“And in local news, it’s been two weeks since the disappearance of Emmeline Victor, head girl of the Winsbury School of Parapsychology. Police have confirmed that the body of a woman pulled from Regent’s Canal yesterday is not that of Miss Victor, and the death is not being treated as suspicious. Any sightings of Emmeline Victor should be reported to the Missing Persons Hotline...”

“Terrible, just terrible,” Mrs Baxter shook her head gently.

“Local bus services into Central London will be increased by 15% this month as we approach December and the biggest shopping season of the year…”

“Oh, well that’s handy,” she mused. “Any idea what you want for Christmas?”

“I don’t know,” Jessa looked up from her magazine. “Records. Download credit.”

“We can’t all give you download credit every year,” her mother tutted.

“Why not? I use it all.”

“It’s not a very thoughtful present.”

“It is for someone who likes downloading stuff.”

“You kids, really… in my day we played with real toys. We went outside!”

“I go outside.”

“Walking to and from school doesn’t count.”

Jessa shrugged and delved back into reading the month’s best album reviews.

“Morning, all,” said Hugo Fletcher, after letting himself in with Audrey’s spare key.

“Morning, poppet,” Jean Baxter embraced him. “Are you all right? You look exhausted.”

“Yeah,” he rubbed his face, “just had a lot going on.”

“Of course. Still bogged down with all the Emmeline Victor stuff?”

He frowned down at his phone. “Hmm? What, sorry?”

“I said are you still caught up in all this Emmeline stuff?”

“Oh. Sorry, Jean. Yes, very much so.”

“What do they want from you, though? Are the police bothering you?”

“No, they’re not bothering me, it’s just…” he shrugged, “considering I was the last person at school who had any contact with Emmeline, they want to make sure that they have all bases covered.”

“You already gave them a statement, though, didn’t you?” asked Jessa.

“Yeah, I did. I guess they just keep coming up with new questions.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t really divulge that, Jessa, it’s confidential.”

“But I mean, why do they keep having new questions for you?”

“Jessa, give the poor man a break!” her mother scolded.

“I was just asking!”

“It’s all right, Jean, she’s just curious. You’re right, Jessa, I gave them my statement. I suppose they’re just hoping I remember any other bits of information that might be helpful.”

“Well, I do wish they’d leave you alone,” said Jean. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Yeah, it’s been tough.”

#

“Can I tell you guys something?” Jessa said quietly to Maggie and Flynn.

“‘course,” Flynn nodded.

“You’d better be quick, though,” Maggie warned. “Mr Fletcher’s probably going to arrive soon.”

“Actually, he’s the one I want to talk about.”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he’s been acting strange lately?”

“He’s seemed a bit distant, but that’s about it.”

“He came over to see us yesterday, and he looked rough.”

“How?”

“He was all tired and stressed. He said he’s been involved with the Emmeline case.”

“That’s bound to be putting extra stress on him,” Maggie said.

“Yes. But it made me think, why is he helping?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what does he have to contribute? He’s new here, so he barely knew Emmeline.”

“Well, we know he was the last person in school to see her,” said Flynn.

“Right, but how can they be drawing that out for so long? He started acting funny the day Emmeline disappeared, and he’s continued to be weird for the past two weeks. What’s going on?”

Before Maggie or Flynn could reply, Mrs Sullivan, the English teacher from down the corridor, scuttled into the room.

“So sorry, everyone! I was supposed to take your register this morning, but I got held up in a meeting. Is everyone here? Good. Off you go, then!”

“Excuse me, Mrs Sullivan?” Jessa spoke up before the muddled young teacher had time to hurry out of the room again, “Where’s Mr Fletcher?”

“He’s stuck in traffic. Not to worry!” And with that, she left.

The rest of the class filtered out of the room and made their way down the hallway, but Jessa held Maggie and Flynn back.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie asked.

“He’s not stuck in traffic, he stayed over at our house last night,” Jessa whispered. “There’s no way there’s traffic in between my house and here.”

