Chapter 38

On Wednesday Millie collected them after morning lessons.

“It looks like rain later, we need to grab our coats from the room,” Lucy told her as they walked away from the school building.

“No need today, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Oh shit, has Sylvie cancelled,” Gabbie sighed, “this is our last session before Christmas and I’ve so much to tell her about the weekend.”

“She’s not cancelled, she’s come here to see you.”

“Oh wow, so where are we doing it?”

“In Dot’s office, she came to have a chat with Dot, and Dr Melrose.”

“Why does she want to speak to Dr Melrose?” Gabbie asked, panicking, “have we done something wrong?”

“I’ve no idea, but I can’t imagine you’ve done anything wrong.”

“Mmm, Dot won’t be sitting in on our meeting will she,” Gabbie asked nervously, “it’s just, while I’ve told the school a lot, only you know the really weird shit.”

“It’s OK, she’s not staying for your chat.”

“And what’s Sylvie telling her?”

“Nothing about what you’ve talked about, she was quite clear at the start that everything you tell her is confidential.”

Gabbie visibly relaxed, “of course, she can’t tell anyone, can she.”

“Not even your mum, unless you say she can. Now let’s hurry before it starts raining. I’ve put you some food in the room, so you don’t need to worry about missing lunch.”

Sylvie was on her own in the office when they arrived.

The office was quite unlike any other room in the school, no harsh overhead lighting, just numerous shaded lamps around the room. All the chairs were covered with multi-coloured crocheted blankets. The usual school smells masked by incense.

Gabbie absolutely hated the room.

“Hey Gabbie, how are you feeling after your exciting weekend?”

“100% better, err, can we open a window, the incense in here gives me a headache.”

“I think it will take more than an open window to get rid of the smell,” Millie advised, “it’s in all the furniture and the blankets.”

“We could meet somewhere you’re more comfortable if you like. It’s very important you’re comfortable in our meetings, Gabbie.”

“Can we meet in our room?” she asked Millie, “is she allowed in our room?”

“Oh yes, she’s allowed. Is it tidy?”

“Tidy-ish,” Lucy replied, “I can quickly kick everything into the bedroom.”

“You have a suite?” Sylvie laughed, “It’s a bit different to when I was at school. I shared a dorm with 7 other girls.”

“Gabbie’s a special case, we don’t normally give our students multi-room apartments.” Millie replied.

“Lucy and I were in a normal room with another girl before half-term, we had to share a bathroom with the whole floor. I can’t say I miss sharing a bathroom, but I do miss Lizzie.”

“OK then, let’s go to your room. Ahh, will anyone wonder who you’re taking to your room?”

“I’m not worried if people know I’m seeing a therapist. I already melted the whole school’s minds on the first day after half-term, people don’t ask awkward questions anymore, in case they regret hearing the answer.”

“Do you get on with most people here?” Sylvie asked as they walked across the school to the girls’ house.

“Oh yes, I get on with pretty much everyone. It’s strange, since I came out, in both senses, people have been more approachable, they come up and talk to us at mealtimes, don’t they Lucy.”

“Oh yes. I might seem popular, but I never really had too many friends before Gabbie. Then when people saw we were a couple they avoided us. I don’t know if they were worried about catching gayness or something. But after the holiday, when Gabbie told everyone about what had been happening in her life, suddenly everyone is very understanding. They don’t just talk to us because of her past, but because they want to talk to us both. Even 6th Formers talk to us now, which never happened before.”

“Except for Polly, she was nice to us before.”

“Yes, she was. I like Polly, she’s a bit wild, but she’s also nice. I think she’s a good person when she’s not trying too hard to be a rebel.”

“On the subject of Polly,” Millie broke in, “I must apologise for what I said at the weekend. She seems to be genuinely taken by Lizzie.”

“I knew it!” Gabbie exclaimed, “I knew she was gay before she did.”

“That may be so, but what about Lizzie?”

“She’s gay, but she can’t tell her parents, which is horrible. I wasn’t sure what I was when my parents were alive, but shit, if I came out to him I’d probably be somewhere underground with Chelcey’s mum.”

“I guess I’m lucky having such cool parents, Lizzie’s parents aren’t as understanding, and we should respect her choice to keep her sexuality secret until she’s ready.”

“But what if her parents make her marry a boy?”

“When she’s old enough to marry, she’ll be old enough to make her own decisions,” Sylvie replied.

“What if they make her marry before she’s 18?”

“That’s not likely,” Lucy reassured her as they reached their room, “Lizzie’s parents are quite old, I don’t think they will make Lizzie marry young.”

