The Whispers in the Walls (Scarlet and Ivy, Book 2)

by Sophie Cleverly

  The last line made both of us gasp. The handwriting changed, and the writer gave up on the code halfway through writing.

  26-02-14

  A – Y – M? That can’t be right …

  The whispers have been silenced. We have witnessed a catastrophe. This man is even more dangerous than we thought. We must lie low for a while. I am too afraid to speak any further.

  I looked up at Scarlet, watched her face as she read those words. Her brow furrowed and her mouth opened into a puzzled O.

  Finally she looked up at me. “What on earth? What could … what could be worse than that?” She waved her hand over the book, and I knew what she meant. Something worse than corrupt behaviour, than cruelty and beatings and suffering?

  “If this is true … Mr Bartholomew makes Miss Fox look tame,” I said. Scarlet glared at me. “Well, I know what she did to you and Violet was truly, truly awful but this is … this is the whole school we’re talking about.”

  “No,” she said, “it’s not that. It’s that he’s getting away with it. He’s still here! What if he starts doing it all again?”

  “What if he already has?” asked Ariadne, her voice wavering.

  She had a point. I’d been made to run around the school in the pouring rain. And maybe we’d been fortunate enough not to be discovered breaking any major rules yet, but what about those who had? What had he done to Penny and Nadia?

  Scarlet jumped up, and I could almost see the anger bursting through her veins. “We have to stop him,” she said. “What if he actually does think I’m the thief? There’s no telling what he’d do! He’s sick and twisted!”

  “There might be more,” said Ariadne.

  “More what?” Scarlet snapped.

  “More evidence. I mean, it said it on the wall, didn’t it? Collect evidence of the truth. That means they might have had proof of what he’d done.”

  “We searched that whole room, though,” I said. “And there was nowhere else to hide anything. The book was all there was.”

  Scarlet was stomping around now, the way she always did when she was in this mood. I knew that the worst thing for making her angry was when there was a situation she could do nothing about. “We’ll hunt for more evidence,” she said firmly. “But even if we find nothing, we’re going to discover what this catastrophe was, and we are going to bring him to justice.”

  I smiled a little despite myself. Mr Bartholomew was a formidable force, but he was going to regret messing with Scarlet Grey.

  As my twin slammed the little book shut, something fluttered to the ground.

  I picked it up. It was a scrap of newspaper, the corner of a page – just the word ‘GIRL’ in big letters and a date. My twin frowned at it. “Do you think that’s another clue?” she asked.

  “Look,” Ariadne said, leaning over my shoulder and excitedly jabbing her finger at the scrap. “26-02-1914. That’s what was written in the book. I thought it was more code, but it’s a date!”

  “A meaningless date,” my twin added. “We weren’t even alive then. How are we supposed to find out what any of this means?”

  Ariadne smiled. “Where there’s a way, there’s a way!”

  “I don’t think that’s how the phrase goes, Ariadne,” I said.

  I should have kept a low profile while snooping for clues. But Penny Winchester got in the way, as usual. She pushed past me as we filed into ballet class the next day.

  “Hey!” I snapped. What was she playing at?

  She said nothing and just sat down on the floorboards, lacing on her pointe shoes. I glared at her.

  She’s crying because she’s angry. My own words replayed in my head.

  In the adagio portion of the lesson, we had to practise an arabesque. Miss Finch said the turnout of my hip was nearly perfect.

  Next, she appraised Penny. “Not bad,” she said, head to one side, “but I fear you’ve rather lost your technique. Make sure you’re keeping everything straight.”

  I beamed at myself in the mirror as I rose on to my toe to do the move en pointe. Suddenly, someone kicked me in the back of the leg and I went tumbling to the ground.

  For a moment, I was in shock, not sure what had happened. Then I looked up and saw Penny, trying to cover her laughter with her hand. Other girls were staring down at me like I was some sort of freak, sprawled on the floor of the studio.

