Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Iolaire Bay University, Iolaire Hall, Scotland

The first moments of arriving at Iolaire Bay University were as crazy and unsettling as Eddie had expected. 

As soon as he exited the taxi, he was hit by the bracing Scottish wind and a cacophony of sound. Cars competed for space in the small driveway of Iolaire Hall, the university’s main residential hall.  Everywhere Eddie looked he could see emotional parents doting on their nervous offspring.  He pushed his blond hair back out of his brown eyes, regretted the decision to go for a new shaggy style, and gritted his teeth. 

The bored taxi driver gave him a sharp nod as he put Eddie’s luggage down on a spare bit of pavement next to where he’d pulled up.  Eddie paid him with the hard-earned money he’d made from waiting tables all Summer and watched as the taxi left.

He gave a sigh and resigned himself to joining the registration queue which was already winding out of the front door and down the crowded pathway.  He was just glad it wasn’t raining.  The Scottish air was colder than he was used to even as a Cumbrian, but the sun was out in a cloudless blue sky.

He picked up his large camping rucksack, adjusting it to lay better on his shoulder, before reaching for the big suitcase his Nan had given him as an early Christmas present.  He made a brief note to thank her for getting something with wheels.    

He moved to stand behind a curvy olive-skinned brunette with impeccable make-up.  Her hair was neatly tied back in a single dark brown braid.  Her clothes were casual, but Eddie clocked the designer labels on her jeans, trendy sweater, and worn Barbour jacket.  The only bag she carried was an oversized designer handbag.  Her dark eyes were fixed on her phone where her impeccable manicure was tapping out a message.

She glanced up as she hit send, and her gaze collided with his.

Eddie felt his cheeks heat a touch, embarrassed to be caught staring at her.  “Hello.”

“Hello,” the girl said briskly.  “I’m Jemima, and you?”

“Eddie,” he replied, letting go of the handle of his suitcase to offer his hand briefly.

Jemima shook hands firmly.  She slid the phone into her handbag and looked at him speculatively.  “Science?”

“Tech Magic with a minor in Practical Magic,” Eddie said.  “You?”

They shuffled forward in the queue as Jemima answered.

“History of Art,” Jemima said.  “I’m non-magical.” Her chin inched up into a defiant line as her dark eyes flashed.

Eddie shrugged.  “I tested at the journeyman level,” he said matter-of-factly.  It was only just above hedge witchcraft. 

He understood why non-magicals felt defensive since magic was so venerated in their society given the legacy of Arthurian times. But there were only a handful who could perform more powerful magic than parlour tricks, and non-magicals still massively outnumbered magicals, and most laws were in their favour. 

“I figure I’ll go into teaching,” Eddie concluded.

Jemima bit her lip, a flush over her cheeks.  “I want to open an art gallery.”

They moved forward again, past a stone statue of a sitting lion standing guard at the front door.

“So, where are you from?” asked Jemima, her fingers fiddling with the strap on her bag.

“Cumbria,” Eddie answered, leaving his answer broad. “You?”

“Kendal, well, outskirts, but it’s nearest,” Jemima said brightly. “Whereabouts in Cumbria are you?”

“Windermere,” Eddie replied concisely.  Explaining he lived in a small council bungalow in the back streets between it and Bowness wasn’t something he was going to explain to a stranger. 

“Which school did you go to?” asked Jemima as they moved another inch forward to the registration desk.

“The Lady of the Lake,” Eddie said. 

Jemima’s brow creased.  “I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

Eddie shrugged.  As far as he was concerned the less said about his secondary school, the better.  Not that it had been bad for a state school, it had just been difficult as he’d been one of only a few magicals attending.

“I went to Wychstone,” Jemima said.

Wychstone Academy was a very exclusive private school which had a sterling reputation for academic and magical achievement.  He wasn’t surprised at the answer given her evident wealth.

“Boarding?” asked Eddie, interested.  He’d never met someone had boarded at school before.

Jemima shook her head.  “Day student,” she pushed her braid back over her shoulder.  “We only live down the road thankfully.” She leaned in as though to impart a secret.  “You would not have wanted to board with some of the people I went to school with.”

He was about to reply when there was a loud buzzing noise from her bag.

She rolled her eyes and dived into it, pulling out her phone.  It was the latest model, if Eddie knew his tech, which he did.  He wondered if she’d allow him to take a closer look at it.

Jemima grimaced.  “Sorry.  My mother is vacationing in Italy with Step-Dad Number Three.  She thinks sending me a text every five minutes will make up for not being here.”

Eddie sent her a sympathetic look and ignored the pang deep down in his own heart that he would have loved for his mother to have been sending him texts every five minutes. 

“She’s mostly complaining that my father didn’t come with me and blaming it on Step-Mum Number Two,” Jemima continued, waving her phone in a way that Eddie worried it would fly out of her hand.

“You came on your own?” asked Eddie, weirdly grateful to have found someone else who did not have hovering parents dropping them off.

“Well, with George, our driver,” Jemima pointed back out of the door to a parked gleaming Mercedes which had bagged one of the few spots in front of the hall.

Eddie noted the old man in a grey jacket stood next to the car.  He was thin with wispy white hair and looked as though a breeze would topple him over. 

“He’s been with the family for years,” Jemima said with the air of someone used to having servants.

Which was so not Eddie.  He’d be very much part of the downstairs rather than the upstairs in a period drama, Eddie mused.  Still, wasn’t university meant to be about finding new friends from people from all walks of life?

“I wish I had a driver,” Eddie said, forcing a bright note into the words to keep them from being bitter.  “I took two overly packed trains and waited an hour for a taxi at the station here.”

Jemima winced.  “Did the trains run on time at least?”

Eddie nodded.  “No hot drinks though or wi-fi.”

Jemima smoothed her hair back again.  “George doesn’t believe in new-fangled technology.  He still uses the old paper map books.”

She sounded incredibly fond of the old guy.  It made Eddie like her more.

They made another progress forward; it brought them flush with the large open wooden doors. 

“What about your family?” Jemima asked bluntly.  “Or did you want to make the trip by yourself?”

“There’s just my Nan,” Eddie tried to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks.  He wasn’t ashamed, he told himself briskly.  Maybe he’d even believe it one day. 

Plenty of people had stranger family situations than his, he told himself firmly.  He had no idea who his father was because his mother was a wild child who believed in free love and no responsibility.  At least, she’d had enough sense to take him to her own mother once he was born.    

“Nan wanted to come with me, but she’s got a bad hip,” Eddie continued, pushing past his thoughts on his absent parents.

Jemima winced.  “Sorry about your parents.”

Eddie shrugged, not correcting her likely assumption that they were deceased.  “My Nan’s brilliant.” 

And she was.  He was luckier than some like his friend Joe who had been in and out of foster homes his whole life.

“Both of my parents are complete nightmares,” Jemima said, with enough genuine sharpness that he knew she meant it.  “I think my father only really likes my brother.”

“Brother?” asked Eddie.

Jemima nodded.  “Peter.  He’s the oldest.  He’s at Edinburgh doing Law.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “Our younger sister Tiggy is still at school.”

Eddie registered the names and frowned.  “Are your parents really big fans of the Beatrix Potter books?”

Jemima smiled, chagrined.  “Our paternal grandmother.  Peter used to say that she really wanted to call us Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail.”

Eddie chuckled.      

Jemima’s phone buzzed again.  Her face lit up.  “Sorry, I just…” she motioned at her phone.  “It’s my boyfriend.  Could you keep my…”

“Of course,” Eddie said, even as she was stepping away to make her call.

“Brad!” Jemima’s cheerful greeting drifted back to him before she moved out of hearing range. 

He glanced behind him.

There were two girls chatting away to each other, a study in contrasts.  One a bespectacled Goth with short spiky hair dyed a matt black and heavy make-up, and the other a petite Asian girl with straight brown hair, warm brown eyes and no make-up at all.  Their proud parents hovered either side of them.  

Eddie yanked his gaze back to the front, swallowing down on a rush of loneliness.  He took a deep breath.

He moved forward a step beyond the front doors and into the building as the queue lurched forward again.

He could turn back around and talk with the girls, he mused, but it felt intrusive.  From what he could hear they were both in the same subject and happily chattering away on the difficulty of the tests required to enter Magical Mathematical Theory.  Eddie knew the basics, magical tech required it, but he had no real interest in it.

He took the opportunity to look around Iolaire Hall’s entryway. 

It wasn’t all that large, which wasn’t surprising given this part of the building was more than a hundred years old.  There was a vaulted ceiling, wooden panelling on the walls casting a gloomy air, and his next step took him off the in-laid doormat and put flagstones beneath his feet. There were doors to both the Old and New Wings wide open to his left and right. At the far wall, behind the reception desk, he could see the grand central staircase with stairs splitting off at a small balcony, to provide stairs down to both the left and right. Below the balcony, the reception desk was bustling with registration activity. 

Eddie counted five people stationed behind the wide wooden counter.  He assumed that three of them were students and two of them staff based on their ages.

Another queue shift took him closer with only a few more students in-between.  He glanced back to where Jemima had stepped away.  She stood by a tall window with a view of the drive.  Her phone was pressed to her ear, and she was talking away.

He turned back, not wanting her to feel spied upon.

Another step forward.

He shifted the rucksack.  It suddenly felt like the weight of the world on his shoulder.  He sighed.  Only a few more moments and he’d be registered.  He could find his room, find some food…he’d probably have to be sociable though instead of staying in his room and playing games on his computer.

Jemima stepped back into the queue as it shifted again.  “Sorry about that.  Thanks for keeping my place.”

“No problem,” Eddie said.  “All OK?”

Jemima nodded.  “Brad got into Cambridge.  He still has another week at home before he goes.  He almost came with me, but he didn’t want to get stuck alone with George on the drive back.”  She pushed her phone back into her bag and looked up at him speculatively.  “Did you leave someone back home?”

Eddie shook his head.  “Broke up with my last boyfriend back at Easter.”  He tried for an easy, casual tone.  He’d promised himself that he’d be out at university from the beginning.  He loved his Nan, but he didn’t love that she was still hopeful he’d marry a girl one day.

“Only boys?” asked Jemima breezily, with an easy acceptance that soothed Eddie’s nerves.

“Only boys,” Eddie confirmed.

“Some would say you’re lucky,” Jemima said, “young, free and single at the start of our university existence.”  There was an odd note in her voice.

He shot her an enquiring look.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Jemima said, “Brad’s a sweetheart and we’re happy enough.” She shrugged.  “Just we both talked about whether it would be better to be single rather than stay together with us both heading to different places.  I’m not sure what we have is going to last, you know?”

“It’s the reason my ex and I called it a day,” Eddie admitted.  He and Todd hadn’t even thought about applying to the same places.

The queue moved and an open spot appeared at one end of the reception desk.

Jemima shot him a smile and headed over to it. 

A second opening appeared at the other end of the reception desk and Eddie stepped up, finally lowering his rucksack to the floor with a grateful huff.

“Identification please,” asked the young woman in front of him without looking up from the computer tablet she held. 

A sticky badge proclaimed her as Eileen, Senior Student, Hall Committee.  Her brown hair tied up in a messy bun tied with a red scrunchy.  She wore an oversized grey jumper, a pink t-shirt underneath peeked out of the gaping neckline.  Her tortoise-shell glasses were good quality and, when she finally looked up at him, he could see they framed hazel eyes. 

Eddie noted the faint resonance of magical energy around her as he handed her his driver’s license. 

“Eddie Wiliams,” Eileen stated briskly.  “You’re down as a joint mage degree in Tech and Practical Magic.”

“That’s right,” Eddie said.

Eileen handed him an old-fashioned physical key with a keyring denoting EWL20.  “Your room is on the second floor in Eagle Wing.  That’s the Old Wing.” She pointed towards the left door.  “Go through here.  There’s a service lift if you can’t manage the stairs.”

Eddie nodded.

She dumped a thick folder on the counter.  “Your induction material is all in there including your online registration details for the student app.”  She pursed her lips.  “You are part-boarded which means breakfast is provided all week, and dinners Monday to Friday.  There’s a food card in your pack.  If you turn up to the dining hall without it, you’ll have to pay.  There’s a kitchen at the end of your corridor, nearest supermarket is in town.” 

Her tone had the quality of someone who had recited the same information too many times.  

“Any questions?” Eileen asked in a tone that said she didn’t want him to have any.

Eddie shook his head.  “Not right now.”

“There’s a hall welcome social at six in the main common room, map is in your pack,” Eileen informed him.  “We recommend you come along and get to know your fellow students.  Welcome to Iolaire Hall.”

Eddie heard the note of dismissal and nodded an acknowledgement at her.  He picked up his rucksack, stuffed the folder under his arm and wheeled his suitcase to the side.

Jemima hovered nearby and he belatedly realised she was waiting for him.  He walked up to join her. 

“What wing are you in?” she asked immediately.

“Old Wing,” Eddie said. 

Jemima grinned at him.  “Me too.”  She dangled her key. 

Eddie noted the number was EWL27.  “Looks like our rooms are not that far apart.”

Jemima nodded.  “Shall we take a look?”

They headed through the left door and down a corridor, the walls filled with pictures of graduating classes. 

There was another substantial queue for the lift which was tucked away right at the end of the corridor.  He and Jemima made for the narrow staircase instead.  Jemima offered to help, and he handed her his folder and key as he hefted the suitcase up the steps.

Their rooms were on the same corridor.  They passed the small kitchen which was the first room on the left.  Neither of them bothered peeking inside.  The corridor had another eleven rooms, doors dotted down either side.  He was on the left side and Jemima on the right. 

Jemima’s room was closer to the kitchen whereas his room was right at the end of the corridor by the far wall.

“Give me five minutes to dump this lot and I’ll come help you and George with your luggage,” Eddie offered as she went to unlock her room.

“Deal,” Jemima said, giving him a wide smile. 

Eddie hurried down to his own room, unlocked the door and pushed his way inside.

The room was small, but it was still bigger than the tiny boxroom he had occupied at home.  There was a single bed against the left wall, under a window.  A large desk took up the wall in front of him, an ergonomic chair parked beside it.  There was a good amount of shelving above the desk, running the length of the wall.

