Previous Chapter
The Great Hall of St. Brigid’s smelled of three things: beeswax, frankincense, and the stale, sour perspiration of five hundred terrified girls.
It was a cavernous space, ribbed with stone arches that seemed designed to trap the cold and amplify the silence. For Stephanie McCarthy, standing in the back row of the formation, it was mostly just boring. She shifted her weight from her left hip to her right, suppressed a yawn, and stared at the back of the head in front of her.
She had been here less than twenty-four hours, having arrived just last night. To her, this wasn't a regime yet; it was just a new school with a dramatic dress code.
"Stop moving," a voice whispered from her left.
Stephanie glanced sideways. It was a girl with dark, frightened eyes and long brown hair. She was standing so still she looked like she’d been carved out of the stonework. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her prayer book.
"My leg’s asleep," Stephanie whispered back, loud enough that three heads in the row ahead turned slightly.
"Don't," the girl hissed, her lips barely moving. "She’s coming."
The change in the room was instant. Five hundred lungs seemed to stop inhaling at the exact same second. The ambient rustle of fabric died. The coughing stopped. The air grew thin and brittle.
Then came the sound.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The rhythm was slow, deliberate, and terrifyingly heavy. It echoed off the stone flags, announcing the approach of something that did not rush because it knew its prey had nowhere to run.
Headmistress Sterling entered from the heavy oak doors at the far end of the hall. She wore black—a tailored suit that hugged her severe frame like armor. Her hair was a silver helmet of perfection, pulled back so tight into a bun, it pulled her features into a permanent expression of disdain.
She didn't walk; she prowled.
Stephanie watched with a mix of curiosity and mild annoyance as the woman began her inspection. Sterling moved down the lines like a shark gliding through a reef. She paused occasionally to straighten a tie or inspect a fingernail, her voice a low murmur that made the recipient tremble.
Stephanie checked her watch. Five minutes until class. Hurry up, lady. She let her shoulders slump slightly, exhaling a sigh of boredom.
The clicking stopped.
Stephanie looked up. The Headmistress had broken her pattern. She wasn't looking at the front row anymore. She was looking past them, through the gaps in the girls' shoulders, straight at Stephanie.
The temperature in the immediate vicinity seemed to drop ten degrees.
Sterling moved. She bypassed the third row, the second row, and parted the first row like the Red Sea. The girls stepped aside with fluid, practiced terror, leaving a clear path between the Headmistress and the new transfer.
Sterling stopped twelve inches from Stephanie’s face. Up close, the woman smelled of peppermint and something metallic—like ozone or dried ink.
"Miss McCarthy," Sterling said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a razor edge that sliced through the hall. "Welcome to St. Brigid’s."
"Uh, thanks," Stephanie said, offering a half-smile that she immediately realized was a mistake.
Sterling didn't smile back. Her eyes traveled down Stephanie’s body, slow and tactile, as if she were touching her with her gaze alone. They paused at Stephanie’s ankles.
"Gravity," Sterling mused, her voice silky and dangerous, "seems to have a stronger hold on you than discipline does."
Stephanie looked down. Her socks—the regulation white knee-highs—had slouched. They were gathered in soft, messy ripples around her ankles, exposing three inches of shin.
"Oh," Stephanie said, shifting her feet. " The elastic is kind of busted. I'll pull them up."
"In this institution," Sterling said, stepping closer, looming over the girl, "we do not blame the fabric. We blame the will."
Sterling raised a hand. Her fingers were long, pale, and tipped with nails that were buffed to a lethal, glassy shine. She reached out toward Stephanie’s neck.
Stephanie flinched. It was a violent, full-body jerk—a spasm of pure reflex. She pulled her head back, her shoulders hunching up defensively.
Sterling froze. Her hand hovered in the air, just inches from Stephanie’s collar.
The silence in the hall became deafening. The girl standing next to Stephanie, looked like she was about to faint.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed. A slow, cold curiosity dawned in them. She completed the movement, but slower this time. Her cold knuckles brushed against the warm skin of Stephanie’s neck as she adjusted the collar of her blouse, smoothing a wrinkle that wasn't there.
Stephanie shuddered. The sensation of those cold, hard fingers against her pulse point sent a jolt of electricity down her spine. Her breath hitched.
"Jumpy," Sterling whispered, dragging the pad of her thumb across Stephanie’s collarbone before pulling her hand away. "Nerves... or guilt?"
"Just... just not a morning person," Stephanie stammered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Sterling stared at her for a long, agonizing moment. She seemed to be calculating something—measuring the frequency of Stephanie’s vibration.
"You are a transfer," Sterling said finally, clasping her hands behind her back. "You are accustomed to the chaos of the outside world. I will allow a grace period of exactly twenty-four hours for you to learn how to navigate the rules of my school, Miss McCarthy."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for Stephanie.
"After that... I will be giving private... tutelage, and I can be very... hands-on."
Sterling stepped back, her gaze lingering on Stephanie’s neck for one second longer than necessary. Then, she turned on her heel—*Clack"—and resumed her patrol.
Beside her, Stephanie heard the girl let out a breath that sounded like a sob.
"You're insane," she said out of the side of her mouth, staring straight ahead. "Pull your socks up. Now."
The classroom for Period One was, at first glance, a relief. It looked like a temple of reason. Long oak desks, the smell of graphite and old paper, and a massive slate blackboard covered in the elegant, geometric scribbles of trigonometry.
Stephanie took a seat near the middle, letting out a long, shaky breath. She checked her timetable. Mathematics - Room 14 - Mrs. Galbraith.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, pulling a fresh notebook from her bag. "Angles. I can do angles. Angles don't whisper threats about grace periods."
To her left, one of the girls she recognised from the hall took the seat next to her. She didn't look at Stephanie. She opened her textbook with a mechanical, joyless precision, her eyes fixed forward.
A moment later, the door clicked shut. It wasn't the heavy boom of the Great Hall doors, but a sharp, authoritative snap.
Mrs. Galbraith marched to the front. She was a woman in her late fifties, her skin the color of parchment, her white hair pulled back into a bun so tight it seemed to pin her ears to the sides of her head. It was a mirror image of the Headmistress’s style—shorter, perhaps, but just as severe.
"Calculators away," Galbraith barked. Her voice was a thin, reedy imitation of Sterling’s velvet blade. "The mind is the only instrument we require to measure the dimensions of the world."
She picked up a piece of chalk and drew a perfect right-angled triangle on the board.
"Today," Galbraith said, tapping the chalk against the slate with rhythmic violence, "we discuss the Trinity of the Angle. Specifically, the relationship between the Hypotenuse and the base."
Stephanie leaned forward, pen ready. Pythagoras, she thought. Thank god.
"The Hypotenuse," Galbraith continued, her eyes sweeping the room, "is the path of Righteousness. Notice its length. It is the longest side of the triangle because the road to salvation is arduous and long. It must be perfectly straight. If the angle of your devotion deviates by even a single degree..."
She drew a jagged, shaky line branching off from the vertex.
"...the calculation of your soul fails. You fall into the void of the Irrational Number. You become a remainder. And St. Brigid’s does not tolerate remainders."
