Page 59 of Cruel Hearts

Staring down at Maeve looking so broken was a bucket of cold water over my head. How much of our kush had gotten into the hands of school kids like her?

Returning my thoughts to Elizabeth, I asked, “Do you know what’s in her new pills?”

“She couldn’t trust us not to go out and mix it for ourselves.” Maeve raised her shoulders. “Based on that, I thought it was a mix of caffeine and something common like aspirin.”

“What about the curry?” I asked.

“It’s okay, I suppose.” Maeve sipped from the plastic glass. “A bit too spicy.”

“Does it contain the same weight loss drugs?”

“It’s a new herb she’s trying out,” said Maeve. “An appetite suppressant that changes the way the body stores fat.”

“Why does she need to disguise it in a curry?”

“It’s the only thing that masks the bad taste.”

Before I could ask for more information, Mrs. Campbell bustled up to the bedside. “Miss O’Brian, what happened to you?”

Maeve gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

The deputy headmistress shot me a concerned glance. “You should be at school, Miss Hancock.”

“I just want to make sure Maeve was alright.”

Her lips pressed together in a thin line. “That’s the job of the faculty, not something for you to take upon yourself.”

I shrugged. In her world, seeing someone faint might mean overwork or low blood sugar. Things were different where I grew up, where more people I knew died from gas leaks, murder, and drug overdoses than they did of old age. If I had run inside, looking for the academy nurse or someone else, Maeve might have stopped breathing and perished in the snow.

There was no point in trying to explain any of this to Mrs. Campbell. She was a nice woman trying to do her best and had taken a firmer line with Elizabeth at breakfast. I didn’t want to rile her up by arguing back.

“Mr. McGarr is outside in his jeep,” she added. “Do you have his number?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“He will drive you back to the academy.”

I turned to Maeve and gave her a tight smile. “Take care of yourself. And report Elizabeth to the police before someone else nearly dies.”

“What?” asked Mrs. Campbell, her face slack.

I walked out of the ward, guilt creeping up my insides for setting up Maeve’s interrogation, but it couldn’t be helped. In a few hours, the doctors would discover the substance in Maeve’s blood that had caused her to collapse, and I would bet the entirety of Elizabeth’s winnings on the horse race that it wasn’t anything as mundane as aspirin or caffeine. That girl needed cutting down before she spread her poison to the younger girls.

* * *

Maeve didn’t return to the academy the next day or the day after that. And I didn’t see Elizabeth, either. The little curry-making business also disappeared, with her business partners confined to the sanctuary at mealtimes, which I understood was the academy’s equivalent of solitary confinement.

If Elizabeth was any other person, they would have expelled her for selling dangerous crap to students and possibly informed the police. But this was her turf. I couldn’t see her getting anything more severe than a slap on the wrist.

Miss Martin stood in the front of the classroom, teaching the basics of draping, a couture technique designers used to create dress patterns. After marking up and cutting pieces of heavy muslin, she pinned them on a dress form to create the front bodice of a bustier gown.

“With twelve panels and some expert tailoring, this bustier won’t need any boning.” She made slow folds and tucks and fastenings with fingers prematurely gnarled from arthritis.

I raised my smartphone and filmed her movements. Although I had draped in my old sewing room, my technique was nowhere as polished as hers.

Someone knocked on the door, and she raised her head. “Yes?”

It was a first-year boy wearing short trousers. “The headmaster wants to see Miss Hancock in his office.”