Isa had not often had reason to be in the headmaster's office at Croft Prep. She'd been sent there only once, a couple of months into her first year. It had been a waste of everyone's time: the school nurse had glimpsed a small series of cuts on her arm, and misinterpreted their significance. Cutting had never been her coping go-to, and yet she found herself sitting across from Mr. Harris, the nurse having chosen not to believe her explanation. The truth was that she had been pet-sitting a neighbour's reluctant cat while at home during her solitary Thanksgiving break; she'd attempted to make friends with it, and had her arm savaged for her trouble. Still, when the summons came to speak with the Head, she couldn't very well refuse.
Mr. Harris was a brand-new headmaster, but he moved as though he He had floated her a look of insufferably phoned-in sympathy as she entered, and he had patted the seat of the vacant chair across the desk. This feat required him to stoop forward awkwardly and extend a spidery arm to its maximum reach. Perhaps he had seen this gesture somewhere, and had decided that it communicated an acceptable level of sympathy. Harris never invited a student onto his side of the desk, for it was far too easy for a man in his position to be accused of things that he had only ever thought about doing.
He settled back into his chair, tented his fingers, and adopted a tone that Isa was clearly supposed to interpret as caring, but actually made him sound .
"Piper."
"Sir."
"Piper, I hear you've been under some stress."
"Well, Sir...."
He cut her off. "I'm very sorry to hear that, very sorry indeed. I don't want you stressed, Piper. I think that that might make your family very unhappy, to hear that you've been stressed... and that you have been... dealing with it in ways that are perhaps not ideal."
She kept her expression neutral. Let him fuss at her for a bit, then. She could just nod. Her only alternative was German class, after all. She was sick of explaining herself to people who weren't listening.
"Yes, Sir."
"Indeed. Indeed." And then: "Have you told your mother about your... troubles, Piper?"
"No, Sir."
"Because I shouldn't, if I were you. It would only worry her, you know. Much better to tell Reverend Turner. I can certainly set up a meeting with the Reverend, should you require one."
As Harris launched into a monologue about the importance of self-discipline and fresh air, Isa had zoned out and spent a few minutes idly examining the wall behind his head. And because she wasn't listening, she missed some sort of question, a fact that only dawned on her when his drone abruptly dropped off, and it was clear he was awaiting a response of some sort. She refocused, and met his beady blue eyes, which were bright with irritation. He knew she hadn't been paying attention. What had he asked?
"Piper, do you suppose your grandfather will be attending any of our events this year?"
This question was so far removed from the last thing that she'd heard him say that Isa could only blink stupidly, and wonder exactly how long the man had been talking.
"My grandfather, Sir?"
"It's just that we'd be thrilled to have him. Would you be able to convey that to him when you see him at Christmas? He's a busy man, I quite understand, but surely he'd like to see how you're getting on at his Alma Mater?"
Isa was now thoroughly lost.
"At his Alma...my grandfather, Sir?"
And then the light had dawned and she'd made the connection, and she'd longed to laugh in his face.
Samuel Piper, one of the school's oldest and most generous alumni-donors, was a man with whom Isa shared a last name, and absolutely no other tie - of blood, or of anything else. A famous recluse, Piper hadn't been to the school in ages, but still reliably made a donation every year - the sort of donation that built a new academic wing, or three or four. One of her classmates, petite, golden-haired Eliza Doucette, was actually related to Samuel Piper somehow - Isa had heard her say as much, once. Great niece? Maybe. She couldn't recall. But Harris, still new in his post, had clearly had no direct contact with the man, gotten his wires crossed, and assumed that Isa was the relative, because of the shared last name.
And she could have told him that he was wrong - but that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. Isa arranged her features into what she hoped was a ruminative expression, and pursed her lips.
"Sir, I do think I heard my grandfather mention something about trying to make it up here this semester. It would have to be a quick visit, of course - he's in the middle of a big merger, and there are delicate negotiations ongoing."
Harris had straightened, his eyes gleaming, his unnervingly long fingers drumming an unconscious tattoo on the desk. He was positively aglow with excitement.
Isa had leaned forward a little - just enough.
"The thing is, Sir... Grandad is harassed by the media everywhere he goes, and it weighs on him - causes him a huge amount of stress. He's getting on in years, you know? He'd likely choose to come without much warning, and just have them land his helicopter on the soccer pitch."
Harris nodded with his whole body, with his whole being. He rose, and made his way to a window that overlooked the common, hands clasped self-importantly behind his back.
"I quite understand. How very tiresome that he should be hounded in such an undignified way." He appeared to conduct a brief visual inspection of the common below.
