by Kelley York
My blood runs cold. “What are you doing in my room?”
Charles stands, and I see he’s holding the letters I wrote to Oscar, his mother, and the numerous families of the deceased students. Also in his hand is William’s bottle of laudanum, dangerously low, and all we have until May heads back into town again. “What are you doing not in your room at this hour?” he says cheerfully. “I dropped by and thought I’d allow myself in to wait for you.”
William grips tightly at my arm, and it may be the only thing that keeps me from launching across the room and punching Charles in his smug, stupid face. “You’ve no right to go through my things, Simmons. Put them down and get out.”
“I think not. As your housemaster, I have every right to go through whatever I please.” He lifts the letters and bottle with an eyebrow raised. “The headmaster will be quite interested to see these things, you know. Prying into personal affairs of students, smuggling drugs onto school grounds…”
“You know damned well that’s mine,” William interjects.
Charles sneers. “Really? That would be a shame, seeing as you and I had a deal and you’ve been shit at keeping up your end of the bargain.”
William inches around me. “I’ve been tapering off. I’m quitting, and I’m just about there. So, please, give those over. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
For half a moment, Charles eyes William’s outstretched hand as though he just might be considering it. Then the door creaks behind us, and our attention is swiftly diverted. The three of us fall silent, turning to look, but only darkness seeps in from the hall.
“Who’s there?” Charles demands. “One of your friends?”
I shake my head mutely. Charles shoves past us, none too gently pushing William into the wall as he steps out into the hallway. He looks right and then left; I see him scowling before he says, “You there!”
Without even stepping into the hallway, I know what I’m going to see. Not a student. At least, not a current one. All the same, I follow Charles with William flanking my side, and spot the boy seated at the end of the corridor.
His back is to us. He’s barefoot, donning only a nightshirt. His long hair reminds me momentarily of Benjamin’s, all curls, hanging limp and wet against his neck and shoulders. Every inch of him is sopping wet, in fact; water puddles around him, and the odour of something musty and waterlogged fills my nose, making it hard to breathe.
“You there,” Charles snaps again, taking a few steps closer. But even he seems to pause, undoubtedly sensing, just as we do, that something is terribly wrong.
This time, the boy responds to being called to. He turns slowly, and his eyes are rolled back into his head, blue lips parted. He coughs, choking on the water that begins to pour from his mouth.
“Back into the room,” I whisper urgently, extending a hand towards the knob, contemplating if I have time to shove William inside first to get him out of harm’s way.
Everything happens all at once. Charles whirls, intending to follow my instructions, and the ghost lets out a low, bone-shattering bellow, like the sound of a siren beneath water. It rattles me to my core, freezes me to the spot, even as the boy drops onto all fours and charges towards us in a most inhuman fashion.
Charles scrambles straight back, forcing William and I to do the same lest he trip over us, and the ghost is on him in seconds. He hits the floor on his back and the boy grabs Charles’ face between his bony hands and bows over him.
Prone and helpless, Charles seems incapable of moving, frozen in place, not unlike I had been weeks ago in my room. Water pours forth from the creature’s open mouth, washing over Charles, making him sputter and choke and gasp for breath.
We need to get out of here.
I need to get William to safety.
But Charles and the boy now block our way to my door, and if we were to run for the stairs, I fear the sudden movement would attract his attention.
“Slow,” I whisper. “Very slow.”
William clings to me as we inch, step by step, backs to the wall, away from the drowning Charles and the dead boy.
Soon, Charles has gone deathly still, and a creaking floorboard beneath our feet has the boy’s head snapping up in our direction. We stop moving, breaths held, as though it will somehow dissuade him from paying us any mind.
The boy rises to his feet. He begins down the hall towards us, making no sound, movements crooked and disjointed like a poorly constructed marionette. Unlike with Charles, he does not lunge, and I hope—I pray—if we remain still, he will crawl back into whatever hole he crawled out of.
