by R K Dreaming
Bella pointed at Percy looking half hysterical. “She did it! She killed her!”
“She pushed her!” shouted Blanche. “Murderer, murderer!” Her face was pale and shiny and her voice was trembling.
“I can’t believe it,” Barbie said. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” Her voice rising in octave each time until it became shrill.
Seeing the window open, the headmistress ran to it and looked below.
Then everything happened in a rush. The headmistress barked orders and people sprang to obey. Percy was marched through the corridors of the school. Everyone stared. Hundreds of faces turning into a big blur.
The next thing Percy knew she was sitting in a chair in the headmistress’s office alone. She felt stunned, horrified, unable to believe what had happened. Headmistress Glory had locked her in. She was to stay here and wait.
She was vaguely aware that Bella and Blanche and Barbie were outside, being watched by the headmistress’s secretary Mrs Preem. She could hear their voices outside, sometimes low, sometimes shrill and angry.
Delphine had jumped out. She had drunk the stuff in her bottle and then she had jumped out, and just before she turned to leap she had smiled. Percy was sure she had smiled. Why had she done it? Why?
And now she was dead and no one would believe Percy.
Time seemed to pass in spurts. Percy wasn’t sure if it had been a short time or a long time until the door opened again.
And then, finally, Headmistress Glory came back in. The Three Bees tried to follow her in, but the headmistress told them to stay outside. She firmly shut the door behind her and locked it.
She took a seat opposite Percy. She looked grim.
“An ambulance has been called,” she said. “Luckily for you, the girl is still alive. If she hadn’t been a succubus, if she had been a Humble, she would have been dead. She is in a bad way. Let us hope that Miss Delphine Carmen doesn’t succumb to her injuries.”
“She’s alive?” Percy asked, her voice coming out small and horribly wobbly, as if she was guilty.
The headmistress nodded.
Then Percy said in an angrier voice, “It wasn’t me! You surely can’t think that I pushed her?”
The headmistress fixed her with a steady look. “All three of the girls outside are telling me that they saw you follow Delphine into the classroom. Nobody else went in. Shortly afterwards they heard sounds of a scuffle and Delphine’s screams. When they burst into the classroom, you were standing at the window, calmly rifling through the contents of Delphine’s handbag. It is difficult to disbelieve them when they have video footage of it on their phones. How can you explain that?”
Percy closed her eyes briefly. This was unbelievable. She couldn’t explain it. How could this have happened?
And then she gasped, her eyes flying open. She fumbled in her pocket, searching for the crumpled note that she had in there. She smoothed it out and handed it to the headmistress.
“Look!” she said. “Read it!”
While the headmistress was reading it, she said urgently, “I thought Lucifer had left it for me. I thought it was him I was meeting in that classroom. But it must’ve been Delphine. She told me she was going to get me into trouble, and she must have had some sort of plan. She lured me there. I didn’t know it was going to be her in there! She started screaming that I was attacking her when I didn’t even touch her, and then she jumped out of the window by herself.”
There was a ringing silence when Percy was finished. Everything that she had just said sounded mad even to herself. The headmistress was still looking at the note.
“A trap?” she said skeptically.
Percy nodded fervently. “Delphine had it in for me. You can ask anyone. She attacked me with her hockey stick for the whole of Sports yesterday. Look at my ankles.”
Percy pulled down her socks to show them to the headmistress, but the bruises were gone.
“Dammit,” she said. “They were here this morning, but Mrs Gooding gave me a healing potion. It must have worked quick.”
“Eldritch students are always aggressive during Sports,” said the headmistress dismissively. “It’s not proof Miss Carmen was after you in particular.”
“She was! Today in Magical History she gave everyone this horrid gum stuff to spit at me. She even warned me she was going to get me into trouble, but I never knew that she was going to do something like this. Why would she do something so stupid?”
Headmistress Glory nodded, but it was not a nod of agreement.
“Some would say that this supposed vendetta that Miss Carmen had against you was the reason why you decided to take revenge by pushing her out of the window.”
