Chapter 5
SILAS
My eyes snap open abruptly, but it is pitch black around me, and I see nothing and have no awareness of where I am. My heart is hammering hard in my chest. I am covered in cold sweat, my mouth is dry, and I feel weak and shapeless, as if I were getting ill.
It takes me a few moments to realise that there is a pillow underneath my head and that my legs are tangled in a duvet. I’m in bed, in our bedroom. But try as I might to ransack my memory, I have no recollection of how I got here.
As my eyes adjust, I can just make out the looming white shape of our fitted wardrobe. And the curtained window to my left, and the compact shape of Roxana’s body wrapped in the covers next to me. She is lying on her stomach, dark hair pooling around her head.
With an impulse that seems to come from outside of me, I reach out my hand and lay it flat on the curve of her arse. And as I do, electricity rushes through me, searing through every inch of my being.
Something red flashes in front of my eyes, and I gasp at the intensity of it.
For a split second, I feel as if I were about to get the hardest erection of my life.
But the sensation’s gone before that happens.
Still, my fingers are squeezing Roxana’s flesh more firmly than I would have consciously wanted, which I only realise when she moans and stirs.
She raises herself on her elbows and tosses her hair back so that she can look at me.
“Sorry, Roxie ...” I croak, my voice raspy.
“Don’t tell me you fancy another round?” she says with a smile perceptible in her voice. “Seriously, what got into you today?”
“What?”
Is she drunk again? I know she’s been polishing off close to a bottle of wine a day since that night in November, even if she tries to hide it from me.
“Well, I’m all for it. You know me,” she drawls seductively, running a hand over my chest.
I grab her arm, pushing it away.
“What the hell are you on about, Roxana?” I ask, raising my voice.
She freezes, her body posture conveying the uncertainty that it’s too dark for me to see, but that I know will be etched on her face. A brief stab of guilt overshadows my vexation.
“Sorry, I’m just confused. I feel off. What did you mean, though, really?”
She straightens but mercifully keeps her hands to herself.
“I mean the absolutely incredible pounding you gave me earlier.” Her tone is still flirtatious, but there is hesitation in it now. “No wonder you’re drained after that Olympic performance.”
I suck my breath in, my mind whirring at full speed, and my whole world destabilising on its axis.
Clearly, one of us is going insane. And as much as I would have usually considered Roxana more likely of us two to go around the bend, I have to admit that the gap in my memory is like an accusing finger pointed in my direction.
What is the last thing that I do remember?
Going into Wilson’s office. And then nothing, hours just lost. And not in the same way that one may not remember an ordinary, mundane Tuesday three years ago.
Because even if memories of that have evaporated, there is a distinct sense of having lived that Tuesday.
While in this case, I feel as if those hours were taken away from me completely, hacked and torn out of the fabric of my life.
It feels as if I ceased to exist altogether for those hours.
No, wait, there is something I recall.
I remember ... dread. I remember being more afraid than ever before. But I have no idea what I was afraid of. With any luck, it was just an isolated psychotic episode, and I don’t need to worry about it.
Still, as I sink back into the pillow and close my eyes, I decide firmly that if it happens just one more time, I’m going to seek a mental health professional.
Unlike Roxana, who firmly refused to see a therapist even after the incident with Wilson last year, I’m not ashamed to ask for help when I need it.
“No, no, no. Thank you. No. I cannot wait three weeks, it’s happening too often for that.
No, no, I do not need to go to the emergency room but thank you ever so much for your concern .
.. no, no—goodbye!” Cutting the Eden Vale Psychiatry clinic’s receptionist off mid-sentence, I press the hang-up button and toss the mobile on my desk.
I rub my eyes and undo my tie, but my lungs sear and wheeze with each breath.
In spite of the open window, my cosy office feels stuffy and suffocating today, the oak panels closing in on me.
I run a hand through my hair, and my fingers come out damp.
That’s when I realise my hairline is slick with sweat and that there are wet patches underneath my armpits.
Swearing, I undo my buttons and take the shirt off, and I make for the chest of drawers to my left for a spare.
In my haste, I catch the wicker bin with my foot, sending its contents over the broadloom carpet.