He stops in front of us. I see nothing but the whites of his eyes, shrivelled and milky. Water has stopped pouring from his mouth, and his tongue and teeth are black as ink and his breath smells like a stagnant pool in the heat of summer. I press my back further into the wall, as though I might get it to swallow us whole and deposit us safely on the other side.
But the creature only regards me for a moment before moving on to William. He lifts a hand, bony fingers touching William’s face while a low, guttural sound escapes his lips. It’s trying to speak, but the words don’t come out.
I cannot stand there idly. If he chooses to turn violent, if he lashes out at William, I will not have time to protect him. The moment the creature leans in towards him, the moment William squeezes his eyes shut in fear, the words burst forth before I can stop them.
“Leave him alone!”
William sucks in a breath. The boy’s head snaps in my direction, letting out another deafening scream that rattles my bones.
He does not have the chance to attack. A nearby door is thrown open and two boys look out into the hall, followed by another door, and then another. I’ve screamed loudly enough to be heard, and if I have woken the whole bloody dorm, I shall be grateful for it. The door across from us opens, and candlelight floods the corridor.
The ghost has vanished.
All around us, sleepy-eyed students are stumbling out to see what the commotion is about. From the far end of the hall, Preston and Benjamin emerge, catching sight of William and me with their eyes widening in concern. Several boys rush straight to Charles, forming a circle around his prone figure.
“What’s going on?” the lad across the way asks. “Are you all right?”
William is a shaking mess. I desperately want to usher him away into my room, away from the stares and questions that are undoubtedly about to follow. “We’re…”
“What in the hell?”
Never have I been so grateful to hear Virgil’s voice or to see our two prefects rounding the corner, candles in hand, although Augustus keeps behind Virgil as though he isn’t prepared to deal with whatever is happening.
Virgil casts only a glance at me as he whisks past, going straight to kneel at Charles’ side while snapping at the others to give him space. He shoves the candlestick into someone else’s hand, leaning over Charles and checking him over. Fingers to his wrist, lifting his eyelids. There is no hesitation—although a good deal of displeasure—as he tilts Charles’ chin back, bows over him, and covers Charles’ mouth with his own.
It takes only a moment. A few breaths in, and then Charles jerks to life, eyes flying wide. Virgil rolls him swiftly to his side, where he proceeds to hack and cough up lungfuls of water. Trembling and disoriented, but alive. I’m uncertain how I feel about that.
Augustus has dropped to one knee on Charles’ other side, observing, a hand outstretched and just shy of touching his shoulder. “Simmons? Simmons, can you hear me?”
Charles swallows in several deep breaths. Still, his eyes are wide and wild, and as soon as he’s coherent enough to do so, he snaps an arm out, fisting a hand into the front of Augustus’ nightshirt. “The creature…the creature was here, and it tried to kill me and he said they wouldn’t hurt me!”
He said? Who? Did Charles know about the spirits before tonight? I have to bite down upon my lower lip to keep from asking those questions aloud with a hall full of other p
eople.
Startled, Augustus rears back, attempting to pry the fingers from his shirt. “Creature? What creature?”
“He’s delusional.” Virgil grabs hold of one of Charles’ arms and orders him up. The pair of them get Charles to his feet, though he looks ready to collapse again at any second. Virgil turns towards two nearby boys. “You there, help Augustus get him to Doctor Mitchell’s immediately. The rest of you, if you saw nothing, return to your rooms. You’ve exams tomorrow.”
The hallway begins to clear. I think to steal William away upstairs, except from the corner of my gaze, I notice Virgil has retrieved my letters and William’s laudanum from where they lay on the floor near Charles, and I freeze. Long enough for Virgil to turn, lock eyes on us, and point to my bedroom. What’s worse, he follows us into it, and I think we’re about to have a none too pleasant tongue lashing about whatever he thinks has happened.
I ease William down to the edge of my mattress, where he’s still attempting to gather his bearings. With our prefect present, I can hardly draw him into my arms to properly comfort him.