To his right, there was an in-built closet, and a second sliding door which led through to a tiny shower, basin and toilet.  He was pleased at the ensuite, a recent renovation to the student facilities that had been bragged about in the letter he’d received confirming his accommodation allocation.  He knew some students in the Hall would still only have communal facilities.  He shoved his luggage to the side, dumped the folder on the desk, and made use of the bathroom.   

Splashing some water on his face made him feel less grimy.  He stretched, rotating the shoulder which had taken the weight of his rucksack as he wandered back into the main room.  He grabbed the water bottle he’d stowed during the taxi ride to take a large drink of it.  He figured he’d likely used up all of his five minutes and hurried out, only just remembering to snag his key to lock the door.

Jemima waited for him in the corridor.  She smiled at him gratefully.  “Thank you so much for helping.  I’m not entirely sure George can manage those stairs and the queue for the lift looked terrible.”

“Not a problem,” Eddie said.  They turned to make their way back and almost bumped into two more students just entering the corridor.

“Oh, hi!  We must be corridor mates!” The male grinned, revealing a perfect set of white teeth.  His black hair was cut short to his head, and Eddie immediately envied him his dark smooth complexion with no sign of acne.  His own freckled face had a tendency still to break out if he was stressed.

“I’m Oscar West,” he introduced himself brightly.  “Friends call me Oz.”

“And I’m Hayley Warren,” the young redhead said beside him, her voice rolling with the same Scottish burr as Oz.  “We went to school together.  We thought we’d check out the rooms while our parents are moving the cars.”

“I’m Eddie Wiliams,” Eddie offered, reaching out to take the proffered hands.

“Jemima Wednesbury-Scott,” Jemima said as they all shook hands.  “Eddie and I met in the registration queue.”

Wednesbury-Scott, Eddie’s attention twigged on her name, and he wondered why for a second before Oz spoke.

“They must have stuck all us ‘W’ people together,” Oz said, laughing.

“Probably,” Jemima agreed.

“That’s how Hayles and I met,” Oz said.  “Sat next to each other first day of nursery!”

“Haven’t got rid of him since!” Hayley agreed.  She hummed as she looked down the corridor with trepidation in her blue eyes.  “I was hoping for the other wing.  My cousin has a lot of stories about this place.”

“Ghosts!” Oz scoffed.  “I told you she said that just to scare us.”

“Maybe,” Eddie said, a shiver working its way down his spine.  He’d stumbled across an actual ghost once and he had no intention of repeating the experience.

“We’re just going down to grab my stuff,” Jemima said, taking hold of Eddie’s arm.  “Why don’t we all meet up in the corridor here to head to the welcome social together later?”

Hayley smiled at her warmly.  “Sounds good.”

“Yeah, sound idea,” Oz said.

Eddie nodded at them briefly as Jemima and he waved them a goodbye. 

“You don’t think there’s an actual ghost, do you?” asked Jemima quietly as they moved towards the stairs.

Eddie shrugged.  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”  But he really, really hoped not.

o-O-o

Eddie slid into the seat next to Jemima at the small dining table tucked away in the back corner which had rapidly become their usual table. 

He sat opposite Hayley who was already tucking into the vegan version of the lasagne the hall dining room had on offer that night.  Oz nodded a hello from her side, busily eating a slice of garlic bread.  Eddie wasn’t entirely certain why Italian had been considered the right cuisine for Halloween, but he wasn’t complaining about his own large slice of meat lasagne.  He’d also helped himself to the garlic bread and a heaped helping of the green side salad.

Their first couple of months at Iolaire Bay had come and gone in a flash. 

Freshers’ Week had been hellish.  Eddie hadn’t enjoyed the myriad of social events, weird university traditions dressed up as ‘fun,’ and constant forced interactions.  He’d been relieved that he, Jemima, Hayley and Oz had formed a solid group and tackled things together.

Oz was the most sociable of them by far.  He was still joined up to a dizzying array of clubs.  He was also a very decent football player and had immediately been recruited to play in the reserves for the University team.

Hayley was the opposite of her friend and more like Eddie himself.  She was bookish and happiest in the library.  She had been cajoled by Oz into joining a couple of clubs, but she had admitted to Eddie that she’d drop them as soon as Oz got bored with them.  She’d made a couple of study friends in her English Literature class and that seemed enough for her.

Jemima was almost as sociable as Oz.  She had joined a political club, the debating society, an art club, and had signed on to assist the hall Charity Committee.  She was genuinely happy being a social butterfly, but she’d put their plans ahead of other requests a few times which made Eddie believe she was glad to have their small stable group as a base.          

Eddie was very much on the same page as Hayley.  He’d formed a study group in Tech Magic with a couple of people who enjoyed the same gaming as he did.  He had joined a running club after his Nan had chastised him on their weekly phone call for not joining anything. Other than that, he was comfortable spending time with just the four of them.

“Are we all still on for the Halloween party this evening?” asked Jemima brightly, setting her phone down.

They all dutifully gave nods.  He and Hayley gave each other sympathetic looks.

The party was for charity, Eddie reminded himself.  It was only a small entrance fee.  He tucked into his dinner and gestured at Jemima’s plate of lettuce and a few croutons.

“I thought you’d given up on the diet?” Eddie said.

Jemima grimaced.  “I don’t like lasagne, and the other hot option was mystery stew.”

Ah.  Mystery stew appeared every week on Fridays.  They all figured it was leftovers thrown into some kind of thin broth. 

“Good choice,” Eddie said.

“It makes me doubly glad that I’m vegan,” Hayley said.

“If I have to suffer mystery stew to have bacon sandwiches, I can live with that,” Oz said firmly. “You only went vegan because you didn’t want to cut up the frog in biology class.”

“It’s inhumane!” Hayley argued, pointing her knife at him.

“They’re specially bred for medical and educational purposes and die peacefully,” Oz retorted.  The twinkle in his eye gave away that he was baiting her with the assurance of friends who had grown up as close as siblings.

Hayley seemed to cotton onto him too as she simply rolled her eyes at him.

Jemima sighed.  “Apparently Brad is going out to a party at a club with his new best friend, Helen.”

Eddie had a feeling that the relationship with Brad was likely going to be over before the Christmas break.

“This is why I’m glad I don’t have a girlfriend back home or studying elsewhere,” Oz said.  “The whole long-distance thing means you really don’t know what’s going on with them.”

Hayley shot him a chiding look before turning back to Jemima.  “Maybe your boyfriend is only doing what we’re doing – making new friends.”

“Maybe,” Jemima said.  She sighed and pushed her half-finished dinner away.  “It wouldn’t be the first time he cheated on me.”

All three of them pause eating to look at her.

Jemima grimaced.  “You all remember meeting Melanie?”

“You mean Queen Bitch?” Oz asked sarcastically.  “The one who marched up to our table at the Union and said she was glad you’d found a new set of losers to hang out with?”

“That would be she,” Jemima said with a sigh.  “I did apologise about that, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t need to apologise!”

“You’re not the one who should have apologised!”

Eddie and Hayley look at each other startled a touch at their similar and almost in unison responses.    

“I can’t imagine having to attend the same university as the mean girl from my school,” Hayley said, recovering faster than Eddie. 

“I wasn’t going to let her run me off,” Jemima said firmly.  “Plus, this is the best History of Art course in the country.”

“Brad did the dirty with her?” Oz whistled shoving his clean plate to the side.  “That’s cold.”

“It was her thing,” Jemima said. “She’d just target people’s boyfriends and sleep with them because she could.”

“She’s insane,” Hayley sighed.  “Who does that?”

“I think she even slept with one of Emily’s crushes,” Jemima said.  “Or that was the rumour.”

“Emily?” Oz repeated. 

Eddie took pity on him. “She was the blonde girl with her.”

“Ah,” Oz nodded as he remembered.  “Well, a Queen Bitch has to have her minion.  Look at Eileen and her locusts.”

It was a cruel description of the two thin girls who scurried after Eileen, Eddie mused, but it was accurate.  Eileen simply liked reminding people she was Senior Student and had Authority.  She was a stickler for the rules and Eddie figured there wasn’t anyone who hadn’t had a verbal warning from her for something.  He’d been chastised for running up the back stairs.

“Emily is not like the locusts, she’s sweet, she’s just…” Jemima made a vague gesture with her hands as though offering up something, “weirdly devoted to Melanie.”

“So, your boyfriend once got dragged into Melanie’s games,” Hayley dragged them back to the original point, “do you really think that means he’ll cheat on you with the first girl he meets at Cambridge?”

Jemima grimaced.  “She’s blonde and beautiful, and Brad is Viscount Eastmarch.  He’s very eligible in certain circles.”

Certain circles meaning Jemima’s since she was Lady Wednesbury-Scott.  Her father was the Earl of Wychstone and owned a huge estate North of Kendal.  Wychstone Academy had originally been founded on his land.

Eddie kept his attention on his lasagne.  From everything Jemima had said about Brad, Eddie had no confidence in him remaining faithful to her.  He was already mentally preparing for the day when they’d break up and they would need to comfort her with ice-cream and wine.  Potentially not in that order.

“Talking of Eileen,” Oz leaned in as though to share a secret, “word is that she had a visit from the Ghost last night.”

Hayley slapped his arm and huffed.  “Honestly, Oz, why do you have to make fun of it?”

“It’s Halloween,” Oz said, “let me have some fun!”

“I guess it is the right night for a ghost story,” Jemima said amused.  She propped her head up on her hand, elbow on the table.  She waggled her eyebrows.  “Tell me more!”

Eddie smirked at her antics, swiping the last of his garlic bread through smears of the rich tomato sauce.

“Eileen is on the same floor as us, right?  On the other corridor along at the junction,” Oz stated.  “Janice, who is on that corridor told her boyfriend Norm, and he told Patrick who plays Keeper for the reserves that the Ghost paid Eileen a visit; walked right in her room and loomed over her bed!  She woke the whole corridor screaming.”

“Who is this Ghost supposed to be anyway?” asked Eddie, picking up his water and taking a long gulp.

“You haven’t heard the story?” Oz asked gleefully.

Eddie shook his head as Hayley heaved a sigh. 

“During Eileen’s first year, one of the girls on their corridor, another Firstie, died from accidental magic,” Hayley explained.  “It was a big scandal at the time.  Tracy, my cousin was friends with the girl who died.”

“Nobody knows if she did a spell or if someone did a spell on her!” Oz asserted.

Jemima ignored him, turning in her seat towards Eddie.  “I heard the story from someone on the Charity Committee earlier.  They say the girl, Lindsey, was being bullied by Eileen and the locusts.  She was found dead after they had a huge row.”

“Some say that she took something, but the death was ruled as accidental,” Oz said, “a magic spell gone wrong.  Now she haunts the Old Wing seeking vengeance on those who wronged her.”

“The vengeful part is the same in any version of the story,” Jemima said dryly.  She waved a hand at him.  “The main thing is that a girl called Lindsey died, she was on bad terms with Eileen, and everyone thinks she’s the Ghost of Old Wing.”

“Ghosts are a thing,” Oz said.  “We have one in our town haunting the old social club.”

Hayley nodded.  “He’s a drunk who fell down the back steps into the yard.  My Da says that he’s still looking for a pint.”

Eddie’s lips twitched into a smile.

“I think it’s more likely that someone who doesn’t like Eileen decided to give her a scare last night,” Hayley said.  “Tracy said that Eileen’s never been well-liked.”

“Liked enough to get voted in as Senior Student,” Jemima pointed out.

“There is that rivalry between her and Eliot Tatton,” Oz said. 

Eliot was movie-star gorgeous.  He looked like a tortured poet with tousled dark brown hair and pale skin.  He wore a battered leather jacket and jeans most days.    

“Patrick said Tatton was Lindsey’s boyfriend back in the day.”  Oz looked down at his empty plate.  “I’m going for dessert.” He darted away before Eddie could question him.

“How does he know all this stuff?” Eddie asked.  He didn’t know if he should be unwillingly impressed or simply astounded.

“Inveterate gossip,” Hayley sniffed.  “He’s been that way since we were at nursery.  If there was gossip about who knocked down someone else’s sandpit castle, he knew it.”

“Was your cousin here last year?” asked Jemima.  “Did she know why Eileen got the Senior Student position if she wasn’t well-liked?”

“Aye,” Hayley nodded.  “Said that everyone wanted someone else to get the position, but there was a bout of sickness before the vote and many of the students weren’t well enough to cast their vote at all.  Tatton apparently stood down unexpectedly,” she grimaced.  “Tracy said there was a wild rumour going round that Eileen cast a spell to get her way since she and her friends were all well despite the sickness going around.”

“It does sound suspicious,” Jemima agreed.  She elbowed Eddie.  “What do you think?”

“I think if there really was a ghost the Warden would have called in a psychic,” Eddie said pragmatically.

Jemima grinned.  “You and your logic!”  She reached for her phone as it buzzed.  “Aren’t psychics rare?”

“Our University is one of the few to offer studies in it,” Eddie said.  “There’s a famous Professor here, Merewen Gables.”

“Didn’t she used to have a TV show years ago where she’d talk with the dead?” asked Hayley.

“That’s her,” Eddie said.

“I used to love that programme,” Jemima admitted.  She held up her phone.  “That was Kelly.”

The Student Chair of the Charity Committee, Eddie identified.  She had latched onto Jemima as a kindred soul.

“There’s some problem with the decorations.  I’d better go find out.”

“I’ll see to your tray,” Eddie offered. 

Jemima patted his shoulder as a thank you as she hurried away.

“You really think there’s nothing to this ghost business?” asked Hayley. 

Eddie nodded.  “I would wager someone played a prank on Eileen.”

Hayley sniffed.  “Well, let’s hope so.”

Oz arrived back, sliding into his seat and setting down a bowl of apple crumble and custard.

Eddie perked up.  Apple crumble was his favourite.  He made off to the dessert bar, thoughts of pranks and ghosts drifting away from him in favour of food.

o-O-o

The common room had been decked out with orange and black bunting, cut-out black bats, cobwebs and cauldrons.  It looked atmospheric with the main ceiling light off and fake battery-operated lanterns placed strategically around the room. Whatever decorating crisis had pulled Jemima away from dinner had been resolved as far as Eddie could see.

They had hooked up a phone to portable speakers and it was playing a mix of dance and pop music.  Nobody was thankfully dancing.   

Eddie sipped on the cheap red wine provided and stood awkwardly in a corner of the huge room. 

