Cobweb Head

t h r e e

I was sitting in Headmaster Grimm's office. 

I had just left the dining hall after breakfast had concluded, and had grown increasingly exhausted by the whispers and curious eyes that followed me through the halls. I was a freak show, even in a school for delinquents. This would pass. It always did.

The clock ticked. I could see the view through the office's window. There was the forest's edge, shrouded by low hanging clouds. And nearer yet stood a tower. Its stony walls had gaps in the brick, where ivy vines knit through the cracks and clambered to the cone rooftop. It was like something out of a fairy tale – something aged and bewitching.

"Rosebud Tower." A voice came from behind me, and Headmaster Grimm took a seat opposite me. Her eyes were luminous against the sunlight coming in through the wide window, even under the thick shadows powdered thickly over her eyelids.

I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry?"

"That's Rosebud Tower," her lips were a deep shade of crimson, and her cheeks were swept with a curtain of dark hair. "It's beautiful, no doubt, but it's unstable. I'm afraid there's only so much we can do for it. It used to be used for classes a few decades ago."

"So it's off bounds?"

"We wouldn't want it coming down on your head." She didn't laugh at that. Her lips were pinched into a thin line, and it looked as if it'd hurt her to smile. "How are you settling in?"

"Fine." I nodded.

She lifted her other arm against the desk and rested her elbows along the wood, all the while drumming long nails against the surface in a way that sent unease curdling at the bottom of my stomach. A bracelet, winding up her arm, caught my eye. 

Crap. What the fuck was wrong with me?

Its silver surface had been carved with intricate scaly designs; a frosted snake head pressed into her palm. Its small eyes, buried into the sides of its head, were cold. I was sure I saw something in them lolled my way, but they were hollow.

"Will?"

I cleared my throat. "Sorry, what?

Grimm sunk back into her chair, and the bracelet disappeared behind the desk. "Each weekend students will be allowed into town, and if you wish to earn money there are a few jobs around the school."

I nodded and looked up at the clock. Five minutes had passed.

Five whole minutes.

She gave a small smile, something that didn't look quite right on a face so stony and cold. "That'll be all, then. Your timetable will be given to you after the tour."

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The tour was incredibly dull.

I was relieved when I was left at my dorm – my classes were starting tomorrow, and it was an understatement to say that I was not excited.

The phobias were thrumming against my head, and I was becoming very impatient with myself.  All I needed to do was wear down these sickening headaches; I couldn't think straight.

I was grimacing at Leo's underwear, strewn out across the floors, and throwing my timetable sheet down onto the desk when something flickered at my feet.

I yelped and scrambled onto bed where the sheets were placed at my feet. There was the shadow, in my dorm, a thing of blackness and smoke. I leaned slightly closer, and the thing's writhing, twisting body (if I could call it that at all) traced the floors up to the threshold.

And there was the feeling. The rough tug at my chest, the school's noises blurring away as my pulse grew louder, the inability to look away from the thing.

Its middle was nothing but shadow, and inky wires sometimes twisted out from under it, only to disappear again. Black smoke licked up the hall's walls as I followed it.

To think of a string tugging gently at my chest, urging me forward, was wrong. It was more like rope, or barbed wire, and my heart ached if I tried to pull back. But for a strange reason, I didn't want to.

I didn't realise I had been lead outside the building until the cold air struck my skin. I was only a little away from the school's oval field, and the yells of a Lacrosse game were obscured under the pounding of my heart.

As my foot fell across the cushioned grass, with a quickening pulse, I felt a hand fall across my shoulder. The rope snapped.

It was as if I'd fallen back to earth, or perhaps earth had risen up to me, and I almost crumpled in on myself. When I looked up, the shadow was gone.

I turned, and Effie was staring at me with her big pretty eyes and unsmiling lips. "You're weird."

I arched a brow, shrugging her hand off my shoulder. I hadn't realised I'd been shivering – my skin was crawling as if spiders had dug under the flesh. "Sorry?"

"I called your name three times and you didn't respond. It was like you were possessed." Staring at her close up, I noticed the dark shade of her lashes, veiling her hazel eyes, flecked with yellow like gold-panning rivers.

I shifted my stare back around, just to check if the shadow had returned. She hadn't seen it? I felt slightly sick. "Why were you calling my name?"

"It's lunch, I thought you were going to sit with me." She tucked a wiry piece of hair behind her ear, a soft shade of brown.

I frowned. "Why would you think that?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but clamped it closed quickly. Her hard expression didn't waver, but her cheeks were dusted lightly with pink and her lips became a tight line. "Nevermind."

Effie walked off with her back turned to me – a frail, pasty-faced figure going back through the doors. My chest ached with guilt, and for a moment I thought the shadow had come back.

"Wait," I stepped forward. "Sorry, I forgot. My bad." I hadn't thought there'd been anything to forget, but the tenseness in her shoulders slumped, so it didn't matter.

She didn't smile when she turned to me. Instead, she took a deep breath in, and the outline of her collarbone became prominent beneath the fabric of her lacy turtleneck. With it, she wore a buttoned skirt and netted stockings. I could see something in the pearly shine of her eyes – relief, maybe.

The fears had started to become louder in my head once the shadow vanished, and I tried shaking my head discreetly to shrug them off, but they persisted.

As we walked down the hall, the only sound that could be heard was the tapping of Effie's heels and the voices of students a corridor away from us. It wasn't awkward. Or at least I hoped it wasn't. I wasn't very good at picking up on things like that.

Just as we turned a corner, I recognised the boy at the end of the hall. Greased copper hair and ash-white face. The student who'd directed me to my dorm and warned me right after, or perhaps it'd been a threat.

I scowled – the phobias became even louder.

"You're angry again." Effie said next to me, and our pace slowed as we neared him. He was with a group of people, coming our way.

"What? No I'm not. It's fine."

She shrugged, and somehow she made it look so impossibly soft. "Then you've just generally got an angry looking face."

We passed the group, and I think Effie said something else, but the buzzing of fears in my ears had blocked out the sound. It was like the ringing of chimes in harsh winds. I was starting to become desperate to get to the dining hall, where they would finally disappear.