A Light Amongst Shadows

by Kelley York

  I cannot help but smile, pleased. “Maybe he thinks I’m pretty.”

  Humourless, Oscar frowns. “I warned you about that. Watch yourself around him.”

  “I think you’re worrying too much.” I tip my head with a dramatic flutter of lashes. “Besides, you’ll always have my heart first.”

  That coaxes a smile out of him, but there’s still worry etched into his features. If he has plans to respond, he hasn’t a chance as Mr. McLachlan enters the room and starts right in on his lecture.

  A lecture that, twenty minutes in, is interrupted by a gentleman stepping into the room and crooking a finger at our teacher. Mr. McLachlan turns from the chalkboard, looking more than a little miffed at the intrusion. He steps over and bows his head while the man whispers something to him, and the frown upon his face shifts into confusion and then something not unlike concern. He straightens up, eyes roaming the room and landing on me.

  No, not me.

  “Mr. Frances,” he says. “Your presence is requested in the headmaster’s office.”

  Oscar? But why?

  I turn my head in his direction. All colour has drained from Oscar’s face and his eyes have gone wide. What I do not see, however, is any kind of bewilderment about this summons, and I wonder if he’s aware of what he’s being called in for.

  Slowly, mechanically, Oscar collects his things and slides from his seat. He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, myself included, as he inches down the row and out of the room to follow the man—who I now presume to be an aide to the headmaster. Every set of eyes watches him go, and a protective instinct inside me wants to snap at the lot of them to mind their own bloody business and leave him alone. Oscar’s a good lad. As far as I’ve been privy to, he’s not done a thing that warrants getting into trouble.

  Mr. McLachlan is uncharacteristically taken aback. He recovers quickly enough, clearing his throat and redirecting the class back on-topic. But my mind is elsewhere, and I’m counting down the minutes until class is dismissed and I can grab my things and hurry out.

  I go straight to Gawain Hall but find our room empty. When I meet up with Preston and Benjamin in the common room, they haven’t seen hide nor hair of him, either. My concern hits its peak when his chair is empty at dinner. Surely if he’d been called to the headmaster’s office, he would have been released by now?

  In fact, it isn’t until close to curfew—after I’ve changed for the night and planned on lying down to read—that the door creaks open and Oscar steps inside.

  I sit up straight and abandon my book, unable to keep the worry from my voice. “There you are. I was beginning to think you’d been sent home.”

  To say Oscar looks exhausted is an understatement. He moves slow and stiff, dropping his books to the table and tugging at his neckwear. His hair is dishevelled and like he recently attempted to smooth it back without having a mirror to do so. Yet he smiles at me, just a flicker and then gone. “I’m sorry. Got in a spot of trouble, is all. Everything’s well.”

  I frown at the obvious lie. “What on earth would you be in trouble for? Being too friendly?”

  There’s shame in his expression as he turns from me to retrieve his nightshirt from his drawer. “Headmaster found out I cheated on one of my exams at the end of last term.”

  Another blatant lie. I’ve seen Oscar’s work. I’ve seen him answer questions in class. He’s bloody brilliant and puts many of the students to shame. Which likely chafes a fair amount of them, that this low-born, poor boy from London is brighter than them and their rich upbringing.

  “You don’t need to cheat, Oscar. Why would you do that?”

  He heaves a sigh, turning back to me as he begins to undress, although his gaze remains focused elsewhere. “I ain’t a good test taker, is all. I freeze up. “

  Still lying. “Right. So, what was your punishment?”

  “Couple of lashes.”

  Not surprising, and that would explain why he’s keeping his back to the door as he removes his coat and shirt and pulls on his nightclothes, and the stiff way in which he moves. “I’ll be watched like a hawk in class and will be reporting to the headmaster’s office a few times a week for extra work. Laundry duty every Sunday, too. Any further slip-ups of any kind will result in immediate expulsion.”

  I want him to turn around so I can survey the damage. Maybe I’m making too much of this, but it feels extremely harsh a punishment for a first offense of cheating. “Ridiculous, but it’ll be all right.”