Of course, the unfinished overnight oats I had for breakfast spill from the container, milk and yoghurt seeping into the dark green fabric.
A knock on the door sounds at the same time, and out of habit, I invite whoever it is in, rather than asking them to come back later.
As luck would have it, it is none other than Mrs Stubbs, her thin nose wrinkling with distaste the moment she steps inside.
Whether it’s for the rubbish on the floor or for the sight of me in nothing but my undershirt remains unclear.
“Beatrice, lovely to see you,” I greet her, not even bothering to conceal the sarcasm in my voice.
“Likewise,” she says, her tone every bit a match for my own. “Are you not feeling well?” she asks, frowning as she takes in my dishevelled appearance. “You look awful.”
“Thank you ever so much. Did you need anything?” I wrench the drawer open and pull out a new shirt in its crisp, plastic packaging.
“Stuart Woodrow called from the sports centre. You were supposed to join him for a game of squash ten minutes ago. Apparently, he tried to reach you on your mobile phone but never got through.”
“Oh bollocks,” I swear, and Stubbs scowls at me. “It’s Friday, isn’t it?”
“Correct.”
“Just lovely.” Leaving the new shirt half-unbuttoned, I take two strides towards the freestanding wardrobe on the opposite side of the office and grab my gym bag from it without looking inside. “Beatrice, please be a dear and clean this up, will you?”
I’m out of the door before she can protest.
The sports centre is only about a quarter of a mile away, at the opposite side of the campus from where the staff houses—including mine and Roxana’s—are.
The weather hasn’t changed at all over the past four days; it is still foggy and miserable, the combination of chill and high humidity fusing into the kind of cold that gets into the marrow of your bones.
It is to escape the elements, rather than out of any regard for Stuart, that I try to make haste.
If only gynaecologist Stuart Woodrow—my head of faculty’s husband—weren’t the only other decent squash player on the campus.
Not that he has noticed, but I can hardly stand the tosser after all the trouble he unwittingly caused for me last year with Mia Campbell.
Mia was a third-year student who took my Post-War Britain module.
Bright and bubbly, she frequently made use of my office hours and always interwove coursework conversations with pleasantries.
She looked strikingly similar to a young Roxana, especially her dark hair and trim, petite figure.
But whereas Roxana’s skin is tanned, owing to her Romanian heritage, Mia’s was fair, like porcelain.
A true Snow White, especially with those pouty lips of hers, always painted red.
I liked Mia. I’d be the first to admit that.
I liked Mia a lot. But much as I wanted to, I never touched her.
Too sensitive. Too unpredictable. Too dangerous.
Still, we were seen talking frequently, spending more time together than usual for a professor and a student.
I enjoyed her enthusiasm and her eager mind, even if I couldn’t let myself enjoy her beautiful body.
But then a rumour started circulating about Mia having an affair with an older man.
Thornedale is a small, isolated community.
Gossip spreads fast, and it spreads everywhere, excluding only the people it’s about.
It is no surprise it reached Roxana’s ears long before it did mine.
And since I know Roxana as well as I do, it’s no surprise to me that she went off the rails completely in a way that was very much her own: methodical, thorough, merciless.
Silently unhinged and completely lethal.
She watched us from afar; she watched us take walks and chat after lectures, and on a few occasions, she watched Mia walk into my office and not walk out for more than an hour. Being who she is, of course, she never mentioned any of this to me, never gave me a chance to explain.
Instead, menacing messages written in deep red—eerily like blood— started appearing wherever Mia went, but only in places that had no cameras.
Threatening letters began arriving at Mia’s mailbox.
Then, black boxes tied with red ribbons, containing roadkill, rotten and torn to shreds, with tyre marks in the blood-soaked fur. I thought nothing of it.
Next, Mia’s email and social media messages exploded.
And finally, her password to a digital online storage got hacked, and her very private, intimate photos were not only leaked but also sent directly to a great number of professors and students.
All of whose email addresses I had saved on my computer at home. And still I failed to connect the dots.
Mia had nightmares, developed crippling anxiety, and finally had a complete mental breakdown, threatening to kill herself. She dropped out of Thornedale, and I never saw her again. Roxana did, though, about six months later and only two weeks prior to November 30.