

  “At some point this morning, for reasons thus far unknown, Mavis Merryweather killed her husband, Colin,” Donald whispered as though his words might carry on the wind through the station walls and into ears beyond.

  “My God,” Brendon said, hushed. “Was it in self-defense?”

  “You have to understand, Brendon, that I’m just a village bobby. I don’t know how to read a crime scene or even really how to interview a murder suspect. But from the brief look I got, Colin was sitting in his armchair and Mavis came at him with an axe. The real coppers have been delayed by the weather and I’m just holding onto her in the meantime.”

  “She told you that she did it?”

  “Yes,” the sergeant replied as his face visibly paled. “She came out with it like she was telling me a recipe for apple pie, all calm like.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Well the thing is that she’s been in there,” Donald said, pointing to the maintenance closet, “praying away like there’s no tomorrow; I understand she is quiet a religious woman and I just thought that you might have a word with her, maybe get her to drink or eat something. Whatever has happened, I am responsible for her well-being until the city cops show up and take her off my hands.”

  “Is she dangerous?”

  Donald looked like he had to stop and think about the possibility for the first time. “I can’t see how.”

  “But I doubt that you would have imagined her capable of butchering her husband before you saw the scene.”

  “Aye, that’s only too true,” Donald sighed. “I’m afraid that this whole thing is a little beyond me to be perfectly honest.”

  “How do you take it?” PC Paterson yelled from the kitchen and Brendon saw how the sergeant jumped at the sudden loud voice.

  “Black will be fine, thank you,” Brendon called back. “She’s in here?” he asked Donald, pointing to the closet.

  “Yeah, we don’t have a cell here so I had to make do,” he shrugged.

  “Well ok then, open up,” Brendon said calmly.

  “Are you sure, Father? I mean, I hadn’t really thought about her being dangerous until you brought it up,” Donald said, concerned, as his hand rested on the door handle.

  “Trust me Sergeant, I’ve faced a lot worse than an old woman who’s been smacked around one too many times before finding the courage to finally hit back. I’m sure that whatever violence Mrs. Merryweather had in her has long gone.”

  Donald unlocked the door and opened it. Brendon stepped forward to meet the ageing school secretary, summoning up words from one of the many courses that he had attended on domestic abuse. The sergeant stood back and he looked inside. Mrs. Merryweather was sitting on a small but comfortable looking cot. Her hands were clasped in front of her and her lips were moving as she whispered softly to herself. He got as far as opening his mouth to speak when she looked up. Later, he would become convinced that her gentle eyes had fixed upon his collar before turning to fire.

  She leapt off the bed and flew out through the door before any of them had time to move. Brendon outweighed the small woman several times over, but yet he was driven backwards under her furious assault. Her brittle hands became talons as they scratched and clawed at his face. He managed to get one meaty hand up under her chin and push her head backwards but she still swung viciously at him. Impossible as it was to believe, she was driving him backwards and his boots slipped on the melting snow upon the floor. He fell heavily and she landed on top of him like a wild animal. Her eyes were full of pure hatred and her mouth hung open loosely as spittle flew from her lips and her teeth snapped together. She was spitting words of pure abhorrence at him in a language that he didn’t understand or even properly hear. Her mouth moved up and down with the words and with a desire to tear his flesh from his bones with their ivory strength.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement followed by a smashing sound. The woman suddenly went limp and he pushed her off easily.

  He rolled away and climbed back to his feet, his heart pounding with a sudden rush of adrenaline. He looked to his savior to see young PC Paterson standing there holding the remains of the coffee pot. His hand was shaking as he held the black plastic hand with the glass jug now shattered upon the floor. “Holy shit, did that just happen?” he asked shakily.

  “Watch your language, son,” Donald said, nodding towards Brendon’s dog collar with an equally trembling and shocked voice.

&nb
sp; “I think that the young man has it right, Sergeant,” Brendon panted as he checked his face gingerly. “Holy shit is about right.”

  ----------

  Sarah was painting on her own. The few meandering students that had passed through her art class doors had all wandered away as their underdeveloped attention spans ran out of gas.

