6. Elyssa
ELYSSA
A week into the school year, I already felt like I could barely breathe. I lost myself in the flood of studying and homework and it was a blissful reprieve. I had fallen into a peaceful although fast-paced rhythm, waking up early and going on a run with Briar, attending classes and doing my best to ignore the Russian monster in most of said classes, spending my free time at the library, then eating dinner with my friends and calling it an early night.
But today was Saturday and Mia decided I should ditch the library and go with her into town.
Longfield village was as small and quaint as you would imagine it to be. All buildings were made of stone and dated back to the mid-seventeenth century. From what I had read in history books, the village was initially made to house all of Seamus Longfield’s staff because that asshole thought there wasn’t enough room for them in the giant castle he had built.
Nobody knew exactly what he built it for. He was just a rich guy from England who randomly decided to ostracize himself to the end of the globe on a small island off the coast of Oregon.
As we walked, arms entangled, people stared at us unabashed. Townspeople didn’t exactly like us, even though we kept most of their small business afloat during the school year.
Longfield was not touristy, and if it wasn’t for us, it would be dead.
We arrived in front of Foams, the only coffee shop on the island, and Mia pushed the wooden door open. Immediately, the smell of ground coffee beans and sugar wafted to my nostrils. I loved coming here, despite how grumpy the owner was.
“Fuck, I need coffee so bad. I have no idea how I managed this past week.”
Coffee was forbidden at the Academy. As were alcohol and cigarettes, but I didn’t care about those, as I didn’t rely on them to study.
The most courageous of us bought ground coffee here so they could make it illegally in their dorms, but I was not risking the administration calling my grandfather for caffeine.
“Take a seat, I’ll order our usual!” She beamed and I listened, grabbing a spot before more students could come in and take all the seats.
Foams was the hangout spot during the school year. The only way getting in and out of the island was by boat and it was completely forbidden by school rules. Even getting off school grounds wasn’t permitted if you were a first or second year.
Looking around, I was glad to see the whole place was pretty empty, just old furniture and a fire going on in the fireplace. Then my eyes caught sight of a poster right on top of it, with the face of a smiling girl on it. She had blond hair and fair skin, and the words MISSING were written in bold right underneath. I frowned.
Longfield was a small island, so small in fact that you could walk around it in ten hours, so the idea of someone disappearing was scary. It obviously meant one of two things: either the girl simply ran away, which wasn’t impossible given how little opportunities there were on the island, or she had been taken, and that second scenario was scarier for obvious reasons. One of them being that, given how small the island was, it had to be someone she knew. Someone everybody knew.
“I got you a vanilla latte with double espresso.” Mia’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
I watched a little startled as she set the drink down in front of me.
Noticing the way my eyes kept going back to the poster of their own, she said, “Damn, there’s two of them?”
“What?” I frowned.
Mia gave a nod towards the bar. “There’s another poster there. I saw it when I was ordering, another girl. I swear Lewis was in an even more sour mood than usual when he served me.”
“Makes sense. They know most students at the Academy are from… sketchy backgrounds.”
“Yeah, well,” she took a sip of her coffee. “It’s not like we had anything to do with those girls going missing. We’ve only been back for a week. Plus, they probably ran away from this hellhole. God knows I would have.”
I couldn’t say she was wrong, but still, it seemed weird. It was quite a common occurrence for younger people to leave the island once they reached eighteen. There was no reason for them to run away unless, of course, they were from bad homes.
Still, it didn’t sit right with me.
The door chime echoed around us as a new customer entered the shop, and the soft patter of dog paws could be heard. A smile stretched on my lips as I immediately recognized Buxley. Buxley was kind of an institution at the castle, unlike his owner. Charles Leroy was a scrawny kid from my psychology classes. He was reasonably smart, but kind of a bore—and that was coming from someone who thought spending her Saturday night at the library, reading about the castle’s history, was a blast. But Charles had one advantage in life: he had Buxley, his service dog.
He was there to sense and warn his human of an upcoming epileptic attack, and he did a great job of it.
Everybody at the Academy loved Buxley, especially since he was the only animal allowed at school.
“Oh, look at that beautiful boy!” Mia cooed, pouting comically at the well-trained dog who didn’t move from his owner’s side. “So well-behaved too!”
I chuckled, finally taking a sip from my coffee and doing my best not to chug it all in one sitting. Lewis might have been a pain in the ass, but his coffee was honestly better than some coffee shops we had at home.
“Hey, guys.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d shut my eyes to enjoy the taste of coffee after a week without it. When I snapped them open, Charles was right next to our table and Mia took it as an opportunity to get in some cuddles with Buxley.
“Mia!” I hissed, gently chastising her. “He’s a service dog, he’s working. Stop distracting him.”
Charles chuckled and awkwardly ran a hand through his hair. “It’s okay. He loves it. I mean who wouldn’t like the attention of two pretty girls like you.”
Mia laughed and Charles didn’t know her enough to know it was a fake one, but I did. While I had been almost totally kept in the dark from the public eye by my family, Mia had always been under the spotlight. She attended all the family functions, all the galas, and fancy dinners they didn’t want me at. And she hated it too.
So, over the years, she managed to craft this cool girl persona; she knew when to laugh at people’s jokes and how to make a guy feel like a king even when he was nothing but a measly jester.
Charles gained in confidence as she smiled up at him, deciding to strike up a conversation with her.
And just like that, I had been forgotten.
I didn’t mind and decided it was time to refill the coffee I had already finished. Mia gave me a side-eye look when she noticed me get up, but Charles didn’t even seem to see me.
I made my way up to the bar where old Lewis, who seemed to be running the shop alone today, had his back to me. Immediately, the second missing person poster caught my eye.
Lauren Leigh and Ashleigh Deivers.
Those were the names of the girls in the pictures. Where the other was a blond, Lauren was a redhead, but both looked gorgeous. They were twenty, so about my age.
It sounded weird for twenty-year-old girls to just run away. Unless they were doing it from someone.
“What do you want?” I jumped, startled by Lewis’s rumbling voice.
The older man was staring at me with distrust written all over his face like I could jump him anytime.
The fact that I came up to his chin and that he was at least two dozen pounds heavier than me made the thought of me jumping him quite comical.
“Hey, Lewis. It’s good to see you too,” I answered calmly and he rolled his eyes.
“Another vanilla latte bullshit?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “You know, if you were a little nicer, maybe you’d get more tips,” I said, eying the empty jar on the counter.
“I don’t need y’all’s money. Just pay me what you owe me, kid.”
I did, pushing a five-dollar bill onto the counter as he prepared my order. I kept my eyes on him the whole time in case he decided to spit in it.
“Is there any news on the girls? The ones that went missing.”
Lewis was pouring milk into the cup and he stopped mid-air. Turning his head towards me, he squinted his eyes curiously. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” I shrugged. “I hope they’ll find them. Or that they’ll come back.”
“They won’t.” Lewis put the milk pitcher down on the counter with a little more force than usual. “These poor girls are probably dead by now.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes, sadness and grief coming off of him in waves. It made my throat constrict and shivers come down my spine.
“Why would you say that?” I almost whispered, bringing his gaze back to me.
“This isn’t the first time you freaks have caused us grief.”
“This has nothing to do with us,” I defended fervently. “We’ve only been back for a week.”
“It has everything to do with you criminals up there in your fancy castle.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” he sneered, leaning over the counter to get in my face. His was drowned in anger and hatred, like it wasn’t me he was seeing right then, but somebody else, somebody who was responsible for his hurt. “Because it’s happened before. And you guys might have gotten away years ago, but you won’t this time.”