Stephanie’s pen hovered an inch above her paper. She stared at the board, then at Galbraith, then back at the board. She waited for the punchline. It didn't come.
"Wait," Stephanie said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent room. "Are we... are we not doing the a^2 + b^2 = c^2 theorem? Is this actually a math class?"
The silence that followed was so thick Stephanie could hear the clock on the wall ticking like a heartbeat. Mrs. Galbraith turned slowly. She looked at Stephanie as if she were a smudge of ink on a clean page.
"Ah, you must be the new addition, Stephanie McCarthy. The theorem of Pythagoras is merely a shadow of the Divine Proportion, Miss McCarthy," Galbraith said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. "To suggest that numbers exist independently of the Creator’s will is a mathematical heresy. If the angles do not resolve to 180 degrees, it is because the spirit of the mathematician was lacking in discipline."
Stephanie felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in her throat. But that’s... that’s statistically impossible. A triangle is a triangle. It doesn't care if you've been to confession. It's just a ratio.
She started to raise her hand, her mouth opening to point out the blatant, scientific horseshit of the lecture.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from beside her.
It was the Indian girl from the hall who sat beside her. Her fingers clamped around Stephanie’s wrist under the desk with the force of a tectonic shift. Her nails dug deep into Stephanie’s skin, a silent, painful warning.
Stephanie gasped, looking over. The girl's face was a mask of rigid terror, staring straight at the chalkboard, but her whisper was a frantic, jagged needle in Stephanie’s ear.
"Put your hand down," she hissed, her grip tightening until Stephanie’s hand went numb. "Do not correct her. She is not teaching math, Stephanie. She is teaching obedience. If you prove you can’t calculate the 'Path of Righteousness', she’ll send you to the Office to have it 'engraved' on you."
Stephanie looked from the girl's terrified eyes to Mrs. Galbraith, who was now looming at the edge of the dais, her chalk-stained fingers twitching.
"Do you have a contribution to the discourse, Miss McCarthy?" Galbraith asked, her eyes narrowing behind her spectacles. "Or are you struggling with the weight of the variables?"
Stephanie felt the vibration of the girl's hand—she was actually trembling. Slowly, Stephanie lowered her arm.
"No, Ma'am," Stephanie said, her voice tight. "I... I think I see the ratio now."
"Good," Galbraith snapped, turning back to the board. "Then let us calculate the area of Penance. Assume the base is a week of silence and the height is the depth of your shame..."
Stephanie sat back, her heart thumping against her ribs. She looked down at her notebook. Instead of a formula, she had only written one thing:
Where am I?
By noon, Stephanie felt like her brain had been scrubbed with steel wool.
After the "Divine Arithmetic" of Mrs. Galbraith, she had endured two more hours of madness. History had been a lecture on "The Martyrdom of Timelines," where every war was explained as a failure of prayer. Then came Geography, which consisted mostly of coloring in maps where the "Sacred Lands" were shaded in gold and everything else was a "Void of Temptation."
She sat at the long, scarred wooden table in the Great Hall, staring down at a tray of greyish stew and a crust of bread that looked hard enough to break a tooth. She was alone—not by choice, but because the other girls seemed to give her a wide berth.
"Mind if we sit?"
Stephanie looked up. It was the girl from the math class, along with two others. One was the pale, dark haired girl from the assembly, and the third was a girl with a sharp, guarded expression and blonde hair pulled into a sensible, though slightly frayed, braid.
"Be my guest," Stephanie sighed, pushing her tray away. "It’s just calculating the volume of my sins."
The three girls slid onto the bench opposite her, moving with a synchronized caution that set Stephanie’s teeth on edge.
"I'm Lakshmi," the dark-haired girl said, her voice low. "This is Rachel and Samantha. We saw what happened in Galbraith’s class. You’ve got a big mouth, McCarthy. That’s a dangerous thing to carry around here."
"I just don't get it," Stephanie snapped, gesturing vaguely at the vaulted ceiling. "This isn't a school. It’s a cult. Since when does 2+2 equal 'The Father’s Mercy'?"
"Since the Headmistress decided it did," Samantha said, tearing off a piece of bread. "Look, Stephanie, we get it. You’re from a 'normal' background. You think this is all horseshit. And you're right. It is."
Stephanie blinked. "Wait, you actually agree?"
"Of course we do," Rachel whispered, leaning in. "Half the girls here think it's nonsense. But the trick is to stop caring. You treat the religion like a foreign language you have to learn to pass a test. You say the words, you bow your head, and you keep your real thoughts locked in a box in your head where Sterling can't reach them."
"It's not that bad once you stop fighting it," Lakshmi added, her voice analytical. "Think of it as a game. A very high-stakes, very boring game of charades. If you give them the 'Amen' they want, they leave you alone."
Stephanie looked at them, a flicker of hope rising. "So I just have to play along?"
"Exactly," Samantha said. "But you have to be perfect at it. No more flinching when the Headmistress touches you. No more 'statistically impossible' comments. You become a ghost."
As they spoke, Stephanie’s legs began to bounce under the table—a rhythmic, restless tapping of her heels against the stone floor. It was a nervous habit, one she wasn't even aware of.
Samantha’s eyes dropped to the floor. She heard the soft thud-thud-thud of Stephanie’s shoes. Suddenly, Samantha reached out and gripped Stephanie’s knee, stopping the movement instantly.
"Don't do that," Samantha said, her voice turning deathly serious.
"Do what? I'm just fidgety," Stephanie said, trying to pull her leg away.
"Under the table, you're a target," Samantha hissed. "Sterling has ears like a bat. She hears the rhythm of a restless foot. To her, a tapping toe is a sign of an 'unsettled soul.' And she has a very specific way of settling souls."
Stephanie felt a chill crawl up her neck. "What do you mean?"
"The Chair," Rachel whispered, her eyes darting toward the high table where the faculty sat. "If she thinks your body is too active, she’ll lock it down. She’ll put you in the stocks and show you exactly how 'sensitive' those restless feet of yours are."
Stephanie laughed, though it sounded forced. "The stocks? What is this, the Middle Ages?"
The three girls didn't laugh. They just watched her with a pity that made Stephanie’s stomach flip.
"Just be mindful of your shoes, Stephanie," Lakshmi warned. "And keep them still. In this school, your feet are the first thing they look at to see if you're breaking."
---
The Chemistry lab was not the bright, sterile environment Stephanie had expected. There were no periodic tables on the walls, no safety posters about eye-wash stations. Instead, the room was a sunless vault in the basement levels, lit by flickering gas lamps that cast long, distorted shadows against the soot-stained stone.
The air was thick with the cloying, heavy scent of dried lavender, sulfur, and something metallic that tasted like a copper penny on the tongue.
"This isn't a lab," Stephanie whispered as she took her place at a scarred stone workbench. "It’s a set for a horror movie."
Rachel, standing beside her, didn't answer. She was busy checking the contents of their wooden reagent box: charcoal, saltpeter, and dried herbs.
At the front of the room stood Sister Ignatius. She was ancient, her face a road map of deep-set wrinkles, her eyes clouded with cataracts that gave her a milky, unearthly stare. She didn't wear a lab coat; she wore a heavy, stained apron over her habit, and she clutched a gnarled wooden stirring rod like a scepter.