“I don’t care what some people would say. I care what you would say. Do you really think I did this?”
The headmistress gave a deep sigh and sat back in her chair. “Maybe the old you in your old life, but the new you…? I don’t know.”
Percy glared. “I am not the old me,” she bit off quietly. “I’m Persephone Prince. And I never hurt someone in my life. If you don’t believe me, who will?”
She looked at Headmistress Glory pleadingly.
“This note isn’t enough proof,” said Headmistress Glory. “The Eldritch Council has been called, and they will investigate. It’s out of my hands. They will decide what needs to be done with you.”
“I guess I should have seen this coming,” said Percy bitterly. “You don’t want Lucifer messing up your life means you don’t want me either.”
A knock came on the door. An ominous and authoritative knock, demanding that the door be opened at once.
The headmistress went over to unlock it.
Councilor Strickt of the Eldritch Council stepped into the room, followed by Madam Strickt, then Octavia and Felix. Bella, Blanche, and Barbie all crowded in after them.
Councilor Strickt was a tall, gaunt authoritarian looking man who looked in his late thirties or early forties but could have been older. It was difficult to tell with an incubus. His neatly parted limp hair was the same shade of dark brown as his sister’s, but where he had a dominating stature, she was small and thin and birdlike.
“Out,” snapped Councilor Strickt, having noticed Bella and Blanche and Barbie had tailgated him in.
But just then, Lucifer Darkwing pushed his way into the room behind the three succubae, forcing them further in. He ushered in two boys, one of who was Delphine’s boyfriend Arthur, and shut the door firmly behind them.
“This is a private meeting!” said Councilor Strickt coldly.
“Oh no,” Lucifer insisted. “I think we have exactly all the people that we need in this room with us to get this matter sorted out. That is what you want, isn’t it, councilor?”
Lucifer raised one lethargic eyebrow at Councilor Strickt, who looked slightly taken aback, but nodded, and then looked annoyed at himself for having done so.
“I hardly think we need all of these children in here,” he said. “It is my intention to take Miss Persephone Prince in for questioning. We can deal with the rest of the statements later.”
“Ah,” said Lucifer with a bland smile. “But why are you trying to take Miss Persephone Prince in, and to where exactly?”
“You know full well—”
“Tut, tut, tut,” said Lucifer playfully. “I was not finished. You know it’s rude to interrupt, councilor. This young man here,” he nudged the second boy he had brought with him forward, “tells me that Miss Delphine Carmen herself lured Miss Prince into that classroom. It was all a trap to get Miss Prince into trouble.”
Percy recognized the blond boy. He was a few years older than her so she did not know him, but he was the one who had been sitting with Arthur that day in the library when Percy had argued with Frank Eaton-Phillips. Arthur was now glaring at him.
Lucifer urged both of the boys forward. “This is Mr Oliver Felton,” he said, indicating the blond boy, “and this is Mr Arthur Delancey.” He prodded dark-haired Arthur fo
rward a few inches because Arthur was mutinously refusing to cooperate. “Tell Councilor Strickt what you told me, Mr Felton,” he added.
“There was a note,” said Oliver, looking a bit miserable. “I saw Delphine stick it on to the door of the librarian’s office.”
“What note?” snapped Councilor Strickt, looking impatient, as if about to accuse Oliver of being nonsensical or lying. The tips of Oliver’s ears went red.
“This note,” said Headmistress Glory, carefully handing the note over to Councilor Strickt.
“I found that note stuck on Mr Darkwing’s door,” said Percy. “I thought Mr Darkwing had left it for me, because I had mentioned to him that I thought it was suspicious that there had been two suicides in the school within one week, and that maybe something had been missed and it was really murder.” It all came out in a rush like a stream of meaningless babbling but she had been unable to stop.
Councilor Strickt had finished reading the note, with Octavia trying to get a look at it over his shoulder. He held the note out for Oliver to see.
“Was this the note that you found taped up to the door of the librarian’s office?”
Oliver nodded.
“We only have your word for that,” said Councilor Strict. “You could have been mistaken. It could have been someone other than Miss Carmen who stuck up that note. It could have been Miss Prince herself.
