by Kelley York
For as incredulous as the idea is, it would also explain so much. The reluctance to speak to me about it. The extra work he put into the assignments for Mr. Hart’s class. The reason Mr. Hart asked about him the night of the party, too.
“Not something you knew about, I presume?” he inquires with a cold edge to his voice. “Surely if you had, it was something you would have brought to my attention.”
My mouth draws into a thin line. “As per instructions, I would never spread stories and lies, sir.”
King purses his lips and nods. His hands unfold, placed upon his desk as he leans forwards slowly. “Given what I know from your mother and father, James, I am very aware that you are on thin ice back home, and that this school may be your only chance at redemption in their eyes. As such, I strongly advise you to watch your tongue.”
I’m going to crawl out of my skin. I don’t give two shits about who this man is or what power he feels he possesses; I will not be so easily cowed. “Of course, headmaster. I will file your advice under things to ignore.”
He lets out a long, low sigh from his nose and straightens up. I hadn’t noticed the birch rod resting against the edge of his desk until he reaches for it. “The punishment for such blatant disrespect is twenty strikes, Mr. Spencer.”
My eyes do not waver from his face, even as my heartbeat is deafening in my ears. “Should I stand, or do you prefer your boys bent over?”
Mr. King doesn’t balk at that, but his voice does come out significantly darker. “When I’m through with you, you will have difficulty standing. Jacket and shirt off, hands on the desk.”
“Promises, sir,” I respond, a bitter little smile gracing my lips.
It’s a response that may or may not add to the intensity of lashes, but I am beyond caring and, at the end of the day, there is nothing this man can do to me. He can lecture, he can threaten, he can beat me bloody. I will not give up on finding out what happened to my friend, or any of the other boys lost at Whisperwood.
I shove back my chair and rise to my feet, slipping out of my coat and shirt, and bracing my hands against the edge of the desk. I do not break eye contact with the headmaster until he’s out of sight behind me.
This is not the first time in my life I’ve been on the receiving end of a birch, days long past as a child getting whippings on the backs of my legs and bottom, and to be struck on the back and against bare flesh is a new level of cruelty. It’s been long enough since the last time that the intensity of it catches me off-guard. The first strike comes down across my back with such force that my eyes snap shut, my head ducks, and it takes considerable effort not to cry out.
“Count,” the headmaster says.
I swallow hard, sucking in a deep breath. “…One.”
Again. The crack of the birch against my skin making my eyes blur.
“Two…”
Again.
And again.
Eight, nine, ten.
“Twenty.”
By the time the headmaster is through with me, every nerve in my body is alight with pain. Standing up straight is indeed difficult, and it’s with trembling hands that I gingerly slip my shirt back on.
Headmaster King watches me with the most displaced, cold, calculating stare imaginable. “I pray this serves as a good lesson for you, James.”
“Of course. I do hope we can do this again.” I curse how my voice comes out hoarser than I want it to. “Have a wonderful evening.”
I leave with my head held high, desperate to get back to the dorm. To William. I want to see his face, to curl up beside him, listen to the sound of his heartbeat and feel his hands in my hair until the pain begins to fade.
I don’t knock because William will have been waiting for me. What I don’t expect upon opening his door is to see him pressed against his dresser, shoulders hunched, looking very much like a cornered animal, while Charles Simmons looms over him with a smirk on his face.
I haven’t a clue why he’s here, but I don’t care. Mouthing off to our housemaster is likely to set me up for another beating, and I cannot care about that, either. “Get lost, you parasite,” I snarl, thinking if he doesn’t put some distance between himself and William, I’m going to throw him out the bloody window.
Charles turns to flash a toothy smile as he straightens up. “Evening, Spencer. I was just delivering a message from the headmaster.”
The sound of those words makes my body stiffen, which in turn makes the welts and bruising across my back throb. “Lovely. Message has been delivered, I presume, so if you’ll excuse us…”
“Of course. Nice talk, Esher.” Charles winks at him, and as he passes me by to leave the room, he makes it a deliberate point to clap a hand on my back. The jostling makes pain shoot into every inch of my body. I jerk forwards a little, teeth gritted to refrain from whirling around and slamming a fist straight into his face.
The door closes with a resounding click behind him, and I take a deep breath. “Are you all right?”
William slowly pushes away from the dresser, rubbing at one of his arms. He looks rattled. Not in the usual, annoyed way he does when Charles has been bothering him, but something more that I cannot quite place.
“Yes.” He shakes his head, hesitating, and I know the next words that come out of his mouth are not going to be ones I want to hear. “James, why did your parents send you to Whisperwood?”
My jaw clenches. “Misbehaviour, dear William. As I’ve said before. Do you think we could lie down? I’ve had a long evening.”
The slightly glazed look in his eyes as he stares at me, like he doesn’t quite understand, makes me inwardly sigh. His medicine is in full effect, I see. While he does move to turn down the blankets for me, he also quietly says, “That’s not what I was told.”
