Chapter 114 – Wheels in Rotation – Holly Hayfield

A peculiar chain of events landed me in an unusual predicament on Tuesday afternoon. A handful of new clubs were formed in the wake of our spirit week’s success. The soccer club towered above all of them in popularity.

Everyone was shocked to see a pair of soccer goals waiting behind the school when we returned from Thanksgiving break. The old cheapskate principal actually spent the coin for a line maker machine and two soccer nets. Additionally, to everyone’s surprise, the principal himself was back in his office for regular duty.

Principal McMullen had been out of commission for so long that most of the students didn’t recognize the spirited old man upon his return. Before, he could only make short-lived visits to the school. Now it looked like his medical condition was sufficiently under control.

The doctors warned him to take it easy but that wasn’t Mr. McMullen’s style. During lunch he volunteered to join a soccer-match between two groups of girls playing on the soccer field. No one had even scored a single point before he was forced to sit out on the sidelines, gasping for breath.

The vice principal was vehemently against this entire thing. As low as her opinion of the principal was, she still didn’t want him being sent to the hospital again. She painstakingly reiterated to him how far the school’s image had come.

Ms. Sampson was worried about how bad an ambulance on campus might look to outsiders. The principal didn’t care. He just wanted to be revered by the students who thought that having this old man play soccer with them would be hilarious. After being absent for so long the principal was determined to restore his reputation amongst the students.

Ms. Sampson regarded the principal as a bit of a naïve idiot. She discretely ordered me to ‘look after the old geezer’ behind his back. I was the one that ended up insisting that he took a time out from the soccer match before he hurt himself.

I wasn’t a medical expert but I could tell that he was breathing unnaturally just by watching him. His heart was in the right place, but his body couldn’t keep up. I didn’t want this old man dying on my watch.

So I was put in as his replacement while he rested. The girls on the other team thought I’d be a lightweight opponent. They were wrong. My track and field skills transferred greatly to soccer. Sam was the only person on the opposite team that knew not to take me lightly.

The lunch bell rang in the middle of our match but no one was leaving to go back inside. The principal was still resting on the sidelines so everyone figured it would be fine to just keep playing. Even I was having too much fun to walk away in the middle of it.

It was my first time going up against Sam and, funnily enough, my team barely managed to win. Sam carried her team as much as she could, but Jada turned out to be her equal on the field. In the end it was our teamwork that shifted the balance in our favor.

“Ugh…! I can’t believe it!” Sam said as she approached me and Jada, “Your name is Jada, right? Why are you joining the track club? Why not join the soccer club instead?”

Jada grinned at me.

“Maybe I will if I ever manage to beat Holly in a long distance run.”

I grinned back at her.

“Then I guess you won’t ever be joining the soccer club at all.” I said.

The three of us laughed together. My laughing was interrupted as someone through a towel over my head from behind me. The sudden fabric draping over me freaked me out, like I was being abducted or something, but when the person started wiping away my sweat I realized who it was.

“Alyssa…?” I asked as I turned around to face her, “What are you doing out here? Didn’t the lunch bell already ring?”

Alyssa gave me her usual puppy dog eyes. I had become totally immune to that look after just a couple of days of hanging out with her.

“I was waiting for you.” She said quietly.

Jada and Sam gave me a teasing look as they walked off. I wrapped an arm around Alyssa and together we walked over to where the principal was sitting in the grass. He wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore but I felt cautious about his condition. Maybe he was back at school too soon?

“Come on, Alyssa, let’s help Mr. McMullen up.”

We started to reach for him but he waved us away.

“Oh, I’m fine girls. I just need a moment to…” He said as he stood.

He fell back down before he could even get upright. Alyssa and I took him by an arm and helped him up, to his embarrassment. There was nothing wrong with being helped like this as far as I was concerned. Maybe he wasn’t willing to come to terms with his physical state? He was in his 70s. There was nothing wrong with approaching things carefully.

“We’ll walk you back to your office.” I said. “Then I’ll help you write an email to the teachers concerning the late students coming in from lunch.”

“Thank you, Holly.” He said as he straightened his posture. “Jackie really came through when she managed to find an intern like you.”

“I’m happy to be of service.” I said. “Alyssa, do you mind going ahead and getting the principal a bottle of water?”

“Sure,” Alyssa said as she took off.

The principal was even more exhausted by the time we made it back to his office. The vice principal was ready to send him home, but he stubbornly resisted. Alyssa left to go to class once we were done. Meanwhile, I was given permission to go to the student council room to draft an email for the principal.

Lilith was already in the student council room, skipping class as she often did. If she wasn’t the great granddaughter of Judith Meredith this might be inappropriate behavior for a member of the student council. However, upon a closer inspection she was actually working on something school related.

She had her glasses on instead of her contacts and appeared to be working diligently. She was busy responding to emails sent to the student council’s email address. People often preferred emailing us for small requests instead of coming to us in person. Typically they just wanted permission to do something or use school equipment temporarily.

“Hey Lily,” I said playfully as I sat down beside her.

