And Then The Murders Began

Chapter Twelve: A Whole New Level

I swear I'm hearing things, did Ms. Arabela just say that the same thing happened to her when she went to school here? What, what what? No, I've got to be hearing things, that can't be right... and I would know, I looked in all the school history books, on Wikipedia even, and there's nothing about another shooting in Fundy, no memorials, no plaques, no statues, nothing... nothing at all, and this town is small enough for me to have walked all of them in an after-school afternoon when I didn't feel like going home on time to face whatever music was being drummed out at home... so I don't think that I've missed anything...

But then again, I've been out of it for so darn long that I wouldn't put it past myself to have heard about it and then to just have let it go in one ear and out the other... how typically Electra-like...

"Sorry, would you mind repeating that, I think I've got something in my ear," I say, faking a smile. I've gotten a lot of practice doing that recently... it's kinda funny like that... life, that is, and how easily the fake smile comes to my face now. It's honestly getting to the point where it's harder for me to wear a real smile than it is to put the plastic and patently false one on.

Fuck. Me. That sucks.

"What I said, Electra, is that the same thing happened to me when I went to school here... and funny coincidence, it was Lylah's mother who shot me... the woman was an interesting one. Nobody had any idea that something was going on until she came in to the building that morning and took out her anger with little bits of copper. I was the first one shot, kind of like a warning shot, right into my shoulder. Damn thing hasn't worked right since, and nor has, I think, poor Mrs. Loxley..."

"What happened to her?" I ask, not sure why I'm on edge right now. None of it makes any sense, if anything, figuring all of this out should be making me feel better, not worse...

"You know how some people get locked up and then they throw away the key?" she asks, and I can feel my stomach sink. Oh. Oh my.

"So she's in jail, then, or-?" I start to ask, only to be cut off by Jet- Miss Arabela, fucking hell, pick one or the other and freaking stick with it Electra- shaking her head rather vigorously... I hope it doesn't pop off.

"If she had been sent to jail, Electra, they would've killed her on her first day, even a building full of rapists and serial killers isn't going to take well to a child killer... No, Electra," she sighs, "and you can't tell anyone else this because technically I'm not even really supposed to know this, but she's in the institution over in Colchester County, and she's been there pretty much since..."

"What's she doing there?" I ask, wondering if I already know the answer, but not finding myself able to say it.

"Well, she wasn't the most wealthy of all mammals, and she couldn't afford a lawyer... and the crook and snook that the court decided to give her as per provision told her- at least this is what she told me in the letters that she wrote me- wanted her to plead not guilty by reason of insanity... and hell, she was my friend, I didn't want to see her go down like that.

"The court said, you can read, you can write, you can talk, you're a pelt, be thankful it's not going to be worse," she says, and I can smell blood, she's punctured her paw pads with her claws from clenching down so hard...

"I feel bad for her, honestly, she didn't deserve what she got... this was the eighties, anyone who did that got sent to jail; she got sent to the institution and she rotted there for almost thirty years and then got sent for help... Prison counseling, yeah, that doesn't exist, even now in 2018... "

"Shit," I whisper, wondering why I'm now feeling a rather weird sense of dread and relief... "I'm glad she's still alive, though, do you think they'd let me go talk to her...? Or has she gone downhill to the point that she's no longer coherent or something like that?"