"Today," the nun wheezed, her voice sounding like dry leaves skittering on a grave, "we shall discuss the Purity of the Distillate. The material world is a chaotic mess of impurities, just as the soul is a vessel for original sin. Chemistry is merely the art of burning away the dross until only the essence remains."
She tapped a glass beaker with her rod. * Ting. Ting. Ting.
"We shall be mixing a solution of Salt and Vinegar—the tears of the repentant and the bitterness of the worldly. Stir counter-clockwise, girls. Clockwise is the motion of the sun, and we are not yet worthy of the light. We stir against the grain to ward off the temptations of the flesh."
Stephanie stared at her beaker. She looked at the clear vinegar. She looked at the pile of salt. She looked at Sister Ignatius, who was now rambling about how "sulfur is the scent of the unwashed spirit."
Stephanie felt like every logical fiber of her being wanted to scream that stirring direction had no impact on chemical reaction rates.
She caught Rachel’s eye across the bench. Stephanie didn't speak—she knew better now—but she allowed her eyebrows to shoot up toward her hairline. She gave a slow, exaggerated tilt of her head toward the nun, a clear, silent: “The fuck is this? Are we actually doing this?”
Rachel didn't even crack a smile. Her face was a mask of dutiful concentration. She didn't look at Stephanie, but she tilted her head just enough to give a tiny, almost imperceptible shake. Don’t. Just stir.
Rachel began to move her glass rod in a slow, rhythmic circle. Counter-clockwise.
Stephanie sighed, a silent puff of frustration, and gripped her own rod. She began to stir the bitter liquid, the fumes of the vinegar stinging her nostrils. She watched the salt crystals swirl at the bottom of the beaker—tiny, jagged things that reminded her of the sea salt Lakshmi had mentioned earlier.
"Purity, Miss McCarthy," Sister Ignatius suddenly croaked, appearing at Stephanie's elbow with the stealth of a ghost. She leaned over the beaker, her milky eyes scanning the swirling liquid. "You are stirring with a heavy hand. Aggressive movements lead to an aggressive spirit. Smooth the motion. Let the salt dissolve into submission."
"Yes, Sister," Stephanie muttered, softening her grip until the rod was barely moving.
"The feet, too," the nun whispered, looking down. "I hear them. Shifting. Scraping. Restless feet indicate a mind that wishes to flee the lesson. And where would you go, child? There is nowhere to hide from the Truth."
Stephanie froze. Her feet had been doing it again—a subconscious shuffling against the cold stone floor. She forced her legs to go rigid, her toes curling inside her shoes until they cramped.
"That's better," Sister Ignatius purred, her hand—bony and cold—resting briefly on Stephanie's shoulder. "Subjugation begins with the extremities."
As the nun moved on to the next bench, Stephanie risked one more look at Rachel. This time, Rachel was looking back, and the expression in her eyes was one of pure, unadulterated dread.
---
The final bell of the day didn't ring; it tolled, a heavy, bronze sound that felt like a summons to a gallows. Stephanie found herself standing before the towering oak doors of the Headmistress’s office, her transcript folder damp with the sweat of her palms.
She knocked—three sharp, hesitant raps.
"Enter," came the voice. Smooth, calm, and terrifyingly clear.
Stephanie pushed the door open, but she didn't make it two steps into the room before her breath hitched. The office was bathed in the warm, orange glow of the late afternoon sun, which caught the dust motes dancing in the air—and illuminated the nightmare in the center of the room.
Headmistress Sterling was seated in her high-backed leather chair, looking every bit the queen of her domain. But she wasn't looking at her desk. She was leaning forward, her sleeves rolled back just enough to reveal her pale, elegant forearms.
Bolted to the surface of the mahogany desk were a pair of sturdy looking stocks. And locked into those stocks were two bare, defenseless feet.
The girl in the chair, Emily, was a senior Stephanie had seen in the halls—usually a girl of great poise. Now, she was a wreck. Her head was thrown back against the chair, a silk blindfold covering her eyes, her chest heaving in shallow, jagged gasps.
With the delicacy of a master violinist, Sterling’s long, polished nails were dancing over Emily’s soles. She seemed to know the map of that skin perfectly. She traced a slow, ghost-light circle in the very center of the left arch, and Emily’s entire body jolted.
"Nnn-hee-hee! No... Miss... ah-ha-ha!" Emily’s voice was a high-pitched, helpless trill.
Sterling didn't stop. Her index finger flicked the tiny, sensitive hollow just beneath the pinky toe, then skittered like a spider down to the heel. It was a "symphony of the nerves." Every touch was calculated to tease, to hover on the edge of unbearable, drawing out a frantic, bubbling laughter that Emily was clearly trying—and failing—to suppress.
"Focus, Emily," Sterling purred, her eyes never leaving the twitching skin. She tapped a specific spot on the ball of the foot, and Emily let out a sharp snort-giggle that ended in a sob. "You’re losing your rhythm."
Stephanie stood frozen, her folder clutched to her chest. She had never seen anything so intimate and so cruel.
Sterling finally looked up, her expression shifting to one of mild, professional remembrance. She didn't remove her hands from Emily’s feet; she simply let her nails come to rest between the girl's toes, a gesture that kept Emily trembling in anticipation.
"Ah, Miss McCarthy. Our appointment. I haven't forgotten." Sterling looked back at Emily, who had tears standing in her eyes in a desperate, silent plea for release. "I have administrative matters to attend to with our new arrival. It would be a waste of resources to leave you 'unoccupied' while I am in the archive room."
Sterling reached into her desk drawer and withdrew the amber bottle and what looked like a makeup brush.
She unscrewed the cap, and the sharp, medicinal scent filled the room. Sterling dipped a soft, wide-headed brush into the oil and began to paint it over Emily’s soles. She was thorough, coating the arches, the heels, and deep into the webbing between each toe.
"N-no... please," Emily whimpered, her laughter dying away, replaced by a look of sheer, wide-eyed panic behind her blindfold. "Not the oil... Miss, please, I'll be still! I'll be good!"
"You'll be present, Emily," Sterling corrected. She stood up, smoothing her skirt. "I will be back soon, this should keep you... Entertained."
Sterling gestured for Stephanie to follow her into the adjoining archive room. As Stephanie walked past the desk, she saw Emily’s legs were already shaking, her toes splayed wide as she began to pant, her voice dropping into a desperate, repetitive moan.
"Please... someone... just scratch them... please..."
The heavy oak door to the archive room swung shut, cutting off the sight and sounds of Emily’s torment.
Sterling sat at a small side table and uncapped a silver fountain pen. She looked at Stephanie, who was visibly shaking.
"Now then," the Headmistress said, her voice dripping with artificial warmth. "Let us see if your previous school provided you with a sufficient foundation for the discipline we require here."
Sterling sat with agonizingly perfect posture, her silver fountain pen scratching across Stephanie’s transfer papers with a sound that mimicked a predatory insect.
