As her life pivoted on a single incident – her grandmother’s death, this young and barely sixteen year old girl, on her first long distance train journey, sat beside the window. Her thoughts of remorse and distaste for the actions of her aunt kept reeling in her head. Her aunt took over as her guardian following the death of her grandmother. The first thing that her aunt did was send her off to boarding school and now here sat poor Clove Olive. She dreaded the thought of living alone. Tears rolled down her pale cheeks and the swift wind wiped off the tears into the barren meadow that the train was whizzing past. Her thoughts drew parallels between the wind and her granny. She felt it was her granny who was wiping off her tears.
She heard noises outside her compartment. The girl Vera whom she had met when she had entered the compartment had gone missing from the seat for a while now. The noise that arose from a commotion outside ticked her brain to perceive that it might have got something to do with Vera. Clove rushed out of her compartment while simultaneously wiping off her tears as she best could. She witnessed that a couple of girls have gathered in the tiny footpath in the train. The tall Mrs. Copper pushed them aside and bent down. Clove as she stood on her toes, saw that it was Vera who was on the floor laying there unconscious. Mrs. Copper in her raspy voice demanded a bottle of water from the gathered crowd. Some of the girls ran to the cabin and so did clove. She occupied the nearest cabin to where the incident took place and so she was the first to help out. Water was sprinkled on Vera’s face and soon she came around. She was fed water by Mrs. Copper and taken to the pantry.
The crowd soon dispersed and the murmurs came to a halt soon. Clove returned to her seat and continued staring outside the window. She noticed that the sun had already started to set. Soon her thoughts returned to her own. She felt that the dismissal of her sadness was turning more into rage. She found strength in that negativity. She related herself metaphorically to the darkness that was now enveloping the horizon outside. Her rage grew. The demented strength that grew in her seemed to steer her towards more power. Her breathing got a little heavy. Her thoughts were cut short when someone opened the compartment door. It was Vera. Her internal palpitations started settling and she had a mile layer of sweat along the edges of her scalp waiting to roll down but done away by the wind. Vera sat opposite to her and thanked her for the timely help. Vera started talking about the food that she ate in the pantry and how the quality was not good. She went on to bore Clove when she started boasting of her high end lifestyle and how she had to adjust with the setting here. Clove’s disinterest turned her into being more unresponsive to Vera’s small talk. Her unresponsiveness in the conversation automatically made Vera stop after a while. It was half past eight as the train pulled to a stop. There was a huge ruckus as everyone was dragging their luggage out onto the station. The clamoring was controlled by Mrs. Copper with her stern raspy voice. A roll call was conducted by Miss. Tint who works under Mrs. Copper. There was a sharp contrast in their looks. Miss. Tint was very young, attractive, average height with a sloping face and a roman nose as opposed to Mrs. Copper who was old with a much wrinkled face, tall and wore an old black dress that seemed to emanate a vile perception in the minds of the students. The fifty odd girls were then led to a bus outside. The bus trip was pretty silent with just mild noises of girls having their dinner from lunch boxes and wrappers. Clove just had bananas and few slices of bread with her. Her unwillingness to eat grew after she tasted the first slice of bread. She closed her box and ate only one banana and threw out the peel.
They all reached the campus gates around half past nine. Two huge lamps at wither side of the gates illuminated the board above the gate which read “Roger Reginald’s School for Girls”. They all got down from the bus and started following Mrs. Copper. She took them all into an old building with huge doors which led them to a huge hall. The hall was dimly lit and had pillars supporting the whole structure. Mrs. Copper swiftly turned right which led to another door. The room beyond that door was relatively small and had a staircase that led straight up to their dormitory.
As Clove went up the stairs and unto the corridor, she saw to her left towards the corridor on the opposite side of the building. An old man with a deeply wrinkled face was cleaning the floor with a mop. She noticed that he had some kind of unusual skin on his right hand as if he had been through some fire accident. She was unable to make it out because of the distance. He suddenly stopped mopping and looked up. His sharp stare took her by surprise. She quickly turned her head to face ahead and trudged into the dormitory with her heavy luggage.
