Charlotte Says

by Alex Bell

  I’d seen her approach from a window and walked out to meet her on the steps of the school.

  “What happened?” I asked. “We had no idea where you’d gone, or—”

  “I left a note explaining I needed to take a short leave of absence,” the schoolmistress replied. “The rest is none of your concern.”

  I sighed. “Well, we had an incident here the night you left,” I said. “I’m afraid someone got into your study. I’ve sorted everything out as best I can but the dolls are all ruined—”

  “I beg your pardon?” Miss Grayson stared at me, her nostrils flaring alarmingly.

  “Their hair was all cut off,” I said. “And they—”

  That was as far as I got before Miss Grayson pushed past me, marching to her study. I had put the dolls back in their cabinets but, with their spiky, bald heads, they looked more grotesque than anything.

  At the sight of them, Miss Grayson lost her composure entirely. She stormed around the room, collecting up the dolls and throwing them into a sack. When I tried to ask if there was anything I might do to help, she snarled at me to get out of her way.

  I left her to it and, as she seemed to have no intention of taking the reading class, I went to the classroom and began the lesson myself.

  The smell of smoke alerted us to the fire. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from at first, so I ushered the girls straight outside. Once we were in the grounds we found the fire immediately.

  Miss Grayson had gathered all the toys remaining in the school, including the confiscated ones from the toy room, her own vandalized dolls and the priceless Whiteladies dolls’ house, and she had set fire to the lot.

  “Now are you happy, you vile brats?” she practically shrieked at the girls. “You see it works both ways! If my possessions are to be destroyed then so are yours! Perhaps I have been too lenient with you and this is the result. From now on you will occupy yourselves with more industrious, worthwhile tasks. There shall be no more playing with toys in this school ever again!”

  She strode back inside, still trembling with anger.

  Many of the girls burst into tears at the sight of their few precious toys in flames. The schoolmistress must have doused the pile in alcohol for it to blaze like that, the flames spitting and crackling against the snow, which melted in an ever-widening patch.

  I watched the miniature Whiteladies burn just like the real one had, hating Miss Grayson for casually destroying such a valuable thing. At the very least, it could have been sold to keep the school in coal for a while. Soon enough, there was just a blackened circle of charred remains, surrounded by snow.

  “Come on,” I said to the sobbing girls. “What’s done is done. Crying won’t bring back the toys.”

  I felt terrible for them but there was nothing I could do to change what had happened. I simply ushered them into the school hall, where the maids were putting out lunch. I had no appetite myself so I made my way upstairs to my room instead.

  I’d hoped to lie down and rest a while but as I passed by the mirror a pale hand reached right out of the glass and small fingers wrapped tightly round my wrist.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Isle of Skye – February 1910

  I pulled away with a cry. The hand remained stretching out of the mirror, reaching for me, fingers flexing and straining and grasping. I could see nothing else in the glass – only that small child’s hand coming out of it. I forced myself to breathe slowly. It was Estella’s hand. I could tell because the fingernails were gone – only soft, bloody nail beds in their place.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself as I slowly walked back towards the mirror. Then, before I could change my mind, I took Estella’s hand in mine, holding on to her tightly. Immediately the arm pulled me forwards and I let it happen. I felt the cold surface of the glass give way beneath my touch as I passed right through and found myself on the other side of the mirror, trapped behind the glass with Estella.

  She stood there holding my hand and staring up at me with that same unhinged expression I had seen before, her mouth gaping wide in a silent scream. Only this time, I forced myself not to recoil from her. If I was to learn what had happened and find some way to help Estella, then this was surely my only option.

  I glanced back out through the mirror and saw my bedroom beyond it, and myself still standing there on the other side, my hand pressed against the glass, staring blankly straight ahead.

  Inside the mirror was a sort of shadow version of my bedroom. The colours were muted, and everything seemed grey and vague around the edges, like it was all made from smoke. But I could just make out the shapes of my bed and the window, which seemed to have nothing but white emptiness beyond it.

  I turned to the little ghost girl at my side. “It’s all right,” I said, tightening my grip slightly. “Don’t be frightened. I’m here with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Estella tried to speak but, just like before, she started to choke. I could see a mass of hair and dolls’ hands blocking the back of her throat.

  “All right, all right,” I said hastily, not wanting to see a repeat of what had happened last time. “Could you write it down instead?”

  I gazed around, searching for paper and ink, but I could already see that it would be no good. Although I could touch Estella herself, the objects on the other side of the mirror didn’t seem to have any substance. Even if we found paper, I wasn’t sure Estella would be able to write on it. She seemed to have an idea, however, because she suddenly gripped my hand and started tugging me towards the door. I followed her and soon we were out in the corridor, moving through the shadow school.

  Just like my bedroom, the rooms seemed fuzzy, like a drawing that hadn’t been properly finished. As we moved down the corridor and through the rooms, I kept catching glimpses of the real school through the mirrors, only there didn’t seem to be any consistency of time or place. Sometimes the school beyond the mirror would appear like the one I was familiar with but, at others, it seemed like I was looking into a version of the school as it had been in the past. The girls I glimpsed had the ribbons, ringlets and pinafores of bygone years and, on one occasion, I was sure I glimpsed Dolores, gossiping with another maid.

