Page 3 of They're Watching You
“Polly!” a voice shouted from across the grass. I glanced over to find Annabelle Westerly, dressed in a slouchy sweater and tall leather boots.
“I’ve got to go,” Polly said softly, looking at the ground.
“I miss you.” I cringed at the way my voice cracked. “I miss our movie nights and our beanbag chats. I miss—”
“Let’s meet tonight,” she interrupted, spinning around to face me. We reached the end of the grass, and a large statue of Lord Torrey himself towered behind her on the cobblestone walkway. The cathedral bell tolled in the distance, reminding us to hurry along. “We can catch up.”
“Okay,” I said, the word dragging. “We don’t have to meet. You could just come back to the room for a change—yourroom.”
She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder. “I want to show you something. Meet me at the fountain.” I knew which fountain she meant.Ourfountain. The one with the white iron bench where we always had a quick coffee while waiting for our next morning class. “I’ll see you in chem,” she said, rushing over to Annabelle.
My heart buoyed in my chest. The meeting. It meant something. She was coming back to me. She’d seen the error of her ways.
After dinner, I sat on the bench by the fountain. Beneath the glow of the lamppost, I waited for an hour, checking my phone every ten seconds for a text from Polly that never came. I thought about texting her, asking if she was on her way, but it felt even more desperate than sitting alone in the cold night air.
When she never showed, I was furious. Hurt too, but mainly incensed that she’d gotten my hopes up. I made my way back to my dormitory, panic streaking through my chest that I would miss curfew and be locked out. Torrey-Wells is one of these sprawling New England establishments built on two thousand acres, complete with two orchards, four ponds, and fifteen student housing buildings; ancient, ivy-laced brick buildings stitched occasionally with newer models, like the Hamilton Fitness Center, to keep up with the times. I had to sprint to make it, and when I did, a cocktail of anger and adrenaline pumped through my veins, making sleep impossible.
As I lay there, the silent hours passed as I prayed for the beep of the room key. I hoped the door would click open and I would find Polly standing there, an apology ready on her lips.
Instead, in the early hours of the morning, I finally drifted off, and the top bunk remained empty. No creak of the door. No soft steps on carpet.
The next day, Polly missed all of her classes. When she didn’t come to dinner, Annabelle Westerly started asking around, and eventually Headmistress Koehler reported her missing. The academy’s state-of-the-art security cameras failed to pick up anything useful, so the police were brought in. Being her roommate, I was soon questioned. Her teachers were also questioned. Polly’s parents were notified, and by the time their plane landed, the police had discovered Polly’s note in the top drawer of her desk.
I voiced my concerns to the police. To her parents. Polly was supposed to meet me. Why would she run away?
But her parents took one look at the note, in Polly’s own handwriting, and their faces fell. They pressed the cops to look for her, but even their pressing was half-hearted. Apparently, Polly had run away before. Back in middle school. Part of the reason they’d opted to try private school in the first place was to keep her on the straight and narrow. Yet here they were again, thousands upon thousands of dollars later, their daughter wandering somewhere out there in the wide-open world.
***
Now I force my lids back open and stare up at the wooden beams strung beneath the top bunk. The white of Polly’s mattress peeks between the beams, edged in mauve-colored roses from her sheets. I’ve called her at least ten times. Left half that many messages.Please, Polly. Call me back. Let me know you’re okay.
She never has. I can’t stop thinking about that flicker of fear in her eyes that day. Her incoherent words.It’s not just pieces and a board. It’s…more.
I sit up so fast I nearly whack my head on the top bunk.Polly’s words. They echo in my head with the thunderous force of lacrosse cleats on concrete. What if they weren’t supposed to make sense? What if they weren’t meant to communicate her feelings about chess?
Because they were meant to communicate something else.
I get down from the bed and pad over to the closet, sliding open Polly’s half. After two weeks of digging through the leftover contents, I know her chess set is buried at the bottom of a box of random paraphernalia. I remove her playbill for the academy’s performance ofThe Crucible, in which Polly played Abigail, and dig the heavy, wooden folding chess set from beneath a blow-dryer, a tattered copy ofThe Iliad, and a black ballet flat.
The chess set—another gift from Annabelle—is engravedPolly St. Jamesat the bottom. I undo the two golden latches and open it, lifting the flap and dumping the marble pieces out. They tumble over Polly’s gray IKEA rug; queens and kings, pawns and rooks, all elaborately carved. I don’t know what I’m looking for, so I take up every piece in hand, inspecting one before casting it aside to grab the next.
When I’ve checked the base of every piece, only to find the same set of initials left by the artist, embarrassment creeps from my neck up to my cheeks. I examine the board next, unfolding and flipping it. But there’s nothing. Polly’s babbling the day she disappeared was simply a symptom of the stress she’d written about in that note the cops found. She’d had enough. Of chess. Of school.
Of me.
I start to tuck the board back into its case when my eyes fall onto a ripple in the red silk lining. A ripple that seems out of place in a chess set worth as much as all of my belongings combined. I tug at it, and my heart skitters.
The fabric is loose. I remove it, uncovering a little white envelope that lies flush with one corner.
The envelope’s seal, a heavy wax emblem of a circle slashed through the middle, has been broken. I tug out a sturdy white card, printed with the same emblem, which sort of reminds me of this T-shirt clip I found in my mom’s old junk. She said they used to wear them in the eighties. The print on the card is an embossed gold that looks like it was meant for the Queen of England.
Dear Polly,
You are cordially invited to attend the semiannual initiation meeting of the Gamemaster’s Society, located in the old cathedral. Please wear your finest attire and arrive promptly at 11 p.m. on Friday, the 17th of September. Within this envelope, you will find the tokens required for entry.
Do not forget your tokens.
Do not tell anyone about the meeting.