Chapter 9: The Invisible Girl in Room Thirteen by Stephen Simpson
In the middle of the night, my eyes opened and at the side
of my bedroom window, I saw a shadow move but then I turned over to my other
side and went back to sleep.
I was walking up a set of stairs, moving down a dark upstairs hallway and into a room. Standing in the centre of the room, I looked at a photo of my dad and Lily on the bedside table, the same photo from the yearbook, only this time my dad had not been cropped out. My eyes looked toward the bed and there was someone sitting right there in the dark.
I backed away until my back was pressed against the cold
wall behind me and the shadow on the bed stood, stepping closer to me.
“What are you doing?” I heard my mum’s voice.
My dad answered, “I sneaked in. The door was unlocked,
so...”
“Fine, but why are you in Lily’s room?”
“Guess I wanted to just be here for a minute. I still can’t
believe she would do that… Walk into the lake like that.”
“That’s hers?” My mum asked pointing at the Ouija board
lying on the bed. “Did you ever play with her?”
“No. I thought maybe I could use it to say sorry...”
My mum sounded shocked. “That’s why you’re here? You were
going to try to talk to Lily?”
“I keep hearing this voice in my head,” my dad said. “One
and one makes three. What does it mean?”
My mum’s eyes stayed focused on the board. “Do you think
she’s still here?”
“When I came in, I thought I felt something.”
“Felt what?”
“I can’t explain it. Something.”
My mum traded a worried look with my dad. “Do you think
she’s trying to tell you something?”
“I don’t know, Dianne,” my dad said with a sigh. “I feel
really guilty, though.”
There was a creaking noise in the room, and they fell
silent, listening.
Suddenly the photo frame of Lily and my dad on the bedside
table fell to the floor with a loud shattering noise.
My dad leapt closer to my mum and wrapped her in his arms
protectively.
“What was that?” My mum asked with a tremor of fear in her
voice.
My dad held his hand up to silence her, he was trying to
hear something. He said, “I am sorry, Lily. I never meant for any of this to
happen.”
My mum pushed him away from her and hissed, “Are you
serious, Roger? You never meant to fall in love with me, never meant to have
this baby growing in my belly?”
There was no answer.
It was as if even the room was waiting for his reply.
My dad said, “Lily, I know you’re here. Tell me what you
want me to do.”
“She can’t be here, she’s dead,” my mum insisted.
“Then how do you explain this feeling, the photo on the
floor?” He pointed to a corner. “There’s someone there.”
“Where?” My mum squinted in the darkened room trying to see
what my dad was pointing at.
“There.” My dad kept his finger pointed at the corner as my
mum reached for the light switch beside her.
The lamp light flickered on, erasing all the shadows in the
room and the corner was empty.
My dad turned to look at me. “I’m worried about you.”
The incessant noise of my alarm clock woke me, and I leapt
from the bed not even awake yet.
Two hours later, girls dressed for Phys Ed streamed from the
locker room. I left the room last, trailing behind because I did not want to
listen to them either discussing Shannon’s death or the coming Spring break
weekend. It seemed nobody had found Barry and Belinda’s bodies yet, but I was
starting to think it was all just a crazy dream.
I headed out to the P.E. field and I could feel the weak
Spring sun trying to warm my shoulders.
“Alison?”
I turned to see Oliver hiding behind a large shrub to the
side and after making sure Mrs Hawkins was preoccupied with the other girls, I
slipped off the pathway and approached him. “Why are you here?”
Oliver looked uneasy. “I’m worried about you.”
“You could have sent me a text instead of coming here.
You’re going to get us both in trouble.”
“You haven’t given me your number yet.” He gave me a
sheepish grin.
“Give me your phone,” I said holding my hand out to him.
He gave me his phone and I added my number to his contact
list.
“Have you heard anything else about Shannon,” he asked when
I handed his phone back to him.
“Nothing. I saw the police here again this morning, so they
are investigating it and I’m sure they’ll find the killer soon enough.”
“I haven’t slept since the dance, and I keep thinking
there’s a psycho killer on the loose.”
I chuckled. “Watch a lot of horrors, do you?”
