I looked down at the phone still clutched in my hand. More than anything, I wanted to hear the messages Andre left. I put the phone to my ear and listened to my voicemails.
The first message was from right after I was hospitalized. Andre had left a message saying he was on his way to pick me up. I skipped to the next message, also from Andre.
“Gabrielle, the guards said they heard you scream. I’m outside your door now, and I’m coming in.”
The line was silent as Andre opened the door. I waited for him to get back on the line, but the silence stretched on. Finally he found his voice.
“Cristo! What happened? She’s gone!” His voice was panicked.
Andre yelled to someone, “Secure the perimeter. We’re going to need to review all footage and check every room.”
Into the phone, he added, “Don’t die on me.”
The following three messages from Andre told me nothing important about what happened.
I rubbed my eyes. Either I was insane and I blacked out, removed my casts, and walked home, or I had just spent the night and morning with the scariest man I’d ever met.
The sun must’ve risen in the time between Andre’s messages and the three from my friends that followed. Theirs, unlike Andre’s, were only concerned about the attack from the night before. That meant that Andre didn’t tell them about my abduction.
I left a message for Andre that I was safe, and that I couldn’t remember the night’s final events. He wouldn’t receive it until he woke up this evening, but at least this way he’d know I was okay. Then I fell back onto my bed.
A deep, despairing fear possessed me. I didn’t think I was crazy. But accepting that meant I had to confront something even more chilling: whoever the man in the suit was, he was powerful and interested in me. And now he was unafraid of making contact.
When I went to put my phone back in my bag, I noticed a golden slip of paper between my notebooks. Where had it come from? I thought back to one of the first times I’d been in the library, reading the book on sirens. It could’ve been the same piece of paper that had fallen out of the library book.
I went to throw the paper in the trash, when black calligraphy caught my eye.
G
Alone within a crowded room
You have felt the breath of doom
Your predicament a result of fate
Seek me out before it’s too late
C
The hairs along my arm stood on edge. My initial is just a coincidence. It had to be, or else Lydia, the librarian, had passed along a note. The idea seemed so remote and implausible that I tried to shake it. I flipped the paper over.
Nona’s Bed and Breakfast, Cinque Terre, Italy
Below it was a vaguely familiar address. I went to the computer and Googled the name and address. The first hit matched the strange card, so I clicked the link. I perused through the images, all of the beautiful bed and breakfast and the coastal town it was situated within.
Just as I was considering leaving the site, I absentmindedly clicked the “About” tab. The paper slipped from my fingers.
Cecilia.
***
I sat in Peel Castle’s library, reading a textbook and waiting for the sun to set so that I could talk to Andre.
My thoughts kept drifting from my supernatural anthropology book to last night’s events and then the cryptic note I’d found. What was so shocking about the note was the possibility that Cecilia was both aware of my existence and trying to make contact with me. And Lydia mediated that contact.
I briefly considered confronting Lydia, but something told me that she’d deny involvement. I jotted down a quick note to book a flight to Italy. I think a reunion with my childhood nanny was long overdue.
I glanced out the window before turning back to my reading. The school grounds were awash in blue and periwinkle hues as the sun dipped below the horizon. Not five minutes after sunset my phone rang.
“Hello?” I whispered, packing up my bags. I got the stink eye from a girl sitting a few seats down.
“What the hell happened last night?” I could practically see Andre running a hand through his hair. “Are you hurt?”
“No I’m fine.” I glanced around at the people studying. They looked bored, and I wished I could be any one of them. My life no longer had a shred of normalcy. “Like I said in my message, I can’t remember anything.”
“How did this happen? Bishopcourt is impenetrable, and nothing was caught on camera.”
I remembered the man’s words from last night: I’m a phantom that doesn’t really exist, aren’t I?
“Where are you?” he demanded. “I’m picking you up right now.”
We ended up meeting back at my dorm room after he batted his eyelashes to this evening’s security monitor and slipped her a little under-the-table cash.
“Apparently if I don’t watch over you all the time, you’re going to get killed or maimed.” He was stalking back and forth in my tiny room, looking like a caged panther. “So from now on, I’m going to be watching you throughout the entire evening.”