During the day, this main section is the hub and heart of the school. You can almost sense it beating. At night, though, it’s empty. Switched off and abandoned. God, this school is Carly and me. One thing during the day, another at night.
It may be a redbrick, Oxbridge imitation on the outside, but within the bowels lies something far older, something far grittier, all weathered gray stone, moss stains, and watermarks. Ugly. With the suggestion of something… not quite right. This part of the school feels vaguely sinister, or aware somehow. There are all kinds of rumors about this part of the school.
Let’s go round the side. They built two little alleys between the wings and the main house, like rabbit tunnels through the red, and near the back of the west alley are small dark windows low down on the ground. The basement windows. I nearly missed them, they’re so obscure.
Elmbridge is like a church in some ways, and in others, it’s like a mansion. Churchlike, in that it feels holy… no speaking over a whisper without a teacher shushing you, my dears. And that weird way you always suspect someone is watching. Even now, as I write, I feel like there is a face peering out at me from one of those windows, little hands pressed to the black glass.
I wave. Hello.
For a minute there, I thought I actually saw someone. A girl. A thin, grinning girl.
Mansionlike, in that you’re always sure that:
a) You’ll break something.
b) It’s haunted.
For me, it’s more like my place home. Couldn’t explain it even if I wanted to. I hate this place, and I love it. Like the anorexic who revolts at the thing that keeps her alive. I see myself mirrored here in the fakeness of it all. Carly is my mask, of course. She’s the “real” Johnson girl. I’m just the imposter girl of nowhere. Am I a parasite? I prefer to imagine that I’m carrying Carly, that she’s asleep on a hammock inside my mind, swaying gently with every step I take.
But that’s crap, because during the day, I’m nothing. I don’t exist. So neither does she, at night.
I’ll never tell Carly how jealous I am that she gets to walk inside every single day while I’m stuck outside at nighttime, looking at the shell.
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to be outside anymore.
I’m going in.
Ha! Try to keep me out, and I’ll break in! Oh, I feel wonderful! It’s just like the old days, back in Chester with John.
You won’t believe what I found!
I broke in through one of those smudged-up dark windows of the basement where I felt saw? something someone watching me earlier. I only just fit. What will they do when they notice the broken window? Whatever, I don’t care! I’m invisible!
The cellar basement was
[A page has been torn from the diary.]
The top floor was where I made the real find. I was about to head back to the basement and return to the dorm when I spotted an unobtrusive black door in one of the long halls, right next to a tall grandfather clock.
It didn’t look like a closet.
It didn’t look like a bathroom.
It looked like a secret.
The attic, Dee, is so vast—one long, seemingly endless room. It’s full of boxes that contain glass ink pots, silver-nibbed dip pens—nibs!—notebooks, and antiquated textbooks. Stuff that is decades older than the things stored in the basement. I found a girl’s guide to etiquette, if you can believe that. Could I need anything less?
I could spend months up here, looking at every little thing. This might be a nice place for me. Hidden. Forgotten. Perfect.
4:34 am, Roof
Dee, I’m a bit of a spy. What else is there to do when everyone else is sleeping and you’re bored? I said I’d behave, and to get out of here, it’s the least I’d do.
Escapism is a window that I don’t have, but I need movement. I can’t sit still.
I have this horrible fear of turning to stone like I’m in an Anne Rice novel or something. Or that I’ll vanish, fade like a ghost. Cease to be. Then I won’t be anything, just like Lansing wants. And the thought of that, Dee, is enough to drive me up onto the roof, where I teeter on the edge and wonder why I don’t just leap.
And honestly, I don’t know what’s holding me back anymore. But of course, I do. It’s Carly.
Hurt yourself, hurt Carly.
Whatever, I digress.
Spying entertains me. The things people do when they sleep, the faces they pull and the things they say. The way they touch their bodies when they think they’re alone.
Last year I sat in the dorm room of one of Naida’s friends, Juliet. Right by her bed. I watched her face twitch while I tickled her nose with my hair. And, a secret? I stole from her. I took a pen from her desk drawer, wrote a note in the back of her diary—I forget what it was now, and she never found it, from what I can tell—and I did something else too. I’ve got to be careful what I write down…
I need to tell someone. I need to tell you.
Diary… Dee…
My confession: I cut her. I cut Juliet last year, right before summer. I took the blade out of her razor, and I sliced a little bit of her skin near her wrist. There was a tiny red line of blood, and she never even stirred.
I was horrified at myself, of course, but it was so exciting. The most exciting thing I’ve ever done, I think. What a thrill to tell someone! I felt a sensation deep in my stomach that I’ve never felt before. Can you imagine what you could do to a person while they sleep, oblivious?
I climbed out of her window, sat in the tree, and watched her. The following night, she was wearing a plaster on her wrist, but her brow was unlined as she slept—she didn’t have a care in the world. It was just another inexplicable injury, forgotten in the moment it’s found.
But it wasn’t forgotten by me. Not after all this time, even. I made a difference, Dee. I changed something in this world. I made a plaster appear on that wrist, and it never would have happened if I didn’t exist.
I’ve done other things since then. Taken things from students who leave their windows open. Read diaries. Did you know that joker-boy Scott Fromley keeps a diary, Dee? I read it and then I left a little message in the back, written with his own pen. I have no idea if he ever found it, and I can’t remember what I wrote. I think a word. Loser, maybe. I couldn’t see the effect it had on him, so I consider that one a failed experiment. But there were others. A strand of hair pulled from Brenda’s head. A stone placed under Megan’s pillow.
All of this was—is—my clever way of distracting myself from the fact that, despite Carly, I am alone.
And I always will be.
Later, Attic
I’ll keep you here. I’ll keep you safe.
Purple Post-it
You are a ray of sunshine at midnight.
Message Book Entry
Monday, 6 September 2004, 4pm
School was annoying today. Scott is always all over Naida. I think she noticed that it bothered me, though, because she sent him off and then we talked for ages. Mostly about you (in a good way!). She said she wishes you could hang out with us too. See? She isn’t bad. She says you’re feisty, and that’s not a bad thing.
The downside of today was Brett. He spent all of study period passing me notes.