  Bless him, he does his best to give me a reassuring smile, but it falls a bit flat. “‘Course.” He turns to finish preparing for bed, and he barely utters a good night to me when he crawls beneath the blankets and curls up to sleep before I’ve even snuffed out the candles.

  For a while, I watch him from across the room, that Oscar-shaped lump curled in on himself, and my chest aches. I want to call him out on what I know to be a string of untruths, but what evidence do I have beyond my own gut feeling and what I’ve gleaned of Oscar’s character over the last few weeks? I’m reluctant to brag about the fact that I already know him so well when there’s so much about me he doesn’t know. People have secrets. Oscar is not exempt from that.

  I try to sleep. Really, I do. But it’s a night where it’s simply not happening for me. Especially after some tossing and turning when I begin to hear the return of noises in the halls.

  I’ve grown capable of pinpointing certain sounds in the dorms. The creaks that are just the wind upsetting old architecture. The sound of Virgil’s footsteps—always around eleven-thirty—accompanied by a faint light spilling beneath the doorway from his candle as he does a sweep of the halls. The crying I picked up on the first two nights has been non-existent and I do not hear it now, but instead…

  Footsteps.

  Not Virgil’s. It’s too late for that, I see no light beneath the door, and it sounds to me as though whoever the steps belong to are making it a point to be as quiet as possible. It could be, I think, someone sneaking out.

  At first, I contemplate ignoring it. Memories of that first night are still fresh enough that my pulse has already begun to quicken at the thought of following that sound, and yet… Ahh, hell. Maybe I’m too nosy for my own good. Maybe it’s just something to do since I cannot sleep. Either way, I slide out of bed, fetch my robe, and duck out into the hall. This time, I think to bring a candle with me, willing to sacrifice stealth for a sense of safety to not be bumbling about in the dark.

  Unlike my last nightmare adventure, though, I can better determine where the noise is coming from. Down the hall to my left. So that’s where I go.

  By the time I reach the end, it’s come to my attention the door to the common room is ajar. I feel I won’t be able to sleep until I see a person’s face for myself. Steeling my nerves, I press onward, lingering outside the door only long enough to brace myself before shoving it open.

  A figure poking about the bookshelf startles, whirling around with eyes as wide and frightened as those of a cornered animal. With the moonlight pouring in from the windows, I needn’t even have my candle to discern William’s face in the darkness.

  We stare at one another, open-mouthed, and I think his heart must be racing as quickly as mine judging by the look on his face.

  “William,” I finally manage. “You’re the thing that goes bump in the night?”

  “What? No, I was just…” He slips his hands behind his back, and the movement makes me think that I saw something in his hand that he is now attempting to hide. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “So, you came to fetch a book?”

  “I went for a walk,” he says, a touch defensively. “What are you doing here?”

  I’m feeling a bit rankled from so much secrecy from people tonight. “I was sneaking out to meet my secret lover for a late-night tryst, of course.”

  He scowls, mouth downturned. Oh, goodness, he’s quite precious when he’s annoyed. “Well, terribly sorry but I’m the only one here.�
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  “Perhaps that means you’re my secret lover,” I respond with an amused grin, feeling some of the tension easing from me to know that what I was hearing wasn’t something ghostly.

  It’s difficult to tell in the eerie light, but I think he might be blushing. My teasing seems to have thrown water over the fire of his annoyance, at least. Whatever it is he’s holding—a bottle, I think—is tucked carefully into the pocket of his robe as he crosses the room to come to a halt right before me. “Is that right?”

  “Maybe.” My smile holds as we study each other in the moonlight, which casts the most ethereal shadows upon William’s beautiful face and seems to dance in his eyes. I almost wish I were a bolder man that I could push that flirting a step further. “But, in all honesty, and in an offer of peace, I simply heard noises and came to investigate. I do hope you’re able to sleep, William. I sometimes have trouble with it in this place, too.”

