I nodded quickly, wanting her to get to the point.
“And Miss Jones says … she says the books keep changing?”
Ariadne suddenly shot to her feet, faster than I’d ever seen her move. “OH MY GOSH!” she cried in a loud whisper.
“What? What am I missing?”
Ariadne looked back and forth between us like an excited meerkat. “It’s not a bookcase! It looks like a bookcase, but it’s not! It’s a door!”
I may have stood there open-mouthed for a second, staring at my sister and her friend, who were both grinning at me. But then I properly registered what they were getting at. Of course! Of course! “We have to open it!”
“If the books are changing,” said Ariadne, holding up a finger, “then there must be books on the other side. It swings round. We need to push on one side.”
That I could do. I took hold of one of the wooden shelves, dug my heels into the floor and pushed as hard as I could.
For a moment, nothing happened.
But then there was a click, and the whole creaking contraption swung sideways, leaving us looking into blackness.
I peered in. It was a small space, not much bigger than a cupboard, but there seemed to be … stairs?
Ivy had brought a candle stub, which she lit with a match and held out into the void. It was indeed stairs, a steep spiral descending into the ground. Her hand was shaking a little, and the candlelight sputtered and flicked odd shadows on to the wall.
“Come on,” I whispered, grabbing her other hand and pulling her in.
Ariadne was still staring at the moving bookcase. “Fascinating,” she muttered.
“You too, swot.”
“Oh! Right! Yes …”
It was damp and cold in the stairwell. The steps were made of thick slabs of wood, and they looked old – I could make out rot and woodworm holes in the candlelight. Hopefully they would hold our weight. Our breathing and footsteps echoed off the walls as we moved.
I could feel the claustrophobia creeping in.
This is a trap. You need to escape. Miss Fox could be down here, waiting …
I slowed my breathing and gripped Ivy’s hand tighter. As long as she was with me, everything would be okay. I wouldn’t be trapped again.
“Who do you think built this?” Ariadne’s whisper drifted down from behind me as I took another cautious step. “It must be from back when the school was a grand house.”
“Shh,” I replied with a finger to my lips. Just in case we really weren’t alone, I didn’t want anyone to know we were coming.
And then, suddenly, we were at the bottom.
And there was another door.
“A secret room,” breathed Ariadne.
The door looked as old as the stairs, heavy and wooden with iron rivets and a huge metal handle. There was a thick bolt slid across it.
I let go of Ivy’s hand and leant against a damp wall for a moment, dizzy, my fear threatening to overcome me. But we hadn’t come this far to not go into a secret room. I had to know what was in there.
Slowly, quietly, I pulled back the rusty bolt.
Then I took a deep breath, and I opened the door.
There was a girl inside the room.
She was sitting on the floor looking up at us, surrounded by burning candles, and there was a smile on her face.
She was as pale as a ghost.
I screamed.
It came out before I could even stop myself. I slammed my hands over my mouth, realising what I had just done. If anyone heard me …
The girl stood up, and moved towards us, still smiling.
Shaking, I backed away. I held the candle out in front of me as if it would protect me, somehow. I wanted to run. Scarlet’s eyes were wide and Ariadne was staring in horror.
But then something happened: my twin held out her hand.
There was a moment where we all froze, fixated on what was happening. I dropped the candle to the floor. It fizzled out.
The girl took Scarlet’s hand.
“She’s real,” Scarlet whispered, and all of the air rushed out of my lungs in relief. Not a ghost. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
“H-hello?” said Ariadne, taking a step forward. The strange girl just nodded at her, still not talking.
I paused, trying to slow my heart back to its normal rate, and looked around the mysterious room. The girl had the most beautiful long blonde hair, I noticed, but it was bedraggled, and she was wearing a dress and jumper that looked a little too big. The room she sat in was bare but for the candles, a makeshift bed in the corner, an old trunk and …
“Scarlet,” I said, pointing. “Look.”
