Chapter 54 – The Princess Falls on Her Sword – Erica Henson

Brittney and Megan obviously weren’t expecting a police officer to join in on this meeting. It showed on their dumbstruck faces. I wasn’t expecting this either. It was a massive power move by Jackie. She probably knew Megan would play that father’s-protection card and called in this police officer to negate it. Megan’s father, as powerful as he was, couldn’t hold a candle to the law.

“You idiot,” Brittney said plainly to Megan. “You complete idiot!”

“This… This isn’t my fault!” Megan said.

“You were the one that wanted to go down there!”

“You wanted to go too!”

“I’m not the idiot that decided to film everything!”

“But…” Megan said, “But…!”

“That’s enough.” Jackie said. “I want you two to tell me exactly what you were doing over on that side of the school. It isn’t like much is over there anyways.”

“We were…” Brittney started to say.

Her voice lingered off as she got lost in thought. Although she lost her tongue her eyes moved around like she was weighing rather or not to tell the truth. Jackie saw this and tapped the desk in Brittney’s direction.

“You were what? You’d better spit it out right now or else we’ll make this conversation really short and I promise that you don’t want that.” Jackie said. “I’m giving you two the chance to defend yourselves here. You. Were. What?”

Brittney cowered back into her chair.

“We… Uhh…” Megan said. “We had business with someone back there.”

The shift in Megan’s tone made it clear that they were up to no good. Jackie and I exchanged a look of suspicion. Officer Morelli seemed to catch onto this as well.

“You mean you were planning to have a fight with someone?” Officer Morelli asked. “You told them to meet them on the backside of the school?”

“I didn’t pick that spot, that other girl did!” Megan said defensively. “She just said that we weren’t supposed to go in the basement! She said the place was cursed! I didn’t believe her, I…”

Jackie slapped the table and stood up.

“You mean to tell me that someone told you not to go in there and yet you went in there anyways?!” Jackie shouted in a booming voice.

Both Megan and Brittney looked at each other in a panic. Brittney put her hands up like she was surrendering.

“We didn’t think she was serious about it!” Brittney said. “We thought she meant that it was haunted! We just wanted to see for ourselves!”

“That cellar door was locked up with a metal chain.” Officer Morelli said. “Did you two pick the lock and go inside?”

The two of them shook their heads.

“There wasn’t a metal chain.” Megan said.

“The door didn’t have any sort of lock.” Brittney added.

Officer Morelli shook her head with a look of contempt.

“I locked that cellar door myself.” Officer Morelli said. “Unless you’re calling me a liar…?”

Brittney didn’t offer any further comment. That was when I stepped forward.

“Zoe and I saw the metal chain this morning when we went to check it out. The lock was in the open position and tossed onto the ground. Someone must’ve unlocked it.”

“I swear it wasn’t us.” Megan said.

Officer Morelli looked over at Jackie.

“You still have the key, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, it’s right in…” Jackie said as she opened up the top drawer of her desk.

She scrambled through the drawer looking for the key. When she realized it wasn’t there she backed her hand out slowly and looked vacantly in the distance.

“Abby…!” Jackie hissed, “She must’ve come in here while I was out of the office.”

“I warned you.” Officer Morelli said.

Jackie closed the drawer and clenched her fists in anger.

“It looks like I’ll need to have another serious conversation with her again. Apparently I wasn’t strict enough the last time I handled her.”

Jackie turned her attention back to the two girls.

“I’ll let you two off easy this time.” Jackie said. “As of today you’re both officially suspended for one week.”

“But…!” Megan started to say.

“And…!” Jackie interjected, “You’re going to delete that post from your website as soon as you get home. If you refuse any of this then you can have this conversation with your parents at the police station instead.”

“Believe me,” Officer Morelli said, “This is the nice ending.”

Brittney and Megan looked at each other.

