by Tess Adair
Just as she walked through the double front doors, the class bell went off like a nuclear warning. She located the nearest painted cement column and stood on the far side of it, hoping to save herself from the jostling of the crowd.
The mad rush poured out all around her. In truth, her memories of public school were scattered and sporadic. The older she got, the more often Charles brought her along on contract jobs—even though, much of the time, he ignored her while she was there, and even forgot her from time to time. When she was thirteen, she’d tested into skipping a few grades and entered high school early, only to miss so many classes in the semester that they threatened to hold her back. That was when Charles transferred her to a private school that cared more about tuition than truancy.
She’d hated the public school, and she’d hated the private school, too. Part of it was the structure; it had always been hard for her to follow someone else’s timeline. But she’d wondered more than once if she might have adapted to it a little better had her father let her attend for more than two or three days at a time.
Looking around her now, it was hard to say if she’d really missed out on anything. She could almost smell the misery on the air, or so it seemed to her. It was possible she’d find out for sure tomorrow.
The swarm of students rushed past her, but she could barely discern separate people, let alone single out who among them might be a murderer. She watched passively as the crowd swelled and then dispersed. Within a few minutes, only a handful of students were left.
She watched a group of girls gather near a doorway before marching as one down the hall and disappearing, and she wondered if they were on a team together. She wondered, too, if any of them had known the victim. Now that the halls were emptier, she detached herself from her post and ambled about, surveying her surroundings.
Near the bottom of the stairs, a table had been set up with a heart-shaped wreath on it, framing a blown-up portrait of Violet Buchanan. The students had already created a memorial to her, complete with candles and stuffed animals and hundreds of cards. She watched two students, a boy and a girl, stop in front of it and place their own tokens. By the sounds of it, at least one of them was crying. Perhaps it was an unusual thought process to entertain, but somehow it comforted her to think that at least some of the other students were grieving. Violet Buchanan was remembered, and she was missed.
As she turned away from them, she noticed an awkward-looking boy fumbling with something near his locker. To her eye, of course, every teenager seemed awkward and out of place, but she had to admit that something about him spoke to an even greater level of discomfort. He was white, pale, gangly, and slouched, with hair somewhere between brown and blonde. He must have felt her gaze on him, because he looked up. His eyes, for the moment they held hers, looked desperate and pleading. She offered him a smile, but his gaze turned hard in return—resentful and defiant. Then he turned away. Perhaps she’d embarrassed him; the thought had her regretting the smile.
She couldn’t help but watch him a moment more—he looked so out of his depth. He walked down the hallway a bit, toward a pretty dark-haired girl in a brightly colored outfit, still standing at her locker, typing away furiously on her phone. When he reached her, he made some kind of noise that Logan couldn’t quite make out, and the girl looked up. He shoved something into her hands before turning around and walking away with a noticeably duck-footed gait, right out the front door.
Logan switched her attention to the girl, who looked completely dumbfounded by whatever had just happened. She lifted the object in her hands—an envelope—and began to open it.
At that moment, a shockingly loud bang echoed through the hallway around her. She turned to the source—another student had slammed her locker door shut, and as Logan watched, she proceeded to kick it, hard, several times. Based on the force alone, Logan would have been surprised if it didn’t make a dent. As she observed the scene before her, Logan couldn’t help but notice the way the girl was dressed—pants so loose they might fall off, an oversized gray sweatshirt, and a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. She looked like she was doing her best to become invisible. The only part of her that seemed to shine through was her hair, which hung in a long heavy braid down her back. Much like the pretty girl before her, this girl was staring at her phone screen. But unlike that girl, she wasn’t typing happily away. What was visible of the expression on her face looked like rage and fire. Logan was almost afraid of it.
And yet a part of her immediately empathized with this obvious oddball of a girl. She recognized a piece of herself in her. She remembered what it felt like to know that nobody ever saw you, that nobody wanted to see you. And to wish you could just give up and vanish like they wanted.
Logan let herself look too long. The girl glanced up and met her eyes, and her nose wrinkled in disgusted fury. Then she gathered her books to herself and rushed out the door in a huff.
As she left, a dark thought crossed Logan’s mind. Every kid she’d just seen was a suspect. She had to stop looking at them as projections of her younger self, and start looking at them as potential killers.
Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to do both.
Logan killed an hour walking around the school, cementing the layout in her mind and spying on a few afterschool activities. Then she made her way to the administration office at the front of the building for her meeting with Mrs. Wendell and Mr. Johnston.
The principal was curt, perfunctory, and nondescript. Mrs. Wendell waved him over when he walked by. Even after she’d explained who Logan was, he looked mildly confused and completely disinterested. He gave her a sorry excuse for a polite smile, shook her hand so briefly she could barely say for sure it had happened, and walked off again.
“Sorry about him,” said Mrs. Wendell, before Logan was even completely sure he was out of earshot. “He doesn’t really like talking to…well, people. Any people.”
“So school principal was a great career choice,” Logan blurted out, then grimaced. Magic or no, she should at least try to act professional.
But Mrs. Wendell loved it.