My sister took her eyes off the girl for a second and her eyes followed mine to the back wall.
“Oh my …”
The back wall of the room was illuminated by the dancing orange candlelight, and above an old tapestry heaped on the floor, it was full of writing. The words crept all the way up to the ceiling.
“Did she do that?” asked Ariadne, grabbing my arm.
The girl just stared, and her eyes seemed cautious.
Part of me was desperate to look, but a bigger part of me was desperate to turn and run. “We need to get out of here,” I said, tugging on Scarlet’s sleeve. “We need to tell someone about this!”
But my twin wouldn’t budge; she was rooted to the spot, taking in the words. Ariadne too was stock-still, dumbstruck.
This is all wrong, I thought. If I had to drag Scarlet out of there, I would. Who knew who or what this girl was …
And just as I was thinking that, she shot out her arm and pointed at me, and her eyes bored into me like she was reading my soul.
I couldn’t stand a second more of this. I turned to run—
And smacked straight into Violet.
“No!” she cried out. “No, no NO! You’re not supposed to … this is …”
I stumbled backwards. She backed up into the doorway, and before I could say anything, she’d collapsed in tears.
“V-Violet?” said Ariadne.
“Violet?” said Scarlet.
“Violet!” whispered the strange girl. We all turned to look at her, not quite believing that she could actually talk.
Violet was still sobbing into her arms, but she soon lifted her head, and I saw that the familiar fire had returned. “What are you doing here?” she said, her voice shaking. “How could you. How could you?” She jumped to her feet and ran at Scarlet, pushing her back against the wall by the little folding bed. Ariadne gasped, while the ghost girl merely giggled.
“Get away from me!” Scarlet yelled, fighting her off. “You’re the thief, aren’t you? Admit it!”
By this point I had grabbed hold of Violet and managed to tug her back. She stood there in the dancing light, panting for breath as tears streamed down her cheeks. Emotions seemed to parade across her face; anger, despair, confusion, fear.
“I took those things for a reason!” yelled Violet. “She needed them!”
We all looked at the girl.
“Oh, skip it,” Scarlet snapped. “Stop playing the victim, Violet. You’re the one who’s a thief. And a kidnapper!”
“I didn’t kidnap her!” Violet shouted back. “I rescued her. Now are you going to listen, or what?”
“Shh,” I said, dragging Scarlet back to us, grumbling all the way. “You’re going to have the whole school running down here if you keep yelling!”
When we were all silent and Violet had recovered her composure, she began to speak. “Her name is Rose. I met her in … the asylum. Nobody understood her. They said she couldn’t talk, that she was crazy. But she talks to me, don’t you, Rose?”
“Yes, Miss Violet,” said Rose, and her voice was soft and sweet.
“They called her ‘princess’ because of what she wrote down for the doctor … She said that her family was rich, that she was an heiress to a fortune. They all laughed at her. You should have heard them.” Violet started pacing, and her fists were
clenched with anger. “But it’s all true. She swore it to me. Her family didn’t want her. They wanted to get rid of her because of her problems … They had no other children and they thought her cousin would make a suitable heir if they could get her out of the way.”
Rose was looking blank-faced at the wall throughout this speech, and if there was any flicker of recognition, I didn’t see it. Was Violet telling the truth?
“So they locked her up in there and forgot about her, pretended she never existed and never came to visit her. But she was –” sniff – “she was the only person I could talk to. I knew I had to get her out of there, to rescue her from her cruel fate. And not let her parents steal her rightful fortune!”
“Or,” said Scarlet, standing up again, “she’s crazy and dreamt this whole thing up, and you just went along with it because you heard the word ‘fortune’! Or maybe you’re just lying through your teeth! Where’s your proof of any of this? I was locked up in the asylum too and I never saw either of you once.”
“It’s not like that,” Violet snapped, nostrils flaring.
Suddenly, Rose moved towards her and tapped her on the arm. “Miss Violet,” she said, “I think you’re kind. And I don’t think you tell lies.”
