The Headmaster went on with his tour of the halfway house. He didn’t seem to really know what was going on around him or where he even was. I guessed that from the sound of it, my aunt had him medicated enough to be a walking, talking puppet for her.
“You can try,” she said to Rob. “But that didn’t work out for the other one of you, did it?”
“Do you mean David?” I asked. “Did you kill David?”
She smiled as if it were a triumphant victory for her. “Of course! And I even said sorry, although I should have said ‘you’re welcome’ instead because he was a real loser, don’t you think? One day you’ll thank me for all that I have done for you, though. I know you will. And until then, I will simply have to be satisfied in knowing that I am helping you to become the woman you were always meant to be.”
I was so stunned and so shocked and so angry that I couldn’t move. That I couldn’t speak. Honestly, it felt like I had stopped breathing altogether as my aunt turned to her husband.
The fucking Headmaster of our neighboring school.
“Ready to go dear?” she called out.
The Headmaster nodded as he walked up to Naomi and took her hand. “Thank you again for letting us come see your accomplishments. I’m sure we will be calling on you for your guidance as we work to copy your successes.”
I watched them both walk out the door hand in hand, and I finally drew in a deep breath as my lungs cried out for mercy.
“That guy was kind of weird,” one of the teens at the house said as she stood with us and watched them walk away. “His wife was even weirder, too. Like what’s up with all that stuff she left in the storage room?”
I turned and walked back to the storage room to see what Naomi had left behind. It looked like one of the playsets we used to play with when I was little.
Except this time all the boy dolls were missing their heads.
24
This had to stop. I was so exhausted by the constant stress and trauma of it. I called over to Goldshire and scheduled an appointment to meet with my aunt, just me and her. When I got there, I found her sitting in the Headmaster’s office looking as if she was the queen.
“Where’s the Headmaster?” I asked.
“Sleeping,” she said nonchalantly. “He sleeps a lot.”
“You’re insane,” I said quite frankly.
“Ouch.”
“Which mental institution were you in?” I asked.
“I really don’t see how that’s any of your business.” Her voice was getting agitated.
“Okay look,” I said as I sat down in the chair in front of her. “I have been through way too much shit as it is. Tell me what you want and what it will take to make you leave me alone.”
“I want you to be the Headmistress, something that your mother never had the chance to do because of her ridiculously abusive and manipulative husband.”
“Fine,” I said. “Done. I’m already the Headmistress. I’ll stay on as Headmistress for longer than a year if it will get you to leave me alone.”
“Good,” Naomi said. “I think being Headmistress suits you. You also need to lose all the guys that hover around you like flies on meat. Men are a distraction, unless you heavily sedate them.”
“No,” I said. “The guys aren’t going anywhere. They’re staying with me.”
“No, they’re not.”
I got in her face and stared her down. “Yes—they are.”
“I think you might want to be careful, then,” Naomi said as she stood up and hovered over me. “Now get out!”
It was the craziest meeting I’d ever had, and that was saying something since I had definitely had my share of crazy. I had exhausted all of the ideas that I could come up with and didn’t know what else to do. Maybe the solution was to leave and go really, really far away like to another country or something. I took the long path home because I wanted to see if the stone room was still there, which it was. I didn’t want to look inside, I just wanted to see if the structure itself still remained.
Then I peeked in on the garden on my way to make sure the plants hadn’t been uprooted again and I was pleased to see that the garden seemed to be untouched, at least for now.
As I walked up to the apartment, I felt an impending feeling of dread the closer I got to the door. I tried to tell myself it was just nerves from meeting with Naomi since it was such an insane and emotionally taxing encounter. But that didn’t lessen the feeling I was having. I went inside the apartment and it didn’t look like anyone was home. They were probably all out looking for me since we were supposed to all be staying together and I had left without telling them I was going to meet with my aunt. I even left my phone behind on the counter so that they wouldn’t track me to the Goldshire campus and show up there making things worse. They were probably worried sick, and I felt bad for doing that to them. So, I picked up my phone from the counter and called Michael first.
I knew that he would probably be freaking out the most.
But when it started to ring, I heard his phone coming from inside the bedroom.
Weird, I wonder if he’s still home.
I walked into the bedroom and screamed as I ran up to where he was lying on the bed. The entire mattress was soaked in a pool of blood.
“Michael, wake up!” I shouted as I checked for his pulse and listened for air coming from his mouth. “No, no, no, no!”
I dialed Adam’s phone and my bloodied fingers slipped on the keypad.
“Lisette,” he said sounding worried. “Where are you, we—”
“Adam!” I screamed into the speaker. “Come home now, please!” I cried.