Hayley had sneaked away after congratulating Jemima.  Eddie wished he had done the same. 

Jemima was doing the rounds as one of the committee members and Oz had deserted him to chat up the petite Asian girl who’d been in the queue behind Eddie and Jemima.  Lila, Eddie recalled the name from the uncomfortable welcome social.  The two of them looked cosy, chatting away on a sofa on the other side of the room.  They were smiling a lot at each other at least.

Eddie’s eyes roamed to the opposite side of the room where Eliot Tatton sat with a few of his friends.  They were drinking beer which they must have brought in themselves.  He really was gorgeous, Eddie mused, and completely out of his league.

“Well, there goes my chance of sneaking out of here anytime soon.”

Eddie turned and found Lila’s friend, the other girl in the queue, staring across the room at Lila and Oz.  “Charlotte, right?”

Charlotte nodded.  She’d changed her hair colour from the black Goth look to a punk purple in the second week.  Her amethyst nose stud almost matched the colour exactly. 

“How are you finding things?” asked Eddie politely.  He didn’t try to hide his wince as he drank down a sip of the wine.  He had a feeling it was mostly vinegar.

“Alright, I suppose,” Charlotte said.  She sipped her own wine and grimaced.  “Lord, but that’s terrible.”

“It really is,” Eddie agreed.  It reminded him of the cheap wine his ex, Todd, had bought for their first time.  One day he’d remember that with fondness, Eddie considered wryly, but not that night.  He set the paper cup on the table beside him and Charlotte did the same.

She wrapped her arms around herself, drawing the purple cardigan she wore closer.  “Is it me of is it always freezing in this room even when it’s packed with people?”

Eddie resolutely did not look down at the Star Wars t-shirt he wore comfortably.  “You’re from the South, aren’t you?”

“Basildon,” Charlotte agreed.  “I can’t seem to get warm.  It’s fucking freezing on our corridor too.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows at that because their corridor always felt warm to him.  Sometimes his small room felt like an oven.

“If it’s not the cold keeping us awake, it’s stupid pranks,” Charlotte complained.

Eddie’s eyebrows rose.  “You’re on the same corridor as Eileen?”

“Unfortunately,” Charlotte said.  “She’s a nightmare.  Lila and I were talking in her room one night and she knocked on the door at the stroke of eleven and told me to get to my own room or she’d report it.  We weren’t even being that loud.”  She nodded towards Lila.  “One of Eileen’s followers, Bridget?  The long stringy one with the mousy hair?  She reported Lila for having a friend sleep over on the floor the other night when their study session went over.  Luckily the Warden dismissed it since it would have been dangerous for Sarah to walk all the way over to Bay Hall at that time of night.”

“I think I’m glad I’m not on your corridor,” Eddie said, “no offense.”

“Can’t blame you,” Charlotte huffed.  “Lila and I have asked to be moved if we can.  We’d even room share.  Warden said it’d likely be a few more weeks before something becomes available.  She said people usually drop out around about then.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Eddie said.  “Marks come back on the first assignments that count towards our degrees about then, right?”

Charlotte nodded.  She shivered suddenly and sighed heavily.  “Sod this, I’m going to head off.”  She strode away, heading straight for Lila.  She interrupted her friend’s flirtation with Oz and Eddie watched as Lila shot Oz an apologetic look but left with Charlotte.

Oz moved onto a group of guys from one of his clubs who were huddled over someone’s phone in a corner.

Eddie wondered what they were looking at.  Probably a sport given the intent body language.  He eyed his abandoned red wine.  He checked where Jemima was and saw her with the rest of the Charity Committee, chatting away happily over by the wine table.  It was probably a good moment to make his own exit.

“Beer?”

Eddie almost jumped at the smooth voice in his ear.  He spun rapidly to find a tall and handsome man standing behind him.  Even in the dim lighting he recognised the Indian features of the Running Club’s Vice-President, Amir Bakshi, with his ink black hair and trim beard. 

“Uh, hi,” Eddie stuttered out, his hand nervously tugging at his very nerdish t-shirt.

“Eddie, right?” Amir said.  He lifted the spare beer he held and offered it again.  “The wine is truly terrible.  Let me save you from it.”

Eddie took the bottle and the opener which was offered in the next moment.  “Thanks.” 

He opened the bottle, handed the opener back which Amir slipped into his jeans’ pocket, and took a sip.  It tasted like nectar compared to the vinegary wine.

“I didn’t get a chance to speak to you at the track yesterday during the meeting,” Amir said.  “How are you enjoying the club?”

“It’s good,” Eddie said, a little unnerved to have gained Amir’s attention.  “I mean, I haven’t been to too many things yet, but the practices are well-organised.”

“You’re a good runner,” Amir said.  “Coach Atherington thinks you could make one of our University teams, maybe the fifteen hundred?”

“I doubt my times are that good,” Eddie said, smiling to soften his disagreement.  “Besides I didn’t do any kind of competing when I was at school.” 

Others in the school had competed in inter-school competitions and he was certain there’d been one girl a few years below him who competed in county races for her running club.

“Did you win the races?” asked Amir, leaning back against the wall, his dark eyes intent on Eddie.

Eddie shrugged.  “Sometimes, I won the fifteen hundred, eight hundred in my year.  I sometimes won our cross-country.” 

Sometimes meaning every time, but Eddie wasn’t about to admit to that.  He’d only joined the club at his Nan’s insistence, he really wasn’t interested in competing. 

“God, but I hate cross-country,” Amir said fervently.  He had enough passion that Eddie could tell he was sincere, but there was a teasing quality in his warm gaze that made Eddie relax a touch.

Eddie chuckled.  “It’s definitely not fun on a cold and snowy Winter’s day in Cumbria.”

“Ah, a Northerner,” Amir smiled, showing perfect teeth.  Eddie wondered if the older student had ever had to spend time in braces like he had done.  “I’m from Kent myself.”

“There are a lot more students here from the South than I realised,” Eddie said. 

There was also more discussion at university about where in the country people originated than he had expected.  But then, he mused, it was a standard conversational opener.

“South, abroad,” Amir shrugged, “Iolaire Bay is a prestigious magical University, and the fees are better here than in England.”

Eddie nodded in agreement.  “What’s your degree in?”

“Medicine,” Amir said, with a small smile.  “My family has a GP practice.  My mother is a Doctor, my father is a Doctor, my uncles are Doctors…”

“Family business then,” Eddie said smiling.

Amir took a sip of his beer while his gaze remained on Eddie.  “You?”

Eddie sipped his own beer to wet his suddenly dry mouth before replying.  “Tech Magic, minor in Practical.”

“You’re a Mage?” asked Amir, his dark eyes widening in surprise.  He moved away from the wall, his body tensed as though getting ready to leave.

“Journeyman class,” Eddie said briefly. 

Amir breathed out, his shoulders dropping a touch.  “Apologies, my friends and I have not had good experiences with magic.” For the first time in their conversation, Amir’s gaze left his and darted away to where Eileen was holding court with her locusts near to the wine table.

Eddie frowned.  Amir was in his final year.  He was in the same year as Eileen and the deceased student.     

“I take it you’re not a fan of our Senior Student?” Eddie asked, keeping his tone light.

Amir’s gaze snapped back to him.  He regarded Eddie with a long even look before he sighed and shook his head.  “We have history.”

“Oh?” asked Eddie.

“Long past,” Amir tried to wave it off. 

“I heard someone pranked her pretending to be a ghost last night,” Eddie said, gesturing with the bottle he held.

Amir took a long gulp of his beer.  “Believe me when I say it couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”  His tone was biting.

Eddie held up a hand in surrender.  “Sorry, I’ve just heard a lot of talk today about it.”

“No,” Amir looked abashed, “I am the one who should be sorry.”  He sighed.  “The girl who is supposed to be the ghost was a friend of mine.”

“Do you believe she is?” asked Eddie carefully, very aware that he was treading into sensitive territory.

“I believe that if anyone deserves to be haunted by Lindsey, it is Eileen Kilkenny,” Amir said firmly.  He waved his bottle at Eddie.  “Enough about ghosts.  I did not come over to make us both feel sad.” 

His gaze ran over Eddie boldly and he felt himself flush under its blatant admiration.

“I came over to make us both feel good,” Amir concluded with a grin which acknowledged the cheesiness of the line and yet somehow also conveyed that Amir was not joking.

Eddie was thankful for the dim lighting.  He was very certain that his face was bright red.  “I’m very flattered,” he managed to stutter out, and he really was flattered because Amir was very attractive, “but, uh, I’m not,” he rubbed a hand over his hot neck, “I’m not really into casual?”

Amir’s eyes widened briefly before his expression turned rueful.  “Pity,” he made another sweeping review of Eddie’s body and smiled.  “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”

He walked away before Eddie could reply – not that he had a reply, Eddie thought chagrined.  He’d probably think of one in the middle of the night or in another three days’ time. 

He took another long draw from the bottle.  At least he’d gotten a decent drink out of being propositioned.

He’d been propositioned.

Someone had actually wanted to be with him.

Well.

Someone had wanted to have casual sex with him, but someone had wanted him.

Eddie couldn’t help but feel a little uplifted by that.  He and Todd hadn’t really dated so much as they had slid from friends to friends with benefits (which was how Eddie knew casual wasn’t for him, because he had hated it) to being boyfriends without any real discussion about any of it.  Probably not the best way to have a relationship, Eddie thought with a wince.

But nobody else had ever seemed interested.  Sure, he knew he wasn’t ugly, but he’d never been the most handsome boy in his class.  He was just normal.  Shaggy blond hair, brown eyes, and his weird teenage geeky lankiness which had morphed slowly into a runner’s frame. 

He took a gulp of the beer as he remembered Amir’s evident appreciation. 

Jemima disengaged from her group and hurried over to him.  He mentally berated himself for not leaving when he’d had the chance.

Jemima tucked her arm around his.  “You and that guy looked cosy?”

Eddie shrugged.

“You didn’t like him?” asked Jemima quietly.

“I liked him, I mean I like him,” Eddie said, not entirely comfortable with discussing his love life, even with Jemima who had been his closest friend since they’d met, “just…I’m not really comfortable with, you know.”

Jemima beamed at him.  “I should have known that you’re a romantic.” She patted his arm.  “Me too.”  She sighed.  “Brad hasn’t texted me all night.”

“That’s…” Eddie began.

All the lanterns blinked out.

The music died.

The room plunged into silent darkness for a split second with a few startled screams and tense giggles sounding through the room and…

“I know what you did,” a girl’s voice boomed out of the speakers.  “I know what you did!”

Eddie shivered and he shifted to press closer to Jemima who gripped his arm tightly.

There was a sudden sharp scream that slapped through Eddie and made Jemima gasp.

Someone sobbed audibly, a heaving wet harsh sound that echoed.

The main ceiling light suddenly came on, illuminating the room…

In the middle of the room, Eileen stood, pale and horrified, her hair dripping wet, and her clothes stained red with wine…

The Ghost had struck again.

o-O-o

Jemima’s room was the biggest of all four and had quickly become the room they all congregated in. 

Eddie sometimes wondered if her aristocratic title had won her the room lottery, but in truth it wasn’t overly bigger than the others. 

It still had a single bed against one wall, the desk set against the wall beside it with the same shelving above, and the in-built closet to the right with a door to the tiny ensuite.  But there was a wide bay window with a great view of the coastline with an in-built window-seat.

Jemima’s shelves were packed with art books and her institutional white walls were already covered with posters of various art.  She’d pinned fairy lights under the shelves and added cushions and a throw to the window seat.  She’d also eschewed the standard linen provided by the Hall for her own duvet and bedding set in an amber sunshine theme.  There was a practical woven rug in the same warm amber tones on the floor.

It made Eddie’s room look completely spartan by comparison.

Maybe he’d ask friends to get him posters for Christmas, Eddie mused.  He had used his savings to buy one cheap print he’d found in the comic bookstore on Main Street.  It was a rendition of a classic Spiderman cover.  He’d stuck it over his bed with a simple sticking spell.

He dropped down to sit cross-legged between Oz and Jemima.  He handed Jemima a glass with a nip of whiskey from her stash in the bottom drawer of her desk.  He stuck to water, and Hayley was doing the same.  Oz had accepted a whiskey, but he’d quickly downed it and set his glass aside.

Jemima sipped the whiskey and rolled the glass in her hands.  She was still shaken from the party.  “Who would do something like that?!”

“Someone who really doesn’t like Eileen,” Oz stated.  He rubbed a hand over his head.  “That was wild.”

“Tell me again what happened?” asked Hayley. 

They’d pulled her out of writing an essay to join them in decompressing after the party had unsurprisingly finished early after the prank.

Eddie hoped it had been a prank.

“I was watching the Rangers’ match on Liam’s phone with a few of the other lads,” Oz explained.  “All the lights and music suddenly went out.  Then, there was this girl’s voice, saying ‘I know what you did’ a couple of times, then…boom!” He mimed an explosion.  “Eileen screams, lights come on, and Eileen’s stood there, dripping with red wine!”

Hayley frowned and her gaze darted to Jemima as though asking for confirmation.

Jemima nodded.  “That’s pretty much what happened.” She grimaced.  “I kind of feel sorry for her.”

“It was a messy prank,” Eddie said.  “Quite a few people got caught in the splash.”

Jemima grimaced.  “Kelly’s blouse was splattered.  She thinks we’re going to have to pay for the rug being stained too.”  She sighed.  “I don’t even know if what we managed to raise will cover it.”

“They can’t blame the committee, surely?” Hayley said.  “It’s not your fault some idiot pranked Eileen.”

“It felt more like an attack than a prank,” Eddie said quietly.

They all look at him with various degrees of surprise.

Eddie sips the water and wishes it was the beer he’d abandoned to help Jemima deal with the prank aftermath.  “Just, this wasn’t a prank, this was someone trying to terrorise her.”

“I think it worked,” Oz remarked.  “She looked spooked.”

“Why now though?” asked Jemima.  “If this is about Lindsey Dawson’s death, why rake it up now?”

“Maybe it’s their last chance to get back at her?” Eddie theorised out loud.

“Or their first chance?” offered Hayley.

Eddie looked over at her questioningly.

“Most of her corridor are Freshers now,” Hayley said.  “If you stay in halls, you’re allowed to ask for a room, Wing or corridor in your subsequent years.  Tracy said Eileen’s room has always been in Old Wing on that corridor.”

