Chapter #40Going Alloway: Wednesday by: Masktrix   ROXANNE HURLEY, you type. Niamh going upstairs to the boarders could have been a misdirection, and it’d be just like her to try and make her best friend feel good by granting her approval from a cool kid.
The reply flies back near-instantly:
Bzzzzzt!!!! Sorry! But Niamh guessed wrong too. Not even close lol!
Wish I knew who this Roxanne girl was. More fun for me.
You close the window and slap the desk. Thirteen suspects remain, and Mariah won’t ever know Roxanne genuinely thinks she’s cool. You need to be more proactive in your investigation.
***
“What’s up with you, Mariah?” Hallie Lamb asks from across the chemistry bench, safety specs on. For the past five minutes you’ve been feeding wooden splints into a Bunsen burner while Hallie has actually been doing the work. You know you’ve slipped out of character, but today has been a complete bust. The remaining suspects are completely elusive. Sometimes you share a class with them, but there’s never an opportunity to chat.
“Just not in the mood,” you say sulkily.
Hallie nods as another splint goes up in flames. "Tell me about it. The stress. Mid-terms and applications. Everyone's going crazy." She leans in. "Some of them literally," she murmurs.
"Who's going crazy?" you demand.
"Frances Washington," Hallie promptly replies. "Been like a mouse since she transferred to Xavier's, hardly spoken a word. But this week? Like a switch's been flipped. She’s joined the drama club, is trying out for first team soccer, and gossiping no end in class.”
"That's not crazy," you reply even as you make a note of it. "Gossip takes up half our school day."
"Well, what does it say about Frances," Hallie retorts, "that what's normal for us is crazy for her?"
***
The day ends, but your time on campus isn’t over yet. Mathilde’s invitation to the study group means you’ve got a perfect excuse to stick around after school to watch and observe. And you’ve also got a great reason to go snooping.
At around 5.45pm, the coast is clear. You dart up the stairs to the main dorms. You don’t have long, but you give a cursory look, trying to see if anything’s amiss. No luck. Instead, you sneak down to G8, right at the end of the corridor, and knock on the door. Kristen Wright-Wallace opens it.
“Quiet!” She says in a hushed whisper. “Vee’s not around, but Abi’s in her room.”
You open your bag, and hand over a tub of Strawberry milkshake powder. She’s so thankful you feel bad taking the folded bills she shoves in your hand before waving goodbye in silence.
You’re just exiting the girls block and about to head down the stairs when there’s a noise from just around the corner. Spinning, you watch as, a few doors down, Loki Swain stumbles out of the boys shower room, towel around his midriff, dressing gown loose and bare chest exposed. Most striking of all, he’s thrown a towel around his head too, tying it up to dry his hair. It’s a move you’ve only ever seen girls do. And exactly like Niamh used to do,, Mariah’s memories tell you, before she cut off her curls last year.
But tapping into Mariah’s memories mean her urges are overwhelming. You almost choke on your own tongue. The Loki thirst is real.
“Oh, hey,” Loki says, looking at you with a complete lack of embarrassment. “Didn’t know you were a boarder. Cool.”
“Ah, I’m not. Just running an errand. Better make myself scarce.”
“Cool. Well, I’m going to go to my room.” He points down the corridor. There’s an uncomfortable pause. “You comin’?”
You blink. “Is that an option?”
Loki laughs, but kindly; a chuckle at a shared joke, rather than seeing you as one. “Nah, prefects would kill me. Just playing. Later.” And, without a second thought, strides along the corridor without a care.
You take a breath, try to compose Mariah’s mind, and head downstairs.
***
The study hall is packed. Normally, the prefect on duty – Kate, in this instance, with Marius overseeing a second batch of lower forms in the dining hall – is sat at the desk alone. But exceptions are granted for actual study, so today she’s joined by a party of five: Mathilde Ambard, Dalton Reeves, Emily Dustal, Tom Orpen... and you.
Sadly, if you were hoping for clues, none are forthcoming: the first hour is full-on study, with Kate occasionally getting up to patrol the lower forms. Mariah’s brain is useful in some respects, but increasingly you find your own knowledge comes to the fore. It turns out all those astronomy classes Will Prescott sat in makes you the table’s expert on gravitational forces. It’s not until after 8pm that the conversation relaxes a little and everyone starts talking freely.
