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The broken fireplace is no longer bare, the hearth now decorated with strings of lights and garland. The empty space beside it is replaced with an eight-foot tree Alastair insisted on dragging in when I’d first started spending more time in his bedchamber after Professor Chadwick’s passing.
It’s decorated with glass ornaments shaped like books, glasses, ravens and it doesn’t escape me that some of my very favorites made it onto the list as well: a black cat, a mug of tea, and a stained glass window with a decorated tree and red velvet chair seated in front of it. All handmade by one of the street vendors in town, many miles from the university.
I continue parading around his room until I’ve run out of things to look at and since I’m as nosey as I am bored, I begin rifling through his drawers, mostly finding nothing of consequence: socks, underwear, and clothing I’ve seen him in a thousand times. It’s not until I hear a scream that I’m knocked off-kilter, falling against the chest of drawers, cursing under my breath as the wind gets knocked from my lungs. Damn pinky toe, always getting stubbed.
I clutch at my foot before shaking it out and suck in a breath, straightening. I hear footsteps at the end of the hall, but before I can make it back to the bed and pretend I wasn’t rummaging through his things, my gaze lands on a small drawer at the bottom of the dresser, hanging open on the side. I crouch down, finding a velvet box tucked inside the small square drawer, plucking it out and lifting the lid.
My heart seizes in my chest as the necklace that’s all but haunted me in my dreams the last five years sits nestled in the silk, a matching ring wedged into a notch in the center.
A knock on the door brings me back to reality and I move with haste, shutting the lid and shoving it back into the hidden drawer, closing it and tossing myself into the center of his mattress, tugging the duvet up under my chin.
Alastair opens the door after a fight with his key, a small silver tray perched on one palm with two steaming mugs of tea.
“Snooping, were you?” he asks with an arched brow and a lopsided smirk. Bastard.
“Of course,” I answer, just as unbothered as him.
“Find anything good?” He sets the tray of tea on the nightstand beside me, lifting one mug and passing it to me before taking his seat beside me.
I don’t know what compels me to lie to him. Maybe it’s the uneasiness of the world around us or the erratic beating of my heart that tells me I’m not quite ready to discuss it, but my answer gives nothing away. “Regretably, no. You’re rather boring, it seems.” He chuckles at that, bringing his tea to his lips.
We fall into silence and as I start to relax, my toe begins to throb, reminding me how I ended up injured in the first place.
“Did you hear a shriek while you were out there?”
His brows pinch. “A shriek?” He shakes his head. “No. Do you think you heard something?”
“I thought I had, but it was probably just the storm.” Even as the words leave my lips, I know they’re more of an attempt to quell the fear that something else may have happened, rather than the truth.
He hums his agreement, settling into the covers beside me. We finish our tea and clean up for bed, blowing out candles, but as I lean forward to blow out the last flame, the unmistakable sound of a blood-curdling scream echoes down the corridor, slipping beneath the door to greet us with its cruelty.
Chapter 9
Christmas Eve Continued
Calista
My heart stammers, the room growing eerily silent in the beat of time it takes for our minds to catch up with what’s going on.
“Not again,” I find myself whispering as dread grips my throat like a noose.
I toss my legs over the side of the bed, grabbing for my robe as Alastair does the same, slipping his feet into his slippers. He stares back at me over his shoulder, brows drawn together, mouth opening as if he’s going to ask me to stay put, but his gaze shutters, realizing I would never allow it. He holds out a hand for me to take instead, and guides me through the door and down the long corridor in the direction the faculty and students all seem to be heading.
I clutch the end of my robe with my free hand to avoid tripping over it as Alastair hauls my body alongside his. We round the corner where the ceiling height climbs, round chandeliers made of wrought-iron hang overhead, illuminating the opening that leads toward one of the study rooms with long chaises, desks, and chairs lining the walls and providing ample seating. Except that when we enter the room, everything has been piled up on top of each other with the longest chaise lounger used as the base. Resting atop it are precariously stacked single-seater desks, stacked so high they reach the top window.
The only one with a latch.
I stand with my mouth agape, staring up at the scene before me, my brain not catching up quickly enough. The wall of floor to ceiling stained glass is created by interlocking pieces with no latches in sight. Save for the window that opens at the very top, used for cleaning the outside of the glass.
The window is thrown open, and a student lies crumpled in a heap, sobbing into her palms with her forehead pressed to the lowest window pane.
“Miss Donovan, what is going on?” Headmaster Whitmore asks her, his tight tone apprehensive and concerned.
“They—They ju-jumped,” she stammers and my brows shoot to my hairline.
I hurry to the window with Alastair at my side, pressing my face to the cold glass. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust—the dim light, the stained panes distorting the view—but moonlight glinting off the snow below offers enough clarity to reveal the shapes of three bodies, motionless and eternal in their white graves.
A million things happen at once: faculty swiftly move through the school, taking action in the form of various tasks from finding shovels and collecting supplies to warm the students if their souls remain intact, failed attempts at seeking aid, to shoveling their way through the snow and finally, finding that the three children had taken their last breaths long before they’d been found.
