by James Dawson
‘Settle down NOW.’ She wasn’t taking prisoners. Every girl fell silent. The Head took her place at the podium and looked out across a sea of gossip-hungry faces. ‘This is very, very serious. Sadie Walsh is missing from Christie. No one has seen her since lights-out last night.’
There was a ripple amongst the crowd. Naya whispered something in Bobbie’s ear but she shushed her.
‘Quiet!’ Dr Price went on, smoothing her strawberry-blonde bob. ‘I don’t care what’s going on, what’s been said, what anyone has done – legal or otherwise. All that matters is finding Sadie and making sure she’s safe. If anyone knows anything about her whereabouts I need to know right now.’
More mutters as each girl asked their neighbour what they knew. Bobbie found herself short of breath. She and Sadie weren’t bosom buddies or anything, but the thought of something happening to her was awful. There was something else too, a niggling feeling that there was something she should be remembering.
‘If you don’t stop chatting I’m going to get really angry, ladies. I do not want to hear gossip, ideas or speculation. Obviously Sadie has gone somewhere and I don’t believe for a second that she didn’t tell someone where she was going.’
This time, at the point where someone needed to stand up and confidently say ‘she eloped to New Zealand with her internet lesbian lover’, the room was as quiet as a chapel.
‘You don’t need to say anything now, but if you do, genuinely, know something about Sadie please see me at once. Clearly I am going to be very busy dealing with this all day and the police are on their way. That means the rest of you need to make sure you are in the right place at the right time. You will all go to first period at once, is that understood?’
There was a droned ‘Yes, Miss’ by way of response.
Bobbie made her way to class on autopilot. First period on a Monday, cruelly, was double English Lit and, unusually for her, she hadn’t done the reading homework. As she filed into class, she overheard Grace talking to Caitlin, both of whom, even at times of crisis, were so effortlessly gorgeous they made the kilt and blazer look like a fashion statement rather than a uniform. Grace always proudly displayed the gold Head Girl badge on her blazer like she was the sheriff of the goddamn town. ‘God, she’s such an attention whore,’ Grace bitched. ‘She’ll be in Oxsley with some dykey Radley High girl who looks like Justin Bieber. I bet you anything.’
Bobbie ignored them and slipped into her seat. The lesson was on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, which she should have been excited about, but she couldn’t focus. A worry worm bored into her skull. She drummed her HB pencil on the side of her exercise book, her fingers overloaded with energy. Fragments of ideas, noises and images sloshed around her head – nothing making any sense. Nosebleeds, her dream, the girl in the corridor … how did that connect to Sadie … ? Then another piece of memory flotsam drifted to the front of her brain, something she’d completely forgotten.
The pencil slid from her fingers and rolled to the floor with a sharp ping.
She stood, almost knocking her chair over. The metal legs made an ugly screech as they scraped along the floor. Grabbing her books, she turned and darted for the door, almost colliding with Miss Foster, her English teacher, as she entered the room. ‘Bobbie, where are you … ?’
‘I have to talk to Dr Price.’ The lie felt lumpy on her tongue, but it would have to do. Bobbie knew Miss Foster would assume she had information about Sadie and let her go without hesitation. With her head down, she ducked past the teacher. This was so unlike her, but she knew there was no way she’d be able to work until she knew the answer to the noisy question that roared inside.
The first mission was finding Lottie Wiseman, Sadie’s BFF and room-mate. She did a ton of languages – where would she be? Bobbie initially set off towards where she knew Naya had Spanish, banking on Lottie being in the lesson with her, only to have a last-minute change of heart.
Instead, Bobbie left the shiny Millar Wing, with its clean sandstone walls and glass partitions, and headed back to the old building, towards Dr Price’s office. It made sense to Bobbie that those nearest to Sadie (including Lottie) were probably still being interrogated.
There was an open concrete courtyard in the middle of the school, and a fine drizzle had turned everything charcoal grey to match the heavy cloud that squatted above the school. Bobbie darted under the rain shelter and slipped in through the fire escape on the opposite side of the quad. Few lessons were taught in the old part of the school any more; only the music room, hall, dorms, canteen and offices were situated there. As such it was eerily quiet at this time of day, with almost all the girls either in classrooms or shivering on the playing field.