Stephanie couldn't focus. Every time the Headmistress paused to "verify" a grade, Stephanie’s mind drifted back through the heavy oak door. She kept imagining the oil on Emily’s feet and the utter fear in the girl's eyes when she saw what the Headmistress was about to put on her feet. She could almost see Emily’s toes straining against the air, the girl’s mind fracturing under the weight of an itch she couldn't reach.
"Your grades in Biology are... adequate," Sterling said, her voice snapping Stephanie back to the present. Sterling looked up, her gaze piercing. "Though I notice a certain 'irregularity' in your attendance during the spring term. We value presence here, Stephanie. Physical and spiritual."
"I was... I was sick, Ma'am," Stephanie stammered. Her ears were straining for any sound from the other room, but the soundproofing was too good. The silence was worse than the screaming; it allowed her imagination to run wild.
"Sick," Sterling tasted the word. "The body often Rebels when the mind lacks a clear directive. We shall have to ensure your health is... prioritized."
The meeting felt like an eternity. Sterling moved with a glacial, deliberate pace, questioning every minor detail of Stephanie’s life. It wasn't an interview; it was a dissection.
Finally, Sterling stood, gathering the papers into a neat stack. "That will suffice for today. Since you are still finding your way through our hallowed halls, you may escort me back to my desk. It is important you become familiar with the path to my door. I have a feeling you will be seeing a great deal of it."
Stephanie’s heart sank. She didn't want to go back in there. She didn't want to see what the oil had done.
As they reached the door, Sterling didn't hesitate. She turned the brass handle and pushed.
The wall of sound hit Stephanie like a physical blow.
"PLEASE! NO, NO! IT'S TOO MUCH! MISS! I CAN'T... I CAN'T BREATHE! JUST SCRATCH THEM! PLEASE JUST SCRATCH THE ARCHES!"
Emily was a different person. Her face was flushed a deep, frantic crimson, her hair damp with sweat. Her feet were vibrating in the stocks, a blur of pink, oil-slicked skin. She was wailing, her body bucking against the leather strap as the oil pushed her nerves to the breaking point.
Sterling stepped into the room, her expression as calm as a frozen lake. She stopped in the doorway and turned to Stephanie, blocking the girl's path.
"A final word, Miss McCarthy," Sterling said, her voice dropping to a low, lethal hum that sat beneath Emily’s cries. "Your grace period has officially expired. The training wheels are off."
She leaned in closer, her cold eyes fixed on Stephanie’s trembling lips.
"Stay on the straight and narrow path. Do not let your feet wander, do not let your mind drift, and for heaven’s sake... do not let your socks slouch again. Unless, of course, you find yourself envious of Emily’s 'attentiveness' and would like a turn in the chair yourself."
Stephanie could only nod, her throat too tight to speak.
"Dismissed," Sterling snapped.
As Stephanie backed away into the corridor, Sterling turned her back on the girl and stepped toward her desk. She looked down at Emily’s thrashing feet with a predatory shimmer in her eyes.
"You want me to scratch, dear?" Sterling’s voice drifted out into the hallway just before the door began to swing shut. "Now, where did I leave that hairbrush..."
Thud.
The door clicked shut, locking the screams and the scratching back inside the mahogany darkness.
The cold stone of the corridor slapped under each footfall as Stephanie fled toward the East Wing. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Emily’s splayed, vibrating toes and the gleam of that amber bottle. She didn't stop running until she reached the heavy oak door of the dormitory, bursting inside and leaning against the wood until the latch clicked home.
The room was bathed in the pale, sickly silver of the moon. Rachel, Lakshmi, and Samantha were already there, sitting in a tight circle on Stephanie’s cot. They looked like conspirators in a ghost story.
"You're white as a sheet," Samantha whispered, pulling Stephanie down into the center of the huddle. "She kept you in there a long time. Did she... did she put you in?"
"No," Stephanie rasped, her hands shaking so hard she had to tuck them under her thighs. "But I saw... Emily. The girl from Geography. Sterling put some oil on her feet and then left her to stew for a while and then... then she went back in with a hairbrush."
Rachel flinched, her hand instinctively flying to her own arch. "The brush. That's the 'Many.' It feels like a thousand needles made of static. If she uses the stiff one over the oil..."
"It’s not science," Lakshmi said, her voice low and analytical, though her eyes were wide. "It’s a sensory overload. The oil opens the pores, makes the nerves hyper-sensitive, and the brush creates a frequency of vibration that the brain can't process as anything but a desperate need to escape. It's biological warfare."
"She’s a monster," Stephanie hissed, her voice cracking. "How can you stay here? How can you just... let her do that?"
"Because there is nowhere else to go," Samantha said grimly. "And because we’ve learned the cost of resistance. You saw Emily. That’s the cost. You stay quiet, you stay still, and you hope she picks someone else tomorrow."
Stephanie looked at her feet. She felt a phantom itch, a terrifying prickle of imagination crawling over her skin.
"You don't understand," Stephanie whispered, her voice dropping so low the others had to lean in until their heads almost touched. "I told you I was jumpy in the Hall. But it's not just nerves. It’s... it’s like I’m wired wrong."
"Everyone’s ticklish, Steph," Rachel said softly, trying to be comforting. "You just have to breathe through it."
"No," Stephanie snapped, her eyes wide and wet with moonlight. "Not like this. When I was ten, my older cousins cornered me at a sleepover. They thought it would be funny to see how long I’d last. They tied my wrists to the bedposts and... they spent an hour on my feet. Just their fingers."
She shuddered, her whole body convulsing at the memory.
"By the end, I wasn't even making noise anymore. I couldn't. I was just gasping, my ribs were aching so hard I thought they’d snapped. I threw up twice, and they still didn't stop because they thought the 'snorting' was funny. I actually blacked out. When I woke up, I couldn't walk for two days because the muscles in my arches had cramped into knots. My brain... it doesn't process that feeling as 'funny.' It processes it as a literal attack. It feels like I'm being electrocuted from the inside out."
The room went deathly silent. The girls looked at Stephanie’s feet, hidden beneath her heavy duvet, as if they were looking at unexploded bombs.
"So, if she puts me in that chair," Stephanie continued, her voice trembling, "if she locks my ankles into those stocks and starts with those nails... I won't just be 'disciplined.' I’ll lose my mind. I'll fight her. I'll scream until my lungs burst.
Lakshmi reached out, her hand hovering over Stephanie’s knee, but she didn't touch her. She knew better now.
'Sterling... she’s a predator. She doesn't just look for broken rules; she looks for 'vibrations.' She saw you flinch in the Hall. She’s already smelled the blood in the water."
"You have to be a statue," Samantha said, her voice hard as flint. "From this moment on, your feet don't exist. You don't wiggle your toes, you don't shift your weight, and you never, ever let her see you flinch again. Because if she finds out you're that reactive..."
"She won't stop until she's explored every inch of those soles," Rachel finished, her voice a ghost of a warning.
In the distance, through the thick stone walls, a faint, rhythmic thumping echoed—the sound of a foot hitting wood in a room far away. Or perhaps it was just the sound of Stephanie’s own heart, counting down the seconds of her expired grace period.