“No,” said Oliver. “It was definitely Delphine. Arthur was there. He saw it too, didn’t you Arthur?”
He turned to Arthur.
Arthur Delancey.
Percy realized belatedly that this must be Mrs Delancey’s son. He was the boy whose mother had died. She stared at him in shock.
He was glaring at her. She remembered now how angry he had been when she had erased his video of Frank Eaton-Phillips tripping over from his phone. She remembered the way that he had been sat next to Delphine, their hands intertwined on the table. His mother was dead and now his girlfriend had been hurt. His face was white and angry, his eyes flashing.
His jaw tight, he said, “I didn’t see.”
“But you did!” protested his friend. “You must have.”
“I didn’t see Delphine tape it up,” Arthur insisted.
He was lying. He didn’t want to get his girlfriend into trouble. And he wasn’t about to help Percy out of it either.
“But Oliver did see,” said Headmistress Glory calmly. “Surely one student’s testimony on this fact is sufficient?” She raised a cool eyebrow at Councilor Strickt. “And it is true that Miss Prince did speak to me about her suspicions regarding the two previous deaths.”
Percy interjected quickly, “And Octavia and Felix already know about my concerns because I did try to raise my concerns with them too, isn’t that right Felix?”
Octavia said nothing.
Felix nodded. “It’s true, councilor. Percy mentioned it to us yesterday.”
Octavia glared at him, but he only shrugged at her.
“And what has this got to do with the allegation that Miss Prince pushed Miss Carmen out of the window?” said Councilor Strickt irritably.
“It raises the possibility that there may be more to this whole affair than meets the eye,” said Headmistress Glory calmly.
“I didn’t push Delphine!” said Percy hotly. “She knew I was interested in what happened to Mrs Delancey and to Frank, so she wrote that note to lure me there. She was already waiting for me when I got into that classroom. She started screaming that I was attacking her, and then she opened the window and she jumped out by herself. She must have been off her head. She was drinking as well. You’ll find the bottle smashed on the roof where she was lying. She must have been drunk. She must have thought that the roof was closer than it was. Maybe she thought she wouldn’t hurt herself. Maybe she just wanted to scare me.”
And then suddenly Percy thought of something, and whirled around to look at Bella and Blanche and Barbie. “And what were you three doing outside of that room with your cameras ready?”
Mrs Delancey’s classroom was in a tower out of the way. There had been no reason for the Three Bees to be there.
Bella and Blanche stayed stubbornly quiet, but Barbie looked desperately at both of her friends, her eyes flicking from left to right, as if she was waiting for them to say something.
“Spit it out, girl,” snapped Councilor Strickt.
Barbie blushed a little, and despite her friends glaring at her, she confessed, “We… er… well… er… Delphine told us that there would be something interesting we wanted to see and that we should follow Percy up there.” She mumbled the last bit as quietly as possible.
Councilor Strickt made her repeat it louder for everyone to hear.
“You see!” said Percy. “It was a trap!”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t push her!” shouted Bella. “Delphine is our friend. We know her. She would never have jumped. Never!”
“Oh shut up,” Percy yelled. “You’re just mad at me because I found out what you did during the Beauty Pageant.”
“You tried to frame me,” hissed Bella. “The person who did the crime is doing the time.”
“Don’t pretend you did nothing wrong,” snapped Percy.
“Quiet,” said Councilor Strickt suddenly.
Everyone went quiet.
He paced a few times the length of the headmistress’s office and then, taking a deep sigh, he turned back towards the group of people.
He pointed to Percy. “You’re claiming that Miss Carmen was a disturbed young lady who jumped out of the window of her own accord, doing herself mortal damage, all in the aim of getting you into trouble. It seems unlikely. Very unlikely.”
He looked like he was about to continue speaking, but the headmistress interjected.
“And yet Mr Felton has verified that Miss Carmen was the one who left that note to lure Miss Prince to that classroom.” She spoke firmly and clearly, and no one dared to interrupt her, though half the people in the room looked like they would like to.
