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Denby didn't come back to class. Patricia did, five minutes after she left. For the rest of the time, Joy sat at the front of the classroom, watching us with hawk-like eyes. It's practically a miracle when the bell rings and we all leave the room as quick as we can. Patricia gathers us together between class and informs us that she saw, through our peephole in the bathroom, Denby taking files from one of Sweet's cabinets. She tells us that she deliberately ran into her and caused her to drop the files and she saw what the files were—student files.
Specifically, files on the following students: Patricia Williamson, Eddie Miller, Alfie Lewis, Fabian Rutter, KT Rush, and Ashley Adams.
Eddie and I couldn't find KT's file when we looked; she must've gotten one in the past couple of days. Or maybe Sweet just had it in a locked cabinet to trick us or something. I don't know. But still, Denby took our files. But why? What's in there she doesn't already know? Eddie and my statuses as the Osirian and Bringer of Death respectively aren't in there. There's just normal school stuff in there.
"Why does she want to secretly read up on us?" Fabian questions. Patricia shrugs.
"I don't know," KT says from behind us. "We've got to find out."
"If Frobisher's awake," Eddie states, "it's way too dangerous to keep going to the gatehouse."
"If this was a movie," Alfie remarks, "we'd send in a surveillance team and bug the place."
Okay, Alfie needs to continue fake-suggesting things that we agree are actually brilliant because he keeps on saving the day. Fabian puts an arm around him and says, "Alfie, you're a genius."
We're gonna bug the gatehouse.
—
I don't know how Alfie got his hands on spycams within hours of school ending, nor do I think I want to know, but he did. He also brought back with him a potted plant to test it out in and he set that one up in the kitchen so we can see if it works. He's just come back and we crowd around Eddie's computer, watching the events in the kitchen play out in real time. Trudy's drying dishes as she hums.
"That's brilliant!" Eddie exclaims.
"Yeah, way to go, Alfie," I add. "When in doubt, we turn to him from now on."
Alfie smiles. "We know the cameras work. All we need to do now is plant them in the gatehouse and bingo, we can find out exactly what Denby's up to."
I nod. "Okay, so how do we plant cameras in the gatehouse if Frobisher's awake and walking around it? Not to mention Denby."
"We have to make sure she's gone," KT states. "Frobisher's... gonna be tricky, though."
—
The sun's set by the time we finally see Denby leave the gatehouse, which means Operation Spycam is a go. Patricia and Alfie opted to stay behind and make sure no one misses us too much, so it's just Fabian, Eddie, KT, and I who sneak into the gatehouse. It's quiet. Part of me briefly doubts if Frobisher's even around.
"Okay, Denby's gone," Eddie whispers as Fabian shuts the door back, "but Frobisher could be anywhere." He puts a finger to his lips to tell us to be super quiet. Like we weren't gonna do that anyway. We just broke into a teacher's home, a guy who's supposed to be dead could be awake, of course we're not gonna throw a rave and start blasting Taylor Swift music!
"Okay, I'll get the great hall," Fabian tells us as we go up the stairs.
"I'm coming with you," I say, following him as Eddie plants our first camera atop a frame in the hall. I make sure the camera in my pocket is still there as Fabian and I silently enter the great hall, where we thought we stopped the ceremony. I have to stand on my toe to plant mine on the top shelf of a bookcase, right beside a small statuette of Anubis. Fabian sticks his underneath a piece of furniture in the room.
All of a sudden, a strange pounding and clicking sound fills the room. Fabian and I share a look before he grabs my arm and pulls me back out, and the four of us go down the stairs quickly, sneaking out the way we came. Mission accomplished.
—
So, since Mara and Willow have effectively kicked all girls out of our rooms, since they were going on with their plan to out Atticus as a cheater and/or stress him out enough that he confesses (Willow's planned a picnic in Patricia/hers-starting-tonight, KT, and Joy's room, and Mara's planned a study date in mine at the same exact time), it'll be a while before any of us can return. That's good with me for the moment; we need to see if our cameras are working.
And, as we find out when we join Patricia and Alfie in our Sibuna room, they are. Perfectly. We can see everything that's going on in the gatehouse with the click of a button.
"Amazeballs," Alfie remarks. "I mean, yeah, cool-ish. I mean, I knew it was gonna work. Naturally."
"It doesn't look like anyone's home," Patricia comments.
I shake my head. "There's someone there. We heard footsteps."
"And," Fabian adds, "they can't be Denby's because we saw her leave."
"It's Frobisher," Eddie says. "It has to be."