Next Chapter
The Great Hall of St. Brigid’s smelled of three things: beeswax, frankincense, and the stale, sour perspiration of five hundred terrified girls.
It was a cavernous space, ribbed with stone arches that seemed designed to trap the cold and amplify the silence. For Stephanie McCarthy, standing in the back row of the formation, it was mostly just boring. She shifted her weight from her left hip to her right, suppressed a yawn, and stared at the back of the head in front of her.
She had been here less than twenty-four hours, having arrived just last night. To her, this wasn't a regime yet; it was just a new school with a dramatic dress code.
"Stop moving," a voice whispered from her left.
Stephanie glanced sideways. It was a girl with dark, frightened eyes and long brown hair. She was standing so still she looked like she’d been carved out of the stonework. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her prayer book.
"My leg’s asleep," Stephanie whispered back, loud enough that three heads in the row ahead turned slightly.
"Don't," the girl hissed, her lips barely moving. "She’s coming."
The change in the room was instant. Five hundred lungs seemed to stop inhaling at the exact same second. The ambient rustle of fabric died. The coughing stopped. The air grew thin and brittle.
Then came the sound.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The rhythm was slow, deliberate, and terrifyingly heavy. It echoed off the stone flags, announcing the approach of something that did not rush because it knew its prey had nowhere to run.
Headmistress Sterling entered from the heavy oak doors at the far end of the hall. She wore black—a tailored suit that hugged her severe frame like armor. Her hair was a silver helmet of perfection, pulled back so tight into a bun, it pulled her features into a permanent expression of disdain.
She didn't walk; she prowled.
Stephanie watched with a mix of curiosity and mild annoyance as the woman began her inspection. Sterling moved down the lines like a shark gliding through a reef. She paused occasionally to straighten a tie or inspect a fingernail, her voice a low murmur that made the recipient tremble.
Stephanie checked her watch. Five minutes until class. Hurry up, lady. She let her shoulders slump slightly, exhaling a sigh of boredom.
The clicking stopped.
Stephanie looked up. The Headmistress had broken her pattern. She wasn't looking at the front row anymore. She was looking past them, through the gaps in the girls' shoulders, straight at Stephanie.
The temperature in the immediate vicinity seemed to drop ten degrees.
Sterling moved. She bypassed the third row, the second row, and parted the first row like the Red Sea. The girls stepped aside with fluid, practiced terror, leaving a clear path between the Headmistress and the new transfer.
Sterling stopped twelve inches from Stephanie’s face. Up close, the woman smelled of peppermint and something metallic—like ozone or dried ink.
"Miss McCarthy," Sterling said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a razor edge that sliced through the hall. "Welcome to St. Brigid’s."
"Uh, thanks," Stephanie said, offering a half-smile that she immediately realized was a mistake.
Sterling didn't smile back. Her eyes traveled down Stephanie’s body, slow and tactile, as if she were touching her with her gaze alone. They paused at Stephanie’s ankles.
"Gravity," Sterling mused, her voice silky and dangerous, "seems to have a stronger hold on you than discipline does."
Stephanie looked down. Her socks—the regulation white knee-highs—had slouched. They were gathered in soft, messy ripples around her ankles, exposing three inches of shin.
"Oh," Stephanie said, shifting her feet. " The elastic is kind of busted. I'll pull them up."
"In this institution," Sterling said, stepping closer, looming over the girl, "we do not blame the fabric. We blame the will."
Sterling raised a hand. Her fingers were long, pale, and tipped with nails that were buffed to a lethal, glassy shine. She reached out toward Stephanie’s neck.
Stephanie flinched. It was a violent, full-body jerk—a spasm of pure reflex. She pulled her head back, her shoulders hunching up defensively.
Sterling froze. Her hand hovered in the air, just inches from Stephanie’s collar.
The silence in the hall became deafening. The girl standing next to Stephanie, looked like she was about to faint.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed. A slow, cold curiosity dawned in them. She completed the movement, but slower this time. Her cold knuckles brushed against the warm skin of Stephanie’s neck as she adjusted the collar of her blouse, smoothing a wrinkle that wasn't there.
Stephanie shuddered. The sensation of those cold, hard fingers against her pulse point sent a jolt of electricity down her spine. Her breath hitched.
"Jumpy," Sterling whispered, dragging the pad of her thumb across Stephanie’s collarbone before pulling her hand away. "Nerves... or guilt?"
"Just... just not a morning person," Stephanie stammered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Sterling stared at her for a long, agonizing moment. She seemed to be calculating something—measuring the frequency of Stephanie’s vibration.
"You are a transfer," Sterling said finally, clasping her hands behind her back. "You are accustomed to the chaos of the outside world. I will allow a grace period of exactly twenty-four hours for you to learn how to navigate the rules of my school, Miss McCarthy."
She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for Stephanie.
"After that... I will be giving private... tutelage, and I can be very... hands-on."
Sterling stepped back, her gaze lingering on Stephanie’s neck for one second longer than necessary. Then, she turned on her heel—*Clack"—and resumed her patrol.
Beside her, Stephanie heard the girl let out a breath that sounded like a sob.
"You're insane," she said out of the side of her mouth, staring straight ahead. "Pull your socks up. Now."
The classroom for Period One was, at first glance, a relief. It looked like a temple of reason. Long oak desks, the smell of graphite and old paper, and a massive slate blackboard covered in the elegant, geometric scribbles of trigonometry.
Stephanie took a seat near the middle, letting out a long, shaky breath. She checked her timetable. Mathematics - Room 14 - Mrs. Galbraith.
"Okay," she muttered to herself, pulling a fresh notebook from her bag. "Angles. I can do angles. Angles don't whisper threats about grace periods."
To her left, one of the girls she recognised from the hall took the seat next to her. She didn't look at Stephanie. She opened her textbook with a mechanical, joyless precision, her eyes fixed forward.
A moment later, the door clicked shut. It wasn't the heavy boom of the Great Hall doors, but a sharp, authoritative snap.
Mrs. Galbraith marched to the front. She was a woman in her late fifties, her skin the color of parchment, her white hair pulled back into a bun so tight it seemed to pin her ears to the sides of her head. It was a mirror image of the Headmistress’s style—shorter, perhaps, but just as severe.
"Calculators away," Galbraith barked. Her voice was a thin, reedy imitation of Sterling’s velvet blade. "The mind is the only instrument we require to measure the dimensions of the world."
She picked up a piece of chalk and drew a perfect right-angled triangle on the board.
"Today," Galbraith said, tapping the chalk against the slate with rhythmic violence, "we discuss the Trinity of the Angle. Specifically, the relationship between the Hypotenuse and the base."
Stephanie leaned forward, pen ready. Pythagoras, she thought. Thank god.
"The Hypotenuse," Galbraith continued, her eyes sweeping the room, "is the path of Righteousness. Notice its length. It is the longest side of the triangle because the road to salvation is arduous and long. It must be perfectly straight. If the angle of your devotion deviates by even a single degree..."
She drew a jagged, shaky line branching off from the vertex.
"...the calculation of your soul fails. You fall into the void of the Irrational Number. You become a remainder. And St. Brigid’s does not tolerate remainders."