Gabbie relaxed once more, “oh yes, she said that. Anyway, welcome to our home, Sylvie.”

“It’s not untidy,” Sylvie told them as she brushed a t-shirt off the sofa before she sat down.

“It’s not as neat as your office,” Lucy replied as she picked up more discarded clothes.

“Do you want extra chairs?” Millie asked as she helped her to quickly toss everything into the bedroom.

“Mmm, I think I’ll sit on the floor,” Gabbie replied.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Are we doing anything private today?” Gabbie asked.

“Not today, I just want to go over the events of the weekend, to examine your trances. I imagine you’ve spoken to Millie about what you did on Friday?”

“Oh yes, and she was here when I slipped into a trance by accident. And Lucy joined me again, she just barged into my trance, I didn’t even have to invite her.”

“Now this is interesting. Why don’t you eat your lunch while we chat. I don’t want you to be distracted by a rumbling tummy.”

“So yeah,” Gabbie started as she peeled the foil off her plate of sausage and mashed potatoes, “oh wow, I thought I could smell sausages cooking before, do we have any cans of Coke, Lucy?”

“No, sorry, but we can share a bottle of Tango.”

“That will be great, thanks Lucy. So, where was I, ahh yeah, I’d not even said anything. OK, so you know about Friday...”

“I know a little, I’d like you to tell me how you managed to get rid of multiple people at once.”

“Ahh, we didn’t do them all at once, not really,” she answered after swallowing a forkful of mash and onion gravy, “this is really nice, would you like some Sylvie, I’m sure the kitchen have some left.”

“Thanks Gabbie, but I’m fine, really.”

“Have you eaten Millie?”

“Yes thanks, I had my lunch earlier.”

“Great, so back to Friday, we decided it was best to try with someone we both knew, so we got rid of Malcolm Johns first, he filmed my abuse, and we recently found out he’s Lucy’s birth father, although he was only the sperm donor really, getting her mum pregnant then having no further interest. But still, he’s where we’re linked, so we decided to get shot of him first.”

“Did you follow one of the meditation procedures in the book I gave you?”

“Yes,” Lucy answered as Gabbie washed her lunch down with Tango, “the first one we tried worked really well. We turned all the lights off, lit a little LED fake candle, played some quiet instrumental music and we easily slipped into a trance.”

“So, we asked Millie to find us a room where we could shout,” Gabbie continued, “I’m sure she wondered what the hell we were about to get up to, but she found us a room in the basement that’s empty at night and is quite soundproof because of the noisy laundry down there. We took our fake candle and a speaker down there and both thought about the cellar, and we called out ‘Malcolm Johns, we know what you did to me and you can’t hurt me anymore’, like Alison told me, and after the second time we shouted it, he faded away.”

“Did you see him fade away as well Lucy?”

“Yes, I did. For the rest of the people, Gabbie described them briefly before we started. so I could visualise each person. The room was full of people at first, and as we called out each person, they left.”

“Did you do them all in one trance?”

“Oh no,” Gabbie replied, “we did them two, then three at a time, because we kept losing our voices from shouting. Luckily we found some out of date Coke in one of the rooms down there, so we could keep drinking...”

“ ... and burping,” Lucy giggled.

“Yes, and burping, between sessions. I felt drained as well, It was really tiring. We left Katherine and Charles until last, as I expected them to be harder to banish, but Katherine went straight away, then he, what’s the term you used, Millie?”

“Self-immolated...”

“Yes, he did that.”

“OK, so this is what Alison and I thought would happen, well not the last bit, and we had no idea you’d be able to do more than one person a day.”

“We did 22 in about three hours.”

“Oh wow, you’re so much stronger than we imagined.”

“Lucy is the strong one, I can use her strength when we’re close. We don’t even need to touch.”

“So, we talked about the fire, and how your trance interpreted it, have the police told you what really happened?”

“Oh yes! We had such an exciting day on Sunday, they came round for my help to place photos on a 3D model, because the fire destroyed the laptops that had all the details. There’s loads of bodies in the house, it’s horrible. Anyway, the fire started in the cellar, right where we were in the trance. Someone plugged some spotlights into the wrong plug on a generator and it started the fire. It was so hot down there that even the stones melted, they showed us a video from there, it’s a real mess. Anyway, we’ve skipped a day.”

“Oh yes, you said something about Saturday.”

Gabbie told her about how she was talking about the past and having a really nice time thinking about happy memories when she slipped into a trance by accident.