by Frazer Lee
“Settle back, Emily,” she says, and her voice sounds softer than usual.
She takes her seat behind her desk and I watch as she picks up a notepad and a pen.
“Don’t look at me, girl. Look at the light,” she says, her voice now almost a purr.
The rhythmic swoosh of the metronome arm grows louder as I look at the light, which has a warmth to it that is inviting. I find that I don’t want to look away, even if instinct is telling me this is a pretty freaky setup that Quick has going on in her office.
“Feel your heart, beating in time with each pulse of the light,” the principal says.
I sit and watch, and feel my heart rate skitter, before settling into a pulsing rhythm with the flashing of the lamp. And as I watch, it seems to slow down – the metronome, and my heartbeat – and I wonder if that’s really true, or if it is just a result of the strangely hypnotic effect of the flashing light and the swinging arm.
“Be at one with the light. Feel it pulse within you. From inside of your eyes. You don’t need to blink, because you are making the light come from out of you.”
I exhale, and feel warmth rush through and out of me. The swishing of the metronome takes on an eerie, whining quality, and it builds into a high-pitched ringing in my ears. My sense of touch begins to deteriorate, the chair beneath me no more than a dull ache. And even that recedes eventually, leaving me floating.
“You are perfectly comfortable,” Principal Quick purrs. “You feel perfectly supported. Weightless. Unfettered by thought or deed.”
Oh, and I do. As the ringing in my ears grows, so too does my feeling of weightlessness. I feel a smile spread across my face. I must look like an idiot, floating around Quick’s office, grinning like a loon, but I don’t care. It feels so nice and trippy.
“It is your deeds I want you to float above now, Emily,” she says, her voice sounding so quiet I can imagine her crouching beside the filing cabinet at the back of her office space. But I see only the light. In my mind’s eye and all around me, like I’m both its source and shadow. That’s actually really weird, but I’ll go with it.
“Look down on your world as you float above it. Picture yourself…in the bathroom, earlier. Before you found Jessica. What did you see?
I saw the flickering light, I think. I can’t seem to speak out loud. There’s only the ringing. And my voice inside my head.
“Good. And?”
How Principal Quick can even hear me is beyond me. But I feel so lightheaded now I just switch to a kind of mental cruise control. It’s as though something has a hold over my mental faculties. My brain is on autopilot.
I see the broken mirror. I can see myself, from above, walking toward it. I see myself hesitate, avoiding the fragments of broken glass that litter the tiled floor. And all the while, the light flickers on. I drift across the scene, and over the cubicle where Jess lies with blood pooling around her. The flickering light makes a shadowy strip across the floor. I watch as the shadow begins to warp into a more distinct shape. It undulates like a length of ribbon, and then swings like a jump rope before settling into a familiar silhouette. The shadow is a girl, I think.
“A girl? What does she look like, Emily? Describe her to me.”
She doesn’t have a face, I say – or rather, think.
“Go on.”
She’s just…gray, like the walls.
“And what is she doing?”
She’s just standing there, watching. I don’t really like her.
“Is she not your friend?”
I don’t know. I don’t like her. Can I float away now? Somewhere else. Somewhere that she isn’t.
“I want you to float down, Emily. Float down into your memory. Into your deeds. Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at what you did.”
I don’t want to. But the flashing, flickering light draws me down. I am a moth, in thrall of the flame. I drift down and hover above the tiled floor. My body turns slowly, in mid-air, until I am facing the shattered mirror.
“Look.”
I don’t want to look. But I am compelled to by the soft voice that crouches somewhere in the dark. The flickering light quickens and I feel my heart beating more rapidly with it. I hear an echo of breaking glass. The sound is coming from within the broken mirror itself.
“See.”
I look. And I see. For just a moment, I see. I see myself, but not myself. A dark vision of a girl. I realize with fright, but also with relief, that it is not me at all, but the strange and shadowy gray girl. She has a shard of mirror glass in her hand. She is holding on to it so tightly that it should be cutting into her flesh. But there’s no blood on her. Maybe there isn’t any in her, I think. Maybe she’s made of shadows and dust.
She seems to sense my thoughts and I see the dark glint of her eyes, from some dark place behind her hair. She beckons me closer to the mirror and I float toward her, unable to stop myself. I begin to feel heavy, and feel the tips of my toes scrape across the cold, hard surface of the tiles as I float forward.
She thrusts the shard of mirror out at me, and slices through the air. I wonder if she has cut my throat, but I can’t raise my hand there to check. There’s this strange vibration in the room, like she has eviscerated reality, then a sucking sensation that starts pulling me in. It’s as though I’m in the depressurized cabin of an airplane, in freefall.
Then, I’m somehow on the other side of the broken glass, looking out. And I can see her, standing over Jess’s body. The gray shadow girl. She slashes at her with the glass and blood trails through the air. Jess is cut to ribbons before me. I scream, but the sound is contained because I’m trapped inside the mirror. I watch as the gray girl, no more distinct than a shadow, drags Jess by the hair into the bathroom stall. I watch the blood pool beneath the door and across the tiles. It makes me feel queasy inside. But it keeps on coming.
So much blood.
