North Star

Chapter 15: The News

The next morning, it takes me a second to remember the events of the night before.

Blearly opening my eyes against the bright morning sunlight, I pull the duvet cover up over my face, wishing I could stay in bed all day.

By the time I got home just after midnight, I was out of breath, chilled to the bone with a cold sweat from the fear that I might have been followed.

I crept quietly up the wooden staircase at the heart of Marie-Adélaïde House, hoping that I didn’t wake up the housemother Katriane or any of the other boarders. It wasn’t unusual for residents to return late at night hours of the morning, so it wasn’t that I was afraid of getting caught - but rather, I was too rattled and on edge to talk to anyone.

When I got to the second floor room that Heloise at I share, I noticed that she wasn’t in her bed yet. 

Probably still out bar hopping in town with our friends.

I wanted nothing more than to just jump straight into my bed, but I knew I needed a shower after running all the way down the hill from the library to Marie-Adélaïde House, so I gathered my towel and toiletries and headed over to the showers. By the time I was done and returned to our room, Heloise had arrived back from wherever she’d been, and was lying face down in bed, fast asleep on her stomach - her usual sleeping position.

She was talking in her sleep, mumbling something about Lukas and a promise.

By the time I finally fell asleep, my mind was swimming with chaotic fever dreams of ancient manuscripts in the library flying off the shelves into a whirlwind, through the forest, delicate paper torn and shredded into ribbons against pine branches and thorns as they twisted and turned through the cold air, sucked up into a dark void in the sky above. The void was a gaping mouth, filled with teeth of sharp white lightening, swallowing everything in its path. All night, I dreamed that I was running from that giant hungry mouth in the sky, flying over Luxembourg trying to avoid detection by the ravenous devouring entity.

Now that I’m awake, fragments of the dream flood back in, and I clutch the duvet tighter around me, trying to drown out the memory of the horrible nightmare.

Rooibos tea. That’s what I need, a comforting cup of home.

I turn over and peek out from beneath the covers at Heloise’s bed. Usually when she’s been out partying and drinking, she sleeps in late the next morning. I don’t want to wake her up by boiling the kettle, so I glance over to check if she’s still asleep.

To my surprise, I see that she’s not in her bed. Her duvet is lying in disarray, with clothes and books scattered all over and next to the bed (which isn’t unusual for Heloise, to be fair - she’s not exactly what one would call “neat and tidy”.)

I guess that she’s gone early to the dining hall to get breakfast. Greasy food and a strong cup of coffee is an amazing hangover cure, after all. 

So I get up out of bed and slip into the comfiest, most chilled outfit in my wardrobe - a dove grey tracksuit, a matching hoodie and joggers combo with my trusty sneakers - and I head over to the dining hall. 

Just as I expected, Heloise is sitting at the long dining hall table with some of our friends, eating breakfast. It’s just the girls this morning - the boys must still be sleeping in, or might have headed over to town as a group for their favourite hangover cure - a burger and fries from the American-style diner on Nord Street.

There’s a strange atmosphere in the dining hall this morning - an imperceptible tension, like the silence before a loud explosion, but somehow also filled with a hushed undercurrent of whispered conversation. Several worried faces at various tables glance back at me as I enter, before returning to their conversations - but my friends haven’t spotted me yet.

The aroma of hot fried food me, and my stomach growls at me, insisting that I eat.

So before joining the others, I head over to the buffet area and pile my plate high with a full English breakfast - eggs sunny side up, bacon, sausages, sauteed mushrooms and toast. I pour myself a cup of steaming coffee and place it on the side of my tray, wondering if I have space for an extra slice of toast.

I guess I didn’t realise how starving I was until I walked in here. Must have been all that exercise last night when I ran halfway across campus thanks to my overactive imagination.

Now that the fears and spectres of night have retreated with the darkness, in the clear light of day it’s abundantly clear that I was being a total i***t last night - running away from nothing.

Like a frightened child running away from the boogie man. 

“Morning,” I say as cheerfully as I can manage, sitting down in a chair next to Heloise.

As soon as she turns to me and I see the expression on her face, I know something is wrong.

“You haven’t heard yet, have you?” She says, her dark brown eyes wide with concern.

Everyone looks at me expectantly.

“I haven’t heard… what... yet?” I ask.

“About the Luxxie…” Aamira begins, before correcting herself. “About the local girl who was…” she paused for a moment, and her voice drops down to just above a whisper “...murdered last night.”

“Murdered?” I repeat, almost choking on my coffee.

“That’s what they’re saying in the news,” Hannah interjects. “A campus security guard found her at like, 3am this morning, near the library. She worked there or something. She was meant to lock up and set a security alarm, but that never happened, so the guy headed over to check up and…”

Her voice breaks, and her eyes fill with tears. She’s clearly been crying a lot this morning.

The shock washes over me as quickly as a wave of ice cold water - like I’ve been plunged suddenly into the ocean, and my mind and my body go numb. 

“I read a rumour online, on the University message board,” Mahalia says, her quiet voice low and urgent. “Apparently they found her in the woods outside the library. Just lying under the trees, like she was sleeping. But her neck was sliced up. Someone slit her throat and left her there to bleed out.”

She lifts a finger to her throat and drags it along to illustrate the point.

Thoughts fly around too quickly for me to grab a hold of, and I speak as if in a dream, a distant daze. My voice sounds hollow, like it’s coming from a room far away.

“But I was at the library last night,” I say. “I was there, with… with Mirabelle. She was… she was…”

The shocked faces of my friends stare back at me.

“You were at the library?” Heloise asks, disbelief ringing in her voice. “Oh my god. Seriously?”

I nod.

“What time did you leave?” Hannah asks. “Did you see anything? Did you know the girl who died?”

“Midnight,” I say. “I left at… at…”

Everyone is staring at me across the table, expressions of shock and surprise, and suddenly the faces all seem so small, so distant, like tiny dots flying through my vision. I only faintly feel the coffee cup slip out of my hand, and I slump forward.

The blackness rises up to swallow me in its waiting jaws, and I faint away into unconsciousness.