Chapter 1 Isolde
This place is fucked up. No two ways about it. The people. The decor. The atmosphere.
Everything here is old, cold, and done up as if they were getting ready to welcome Dracula back home.
Money. This place, these people, stink of it. The privilege drips off of them in perfumes and colognes that never made it to a Macy’s. I hate it, and yet I’m not here for me. I’m here for her. Casey.
Officer Cooper went missing last year after he’d called me and said he had a lead… vanished without a trace, and now I’m here to find out what exactly this place is about.
Believe me, I didn’t think I’d be accepted into this swanky ass Academy, and yet by some stroke of luck… ‘another one of the funded students has withdrawn her application and thus, there is one welfare spot available.’
I’m taking that to mean they murdered another girl. Maybe I’ll figure that out too and blow the roof right off this shit stye.
I drag the suitcase up three cracked stone steps.
The air reeks of rain and overripe roses from the defunct faculty garden next door.
The front doors of the house are older than most of the students’ parents, solid oak, carved with sigils that must be inside-jokes for dead men.
I don’t bother knocking. I shoulder it open and listen to the echo slam down the hall.
Inside, it’s cold and ugly and clean enough to pass the white-glove test, but only on the surface.
The corridor gapes ahead of me—no art, no plaques, nothing but a hospital-grade strip of overhead fluorescents and a carpet that’s trying to hide its original color under layers of cheap dye.
The first thing I notice is the silence.
No music. No TV bleeding from someone’s door.
Even the dorm ghosts must have called in sick.
I smell something fruity, too. Someone is here, but they’re quiet and it’s creepy as all hell.
My new home. Casey’s old one. I don’t flinch, but I do hesitate. The air is thick with memories that don’t belong to me yet.
I count the doors as I go: one, two, three, four—every single one labeled with an engraved gold plate, and every one left half-ajar as if they’re expecting a tornado or a search party at any minute. Only one is all the way closed.
I catch myself glancing over my shoulder twice in the first twenty feet, but the only thing behind me is my own reflection in the foyer glass.
At least, that’s what I tell myself. On the landing of the first staircase, I pause again because I swear I see a flash of color—auburn, unmistakable—disappear around the turn.
Logic says it’s the setting sun through a dirty window. Instinct says Casey.
Upstairs, the temperature increases by at least five degrees. The ancient boiler system is more suggestion than infrastructure. I’m about to make a joke about boiling to death when I remember there’s no one here to hear it.
My assigned room is at the end of the hall. Corner unit, good for hearing anyone approach. Bad for heat retention, but I’ve lived through worse. The door is painted a shade of white that’s trying to be friendly. The knob sticks and the lock jiggles, but I get it open after a second try.
First impression: smaller than I imagined, but at least I have a small hallway before I hit my bedroom, the other areas being a storage closet and a small sitting room. At least it has a couch and a small TV on an old dresser.
Second impression: the bedframe is bolted to the floor. Third: every surface, including the desk and the back of the door, is covered in a thick, clear lacquer, probably so the students can’t carve messages into the wood or bleed out and stain it.
There’s a standard issue comforter, two sheets, a built-in closet with a sliding door, and a desk facing the window. The desk is empty except for a single, blank notepad and a welcome letter. Through the bedroom closet is a modest bathroom, but at least I don’t have to share.
I ignore the letter and set my suitcase on the chair, then get to work.
I unpack slowly. Every item has its place. Clothes in the closet, books stacked by height on the shelf, toothbrush and razor set next to the sink. When I find the framed photo, I pause. It’s the only thing I packed with bubble wrap. I unwrap it slow, peeling the tape like I’m removing a scab.
The picture is from Casey’s last normal day. We’re on the beach at the north end of the lake, sunburnt and high on energy drinks and weed, her arm thrown around my shoulder. She’s got her head tilted at a weird angle, like she wants to take a bite out of the world. I prop the frame on the desk.
It feels weird. Knowing she stayed here. That I’m here now. That she’s gone forever and I need to figure out why.
I take the police reports out of the secret lining in my suitcase.
The manila folder is already battered and starting to split at the corners.
I flick through the pages, scanning the words I already have memorized: “Probable suicide. No evidence of foul play. Victim found in woods near hunting knife. Wounds sustained indicative of self harm. Closed case.”