  Oh no. I am not having this, I thought. I am not going to let her think she can mess with me again.

  Typical Penny, full of amusement at what she’d done, preened her beloved blue bow into place.

  So I climbed to my feet, reached out, and snatched the bow right out of her hair.

  “Give that back!” she yelled, suddenly not enjoying the game any more.

  I gave her a wry smile, and ripped the bow in two.

  I held out my hands and uncurled them. A scrap of material fell out of each and fluttered slowly to the floor, trailing strands of copper hair. There was a murmured commotion from behind me as the other girls realised what was happening.

  “You witch,” Penny hissed at me. “My daddy gave me that. How dare you?”

  Ivy grabbed hold of my arm. “Scarlet, stop it,” she warned in my ear, but I shook her off.

  “Haven’t you learnt to stay away from me yet, Winchester?” I said. “I don’t care if the king of England gave you the stupid thing. It’s obviously not helping you to be less of a moron, so you don’t need it.”

  Penny glared at me, her mouth hanging open.

  “Maybe you should just drop out of ballet class after all, Penny! You’ll never be as good as me, PENNY!”

  “Shut up,” she said. “ShutupshutupSHUTUP!”

  I shrugged at her. Every nerve I hit was another victory. “You just can’t take the truth, can you?”

  Ivy was trying her best to drag me away now, but I had started and I wouldn’t stop until I’d finished. “You know what? I know what you’re afraid of. You’re afraid that Violet likes me more than you. Because she has said more than two words to me since she got back. But Violet thinks I’m the worst scum of the earth – and now you nearly killed her. So what must she think of you?”

  And with that, Penny hit me square in the jaw.

  “Girls!” Miss Finch shouted. I’d never heard her properly shout before. “Stop this right away!”

  I clutched my cheek, a burning pain radiating across my face. Clumsily I tried to swing back at her, but Miss Finch came between us, and I missed by a mile.

  “Penny, Scarlet!” she shouted again. “What are you doing?”

  “She kicked me!” I yelled back, at the same time as Penny roared, “She tore up my bow!”

  Miss Finch’s nostrils flared. “Right. Penny, over there.” She pointed to the far corner of the room. “Scarlet, over there. Now.” She pointed to the opposite corner.

  “But Miss!” we both protested.

  “Now!” she repeated. I slunk over to my corner, nursing my jaw.

  “Both of you will stay here after class and explain to me exactly what you thought you were doing. Until then, you will sit in silence and face the wall, understand?”

  “Yes, Miss,” I said, plonking myself down on the floor. Penny didn’t speak.

  Great. Another punishment.

  But I risked a smile at myself in the mirror. The memory of Penny’s horrified face was enough to make it worth it.

  Or at least, it was, until class ended and Mr Bartholomew walked in.

  I heard his horrible shuffling footsteps before I saw his face.

  Miss Finch had left us sitting in silence before giving us a telling off, no doubt to let us stew a little longer.

  He approached her at the piano. “Afternoon,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she replied, her voice somewhat squeakier than normal.

  “I’ve come to speak with you about some financial matters. Ones that have arisen after – oh.” He stopped, and slowly swivelled his head in my direction. I held my breath, feeling his gaze
boring into the back of my head. Then he turned and noticed Penny. “Have these students misbehaved?”

  Say no, I pleaded silently. Tell him everything’s fine. Tell him we just enjoy sitting in corners, for goodness’ sake.

  Unfortunately, he took Miss Finch’s loyal silence as a yes.

  He stifled a cough. “Mmhmm. And have you assigned a suitable punishment?”

  I felt a chill run down my spine.

  “Well, I thought I would give them some lines,” she said weakly. “Or perhaps an essay on proper behaviour.”

  The headmaster shook his head. “Oh no, that won’t do,” he drawled. “You see, Miss Finch, students are fickle creatures. They will say that they have learnt from a punishment, that they’ll never do it again. Perhaps … perhaps some of it may even enter their minds. But it’s not permanent.”