Bobbie ducked past the dinner ladies setting up the dining room and straight into the entrance hall, which seemed so different in the light of day. Her pursuit of the mystery girl seemed so much longer ago than last night. Now, fuzzy amber light diffused through the stained glass in the grand front doors, shining down on the reception desk. Lorraine, the school’s long-standing receptionist, looked up to greet her. ‘Hello … ’
‘Bobbie.’
‘That’s it! Is everything okay, love?’
‘Yeah.’ She used the same lie again. ‘I need to see Dr Price.’
‘Well, she’s in with the police at the moment, dear. Is it about Sadie?’
‘Sort of. Yeah.’ Bobbie leaned past the desk and glanced down the corridor towards Dr Price’s office. Sure enough Lottie and Kellie, her other room-mate, were waiting on the sofa near to where last night she’d seen the awkward figure of the girl. The impossible ghost girl.
‘Okay, love. Go wait with the others.’
Bobbie thanked her and shuffled down the corridor, trying to think of a way she could phrase this without sounding like a crazy person. Poor Lottie, who looked gaunt and frail at the best of times, looked awful, eyes red from crying and her face clammy and grey. If Sadie had been planning something, her best friend evidently hadn’t been in on it.
Kellie looked up at her. There was a long black hair trapped in her lip gloss and for some reason it really bothered Bobbie. ‘Hey hey hey, Bobbie. Do you know something about Sadie? Did you see her last night?’
‘No,’ Bobbie admitted. ‘I need to speak to Lottie.’
‘Me?’ she sniffed. ‘Why?’
Bobbie took a deep breath, suddenly not sure what to do with her hands. She clasped them in front of her to keep her fingers still. ‘Can you remember Hallowe’en night?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You know Sadie’s dumb story about Bloody Mary?’
Lottie’s eyes widened. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, can you remember when Sadie said she’d already done it? You said you were with her.’
The skinny girl now looked thoroughly confused. ‘Yeah, so what? She did it in front of the mirror inside her wardrobe.’
Bobbie’s pulse felt much too fast. ‘Did you do it too?’
‘No.’
‘When did she do it?’
Lottie thought about it, forehead creased. ‘It was Tues— no, Wednesday night. Yeah, it was after choir.’
Bobbie had to reach out and steady herself against the wall. Her feet felt disconnected from the floor. Just as she’d feared. This couldn’t be happening. ‘That was five days ago.’ The last word got caught in her throat and came out as a hoarse whisper.
The message on the mirror. Five days.
Chapter 8
Five Days
Bobbie burst into room E7, the door clattering against the back of a chair that had been left too close. ‘Can I help you?’ asked Mr Carlos with his trademark pout and an arch of his over-plucked brows.
Bobbie pushed her glasses back up her nose. ‘Yes. I’m sorry … but Dr Price needs to see Naya at once.’
Naya caught her eye and knew immediately this was a lie. Mr Carlos dismissed her with a flourish of his arm. ‘Okay. You’d better go and see what she wants.’
‘Yes, sir.�
�� Naya tucked her chair under and swung her bag onto her shoulder. Bobbie was steered back into the corridor – one of the sterile, plastic-smelling ones in the new annex. The Millar Wing had opened during her first year at Piper’s – it was all exposed brick and inspirational posters: YOU ARE EXCEPTIONAL.
‘What’s going on? You look like you survived something,’ Naya said with a swish of ebony hair.
‘Naya, I know what happened to Sadie.’
‘O and M and G. I knew you were hiding something!’
Bobbie dragged her away from the classroom, and any eavesdroppers, towards the stairwell. ‘I think … I think it was Bloody Mary.’
Naya waited for the punchline. ‘Say what? Is this what you were babbling about last night?’
