Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 43

It took Tom too long to make his feet move. Too long to make the deep breaths stop straining against ribs that felt too much like a cage. Too long to stop staring at the end of the hall where she had turned out of sight. Too long to stop thinking about her. About that tired little smile. The tiny shrug. The exhaustion in her face and her eyes and her words and all the little confessions Tom had never thought to expect from her.

Because she was Lucy Steele. She was flippant and steady and certain. She didn't waver. She didn't hesitate. She didn't wish for a different life because she was the girl standing calm and confident on her own two feet. She was the girl who always seemed like she was perfectly content exactly where she was. And yet...

That I'm not tired. That I don't wish my life was different. That I'll sleep well tonight and wake up tomorrow and it will all be okay.

And that confession meant three very important things: that she was tired. That she wanted a different life. That she wasn't okay.

And none of those things should have been important at all. Everyone was tired. Everyone wanted something to be a little bit different. No one was ever perfectly okay. And yet... She had always seemed like she was. And even Tom, who had questioned nearly everything about her, had somehow never questioned that. He had thought she was scheming, thought she was manipulative, thought she was conniving and sly, but never had he thought that she was unhappy. That she was uncertain. That she was tired.

Knowing that she was... it was the slightest shift. A subtle tilt in the world. It didn't change anything really, but it left the footing just a little uneven, a little unsure.

And, like so many other things tonight, it shouldn't have mattered. And yet...

And yet.

Tom let out a huff of a breath and forced his gaze away from the end of the hall. He was here for a reason, he reminded himself. Her appearance, her words, the tightness still lingering in his chest, none of it changed that. He had things to do. Answers to find. And he wasn't going to put them off for something as silly as a heavy thing on his chest that shouldn't have been there anyway.

So, pushing aside those lingering and patently unwanted feelings, Tom turned back towards his goal. Towards the girl's lavatory which, when he entered, was indeed as Hornby had described it. Which was to say, it was... off. Not glaringly so. First glance showed just a lavatory, stalls on one wall, sinks on the other, nothing out of the ordinary. A second glance, however, showed snakes. Not really all over the way Hornby had said, but more than seemed exactly normal for an otherwise normal bathroom. They were worked into the tiling, thin things glittering like jewels where the grout should have been, decorating the light fixtures, which looked like normal candle holders until you realized that that was a head and those sparkling things were eyes. They were even painted on the stalls, etched there like some long ago someone had wanted to make sure people noticed the other, less obvious hints.

It was indeed off putting and Tom could admit that he understood why people would generally prefer to avoid going here. But off putting and suspicious as it was, none of it looked anything like an entrance. It just looked... weird.

Frowning, Tom moved to the line of stalls, pushing the doors open, looking for signs of hidden entry ways, markings that would suggest something special lay hidden behind these walls. But there was nothing. Not in any of the stalls, even the ones with snakes doodled on their doors.

So, Tom started down the line of sinks, fingers brushing against their porcelain basins, frown deepening with every utterly ordinary tap until -

Tom stopped walking. His finger stilled, lingering on the cold of the basin beside him as he stared at its tap. At the tiny little etching of a snake engraved on its side.