“I would move rooms,” Jemima said fervently, tugging her dark hair out of its up-do and shaking it out with her fingers.  “Besides, there are better rooms on the fourth floor.”

“Plus,” said Oz, “why would you stay in the same corridor where someone died?”  He gave a mock shudder.  “It gives me the willies.”

Hayley shrugged.  “What if someone on her corridor is related to the girl who died or knew her somehow? What if they really do blame her and they’re out for revenge?”

Eddie’s struck by a different idea.  “Or maybe they don’t like Eileen for something she did now, and they’re using the old story as a way of getting back at her.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jemima, her brow creasing with confusion.

“I was talking with Charlotte,” Eddie explained. “She said Eileen and her friends are sticklers for the hall rules.  They reported Lila for giving her friend a floor for the night when it was too late for her to walk back.”

“So, you think Charlotte or Lila planned the prank?!” Jemima shook her head.  “Lila wouldn’t, I mean she’s really sweet.”

“And hot,” Oz shook his hand out.  “Hot, hot.”

Hayley rolled her eyes at him.  “Like you even have a chance,” she teased fondly.

“Hey, I wasn’t doing badly until Charlotte pulled her away,” Oz said, grinning.

Eddie ignored their by-play and looked at Jemima.  “I’m not saying it was them, but maybe someone like them.  Someone who Eileen has reported or gotten into trouble.”

“But you don’t really think that,” Jemima said, pointing at him.  “You think it relates back to the death of Lindsey, not now.”

Eddie nodded, sombrely.  “What happened tonight – that’s a lot of anger for someone who just got into a little trouble for breaking the rules.”

Oz yawned and stretched.  “Well, maybe whoever it is will be done with it now they’ve given her a right old scare.”  He shook himself.  “I have to get to bed.  I have an early practice with the football team.”

“I’ll come with you, I have to finish that essay,” Hayley clambered to her feet.  “Night, you two.”

The door clicked shut behind the two friends leaving Eddie with Jemima.

“Do you think that’s the end of it?” asked Jemima, rolling her glass between her hands.

Eddie sighed.  “I hope so.”

She tilted her head and looked at him.  “You’re really intrigued by this whole thing, aren’t you?”

“I guess,” Eddie said hesitantly.  He shrugged.  “I like mysteries.”  He liked puzzling things out.

“Let me guess, you like reading Agatha Christie and working out the murderer?” Jemima teased gently.  “Should I call you Hercule Poirot?”

“As long as I’m not Hastings, the bumbling sidekick,” Eddie quipped back.  He got to his feet as she laughed.  “I should get to bed too.  You’ll be alright?”

Jemima pulled a face, her pretty features distorting for a second.  “I might sleep with the light on, but I’ll be fine.  Thanks for helping with clean-up.”

Eddie waved away her thanks and headed for his own room.  He pushed all thoughts of vengeful ghosts out of his head as he got ready for bed.

It wasn’t until he was lying in the dark staring at the ceiling that his mind began to whirl again.

Someone was targeting and tormenting Eileen, Eddie thought.  There was no way to look at what had happened at the party and think anything else.

Jemima was right.  He believed whoever it was had chosen to enact their scheme because of what had happened three years before.  But what had happened three years before?

Lindsey Dawson had died.

Her death had been ruled as accidental magic, but people spoke about how Eileen had bullied her, had blamed Eileen for the death.

The words spoken that night, ‘I know what you did,’ suggested that whoever was targeting Eileen believed she did something.  But what exactly had she done?

And who exactly were the suspects, Eddie mused. 

Amir, who’d been friends with Lindsey and clearly disliked Eileen?  Eliot, Lindsey’s old boyfriend, who Eddie didn’t even know?  He had looked completely shocked at the sight of Eileen when the lights came on.  Maybe it wasn’t even anything to do with Lindsey at all.  Maybe it was someone like Charlotte or Lila holding a grudge.

It wasn’t like there was even enough information for Eddie to investigate and find out.  What was he even thinking?  That he’d be able to figure it out all out like Sherlock Holmes?

Eddie rubbed a hand over his face and turned over restlessly in his bed.  He closed his eyes determinedly.  He needed to get some sleep.

o-O-o

He hadn’t slept well.

After waking for what felt like the umpteenth time, Eddie had given up on sleep and walked over to the athletic building on the other side of town.  The building was open early for practice and he changed in the locker room with a couple of other guys.  They all kept themselves to themselves beyond short nods of acknowledgement.

He barely noticed as they left to head to the main gym.  He headed outside to the running track, popping in his earphones and setting his phone to his favourite running playlist.  He warmed up on the side before hitting the track.

He focused on his breathing and let the rhythmic sound of his feet slapping against the concrete track underneath his favourite music fill his head.

He’d done a few laps before he noticed movement at the other side of the track. 

Amir.

He watched as Amir warmed up and started running. 

Eddie pressed his lips together.  Amir wasn’t there for him; he was there to run.  He refocused and tried to ignore the older student on the track.   

He lasted through the laps he wanted to do, but his sense of being settled that the earlier laps had brought him was gone, leaving him with a nervous energy.

It rocketed further when Amir joined him in cool-down stretches at the side of the track.

Amir began talking to him and Eddie hurriedly pulled out his earphones, pocketing them in his sweatpants.

“…and I guess we had the same idea after last night’s incident,” Amir said.  “Running always helps me get away from my worries.”

Eddie shot him a confused look since Amir had left the room before the blackout.  “You heard about what happened?”

Amir snorted.  “The whole of Ioliare Bay probably heard about what happened.” He moved into a hamstring stretch showing a flexibility Eddie envied.  “Also, Warden North pulled all of the senior year into her office.”

“All of you?” Eddie asked, surprised.

“There are only fifteen of us left who were also there in the first year,” Amir said.  “Some decided to leave when Eileen won the vote for Senior Student Rep.  Eliot was robbed.”

Eddie finished his stretching and reached for the water bottle he’d left along with a towel on a nearby bench.  “What did the Warden want?” 

Amir picked up his own towel and ran it over his head.  “To ask us if we had any idea who was pranking Eileen!”  He huffed out a breath.  “Like it was any of us!”

“You don’t think it was one of you?” Eddie asked awkwardly. 

Amir snapped around to glare at him.

“I just mean that the obvious suspect for someone wanting to hurt Eileen with what happened back then, is someone who was affected by what happened back then,” Eddie continued hurriedly.  He winced at his garbled words.  They’d sounded better in his head.

Amir closed his eyes briefly and took a breath.  He shook his head.  “You don’t know how it was.  None of you know how it was.”

“You could tell me?” suggested Eddie.

Amir’s dark gaze met his.  He regarded him searchingly and Eddie wondered what he was looking for, but whatever it was, he seemed to find it. 

Amir nodded.  “Fine, but not here.  Over coffee?”

Eddie might have read something into the invitation if Amir hadn’t already propositioned him for just sex the night before.  The coffee wasn’t a date.  It wasn’t the beginning of something.  He nodded.

They went back inside.  Eddie felt a bit self-conscious heading into a shower stall, but he forced himself to act casual as he washed and dried off.  He dressed quickly in warm clothes, packing up his bag with short economic movements. 

Amir and he fell into step on the way out and Eddie followed him into a cobbled side-street to a local café rather than one of the main chain coffee shops on Main Street.

They ordered drinks and breakfast.  Amir waved away Eddie’s attempt to pay, offering his own card to the waitress.

They settled in a corner booth with thick ceramic mugs filled with excellently brewed coffee.  It wasn’t long before the elderly waitress brough over plates of freshly made breakfast omelettes with hot buttered toast. 

As if they had agreed it, they talked about running as they ate breakfast, sticking to the non-emotional topic like glue.

Eddie looked around the bright café with appreciation as he set his cutlery down and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin.  “This place is great.”

“It’s a local secret, but some of us stumble across it,” Amir said.  He pushed his empty plate aside and wrapped his hands around his mug.  “Lindsey was the one who found it and showed it to me.”

There was a beat of silence as they both acknowledged that they were finally going to talk about her.

“You were good friends with her,” Eddie noted.

Amir nodded.  “She had the room next to mine.  We met the first day, coming in and out as we unpacked.  She was a History student.  She hated exercise; I’ve always been part of the running club.  She was from Newcastle; I was from Kent.  We had little to nothing in common, but much like your little group of friends, we met and bonded by surviving the experience together.”

“What happened with her and Eileen?” asked Eddie quietly.

Amir sighed.  His eyes met Eddie’s across the table, a beseeching look in their dark brown depths.  “It was like oil and water from the first moment.”  He took a drink of his coffee.  “Eileen was originally in the room on the opposite side of Lindsey from me.  They clashed terribly over how loud Lindsey played music or watched TV, noise if we were in the room and talking, the bed moving in the middle of the night with Lindsey sleeping, or after she got together with Eliot, them having sex.  That last part of it I understood more because Eliot and Eileen dated briefly right at the start of the term and then, suddenly, he was seeing Lindsey; that had to rankle.  But Eileen complained incessantly.”

“She reported Lindsey for rule violations,” Eddie deduced. 

It was the logical conclusion.

“Many,” Amir breathed out.  “You can look it up for yourself.  The violation records are online as part of the University’s transparency commitment.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows.  He’d forgotten that.

“Luckily, the Warden clocked that something more was happening than Lindsey being a bad resident,” Amir said.  “After Christmas, she moved Eileen to her current room when Paul moved over to New Wing.  She had Bridget on one side, Gaynor on the other; her friends.” He sipped his drink.  “Things calmed down for a long while.”

“And then?” asked Eddie.

“Lindsey and Eileen both joined up the End of Year Ball Committee,” Amir said.  “They argued about everything, fought over every decision.  Eventually both were removed from the committee for being disruptive.  They had a massive argument in the dining hall.  Eileen screamed that she wished Lindsey was dead.”  He swallowed hard, his eyes swimming with emotion.  “The next day she was.”

“Lindsey’s death was ruled as accidental,” Eddie said softly, trying not to tread too much on Amir’s evident grief.

“An accidental death caused by magic gone wrong,” Amir expanded.  He shook his head.  “Lindsey was not magical at all.  She was very grounded.  She was the most grounded person I knew.  She didn’t have the ability to cast a spell herself.”

“Eileen is magical,” Eddie remembered how he had clocked that as soon as he’d met her.  A mage knew another mage, even one with limited magic like himself.

“Rumours said the screaming match was an accidental curse,” Amir said.  “Eliot never believed that.  For a while he believed that Eileen had done some kind of spell intending to just hurt Lindsey and it went wrong.”

“What about you?” asked Eddie impulsively.  “What do you believe?”

“I believe Eileen made Lindsey’s life hellish here,” Amir said.  “For that she deserves to be haunted.”

“But?” asked Eddie, sensing there was a ‘but.’

“But,” Amir said, “Eileen acts to always to get someone in trouble not to physically or magically hurt them.  I’ve never believed that she did something magical to intentionally to harm Lindsey.” He sighed and leaned forward.  “And as much as I don’t like to admit it, I don’t know that she even did something magical at all.”  He lifted his eyes and met Eddie’s sombre gaze.  “I would never say that to Eliot.”

“He’s set on Eileen being the culprit,” Eddie said.

“He needed someone to blame because he left Lindsey alone that night,” Amir said.  “But after the coroner’s verdict, he just wanted to move on.  I don’t think it is him pranking Eileen.”

Eddie recalled the morose man sat drinking at the Halloween party and recalled again how he had looked really shocked when the lights had come back on.

“Do you have any idea who it might be?” asked Eddie.

Amir shook his head.  “None.  All of us who remain who were Lindsey’s friends, none of us have reason to do this now.  When Eliot decided to stop talking about it, we all just collectively decided not to speak or interact with Eileen too.”  He sighed.  “Adam did play one prank on Eileen after the Senior Student voting debacle last year.  The sickness wasn’t her fault, it was completely natural and the whole town was affected.  But he hated that she won so he tried to put a laxative in her food to give her the runs, only he got caught by one of the dining staff and received a formal warning.  He swore to Eliot and I after the Warden’s meeting last night that he isn’t behind these latest pranks.”

“The Warden must be worried if she called you all in,” Eddie said.  He drained his mug and put it down.

Amir nodded. “The Warden said she hoped that none of us were behind the pranks, because the next prank against Eileen would mean her calling in the police.”

Serious, Eddie noted.

Amir took a final drink from his mug.  He looked at Eddie with curiosity.  “You are very easy to talk to, Eddie.”

“Maybe you needed to talk about it all,” Eddie suggested.

Amir smiled and pointed a finger at him.  “You might be right about that.”  He leaned back.  “Are you sure I can’t interest you in some private exercise?”

Eddie shook his head.  “Still not that guy.”

Amir smiled at him.  “No, you’re not, are you?  More’s the pity.” He grinned.  “Well, maybe I’ll convince you one day, but in the meantime, friends?”

“Friends,” Eddie readily agreed.

They split up after the café. 

Eddie headed to the lab to work on his latest assignment.  Saturday morning meant that it was almost empty, and he could work in peace and quiet.  He grabbed a sandwich at the Union and made his way back to Iolaire Hall. 

Back in his room, he pulled out his laptop.  It was a repurposed one that he’d gotten over the Summer, investing some of his savings and birthday money to have something decent for University.  He plugged it in, connected to the wi-fi and hit the hall’s intranet.

It was horrendously easy to find the code violation records and he quickly tapped in search criteria to filter to the current and past three academic years for Eileen’s corridor.

Eddie ate his sandwich while he waited for the results to compile and start to spool out on the page. 

The current year showed a recent violation report against Lila Chen and the subsequent Warden ruling that it was not valid.

There were two other reports though for Charlotte Lewis – both for loud music and both from Eileen.  A third report would see her in front of the Warden.

Eddie wondered if they were following Eileen’s example or doing the reports to make them popular with Eileen herself.

The previous years showed a similar pattern from Eileen and her friends.  Reports about loud music and TV, talking after the quiet curfew, unallowed overnight guests and, in one case, inappropriate decoration.

Eddie grimaced.  He’d had to knock on Archie, his neighbour’s door, once since the start of term.  Archie had been watching a horror film with some friends and Eddie had heard every single line of dialogue and every scream.  He wouldn’t have knocked, but he’d had an early tutorial scheduled the following day and he hadn’t been able to sleep with the noise.  He hadn’t considered reporting him though.