Bobbie sighed, frustrated. ‘I’m serious. Five days ago Sadie said “Bloody Mary” five times into her bedroom mirror and now she’s gone. After we did it, I saw a message in the mirror that said “five days”. I wish I were kidding. I’m not.’ Naya’s face fell before she shook it off. The taller girl giggled under her breath. ‘What?’ Bobbie prompted.
‘No way. Just … no. This must be the final part of Sadie’s little joke. Girl, when I see her, I’m gonna … ’
Bobbie knew at once there was something more. Naya was many things, but an effective liar was not one of them. ‘Naya, what is it?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Naya … ’
Naya reached into her cotton tote bag. She pulled out her lesson planner. ‘Look. Some moron graffitied on it.’
Bobbie took the diary from her and turned to the current week. In small, scratchy ink letters were the words five days. It was written in the box for Sunday – the same day she’d got the mirror message. Bobbie inhaled as if winded. ‘Oh God.’
‘Oh come on – this could all be part of Sadie’s … ’
‘No!’ Bobbie snapped, louder than she meant to. Her cheeks flushed. ‘Can Sadie mess with my eyes too? And my dreams? I am seeing things, Naya.’
Naya rolled her eyes before taking hold of Bobbie’s tie and leading her down the first-floor corridor like a dog. When they reached the vending machine, Naya slotted in some coins before a can clattered into the dispenser. She handed Bobbie a Coke. ‘Here. Have this. Your eyes are doing a weird bulging thing and it’s wigging me out.’
Bobbie accepted the Coke and took a sip. She hadn’t realised how badly she needed the sugar. There were some padded chairs outside the careers office and Bobbie fell onto one, her legs feeling hollow. ‘Thanks.’
Naya sat alongside her. ‘Let’s regroup. You genuinely think a ghost killed Sadie? Bob—’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. People don’t just vanish. Oh God, poor Sadie … she must have been so scared.’
‘Bobs … ’
‘I know. It sounds all fifty shades of crazy. But you know that bit in the films where you just want everyone to hurry up and accept that the seemingly impossible thing is a possibility? Well … that.’
Naya managed a wry laugh. ‘I hear that. But … it’s a bit of a reach. I don’t even believe in ghosts.’
‘Neither did I until I saw one.’ Bobbie sipped on the Coke. ‘It’s all too much. The day after we said her name we both got messages. We all got nosebleeds. I saw a girl downstairs … Mary. I dreamed about her … in the dream I was her. Talking about ghosts is pretty stupid, but so is denying what’s right in front of you.’
Naya took a theatrically deep breath. ‘Okay. Let’s suppose for a second I buy all this. What do you wanna do about it?’
‘I don’t know. We only have until Thursday … ’
‘Until?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was a spiky lump lodged in her throat. ‘Until whatever happened to Sadie happens to us.’
The truth finally seemed to hit Naya. Her cheeks lost their glow, fading from the colour of coffee to the colour of very milky tea. ‘Oh God.’
It was Bobbie’s turn to be the supportive one now. She gripped Naya’s arm. ‘No, it’s okay. That means we still have nearly four days to stop her. I hope. Last night, if she’d wanted to hurt me, she could have, but she didn’t. For whatever reason, she’s given us five days.’
‘To say goodbye.’
‘There’s the spirit,’ Bobbie chided. ‘I think she wants something. Look, maybe if we can work out who she was … is … what happened to her. There has to be a way to stop her.’
‘What? You reckon we can talk her out of ripping our skin off or whatever?’
Bobbie winced. ‘She might be a friendly ghost … like Casper.’
‘Honey, tell that to Sadie and anyone else fool enough to do what we did.’
Bobbie squeezed the Coke too hard and a fountain sprayed onto her tights and the chair between her legs. ‘Naya, you’re a genius.’
‘I am?’
‘Yes. This has happened before.’
With the school in utter chaos – fluorescent police jackets flashed in and out of classrooms and the houses like wasps – no one noticed or cared that Bobbie and Naya hadn’t returned to their classes. Girls were being pulled out of lessons at a steady rate for questioning about Sadie so they took full advantage of the madness.