“Rose and I were kept away from most of the patients,” said Violet. “Especially you, Scarlet – they didn’t want us to recognise each other and unpick what had happened. Did the doctors call you by the wrong name and tell you all the time that you were mad?”
Scarlet nodded, slowly.
“Me too. But I knew what Miss Fox did to me on that roof. I was determined not to disappear forever.”
My twin stayed silent, taking all of this in. Could it be true?
I stared at the ghost girl, with her strange and delicate pale features. I noticed there was a golden locket around her neck – it certainly looked expensive. There was at least a chance that the story wasn’t made up, and if it wasn’t then she could be in danger. I knew that Scarlet hadn’t deserved to be put in the asylum, and neither (unfortunately) had Violet. Perhaps the same really was true for Rose.
“Please,” said Violet, and it was in a tone of voice that I hadn’t heard her use before – although to be fair, she hadn’t said much at all since I’d been in her vicinity – one of desperation. “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”
“Because you’ll get in trouble?” asked Scarlet.
“No! Because of what could happen to Rose. I need you all to swear that you won’t tell anyone.”
Rose clung to her arm, smiling vacantly. “The walls have been talking,” she said.
“I’m not swearing anything until you explain yourself,” Scarlet retorted. “How exactly did you escape?”
Violet pressed her trembling lips together, and shook her head. Before Scarlet could demand an answer, Ariadne piped up with a sudden realisation.
“So this is the reason you’ve been stealing,” she said. “You’ve taken it all for Rose. The clothes, the food, the books …”
Violet sniffed. “I had to, don’t you see? Please, swear you won’t tell?”
We all looked at each other. There was anger in my twin’s face and fear in my friend’s. But I think we knew that, at least for the moment, we had to keep quiet about this. We needed enough time to decide what we were going to do.
“We swear,” we said in unison, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
There were a few moments of silence. That was, until I heard a creaking noise.
“What was that?” Ariadne whispered, her face filled with fright.
Another creak.
And another.
There was someone coming down the stairs.
They were moving slowly, as if it were difficult for them to walk. Was it Mr Bartholomew? I grabbed Scarlet’s arm, my breathing quickening. She was staring at the dark doorway, her eyes wide.
Someone was coming, and there was nowhere for us to run.
It felt like an age. Each step was another closer to our fate. If it was the headmaster … would we even make it out alive?
But then a face appeared in the doorway, and it was not a face that any of us had been expecting.
“Miss Finch!” exclaimed Scarlet.
Our ballet teacher was staring back at us, clearly stunned. “Oh,” was all she said.
“I can explain,” my twin quickly started, just as Miss Finch blurted out the exact same thing.
Rose looked up. “Hello, Miss” she said in her tiny voice.
When Scarlet gets confused, she gets angry. “Right,” she said. “What exactly is going on here?”
Miss Finch sighed and leant against the door frame. “I presume you’ve found out about Rose, then?” She sounded incredibly weary.
Scarlet made a gesture that broadly said, yes, that is quite apparent.
“I got them both out,” said Miss Finch, indicating Violet and Rose. “Since Scarlet was there under a false name, I thought it was possible that Violet was in there somewhere, too. I supposed Miss— my mother had inside knowledge from her time there. And my hunch was right – Violet was being kept there too.” She took a deep breath. “I proved that Violet wasn’t supposed to be there, and she was allowed to leave with me. But when she told me that Rose had been wrongfully imprisoned as well …”
Violet nodded, holding her chin high. Rose was still tugging on her sleeve.
“I shouldn’t have done it, I know, and I’m afraid Rose is now rather on the run. Violet sneaked her out of the back entrance, by the fountain. I knew the guard, so I was able to distract him while they—”
“So you were both in the same place,” I said, looking from Scarlet to Violet.
The ghost girl seemed to have stopped listening, but it was hard to tell with her. She was staring at the writingcovered wall.
