In his book The Soul’s Code, James Hillman, Pulitzer nominee, Jungian psychologist, and best-selling author, states that individuals hold the potential for their unique possibilities inside themselves already, much as an acorn holds the pattern for an oak tree. It had taken Beverly a long time to realise this, but her road to Damascus had only happened three years ago, and nothing had been the same since.
It was an accident that brought about her revelation, a trip far from Eureka Falls and its constraints. Conway had forced her to go on teacher training sessions for her subject speciality, information systems and computer technology. So, she’d found herself alone in New York, bored out of her mind and scared of her shadow every time she stepped out of the hotel room.
Then some of the other participants of the three-day course convinced her to go for a drink in a bar near to the hotel. Beverly wasn’t a prude, she’d drunk alcohol before, but the idea of having to converse with other people made her nauseous. But then fate intervened. Someone had left Hillman’s book in the hotel, and she devoured it over the first two nights she stayed in and ordered room service. So by the time she got the invite on the third night, she thought, What’s the worst that could happen?
And then the worst did happen, or at least it nearly did. She drank far too much, and none of the others noticed when she stumbled into the dark backstreet between the bar and the hotel and spilt her guts. She could still smell it now, sitting at home in her bedroom preparing to use the Trojan she’d placed on Conway’s laptop. The air smelt of the city, of gasoline and street food, of smoke and rotten vegetables, as her stomach threatened to crack in half in that gloom-filled alley.
The noise in her head was so much, she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her, but she felt the hand grab her long hair and pull her back. And she experienced the sharp stab of pain as her attacker tossed her into the far wall, as her shoulder hit the concrete and she stumbled to the ground. He said something to her, obscenities and threats she couldn’t quite make out with the freight train steaming through her skull.
But she heard his laugh and the sound of him unzipping his trousers. He grabbed her again as her hand reached into the dirt and touched the broken bottle. And Beverly found something else as she clutched on to the glass, discovering the bravery to thrust the cracked edge deep into his throat.
She stepped back as he crashed to the ground, clutching at the spot where the blood flowed from him. She waited for someone to come running into the alley to help him, but they didn’t, and she didn’t either. Beverly stood there and watched him die a slow, agonising demise. And that’s when her revelation came.
She’d enjoyed what she’d done. There was no guilt or shame, only the greatest joy she’d ever felt. There’d always been darkness inside her, and she knew this had always been thoughts of murder and death, but she’d confined them to fantasies which would never come true.
But they had in that small alley in a big city.
Once he’d stopped squirming, she cleaned her fingerprints from the bottle and dumped it down a drain. Then she wiped the vomit from her chin and returned to the hotel. She got little sleep that night, her mind full of the mantra which changed her life for the better.
Transfer the pain.
Now here she was three years later, clicking on the connection between her computer and Conway’s, all thanks to the virus she’d left there. She hadn’t known it at the time in that alley, but transferring the pain meant more than inflicting violence on others, it meant making certain people pay for what they’d done to her. There were many of them in her thoughts, frequently in her mind, but Conway was always near the top of the list. But after tonight, she’d be able to scrub her name from the paper.
The laptop hummed as she accessed Conway’s desktop and proceeded to scan through her files. She searched for recently used documents and discovered two databases, opening the one named School Staff. It contained over two hundred entries, and it took her an hour to flick through most of them. The file headings were numerous, but the four main ones were: Taught, Pastoral, Management and Leadership. As she scanned through them, it dawned on her that it was a record of those Conway had worked with or taught during her years at the school.
Why keep all this data?
She soon answered the question when she read the information in more detail. Conway’s unofficial school database contained her observations of others, and none of them were complimentary. Beverly scrolled down the list and stopped at the entry for Mr Brooks, the previous principal before Conway.
His incompetence knows no levels it can’t sink to. He’s failed this school for ten years, and I don’t know of one pupil who has a good word to say about him. Most of the kids and the staff laugh at him behind his back. He arrived at school today smelling like a brewery. He wore a suit which appeared to have shrunk in the wash, the sleeves a quarter way up his arms, the jacket tight around his chest, the pants on his legs so high, you could see he had no socks on. Everything was the wrong size for him: his clothes, this world, and his personality.