She took off her glasses and gave me an annoyed look.

“Lilith,” I corrected myself, “I’m happy to see that you’re helping out but shouldn’t you be in class?”

She shrugged and closed out of the email she was reading.

“I wanted some quiet time alone. The girls in my class before lunch were rowdy. I thought that I may as well get some work done. How about you? Shouldn’t you be in class also?”

“I’m writing up an email for the principal to send out.”

“Oh, what for…?”

I put my bag up on the table and pulled out my laptop. In the past it was too dangerous for me to bring my laptop to school, but now things were different. The school was safer in general and someone would be crazy to steal from me.

“A number of girls were late returning to class after lunch. This email will clarify to teachers not to mark them tardy or absent since they were gone with the principal’s permission.”

“You’re talking about that soccer match?”

I stopped what I was doing to give her a smirk.

“Wait, you saw that?!” I asked with mock surprise, “You willingly came outside during lunch, of your own volition?”

Lilith cracked a smile.

“Oh please, there’s no need to be that dramatic. I go outside all the time.”

This time I was the one giving her an annoyed look, recalling her behavior during spirit week.

“Well, it’s not like I was out there for long.” She clarified. “I just wanted to see the old man trip over his feet on the new soccer field.”

“Cruel.”

“Anyways, I noticed that Alyssa has amped up her stalking to obsession levels ever since we returned from Thanksgiving Break.” Lilith said.

I put my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands.

“You’re not the only one noticing.” I said. “People have been asking about what happened between the two of us over the vacation. No one believes me when I tell them that it’s nothing serious. It’s like they think I’m romantically involved with her.”

“It would be an easy assumption to make given how fond she is of holding onto you.”

“The thing is, I don’t mind.” I admitted. “I think it would be better if she toned it down some, but I think Alyssa is a tenderhearted person and enjoyable to be around when she isn’t trying to burn something down.”

This made Lilith snicker deviously.

“Yes! Yes! She’s very adorable when she isn’t being a vicious pyromaniac! How could I not see that?”

I smiled too, recalling that day.

“I told Alyssa that I wanted to get to know her, and that I was willing to be her friend. I intend to live up to my promise. If this is what Alyssa needs to heal and recover then this is fine. If keeping her around me means that I can prevent another pyromania episode then that’s what I prefer.”

“You’re taking a dive.” She said.

“I’m making a stand.” I corrected. “Alyssa will stabilize in time. She just needs a stable shoulder to lean on and I think you’ll agree that I’m a better choice for that than Sofi.”

“True.”

“We’ve had a lot of success with the student council, the club system, and the spirit week event. School culture is improving for the better. Everything that we hoped for is moving along well. I think now is the time to start handling people on an individual level. Alyssa is a good first choice.”

“You won’t be able to fix everyone.” Lilith said.

“That’s true. I just want to have as much of a positive impact as possible. I think that’s what you’re great grandmother would’ve wished for.” I said.

As I was speaking someone came through the door. Both Lilith and I looked up in surprise and saw Charlotte walking in. She was pale white and breathing heavily, like she just got finished running.

“You left class early?” I asked her.

She blushed shyly.

“Uhh…No… Actually, I never went back to class after watching you girls play soccer.” She said.

“What’s wrong?” Lilith asked her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Err… It’s something like that.” She said.

Lilith and I both looked at each other. I looked back at Charlotte.

“What did you see?” I asked.

“It’s hard to explain. I think it would just be better if you two came with me.”

We followed Charlotte out of the library, and soon, out of the school. The strange thing she wanted to show us was outside, not far from the chained-up basement door. Just being led to that same area filled me with unease.

It made me think of Ms. Logan’s painting, Malorie’s corpse, and our discovery of the Night of the Killing Cat audio tapes. We were revisiting haunting memories that I preferred to keep buried. However, our target destination wasn’t inside of the basement, but just a few feet away from it.

“What the hell am I looking at?” I asked in a monotone voice.

“Uhh… That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.” Charlotte said.

Lilith laughed.

“This is glorious!”

There was a concrete brick pillar that looked like the lower part of a yard decoration. It wasn’t tall or spectacular, but it was decorated with an array of ostentatious decorations. It was covered in colorful fabrics, draped with cheap bead necklaces, surrounded with shiny river rocks, bordered by wild-picked flowers, and illuminated by lit container candles resting atop it.

At the base of this monument there was a stitched up puppet in the form of a black cat. There was a metal plaque weighing the cat doll down and keeping it from falling out of place. The plaque read ‘The Shrine of Nyx’.

I stepped closer to get a better look and noticed something on the ground. There were quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies scattered along the ground surrounding the shrine. I looked over at Charlotte hoping that maybe she could provide an answer.

“What’s with the money?” I asked.

“People have come here to pray to it.” She said. “They toss money at the shrine like it’s a wishing well or something.”

Lilith burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that she doubled over and fell to her knees in a hysterical fit. To me, this was no laughing matter. Just what were people trying to accomplish with something like this? Needless to say, this would be worth keeping an eye on.