There was a huge common hall which had a number of rooms on either side. Each room had two bunk beds and four people was it share the room. As Mrs. Copper raised her raspy voice it thundered inside the hall. The girls came to a standstill. She quickly read out the names and the room numbers. Clove went to her room numbered 110 to find that Vera was also in the same room as her. Feeling indifferent about Vera’s presence she went on to ignore Vera after a dry smile. She settled her luggage under the bed. She climbed on to the top of one of the bunk bed and lay there staring at the ceiling. Vera seemed to be busy with her phone talking to someone. Someone who cared enough to call, Clove thought. She took out her phone. There was one new message waiting to be read by Clove. Her eagerness to read the message vanished as soon as she saw that the message was from the service provider. She quickly sent a message to her aunt. Her message was very succinct. It read “reached”. She set her phone aside and continued to stare at the ceiling. The voice in her head told her, “you will be spending many nights like this… just staring at the ceiling…” She drifted to sleep slowly as the tiredness from the travel had taken a toll on her.
The next day she woke up to the bustling noises of people running hither and thither. There seemed to be more number of girls in the dormitory. They all had just arrived. Two girls, all dressed up in uniform sat chatting about in her room. They were new to her. Clove’s mind perceived them to be the other two roommates with whom she is supposed to share the room as it is to be shared by four people. They turned to her and with a weak smile mentioned a slow “Hi”. Clove shot a half grin in their direction before jumping down from the top bunk. She realized that it was getting late and that she should join the rest of the girls in getting ready. Clove reached for her luggage and rummaged through her dresses until she lay her hands upon her uniform. Quickly collecting her brush, soap, towel and innerwear she rushed to the common bathroom only to find it all occupied. It took almost twenty minutes for her turn. With time running against her. She rushed back after taking bath in minimal clothing. She felt a little embarrassed but nobody seemed to care. She figured that she needed more getting used to. They were almost late.
As the clock struck half past eight she found herself walking with Evana and Marie – her two new roommates. They walked out of the dormitory, went down the stairs and turned around to go through the door beside the stairs that which led them to the dining hall. They found themselves a seat. Clove was asked by Evana and Marie if she was new here and welcomed her. They spoke of various things from how long they have been here to things like how they thought Miss. Tint was a lesbian.
The headmaster’s speech was dull. He was a plump man who reminded her of the comic villain “Penguin” in the Batman series. She woke up from her reverie when there was a thunderous applause on account of him finishing his speech. The rest of the day was a blur. She found out that Chemistry was handled by Mrs. Copper and Physics by her husband Mr. Copper. The English class was handled by yet another old man Mr. Higgins who had cancelled his classes on the first day. These girls were hence sent off to their rooms early. The classrooms lay on the other side of the huge hall. With time to kill, Clove roamed near the open grounds. She sat under a tree and wondered maybe she doesn’t need to be devoured in darkness and the small hope which threw light in her solemn string of thoughts was short lived as her own negative thoughts started consuming her from within. She held her bent knees with her hands and buried her face. She had a running-out-of oxygen feeling in herself. Her lungs seemed void of air. She started gasping for breath. She swung her head upwards to get more air. The fast movement of her head made her feel light and dizzy. She started seeing images in her head. She seemed to have no control. She felt like she was inside those images. They were pulling her into them. Her own thoughts seemed to become reality. Her mind related itself to an article on fringe science where people believed in existence of another dimension and that they would be able to slip in and out of it. She shook her head and she felt a sharp pain that shot across her forehead. Someone touched her shoulder. It was Evana. When Clove explained in broken words that her head was aching, Evana suggested that Clove must eat properly. Clove realized that it was almost dusk. They walked slowly together to have the evening tea that was served in their dining hall.
The next few days she had a barrage of classes to attend to. She seemed to like Mr. Higgins who taught English and found Mrs. Copper to be very strict. Biology was a breeze for Clove as she connected well with the way Miss. Tint was teaching it. Clove was an average student on the whole. She was the not so popular type. She had a limited network with one or two friends usually but here it seemed like even Evana had slowly detached from her. Evana was busy talking with Marie and Vera seemed to have found many other pretentious friends as herself. Clove introspected deep into her thoughts only to realize that she herself might have cut them out by being unresponsive to their chats. She had withdrawn herself from the crowd as her rage towards life burned fuelled by her sorrows and with no exit to her brash unsettled feelings, it all fumed inside her. Her feelings melted in agony and she simmered down into tears.
