Allie and Carter walked down the hallway with Isabelle and Matthew flanking them. Allie had the feeling they were being marched. There had been no discussion. Isabelle had said, ‘Carter, Allie. Come with us please.’ And off they’d gone.
They walked quickly to Isabelle’s office. She held the door open for them, and then walked in last, before sitting in the chair behind her desk, Matthew next to her, one hand resting on the back of her chair. She did not introduce him.
‘I’ve called you here because I want to know if I’ve made a mistake.’ Isabelle fixed her eyes on Allie.
‘What … what do you mean?’ Allie replied warily.
‘I broke a lot of rules to let you into this school.’ Isabelle’s voice was clipped with anger. ‘Was I wrong?’
As Allie felt fear uncurl in her stomach there was a quick tap at the door.
‘Come.’ Isabelle’s voice was a command.
Sylvain stepped into the room. He glanced around, avoiding Allie’s eyes, then shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it.
Her heart sinking, Allie turned back to the front. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What have I done?’
‘I gave explicit instructions that students were not to go outside, and I find that not only have you been sitting up on the roof drinking with Jo Arringford, you’ve also been to the chapel. I ask you, what am I to think, Allie, except that you are insubordinate?’
Allie stared at her, mouth agape. How did she know about the chapel?
Carter leaned forward. ‘Hang on, Isabelle. She went to the chapel because I asked her to. I was with her all the way. She was safe.’
‘And Jo was very upset,’ Allie said. ‘I was afraid she’d get hurt. I was just trying to help her.’
Isabelle’s glare was icy. ‘A bottle falling off the roof missed a student by inches. If he’d been hit we would have been liable. Glass, and might I add, vodka, are scattered around the front door.’
Allie was so stunned and angry she had to drop her eyes so Isabelle couldn’t see the rage in her expression. Ruth dies, the school burns, and she’s worried about being sued over broken glass?
Isabelle shifted her attention to Carter. ‘And why, may I ask, were you with her all the way? You know the rules.’
‘After what happened with Ruth and Lisa, Allie was upset. She was thinking of leaving the school,’ Carter explained. ‘I wanted her to be able to talk freely without fear of being overheard.’
Impressed at how smoothly he used truth to, well … lie, Allie shot a glance at Isabelle to see how she was taking it. She didn’t look impressed.
‘I appreciate that Allie was upset, but there are places where that conversation could have happened in this building, Carter,’ she said dryly. ‘And I do not like it when my rules are blatantly ignored, particularly when they have been set out so clearly, and so recently.’
Carter held out his hands, palms up. ‘Well then I should apologise, not Allie. I was the one who suggested the chapel. At first she even refused to go because she didn’t want to break your rules, but I convinced her. If anyone was insubordinate it was me. But I did it for reasons I thought were right.’
Carter’s voice was surprisingly confident, Allie thought. His tone was more like that of a son placating an angry mother than a student addressing a headmistress.
‘May I, Isabelle?’ Sylvain looked at the headmistress enquiringly, and she gave him a brief nod.
‘Carter, you not only disobeyed Isabelle’s instructions, but mine as well,’ he said, his elegant French vowels curling around each word. ‘And in doing that you put Allie in danger, and that is unacceptable.’
For the first time in this conversation Carter looked tense. Allie saw him clench his hands into fists and then very deliberately relax them in his lap. He said nothing.
Isabelle sighed. ‘Enough. Carter and Allie, this was a serious infraction of the rules I set out last night. I understand that you’re both still upset because of what happened on Friday night, otherwise you would both face detention and written warnings. Instead I am telling you now that another such infraction will not be permitted.’
‘What’s going to happen to Jo?’ The question burst from Allie’s lips before she could stop herself.
Isabelle shot her a sharp look. ‘Let’s start with what exactly happened on the roof this morning, Allie, shall we?’
Allie told her about finding the note, noticing the open window, and then climbing up to find Jo on the roof, and of all that transpired.
‘I really didn’t know what else to do, except to help her,’ she explained. ‘Is she OK?’
‘Four of Jo’s fingernails were torn off,’ Isabelle said, ‘and one hand has a deep cut. She’s badly bruised. All of these wounds were presumably incurred when she fell. She is also drunk. As her wounds are largely superficial and drunkenness is temporary, she’s been treated by nurses and sedated. She will remain in the infirmary until we decide her punishment. Her parents will be notified.’
