Chapter 5: The Invisible Girl in Room Thirteen by Stephen Simpson
I felt possessed.
Dark and soft lights flashed in the room, the throbbing
pulse of the music, the movement of dancing bodies, his arms around my waist,
everything around me culminated in making me feel alive and I had not felt
alive in a long time. I had been unseen for even longer.
“Alison,” Oliver said, pulling me back from my thoughts. “I
hope that jerk, Evan, didn’t make you feel awkward.”
I looked up at him, and into his clear blue eyes. “I know he
was just joking. How gullible do you think I am?”
“He likes to mess with me, is all,” he explained. “Are you
looking forward to going camping next weekend?”
“What camping? It’s the first I’m hearing of it.”
“That’s when the fun really starts around here.” His eyes
sparkled as a mischievous grin pulled on the corners of his mouth.
“Both schools? Boys & girls?” I could not see how
boarding school could ever get to be fun. It was supposed to be a form of
punishment, wasn’t it?
He answered with a wink, “Separate tents, though.”
The music changed, and I started to pull away from him, but
he pulled me even closer. Good thing we were in the middle of the dance floor
with about a hundred bodies surrounding us. We could not be seen too clearly by
the chaperones who made sure we all kept respectable distances from each other,
just in case the mere touch of our bodies would lead to impregnation.
“I hear you went into room thirteen and survived to tell the
story,” he said jokingly.
I shook my head, and at the same time, I felt a sharp pain
in the nape of my neck, like a precursor to a headache.
The suppressed feeling of rage I have had since leaving room
thirteen tried to overwhelm me, and I pushed away from him. “I need to powder
my nose.”
“No worries,” Oliver said as he took my hand and led me
through the dancers between us and the door.
“I know the way,” I told his back.
When we entered the well-lit corridor, he slowed down until
I was beside him. “I know you know the way. I just needed a breath of air as
well. Too many people in the same room make me feel claustrophobic sometimes.”
The designated toilets were just across the hallway, but
there was a long queue.
With my hand still in his, he pulled me past the line of
girls. Leaning down, with his lips brushing my ear, he whispered, “I know of
another one where there’ll be no waiting.”
“How...” I started asking, but then realised this was not
his first dance here and I am not the first girl he had walked down this
corridor. The simmering ember of rage in the pit of my stomach was ignited by
this thought and it glowed red hot. The feeling threatened to burst from me.
Since my mum married again, I had grown good at hiding my
feelings. Hide the hurt, the anger, the rejection and the pain. I always had my
emotions under control, always, until now. Was it because here I did not have
to hide them as well as I did at home?
“So, Lily?” He turned to look at me.
“Yeah?” Then I realised he had called me Lily, and I
answered as if I was her. I know now I should never have gone into that room.
The rules warned me, deep down I knew I should not mess with supernatural
things, but I did it anyway to prove I am worthy, to get the approval of people
who still did not see me. I looked at him with a frown and asked unsure,
“Lily?”
“You know. The girl from room thirteen,” he explained.
“What about her?”
“Do you think she really killed herself?”
“Probably. There were witnesses,” I said dismissively. The
only thing everyone wanted to talk about was the sudden demise of Lily, fifteen
years ago. I did not want to be reminded. Since being in room thirteen and
meeting Lily, I felt as if we had a connection. We were one.
“I wonder who the mystery guy she was in love with was,” I
said.
“Do you think he knew she walked into the lake and drowned
herself because of him? Rumours say he married some stuck-up, rich girl. Did
you know he dumped her the day she killed herself, the day before Valentine’s
Day?”
“I’ve heard all the rumours, but do you know who the guy
was?”
“I think it was some guy called, Rob or Robin or Robert,
something like that anyway. You can look it up in the School Journals in the
library, though. I’m sure they have them all there.”
An irrational impulse pushed me to know who the boy was who
broke Lily’s heart. I had to see his face. “I’d like to find out who he was,” I
said. “I think it’d be interesting to know.”
“I’ll help you if you wanted me to.” The crest of his cheeks
shaded a colour of pink again. He certainly was adorable. The one moment I knew
I could really love Oliver and the very next second I felt inexplicable anger.