Miss Finch nodded. “My mother had some influence there, it seems. She said they needed to be kept apart. After we rescued Scarlet, they moved the two girls back into the main ward.”
There was a pause, and then I could have sworn I heard Rose mumble, “It’s better here.”
Better here? What a nightmare that asylum must have been, if a gloomy room deep under Rookwood School was preferable.
“So why is Rose down here in the cold, Miss?” asked Ariadne. Her face was drawn with worry.
“We needed to keep her safe until I could find somewhere better for her. I was afraid that the asylum would come looking. Or that I would be fired if she was discovered. She’s vulnerable.”
“You were going to tell me,” Scarlet butted in, “the other day in the ballet studio. Weren’t you? I knew there was something you were holding back, Miss.”
“I decided you had enough to cope with in here,” Miss Finch said gently. “I just wanted to make up for what my mother had done. Somehow.”
I wondered about her, sometimes. In some ways she seemed as much an adult as any of the teachers, in others she seemed as lost as the rest of us.
She shook herself, then. “Girls, you shouldn’t be down here.” Scarlet raised a finger, clearly about to argue, but Miss Finch silenced her. “I know, I know I shouldn’t, either. But it might not be safe, in more ways than one. You need to stay out of trouble.”
“We will, Miss,” I promised. Or at least, I hoped so.
“But …” she started, looking uncertain. “I can’t keep coming down here night after night. Mr Bartholomew watches me like a hawk – he must think I’m plotting my mother’s return, when nothing could be further from the truth!”
“We can help!” said Scarlet, eagerly. “We can take it in turns to bring Rose food and clothes. He won’t be able to keep an eye on all of us, all the time.”
“Miss Violet,” Rose said, tugging on Violet’s sleeve again, “the walls have been talking. Shouldn’t we listen to them?”
“What do you mean?” asked Violet, exasperated.
Rose walked to the other side of the room as if she were in a dream, nearly knocking over one of the candles in the pro
cess.
“Careful,” Violet warned, “you know you need to be careful with those!”
Rose stood in front of the far wall, staring up at it. The writing spread out across it like spiderwebs.
“Well, that’s new,” said Miss Finch, her eyes wide.
We all followed the ghost girl. “Rose,” Violet whispered, “what have you done …”
Rose shook her head. “Not me.” She pointed at the tapestry that lay in a pile on the cold floor. “It fell, and then the words came.”
I looked at Scarlet, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
If Rose hadn’t written the words … then who had?
For a long time, I’d suspected I was insane. Now I was beginning to believe that everyone else was.
Ivy believed in ghosts, Violet and Miss Finch were hiding a girl in a secret room, and lord only knew what Ariadne was doing – she appeared to have pulled out a magnifying glass from somewhere and was peering at words that had appeared all over the stones. “It’s paint,” she was muttering. “Old, flaking paint …”
And as for the ghost girl herself, well … she was standing with her ear to the wall, as if it were talking to her.
I stepped closer, and I saw:
We are the Whispers in the Walls.
They will try to silence us, but they will fail.
We will speak out.
The truth MUST be revealed.
The truth about Rookwood. The truth about Headmaster Bartholomew.
THE WHISPERS WILL BE HEARD.
I read it in amazement. What did this all mean? Who had written it? And when?
Below that, in smaller letters, there was yet more writing:
We pledge to:
– Meet in one of the secret rooms once a week
– Never tell anyone about the Whispers
– Look, listen, learn everything we can
– Collect evidence of the truth, searching high and low
– Protect others
– Uncover every detail of what REALLY goes on at this school!
And all around it were painted names, students’ names, scattered around the text like fireflies.
Alice Jefferson. Elizabeth Fitzgerald. Ida Smith. Katy Morwen. Talia Yahalom. Bronwyn Jones. Emmeline Adel.
The Whispers in the Walls (Scarlet and Ivy, Book 2) Page 8