‘Will she be … expelled?’ Allie gripped the arms of her chair so tightly her knuckles paled.
Isabelle looked disapproving. ‘I will not discuss disciplinary actions regarding other students with you, Allie.’
Matthew leaned over to whisper something in her ear. When he finished, Isabelle turned to Allie. ‘You may leave now, Allie. I would like to speak with Carter in private for a moment.’
Allie glanced at Carter, but he was looking straight ahead as she walked from the room. She noticed that Sylvain and Matthew both stayed behind.
Not all that private, then.
Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it trying to listen but could hear nothing through the solid wood.
Turning, she ran up the stairs to the girls’ dorm, stopping at room 335.
She knocked, then jumped back when the door opened almost instantly.
Jules was, as ever, immaculate – her uniform crisp and her hair perfect. ‘Allie. What can I do for you?’
If she was surprised to see her, she didn’t show it.
‘I want to visit Lisa,’ Allie said, ‘but I don’t know where the nursing ward is and I figured you would.’
‘I heard she woke up at last,’ Jules said. ‘Go to the ground floor and all the way through the classroom wing. Then up the staircase at the end. It’s on the first level you’ll come to. You’ll know it when you see it.’
Allie hesitated, wishing she trusted Jules enough to really talk to her. When she didn’t move the blonde prefect raised her perfectly arched eyebrows and asked, ‘Is there something else?’
‘It’s just …’ Allie twisted the hem of her shirt around one finger, ‘Carter told me you gave him my message last night. And I wanted to thank you for doing it. You didn’t have to.’
Jules crossed her arms loosely. ‘You’re welcome. Although I’d feel better if you’d told me the truth about why you wanted him. And now, with all that’s happened with Jo Arringford I’m wondering if I should regret my decision.’
‘But all I did was try to help Jo!’ Allie burst out in protest. ‘I didn’t give her vodka or take her up on the roof. I just tried to save her life. I don’t see why that’s so awful.’
‘Well, why didn’t you come and get me first?’ Jules asked.
‘Why would I do that?’ Allie replied. ‘You’d only try to get her in trouble.’
Jules looked exasperated but also, Allie thought, a little hurt. ‘You and Jo are my responsibility while you’re on this floor, Allie. You should never put yourself in danger like you did today. And Carter told me about your panic attacks – why didn’t you ever tell me? I’m not here to get you detention or yell at you. I’m here to help you. But no matter what I do you treat me like I’m your enemy.’
This came as such a surprise that for a moment Allie was struck speechless. ‘I just … I thought you hated me,’ she said at last.
‘I’ve never hated you,’ Jules said. ‘You just always seemed intimidated by me and angry, and I didn’t know how to make you see that I’m not the enemy.’
‘But you’re friends with Katie Gilmore, and she really does hate me.’
To her surprise, Jules gave a brief laugh. She held up her hand apologetically.
‘I am friends with Katie and, yes, she does hate you, but she’s just jealous. She likes Sylvain and Sylvain likes you, and that hurts her feelings and makes her mean. She’s used to getting what she wants. But you should know that has nothing to do with me. I tell her all the time she needs to grow up and leave you alone, but,’ she shrugged, ‘she’s her own person.’
Her expression grew more serious. ‘Don’t judge me by her behaviour. Judge me on my own.’
Sheepish now, Allie rubbed the toe of one foot against the other. ‘I’m really sorry, Jules. I’ve been a complete arse.’
‘It’s OK,’ Jules said. ‘I should have sat you down and talked with you before. I’m the prefect, and I should know how to handle this sort of thing. But I’d really like it if we could put that stuff behind us.’
With a challenging look she held out her hand. ‘Friends?’
After a split second of hesitation, Allie took it. ‘Friends.’
‘All right, now go to Lisa – she’s probably lonely over there by herself,’ Jules said, stepping back into her room, adding in her more normal officious voice: ‘And no more rooftop excursions, please.’
As Allie hurried along the route Jules had described to the nursing ward, she replayed her conversation with Jules in her head.
How could I have been so wrong about her? Was I that wrong, really?
She remembered Carter and Sylvain both laughing at her for not liking Jules – they seemed to think she was great, although Sylvain had agreed she could be difficult.
