Chapter 109 – The Unscheduled Lesson – Silver Brooks

Now that it was Saturday I had to convince my mother to allow Holly to come over. The process of explaining her was complicated, and made awkward when I couldn’t fully explain to her how we met. When I tried explaining to my mother that I met Holly at my school art club it didn’t go over well. While it wasn’t a total lie, it wasn’t exactly the truth either. That was only my second time meeting Holly. My mom didn’t need to know the exact details of how or why we met.

It didn’t matter in the end because my mother was uninterested in letting one of my ‘psychedelic’ art friends inside our suburban house. She didn’t believe me when I explained that Holly wasn’t like that. She didn’t believe me when I said that Holly wasn’t usually someone I hung out with. It was only when Holly’s ride pulled up in front of our house and my mother saw Holly for the first time that she instantly changed her mind. Holly was wearing a white short-sleeve blouse and a pleated black skirt. She had her shoulder length light brown hair tied up into a side-ponytail. She was carrying two textbooks in her hand and more in her bag. She perfectly fit the image of ‘honor student’ just by the way she carried herself.

My mother and I were already at the doorway when Holly walked up. Holly waved her ride off and stepped inside. My mother gave Holly a suspicious look, probably expecting that this behavior was some sort of an act. It wouldn’t be beyond me to use such a farce to get a friend of mine into the door and my mother knew it. Holly noticed my mother’s odd expression and just gave her a smile.

“Miss Hayfield, was it…?” My mother asked, “My problematic daughter says that you are planning to tutor her…?”

“Holly is fine. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Brooks.” Holly said politely, “Yes, I volunteered. She called me on short notice but I haven’t been doing much this week other than studying for a college exam. Visiting your home for the first time will be a nice change of pace.”

“Is that so…?” My mother asked dubiously.

Holly’s smiling expression didn’t falter even momentarily at the sound of my mother’s doubt. Instead, Holly reached into her bag, pulled out a folder, and handed my mother a piece of paper from the folder.

“Oh…? An acceptance letter…? Congratulations…” My mother said as she handed it back to Holly. “Normally all the tutors I hire for Sylvie are either professionals or college students themselves… You have to understand my concern about having another student in her own grade guide her.”

“It’s understandable.” Holly said, “I’m not like most students though. As far as I’m aware, I’ve still got the top grades in the school when it comes to exams. On top of that I’m officially interning at the school as a counselor. It’s my duty to guide other students on a regular basis.”

“That’s certainly impressive…” My mother said, “But why should I hire you to tutor Sylvie instead of a professional?”

Holly looked between me and my mother curiously.

“It seems you have the wrong idea.” Holly said, “I’m not looking for a job. I already babysit some of the neighbor kids from time-to-time for money. I’m doing this for free. I’d like to look over Sylvie’s vacation homework as a friend.”

My mother seemed to be satisfied by this. The fact that she didn’t have to pay for anything meant that she wouldn’t care. As long as Holly wasn’t here to goof around then she’d likely let her come to my room. My mother still had an uncertain look on her face. She was studying Holly’s face carefully.

“Say… Your name seems familiar somehow.”

“You may have got a few PTA emails from me. I’ve been helping the vice principal with that recently as part of my internship.”

My mother snapped her fingers.

“That’s where I know you’re name from!” My mother said with a smile.

My mom put an arm around Holly’s shoulders and ushered her away from the doorway and into the living room.

“I see now! You’re a good girl! Not at all like any of Sylvie’s other friends.”

“Hey!” I said.

Holly laughed lightly at this.

“I’ll pay you for tutoring Sylvie, even if you’re her friend.” My mother said.

“I’d appreciate that.” Holly said.

“Come. Let me introduce you to my other daughter, Addison.” My mother said and turn towards the stairwell. “Addison! Get down here! We’ve got a visitor I want you to meet!”