“And Miss Paschal here,” the headmistress indicated Barbie, “has stated that Miss Carmen requested for her and her friends to come to that classroom in anticipation of seeing an event unfold. It’s quite clear from these two students’ accounts that Miss Carmen did indeed lure Miss Prince to that classroom for her own motivations.”
“And yet a fight could have ensued, and Miss Prince could well have pushed Miss Carmen out of the window,” said Councilor Strickt. “Or are we really to believe that Miss Carmen jumped out of her own accord?”
“Delphine would never have jumped,” said Arthur Delancey heatedly. “She and I made plans to go out this weekend. She was excited about it. How dare anyone say that Delphine jumped!”
He looked almost tearful as he shouted these words.
Percy couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. First his mother, and now his girlfriend, both out of the very same window. How awful for him.
“I think Miss Carmen’s friends could attest to the fact that Miss Carmen was not a happy girl,” said Lucifer with uncharacteristic seriousness. He was looking hard at Bella and Blanche and Barbie, his eyebrows raised.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Bella defensively.
“I’m talking about late yesterday evening, the four of you girls at a club where you had no business being, completely inebriated. In fact, I’m sorry to say that Miss Carmen was so inebriated she was unable to stand properly. A bouncer and I escorted her to a cab to drive her home. She was clearly not a happy girl. Intent on a course of self-destruction, it seemed to me.”
Bella flushed bright red. It was a surprising look on her, seeing as she was usually so cool and icy.
“And what kind of teacher does that make you?” she snapped. “Going to a club in the middle of the night? You should be ashamed of yourself!”
Lucifer smiled grimly, and Percy could tell that he had just swallowed an amused laugh. “I think you’ll find that as an adult I may do as
I wish in my spare time, Miss Osterich. But you, as a fifteen-year-old, had no business being in that club. It’s a good job I was there to send you and your friend Delphine safely home.”
Councilor Strickt looked very angry with all of this fresh information. “On one hand Miss Prince says one thing, on the other hand Miss Osterich and her friends say something else. Who exactly am I supposed to believe? This is intolerable!”
Headmistress Glory, who had been sitting down rather calmly this whole while, now rose suddenly to her full height, which was not insubstantial, especially in her heels. She leaned forwards, pressing her palms on her desk, fixing them all with her disconcerting aquamarine gaze one after the other.
The room went silent.
She looked hard at Councilor Strickt. “Clearly this matter warrants further investigation. I do not believe that you have enough evidence to prove that Miss Prince pushed anyone out of any window, and therefore I cannot allow for one of my students to be interrogated by the council tonight. Interviewed, yes, but not today when everyone is clearly tired and tempers are high. I shall leave this matter in your capable hands, Councilor Strickt, and I look forward to hearing the results of your unbiased and thorough investigation.”
Councilor Strickt gaped at her like a goldfish, opening and closing his mouth several times, but being unable to protest to everything that she had said, which had sounded highly logical.
Madam Strickt, who had been standing quietly throughout this whole exchange, now gave a little laugh and said in a girlish voice, “I’m glad to hear that you believe the Eldritch Council is capable of conducting a fair and unbiased investigation, headmistress. I almost thought you were about to dismiss this matter out of hand, and I would have hated to have to inform you that you lack the authority to do so.”
She gave an almost apologetic little giggle, but the sly look she shot at the headmistress from beneath her stubby eyelashes was not apologetic at all.
Headmistress Glory ignored her. She turned to Bella and Blanche and Barbie. “Ladies, you can trust in Councilor Strickt to hold a thorough investigation.”
When Bella tried to interrupt, the headmistress steamrolled mercilessly over her, saying rather dryly, “I believe you yourself, Miss Osterich, have benefited from the thoroughness of Councilor Strickt’s investigations in the recent past, and therefore will have full confidence in him. Your viewpoints have been heard, and your videos have been taken in to be reviewed. Now, I think your time would be better spent tending to your friend Miss Carmen and her family. Your parents should be waiting outside for you. I have called them and informed them of what has happened. You may leave.”