AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hannah Jones.”
She shuts her eyes, counts to three. Her heart is pounding. Think of the baby. She thinks of the baby. She thinks of April. She thinks of the blood pressure tablet she swallowed this morning with her breakfast orange juice.
She takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and turns.
He is there. Dr. Horatio Myers. A little older, a little grayer around the temples, but still the same Byronic wind-swept hair, the same slightly self-conscious tweed jacket, like someone playing the part of an academic.
“Dr. Myers,” she says.
“How very lovely to see you here, Hannah.” His tone is perfect, she realizes, as he takes one of her hands in his, pressing it between his palms. It’s welcoming, but also grave, and an acknowledgment that this isn’t just any alumnus coming back for auld lang syne, but something rather different, rather more painful. “Although, it is in fact Professor Myers these days,” he adds, taking away a little from his air of solicitude.
“Congratulations,” Hannah says, unsure what else to say.
“And this must be November,” Dr.—Professor—Myers says, turning to her. “You look so like your sister.”
“I know,” November says, a little acidly, reminding him that this isn’t exactly an uncomplicated thing for her. She softens the remark with a smile before Dr. Myers has to fumble to extricate himself. “Thank you for showing us around, it’s—well, I won’t pretend this is easy, but it felt like something I needed to do. My father died two years ago and he took so many memories of April with him. Ever since then I’ve felt the need to forge my own.”
It’s beautifully done. Hannah almost forgets her nerves in admiration of November’s performance. If she could, she would applaud. It’s so pitch-perfect it’s almost… April. She doesn’t doubt the sincerity for a second—even though she knows that’s absolutely not why they’re here.
“Well, I am glad to do what little I can to help, my dear,” Dr. Myers says. “Now. Where shall we begin? I’m rather partial to the library myself.”
Hannah wants to roll her eyes. She can’t remember April spending more than five minutes in the library. It sounds more as if they’re here for a tour of Dr. Myers’s favorite hangouts, not something personal to April at all, but then again—it’s Dr. Myers they’re here to observe. So perhaps that’s to the good.
“The library it is,” November is saying with a smile. “Lead on, Macduff.”
“Well, my dear,” Dr. Myers says as they set off across the Old Quad towards the chapel cut-through, “far be it from me to begin by acting the professor, but considering our destination I cannot allow that to go uncorrected. The quotation is in fact ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ coming as it does in the context of a sword fight—the reference being, one is invited to infer, an invitation to lay the first blow. And in fact Pelham has one of the very few extant first folios, so I may, if we are extremely lucky, be permitted to show you the original line in its very earliest remaining printed form.”
His tone is light, conversational, just the slightest touch condescending. The tone of a tutor expounding on his favorite subject to his favorite tutee. And suddenly, it is as if Hannah never left.
* * *
IT IS PERHAPS AN HOUR later, and they have done the library, the Junior Common Room, the chapel, the Great Hall, and the bar, which means there is only one logical destination left. As they cross Old Quad and pass under the Cherwell Arch, Hannah knows where they are heading, and she feels something inside her tense, preparing herself for what comes next. The baby moves uneasily, as if sensing her nerves.
They cross the lawn of the Fellows’ Garden—by right, now, Hannah has to assume, since they are in the company of a fellow—but as they come out of the shadow of the Master’s lodgings and into the sunshine of New Quad, Dr. Myers stops.
“Now, as you may know—as Hannah undoubtedly knows—this is New Quad. I assume… I don’t wish to presume… Your sister’s room.” He looks doubtfully from Hannah to November, as if unsure how to phrase this. “Do you…?”
Do you want to see where your sister was murdered?
Hannah can understand his hesitation. There is no established social formula for asking this question.
“Yes, I’d like to see the set, if that’s possible,” November says firmly. “But I understand if it’s not.”
“Well, normally in term time access to student rooms would be difficult, but in point of fact,” Dr. Myers says, “in point of fact the room, actually the whole staircase, was turned over to office use in, um, well. In the aftermath of your sister’s death.”
“Ah,” November says, with understanding. It makes sense, Hannah supposes. Staircase 7 must have been notorious among the other students and she can’t imagine the parents of any brand-new fresher wanting their daughter to spend their first year at university walking in the footsteps of a murdered student. “Yes. I can understand that. Well, in that case yes, I would like to see it if that’s possible. But perhaps Hannah would like a rest.” She turns to Hannah, raising one eyebrow. “Hannah? Would you like to sit down here and wait while Professor Myers shows me up to the room?”
Yes, Hannah wants to say. Her feet hurt. Her feelings are churning. The baby is fluttering nervously inside her, responding to her spiking pulse. She knows November is deliberately giving her an out, if she wants it.
“No,” she hears herself saying. “I want to come.”
She has come this far. She can’t turn back now.
As they walk around the edge of the quad, she feels a strange unreality taking over. They are walking—the three of them—to the site of Hannah’s worst ever experience, but as they crunch along the gravel it’s happier memories that crowd her mind. She remembers herself and Emily, picnicking on the banks of the Cherwell. She recognizes the bench where Ryan carved his name one summer night, and the archway to staircase 3 that some enterprising student taped up for a Rag Week prank. The sun is lowering in the sky, lights are coming on all around the quad. The figures beside her are dim in the gathering dusk. She could have slipped back in time—walking with April and Hugh, back to the set one winter’s night.
They follow Dr. Myers under the arch to staircase 7, and Hannah feels the stone beneath her feet, familiar even after ten years. There is the same momentary step into darkness before the lights flicker on up the staircase, the same slight delay. There is the same echo as they move upward. Dr. Myers has stopped his running commentary, as if he is not quite sure what to say. They pass rooms 1 and 2, where the slips of paper bearing the names of students have been replaced by ones reading STORES and ADMISSIONS 1, and then move up, landing by landing. Some of the doors stand open and inside Hannah can see not beds and students, but desks and administrators—all the myriad back-office functions of a busy college, hard at work.
On the top floor the door to the set is closed, and Dr. Myers pauses on the landing and gives a little rat-a-tat-tat.