"Oh, not this again," Alfie mumbles. "I don't want to hear it. Laundry." He leaves out the door. Guess he's tired of hearing that Frobisher's awake, huh? I'd like some proof first before we officially have our early-life crises.
KT leans toward the screen. "Turn it—turn it up." Fabian turns the volume up on the camera she pointed to, the one I stuck on the bookcase. What we hear is chill-inducing. A woman crying, begging for something. That's not what we want to hear.
Fabian turns the volume down a bit so it's not so loud, and for a short while, we're stunned into silence. Patricia asks finally, "Are you sure the camera, like, isn't faulty?"
Fabian shushes her and leans closer to the screen. The crying and begging continues. "It's probably just feedback," Eddie says, but I don't even think he believes himself. I glare at him.
"Someone," the voice begs desperately, "please let me out."
"Now I'm pretty sure," Fabian says, "that said 'let me out.'"
"It did," I confirm. "There's someone there."
KT looks back to the screen and tells us to look. A blonde figure's coming into the cameras' view, Denby. Patricia asks who that voice is and we shush her, watching the screen. "Quiet!" Denby tells the voice. "Quit your sniveling or I'll put you back on rations."
"Oh, that was definitely Denby," Patricia says. "She was telling someone to be quiet."
"Who?" KT asks, and then she adds, "My great-grandpa." I look at her inquisitively. That was definitely a female voice we heard. It can't be Frobisher. "What if we have it all wrong? What if he's the one Denby has locked up?"
"KT, if Frobisher's awake, he's gonna be evil," Eddie reminds her. "Remember what the fable said: woken into servitude to the underworld."
"Just because it's in some old book doesn't make it true. Maybe Denby's the evil one."
"She doesn't have Frobisher locked up," I tell her. "That's a woman's voice wanting to be let out. It's not Frobisher crying and begging, KT."
"Listen," Fabian interrupts as she begins to respond to me, "whoever it is that's locked in there, they're in trouble."
"We need to check it out," KT says. "I failed him once. I'm not going to do it again."
"We'll go with you," Eddie decides, "after lights' out. Sibuna?"
"Sibuna," we chorus, our right hands over our right eyes.
—
"How's Operation Vengeance going?" I ask Mara and Willow, finally safe to enter our room after we watched Atticus leave. Joy's there as well, just like Patricia is with me. KT went straight to bed, trying to get some sleep before we sneak out. "He confess yet?"
"We saw him run out of the house," Patricia adds. "He nearly knocked us down the stairs."
"We're still working on it," Mara answers sadly. "I was hoping it would be just tonight. But Alfie did overhear us talking about our plan and he gave us some more ideas. Said he was hoping to recycle some of the ideas he didn't get to use when Evan cheated on you, Ashley."
"Oh, are you gonna egg Atticus' room?" I say. "That's one of the ideas he and Jerome had."
"He has a roommate," Mara says. "We figured it wouldn't be fair to the innocent one."
"Oh, Patricia," Joy says, "what would you do?"
Patricia thinks on it for a minute. "I don't think you want to know."
Mara, Joy, and I take it at her word. Her brain, she's gonna come up with something that'll probably end with Atticus Monroe or any other boy who dares to cross her in hospital. Willow, however, doesn't get the memo. "I want to know!"
"You really don't," Patricia says. Willow frowns, but finally decides not to question Patricia anymore.
—
After ten o'clock hits and we hear Victor do his nightly sermon, I watch the minutes tick down on my clock. We agreed we were gonna meet downstairs at eleven, giving everyone else enough time to fall asleep. Alfie's the only Sibuna not included in our plan, considering we think he wouldn't want to come even if we told him. So, at eleven, I meet Patricia and KT in the hallway and go downstairs with them, and when Fabian and Eddie come out of their room, we get going.
The voice is still sobbing in the gatehouse when we get there. They want out and they're hitting things now. It's coming from a door in the great hall, which we file into. There's another hallway and more doors, and we follow the sound until we find its source. Patricia leans her ear against the door but jumps backward when whoever's on the other side hits something again.
I don't miss Eddie protectively putting his hand on Patricia's shoulders. But, you know, not my priority. KT whispers through the door, "Who's there?" She tries to open the door but it's locked. Now how do we get in?
Eddie's got the answer. There's a glass bowl on a tray with a set of keys in it, and he takes them out. He tries every key until one of them unlocks the door. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck standing as he slowly opens the door, letting Denby's captive's face be clear to us.
The real Harriet Denby.