He gestures to the bed, but I don’t move just yet, my gaze still locked upon him. I cannot recall the last time I’ve felt this tired. “Tell me, William, what did reliable old Simmons tell you?”
Silence falls over the room. I can see his inner debate as clear as day; the way his gaze flicks to the floor, to the bed, down at his hands. The slight, uncertain hunch of his shoulders. I’m praying he’ll drop the subject, that we can just curl up in bed together and that will be it.
William clasps his hands loosely before him and doesn’t look up at me. “He said that you set fire to your family’s home with your parents, uncle, and cousins inside.”
There it is.
Something Charles should not have known, and yet he did, because the headmaster undoubtedly informed him. The beating was only a formality; this, here, was the real punishment.
A defensive urge to snap at William rears its ugly head, and I fight it back. “Do you believe him?”
Hesitantly, he lifts his eyes to my face, a little bit of hopefulness creeping into his features. “I would believe you over him any day. You know that. So, it isn’t true?”
I drag in a deep breath that makes me hurt all over. “Why does it matter why I’m here?”
“Maybe it doesn’t, but your evasiveness is troubling. I’m only asking for your honesty.”
“And my honest answer is that it honestly does not matter. We have other things to worry about right now.”
The stillness that befalls him, the slight widening of his eyes, makes my stomach coil up into a tight little ball. He’s waiting for me to say no, it’s not true, and I know damned well he’d believe me in an instant. It would be so easy to lie and brush this aside.
But the truth would come out eventually.
“I guess that answers my question.”
God, I should have just gone to my own room. “Do you truly think I’d hurt anyone?”
He steps towards me and his voice is gentle despite the confusion and concern writ across his face. “No. I don’t. But you aren’t giving me much to go off of right now.”
The softness of him makes my chest ache. “And how would you feel if such a thing were true?”
Directly before me,
he comes to a stop, and gives that a long moment of thought. “I…I think I would be disappointed that I don’t know you as well as I had thought, and that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”
I don’t flinch away from our eye contact. I knew, of course, this conversation had to eventually happen if he and I were to be anything to one another. But I had wanted it to be under different circumstances—my circumstances—and those circumstances did not include me being so exhausted and in pain. I wanted time to figure out how to put into words things I cannot even bring myself to think about most of the time, but…
Here we are, and the anxiety washes over me in waves unlike anything I’ve seen since before I came to Whisperwood. I am trapped, cornered into this conversation, and like a cornered animal, I am an utter beast ready to lash out.
Which has me leaning in closer to William, our faces a mere few inches apart, and the voice that comes out of my lips sounds too detached and cold to be my own.
“Since you are so insistent, then yes, actually. I was sent here because I set fire to my family’s home while everyone slept inside, and my only regret is that the lot of them managed to escape, because I wish to God they had died in there.”
By some miracle, William does not recoil from me, but the look of horror and confusion that floods his features only infuriates me further. “Why?”
Why? Every moment that led up to that decision is racing through my mind like a nightmare finally broke free and I will not—absolutely will not—expose myself in such a way. Not here, not now, perhaps not ever, and fuck William for putting me in this position, and fuck Charles Simmons for opening his mouth, and fuck everything. “I don’t know, William; perhaps for the same reason you cannot get through a day without drugging yourself into a useless stupor. Perhaps our families didn’t love us enough.”
That does it. William flinches away, a hand to his chest as though I’ve physically stricken him and that was both my goal and the complete opposite of what I wanted.
Never did I want to be a source of pain for him. Ever. And yet here we are.
I don’t wait for him to respond. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to be sick and perhaps I will say more cruel things I never wanted to say.
William does not try to follow me as I flee.
You’re such a good child, James.
When I first tried to present the truth to my parents, it was that statement that gave me the courage. It was a refrain I’d heard my entire life. From them, from everyone.
And I was, wasn’t I? A good child. I did my best. Certainly, I had my flaws, but in the grand scheme of things I did well enough in my studies, I helped around the house, assisted my father in the dealings of the family business. I wasn’t prone to misbehaviours nor was I involved in anything scandalous beyond things of normal boys my age. If they had any complaints about me, it was simply my extreme fondness for the theatre and the arts. Father seemed to be wilfully oblivious to my blatant disinterest in women, and mother—I think she just turned a blind eye to it and hoped for the best.
When I told my parents what happened to me, when they refused to even consider that I was telling the truth, it struck me that being the Good Child mattered for nothing. Being good all my life hadn’t saved me, and it hadn’t lent any credence when it came to my parents saving me, and now…
Lying in my bed with the blanket pulled up and over my head, I don’t think I’m a good child at all.
How could I be after what just happened? I’d deflected and lied for so long to someone who absolutely deserved to know the truth, and what did I do when inevitably confronted with it? Instead of apologizing and explaining myself, I’ve allowed William to think my issues were somehow his fault.
I don’t begin to know how I could have been so cruel to him. To the man who cared for me, who has been at my side, who has meant so much to me. You’re such a good child, James. I hear Mother’s voice in my head, but it’s William’s face that I see. Horrified and wounded and making my chest ache.