  She enjoyed the peace and quiet of solitude with only her brush strokes for company. She was able to allow her mind to wander and dream, devoid of repercussions. She was already starting to make plans to find another school. Perhaps she would find somewhere warmer this time. Ravenhill had been a godsend to her and she was grateful, but the time was fast approaching to move on. Normally she would have long since left a place like this. Her employment record was dotted with short term appointments as the threat of growing close to someone reared its ugly head. Sometimes it was a friendship that snuck up on her and only occasionally, over the last 10 years, had it been something of a more romantic nature. After Eden she was damaged goods and cursed, and she had no intention of ever endangering anyone else ever again.

  Her mind drifted as she painted. There were always private schools around Europe that would surely be pleased to have a former Ravenhill Academy teacher on their books. Ravenhill’s reputation was second to none and she was confident that Barnaby would supply her with an honest letter of recommendation.

  She felt eyes upon her and turned to the doorway. Alex Thompson stood half in, half out of the room hovering with confused intent.

  “Alex? Can I help you?” she asked.

  The boy was usually a troublemaker of the non-serious variety. He was mouthy and could be disobedient to a point, but she sensed that there could be some redeeming features hidden somewhere deep inside of him. His face was usually a mixture of sullenness and arrogance, but now he looked deeply unhappy.

  “What is it Alex?” she said putting down her brush and walking towards him.

  He took a step backwards as she neared him and she stopped. He looked like a nervous rabbit about to bolt at any minute.

  “You can talk to me, you know,” she said, sitting down at the nearest desk.

  “I shouldn’t,” he said in a small quiet voice so bereft of his usual authority.

  “That probably means that you should then,” she smiled kindly.

  “He’d go mad if he even knew I was here,” he whispered as he walked slowly into the room and sat down opposite her.

  “I’ve found in the past that keeping things buried deeply inside you only works for so long. The further down that you push them only delays their inevitable escape,” she said darkly. “Everything comes out in the end Alex, everything.”

  “I have moments when I feel like I’m all here, but they’re getting further and further apart. It gets so that you can’t hear your own thoughts or even recognise your own voice,” he said in a voice that was close to breaking.

  Sarah looked at his deeply unhappy face and wondered just what he had gotten mixed up in. In a normal high school she would have assumed drugs or alcohol, maybe a crime of some nature. But this was Ravenhill, a school situated in the middle of nowhere and far removed from the temptations of the world. She let the silence stretch out as she waited for him to become comfortable again.

  “I don’t want her to be hurt,” he finally said in hushed tones.

  “Who, Alex? Who don’t you want to be hurt and who’s going to hurt her?” she asked, desperately trying to keep the frantic tone from her voice.

  She looked on in disbelief as the resident school bully started to softly weep. “Please,” he said through the tears. “Please.”

  In that moment he seemed so desperately unhappy and wracked with guilt that she reached out to take his hand. But the moment that they touched he jerked like he had been electrocuted and his eyes cleared of tears but hardened into those of someone else.

  “Almost,” he hissed as he stood and turned for the door. “Almost SJ,” he whispered as he passed through it.

  She sat there as he slipped away, unable to comprehend whether he had called her SJ or not. Nobody had used that moniker since Eden and she found her heart racing at the connection. The years of buried memories were all still there no matter how hard or how far she tried run. Ravenhill had lasted longer than any other place that she had tried since she had left, but now this place was inevitably tainted too.

  A flash of movement caught her eye and she looked across to see a white handkerchief flapping through the doorway. She watched as Jemima’s pleasant face peeked around the door. “I come in peace,” the young teacher said unsurely.

  The stab of sorrow and loneliness at falling out with her one friend only made Sarah’s decision to leave easier to make. “Don’t be silly,” she said kindly.

  “I really don’t know what came over me,” Jemima said, perilously close to tears. “The last thing in the world I want to do is to fall out with you over a boy of all things,” she half laughed.

  “The whole thing is too ridiculous for words,” Sarah smiled, as Jemima walked across the room towards her. It was only at the last minute that she realised that the young teacher was about to hug her and there was no escape.