They went to the library reading rooms, knowing that two Uppers wouldn’t look too out of place – for all the librarian knew they were on free periods. Bobbie checked no one was watching before logging onto the system and accessing the internet. ‘What are you looking for?’ Naya asked. Bobbie ignored her and typed MARY WORTHINGTON PIPER’S HALL. The first few searches were about the ‘oldest hall in Ohio’ that had apparently been owned by a Mary Worthington. The next ten or so all referred to a character on the TV show Supernatural. The legend of this girl was worldwide. Most of the Google hits were Facebook pages for modern-day, real-life Mary Worthingtons. ‘Anything?’ Naya prompted.
‘Nothing useful. Oh wait … look at this.’ Bobbie clicked on a link. It was one of those awful ‘ask anything’ websites where people post questions before members log on and answer. Bobbie read the original post aloud. ‘“Watched the Bloody Mary episode of Supernatural. Is this like a real thing? Well scary LOL!” There’s a load of answers and then someone said this: “I heard from a friend in the UK that it really happened at some fancy boarding school.”’
‘Holy crap.’ Naya pulled her chair closer. ‘That’s us.’
‘Yep.’
Naya leaned in. ‘What about the alumni page on the school website? If she was a student here … ’
Bobbie could have kissed her – why hadn’t she thought of that? ‘See, that’s why I love you. You’re beautiful and clever.’
‘Snap!’ Naya grinned.
Bobbie found the Piper’s Hall website and then clicked on the link to the alumni pages. It was divided up into sections – decade by decade. ‘There must be thousands and thousands of girls on here.’
Naya chewed her lip. ‘Was there anything in your dream? Like were they all in flares and stuff?’
‘No.’ Bobbie took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. ‘At a guess I’d say Thirties or Forties.’
‘Worth a look.’ Bobbie did so, also checking the 1920s and 1950s as a precaution, but there was no record of a Mary Worthington amongst the lists of former pupils. ‘That’s weird. In the dream, I – I mean she – was definitely a student. I was in uniform.’
‘In the story, she committed suicide,’ Naya said. Bobbie altered the search to PIPER’S HALL SUICIDE. This time there was a positive result, but it concerned a Piper’s girl who’d killed herself in the Nineties while at home. Bobbie disregarded it and Naya shrugged, at a loss. Another idea occurred to Bobbie. ‘Can you remember? On Saturday night, Sadie said something had happened while her sister was here.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you know her name?’
Naya shook her head. ‘No – the middle sister was here at the same time as us, but the eldest one had left by the time we got here. Just look for Walsh – it can’t have been too long ago.’
‘What am I looking at?’
Bobbie pointed at the two names at the very end of the list.
Abigail Hanson and Taylor Keane – always in our thoughts.
‘Well, what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Let’s find out.’ Now in full-on detective mode, Bobbie googled ABIGAIL HANSON PIPER’S HALL and hit enter. ‘Jackpot.’
This time they’d struck gold.
Police escalate hunt for missing schoolgirls …
Parents’ plea to missing pair …
No evidence of foul play in double disappearance …
Each story came with an accompanying picture of the two girls. Abigail was a devastatingly pretty brunette with cheekbones to die for while Taylor looked like a cheerleader or something, all bronzed skin and tousled off-blonde hair. ‘How have we not heard about this?’ Bobbie wondered aloud.
‘If there were no bodies, I guess there’s no case.’
Bobbie opened one of the news reports. It had made the national news, but at the time she’d been only about four and living in her limited, childish world. Both girls had vanished from their homes: Abigail in London and Taylor on the Welsh borders. That made no sense. Apparently it hadn’t made a lot of sense to the police either. Two girls vanishing on the same date, miles apart. From what Bobbie could tell, the only lead was that the two girls had run away together, although neither took any belongings.
They’d vanished. Just like Sadie. A jagged, icy feeling chilled Bobbie from inside out, starting in her spine and spreading through her bones. ‘I would literally bet anything in the world that five days before they vanished they were in front of some mirror … ’ She didn’t need to finish.