“Maybe he went somewhere else this morning?” Flynn suggested. “Don’t he and Audrey go to the gym in the morning?”

“Yeah, they do, but… I don’t know. It feels like something weird is happening.”

“What is it you’re worried about?” Flynn asked.

Jessa shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. I can’t describe it.”

“Come on,” Maggie urged, “we’re going to be late to French! I’m sure everything’s fine. He’ll probably be back soon.”

Jessa couldn’t concentrate at all during French. Maggie made a point of shooting Jessa her most disapproving of glares whenever she noticed Jessa didn’t have her textbook open to the right page, or when she wasn’t copying anything from the board. She remained preoccupied during break time and didn’t even finish her bag of spicy tortilla chips.

When the bell rang at 11:10, the three friends packed away their refreshments and walked back up the stairs to the East Wing corridor, returning to their form room for a Parapsych History lesson.

Jessa looked over at Mr Fletcher’s desk. He wasn’t there. In his place was Mrs Reid, the other History teacher.

Jessa’s stomach flopped.

“Mr Fletcher isn’t able to make it in today, so I’ll be covering him for your Parapsych History lesson, and we’ll just carry on from where you were last week.” Mrs Reid’s grey curly hair bobbed as she spoke.

“I logged into Mr Fletcher’s class notes, and I saw you’ve been learning about Medieval times and the Parapsych-hunts. Very gruesome stuff, wasn’t it? Fascinating, though, don’t you think? Anyway, please open your books to page 57, and start reading the section titled ‘Heresy and Mind Control: Parapsychs vs. Witches.’”

Flynn grinned over at Jessa before diving in over his textbook. She admired how much he’d come to enjoy history, but she certainly didn’t feel the same way. No amount of jazzed up titles could trick Jessa Baxter into enjoying reading about the late middle ages.

“So what have we learned so far in this chapter?” Mrs Reid asked the class.

Maggie raised her hand.

“Yes, Maggie.”

“When the Christian Age took hold, there was an intense dissidence between the Catholic side and the Protestant side, so it was a very tumultuous time. Beliefs in witchcraft were thought of as superstition, which was a punishable offence. Unfortunately, they couldn’t tell the difference between witchcraft and parapsychism at that point, so a lot of people who we now believe were actually parapsychs, were tried and even executed as witches.”

“Very good, Maggie! Would anyone else like to share anything they’ve learned? What else was happening in Europe that contributed to this timeline events?”

Maggie’s hand was in the air again.

“I suppose it started with the Romans…”

Jessa zoned out. Nothing they were discussing in the lesson seemed important. She couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. The day seemed endless.

#

“Why are you in such a hurry to get home?” Flynn huffed. “I can barely keep up!”

“Sorry,” she said but didn’t slow down. “I just want to get home and see if he’s there.”

“What does it matter if he’s there or not? He might just be sick; maybe he’s at home in bed.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Jessa, wait up, you know I’m not into exercising!” he trotted alongside her strides.

Jessa fumbled for keys in the bottom of her backpack and let herself and Flynn into the house. They heard the sound of voices coming from the kitchen.

“The family must be so grateful. And just in time for Christmas.”

“Mmhmm,” Audrey’s voice agreed.

“What’s going on?” Jessa and Flynn entered the kitchen, and there, drinking tea and eating biscuits with the Baxters, was the enigmatic Hugo Fletcher.

“Hi, guys.”

“Where were you today?”

“Sorry, Jessa, I was busy,” he sighed. “They found Emmeline.”

“Really? Where was she? Is she okay?” Jessa rattled off her thoughts.

“She’s alive,” Hugo responded, “but barely. She was found alone, wandering in the city, very early this morning.”

“Did someone abduct her? Did she say anything?” asked Flynn.

“No,” said Hugo, “she hasn’t said anything at all.”

His tired eyes stared down into his tea. He had clearly already told the others the details of Emmeline’s disturbing reappearance, and they all mirrored his gaze, looking down, preparing themselves to hear it again.