“Go on,” Jackie said. “You two can go call your guardians and wait for them to pick you up. If I see either of you around here before one week is up there will be hell to pay. Go!”

The two of them got up and walked out of the room without a word. They were probably too scared of making things worse by protesting any further. Jackie let out a stress filled sigh and put her face into her hands with her elbows on her desk. Officer Morelli walked around the desk to take a seat in front of Jackie. I joined her by taking the other seat.

“Well,” Officer Morelli said, “It looks like things won’t be as simple as we had hoped.”

Jackie tapped her fingers impatiently against her desk.

“It’s Abby acting up again. I know it is. She couldn’t handle being shut off from that place.”

“She’s apparently been going there for years after all. What are you going to do about her?” Officer Morelli said.

“She’s in class right now. I’ll deal with her later.” Jackie said and turned to me. “Right now, I need you to do something for me, Erica.”

“I’m happy to help.” I said.

“It’s thanks to Zoe that we were able to uncover the fact that they were in there. I want you to talk to her and see if you can figure out how bad the situation is. I need to know just how many hits that video has and if anyone else has been in there before Megan’s video. There’s no telling how many people were over there in the time that the door has been unlocked.”

I stood up.

“Well I’ve got the rest of this period off. I’ll go talk to Zoe about how popular that video is.”

“Alright, go ahead. I need to talk to Officer Morelli here about something private.”

I nodded at Jackie, and then at Officer Morelli.

“Nice meeting you,” I said.

“Same,” She said.

I went out of the office and closed the door behind me. I wondered what they would talk about now that I wasn’t in there. Was it something more about the basement? I stood near the door for a moment to try to listen in sneakily. Luckily no one else was in the office at the moment so I had the privacy to do so. The office assistant on duty must’ve been out helping one of the other teachers.

“When those other girls wandered into the basement from the Discipline Hall it seemed like it was by accident.” Jackie said, “But this time it feels different. This feels deliberate.”

“Do you think Abby said something to someone?” Officer Morelli asked.

“I don’t know. What I do know is that she is giving me a lot of trouble recently. She’s getting harder to deal with. I feel like she might finally crack.”

“It’s been a long time coming.” Officer Morelli said.

“The problem is that if she goes down then the rest of us might end up going down with her.” Jackie said. “How are things on your end recently?”

“There’s been no change in the official case.” Officer Morelli said. “Our bases are covered in that regard. No one has even expressed interest, except the brother who still regularly calls to ask about any news.”

“That’s good. We’re not in the clear yet, though. We’ve got to find a way to keep a lid on Abby. Once school is over I’ll give her some more convincing.”

That was all I needed to eavesdrop on to get a better understanding of the situation. I was walking out of the office just as the usual office assistant was coming back in. Instead of going to class I went over to the newspaper club room. As expected, Zoe was there doing more research on that video. I knew this would be too big for her to ignore until the end of class. She had been in the habit of playing hooky lately anyways.

“Learn anything new…?” I asked as I came in and closed the door behind me.

Zoe swung around in her office chair to face me.

“Not really… It’s hard to make out anything in this video. Megan films like an alcoholic with Parkinson’s disease. How this girl managed to garner so many followers on a video blog is just beyond me.”

I pulled up a chair and sat near Zoe. She pointed out at the video paused on her laptop.

“I’ve been rewinding and playing back in slow motion to try to get a better look at the underground.” Zoe said. “Going by Ms. Sampson’s voice I’m going to take a wild guess that she won’t let us go down there to take pictures, right?”

“That’s safe to assume.”

“Then I’ll do what I can with this. How’d it go in the office?” Zoe asked.

“Ms. Sampson summoned Brittney and Megan to give them a grilling of a lifetime. Neither of them were prepared for that.”

Zoe let out a soft chuckle.

“I bet Megan didn’t take that lying down, knowing her.” Zoe said.

“She had no choice but to take it lying down. In fact she was reduced to puppy-dog status. Ms. Sampson had the upper hand when she called her police officer friend to come and help her out.”