“That will be all for today,” Principal Quick says.
I am awake, and in the chair in her office. The window blind is open again. Quick is over by her cabinet. I look at the desk and the metronome is gone.
“I don’t…I can’t….”
(How long have I been in here?)
“You may feel a little disoriented after the hypnotherapy,” Principal Quick says, her voice sounding characteristically hard again. “It is perfectly normal, and will pass.”
I get to my feet, and she points me to the door.
“Now return to your dormitory and get changed. It is almost time for your exercise in the recreation yard, and you must not miss out on that, must you? Clarity of mind and body.”
I sense that hers is a rhetorical question, and so I don’t answer.
As I leave her office, I wonder why I’m feeling so nauseous. Sick to my stomach and green around the gills. I hope that the sensation will pass before I hit the recreation yard.
* * *
My breathing becomes ragged as I struggle to keep up the pace. Quick has had us out here for what feels like an age, running around and around the courtyard. Lab rats in a maze. Or rather, I feel like one of those horses you see being trained in a paddock. And now I think of it, I’m pretty sure Quick would be cracking a whip if she had one to hand.
My ankles ache from the continued pounding of my feet against the concrete surface of the recreation yard. The air seems to be charged with electricity, like a storm is coming. My pulse throbs in my ears so hard that I feel my eardrums might actually burst. I haven’t been feeling so well since the principal put me under with her weird metronome gizmo. I can sense the onset of another out-of-body event, but instead of my ears ringing I hear something else as I run. It sounds like a discordant nursery rhyme.
On instinct, I look up and see the clock tower silhouetted against the sky. I slow down because my legs feel heavy, as though I’ve waded into thick mud. My hands drop to my sides
and I feel something alarming. A slender little hand holds on to mine gently. It is cold. I look down at my hand.
Nothing there.
I slow to a strolling pace, and then look up at the clock tower. There’s a girl up there – and she’s staring right at me. The pallor of her skin has a disturbing quality. It looks totally gray, like she’s dead but alive. I wonder then if she’s looking at me, or behind me. I turn to look in that direction and my eyes meet Principal Quick’s.
“Keep up the pace, Emily,” the principal intones, before scowling at me.
I prepare to start running again, but first I feel compelled to return my gaze to the clock tower.
The gray girl is gone.
* * *
I sit on my bed and watch the shadow of a treetop swaying in the light from the moon. It casts spidery shapes on the wall. They’re mesmerizing, but not so much that they can distract me fully from Saffy’s droning voice.
She’s sitting on her bed and smoking a cigarette demonstratively, while holding court with the other girls who are lounging around on their beds. Even Lena has abandoned her post, trading keeping watch at the door for the comfort of her bed.
“Christ,” Saffy says, “I can’t get the image out of my mind. All that blood. I swear I still have some of it under my fingernails. Eww, so fucking gross. Why did she have to choose such a messy way to top herself?”
“That’s a bit insensitive, even for you,” Victoria says.
“Did someone just hear something?” Saffy asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It sounded like a mouth fart.”
Victoria rolls her eyes. No one else dares speak.
“One thing’s for sure, I’m going to need more smokes,” Saffy continues, “for my nerves. Don’t worry, Emily’s got it covered, girls. Haven’t you?”
I know she’s talking directly at me now, but I just keep my attention fixed on the shadow of the tree on the wall. I think back to earlier, when I saw the girl high up in the clock tower. Or thought I saw her. I wonder if it’s possible to imagine such things. And if I am, then does that mean I’m insane?
“Is it just me or is everyone going stir crazy already?” Saffy says. “Hell-o?”
“Did any of you see her today? The other inmate?” I finish the sentence before I’ve even realized I started it.
“You saw her too? When? Why didn’t you say anything?” Saffy asks.
“During exercise,” I say. “She was up in the clock tower, like you said she was before.”
Saffy looks emboldened. “See, I told you gals there was someone else here. Did you get a look at her face?”
“Nope. Her hair was in the way. She looked kind of sick.”
“Fuck me, that’s all we need,” Lena mutters. “Some weird sicko. Probably gonna give us all leprosy or something.”
“That’s not contagious,” Annie says.
“Yeah it is,” Lena says.
“Whatevs,” Saffy retorts. “Like today wasn’t fucked up enough already. Thanks a bunch for facilitating my restful sleep, bitches.”
“Anyone else see her?” I ask. If Saffy did, and I did, then maybe others have – but have been too nervous to say anything yet. I cast my eyes over each of their faces, until my eyes meet Victoria’s.
“I did,” Victoria says quietly.
“Really? When?” Saffy asks.
“Our first night,” Victoria says. “I woke up, and she was watching me sleep.”
“That’s just really fucking creepy,” Annie says, and she shivers. A master of understatement, that one.
“Then what happened?” Saffy has forgotten all about her cigarette. The fragile cylinder of ash looks like it might fall onto her bedclothes at any moment.
“Emily woke me up. For real.” Victoria pauses for dramatic effect, and then cracks a sly smile. “It was a dream!”
Got to hand it to her, revenge is sweet.
“You bitch, you had me going there—” Saffy looks really annoyed, but before she can say another word, the lights suddenly click off, plunging us into darkness.
“Settle down, girls.”
Holy crap.
Principal Quick has been standing there for who knows how long. I wonder if she heard our discussion. I climb into bed and listen to her walking away. The other girls are restless. I can hear them moving under their sheets. The moon slips behind a cloud and the shadow of the tree is gone, leaving just a blank, gray wall. I close my eyes.
Chapter Nine
Smoke Run
The swimming pool changing room is ridiculously cold. I hug my body with my arms to keep what little body temperature I have left from escaping.
Principal Quick has us each line up by the benches, looking over us with her characteristic sternness. Her pursed lips and uncaring eyes make it clear that she is not at all concerned about how cold we are.
“Today you will swim lengths,” she says. “Nothing balances the mind quite like regimented exercise.”
I hear groans from a couple of the girls. Principal Quick does not like that. She holds her hand up in the manner of an orchestra conductor calling for silence. It works, too. She has a way with people, the principal. A way of shutting them up, that is. We all know the futility of rebellion, even if the occasional groan of complaint does escape our lips.
“Ten minutes to get ready, girls, then line up by the pool. You will remain silent. You will carry out my instructions. You will learn.”
Principal Quick walks out of the changing room, leaving a heavy atmosphere behind her. I catch Saffy making furtive glances at the other girls as we each begin to get changed in uncomfortable silence. There’s something deeply unpleasant about being forced together in a room like this, freezing cold and starkly lit, and being expected to strip. It’s dehumanizing. And that, I think, is precisely why Principal Quick is making us do it. She wants to reduce us to what we are, ultimately. A group of frightened little girls.
I change out of my gray uniform and into my equally gray swimming costume as quickly as I can.
(At least we’re consistently on-trend at Greyfriars.)
My exposed skin is a nest of goosebumps. I keep my distance from the others as I use a hairband to tie up my hair. Principal Quick obviously thinks swimming caps are not required. I think my hair might freeze when we come back in here to change after our exercise detail. At least we have towels, although they’re cheap, old and rather worn out. I drape mine around my shoulders. Anything to protect myself from the chill.
I glance across the changing room and notice that Victoria looks the most frightened of us all. She’s actually trembling as she undresses, and I don’t think only the cold is to blame. She looks so awkward in her own skin that it’s almost as if she might take that off, too. After she has peeled her uniform away, she keeps it clutched to her body. I’m wondering why she has tears in her eyes.
Saffy sidles over beside Victoria. She has that look on her face. That thoroughly mean look that indicates she is about to do something unpleasant. Admittedly, it’s a look she wears on her privileged face most of the time, but the way she’s stalking Victoria is nothing short of predatory. Victoria turns away, but as she does so the towel slips from her shoulder, revealing a section of bare arm. I see row upon row of razor-line scars there. And Saffy sees them too. Before Victoria can react, Saffy grabs the towel and yanks it away from her shoulders.
“Ooh, nice scars! Look girls! We have a self-harmer over here – how last season….”
Victoria trembles, folding her arms as she tries to cover her scars with her hand.
“Give me my towel back,” she says, and the bravery in her voice makes my stomach twist in the most peculiar way.
Saffy is having none of it, though. She just mocks Victoria some more, dangling the towel in front of her.
“What, this one?” she taunts.
Saf
fy swings the towel to-and-fro. I hear laughter from the other girls and wonder if they really are as cruel as Saffy, or just as bored as she is.
“Just give it back, okay?” Victoria says, sounding fed up.
Saffy takes center stage, climbing up onto one of the benches before giving the towel a long, demonstrative sniff.
(Missed out on stage school, this one.)
She looks so happy to have an audience once more.
“Smells funny, this towel,” she says theatrically, and then offers it around to the other girls. Annie takes a sniff and then recoils in fake disgust. It’s audience participation, Saffy’s show.
“Wonder what it is, that smell?” Saffy asks. She reclaims the towel and wafts it in Victoria’s direction.
“Don’t….” Victoria is about to speak further, and then appears to think better of it. She just breathes out, long and slow, anger bubbling under the surface.
Saffy sniffs the towel again. She’s on a roll. “Oh, I know what it is…” she says.
Victoria closes her eyes, and clenches her lips tightly shut, apparently in anticipation of the insult to come.
“It’s soaking wet with your piss, bed-wetter! It stinks. You fucking stink.”
She throws the towel at Victoria. It hits Victoria’s face and then falls to the floor.
Victoria is on Saffy like a flash. She rushes her, shoves her across the tiles and up against the nearest locker door with a metallic clang. Saffy laughs and tries to fight back, but Victoria is too agile. She dodges Saffy’s clawing fingers and punches her hard in the stomach.
(Not going to lie, I have to laugh at that.)
Saffy doubles up, the wind knocked out of her. She drops to her knees and the look of shock on her face is an absolute picture.
“Grab the bitch,” Saffy says, her voice quivering with anger and pain from having been punched so hard.
Victoria takes a couple of steps back away from Saffy, her threat now neutralized. She turns to face the rest of us, her eyes daring us to get in her way. No one does at first, but when Victoria walks between us and toward the door, Annie steps into her path.