Chapter 1 #2
My bunk was the third in a line of twenty.
The room that we slept in was poorly ventilated and at one time must have been a large storage unit.
Now it was used to store us. I rolled over, feeling my top bunk mate, Sally, roll over too.
She was also not asleep. But we wouldn’t talk.
None of us would say a word. If they caught us speaking, it meant dosage and solitary.
My hands started to shake, which must have meant that my extra dosage was wearing off.
There was what they gave us every day and then there was the additional “you’re in trouble dose.
” Neither was great, but this one made me feel like I was going to go into withdrawal when it stopped.
Maybe I actually was. Maybe this was how Phoenix Lent felt all the time. In constant need, like he was always at risk to go into withdrawal.
I hadn’t really understood it. I’d never done drugs or really seen them until I watched him take it up his nose at the last party. The last one I would ever attend. Even when I got out of here I absolutely wasn’t going to go to parties ever again.
I sighed as the memory came back in pieces.
That night, Maggie had drugged me. She was obsessed with Jeremy Lent because he’d slept with her once—long before he’d ever known me—and she’d slipped ecstasy into my drink.
Boy, had that hit me hard. I’d admit, the high felt good for a while, but the crash was brutal. Never again.
In that haze, not thinking straight and loving Phoenix Lent as much as I did, I made a choice. I took the large bag of ketamine out of his possession and let the police think it was mine so he wouldn’t get in trouble.
I rolled over to put my head face down in the pillow. Why didn’t I just throw the thing on the floor?
My family had taken every part of my life and used it against me. They’d made me out to be a criminal. And here I was. With a judge’s permission.
Alone. And powerless. The way I had been since my mom had died when I was eleven.
“Hey.” Sally jumped down on quiet feet. “Mrs. Hollister is snoring in her chair. I think she helped herself to some whiskey again tonight. Let’s get out of here for a bit.”
I loved how dangerous Sally could be. Betsy must have been on the same page because she swung her legs out of her bed. Well, if they were going, I was going. Sally. Betsy. Dora. Casey. And me. Maybe everyone else was asleep, or maybe they were smarter than we were.
On silent feet, I followed them from the room into the hallways. There were cameras, but we knew no one watched them at night. Why bother? There was a chaperone in the room with us meant to notice if we got up at all. Why pay staff they didn’t need to do that job?
I really didn’t know where Sally meant to go, but I was game. Last time it had been helping ourselves to cheese. There was no dessert here, but cheese was heaven.
We only got it on special occasions. There had been cheese on Christmas, before our special Christmas beating. I rubbed my hands. I was covered in scars from rulers and horse crops. I might never be able to go to the beach should I actually be able to tolerate one again.
But I almost turned around when I saw where she was headed. It was Mrs. Oates’ office.
“You can’t be serious?” I was glad Dora asked Sally so I didn’t have to.
Sally turned around. Both girls were beautiful. Sally with her dark hair and dark eyes, Dora with her light brown hair and green eyes. Sally came from Wisconsin and Dora from Arizona. They’d never have known each other, probably, if they hadn’t done something to earn their family’s disdain.
“I am. They’re letting twelve-year-olds in here now. Alatheia spent a week in solitary. I want to see what’s happening in the world. I want to know what Oates is doing, what she is planning. I think that is important for all of us.” She stared at me. “Don’t you, Alatheia?”
Well… I certainly didn’t want to discuss it in the hallway.
We were out here. We might as well go in.
I nodded, and she continued on her way, all of us following her.
It meant a beating if you were called into Mrs. Oates’ office.
I had never seen or heard Mr. Oates, so I didn’t know what his deal was.
Maybe he didn’t exist. Maybe she thought it made her seem more official to be a Mrs.
The headmistress was forty-something years old and very severe. Had she always been perfect for this job or fit herself to it after she got on this path? I really didn’t know.
“What are you worried about?” I asked Sally once we were inside.
“I’m worried this is like a growing business or something.
And don’t you think it’s weird that no one ever comes here to investigate?
Like, people leave. They must tell their families how bad it is here.
No one comes to look? I mean… I can’t believe my family actually knows what is happening.
They think I’m being fixed.” She tapped her foot.
Sally had a legitimate drug issue before she was sent here.
Out of all of us, she had actually done some pretty messed up things.
Like breaking and entering in a dentist’s office.
The dentist was her mother, but that didn’t really matter in the long run.
I had committed burglary too. In my aunt’s house, to get a folder about myself.
What would Kit do with all of that information now? It didn’t really matter, I guessed.
I looked around the office. That was ultimately the issue.
She didn’t believe her family would do this to her if they knew.
I thought mine might have done it earlier if they had.
Maybe they did know. Actually, no maybe about it.
My family was one hundred percent on board with this. I was sure of it.
I hated it in here. Mrs. Oates’ office was a nightmare incarnate; even during the day it was a dimly lit room with dark wooden walls that seemed to absorb the light.
This was where hope went to die. I’d never appealed to her for help, but I knew other girls did.
They begged. She didn’t give an inch. The heavy, imposing desk dominated the space, covered in papers .