“So, where are you thinking of applying?” Kate asks to the table. A perfectly innocent question, but one that could reveal much. You ignore the answers from anyone not on your suspect list.
“I’ll attend the Sorbonne,” Mathilde says as if it’s already agreed, not a doubt in her mind.
“Annapolis,” Dalton replies, to the groans of everyone – the whole table knows where he intends to go. He’s talked about it, to the exclusion of having a personality, for six years. Both gave the obvious answer – snooty French university and the military. Not helpful. So let’s try and smoke Niamh out.
“Actually, I have no idea,” you announce. Mariah’s always told Niamh her dream was Northwestern. “I had a plan, but… I think we’re on plan B now.”
“Are you not good enough for Chicago?” Mathilde asks bluntly. How did she know that? Someone could have told her, but why would she remember?
“Harsh,” Kate interjects.
“My GPA slipped, is all. Hence taking photography. It’s an easy A.”
“I thought you were good at math.” Once again, Mathilde’s words sound like an accusation. Maybe it’s the accent.
“I am,” you say, playing up Mariah’s own discomfort. “But I’m struggling with— Y’know, let’s just—We’re focusing on physics. Let’s do physics.” You drive Mariah’s thoughts through your brain, like hotwiring a car, playing on them to make yourself more and more flustered. “I’ll… be right back.”
You get up and dart down the corridor, towards the girls’ bathroom, and slip inside a cubicle. Squeezing Mariah’s emotions like a lemon, you make the tears come free and easy, just in time for the footfall that echoes in the room. Niamh would rush to see her friend. Whoever this is becomes suspect number one.
“Mariah?” The voice is soft and gentle. Kate Gross.
“I’m OK,” you say, sniffing just enough to make it clear you’re not.
“Do we have to chat through a toilet door?”
You sigh and hit the bolt. Kate stands there, eyes wreathed in genuine sympathy. She looks at you, at Mariah, at your most vulnerable.
“Mathilde didn’t mean it,” she says, smiling. “She doesn’t realize she’s being rude. It’s just how Europeans talk.”
“That’s not what bothers me,” you reply.
Kate leans back against a sink. “It was the idea you’re not good enough.” You give a slow nod. It’s a thought that haunts Mariah. Her parents expect her to excel, and won’t accept anything less. “Mariah, that’s nonsense. You’ve led us tonight. Dalton can’t even remember the direction of magnetic force without using his fingers.”
“The right hand rule,” you mutter.
“See!” She smiles. “We invited you for a reason. And we’re on your side. Everyone in the sixth form knows you. Only yesterday, Alyssa Erikson was saying how you were the first person she went to for comment on the prefect meeting.”
“Sorry I yelled at you on Monday,” you say. “I get you had to be seen to make a clamp-down. Marius is so sexist though. ‘Man up’, ‘have the balls’. He never used to talk like that. It irked me.”
Kate gives a nervy glance at the door. “I know!” she hisses. “He used to be much sweeter. I think his dad’s pushing him hard into the young Republicans. And between you and I, the prefect meeting was not unanimous. Todd didn’t even turn up until the end, when we’d already decided. Lucas and Marius came in together, looked like they’d been arguing beforehand. Then Lucas was straight at Dalton’s throat over something. Abi and I both wanted to go easy on everyone, but Dalton had started dorm sweeps on Saturday, so we had no choice to escalate things even further. Exeats only hit boarders, and Dalton is convinced day students were present, too. So that’s why we had to revoke parking. I’m really sorry. I know you weren’t involved.”
That’s a lot of information to take in. Todd Baldwin’s late arrival is mysterious, and could be because Niamh replaced him. But you haven’t really spoken to him for the past three days – and you still haven’t really spoken to Gabriel Santos, Frances Washington, Scott Ricci or Zero, either. You’ll have to focus on them tomorrow. And how did Dalton know who was at the party? Unless Dalton is Niamh – who was at the center of it, dancing away disguised as Abigail Steiner.
But, crucially, Lucas Tanner was talking to Marius Hall while Niamh was finding someone to replace. You’ve already ruled out Marius, so now you can cross Lucas off, too. You’re down to 12 names and, as you reluctantly let Kate cheer you up, you wonder which name you’re going to offer up to Shelly when you get home.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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