Stephanie’s pen hovered an inch above her paper. She stared at the board, then at Galbraith, then back at the board. She waited for the punchline. It didn't come.
"Wait," Stephanie said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent room. "Are we... are we not doing the a^2 + b^2 = c^2 theorem? Is this actually a math class?"
The silence that followed was so thick Stephanie could hear the clock on the wall ticking like a heartbeat. Mrs. Galbraith turned slowly. She looked at Stephanie as if she were a smudge of ink on a clean page.
"Ah, you must be the new addition, Stephanie McCarthy. The theorem of Pythagoras is merely a shadow of the Divine Proportion, Miss McCarthy," Galbraith said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. "To suggest that numbers exist independently of the Creator’s will is a mathematical heresy. If the angles do not resolve to 180 degrees, it is because the spirit of the mathematician was lacking in discipline."
Stephanie felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in her throat. But that’s... that’s statistically impossible. A triangle is a triangle. It doesn't care if you've been to confession. It's just a ratio.
She started to raise her hand, her mouth opening to point out the blatant, scientific horseshit of the lecture.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from beside her.
It was the Indian girl from the hall who sat beside her. Her fingers clamped around Stephanie’s wrist under the desk with the force of a tectonic shift. Her nails dug deep into Stephanie’s skin, a silent, painful warning.
Stephanie gasped, looking over. The girl's face was a mask of rigid terror, staring straight at the chalkboard, but her whisper was a frantic, jagged needle in Stephanie’s ear.
"Put your hand down," she hissed, her grip tightening until Stephanie’s hand went numb. "Do not correct her. She is not teaching math, Stephanie. She is teaching obedience. If you prove you can’t calculate the 'Path of Righteousness', she’ll send you to the Office to have it 'engraved' on you."
Stephanie looked from the girl's terrified eyes to Mrs. Galbraith, who was now looming at the edge of the dais, her chalk-stained fingers twitching.
"Do you have a contribution to the discourse, Miss McCarthy?" Galbraith asked, her eyes narrowing behind her spectacles. "Or are you struggling with the weight of the variables?"
Stephanie felt the vibration of the girl's hand—she was actually trembling. Slowly, Stephanie lowered her arm.
"No, Ma'am," Stephanie said, her voice tight. "I... I think I see the ratio now."
"Good," Galbraith snapped, turning back to the board. "Then let us calculate the area of Penance. Assume the base is a week of silence and the height is the depth of your shame..."
Stephanie sat back, her heart thumping against her ribs. She looked down at her notebook. Instead of a formula, she had only written one thing:
Where am I?
By noon, Stephanie felt like her brain had been scrubbed with steel wool.
After the "Divine Arithmetic" of Mrs. Galbraith, she had endured two more hours of madness. History had been a lecture on "The Martyrdom of Timelines," where every war was explained as a failure of prayer. Then came Geography, which consisted mostly of coloring in maps where the "Sacred Lands" were shaded in gold and everything else was a "Void of Temptation."
She sat at the long, scarred wooden table in the Great Hall, staring down at a tray of greyish stew and a crust of bread that looked hard enough to break a tooth. She was alone—not by choice, but because the other girls seemed to give her a wide berth.
"Mind if we sit?"
Stephanie looked up. It was the girl from the math class, along with two others. One was the pale, dark haired girl from the assembly, and the third was a girl with a sharp, guarded expression and blonde hair pulled into a sensible, though slightly frayed, braid.
"Be my guest," Stephanie sighed, pushing her tray away. "It’s just calculating the volume of my sins."
The three girls slid onto the bench opposite her, moving with a synchronized caution that set Stephanie’s teeth on edge.
"I'm Lakshmi," the dark-haired girl said, her voice low. "This is Rachel and Samantha. We saw what happened in Galbraith’s class. You’ve got a big mouth, McCarthy. That’s a dangerous thing to carry around here."
"I just don't get it," Stephanie snapped, gesturing vaguely at the vaulted ceiling. "This isn't a school. It’s a cult. Since when does 2+2 equal 'The Father’s Mercy'?"
"Since the Headmistress decided it did," Samantha said, tearing off a piece of bread. "Look, Stephanie, we get it. You’re from a 'normal' background. You think this is all horseshit. And you're right. It is."
Stephanie blinked. "Wait, you actually agree?"
"Of course we do," Rachel whispered, leaning in. "Half the girls here think it's nonsense. But the trick is to stop caring. You treat the religion like a foreign language you have to learn to pass a test. You say the words, you bow your head, and you keep your real thoughts locked in a box in your head where Sterling can't reach them."
"It's not that bad once you stop fighting it," Lakshmi added, her voice analytical. "Think of it as a game. A very high-stakes, very boring game of charades. If you give them the 'Amen' they want, they leave you alone."
Stephanie looked at them, a flicker of hope rising. "So I just have to play along?"
"Exactly," Samantha said. "But you have to be perfect at it. No more flinching when the Headmistress touches you. No more 'statistically impossible' comments. You become a ghost."
As they spoke, Stephanie’s legs began to bounce under the table—a rhythmic, restless tapping of her heels against the stone floor. It was a nervous habit, one she wasn't even aware of.
Samantha’s eyes dropped to the floor. She heard the soft thud-thud-thud of Stephanie’s shoes. Suddenly, Samantha reached out and gripped Stephanie’s knee, stopping the movement instantly.
"Don't do that," Samantha said, her voice turning deathly serious.
"Do what? I'm just fidgety," Stephanie said, trying to pull her leg away.
"Under the table, you're a target," Samantha hissed. "Sterling has ears like a bat. She hears the rhythm of a restless foot. To her, a tapping toe is a sign of an 'unsettled soul.' And she has a very specific way of settling souls."
Stephanie felt a chill crawl up her neck. "What do you mean?"
"The Chair," Rachel whispered, her eyes darting toward the high table where the faculty sat. "If she thinks your body is too active, she’ll lock it down. She’ll put you in the stocks and show you exactly how 'sensitive' those restless feet of yours are."
Stephanie laughed, though it sounded forced. "The stocks? What is this, the Middle Ages?"
The three girls didn't laugh. They just watched her with a pity that made Stephanie’s stomach flip.
"Just be mindful of your shoes, Stephanie," Lakshmi warned. "And keep them still. In this school, your feet are the first thing they look at to see if you're breaking."
---
The Chemistry lab was not the bright, sterile environment Stephanie had expected. There were no periodic tables on the walls, no safety posters about eye-wash stations. Instead, the room was a sunless vault in the basement levels, lit by flickering gas lamps that cast long, distorted shadows against the soot-stained stone.
The air was thick with the cloying, heavy scent of dried lavender, sulfur, and something metallic that tasted like a copper penny on the tongue.
"This isn't a lab," Stephanie whispered as she took her place at a scarred stone workbench. "It’s a set for a horror movie."
Rachel, standing beside her, didn't answer. She was busy checking the contents of their wooden reagent box: charcoal, saltpeter, and dried herbs.
At the front of the room stood Sister Ignatius. She was ancient, her face a road map of deep-set wrinkles, her eyes clouded with cataracts that gave her a milky, unearthly stare. She didn't wear a lab coat; she wore a heavy, stained apron over her habit, and she clutched a gnarled wooden stirring rod like a scepter.
