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Taryn
I FIND SIBYLLE IN OUR room after the session with Jaidev in the studio, and I realize I’m just going to have to have it out with her. I hate confrontation, and I’ve always worked to avoid it as much as I can, but I can’t do that this time.
“You didn’t come to dinner?” she says as I drop my training stuff at the foot of my bed.
“No, I needed to be practicing.” I sit down and carefully examine my left foot. While I’ve avoided getting any of the push pins in my flesh, checking each pair every time, my foot is hurting a lot. The knuckle of my big toe looks red and inflamed. I need to go and see Ross, the physio, ideally.
“So, you’re eating later?” Sibylle asks. “With Jaidev?”
“I don’t know.” I flex my toe. I know I’m concentrating on it simply to try and delay what I have to say to her. And that just makes me even more nervous. I swallow hard and look at her. “Can I have them back?”
“What back?”
“The stolen shoes. Helena’s shoes.”
Sibylle frowns. “I haven’t got them. What are you saying?”
“I know it was you.” I look back at my toe. “So why did you do it? Because you think you should be in the company, right?”
“No! Taryn, I haven’t got them. I wouldn’t steal from you—especially not something that belonged to your sister. And I’ve said all along you deserve that space with the company. Why would I be doing this?”
“Because you know about my sister. They’re her shoes, those ones. The missing ones. And you know.”
Her frown gets deeper, but there’s hurt in her eyes too. “I don’t know what you’re meaning. Why would I do this because I know about her?”
“Look, I’m not stupid. I know the messages the police are investigating about Jaidev are actually aimed at me. And that they’re about Helena’s death.” I can hardly say the words.
“What?” Sibylle’s staring at me.
“And someone’s stolen her shoes, put pushpins in all of mine, and ripped up my photo board.”
“And you think that was me?” Her voice cracks.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’re the only one who knows about Helena. You’re my roommate. You have access to my things, and then they get ruined or go missing.”
“Oh, so you’re going to question Ivelisse, too? Seeing as she’s our roommate, too.”
“Look, I’m not a murderer, Sibylle. That journalist spun it that way, and it wasn’t true.”
Her face crumples. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re my friend. And I’m not the only one.”
“What?”
“I’m not the only one who knows about Helena. A lot of people here do. Definitely everyone in our year. I don’t know about the company dancers, but people talk. And it’s not exactly hard to find. If anyone Googles your name, those articles come up.”
My stomach twists. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice hard and cutting. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are. I’m sorry.”
She snorts.
“I’m going to go and get some food,” I say, numb, even though eating feels like the last thing I could possibly do. But I just need to get away.
“You do that.” Sibylle doesn’t even look at me.
###
I GET SOME CARROT AND potato soup from the canteen and sit alone, staring into it, stirring my spoon. I should’ve trusted my gut when I thought that Sibylle would not do that to me. She is my friend. Or was.
And it turns out everyone knows. It could be anyone.
“Ah, Taryn, you’re in here.”
I look up to see Madame Cachelle poking her head in the entrance to the canteen.
“Mr. Eldridge wants to speak to you,” she says. “He’s just down at the reception now, but he’s got to leave shortly again. You could catch him now if you’re quick.”
I rise, leaving my soup. Mr. Eldridge is still at reception when I get there. It only takes me a few minutes as it’s the same building as the canteen. He tells me that the police have arranged a time to speak with me—in two days.
“We’re waiting until I’m back from business,” he says. “I want to be sitting in. As you’re not yet eighteen, you can also have a parent or guardian there. Or one of the staff here, if you’d prefer.”
“Hold on,” I say. “I haven’t done anything wrong. This sounds like I have if I need an adult there?”
“No. Just procedure. I’m doing everything by the books.”
I return to the canteen, more unsettled. I’ve never really spoken to the police before. Despite what journalists said, there was no evidence that Helena’s death wasn’t an accident or that I was involved, so the police never talked to me. But Mr. Eldridge almost made it sound like I was a suspect. Like I’d be sending racist messages to my own partner.
Or sending threats to myself. Taking my own stuff, ripping up my photo board Though, of course, he and the police don’t know about those things. Yet.
A couple of younger students are in the canteen now. They watch me with wide eyes as I sit back down. There’s no steam lifting off my soup now, and I still don’t really feel hungry as I pick back up my spoon.
“I wouldn’t eat that,” a petit rat says to me. She’s got delicate curls and long eyelashes. Probably about eight or something. “You’re the one with the sugar allergy, right?”
“Well, fructose. Yeah.” It’s too difficult to explain it’s a malabsorption issue, and I just haven’t got the energy for that right now.
“I saw someone put a load of sugar in there,” she says.
“Someone?” I turn to look at her.
“It was either sugar or a laxative. I don’t know. But he didn’t want anyone to see.”
He? The person after me is a guy?
“Who was it?” I stare at her.
The other girls are looking at her, a little in awe, a little scared. Because she’s ratting on someone.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. He was wearing dark clothes and a hat. A beanie.”
A beanie.
There’s one person I know who always wears a beanie.