SANTA MARIA HIGH (COMPLETED)

Part Three: 9

Evangeline's words echoed in her mind in snatches that clanged and revved in overdrive making her head ache. She hastened up the stairs towards the Principal's office. Steadying herself with the banister. Mr John wanted to drop her at the manor house, but she had refused. She couldn't just go sit down doing needle work and hoping for the best. She wasn't in the state of mind to be alone.

Again, the pictures returned with the sounds, and she was playing the piano feverishly, then the applause of many shadows. It was all real. It had all been real. Whatever protected her memories from the nightmares were crumbling. It all began with Hope, the encounter with Evangeline seemed to have done the job.

She stopped at the landing, tried to catch her breath before moving on. She saw the dog eared leather bound journal. Her girlish fingers were reaching for it. Maybe it could all stop, but she wasn't sure she wanted to make it stop if it could help.

The door was ajar. Charles was pacing the room, his arm folded behind as he made repeated an arc around the table, he was reaching for the phone when his face wandered to her presence. He did a double take. "I didn't know you were standing there. Please take a seat." There was no time for needless pleasantries. Madam Rosalind silently sat. "I have doubled the search parties. Everyone else is accounted for."

"except five students and a gardener in three days! Missing!" she reined her tone down, and palmed her face. "how did we let this happen?"

Mr Charles looked forlorn, shook his head, then waved his hand in a placating gesture, "the police have taken over the situation and advice that school activities be suspended."

Just hours ago she had flared against the very notion. At the moment she felt powerless to resist, it was the most logical solution.

"I'm sorry about the situation. But I'm doing the best I can, and I'm pulling every resources to this. They will be found." He tried to sound convincing. But Madam Rosalind wasn't convinced.

Then came the memory again, just within reach, the sight of the dog eared journal, the cursory handwriting of the Santiago... she was a young girl just hiding in the cellar when she came across the chest, she opened it and found the book. Her fingers twitched as she recalled flipping through the earlier parts where she only saw curious signs and inscriptions in languages she didn't' understand, codes, she had thought. There was the part that was written in English, it was all there, the direction, she could feel it coming in better detail...

"Are you alright?" Charles's baritone cut through the frenzied wheel churning information in her head. She wished for an aspirin to soothe the ache. She tried to stand up, her vision swirled, she saw clouds and shadows, and felt the ground shift from beneath her. She gently reposition herself on the chair.

"can I get a glass of water?"

The principal came back moments later with a mildly sweating glass of cold water. She took a sip. Leaned back on the back rest and let the memories run their course.

"Louise jnr... the shadow..." she thought of Hope, the poor girl. Her heart raced, her mind conjured obscene visions and in it all she saw death. Memories that never seemed connected before seems to surface now, every student that had died, their faces, the faces of their parent. She had thought it was random. On the noose, she saw Louise, eyes bright yellow, staring at her. Hope. It all comes down to her. "Hope." Madam Rosalind said, "Hope Mark, I need someone to fetch her." she took another sip. "I need the girl; she may have answers."

The way the young man looked before he responded was a dead giveaway. "She is one of the students missing." Her mouth gaped. She never asked who was missing. "And the gardener seems to be..." Principal Charles' returned to his seat. "He was with them."

"Andy." Madam Rosalind muttered, again dumbfounded. Her frayed mind had a thousand and one conjured image of the gardener and the things she chose to ignore when he was hired. "He was once a student here."

"He was seen with the students earlier, he left with them from Mr Haruna's office. That was the last anyone saw of them." he sighed, "the police are looking into every possibility. We know nothing yet."

"I should have listened." She said. "I should have known."

"we made a mistake." The man replied.

Madam Rosalind wasn't sure if the man understood what she had meant, but she decided right then not to let it matter what she sounded like. "Let's not make anymore." She said looking at the man square in the eyes. She saw the doubt and uncertainty.

"what are we going to do?"

"we can't sit down and do nothing." She didn't know which better way to put it, and was done with trying to make sense of it all. "I think I know where they might be."

There was a concerned look on his face, the sort people give before asking if you're smoking something strange. "I've lived here for the most of my life. You need to trust me on this. Call Mr John to meet us with two officers."