The reports against Lindsey were almost daily until after Christmas.  But although the room move had reduced the amount of reporting, Eileen had still reported her for having Eliot in her room on six occasions between Christmas and a date in May. Presumably, Lindsey had died soon after. 

His eyes caught on one name early in the following year.  Tracy Warren.  Hayley’s cousin.  Eileen had reported against her daily too.  He checked Tracy’s room number noted on the violation and saw that Tracy had been Eileen’s neighbour that year. 

He wondered why Hayley hadn’t mentioned her cousin had been so targeted by Eileen.  Eddie frowned. 

Hayley had a motive.

She had been briefly at the Halloween party, enough to clock where Eileen was standing, where the red wine was…

She had also been the one to propose that the prankster potentially was a Fresher, a first year.

It was ridiculous.

And yet…

Eddie huffed.  He wasn’t finished delving into the records.

He hunted around the intranet and found a hall room directory.  He made a note of who was actually on Eileen’s corridor apart from herself, her friends, and Kelly the Charity Committee Chair.  He didn’t any of the others apart from Charlotte and Lila.

He wondered if he changed the year, if he’d get the room allocations for that year.  He tapped in the academic year Eileen had started and…

The list of names appeared like magic. 

Eileen and her two buddies, Bridget and Gaynor.

Amir.

Lindsey.

Eliot.

Eliot?  He hadn’t realised Lindsey’s former boyfriend had also been on the corridor with her.

Eliot and Amir’s friend, Adam.

Kelly again.

Tracy again.   

The rest of the names he didn’t recognise, but his eyes caught on one surname – Lewis.  Paul Lewis.  He wondered if Charlotte was related, but Lewis was a popular surname.

He jumped at a loud knock on his door.

He took a breath before he got up and opened it.

Jemima and Hayley stood in the doorway with plates filled with sandwiches.

Jemima smiled at him.  “We thought we’d see if you wanted to eat lunch with us.”

Eddie ushered them inside his room.  “I’ve just eaten but come in anyway.”

Hayley sat on the messily made bed and Jemima joined her, smoothing the duvet before she sat down.

“How was your morning?” Jemima asked as he offered them cans of soda to drink.  “We missed you at breakfast.”

“Went running early,” Eddie said.

“Are you sure you didn’t have a breakfast date?” asked Jemima grinning.

Hayley chuckled at his open-mouthed surprise that they knew about his breakfast with Amir.  “Oz saw you and Amir leaving the athletic building and heading into the Bay Harbour café.”

Eddie snapped his mouth shut and folded his arms over his chest as he sat down with a thump in his desk chair.  “He really does know everything,” he muttered.

“Spill!” Jemima ordered.

Eddie literally squirmed.  He sighed.  “It’s not what you think.  It wasn’t a date.”  He explained about his run, Amir and the discussion about Lindsey.  He gestured back to his laptop.  “I’ve been going through the old records trying to see if there are patterns.”

Hayley paled under her freckles.  She grimaced as her eyes caught his.  “I guess you found out about Eileen harassing my cousin, Tracy.”

Eddie nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Yeah, I kind of did.”

Jemima looked at her.  “She did?”

Hayley gave a short nod and put her half-eaten sandwich back down on the plate.  “Tracy was roomed next to Eileen in their second year.  She pretty much did to Tracy what she’d done to Lindsey the first year.  Just complained incessantly, bullying her about the rules.  Tracy got moved after Christmas and she moved out of halls completely for her final year here.”

“She only did three years?” asked Jemima, visibly confused as the standard was four.

“Tracy’s doing an Italian degree, her actual final study year is in Italy on a partnership programme with Rome,” explained Hayley.  She picked at the bread on her sandwich.  “When I got allocated here, my Ma rang the Bursary office and asked for me not to located near Eileen given Tracy’s history with her.”

“Do you think your cousin would talk to us about her experience?” asked Eddie.

“Wow,” Jemima coughed as she choked on a bite of her lunch.  “You really jumped into being one of the Hardy Boys.”

“Please,” Eddie sniffed, “I’m clearly Nancy Drew.”

They grinned at each other.

“I always wanted to be Nancy Drew,” murmured Hayley.  She glanced over at his laptop.  “I can’t believe you’ve really investigated it all.”

“I’m just too curious for my own good,” Eddie admitted, a little embarrassed. 

Hayley picked up her sandwich.  “Well, I can arrange a video call with Tracy, but I don’t know how much she’ll be able to tell you.  When she talked to me about Eileen, she didn’t really say much more than what a nightmare she was and talked about the voting stuff.”

“She was on the same corridor as Lindsey and Eileen that first year,” Eddie said.

“She was?” Hayley mumbled around her sandwich.  She hurriedly chewed and swallowed.  “She never said.”

Eddie could see the genuine surprise in her eyes.  He was beginning to feel a little foolish at thinking of her as a suspect.

There was another loud knock on the door.

“That’ll be Oz,” Hayley said, “I texted him that we were here.”

Eddie got up and went to open the door.

It was Oz. 

He pushed in without ceremony, causing Eddie to take a stumbling step back, the smell of burger and fries wafting from the take-out bag he held. 

“You will not believe what has just happened!” Oz said, taking Eddie’s desk chair without discussion.

Eddie shut the door.  “What?”

Oz gestured almost losing hold of the bag.  “The Ghost just pushed Eileen down the stairs!”

o-O-o

“WHAT?!”

All three of them shouted in unison.

Oz reared back, pushing the chair back a step.

Eddie sat on the bed next to Jemima.  “Why don’t you explain it from the beginning?”

Oz nodded.  “I was coming back from grabbing my lunch,” he held up the bag, “and I thought I’d take the back stairs because they’re closer, right?”

They all nod.

“So, I come through the back entrance, and I turn the corner, and BAM!” Oz gestured wildly, the bag almost going flying again.  “There’s the Warden and her secretary woman…” he clicked his fingers rapidly as he searched for her name.

“Elsie?” offered Jemima.

“Is that her name?” Oz asked.  He shook himself. “Anyway, her, plus Kelly and Bridget who is screaming that someone pushed Eileen and her at the top of the stairs.  They’re all gathered around Eileen who is out cold on the floor.  Anyway, one of the other student reps, Miguel?  He’s keeping a group of gawkers back and confirms to that weird guy who was Eileen’s rival that there’s an ambulance on the way.”  He paused and opened the take-out bag.  “It’s completely mad.”

Hayley shoves her empty plate over to Oz to use.  “I can’t believe someone went so far as to shove her down the stairs.”

Eddie mentally scratches her name off the list of suspects since he and Jemima were Hayley’s very solid alibi for not pushing Eileen down the stairs.

“That’s escalated quickly,” Eddie said.  He held up one finger.  “First, someone breaks into her room and scares her pretending to be a ghost.  That’s silly and pretty harmless, right?”

“Uh, it would totally freak me out,” Hayley said, raising her hand.  “Unless she forgot to lock her door, someone managed to break in.  How are you meant to feel safe in your room after that?”

“Okay, not harmless,” Eddie corrected because he hadn’t even thought of that.

“But your point stands,” Jemima brushed some crumbs off her blue jumper, “it was a pretty mild stunt.  They didn’t attack her or do anything to her physically even when they had the opportunity.”

“Then you get the Halloween party,” Eddie held up two fingers.  “That took some planning to get the lanterns all to go out at the same time.”  He frowned.  “How did they do that, by the way?”

“They all have a timer function,” Jemima said.  She frowned.  “They were set to go off at the same time.” She gestured at Eddie.  “Nobody touched them while Kelly and I were sorting out the decorations and I’m sure Kelly locked the room when we left to get ready for the party.”

“So, our suspect is someone with the ability to unlock the doors in the hall,” Oz said through a mouthful of burger.

“Well, I know I’m putting a chair against the door tonight,” Hayley grumbled, hugging herself tightly. 

“Me too,” Jemima agreed fervently.  She bit her lip.  “I think we need to talk with Kelly.  She said during clean-up that she had thought the timers had been set to midnight.”

“So, the lanterns were meant to go out?” asked Eddie.

“Exactly,” Jemima shifted to look at him better.  “It was meant to be a small prank for Halloween, lights go out at midnight, everyone gets a little scare, and then Kelly had someone lined up to put the main light on.  It was meant to be the signal that the party was over.”

Eddie felt that midnight had been wildly optimistic; the party had been likely to wind up much sooner in his opinion.  Given the incredulous look Oz shot him, he felt the same.

“Right,” Eddie muttered, “we’ll talk with Kelly.”  He shook his head.  “Anyway, the Halloween party was a step up from the night-scare.  Eileen had a bottle of wine dumped over her.  That’s assault from a legal perspective.”

Jemima nodded, a grave expression on her beautifully made-up face.  “Eileen tried to play it off as anger, but we could all see she was terrified.”

“It wasn’t just the wine and the lanterns though, right?” Oz said, gesturing with his partially-eaten burger, “there was that weird recording that played with the girl’s voice saying ‘I know what you did.’”

“Oz is right,” Jemima said.  “When the lights came on, Kelly’s phone wasn’t hooked up to the speakers anymore.”

“Whoever did it, acted fast,” Eddie said.  “They had to wait on the lanterns going out, unhook one phone, hook up their phone, dump the red wine over Eileen, unhook their phone, and get out before someone hit the lights.”

“Or stay inside the room and act innocent,” Oz said.  “That’s what I would have done.”

Eddie frowned.  Could he remember everyone in the room?  It was a big room and for all the party had been lame, it had been well-attended.

“The party was definitely a step up in terrorising Eileen,” Hayley said slowly.  “But most people would brush off getting wine spilled over you.  Shoving her down the stairs?”  She rubbed the top of her arms.  “That’s a real assault.  Someone meant to hurt her.”

“Or kill her,” Jemima said.  “Those stairs are lethal.  I was walking down them in Freshers’ week when someone missed their footing in front of me and fell a couple of steps.  She was very badly bruised.”

“Do you remember who that was?” asked Eddie.  Maybe Eileen’s ‘Ghost’ had gotten the idea from the incident.

“I’m not sure of her name,” Jemima said.  “I think she was talking to you at one point.  Tall girl, purple hair?  I think it was black at the beginning of term.”

Charlotte Lewis.  Maybe she was someone else he needed to talk to, Eddie mused.  He said as much out loud.

Oz raised his hand as though he was in class, fingers sticky with burger sauce.  “Why are we talking to these guys again?”

“Eddie is curious,” Jemima answered primly, amusement written all over her face.

“Didn’t curiosity kill the cat?” Oz pointed out.  He stuck his thumb in his mouth to clean it off.   

“Oh, come on, Oz,” Hayley teased, a smile breaking over her tensed face.  “Didn’t we used to pretend to be Batman and Robin when we were little?”

“I always wanted to be part of The Famous Five,” Jemima said wistfully.  “Only my brother never wanted to play with his baby sisters.”

“Well, we don’t have a dog, so I say we’re the Fantastic Four,” Oz said.

“Sure,” Hayley grinned, “Eddie’s Mister Fantastic, Jem’s the Human Torch, I’m the Invisible Woman and you’re The Thing.”

Oz gaped at her.  “We’re like siblings!  If you’re the Invisible Woman, I should be the Human Torch!”

“Are you saying I’m The Thing?” Jemima asked sweetly.

Oz’s furious backpedalling had them all laughing.

“Seriously, though,” Oz said, “if we’re doing this, we should be really careful.  I don’t want to end up at the bottom of the stairs.”  He swiped his hand over his shirt.

Hayley looked at him with disgust.  “Honestly, Oz!”

Eddie nodded though.  “He’s right.  We need to be careful.”

Jemima smiled.  “So, we’re doing this?”

They all exchanged a surprisingly serious look.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “we’re doing this.”

o-O-o

In the end, only Hayley and Eddie were available to do the call with Hayley’s cousin that evening.

Jemima and Oz had both hurried through their dinner and left for various club meetings.

The dining hall had been abuzz with the latest news that Eileen had suffered a broken hip, a fractured collarbone and was being kept in the town’s cottage hospital because of a severe concussion.  The word was that she was going to head to her home in Belfast rather than returning to Iolaire Bay.

With such serious injuries, Eddie wasn’t surprised.

Hayley’s room was somewhere between Eddie’s spartan space and Jemima’s cosy décor. She still used the standard linen, and there was no rug on the floor, but her walls were covered with posters of various cult TV shows and there was a throw and a huge stuffed dog on the bed.

She set-up her laptop on the desk, and Eddie went to get his own chair so he would have somewhere to sit comfortably while they did the call.

The video conferencing software was available through the University’s website for all students.  Eddie knew they’d initially implemented it for remote students as he’d investigated that option himself.  His Nan was getting on and remote learning was cheaper than attending university.  But his course was the kind where remote learning really wasn’t practical given the amount of lab work.

He was fortunate, Eddie reminded himself, he’d qualified for full loan for his tutorial fees and a small government grant paid for his accommodation due to his circumstances.  With his holiday work, he had enough savings that he wouldn’t incur too much debt from living expenses, but he figured he’d need to find some paid term work eventually.

The call connected and Eddie stayed off camera, sitting to the side while Hayley greeted her cousin and explained what had been going on.  It seemed all too soon that Hayley was tugging him into frame.

Tracy looked nothing like Hayley.  Her dark hair was cut into an elfin style and her black eyes were hidden behind large black-frame glasses.  Her summery green dress was matched perfectly with a light green cardigan.

“Hi,” said Eddie awkwardly.

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to try talking with people, he mused, taking in her unhappy expression.

“Hi,” Tracy responded with a hint of mockery in her tone.  “Hayley says you want to talk about Eileen seeing as she finally got her comeuppance?”

“We’re really just interested in what happened given the whole ghost story angle,” Eddie said hurriedly.  “We don’t want to bring up past traumas, but if you could tell us anything that would be great.”

“Please, Tracy,” Hayley added.  “Whoever tossed Eileen down the stairs is still running around free.  I don’t feel safe!”

Tracy’s expression softened.  She sighed.  “Fine, but you didn’t hear this from me, right?”

They both nodded.

“I really have no idea who pushed Eileen down the stairs,” Tracy said baldly.  “She hasn’t exactly made a lot of friends because of the way she is so I’m sure there is a list of suspects a mile long.”

