Satan's School for Girls

p r o l o g u e

Northwalk boarding school has,for as long as my aphotic thoughts can manage to gather, always been in possession of three inestimable pearls that have been considered to be it’s most extravagant jewelry which were hung on the high and lean neck of the main campus building.

The first of them was given in the ethereal form of warm summer air that spread miles and miles into the oblivion of the isolated environment of the school, threatening to cut the whole complex out of reach of the greed and coarse hands of civilization. Each tree a silent witness of a stolen kiss that gave a mute oath of never giving the sweet secret away. Each narrow pathway a blank canvas waiting to be smudged and  smeared by the soft brush of two intertwined hands running not far away, but even farther. Each window a ceaseless mirror of angel-like purity so gracefully embodied in the shape of fallen eyelashes, stubborn freckles and moonlit skin.

The second was the brilliant student body, said to be in the top five in country by their academic achievements. Admittedly, this fact alone made my wandering thought go motionless as an  acid rain of doubt poured heavily over my spine, attacking in a vicious manner each bony vertebrae. I mean, nothing is safer than letting yourself be engulfed by the monotonous liquid of reassuring parental safety, but I figured the time had come to embark on a journey across the untamable sea of change for there had to be some sort of treasure resting miraculously on the shore. It was only later that I could comprehend the fact that at Northwalk the thin borderline separating the two had ceased to exist, creating out of the school a simultaneous mixture of salty water and sunkissed sand.

And lastly, the ruling teenage queens whose elusive heads had never required a proper crown in order to continue their ruthless reign over the kingdom of bubblegum lips and broken hearts. The petite ginger Rory Jacobs with her reserved smiles and a white blank page of skin hugging the curve of her neck that would get watercolored in a soft shade of blush at a simple kind gesture or unrequited but still truthful  compliment. The cordial Joan Scott whose  song of laughter continued to echo down the haunted corridors of perpetual memory long after the haunting events occurred. And then there was Annabell. Oh, Annabell, Annabell Martin. An unseizable light that shone upon my days, but just like the sun, she was close enough to notoriously convey the fruits of my affection and unexpectedly cause an eclipse creating an impassable barrier between the real world and her own garden of Eden.

Maybe that’s why they did it, you know - you can only let yourself stay lost in the maze of stoic solitude for so long until you go mad. Heavens knows how many sleepless nights I have spent pondering about how things could have turned out if I were a gutted spirit that had enough audacity to speak up, holler at their troublesome beings. But even after a series of dead bodies lying limply on the concrete of her garden and her fearless shadow hovering over them, she was Annabell Martin and I was Oliver Costello, and she was so ineffably alluring whereas my heart was willing to be imprisoned by her callous biddings.

A storm was shaking the harsh open sea and they sailed together toward it wearing broken crowns on their heads and broken hearts in their long dead lungs, a crashing ship of inevitable misery.  We always think that a ship must always be in need of a saving anchor, when really, some of them are just in search of an iceberg.

for everyone who wanted to speak up, but the words never seemed fitting.

for everyone who wanted to reach out a hand, but it was shaking with fear.

for everyone thinking they're alone, lost and impossible to be fixed.

you are not alone. 

martina.