The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [92]
For everyone else at Wexford, this was just a normal Thursday—mostly. As on the last Ripper day, we would be on lockdown starting after an early dinner. A few police cars were now parked along the side of the building, and some news vans were joining them.
That afternoon, I went to the library. The carrels were all full—people seemed to be going on as usual, working away, cramming down the material for when classes started up again next week. I went directly upstairs, to the stacks. Alistair was in his usual position, draped all over the floor, book in front of him. Today, it was poetry. I could tell from the wide white margins on the page and his particularly languid pose.
I sat down nearby and put an open book on my lap, so I at least had the pretense of reading if anyone found me. We said nothing to each other, but he seemed fine with my presence. A few minutes later, though, a library assistant came by with the cart. He pointed to the book on the ground in front of Alistair.
“Is that yours?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
I should have realized why he was asking, because he reached down and took it away, dropping it on the cart. Alistair looked sour as his reading material rolled off.
“What’s your problem?” he asked. “You look miserable.”
When Alistair said it, it almost sounded like a compliment.
“Is it bad?” I asked. “Dying?”
“Oh, please don’t,” he said, flopping flat on the floor.
“I’m afraid of dying,” I said.
“Well, you probably won’t for a while.”
“The Ripper wants to kill me.”
That made him pause. He lifted his head from the ground to look at me.
“What makes you say that?” he said.
“Because he said so.”
“You serious?” he asked. “The Ripper?”
“Yup,” I said. “Any advice? In case it happens?”
I tried to smile, but I know it didn’t look like a smile—and there was no hiding the quake in my voice.
Alistair sat up slowly and tapped his fingers on the floor.
“I don’t even remember dying. I just went to sleep.”
“You don’t remember it at all?”
He shook his head.
“I thought I was having a really strange dream,” he said. “In my dream, the IRA had put a bomb in my chest, and I could feel it ticking, and I was trying to tell people it was going to explode. Then it went off. I saw the explosion come out of my chest. Then that part of the dream faded, and I was in my room, and it was morning. I was looking down at myself in bed. For all I know, this is all part of that dream. Maybe I’m still having it.”
“Why do you think you came back?”
“I didn’t come back,” he said. “I just never left.”
“But why? I mean, don’t they say that ghosts come ba—stay around—because they have unfinished business or something?”
“Who says that?”
That was a good question. The answer was television shows, movies, and Cousin Diane. Not exactly the most reliable places to get information.
“I hated this place,” he said. “All I wanted was to get out. Death should have taken care of that, and yet here I am. Over twenty-five sodding years at this sodding school. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why I’m like this or what happens to other people. I just know I’m still here.”
“Would you go, if you could?”
“In a second,” he said, lying back down. “But that doesn’t seem to be happening. I don’t even think about that anymore.”
I squeezed the terminus in my pocket. I could make Alistair’s dream come true, right now. In a second. The enormity of it just made it funny. Don’t want to exist anymore? Okay! Zap. Done. Puff of smoke and you’re gone, like a magic trick. I ran my finger over the buttons. Maybe this was how I was meant to spend this day—setting someone free.
But this was Alistair, whom I’d come to think of as someone who went to my school—not just some shadow in a tunnel. Or what did they call it? A shade.
I took the terminus all the way out of my pocket and put it on my lap. I’m not actually sure what I would have done if Jerome hadn’t appeared and sat down next to me. Luckily, he took my opposite side, or he would have ended up right on top