Incandescence

16: Malice

I shouldn't be doing this but nothing, least not my conscience, can stop me. I peer past the door, into the room. It's a near empty art class, filled with several rows of matching tables and metal stools. On the front desk a pile of Masonite boards are stacked one on top of the other, and a full sized mannequin stands in the corner, decorated with students' colourful hat designs.

I say near empty, because at the teacher's desk sit two people facing one another. One is a faintly familiar woman, with glossy white-blonde hair styled in a neat bob and a statuesque figure swathed in a formal black business suit. The other is a teenage girl. I narrow my eyes, unsure if what I'm seeing is just a mirage. But it's without a doubt real. It's Alice. Alice crying.

My thoughts whir. I'm so used to the picture perfect Alice I've known and despised the last seven years, but this Alice is a different person. Pale and quiet, mascara staining her cheeks. The older woman scowls, and I realise how I know her. She's Alice's mother, Diana Crowley, businesswoman and always the first to get her word in at PTA meetings. The resemblance between her and her daughter is uncanny: the same sharp, angular features, the same depthless eyes, cool and dark and hard like sapphires. That same look of ruthless scorn, so evident in the negative tilt of her lips and the way she's narrowing her eyes.

But compared to her mother, Alice is a pale shadow.

"I always told your father not to spoil you," Diana says and glares at her daughter. "I told him you needed to learn to do things for yourself, but did he ever listen?"

"I tried to find it myself, Mom. I did. But it's not here. I even got Kale to help me. He would've known if the book had been here at all."

"Kale." Diana Crowley tests the name on her mouth before wrinkling her nose. "Tell me this, Alice: how long did you spend searching on your own before you had to ask for Kale's help?"

"Long enough. I've been hunting for it all month – no, longer than that. I'm falling behind in half my classes. She's showing up all the time now:  in my classes, when I'm trying to eat, in the common room. People have noticed something's off. They're asking questions, Mom. I need to get rid of her."

"Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you provoked her. I told you to ignore her, but you just had to go and rile her up, didn't you? And now that you've set her off, you expect her to just up and leave? Don't be ridiculous, Alice. Have I taught you nothing at all?"

"I know. I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean it. But she was – she kept . . . saying things."

"Like what?"

"I. . ." Alice trails off. Their conversation has thrown me for a loop. I shouldn't be concerned at all, but there's something reminiscent in the subject matter. The thing Alice and Kale have been searching for, the thing Diana Crowley desperately wants to find: it's a book, the one they must've been looking for that day in the library. But who's the girl?

The room falls silent and I snap my head up, expecting to see the duo walking my way, but they're both still seated, talking quietly now. I strain to hear the rest of the conversation.

"She knows all about those bombs – and the murders – and Mason's disappearance, too," Alice says. "But she won't tell me anything."

"Of course she won't tell you. She's just lying to get your attention."

"Yeah?" A faint smile creeps onto Alice's face. "So I take it she was lying when she told me what she knew about you as well, Mom?"

Diana stiffens. "What did she tell you?"

"What's up, Mom? Got something to hide?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"The secret's out, Mom. Now I wonder what Dad would say if I told him what you get up to when you're away on all those 'business trips'. Wait . . . is that a divorce I'm seeing in the works –?"