But difficult isn’t bad.
It used to bug her that they defended her, but maybe if she’d completely misjudged Jules it all made sense.
She tried to remember the things the prefect had said that upset her, and suddenly all she could remember was her baffled expression when Allie got angry or upset.
But still, it seemed odd that Jules suddenly wanted to be her friend. Jo’s drunken words from the rooftop rang in her ears: ‘They don’t like you … They think you’re dangerous.’
The lights were turned off in the classroom wing, and she felt along the wall for a light switch. When she failed to find it, she walked quickly. Her footsteps echoed as she half-ran down the corridor past the doors opening onto vacant classrooms, where empty chairs and desks sat in ghostly rows and circles.
At the end of the hall, an unmarked door had a frosted glass window through which daylight poured.
That looks promising.
She pushed it open.
Behind it a narrow, utilitarian staircase climbed upward, brightly illuminated by windows on every floor. The first level she came to was a mezzanine between the ground and first floors. Stepping off the staircase she immediately entered a corridor where the low ceilings and linoleum floors contrasted with the soaring spaces and polished wood elsewhere in the building. On one side of the corridor a row of closed, white doors each had a frosted glass window subdivided by a neatly painted blue cross. The other wall was lined with windows through which light and fresh air streamed.
‘Hello?’ Allie called tentatively.
Her voice echoed in the empty hallway.
It was so quiet she felt unnerved as she walked down the sunny hallway. She knocked hesitantly on each door she passed and tried handles. Nobody answered, and the first three she tried were locked.
The room was dark, all the curtains drawn. The room was tiny, with just one bed.
Allie could just see a bright puff of blonde hair on the pillow.
‘Jo?’ she whispered, taking a tentative step into the room. ‘Are you OK?’
There was no response, but something told her Jo was awake. Leaving the door open, she tiptoed across the room to crouch beside the bed. Jo’s eyes were closed, but her breathing was uneven.
‘Hey,’ Allie whispered, ‘are you all right?’
A tear escaped from Jo’s eye and trickled down the side of her face. She wiped it away with hands mummy-wrapped in bandages.
‘I don’t want to talk right now, Allie.’ Her voice was hoarse and dull.
Wounded, Allie thought about arguing, but instead she walked to the door. As she opened it, she looked back – Jo was lying on her back staring up at the ceiling as if she were already alone.
Back in the hallway, Allie tried the other doors. Two doors down from Jo’s room, she peeked in to see a sunny, white-painted space in which two rows of four hospital beds were separated by white curtains fluttering in a light breeze that whispered in through a half-open window. Only one bed was occupied.
Lying under a white duvet on a white bed against a white wall, Lisa was pale and her eyes were closed – her thick lashes made shadows like bruises on her skin. Her silky, long hair was strewn across the pillows, and a large bandage covered one side of her face. One arm was in a splint.
Allie was struck by how thin she was. Did she ever eat? She looked so … breakable.
As she sat down in a wooden chair at the edge of the bed, it made a faint creaking sound and Lisa opened her eyes.
She smiled drowsily. ‘Allie.’
Allie smiled back, but worry lines clustered between her eyes. ‘Hey. How are you? Are you OK? I heard you were awake.’
Lisa pushed herself back against the pillows. She had a plaster on her wrist where an IV had been connected at some point, and dark purple bruises stained her upper arms.
‘I’m OK. I’m pretty drugged up, I think. I just don’t know how long I’ve been here.’
Her fragility made her eyes look enormous and childlike, and Allie felt a surge of unexpected protectiveness.
‘Not long.’ Allie had to stop and think about it. ‘I mean, it’s … What day is it? Sunday, I think.’ She flushed at her own confusion, but Lisa seemed satisfied.
‘Good. I thought it was longer.’ She looked out the window and a shadow crossed her face. ‘But it’s going to get dark soon, isn’t it?’ She looked so fearful that Allie took her hand and squeezed it.
‘Don’t worry. You’re totally safe in here.’
Lisa didn’t look convinced, but the drugs seemed to affect her ability to hold onto a thought, and a moment later she seemed relaxed again.
‘Lisa, what happened to you?’ Allie asked. ‘Jo said she lost you when the lights went out, and she didn’t see you again until we found you … well, you know, in the entrance hall.’
