Thyla - Kate Gordon [53]
Aside from the paintings, the rest of Ms Hindmarsh’s office was relatively sparse – just files and books and stationery items.
There was one other thing, though. One hint of personality.
It was a photograph on Ms Hindmarsh’s desk. In it were two people. One was obviously Ms Hindmarsh, though she was much younger in the photo – perhaps twenty-five or -six. She had her arm around a tall man. He was handsome and dark-haired.
Something about him reminded me curiously of Perrin. It wasn’t that they shared similar features in the way that brothers or cousins might. It was more a look in the man’s eyes. A look of knowing something that others would never know.
My eyes jerked away from the photograph and up to Ms Hindmarsh. She was staring at me inquisitively, eyes narrowed. I could see the veins pushing against the skin of her temples, the tension in her jaw.
‘What seems to be the problem, Tessa?’ she asked tersely. It seemed as though she was a different person from the soft, jolly one I had met just a few days before. Even her bouncy curls had been subdued into a tight bun. Her lips were taut and she looked more gaunt and pinched. ‘You seemed distressed in the hallway, which is why I felt I needed to bring you in here. To check you’re okay. What’s happened to upset you?’
Strangely, I found myself reluctant to confide in her. That strained voice and sober expression made me feel as though she wasn’t on my side any more. I know it’s queer, Connolly, and I know you asked me to trust her completely. But something in her eyes made me anxious.
‘Tessa?’ she said again. ‘Come on. Something has clearly distressed you. I don’t have much time, so I would appreciate it if you told me.’
I shook my head. ‘No, Ms Hindmarsh. It’s okay. I just wasn’t feeling very well. I’m okay now.’
As I said it, a wave of pain passed over my scars. It was the worst one yet, and it made me jerk forward in my seat, my hands rushing involuntarily to my spine.
‘You don’t look okay, Tessa,’ said Ms Hindmarsh, her voice now more gentle. She rose from her seat and began to move around her table towards me. Suddenly she paused, frozen on the spot. ‘Is it your back?’ she asked slowly, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘What’s wrong with your back?’ she repeated more commandingly when I didn’t answer. There was a new heated fury in her eyes.
‘It’s nothing,’ I replied. I was truly scared now.
‘It doesn’t look like nothing,’ she said. ‘Show me.’
‘No, thank you,’ I replied. ‘Really, it’s okay.’
‘I said show me,’ she snapped. She reached out towards me.
I leapt up from the chair and began to back away from her, my hands held up in front of me as though she was carrying a pistol.
‘No, it’s okay,’ I said. ‘Really. I think I’ll just …’
And that’s when I felt it. Something burning in my eyes, and a tightness in my mouth – a dreadful, pulsing, tightness.
My tongue, as if by some instinct, flicked towards my teeth and when it reached them, what it felt nearly made me vomit with shock and fear.
Sharp points.
Fangs.
As I looked about the room in panic I realised my eyes were keener than ever – every detail of the room was more clear and defined. And I could smell every single scent of Ms Hindmarsh’s office separately and acutely, from the leather of the chair to the polish on the bookshelves to Ms Hindmarsh’s own sharp citrus perfume.
I looked down at my hands. My fingernails had elongated and were now dark, their ends tapered and knife-like. I remembered, abruptly, what Rhiannah had said to me, on my first day here: ‘Lovely hands … They look like they’re used for great things. You can tell a lot about a person from their hands …’
I remembered, also, that they had done this before. That night at my window. That had been real.
I looked back up at Ms Hindmarsh, and was surprised to see that she was not displaying the same fear that I was feeling. After all, I was in front of her – a monster!
But she seemed calm. She seemed knowing. She nodded slowly and all the fire in her