Harsh portraits of stern-faced figures glared down from the walls. I didn’t recognize them. Her relatives?
This place was the heart of the prison masquerading as a school.
“Sally, do you really think she is hiding her secrets in here? Her plans just out where we can find them? And really, what will we do if we do find them?” I lifted an eyebrow.
Casey pointed at me. “What she said.”
“Well, maybe I just wanted to play on her computer for a while.” Sally grinned. “I mean fuck it, I want to see what’s happening in the world.”
She jumped down to sit in the big, stiff-looking chair, and I couldn’t help my own smile. Betsy grabbed my hand. “I know you’re shaky. Take it easy, okay? If you get dizzy, sit.”
“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”
My friend nodded. “We knew you were one of us the second we saw you. The cool girls here.” She winked. “Or maybe not. Maybe we are just all really fucked up.”
Casey groaned. “Don’t listen to her, Alatheia. She’s from Florida. All that sunshine made her a constant optimist. We people from Maine know better.”
Sally had gotten the computer on. “Any of you a hacker?” She looked around but none of us volunteered that information.
Phoenix was a hacker of sorts. That didn’t matter right now.
“Boo. You all suck.” She shrugged. “Not that I am. I was going to be a ballet dancer.” That made her snort.
“All right, what should we do? Oh, YouTube. I want to see some of that dancing Gus Monroe is doing.”
“No.” Betsy laughed, nudging her out of the way to enter the URL. “You can have your dancing in a second. Let’s do something snarky. Oh, the Poor Relation. They posted. A lot, actually.”
What? Now that wasn’t possible. I was the Poor Relation.
That was my creation, my baby. Betsy clicked on the link, and I watched the latest video.
It had been uploaded the day before. There was the other Poor Relation, not Gretchen but the guy I had invented who was like her but not.
She wanted him to be the Real Deal. He was arguing with someone.
He had to find Gretchen, and she wouldn’t talk to him.
She was off somewhere, and he was lonely without her, needed her.
His aunt, who only cared about what he could do for her, wasn’t interested.
I had absolutely not written this, although I liked it. And the movements of the characters were different than I would have done them. Not bad. Just… different.
One of the Lents must have done this. But why?
For what purpose? I had never made money on this because only in the days leading up to my being brought here had I even had a birth certificate—albeit a fake one—to use to open a bank account.
Not that they needed money. They had somewhere around twenty million dollars each in trust funds. Why do this?
The girls were about to move on when I stopped them. “Let me see that for a second? I am… ah… really into the fandom.”
Betsy took her hands off. “Sure. Go ahead.”
As fast as I could, I scanned through the comments. People were noticing that the story had changed. They hadn’t seen Gretchen in months and the Real Deal was so sad all of the time. They wanted it to move on. What had happened?
I chewed on my bottom lip. Should I do something here? Would it matter? Fuck. No one would notice.
I grabbed the keyboard and typed a comment. “Maybe the real creator is locked in a prison somewhere in the Caribbean and this isn’t the Real Deal?”
Without giving it any more thought, I hit send. That might be the last time I ever got to see my own channel.
Sally took the keyboard. “Dancing now.”
All right. I stepped back. How bizarre had that been?
“Can you imagine if that was true?” Betsy leaned on my arm. Her hands were shaking too. “If the creator of the Poor Relation was here too? I mean we know he or she isn’t. They’re making content. But it would be fun, right? I bet she could tell great stories.”
Great stories? I wasn’t the storyteller outside of Gretchen, the Poor Relation.
Julian was. He had written a whole play.
A good one. If he was here he would talk about ghosts.
The ghosts we carry around with us. In fact, he’d had the Black Dahlia as a character and had her tell stories about the ghosts around her in the play.
Who were my ghosts right now? My family. The Lents. The Poor Relation. The life I wanted but would probably never have .
“What ghosts are you guys carrying around with you?” I asked the room.
It was Dora who answered. “Hopefully none. It would be really spooky to be haunted.”
“This place could be haunted.” Casey smiled. “Can’t you see it? Ghosts all over this place.”
Sally ignored me. She was stretching her arms, maybe imitating the movements of what she saw on the screen.
It was Betsy who sighed. “I think I carry my mom with me. Her ghost. Do you carry yours?”
I nodded. “I do.”
All the frickin time. Why had she done this to me?
It was obvious Betsy was getting tired; she pressed her forehead to my arm. “Guys,” I spoke again. “Time to go.”
“You go.” Sally shrugged. “I’m not done.”
All right… that was her choice. Betsy and I left, Dora and Casey right behind us.
The snores of our drunk chaperone filled the room, with several others joining her.
I climbed into bed. I never wanted to do that again.
Not YouTube. My heart raced. I couldn’t see the Poor Relation ever again.
On one hand it was great it continued, it hadn’t been forgotten. On the other… what the fuck.
I closed my eyes.
When they found Sally asleep in Oates’ chair the next morning it went really badly for her.
It would be a whole two weeks until we would see her again, and when we did, she was bruised and couldn’t make eye contact with any of us.
What had they done to her? She didn’t tell us.
Just did her chores, took her assigned walks around the property.
All the light was gone. That’s what this place did. It destroyed us.