I could not understand where the feeling I had to avoid him at all cost was
coming from. I felt an acute awareness that he would have no trouble breaking
my heart and he was not to be trusted. No boy was ever to be trusted.
He asked, “Tomorrow? We could start early.”
“How early is your early?” I asked.
“The library opens at ten on a Saturday, too early for you?”
We had reached the bathroom, and I pushed the door open,
telling him across my shoulder, “You know it’s kind of embarrassing having you
wait here for me. Maybe we could meet back at the drinks table?”
He nodded and I watched him walk away before I let the heavy
door swing shut behind me.
The bright fluorescent lights glared in the mirrors to my
side and as I pushed lightly on one of the slightly open cubicle doors, I saw a
shadow move across the mirror and there was a flash of silver, maybe a
reflection off the tap.
At first, I only saw her wide eyes where she was sitting on
the toilet seat, then the gaping hole in her stomach which was a mass of blood
and ripped flesh. Her insides lay on the ground between her feet. On the
cubicle wall, written with a finger in oozing blood no doubt from Shannon’s
body, was: 1 + 1 = 3
A scream erupted from the bottom of my soul as I collapsed
on the floor.
The bathroom door burst open, the doorknob banging on the
wall behind it.
“Alison?” Oliver asked in a panicked voice as he rushed
toward me. “What’s going on? Are you okay? I heard screaming.”
He glanced into the stall and the colour drained from his
face. His eyes were big, full of the look of horror as he pulled me up from the
floor and pushed me out of the room.
Holding me close to him, he dialled the police. “Someone’s
dead… Here in the girls’ toilet.” He listened for a while, before he said,
“Yes. At the school dance.” He ended the call and after he pushed his phone
back into his pocket, his arms tightened around me, pulling my head closer to
his chest. “Shh, Alison. It’s okay,” he whispered. “The police are on their
way.”
My body shook in his arms.
“What happened?” He asked.
My teeth chattered as I tried to say, “All that blood.”
“Do you know her?”
“I think her name is… was Shannon something. We’re… were in
the same English class.”
“Did you see who did it?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone else. Did you see someone in the
hallway?” I tried to move my head to look up at him, but he held me steady
against his chest.
The sound of footsteps was running toward us, and I tried to
pull away from Oliver even harder. I had to get away from here, as fast as
possible.
“It’s just the security guard,” he reassured me. “Look.”
I opened my eyes and saw a pot-bellied man in a khaki brown
shirt approaching. When he reached us, he was breathing hard as he hitched his
trousers up around his stomach. His eyes darted around as he said, “Got a call
from the police, they’re on their way. Someone got killed, they said, and I
must secure the crime scene.”
Oliver told him, “In there.” Pointing to the door of the
bathroom.
He stepped back and stood in the door, folding his arms
across his chest so that they were resting on his belly and faced us. There was
a serious look on his face.
We stood in silence for the most part of twenty minutes when
there was a commotion at the top of the hallway and a whole group of people
were streaming toward us.
I recognised the principal, one or two teachers and at least
three police officers.
The security guard said, “In here, Constable Fraser.”
Constable Fraser motioned with his hand for the other two
police officers to join him and they entered the bathroom cautiously.
When Constable Fraser stepped out of the room again, his
face was insipidly pale, and he wiped beads of sweat from his face.
As he stepped toward Oliver and me, the other two police
officers ushered the principal and the teachers back up the hall. I tried to
hear what they were saying but they were all talking at the same time.
“Who discovered the body?” Constable Fraser asked, looking
from me to Oliver.
“I did,” I said as I stepped away from Oliver and he let me
go.
Constable Fraser pulled a notebook and a pen from his top
shirt pocket. He flipped it open to a blank page and squinted up at me, while
his head was still bent down. “Name?”
“Alison Locke.”
He lifted his head and looked at me, taking in my features.
“Not a very common surname around here. Are you family of Roger Locke who went
to school here about fifteen years ago?”
I looked at him confused. “He’s my dad.”
For a long moment, he just looked at me without saying
anything, then wrote something in his notebook before asking, “How is your
dad?”
“Did you know him?”
“I did. We went to school together. I just have a few
questions, then you can go.”
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