Her aversion towards Chemistry class grew and one fine day she was posed a question by Mrs. Copper. She did not answer. This soon became a routine. She soon became an object of ridicule in the Chemistry class. The teacher would pose a question that she did not know and quite often Mrs. Copper herself insulted her in front of the class. The humiliation touched a nerve which synched with the troughs of her emotional imbalance. Clove managed to keep her emotions in check.
Math class. Professor Dan who handled the class was quite young and remarkably genius. The girls drooled over him for his fit physique and for the fact that he resembled Colin Farrell. Clove soon found out that she too had a liking for the professor. She was weak in math but attending his lectures was the only tiny thing that seemed worth being in this school. Her day took a turn for the worse when he picked her from the whole class to come forward to the board and try solving the calculus problem in front of the class. She felt sick. Her legs trembled as she got up. The lightness in her head grew but with a proportionate increase in a sharp pain in her abdomen. She thought to herself, “This is too much stress. I’m on my period… why is this happening… the pain seems to be amplified even more….” She walked slowly. There were giggles in the class. Professor Dan asked her to stop and said politely, “I think you should go to the restroom now…” She did not understand. She stood still and realized what had happened. Her uneasiness grew when she realized that she had felt sweaty when she had been sitting. She shivered in humiliation as she realized there was a blot of blood on her skirt. Tears welled up and she ran out of the class as fast as she can. All she wanted to do was run into her granny’s arms. She ran into the restroom and locked herself inside the last toilet booth. Amidst the severe fit of crying and gasping, she removed her skirt and crashed unto the toilet. As she gasped for breath, she felt the walls around her tremble. It started to distort. She shook her head but the walls seemed to move in. A sense of claustrophobia crept into her thoughts. She couldn’t shout. Even when she tried shouting, she seemed to have no voice. She was unable to hear herself. The walls started crushing her. Her screams fell on deaf ears. Her whole body felt flimsy and as the walls crushed her completely she had slipped into another realm.
A soft girls’ voice spoke, “I saved you….”... She felt very flimsy and when she tried to move but she couldn’t feel her legs. It was as if she was floating although she did move with her legs. She was in the corridor. The one where she ran across to go to the restroom. The whole place seemed deserted. She peeped into different classrooms as she moved. There was no sign of life. A muffled cry that she heard emanating from the direction of the restroom made her want to swiftly glide towards the restroom. With her heart leaping in fear that she might find herself in the toilet booth. Her fears mellowed as she realized she could even be dead and that this was her in her spirit form roaming the halls of the school. Maybe she would even get to meet her granny. As she came closer to the restroom she heard the cries from the same toilet booth that she was in a while ago. It was dark. She heard muffled voices as she went inside. She slowly moved closer and the voices were clearer. “The sacrifice has to be….” The hushed male voice trailed off. The other voice which resembled the one of Mrs. Copper’s spoke, “Just be done with it.”
Clove quickly moved into the adjacent toilet booth and stood on top of the toilet basin after closing the lid. She was on her toes trying to peek into the adjacent toilet booth. There in the darkness she saw three silhouettes; a man, a woman and a small child who seemed to be kneeling on the floor. A streak of lightening outside illuminated the toilet momentarily. Clove caught a glimpse of the whole scene. A little girl was gagged and tied with her hands behind her back. She was kneeling down facing the toilet basin. The guy was heavy set and in his forties. His had draped himself in a large raincoat that was dripping wet. A small sharp Swiss knife in his right hand shone due to the sudden light. The lady resembled Mrs. Copper but was shorter than Mrs. Copper by a foot.
The thunder bellowed outside that indicated the start of a heavy downpour. A series of lightening followed. Before Clove made sense of the whole situation, the man pulled the girls hair tilting her head upwards. He put the knife on the small girl’s throat and slit her open slowly and steadily across the width of her neck starting from the jugular vein. The initial cut spattered blood on the walls and a peck or two landed on Clove’s face as she witnessed the horror. He held the girls head unto the toilet basin to let her bleed out. The girl kept fidgeting for a while and as the lightening stopped, the life had left her body. Clove slowly ran her fingers on her face and saw the blood on her fingers now. Her body felt weak. Shell shocked by the incident her thoughts were thrown into a disarray. As she shivered and stumbled down from the toilet basin on which she was standing on she slipped and fell. She had fallen in an awkward position between the toilet basin and the wall with her legs askew over the toilet basin. Her fear knew no bounds. The walls started crumbling again. The man and the lady from the adjacent toilet rushed out to open the door of the toilet that Clove was in as they heard the noise. As the heavy set man swung open the door with great speed. He held up the knife in the air, ready to attack only to find no one there. The toilet was empty.