Her eyes darkening, Lisa frowned with concentration. ‘It’s all really hazy. I remember dancing with Lucas. Then we decided to go for a walk and get some air. We were going to go out the front door because the back was crowded. But then the lights went out. At first it was no big deal – in fact it seemed kind of fun. The candles were lit in the entrance hall, so we could still see and everything. But then people started screaming.
‘Lucas told me to stay there, that he would come back for me. And he ran back to the great hall to see what was happening.’
She stopped and looked up at Allie with empty eyes. ‘And that’s it. I don’t remember anything else. It’s just a big, giant blank.’
Allie patted her hand. ‘Isabelle says you’re fine – have you got a concussion or something? My brother had one once and he couldn’t remember falling down until two weeks later.’
‘Yes, the nurse said I hit my head on something when I fell, and cut myself somehow – I have twelve stitches.’ She touched her bandage unconsciously.
‘What about your arms?’ Leaning closer, Allie carefully pushed up Lisa’s short hospital gown sleeves so she could see her skin better. ‘Those bruises – they look like … like handprints.’
Looking looked down at her arms, Lisa said: ‘Do they? I have no idea how they got there. And I sprained my wrist when I fell, I guess.’
‘Did they …’ Allie faltered and started again. ‘I suppose they told you about Ruth?’
Nodding, Lisa looked as if she might cry. ‘I don’t believe it though,’ she whispered. ‘How could she … kill herself? She never seemed sad or depressed. And she had all these plans for when she was older. She wanted to travel around the world, you know? I don’t understand why she would do something like that.’
Allie contemplated telling her that she had doubts about the official story surrounding Ruth’s death, but she didn’t feel like Lisa was the right person to confide in. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her, but more that she didn’t want to worry her.
For a while after that they sat quietly, and Lisa dozed, but when Allie shifted in her chair, the creaking sound woke her up again.
‘You’re still here.’ Lisa’s drowsy voice sounded pleased.
‘’Course I am,’ Allie said. ‘You shouldn’t be alone all the time. It’s too boring. Where are the nurses anyway?’
Lisa glanced around as if she expected to see them jump out from behind a cupboard.
‘I don’t know. It’s weird, they were here a lot yesterday, but I’ve hardly seen them today.’ She yawned. ‘Tell me what’s going on out in the real world? What’s been happening?’
Allie wondered how much to tell her. Then she decided that Lisa knew Jo even better than she did.
‘Not much. Everything just feels kind of weird. And … Lisa, Jo kind of freaked out this morning, and now she’s seriously busted.’
Lisa looked more alert. ‘What do you mean? Why is she in trouble?’
Allie told her what happened that morning on the roof. When she finished, she expected Lisa to look shocked, but instead she just shook her head.
‘Oh poor Jo. She must be so upset. I wish I could go and talk to her.’
‘Lisa, Carter told me she’s done this kind of thing before …?’
Lisa nodded. ‘You know Jo,’ she said. ‘She’s absolutely lovely. But her parents ignore her. They always have. I think she used to do this sort of thing to get them to notice her. Then it just sort of became a habit, I guess. They got tired of it and sent her here. But she’s happy here, so it hasn’t happened in a long time. The only thing I can think is, what happened at the ball was too much.’
She looked sorrowful. ‘She really liked Ruth, you know?’
Allie nodded. ‘I guess it makes sense. I’ve just never seen her like that before. I didn’t know what to do.’
Lisa reached out for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Poor you. You must think Cimmeria is a madhouse. It’s really not you know. Not usually anyway.’
‘I’m OK.’ Allie put her hand over Lisa’s. ‘When are they letting you out?’
Lisa shrugged. ‘Nobody’s said.’
Glancing at her watch, Allie stood up. ‘I should probably go and see what’s happening out there. Things have been so weird. I feel like if I’m not there the whole school could just … blow up. It’s freaky.’
She leaned over to hug Lisa, who felt so bony in her arms she barely dared apply any pressure at all.
Lisa smiled up at her. ‘Thanks for coming to check on me.’
‘I’ll come back,’ Allie promised. ‘If you feel well enough to see her, Jo is two doors down. But give her some time to sober up first.’
As Allie shut the door, she heard Lisa say: ‘Don’t forget about me …’