Eddie grimaced.  She wasn’t wrong.  “Could you take us back to the start?  What happened with Eileen and Lindsey?”

“From the start?  Really, it was war between Lindsey and Eileen right from the off,” Tracy said.  “They were neighbours the first term, and Eileen kept reporting Lindsey for stupid stuff.  Maybe a couple of times, her TV was too loud, and I get hearing her and Eliot was annoying for Eileen – the room walls are really not designed for privacy.”

Eddie was suddenly thankful his neighbour didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Anyway, Lindsey was lovely, Eileen was stuck-up,” Tracy said, “we all took sides and the majority of us were on Lindsey’s since it looked like Eileen was just reporting her to make trouble a lot of the time.” She shrugged.  “She did the same to me the following year.  She was a nightmare.  It was like she couldn’t stand someone living next door to her.”

“Maybe she has really sensitive hearing,” Hayley mused out loud.

“Or maybe she was determined to only have her chosen minions as neighbours,” Tracy retorted.  “I hear she got her way last year and this.” She grimaced.  “Sorry, just…what she put me through, what she put Lindsey through wasn’t right.”

Eddie offered a sympathetic smile.  “What happened the night Lindsey died?”

Tracy pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed heavily.  “Everyone heard them argue.  It was a loud argument.”  She pursed her lips.  “Lindsey stormed off to her room saying she wanted to be alone.  She even kept Eliot out and they were practically inseparable by then.  A few of us knocked on her door about an hour after dinner and asked if she was OK, if she wanted company.  She came to the door, and we could see she’d been crying, but she said she was just going to head to bed, have an early night.  We left her.  Kelly said she wasn’t in the mood for the movie we’d planned to watch, so only Paul, Amir and I went to my room to watch it.”

She paused.

She shook her head.  “We all went to bed late, and the next morning…Eliot raised the alarm when Lindsey didn’t answer her door and wasn’t answering her phone.  The Warden and a security guard went in and found her.  She was already dead.”

“Do you think Eileen killed her?” asked Eddie, leaning in to get a better look at her reaction.

Tracy breathed in audibly and shook her head in a jerky sharp motion.  “No,” she admitted, “I don’t think she did.” She gestured towards the camera.  “Don’t get me wrong.  She’s a nightmare, but I don’t think she’s a killer.”

“What do you think happened?” asked Eddie.

“I always thought it was an accident,” Tracy said grimly. She shifted position, looking away for a long moment before she looked back into the camera. “Lindsey had days where she’d be depressed, and I know she battled a lot of anxiety.  She didn’t talk about it with many people.  I know she told me, and I know she told Kelly – they were really close.  Maybe she told Eliot?  She had a lot of problems sleeping.”

She paused again, visibly gathering her thoughts.

“Eliot told me she had been found with this magic-infused sleeping elixir she’d bought off the internet.  It was powerful stuff, and you were only meant to be take a thimble of it.  I just figured when the coroner found for accidental death by magic that she’d accidentally taken too much of it,” Tracy concluded sadly.

Eddie pushed a hand through his shaggy hair.  He could see what might have happened.  Lindsey upset after the argument might have taken some of her sleeping elixir, maybe giving herself a bigger dose accidentally.

Maybe.

“Why do you think someone has targeted Eileen now?” asked Eddie.

Tracy hummed.  “That’s a good question and the answer is I don’t know.”  She pondered it for a moment.  She fiddled with the pendant she wore.  “If I had to guess, I’d say that her being Senior Student is more than someone in our group could stand.”

“Amir thinks the sickness during the vote was natural,” Eddie said.

“Oh, it was,” Tracy said.  “But that wasn’t what caused Eliot not to stand-down, even if that was the excuse he used with everyone else.  I’m sure Eileen said something to him.  I saw them arguing on Harbour beach the week before the vote.” She tilted her head thoughtfully.  “After Lindsey’s death, it was Eliot who suggested we let things go with Eileen back then too.”

“You think Eileen blackmailed him?” asked Hayley, sceptical.

“Maybe,” Tracy said.  “I don’t know.”  She shifted position again, looking down.

“You have a theory about what she blackmailed him with,” Eddie surmised.

Tracy’s eyes shot back up.  She stared down the camera lens at him and he looked back at her evenly.  She crumpled suddenly, folding in on herself.  She briefly put a hand to her mouth as though to stop herself from speaking, before she shook herself and refocused on them.

“I think Eileen saw Eliot coming out of Lindsey’s room that morning before he raised the alarm officially,” Tracy confessed in a rush.

Eddie and Hayley stared at her.  

Tracy took off her glasses and swiped at her eyes.  She sighed.  “Kelly got into trouble for losing her key in the first month so the group of us, we all went and had spare keys made.” She put her glasses back on.  “Eliot had a key to Lindsey’s room.  I’m almost certain that he was the one who really found her.”

“Only he couldn’t tell anyone he had found her without revealing he had an unsanctioned key, so he lied and raised the alarm instead,” Eddie deduced.

Hayley put her hand to her mouth.

“Who had keys?” asked Eddie urgently.

“Me, Kelly, Tracy, Paul, Amir, Lindsey and Eliot,” Tracy recited with a wince.  She gestured.  “We didn’t all have keys to everyone’s room.  I only had a key to mine and Kelly’s room in first year.  Paul gave me one of his spares when we were dated in second.”

Eddie mentally reviewed whether he had anything else to ask, but nothing came to mind.  “Thank you for talking with us.”

“I hope it helps explain somethings better,” Tracy said.  She looked directly at Hayley.  “I’m sorry, Hayles.”

Hayley waved away the regret.

Eddie moved back to allow the cousins a moment to say goodbye to each other.  Hayley logged off the conference and shut the laptop.

“Keys!” Hayley muttered.

“It explains how someone got into Eileen’s room to scare her,” Eddie said.

“Who had the room before her?” asked Hayley.

“Paul Lewis had her room,” Eddie recalled from his conversation with Amir.  He tutted.  “I should have asked your cousin what happened to Paul.”

“I can answer that,” Hayley said.  “He and Tracy dated for almost two years.  They were both language students.  They only broke up in the Summer because she was going to Italy, and he was going to Spain.”

There was a soft knock on the door.

Hayley went to answer it and ushered a flustered Jemima inside.

“What’s wrong?” asked Eddie, taking in the tense lines on her face.  He really hoped nobody else had been pushed down the stairs.

Jemima took a deep breath.  “As I was coming back in, the police were coming out.  They arrested Eliot Tatton!”

o-O-o

Running was an excellent way to destress and get some mental clarity.

He was glad his Nan had chided him into the club, Eddie mused as he finished his final cool-down stretch.

He was later getting to the athletic building than he had done the day before, but there had only been a few people on the track.  He’d nodded hello at the two he’d recognised from the running club.  Amir had been absent, and Eddie was ignoring his disappointment.  He wasn’t disappointed because he liked Amir, he told himself briskly, he was disappointed because he’d hoped to talk to him about what had happened with Eliot.

He checked his watch as he left the building and decided to head to the café for a coffee before his morning lecture. 

He headed to the counter and ordered his drink, anticipating the bitter excellence of the same coffee Amir had bought him the day before.  He took the mug, and the small plate with a slice of banana bread he hadn’t been able to resist.  He turned around to find a table.

His gaze caught on the sight of Amir huddled in a side booth in the back.  The older student looked weary, but he was passionately talking to someone opposite him who was hidden from Eddie’s sight.

Eddie went to move away, very aware that he might be spotted by the older student, and in the next moment, he was.

Amir suddenly looked his way, and their eyes caught.  Amir waved him over.

Eddie figured he’d go over, say hello and politely excuse himself as he closed the short distance.  “Hi.”

“I see you’re already another repeat customer,” Amir said, smiling.  He shuffled back and padded the booth seat next to him.  “Sit.”

Eddie hesitated, glancing over at Amir’s companion and almost did a double take at the sight of a despondent Tatton.

“Eliot, Eddie,” Amir waved between them.  “Eddie, my friend Eliot.”

“I should probably leave you to it,” Eddie said, hovering by the side of the booth.

“Nonsense,” Amir patted the seat again.  “You don’t mind, do you, Eliot?”

Eliot sighed and gestured at the empty space.  “Sit before he drags you into it the seat himself.”

Eddie placed his plate and mug down before he slid into the booth, sliding the small rucksack he used to carry his stuff around off his shoulder and onto the floor under the table.  He offered his hand to Eliot.

“Good to meet you,” Eddie said.

Eliot shook his hand. 

“You should talk with Eddie, Eliot,” Amir suddenly said.  “He helped me yesterday.  Maybe he can help you.”

Eliot frowned.

Eddie shot Amir a chiding look.  “You don’t have to talk with me,” he said.

“I found it cathartic,” Amir said firmly.  He looked pointedly at his friend.

Eliot rubbed a hand over his stubbled face and through his lanky brown hair.  His air of tortured poet was even more exaggerated that morning given his morose expression.  Even his black leather jacket, grey Henley and black jeans seemed to hang from his frame despondently.

“I think maybe you’ve been keeping it all to yourself for too long,” Amir said quietly.

Eddie kept his attention on eating the very good banana bread.  He couldn’t deny he was insanely curious and wanted to talk to Eliot, but he also didn’t like Amir strong-arming the poor guy into doing something he didn’t want to do.

“You just want me to talk,” Eliot picked up a coaster and pointed it at Amir.

“I do,” Amir said, “and if you won’t talk with me, maybe you’ll talk with Eddie here.”

Eliot rolled his dark eyes.  “You think I’ll talk with a stranger rather than with you?”

“Eliot, you were arrested!”

“They let me go without charging me!”

The two friends glared at each other over the table.

“Did Eileen accuse you of being the one to push her down the stairs?” asked Eddie boldly.  He figured either he’d annoy Eliot into leaving or into answering.  He was still surprised when it was the latter.  He ignored how Amir was glaring at him for the question.

“I don’t know who,” Eliot snapped, “the police said they’d had an anonymous call that it was me!”

“Maybe because you’ve always blamed Eileen for Lindsey’s death,” Eddie said, lowering his voice.

Eliot slumped back in his seat, he ignored Eddie and looked at Amir.  “Do you really think I’d hurt Eileen, hurt anyone like that?”

Amir shook his head fervently.  “No.”

“Thank you!” Eliot said. He turned back to Eddie glaring at him.  “See!” he gestured with the coaster.

Eddie sipped his coffee again and set it down.  “Eileen was blackmailing you about finding Lindsey’s body.”

Eliot paled rapidly before his face went bright red.

“WHAT?!” Amir straightened, his eyes lighting up with anger.  He glared at Eddie.  “I can’t believe you!  You would accuse my friend of…”

“He’s right, Amir,” Eliot cut in sharply.

Amir stared at Eliot blankly.

Eliot sighed and shifted to rest his elbows on the table, briefly dropping his head into his hands before looking over the table at Amir.  “I had Linney’s room key.  When she didn’t answer my text and wouldn’t open the door, I thought she was angry and pissed at me for leaving her alone all night and not checking on her.  I unlocked the door and…” he winced, his gaze on the table, back in the past.  “I found her.”

“And Eileen knew?!” Amir asked, astounded if Eddie read his expression right.

“She saw me,” Eliot said.  “I didn’t know until after the coroner’s verdict.  I…I ran into her in the car park one night and she told me she’d seen me.  She threatened to go to the authorities if I didn’t stop blaming her publicly.”

“Why did you never say anything?” Amir asked.

Eliot rubbed a hand over his face.  “I thought I’d get in trouble?” He sighed.  “I’m just glad that I decided to read in the Old Wing library rather than in my room.  The police let me go as soon as they verified it with Cassie – she was in the library at the same time.”

Eddie tapped his mug.  The timing of it had to have been close because Oz had said Eliot had been part of the crowd milling around in the aftermath.

“I guess Amir told you about the key?” Eliot said, a hint of accusation in his tone.

Amir spluttered a denial beside him.

“Actually, I found out from someone else,” Eddie replied.  “Amir didn’t tell me.”

“Who?” asked Eliot, glaring at him.

“Does it matter?” asked Eddie, holding Eliot’s angry gaze even as his heart pounded in his chest.

Eliot suddenly shrugged, almost violently.  “I guess it doesn’t,” he reached for his own mug.  “I told the police that I found Linney and Eileen knew.  Eileen can’t hold it over me anymore.”

Amir stared at him.  “You told the police Eileen was blackmailing you?!”

“Figured it was best to come completely clean, clear my name for good,” Eliot said.  He drank down his coffee and forcefully set the mug down on the table with a thump.  “It’s over.”  He shook his head.  “And I’m done talking about it.”

Eliot slid out of the booth and stormed away.

They watched him go.

Eddie turned to a disgruntled looking Amir.  “I’m sorry.”

Amir sighed and sat back.  “I did insist he talk to you.”  He regarded him with a hard look.  “You’ve been digging.”

“After our talk, I was curious,” Eddie admitted.  “It’s one of my flaws.”

Amir huffed.  He gestured for Eddie to let him out of the booth and Eddie slid out so Amir could exit.

Amir walked away without saying another word and Eddie figured that he wouldn’t be getting invited to join Amir again in the future. 

He grimaced as he sat back down and pulled over what remained of his banana bread.  At least he had cake to console himself with.

o-O-o

Eddie looked down at the text he had received from Jemima and winced as he read her message. 

She’d arranged to have coffee with Kelly after their committee meeting concluded.  She suggested he join them in Kelly’s room when he got back to the hall.  He vaguely remembered that Kelly had been one of the few people still on the same corridor along with Eileen and her locusts.  He checked the time and slipped his phone back in his pocket as he neared the entrance to Iolaire Hall.  He had plenty of time before the coffee.

He stepped through the large open doors, remembering how he and Jemima had inched past them step by step in the queue the first day.

He returned Mary’s cheery greeting with a sombre hello of his own.  The elderly receptionist manning the front desk had been with the Hall for years.  He moved past the desk and took the central stairs up to his floor.  He felt out of sorts, and he knew it was because of the unfortunate confrontation with Eliot.

It was stupid, Eddie berated himself as he let himself into his room.  He dumped his bag on the floor and threw himself on the bed.

He stared up at the ceiling.