At first I was happy to see that my mother liked Holly. However, this meet and greet processed dragged on for almost a full half-hour! My mother kept pestering Holly about every mundane subject under the sun while Holly endured it all with a smile. She just could not believe that Holly would be involved with a failure delinquent like me. I think my mom was forgetting the fact that Holly went to the same school. At some point, somehow, Holly did something to warrant being sent to our school. She couldn’t be as perfect as she looked. Even Addison paled by comparison.

“Alright, that’s enough.” I said.

I got up to pull Holly off of the couch by the arm.

“Now hold on a minute,” My mother said, “Don’t be rude to our guest.”

“Holly can’t be here all day! She’s got other stuff to do after this.” I explained.

“Actually my schedule for the day is clear.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Shut up, Holly!” I whispered.

Holly laughed.

“Ah, you’re right. We should probably get started before it gets late.” Holly said. “I wouldn’t want to leave my mother wondering about me.”

“Thank you!” I said.

My mother gave me an annoyed look as I practically dragged Holly off and up the stairs. Finally once we were in the safety of my room I locked the door so that Addison couldn’t follow us in. I knew that Addison wasn’t far behind as I pulled Holly away. The annoying little brat would probably try to do everything in her power to keep Holly distracted just for the sake of undermining me. Holly looked curious about my behavior, but didn’t say anything.

Once we were alone I could finally wrap my arms around her. She started to return my hug, but then I pushed her onto the bed.

“Thank you…” I said with a sigh, “I know my family can be annoying.”

“It’s okay, really…” Holly said. “I live alone with my busy mom so I don’t mind the additional company.”

“I wish I were an only child!” I said.

“I wish I had siblings.” Holly said.

“Want to trade? I’ll trade you Addison for a stick of chewing gum and a couple of new pencils.”

Holly laughed.

“What a mean thing to say about your sister. She seems like a nice girl.”

I mimicked the sound of vomiting.

“Don’t be pulled in by her act. It’s just that, an act!” I said, “Anyways, that’s not why I called you over here. There was something serious that I wanted to talk about.”

“Yes… Sam gave me an idea yesterday when I finished talking to you. She said that it was best that I waited to hear it from you.” Holly said. “Do you mind getting off of me now, or is this how you are planning to explain it?”

“Let’s stay like this!” I insisted.

“Get off,” Holly said.

I chuckled.

“Fine, you’re my guest!”

I sat up in the bed, getting up off of Holly. Holly sat up at the edge of the bed beside me and straightened out her clothes. She was a truly beautiful girl now that I looked at her more closely. From a distance she was easy to overlook as a regular teenage girl. It was only close up that I could admire just what Naomi initially saw in her. Unlike the members of our group, she didn’t have all the flashy highlights, accents, stylish clothing, and expensive makeup. She was pretty just as she was.

She watched me watching her and gave me a funny look.

“Don’t tell me that you’re planning to do that again.” She said and moved a few inches away from me.

“Aww, don’t be like that! It’s not every day I get to rub up against someone as pretty as you!”

“Are you trying to butter me up for something?” She asked with a grin, “Whatever it is, it won’t work.”

I laughed.

“Nah, I just wanted to have a light-hearted conversation before we get to talking…”

“Then how about I take a look at your vacation homework while you tell me everything that happened?”

“That’s not necessary.” I said. “I just lied so that my mom would let you in. It isn’t important.”

“It is important.” She said. “Your mom is offering to pay me so I’m going to make sure that she gets her money’s worth. Pull out your homework and let me see.”

If this were any of my other friends I would’ve laughed this off, but Holly looked dead serious. I did as she asked and we went over to my desk. She pulled my other chair over from across the room and we sat down at the desk together. I made the mistake of pulling out my math homework first, my least favorite subject. Holly didn’t mess around for even a moment and pulled a pen and paper from out of her bag. She made marks on all the answers I got wrong and then showed me how to do them on her blank sheet of paper.