Yet that was kind compared to some of the other entries. She found the latest data point from two days ago concerning a fifteen-year-old pupil, Joe Jackson. Beverly knew him as a troubled child with a problematic family background, and Conway was scathing in her observations.
The boy has a world-class case of acne, with his face resembling a pizza gone wrong. The other kids tease him mercilessly, but he deserves it for being so stupid. He’s an inspiration for idiots everywhere. He’s proof that evolution can go in reverse. I foresee a future career for Joe cleaning toilets or selling himself for crack cocaine in a dark street somewhere far from Eureka Falls.
She browsed through more of the records, discovering amongst the insults for the pupils that Conway would predict how she thought their lives would progress.
The last time I saw a face like hers, it was on a slab in the morgue. She’s guaranteed to have four kids before she gets out of her teens.
The boy makes me believe in reincarnation. Nobody can be as stupid as that in one lifetime. He’ll be flipping burgers for the rest of his life.
Beverly pushed the laptop from her legs and on to the bed. Did she care why Conway kept such a warped collection of records? No. But did she need to see if there was an entry for her in the database?
She reached into her memories and resurrected the one of her thrusting the broken bottle into the thug. This time, she imagined his blood gushing on to her hand, flowing over her in a torrent until she could no longer see her skin. Sitting on the bed, her imagination turning the chill in her chest to warmth covering her arm, she used the heat growing across her and grabbed the computer, pulling it towards her. She found her data entry in an instant.
Bev Shaw. A complete waste of space. All the other kids hate her, especially the girls. She smells like old potatoes and always comes to school wearing clothes her parents must have got from charity or dumpsters. She’s as bright as a black hole and twice as dense. I can’t see any boyfriends on the horizon, so even marriage won’t save her from a future of drudge and misery. The lowest level of shop work might be her only saving grace. She’d be better off committing a crime and spending a long time in prison.
There was more to it, but she didn’t read it because she’d picked up the laptop and thrown it on to the floor. The heat surged through her, transforming her blood into molten lava flowing into her skull. She was a kettle ready to boil over as she grabbed at the bed cover.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No, that wouldn’t help.
Transfer the pain. Transfer the pain. Transfer the pain.
Yes, she had to transfer her pain, to move it into every part of Conway. But she needed the computer for that, and she’d just dumped it on to the carpet.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She jumped down, snatched the laptop into her chest, and cradled it like a child. The screen seemed fine and no strange noises were coming from it. She sucked in air to still her beating heart and returned to the bed. Conway’s comments on her filled the monitor, so she closed the database. Then she opened the second one titled S&M. These records had nothing to do with the school and were peppered with links to photos and videos.
Why, Mrs Conway, what have you been up to?
She only needed to look through a few images and watch two clips to understand Conway’s hobby outside of work. Beverly was no prude, but she nearly gagged on some of the things she saw.
Conway must have concealed a tiny camera on her to get the videos. It seemed a remarkable achievement considering most in the clips were as naked as when they were born. Beverly was about to close the clip when she saw something which stopped her hand, recognised somebody that made her gasp. In the background, beyond those squirming on the floor, a man stood there while someone off-screen whipped his chest and blood dripped from his flesh.
Adam. Adam Church.
She couldn’t contain her joy as she copied the file on to her computer. She’d kill Conway tonight, there was no doubt to that. Then she’d release the video online, and with the police focused on that and the town in a frenzy, she was sure not many people would care about the school principal dying from an apparent suicide. There’d be no gunshots and no mess since she’d changed her mind on that. She had the pills ready to administer, only needing to return to the house and wait for Conway to appear.
When the video finished its download, she checked Conway’s emails, happy to find a reply to the message she’d sent to Kennedy earlier. It was vomit-inducing in its content, but she didn’t care what it said. She sent another email to him from the account.
Come to the house at midnight tonight. Don’t drive here. Make sure no one sees you. I’ll leave the back door unlocked. I can’t wait to see you.
Her heart jumped when he replied within thirty seconds.
I can’t wait either, my mistress.
Beverly grinned as she closed the screen. There’d be no need for the pills. Torturing Conway was on the agenda again.
And now she had someone to frame for the murder.