The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [121]
I was thinking about this as our big black cab pulled into the Wexford square, bumping up along the cobblestones in front of Hawthorne. I could have let my parents go and get my things for me—I could have left London and never looked at the place again. But that felt wrong. I would go to my room. I would get my own things. I would face this place and everything that had happened here. I might get stares, but I didn’t care.
Anyway, I could tell from a quick look around and a check of the time that that wasn’t going to be an issue. It was seven in the morning on a Saturday. The lights in Hawthorne were mostly off. Aside from two people crossing the green and walking toward the refectory, I saw no one. Everyone was still in bed. There were two news vans around, but they were packing up their equipment. The show was over.
Claudia opened the door as we approached. I would leave as I had arrived just ten weeks before, with Claudia in the doorway, waiting for me.
“Aurora,” she said in her softest voice, which was the same kind of voice most people used to bark orders over malfunctioning drive-thru microphones. “How are you?”
“Fine,” I said. “Thanks.”
She introduced herself to my parents with one of her mighty, bunny-crushing handshakes. (I’d never seen Claudia crush a bunny, to be fair, but that’s the approximate level of pressure.)
Claudia had been fully briefed on the situation, and mercifully, she wasn’t going to belabor things.
“There are boxes upstairs,” she said. “I’d be more than happy to help you.”
“I’d rather do it myself,” I replied.
“Of course,” she said, with what I took to be a nod of approval. “Mr. and Mrs. Deveaux, why don’t you come through to my office? We’ll have some tea and a little chat. Aurora, you take as long as you need. We’ll be right here if you need us.”
“Remember,” my mom said, “no lifting, no bending.”
This was because of my stitches. My wound wasn’t that bad—just a flesh wound, as they say—but I still had a large trail of stitches across my body. I’d been given a set of instructions on how to move around for the next few days while it all healed up. I hadn’t actually seen my wound yet—it was under lots of bandages and tape. But from the size of the bandages, and from what I could feel, it was about a foot and a half long. I would, I was assured, have a wicked scar that ran from just under my ribs on the left side to the top of my right thigh. I’d been ripped by the Ripper. I was a walking T-shirt slogan.
Hawthorne really felt empty during the day. I could hear the heat whistling in the pipes, and the wind outside the windows, and the creak of wood. Maybe it felt more empty than normal because I was leaving. I was no longer part of this place. There was the familiar smell of my floor—the leftover sweetness of shampoos and body washes floating out of the steam of the showers mixed with the strangely metallic smell that always emanated from the dishwasher in the kitchenette. I touched the doors as I walked down the hall until I reached our room.
The promised boxes were stacked on my side of the room; some were piled by the closet, and more were on the bed. It looked like Jazza had started the packing process—some of my books had been carefully packed into one box on my desk, and my uniform shirts and skirts had been carefully folded and placed in another box.
I wasn’t here to do any heavy packing—I was here only for a few personal items and some clothes for a few days. I decided to do it as quickly as possible—a handful of underwear from the top drawer, my two favorite bras, some sweats, the contents of my small dish of jewelry, and my Wexford tie. The last item I clearly didn’t need, but it was a symbol of my time here. I would have my tie. I shoved all of these things into a small bag. The rest of my Wexford life would come later—the books I hadn’t finished reading,