Seconds later, the doors swing open and the girls pour in.
They chirp and chime as they spill across the room. The younger ones glance her way and whisper, but as soon as she looks back, they skitter past, like insects, to the safety of their sheets. The older ones do not look at all. They pretend she is not there, but she knows the truth: They are afraid. She has made sure of it.
Olivia was ten when she showed her teeth.
Ten, and walking down the hall, only to hear her mother’s words in someone else’s mouth.
“These dreams will be the death of me,” it said. “When I am dreaming, I know that I must wake. But when I wake, all I think about is dreaming.”
She reached the dorms to find silver-blonde Anabelle sitting primly on her bed, reading the entry to a handful of snickering girls.
“In my dreams, I am always losing you. In my waking, you are already lost.”
The words sounded wrong in Anabelle’s high lilt, her mother’s madness on full display. Olivia marched over and tried to take the journal back, but Anabelle darted out of reach, flashing a wicked grin.
“If you want it,” she said, holding the journal aloft, “all you have to do is ask.”
Olivia’s throat tightened. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out, just a rush of air, an angry breath.
Anabelle snickered at her silence. And Olivia lunged. Her fingers skimmed the journal, before two more girls pulled her back.
“Ah, ah, ah,” teased Anabelle, wagging a finger. “You have to ask.” She sidled closer. “You don’t even have to shout.” She leaned in, as if Olivia could simply whisper, shape the word please and set it free. Her teeth clicked together.
“What’s wrong with her?” sneered Lucy, scrunching up her nose.
Wrong.
Olivia scowled at the word. As if she hadn’t stolen into the infirmary the year before, hadn’t scoured the anatomy book, hadn’t found the drawings of the human mouth and throat and copied every single one, hadn’t sat up in bed that night, feeling along the lines of her own neck, trying to trace the source of her silence, trying to find exactly what was missing.
“Go on,” goaded Anabelle, holding the journal high. And when Olivia still said nothing, the girl flicked open the book that was not hers, exposing the words that were not hers, touching the paper that was not hers, and began to tear the pages out.
That sound, the ripping of paper from seam, was the loudest in the world, and Olivia tore free of the other girls’ hands and fell on Anabelle, fingers wrapped around her throat. Anabelle yelped, and Olivia squeezed until the girl could not speak, could not breathe, and then the matrons were there, pulling them apart.
Anabelle sobbed, and Olivia scowled, and both girls were sent to bed without supper.
“It was just a bit of fun.” The other girl sulked, collapsing onto her bed as Olivia silently, painstakingly, tucked the torn pages back into her mother’s journal, holding close the memory of Anabelle’s throat beneath her hands. Thanks to the anatomy book, she’d known exactly where to squeeze.
Now she runs her finger down the journal’s edge, where the torn pages stick out farther than the rest. Her dark eyes flick up as she watches the girls file in.
There is a moat around Olivia’s bed. That is what it feels like. A small, invisible stream that no one will cross, rendering her cot a castle. A fortress.
The younger girls think she is cursed.
The older ones think she is feral.
Olivia doesn’t care, so long as they leave her alone.
Anabelle is the last one in.
Her pale eyes dart to Olivia’s corner, one hand going to her silver-blonde braid. Olivia feels a smile rise to her lips.
That night, after the torn-out pages were safely back inside their book, after the lights were out and the girls of Merilance were all asleep, Olivia got up. She crept into the kitchen, and took an empty mason jar, and went down into the cellar, the kind of place that is somehow always dry and damp at once. It took an hour, maybe two, but she managed to fill the jar with beetles, and spiders, and half a dozen silverfish. She added a handful of ash from the head matron’s hearth, so the little bugs would leave their mark, and then she crept back into the dormitory and opened the jar over Anabelle’s head.
The other girl woke screaming.
Olivia watched from her bed as Anabelle pawed at the sheets and tumbled out onto the floor. Around the room, the girls all shrieked, and the matrons came in time to see a silverfish wriggle out of Anabelle’s braid. Nearby, the ghoul watched, shoulders bobbing in a silent chuckle, and as Anabelle was led sobbing from the room, the ghoul held up a bony finger to its half-formed lips, as if vowing to keep the secret. But Olivia didn’t want it to be a secret. She wanted Anabelle to know exactly who’d done it. She wanted her to know who made her scream.