"Isadora, please tell him that I can have the school ready to receive him at a moment's notice, whenever he is available. Please convey to him that it would be my honor to accommodate him whenever he might find time." Although he'd said her name, he wasn't speaking to her anymore, but gave the impression that he was merely thinking aloud. "I'll instruct them to change into their dress uniforms, of course. Piper would like that, an old boy with a sense of tradition and decorum. I'll make sure that he sees us at our best."
He turned back, and smiled a smile that at once communicated his genuine delight at the information she'd given him, and also the fact that he was done with her. He had, of course, quite forgotten why she'd been sent to see him in the first place. Isa had excused herself soon afterwards, and had run back to Peyman to giggle over the interaction with Cass and Daphne. And all three girls had taken great delight in the fact that from that day onwards, whenever they glimpsed Harris across the common, or outside the Dining Hall, or out on the soccer pitch, he was anxiously scanning the skies for rogue helicopters.
Of course, it had come out eventually that Isa's family wasn't nearly as impressive as Harris had hoped, and that, in fact, she was just as useless to him as most of the other students that he was charged with educating. Though many of her classmates were the children of high-level diplomats and titans of industry, she herself was at Croft Prep because her parents had signalled an unwillingness to share a house with her any longer.
When she saw the headmaster ever after, he would smile a tight smile and look away immediately. He had never made reference to the conversation again, as he wasn't someone who dealt well with embarrassment (least of all his own).
But, of course, it wasn't what Harris thought of her that concerned her. No, she hadn't lost any sleep at all over that. Rather, it was the large, antique-looking map that she had just remembered was plastered over the back wall of his office. And so she set out, Midas at her side.
***
She peeked around the side of the building in a way that might have looked almost comical, from a distance. If there had been anyone left to laugh, of course. Midas, who was sticking close to her legs, clearly thought she was playing some sort of game, and gambled around her feet in a way that would have made her instantly visible from nearly every direction. But no sign of the creature, so that was something.
The Thing. The Creature. I'll have to call it something else, she thought, even if I never tell anyone else about it. Because who would believe her, assuming she did live long enough to tell someone? It wasn't a creature: Midas, snuffling around her ankles, was a creature. She herself was a creature. This thing simply couldn't be defined in the same sort of terms. Nor, really, did the word Thing do it justice. A thing was something dormant and comparatively mundane, something devoid of feeling: an object – a chair, or a rope, or a flashlight. No, this being deserved a word all its own, a collection of syllables devoted utterly to describing its specific and impossible horrificness. The way it had moved, and groped forward, and bled. The way it had seemed to seep agony and rage from every pore, to define and embody every nightmare she'd ever had. And so it was that she began thinking of it as Stagger.
Cautiously, she rounded the building, Midas following. As she came around in a wide arc, the front doors hove into view, and yes, they were still open. The darkness that loomed up behind them was infinite and otherworldly, even though Isa knew it was only the oak-panelled and violet-carpeted entrance hallway that lay beyond them. The dog passed his tongue lightly over her foot, and, after three days, she nearly keeled over at the unexpected suddenness of the touch. She breathed deeply, and proceeded forward, hoping - praying - that Midas might at least alert her with a bark or whine if Stagger were approaching.
As they drew closer to the entryway, she was scanned the front of the building carefully for movement. And so it was that she found herself standing directly in front of the doors before she had finished working up the courage to cross the threshold. As she passed under the archway, something crunched softly under her feet and she glanced down. A coarse dusting of grey powder covered the normally immaculate hardwood, and she could see now that it was lightly scattered inwards across the floor of the hall. She looked up and immediately found the source: the door lintel had cracked, and was crumbling at the edges. In fact, when she stepped back, it almost looked as though someone had taken a small chisel or hammer to the entire door frame, and had chipped away at it for a while, in a sort of lazy, half-hearted attempt at vandalism.
Experimentally, Isa reached a hand up and brushed it against one side of the door jamb. It was like wiping a light dusting of snow from a windshield: her hand came away covered in grey powder. She watched as the surface of the stone she had touched appeared to disintegrate ever so slightly. She held her hand up in front of her face in the sheltered half-light and examined the powder - the texture was almost chalk-like between her fingertips. Was this why the doors had come ajar? Some kind of structural damage? What in the world could have caused this?
But she was on a mission, and of the odd things happening around her, a crumbling door jamb ranked fairly low. It took no coaxing at all to get Midas to follow her into the main building, and she steeled herself to walk down the hallway past the lower offices.