  He stared at me again, and I wished over and over that I had the guts to get up and run. But for some reason I stayed sitting on the cold floor, not daring to move a muscle.

  “It is important when providing discipline,” he carried on in his nasty rattling voice, “that we give the students something memorable. And I can already see that my previous efforts in Miss Winchester’s case were not … sufficient.”

  I heard Penny gasp behind me. My stomach turned over as my imagination conjured up the horrors that could be inflicted on us.

  “I assure you,” said Miss Finch, and I saw her try to drag herself up to his height in the reflection, “I will deal with the situation accordingly.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Would he buy that? Every second that passed increased my panic.

  Please believe her. Please. Please.

  Mr Bartholomew’s voice lowered to almost a whisper, but it echoed off the walls of the ballet studio and seeped into my ears. “See that you do. Or their punishment will become yours. I WILL have discipline in this school!”

  When Scarlet returned to our room that afternoon, she was shaking.

  “What were you playing at?” I demanded, as soon as she walked in. “The last thing we needed was for you to get in trouble again!”

  She didn’t reply, just walked straight past me.

  “Come on, Scarlet,” I said. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than your petty squabbles with Penny. You need to learn to ignore her!” It was a bit rich coming from me, I know – when I’d been acting at being Scarlet, I hadn’t done a great job of ignoring Penny, either.

  But Scarlet looked up at me, and there was something in her eyes that I wasn’t used to seeing: fear. “He came to the ballet studio,” she said flatly.

  “Who did?” I asked, but I had a horrible feeling that I already knew the answer.

  “Mr Bartholomew. Started talking about how we needed a memorable punishment.” She grimaced. “All I could think about was that he was going to beat me or … or lock Penny and I up … in there…” As her voice quavered, I realised that the second part was what Scarlet feared most.

  My irritation melted away as I began to feel sorry for my twin again. “How did you get away?”

  “Miss Finch stood up to him. I can’t believe it. She told him she’d discipline us herself. I just … I didn’t think he’d accept it. I thought he would force her to make us do something awful.”

  I sat down on my bed. “So what did she actually do?”

  “She just went very quiet, and then told us to write an essay for homework. Then she sent us out.”

  “Goodness. Sounds like you really dodged a bullet there.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better,” she snapped. “He can’t get away with this! It’s just like the Whispers said. What if it’s happening all over again?”

  I frowned at her. “Well, then now would be a good time to stop breaking rules, wouldn’t it?”

  Scarlet was right, though, and that worried me. We needed to find more of the evidence against Mr Bartholomew before something awful happened.

  “I think we should go to the nurse, and see if she’ll let us talk to Violet,” I said, as we made our way down to dinner. “Yes, she’s awful, but what if she knows something? Or Rose! What if Rose knows something?”

  Scarlet wrinkled her nose. “What could that be? How to lurk about and not talk to people?”

  “She lives in that secret room. She must know every inch of it by now.”

  “Do you really fancy another night-time excursion, knowing what Mr Bartholomew might do to us? I’m sending Ariadne.”

  I didn’t respond to that.

  We picked up trays and joined the back of the dinner queue. I spotted Ariadne at the other side of the hall and waved her over.

  “How’s life without the blood-sucking fiend?” Scarlet asked her. I whacked her on the arm.

  “About the same. Still quiet. I think Rose misses her, though.”

  “How could anyone miss Violet?” Scarlet asked.

  “Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat.

  “I mean, she’s so strange. And possibly evil.”

  “Shut up, Scarlet,” I said.

  “AHEM!”

  I turned to the kitchen hatch to see the cook standing there, hands on her hips. “When you’ve finished chin-wagging, you can take your food!” she barked.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  The food was slices of some kind of roast meat in a watery gravy, buried under mashed potatoes and wilted cabbage that looked like it had only had a brief glimpse of the sun before being tugged out of the ground. I pulled a face at it as I took my tray over to the Richmond table. Ariadne and Scarlet followed close behind me.