It was stupid to think that he and the others could act like they were amateur detectives able to get to the bottom of all the mystery around Eileen’s torment and the pranking vengeful ‘Ghost.’

He was disappointed in how he’d acted that morning with Eliot.  He had been bullish with him, and it was no surprise the discussion had ended badly. 

He sighed.

Perhaps he should text Jemima and tell her he was calling off their investigation. 

And yet…

The whole thing still nagged at him.

He scratched his bicep thoughtfully.

Eliot had confessed to the police that he had been in Lindsey’s room before he had raised the alarm.  He had admitted he had a spare key and used it.

He’d also essentially confirmed that Eileen had blackmailed him for years to stop him implicating her in Lindsey’s death, and later to give up the running for the Senior Student.

That mystery was solved.

But Eliot had witnesses that placed him elsewhere when Eileen had been pushed down the stairs.  He wasn’t responsible for the assault.

He had been at the Halloween party.  He’d been sat in the corner nearest the wine table.  He could have easily grabbed the wine and thrown it over Eileen.  But, Eddie couldn’t shift the image of how shocked Eliot had looked when the light came on, when he’d seen Eileen covered in wine…

He would bet money that Eliot was innocent of that prank too.

And, Eddie mused, Eileen would have clearly recognised him as the ‘Ghost’ if it had been him.  She would have followed through on her threat.  If anything, Eliot was invested in making sure Lindsey’s death remained in the past and that Eileen had no reason to feel targeted. 

Somebody else was at play.

But who?

And why?

Eddie slapped a hand over his face.  He should leave it alone.  He should text Jemima and tell her to cancel the coffee with Kelly.

There was hurried knocking on his door.

Eddie scrambled off the bed and strode to open it.  He stared for a moment at the sight of Oz and Hayley flanking Charlotte Lewis like guards.  Silently, he stepped back and let them all into his room.

Hayley motioned for Charlotte to take his desk chair. 

She folded her arms, glowered at her and stayed standing.

“What’s going on?” asked Eddie.

“I reached out to Tracy this morning and got Paul Lewis’ contact information,” Hayley said.  “He told me that he had given his University keepsake box to his cousin.  Guess what was in the keepsake box?”

“A key to Eileen’s room,” Eddie said, immediately getting the hint.  “Paul had the room before Eileen.  Even if he gave the original back, he had a spare key.” 

He looked at Charlotte and took in her defiant face with her chin lifted a touch, her mouth in a firm line and a hard glare in her eyes.

“You were the one who pranked Eileen as a ghost,” Eddie deduced.

“She admitted it,” Oz said.  “She isn’t even sorry.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes.  “Look, you said if I came with you to talk to Eddie, you wouldn’t report it!  So I’m here so let’s talk!”

Eddie looked inquisitively over at Hayley who gave a small nod. 

“She says she didn’t push Eileen down the stairs,” Hayley said.

“I was in my room with Lila!” Charlotte snapped, drawing her purple cardigan tight around her.  “All I did was scare Eileen a bit!  That’s all!”

“Why don’t you tell us everything from the beginning?” asked Eddie sitting down on the edge of the bed.  He motioned at the chair again.

She sat down with a huff.  “Living on the same corridor as her and her friends is a nightmare.  When they reported Lila, I was furious.  She’s a complete sweetheart, she doesn’t deserve to be subjected to their bullying tactics.”

Eddie figured Charlotte was a little sweet on Lila.  He gestured for her to continue.

“I knew the old story about Lindsey’s tragic death from Paul and I had the key,” Charlotte shrugged, “so I figured I’d wear a wig to look like Lindsey, break into her room the night before Halloween and scare her.”  She held up her hands.  “But that’s all I did!”

Oz scoffed.

“Look, Kelly figured it out straight away,” Charlotte said.  “I left Eileen’s room as soon as Eileen woke up and screamed, I threw her coat at her to delay her coming out of the room, and I barely made it back to my room to pretend that I had woken up and come out to investigate her screaming.  I just managed to throw the wig and the coat back in my own room before Kelly came out of hers.”

“Kelly figured it out,” Eddie repeated.

“Yes, and she took the wig and the key off me,” Charlotte said.  “I was tired at the Halloween party because I was the one who stayed up to do that prank the night before, and I left that party before the whole other thing that happened!  You saw me leave!  Lila can vouch for my going straight to bed!” 

Oz frowned. No doubt he remembered how Charlotte had pulled Lila away from him.

Charlotte huffed.  “Are you going to report me?”

Eddie glanced at Hayley and Oz who both gave minute dismissive gestures. 

“No,” Eddie said, “but you should probably go to the Warden and confess you were the initial prankster yourself.” He held up a hand when she went to argue. “Someone used your prank as a catalyst to terrorise Eileen and push her down the stairs.  You should own up to it before the police investigation catches up with you.  If we managed to work out it was you, they certainly will.”

Charlotte reared back in the chair, but a moment later her mouth turned downwards and she nodded.  “I guess you’re right about that.”  She sighed.  “Fine.”  She looked at them all angrily.  “Can I go now?”

Eddie waved a hand at his door and Charlotte bolted out of the room.

“If it wasn’t her, who was it?” asked Oz, throwing up his hands.  “Janice said the police let Eliot go.”

“They did,” Eddie briefly brought them up to date with his own conversations.

Oz whistled.  “So, if Eliot didn’t push Eileen down the stairs, and Charlotte didn’t push Eileen down the stairs, who pushed her down the stairs?”

“Probably the same person who orchestrated the Halloween wine prank,” Hayley said.

Eddie checked the time.  “I should head over to Kelly’s room.” 

It was too late to cancel, and with Charlotte admitted Kelly had known it was her on the first prank, he had questions for the Student Chair of the Charity Committee. 

He crossed back to his desk, took out his laptop and quickly navigated back to the room directory.  He tapped in Kelly’s name and blinked at the room number.

Kelly was in Lindsey’s old room.

His chest felt suddenly tight like he had forgotten how to breathe.

Did it mean something? 

Eddie thought it did, but what he couldn’t fathom.  He sucked in a breath and with an absent goodbye to Oz and Hayley who dispersed to their own rooms, he headed down the corridor, across the landing and down the opposite corridor towards Kelly’s room.

The unnatural cold hit him before he’d even taken a step.  Charlotte was right.  Something was deeply wrong in the corridor, but he doubted it was the heating.

He paused in front of the door.

This was where Lindsey had died. He wondered how Kelly had ended up living in the room.

The soft murmur of voices beyond the wood arrested his attention and he shook his head as though to clear it.  He knocked on the door.

It opened a moment later.

“Eddie!” Kelly smiled warmly.  “Jemima said you might come by too.”  She tossed her curly honey coloured hair over her shoulder and motioned for him to enter.

As soon as he entered, he could feel it, the overwhelming sense of death magic.  He tried to hide his reaction, but Kelly’s brown eyes narrowed on him immediately.

“You’re magical,” she stated in a clipped voice.

She hadn’t known or else she wouldn’t have invited them to her room, he realised.

“Yes,” Eddie said belatedly, realising with a sinking heart that Kelly was between them and the door.  “I’m magical.”

Jemima got up from where she had been perched on the bed tapping away on her phone as usual to stand beside him.  “Eddie?”

Eddie nudged her behind him and kept his eyes on Kelly.  “You pushed Eileen down the stairs.”

Kelly lifted her chin.  “I didn’t touch them.  I was at the bottom of the stairs.”  Her tone was a taunt.  “Everyone knows that.”

“Why?” asked Jemima.  One of her hands briefly touched Eddie’s back, and he felt the edge of her phone dig in as her other hand gripped his arm tightly, giving away her fear.

“I don’t owe you any answers,” Kelly snapped.

Eddie nodded slowly.  “You don’t but I can guess most of it.  Your psychic gift emerged, and you requested this room because you were hoping to make contact with Lindsey’s spirit because you felt guilty for leaving her alone that night and wanted to know what happened, you wanted absolution.  You had to know how dangerous reaching out for a spirit is for an inexperienced and untrained psychic.”

Kelly’s jaw worked as she seemed to grind her teeth rather than reply to him.

“Did you manage to make contact with her?” Jemima asked gently.

Kelly’s eyes stared back at them until they seemed to unwillingly flicker to the side.

Eddie and Jemima followed her gaze.

A flickering ghostly image appeared in front of the bathroom door.  It was of Lindsey, dressed in flannel pyjamas arguing with someone before going into the bathroom and slamming shut the door.

The creepy echo of it sounded through the room and both Eddie and Jemima flinched.

“Who was she arguing with?” asked Eddie.

Kelly shook her head.

“Eliot,” Jemima said quietly.  “She was arguing with Eliot.  I’m sure she said his name.”

“Eliot was in her room the night she died,” Eddie said out loud.  “Long before morning.”

They both looked over at Kelly.

“Watch,” she said tersely.

The bathroom door swung open with an ominous creak.

Eddie and Jemima stumbled back as the ghostly figure of Lindsey came out of the room and crossed over to the bed, moving around her unseen visitor and shaking off his arm as he tried to stop her and…

Jemima gave a gasp.

There was a smack of something on Lindsey’s ghostly forehead, a bloom of magic.  She fell, like a stiff plank, paralysed, to the bed.  She stared unseeingly up at the ceiling. 

“I thought Eileen saw Eliot leave the room the following morning just before he raised the alarm, that he’d discovered the body because he had a key, and that was what she had over him.  Eliot even said he had told the police that story to clear himself and stop her blackmailing him,” Eddie thought out loud.  “But Eileen didn’t see Eliot leave first thing in the morning, she saw him leave earlier, in the middle of the night.”

“She covered up his crime,” Jemima murmured.  “Why would she do that?”

Eddie saw disgust flicker across Kelly’s face in a way that pinged in his memory – his Nan talking about next door’s husband who’d ran off with his secretary. 

“An affair,” he said.

Kelly huffed out a breath.

“What?!” Jemima said, horrified.

“Eileen was with Eliot first,” Eddie remembered. 

Hadn’t Amir told him that or had it been Tracy?    

“Lindsey went off to her room alone, sent everyone away,” Eddie said slowly.  “But she must have calmed down.  Maybe she wanted comfort.  She went to find her boyfriend, to Eliot’s room…”

“She had a key, because you all had keys,” Jemima blurted out.

“She saw something, maybe she saw the two of them together, and Eliot must have followed her back,” Eddie said, “they argued…”

“And he killed her,” Jemima finished, starting at the bed.

“I don’t think he meant to,” Eddie said.  “He hit her with a paralysing spell, probably to stop her arguing and make her listen, but she’d possibly already taken the sleeping elixir and there was a reaction.  It could still have been accidental.”

Kelly glared at them, still refusing to speak.

“You realised Eliot played a much bigger part in her death, but you didn’t know what to do,” Eddie continued.  “Maybe you were debating your options…”

Her expression flickered again with his guess.

“…but then, Charlotte Lewis played a prank on Eileen,” Eddie said.

“Charlotte did?” Jemima gasped.

“She was upset because Lila was reported,” Eddie said.  “Eileen picked on her neighbours usually, and her friends followed her example.  It’s a trend across all the years she’s been here.  Charlotte and Lila were targets.  Charlotte had inherited Paul Lewis’ spare key for Eileen’s room.  She knew the story of Lindsey’s death.  She bought a cheap wig and pranked Eileen.”

Jemima cleared her throat as she refocused on Kelly.  “You played the Halloween prank.”  There was a note of wonder in her voice.  “You had access to the timers, your phone – you used your own phone for the recording of Lindsey’s voice and added it into the playlist, maybe you edited it from a voicemail or a video you had of her.  It would have been easy enough to simply unhook it before someone turned on the main light. You were standing right next to her, you could have easily stowed a bottle nearby and poured it over her, and because you were standing close when the lights went out, nobody thought anything of you getting splashed.”

“You targeted both Eliot and Eileen with that one,” Eddie said.  “But it wasn’t enough vengeance.  You must have planted a spell on the step and caused Eileen and Bridget to fall.  You sent the police the anonymous tip it was Eliot to get him arrested.”

Suddenly there was a loud furious knock on the door.

They all startled at it.

A deep male voice called out. “Miss Hargreaves!”

Kelly turned at the sound of her name…

…and Eddie cast a spell at her before she could react.

Bright white light slammed into her, and she froze like a statue caught in the overpowered sticking spell.

Eddie grabbed Jemima and hurried her to the door.  They opened it to reveal a security guard and the Warden. 

Jemima waved behind them as they stumbled out.  “Eddie neutralised her, but she was the one who targeted Eileen.”

“And Eliot Tatton,” Eddie added. “She was targeting both of them.  She’s a new psychic.  She opened herself up to try and find out what happened to Lindsey Dawson.  She may have unbalanced her mind.”

Warden North frowned heavily.  She was a short woman with a bob of steel-grey hair and flinty eyes.  “I see.  Please make your way down to my office and wait there with Miss Warren and Mister West.  They received your text asking for help, Lady Wednesbury-Scott, and alerted us.  The authorities will want to speak to all of you.”

Eddie nodded.

Jemima tugged him further down the corridor and they stumbled out, holding onto each other.

They grimaced at the stairs and took the lift.

Eddie hugged Jemima as the lift descended.  “I’m never complaining about how attached you are to your phone ever again.”

Jemima looked at him with wide eyes.  “You were the one who saved us!  I thought you said you were only a journeyman mage?”

“I am,” Eddie shrugged at her incredulity.  “But I might know some bigger tricks?”

She started giggling and he joined her.  And, if their laughter had a hysterical edge to it, Eddie figured they were entitled to a little hysteria.

o-O-o

In the week since they’d uncovered what really happened with Lindsey, it had become a habit to run first thing in a morning.  Eddie would get up, pull on his running gear and head out to the athletic building.  He’d run, settling his mind and his thoughts, before returning for breakfast with his friends.  He preferred running on the track, but one day when the sun had been shining, he’d headed to the beach for a harder challenge.   

He stayed away from the café, regretful about the confrontation with Eliot in many ways and for a variety of reasons, despite knowing that Eliot had been truly guilty.  He hadn’t seen Amir since.

He headed out of the athletic building into the early morning drizzle, flipping the hood up on his winter coat.  The weather had definitely turned in the last couple of days, wintry showers nudging out any kind of remaining warmth in the air.  There was a cold bite in the wind.