There’s a distinct part of me that wants to go back to his room. I want to throw myself at his feet and beg his forgiveness, to tell him how frightened I was to have him know such a dark part of me and see the most shameful aspects of who I am. I cannot bear the thought he would think less of me.
I cannot go to him. And I don’t. Not that night, and not in the days to follow. My shame and fear are both too great, and any time I so much as think of approaching, my lungs constrict so tightly that I cannot breathe.
I wonder if he hates me. I wonder if he looks at me now and feels the same disgust and disappointment my parents must feel.
When I cannot bring myself to confront that idea, what else can I do? The only thing I can think of, and the course of action that I predictably take, is to simply throw myself back into other matters. Namely, my never-ending quest to find out the truth behind Oscar’s disappearance, and the ghosts of Whisperwood.
My first task, I decide, will be to sit down and pen letters. Of course, I haven’t the addresses with which to post them, and without William’s help, I haven’t the faintest idea of how to go about obtaining them, but—one problem at a time.
The first letter I write is to Oscar. Of course, I’m positive that he isn’t at home to receive it, but it seems an obvious step that I should not overlook. The missive I pen is simple: Hello, how are you, we miss you at school, we hope you’re doing well. Nothing to draw any suspicion, but full invitation and even the expectancy for him to respond.
The next letter is to Oscar’s mother. This one I plan to send a week after the first, and it runs along the lines of that I’ve yet to receive correspondence back from Oscar, if he’s come home, if she’s heard from him, and that I consider him to be a dear friend of mine and I’m merely checking in to make sure that he’s doing well with hopes of hearing from him soon.
The letters that will follow those are ten in total. Names William and I found in the records room that night, each perished under suspicious circumstances, and each note is almost the same. Hello, we are looking to put together a commemorative book in honour of students lost at Whisperwood; would you mind telling me a bit about your son so that his story can be included?
I spend nearly a week on these letters, putting in my best effort to make them look as neatly written as possible and to word them in a way that seems proper, educated, and kind. I hope to command some respect and a sense of ease, after all, so these families will see fit to write me back. That is, if I’m able to acquire addresses. If those addresses are current and correct. If the parents themselves are even still living. Some of them would be quite old by now.
When the letters are done, I’m still at a loss as to how to go about getting back into the records room. I could ask William, and it’s something I contemplate for only a second before my nerves and cowardice kick that idea clear out the window. Perhaps an opportunity will appear to me in which I will be able to get the key on my own with minimal risk. That’s the best I can hope for, right? I must wait until then.
In the meantime, I can resume looking for the tunnels. Which means it’s back to wandering about the grounds like a fool. At this point, I’m not even looking for something suspicious or in areas that seem likely to hold hidden entrances. I’m going inch by inch and making certain no stone is unturned.
The first few days, my searches are much like any of the ones with William. That is to say, unsuccessful. It’s only on the third day that I make headway, and that has little to do with any detective skills on my part, but rather…
A boy.
Different and yet very much the same as the one I’ve seen before. I spot him after drill, as I’m heading back to the dorm, and he lingers just out of the corner of my gaze, and though he is a fair distance off, I can tell by the colour of his skin and the state of his clothes alone that he is not amongst the living.
I linger on the path, watching him watching me, our gazes locked and the hair along the back of my neck beginning
to stand on end.
Then he turns, takes a few steps, and vanishes.
I straighten up. Such brief glimpses are not so rare anymore. I catch sight of them from the corner of my gaze almost daily. But rarely this early—the sun is just now setting—and rarely still there when I turn to look.
I shake off the chill that’s settled over me and resume my trek to the dorms, only to realise he’s appeared again. Further off from where he was before. Again, he stares at me when I lift my eyes to meet his. And again, he recognizes this, turns, takes a few steps, and disappears.
Does he want me to follow him? What a dangerous and foolish prospect—who in their right mind would follow a dead man anywhere?—but at the same time, I cannot deny the sense of excitement and hopefulness bubbling up inside me. If anyone were to know where the tunnels are, it would be one of the spirits. Perhaps he’s aware of what I’m looking for, perhaps he wants to help me, perhaps he, too, wants the truth to come to light and—
Perhaps I will lose sight of him entirely if I keep allowing my thoughts to run away from me. He’s gone only a matter of seconds before he flickers into view again, further off still, so I zero in my focus and jog across the field towards the line of trees to follow while maintaining a safe distance, because I have no interest in venturing too close.
We play this game for a while, he and I. He appears, moves, disappears, and I try to keep up. Through the trees and into the woods, until the school has vanished behind us altogether. I’m so intent on this, on keeping in motion and hopefully bringing myself closer to my goal, that I lose thought of all else. Even as the sky grows dark and the air becomes chilly, I pay none of it any mind. There’s just enough moonlight filtering in through the trees to keep me headed in the right direction.
Then I hear the bells. Ten in total. Signalling curfew. Damn it all.