  When we passed through the main hall, on the other side of the mirror I saw a dark-haired boy with a scarred hand. He was about Henry’s age and playing a Baby Grand piano. The sound came out faint and muffled through the glass but I could still hear it was beautiful. He wore very odd clothes – I had never seen anything like them before and couldn’t think what time period they might be from.

  I didn’t have time to puzzle over it because Estella tugged me forwards insistently until finally we found ourselves behind the mirror in Miss Grayson’s study. This one was clearly looking out at just a few days earlier because I could see Estella there, lying in the little bed by the fire.

  I glanced questioningly at the ghost beside me and had to suppress a shudder of horror at the sight of that wide-open mouth, which seemed even more stuffed with porcelain white hands and wiry grey hair than it had been before. Estella lifted her arm and pointed towards the mirror, so I turned my gaze back to the study beyond the glass.

  The door opened and I saw Bess walk in with the chocolate-spread sandwich. Just like she’d told me, she went across the room and, on seeing Estella was asleep, set it down by her bed. Then she turned and left the room. A few moments later, Miss Grayson walked in. She spotted the sandwich at once, scowled and strode over to snatch it up. No doubt she disapproved of Estella being given such a treat in the first place. I’m sure she had every intention of throwing it away immediately.

  But then she paused. Perhaps she caught the scent of peanuts or saw them in the spread but, all of a sudden, she lifted the sandwich to her nose, taking a long, slow sniff. I saw her eyes flicker from the sandwich to Estella and back again. And in that moment I saw in her face that she knew. She knew that the sandwich was pure poison to Estella.

  Suddenly Es
tella stirred in her bed and sat up, rubbing her eyes. Looking around, her gaze fell on Miss Grayson and she cringed, perhaps expecting some reprimand or punishment.

  Instead, without a word, Miss Grayson held out the sandwich to her. I saw Estella hesitate, perhaps sensing a trick of some kind. But Miss Grayson remained standing there, offering the sandwich. When Estella glanced at the schoolmistress again, Miss Grayson nodded and said something. Like with the piano music, the words were muffled and I couldn’t make out their meaning, but I heard the reassuring tone and the next moment Estella had taken the sandwich.

  She kept her eyes on Miss Grayson as she raised it to her mouth and the schoolmistress stared right back. A small smile tugged at Miss Grayson’s lips and I saw at once that Estella took this as encouragement. But this was no kindly smile; it was a heartless grin, the wicked smirk of someone who saw they were about to get what they wanted.

  Estella’s reaction to the nuts was almost immediate. She didn’t even manage a second bite before a flash of surprise passed over her face, closely followed by panic and then fear, as the sandwich fell to the floor and she clutched at her throat with both hands.

  Miss Grayson simply stood there and smiled silently down at her. At one point, Estella stretched out a hand towards her, desperately grabbing at the teacher’s skirts. Miss Grayson leaned down and, just for a moment, I thought she might comfort the dying girl. But instead she grasped Estella’s hand firmly by the wrist, disentangled it from her skirts and took a smart step back.

  I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t look away as Estella struggled in vain against her death throes. Her legs kicked at the blankets, her hands reached out, her nail-less fingers clutched at thin air. And all the while Miss Grayson stood and watched.

  All too soon, Estella’s legs stopped kicking, her arms went limp at her sides and her face froze in that same terrible expression I’d seen before. There was the sound of a knock on the door, and Miss Grayson jumped and looked towards it. I knew that this must be the moment when I had arrived.

  I watched, my stomach roiling with anger and disgust, as Miss Grayson hurriedly picked up the sandwich and placed it, with precision, back on the plate before going to answer the door.

  I didn’t need to see any more, I already knew what happened from here, so I turned back to Estella’s ghost, crouching down by her side.

  “I won’t let her get away with it,” I said quietly, taking both her hands in mine. “Do you hear me? She’ll pay for what she did to you.”

  The frenzied look seemed to fade from Estella’s face. She took a deep breath and then, with an effort, swallowed down the mass of hair and dolls’ hands. “Do you promise?” she whispered, finally able to speak.

  “I swear it on my soul.”

  Without another word, she took my hand and led me back through the school to my bedroom, where I could still see myself on the other side of the glass.

  “You should go now,” she said.

  “But what about you?”

  For the first time, Estella smiled at me. “I can hear my brother, John,” she said. “He’s calling my name. I have to go and find him.”

  “Good luck,” I said, giving her one last hug.

  She waved goodbye as I pressed my hands against the glass and stepped back out of the mirror.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Isle of Skye – February 1910

  I spent the rest of that day going over and over it all in my mind. What should I do? What could I do? In giving Estella that sandwich, Miss Grayson had practically murdered her in cold blood. But how could I prove it? There’d been no witnesses. There was no evidence.