Eddie hurried back to Iolaire Hall.  He dumped his coat and bag in his room and headed down to the dining room.

Oz, Hayley and Jemima were already at their usual table in the back corner. 

Eddie grabbed a plate of scrambled eggs, a stack of toast, and a bowl of fruit and yoghurt.  He added a large mug of coffee and headed to the table.

A brief sweep of his friends had him frowning.

“Why the long faces?” Eddie asked.

“Warden North stopped by,” Jemima said, pushing her empty cereal aside.  “She wants to see us in her office after breakfast.”

“Ah,” Eddie grimaced. 

The request made him feel like they were in trouble, and he could see from the unhappy faces of the others that they felt the same.  But he couldn’t see how they were really.  Had they overstepped in trying to get to the bottom of things themselves?  Maybe, but he didn’t think that they’d broken any of the hall rules in anything that they had done.  Well.  Oz and Hayley marching Charlotte into his room for an interrogation was possibly a little on the edge.

He focused on eating because he figured if he dwelled too much about the meeting with the Warden, he’d end up not eating and spending too much money on lunch. 

“Word is that they’re going to hold a special Senior Student vote next week,” Oz said in a low voice to ensure it didn’t carry to the next table.

Jemima peered over her mug of tea at him.  “That means Eileen is definitely not coming back then.”

Oz nodded.

“I don’t see how she could come back,” Hayley said.  “I mean, would you?”

“Do we know if she was arrested?” asked Eddie. 

“We know nothing,” Oz complained.  He waved his knife around the table.  “We were the ones who uncovered everything, you’d think they’d let us know what’s going on at least!”

Eddie exchanged a rueful look with Jemima while Hayley gave an exasperated sigh.

“Maybe the Warden’s asked us to see her because she’s going to update us,” Jemima suggested, hopefully.

Eddie snorted, but Oz brightened.  Hayley looked contemplative.

They finished up quickly, all wanting to get the meeting over with.

Eddie followed with Oz behind Jemima and Hayley who led the way to the Warden’s office, tucked away at the back of Old Wing on the ground floor.

He took a breath, trying to settle his nerves.  He remembered the shaky relief that had filled him the last time they’d been in the office, straight after the confrontation with Kelly.  He knew they’d all given statements to the Warden about what had happened, but it was all a blur in his mind.

Elsie, the secretary, sent them straight through.  Sensible, thought Eddie.  The less time they had to loiter in her domain, probably the better in her view.

The Warden sat behind her desk in a smart pale blue tartan suit.  It looked woollen and warm.  She’d teamed it with a silky polo neck top in a deeper blue that matched one of the tartan lines running through her suit.

She wasn’t alone.

A slim man with cropped blond thinning hair and grey eyes leaned on the wall next to the desk.  He had a grey overcoat over an equally grey suit teamed with a grey tie.  He looked completely unremarkable.  He held a cup in one hand, the saucer in another.

Eddie felt his magic stir protectively at the sight of him. 

The man was a mage, he realised.  A high-level mage.  He wore a Pendragon pin denoting his status as a member of the Order of Pendragon.  The Order had been founded by King Arthur himself and it was one of the few remaining institutions from the Arthurian age that had lasted into the modern era.  

Eddie recognised the woman sat in a chair next to the Warden’s desk.  Professor Merewen Gables.  Her forest green wool dress was brightened by a patterned shawl, highlighting her still startlingly copper hair and green eyes. 

“Please take a seat,” the Warden motioned at the four chairs set out in front of the desk.

Jemima moved first and Eddie followed her, leaving Hayley and Oz in the final two seats. 

Warden North sat forward, clasping her hands on the desk.  “Knight Gilead requested to speak with you all concerning the events of the past few weeks and the death of Lindsey Dawson.”  She motioned towards the Professor.  “I’ve asked Professor Gables here to also help explain.”

Gilead straightened and set the cup and saucer down on the corner of the desk.  He regarded them seriously.  “It was a stupidly dangerous thing you did to involve yourself in events, especially once someone was physically injured and it was a clear someone was acting to harm.”

Eddie flushed at the stern chastisement.  He knew he out of all of them was to blame.  He’d been the one who’d been curious enough to dig for answers.  He already felt ashamed for it; for placing Jemima in danger.

Beside him Jemima’s chin tipped up at a stubborn angle.  “Perhaps if the authorities had done their job at the time of Lindsey Dawson’s death, there wouldn’t have been anything for us to involve ourselves with.”  Her words lost the slight Northern twang; her accent shifting to a sharp edge that was aimed to cut.

Eddie hid his wince at her defiance.  He cleared his throat drawing Gilead’s attention before the mage could slap back at her.  “I take responsibility for everything. My curiosity got us into it,” he said, “and you’re right that we didn’t consider the dangers of digging around enough, but our intent wasn’t malicious or to cause trouble.”

Gilead harrumphed and rocked back on his heels a touch.  “This is a warning.  It’s the only warning that you’re all going to get.  Stay out of police business.”

“And with that warning issued,” the Warden said firmly, “I wanted to let you know the outcome of what your investigation wrought.”

Eddie struggled to keep the surprise off his face.

The Warden motioned at Gilead.  “If you would, please.”

Gilead didn’t look happy, but he complied which said a lot about the authority and respect Warden North wielded, Eddie mused.

“In some respects, Lady Wednesbury-Scott, you were correct to say that not enough was done when Lindsey Dawson died three years ago,” Gilead admitted.  “The Yard was not called in by the Warden at the time, Warden Gideon.  He also did not request a psychic team.  Things were missed in the investigation by the local police.”

Jemima looked both mollified and vindicated at his words.

“Given the new evidence of the psychic impression Kelly Hargreaves recovered, Eliot Tatton has confessed to the voluntary manslaughter of Lindsey Dawson,” Gilead said formally.  “Eileen Kilkenny has been arrested on a charge of obstruction of justice.”

“Miss Hargreaves has been remanded into the care of the Magical Council,” Gables spoke for the first time, her melodic voice soothing and calming in comparison to Gilead’s harshness.  “Her mind and magic were deeply unbalanced by her action in recovering Miss Dawson’s last actions.”

“Will she recover?” asked Jemima quietly.

“Only time will tell,” Gables replied.  “Doing what she did without training, without shielding…it damaged the magic she has badly.  Sometimes it is not recoverable.”  She shifted her gaze from Jemima to Eddie.  “It is well that she was stopped before she could descend further into madness and sociopathy.  You did well to choose a spell which caused minimal damage to her magic, and which kept you and your friend safe.”

Eddie felt his cheeks warm under her words of praise.

“So, voluntary manslaughter,” Oz piped up, “that means he didn’t intend to kill her originally, right?”

Gilead crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Oz.

“That’s essentially correct, Mister West,” the Warden said crisply.  “Mister Tatton struck Miss Bell with an offensive spell in a moment of frustration when she would not listen to him in the wake of discovering him taking drugs.”

Drugs. 

Lindsey hadn’t walked in on Eliot having a furtive affair with her rival, Eddie thought.  They’d gotten that part of it completely wrong.

“Will he also be charged with obstruction of justice?” asked Hayley quietly.

“Yes,” Gilead answered, even though it seemed like the word was torn from him unwillingly.  “He muddied the investigation back then by altering the scene to mislead investigators into believing she had accidentally taken too much of a sleeping elixir.”

“Miss Kilkenny knew from her former relationship with Mister Tatton that he was the one who took the sleeping elixir, not Miss Dawson,” Gables added.  She ignored the hard look Gilead aimed her way.  “Combined with her witnessing his exit from the room long before the alarm was raised, she correctly surmised that his involvement in Miss Dawson’s death was not innocent.”

“Why didn’t she tell the authorities?” Oz blurted out the question.  He looked sheepish as everyone’s attention turned to him.  “I just…she told on everyone, all of the time, about the smallest stuff!  Why didn’t she tell on him straight away?  I just don’t get it.”

“They say there is nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned, Mister West,” Gables said dryly.

“We may never know why,” Warden North added, shooting a look at her colleague.  “It is my understanding that Miss Kilkenny has exercised her legal right to silence.  We will have to await whatever answer will ultimately emerge in her defence.”

Eddie wasn’t surprised by that.  He figured Eileen was savvy enough to claim that she felt threatened or even had been coerced by Eliot into staying silent.  But that didn’t compute with her blackmailing him to stop badmouthing her in the wake of the death, nor getting him to throw the Senior Student vote.  He figured she’d enjoyed having something to hold over him.  Eddie figured Eliot’s relief at telling enough of his actions to the police after his first arrest had been real.  Maybe, Eddie considered, he’d even believed that in telling a version which explained the blackmail without the murder to the authorities, he’d neutralised Eileen’s hold on him completely.

“Sometimes in life there are no clear-cut answers,” Gables said softly.  She rose gracefully from her seat and they all stood up.  “I’ll be performing a cleansing.  Mister Wiliams, I’d like you to join me.”

“Me?” Eddie pointed at himself.

“You have already performed magic in the space,” Gables explained.  “It would be useful to have you present.”  She glanced at the others.  “I’m afraid as you’re all non-magical it would not be appropriate to have you present; there is too much danger for you.”

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck, but eventually he nodded.  If he could help, he would.

They followed Gables like ducklings through the Hall and up the main stairs, with Gilead and the Warden behind them. 

They paused at the junction between the two corridors in Old Wing. 

Jemima reached over and squeezed his hand reassuringly.  “We’ll wait for you in my room.”

Eddie squeezed her hand back and followed Gables down the cold corridor.

Gables tsked under her breath.  “This cold is not natural, Beryl.  I should have been called in as soon as it appeared.”

Warden North nodded.  “I’ll make a note for the future.  You forget I’m not magical either, Merewen.  I have a plumber coming out next week to look at the pipes!”

They stopped in front of Lindsey’s old room; the room Kelly Hargreaves had requested to find out what had happened to her friend.

The Warden unlocked the room and stepped back.  “Good luck.”  She gave a nod and left.

“I’ll keep watch at the door,” Gilead said. 

Eddie went inside with Gables and almost flinched as Gilead shut the door with a bang, leaving Eddie and Gables alone.

The room was empty.

Kelly’s belongings had clearly been removed leaving it as an empty shell.

Gables stood in the centre of the room and held out her hands.

Eddie took them gingerly.

“Have you been part of a magical cleansing before?” asked Gables.

Eddie nodded, ignoring the shiver working down his spine.  “Once.” 

His Nan had taken him to a cleansing of a house when one of her friends had died.  He’d been fourteen and the whole thing had creeped him out.

Gables smiled sadly.  “Follow my lead.” 

There was a beat of silence.

“I, Merewen of the Scots, of the Magical House of Gables, call upon my Lady to shield me, to watch over me, keep my spirit, heart and magic safe in this space,” Gables said aloud.

“I, Edward of the Family Wiliams, call upon my Lady to shield me, to watch over me, keep my spirit, heart and magic safe in this space,” Eddie repeated.

“Hear us, Lindsey Dawson, and answer!” Gables instructed loudly.

The ghostly form of Lindsey shimmied into the physical plane.  She looked around the room briefly before her gaze rested upon them.

“You know,” Lindsey stated in a thin ethereal voice that whispered across the room.

“Your fate is known,” Gables confirmed.

Lindsey’s form shivered.  “What of Kelly?  She was here and she was my friend.”

“She will be helped,” Gables promised.

Lindsey’s form started to disappear, lines drifting away like smoke.  “My thanks.” 

And she was gone.

“Lady, we call upon you to renew this space, to cleanse it of its hurts and pain, its anger and its grief,” Gables murmured.  “Let it be filled with the righteous conviction of Eddie of the Family Wiliams in saving his friend, of the love of Kelly from the Family Hargreaves for her friend, of mine own commitment to faith and magic.”

Eddie felt the pull on his magic, a hard tug and he didn’t resist it, knew it was necessary.

A sheen of gold erupted from them and rushed over every surface, the floor, the walls, the furniture…

The room warmed immediately in its wake, the unnatural cold banished.   

“Our thanks we offer,” Gables said softly.  “We go in peace.”

“We go in peace,” Eddie repeated.

Gables let go of his hands.  “You did well.”  She looked at him contemplatively.  “I would have you study with me.  You have talent.”

Eddie’s eyes widened.  “I’m only journeyman level.”

“Are you?” Gables smiled widely.  “Come find me when you are ready to learn.”  She was gone from the room before he could fully process what she had said.

He took one final look around the empty room and strode out.

Gilead was waiting for him in the corridor.  The Knight fell into step beside him as they walked back in silence to the junction.

Gilead brought them to a stop, his gaze intent on Eddie’s.  “You have the right instincts for police work.  Next time, because I’m not fool enough to think that there might not be a next time, call me.”  He handed over a slim white business card and walked off.

Eddie turned it over in his hand.  Gilead’s email and phone number were neatly printed under his name.  He slipped it into the front pocket of his jeans and made for his own corridor.

Jemima ushered him and all but pushed him down to sit on the rug where Hayley and Oz already sat.  She poured something into paper cups and handed them out before joining them. 

She raised her cup.  “To Lindsey; may she have peace now.”

Eddie raised his cup in the toast.  “To Lindsey.”

They all sipped.

Eddie relaxed at the taste of sparkling apple juice. 

Jemima raised her cup again.  “To us.  Maybe it was stupid getting involved, but I think we did good.”

“We did,” Hayley said.  She looked at Eddie.  “Your curiosity might have started it, and the people in charge might not like that we did it, but we helped catch a killer and save someone from psychic madness…”

“Don’t forget finding a blackmailer,” added Oz.

“We did good,” Hayley concluded.

They all looked at him expectantly.

He raised his cup.  “We did good.”

He smiled as Oz nudged Jemima for a refill and Hayley teased him for downing apple juice.

They had done good in the end, Eddie thought with satisfaction.  He remembered the rush of magic clearing away the cold and grief.  Lindsey’s ghost was gone, Kelly would get help, and the villains of the piece were locked away.   

Jemima nudged him and he turned to smile reassuringly at her concerned look.  He let her fold him back into the conversation and basked into the warmth of the friendship he’d found, the sense of family they were building.

And maybe, Eddie mused, thinking of the card in his pocket, maybe this was only their first adventure.  Maybe, just maybe, there would be more to come. 

fin.

Next in series: The Case of the Missing Witch

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Copyright Rachel F Hundred 2024.