Virgil shuts the door before turning to us. One look at William likely tells him he’s not in much shape for speaking right now, so he focuses instead on me.
“What in the bloody hell happened?”
My throat is impossibly dry. “I don’t know,” I say, because a lie will not come to me fast enough and the truth isn’t believable.
Virgil’s gaze is steely, although it’s a touch more difficult to see him as imposing when he’s standing there in his night clothes and his hair a mess from sleep. “I hear shouting in the middle of the night, find our housemaster drowned and unconscious in the hallway and babbling nonsense about monsters, and you ‘don’t know’?”
William places a hand over mine atop my leg. He wants me to keep quiet, but then again, he knows nothing about how Virgil helped me with him while he was ill. I’m not certain that I trust him implicitly, but I trust him enough to cautiously venture a wager on him. “And if I said his babbling was not nonsense?”
Virgil crosses his arms across his chest. “Your question does not answer my question.”
“No, but your answer to mine will make a difference on how I respond to yours.”
His jaw clenches, eyes flicking from me to William and back again, silently evaluating. “You don’t get to be a prefect who wanders the halls in the dead of night without hearing and seeing things, Spencer.”
I could laugh with the relief that statement brings me. “You’ve heard them? You’ve seen them? And you’ve never thought to tell anyone else?”
That earns a scoff from him. “Now there’s a way to get my position promptly revoked. Now answer me. What happened?”
“We found Charles in my room, going through my belongings. He took a few things, claiming he was taking them to the headmaster.”
Virgil holds up the letters and bottle. “These?”
William bites his lip, looking as though he wants to leap off the bed to grab for the laudanum. By some grace of God, Virgil steps forwards and offers them out, and William takes them gratefully. “Thank you.”
Virgil nods once and returns his attention to me. “How did that turn into…whatever that was?”
I’ve not truly spoken aloud of this to anyone but William. Even Oscar only got bits and pieces, and he was long gone before the worst of it all began to happen. The words are cottony on my tongue as I try to force them out. “It was one of the spirits. We encountered it in the hall, and it attacked Simmons.”
“With…water?”
“He must have drowned,” William says quietly. We both look at him curiously. “The ghost. Perhaps he was a victim of drowning. So, he did the same thing to Charles.”
“I noticed there was no other water anywhere in the hall,” I add, having observed as much while Virgil was occupied resuscitating Charles.
Virgil helps himself to a seat upon Oscar’s bed across from us, hunching forward, elbows upon his knees as he heaves a sigh. “I have come across things a number of times this year. It seems to have increased these last few weeks. They never stay long; always a flicker in the corner of my vision. But they have always been harmless. Never have I thought they were capable of doing more than giving someone a scare.”
“Consider yourself lucky, then. They’ve left bruises on dear William, and I woke to another spirit suffocating me one night.”
William’s shoulders stiffen. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”
Oh. No. I suppose I didn’t. “It covered my mouth and kept telling me I needed to be quiet. Then the door flew open and it seemed to have been frightened away.”
“That isn’t comforting,” Virgil mutters.
“Not at all.”
William wrings his hands together. “We’ve been at a standstill attempting to find out what’s made them so active, and we think it has to do with Oscar Frances.”
“Frances?” Virgil’s brows furrow.
“His death was no accident,” I say quietly.
“How do you know?”
I could delve into all the things we know, but I’m not yet certain how much I can trust him. Even now, as always, Virgil is not someone I have a good read on. “We have our reasons for thinking as much.”
He runs a hand over his face tiredly, and I think about how we do, in fact, have our final exams tomorrow and we’re going to be absolutely exhausted. “You speak as though you have some sort of plan to sort this all out.”
“Not yet,” I admit reluctantly.
He ducks his head into a nod, rising to his feet. “Esher should remain here with you tonight, so the two of you are not alone.” He gestures to Oscar’s bed, as though there’s any way in hell William would sleep anywhere other than beside me. Unless he isn’t aware about the two of us, but I think him to be far more intelligent than that. “Try to get some rest. If necessary, this discussion can be continued tomorrow after I’ve spoken with Simmons.”