  The embrace was awkward, but not unpleasant which only made her more determined to start looking for a new position elsewhere.

  “So what are you working on?” Jemima asked looking at the easel.

  “Oh nothing much really,” Sarah replied honestly. “Sometimes it’s just the action of painting that I find the most relaxing.”

  “It’s good,” Jemima said, leaning in closer for a better look. “What is it supposed to be?”

  For the first time Sarah looked down at what she had been painting on automatic pilot.

  “I like these swirls of color and flashes of green and black; are these buildings? And are they on fire?” Jemima asked.

  Sarah stared down in horror. She recognised the scene instantly despite the abstract format. It was the town square in Eden, at the end when Tolan had tried to sacrifice Emily and her unborn child before Michael and Thom had started the fire that had burned the place to the ground. It was a scene that she believed long lost from her memories, at least the daytime ones. In a flash, every attempt to bury that night over the last 10 years was torn to shreds as the memories came flooding back and drowned her in a tidal wave. She only had time to realise that she was falling before she fainted dead away and the hands in the dark belonged to one man that blamed her above all others.

  CHAPTER 12

  Maurice stoked the fire but still he couldn’t get warm. The cold night outside insisted and would not be denied. He shivered inside his thick cardigan and hugged himself hard, but to no avail.

  His cottage was set inside the grounds of Ravenhill, but it was not as far from the main building as he would have liked. These days he was beginning to think that no distance would be far enough. He was the caretaker like his father before him and his father’s father before him; it was a responsibility that was a heavy burden. He knew that Barnaby saw himself in a similar role, but in reality the Headmaster had little idea of what he was letting himself in for.

  Ravenhill had been through many incarnations in her day. But as far as Maurice’s father had been concerned there was only one constant down the decades; Ravenhill seemed to attract only the worst men as landlords. He had told a young Maurice that the place had an energy that appealed to the blackest of hearts. Maurice had always had his doubts about his father’s warnings as Alastair Barnaby had proven to be stern man, but clearly not a monster - at least on the surface. But he had respected his father and knew that he wasn’t a man for exaggeration. The one thing that he was sure of was that if all the buried corpses around here stood up at once, they were going to have a hell of an overcrowding problem.

  He threw another log onto the fire and rubbed his hands fruitlessly. The cottage was small but it suited him and his needs. Most nights he spent in front of the fire with his books for company, nodding off in his armchair.
He wasn’t a sociable man and cared little for the companionship of others. Unfortunately, this also meant that he had left no heir to carry on the family business; when he died there would be no Duncan man to carry on as caretaker.

  Something soft hit the lounge window making him jump at the sudden noise. He stood up slowly from his chair and walked towards the glass. He peered out into the dark night but could see little. He leaned towards the pane when another soft thud hit the window on the opposite side of the room. He knew that sometimes the birds lost their sense of direction when they flew over Ravenhill, another of her little eccentricities.

  There was a third thud and a fourth. This time they were followed by muffled laughter. The voices were high pitched and young as the sound floated through the air seemingly from all directions surrounding him.

  He grabbed his coat and pulled his boots on grumpily. Normally the kids here were pretty well behaved and disciplined, but the occasional bout of disobedience still occurred from time to time.

  He threw open his front door and looked out into the black night as his breath puffed out in white clouds in front of his face. He was puzzled as the lights should have worked as soon as any movement triggered their sensors. The lights were useful for keeping the foxes’ and badgers’ destructive urges at bay. He made a mental note to add them to his list of chores in the morning.

  The lights exploded into life as he hit the override switch on the wall. There were at least 10 kids of varying ages all standing motionless in his front garden. He stared in disbelief as they all wore their school uniforms but no protective clothing against the elements. They stood with blank faces but bright twinkling eyes. Their hands were wet and blue with the snowballs that they had thrown at the cottage.

  Maurice took a single step forward and opened his mouth to scream blue murder at them for pissing about at this time of night, before he stopped. He couldn’t see any of them breathing. Their faces should have been enveloped in white puffs of frozen breath but there was none to be seen. All of them stayed rock still without as much as a shiver.