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Casually, Sinéad pointed toward the first door in the longer passage, the first door after the stairway. She said, “That is our ghost room and appropriately numbered number thirteen. They never put anybody in that room, and I hear that late at night when you go to the bathrooms, which you can see is the door opposite number thirteen, it feels as if somebody is watching you.”
I looked intently at the closed door and I could feel the tiny hairs on my arms and at the back of my neck rising. I grew up in a large, daunting castle with lots of history and a myriad of ghosts of its own, so I should be used to feeling spooked, yet when she mentioned there might be a ghost in an aptly numbered room I could not help but feel a chill scamper up my spine. Trying to dismiss the sudden chill I felt, I followed her up the stairs to the second landing.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I asked her, “So who is she supposed to be? Does anyone know?”
“Huh?” She looked back at me confused.
“The ghost in number thirteen. Why is there a ghost?”
Sinéad chuckled amused. “Who says it’s a girl?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Well... They say she killed herself over a boy the night before Valentine’s Day.”
Shocked, I started laughing. I could not help it. “You must be pulling my leg. Seriously? She killed herself on the thirteenth in room thirteen?”
Sinéad puckered her eyebrow. “You don’t have to believe me, if you don’t want to.”
We had reached the second floor, and she walked ahead of me toward the shorter passage. She stopped at a door which would be directly above the room Sinéad and I shared, and she knocked a tune on the beige coloured door before she pressed down on the door handle. She pushed her head through the gap between the door and the wall, while she pushed the door open even further.
I heard her say, “Hey, Rachel. You busy?”
“Not really.” I heard a voice from inside.
Sinéad turned back to me. “Come.”
I followed Sinéad into the room and Rachel was sitting crossed legged on her bed. Rachel had a wild mop of short, blonde, curly hair and a round face to match. Even though the shape of her face was round, the rest of her was skinny so she looked a little top-heavy.
She had a room all to herself and it was only big enough to hold a single bed, a bedside table and a desk, with barely enough space to move around in the centre. On the desk there were five black candles, melted down to almost nothing, and when I saw them, I felt a little bit apprehensive. Maybe I should not be friends with Rachel and Sinéad.
Sinéad saw me looking at the candles and she said, “Some people believe that burning black candles has something to do with devils and evil, but in reality, it is really just for banishing guilt or regrets.” She leaned closer to me and whispered near my ear, “Rachel has issues.”
Sinéad sat down on the bed and then she pulled herself backwards so that her back was slanted against the wall, and she continued explaining, after giving Rachel a wink, “The believe that burning black candles is evil comes from the fifteenth century when several witches were put on trial and accused of trying to murder people by naming a black candle after that person, and then, get this, forming a doll out of the fallen wax and sticking pins into it, while they let the candle burn away.” She smiled as she looked sideways at Rachel. “You aren’t doing any of this, are you?”
Rachel snorted. “No, not yet.”
I sat down on the corner of the bed, and Rachel looked at me inquisitively. I smiled friendly, uncertain whether I should speak first.
Rachel pulled the black sleeve of her sweater up and I glimpsed, for a moment, the scar between the multitude of bangles that dangled from her wrist. She asked curiously, “So... You must be Sinéad’s new room-mate?”
“I am. Just arrived.”
“Welcome.” She swept her hand through the room. “You might be wondering why I get my own room, but I am special.”
What made her more special than me?
Just then a sound echoed through the halls. It sounded like an old-fashioned school bell.
Rachel announced, “Dinner. Hope you’re hungry because I hear this year, we have a few girls who weigh their food and when I happen to share a table with one of them, I like to stuff my face.”
Everything felt strange as I followed the only two people I knew here, down the stairway to the dining hall on the ground floor. Sinéad seemed nice, and, so far, I was glad I was sharing a room with her. I was not well-acquainted with people who had complex personalities, so I was not sure if Rachel was a nice person or not.
The dining hall was a long rectangular room, with white walls and tall windows framed with dark, navy curtains. We sat at long tables, ten seats to each table. Luckily, the girls with the little white scales were not seated at our table and I was glad I did not have to be witness to Rachel’s meanness on my first day here.
When we were finished eating and we were on our way out of the dining hall, Rachel suggested, “We should slip out tonight, before school starts officially. You never know when we’ll get a chance again to have some fun, once they have us all on lock down. I hear Mrs. Snooty will only be back tomorrow to patrol the halls and make sure we’re all neatly packed away in our rooms.”
Sinéad looked excited at the prospect, but said, “We don’t have any transport though. How will we get out?”
“I’ll phone David. Come.” She pulled Sinéad by the hand toward the public phone booth hidden under the staircase in the entrance hall to the building.
We were not allowed to have mobile phones, at all. Not even in our rooms and we had to either use the land-line phone booth in the entrance hall when we needed to phone someone, or we had to write letters with pen and paper. Apparently, it was distracting and deterred us from performing to the best of our abilities, the brochure I had read almost a million times during the weeks before I ended up here, explained. However, I had my phone hidden deep within my drawer under my underwear, where I was sure nobody would dare invade my privacy.
I started walking past the phone booth, because I was sure when they said they were going to go out, the invitation was not extended to me.
Sinéad rushed to my side and hooked her arm through mine. “Where are you going?” She pulled me with her to the phone booth and then she held the door open, while Rachel dialled the number.
Rachel held the headset to her ear and listened. After a while, she shouted into the phone, “David.” She continued in a normal tone of voice, “I was going to give up. How are you?” She listened a while, and then a smile creased her face. “We would love to go out tonight.” She gave Sinéad and me a meaningful look, while her smile grew broader. “Yes. Three of us.” She laughed. “Okay. We’ll see you at seven. Pick us up in the usual place.”
She replaced the phone back onto its cradle and then she slipped her finger into the little coin dispatcher at the bottom of the unit. She found it empty and then she said, “We better hurry; he’ll be there in an hour.”