"Today," the nun wheezed, her voice sounding like dry leaves skittering on a grave, "we shall discuss the Purity of the Distillate. The material world is a chaotic mess of impurities, just as the soul is a vessel for original sin. Chemistry is merely the art of burning away the dross until only the essence remains."
She tapped a glass beaker with her rod. * Ting. Ting. Ting.
"We shall be mixing a solution of Salt and Vinegar—the tears of the repentant and the bitterness of the worldly. Stir counter-clockwise, girls. Clockwise is the motion of the sun, and we are not yet worthy of the light. We stir against the grain to ward off the temptations of the flesh."
Stephanie stared at her beaker. She looked at the clear vinegar. She looked at the pile of salt. She looked at Sister Ignatius, who was now rambling about how "sulfur is the scent of the unwashed spirit."
Stephanie felt like every logical fiber of her being wanted to scream that stirring direction had no impact on chemical reaction rates.
She caught Rachel’s eye across the bench. Stephanie didn't speak—she knew better now—but she allowed her eyebrows to shoot up toward her hairline. She gave a slow, exaggerated tilt of her head toward the nun, a clear, silent: “The fuck is this? Are we actually doing this?”
Rachel didn't even crack a smile. Her face was a mask of dutiful concentration. She didn't look at Stephanie, but she tilted her head just enough to give a tiny, almost imperceptible shake. Don’t. Just stir.
Rachel began to move her glass rod in a slow, rhythmic circle. Counter-clockwise.
Stephanie sighed, a silent puff of frustration, and gripped her own rod. She began to stir the bitter liquid, the fumes of the vinegar stinging her nostrils. She watched the salt crystals swirl at the bottom of the beaker—tiny, jagged things that reminded her of the sea salt Lakshmi had mentioned earlier.
"Purity, Miss McCarthy," Sister Ignatius suddenly croaked, appearing at Stephanie's elbow with the stealth of a ghost. She leaned over the beaker, her milky eyes scanning the swirling liquid. "You are stirring with a heavy hand. Aggressive movements lead to an aggressive spirit. Smooth the motion. Let the salt dissolve into submission."
"Yes, Sister," Stephanie muttered, softening her grip until the rod was barely moving.
"The feet, too," the nun whispered, looking down. "I hear them. Shifting. Scraping. Restless feet indicate a mind that wishes to flee the lesson. And where would you go, child? There is nowhere to hide from the Truth."
Stephanie froze. Her feet had been doing it again—a subconscious shuffling against the cold stone floor. She forced her legs to go rigid, her toes curling inside her shoes until they cramped.
"That's better," Sister Ignatius purred, her hand—bony and cold—resting briefly on Stephanie's shoulder. "Subjugation begins with the extremities."
As the nun moved on to the next bench, Stephanie risked one more look at Rachel. This time, Rachel was looking back, and the expression in her eyes was one of pure, unadulterated dread.
---
The final bell of the day didn't ring; it tolled, a heavy, bronze sound that felt like a summons to a gallows. Stephanie found herself standing before the towering oak doors of the Headmistress’s office, her transcript folder damp with the sweat of her palms.
She knocked—three sharp, hesitant raps.
"Enter," came the voice. Smooth, calm, and terrifyingly clear.
Stephanie pushed the door open, but she didn't make it two steps into the room before her breath hitched. The office was bathed in the warm, orange glow of the late afternoon sun, which caught the dust motes dancing in the air—and illuminated the nightmare in the center of the room.
Headmistress Sterling was seated in her high-backed leather chair, looking every bit the queen of her domain. But she wasn't looking at her desk. She was leaning forward, her sleeves rolled back just enough to reveal her pale, elegant forearms.
Bolted to the surface of the mahogany desk were a pair of sturdy looking stocks. And locked into those stocks were two bare, defenseless feet.
The girl in the chair, Emily, was a senior Stephanie had seen in the halls—usually a girl of great poise. Now, she was a wreck. Her head was thrown back against the chair, a silk blindfold covering her eyes, her chest heaving in shallow, jagged gasps.
With the delicacy of a master violinist, Sterling’s long, polished nails were dancing over Emily’s soles. She seemed to know the map of that skin perfectly. She traced a slow, ghost-light circle in the very center of the left arch, and Emily’s entire body jolted.
"Nnn-hee-hee! No... Miss... ah-ha-ha!" Emily’s voice was a high-pitched, helpless trill.
Sterling didn't stop. Her index finger flicked the tiny, sensitive hollow just beneath the pinky toe, then skittered like a spider down to the heel. It was a "symphony of the nerves." Every touch was calculated to tease, to hover on the edge of unbearable, drawing out a frantic, bubbling laughter that Emily was clearly trying—and failing—to suppress.
"Focus, Emily," Sterling purred, her eyes never leaving the twitching skin. She tapped a specific spot on the ball of the foot, and Emily let out a sharp snort-giggle that ended in a sob. "You’re losing your rhythm."
Stephanie stood frozen, her folder clutched to her chest. She had never seen anything so intimate and so cruel.
Sterling finally looked up, her expression shifting to one of mild, professional remembrance. She didn't remove her hands from Emily’s feet; she simply let her nails come to rest between the girl's toes, a gesture that kept Emily trembling in anticipation.
"Ah, Miss McCarthy. Our appointment. I haven't forgotten." Sterling looked back at Emily, who had tears standing in her eyes in a desperate, silent plea for release. "I have administrative matters to attend to with our new arrival. It would be a waste of resources to leave you 'unoccupied' while I am in the archive room."
Sterling reached into her desk drawer and withdrew the amber bottle and what looked like a makeup brush.
She unscrewed the cap, and the sharp, medicinal scent filled the room. Sterling dipped a soft, wide-headed brush into the oil and began to paint it over Emily’s soles. She was thorough, coating the arches, the heels, and deep into the webbing between each toe.
"N-no... please," Emily whimpered, her laughter dying away, replaced by a look of sheer, wide-eyed panic behind her blindfold. "Not the oil... Miss, please, I'll be still! I'll be good!"
"You'll be present, Emily," Sterling corrected. She stood up, smoothing her skirt. "I will be back soon, this should keep you... Entertained."
Sterling gestured for Stephanie to follow her into the adjoining archive room. As Stephanie walked past the desk, she saw Emily’s legs were already shaking, her toes splayed wide as she began to pant, her voice dropping into a desperate, repetitive moan.
"Please... someone... just scratch them... please..."
The heavy oak door to the archive room swung shut, cutting off the sight and sounds of Emily’s torment.
Sterling sat at a small side table and uncapped a silver fountain pen. She looked at Stephanie, who was visibly shaking.
"Now then," the Headmistress said, her voice dripping with artificial warmth. "Let us see if your previous school provided you with a sufficient foundation for the discipline we require here."
Sterling sat with agonizingly perfect posture, her silver fountain pen scratching across Stephanie’s transfer papers with a sound that mimicked a predatory insect.