  That afternoon I felt a sudden need to see Henry, so I went searching and found him plastering the wall in the classroom. He greeted me cheerfully enough, but it made my heart ache to see the tension lines that had appeared round his eyes.

  I longed to talk to him about what I had discovered but I knew he would never be able to believe that Miss Grayson had been responsible for Estella’s death. He was too nice, that was the problem, and it made him believe everyone else was as decent as he was.

  But I knew that being nice didn’t always work. I had Edward Redwing to thank for that lesson.

  His voice seemed to whisper in my ear: It is not I who has the dark soul, madam…

  “Is anything wrong?” Henry asked, putting down the trowel and peering at me.

  “Nothing.”

  Everything.

  I forced a smile. “I just wanted to see you. That’s all.”

  The next day was a Sunday, which dawned bright and sunny. When I went downstairs, I found that Henry had persuaded Miss Grayson to allow us to take the girls for an outing in the carriage after church. The carriage was an extra-long one with bench seats that could just about accommodate everybody if they all squeezed in. The schoolmistress showed no interest in joining us – a fact for which I am sure everyone was glad.

  “I thought it would do them good to get away from the school for a bit,” Henry told me. “In fact, it would do us all good. So we’re going to have an extra drawing lesson at Loch Pooltiel today. You’ll love it there, Mim. It’s the most beautiful sea loch and it’s not that far away.”

  The girls were eager to leave and piled into the carriage. This was the Sunday that Cassie and Hannah had their day off, so we packed up a picnic lunch to eat on the way. It was a perfect day for drawing, with a clear sky and a bright sun. Loch Pooltiel itself was incredibly beautiful, with crystal waters that sparkled in the sunlight, contrasting sharply with a beach of black volcanic sand. A towering cliff flanked the loch on one side – the tallest cliff on the island, as I heard Henry tell the girls. The snow was melting in the sun and an icy waterfall cascaded over the side of the cliff. Already, just being away from the school made me feel a little better – human, sane, able to breathe.

  Bundled up in our cloaks and gloves, with the sun beaming down on us, we were perfectly comfortable sitting on the black sand. The only sound was the soft lapping of the water, the scratch of pencils on paper and Henry’s voice as he walked around the girls, tutoring them in their work.

  Martha sat beside me with her hands placed listlessly in her lap. Her eyes were still bandaged up and I saw that the white bandage no longer looked very clean. I made a mental note to change the dressing once we got back. To my dismay, I saw a single tear trail from beneath the bandage and run down her cheek. My heart ached for her, and I took her small hand in mine and squeezed it tight.

  “I can hear them,” Martha said quietly. “They’re here.”

  “Who?” I asked, startled.

  Before she could reply, Henry came over and crouched down beside her. “Come on, star pupil,” he said. “I can’t allow an artist as talented as you to sit out the lesson.”

  Martha made a strangled sound. “But … my eyes—”

  “There are other ways to create art,” Henry said. “You will just have to learn to see the world differently.”

  He’d brought some objects with him and I watched as he pressed these into Martha’s hands one by one. First there was a large, flat pebble, polished smooth by the ocean. Then there was a long piece of driftwood, then a seashell, then a strand of seaweed.

  “You can learn to create art through texture and touch,” he said.

  I smiled at Henry and got up to check on the other girls. Half an hour or so went by and then suddenly the shadow of a sea eagle passed over the beach. The bird gave a raucous shriek. For a moment I saw the gleaming red eyes of Redwing’s hawk-topped cane, felt the cold, clammy touch of his fingers round my throat…

  Then, from the other side of the beach, I heard Martha give a sharp cry. I looked over and saw that she had clamped both hands over her ears.

  “Oh, please make them stop giggling!” she moaned.

  I thought she meant the other girls at first and frowned because no one was giggling, they were all working quietly on their drawings. But then I heard it, too – muffled laughter coming fro
m somewhere close. I recognized that sound. I would recognize it anywhere.

  “Shall we play a game?”

  “Oh, yes! Yes!”

  “Which one shall we play?”

  The girls could hear the dolls, I could tell by the way they glanced at each other, their eyes wide with fear. I looked over at Henry but his attention was fixed on Martha and he didn’t appear to be aware of anything out of the ordinary.

  How could the dolls be back? I had thrown them away, tossed them into the sea… My eyes went out to the lake and then it occurred to me that this was a sea loch.

  “We found you before, Mother…”

  “And we’ll find you again…”

  “We know where you are, always…”

  “We’ll always love you…”

  “We’ll always find you…”

  “Where’s Bess?” I said, suddenly noticing she wasn’t on the beach.

  I stared along the stretch of sand but she was nowhere to be seen. I hurried over to where she had been and snatched up her sketch pad. When I saw the drawing on it, I almost dropped it in shock. Bess had drawn the lake, with a girl floating face down in the water, her long hair trailing around her. I thought of that first day back at school when Bess had stood before me in the classroom, soaking wet, choking on weeds and clumps of black sand.

  “No,” I whispered, but as the drawing fell from my hand and I looked up, I already knew what I would see. “Bess is in the water!” I screamed, pointing out towards the little figure floating face down in the middle of the loch.