Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
IRIS
His tall frame and broad shoulders filled the narrow hallway.
It took me several long seconds to force myself to meet his gaze, and when I finally did, my breath snagged painfully in my throat.
His face was drawn tight with emotion. His eyes were glassy, red-rimmed, his skin pale, and his jaw clenched as though he were desperately trying to hold himself together.
His hair was dishevelled, white strands standing out where his fingers had clearly dragged through it again and again.
He was so tense, so rigid, as he whispered, ‘Hey.’
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t… I found myself staring, unable to look away, and only then did I really see it – how utterly exhausted he looked. Wrecked.
‘I know I shouldn’t be here,’ he said quietly, his eyes flicking down the corridor outside my room before returning to me. ‘But I couldn’t leave it like this. Not without trying to explain. Not after everything.’
The silence stretched again.
His eyes shone with unshed tears, and my fractured heart skipped a beat.
‘Did you kill Isobella?’ I said abruptly. His face paled further, but he said nothing.
Seconds passed.
‘Well? Did you?’ I screamed the words at him, anger bubbling to the surface.
He began shaking his head violently. ‘No! No, I didn’t, Iris… I promise you. I may be a monster, but I’m not a murderer.’
‘What does that mean?’ I took a step backwards, frightened, my arms rising instinctively.
‘I will tell you everything, Iris, please…’ He paused. A single tear slipped silently down his cheek. ‘Please,’ he said again – pleaded – ‘I can’t cope with you being afraid of me… I promise you I can explain.’
My fingers tightened around the edge of the door. Every instinct warned me against it, but the look on his face – the quiet devastation – made it hard to breathe, let alone turn him away.
Quietly, hesitantly, I took another step back and whispered, ‘Fine.’ His shoulders sagged in relief, and my stomach twisted. ‘You can come in,’ I added quickly, the words rushing out before I could change my mind. ‘But if I ask you to leave, you promise you’ll go?’
‘I promise,’ he said without hesitation, though he looked distraught. ‘If you wish it, you’ll never have to see me again.’ His voice broke on the last word.
‘Okay,’ I said, though it came out thinner than I meant. I edged back until the backs of my thighs hit the bed and I could go no further, trapped between him and the wall. Suddenly, my room felt smaller than it ever had before.
Slowly, he stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a soft click, sealing us in together.
I swallowed.
He kept his distance, staying on the other side of the room, as though he knew exactly how afraid I was. I hugged my arms around myself, as if trying to physically hold myself together.
‘Can I sit there?’ he asked, gesturing towards the desk chair in the centre of the room. I nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He moved slowly, and I wondered if he had asked only because he knew he had been blocking my exit to the door before – and that shifting now might put me more at ease.
I really hoped this wasn’t all a sick joke.
‘You said you’d explain…’ I demanded, my voice stronger than I felt. I was surprised at how steady I sounded, completely at odds with how I truly felt. ‘So, explain.’
He took a deep breath, his entire body seeming to move with the effort. He looked down at his hands and didn’t look up for a long time.
‘Let’s start when I was fourteen.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Please, Iris…’
I frowned. ‘Fine.’
He looked painfully sad and, despite everything, my heart ached at the sight of him.
‘When I was fourteen, my mother and father left me to go on a trip. I told you that much,’ he said quietly. ‘But what I didn’t tell you was where they were going.’
He paused, swallowing. ‘They were travelling to Stonewall – to attend a school reunion. Here, at the university.’
My brows knitted together, confusion tightening in my chest.
‘My dad was an alumnus… like yours.’ He looked sympathetic at the mention of my father.
‘My mother didn’t attend Ashcroft, but she went with him on the trip anyway.
The morning she left, I remember she kissed me on the cheek,’ he swallowed, ‘and that…’ His voice broke.
‘That was the last time I ever saw her.’
‘You see, my mother made the journey. She travelled with my father. She attended the reunion. All was well,’ he said. ‘But what she didn’t do… was leave this island.’ His expression darkened. ‘Something happened to her when she was here at Ashcroft.’
‘You told me she committed suicide,’ I said.
‘That’s what the police told us.’
I considered that for a moment when a memory hit me. ‘…You told me you didn’t get to see her body at the funeral,’ I murmured, more to myself than to him.