“In short, the doctors seem to think that Emmeline was kept somewhere dark. She was tied up. It looks like she was hardly given any food or water. And her eyes… there’s nothing there. She’s like a ghost.”

Hugo tried to shake the image from his mind.

“How do you know all this? How did you see her?” Jessa pressed.

“There was an urgent teachers’ meeting this morning after Emmeline’s parents contacted Dr Mortlock. Then I had to go answer a couple more questions, so they let me see her.”

Jessa’s family all nodded in acknowledgement of his answer.

But Jessa wasn’t satisfied. He hadn’t answered the question. An urgent teachers’ meeting? None of the other teachers had shown any signs of distress. And even if Emmeline’s parents had got in touch with Dr Mortlock to pass on the news, why would Dr Mortlock summon the newest teacher to visit the Head Girl? And why would his visit have taken all day?

Jessa stood there as the adults continued their conversation. She kept her eyes on Hugo, who didn’t look back up at all. Was he deliberately avoiding eye contact? She wanted to ask him more questions, but it wasn’t the right time.

“So I know the albums we’re trading are Eels and The Cars, but do you have anything by The Talking Heads?” Flynn asked, walking up the stairs behind Jessa. “I want to hear the one with Psycho Killer on—”

Jessa made sure the door was closed. “I don’t believe him.”

“What?”

“Fletcher! Did you just see how sketchy he was acting?”

“Uh, no?”

“I asked him how he saw Emmeline, and he gave me some vague, indirect response. He was avoiding the question.”

“So? He’s probably distracted.”

“Something’s up.”

“Um, Jess? Can I just get those records?”

“Yeah, help yourself,” she gestured toward her shelves stocked with vinyl. “You don’t think anything seemed strange about him?”

“Can’t say I did, but I also wasn’t paying that much attention to his personal state— What’s this one, ‘Lincoln’?”

“It’s by a band called They Might Be Giants. It’s weird, you’ll like it. Take the one called ‘Flood’, too.”

“Thanks. Like I said, I wasn’t really noticing him, per se. I think you might be reading too much into it. Are you sure you’re not still mad at him and Audrey for dating?”

“I wasn’t mad at him. He can’t help who he meets in public places. Although he has very questionable taste if he likes my snooty-arse sister. But I’m over that. This is something else.”

“Well, please don’t let it eat you up. We have that group presentation for Geography tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah…”

“So you’d better get to work learning your parts. You know Maggie’ll explode if you get it wrong.”

“Yes. Exploding Maggie is my least favourite Maggie.”

“So get to work, and stop worrying.”

Jessa managed to reduce her share of the presentation to the permitted quantity of bullet-points, but she just couldn’t concentrate enough to memorise the content further.

She decided it was worth practising the open-mind techniques that Ms Alzamora had been teaching them in Parapsych Skills.

She tried to recall the teacher’s instruction. The stillness. The quiet. The acknowledgement and setting aside of thoughts as they arose. Jessa grabbed a sheet of notepaper and drew a circle onto it, the shape that Ms Alzamora had recommended they use as “the symbol of unwavering mindfulness.”

But Jessa’s mind was far from unwavering. In fact, it was very distinctly and plainly wavering.

She found that by holding her hand directly over the circle she was able to focus more fully, but it was as though the more open her mind became, the more thoughts came rushing in, like seawater into a freshly excavated sand pit.

Her brain was bogging under the weight of questions upon questions about Hugo Fletcher and lingering feelings of disquiet about Emmeline Victor’s strange and worrisome trauma.

Jessa thought about the events and tried to piece together any connection Hugo might have to Emmeline, but as far as she could work out, they would scarcely have met. Did he really see her? Why would he be the one to visit? What could have happened that would require personal involvement from the Parapsych History teacher?

Jessa wriggled in under her duvet and pulled it up close around her face. With questions and a curious turbulence in her mind, she eventually fell to sleep.