Closed. That word makes me want to puke.
Casey would never commit suicide. The chance that the police were paid off to write this bullshit was high, especially when I knew my sister like the back of my hand.
Someone did this to her. I just have to figure out who.
I run my finger down the report, find the paragraph where they quote the Westpoint administration: “The Academy extends its deepest condolences to the Greenwood family. All efforts were made to support the student’s welfare.
” Lies. All of it. I know what “support” looks like here.
I’ve read the emails, the texts. I watched the security footage, what little they’d release after months of stonewalling.
I know who was last seen with my sister, and the Academy wants to make sure no one ever asks why.
I unroll the map. Standard campus issue, but I’ve marked it up with Sharpie and rage. Every building, every tunnel, every shortcut she could’ve taken the night she died. I pin it to the wall over my desk with the two pushpins I stole from the library on the way in.
The lake is a dark blue stain on the lower edge. I mark it with a red X.
I sit back and let the room settle around me. For a long time, I don’t do anything except listen. There’s a faint hum from the pipes, a rhythmic drip from the old radiator, and, beneath it all, the low, intermittent moan of wind through the cracks in the window frame.
I run my thumb along the edge of the police report. A cut forms and itches, the blood wells and recedes.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry here. I don’t.
I don’t sleep either.
By seven the next morning, the hunger is winning. I ignore it as long as I can, but there’s only so many times you can reread a police report before the words stop meaning anything. I throw on whatever’s on top of the pile in the drawer and force myself down the hall. My steps make the floor groan.
The kitchen is twice as big as it needs to be.
The walls are painted a blue so pale it almost disappears, and the refrigerator is covered in a patchwork of magnets, takeout menus, and a single passive-aggressive note about cleaning up “biohazardous substances.” Someone has jammed a coffee maker under the ancient, hissing hood vent. The smell of burnt grounds lingers.
The first time I see Charlie, she’s sitting on the counter with her bare feet swinging above the recycling bin, spooning peanut butter out of the jar.
She’s wearing flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt that says “MATHLETES DO IT WITH INTEGRALS,” but the cuteness stops at her wrists.
Her nails are bitten to the quick and the skin around them is red and raw.
She sees me and beams. “Hey! You must be Isolde.” The name bounces out of her mouth in two bright, equally misplaced syllables. “I’m Charlotte but everyone calls me Charlie. Welcome to the fun house.”
I shrug, walk to the sink, and pour a glass of water. “You’re up early.”
She licks the spoon clean. “Couldn’t sleep. Noise travels in these halls.” Her eyes flick to the window, where the frost has drawn patterns across the glass. “You’ll get used to it. Or you won’t. Whatever.”
She hops down and starts loading dishes into the washer with unnecessary force. The clatter is probably deliberate. She has the energy of someone who’d rather shatter every mug in the building than let a conversation stall.
“So. What brings you to Westpoint?” she asks, not looking at me. The question is a formality and she knows it.
“Transfer,” I say. “My last place lost accreditation.”
She laughs, like it’s the first funny thing she’s heard all year. “Classic. They say Archer’s the most haunted house on campus, but honestly, it’s just a lot of bad wiring and worse plumbing. I’ll give you the five-cent tour if you want.”
She doesn’t wait for a response. She grabs her mug—a chipped, pumpkin-orange one—and sets off down the hallway, narrating as she goes. I trail after her, feigning interest.
“This is the main lounge, obviously.” She waves at the sagging leather sofas and the TV nobody has turned on in months judging by the dust. “Cleaning schedule is on the fridge. We are supposed to do our part, except Lucy, but she’s a lost cause.
Before you, there was another couple girls but they graduated, so now it’s just you, me and Luce.
Groceries are ordered online, just tell me what you want or you can order them yourself.
The delivery guy knows to leave it at the back door, because otherwise the basketball team will steal all the good shit. ”
“Oh… okay.”
Charlie’s smile slips for half a second.
“You’ll see. Just… steer clear, okay? They’re like a cult, but dumber.
” She gestures at a battered bulletin board next to the bathroom.
“If you want anything added to the grocery list, write it down. Unless it’s Nutella, in which case I have veto power. Allergies.”