“I know, right?” she laughed. “He’s an odd fish, that one.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “You didn’t hear this from me, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody someday caught him with pictures he shouldn’t have. You know, of the students.” Logan nodded. She’d understood the implication. “Oh, I know I shouldn’t talk that way, but you just never know, do you?”
“That you do not,” answered Logan noncommittally.
Mrs. Wendell was a short woman, white and in her forties, with plain, shoulder-length brown hair held back with a pin, and blunt brown fringe resting over her square glasses. She gave Logan a knowing smile as she appraised her.
“Oh, I can tell I’m going to like you. How long did you say you’d be in town for?”
Logan pursed her lips, wondering if Knatt had provided a specific timeline. Then she took a stab at a vagary of an answer.
“It really depends on the students. I’ll stay until I’m not needed.”
“That makes sense,” said Wendell, nodding in self-assured agreement.
“So,” said Logan, hoping to press the advantage of Mrs. Wendell’s favor, “what can you tell me about Violet? It’ll help if I can get at least a little background information, so I’ll know more about where the students are coming from when I speak to them.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures,” she motioned toward the front of the building, where the students’ memorial lay just beyond the far wall. “Violet was beautiful. Oh, and she was popular, too.” Mrs. Wendell’s voice took on a forced wistful quality. “She was perfect, you know? She was a cheerleader, and a member of the prom committee, and she was almost homecoming queen.”
“Almost?”
“Yeah, she lost to Missy Vreeland.” Mrs. Wendell glanced around the office, checking to see if anyone was listening to them, then leaned in even closer to continue. “But
I heard that was also the night that Missy’s boyfriend, Jason Reed, tried to dump Missy so he could get together with Violet. But Violet was already dating Derek James, only they hadn’t told anybody yet. So she turned Jason down, and he had to go back to Missy and pretend that he hadn’t tried to hook up with Violet at all. And, you know, Violet and Missy are best friends.” Mrs. Wendell’s delighted expression suddenly faltered, and her face fell. “Were. They were best friends. Well, that’s a funny thing, isn’t it?” Her eyes drifted off to the left, like her mind was somewhere far away. “It’s so stupid, really. Why were those kids even out in the woods in the first place? We should never have let them play out in the woods.”
Logan felt a surge of pity for this strange woman. She reached out a tentative hand and patted her on the arm, in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.
“You didn’t let them do anything,” she said gently. “They made their choices. It’s not your fault.”
With curiously blank eyes, Mrs. Wendell let her gaze drift back to Logan’s face, though she seemed to have a hard time focusing on it.
“She was so beautiful. You never think…” her words drifted off, her gaze sliding to the left again. After a moment, she shook herself. “But you’re not here to listen to an old woman prattle on, are you? Let me get you some of the pertinent files, then I’ll take you to the office you’ll be using while you’re here. Well, it’s more of an empty classroom than an office.” She walked into the room extending behind her desk and came back with a crate full of files, which she pushed into Logan’s hands. “At the front, you’ll find Violet’s file. The rest belong to the students who have so far been signed up to talk to you. You might get other walk-ins, of course. Just take their names and I’ll get their files to you.”
Logan nodded, suppressing a smile. She had to admit Knatt had done his part seamlessly. She never would have guessed it could be so easy. Of course, the obvious downside was that she still had to spend the next few days talking to teenagers.
“Follow me,” said Mrs. Wendell, walking toward the door. Logan complied.
She led her past the memorial, and Logan couldn’t help but notice that when they passed it, Wendell’s gaze jumped conspicuously around the room, looking everywhere else. They walked up the main staircase and down the hall to the right, then into a small out-of-use classroom with big windows. A few desks and chairs had been stacked against the back wall, leaving the floor mostly empty. At the front of the room stood a bigger teacher’s desk with a swivel chair behind it.
“You can rearrange the room however you like,” Mrs. Wendell said as Logan put the box down on the desk. “If you need anything, just let me know. Different chairs, a particular kind of coffee—just give me a ring!” She pointed at the old land-line phone stationed near the door. “If you press pound one, that gets you to the front office. Just say who you are and ask for me!”
“Thank you, that’s very kind,” said Logan. A part of her recklessly wished she could tell this woman why she was here—that she planned to find out what happened to Violet and to give her whatever justice she could. But, apart from all the other reasons that would be a bad idea, she suspected that discovering the existence of the supernatural world would traumatize Mrs. Wendell even more than she already had been. So she settled for something else. Reaching out to place a light hand on Mrs. Wendell’s shoulder, she said, “You know, while I’m primarily here for the kids, my services aren’t exclusive. If you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to drop by. You don’t need to make an appointment.”
Mrs. Wendell’s eyes went wide and round in touched surprise; it was almost as though no one had offered her a sympathetic ear before. “That’s so sweet,” she said. Then her face fell into a sad smile. “You’d better watch that, or these kids will eat you alive.” She gestured around her, as though the ghosts of high school students were all around them.
“I can hold my own,” Logan assured her.