“No way,” Zoe said.

“Ms. Sampson is trying to deal with this basement before it spreads out of control. Once she dismissed me I stood outside her office to listen to her conversation with Officer Morelli. I already knew they were old acquaintances, but it looks like there’s something deeper going on here that is connected with the basement.”

“What is it?” Zoe asked.

“That’s the million dollar question. From what I saw in that basement video there wasn’t much to write home about. Whatever it is, Ms. Logan is knee deep in it.”

“Her, of all people…? That woman is a bag of crazy.” Zoe said.

“Jackie thinks she took the key to that cellar door from her office while she was gone. Officer Morelli was saying that this was also a problem with her before. That isn’t all. Jackie mentioned something like this before.”

“Before…?”

“Okay, so, Brittney and Megan weren’t the first students to go down into the basement. The first time I heard about it was because of Holly Hayfield, Naomi Su, Lilith Meredith, and Samantha Quinn.”

“Lilith went down there…?” Zoe asked in a whisper.

She asked quietly like she was afraid someone else could possibly here her mention Lilith. She and Lilith still weren’t talking to each other, but for a time Lilith was all Zoe had. It was natural for her to single Lilith out.

“Apparently so, I didn’t find out until after they were called into the office. The girls turned themselves in, which was why they weren’t suspended like Brittney and Megan are going to be.”

“That’s huge news! I could write an entire article on Megan being suspended! Her fans are going to freak!” Zoe said ecstatically.

“That’s not the point,” I said. “The point I wanted to make is that Ms. Logan has been busted for going down there before. I didn’t realize who Jackie was talking about back then, but I know thanks to what she said today.”

“Do you think we can talk to Ms. Logan about that basement?” Zoe asked.

“No,” I said as an idea popped into my head. “But I think we can talk to someone that has.”

“Who…?”

“Holly Hayfield,” I said. “I thought her counseling of Ms. Logan was odd before, but now it makes sense. What if Holly had the same questions we have?”

“You might be on to something.”

“I have her contact information.” I said. “She was going to help me talk to Val, but I think we should talk to her about this first. Do you mind if I ask her to come to this room during lunch?”

“I insist,” Zoe said, “I don’t want to be left out of this. Just make sure Holly comes alone, without Lilith.”

“I understand.” I said.

When Zoe and I were done talking I went to my second period class on schedule. It took me all morning to convince Holly to come and eat lunch with us. Her primary concern was Val and the other members of her student council group. To sweeten the deal, I had to also make this a talk about the plans for me to drop out of the race. I was thinking about dropping out prematurely anyways to help Zoe with the newspaper club.

“Thanks for coming.” I said to Holly as she came into the newspaper club room with her lunch tray.

“Thanks…” Holly said.

Her vision wandered off to Zoe as she made her way in. Zoe pointed at one of the chairs.

“Just take a seat anywhere. We don’t usually get many visitors so don’t worry about feeling out of place.” Zoe said.

It was unusual for Zoe to be so accommodating, but she was probably desperate to know whatever Holly knew.

“We have a few questions for you.” I said. “I know that you’re familiar with the school’s basement. Jackie… Err… Umm… Ms. Sampson said that you were called into her office for that before.”

“That’s right.” Holly said.

“Can you tell us what you saw down there?” I asked.

“If Ms. Sampson didn’t tell you then I can’t tell you either.” Holly said.

“Oh come on, really?” Zoe asked.

“I’m serious.” Holly said. “She let us off the hook only under the condition that we didn’t say anything about what we may or may have not seen.”

“Fine,” I said, trying to move things along, “Did you know about the cellar door on the backside of the school?”

“Is this going to be about Megan’s video?” Holly asked. “I’m still amazed that she was stupid enough to upload an entire video of her going down there. If that were me, Lilith, Naomi, or Sam we would’ve been suspended or expelled.”