  Ariadne seemed unusually quiet, and she was ignoring her food. But she had her thinking face on. “What is it?” I asked.

  “I just keep thinking about that message, you know …” She lowered her voice so I could just hear her over the dining hall din. “We witnessed a catastrophe. I just can’t imagine …”

  She was interrupted by the sound of Scarlet slapping herself on the forehead.

  “What?” Ariadne and I said in unison.

  “Miss Jones!” Scarlet exclaimed. “That’s her name!”

  I stared at my twin, wondering what the heck she was on about. “What’s her name?”

  “Cassie. Short for … Catastrophe.”

  “That’s an odd name,” Ariadne said.

  “As if you can talk,” said Scarlet. “Besides, it’s true. She told me. And if it’s true, that means the Whispers were trying to tell us something. About her.”

  My friend’s face screwed up in puzzlement. “Witnessed…” She tried. “Witnessed! Catastrophe witnessed!” She’d said it a little too loudly, earning a disapproving look from Mrs Knight.

  We all quietened down after that, and attempted to chew whatever the meat was. But I knew that all of our brains were whirring. So Miss Jones might have been at the school back then, and she might have witnessed – well, whatever it was that was so awful.

  But all I could think was – if someone had the chance to leave the horrors of Rookwood … Why on earth would they come back?

  When dinner was over, we headed straight for the library. If this really was a clue, we had to look into it.

  “We need to ask Miss Jones about the newspaper,” Ariadne said excitedly, as we hurried along the hallway. “They might have it in the archives.”

  I agreed with her. “If we ask her about whatever this event was, she might be too scared to talk. Or she might flip and get us in trouble—”

  “But finding the newspaper might tell us all we need to know.” Scarlet slapped Ariadne on the back, causing her to nearly spit out the boiled sweet she was sucking. “Brilliant!” Ariadne looked pleased, despite being winded.

  It wasn’t long until bedtime, so there was only a handful of girls milling about in the library. We found Miss Jones sitting in front of the grand fireplace, warming her hands on the crackling hearth. “Oh, hello, girls,” she said. She sounded nervous. “I was just getting a bit chilly, you know.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure
why she was explaining herself – the windows were frosted over and the air was brisk. We could all feel it. Standing by the fire was the first time I’d felt truly warm all day.

  “This school has always been quite cold, hasn’t it?” I asked. “Even in … the old days?”

  She gave me a puzzled look. “I … suppose so? It was when I was a pupil here.” Aha! “Well, anyway, I must get back to work! It’s important to work hard,” she said, picking up a stack of books that she’d balanced on a chair.

  We looked at each other. Why was she acting so oddly? “Has anything else gone missing?” Scarlet asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Miss Jones replied. She gave a fevered glance at the ceiling. “I wish I could hang around. But I can’t. I have tidying and cataloguing to do. And I must make sure that I leave on time.” She hurried away, the stack of books rocking in her arms.

  “He’s got to her,” said Scarlet with a frown. “He must have done.”

  I was ready to give up, but I should’ve known that my twin wouldn’t be so easily put off. She was already chasing after the librarian.

  “Miss! We’ve got an assignment, actually.”

  “Oh?” There was a faraway look in Miss Jones’s eyes. “What’s it for?”

  “Local history,” she lied. “We’ve got to find an old newspaper.”

  “Ah!” The librarian’s face brightened a little, obviously keen to have something to do that she could be certain was work. “Of course. Just over here.”

  She led us over to the archives, and deposited her stack of books on the floor.

  The newspapers were held in large leather-bound volumes, stacked up along the shelves with the year printed on the side. I stood on tiptoes to read the plaque at the top: The Richmond Gazette. “So these are all the local newspapers?”

  “Yes, going back a hundred years or so. Which one was it you wanted?”

  I nudged my twin, and she produced the scrap of paper from her pocket. “The twenty-sixth of February, nineteen fourteen.”