Page 29
At the main steps, two men drag black body bags through the snow. The zippers rasp like teeth. A student gasps, realizing she recognizes one of the boots still sticking out, only to turn away before she can be certain.
Behind her, a rescue worker calls for more stretchers. “I found three more in the kitchen!” he shouts. “They’re still breathing!”
The words hang in the frigid air. No one answers right away.
Search dogs weave through the drifts beyond the courtyard, noses low, tails high and stiff. They bark once, sharp and sudden, and a cluster of rescuers break off toward the northern wing, shovels in hand. The snow is deeper there, piled high against the windows.
Near the entrance, the headmaster stands with a rigid spine, wrapped in a coat someone else must have given him. His lips are pale as he does his best to answer questions he doesn’t seem to understand. He appears less frazzled than he had the night before, not quite so paranoid.
“Where is the furnace located, sir?” a man in a well-tailored suit with a dark wool coat and a notepad in his hand asks Whitmore.
The headmaster blinks as if waking from a dream. “The—the furnace? Below the east stairwell, near the old archives. Is all of this because I…”
The rescuer has already turned away, barking orders.
A pair of workers dressed in those post-apocalyptic suits and masks sprint back inside, making a left at the divide in the entrance, heading to the east wing. One holds a toolkit, the other a flashlight. They disappear through the doors, stepping into the building’s gaping mouth as though into a tomb.
They’ve been given no explanation yet, besides the knowledge that for the first time in weeks, breathing is no longer a threat.
Chapter 16
Five Days Before Christmas
Her friends had been getting ready with her before the party. If they’d been asked, they’d have said how excited she was to wear the pink and red, knee-length dress with the tiny floral appliques and pearl centers she had sewn herself for the very occasion. Her smile was wide as she’d twirled around the room, swaying her hips to the music playing from her record player. Her long, frizzy curls had swirled around her shoulders, a wide smile curving her lips.
But they couldn’t have seen her inner turmoil.
The way her stomach churned around the small piece of bread she’d allotted herself knowing she needed something to settle her stomach and soak up the alcohol she was sure to consume. She always drank too much when she was in public, especially with Adrian on her arm. She told herself it was nothing more than a little liquid courage, but what might she need courage for?
The young women were all smiles and joyous laughter, leaving her to meet their dates with Philomela’s promise to find them soon.
After they’d exited her room and made their way down the hall, she’d slid the lock in place and slipped into her bathroom, lowering herself before the porcelain throne she so often used to carry away the remnants of the nutrients she was determined to expel from her body. Her nobbly knees pit into the cold tile, one hand frigid and white, gripping the porcelain to steady herself as she slid two fingers down her throat, forcing her body to comply with her demands.
As she released the bilious contents of her stomach into the toilet basin, her mind blurred, the screen of nasty words and reminders of her inadequacy shoved at her.
“Are you sure you need to eat all that?”
“Wow, Mela. Save some for the rest of us.”
“You can be ugly, stupid, or fat. Not all three.”
“Maybe if you lost some weight, you could’ve been a model like your mother.”
“What was it like being the uglier twin? Do you ever think about what a relief it must be to be rid of him, no longer standing in his shadow?”
“Always so damn clumsy, Mela.”
“If your head wasn’t screwed to your body, you’d surely lose that too.”
The memories continued to assault her, morphing from ones that fed the beast that was her body dysmorphia to words that clawed at the scabs covering her wounded heart.
And when her body had grown weak, cortisol rushing through her system, malnutrition and electrolyte imbalances throwing the pH of her blood into dangerous territory, she succumbed to the sickly poison clouding her vision and tainting her lungs.
The young woman who could brighten even the darkest of days found herself slipping into oblivion, and with a loud crack of her skull on the clawfoot tubs edge, she slumped to her death, never to see another sunrise crest the horizon or a rainbow break free after a summer storm.
She laid in that pretty dress she loved so much, her blood growing cold along with her still, beatless heart.
Chapter 17
