Cobweb Head

f o u r t e e n

Leo had been asking me to go out looking for nightmares on nights that weren't hunts, and I had to tell him that he would definitely not enjoy having a zombie for a dorm mate.

He'd been going down to the archives once a week, coming back ruffled and red-eyed, but we'd barely found anything on why the echoes had been following me. I'd relayed the effects they brought, and how I'd been lead to Rosebud Tower, but he seemed more puzzled than before.

I hadn't forgotten about the situation with Mae – I felt nauseous just thinking about it.

I sat at the edge of the field; hands nestled into my pockets as I sat at one of the stands. A Lacrosse game was underway.

I'd started to sit at the sidelines of practise matches just to watch. I had the warm feeling at my fingertips, as if asking to take hold of one of the sticks, but I couldn't bring myself to actually start playing. I didn't want to grow attached to the school – or the people, but that was starting to become much harder.

Effie walked up the stands, the wind sweeping her hair to the side in pale brown threads. Her face was decorated with a furrowed expression.

She took a place next to me, her breath forming a small cloud. "Something's wrong."

I sent her a sideways glance.

"You've barely spoken to me," she continued. "I see you hanging around Leo."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you are, you act like a lost puppy around him." She breathed out. "I need to show you something."

She pressed a small, cold hand into my own, and her skin was like porcelain glass. I nodded, and she took hold of my wrist as we wondered down the stall stairs and towards the girls' dorm wing.

I wanted to object, tell her I wasn't allowed where we were going, but the sense of guilt took hold of my tongue. I had barely seen her – and what was worse, I'd forgotten her amidst everything that'd been happening.

She unlocked the door to her dorm, and the room I stepped into was almost identical to mine. Two beds, one large window.

Effie's side was incredibly neat – everything was at the right angle, placed as perfectly as you might place gold if you had it in your possession.

She knelt down at her closet, drawing out a cardboard box. She licked her lips as she opened it, and I sat down beside her, cross-legged and with hands shovelled into pockets.

When her hand drew back from inside of the box, she lifted up a small toy horse. It was metal, a mechanical body with a small twisted knob jotting out from its back. She placed it on the ground.

I frowned – what was she showing me?

She twisted the knob and the horse started to trot lazily, the clipping of small metal hooves singing across the floorboards. I could see all the mechanical animals layered neatly inside the box.

Effie looked up at me. "I made these a few months ago, when I lived in rehab for a little while."

I met her eyes, and suddenly noticed the exhaustion sagging at her shoulders. The horse's hooves were still softly beating in my ears, like the thrumming of a second heart. It was moving around the box.

Her fear was starting to make more sense.

"They're incredible." I couldn't shake away the daze, she made them? That was amazing.

"I know." She replied bluntly. "They were a form of... therapy, during my few months there. I'm going to make them life size one day."

I chewed against my lip after a pause. "I'm sorry I haven't been a great friend lately."

She shrugged dryly, tapping a nail across the metal horse as it passed her. "We met three months ago; I didn't expect you to be. I just – I just hope that after telling you this, you'll feel more comfortable talking to me."

I dropped my stare, a tired gaze falling across the ground in front of me. "You're still hung up on the night I followed Leo, aren't you?"

She leaned forward. "You can tell me—"

"There's nothing to tell." I stood.

I hated this – I hated pulling away from her whilst she was telling me something so impossibly personal. But if I let something slip about the Frights, she could find herself in the same situation as me.

She rose up next to me, and the light in her eyes soon twisted into something desperate. "If he did something to you, you need to tell me."

I stepped away from her with a glower – I could feel her eyes on the disfigured, black and blue bruise laid out across my cheekbone. "Leo didn't do anything. Look, I'm sorry, I'm just not ready to start braiding each other's hair and making friendship bracelets like we're on some kind of cheesy American summercamp show."

I regretted the words the moment they left my lips.

Anger flashed across her face, and I began to feel sick. What was wrong with me? I pulled my tongue between my teeth as to shake the acidic taste that had entered my mouth. The words were like poison.

She looked away and didn't meet my eye. "That's fine, just remember what I said."

After a few moments of silence, the air as taut as a violin string pulled tight, I took for the door.

I wanted to say sorry before leaving, to take a pause and look back at her, but I couldn't. Just like I couldn't thank Leo, I wasn't able to apologise to Effie.

I left without another word.

|||

When I got back to my dorm, the sun still strung up in the sky, I fell into bed.

I couldn't stop thinking about the stupid things I'd said to Effie – I was such an insensitive prick.

When Leo entered the dorm, he barely took notice of the figure wallowing in self-pity in the bed opposite his. He lay out a pile of tea sachets onto the desk.

"I've collected a few brews I think will help with your situation." He spread them out with the delicate wave of his hand. "There's one for headaches, sleep, stomach aches – if you try them all out, I'm sure we'll find one that helps with the fears."

I lifted my hand idly, giving him a thumbs up. To stop myself from thinking about what an ass I was, I directed my attention from one dickhead to another.

"Do you know Oliver?" I mumbled and hoped that Leo would hear.

"Oliver Grimm? Yeah, I know him." He'd fumbled around his books, pushing them away from the tea sachets as he sorted them out.

I propped myself up with an elbow, and a look of confusion slowly fell across my face. "Oliver's last name is Grimm? He's the headmaster's son?"

Leo tapped a finger gently across his chin. "I think we'll start with the headaches first..."

"What's his deal?" I asked. "Is he in the Frights? I didn't see him wearing a silver bracelet or anything."

"The headmaster is super protective of him, so she never let him join. It's got something to do with her sister, who went crazy or something because of it, and was exiled from the Frights."

I fell back into my bed, pulling a hand across my forehead and shrugging away the scrappy hair that'd fallen across it.

No wonder Oliver was so obnoxious.