by Kelley York
Does he think I will be angry with him for hiding this? I suppose I could be, but I’m not. I don’t like it, certainly, but realistically speaking I cannot say I wouldn’t have done the same thing in his shoes. “I see.”
“I’m so sorry, James. I’d hoped that perhaps I was wrong. But he brought me to you, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been watching over you all this time.”
I swallow thickly. “Why do you think he hasn’t visited me?”
“I cannot say I know.” He brings a hand up to stroke my hair back from my face. “It could be he was worried it would upset you. Or perhaps it’s beyond him. None of the spirits we’ve encountered have been terribly good at communicating.”
“You don’t think it’s because I let him down?”
“Absolutely not,” he sharply insists. “I don’t for a moment believe that. You shouldn’t, either; you know that isn’t in his nature.”
I duck my head, attempting to reconcile how certain William sounds with my own overwhelming grief and guilt. He coaxes my face up after a moment, so that he can lean down to press a warm, gentle kiss upon my mouth. “Everything is going to be all right.”
“I want to believe that.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
That much I believe. Yes, William and I have had a nasty history of withholding information from one another, but he has never lied to me.
He leans in, resting his forehead against mine. “Would you like me to stay here with you tonight?”
Yes. No. I don’t know. I want William near, and yet I need to be alone. I force myself to breathe in despite how fiercely my chest aches, eyelids dropping shut. “I think I need to be alone for a spell, if that’s all right with you.”
I’m grateful William doesn’t look wounded by my request. He only lightly smiles, kisses me once more—lingering, wonderfully so—and sliding from the bed. “You know where to find me should you change your mind.”
After William departs and I close the door behind him, I let my forehead fall to rest against the worn wood. A part of me longs to go after him, to tell him that I don’t care about the rules and just want him near. What am I to do with all this silence and emptiness?
I don’t, though, because the other part of me does want exactly that. Solitude. To be alone in my grief, to be able to sink into it without interruption. I don’t want to think about anyone else right now. I need to think this through.
When I finally move to go to bed, I head not for my own bed, but for Oscar’s. Untouched for so long, and I realise now that it never mattered how dark things became, or what evidence I found that pointed to something sinister, I never gave up hope I would find him alive and well.
I never stopped thinking I would one day fall asleep again after wishing him a good night, to the sound of his quiet snoring across the room.
Now I know such things will never happen and I fall onto his bed, burying my face against blankets that have been long since washed, struggling to contain the ache in my chest. I feel as though I cannot breathe. Whatever has happened to me in the past, I haven’t known the pain of loss like this. What do I do with it?
What about Preston, Benjamin, Edwin, and everyone else who cared for Oscar? It was cruel of me to storm off as I did, but they have one another, I remind myself. Absently, I wonder how Mr. Hart is faring. What is he thinking right now? He appeared so devastated. Will he be able to sleep tonight, or will misery keep him awake? Somehow, I think it will. If he had any means of preventing this, I pray to God it eats away at him.
For that matter, was there something I could have done differently? I refer back to every moment I thought to say something to Oscar, to inquire further when he brushed aside my concerns. Could I have badgered him into telling me the full truth? If he had, would I have been able to do anything about it? Could anyone have?
Logically, I know this isn’t my fault. It isn’t the fault of anyone except whatever bastard killed him, and yet—of course I blame myself. I could have pushed harder, been less wrapped up with ghosts and William and myself.
I draw in a shuddering breath and roll onto my back. Though I thought I had finally finished crying for the evening, my vision blurs all over again and I swallow back a sob. I swipe at my eyes and pull myself up to sitting, leaving the bed only long enough to fetch from the table Oscar’s copy of Pendennis. I’ve no interest in reading right now, but it’s the only thing of Oscar’s I have. I flip through it, fingers tracing slowly over dog-eared pages that show more wear than others. How many times did he read this, I wonder? One of his most prized possessions. I should have asked him about it.
His smiling face comes to mind. The way he’d seemed so full of hope and promise and excitement. How quickly he’d put me at ease when I first arrived at Whisperwood, and how good of a friend he’d been in the weeks that followed. Even when dealing with his own demons, he was still there when I truly needed him. Without hesitation, without judgment. Truly, at his core, Oscar was a good man.
I never deserved him.
I’m not sure anyone did.
I curl back up on the bed, bringing the book with me, hugging it to my chest. My eyes squeeze shut to stop the flow of tears. Behind my closed eyelids, I see Oscar’s lifeless hand from beneath the sheet.
“I’m sorry,” I find myself saying in a barely audible whisper to an empty room. I don’t know if he’s there, if he can hear me, but he showed himself to William, didn’t he? So maybe he’s listening, maybe…
“I’m so, so sorry, Oscar. I’m sorry I didn’t figure things out sooner. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. You were bloody amazing, do you know that? One of the kindest, most brilliant people I’ve had the pleasure of calling my friend.
“You deserved so much better than this. You deserved a happy ending. I will find out what happened, and I will make certain those responsible pay for it. I’ll kill them with my bare hands, if I must.”
I say it, and I mean it. I don’t care what I must do or who I must cross and what I have to risk—I am more resolved than ever that I will see this through to the end. For everything Oscar gave me in the time that I knew him, for his friendship, I owe him that much. I owe him rest and peace, if such things exist for him. I cannot bear the thought of him being stuck in this school for eternity, trapped as those other boys have been.
I cannot let him become just another ghost story.
Nothing but silence greets my outpouring of emotion. I don’t know if I truly expected him to appear, to answer me in some way, but it hurts nonetheless. So selfish to want to see him for my own reassurances, to ease my own guilty conscience.
I wonder if I will ever grow up.
Eventually, I will need to pick myself back up.
I made a promise, not only to Oscar but to myself as well, and I’ve no intention of letting anyone down again. Sooner or later, I must get back into the swing of things, and I will need to be more driven than ever.
But not in the days that follow.
No, for the next several days, depression consumes me.
Every day is a battle of forcing myself out of bed and going through the motions. Meals, school, sleep. I give the bare minimum that is required of me and nothing more, because I feel I have so little left to give. Were it not for William, I think I may spend every day sleeping.
Thursday, I slog my way through classes, sensing William watching me throughout maths in that carefully worried manner of his. He has been a constant shadow since that night, saying little, but there as silent reassurance that I’m not alone.
He isn’t watching, though, when Mr. McLachlan passes out our graded assignments, and when I discover a folded note between the pieces of paper. I glance about, ensuring no one else has taken notice, and tuck it safely away.
Despite my curiosity, I don’t take it back out to read it until William and I are walking back from dinner.
Cemetery at 7 is all it reads, in handwriting that is a touch messy, and the handwriting of the seven is familiar.
I’ve seen Mr. McLachlan write it on the chalkboard hundreds of times. It’s six now, only an hour until then.
Wordless, I offer the note out to William, who takes it with an inquisitive noise and reads it over with a frown. I ask, “Are you coming?”
He hands it back. “Silly question.”
The sun has just about set, and the cemetery is not a place I want to be at night. William fidgets at my side, clutching tightly at the lantern we’ve brought along. The cemetery gate stands open wide, signalling that Mr. McLachlan has already arrived.
He isn’t difficult to spot, standing before a grave at the far back of the fenced in area. We head straight to him, stopping a few feet away as I say, “An odd place to ask someone for an assignation.”
Mr. McLachlan scoffs, not immediately turning to regard us. “Good thing this is not one, then.” He nods to the grave at his feet, wanting me to have a look. I step up beside him. The headstone is ancient, the name decimated and only the date of death truly legible.
“What is this?”
“This is the grave of Nicolaus Mordaunt. I wonder if either of you have encountered that name during your poking about in the library?”
William and I exchange looks before he says, “It doesn’t sound familiar, no.”
“The original headmaster, when Whisperwood opened in the sixteen-hundreds.”
An interesting titbit of information, but I’m not sure what he wants me to do with it, so I merely raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue.
“The history of the school is sketchy on details,” Mr. McLachlan says. “But what I’ve gleaned is that he was not a kind man. It may only be a rumour, but it’s said he was locked in the gardener’s pavilion and killed when students set fire to it.”
That catches both of our attention. My shoulders square. “He burned to death?”
“So I’ve heard.” Finally, he turns to look at us. “When I began here, it was under the leadership of a different headmaster. After he passed, King took over. He was strict. Keener on corporal punishment, yes, but not ultimately a poor leader.
“The staff noticed when he began to change. He took things a step too far sometimes, yet he was still within his rights to do so and no laws were broken, so what could we do? But the number of student deaths these last two decades has steadily climbed and, I’ll admit, I’ve found it suspicious.”
“You don’t seem to think it was simply the job getting to him. Perhaps something to do with the ghosts?”
“I am not a superstitious man, Spencer.” He sighs, slipping off his spectacles to clean them. “At first, I did believe King was merely growing too comfortable with his position of power. Truly, we’ve had no evidence to link him to any of these deaths that would suggest otherwise, and I can hardly request he be investigated based off a gut feeling alone.”
“Why are you telling us any of this?” William asks. “Why now?”
Mr. McLachlan pauses, staring down at his glasses. “Because perhaps you two can piece together what I cannot. And because I located the ‘proof’ King had that led him to punishing Oscar Frances in the first place.”
My eyes grow wide as my heart skips a beat. “What?”
He returns the glasses to his face and slides a piece of paper from his coat pocket. It takes everything I have not to snatch it from him. “The headmaster was in possession of a letter, penned by Oscar. I have no idea how he came by it.”
“How did you…?”
“Very, very carefully. I located it in his file in the headmaster’s office while King was off school grounds.”
“Has Mr. Hart read it?”
“No. And at least for now, I would prefer to keep it that way. Later, perhaps. When all of this has been resolved.”
I swallow hard past the lump in my throat. The second Mr. McLachlan offers the letter out to me, I take it and draw it to my chest. “May I keep this?”
“It’s yours,” he agrees. “I’m afraid it’s only a copy. Had I taken the original, I worried he would notice.”
A smart move, and I’d expect nothing less from someone like Mr. McLachlan. My fingers itch to open the letter and read it, but for the moment, I refrain. Instead, I lift my chin to look him in the eye. “Do you think the headmaster killed Oscar?”
He pockets his hands, and I notice how tired he looks. I’ve often thought about what this has meant for Mr. Hart, but now I wonder what it has meant for Mr. McLachlan, as well. Did he know about the close relationship Oscar and Mr. Hart had formed? Has he been trying to navigate the dangerous waters of whatever is happening at Whisperwood, too, while keeping his friend safe? “If I said that I don’t believe it’s out of the realm of possibility, what then?”
“Then something has to be done. He cannot be allowed to get away with this.”
“The police are already performing an inquiry into Frances’ death.”
A bitter laugh escapes my lips. “When have the police ever cared about the death of some supposedly ill-behaved, poor boy?”
The way he sighs suggests he agrees with that assessment. “I am doing all I can.”
This is information I wish he’d come to me with far sooner, but better late than never. He didn’t have to offer me this at all. When I say, “Thank you, sir,” I mean it with the utmost sincerity.
He nods once, curtly, and turns away from us, returning his hands into his pockets. “Go on now. It’s late. And please, be safe.”
We take our leave, and I’m so focused on the letter inside my coat that the shadows and figures at the outskirts of my vision are an afterthought to me. They keep their distance, and I almost wonder if they’re curious, too. If getting a step closer to the truth somehow pleases them. The only ghostly face I’ve any interest in seeing is Oscar’s, but it’s noticeably absent amongst them.
Retreating swiftly to William’s room, we crowd together on his bed, sitting hip-to-hip, as I shakily unfold the letter to read it. It’s written hastily in Mr. McLachlan’s scrawl, and so it feels disjointed, seeing Oscar’s words in someone else’s hand.
This is a letter I have no intention of ever giving you, but I fear my heart will burst if I do not put into words all the things I’ve wanted to say to you for some time now. I regret that I am not well-versed in phrasing things beautifully, I haven’t a knack for such things, and so I will say it plainly that I think of you from the moment I wake in the morning until the moment I sleep at night. Never has anyone occupied my thoughts so completely.
It began so subtly at first. A smile, a kind word. Something I am not accustomed to outside my small circle of friends. You had no real reason to reach out to me as you did, and for that, I am eternally grateful. You have been a mentor and a friend. Yet, surely, were I to express to you the extent of my feelings, the way that my heart skips a beat when you look at me, you may disregard it as merely a childish infatuation, unworthy of more than a laugh and a dismissal.
Or perhaps you wouldn’t. Perhaps you would surprise me, as you always do, and the feelings would be mutual. I have dreamt of that, honestly.
But there is no happy ending in sight for such a thing. Either I confess, and you reject me, and I am left picking up the pieces of my heart… Or I confess, and you should accept me, and the life we would be forced to live would be one of secrecy and torment. Costing you your job for the sake of my whims? I am not sure I’ve reached that level of selfishness yet.
And so for now, I keep these words to myself, and perhaps, come graduation, I may have grown brave enough, selfish enough, to share them with you. Until then, you have my respect and my love. And all of my heart.
Yours,
Oscar
For a brief moment, my eyes blur, and I have to blink back the tears. When did he write this, I wonder? Was it one of the many times I sat in bed, reading, while he sat hunched over at the table, head bowed and scribbling away? How it hurts to know this secret he carted around with him was one he felt he couldn’t confide in his friends. In a sense, I feel as though I’m b
etraying his trust by reading it now.
William sits back a little as he finishes reading. “If he wrote this with no intention of sending it, where did the headmaster get it?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “Perhaps he had it on his person. Perhaps he dropped it.” How foolish and careless, though. Surely Oscar was smarter than to carry around such a thing where anyone might have come across it. It would have been safest tossed into the fireplace or, if he truly insisted upon keeping it, tucked beneath his mattress alongside Pendennis.
William rests his hand upon my thigh, and I feel his worried gaze upon me. I’ve been wallowing all week in this guilt and pain, and while I don’t believe it will be over just yet, I think…
It’s time to pick myself back up.
I remain with William until after curfew, reading and re-reading Oscar’s letter again and again even as William dozes with his head upon my shoulder. Written in Mr. McLachlan’s writing, I feel as though I’m missing some of the impact. As though seeing it written properly, in Oscar’s hand, would fill in some missing part of the puzzle.
It occurs to me well after curfew that I’ve neglected to get William his dosage of medicine, and although he’s currently napping, I know he’ll wake utterly miserable if we were to skip it. Gently I prod him awake, and we slide from bed to sneak downstairs to fetch it from my room.
The moment we reach the first-floor hallway, I know something is wrong. My door is slightly ajar, and the memory of waking to my opening door and a ghost upon my chest washes over me in a nauseating fashion.
“Wait,” I whisper, intending for William to remain where he is, but of course he grabs hold of my sleeve and keeps directly behind me. Slowly, step by step, we approach my room, and the door creaks quietly as I push it open.
Inside, Charles Simmons is seated upon Oscar’s bed, and he flashes me a smile so sickeningly sweet that I instantly wish any number of ghosts would show up instead.