“You’re not wrong.” I said. “Black Brittney and Megan have been suspended for a week.”

Zoe chuckled.

“Without Megan around it’s going to be quieter in these hallways. Let’s hope she gets suspended more often.” Zoe said.

“What does that mean for her student council campaign?” Holly asked.

“I think that’s suspended too.” I said. “It looks like your group is in a secure position. I honestly don’t think I’ll have the support to beat Val now that Megan has dropped out.”

“About your request, I still haven’t given up on it.” Holly said. “I’ve been trying to come up with something that will allow you to talk to Val again. The very first major event the student council plans is the Fall Festival event. Maybe we could use that?”

“Thank you for keeping me in mind, but that isn’t the main reason I called you here.” I said. “I want to know about Ms. Logan.”

“Ms. Logan…?” Holly asked. “What about her?”

“I’ve noticed you counseling her several times. Just earlier I heard Ms. Sampson talking very aggressively about her to a police officer named Officer Morelli.”

“Angelica Morelli was here at school?” Holly asked.

“How do you know her?” I asked.

“She gives me rides to and from school usually. She works in the area and she used to go to school here. Over the summer she was seriously injured and I helped nurse her back to health. You could say she’s a friend.”

Zoe was sitting on the edge of her seat as Holly spoke.

“What is their relationship with Ms. Logan?” Zoe asked.

“That’s something I was wondering myself.” Holly said. “I think you may know more about what Ms. Sampson thinks of her than me.”

“It looks like she took the key to that basement door from Ms. Sampson’s office. Ms. Sampson has been trying to keep her from going down there.”

Holly’s eyes widened.

“The key…? I didn’t know she stole a key. Thank you for telling me.”

“I’m not telling you this for your sake!” I said. “I want information in return! Specifically, what were you counseling Ms. Logan for?”

“My answer to you about that before wasn’t a lie.” Holly said quickly. “I legitimately hoped that Ms. Logan could get better. After spending so much time with her I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“Why did she come to you?” Zoe asked.

“She had no one she could trust.” Holly said. “At first I wondered why myself, but then I learned that truth for a fact. She has no one in her life for her to lean on. She’s in a lot of pain, mostly mentally, but I’ve also found scars on her wrists. It looks like she has a history of self-harm.”

Zoe and I shared an injured look. I looked back at Holly.

“What sort of mental pain was she in? Did she ever say why she was like that?”

“It was something from her past.” Holly said. “Ms. Logan was always tight-lipped about it, but I was able to surmise my own theories. She’s in grief. She isn’t in any regular grief, such as pain from losing a family member. Ms. Logan is outright ashamed of her past. It hurts me to see her like this. It doesn’t look like she’ll be getting better any time soon either. The time to help her was long ago. Had I met her when she was younger then maybe I could’ve done more for her. Now… Now there’s nothing anyone can do for her.”

Holly’s voice was trailing off as she spoke. It was clear that she actually gave a damn about this broken woman. That was commendable. I almost felt ashamed for treating Ms. Logan with contempt for as long as I knew her. I never knew what she was going through in her personal life. I never cared to look into it either. Holly had crossed that bridge and lent her a shoulder to cry on.

Zoe crossed her legs and leaned back into her chair.

“That’s a lot of information.” Zoe said. “It’s hard to say how much that relates to Ms. Sampson’s plight with the basement. Maybe something happened in their past that Ms. Logan is suppressing? I wouldn’t know how that relates to the basement though.”

“Either way, thanks for coming to help us today Holly. I’ll let you get back to your student council group before lunch ends.”

“If you learn anything else about this I’d like to know too.” Holly said as she stood up to leave. “We’ll exchange whatever information we can.”

Zoe grinned.

“I’d also like to give you an early congratulation on the student council situation!” Zoe said. “It looks like your group is sure to win it now that Megan sabotaged herself. I’m going to get started on writing the winning article right now!”