‘Exactly. Listen, Iris… my mother may not have been happy, exactly – I mean, no one could be happy when we were living with such a psychotic, abusive arsehole. But the one thing I do know is that she loved me.’ He squeezed his eyes shut.
‘I need to believe that, as that’s what I’ve clung onto all these years…
the one thing that’s kept me going. I know that she wouldn’t have willingly left me with him. ’
He paused, his voice turning weak and quiet. ‘She wouldn’t have done that to me.’ His fists clenched. ‘Something is happening at this school.’
Realisation hit me like a blow – fast and hard. ‘That research hidden in the library… that was yours?’
He nodded once, slowly.
‘When I was fifteen, one year after my mum never came home, I left. My dad came home drunk and tried to kill me – I didn’t have a choice.
It didn’t matter that I had nowhere to go.
If I’d stayed, I would have died.’ My breath hitched.
‘So I used the small amount of money I’d saved over time – a few coins stolen from my father, just a few here and there so he never noticed – and I came here. To Stonewall.’
‘You… you’ve been here the whole time?’ I asked. That must be why no one knew where he came from – he’d always been here.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘Since I was fifteen. Keir actually took me in for a while, and when I turned sixteen he gave me a job at the pub.’ He smiled tightly.
‘Washing up, mainly – I was too young for anything else – but he kept me fed and gave me a roof over my head. He said he took pity on me because I reminded him of a younger brother he used to have who died, and I told him I’d lost my mother. ’
‘Oh… Archer,’ I breathed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? Iris, it’s more than you ever had.
I’m the one who’s sorry.’ He looked away from me and continued.
‘After a few years, rumours started to spread around Stonewall that a girl – a student from the university – had vanished. Just disappeared, and no one knew anything. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then the police seemed to refuse to investigate, and the world moved on as if it hadn’t happened. It stuck with me.’
He paused, drawing a breath.
‘A few years later… the same thing happened again. A boy this time. I finally decided to speak to Keir, to tell him I hadn’t just randomly chosen Stonewall that day all those years ago, and that I wanted to figure out what the hell had happened to my mother.
After that, he finally told me more about his “dead brother” – that he’d been a student at the school at the time he disappeared, and that he’d never received any answers from the police.
And just like that, it was as if everything clicked together.
All the pieces fell into place. Something was happening at Ashcroft. ’
‘I began researching old newspapers. I kept notes of all my findings. I subtly started interviewing people. I discovered that a lot of villagers and students alike would move away very suddenly, never to return. Their family members would often not understand why, or hear from them again.
‘Eventually, I decided enough was enough, and that if I wanted answers about this school, the best way was from within. I began teaching myself, studying all that I could. Then, when I was twenty-one, with a little help from Keir and his friends – my friends now – I began my official training. Four years ago, I finally managed to get a job here.’
‘A full year passed with nothing, and I thought everything was over. I thought I’d wasted all my years trying to uncover something that didn’t exist – like I was just chasing my own shadow and my own insecurity at losing my mother so young.
People had become wary, blaming the waters around the island, nicknaming it Aqua Mortuorum…
which translates to “Water of the Dead.”’ My eyes flicked up.
‘Over the last decade, the town and surrounding areas have grown suspicious of the water itself, thinking it was somehow cursed.’
He let out a soft, breathy laugh.
‘Then, finally, when I was in my second year of teaching, I was about to leave the grounds for the night to go back to Stonewall when I saw a group of masked men standing in a line on the outskirts of the forest. I don’t know how, but I knew they were there for me – and that they wanted me to follow them. ’
‘And did you?’
He paused before shooting me a solemn, regretful look. ‘I did.’
It was quiet for a long moment. The rain picked up outside, tapping against the windows. Archer put his face in his hands. He looked distraught. Ashamed.
‘You joined them? The people who call themselves Discipuli de Neptūno?’
‘I did,’ he said again. ‘Wait… how do you know that name?’
‘I—’ I paused. I couldn’t exactly say a dead girl told me. ‘I… found some research.’
‘But I took all your research…’ he said, and when he saw my frown, he quickly added, ‘I’m sorry, Iris. It’s not safe to know about the society. I only wanted to protect you.’
‘How do you even know that I know?’
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘You… what?’
‘I knew you were investigating the disappearances. I was there when you found my research.’
‘You were there?’