For the first time, it dawned on me that none of the girls
were afraid. It was being treated as just a random murder when we are supposed
to be protected behind high walls and security gates, a lake at the back of the
building and a tiny forest of trees to the side. The setting was so established
it was hard to believe someone had been murdered or were able to enter the
premises to commit murder. I asked, “You think someone at the dance did it?”
He shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “It had to be one of
us.”
“Evan said it couldn’t have been a girl, so it must be
someone from the boys’ school, right?”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “It makes me nervous, knowing there’s a
murderer lurking around.” He turned away from me and I could see it was because
he was trying to hide his emotions from me.
“Did you really date Shannon?” I asked him. If he did, it
must have affected him more than I had realised. “So, you must have liked her,
you know… More than friends?”
“We hung out a few times, but I never thought there could be
more between us than just friendship. She was always fun to be with.”
“We had a minute of silence for her in assembly this
morning, you?”
He nodded his head.
“They told us her memorial will be after the Spring break,
will you go?” I asked.
“I guess. I wonder if we’ll still go camping this weekend
and if we don’t, what are we expected to do?”
“We could just go home for the break, you know, like normal
kids,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Spring break’s only a few days long and
most of the students here don’t go home when the break is so short. After the
property was damaged ten years ago by bored students, the school board and the
parents’ association arranged camping activities or excursions to the city or
abroad. Most times, we only go home for the three-week Christmas break and the
months of Summer holiday.”
I was surprised, but to be honest, it was foreseen that
since being abandoned at boarding school I would hardly ever see my mother
again. Obviously, she would not see me, at all, but that goes without saying.
“Does everyone go camping this weekend?” I asked.
“Yeah. There’s a separate camp for each year group, but boys
and girls in the same year group go together, under very strict supervision.”
He smiled and I saw the crest of his cheeks turn a shade of pink.
“Where are these camps? I hope at least it won’t be boring.”
“Here at school,” he said.
“What? That sounds super boring.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah. There are camps around the lake.”
“Alison!” Mrs Hawkins’ voice shouted from the field.
Oliver said hurriedly, “She’s probably thinking you got
murdered now.”
“I should go. See you this weekend?”
He agreed with a nod. “I came to tell you to be careful.
Stay safe.”
“I will. You too.” I turned away from him and ran back to
the field and Mrs Hawkins whose voice was now calling my name in a shrill,
panicked scream.
That afternoon, I had a scheduled appointment with Dr
Smithers in his office. He wanted to make sure I was not psychologically
damaged after finding Shannon’s dead body. However, I was sure he did not care
about my mental health and it was school policy to evaluate all the students
after a traumatic experience.
We sat across from each other for almost ten minutes in
total silence as he waited for me to say something, and I was waiting for him
to say something. He was a short man of Asian descent. His eyebrows were large
and black, and I was fascinated by the way they almost met in the middle. It
was the first time I had ever met someone with a unibrow.
I got a fright when he started talking, “I arrived on Friday
night, just as you were leaving the hall and even though I called your name,
you continued walking away. However, I noticed you seemed disassociated from
the situation and your lack of emotion at this moment indicates the same. I
believe you had what we call a psychogenic blackout.”
He explained, “A psychogenic blackout can be difficult to
diagnose. Most often it occurs in young adults as a result of stress or
anxiety.”
I nodded my head. If it was so difficult to diagnose, how
come he labelled me with it so fast?
He continued, “It is an involuntary reaction of the brain to
alleviate distress and sometimes they are a reaction to a horrific experience
you have not been able to come to terms with.”
Let me count the many ways. I continued to stare at him.
Without me even saying a word, he had figured me out.
He asked, “How often are you experiencing these attacks? Do
they tend to be numerous, often occurring several times a day, or at the same
time each day?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is this serious? Can I die from
it?”
He smiled without showing any teeth. “I don’t want to
diagnose you before we have had a few sessions, but it sounds as if you might
have a condition, we call Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is not at all life
threatening, but it is likely that there is a temporary problem with the way
your brain is working. Your brain may become overloaded with information and
shut down for a short while when faced with a threatening feeling, situation,
thought or memory.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
“I’d like your permission to contact your parents and then
maybe you and I can meet once a week. Is that okay with you, Alison?”
I sighed and rubbed my palms over my eyes. “I guess.”
“Sometimes the first attacks are related to an upsetting or
frightening experience, or some other great loss or change and I would like to
help you work through these issues.”