Clove had slipped back to reality. She flew out of the toilet door and landed head first on the tiled floor of the restroom. She tried to get up slowly. She was still half dressed. The room was alit by the afternoon sun. The toilet walls were neither crumbled nor were they shrunk in size. She felt nauseated and threw up on the floor. Before she could catch hold of her train of thoughts, she slipped into darkness.
She woke up slowly and uneasily. She stretched her arms and yawned. She was neatly tucked into a nicey done single bed. Her thoughts gathered very soon and she remembered the horrific images of the girls cut open throat. The man’s smug face. The evil twinkle in his eyes. She quickly touched her face as if reacting to the images in her head to see if there was blood on her face. Her heart leapt up a bit. A nurse on seeing her sitting upright and panicking a bit rushed to her aide. She calmed Clove down. Clove tried to talk, “That… that… girl…” The nurse interrupted her saying, “Must be a bad dream, dear… Please calm down… Nothing has happened…” Clove realized that it was no use in telling it to her. She distinctly remembered the restroom. The nurse went on to say how she had been passed out for around 36 hours. The doctor had just then decided to take Clove to a bigger hospital rather than keep her in the school’s infirmary. She had luckily woken up before they did so. Clove did not care much for the fact that she had been passed out for 36 hours. Her passing out, for so long, seemed to be a minor fact to consider as compared to the gory images in her head. She wished badly that she had never gotten up. The nurse wiped Cloves sweaty face and served her food. Soon Dr. Frostman came to see her and taking into note her fragile condition he ordered her to take rest for one more day under the care of the nurse. She lay silently amidst her unknown fears. The images kept playing in her head. She tried switching her thoughts to something else but all in vain.
As the night fell she grew more restless. She searched within herself for strength and she found it when she thought of her train journey on how she felt so in sync with the darkness that surrounded her. She gathered herself up and silently slipped out of the bed. Fear crept back in as she left the infirmary and approached the dreaded corridor. The moon shone bright and full. It threw light unto the corridor through the large windows on the left wall. Her mind was made up. She had nothing to lose and no one to care. Her thoughts were fixed on the incident. With that flicker of courage she moved slowly towards the restroom. She went into the empty restroom. She glared down at the spot where she had puked and lay fainted. The floor was clean. The fear in her grew triple fold as she slowly swung open the last toilet booth. It was empty. As she turned to her right to the silhouette of a man blocking the doorway. It was the silhouette of the heavy set man who slashed the girl’s throat. Her adrenalin shot up.
His growled, “What are you doing here?” His voice echoed through the empty restroom. As she stammered with a response, “I… I… came … to…” He stepped forward and the moonlight that reflected on the mirror fell on his face. It was the old janitor whom she had seen on her first day here. He said in a harsh voice, “Get outta here.” He stepped aside for her to leave. She ran out.
As she ran in the corridor, her mind started connecting the dots. It was the same guy. He is the janitor. She did not know where she was headed and reached the end of the corridor. The janitor’s closet lay open there. It lay ajar. Her inquisitiveness led her on. She moved towards the closet. She saw pics of the little girl stuck on backside of the closet door. One pic portrayed him, the lady and the baby girl. It was written at the bottom of the photograph “Me. Mrs. Fray Copper and our daughter Anita.” She sensed a presence lingering behind her. It was the janitor himself. He glared at her. She slowly stepped back. She whispered involuntarily, “How could you… How could you kill your own daughter?”