While she was marking up an essay I wrote for literature class I started to tell my story. I told her of the train-hopping, the concert watching, and the sneaking into the unused house. I then explained to her in great detail everything I saw involving Officer Angelica Morelli. She was interested, but she didn’t seem scared or shocked at all during my story. I couldn’t tell if she wasn’t taking the idea of the body being real as a serious possibility. She just went on grading my paper as if I were speaking about the most normal thing ever.

“So…” I asked after a moment of silence between us, “What do you think? Isn’t it crazy?”

“It’s not as crazy as you think.” Holly said while underlining some misspelled words in my essay.

“So you think it’s possible that there was a real body inside the bag.”

“It isn’t just possible… I know it for a fact.”

“What…?” I asked in confusion, “How…?”

She looked up at me with a stark expression.

“Because I know who was in the bag that she buried.” Holly said. “Her name was Raven Keyes, a midlevel official at the local court.”

“Holy shit! I heard that name on the news a couple of days ago!”

“She was reported missing by a co-worker that went to her house. I know, I saw the same news broadcast.” Holly said.

I stood up out of my seat.

“This is huge! We should tell someone!”

Holly gave me a pitiful look and sighed.

“I’m afraid it’s not so simple. This is a small part to a much bigger story. Please sit back down.”

“But a police officer killed a court worker! People will want to know about it!”

“She wasn’t killed by Angelica Morelli.”

“Then who-…”

“She was killed by the Killing Cat.” Holly said and took my hand. “Sit back down and I’ll give you the briefest possible rundown of it.”

I did as she asked, feeling like I was the one going nuts here. Her voice remained flat over the duration of the entire conversation. She started making notecards for me while she talked about a mystery that she and her friends stumbled upon. A lot of the rumors of conspiracy I heard were turning out to be far more than harmless high school urban legends. From the sound of it, there was some sort of entity haunting our school and striking vengeance against a group of people that committed heinous acts in the past.

All of this sounded like too much for me to take in. Not only were there murderers living among us in our day-to-day life, but this made the context of Ms. Logan’s death so much more complicated. Holly didn’t go into detail about Ms. Logan but I recalled the image of her back in the art clubroom. In the image she was standing beside her friend Malorie, back when this sinister plot that Holly was explaining had yet to be developed. What’s worse is that the primary reason for this murder was to cover up another murder.

“Stop!” I said as Holly spoke. “That’s enough, please…”

Holly gave me a sad look.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t ease your conscience, but what you saw was real. Sam knew that this would be hard to explain and decided to leave it to me.” Holly said. “I’m here to help you for more than tutoring. I’m a counselor as well. Talk to me about how you feel.”

“Right now I just feel upset and disgusted… I feel like more should’ve been done… I feel like something horrible is going on in the background of our school. I mean, I knew our school was a troubled place. The ‘troubled’ part is right in the name, but this… This is just too much for me to accept.”

“I understand how you feel, maybe more than anyone else ever could.” Holly said solemnly. “For what it’s worth, everyone in the know hasn’t been sitting on their thumbs. We’ve tried to paint a clearer picture of what happened in the past and learn the truth behind the conspiracy.”

I hung my head and put my hands into my face as I considered the possibility that there was a killer out there still haunting our school from the shadows. Not only that, the vice principal covered it up so that the school’s reputation wouldn’t be damaged any further. Things like this apparently had been going on for so long and I had been ignorant the entire time! I was starting to regret asking Holly for the truth. It would’ve been better if my suspicions were never confirmed.

“How…” I asked as I pulled my face from my hands, “How do you go on living your life like this and just ignore these things happening around you?”

“I don’t ignore them. I think about these things every day. I wake up thinking about it and go to sleep thinking about it. Often times it keeps me awake for several hours each night as I try to get some rest.”

“That sounds absolutely horrible…”

“It’s something I’ve learned to live with.” She said. “It’s something that you’ll have to learn to live with from here on out.”