“I’ll bet you can,” said Mrs. Wendell, chuckling. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of keys, pointing to each one while she described its function. “This will let you lock the door to this room, this one will get you into the building after or before hours through the side door, and this one will get you into the teacher lounge. Speaking of, let me go ahead and show you where that is. Follow me!”
She marched out the door, and Logan hurried to lock up behind her—she didn’t want anyone getting a look at those files who shouldn’t. As she walked away from the door, she remembered the oncoming mass of students as they rushed away. She didn’t want to have the thought, but it came anyway.
It could have been any one of them.
After she showed her the staff lounge, Mrs. Wendell excused herself so she could head home for the day. Logan trudged back up the stairs to her new office, hoping to get more of a sense for who Violet was before the next day began. She locked herself into the room and pulled the first few files out of the box, then spread them out on the desk before taking her seat.
She opened Violet Buchanan’s file. The first page featured her school portrait and a summary of her academics. Violet had been an excellent student; her grades never hovered below a B+, and she’d followed her school’s advanced track every step of the way. She was involved in cheerleading and the prom committee, yes, but she was also on the debate team. One of her teachers had mentioned in her notes about her that Violet wanted to be a lawyer.
The page after that took a turn away from academics. It was a bullying complaint against Violet by another girl, followed by how she’d been disciplined for it. The girl claimed Violet had gotten her friends to mutter “pig” every time she walked by. They would snigger behind their hands if she acted like she heard them. Violet claimed she’d done no such thing, and that she couldn’t be held responsible for what other people said. Nevertheless, the teacher involved had required her to hand in a 500-word statement on the effects of bullying. Logan scanned the paper, and guessed that Violet had spent half an hour copying internet articles and tweaking the language to sound less formal or stilted. She ended the paper with the line: Everyone should always be nice to each other, no matter what.
Logan checked the date. The incident was from Violet’s freshman year. Logan flipped through the next few files: four individual girls had registered bullying complaints against Violet, each one with little enough evidence that Violet had managed to feign ignorance one way or another. Each time, she was “punished” with the paltry task of single 500-word statement, explaining why one thing or the other was evil or wrong.
The fifth incident in her file, however, looked a little different. It started with a citation against two other students, Judith Li and Suzanne Grubb, who were charged with “inappropriate behavior and inciting mischief,” for, apparently, streaking in front of the school. The next page, however, rescinded the citation. The page after that was another complaint against Violet—that she herself had made.
By Violet’s account, the two girls disciplined for streaking were considered a running joke among some of their peers. In Violet’s words, Judith Li was “a dyke-y Asian nerd with no life,” while Suzanne Grubb was frequently referred to as “Grubby the fatty.” Both girls were on the soccer team, which occasionally held their practices at the same time as the cheerleaders. Violet explained that she’d decided to prank them, so she’d gotten a few of her friends to wait with her in the locker room for the two girls to take a shower after practice. While Judith and Suzanne were occupied, they had stolen their clothes and taken them to the courtyard in front of the school, pinned them to the flagpole, and raised them up in the air.
Violet spared no details in her account. She wrote: We went back to the locker room so we could see the looks on their faces when they came back and figured it out. Missy said she “couldn’t wait to see that fatty lose her shit.” They came back to their lockers and they saw us standing there, and we could tell they didn’t know what was going on. Then Judith looked in her l
ocker, and she turned to us and asked what we did with her clothes. Suzanne freaked out and looked in her locker, too. She didn’t even ask us anything, she just burst into tears on the spot. She was trying to hold her towel up, but I guess it was a school towel, so it didn’t really fit her all the way around. She had to use both hands to hold it together. Most teams don’t want you to use your own towel, you can only use the school one. The more she cried, the harder it was for her to keep her towel up. That was when I realized what I’d gotten us all to do. Missy just started laughing, and so did the other girls. They thought it was funny. They all think I’m really cool now. They probably won’t tell you that it was my idea, but it was. So that’s why Judith and Suzanne shouldn’t have detention. They weren’t streaking, they were just trying to get their clothes back. It’s my fault.
A teacher’s account of the incident followed.
On September 17th, students Suzanne Grubb and Judith Li were apprehended for streaking. Miss Grubb was found near the front door of the school, crouching behind a pillar wearing nothing but a towel. Miss Li was discovered in the front courtyard near the flag pole, wearing nothing at all. She claimed that her towel fell off while she was retrieving Miss Grubb’s and her belongings, which she claimed had been strung up from the pole. Disciplinary actions against the two students were dismissed when Violet Buchanan corroborated their account. Miss Buchanan has been suspended from the cheerleading and debate teams pending a disciplinary hearing.
In the end, Violet had gotten two weeks’ worth of detentions, then full reinstatement of all her previous privileges. For a moment, Logan felt a certain indignation over the light punishment, but as she flipped through the rest of Violet’s file, she realized something: the complaints against her had ceased. Logan glanced through Violet’s account of the incident again. It was difficult to gauge in her writing, but she had to think there was remorse in those words. After all, she’d turned herself in. She hadn’t wanted them to get in trouble for something that she’d done to them. It was small, but it was something.