  The sudden shift in my tone seems to confuse William as a puzzled frown tugs at his face. “Yes, of course,” he mumbles, ducking his head. “This place is full of strange noises to keep one up at night.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” My gaze drops briefly to that pocket. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t insanely curious just what it is he came here to get, and why it was here, of all places. The bookshelf contains a few knick-knacks, one of which is an ornate trinket box, and I think that may have been what I saw him messing with. The question being, what was in it that he risked being out past curfew to get? None of my business, that’s what, I remind myself.

  “Sweet dreams, William.”

  I leave him there to retreat to my own room, latching the door behind me. Though as I slip out of my robe, I hear slow, heavy footsteps in the hallway again. They head from right to left, which is the opposite direction William would be going if it were him, and I idly worry that perhaps someone else is wandering around and might catch him before he’s had a chance to retreat to his room.

  Against my better judgement, I pull open the door and lean out, looking towards where someone ought to be standing and—

  Nothing.

  The hall is empty, and the steps have stopped. My pulse quickens, and I think that I’m seeing shapes in the darkness that do not exist but chase me back behind the comfort of a closed door and make me jam a chair up beneath the handle all the same. Swiftly, I crawl into bed to sleep, but I’m again left with the unsettling sensation that something is watching.

  Oscar is slow to get moving in the morning. He’s always groggy and not quite his perky self upon first waking, but usually a wash-up does the trick at making him brighten. He scarcely bothers with shaving, and I must catch him to get his necktie on proper before he leaves the room.

  At breakfast, I attempt to keep the conversation off whatever it was that happened to him the previous day. Though I do think to say, “I heard someone moving about again last night.”

  Oscar, not having engaged much in anything the other boys are conversing about, is busy pushing eggs about his plate. “Told you, mate, it was probably just someone out past curfew or something.”

  Well, last night it certainly was. But then afterwards… “And yet every time I check, there’s no one there.”

  He sighs. It might be the first time Oscar has ever sounded tired or irritated at me. “Maybe it’s one of them ghosts, rattlin’ about its chains. Someone ought to tell it to go study.”

  That certainly catches my interest. “Ghosts?”

  He pauses, fork tapping once against the plate. “Nothing. Forget I said it.”

  “But you did say it. What do you mean?”

  “Some people just say stuff. Silly stories.”

  “Silly stories often start somewhere.”

  “Sure, with creepy noises in the halls because students are pokin’ about when they shouldn’t be.” He places his cutlery down and leans back in his seat. “Look, there are some tales. Things lads have seen and heard. But I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. The staff gets steamin’ mad when they hear anyone talking about it.”

  “What don’t they get mad about,” I mutter.

  “Us keeping our heads down and not asking questions,” he murmurs, and in that moment, the headmaster—performing his usual post-announcement walkthrough of the hall while we eat—passes behind us and Oscar shrinks in on himself. I think the headmaster makes it a point to look at him as he wanders by.

  Prick.

  “If there’s something going on here,” I say, voice low, only after dear old Mr. King is out of earshot, “we’ve a right to know.”

  “Nothing for us to know, James. They just don’t like nonsense stories being spread around.”

  Oh, he’s being difficult this morning. “What if they’re not nonsense?”

  The look Oscar tosses my way is one of utter exhaustion and it makes me feel all too horrible to needle him further. Ghosts or not, this may be something I need to address on my own.

  Oscar takes his leave for his first class a few minutes early. Part of me is immensely interested in heading down the table to chat with William a bit, ask how he’s doing as we haven’t properly spoken since a few days ago on the field, but… Benjamin and Preston have spent the morning engaged in their usual, easy banter, and something they say snags my attention and swiftly reels me in. Now, before I’ve had the opportunity to get up and approach William, Preston leans across the table. “Frances seems a bit off today.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You’re hearing things at night, you were saying?”

  I suppose we weren’t speaking as softly as I thought, but if he’s going to broach the subject, then I’ll go with it. “I have. Odd sounds out in the halls at night.”