What will Charles say, I wonder? Especially after his hysteria has passed and he’s regained his ability to think clearly? How will any of this be explained—a man drowning and no body of water to be found?
I stand as well, wondering if I ought to offer to walk him back to his room. But I’ve no interest in being caught out in the halls alone, nor do I wish to leave William behind. Besides, if Virgil has been so fortunate thus far to not be attacked, perhaps the spirits have no interest in bothering him. “Thank you, Virgil.”
“I’ve hardly done anything worth being thanked for.” He glances at me from the corner of his gaze momentarily, likely on account of me using his given name. He retrieves his candle and relights it using one of mine atop my dresser, steps to the door, bids us good night, and leaves. I shut and chair-jam the door behind him, listening to the sound of his fading steps.
I leave the lone candle burning, thinking it best to keep a bit of light in the room, although I do relocate the candlestick to the windowsill close by the bed. The letters I stash beneath my mattress, thinking that I shall have to find a way to mail them, or feed them to the fire before Charles can come digging for them again. William’s laudanum I open long enough to give him his dosage—he’s no longer trembling, but I can tell he’s in dire need of it—before tucking it amongst my socks and undergarments in a dresser drawer.
William watches me as I begin the process of undressing. There’s an air of tense exhaustion in the room, and I think we’re both so tired of all this that speaking of it feels like a chore in and of itself. “You aren’t returning home for summer, are you?”
I take a deep breath. Truly, I had not wanted William to worry about me being here alone, but I have no interest in lying to him, either. “My family has recently relocated into a new house, and my uncle is still with them.”
His eyes narrow a fraction, a flash of anger pulling at his mouth, gone as quickly as it appeared. “That is utterly ridiculous, and you cannot possibly stay here alone.”
“It’ll give me the
chance to do some more searching.” Despite that I am, in all honestly, afraid where any of this is going to lead.
“Then I’m staying with you.”
“William…” I turn to him, and the intensity in which he meets my eyes makes me falter in whatever it was I had intended to say.
“I will not leave you, James.”
“You are utterly impossible, do you know that?”
“You would do no less for me. Look, Frances was your closest friend, and I imagine he only tolerated my presence for your sake. I understand that well and fully. However, this has become my fight, too. We’ve come this far together, and we shall finish it together. Once this has been solved, you will leave Whisperwood and come home with me. Do you understand?”
A small smile edges into my face, unable to help myself at his stubborn insistence. “Of course, dear William. I understand.” For that, for him, I am eternally grateful.
The school bells chime as they have every day before, but the sun seems a little brighter when I wake to it shining upon William’s face.
Never before have I opened my eyes to him in the morning. He isn’t immediately roused by the bells, meaning I have a few moments of studying him in the morning glow. I slide my fingers along his jaw, up to his forehead, to sweep back some of his tousled hair. Where I would normally be slipping out of bed as quietly as possible so as not to disturb him, I’m now blessed with the most blissful task of leaning in to kiss him awake. Even barely conscious, his mouth reacts to mine. He smiles, stretching out slowly, winding an arm about my middle beneath the covers. My bed is smaller than his, making it impossible to have distance between us even if we wanted to.
I want this to be my reality every morning for the rest of time.
“Good morning, darling,” I whisper against his mouth. In response, he makes a soft noise, and catches my bottom lip briefly between his teeth, coaxing a chuckle from me in the process. “It’s time to get up.”
“Must we?”
“I’m afraid so. But, look, it’s the last day of term.”
This is both a blessing and a curse. I’m in no way mentally prepared to handle our exams today, and I doubt William is, either. Once it’s done, we will be free for the next month. Whatever that month entails, I don’t pretend to know. Yet somehow, waking next to William has put me in a far better mindset to prepare for whatever is to come.