Tiffany Reisz - The Headmaster

Gwen thanked the waitress and finished her coffee. She paid her bill and followed the old man out of the diner.

“Sir?” she asked, and the man turned around. “Can I look at that map of yours for just a second?”

“Of course, young lady.” He gave her the napkin map and she took a picture of it with her cell phone.

“Thank you, sir. Why are you headed to Marshal?” she asked him when she returned the map.

“Went there a long time ago. Graduated in 1963, so I’m a lucky one. Thought I’d visit some old ghosts. That’s all.” He shoved the map into his suit pocket. “You be safe out there.”

“I will, sir,” she said, not knowing quite why she needed to be safe, but it was good advice in general—advice she planned to take.

As she walked back to her car Gwen considered whether or not she actually wanted to do this…drive out to Marshal and see if they were hiring. The waitress seemed to think they were. Wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it? She didn’t look much like a teacher right now. She had on jeans with brown boots, a brown crewneck shirt and a matching brown suede newsboy cap. At least she had fit right in at the ’60s-themed diner. Cary always said the newsboy hats she wore made her look like a go-go dancer. Well, if the school was as weird as the waitress said it was, maybe they’d appreciate her retro-wear. At best she might end up with a teaching job and not have to drive all the way to Chicago. At worst, nothing would come of it and she was out an hour of her life.

She got back into her car and made sure all her boxes that she’d stuffed into the backseat and passenger seat were still secure. She’d packed everything she owned into her car yesterday and found it all fit. Barely, but it still fit. She was twenty-five years old, newly single, without a job, both parents were dead and gone, and everything she owned could fit inside a Toyota Camry. So why not go begging for a job at this boarding school in the middle of nowhere?

What did she have to lose?

When she couldn’t think of a single good answer, she turned on her car and headed to Marshal. Gwen pulled up the hand-drawn map on her phone and headed out to the school. The entrance to Lexington Lane was so overgrown with ivy that Gwen missed the turn the first time she passed it. Going five miles an hour, she finally spied the turn-in. She drove two miles through a canopy of trees casting shadows and sunlight onto the road.

“Beautiful…” Gwen breathed as she rounded a corner and the school came into view. Where she’d expected a gleaming state-of-the-art industrial new school, she found a Tudor castle instead rising over moss-covered stone walls standing at least twelve-feet high. The only break in the wall was at the end of the road. The William Marshal Academy was spelled out in wrought-iron lettering at the top of the high arched opening from the road into the school courtyard. At the side of the arch hung the school crest in dazzling silver. She stared at the crest for a long time—she wasn’t sure how long. But something kept her from driving forward and something else kept her from going back.

Fear. She put a name on what held her pinned in place as if a high invisible hand pushed his fingertip to the top of her car. She imagined if she hit the accelerator the wheels would do nothing but spin impotently in the dirt.

Snap out of it, Gwen ordered herself. She recognized this fear because she’d felt it before. It wasn’t anxiety as the doctors defined. Wasn’t a panic attack. Wasn’t a flashback. It was change. All her life, when she stood hovering on the threshold of a new experience, she froze and trembled thusly. Her first day of college, her first date with Cary, her first night with Cary, her first job teaching… Every time she stepped onto a new path in her life, she’d face the terror of the first step. It was a road in the woods and as solid as it seemed. And yet she might as well be walking on a tightrope across a canyon with no net underneath for all that she trembled, for all that she feared. The unknown lay beyond the gates and beckoned her in and shooed her out, and she didn’t know which message she believed.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw something. A flash of fur and black eyes—it seemed to dive through her car. With a scream, Gwen hit the accelerator, and the car shot forward like a bullet from a gun. The wheels caught gravel and the car slid sideways, and in a second that felt far quicker than a second, metal had twisted, blood dripped and the scent of smoke filled her nostrils. The deer that had done the deed stared at her with blank, alert eyes that did—and yet did not—see her. And with one mighty leap it was gone as quickly as it came.

And so was Gwen.

Chapter Two

Gwen came to in fits and starts. She’d open her eyes only to feel the weight of consciousness pressing back down on her. Back to sleep, it seemed to say, the voice male, imperious and irrefutable. She did as she was told. She could do nothing else.

When she woke up again, she didn’t try to open her eyes. Instead she used her other senses to gauge the damage. She sensed her body was whole and that no tubes or needles ran in or out of any veins. Pain was localized to the side of her head. Nothing else hurt. She wondered if she had a concussion. Did concussions cause hallucinations? She heard improbable dreamlike voices all around her.

First she heard a man’s voice—adult, authoritative and British. British? Yes, his accent was definitely that of an Englishman, proper and educated.

But other voices answered his—younger ones, eager ones, scared but delighted for some reason.

“How did she get here?” a boy asked.

“I wish I knew,” the man replied.

“Will she live?” came another boy’s voice.

“Can we keep her?” asked another.

“Go back to class,” the man said, and no one dared defy him. “Let her sleep.”

Gwen did sleep again and when she woke once more, she woke fully. She could open her eyes, move her head, and see where she was and how she was.

She seemed to be fine. No broken bones. Few cuts. Few bruises. But where she was…that was the mystery.

She lay in a bed, a grand one with white sheets, an ornate carved walnut headboard, a deep green-and-gold brocade blanket over her and a Tiffany lamp on the end table at her side. A Tiffany lamp and a black rotary phone. Everything about the room she’d woken in declared it was the property and purview of a man.

With a groan of discomfort, Gwen forced herself from the bed. How long had she been in it? Why had she been brought here instead of taken to a hospital? Behind the closed bedroom door hung a polished oval mirror. She looked like herself. She had some bruising around her left cheek and a white bandage had been applied to her temple. When she ran a hand through her hair, slivers of glass came out.

She had her clothes on except for her shoes. Where they’d gone, she had no idea. Carefully she eased the door open and called out a tremulous “Hello?”

No answer.

She retreated into the bedroom again. A door on the opposite side of the bed led to a wood-paneled bathroom, as masculine as the bedroom she’d found herself in. Odd. Whoever lived here must have been an old-fashioned sort. Instead of an electric razor, a straight razor in a case sat on the bathroom counter next to a white-bristled shaving brush. A leather strop, the sort her grandfather had used to sharpen his kitchen knives, hung from a hook on the wall. The bathroom smelled of leather and soap and other pleasant male scents—bergamot, citrus and cedar.

Gwen turned on the tap and drank cold water out of her hands. How long had she been unconscious? She was dehydrated but not enough to be sick from it. Her mouth felt like sand and her head throbbed, but she sensed she would be fine. The bathtub, an old porcelain monster, beckoned to her. She’d love to wash the glass from her hair. She knew she should look for the owner of this bedroom, this bathroom, this…wherever she was, but she’d been in a car accident and had a head injury. She had an excuse to do whatever she wanted, and what she wanted was to get clean.