  Preston grins. “I suppose if I were a ghost, that’s what I would do. Try to give all the lads a fright.”

  “If you were a ghost,” Benjamin interjects mildly, “you’d be the most unbearable one ever heard of. They’d have a priest here immediately to exorcise you.”

  “First of all, I’d be a basket of fun, thank you very much. Second, that’s quite rude; I should not have to do any sort of exercise outside of drill.”

  “You know perfectly well what I meant.”

  On any normal day, their banter would be amusing. The pair of them share a close friendship judging by the teasing they dish out at one another. And yet, I’ve witnessed myself how swiftly Preston comes to his rescue when some of the other boys sneer at Benjamin’s dark eyes and hair, traits he inherited from his Chinese mother.

  Unwilling to allow the two of them to get distracted with their jabs, I say, “The ghosts here don’t appear to be much fun at all, though.”

  Benjamin’s raised eyebrow is curious. “No such things actually exist.”

  “Unless you ask my aunt,” Preston adds. “She’s a medium. Into all that odd spirit photography and whatnot. Growing up, she always told my sisters and me that the ghosts would come after us if we didn’t behave. Even if they did exist, they’d certainly run from this place or risk dying all over again from boredom.”

  I tilt my head. “Do you think so? I’ve heard whispers.”

  “Of course you have,” Benjamin says. “We’re a school full of young men isolated from the outside world with only work and more work to occupy us. There’s bound to be gossip.”

  Preston nods in agreement. “That’s all it is. Someone putting ideas in your head and getting you worked up, Spencer? Don’t let them bother you. Some fools around here try their damndest to scare the new boys, but stories are all they are.”

  Frustration sinks in. I know they don’t mean any harm, but even so. “I’ve heard things, you know. Sounds like there’s something moving about in the dorms at night and talking, but any time I go to check, there’s nothing there.”

  Benjamin’s tone takes on a gentle, reassuring quality. “Old, unfamiliar buildings make odd noises.”

  “It wasn’t your average creaks and groans.”

  “It wasn’t ghosts, either.”

&nbs
p; “How do you know that?” I’m no stranger to people brushing off my concerns about much of anything, but I had been hoping for something different this time.

  “I just told you, such things don’t exist.”

  “And you’ve proof?”

  “I’ve a reasonable mind and a grip on my imagination.”

  “Are you implying—”

  “What Benji is trying to say,” Preston interrupts, attempting to place a lid on this pot before it boils over into something it’s not, “is that we’ve all gone through that in the beginning. New place, bunch of new people, and it’s frightening, right? Give it some time. Let yourself adjust. I bet you ten to one, the noises will go away once you grow comfortable here. If not, well, I’ll fight the ghosts for you myself.”

  Despite myself, I chuckle at the mental image. “That would be something to see.”

  “Why on earth?” Benjamin’s mouth curves up. “We don’t need anything supernatural to see Preston make a fool of himself.”

  They laugh it off. I still feel overwhelmingly frustrated, but I bite it back and let the conversation switch gears. I’ve got nowhere, after all, and I don’t feel like I will this morning. Whether my two friends honestly have no idea what’s going on or have been fortunate to not encounter anything, I cannot say I know.

  It isn’t until lunch arrives that I spot my opportunity to speak with William again. He slips out from the hall early, and I come up with some excuse to do the same, abandoning my meal to do so.

  When I emerge outside, the chill bites straight through my wool underclothes, making me shiver. I spot him on the other side of the courtyard, back to me, perched upon the edge of the large fountain. Although when I descend the steps and begin to circle around, it also comes to my attention that he isn’t alone.

  Charles Simmons stands before him, hands in his pockets, and although his mouth is moving he’s speaking too quietly for me to hear a word of it. I’m not sure what our housemaster wants with William, but the way he’s hunched over, almost curled in on himself and away from Charles, looking very much like he simply wants to enjoy his book and be left alone, makes me instantly worry. It isn’t the same kind of reluctance he displayed with me the other day. Right now, William looks downright uncomfortable.