Stephanie couldn't focus. Every time the Headmistress paused to "verify" a grade, Stephanie’s mind drifted back through the heavy oak door. She kept imagining the oil on Emily’s feet and the utter fear in the girl's eyes when she saw what the Headmistress was about to put on her feet. She could almost see Emily’s toes straining against the air, the girl’s mind fracturing under the weight of an itch she couldn't reach.
"Your grades in Biology are... adequate," Sterling said, her voice snapping Stephanie back to the present. Sterling looked up, her gaze piercing. "Though I notice a certain 'irregularity' in your attendance during the spring term. We value presence here, Stephanie. Physical and spiritual."
"I was... I was sick, Ma'am," Stephanie stammered. Her ears were straining for any sound from the other room, but the soundproofing was too good. The silence was worse than the screaming; it allowed her imagination to run wild.
"Sick," Sterling tasted the word. "The body often Rebels when the mind lacks a clear directive. We shall have to ensure your health is... prioritized."
The meeting felt like an eternity. Sterling moved with a glacial, deliberate pace, questioning every minor detail of Stephanie’s life. It wasn't an interview; it was a dissection.
Finally, Sterling stood, gathering the papers into a neat stack. "That will suffice for today. Since you are still finding your way through our hallowed halls, you may escort me back to my desk. It is important you become familiar with the path to my door. I have a feeling you will be seeing a great deal of it."
Stephanie’s heart sank. She didn't want to go back in there. She didn't want to see what the oil had done.
As they reached the door, Sterling didn't hesitate. She turned the brass handle and pushed.
The wall of sound hit Stephanie like a physical blow.
"PLEASE! NO, NO! IT'S TOO MUCH! MISS! I CAN'T... I CAN'T BREATHE! JUST SCRATCH THEM! PLEASE JUST SCRATCH THE ARCHES!"
Emily was a different person. Her face was flushed a deep, frantic crimson, her hair damp with sweat. Her feet were vibrating in the stocks, a blur of pink, oil-slicked skin. She was wailing, her body bucking against the leather strap as the oil pushed her nerves to the breaking point.
Sterling stepped into the room, her expression as calm as a frozen lake. She stopped in the doorway and turned to Stephanie, blocking the girl's path.
"A final word, Miss McCarthy," Sterling said, her voice dropping to a low, lethal hum that sat beneath Emily’s cries. "Your grace period has officially expired. The training wheels are off."
She leaned in closer, her cold eyes fixed on Stephanie’s trembling lips.
"Stay on the straight and narrow path. Do not let your feet wander, do not let your mind drift, and for heaven’s sake... do not let your socks slouch again. Unless, of course, you find yourself envious of Emily’s 'attentiveness' and would like a turn in the chair yourself."
Stephanie could only nod, her throat too tight to speak.
"Dismissed," Sterling snapped.
As Stephanie backed away into the corridor, Sterling turned her back on the girl and stepped toward her desk. She looked down at Emily’s thrashing feet with a predatory shimmer in her eyes.
"You want me to scratch, dear?" Sterling’s voice drifted out into the hallway just before the door began to swing shut. "Now, where did I leave that hairbrush..."
Thud.
The door clicked shut, locking the screams and the scratching back inside the mahogany darkness.
The cold stone of the corridor slapped under each footfall as Stephanie fled toward the East Wing. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Emily’s splayed, vibrating toes and the gleam of that amber bottle. She didn't stop running until she reached the heavy oak door of the dormitory, bursting inside and leaning against the wood until the latch clicked home.
The room was bathed in the pale, sickly silver of the moon. Rachel, Lakshmi, and Samantha were already there, sitting in a tight circle on Stephanie’s cot. They looked like conspirators in a ghost story.
"You're white as a sheet," Samantha whispered, pulling Stephanie down into the center of the huddle. "She kept you in there a long time. Did she... did she put you in?"
"No," Stephanie rasped, her hands shaking so hard she had to tuck them under her thighs. "But I saw... Emily. The girl from Geography. Sterling put some oil on her feet and then left her to stew for a while and then... then she went back in with a hairbrush."
Rachel flinched, her hand instinctively flying to her own arch. "The brush. That's the 'Many.' It feels like a thousand needles made of static. If she uses the stiff one over the oil..."
"It’s not science," Lakshmi said, her voice low and analytical, though her eyes were wide. "It’s a sensory overload. The oil opens the pores, makes the nerves hyper-sensitive, and the brush creates a frequency of vibration that the brain can't process as anything but a desperate need to escape. It's biological warfare."
"She’s a monster," Stephanie hissed, her voice cracking. "How can you stay here? How can you just... let her do that?"
"Because there is nowhere else to go," Samantha said grimly. "And because we’ve learned the cost of resistance. You saw Emily. That’s the cost. You stay quiet, you stay still, and you hope she picks someone else tomorrow."
Stephanie looked at her feet. She felt a phantom itch, a terrifying prickle of imagination crawling over her skin.
"You don't understand," Stephanie whispered, her voice dropping so low the others had to lean in until their heads almost touched. "I told you I was jumpy in the Hall. But it's not just nerves. It’s... it’s like I’m wired wrong."
"Everyone’s ticklish, Steph," Rachel said softly, trying to be comforting. "You just have to breathe through it."
"No," Stephanie snapped, her eyes wide and wet with moonlight. "Not like this. When I was ten, my older cousins cornered me at a sleepover. They thought it would be funny to see how long I’d last. They tied my wrists to the bedposts and... they spent an hour on my feet. Just their fingers."
She shuddered, her whole body convulsing at the memory.
"By the end, I wasn't even making noise anymore. I couldn't. I was just gasping, my ribs were aching so hard I thought they’d snapped. I threw up twice, and they still didn't stop because they thought the 'snorting' was funny. I actually blacked out. When I woke up, I couldn't walk for two days because the muscles in my arches had cramped into knots. My brain... it doesn't process that feeling as 'funny.' It processes it as a literal attack. It feels like I'm being electrocuted from the inside out."
The room went deathly silent. The girls looked at Stephanie’s feet, hidden beneath her heavy duvet, as if they were looking at unexploded bombs.
"So, if she puts me in that chair," Stephanie continued, her voice trembling, "if she locks my ankles into those stocks and starts with those nails... I won't just be 'disciplined.' I’ll lose my mind. I'll fight her. I'll scream until my lungs burst.
Lakshmi reached out, her hand hovering over Stephanie’s knee, but she didn't touch her. She knew better now.
'Sterling... she’s a predator. She doesn't just look for broken rules; she looks for 'vibrations.' She saw you flinch in the Hall. She’s already smelled the blood in the water."
"You have to be a statue," Samantha said, her voice hard as flint. "From this moment on, your feet don't exist. You don't wiggle your toes, you don't shift your weight, and you never, ever let her see you flinch again. Because if she finds out you're that reactive..."
"She won't stop until she's explored every inch of those soles," Rachel finished, her voice a ghost of a warning.
In the distance, through the thick stone walls, a faint, rhythmic thumping echoed—the sound of a foot hitting wood in a room far away. Or perhaps it was just the sound of Stephanie’s own heart, counting down the seconds of her expired grace period.
Next Chapter
Attachments
Last edited:
