Last One To Die

by Cynthia Murphy

  “Oh, yeah?” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. The unsettling display creeps back into my mind. “Find anything?”

  “Nothing online – I guess it’s not major news, I mean it’s hardly groundbreaking. But then I found this.” She hands me her phone, pointing to a tiny, blurred article, as if someone has taken a photo of the corner of a newspaper page. “It was on one of the library archive sites; I used Mum’s password. Anyway, it lists all the things that went missing. Stuff like this.” She takes the phone and taps quickly, thumbs both flying across the screen before handing it back.

  It’s a random Pinterest board, but nothing like the ones I’ve made in the past, when Meghan and I wanted to redecorate our bedroom or my list of free things to do in London. Instead there are tarnished silver rings topped with tiny coffins, black and white photos of people who don’t look particularly, well, alive and a long glass vial filled with liquid. I squint and see that the label says Mourner’s Tears. My God, Victorians were dramatic.

  Oh, and creepy, I decide, as I scroll past a small doll, its white face and hands the only colour on a sea of black. She’s wearing a mourning dress and veil, and beneath her tiny, rosy cheeks a portrait of a man rests across her chest. It’s framed in bronze and a winged skull sits on the top. Clearly not a child’s toy, then.

  “This isn’t the actual stuff that went missing, but I’d say it’s pretty similar. Fascinating, isn’t it?” says Jess.

  “Horrendous, more like. Who would want to steal this?”

  “Who knows? Keep going though, you haven’t got to the creepiest bit, yet.”

  Seriously?

  I sigh and keep scrolling. There’s a whole selection of brooches on screen now. All are that sepia tone of old photos. Some show criss-cross patterns, others tiny paintings of graveyards or weeping willows. A couple of others contain portraits decorated with ornate wreaths.

  “They’re . . . kind of pretty, I guess?” I say, desperate to hand the phone back. “The wreaths.”

  “Look closer.” Jess has a devilish glint in her eye.

  I do. It takes a moment, but when I’m looking back at the braided material, I suddenly see it for what it is.

  My chips threaten to make a reappearance.

  “Is that. . .?”

  “Yep.”

  It’s hair. All of it: it’s plaited and woven, weaved into pictures and decorations, shades of browns and yellowed blonde, faded red. It’s all human hair, taken from people who have died.

  Dead people hair.

  “Weirdly cool, right?”

  I barely hear her. My vision has started to swim and there are tiny sparks of light flashing in my eyes, pinpricks climbing up my hands and feet. I slide off the wall like a limp piece of spaghetti and huddle into a ball, my back pressed up against the safety of the concrete, arms wrapped around my knees. A wave of nausea sweeps over me. I try to cover my face, regulate my breathing, wondering whether I’ve eaten something bad.

  A gentle hand on my shoulder grounds me and the pins and needles recede a bit as Jess’s voice cuts through the buzz in my ears.

  “Hey, it’s OK, breathe. I think you’re having a panic attack. In through your nose and out through your mouth.” I try to follow her advice, sucking a deep breath in. Oxygen fills my lungs. Better. I force it out and heave another in, snorting loudly, but I’m far from caring. The world begins to refocus so I carry on, following Jess’s soothing tone as she repeats herself: in, out, in, out, in. . .

  “Better?” My head weighs a tonne as I lift it to look at her. She’s crouched beside me, her normally light brown skin pale in contrast to her bright lips. “Has that ever happened before?”

  “No.” I carry on taking deep breaths as Jess helps me on to unsteady feet. She rummages in her bag and pulls out a half full water bottle, unscrews the lid and offers it to me. “Drink this.”

  I take the water and gulp it down gratefully, my mouth Sahara dry after all those deep breaths. I sag against the wall. The water seems to rehydrate my brain so much, that it’s now pressing against my skull, trying to find a way out. I can feel the mother of all headaches coming on.

  “Thanks.” I roll the empty plastic back and forth, letting it crack and crunch between my hands. “How did you know what to do?”

  Jess waves a hand. “Mum has them sometimes. Because of the MS.” Ruth? No way, she seemed so calm.

  “MS?”

  “Yeah, that’s why she walks with a stick. How are you feeling?”

  “Wobbly.” I try a smile but my mouth just twitches. “Damn, I’m meant to be back at the museum. What time is it?”

  “It’s fine, you’ve got fifteen minutes. Are you sure you want to go back, though? I’m sure Geoffrey wouldn’t mind if you went home to bed.”

  I weigh it up. My head is thumping but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep; it’s more likely that I’ll lie in bed, alone, replaying the last few days over and over in my head. No thank you.

  Maybe I should take Jess’s advice about one thing though. Maybe talking will help.

  I take a deep breath.

  “So, all that disgusting hair jewellery. When I saw it, I dunno, I guess it kind of gave me a flashback or something.”

  “Of what?”

  I spill out the horror of the last few days to Jess. To her credit, she sits and listens quietly, rather than running away screaming.

  I tell her all about finding Sara, her open, staring eyes and the way clumps of her hair had been torn out at the root, an image I know I’ll never be able to shake off. I tell her about making friends with Tasha and then her being attacked. I tell her about my close call in the Tube station, the metal screech that is etched in my brain. Finding the girl on the platform, hair hanging in front of her face, the gaping wound where her eye had been.

  Jess’s smile has vanished by the time I finish. She looks a little sick but determined.

  “Right,” she says, zipping up her bag and swinging it over both shoulders. “We’re going back to the museum to tell Geoffrey you don’t feel well and then you’re coming home with me.” I start to argue but she doesn’t give me a second, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the Thames, back towards the museum. “Nope, no excuses.”

  “OK,” I say meekly.

  We walk along together in silence for a while. Jess seems deep in thought. At last she says, “You see what all of these attacks have in common, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I say glumly. “All the girls look like me.”

  She stops then and gives me a look which is part sympathy and part concern.

  “They don’t just look like you, Niamh. I think the attacker thinks they are you.”

  “Just two minutes, I promise.” Jess drops her backpack and disappears behind the library counter. She’s going to ask Ruth if it’s OK for me to sleep over.

  A large, open book on the big desk catches my attention. It’s as big as one of those giant newspapers that my Granddaddy used to get on a Sunday, full of different sections that he’d spread all over the farmhouse table. I take a furtive glance around. I can’t see anyone, maybe it just hasn’t been put away yet. I’m sure Ruth won’t mind if I take a peek.

  I walk over for a closer look. The pages are mottled and the binding looks heavy, leather maybe. The edges of the paper (or was it parchment when it was this old?) are brown and ragged, worn with age. They remind me of when I made a treasure map for a school project once, Meghan and I carefully stained paper with wet teabags and stole a lighter to set the edges on fire, burning a hole in Mammy’s favourite tablecloth.

  I trace a finger over the page and try to decipher the writing, but it’s old-fashioned and pretty hard going and my head is still killing me, so I look at the images instead.

  Just for once, I’d love to stumble across something cute, like a picture of puppies frolicking or that one of two otters holding hands, so they don’t drift away from each other.

  But no. Crudely drawn illustrations of a grotesque figure stare up a
t me and I shudder as I recognize the world’s creepiest puppet, Mr Punch. His large, hooked nose is unmistakable, curving to meet a prominent chin on his roughly hewn face. He’s holding a bat in his tiny T-Rex arms and has a huge, manic smile.

  There is another figure in the picture too, a creature with two curled horns, a small pitchfork and a billowing, black cape, drawn to appear like a bat’s wings. He’s smiling too, but it’s way more sinister, the twist of his mouth so sharp it almost splits his face in two. I try my best to focus on the handwritten caption below and a memory resurfaces from earlier in the week, from the lecture about theatrical history in London. The other character must be the Devil.

  “What are you doing?” The voice in my ear is quiet but gravelly, harsh.

  “Nothing!” I spin around and bump into the figure behind me, sending an explosion of books through the air. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

  I go to help him pick up the books, try to gather them back, but the boy who works in the library – Will, I remember – glares at me so hard I back away. He snatches them up quickly and holds them to his chest.

  “You should be careful, Niamh,” he says.

  I didn’t realize he knew my name. And why do I have a horrible feeling he’s not just talking about being careful with the manuscripts?

  The books he is carrying are similar to the one on the table; old, leather-bound, gold writing engraved on to the spines. I see some of the titles: A History of the Penny Dreadful, Victorian Mourning Rituals.

  One more book still lies on the floor and I stoop to pick it up. The Story of Spring Heeled Jack.

  “Hey.” For a second I forget that this dude completely freaks me out. That’s why I remembered the lecture; the Devil character in Punch and Judy was replaced by Spring Heeled Jack for a while. Spring Heeled Jack was some kind of Victorian super villain, who stalked women through London, wearing metal nails and. . .

  “Give me that.” I wince as Will rips the book from my hand. He ducks quickly away, his skinny body vanishing around the stacks, holding his books tight.

  But not before I see his hands. A clear, angry line of crescent moons are carved into the flesh on the back of them.

  As though someone has been clawing at him.

  Between the air-conditioning in the open plan café and the chills still licking at my spine, I can’t seem to get warm. I clasp the paper cup of tea in my hands, steam rising lazily, little curls and wisps of heat that are fleeting and gone. Sugar for shock, Derek had said.

  I think I’m going mad. Everything that has happened, not to mention the sleep deprivation, would be enough to send anyone loopy, surely. I lift the cup to my mouth but I don’t drink. Instead I close my eyes, inhale the comforting aroma of a good cup of tea and let my eyes fill with tears.

  I want to go home.

  “Hey.” Jess plonks down on the bench in front of me. “I wondered where you’d gone.” Her voice softens as I open my eyes and a lone tear spills down my cheek. “Hey, don’t cry. Is your head still bad?”

  I nod. It’s easier to let her think that my headache has caused this second meltdown. God, she must think I’m high maintenance.

  “Here.” She hands me a white packet. “Mum gave me them for your headache. Take two,” she instructs. I pop two little pink pills out on to my palm, toss them into my mouth without question and hand the packet back.

  “Thanks,” I mumble. Sugar coats my tongue as the shell begins to melt on contact and I wash the tablets down with a mouthful of scalding tea.

  “Ready to go? You still want to stay over, right? I mean, you don’t have to. I’d like you to, but if you’d rather not. . .”

  “Jess,” I interrupt. “I can’t think of anything worse than going back to a room on my own right now.” I attempt a watery smile. “If you don’t mind hosting a snivelling wreck I’d love to sleep over.”

  She grins. “Cool.”

  There’s a stretch of comfortable silence before I give in and start to talk. I think about my encounter in the library. “How well do you know Will?” I say.

  “Not very, thank God.” She picks up my abandoned plastic lid and swirls it around on the table with one finger. “Why?”

  “I dunno, I just get a bad vibe from him or something.”

  Jess nods slowly, as if considering my words, but then shakes her head, nose scrunching.

  “Nah, I think he’s pretty harmless. He keeps to himself, really.”

  “Sure.” I can’t stop seeing the marks on his hand though, as if someone had desperately been trying to fight him off. Recently, too – they were fresh and raw. Should I mention it? What if I’m wrong?

  What if I’m right?

  “Listen,” I begin. “I saw Will in the library just now, and. . .”

  “No. You can’t have done.”

  I blink at Jess. “Yes, I did. I bumped into him and he dropped all these books, and that’s when I saw—”

  “Whoa, slow down!” Jess holds up the white lid like a stop sign and I take a breath. “He’s not working today. His name wasn’t on the log-in sheet.”

  “You checked the log-in sheet?”

  “No, it’s on the door to Mum’s office. Makes it obvious who’s on shift.”

  “Oh. Well he was there, I swear it!” I tell her all about the encounter and as soon as I start I can’t stop, it’s all pouring out of me like a leak, even though I sound like a complete nutter.

  “OK, give me a minute.” Jess steals my cup and takes a sip of tea, pulling a face when she realizes it’s more sugar than liquid. “So, you think that this Spring Heeled Jack character might be connected to the attacks?”

  “Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.” I sigh. “But, maybe, yeah.”

  “And Will had cuts on his hands?”

  “Defensive wounds, yeah.”

  “Niamh, not being funny, but how do you know what defensive wounds look like?”

  I mumble a response.

  “What?”

  “CSI,” I say, louder, and Jess starts to giggle. “Look, I know how it sounds, but they really did look like someone had been trying to pull his hands away.”

  Her laughter subsides.

  “You really are serious, aren’t you?” I nod, scared to say any more. “OK then, come on.” She stands up. “We’re going back to the library.”

  “What, no, I. . .”

  “It’s fine,” she says firmly. “Mum will be there, and if Will gives us any trouble she’ll know about it. And if he’s gone, then I know a way to figure out what books he was looking at. It might help us make sense of this. Either that,” she hesitates, “either that or we’ll have some kind of theory to take to the police.”

  Back in the library, there’s no sign of Will, not even a stray book on the table. We offer to hold the fort for Ruth while she runs some errands, and as soon as she’s gone Jess types Will’s name into the database.

  “This should list every book he’s borrowed.” She frowns at the screen and I peer over her shoulder. It’s a list of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie novels.

  “Couldn’t he just take them off the shelves? I mean, there wouldn’t be any need to scan them out that way, would there?”

  “I guess.” Jess slams down the mouse in frustration. “They could have been anything, then, from any part of the library.”

  I try to remember the titles. “There was one about Spring Heeled Jack, one about Penny Dreadfuls and a big one.” I stretch my arms out wide to indicate the size of the large book that was on the table. “Huge. Like a scrap book, all old and worn looking.”

  “A folio?”

  “Er, yeah?”

  Jess snaps her fingers in triumph. “They might be in the Victorian collection! Did they all look old?”

  “Yeah, leather-bound with gold writing on the spines.”

  Jess nods happily and begins to tap at the keys. “Recognize any of these titles? The Rise of Mesmerism, Reading the Tarot, Victorian Mourning Rituals. . .”

  �
��Wait! He definitely had that last one. I remember it because of all that awful hair stuff you showed me this morning.”

  Jess frowns. “He’s been in the special collections, then. Oh and – this is weird – what’s Jasmine’s last name?”

  “Taylor, I think. Why?”

  “Look.” Jess points at the screen and I see that Taylor, Jasmine had been signed into the special collections earlier this morning.

  By William Letki.

  “Will let her in. That’s dodgy in itself – only Mum should have access to the archive rooms.”

  “We are supposed to be doing research, though. Your mum mentioned the special collections the first time I met her. Isn’t that where all the rare books and stuff are kept? Maybe she told Jasmine about it, too.”

  “Yeah, maybe. She doesn’t let just anyone in, though, the stuff is really valuable. It’s like a big, cold vault.” Jess shivers. “I don’t really like it in there, but needs must. . .” She rummages around under the desk before producing something the size and shape of a credit card. “At least he had the sense to put the spare key back.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Ready to enter the crypt?”

  No, no I’m not, I think. But I keep my mouth shut and follow her anyway.

  “This place is crazy. I’ve never been in one of these before.”

  My voice bounces around the breezeblock enclosure as we approach a mammoth grey wall that stretches up towards the ceiling. Jess flips a switch and the lights flicker on fully, revealing that it is split into sections, each decorated with a large, black wheel.

  Jess consults one of the laminated signs stuck on to the metal and chooses a wheel, taking hold of it like the captain of a ship. I expect a loud screech, but the mechanisms all move smoothly, obviously cared for, and the expanse of metal in front of us begins to part, creating a small, dark crevice.

  “Cool,” I whisper.

  “Yeah.” Jess keeps turning until the yawning space is slightly wider than the two of us and stops, tilting her head as a bell jangles in the distance. “Oh, dammit, that’s someone in the library. I better go and see what they want; Mum will lose her rag if she knows I’m in here again.”