His eyes widened. He lunged towards her to get a hold of her. She quickly dodged him and ran through the door behind him and into the dining room. She ran between the tables. He was close behind her. She threw whatever she lay her hands upon. None hit him. He growled, “Stop there… damn you…” she ran into the kitchen through its back door that lay at the end of the dining hall. He strategically took the exit of the dining hall on the left and entered the kitchen from its side entrance. He intercepted her. He tackled her. He held her firmly pushing her onto the kitchen platform. She kept shouting, “Let me go…” He questioned her, “How do you know?” She could feel his breath as he leaned over her. She kicked him with her free leg which caught him in his shin. He staggered a bit because of his age. Her kick was strong enough to let her wriggle out of his grasp. He was quick for his age. He swiftly turned around and caught her by her hair. He pulled her back and she fell on the kitchen platform. He was leaning on top of her. He put his large hands on her throat and started strangulating her. She felt the absence of air in her. She was choking. Her heart was imploding. Her scouring hands found something sharp that lay somewhere to her right on the kitchen platform. It was an ice pick. He failed to notice her actions owing to the darkness that encompassed the area. She took the ice pick and stabbed the ice pick on the side of his neck. He was choking and he let her go. He stumbled backwards. Blood had spattered all over her face. She was in a coughing fit. She heard footsteps approaching. The lights were switched on to find the janitor falling off his feet. He had lost lot of blood. The crowd of people who had arrived to the scene were Miss Tint, the nurse from infirmary and Evana. Clove was still reeling from the shock. Miss Tint and Evana ran to Clove’s aid. They saw clear strangulation marks on her neck. She was taken to the infirmary. Dr. Frostman who arrived at the scene just then went to check upon the janitor. Miss Tint helped her wash her face. Clove sat silently. She succumbed to her emotions. She quietly cried to herself. Evana tried to console her. Dr. Frostman came in to the infirmary and spoke silently to Mrs. Copper who had come in. the janitor was declared dead.
Clove just sat there crying. She looked up when Mrs. Copper came close and told her. “Forget everything. The police are here to see you. Just tell them what happened. Tell them it was self-defense.” She was just scared to face Mrs. Copper as she resembled the lady who had been with the janitor but this jolt brought her senses back a little.
The scrawny police officer posed uneasy questions to her. Everybody presumed that the janitor was molesting her when she defended herself. Miss Tint even told the policemen that she was the first one to enter and she saw him strangulating her and was totally on top of Clove. Clove just plainly told the officer of that she was not able to sleep and that she went to the restroom to see the place where she had fainted. She spoke her way out of the whole mess by accidentally omitting the part of what happened in the toilet. She went on to say how she stumbled across the janitor’s closet which was open and how the janitor confronted her there. She started crying when she recollected the incidents in the kitchen. It was all a blur to her. The police officer thanked her and left her alone to rest. She sat there staring at the floor. The room was abuzz with murmurs. The police were talking to the staff, headmaster, the nurse and the doctor. Only Evana and Marie were inside the room. The rest of the students were not permitted. The doorway leading to the corridor and the dining hall were cordoned off by the police. Evana and Marie were within earshot of Clove. They were speaking in hushed tones. She heard Evana say, “The creepy old janitor Mr. Rhoar was the guy who had married Mrs. Copper’s sister Fray Copper…” Marie cut in, “Who? The one who fell from top of the steeple nearby?” Evana shushed her and in an even lower tone she said, “talk in whispers…. Know what is more ironic? It’s the fact that even when Miss Fray Copper died there was only one witness… a student of our school. Some say that girl is now in some asylum.” Marie added,’ yes yes… I remember hearing about it from someone… but I think Miss Fray just killed herself as she was depressed from her daughter’s death. They were weird people. I heard…. Mrs. Copper and Miss Fray don’t talk to each other. Miss Fray was very weird… I have heard from my cousins who studied here. One of them said that Miss Frays’ room had an eerie setup. My other cousin Linda said that Miss Fray was into black magic… and that she seemed to hate girls because of her troubled relationship with her mother… ” Evana pitched in, “Maybe she felt oppressed or something….” Mrs. Copper quickly asked the girls to leave as they were clearing out the infirmary of people.
Clove having heard all this. The questions in her mind were beginning to connect. She slowly got up. The doorway had been cordoned off by the police with yellow tapes. She ducked under it and went past the tapes. The police were busy in the kitchen investigating the crime scene and some others were busy questioning the headmaster and other staff members. She went back to the restroom. Her breathing was little heavy. She saw herself in the mirror. The features of her pale white face seemed to have changed a bit. She moved closer to the mirror. She touched her face. The reflection did not move. In the reflection she saw herself with the face of the little girl. The girl in the mirror said, “It’s over now.” Clove’s hands became taut and she couldn’t move. She felt choked. She couldn’t utter a single word. The girl in the mirror kept staring into her own with big dreamy eyes. Slowly a thin cut started appearing across the width of Clove’s neck and blood oozed out.